[effervesce]

I recently read chunks of Revision Club (from Daniel Neill's system page) and I liked more than a few ideas it uses.

1M-2M as a balanced (10-12) 3card invitational raise, after which for 1H-2H for example 2S starts a long-suit trial sequence, 2NT,3C,3D as short-suit trials in spades,clubs and diamonds respectively. Hands that would normally be bid 1H-2H instead go via 1H-1NT-2m-2H - this presumably inhibits competition/balancing with relatively small downsides in a limited opening context. Has anybody played this? It seems to be very useful with large possible gains in a) not being in 3H and going down on some hands more space for constructive bidding

1H-1S-1NT etc as omnibus 1NT - could be 1543/1534 shapes - I currently never rebid 1NT unless I'm at least semi-balanced. Winning or a losing bid?

1D/1H/1S - new suit 1 lvl as down to zero points. John Montgomery reckons this is winning- 'Shape Is King', especially in a strong club context, making it difficult for the opponents while unlikely to be hanged by opener. Thoughts/experiences?

[awm]

My experience has been that constructive raises (and Revision Club's method is like a souped up version of constructive raises) are not a very good method. The issues:

(1) You don't always win on the "shutting opponents out of the auction" point. While it's true that sometimes it's harder to balance over 1M-1N-2x-2M than over 1M-2M, it is also a lot easier to sneak in a two-level overcall after 1M-1N than it is to bid at the three-level over 1M-2M. And when you are balancing over 1M-1N-2x-2M, your pass of 1N limits your hand, making it a bit more appealing to pre-balance light. So while I agree that sometimes you buy the hand for 2M when you wouldn't over 1M-2M, you also sometimes let the opponents in a level lower.

(2) There are actually plenty of hands in the 11-15 range that bid game over a normal single raise. At some point I ran a simulation on this -- five loser hands in the 11-15 range are not that rare. By rebidding 1NT instead of raising you make partner's life more difficult. You also take away scientific game tries, because partner won't be sure there's a real fit in some of these auctions. You also end up giving opponents a lot more information on defense -- compare 1♠-2♠-4♠ versus 1♠-1NT-2♦-2♠-3♣-4♠... on one of these auctions you know a heck of a lot more about declarer's hand than the other.

(3) Constructive raises really lose in competitive situations. Say you get 1♥-P-1NT-2♠. If responder has something like 6-9 hcp and three hearts, it will often but not always be right to compete to 3♥ over 2♠. Over 1♥-P-2♥-2♠, opener has an easy decision. In the auction given, opener is under a lot of pressure because he doesn't know about the fit, and there are many hands where he will pass because of the apparent misfit when in fact it is right to bid. Responder is on a total guess after 1♥-P-1NT-2♠-P-P also.

(4) There is certainly some advantage to playing your declined limit raises in 2M, but there are other ways to accomplish this (for example 2♣ response = GF natural OR 3-card LR). Constructive raises give away an awful lot.

On to the other things...

1♥-1♠-1NT is too low frequency in standard bidding. Also, 1♥-1♠ is a very annoying auction in some continuations because responder's range is very wide. Certainly rebidding 1NT with 15(43) is okay, especially if you would often raise on 35(32). Elianna and I do something like this and it works out pretty well. Personally I prefer a much more artificial continuation scheme after 1♥-1♠ especially in a strong club context -- I use 1♥-1♠-1NT = (3+) diamonds to clean up the annoying sequence 1♥-1♠-2♦-how to GF? This also adds one of these "good raise" gadgets I like so much -- 1♥-1♠-2♦ = "artificial good spade raise." The only real disadvantage to this is that I have to raise spades with 3523 (and this could be an advantage!)

I've found that there's a bit of difference in responding to 1♦ versus responding to other openings. The 1♦ opening is almost always a weak notrump. Responding to this on garbage is usually a big win -- partner won't go overboard, if you have a five-card major you almost always have a fit there, and it makes life quite tough on opponents. Besides, playing in 1♦ is often a poor result since opener needn't have many diamonds. Things are a lot different in response to 1♠ -- the 1♠ opening is already annoying to bid over for opponents, playing in 1♠ will often be a decent result, and partner is more likely to have a distributional hand where he has some interest in game opposite some 9-11 point 1NT response, making it more difficult for him to judge the auction when 1NT = 0-12 rather than a more limited style. This is not to say that I would pass 1♠ on many hands where standard bidders respond (the old precision style) but I would certainly pass 1♠ on hands where standard bidders pass 1♠, and occasionally on hands where they don't (balanced 6-count with doubleton spade is usually a pass, but balanced 8-count is usually a bid, and 5-7 points with 3♠ is a bid).