[Jinksy]

Apologies if this is the wrong forum. None of the others seem to cover everything here.

I'm interesting in learning a new bidding system (at the moment I can do Acol, SAYC, 2/1 and Bacon Torpedo semi-competently), partly because I'm inherently suspicious that evolved systems are better than designed ones, partly because learning things makes them easier to play against, and partly because it's fun. I'd prefer it to be something legal for club/minor tourney play, or at least something that could be with minor modifications (in order that I’d actually get to play it on occasion), so MOSCITO et al are out.

The main options seem to be strong club systems, of which I know three that anyone actually seems to recommend:

Precision
Swedish Club
Polish Club

The way it’s been described to me is that as the club bid gains more meanings, it makes it harder to compete against, but decreases its value for constructive auctions, especially on the strong hands. I don’t really have much experience of this, though – can someone explain why 1S over a precision 1C is supposed to be such an unpleasant overcall? And to anyone familiar with the system, how often is it really a problem? Seems like vulnerable opps are risking a lot if they start bidding to the two level on their 3-3 fit when you’ve already advertised a lot of playing strength. Also, does ambiguity over your opening disadvantage you or the opps more? While the Precision club seems to invite silly competition if it’s as vulnerable as its critics say, it seems like over genuine competition you’ll have a much clearer action than someone playing Swedish or Polish – especially on the intermediate long club hands.

To anyone who’s played/simmed both Precision and one of the others, did you find the ambiguity made it harder for the opps to screw up your auction? If so, did you find the trade-off worth it?

To anyone who’s played/simmed these and a natural system, how do they compare? Are they as clearly superior as their advocates tend to claim, or do the losses match/outweigh the gains? My impression so far is that for all the three systems above, you gain a lot in constructive auctions, but possibly lose a lot in competitive ones. People mainly talk about the 1C auctions, in my fairly limited experience of playing against them, the 1D opening seems to be even worse for this – it encourages the opps to compete on marginal hands esp when NV, since they know you’ll struggle to penalise them or to even get your own suit in.

Are there any other systems that might be worth considering besides those three? (I know MickyB’s invented one that he thinks is the best thing ever which I might test run sometime, but I’d prefer to play something I can play with more than 1 person for now)

And, whichever option you recommend, what’s the best (and/or most easily accessible useful) resource for learning to play it?

[Jinksy]

Also is there any way of finding out (or does anyone claim to know) what systems are most favoured by today's experts? I get the feeling that strong NT 5cM variants of 2/1 are dominant, with a minority playing Acol-like systems and many others playing hyperconventional systems they’ve designed virtually from scratch. Is that roughly accurate?

[hrothgar]

Jinksy, on 2011-August-26, 07:45, said:

Also is there any way of finding out (or does anyone claim to know) what systems are most favoured by today's experts? I get the feeling that strong NT 5cM variants of 2/1 are dominant, with a minority playing Acol-like systems and many others playing hyperconventional systems they’ve designed virtually from scratch. Is that roughly accurate?

Every couple years (whenever the Bermuda Bowl or the Olympiad rolls around) I compile a list of the

1. The core bidding systems used by the major competitors
2. The defintion of the 2♦, 2♥, 2♠, 2N bids used by the partnerships

You should be able to find some of the earlier data here on the forums.

Alternatively, you can look at the convention cards used by the various pairs at ECats...

[whereagles]

I briefly recall some of the latest figures of what hrothgar said. It was something like

40% 5-card majors, strong NT
16% strong club

Other systems I don't remember, but there was one in-between those two. Maybe it was 5-card majors, weak NT? In any case natural with 5-card majors is apparently the most common system among experts.

[mgoetze]

Jinksy, on 2011-August-26, 07:41, said:

something legal for club/minor tourney play,

You'll have to be more specific. Do you mean EBU Level 3? ACBL GCC? German Category C?

Quote

The main options seem to be strong club systems, of which I know three that anyone actually seems to recommend:

Precision
Swedish Club
Polish Club

I wouldn't call the latter two strong club systems. There are a whole bucketload of Precision-based systems out there, other strong club systems are mostly Blue Club based.

Quote

it seems like over genuine competition you’ll have a much clearer action than someone playing Swedish or Polish – especially on the intermediate long club hands.

Well, if you have the weak balanced hand you normally have a very clear action - pass. The intermediate club hands don't exist in Swedish club and are much rarer than you might think in Polish club.

Quote

Also is there any way of finding out (or does anyone claim to know) what systems are most favoured by today's experts? I get the feeling that strong NT 5cM variants of 2/1 are dominant, with a minority playing Acol-like systems and many others playing hyperconventional systems they’ve designed virtually from scratch. Is that roughly accurate?

I would say there's a lot of regional variation. In the USA, 2/1 and Precision (especially Meckwell-style Precision) seems pretty dominant right now. Poland is also a bridge powerhouse and, believe it or not, most of the top experts there play Polish club. Austria doesn't play such a big role on the international stage but even they have some experts - many of which play Blue Club AFAIK. Germany is a big mix of Polish, Precision, Swiss ACOL and SEF-like systems, probably with more Weak NT than most other countries. And so on...

But if you consider just the dominant bridge nations of recent years (USA, Italy, Poland, Netherlands?), 2/1 seems to be the most common system by quite a bit.

[Free]

First, let me point out to you that Swedish Club and Polish Club are not "strong club" systems, they are "multi-way club" systems. Because they're of a different type, as you've pointed out, intervention over these is quite different.

Let me try to explain. For a readable explanation, I'll consider WE as the side playing strong/multi-way ♣, OPPS/THEY are our opponents.

After a strong 1♣ opening, promissing 16+HCP, you're in a position which is a bit similar like after a strong 1NT/2♣ opening: opps have only a very small chance of making game, while we have a big chance of making game. Therefore people tend to intervene to make our life more difficult, aka "destructive". After a 1NT opening they can only intervene at 2-level, while after a 1♣ opening they have an extra level at their disposal, which is a lot safer as well. Also, a 1♣ opening can have pretty much every possible distribution. We must focus on finding the right game, so we'll give up on trying to penalize every overcall opps make and use doubles for takeout. Because of this, it's quite safe for opps to intervene on trash hands, or even psych.

After a multi-way 1♣ opening, promissing a strong ♣ or some minimum opener (usually balanced), we're in a completely different situation. The weak variant is the most common, so opps will intervene pretending you hold the weak variant. This means they have a much bigger chance of having game, so they shouldn't intervene destructively. Because of this, you'll encounter much less intervention, and you'll be able to trust opps' bids.

I have only played a few hands playing Polish ♣, so I'm not that experienced with it. I have played a lot of strong ♣ systems in the past, and still do with 1 partner. Intervention over strong 1♣ is much more frequent, but imo it's easier to handle in some situations. For example, you don't have to show different strengths, partner knows our minimum strength is quite high so he can quickly setup a GF,... After multiway ♣ it's a little more difficult. There's a lot less intervention, but partner doesn't know how strong we are (we can have 11HCP as well as 16HCP or 21HCP) and he doesn't know anything about our distribution. Opener may have to show much more types of hands, so it may be more difficult to handle the intervention. And even without intervention, it seems like some strong hands consume a lot more space than a precision type system.

Next is the other limited openings. Obviously the 1M openings are more efficient, since they're better described after 1 bid. For example, you can jump around with normal values and extra distribution, because you don't need to show extra values anymore like in 2/1. The 1♦ and 2♣ openings are a different story, it depends which version you choose. In Polish ♣, the 1♦ is an advantage (limited, 4+♦, unbalanced) while the 2♣ opening is a disadvantage (5♣-4M hands will frequently lose the M fit). In precision it's the other way around: modern precision systems use 2♣ as a 6 card suit (you can still lose a M fit but it's a lot less frequent) while the 1♦ opening is multiway (balanced 11-13 or some hand unbiddable by another limited opening) and quite unnatural (2+♦).

It all depends on what you prefer personally, because every system has it's tradeoffs. I like simplicity for strong hands, that's why I prefer precision. If you prefer simplicity for limited openings, I think multiway ♣ is better for you. Note that multiway openings which are difficult for you can also be relatively difficult for your opponents.

My advice: look around and try something which is popular. When you have questions, you can ask around and get a lot more feedback.

[Cyberyeti]

If you wanted to try something a bit different, you could have a go at Fantunes. I don't know it well enough to say how much modification it would need to be legal in clubs but I suspect not much if any.

[MickyB]

Given your aims and your location [England], I'd have thought weak+5 or strong+4 would be better bets.

[Zelandakh]

Free covered alot of what I wanted to say but I will add a couple of extra points that the OP raised. First off, why is a 1S overcall difficult after a strong club? Well the simple answer is that it is not really difficult. However, alot of strong club players have devoted alot of time and effort to learning complex relay methods and the problem with 1S is that it preempts 3 bids (1D, 1H and 1S) whereas we only have gained 2 calls (pass and double). If you compare this with a 1H overcall we could use pass here as a 1D response and X as a 1H response, whatever those calls might mean.

The impression I have is that 2/1 GF with 5 card majors and a medium to strong NT is by far the dominant system around the world. I would say that multi-way club systems such as Polish and Swedish have certainly been gaining ground in Europe over the last 20 years or so though. Some other thoughts about systems you might like in addition to those listed and Fantunes. A Unassuming Club is interesting if you like a weak NT. It has many similarities to Polish Club and is reasonably simple to learn and play. Nightmare is an Italian system which is quite complex in places but essentially based on natural bidding. Coming into consideration for strong club would also be Symmetric Relay as an aletrnative to Precision, or better still Transfer Oriented Symmetric Relay (TOSR). These systems are significantly more artificial and complex than the others however. Oh yes, and finally my own system has opening bids similar to Polish Club but with a weak NT, but in practise plays much more closely to TOSR. Obviously I like this system alot!

Putting aside my method, you are arguably best off going for Polish Club within your defined crieria. This is the most defined and widely played method of the ones being discussed here and is also essentially based on natural bidding. Just sit at almost any Polish table in the MBC and you can get some practise so you can also develop your skills in the system very easily.

[Jinksy]

Thanks to all repliers.

To everyone - what about Blue Club/derived systems? No-one's really mentioned them. Are they basically merged with Precision systems now, or have they died off? (Wikipedia is certainly dismissive of them) Or are they still alive, well and distinct from the Precision club somewhere?

hrothgar, on 2011-August-26, 07:54, said:

You should be able to find some of the earlier data here on the forums.

Can you give me a couple of keywords?

mgoetze said:

You'll have to be more specific. Do you mean EBU Level 3? ACBL GCC? German Category C?

Primarily EBU, though if there's anything that includes that I might be banned from abroad it would be worth knowing.

free said:

Because of this, it's quite safe for opps to intervene on trash hands, or even psych.

How high can they get before they at serious risk of getting axed for monkeying around? And how much damage can it do to the auction if they do? It seems like if they have a very low risk intervention available that can take them to the two level, you're surely losing most of the advantage from a low level strong opening anyway. Perhaps all of it and more, if you're now not even sure whether their suit is actually your suit.

Quote

After multiway ♣ it's a little more difficult. There's a lot less intervention, but partner doesn't know how strong we are (we can have 11HCP as well as 16HCP or 21HCP) and he doesn't know anything about our distribution.

Do you have any sense of whether Swedish club makes this less of a problem? Seems like you only need one weak bid in there to restrain the competition, and that thereafter it's easier to describe.

Quote

If you wanted to try something a bit different, you could have a go at Fantunes.

Interesting, hadn't heard of that. At first glance it looks ultraconservative, which seems surprising given the way modern bidding seems to be going. Is there an aggressive aspect to it that I've missed? Presumably their 3 level openings are pretty weak, but their card does still specify a minimum of 7 - have they given up preempting on weak 6-card suits altogether?

Also, anyone have views on weak-and-5? I persuaded myself recently, with reasoning almost immediately forgotten, that this is a good combination...

[MickyB]

Swedish and Polish Clubs are basically the same system - they certainly have more in common than two different versions of Precision might have. Swedish is simpler than Polish but the 2C opening is too wide-ranging and the strong option starting at 17 is a bit uncomfortable at times. WJ05 is obviously the most popular version of this, but it is a poorly designed system with lots of unique treatments that aren't of any use in the real world, including a bizarre version of Blackwood meant as a "stepping-stone" to playing RKCB.

The advantage of Polish/Swedish compared with Precision is that you have one opening bid to "show" a weak NT and another to show an unbalanced hand with diamonds, whereas Precision mixes these two hands together. The big advantage of Precision compared with Polish/Swedish is that your 1M openings are more limited and that your 1C opening promises a good hand. While you will tend to get less severe preemption vs a two-way club than a strong club, you are much better placed on a given auction if your 1C opening has already shown your hand [or something close to it]. The aggressive preemption vs Precision gives you some guesses but also yields some penalties and some double-dummy hands to declare.

Blue Club is one of the few systems I've never played, I liked the idea of strong club and four-card majors but I read a fair bit about it and I wasn't convinced, Meckwell Precision [14-16 NT] is certainly the popular strong club system right now.

Fantunes opening bids between 1NT and 2S are all fairly weak, not that well-defined with regards to shape and very frequent. I wouldn't describe this as "ultra-conservative"

Weak+5 is a perfectly playable system [unlike weak+4]. If you are opening some balanced hands 1D then you can't respond 1NT on both a 9-count and a 6-count, as you need to tell partner what to do when he holds a 15-16 NT-type hand, which usually means playing 1D:2C as 9+points, Acol-style. Opposite the 1M openings, you can either play Acol-style or you can play 2/1 GF with a (semi-)forcing NT. If you take the latter route, you should play the following.

1H:1N, 2C is either natural or a 15-17 NT. Now 2D = bad preference to 2H or various invites; 2H = 9-10 points, wishes to be in game opposite the 15-17 NT type.

Something similar over 1S:1N, 2C - obviously you've got more room to work with here.

[Cyberyeti]

One that's fun to play if you have a regular partner is a very natural strong club system with a wide range no trump. All the work goes into the 1N opener which is 12-16 or so, and there are several schemes of responses, but you then play 4 card♦ and 5 card majors with an old style precision 2♣ and 2♦ either old style precision or 4414s opened 1N.

Also nobody's mentioned strong diamond. My partner plays (3 different ?) strong diamond systems with different irregular partners and seems to have fun with them.

[mgoetze]

Jinksy, on 2011-August-26, 10:54, said:

To everyone - what about Blue Club/derived systems? No-one's really mentioned them. Are they basically merged with Precision systems now, or have they died off?

mgoetze, on 2011-August-26, 08:21, said:

Austria doesn't play such a big role on the international stage but even they have some experts - many of which play Blue Club AFAIK.

I think it is pretty much taken for granted in modern bidding theory that the Blue Club scheme of responses to 1♣ is no good. However, the two parts (what you do after a strong 1♣ and what all your other openings are) have very little interconnection, and the 4-card major canapé approach, while not currently popular, is not obviously horrible. It probably suffers somewhat in contested auctions, and there are a lot more contested auctions nowadays than during the heyday of Blue Club, but you'll have the occassional system win too.

Jinksy, on 2011-August-26, 10:54, said:

Interesting, hadn't heard of that. At first glance it looks ultraconservative, which seems surprising given the way modern bidding seems to be going. Is there an aggressive aspect to it that I've missed? Presumably their 3 level openings are pretty weak, but their card does still specify a minimum of 7 - have they given up preempting on weak 6-card suits altogether?

Well, opening 4441 11-counts 1NT might be considered somewhat aggressive.

Jinksy, on 2011-August-26, 10:54, said:

Also, anyone have views on weak-and-5? I persuaded myself recently, with reasoning almost immediately forgotten, that this is a good combination...

It has a few devout followers in the German first league. And I hope Glen won't mind if I quote...

BridgeMatters: Let’s say your partner, Lew Stansby, retired, and you were not
playing with your wife. If you established a new partnership, would you stick with
the weak NT base you have now?
Chip Martel: The only reason I might be tempted to switch to a non-weak NT
system is because more people now are playing those systems. As a result,
more development of bridge theory has been geared towards strong NT-based
systems, things like support doubles, good/bad-2NT and other useful devices.
Some of these things don't work as well in a weak NT-based system. On the flip
side, it can be useful to be on your own with destructive methods such as strange
preemptive bids. For constructive methods, though, it might be better to be in the
mainstream so you can take advantage of the broad pool of expertise in bidding
development. Things used to be in reverse – and a lot of weak NT players were
leading the development of bridge theory – but it has shifted.

[mgoetze]

MickyB, on 2011-August-26, 11:29, said:

Swedish and Polish Clubs are basically the same system - they certainly have more in common than two different versions of Precision might have.

Well, I think there are usually rather noticable differences in the response structure to 1♣, among other things.

Which brings up the point that, if you like to play with system, you don't need to do it with the opening bids. If you want to be at the forefront of modern bidding theory you can just play 2/1 with Transfer Walsh, Gazzilli, semiforcing 1NT, INV+ 2NT raises, Transfers in competition, 3-way 2♣ responses, and so on and so forth.

[gwnn]

It's very nice to play

1♥=5+
1♠=5+
1NT=12-14
2♣=6+, no 4 card major
2♦=6+, no 4 card other

1♣=15+
1♦=other hands (i.e. both minors or 4M with a long minor or three suited)

This is the original structure of symmetric relay but you don't need to play relays to make it work. The 1♦ structure deserves some special attention, the rest come from themselves.

1♦-1♥
1N = minors
2m = 5+ here, 4 hearts
2♥=4441 with 4 hearts
2N=minors,55

or something.

[mikestar13]

Cyberyeti, on 2011-August-26, 13:24, said:

One that's fun to play if you have a regular partner is a very natural strong club system with a wide range no trump. All the work goes into the 1N opener which is 12-16 or so, <snip>

I've tried everything else, but I keep coming back to Real Diamond Precision, with at NT range of good 12-16. 1♦ shows 4+ and unbalanced, and opener's rebid in 1♦-1M-1NT is artificial, showing 3 card support for partner's major (sort of like a support double in an uncontested auction.) 2♣ is harder because it might be 5♣-4M, but we have the best 1♦ auctions in the Precision world.

[Cyberyeti]

mikestar13, on 2011-August-26, 19:55, said:

I've tried everything else, but I keep coming back to Real Diamond Precision, with at NT range of good 12-16. 1♦ shows 4+ and unbalanced, and opener's rebid in 1♦-1M-1NT is artificial, showing 3 card support for partner's major (sort of like a support double in an uncontested auction.) 2♣ is harder because it might be 5♣-4M, but we have the best 1♦ auctions in the Precision world.

Ah, we did it the other way and 1N denied support for partner's major, usually a singleton, eg 1♦-1♠-1N could be a 1444 12 count.

It also helped that I played a wide range no trump in acol at the time too, so home hashed a decent system for that.

[Free]

Jinksy, on 2011-August-26, 10:54, said:

How high can they get before they at serious risk of getting axed for monkeying around? And how much damage can it do to the auction if they do? It seems like if they have a very low risk intervention available that can take them to the two level, you're surely losing most of the advantage from a low level strong opening anyway. Perhaps all of it and more, if you're now not even sure whether their suit is actually your suit.

It depends a bit on vulnerability. The 1-level is extremely safe (only V vs NV is dangerous). The 2-level is as safe as opening a weak two, but since opps have given up on game, they don't need the hands required for a weak two. When NV vs V, even the 3-level is relatively safe.

Jinksy, on 2011-August-26, 10:54, said:

Do you have any sense of whether Swedish club makes this less of a problem? Seems like you only need one weak bid in there to restrain the competition, and that thereafter it's easier to describe.

Swedish and Polish club are very similar, the only difference is that there's an intermediate ♣ hand in Polish club, which may be difficult (don't know for sure) if opps have bid higher than 2♣.

[Gerben42]

Jinksy, on 2011-August-26, 10:54, said:

Interesting, hadn't heard of that. At first glance it looks ultraconservative, which seems surprising given the way modern bidding seems to be going. Is there an aggressive aspect to it that I've missed? Presumably their 3 level openings are pretty weak, but their card does still specify a minimum of 7 - have they given up preempting on weak 6-card suits altogether?

Also, anyone have views on weak-and-5? I persuaded myself recently, with reasoning almost immediately forgotten, that this is a good combination...

Fantunes LOOKS conservative but in fact it is very aggressive. Most 10 - 13 hands are opened on the two-level, and remember that these hands are the most frequent hands that are opened. Their 2♠ opening is many times more frequent than a weak two bid. So in fact, the average opening level is much higher than for standard 2-over-1. It's a natural system and it's hot.

[Free]

I don't think Fantunes is a good suggestion, it's randomizing results too much. The system looks natural, but continuations can get very complicated, it requires very good hand evaluation and you need some luck after 2-level openings. I've played a version based on the original Italian notes, but we modified some stuff because we thought our modifications made the system much more performant and efficient (for example the jumps to 2-level being only a 5 card suit are hard to handle if opener doesn't have fit). The 2-level openings can also be complicated to find fits in side suits and have a decent auction to slam.

As an extra argument, there aren't many people you can ask for advice about Fantunes because there's no real standard. The version you can find online is Gerben's Fantunes which modified opening strength and responses over 1♣ for example. At one point (maybe still) Gerben used my 2-level responses in his Fantunes, but our 1-level structures were completely different. How can you share any experiences if the first round of responses are already different?