[cwiggins]

Piekarek and Smirnov will be playing the Baltic Club in the 2009 Bermuda Bowl. See Baltic Club 2009

Are there system notes available online?

I'm especially interested in their 1♣ sequences since it includes more hand types than standard Polish.

[wclass___]

Basic structure is very similar to WJ00
IMO subsequent auction in the cc also provides pretty much information to guess continuations.
I am not sure what they do after 1M response with 5♣+unbal no 3M and strong hand. It seems that range of 2♣ rebid is really wide.

I really doun't like their 2nd level openings, probably because i have never understood necessity to preempt with both majors.
Also i think that defending 2♣ opener is not a challange for strong opponents.

I would highly prefer 2♣ opening showing limited strength and 6♣+ or 5♣4♦. IMO it would help 1♣ opener a lot.

[rbforster]

These are their opening weak twos.

Baltic Club said:

2♣ 5-11 5/5+ with hearts + another
2♦ 5-11 multi, including strong balanced
2♥ 5-11 4/4+ majors
2♠ 5-11 5♠ (exactly?) and 4+ minor
2N 5-11 5/5+ minors

wclass___, on Aug 13 2009, 04:29 AM, said:

Also i think that defending 2♣ opener is not a challange for strong opponents.

I disagree. If you infer that they're opening 2♥ with both majors, 2♣ is really hearts & a minor. As such, responder can gamble to pass it whenever his hand has short hearts and he thinks opener has clubs or 2♣ won't go down enough undoubled. This is pretty much like 2♥ multi - there's a 50-50 chance opener will have clubs. Of course it's not quite as bad as 2♥ multi since hearts are a possible strain and maybe half the time responder will preference to 2♥ and not leave the opponents with a difficult guess regarding the minor.

[wclass___]

http://forums.bridge...showtopic=31436

You have take-out option (2♥).
Natural 2N option.
Natural ♠ overcall.
+ natural 2♦ overcall
+ double

2♥ showing 5♥5m would take more room (2 extra bids)
Pass wouldn't reveal his shape.

Where is the logic to reveal shape and give freedom for opponents? Inexperienced players might indeed make mistakes facing such a freedom, but how can this work against strong opponents?

[Gerben42]

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Piekarek and Smirnov will be playing the Baltic Club in the 2009 Bermuda Bowl. See Baltic Club 2009  Are there system notes available online?

No, but it's similar to Polish ♣.

Quote

I disagree. If you infer that they're opening 2♥ with both majors, 2♣ is really hearts & a minor.

No, since 2♥ is destructive and 2♣ is constructive, promising 5-5.

Quote

I disagree. If you infer that they're opening 2♥ with both majors, 2♣ is really hearts & a minor.

No need to understand it. I have played it and played against enough to confirm that it works. Bloody annoying convention. Blam Mr. Ekren for the idea

[rbforster]

Ah, so with 5/4 either way or 4/4 majors they open a destructive 2♥, while with 5/5 majors (or 5/5 hearts+minor) they open 2♣. I guess that makes sense. 2♣ is a more constructive bid rather than destructive (and also is a much bigger gamble to pass).

[wclass___]

So it goes [2♣]-P-[P]-...
Where is the problem?

[hrothgar]

wclass___, on Aug 13 2009, 09:28 PM, said:

So it goes [2♣]-P-[P]-...
Where is the problem?

The "problem" cropped up a couple bids earlier

Contrast the following two situations

1. 2♣ is effectively forcing
2. 2♣ is nonforcing. Responder will frequently pass 2♣ (especially if he is white on red)

It is much more difficult to design a defense against 2♣ nonforcing.

[Tomi2]

hrothgar, on Aug 13 2009, 03:06 PM, said:

wclass___, on Aug 13 2009, 09:28 PM, said:

So it goes [2♣]-P-[P]-...
Where is the problem?

The "problem" cropped up a couple bids earlier

Contrast the following two situations

1. 2♣ is effectively forcing
2. 2♣ is nonforcing. Responder will frequently pass 2♣ (especially if he is white on red)

It is much more difficult to design a defense against 2♣ nonforcing.

Alex and Josef don't want to do any gambling, they will rarely pass 2!C. This convention is not made for gambling.
The history of this system is that Piekarek played with his former partner (my father) 2♣ and 2♦ two suiters with hearts+any and spades+minor and those calls were quiet constructive because they really promised 5-5 (and close to opening strentgh vuln).
The reason for putting them into the 2m openers is that they wanted to play weak twos instead of multi
If you play such two suiters 5-4 or 4-4 instead of 5-5, they come up more frequently but then again partner has to be aware that there are mabe 4 outside losers etc.
I have made a 2♣ opening bid today on void- KJTxx - Jxx -AQT9x and after showing maximum in the auction my dad played me for that hand - this is a normal 1-opener for some

our auchtions often go 2cl - 4he or 2di - 4s with hands that need to invite and give information playing more destructive

Now Smirnov likes the 2H majors convention and he wants some way to geat some NT range out of 1 Club so they put the spades two suiter in 2S and added multi to have all available: weak two bids, two-suiters and 44 majors

Having the wide range in Clubs has not often been a problem in my experience, not knowing what to do after a 2cl prec opener has...

the rest of the system is basicly old fashioned polish club as mentioned before, only that they respond on 3 cards to 1 club occasionaly, like xx - kjx - axxx - xxxx is a 1he bid. Some call it "brdge", they have included a step in the 1cl - 1M - 2di relay to find this out.

Looking forward to see. how they will be doing in Brazil!

edit: they invented the name, because Piekarek is born in Poland (Gdansk area) while Smirnov is Russian (St. Petersburg) , so they did not want to call their system Polish club, but grew up at the Baltic Sea, same as me (I played this system with Smirnov in Juniors competition)- so we decided to give itthis name

[wclass___]

Quote

Contrast the following two situations

1. 2♣ is effectively forcing
2. 2♣ is nonforcing. Responder will frequently pass 2♣ (especially if he is white on red)

It is much more difficult to design a defense against 2♣ nonforcing

That is trivial and pretty inessential in this case.

You are looking on a bid and say that it is harder to defend if 2♣ is NF, but that is not in conflict with what i meant to say.

[2♣]-??
[2♣]-P-[P]-??
I didn't mean to go a step back and think how easy or difficult it would be to defend this 2♣ if it was forcing. I looked from point where the bid has already been made, promising this type of hand and being NF.

Quote

So it goes [2♣]-P-[P]-...
Where is the problem?

At other tables this would start with Pass or 2♥.
What i meant is that i like position where i am facing this auction [2♣]-P-[P]-? exposing that for other players at other tables, this might be much more of a challange than for me.
Comparing to 2♥ opening i have considerably more room, and i also have much more information comparing to situation where LHO would Pass.