[MFA]

glen, on Nov 3 2008, 09:35 AM, said:

P_Marlowe, on Nov 3 2008, 10:11 AM, said:

The convention cards states, that the pair uses the 1C opener as forcing opening bid.

It actually does not state it, just implies it by stating 1♣ is natural or 22+ - one would hope an opening that can be 22+ would be forcing.

1♦ reply to 1♣ is 0-5...

...
Surely one needs a forcing opening or it will be impossible to handle the strong hands reasonably.

[glen]

MFA, on Nov 3 2008, 10:42 AM, said:

Surely one needs a forcing opening or it will be impossible to handle the strong hands reasonably.

I agree (and as I noted the cc implies 1♣ is forcing), but the first question I would ask this pair if I sat down against them would be: "is 1♣ 100% forcing - never/ever passed?", just to ensure we could employ the right defense against their opening.

[P_Marlowe]

Quantumcat, on Nov 2 2008, 05:16 AM, said:

Here's what I think. 2C openings mostly serve as an ego boost for those who open them and don't serve much purpose besides this.

Indeed, most people seem to open them with really really shapely hands ("I had five losers, partner") but not particularly HPC intensive, so not only would it be very unlikely that partner will pass due to having few HCP, but it's also likely there will be a LOT of bidding (if you're shapely, so are the opponents and/or partner).
<snip>

Just because you encounter peoble, who use
the 2C opening in a way you dont agree, does
not mean you dont need the bid.

There is a saying, "it is not the car, which kills the
driver".

With kind regards
Marlowe

[glen]

I should add the story of what occurred more than once when we played 1♣ much like the Turkish pair.

Partner opens 1♣
I alert
RHO asks
I explain "artificial, either a standard 1♣ opening, but not a hand that would open 1♣ and reverse to 2♦, or a standard 2♣ opening - 22+ artificial, often balanced. Over 98%* of the time opener has a standard 1♣ opening"

* from our simulations with Bridge WorkBench

Now RHO digests this, studies his hand, considers options, studies his hand some more, and finally passes.

You have something like a 3=3=4=3 4 count. You sign for the telegram from RHO, and then pass 1♣, allowing LHO to determine the UI considerations.

And that's why I would ask if 1♣ was 100% forcing, never ever passed.

[MFA]

glen, on Nov 3 2008, 10:22 AM, said:

I should add the story of what occurred more than once when we played 1♣ much like the Turkish pair.

Partner opens 1♣
I alert
RHO asks
I explain "artificial, either a standard 1♣ opening, but not a hand that would open 1♣ and reverse to 2♦, or a standard 2♣ opening - 22+ artificial, often balanced.  Over 98%* of the time opener has a standard 1♣ opening"

* from our simulations with Bridge WorkBench

Now RHO digests this, studies his hand, considers options, studies his hand some more, and finally passes.

You have something like a 3=3=4=3 4 count.  You sign for the telegram from RHO, and then pass 1♣, allowing LHO to determine the UI considerations.

And that's why I would ask if 1♣ was 100% forcing, never ever passed.

It seems to me that you are spending too much energy on the opponents' system.
I couldn't care less if 1♣ is passable.
Clearly one should defend against this 1♣ opening as against a normal 1♣ opening.
If the opponents are willing to take such dubious inferences from your pauses and make such huge violences of partnership system on that basis, the more the better!

[PrecisionL]

I forgot Churchill as a System without a forcing opening:

http://www.northshor...com/church2.pdf

Back from the Chattonooga, TN Regional and the slam bidding in the top bracket was horrible. Twice slams bid missing two aces!

Slams appear about 6% of the time (simulations) and at pairs, you can win without finding the hard to bid slams.

Larry

[whereagles]

A forcing opening is necessary, mostly because it allows OTHER openers to have a celing. What I do agree with is 2♣ is not the best forcing opening. Personally, I prefer

1♣ = natural with clubs OR any 21+ hand.

It's easy to build up a response and rebid scheme on this.

The main advantage of this style is to free up the 2♣ to something more interesting, like weak 45 majors, weak 2, a two-way bid, a 3 suiter, etc. You name it.

[whereagles]

Quantumcat, on Nov 2 2008, 02:03 PM, said:

Tell me exactly why! Or better, come up with 5 or 10 hands where you lose out (and keep in mind with the bidding I only play with and against fellow youthies).

We've been there before. The 2♣ appeared AFTER people tried doing without it. That shows it's useful

[glen]

MFA, on Nov 3 2008, 11:46 AM, said:

It seems to me that you are spending too much energy on the opponents' system...

asking one question is "spending too much energy"?

[jdonn]

glen, on Nov 3 2008, 09:48 AM, said:

MFA, on Nov 3 2008, 10:42 AM, said:

Surely one needs a forcing opening or it will be impossible to handle the strong hands reasonably.

I agree (and as I noted the cc implies 1♣ is forcing), but the first question I would ask this pair if I sat down against them would be: "is 1♣ 100% forcing - never/ever passed?", just to ensure we could employ the right defense against their opening.

I wouldn't ask, and if it came up that the pair claimed it's not 100% forcing, I would call them liars.

[MFA]

glen, on Nov 3 2008, 06:03 PM, said:

MFA, on Nov 3 2008, 11:46 AM, said:

It seems to me that you are spending too much energy on the opponents' system...

asking one question is "spending too much energy"?

You can do whatever you want.

Quote

Quote

QUOTE (MFA @ Nov 3 2008, 10:42 AM)
Surely one needs a forcing opening or it will be impossible to handle the strong hands reasonably.

I agree (and as I noted the cc implies 1♣ is forcing), but the first question I would ask this pair if I sat down against them would be: "is 1♣ 100% forcing - never/ever passed?", just to ensure we could employ the right defense against their opening.

It seemed to me that you were about to devise some ingenious defense based on whatever words that happen to come out of the opponent's mouth at the time.

My point is that I find this a waste of energy and a wrong approach, since you will be playing their ballgame with unfamiliar sequences and agreements, should you decide to play fancy and not just natural.

Also I find the question somewhat silly since you can't oblige your opponents not to pass 1♣ in the future anyway. No matter what they answer you. So why ask like this?

[glen]

MFA, on Nov 3 2008, 07:37 PM, said:

You can do whatever you want.

You have described this as "silly" and "waste of energy", not exactly "do whatever you want" is it for you?

MFA, on Nov 3 2008, 07:37 PM, said:

It seemed to me that you were about to devise some ingenious defense based on whatever words that happen to come out of the opponent's mouth at the time.

My point is that I find this a waste of energy and a wrong approach, since you will be playing their ballgame with unfamiliar sequences and agreements, should you decide to play fancy and not just natural.

Also I find the question somewhat silly since you can't oblige your opponents not to pass 1♣ in the future anyway. No matter what they answer you. So why ask like this?

To answer the single question, so you know what you are doing, and can pass smoothly. Certainly if you are playing in the world championships with no pre-prepared defenses, you should go natural here and not "devise some ingenious defense based on whatever words that happen to come out of the opponent's mouth at the time" (that is some mouthful you wrote). However if you do have pre-prepared defenses, select the best one from your inventory, and make them play your ballgame with your familiar sequences and agreements, while they are left with their unfamiliar sequences.

[MFA]

glen, on Nov 3 2008, 06:58 PM, said:

MFA, on Nov 3 2008, 07:37 PM, said:

You can do whatever you want.

You have described this as "silly" and "waste of energy", not exactly "do whatever you want" is it for you?

It was a one-line answer to your one-line rethorical question post.

Quote

...
However if you do have pre-prepared defenses, select the best one from your inventory, and make them play your ballgame with your familiar sequences and agreements, while they are left with their unfamiliar sequences.

Now we are talking.
The subject of how to handle unfamiliar methods is quite interesting. Having a set of pre-prepaired well-oiled defenses makes good sense. If not I'm very big on keeping it simple. I play a system with some unusual bidding myself (transfer-responses at 2-level after a 1M-opening for instance) and sometimes opponents tackle that horribly by making all sorts of strange agreements that I just cannot wait to let them launch in practice. Typically this happens after a series of questions where they suddenly start to see ghosts allover, where there really are none.

[MickyB]

Soon after I started playing, I started playing a system with no strong bid - 2C and 2D both showed that minor and a major.

My thoughts on it now are -

The preempts don't gain as much as you think they do
When you have a GF hand, you are definitely disadvantaged
When you have a "normal" strong hand, you are slightly disadvantaged
Once you are better than most of your opposition, you don't want to randomise

[Quantumcat]

In another post (something about jump shifts) someone said that it is better to have m-2M be a SJS because you get many more sequences out of it, because those hands come up much more often than splinters, and if you used it as weak there would be no continuation after the bid. So you get more auctions by having that agreement.

If you use the 2C bid wisely, and only when you have a not-completely-balanced 21+ count, and only when you can plan how the auction will go (if your hand is too complicated to bid after say a 2S response, you might open at the 1-level, or lie a little about balancedness and open 2N or 3N) It will come up so infrequently (how often do you get a non-shapely, non-balanced 21+ count that will be not difficult to bid after a 2C start?) surely you will get so few auctions, that even if it seems sensible to use it, (will make the aforementioned hands easier) it will come up so infrequently that the slightly-worse use of being pre-emptive (or something else) will come up a thousand times more often that the little bit of good it does (as compared to the large amount of good the strong 2C bid would have) would make the pre-emptive 2C end up as the winner.

Exactly like the above with the SJS. It will make those hands easier to bid, and come up much more often, than the more sensible splinter or other use, so the smaller amount of good builds up and ends up way overpowering any other use.

[Codo]

99,8 % of all experts do have at least one forcing opening in their bidding system.
I think, I will belive their judgement. Whether 1 ♣ or 2 ♣ is the better approach is still open to discussion, people win tournements with both approaches.
I prefer the polish club, but that is a matter of taste, not of real superiority.

[Mbodell]

Playing without a forcing opening bid in MP is clearly fine if you leave all your sequences alone. Because the strong forcing hands are infrequent enough anyways the effects will be small, because even on hands where it comes up you don't automatically get a bottom, you will find the same result much of the time and a better result occasionally. You will only be very slightly disadvantaged in other words. At least as long as you don't overcompensate by changing everything else to cater to these situations (inventing responses and invites "just in case" and ending up too high).

I also agree that many player's 2♣ strong auctions are so poor that they might be ahead if they just agreed never to bid 2♣ at all. Of course, in reality, the better fix might be to learn better agreements or judgment or what not as opposed to not having 2♣ strong.

And I also agree that using 2♣ as your forcing opening is not as good as using something cheaper like 1♣ IMHO (or maybe even pass). As with strong hands you want to go slowly and with weaker hands you want to preempt the opponents.

So 2♣ as a weak 2 in clubs, or preemptive with both majors, or intermediate with both majors, or intermediate with clubs, or whatever would work. The question becomes do you gain enough with these bids to make up for the cost of what they are replacing?

Standard bidding has 3 below game strong bids (1nt, 2♣, and 2nt). Freeing up some of them for more frequent, or more annoying in competition, bids might well be a win. But usually you have to look at the whole system to tell.

[P_Marlowe]

Quantumcat, on Nov 3 2008, 08:32 PM, said:

<snip>
If you use the 2C bid wisely, and only when you have a not-completely-balanced 21+ count, and only when you can plan how the auction will go ... <snip>

#1 A 2C openings does not deny a bal. hand, sometimes
you have a hand too strong to open 2NT, but you are
still bal.

#2 You also do refer to avoid opening 2C, if you can not handle
a 2S response:
This is just a matter of the system / response structure you
are playing, there are several out there, which will help you
a lot, if you think it is worth the time and the effort.

In short: you say, a special opening / sitiuation does not come up
often enough, to make it worth while to cater for it, because

#1 you dont play often enough enough

professional players, play sometimes 500-1000 boards a month,
compare this to less ambitious club players, who may play in a
club once a week 20-25 boards, which makes it 100-125 boards
a month

#2 you have a life besides bridge, some do
#3 you are more interested in play / defence
#4 your opponents will nearly always interfere

Than this is a valid point, but the point is not only valid for the 2C
opening, it is also valid for certain special defences / agreements,
...

And for other players, the above reasons are not relevant, which allowes
them to deal with the more infrequent issues.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[benlessard]

Agree with Mbodell.

You can play strong namyats and make the 2NT a bit stronger (21-22) and 3Nt is to play. (GF with a long minor or monster balanced). The frequency of bad boards will be quite low.

[Gerben42]

Quote

99,8 % of all experts do have at least one forcing opening in their bidding system.
I think, I will belive their judgement. Whether 1 ♣ or 2 ♣ is the better approach is still open to discussion, people win tournements with both approaches.
I prefer the polish club, but that is a matter of taste, not of real superiority.

That few? But I agree with "almost all". If the post was "I don't need TWO forcing opening bids" I would agree with you (this seems to be the French & German standard).

I think having a way to bid these very strong hands will be a positive effect, but it's not a huge difference. With one partner I play a mini-Fantunes without a forcing opening, and it's good enough for us. But for a league season, I would want to play something that can handle the big hands, after all I don't want to explain my teammates why we had 1♠+5, lose 16.