[mikestar]

A suggested defense to Sweedish style 1C: use your favorite weak NT defense one level lower (double substitutes for 2C). With a hand worth a penalty double of a weak NT, pass and wait for clarification.

For example, using Asptro:

P = too weak to compete OR penalty double of weak NT.
X = hearts and another suit (shorter hearts if both majors are held).
1D = spades and another suit (shorter spades if both majors are held).
1H/1S = natural, usually 6+ cards.
1N = minors.
2C/2D = natural, usually 6+ cards.
Higher bids are preemptive.

[EarlPurple]

What you say about coming in over 1♣ bids is true, but:

- you will rarely hold the hand you showed. More often than not when 1♣ is strong, each of the other players will have around 7-8 points.

- When the interference occurs it is more damaging over a variable club. For example if the auction goes:

1♣ 2♠

can you freely show your hearts at the 3 level with these hands:

(a) ♠ xx ♥ QJTxxx ♦ Axx ♣ Jx
(b) ♠ xx ♥ AQJxx ♦ Kxx ♣ xxx
© ♠ xx ♥ KJTxx ♦ Kxx ♣ xxx

Ok you can play "good-bad" 2NT and use it to show hands like (a) though if the next player bids 3♠ you are now shut-out.

After a strong club you are probably better placed because you know partner has a good hand and so it is much less of a gamble to bid on with any of those hands. Here I might even go straight to 4♥ with (a) (4♦ if we've agreed transfers) because it will probably make and partner will know we have them if they bid 4♠. With hand (b) I'd bid 3♥ which is forcing (3♦ if agreed transfers).

I guess over Swedish-style club you'd probably play some form of transfers, possibly even transfer into suit 2 above. Then partner completes it with a weak hand or bids the suit in between with a strong hand. You might find you are often short of bids though.

[Cascade]

EarlPurple, on Jul 16 2004, 02:49 PM, said:

More often than not when 1♣ is strong, each of the other players will have around 7-8 points.

This is an overstatement.

I ran a simulation in which South had 16+ hcp. In 1000 hands only 120 times did each of the other players have 6-9 hcp. I extended your range based on the 'around' adjective. When the range was limited to 7-8 then there were only 21 times in 1000 that everyone had 7-8 points. When it was extended to 5-10 it still only rose to 297 times out of 1000.

4-11 points got close to 'more often than not' with 493 times out of 1000.

[EarlPurple]

12% of the time all the players were in that range. For only LHO to the 1♣ bidder to be in that range will be quite frequent then. (Simulate that?)

Besides, we can probably invent one bid (1NT maybe?) as an overcall to 1♣ that can be used to show a very weak but shapely hand? That will therefore allow you to use certain other bids as constructive in case your side does own the hand. So you still might not lose out on all the overcalls of the weak 1♣.

[Cascade]

LHO hcp after a strong 1♣.

HCP [space] [space] [space] [space] Freq in 1000 simulated hands

0 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 17
1 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 22
2 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 36
3 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 46
4 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 73
5 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 85
6 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space]113
7 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space]102
8 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space]124
9 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space]119
10 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space]75
11 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space]63
12 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space]49
13 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space]29
14 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space]17
15 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space]16
16 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 3
17 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 6
18 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 0
19 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 5
20 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 0
21 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 0
22 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 0
23 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 0
24 [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 0

[EarlPurple]

Thank you. So a 6-9 point hand will come up about 45% of the time. (Though of course you'll have to decide what to do with balanced hands in this range, which I guess a large proportion of them are).

[Free]

A simulation with only 1000 hands is not representative ofcourse (to prove my point: hands with 18HCP never occor in this layout, while 19HCP are fairly common), but I think it can give some idea of what we are looking for.

I agree with earlpurple that whén opps intervene after a 1♣ opening, the strong ♣ openers will have the advantage. Ofcourse, after a big club, opps intervene a lot more, so it's still the question what's the better approach.

[Cascade]

Here is 100000 hands:

0    1113
1    2197
2    3434
3    5712
4    7917
5    9496
6   10607
7   11457
8   10942
9    9740
10   8453
11   6497
12   4650
13   3164
14   2045
15   1245
16    707
17    370
18    132
19     85
20     26
21      8
22      3
23      0
24      0

[Free]

MUCH better

[SteelWheel]

Another strong club system which has a "real" diamond opening is Lyle Poe's "Millennium Club". System uses a 1NT open of 12 to a bad 15. Good 15 balanced and higher fall into the 1 Club opening. (btw, interesting response/rebid structure over 1♣..most responses don't show strength, they just show suits, i.e., a 1♦ response shows 4+ ♥'s with 0+ HCPs, 1♥ shows 4+ ♠s, etc).

Seems like you always have either one problem or the other playing a strong club, i.e., either showing two different NT ranges with less strength than that shown by the 1♣ open (10/11-12/13 and 13-15/16, which basically means playing a "short diamond" opening for one range or the other), OR you play a 4+ diamond opening and make some other adjustments as to what balanced minimums are passed, as well as lowering the NT ranges which fall into the strong club opening.

btw, if anyone is interested in playing around with Millennium Club sometime on BBO, send me a PM at stwheel@optonline.net