[keithhus]

advice would be appreciated.
At the club I am playing at (acol) many pairs open a club and announce 12-19 pts. I assume it could be a natural bid but may not. Openers partner responds a suit and a points range is announced. Neither bid appears to be natural. I assume this is precision club. I find this a bit disconcerting. To date I have over called in the normal manner if I have sufficient points /cards but passed if I have the suit bid - e.g clubs.
Could anyone tell me of a counter system I could use that can similarly confuse the opposition? Thanks

[mgoetze]

You should make less assumptions.

[steve2005]

Not Precision that's 16+ pts.

To open on all 0-19 pt hands would be unusual, more likely its 11-19 or 13-19. Opening on 0 pts would cause major problems.

If they are using 0-19 I would just overcall as normal, their system will likely not work very well.

[Vampyr]

This system is pretty whack. To devise a defense against it one would need to know the shape constraints of the 1♣ opening bid, whether they really open all 0-counts within the required strength, whether the bid is forcing, and what exactly the responses mean.

[Vampyr]

steve2005, on 2015-April-13, 13:27, said:

If they are using 0-19 I would just overcall as normal, their system will likely not work very well.

Crossed this post. I would overcall a lot more frequently than normal.

[straube]

If it's 0-19 I would play my normal opening structure. Ideally that would be some sort of strong club structure and dbl would promise 16+. 0-19 is almost as if they hadn't opened at all so treat it that way. No reason to overcall light. When instead you pass, you know that they have a lot of sorting out to do and will hopefully wind up in the wrong contract a lot.

[johnu]

0-19??? Maybe Imprecision Club, Anti-Precision Club, or probably just a concealed partnership understanding. I would grill them extensively until I had some idea what they were really playing.

[glen]

keithhus, on 2015-April-13, 12:58, said:

Could anyone tell me of a counter system I could use that can similarly confuse the opposition?

Define your overcalls of this 1♣ as "0-37 points, may or may not have the suit bid, intended as forcing but can be passed".

If they ask you questions about this, say that the precise meaning of your bid depends on the specific meaning of 1♣ such as when it can 0-5 points and when it has clubs.

After a bunch of fun, perhaps everybody could return to playing bridge.

[keithhus]

Apologies for error, should have typed 12-19.

[mgoetze]

keithhus, on 2015-April-13, 16:38, said:

Apologies for error, should have typed 12-19.

Maybe you should specify whether you are talking about online or offline bridge. In offline bridge, "announcing" 12-19 is not allowed. Either way, you are allowed to ask your opps for further details. You do not need to assume anything about their bids, just like you do not need to assume that this is some random system of which you have heard the name but nothing else.