[olegeorge]

A pretty good player at our club has an addition he has to 2/1 - where in response to a 1♣ opening bid one (artificially) responds 1 ♦ with any 12+ point hand. Thus, any other response to a 1♣ bid shows less than 12 points. His explanation of the basics is at: www.dodofox.com .

Without debating all his specifics of how to handle various bidding situations after the 1♣ bid, I'm curious as to what weaknesses (if any) one can see in this??? (Obviously, one can't show a diamond suit - at the 1 level!)

I've not played this, but it seems to me to have potential. Any time the bidding goes: 1♣ + 1♦ - opponents need to be careful in making overcalls - as the opponents both are aware that they should have 24+ points between them.

Thanks!

[mike777]

this aint 2/1


if one club does not show clubs and 1d does not show diamonds...I may want to overcall more often,not less.

Now I can overcall art. in otherwords bid suits that show other suits and make you guess.

Let me put it this way you have 24+hcp are you going to always defend against one level or 2 level overcalls?


Do you know how to handle overcalls that show other suits than the one bid?

[ArtK78]

olegeorge, on 2012-June-23, 18:53, said:

I've not played this, but it seems to me to have potential. Any time the bidding goes: 1♣ + 1♦ - opponents need to be careful in making overcalls - as the opponents both are aware that they should have 24+ points between them.

Thanks!

On the contrary - the opening side has announced game values, but have only bid one suit - clubs - "naturally." It would behoove the defensive side to bid aggressively before the opening side can determine what fit they have.

[32519]

I’ve played against something similar once. The 1♣ opening was completely artificial promising nothing more than an opening hand (12+ HCP), any distribution.

Responses went something like this:
1♦ = 12+ HCP, Game Force
1♥ = 0-5 HCP, artificial, bust hand
1♠ = 6-8 HCP
1NT = 9-11 HCP

If there was any opposition intervention then the responses were adjusted as follows:
Pass = 0-5 HCP, bust hand
Double = 6-8 HCP, artificial
Cheapest Bid = 9-11 HCP, artificial
Anything else = 12+ HCP, natural, at least a 5-card suit, game force

These methods have plenty of flaws, including –
1. Pre-empting by the opponents before your side has been able to show a real suit
2. Often the strong hand gets exposed on the table as responder is forced to make a noise

On the up side the rest of your 1 and 2 level bids can be used for anything else below opening strength value. The partnership I played against were using the 2-level bids to show a single suited hand in the suit bid. I can’t remember what they were using the rest of the 1-level bids for. An option would be to use 1♦ to show both majors. 1♥ and 1♠ could possibly used for Muiderberg bids (just a level lower). The 1NT and 2NT bids are open for whatever you want to use them for.

[Cthulhu D]

olegeorge, on 2012-June-23, 18:53, said:

A pretty good player at our club has an addition he has to 2/1 - where in response to a 1♣ opening bid one (artificially) responds 1 ♦ with any 12+ point hand. Thus, any other response to a 1♣ bid shows less than 12 points. His explanation of the basics is at: www.dodofox.com .

Without debating all his specifics of how to handle various bidding situations after the 1♣ bid, I'm curious as to what weaknesses (if any) one can see in this??? (Obviously, one can't show a diamond suit - at the 1 level!)

I've not played this, but it seems to me to have potential. Any time the bidding goes: 1♣ + 1♦ - opponents need to be careful in making overcalls - as the opponents both are aware that they should have 24+ points between them.

Thanks!

You can go further and use the cheapest bid to any opening as an invitational plus relay. E.g. 1C-1D, 1D-1H, 1H-1S. This means everything else is not forcing(!). I suspect auctions like 1D-2C-All pass are huge winners when they come up, but the weakness is to pre-emption as ArtK78 says.

The solution to limiting the damage from pre-emption is to play limited openings (doesn't help to much in GF auctions though pass being forcing gives you more bids, but sure helps the rest of the time. IMHO the natural end state of this is MOSCITO or something like Dwurka with transfer openings as they ensure that the describing hand goes down on the table.

[mikl_plkcc]

I now prefer systems that shows shape before strength, because once a fit has been found, we don't need to think about the strength when competing, but only need to consider the number of trumps.

[gwnn]

I'm sure you could make it work but it is almost surely a long-time loser. It is not true that opponents need to be careful when they make overcalls. On the contrary, now they can bid 2S instead of 1S when they have a decent hand with a good 6 carder, etc. This is reminiscent to the age-old adage (among lowish levels) that playing penalty doubles is the best way to dissuade opponents from pre-empting on trash when in fact the worse your defence to my preempts, the more favourable it becomes to me to make them.

[Zelandakh]

The system is fine. So is Cthulhu's suggestion (which is essentially what I choose to play over a 1♦, 1♥ or 1♠ opening in a limited opening bid framework).

While the opps will preempt more aggressively into GF auctions you have a forcing pass available and will often end up playing the hand; then the information from the overcall balances somewhat the loss of bidding space. Ideally you would have some kind of relay follow-ups to 1♦ here. In this case you are probably ahead of the game when the opps do keep quiet. I would not choose to play the system without methods to maximise the space after 1♦ though. Even then, Transfer Walsh seems to solve (nearly) all the problems over a 1♣ opening without the downsides.

[gwnn]

I don't think "everything else=NF" is a big winner BTW. Sometimes I have 4 hearts and I just want to find out if partner has 4, I can either sign off in 4H or 3NT (in an unlimited system maybe we can try for slam after a jump raise by opener but that is not the point of this example). I don't want to go through a bunch of relays. Also 1x-p-1M and now both opponents can go into balancing mode. Stopping in 1M in constructive auctions is not something you should try too much.

[CSGibson]

giving both opponents the opportunity to overcall 1M or 1D (or X 1D) to set the defense is craptastic losing bridge.

[Statto]

ArtK78, on 2012-June-23, 23:05, said:

On the contrary - the opening side has announced game values, but have only bid one suit - clubs - "naturally." It would behoove the defensive side to bid aggressively before the opening side can determine what fit they have.

Same issue with Strong ♣ openings, but they remain popular. It's an interesting idea...

[gwnn]

Statto, on 2012-June-26, 17:52, said:

Same issue with Strong ♣ openings, but they remain popular. It's an interesting idea...

And opponents don't bid more aggressively over a strong C? Or 1C-p-1D(GF) ?