[bd71]

I have never used a strong club system, having exclusively played Standard American or 2/1. However, a sometimes partner is urging me to do so for our matches going forward.

A few questions:

1. Are there specific strong club systems that are better for people totally new to this general approach? If so, which are they?

2. His preferred approach uses a strong 1C and an ultra-strong (23+ or equivalent) 2C opener. He thought this was based on the Blue Team Club system, but I don't believe that is true. Are there significant strong club systems that use this ultra-strong approach for 2C? Is it recommended?

3. Any other advice for a strong club novice?

[helene_t]

I know a pair (tsevniuk/hellh on bbo) that play such a system but it strikes me as unsound. There are many problems with the strong club opening but bidding the ultra-strong hands is not the most significant one, if only because they don't come up frequently enough. You might want to put some awkward strong hands into the 2♦ opening (for example, in Sontag's "Power Precision" a 2♦ opening is a strong 4441) and you might want to play a natural 2NT, but there is no reason to limit the 1♣ opener to 22 (or anything else) and you need a way to show 11-15 points with 6 clubs - and a 2♣ opening is the most convenient one to use for those hands.

Berkowitz/Manley's book "Precision Today" is suitable for you, I think. You should almost certainly play mainstream precision, if only because it is something familiar to many experts you will encounter (here on the forum, or when watching Asian matches on bbo vugraph). So you will find it easy to get help from the forum if you play soemthing like Berkowitz/Manley.

[hrothgar]

From my perspective, the best book out there for learning Precision is (probably) Precision in the 90s by Barry Rigal...
If you ignore everything on relay methods its a pretty good book.

FWIW, the only systems I know that use both 1♣ and 2♣ as strong, artificial, and forcing are some old fashioned Polish Club offshoots )and there the 1♣ opening is usually a weak NT)

[Zelandakh]

I always loved playing against Goff and Helen, not only because they are both very pleasant but also because Goff's system is so open to disruption. I believe Goff based the system on one South America but I cannot remember exactly what he told me about it now. I would not recommend this method.

For a complete beginner to strong club there is something to be said for simply playing everything natural. There is a problem with that in showing extras after a 1♣ opening though so adding a general relay step for this is quite helpful. One sensible option is for the responses to 1♣ all to be GF transfers with a 1♦ negative. If Opener now bids the first step it shows 19+ whereas anything else is 16-18. This (mostly) solves the problem and allows you to play a very natural system outside of this. To some extent it depends just how much "system" you are willing to learn here.

One thing I would recommend is to spend at least as much time working through continuations after the 1♣ opening gets overcalled as for uncontested auctions. This is absolutely vital to getting the most out of a strong club system - playing a strong club system without fairly detailed agreements for competition is arguably a loser. You should also spend alot of time familiarising yourself with the response structure for a (weak, natural) 2♣ opening. This is the part of the system that is often gives the most difficulties for newcomers.

Above all you should expect to make some mistakes for a while. Your partner should be expecting this too. If you are not willing to go through this stage then better to stick with 2/1 and adapt it to be closer to a strong club system (unbalanced diamond, weak NT, etc) or go with a hybrid system like Polish/Swedish/Unassuming Club.

[blackshoe]

If I remember correctly, Ron Klinger's Power system uses a strongish 1♣ opening with a 2♣ rebid showing the 'ultra-strong' hand. I don't recall a system that uses both 1♣ and 2♣ openings like that. Power is pretty complicated - and closer to Polish Club than Precision.

Berkowitz/Manley is a good recommendation for modern Precision. I'd start slow, adding stuff from the latter half of the book only after gaining familiarity with the system.

Alternatively, you could try Romex (very much like 2/1, except there are four strong opening bids: 1NT (which is artificial), 2♣, 2♦, and 2NT (natural, but GF). See Godfrey's Bridge Challenge, by George Rosenkranz and Philip Alder.

[straube]

I like Zelandakh's approach. I would make your strong club start at 17 if balanced or 16 unbalanced.

1C-1D (0-7)
.....1N-17-19

1C-1D,
.....1H-1S(0-4)
..........1N-20-21

1C-1D,
.....1H-1S
..........2C-2D-GF
.............2H-third negative
..................suits are 1-rd forcing
..................2N-GF

1C-1D,
.....1H-1S
..........2N-22-23

[akhare]

bd71, on 2012-January-09, 05:59, said:

1. Are there specific strong club systems that are better for people totally new to this general approach? If so, which are they?

2. His preferred approach uses a strong 1C and an ultra-strong (23+ or equivalent) 2C opener. He thought this was based on the Blue Team Club system, but I don't believe that is true. Are there significant strong club systems that use this ultra-strong approach for 2C? Is it recommended?

Regarding 1), I would suggest start off with fairly vanilla system with a couple of small tweaks:

1♣: 16+ any
1♦: 2+, 11-13 bal OR three suited, including hands with 5♣, 4M
1♥ / 1s = 5+
1N: 14-16
2♣: 6+ clubs -> IMO, this is a big improvement over the 5♣+4M or 6+♣
2♦ = short ♦,4414, 4405, (43)15

Over 1♣, you can either play standard responses (1♦ = 0-7 any, suit = GF) or can add small tweaks like transfers, i.e., 1♥ = ♠ GF, 1♠ = bal GF, 1N = ♥ GF, 2♣ = ♦ GF and 2♦ = clubs GF.

In this regard, my preference would be to just treat 4441 as a balanced hand and ignore the classic "impossible negative" in the 1♦ response.

It also worthwhile to discuss interference over 1♣ and over 1♣ - 1♦. A simple scheme here might be that over 1♣ interference, X shows 5-7 any or bal 8+ without a stopper in their suit and everything else is natural GF.

The only equivalent for #2 off the top my head is the 2♦ bid in Marshal Miles' Unbalanced ♦ system. FWIW, IMO, more than one strong opening bids in a 1♣ system is real waste and you are much better off playing 2♣ as showing ♣.

Reading some of the book mentioned by other posters is highly recommended as well and you can always post here with further questions or trying pinging some of us on BBO...

[PrecisionL]

bd71, on 2012-January-09, 05:59, said:

I have never used a strong club system, having exclusively played Standard American or 2/1. However, a sometimes partner is urging me to do so for our matches going forward.

A few questions:

1. Are there specific strong club systems that are better for people totally new to this general approach? If so, which are they?

Berkowitz - Cohen were very successful using natural G.F. responses to 1♣ (1♦ = negative). I have used their system for several years.

Quote

2. His preferred approach uses a strong 1C and an ultra-strong (23+ or equivalent) 2C opener. He thought this was based on the Blue Team Club system, but I don't believe that is true. Are there significant strong club systems that use this ultra-strong approach for 2C? Is it recommended?

Not recommended, but both the Millennium Club (Lyle Poe) and the Simplified Club (Larry Weiss) used a 2♣ rebid after a 1♦ response as G.F. asking for Controls.

Quote

3. Any other advice for a strong club novice?

You need some way to handle the 20+ hcp hands (some 19s also). One method is to have the 1♥ rebid by 2-way: (a) 5+ ♥, or (b) any 20+ hcp hand (or 4-losers) and responder rebids 1♠ without an A or K. You might want to leave this out until you have more experience.

Be sure and have agreements on how to handle interference over the 1♣ opening. For beginners use pass = 0-4, X = 5-8, and NT or suit with 9+ hcp (some 8s are worth a positive response: A + A, K + KQ)

[Cthulhu D]

Zelandakh, on 2012-January-09, 09:27, said:

One thing I would recommend is to spend at least as much time working through continuations after the 1♣ opening gets overcalled as for uncontested auctions. This is absolutely vital to getting the most out of a strong club system - playing a strong club system without fairly detailed agreements for competition is arguably a loser.

IMHO spend even more time. I've just wheeled out meckwell lite precision with a new partner (him both new to the game and playing his first sessions of duplicate ever and me with maybe 4 months experince of 2/1 GF), and on the beginner's night 75%+ of our strong club auctions have been contested. It might even be higher than that, that's a low ball estimate. The majority of interference is at the two or three level (weak 2 style bids and the the occassional bezerk pre-empt).

It's a key area to be confident in, our disasters here have been very expensive.

Edit: the super strong 2C opening sounds terrible though, I'm not even sure what the point is. http://bridgewithdan.com/systems/ has a bunch of good stuff. I liked the super precision notes just because it does have lots of obvious bidding sequences which is great when you are starting out in bridge and it's honestly not that obvious.

[mycroft]

Playing a strong club system (of any sort) means you're learning *3* systems:
- when you don't open 1♣
- when you do open 1♣ and they pass
- when you open 1♣ and they interfere.

The good news is that each system is a fair bit easier than learning a "standard" system.
The bad news is that each of the three require pretty much the same amount of work to learn/remember/practise.

Of all of them, the second - 1♣-P-... is the least likely to be used (although it will be the one where you're making slam decisions most often - not necessarily "most of your slam decisions", but "more of the time you have this auction you're in slam territory than the other two").

Don't let the beauty of the 1♣-P- auctions siren-song you away from the other stuff.

[Free]

If you're switching to strong ♣, my advice is to use a simple structure to start with (akhare's structure is very good). This way you can learn some basic implications about openings.

You can recycle your current 1M structure (perhaps even simplify it), similar for your 1NT and 2NT structures, and you can use natural responses over 1♣ (and again recycling your NT structures). After 1♦-2m you can bid natural to start with. This won't be optimal, but it will keep things easy and you'll get a feel with the system.

Note however that playing strong ♣ efficiently requires a lot of work! So you'll have to analyze your results, look at what others do, and modify your system quite a lot.

[WrecksVee]

FWIW Marshall Miles' book "The Unbalanced Diamond" used a forcing but limted 1♣ with a major oriented artificial 2♣and a very strong 2♦. I have never met anyone who has tried the system.

I think trying a simple natural version is a good way to begin. The limited one bids alone are a great advantage and make many hands simpler than standard bidding. If you find you like the basic structure than you can look to add more. Jumping back to the past and using CC Wei's first book or some that came shortly after might be more useful for a simple approach to test if this is a system that appeals.

For Christmas I got a copy of Klingers' "PRO System" This is a Polish Club style "little club" system not related to the strong club approach. A another little club approach is An Unassuming Club. I like this last one as I prefer a weak NT but again it is not a strong club approach.

[hrothgar]

Few additional comments

1. From my perspective, the only reason to play strong club is the benefits accrued from the limited openings.

I'd argue that the natural starting point is understanding how/why you are going to generate enough good results from these openings to make up for the great "pile of fail" that is the strong club opening.

2. As other people have noted, your competitors are going to be bidding like crazy over your strong club. Half the time they'll be using a conventional overcall strcuture.
The other half they be playing "natural" methods but psyching spade suits and the like left, right, and center.

From a pure frequency perspective, you probably should be spending more time working on your agreements during contested auctions rather than uncontested...

[JLOGIC]

It seems like only bad players actually bid as much as people think over strong club systems. Just play for penalties very often against these people. It might become a higher variance game but I have no problem with guys who will overcall 2H over a strong club vulnerable with KJxxxx and a queen or something, you will get huge penalties frequently.

But I agree that going through the experience of knowing what to do when they are interfering frequently over strong club is important, as well as knowing your methods. Just remember you can change your requirements for trapping, if you have 4 reasonable trumps and know that you have 23+ points or whatever don't be scared at all to defend doubled. Also, if they overcall at the 3 level they force you to guess a lot in auctions like 1C 3S X p ? just guess to pass a lot. Passing with Hxx or 3 small is not infrequent. Basically they are making it very hard for you to bid reasonably with that bid, all you know is that you hve game going values. Well, if they are making this bid at all frequently you can just choose to defend, after all with game going values you are going to beat them and they usually have some sick hands. As a result of this you will also force them to bid less, or just go for numbers a lot. Sometimes you will get burned, but overall you are going to come out ahead, especially if you are defending well.

[blackshoe]

WrecksVee, on 2012-January-10, 11:39, said:

For Christmas I got a copy of Klingers' "PRO System" This is a Polish Club style "little club" system not related to the strong club approach. A another little club approach is An Unassuming Club. I like this last one as I prefer a weak NT but again it is not a strong club approach.

Are you referring to his "Power" system, published back in the 1990s, I believe, or is this something new?

[PrecisionL]

hrothgar, on 2012-January-09, 06:23, said:

From my perspective, the best book out there for learning Precision is (probably) Precision in the 90s by Barry Rigal...
If you ignore everything on relay methods its a pretty good book.

FWIW, the only systems I know that use both 1♣ and 2♣ as strong, artificial, and forcing are some old fashioned Polish Club offshoots )and there the 1♣ opening is usually a weak NT)

Breakthrough Club, 1974 used 1♣ (17-21) and 2♣ (20+ hcp or 4 losers) as artificial forcing bids.

Breakthrough in Bridge, 1974, Sundby, Cohen, Katz.

Bridge in the 80s, 1984, Sundby.

[Cyberyeti]

I play precision very infrequently with one partner and we like playing it with a 4+ diamond and 12-15 NT, this is a very gentle introduction to a strong club from Acol/SA or 2/1.

[whereagles]

Ok, now for some pragmatic tips.

1. Take advantage of precision's limited openers and don't do any daisy-picking. Meaning:

AKQJxxx
xxx
xx
x

1♦ ..??

In a standard system you might want to bid 1♠ to leave room for some exploration. Opposite a 11-15 opener, slam is quite unlikely. So bid 4♠ right away, before LHO manages to bid some clubs at a low level.

2. If your strong club gets overcalled, be practical, not perfectionist. Example:

Axx
AQT9xx
x
KQJ

1♣ (2♠) dbl (pass)
??

Dbl = just 5-7 H, not strictly take-out.

Maybe a plain 4♥ is best. Suit is ok, maybe the singleton helps. 3♥ would be too pessimistic.

[the_clown]

A basic strong club system can look like:

1♣ 16+

Followups - new suit natural 8+ HCP
1N 8+ bal -> 2♣ stayman

1M 5+
1♦ 2+
1N 14-16
2♣ 6+ or 5♣4M


The things worth discussing are IMO what to do after interference against 1♣ and some basic folloups after 2♣ and 2♦.

Strong club is fun to play because you open a lot and with partner being limited it makes slam bidding easier and more natural for a beginner.

By the way I dont think the system matters, the most important thing is that the person that plays it likes it and enjoys playing it. As he improves and starts to understand the game better I am sure he will improve the system as well.