[pbleighton]

This was mentioned in an rgb htread. 2C is opened with 19+ hcp unbalanced (incl 5M332?) or 25+ bal. The link is

http://www.hsv-life...._2C_Opening.htm

I'm considering this for 3 reasons:
1) It's interesting in it's own right
2) I am playing a forcing (2+ cards) club, so the big but <25 bal hands could be easily accomodated.
3) I am playing Rule of 18 openings, so the upper limit of 18 is especially attractive.

Has anyone played this?

Any opinions from thoses who have/haven't?

Peter

[hrothgar]

pbleighton, on Apr 1 2004, 04:48 PM, said:

This was mentioned in an rgb htread. 2C is opened with 19+ hcp unbalanced (incl 5M332?) or 25+ bal. The link is

http://www.hsv-life...._2C_Opening.htm

I'm considering this for 3 reasons:
1) It's interesting in it's own right
2) I am playing a forcing (2+ cards) club, so the big but <25 bal hands could be easily accomodated.
3) I am playing Rule of 18 openings, so the upper limit of 18 is especially attractive.

Has anyone played this?

Any opinions from thoses who have/haven't?

Peter

Peter

With all due respect...

You are bouncing from idea to idea to idea without taking sufficeint time to develop a meaningful framework to evaluate anything.

I strongly suggest that you select a SINGLE, well defined, well integrated system.
Learn this. Play this for a year. At this point in time. look at another system and do the same.

Having done so, I think that you will be better positioned to start experimenting.

I don't care which system you play, however, I think that you would be best served by disciplining yourself and not flitting from approach to approach.

[pbleighton]

Richard-

Thanks for the advice, but I will, with all due respect, continue on as I have been doing. I can understand your assumption that I change bidding systems weekly based on my questions to the Forum, but this is in fact not the case, at least not at the table .

With one partner, I play 2/1, right down the middle of the road, with all of the usual conventions, have been doing so for over a year, and have no plans to change. I am not an "expert 2/1 bidder" by any means, but I have developed a reasonable grasp of the most typical U.S. bidding system. We get pretty good results.

With my other partner, we experiment with more aggressive bidding approaches. Our initial foray (after SAYC) was SA with Rule Of 19 openings, 11-14 NT, and very aggressive preempting when NV. We found aggressive bidding to be a winner, as well as being more fun. We then played a version of The Science (thanks to Ron) for six months. We liked it, but found that we missed the weak NT too much. We decided to go back to a system which used weak NT, and considered strong club systems, both 4cM and 5cM. We almost went down that road, but wound up with a standardish forcing club system instead (1C = 12-21, 2+ clubs, 1D = 5+ cards or 4-4-1-4, 1D/1H/1S = Rule of 18). This brings us back to the comfort zone of 5cM and 11-14 NT. The system is relatively simple, very aggressive, and not particularly vulnerable to interference - all qualities appropriate to our partnership at this point, and the reason we chose (reluctantly) to go this route than than the strong club route.

This doesn't mean, however, that we will stop tweaking and experimenting. The 19 point 2C opening (the subject of this thread) seems like a possible candidate for tweakdom, as it would allow us to limit our 1x openings (albeit not by much) without chaging our basic system.

If you have an opinion on this 2C opening, I'd be glad to hear it.

Peter

[mikestar]

It seems to be a good fit for your system constructively, but you may be at a disadvantage in competitve auctions--good opponents observing that your 2C could be a fairly average 19 and will preempt to the sky. Were I playing against you, I would use my Precision defense a level higher.

The Romex Dynamic NT works with an 18-19 minimum because it also has an upper limit from the failure to open a GF 2C or 2D--but this is incompatible with your desire to use a weak NT.

[hrothgar]

pbleighton, on Apr 1 2004, 07:40 PM, said:

Richard-

Thanks for the advice, but I will, with all due respect, continue on as I have been doing. I can understand your assumption that I change bidding systems weekly based on my questions to the Forum, but this is in fact not the case, at least not at the table .

With one partner, I play 2/1, right down the middle of the road, with all of the usual conventions, have been doing so for over a year, and have no plans to change. I am not an "expert 2/1 bidder" by any means, but I have developed a reasonable grasp of the most typical U.S. bidding system. We get pretty good results.

With my other partner, we experiment with more aggressive bidding approaches. Our initial foray (after SAYC) was SA with Rule Of 19 openings, 11-14 NT, and very aggressive preempting when NV. We found aggressive bidding to be a winner, as well as being more fun. We then played a version of The Science (thanks to Ron) for six months. We liked it, but found that we missed the weak NT too much. We decided to go back to a system which used weak NT, and considered strong club systems, both 4cM and 5cM. We almost went down that road, but wound up with a standardish forcing club system instead (1C = 12-21, 2+ clubs, 1D = 5+ cards or 4-4-1-4, 1D/1H/1S = Rule of 18). This brings us back to the comfort zone of 5cM and 11-14 NT. The system is relatively simple, very aggressive, and not particularly vulnerable to interference - all qualities appropriate to our partnership at this point, and the reason we chose (reluctantly) to go this route than than the strong club route.

This doesn't mean, however, that we will stop tweaking and experimenting. The 19 point 2C opening (the subject of this thread) seems like a possible candidate for tweakdom, as it would allow us to limit our 1x openings (albeit not by much) without chaging our basic system.

If you have an opinion on this 2C opening, I'd be glad to hear it.

Peter

Peter, please don't take these comments the wrong way. Frustrating day at work...

(1) You are going about evaluating the 2C bid in a complete arse backwards manner.

Don't start by describing this 2C opening... Start by explaining the core system that ypu are playing and provide a good cogent description regard why you are dis-satisfied with what you are currently using.

Once you are able to do this, you can start considering the tradeoffs inherent with a variety of approaches to solve your pain point.

(2) I am rather concerned by your third comments relating the Rule of 18 and the fact that the 2C opening has a boundary condition at 19 HCP. Your comment is almost nonsensical and suggests that you haven't really thought through this issue...

[pbleighton]

mikestar writes:
"It seems to be a good fit for your system constructively, but you may be at a disadvantage in competitve auctions--good opponents observing that your 2C could be a fairly average 19 and will preempt to the sky. Were I playing against you, I would use my Precision defense a level higher.

The Romex Dynamic NT works with an 18-19 minimum because it also has an upper limit from the failure to open a GF 2C or 2D--but this is incompatible with your desire to use a weak NT."

1) I was wondering what type of interference I would get on this 2C opening. You are suggesting that it would be significant, partially because of its lack of an upper limit. The point of our system is to put pressure on our opponents, and we are therefore at this point not willing to use 2D as 23+ to limit the 2C opening.

A question to you regarding who you refer to as "good" opponents - we are relatively new to the game (18 months), somewhat above average club players who have had reasonable success at the club and sectional "B" events level. We want to do better at his level, but are essentially unconcerned with how well strong "A" players will do against any system we play, as they are a minority of our opponents and stomp us anyway. We hope that this will be relevant later on, but for now if a system works well against most players, that is fine with us.

With that in mind, how often and how effectively do you think average to above-average club players would interfere against a 19 point 2C?

2) You are right about the Dynamic Notrump - we are defiitely not willing to give up the natural notrump.

Richard writes

"Peter, please don't take these comments the wrong way. Frustrating day at work..."

Don't worry, I don't

"(1) You are going about evaluating the 2C bid in a complete arse backwards manner.

Don't start by describing this 2C opening... Start by explaining the core system that ypu are playing and provide a good cogent description regard why you are dis-satisfied with what you are currently using.

Once you are able to do this, you can start considering the tradeoffs inherent with a variety of approaches to solve your pain point.

(2) I am rather concerned by your third comments relating the Rule of 18 and the fact that the 2C opening has a boundary condition at 19 HCP. Your comment is almost nonsensical and suggests that you haven't really thought through this issue... "

The core system:
1) 1C = 12-21, 4+ unbal or 15-19, 2+ bal, forcing.
2) 1D = 10-21, 5+ or 4-4-4-1 (short in clubs). Inverted minors.
3) 1M = 10-21, 5+ 2nt Resp = 11+ with trump support, 3M = preemptive
4) 1NT = 11-14, 2NT = 20-21, 2C = strong
5) Weaks 2s and preempts - a little light but disciplined when vul, aggressive when NV, though more careful in the second seat.

We had been playing Rule Of 19 for 1x openings prior to playing The Science. We changed to the present system because:

1) Playing The Science convinced us that opening 1M very light was a winner. The gains in the part score auctions more than compensated for the sloppiness of the game and slam tries. Prior to The Science, we had been playing that a 2/1 response was forcing to 2NT, rather than guaranteeing a rebid, in order to avoid being pushed too high. We have further relaxed the 2/1 response to define a rebid of the major to absolutely guarantee 6 cards, to be a minimum which wouldn't accept an invitation, and is non forcing. 2NT is the rebid with 5 cards, a minimum, and no 2 level new suit bid available. The 11-14 NT includes 10 counts with decent 5 card suits, and takes some of the trash out of the 1M openings.
2) We wanted to compete in a third suit. Opening 11-21 in the minors seemed to us to be of somewhat marginal value, as it allowed 1 level overcalls by the opps and made game tries less accurate, without giving us much ability to compete, because they only guaranteed 3 cards. Making 1D virtually (95%) 5+ cards, and making 1C a sound opening (very sound when you consider the weak NT) is an experiment to rectify this by opeing very light when we have a suit to compete in, and sound when we don't.

The 1M openings are GREAT for part score auctions, and OK for games (a little sloppy, but we do manage to stumble into the same games as the field). We hope that the 1D opening will have similar results for part scores. However, these openings and response structures inherently suck for slam bidding, as we have optimized our ability to bail out into a part score for minimum opening hands at the expense of more accurately bidding stronger hands.. We could use 2/1 GF after 1M to improve our slam bidding, as we did in The Science. We found that this overloaded the 1NT opening and made 2/1 responses infrequent. We also overbid a bit with a 13 point GF, but OTOH a 2/1 F1 approach gets us to underfunded 2NT games, so that's just a different poison.

Our conclusion is that a relaxed 2/1 F1 approach is optimal for VLOBs. The 2M rebid being minimum and NF is an experiment, we may go back to "forcing to 2NT".

Bottom line: we like our system, and accept the tradeoffs, but are willing to tinker with it, particularly to improve our slam bidding, which both in theory and in practice is mediocre at best -it is definitely our "pain point". The lack of a GF is one reason, the very wide range is another. It's difficult to communicate 19-21 points even on a sound opening, and more difficult on a 10+ opening. Jump shifts by opener aren't always a wonderful thing. The 19 point 2C opening was attractive to me in large part because it cuts the range on our 1x bids by 3 points, and identifies these hands immediately. The other reason is that it can find marginal games where standard bidding will pass out a hand, and identify very strong openers immediately for slam purposes.

One thing I don't expect is much gain in accuracy in bidding the < 19 hands - the range still is very wide, and the knowledge that it is limited to 18 points will only be useful occasionally.

If this opening can improve our game and slam bidding on strong hands without leading to too many bad results, it could be useful to us. I'm concerned about:
1) Interference
2) Getting too high (maybe the best contract is 1NT, or setting the opps)
3) A 6 point positive on 22+ hands, versus an 8 point positive in a normal 2C opener
4) Lack of room for exploration

Peter

[mikestar]

Peter,

I believe you are correct. While A's at major regionals or NABC's would kill you, you won't get much more preemption from club players or Sectional B's than you would with a more orthodox 2C opening.

In fact many club players open 2C on 19 (but without the disciplined approach suggested at the site you gave). They manage to survive as they don't get preempted agressively enough.

[mikestar]

Aside from the question of the 19+ 2C, I'd like to hear more about your system, especially the 1C sequences. Are you using any Polish elements in you 1C structure?

[Flame]

I like the idea, but didnt like the system after 2c -2d and even less the system after 2c - 2 something else
how will you bid 6 card heart after 2c -2s ? they say 3h show 3 card spade ?
and after 2c -2d why not play 2nt natural ? and bid 2M with 5 ?
anyway after 2c-2non diamond you will need some work inorder to decide wather game is avaliable, maybe some artificial continuation is needed here. 0 hcp and 6 hcp arent the same, and opener can have 19 but can also have 23.

[pbleighton]

Mikestar writes
"Aside from the question of the 19+ 2C, I'd like to hear more about your system, especially the 1C sequences. Are you using any Polish elements in you 1C structure?"

Our responses to 1C are somewhat like Polish Club, though not identical, and the opener's rebids are of course much different, because our 1C doesn't have all 19+ hands in it. Responses are:
1D - 1) <6 - any shape, or 2) 6-9 - 5+ in a minor, unbalanced, no 4 card major, or 3) 17+ balanced, no 4 card major
1M - 6+ points, 4+ cards, may hide longer minor
1NT/2NT/3NT - 6-9/10-11/12-16, no 4 card major. 1NT may be unbal with weak 5 card diamond suit
2m - 10+, 5+ cards, unbalanced, no 4 card major
2M/3D - WJS
3C - 0-5, 6+ cards, maybe 5 unbalanced NV with singleton

If 1C is doubled, systems on. If 1C is overcalled, bidding proceeds as after a Standard 1C opening.

Bidding after 1C-1D:
With 15-16 balanced, no 4 card major, rebid 3 card major, 1H if 3-3 in majors.
1C-1D-1NT shows 17-19, may have a 4 card major, as responder doesn't have one unless < 6 points.

Responder's rebid after 1C-1D:
We will not support partner's major (may be 3 cards) with 3 card support and 6-9 points. 1C-1D-1M-2M shows < 6 points with 5 card support, or 4 card support and shortness.
After 1C-1D-1M, with 5-9 and a minor, bid 2m.
After 1C-1D-1NT, with 6-7 and a minor, bid 2m (with a bad 6 pass). With 8-9 bid 3NT.
With the big balanced hands, bid 2NT with 17-19, and 3NT with 20+.

The hole in the system so far is pure MAFIA reponses, without a mechanism for finding diamond fits with GF hands by responder which have 4 card majors. In the Unassuming Club writeup, the author states that this seems to work fine. An alternative is the PC approach, where the 6-9/minor hands can be up to 11, and the 2C and 2D responses are GF and may have a 4 card major. I was uncomfortable with the rebid range, but I may change my mind if this approach becomes a problem.

The system is a lot of fun to play, though we are still learning to play the 1C opening. It basically consists of throwing things at our opponents. It's gratifying to see how often they fail to catch what is thrown at them

I'm leaning against the 19 point 2C opening at this point (for now anyway), having had no real positive feedback on it - but that's fine, this is why I post.

Peter

[the hog]

"the PC approach, where the 6-9/minor hands can be up to 11, and the 2C and 2D responses are GF and may have a 4 card major"

Not quite right, Peter. True PC as outlined by Matula plays a true Mafia style. 2m responses are not GF and show 10+ points. WJ2000 is sort of like the Sayc of Polish club, iow played by by the rank and file.

What you are talking about is a different style, coming from the Nasz system and the Strefa system. Idzsdebski - Polish theorist - pushes Nasz, and Kwiecken-Pszkola play Strefa. In these systems 2m over 1C/D is a GF, and the style is not Mafia, so these bids can have a 4 card Major.

Cheers
Ron

[Antoine Fourrière]

I don't understand the rationale for the strong 1♣ and the strong 2♣ when it is possible to muddy - or clear - the waters by packing some weak types into them.

Why not open the bad six-card diamond preempts with 2♣, Dutch-like, just to keep your opponents from disrupting your opening? Their interventions are now bound to be legitimate, so you should get better definition from everybody's bidding.

Since opener won't be able to double for penalty, I would suggest to open the balanced game forces with 1♣. Otherwise, you may have to rebid 3NT with either 19+ unbalanced or 25+ balanced, you won't be able to pass to suggest the latter.

[pbleighton]

Ron:

I haven't been able to get the Matula book. I'm sure you're right, and I should have specified "what PC" as it seems to have as many variants as "5cM, standardish"

Antoine writes
"Why not open the bad six-card diamond preempts with 2♣, Dutch-like, just to keep your opponents from disrupting your opening?"

Interesting idea, but not GCC legal
Peter

[Free]

Not GCC legal????? OMG, I seem to be living in a country where almost everything is allowed, while imo we're still restricted too much (like with the stupid rule of 18 to open at 1-level). We're even allowed to play this opening in the 3rd lowest championships (the 2 lowest championships only allow natural biddings and stayman, that's all). I don't understand what makes it illegal actually: the suit is known if it's a weak version.

Btw, IF you'd be allowed to play these kind of openings, I'd suggest to play 2♣ as strong 19+ or weak with 44+M. I'm used to play this and it has several advantages over the weak ♦ version:
- it's twice as common
- preempting with double fits or possible cross-ruff values is very easy
- defending against it is pretty hard, because opps usually have to play at least on 3-level (unless partner is REALLY weak and doesn't bid)
This is also allowed on these low-level championships over here...

[pbleighton]

"This is also allowed on these low-level championships over here... "

Lucky you