[Poky]

1♣ - frequency 8.2% (79% strong, 21% weak)
- 17+ any
- 10-12 balanced with 5♠

1♦ - frequency 11.6%
- 14-16 any
- 5+M OK, 4M only if balanced

1♥ - frequency 9.2%
- 4♥, 10-16
- 11-13 if balanced
- frequent canape

1♠ - frequency 6.9%
- 4♠, 10-16
- 11-13 if balanced
- never 4♠4♥
- frequent canape

1NT - frequency 7.9%
- 10-13 balanced, no 4M
- 5♥(332) OK

2♣ - frequency 1.6%
- 6+♣ or 5♣ with shortness, 10-13
- usually without 4M

2♦ - frequency 1.9%
- 6+♦ or 5♦ with shortness, 10-13
- usually without 4M

2♥ - frequency 2.8%
- 6+♥ or 5♥ with shortness, 10-13
- no 4♠

2♠ - frequency 2.8%
- 6+♠ or 5♠ with shortness, 10-13
- no 4♥

2NT - frequency 0.6%
- 5♠5♥ / 6♠4♥ / 4♠6♥, 10-13

What do you think? It seems like a well balanced and fairly aggressive system. It opens 53.4% of hands on the 1st and 2nd level.

Is the 1♦ opening a big leak?

[PrecisionL]

I like it since it resembles two systems that I regularly play:

1♣ as Precision, 16+ unbalanced, 17+ balanced

1♦/1♥/1♠ = 6-cards or two suited canape (4-cd suit first)

1NT = 11-14 nV or 14-16 V

2♣ & 2♦ = 6-cds or 5-4 in the minors, no 4-cd Major

2♥/2♠ = 10-14 with good 5-cd suit, usually 5332 occasionally 5422

2NT = 5-5 minors and 8-14 depending on vulnerability

Edited 3/22/15: YES, your 1♦ Opening Bid is a big leak - too many distributions.

[WGF_Flame]

the 1♦ looks very bad to me. I think you took many ideas which individually could be right and decided to put all together which is a little mess.

[steve2005]

not thrilled with opening 1M on 10-13 balanced just cause you have 4-card major. Cant they just be opened 1N, your gonna be overbidding opening 1M unless you have really good and complicated followups.

[Kungsgeten]

I do not quite understand what kind of hands that open 1M. Is it only 11-13 bal and canape-hands? So the sequence 1H-1S; 2C would be 5+ clubs and 10-16? What would a rebid of the major be? I think the 1D opening could work, but I do not like it. It reminds me of the Magic Diamond 1C opening, which I've played in a forcing pass system. Your 1D is a bit more specific, but you start higher.

[Zelandakh]

Would it not be better to have 11-13 balanced with 4 hearts in 1NT and 10-13 balanced with 5 hearts in 1♥ than the other way around? It looks strange for 1NT to show 2, 3 or 5 hearts? I am not at all confident in the 1♦ opening. Normally a nebulous 1♦ opening is protected by the 4-4 major fits being found after a 1M response but here the major fit will often be 5-3. It might be ok but I would certainly want to test it thoroughly. The 2NT opening also feels like it will be a loser.

Asuming the response structure for 1♦ works though, it ought to be perfectly playable and the 1♣ opening should be easy to handle. I would suggest contacting hrothgar and awm too if they do not visit this thread in the next few days. They probably have more experience in playing methods like this than anyone here and can probably point out the potential pitfalls from theorycrafting more easily than the rest of us.

[wank]

magic diamond style intermediate 1m opening bids are terrible obviously

[gwnn]

Is there a reason why 14-16 with a major is a "problem hand"? Why do you want to put them into this awful contraption of 1♦?

[KurtGodel]

1D - (4S) - ???

[awm]

I'm not sure why people post these systems without any hint about what the continuations are supposed to be.

At first glance this one seems very bad to me. On the 14-16 hands, you are obviously quite a bit behind the field. There will be all sorts of trouble if opponents find a bid over 1♦, since opener can have basically anything. The upper limit of 16 doesn't really help you much -- you are basically in the same situation as if you opened a "14+" artificial bid, since responder will normally assume the minimum range in any case. Other posters have mentioned this issue already.

Okay, maybe we are supposed to be winning on the 10-13 hands and this is a "necessary evil" of sorts. But I wouldn't say this is so clear for the following reasons:

1. The 10-13 no-trump is a wider range than most people play, and also exposes you to lucrative penalties at vulnerable. Almost no one (and I think no good pairs) play this light of a no-trump at red. You will have problems on invitational sequences too because of the wide range.
2. The 10-13 2M openings on possibly five-card suits with no suit quality requirements are very randomizing. They will sometimes work out well, but they will also land you in the wrong partial fairly often. Yes I know Fantoni and Nunes play this, but it's more of a "necessary evil" in their system to get the benefits of sounder one-level openings and not where they expect to get their wins. Looking at their results you will see a lot of very bad boards because of these openings (along with some very good ones). The 2m openings are much better because they are much more commonly six and won't contain a four-card major.
3. The 5M-balanced hands seem like they are just thrown in random places. Over 1NT you might gain sometimes because opener cannot have a four-card major, so responder can pass some marginal hands with 4M, or blast 3NT instead of showing his own major(s), etc... except that opener can have a FIVE card heart suit so now you actually do need to have slow auctions and not pass with 4♥ and a marginal invite, etc. The five spades in 1♣ is potentially much worse, as discussed below.

Okay, what about 17+ hands? The 5♠-balanced hand is going to cause nightmares for you in competition. For example, say the auction starts 1♣-(2♥) and you have a simple hand like ♠x ♥xxx ♦KQxxx ♣Axxx. What do you do? If you are passing, this puts opener under a huge amount of pressure with 17-18 balanced (probably THE most common hand type). If you bid, how do you stay out of trouble when partner has a 5(322) 10-13? If your answer is something like "3♦ non-forcing" what do you do with another ace? Overall this seems really ugly; I'd expect you would do better by simply opening 1M on 5332 10-13 hands.

And this is also glossing over the 5-9 point hands with a long suit, where the field is opening a weak two bid (or multi, whatever) and you have no opening at all! These are surely a potential loss as well.

In general I think people who design systems like this are overly addicted to point counting. To give a simple problem, suppose partner opens 2♠ in your system and you hold:

♠Qxx ♥Kxxx ♦Kx ♣Jxxx

Bid or pass? It seems like passing is normal; partner could hold some ♠AKJxx ♥x ♦QJxx ♣Qxx which is quite max and 3♠ requires luck (with 4♠ hopeless). Okay, what if partner has: ♠AKxxxx ♥xx ♦Axxx ♣x? Didn't I just miss a really good game? Note that these hands aren't real hard after 1♠-Pass-2♠ in standard or precision (opener makes a game try on the 6-4 and passes on the flatter hand).

Okay, maybe opener is supposed to start with 1♦ on the second hand? But this will get you too high opposite many hands without a good spade fit, like say ♠xx ♥AKxx ♦xxx ♣KJxx, where 4♠ really has no chance and 3NT needs a huge amount of luck.

It seems better to deal with a slightly wider range of points (since you are going to have to adjust based on fit anyway) and show your suits right away on a larger fraction of hands. And keep in mind this advice is from someone who loves strong club systems and plays them all the time; likely fans of "natural" systems will have even more extreme views in this regard.

[steve2005]

amen