[TimG]

Last night, I read two Bulletin features that I normally skip: The Bidding Box and It's Your Call.

In the introduction to the bidding box, the system played by Carruthers and Sundelin was described as a variation of Polish Club. Thier 1C opening was described as "shows long clubs or a balanced hand in the 12-14 or 18-19 range (as in standard American), but they play transfer responses to 1C."

Does this really make it a version of Polish Club? I would have thought that in order to me lumped in with Polish Clubs, the 1C opening would have to be used for a variety of strong hands and the other 1 bids be limited. (They opened 1D with AKJxx A AKJTxx K, so it doesn't seem that 1D is significantly limited!)

[uday]

This style seems to be growing more popular ( 1D=5+D or 4441, 1C=weakNT/18-19/realclubs, xfer responses to 1C) but it isnt polish club, is it? Feels more like the swedish stuff.

[paulg]

uday, on Jan 28 2009, 05:24 PM, said:

This style seems to be growing more popular  ( 1D=5+D or 4441, 1C=weakNT/18-19/realclubs, xfer responses to 1C)  but it isnt polish club, is it?  Feels more like the swedish stuff.

I think of this as modern 5-card majors, certainly becoming more popular in Europe but nothing like pervasive. Typically the 1♣ is non-forcing.

Polish Club is normally clubs, weak 1NT or any 18+. It is forcing.

I presume the 'swedish stuff' (Carrot Club?) is also what the Irish play where 1♣ is a weak 1NT or any 17+. It is also forcing.

p

[brianshark]

Well Carrot is like a simplified polish club (where the "big" hand just has a lower range and the intermediate unbalanced hands with clubs just do something else.) But the main characteristic of these is that it is a strong club system with a weak balanced option.

The system described above is just opening all balanced hands with 1C, even with 4 or 5 diamonds. But it's not an unlimited opening, and 2c is still their strong bid. It's fundamentally different from the polish club philosophy. It's a very different system.

[RichMor]

TimG, on Jan 28 2009, 11:55 AM, said:

Last night, I read two Bulletin features that I normally skip: The Bidding Box and It's Your Call.

In the introduction to the bidding box, the system played by Carruthers and Sundelin was described as a variation of Polish Club.  Thier 1C opening was described as "shows long clubs or a balanced hand in the 12-14 or 18-19 range (as in standard American), but they play transfer responses to 1C."

Does this really make it a version of Polish Club?  I would have thought that in order to me lumped in with Polish Clubs, the 1C opening would have to be used for a variety of strong hands and the other 1 bids be limited.  (They opened 1D with AKJxx A AKJTxx K, so it doesn't seem that 1D is significantly limited!)

I think there is another version, some times called 'Nasz', where both 1♣ and 2♣ openings are forcing. One of the big time Polish pairs plays (or played) it.

The 1♣ opening is: minimum balanced, minimum with Clubs, strong with Clubs, strong and balanced. The 2♣ opening is typical GF.

But the Carutthers/Sundelin system sound like 'Carrot'.

[Tola18]

RichMor, on Jan 29 2009, 09:59 AM, said:

I think there is another version, some times called 'Nasz'

Probably the in Poland rather wellknown Nasz System ("our system"), also abbreviated NS. I presume some afficionados say simply Nasz.

[Tola18]

TimG, on Jan 28 2009, 11:55 AM, said:

the system played by Carruthers and Sundelin was described as a variation of Polish Club. Thier 1C opening was described as "shows long clubs or a balanced hand in the 12-14 or 18-19 range (as in standard American), but they play transfer responses to 1C."

Does this really make it a version of Polish Club?

Like the others said, it isnt any version of Polish club. It is quite popular among many good swedish players.
The transfer responses to 1C arent necessary for the "system", although they get more and more popular in the most recent years. Btw, I saw a good thread about these transfer responses somewhere here only a couple of months ago.

The seemingly somewhat complicated NF 1C is because the 1NT opening is 14-16.

Otherwise it is a quite natural, although modern system with all the usual modern whistles you fancy. Or refrain from.

Im not sure what namn it does have...

[Tola18]

Tola18, on Feb 1 2009, 06:20 AM, said:

Im not sure what namn it does have...

I asked on the swedish national forum, as the system is quite common in Sweden.

Expert 1 wrote: It is "Callitwhateveryouwant" - in swedish of course.

Expert 2, the altmeister himself, ex national-anchor, wrote: It is commonly called 5542. Although we call it for SCS (Scandinavian sciencific) Light

Expert 3; grandmaster mr Sundelin himself, wrote: we call our version for Zest, including transfers after 1C.


Thus the mystery is solved.

It was the more or less common 5542 + transfers on 1C as in-thrown extra.


A variant of Standard American if you wish.

[TimG]

Tola18, on Feb 1 2009, 10:56 AM, said:

A variant of Standard American if you wish.

Yes, which makes it perplexing that the ACBL Bulletin called it a Polish Club. My opinion is that it is a sign of the system phobia plaguing ACBL -- it's a bit different so they classify it as something unfamiliar to most which makes it sound more "exotic" than it really is.