[jillybean]

Inspired by Adam Parish's latest Leveling Up podcast with John Kranyak, we are playing a basic Precision at the club. So much fun, but a lot to memorize — nothing like any system I've played before, having only ever played "Standard" and 2/1.

Here's an interesting hand from the game:

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Partner will have little more than long hearts. Do we pass, with some reluctance?
What is 5♥?

[mike777]

Pass
Where are the rest of the spades?

5H asks for first or second round spade control, the suit the opponent bid.
_-------------
Strangely enough JK stated he stopped playing a strong club, memorization being one reason, strong opponents interfering when NV.. another, after all of that you still need energy left to play the hand..

[jillybean]

mike777, on 2026-August-15, 17:59, said:

Strangely enough JK stated he stopped playing a strong club, memorization being one reason, strong opponents interfering when NV..

Yes, yes. I am playing it so that I can better defend against it, not to add it as a regular CC.

One Big Club player said to me;
If it were up to me, I’d play big club NV and equal and 2/1 red on white

as well as 2/1 GF over 1D/1H/1S openers. But that’s just me, and nobody listens to Grampa these days ….

[mikeh]

Why do you say that partner will have little more than long hearts?

Assuming you play lebensohl (and if you don’t, things are much worse because now he has no way to show both a weak and a constructive hand) he has only so many ways to bid hearts.

2N, forcing 3C unless doubler has a big hand, then 3H is ‘to play’….could be a Yarborough but is always less than invitational. 3H directly is a constructive to mildly invitational. 4H says I think I can make game so it’s anywhere from a solid invitational (in which case he’s saying I hope I make game) to an opening hand with no slam interest. 3S then 4H would be strong, with slam ambitions but not forcing.

The problem is, as is why people preempt, that you lack the bidding space to differentiate many hand types. Asserting that 4H is in essence ‘weak with long hearts’ is, imo, a terrible misuse of bidding space. Wtf do you do with a 2=5=3=3 12 count?

[jillybean]

Tough questions, we play Leb I'll revisit this tomorrow.

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[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2026-August-15, 23:34, said:

Tough questions, we play Leb I'll revisit this tomorrow.

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I would also bid 4H. I didn’t mean to imply that 4H shows lots of hcp. It MAY be a minimum unattractive opening hand OR something like this hand. I think the point is that advancer doesn’t deny some useful hcp anymore than he promises them. Absent artificiality there’s just not enough room for everything.

[DavidKok]

I agree with the bidding and think passing 4♥ is good (despite being scary).

Personally I do not agree with some of the suggestions and thoughts mentioned here on Precision systems.

[pescetom]

How do people go about showing fit to 3H (whether direct or through Leb) with slam interest, other than 4NT RKCB?

[Cyberyeti]

I used to play a strong club when opponents were vulnerable for a while

[blackshoe]

Generally opponents are only vulnerable for one or two hands, then they're not vulnerable for a while. :-)

[jillybean]

mikeh, on 2026-August-16, 00:46, said:

I would also bid 4H. I didn’t mean to imply that 4H shows lots of hcp. It MAY be a minimum unattractive opening hand OR something like this hand. I think the point is that advancer doesn’t deny some useful hcp anymore than he promises them. Absent artificiality there’s just not enough room for everything.

Yes, preempts work - especially in spades.

DavidKok, on 2026-August-16, 01:27, said:

I agree with the bidding and think passing 4♥ is good (despite being scary).

Personally I do not agree with some of the suggestions and thoughts mentioned here on Precision systems.

The many differing expert approaches contribute to this fabulous game.
I'm only playing BigClub on a temporary basis, so I don't want to get into an in-depth discussion, but I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts.

blackshoe, on 2026-August-16, 03:31, said:

Generally opponents are only vulnerable for one or two hands, then they're not vulnerable for a while. :-)

Fine observation.

[WasWinM]

Fair warning* If you play a strong club for awhile, when you go back to 2/1 you'll find yourself looking down at your hand and thinking, I wish I could open this with a strong 1C.

[mikeh]

WasWinM, on 2026-August-16, 09:43, said:

Fair warning* If you play a strong club for awhile, when you go back to 2/1 you'll find yourself looking down at your hand and thinking, I wish I could open this with a strong 1C.

I played several versions of big club over many years. I don’t miss it at all. Sure, once in a while I have a hand on which opening 1C would lead to a happier auction, but one can say the same about virtually any reasonably coherent method. I played a complex relay method for about five years, leading to two WC appearances and I really felt the loss of that method when the partnership ended. But when we got back together, we opted for a complex T-Walsh method with only a small number of relays. Meanwhile I have good friends and occasional teammates who play a fairly sophisticated big club method. I’d far rather play what I play now than that method…they’d disagree😀

There is no perfect system and any time you’ve played two or more ‘good’ methods, you’ll encounter hands when playing one that make you wish you were playing the other. Maybe we should hold an event in which the partnership can look at their hands and then one of them announces which system they’ll use on that hand😀

[pescetom]

pescetom, on 2026-August-16, 02:15, said:

How do people go about showing fit to 3H (whether direct or through Leb) with slam interest, other than 4NT RKCB?

Is the implicit answer to my question that there is no other way?

[mike777]

Cuebid

[pescetom]

mike777, on 2026-August-16, 13:33, said:

Cuebid

"Cuebid" is the biggest overload in bridge after a Dutch 1♣ opening
Are you referring to 3♠ as a cue of the opponent's suit inviting control-bids in hearts, or 3♠ as the cheapest possible control-bid in hearts and thus artificial and inviting further control-bids, or 3♠/4♣/4♦ as control-bids all implicitly setting trumps in hearts?

[mike777]

Good point and I agree, I overload double or cuebid. It has worked surprisingly well.

Probably next is using 2NT in competitive auctions. 2NT, not natural


As an intermediate level player, it helps.

_----;---

Do you have a specific auction and hand you are asking about?

--+-----

If you are asking about making very high level bids to mean implicitly agreeing some other suit agreements and a slam try...for the most part, beyond intermediate level bridge except for some rare exceptions..

[pescetom]

mike777, on 2026-August-16, 13:58, said:

Good point and I agree, I overload double or cuebid. It has worked surprisingly well.

Probably next is using 2NT in competitive auctions
As an intermediate level player, it helps.
_----;---

Do you have a specific auction and hand you are asking about?

My point was about overloading the term "cuebid" with far too many meanings , not about overloading the cue of opponents' suit (which is one possible meaning, and not even comprehensible in mainland Europe where they call that an overcall and an overcall an intervention ).
I'm asking about this specific auction 2S X P where West bids 3H either directly or after Lebehsohl.
I haven't discussed it and would be unwilling to pull anything other than 4H or 4N on partner, much though I dislike both with slam interest.

[mike777]

Agree

Cuebid 3S
But extremely rare on your given auction

[akwoo]

Having played Precision in one partnership for a while... it really takes playing a gazillion boards to develop judgement for those situations where you (or partner) have opened a big club and the auction is at the 3 or 4 level with no one having shown a suit. In MP pairs you're frequently impossibly behind the room. At IMPs, you can at least not lose too many IMPs usually by doing the safe thing. I think it's only worthwhile at IMPs against a team better than yours.

You can play it two ways - either you take the advantage of opening light (which is what we did), or you have narrow range 1D/1H/1S/2C/2D openings (but now you have to learn to take advantage of this - more of a rewiring of how to bid competitively than a change in methods).