[jdonn]

I have seen this referred to by Richard many times. Can someone summarize for me, or maybe even link me to a prior thread?

[mike777]

http://homepage.mac.com/bridgeguys/CGlossa...rotskiClub.html


http://www.geocities...dge/carrot.html

[jdonn]

How is interference dealt with? My first instinct is that I would be far more inclined to interfere over such an opening as this 1♣, not less inclined.

[awm]

This opening structure is basically the same as "Swedish Club" which Kyle and Melissa Mattes play in the LA area (I'm sure jdonn played against them when he lived here).

As in most "Polish Club" style systems, the situation is basically:

(1) You can't go crazy with destructive methods over their club, because they will often have a weak notrump in which case it could easily be your hand for game. Bidding 2♠ psycho-suction (for example) is much more likely to be disastrous than over an "always-strong" 1♣ opening. Basically you need to have a way to get to a reasonable contract when it's "your hand" which it often is.

(2) When you do bid over their club, they are often worse placed than when you bid over a precision club, because responder doesn't know what opener has. So for example, after 1♣-2♠-P-P, if the 1♣ is strong opener can pass it out with a balanced 17 (that's the expected hand after all) whereas if 1♣ is "11-13 balanced or 16+" opener may have to act in the same situation. Of course, standard bidders are in much the same boat when they have the "big balanced hand."

(3) The "solution" to this problem for the opening side is to play negative free bids. Obviously this has its strengths and weaknesses, but the idea is that responder can bid with "intermediate hands" and that this call is NF opposite the weak notrump but GF opposite the 16+. This certainly helps some, but negative free bids have their own set of strengths and weaknesses.

[mike777]

"In this system, the otherwise strong 1 opening is protected by a weak balanced hand. This prevents excessive preempting by the opponents. The price is that responder does not know what kind of hand partner has. "

http://www.tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de/~di...dge/carrot.html

If you can read this WBF CC....this may help?

http://www.ecatsbridge.com/documents/files...nlon-mcgann.pdf

[brianshark]

I don't play carrot but it I play polish which is probably a slightly more complicated variant of it.

Basically the idea is that because there is a big difference between opener's 2 types of hands (11-13 balanced and the 17+) the opener almost always passes at next possible opportinity when holding the weak balanced hand (which is also the most common holding) but makes another noise in the bidding holding 17+.

I agree with the suggestion that non-forcing new suit responses by responder are useful because they take the pressure off opener to say something else when holding the weak NT.

This makes it relatively safe for opener to pass with the weak NT and it's also fairly safe to bid on holding the 17+ hand because of the substantial extra strength.

Agreements regarding bidding on can actually be fairly intuitive. Cheapest NT can be 17-20 balanced, new suits can be natural and 17-20 or thereabouts (allows p to pass with garbage). With stronger hands you can be required to double first which will initially be assumed to be take-out oriented, or cue-bid which might be a two-suiter or just some big game force hand depending on what you want to agree.

And responder doesn't have too much of a problem because he can just assume partner has the 11-13 hand safe in the knowledge that partner is compelled to say something else with the 17+ hand.

[ASIDE]
The polish 1♣ should in theory be more susceptible to pre-emption because the 15+ with ♣s variant isn't that far from either weak NT or 18+ and because of that, opener has to guess whether it's safe to come in with only a 15/16 count over heavy-pre-emption and therefore responder can't be sure opener doesn't have more than a weak NT.

However, in practice I have found that the 15+ with clubs hand comes up remarkably few times compared to other variants, and I can't remember ever actually having an unconfortable auction after me or my p holding that hand with opps pre-empting. I'm sure it will some day though.
[/ASIDE]

[david_c]

brianshark, on Nov 29 2007, 10:45 AM, said:

However, in practice I have found that the 15+ with clubs hand comes up remarkably few times compared to other variants, and I can't remember ever actually having an unconfortable auction after me or my p holding that hand with opps pre-empting. I'm sure it will some day though.

Yeah, same here.

[david_c]

awm, on Nov 29 2007, 12:06 AM, said:

(3) The "solution" to this problem for the opening side is to play negative free bids. Obviously this has its strengths and weaknesses, but the idea is that responder can bid with "intermediate hands" and that this call is NF opposite the weak notrump but GF opposite the 16+. This certainly helps some, but negative free bids have their own set of strengths and weaknesses.

Well, the whole world plays negative free bids after a 1NT opening (say 1NT : (2♦) - now 2M is NF). Sure there are strengths and weaknesses of NFBs, but nobody seriously suggests that you should play 1NT : (2♦) : 2♥ as natural and forcing. Since a Swedish/Polish 1♣ shows a balanced hand in the weak option, this is what you should be comparing it to.

[MickyB]

As far as I know, "Swedish Club" and "Carrot Club" are names referring to systems with a 1♣ opening that is either 11-13 bal or a strong hand, with natural openings from 1♦ to 2♣. It's possible that one or both names refer to a more specific system than this.

As others have noted, Swedish Club and Polish Club are basically different takes on the same principle - the 1♣ opening "shows" a weak no-trump - with Swedish being the simpler.

Most view this as a way to limit the 1M openings without being exposed to purely destructive interference over a strong club, but that's not the main reason to play it IMO. Basically, it's like having two 1NT openings, which has the side effect of allowing you to show your genuine minor suit immediately when you hold an unbalanced hand.

Say you are playing Std American, or, for a closer comparison, a short club that is opened even with 4♦2♣. As in Swedish Club, partner is very likely to have a weak no-trump when he opens 1♣. Say you hold xx KJTxx Axxx xx, or one of many other hands of this sort of strength with a five- or six-card suit. IMO it is clear that you want to compete in hearts, not least to consult with partner whether to compete to 3♥ over 2♠, but if you play this sequence as forcing you may well get too high. It also makes further bidding difficult when partner has to cater to you holding this hand. So, many play NFBs or transfers, but, as Adam says, this has its own set of problems - in a natural system. What is partner to do with a minimum 3145? 3136? 4036? What about those same patterns, but medium strength? Or GF strength? If you play NFBs, how do you handle the strong hands? Jumping is very space consuming, but if you double first you may find a preemptive raise leaves you with a difficult decision.

Playing Swedish Club, you have no such problems. You get to compete, safely assuming that partner holds a weak no-trump. If it turns out he doesn't, you'll have GF values and a natural auction. If you decide to jump in order to show your unbalanced GF, you won't miss the space nearly so much - partner's handtype will quickly become obvious, and if he doesn't hold the weak no-trump you expected you will have almost slam-forcing values.

Above all, it's simple. I've played it (a cut-down version, obviously) with intermediates who knew nothing about the system until 15 minutes before we started playing, and we had a perfectly reasonable game.

The main decision to make with regard to the opening bids is what to open on 4414, and similarly 4405 and (43)15. It's most common to play a 2♦ or 2♥ opening showing a three-suiter short in diamonds. Some prefer to open four-card majors on these hands, and it's not ridiculous to treat 4414 (and the odd (43)15) as balanced and open the others 2♣.

The biggest disadvantage, IMO, is the wide range of the natural 2♣ opening. Polish Club attempts to solve this by putting the upper end of this range into the 1♣ opening, which is arguably superior; However, it is clearly more complicated, as now you need to cater to occasionally getting out in a part-score when opener has this intermediate hand with clubs and responder has a minimum hand for his NFB or takeout double.

Unlike most Polish Club variants, 1♣:2♣ and 1♣:2♦ are usually played as natural and NF, so other two-level bids are used in some combination to show stronger hands with the minor suits.

Most versions I've seen specify that the strong hands start at 17 points, not 16, although it seems right to "upgrade" a lot of 16 counts with clubs to a 1♣ opening.

[awm]

There is still a lot of potential to get really stuck. I think the point is that the standard bidders are often in the same boat because their 1♣ is also frequently a weak notrump. But strong clubbers will typically be better off. A few examples:

1♣ - 3♦ - ???

If 3♥ is non-forcing, what do you do with a game-forcing heart hand? Most people do play that 3♥ is forcing in the auction 1NT-3♦ because the range of hands where you want to play in exactly 3♥ is quite narrow. But here, what happens if you have an intermediate heart hand and opener has the strong option? If 3♥ is forcing you have to pass, and opener may well punt 3NT or bid 3♠ leaving you poorly placed to ever show your heart suit. In a strong club system there's no problem since we know opener has a strong hand. In a natural system you are potentially stuck, but at least you have more distributional inferences about opener's hand.

1♣-3♦-P-P

Say opener has a balanced 18-count. Partner could easily be broke (he wouldn't bid) and you could go for a number in 3NT. But partner could also have some random 10-count that has no real interest in competing over 3♦ opposite our typical balanced 12. Basically we're stuck here. Playing a strong club, partner would always act with a 10-count and since a balanced 18 is basically our "expected" big club opening we are happy to pass. Of course, you have the same problem in "standard bidding" when you open 1♣ with a balanced 18, but at least you are a bit more likely to have takeout double shape (i.e. you would've opened 1♦ with diamond length in a balanced hand) and you might be safer to try bidding a four-card major (since you can't really have five, partner will take you for 4M-5♣ and not for 6M).

1♣-2♦-P-P

When you have the "big hand" and takeout shape, there is not a real problem here (you double). But if you have a weak notrump you're basically forced to pass. The field may well balance into a making 2M partial, with partner holding some random 9-count opposite our 12-count. It also creates a problem that partner can't "penalty pass" since he knows you can't reopen with 12 hcp even if you have ideal (43)24 shape. If you'd opened 1NT (any range) you could easily double in balancing seat after 1NT-2♦(NAT)-P-P since partner basically knows what you have.

1♣-1♠-X-4♠

Here the double could be a negative double, or any game forcing hand opposite the weak notrump. Say opener has the strong hand. He knows we have game values, but has no real information about our overall strength (could be 17 opposite 8 for a negative double or 17 opposite 15 for a GF double) nor about our shape (GF double could be almost any pattern at all). It will be difficult to make the right decisions, and you could easily end up defending 4♠X when cold for a minor suit slam (for example) on a hand where the natural bidders would start 1♦-1♠-2♠(good raise)-4♠ and the big clubbers start 1♣-1♠-2♦(NAT GF)-4♠, leaving both of them better placed since at least one person on the opening side knows of the big fit in diamonds. In fact you don't even have a forcing pass available, since a pass could be based on a weak notrump and partner's double doesn't guarantee game values opposite that.

[MickyB]

awm, on Nov 29 2007, 10:17 PM, said:

There is still a lot of potential to get really stuck. I think the point is that the standard bidders are often in the same boat because their 1♣ is also frequently a weak notrump. But strong clubbers will typically be better off.

Yeah, it's much easier to compare Swedish Club with a short club system - as you say, they are usually in the same boat. Sure, you can point out hands where strong clubs will do better, but there are also many where strong clubs fare badly - the closest comparison would be with Precision with a 14-16 no-trump, which is at a big disadvantage on any hand that it opens 1D.

While 1NT-(3D)-3H may be forcing in standard, that is partly because 1NT is strong, so the frequency of a GF hand is greater than that of a competitive hand. The balance shifts when opener is 11-13. When you take into consideration that opener will sometimes have a 17+ hand, reducing responder's expected strength, it's better to play 1C-(3D)-3H as NF in Swedish Club on frequency grounds IMO.

[MickyB]

Rather hasty post last night.

*In some ways* it's easier to compare Swedish with a short club, but comparing it with Precision can't be that hard - after all, the 1H/1S/1N/2C openings are the same or similar.

Precision has a slight edge on the hands that it opens 1H/1S/2C due to the narrower range.

Precision performs much worse on any hand that it opens 1D.

There will be some gains each way on the strong hands. Swedish will tend to face less aggressive preemption. Precision will do better on the situations you mentioned below - although I think you overstate the problems somewhat.

Quote

1♣-3♦-P-P

Say opener has a balanced 18-count. Partner could easily be broke (he wouldn't bid) and you could go for a number in 3NT. But partner could also have some random 10-count that has no real interest in competing over 3♦ opposite our typical balanced 12.

If you have length in diamonds, it's a safe assumption that partner won't have a seven count - he didn't double for takeout and he didn't make a NFB. If you do have a hand on which you need to bid 3NT, it's unlikely the opponents will be able to double you.

Quote

1♣-1♠-X-4♠

Here the double could be a negative double, or any game forcing hand opposite the weak notrump.

Not *any* GF - even if you use NFBs rather than xfers at the two-level, you still have 2S and above to show various GF hands.

So, while I'm prepared to believe that strong clubbers tend to do better when they open 1♣, it's not close to the losses they experience when opening 1♦.

[brianshark]

After an auction like 1♣-(2♦)-P-P a Dbl can and should still just be re-opening. One of the exceptions to opener taking another action to show the strong variant. So we should find our 3-5 and 4-4 2M partscores at least as much as the natural system will.

[jdonn]

brianshark, on Dec 1 2007, 08:41 AM, said:

After an auction like 1♣-(2♦)-P-P a Dbl can and should still just be re-opening. One of the exceptions to opener taking another action to show the strong variant. So we should find our 3-5 and 4-4 2M partscores at least as much as the natural system will.

So a balanced 17 opposite a nothing hand has to reach the 3 level, in what isn't even a sure fit? Or must a random 8 jump over the double opposite a potential 11-13?

[MickyB]

jdonn, on Dec 1 2007, 04:44 PM, said:

brianshark, on Dec 1 2007, 08:41 AM, said:

After an auction like 1♣-(2♦)-P-P a Dbl can and should still just be re-opening. One of the exceptions to opener taking another action to show the strong variant. So we should find our 3-5 and 4-4 2M partscores at least as much as the natural system will.

So a balanced 17 opposite a nothing hand has to reach the 3 level, in what isn't even a sure fit? Or must a random 8 jump over the double opposite a potential 11-13?

I'm not sure whether it's best to allow 11-13 bal to reopen or not; However, the issues aren't too different from a natural system. If anything, you are better placed here than if you were playing 14-16 NT and five-card majors.

[Tcyk]

awm, on Nov 29 2007, 09:17 PM, said:

There is still a lot of potential to get really stuck. I think the point is that the standard bidders are often in the same boat because their 1♣ is also frequently a weak notrump. But strong clubbers will typically be better off. A few examples:

1♣ - 3♦ - ???

If 3♥ is non-forcing, what do you do with a game-forcing heart hand? Most people do play that 3♥ is forcing in the auction 1NT-3♦ because the range of hands where you want to play in exactly 3♥ is quite narrow. But here, what happens if you have an intermediate heart hand and opener has the strong option? If 3♥ is forcing you have to pass, and opener may well punt 3NT or bid 3♠ leaving you poorly placed to ever show your heart suit. In a strong club system there's no problem since we know opener has a strong hand. In a natural system you are potentially stuck, but at least you have more distributional inferences about opener's hand.

1♣-3♦-P-P

Say opener has a balanced 18-count. Partner could easily be broke (he wouldn't bid) and you could go for a number in 3NT. But partner could also have some random 10-count that has no real interest in competing over 3♦ opposite our typical balanced 12. Basically we're stuck here. Playing a strong club, partner would always act with a 10-count and since a balanced 18 is basically our "expected" big club opening we are happy to pass. Of course, you have the same problem in "standard bidding" when you open 1♣ with a balanced 18, but at least you are a bit more likely to have takeout double shape (i.e. you would've opened 1♦ with diamond length in a balanced hand) and you might be safer to try bidding a four-card major (since you can't really have five, partner will take you for 4M-5♣ and not for 6M).

1♣-2♦-P-P

When you have the "big hand" and takeout shape, there is not a real problem here (you double). But if you have a weak notrump you're basically forced to pass. The field may well balance into a making 2M partial, with partner holding some random 9-count opposite our 12-count. It also creates a problem that partner can't "penalty pass" since he knows you can't reopen with 12 hcp even if you have ideal (43)24 shape. If you'd opened 1NT (any range) you could easily double in balancing seat after 1NT-2♦(NAT)-P-P since partner basically knows what you have.

1♣-1♠-X-4♠

Here the double could be a negative double, or any game forcing hand opposite the weak notrump. Say opener has the strong hand. He knows we have game values, but has no real information about our overall strength (could be 17 opposite 8 for a negative double or 17 opposite 15 for a GF double) nor about our shape (GF double could be almost any pattern at all). It will be difficult to make the right decisions, and you could easily end up defending 4♠X when cold for a minor suit slam (for example) on a hand where the natural bidders would start 1♦-1♠-2♠(good raise)-4♠ and the big clubbers start 1♣-1♠-2♦(NAT GF)-4♠, leaving both of them better placed since at least one person on the opening side knows of the big fit in diamonds. In fact you don't even have a forcing pass available, since a pass could be based on a weak notrump and partner's double doesn't guarantee game values opposite that.

Most sane people play negative free bids at the two level, not at the three level. It is completely unrelated to responses after 1NT interference because the 1NT opener is strictly limited as strength and shape.

The hardest part about negative free bids is the pressure that a pass places on the opening bidder. Pass is virtually forcing. It can be made with a strong hand or a weak hand. You have to play your negative doubles a little differently to take some of the pressure off of opener. We played (Peter Rossi and I) that a new suit after making a negative double showed a GF hand Most people seem to reverse this meaning.

... and this has nothing to do with Carrot Club.

[Free]

I wonder who all these sane people are... Negative freebids are not soooo obviously the better choice!