[kgr]

triggered from another post I wonder..
We play multi 2♦ including GF minor, and semi-focing major.
We play transfer preempts that includes any 2-suited GF and GF one suit major.
2C is weak mini precision, 2M is Muiderberg.
= =
..Apparantly most of you find this a very, VERY bad system.
I agree that the transfer preempts gives opps more possibility to intervene, but I would think that the weak 2C is more frequent then strong 2C & we can more easily describe any GF two suited hand (We don't have to open at the 1 level with these).
...So why do you hate this system?
Thanks,
Koen

[awm]

There's nothing really wrong with having a weak two in clubs. In fact I know a pair that plays a weak two in clubs (in a system with no strong bids) and gets a lot of good boards from it. There are fairly frequent hands where I wish I had a weak two in clubs available.

The issue with the methods you're describing is the rest of the system. Basically:

(1) You have no weak two in diamonds. A weak two in diamonds is at least as useful as a weak two in clubs.

(2) Multi including strong options (especially strong unbalanced options) is not really a very good method. Partner cannot raise you aggressively even holding both major suits, partner cannot pass when holding long diamonds, opponents get several chances to act, etc.

(3) By playing transfer preempts you are weakening virtually every preemptive bid in your arsenal by giving opponents multiple chances to call. It is probably better to play one or two strong bids and lots of natural preempts.

(4) By playing transfer preempts with a strong option you take up a lot of your own space on good hands. Especially if partner raises with a fitting hand, you will often see auctions like 3♣(diams)-P-5♦-P and now opener has the strong option and no idea if partner raised to 5♦ on garbage hoping to obstruct the opponents (you should pass, your strong hand may be just enough to make) or on a decent hand hoping to make opposite the weak option (you should bid slam!) or with virtually anything in between with a good fit (total guess now). If partner doesn't raise with a fit or distinguishes somehow between good and bad fitting raises you have totally defeated the purpose of your own preempts.

[mikeh]

Let me start by saying that the system may well work just fine on many of the hands.. but I still don't like it and here are some of my thoughts.

1. Any method that uses a high-level opening bid on game-force hands is inherently inferior to an otherwise equivalent method that starts these auctions lower.

As an example, just think about forcing club methods compared to standard methods... most bridge theorists agree that the big club methods are superior on the big hands... primarily because of the increased bidding space afforded.

Unless your hands (and I mean both opener and responder) are relatively simple, there will be many hands on which the partnership needs bidding space to determine both level and strain, and starting your description of, say, a gf major 2-suiter with 3♣... ambiguous, and then having to commence description at (I assume) 3♠ (after 3♣ p 3♦ p ?) makes it very difficult to reach, say, clubs! And why can't 7♣ or 6♣ be the right spot opposite a big major 2-suiter? Or 6N. Or finding out precisely which controls are missing, or where a key queen is etc. And this is without interference.

2. Any method that assigns to a particular bid both a weak and a very strong meaning is problematic. I know, a lot of multi players do this and some of them are true wc players. Yet, speaking from experience with the method, it can be a problem, and I think even more of a problem for your method. In the multi with a strong variant, the strong hand is a tiny part of the mix.. probably 95% of the time it is a weak 2. Your 3♣ has 3 different strong meanings and only one weak meaning. The weak will be far more frequent than any of the strong, but I suspect that the strong will be more than 5% of the hands.

This means that responder, with a hand that wants to advance the preempt, can't. He can hardly blast to 5♦ over 3♣ with, say, xxxx x Kxxx xxxx because you may have a gf heart one suiter or a major 2 suiter.

3. Any artificial method is susceptible to interference. Referring to the big club issue I mentioned above, interference is one reason why many top pairs don't play big club.

4. Adoption of any new approach can afford immediate benefits, especially against weak players, due to the lack of familiarity of the opps with the methods. These advantages actually mislead the users of the new methods, who may begin to carve up the local talent, but fall away as soon as they play good opps. Good opps who reach the right contracts in a normal method, while the earlier, poor opps, miss the contracts because they are bad. Good opps who exploit the weaknesses of the method.

In real competition, the new method must fix a problem while not creating problems that are worse than the original problem.

I just don't see how the suggested method is an improvement on standard bidding. I can see that, on some hands, it makes bidding big hands fairly easy... when responder's hand is either simple or irrelevant. But if you have complex hands, you are really handicapping yourself with this method. If your results, playing normal methods, are poor.. work on understanding your methods and developoing judgement rather than opt for this cure.

And as for a weak 2♣, I did, as a joke, play a method in which we had NO forcing opening, and used 2♣ as a preempt.. only in mps... yes, it is a nice weapon, but I really don't think that the gain offsets the (huge) problems with the method.. the worst of which is suicidal destruction of bidding space on just those hands that most need bidding space.

[TimG]

mikeh, on Jul 10 2008, 05:43 PM, said:

As an example, just think about forcing club methods compared to standard methods... most bridge theorists agree that the big club methods are superior on the big hands... primarily because of the increased bidding space afforded.

I don't think this is quite true (though it may have something to do with the problem of interference that you also mention). I think the big clubbers have their advantage in the limited opening bids rather than the all-purpose strong artificial opening -- 1♣ is a cost of doing the limited opening business.

[Echognome]

TimG, on Jul 10 2008, 03:06 PM, said:

mikeh, on Jul 10 2008, 05:43 PM, said:

As an example, just think about forcing club methods compared to standard methods... most bridge theorists agree that the big club methods are superior on the big hands... primarily because of the increased bidding space afforded.

I don't think this is quite true (though it may have something to do with the problem of interference that you also mention). I think the big clubbers have their advantage in the limited opening bids rather than the all-purpose strong artificial opening -- 1♣ is a cost of doing doing the limited opening business.

And here I disagree with your disagreement.

If you asked me to pick an opening for strong hands and told me that the opponents would not interfere on the hand, then I would absolutely pick a strong 1♣ opening. In bidding contests, I think strong club systems do wonders. (I think of how well Groetheim did in them with Viking club and the relays are more efficient now.) I think the only real problem with the strong club is the preemption and that is a big problem of course. However, you do still see many top pairs playing a strong club. I just don't think the strong club itself is a weakness. It's the strong club's vulnerability to preemption that is.

[mikeh]

Echognome, on Jul 10 2008, 06:38 PM, said:

TimG, on Jul 10 2008, 03:06 PM, said:

mikeh, on Jul 10 2008, 05:43 PM, said:

As an example, just think about forcing club methods compared to standard methods... most bridge theorists agree that the big club methods are superior on the big hands... primarily because of the increased bidding space afforded.

I don't think this is quite true (though it may have something to do with the problem of interference that you also mention). I think the big clubbers have their advantage in the limited opening bids rather than the all-purpose strong artificial opening -- 1♣ is a cost of doing doing the limited opening business.

And here I disagree with your disagreement.

If you asked me to pick an opening for strong hands and told me that the opponents would not interfere on the hand, then I would absolutely pick a strong 1♣ opening. In bidding contests, I think strong club systems do wonders. (I think of how well Groetheim did in them with Viking club and the relays are more efficient now.) I think the only real problem with the strong club is the preemption and that is a big problem of course. However, you do still see many top pairs playing a strong club. I just don't think the strong club itself is a weakness. It's the strong club's vulnerability to preemption that is.

Let me add: anyone who has read or has access to the BW from (I think) the late 1970s should look at the bidding performance of rubin and becker (again, my memory may be failing me). They won month after month, with incredibly high scores.. their bidding accuracy, especially in the slam zone was the best I've ever seen. Now, they had a lot of gadgets, but their response structure to their forcing club was beautiful.

And, of course, in the Challenge the Champs, opposition bidding is usually minimal.

[TimG]

Echognome, on Jul 10 2008, 06:38 PM, said:

If you asked me to pick an opening for strong hands and told me that the opponents would not interfere on the hand, then I would absolutely pick a strong 1♣ opening.

Why not a strong pass?

I don't disagree with the idea that a strong club is wonderful in bidding contests, but as you and mikeh have pointed out, and as I said in my post, interference is a factor in real life.

[Codo]

Hi Koen,

you have the problem to describe a zillion possible hands with a very limited arsenal of bids.
One solution is to give many opening bids several meanings. (Like your 3♣ opening)
This works great opposite silent opps but does not work well in competion.
So common practice is to give the higher bids exatly ONE meaning. And nearly all high level openings (from 2 ♥ up are weak among the best pairs. And they don't do so because no other methods exists, they do so because it works best.

So, if you agree that all bids from 2 ♥ onwards are weak, you have quite limited resources to show the intermedeate (10-15) and strong hands (16+).

You can play a big or a polish club. But then a 2 Club opening is urgently needed to show the hands with 5+clubs 11-14, because they are not biddable in another way. In this case you have no room for a weak two in clubs.

Oor you can take all your strong hands in a two club opening or you can take 2 Club and 2 Diamond as strong or you play 2 Club and multi. In the later case you hope to win enough while bidding your strong hands to compensate for the loss you suffer because partner cannot preempt as effective after a multi then after a weak two.
But whatever you choose, again you have no way to show a weak two in clubs.

[benlessard]

Seems just better to play multi 2C and to have a 2D preempt then to have a 2C preempt and a 2D multi.

2D preempt is much better then 2C preempt.
2C multi is better then 2D multi.

I would play 2D as D+M and drop the Muideberg.

[kgr]

awm, on Jul 11 2008, 12:39 AM, said:

The issue with the methods you're describing is the rest of the system. Basically:

(1) You have no weak two in diamonds. A weak two in diamonds is at least as useful as a weak two in clubs.

That is related to playing Muiderberg and multi 2♦. When comparing Muiderberg 2♥ and 2♠ with weak 2♦ my wild guess is that it is 10 times more frequent. Probably it is less effective, but the frequency should compensate some of this.

awm said:

(2) Multi including strong options (especially strong unbalanced options) is not really a very good method. Partner cannot raise you aggressively even holding both major suits, partner cannot pass when holding long diamonds, opponents get several chances to act, etc.

Partly True: Partner can raise aggressively, but risks to preempt the 2D opener if he is strong. He will raise less agressively then without the stong option.
At MP's partner can also risk to pass 2D with long D's.

awm said:

(3) By playing transfer preempts you are weakening virtually every preemptive bid in your arsenal by giving opponents multiple chances to call. It is probably better to play one or two strong bids and lots of natural preempts.

True. But or 3 level preempt are replaced by less effective transfer preempts to create room for a weak 2♣. A wild guess again: I think that our 2♣ opening is 3 times more frequent then a 3-level preempt. So, in total, do we really loose something by having to play less effective 3-level transfer preempts?

awm said:

(4) By playing transfer preempts with a strong option you take up a lot of your own space on good hands. Especially if partner raises with a fitting hand, you will often see auctions like 3♣(diams)-P-5♦-P and now opener has the strong option and no idea if partner raised to 5♦ on garbage hoping to obstruct the opponents (you should pass, your strong hand may be just enough to make) or on a decent hand hoping to make opposite the weak option (you should bid slam!) or with virtually anything in between with a good fit (total guess now). If partner doesn't raise with a fit or distinguishes somehow between good and bad fitting raises you have totally defeated the purpose of your own preempts.

True,
Maybe it should even not be allowed without screens. The time partner takes could easily give you a feel if he has the preempt or something strong. Even when both partners have no bad intentions

[kgr]

mikeh said:

1. Any method that uses a high-level opening bid on game-force hands is inherently inferior to an otherwise equivalent method that starts these auctions lower.
As an example, just think about forcing club methods compared to standard methods... most bridge theorists agree that the big club methods are superior on the big hands... primarily because of the increased bidding space afforded.
Unless your hands (and I mean both opener and responder) are relatively simple, there will be many hands on which the partnership needs bidding space to determine both level and strain, and starting your description of, say, a gf major 2-suiter with 3♣... ambiguous, and then having to commence description at (I assume) 3♠ (after 3♣ p 3♦ p ?) makes it very difficult to reach, say, clubs! And why can't 7♣ or 6♣ be the right spot opposite a big major 2-suiter? Or 6N. Or finding out precisely which controls are missing, or where a key queen is etc. And this is without interference.

We need 3♣-3♦-3♠ to show a GF 2-suiter in the Majors.
In a normal method you would need 2♣-2♦-2♠-3♣-3♥ before you described your 2-suiter...Ok partner also described his hand somewhat in the mean time.

mikeh said:

This means that responder, with a hand that wants to advance the preempt, can't. He can hardly blast to 5♦ over 3♣ with, say, xxxx x Kxxx xxxx because you may have a gf heart one suiter or a major 2 suiter.

Agree

mikeh said:

3. Any artificial method is susceptible to interference. Referring to the big club issue I mentioned above, interference is one reason why many top pairs don't play big club.

Yes, but our openings tell more then a strong 2♣ opening so I suspect that the normal 2♣ opening is more suspect to interference then our openings.
E.g Suppose you have a GF with ♥ and ♣. We open 3♦ with ♥ preempt, a GF 2-suiter with ♥ and a minor or a GF with ♠.
Compare our bidding:
3♦-(4♠)-p-(p)-
with standard bidding:
2♣-(4♠)-p-(p)-
(We can now DBL to show a strong 2-suiter hand with ♥ and a minor)

mikeh said:

4. Adoption of any new approach can afford immediate benefits, especially against weak players, due to the lack of familiarity of the opps with the methods. These advantages actually mislead the users of the new methods, who may begin to carve up the local talent, but fall away as soon as they play good opps. Good opps who reach the right contracts in a normal method, while the earlier, poor opps, miss the contracts because they are bad. Good opps who exploit the weaknesses of the method.

Agree, I play mostly against weak opps. One reason I play this system is that I want to see and learn some new bidding (we got this system from strongest pair at the club, including T-walsh, new 1NT system, 2-suited overcals.....). If this creates too many issues when we move up (...I hope ) and play against stronger opps then we can switch back to a more natural system.

mikeh said:

I just don't see how the suggested method is an improvement on standard bidding. I can see that, on some hands, it makes bidding big hands fairly easy... when responder's hand is either simple or irrelevant. But if you have complex hands, you are really handicapping yourself with this method. If your results, playing normal methods, are poor.. work on understanding your methods and developoing judgement rather than opt for this cure.

And as for a weak 2♣, I did, as a joke, play a method in which we had NO forcing opening, and used 2♣ as a preempt.. only in mps... yes, it is a nice weapon, but I really don't think that the gain offsets the (huge) problems with the method.. the worst of which is suicidal destruction of bidding space on just those hands that most need bidding space.

Note that frequency of weak 2♣ is high. I guess it is more frequent then any Strong hand (any natural 2♣ hand). So I'm not really sure - certainly at MP's - if it is a disadavntage to play.

Thanks a lot for your answer Mike.
The thing I didn't really think about before is the room you take away for your partner to describe his hand. Like the example given above:
We need 3♣-3♦-3♠ to show a GF 2-suiter in the Majors.
In a normal method you would need 2♣-2♦-2♠-3♣-3♥ before you described your 2-suiter...Ok partner also described his hand somewhat in the mean time.
If partner has something like x=x=Axx=KQTxxxxx we will have no way to show this. ...we kind of assume that we will play in a suit of the opener.

[hotShot]

One underrated effect when playing precision is that 1♣ 16+ limits all other openings to a max of 15. Since there is a lower limit too, responder has a very good estimate on partscores and sacrifices.

In your approach to the 2 level, you leave a much wider range for 1 level openings, and have to deal with it. (This is why you see lots of "SAYC" player open 2♣ with semiforcing hands with less than 22 HCP.)

Multi openings with (undefined suits) weak and strong hands in general, are vulnerable to opps aggressive preempts. Your partner with intermediate and slightly better strength, will have trouble to decide between pass, rising the preempt, bidding game or going for slam.

[gnasher]

hotShot, on Jul 12 2008, 12:24 PM, said:

One underrated effect when playing precision is that 1♣ 16+ limits all other openings to a max of 15. Since there is a lower limit too, responder has a very good estimate on partscores and sacrifices.

When I play a strong club, this effect is my primary reason for doing so.

[david_c]

hotShot, on Jul 12 2008, 12:24 PM, said:

One underrated effect when playing precision is that 1♣ 16+  limits all other openings to a max of 15.

Overrated.

[NickRW]

hotShot, on Jul 12 2008, 11:24 AM, said:

One underrated effect when playing precision is that 1♣ 16+ limits all other openings to a max of 15. Since there is a lower limit too, responder has a very good estimate on partscores and sacrifices.

Er - yes. Helps the opponents somewhat with the same questions though

[gwnn]

I play

1C=hearts OR clubs OR spades and diamonds, 8-11 OR 17-20
1D=both minors or both majors, or neither minors nor majors, 0-17
1H=balanced, one suiter, or odd number of voids, 5-19
1S=natural or limited, any number of clubs
1NT=the rest, usually, although not universally forcing one round

This system frees up lots of space and is only slightly vulnerable to preemption. Apparently, you all hate this system. Why?