[Trinidad]

csdenmark, on Mar 25 2006, 09:19 AM, said:

In fact it is so, as mentioned by Benito Garozzo, the greatest asset of strong club systems are the limit openings.

It might be more accurate to call these systems "limited opening systems" instead of "strong ♣ systems".

We changed to strong ♣ for the limited openings and absolutely not for the strong 1♣ opening. We see the 1♣ opening as the weak spot in the strong 1♣ systems. But fortunately we never get any good cards.

Rik

[csdenmark]

Trinidad, on Mar 25 2006, 11:23 PM, said:

csdenmark, on Mar 25 2006, 09:19 AM, said:

In fact it is so, as mentioned by Benito Garozzo, the greatest asset of strong club systems are the limit openings.

It might be more accurate to call these systems "limited opening systems" instead of "strong ♣ systems".

We changed to strong ♣ for the limited openings and absolutely not for the strong 1♣ opening. We see the 1♣ opening as the weak spot in the strong 1♣ systems. But fortunately we never get any good cards.

Rik

You have a point here Rik - you have a really good point.

Poles calls Pass-systems WOS(Weak Opening Systems). I am not sure whether they do so in Poland too or only in an international forum. I am not sure whether WOS refers to pass opening or to limit 8-12 openings.

[jmc]

I appreciate all the suggestions and I like many of your ideas. I have also been reading Mr. Gitelman's improving 2/1 articles and think having a forcing balanced raise could be useful. Right now we use bergen raises, jacoby, 2nt, 1M-3OM as a mini-splinter, 1M-3NT as 13-15 bal with 3 cd support, 1M 4C as 16+ bal 3 cd support, and 1M 4D as a 5 card support sub limit raise 8-11 or so.

Unfortunately, this does not give us a true balanced forcing raise. We have considered using 1H-2S for this meaning but we still need something over 1S. I know its possible to give up one step of the Bergen raise to make room, but I'd rather not. Any suggestions?

Jonathan

[pbleighton]

"I appreciate all the suggestions and I like many of your ideas. I have also been reading Mr. Gitelman's improving 2/1 articles and think having a forcing balanced raise could be useful. Right now we use bergen raises, jacoby, 2nt, 1M-3OM as a mini-splinter, 1M-3NT as 13-15 bal with 3 cd support, 1M 4C as 16+ bal 3 cd support, and 1M 4D as a 5 card support sub limit raise 8-11 or so.

Unfortunately, this does not give us a true balanced forcing raise. We have considered using 1H-2S for this meaning but we still need something over 1S. I know its possible to give up one step of the Bergen raise to make room, but I'd rather not. Any suggestions?"

Finish reading Fred's articles. You can play 1M-2NT as a balanced raise. You use all three jump shifts as 4 card raises. The lowest jump shift (1S-3C, 1H-2S) is Jacoby, and the other two are the invitational and constructive raises.

This has always struck me as better than Bergen (I don't like Bergen, though - I play WJS when I play 2/1).

Peter