[mr1303]

Playing a strong club, what do you open holding the following hand, and why? You're at unfavourable vulnerability, in third seat and against opponents who know what they're doing against strong club. In third seat you play 2+ cards 1D, and 4 card majors.

Scoring: MP

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TYIA

Mark

[hrothgar]

mr1303, on Nov 22 2004, 03:08 PM, said:

Playing a strong club, what do you open holding the following hand, and why? You're at unfavourable vulnerability, in third seat and against opponents who know what they're doing against strong club. In third seat you play 2+ cards 1D, and 4 card majors.

Dealer: North Vul: N/S Scoring: MP

♠ K ♥ KJTxx ♦ AKQxxx ♣ x

TYIA

Mark

It depends...

The hand is strong enough to open 1♣ in first seat playing MOSCITO. In third, I would clearly chose a "constructive" opening.

With this said and done,

1. The hand is wildly distributional, and there have already been two passes. This suggests that your left hand opponent has some distribution.
2. I have a 5 card major with a longer stronger minor
3. The opponents hold Spades

Do you believe that you have the tools necessary to straighten all of this out?
If so, feel free to start with a strong club. Otherwise, I'd recommend something else.

[Free]

since you state that your 1♣ opening is "16+ any shape", what's the problem? You have 16HCP, you have "any shape", so open 1♣...

[Flame]

When i played strong club system i didnt have a choice, when i had a 16 hcp i opened 1c, this is certenly a good 16 hcp and any other bid would show a weaker hand so i think there is no choice here.

[hrothgar]

Free, on Nov 22 2004, 05:24 PM, said:

since you state that your 1♣ opening is "16+ any shape", what's the problem? You have 16HCP, you have "any shape", so open 1♣...

Not all HCP's are created equal, and all system should allow for judgement.
In particilar, a stiff King doesn't look to be pulling full weight to me.

From my perspective, all signs suggest that a 1♣ opening will cuase more toruble than its worth.

I prefer to open 1♦, and expect to be reversing into hearts at the 4 level

[mikestar]

I agree with Richard. Fourth hand has a shapely hand with spades and 1C just won't do well in competition. I'm not sure I like 1D though--while bidding 4H over 3S is fine, what if they are at 4S by the time it gets back to me? If I'm going to double, 1D is best but if I'm going to take a shot at five, I should have opened 1H.

[pclayton]

Even without the stiff K I open 1♣.

Its 4 losers, which allows me to open with sub-16's.

[flytoox]

I vote for 1D. I am worrying I dont have enough space to bid out my two suiters after 1C opening.

[mike777]

1H Canape, 1C would be 17+, will be able to show 6D and max with 3D rebid now.

[EricK]

mikestar, on Nov 22 2004, 03:50 PM, said:

I agree with Richard. Fourth hand has a shapely hand with spades and 1C just won't do well in competition. I'm not sure I like 1D though--while bidding 4H over 3S is fine, what if they are at 4S by the time it gets back to me? If I'm going to double, 1D is best but if I'm going to take a shot at five, I should have opened 1H.

If I open 1♦ and it goes eg (2♠) P (4♠) then I would bid 4NT (two suited) and remove partner's 5♣ to 5♦.

This is better than opening 1♥ with the plan of bidding 5♦ if necessary because I will have bid the suits in the correct order.

Eric

[EarlPurple]

1♣. If next time it is my turn to bid the opponents are in 4♠ I can bid 4NT now showing a big 2-suiter, then pull 5♣ by partner to 5♦ to show the reds.

If they push the bidding to 5♠, and they just might, at least partner knows I have a good hand, something he wouldn't know if I'd opened 1♦.

These hands are difficult in any system with pre-emption.

Tactically, if I could open 1♥ then immediately use 4NT as key-card that would actually do the job perfectly - could find out about the 3 missing aces and perhaps the queen of hearts. The one good thing that is more likely to happen if I open 1♥ is that the next player will bid just 1♠ - he won't know I have such a good hand and is less likely to jump. This might get a 2♥ from partner and perhaps I can then use key-card.

Not certain, of course, that the opponents have so many spades though. Partner could have 4 or even 5. Or even 6 - no reason why partner should have opened at weak 2 at unfavourable vulnerability if the 6-card suit is a bad one.

If I do open 1♣ (strong) then hopefully I'll have heard some useful noise from partner before it's my turn next.

[the hog]

1H. Get that major in as quickly as possible. 1C is too liable to pre emption.

[cf_John0]

Now you have an option and a misgiving,May 1H is better.

[Gerben47]

1♦ followed by many hearts. As others have said, what if they bid 2♠ 3♠ after your strong club, you still have to show 2 suits. Now if they bid 2♠ 3♠ I bid 4♥.