[whereagles]

Pass. Maybe they bid to 6NT needing the two spade finesses?

Edit: [saw hand] LOL.. oops

[bluecalm]

So what did you bid ? 2♥ or 3♥ ?
I guess 3 because of your comment about double ?

[Cascade]

bluecalm, on Jun 24 2010, 02:47 PM, said:

1♥. We need 4 card fit anyway to fight.
I think passing is very bad, it risks missing our 10+card ♥ fit while making their life difficult and it gains nothing. Lol pass

I don't think this it is an accurate view that pass gains little. The gain from pass is that we give less information to the opponents when the chance of us making a profitable sacrifice is small.

[rogerclee]

I agree with Cascade, but not as emphatically as he agrees with himself.

[gwnn]

I agree with jjbrr, who the hell bids 2♥??

[effervesce]

You win some, you lose some. I'd have bid 2♥ vs a strong club; taking up space vs a strong club is usually a winning strategy. Just unfortunate this time that it backfires.

[gnasher]

I think 2♥ is completely obvious. With the pointed suits reversed, I'd think about 3♥.

If you don't bid on this sort of hand over a strong club, you allow their system an inbuilt advantage: they gain on the good hands for their methods, and break even on the hands where they were vulnerable to preemption but you didn't do it.

This comment:

Quote

The effective preemption comes with pards raise.

makes me want to take up a strong club again. The preemptive effect of:
(1♣) 2♥
is far greater than the effect of
(1♣) 1♥ (something) 2♥

[aguahombre]

the only thing I learned from this thread is that Gwnn can adopt Josh's sense of humor.

[Phil]

gnasher, on Jun 24 2010, 06:16 AM, said:

This comment:

Quote

The effective preemption comes with pards raise.

makes me want to take up a strong club again. The preemptive effect of:
(1♣) 2♥
is far greater than the effect of
(1♣) 1♥ (something) 2♥

I have found that strong club pairs are very well prepared for the initial action directly over 1♣. 1♥ or 2♥ really doesn't slow them down much, however, when partner bids 3♥, opener is frequently stuck for a call.

2♥ is more likely to elicit a 3♥ raise from partner, which is why I said I don't mind it. However, I find it difficult to argue with any kind of passion about an issue that I have no strong feelings about.

Gnasher said:

f you don't bid on this sort of hand over a strong club, you allow their system an inbuilt advantage: they gain on the good hands for their methods, and break even on the hands where they were vulnerable to preemption but you didn't do it.

I couldn't disagree more. When I played a strong club, my best results usually came when I didn't open 1♣, because of the limited openings. There are exceptions, and I fondly remember relaying when I played Ultimate Club in college to a 4-2 grand when I was practice bidding.

I gave up a strong club because I didn't like the reams of notes I had to review when I played with my strong club partner once a month.

Why did you?

[bluecalm]

Quote

If you don't bid on this sort of hand over a strog club, you allow their system an inbuilt advantage: they gain on the good hands for their methods, and break even on the hands where they were vulnerable to preemption but you didn't do it.

I play precision for quite a while now and I prefer to play against people who like to jump with crap against it. I think it is big imps source.
I suspect Meckwell paid some authors to popularize this mantra so they could keep winning. If you watch world championship finals/semifinals you will notice that top players aren't willing to jump with crap at all vs strong 1♣.
It's in general very easy to penalize after strong 1♣. They won't go to 5level with KQx in ♥ on any hand thanks to all the forcing passes/dbl's while your partner will often compete too optimistically expecting majority of our assets being in ♥. To cause real problems guess what - you need to have your bid...

Quote

I gave up a strong club because I didn't like the reams of notes I had to review when I played with my strong club partner once a month.

For some reason strong club systems keep attracting mad scientists. Precision can be easy natural system with very few artificial bids after initial bid response. We play simple version of Meckwell simplified and we don't have any relays, asking bids, cabs, tabs or other things after our 1♣. It still works amazingly well.

[wclass___]

1♥ is out, 2♥ is crap, and i am afraid i don't have courage for 3/4

[hanp]

I would bid 1H.

[gnasher]

Phil, on Jun 24 2010, 03:58 PM, said:

I couldn't disagree more. When I played a strong club, my best results usually came when I didn't open 1♣, because of the limited openings. There are exceptions, and I fondly remember relaying when I played Ultimate Club in college to a 4-2 grand when I was practice bidding.

I'm not sure that you're disagreeing with me. I didn't say anything about what I thought the good hands for a strong club system actually were.

The best hands for a strong club system are, as you say, mostly the ones where you open something else. The bad hands for a strong club system are where you start with 1♣ and don't get to start exchanging shape and strength information until the three level.

In my experience, hands where you open 1♣ and then have an uncontested auction are generally slightly favourable for the strong-clubbers, but the gains are fairly rare.

Quote

I gave up a strong club because I didn't like the reams of notes I had to review when I played with my strong club partner once a month.

Why did you?

Partly because of the aforementioned bad hands for the methods, and partly because, as you and Bluecalm both say, the people who want to play strong club systems tend to be system junkies.

[gnasher]

bluecalm, on Jun 24 2010, 04:00 PM, said:

your partner will often compete too optimistically expecting majority of our assets being in ♥. To cause real problems guess what - you need to have your bid...

I don't understand this comment at all. If it's my style to bid 2♥ on a hand like this, my partner will be aware of it and will bid accordingly.

The idea is to cause problems with the 2♥ bid, not with some putative sacrifice. There are a lot more IMPs to be gained from getting the opponents to the wrong contract than from sacrificing against the right contract.

[bluecalm]

Quote

The idea is to cause problems with the 2♥ bid, not with some putative sacrifice. There are a lot more IMPs to be gained from getting the opponents to the wrong contract than from sacrificing against the right contract.

Well I think it's the opposite. I think the trend of super offshape/light preempts belongs to the past. People who win these days don't play that way (I am talking about world champions from last 10+years).
I believe there is much more to win from accurate sacrificies than from clubbering the bidding of the opponents. Bidding just to bid loses imo.
Obviously I can't prove it. I know that elite players agree with that but maybe they are wrong and we are up for another revolution. I understand that with your beliefs 2♥ or even 3♥ makes a lot of sense to you. To me it's just pointless bid.

[jdonn]

aguahombre, on Jun 24 2010, 09:31 AM, said:

the only thing I learned from this thread is that Gwnn can adopt Josh's sense of humor.

Agree

[whereagles]

bluecalm, on Jun 24 2010, 03:00 PM, said:

1. For some reason strong club systems keep attracting mad scientists.

2. Precision can be easy natural system with very few artificial bids after initial bid response. We play simple version of Meckwell simplified and we don't have any relays, asking bids, cabs, tabs or other things after our 1♣.

3. It still works amazingly well.

1. That is because it naturally allows you to easily setup relay schemes.

2. Some variations of it are 100% natural. The main difference to a natural system is that the level of play can usually be determined from bid #1. Most people don't manage to make use of this tactical advantage right away (but should) because the philosophy is somewhat different than that of a natural system.

3. Yes it does.

[gwnn]

I think hanp was the first who made that sort of joke before, not jdonn.

[aguahombre]

Oh, I thought Hanp was just flipflopping and hoping we wouldn't notice.

[gwnn]

good point