[glen]

Here’s the scenario – you won the megabucks lottery, hired Paul Solway as partner, Eric Kokish as your partnership coach, and with 4 other pro teammates you enter the next US team trials. Soloway is a world class 2/1 player and a world class big club player, and asks you to select the system. Do you pick 2/1 or big club or something else?

[ArcLight]

If I won the megabux lottery, and hired those guys I would say to them:

I want to become a good bridge player, as opposed to winning events because you played great and carried me. I want you to help me improve all aspects of my card play and bidding judgment. Currently I only know 2/1. I will use whatever system you want. I think my card play needs huge improvement and any gains from system or conventions would be miniscule compared to that.

I'd like to do something the Dallas Aces did, namely play some hands then have you critique my bidding and play.


I would also pay Fred to add some features to BBO.

[keylime]

I voted for the 4 card majors and big club, since that's what I'm playing currently. The transition wouldn't be as hard as it would be for something else.

[mikeh]

If this had happened 20 years ago, I'd vote for the big club method. I think that big club contains more capacity for weird science than does 2/1. See the Meckwell approach... I know of no 2/1 method with anything like the level of detail that Meckwell uses in their agreements, and while that is (I assume) partly Rodwell's capacity for invention and Meckstroth's capacity to learn, it is also, in my view, a reflection of the underlying differences between the two methods: and I write that as someone who has played a very, very complex 2/1 method.

But now, in my mid-fifties, I'd opt for 2/1 because I am not sure that I can or want to learn a sufficiently complex big club method. And I am firmly of the view that a relatively simple 2/1 approach will beat a relatively simple big club method.... whereas a complex big club will beat a complex 2/1.

More importantly, I believe that difference in player skill is more important than difference in methods used. Both count:poor players using great methods will never beat good players playing reasonable methods, but if the quality of play is comparable, then methods will have an impact.

So I'd settle for a reasonable method, easy for me to remember, and focus on learning judgement from Soloway.

[TylerE]

Mike, I'd be curious in your evidence re: effectiveness of "simple" big club systems. It's been my expirience that even a fairly simple big club (say, plain jane precision, 2+ 1D, 13-15 NT, trump and control asks), will consistently outpreform or at worst equal a typical "club expert" 2/1 system. Also, the auctions you normally win big on are NOT the 1C auctions, but auctions like 2C (intermediate) - 3C - AP, 1M - 4M, etc. Tend to do pretty well on the 1C auctions too though.

[keylime]

Mike,

A question for you.

Age may have some degree of factor with regards to preference, but does locale help to dictate in essence, what isn't comfortable or playable with regards to general approach? And does this in turn help to reserve valuable brain cells for judgment and play?

[mikeh]

TylerE, on Aug 8 2007, 10:38 AM, said:

Mike, I'd be curious in your evidence re: effectiveness of "simple" big club systems. It's been my expirience that even a fairly simple big club (say, plain jane precision, 2+ 1D, 13-15 NT, trump and control asks), will consistently outpreform or at worst equal a typical "club expert" 2/1 system. Also, the auctions you normally win big on are NOT the 1C auctions, but auctions like 2C (intermediate) - 3C - AP, 1M - 4M, etc. Tend to do pretty well on the 1C auctions too though.

I am not discussing 'club expert' methods. The OP suggested playing with Soloway

Club experts are not, with all respect, very good players on the whole.

Club experts rarely know how to bid very well at all, regardless of method: they appear to be strong because they are more effective than the run-of-the-mill club player, and their mistakes don't cost because the opps don't know how to make them pay. In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

But the big club suffers from several theoretical and practical problems.

1. 1♣ is easy to preempt, because opener hasn't begun to show shape. Obviously, on many occasions the opps cannot preempt, because they lack the shape or because of vulnerability. But suction, psycho suction and other gadgets can be extremely effective. So we need compensatory benefits for when the opps stay out: our competitive auctions will be impaired compared to 2/1 so our constructive auctions need to be better. This requires much science.

2. 2♣ preempts our side. While the definition of the opening helps, the reality is that we are starting our bidding a full level higher than our 2/1 competition. That loss of bidding space outweighs the gain in definition on most hands.

3. Playing 5 card majors usually results in playing a catch-all 1♦ opening. This is a clear theoretical loss compared to the definition for a 1♦ opening in 2/1, especially if, as is common these days, the 2/1 bidders show 4+ diamonds (open 1♣ on 4=4=3=2). Playing 4 card majors solves this issue, to some degree, but 4 card major methods (which I have played in a big club context) have problems of their own: it is no surprise that most top players prefer 5 card major methods.

These problems cannot be 'overcome': they are integral to the method. So a big club must be sufficiently better than 2/1 on other aspects of bidding to offset this weakness. My experience suggests that a good 2/1 method is pretty good. So a good big club must be better than 'pretty good'. And to be better, it is necessary, in my view, for it to be very complex.

Making things far worse is the reality that most top level big club methods are home-grown. Whether they started life as Precision (as did Meckwell) or Schenken or Ultimate Club or Blue Team, etc, they are usually very idiosyncratic, while most 2/1 gadgets are relatively common knowledge.

For example, a few years ago I had the privilege of partnering Grant Baze, filling in for the client in the second half of knockouts. I learned a couple of gadgets he'd learned from the Poles on his then-regular big team. Other than that, as we filled out the card, I already knew all the gadgets he wanted to play. I doubt that I could have as easy a time with, say, a Rodwell or a Berkowitz, if I had suggested playing their preferred methods

[jtfanclub]

mikeh, on Aug 8 2007, 11:26 AM, said:

I am not discussing 'club expert' methods. The OP suggested playing with Soloway

Club experts are not, with all respect, very good players on the whole.

I think the biggest disadvantage of SAYC and 2/1 is that they're terrible at bidding slams. Both 2 clubs and 2NT pre-empt their own side, and the systems used even by strong players (edit: playing a slight variant of 2/1 or SA) after 1 of a suit don't impress me much for finding slam.

But the thing is, finding slam isn't a big deal if you're a 'club expert'. I can usually hold my own against the club experts, and every time I do something more fancy than a simple squeeze or a strip-and-throw I feel darned proud of myself, whereas a real expert is doing stuff routinely that I'd never consider. But if you don't know that stuff, then there isn't much point in bidding non-obvious slams, IMHO. If you don't have the tools to make it, why bid it?

Basic Precision isn't real good at bidding slams either- it does its best at finding low level part scores that SAYC and 2/1 blow past. But add a few relays and other baubles and it'll find all sorts of good slams that are hopeless for more standard systems.

In answer to the question, my first choice would be to learn a brand new system of theirs, second choice would be for them to learn a brand new system of mine. If I take existing SAYC or 2/1 as played with random BBO 'advanced' players and try to learn how to play it with their flavoring, I'll constantly be making "I thought everybody played it that way" mistakes, and I doubt they can reach down far enough to catch everything that they do slightly differently than the basic books do. On a brand new system, starting from scratch, I don't have to worry about that. They have to explain every bid, every auction, and I won't get confused about conflicting advice.

[helene_t]

I voted 2/1 because I have no idea what kinf of big club system Soloway plays, and I don't think Berkowitz/Manleys book is complete enough. If we agreed on BWS or BB-Advanced or such we would be able to manage. Or at least me forgetting the trump count would lose more IMPs than system oopses.

Given some time to make agreements I would probably prefer som sort of Precision so maybe I should change my vote.

That said I would (as in any partnership) like to keep system discussions to a minimum and focus on style issues, especially preempt style and overcall style.

[glen]

Soloway has played several big club systems, my fav being the Goldman-Soloway Attack system, not vul only. This had 8+ point openings.

You can assume for this scenario that Soloway can handle any non-relay big club system. He probably will not like switching to Polish Club, but he will pick it up pretty fast.

Btw thanks to everybody who has posted and/or voted, and thanks to those that will be

[Apollo81]

I'd play 2/1 when opps NV and strong club when opps Vul to improve my game on both fronts, and I think there's a reasonable amount of theoretical advantage for that anyway.

[pclayton]

I'll play Hamway club.

Its always a good policy to let the weaker player choose the system he's more comfortable with.

Just kidding.

[awm]

I'd choose a strong club, for some reasons that Mikeh may have missed. In particular:

There are substantial advantages to opening light, distributional hands. This is to such a degree that many top pairs have adopted multi 2♦ in order to open these hands with 2M, despite the fact that this is a high-variance tactic and occasionally a disaster when the hand is a misfit. The Poles were winning ridiculous numbers of imps using Wilcosz 2♦, an alternate (perhaps better) approach to multi for opening the same hands. Without these gadgets, I often see 2/1 players opening these sorts of hands at the one level, despite the fact that when no good fit materializes they often end in a very poor 3NT contract down multiple tricks. While we can debate the tradeoffs (gains vs. losses) from opening these hands, it seems clear that there are substantial gains to getting into the auction early with hands in the 8-11 point range holding 5-5 in two suits or 5-4 with concentrated values.

Playing a strong club allows us to open these sorts of hands at the one level, allowing us to find light fitting games, preempt the auction aggressively when a fit materializes, direct a lead from partner, reduce the comfort-level of opponents constructive auction, and maintain safety that the two-level opening lacks when no fit exists. Because the strong club limits opener's hand, we are much less likely to "hang ourselves" than 2/1 players opening these same cards at the one-level, and can play follow up methods that cater to the actual opening range we are using (something like 8-15 where the 8-10 counts are unbalanced with concentrated values in suits) rather than having to cope with a huge opening range (virtually 8-22 if we are opening concentrated 5-5 8s in a 2/1 base system). We essentially get all the advantages of the light opening style (and there are so many advantages that people are adopting this style even without the safeguard of a limited range) with almost none of the disadvantages. Also note that this sort of "win" requires very little complexity in terms of system; you simply discuss what opening range to expect and adjust your response structure by a few points to compensate.

As to the disadvantages Mike mentions, I think the weakness of the strong club opening when opponents intervene exists, but is somewhat overrated. The majority of strong club opening hands are balanced (no surprise, the majority of all hands are balanced). When opener holds a balanced 18 for example, we are much better placed after 1♣(strong) - interference than we are after 1♣(natural wide-ranging) - interference, because responder is prepared to take action on various intermediate range hands. For some more concrete examples, say the auction goes 1♣-2♠-P-P and opener has a flat 18. In standard bidding what do you even bid? 2NT could be a disaster but there are many hands in the 7-9 point range where partner has no bid over 2♠ opposite what is usually a weak notrump and game is excellent. In a strong club you are content to pass because you have the expected hand and partner's pass denies game interest. Even when partner bids, if the auction goes 1♣-2♠-3♥-P and you have a balanced 18 without a good heart fit (say 3-2-4-4) how happy are you? In a strong club you are content to bid 3NT (assuming a stopper) knowing that partner will bid on with suitable values for slam. With a natural system, you need to show the "extra values" in a sensible way but for many folks 4NT is keycard.... In any case, I agree that you often lose by playing a strong club when opener has a distributional hand and the opponents intervene, and it becomes harder to find your fit and compete the hand to the right level, and there is some disadvantage because opponents are allowed to use more disruptive methods (most events don't allow psycho-suction over a natural 1♣ opening), but you do win on the very frequent strong balanced hands.

The 2♣ opening, if it shows six clubs, seems to win more than it loses. The opponents are under a lot of pressure after this opening bid, and will often end up too high or in the wrong fit. If partner has a good hand you usually shut opponents out (takes more to overcall at the two-level than the one-level) and there is plenty of space to explore for game or slam efficiently because the 2♣ opening is so much more informative than a natural 1♣. There are occasional "mid-range" hands where you have trouble finding a major suit fit that the standard bidders are finding, but I think the competitive advantages of this bid are a net win. Consider how hard it is for partner to raise clubs in a standard auction after 1♣ (3+ or even 2+), and how easy it is for opponents to overcall 1M after this opening. You also get your hand off your chest in one call, and avoid issues like 1♣-1♠-P-2♠ and deciding whether to bid 3♣ on a minimum (partner could have three or even four clubs, but could also be broke, and the 3♣ bid carries such a wide range of values that partner may have difficult decisions after that call as well).

[glen]

Very good posting Adam, and hard to disagree with.

One reason for this poll was that after watching top events in recent years, I see the big 1♣ openings mostly getting a free ride. It seems to me if that is the case at the top levels then a big club is the better method to play there. However if playing at less-than-top levels, 2/1 is nice-and-easy.

[pbleighton]

Quote

One reason for this poll was that after watching top events in recent years, I see the big 1♣ openings mostly getting a free ride. It seems to me if that is the case at the top levels then a big club is the better method to play there. However if playing at less-than-top levels, 2/1 is nice-and-easy.

Of course, at less than top levels, the big club gets even more of a free ride.

Peter

[helene_t]

pbleighton, on Aug 9 2007, 12:24 AM, said:

Of course, at less than top levels, the big club gets even more of a free ride.

It's not only a question of level. It's a question of temper as well. The LOLs (well we are LOLs ourselves but don't consider ourselves as such) at the local club are so impressed by our 16 points that they don't look at their own cards but just pass. Letting us play our low-level partscores with 16+2 HCPs while they have a fit themselves.

The weirdoes on BBO, OTOH, always interfere. I'm not sure if an uncontested 1♣ auction has ever happened. +1100 on a partscore board is the record so far.

[kenrexford]

mikeh, on Aug 8 2007, 10:24 AM, said:

I know of no 2/1 method with anything like the level of detail that Meckwell uses in their agreements, and while that is (I assume) partly Rodwell's capacity for invention and Meckstroth's capacity to learn, it is also, in my view, a reflection of the underlying differences between the two methods: and I write that as someone who has played a very, very complex 2/1 method.

Oh, you might be surprised...

[glen]

I never heard of a more complex version of 2/1 than Mike's - it had everything and a kitchen sink too

[pbleighton]

Quote

Oh, you might be surprised...

So Ken, are you the Eric Rodwell of 2/1?

Peter