[Kungsgeten]

You who play Fantunes: what is your opinion of the 1C opening? Bill Jacobs write that it is the weakest opening bid, and I could see that compared to the other bids. However, how would you compare it against a "normal" short club (11+ clubs or balanced in two intervals)?

I'm curious about if a Fantunes 1C and 2C could be better than a normal 5-card major, short club system. How much does it help that opener can not have 11-13 with clubs? I've heard that the 2C opening is a winner.

1C = 14+ natural or 15+ bal, forcing
1D = Natural unbal, non-forcing, 4+ suit
1M = 5+ suit, non-forcing
1NT = 12-14, may be 4414
2C = 10-13, 5+ suit unbal
2D = GF, unbal and not clubs as longest suit
2M = Weak
2NT = 21-22

[Trigona]

Every system has its plusses and minuses. I think the main criticism of the Fantunes 1C is that it is prone to aggressive interference, as are the big club systems. I'm playing Fantunes atm and find it to be a fun, natural system that specializes in finding fits. This system has been put together by 2 of the best bridge brains in the business, if you don't like their 1C, then Fantunes is not for you.

[Free]

Fantunes 1♣ is a 2-way ♣ opening. Any balanced hand (except with 5 card M) is opened 1♣, as well as natural hands. In a normal 5-card M system it's not that extreme: ♣s can only be short in a balanced hand, but then you deny length in ♦ which is not the case in Fantunes. So yeah, you can't deny that the hand isn't described as good as in 'normal' systems.

But you have to look at systems as a whole. A convention that wins more than it loses is an ok convention. With Fantunes 1♣, you get an unbalanced 1♦ opening in return which allows you to describe your hand much better. Moreover, after 1♣ you have T-Walsh at your disposal which compensates a lot imo.

Personally I disagree that 1♣ is the worst opening. It's clearly defined and opener can quickly show his hand type afterwards. I'd rather say the 2-level openings are the worst openings for constructive purposes (while they're ok for preemptive purposes), and having to open 1NT when Vulnerable also gives you an occasional -800. After a 1♣ opening you don't get any disasters, but you do get them quite often after 2X openings and sometimes after 1NT.

[snillrik13]

In Fantunes Lite www.fanfantunes.n.nu I have modified the club openings to 1C = 16+(15)balanced or unbalanced, a jump to 3C after a 1C opening is Acol 8+ tricks, 2C opening is only a two-suiter C+M, 2D Multi can be a 6-carder in clubs 12-15 and 3C is a strong 6- or 7-carder containing 7 probable tricks. On top of this 1C-1X>2C is 22+ one step ahead of a "normal" 2C GF. All system is guided versus IMP play.
So the club gun is well loaded or?

[Jinksy]

I would agree it's the worst, but it's hard to be sure. According to Bill Jacobs' data about Fantunes openings, 1♦ is the big winner (unsurprising, since so infrequent), followed by the two-bids and the weak NT.

But at least the two-bids' success can be explained by their novelty - they're often a feature of competitive auctions, and opps haven't really got a sense (and perhaps not a good system) of how to deal with them. Meanwhile, for every fan of the two-bids, there's someone who thinks they're 'the price you pay' for such well-defined one-bids.

I think it's probably somewhere in between. Against weak-intermediate/advanced pairs, the two bids have been a huge source of income for us. Against stronger pairs, I think we've still benefited from them, but somewhat less so. The one-bids have a huge wealth of both benefits and drawbacks, and it's much harder to get a feel whether we've benefited on any given auction. When we seem to have done so, often it's more because we've got such a well-defined and practiced system than obviously because of systemic gains, per se. But of them, 1♣ is obviously the most ambiguous, which probably works to our detriment more than our benefit.

As for the OP system, IMO it's impossible to predict how these things will work without testing, so if you like the idea and have a willing P, by all means go for it.

For what it's worth (IMO), the 2♣ opener is at its strongest by far in third seat, where it can be 0-13, so if it's locally legal to do so, you might trial it there first, or fall back on it there only if you feel it's not working out elsewhere. For similar reasons, it's poor in second, so you might want to specifically exclude that.

An aside:
To me the Fantoni-Nunes natural 2N opening makes little sense. Such hands can be adequately described via a forcing 1-level opening, and there are several - more frequent - others that pose problems for this (albeit sometimes all) systems. For us, the 5-5 major hands have been problematic enough that we use it for them. This isn't an option for you if only your 1C bid is forcing though, at least unless you want to include 21-22 balanced hands with a 5cM in it.