[tytobyto]

I learned Precision in college, from Jannersten's book, in the early 1970s when it was fun and becoming a fad. A few years later, my best friend's cousin's brother-in-law showed us (I, my wife, my best friend and his cousin played Precision together) how aggressive overcalls of 1C (he claimed people would bid 1S over 1C without even looking at their cards) could make bidding Precision difficult (Jannersten, and other writers at that time, scarcely mention competitive bidding). Precision (and other strong 1C systems, e.g. Blue Club) tried to counter with a rather complex system of cue bids over opposition to 1C (a definite problem because Wei had invented Precision to be easy to learn). But then Precision's opponents invented systems of interference, e.g. CRASH and Wonder Bids, which are ambiguous about what suit(s) are held, rendering cue bids useless.

My favorite defense against strong 1C systems is Wonderful Kamikaze Crash, which almost always interferes but doesn't indicate a specific suit below the 3 level. I don't understand why such systems are not prohibited by the rule against systems designed specifically to disrupt opponents' bidding (but apparently that rule is only enforced against the disruption of opponents' opening bid).

So if anyone does still bid a strong one club, how do you react to Cro-Panama?

[FM75]

pass = 0-4, X = 5-7. Next legal bid in suit shows 8+ and 5 cards. 1N = 8+ balanced. (a bit of a minus if you have this hand.)

After interference, partner knows your strength more precisely if you were otherwise going to respond with 1 diamond than if they did not interfere. This is occurs fairly commonly.

Without interference, we bid 1N to show 8+ and 5+ spades and 1S with balanced, allowing opener to bid 1N, which will right-side a NT contract and also serves as a control asking bid.

[straube]

 tytobyto, on 2012-December-10, 17:49, said:

I learned Precision in college, from Jannersten's book, in the early 1970s when it was fun and becoming a fad. A few years later, my best friend's cousin's brother-in-law showed us (I, my wife, my best friend and his cousin played Precision together) how aggressive overcalls of 1C (he claimed people would bid 1S over 1C without even looking at their cards) could make bidding Precision difficult (Jannersten, and other writers at that time, scarcely mention competitive bidding). Precision (and other strong 1C systems, e.g. Blue Club) tried to counter with a rather complex system of cue bids over opposition to 1C (a definite problem because Wei had invented Precision to be easy to learn). But then Precision's opponents invented systems of interference, e.g. CRASH and Wonder Bids, which are ambiguous about what suit(s) are held, rendering cue bids useless.

My favorite defense against strong 1C systems is Wonderful Kamikaze Crash, which almost always interferes but doesn't indicate a specific suit below the 3 level. I don't understand why such systems are not prohibited by the rule against systems designed specifically to disrupt opponents' bidding (but apparently that rule is only enforced against the disruption of opponents' opening bid).

So if anyone does still bid a strong one club, how do you react to Cro-Panama?

What's Cro-Panama?

We use a strong club and I'm not fond of coping with 2-way or 3-way bids (e.g. 1C (2H) showing hearts or spades or minors or...). OTOH, we get a lot of folks passing our 1C...probably more so than when I open a natural club. That's my sense of it anyway. Say I open a strong 1C with holding a strong balanced hand and my LHO has Kxx xxxx QTxx xx. Sure, they can stick in a bid and probably get away with it, but do they really want their partner to raise? To lead away from their ace? So imo, strong club is vulnerable to interference on more distributional hands and opponents should do some jamming with these distributional hands...especially NV. When the contract's destination is 3N and everyone is fairly balanced, there seems a lot more risk than reward sticking in a bid.

[tytobyto]

 straube, on 2012-December-10, 18:36, said:

What's Cro-Panama?

We use a strong club and I'm not fond of coping with 2-way or 3-way bids (e.g. 1C (2H) showing hearts or spades or minors or...). OTOH, we get a lot of folks passing our 1C...probably more so than when I open a natural club. That's my sense of it anyway. Say I open a strong 1C with holding a strong balanced hand and my LHO has Kxx xxxx QTxx xx. Sure, they can stick in a bid and probably get away with it, but do they really want their partner to raise? To lead away from their ace? So imo, strong club is vulnerable to interference on more distributional hands and opponents should do some jamming with these distributional hands...especially NV. When the contract's destination is 3N and everyone is fairly balanced, there seems a lot more risk than reward sticking in a bid.

Cro-Panama:
X same color
1D natural
1H natural
1S natural
1N same rank
2C wonder
2D wonder
2H wonder
2S wonder
2N same shape

You should have asked about Wonderful Kamikaze Crash.

[straube]

I'll bite. What's Wonderful Kamikaze Crash?

[tytobyto]

 FM75, on 2012-December-10, 18:06, said:

pass = 0-4, X = 5-7. Next legal bid in suit shows 8+ and 5 cards. 1N = 8+ balanced. (a bit of a minus if you have this hand.)

After interference, partner knows your strength more precisely if you were otherwise going to respond with 1 diamond than if they did not interfere. This is occurs fairly commonly.

Without interference, we bid 1N to show 8+ and 5+ spades and 1S with balanced, allowing opener to bid 1N, which will right-side a NT contract and also serves as a control asking bid.

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm new here and don't know what to expect, and dont know how to behave. I don't want to appear combative but I grew up in a family that encouraged argument. I just want to figure out how to bid.

Your system of responding pass or double (and I presume redouble) to show less than 8 hcps after your partner's 1C opening is overcalled, allows your opponents to explore a fit without raising the bidding level. The 1C opener will know about points, opener's partner will know absolutely nothing, while opponents will have information about both points and distribution.

[tytobyto]

 straube, on 2012-December-10, 18:54, said:

I'll bite. What's Wonderful Kamikaze Crash?

P 11+ hcp and unable to preempt
X color
1D wonder bid
1H wonder bid
1S wonder bid or any 4333
1N rank
2C wonder bid
2D shape
2H unused (or sound preempt reduced)
2S unused (or sound preempt reduced)
2N unused
3C+ Sound Preempts

[SteveMoe]

In addition to what FM75 says, we treat all ambiguous suit bids as nonexistent. Wonderbids never happened. We simply bid naturally over the interference, adjusting the double and q-bid for level above 2♠. So, 1♣ - 1♠(Wonder or Crash)-2♠ is natural and GF.

[S2000magic]

To the original question: yes, people still use strong 1-club systems.

[FM75]

 tytobyto, on 2012-December-10, 18:59, said:

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm new here and don't know what to expect, and dont know how to behave. I don't want to appear combative but I grew up in a family that encouraged argument. I just want to figure out how to bid.

Your system of responding pass or double (and I presume redouble) to show less than 8 hcps after your partner's 1C opening is overcalled, allows your opponents to explore a fit without raising the bidding level. The 1C opener will know about points, opener's partner will know absolutely nothing, while opponents will have information about both points and distribution.

Fair question. Opener's hand is only limited on the low side and the partnership is limited as well, but opener has very narrow window - 3 point range on the total partnership hcp. He could be opening on 27 (I had that yesterday in a Swiss Teams match), with possible slam, or he could have a meager 16.

The opponents will have a very hard time staying out of trouble opposite even as little as 21. Won't they get there even against any standard system? There danger is when opener is just a bit strong, because neither opponent has much of a clue as to their strength - CRO is about shape.

[tytobyto]

 SteveMoe, on 2012-December-10, 19:39, said:

In addition to what FM75 says, we treat all ambiguous suit bids as nonexistent. Wonderbids never happened. We simply bid naturally over the interference, adjusting the double and q-bid for level above 2♠. So, 1♣ - 1♠(Wonder or Crash)-2♠ is natural and GF.

Gotcha. But without the interference, i.e. 1C - pass - (I'm guessing) 1S, would your bidding still have proceeded naturally (1 level lower than in your example) or would you employ (what I was taught were called) Italian-style asking bids? In either case, it looks like your opponent overcalling with 1S has obviated your reasons for adopting a strong 1C bidding system (whoops, too quick), or do you think it is just as easy for an opponent to overcall an opening 2C?

[Zelandakh]

After a 1♥ overcall you can proceed as if the bid never took place unless 4th hand can advance. The less defined the 1♥ bid is the less likely they can preempt effectively. Over Double or 1♦ the same is true except that now their interference has helped us. These calls should either be constructive or well enough defined as to allow Advancer to preempt. Over a 1♠ overcall I have switched to:

P = 4+ spades
X = no major and <GF strength
1N = 4-5 hearts, weak
2♣ = diamonds or balanced or 1444, GF
2♦ = hearts, INV
2♥ = (5)6+ hearts, weak
2♠ = clubs, GF
2N = 4 hearts, longer minor, GF
3♣ = 5+ hearts, 4+ diamonds, GF
3♦ = 6+ hearts, GF
3♥ = 5+ hearts, 4 clubs, GF
3♠ = 5+ hearts, 5+ clubs, GF


Over 1NT - 2♥, transfers seem to work well enough. Over higher bids, Double as takeout/values and other bids natural and GF is simple, although an auction like 1♣ - (3♠) is tough to get right all the time for the best.

The difference between 1♣(nat) - (P) - 1♠ and 1♣ (strong) - (1♠) - 2♣+ in the method you are asking about is that the latter has established a game force while the former has not. Therefore any gained bidding space may be lost in establishing that game force later. More than that, if the opponents are bidding over both 1♣ openings, not an uncommon situation, then the information given by the strong club is often more useful than that of the natural one, especially if "natural" means 2+ clubs.

Finally, several of the very best pairs in the world play strong or mixed club systems. That alone is good evidence that they are still highly effective. Indeed, we had some stats here recently which suggested that one of those pairs (Meckwell) do better after a 1♣ opening when the opponents bid than when they pass. That is something to consider before butting in to such auctions willy-nilly.

[mattias]

 tytobyto, on 2012-December-10, 22:25, said:

Gotcha. But without the interference, i.e. 1C - pass - (I'm guessing) 1S, would your bidding still have proceeded naturally (1 level lower than in your example) or would you employ (what I was taught were called) Italian-style asking bids? In either case, it looks like your opponent overcalling with 1S has obviated your reasons for adopting a strong 1C bidding system (whoops, too quick), or do you think it is just as easy for an opponent to overcall an opening 2C?

The reason for playing a strong club system is usually to make the other opening bids limited. Either that or getting to use the alert card a lot.

[Free]

When I first encountered Precision, it was a local version which was very vulnerable to intervention. Whenever we intervened with 1♠ for example, our opps got into trouble because their intervention handling was very poor. These days however, Precision and its intervention handling has evolved. Non-natural intervention hardly disrupts the system, and overcaller's partner can't do much harm. The only exception is when Precision players use relays, because overcalling 1♠ for example makes the relays a little bit less efficient. But the question is: is the juice worth the squeeze?

[dake50]

My favorite tactic verses distributional interference is to bid 4M
WHEN it's borderline. Do opponents want to defend a close game
(blabbed by their shape showing) or often take a phantom sac.
Intend to double any set looking like 500+.
Thus bidding on is at least mildly slammish.
So eg. an immediate double shows Hearts are OK and not as much
as an Ace over a positive (prime 12).
It paid handsomely and often.

[S2000magic]

 tytobyto, on 2012-December-10, 22:25, said:

In either case, it looks like your opponent overcalling with 1S has obviated your reasons for adopting a strong 1C bidding system . . . .

"Obviated"?

I'm not sure that that's what you meant.

[mycroft]

Second seat's interference, especially weird interference, isn't that big a deal. My standard defence applies whether it's natural or conventional, except we may not have a cue-bid (but then again, our cue-bid shows "GF, no suit, no stopper", so who cares, when nobody knows what the suit is?) Fourth seat's interference is a problem - "the goal when interfering against a strong club is to get to 3-of-a-fit before opener's rebid". The more hands that fourth seat has to cater for when holding a weak fitter before they can safely push, the less likely they're going to be able to do it, the more likely opener will get to use their system, what's the problem?

By preference, I play the version of Truscott that bids the known 2-suiters at the 2 level, and the "one-suiter you can lead" at the 1 level. I'll give them their two cue-bids in exchange for "partner only needs one suit to take away opener's cue below 3NT".

Even when they do push, it's still sometimes okay. I still remember the pair that played Mathe against us in a Flight A IMP pairs. It went 1♣-(3NT). What's that? Oh, it's like 1NT (minors), only much more so. Thanks to that, we got to 6♥ (granted, we would have anyway). Thanks to them taking the good sac, we got to 7♥ ("bidding a grand at IMPs shows you can count 13 tricks. Unless they've taken a known good sac against your clearly making slam. Then you break even at 40%"). Win 11.5.

[sfi]

Having played a number of strong club systems over the past couple of decades, here are some general observations:

- Good agreements over interference to a strong club are absolutely critical. They are also possible.
- If the opponents interfere at the one or two levels, it rarely affects our constructive bidding significantly. This is true no matter what the opponents' bids mean.
- Bids at the three level cause problems, and sometimes we simply have to pay off to the preemption.
- If the opponents get too frisky, the occasional +1100 in a part score makes up for any loss of accuracy. This is a real danger against opponents if they can set up a game forcing auction, and sometimes when they can't.
- Having lots of bids where you guarantee the opponents a second round of bidding is very bad. It increases their options, and good pairs will use it effectively.
- Having bids where your partner does not know which suits you (as the one interfering) hold means that partner cannot preempt the opponents when it's right. The chaos these bids cause is significantly overrated. Conversely, the ability to preempt quickly appears to be underrated by people who interfere over strong club hands.
- Don't treat a Polish club as a strong club. You need constructive auctions there.

That being said, I played against a lot of Precision players in an APBF tournament a few years ago. Few of them interfered over our strong club, but many could not handle our CRASH (CRO) intervention on 4-4 distributions, even when we stayed at the one level. It was very surprising that they were so unprepared, and it meant we finished at least 20 places higher than we would have had they known what to do.

In short, my advice is to preempt aggressively to the three level when you can, and show partner which suits you have immediately.

[tytobyto]

 S2000magic, on 2012-December-11, 10:43, said:

"Obviated"?

I'm not sure that that's what you meant.

obviate: "to dispose of effectively"

[tytobyto]

 FM75, on 2012-December-10, 22:22, said:

Fair question. Opener's hand is only limited on the low side and the partnership is limited as well, but opener has very narrow window - 3 point range on the total partnership hcp. He could be opening on 27 (I had that yesterday in a Swiss Teams match), with possible slam, or he could have a meager 16.

The opponents will have a very hard time staying out of trouble opposite even as little as 21. Won't they get there even against any standard system? There danger is when opener is just a bit strong, because neither opponent has much of a clue as to their strength - CRO is about shape.

While others in this thread have stated that they essentially ignore intervention, you mention "danger" for your opponents. I want to develop my inner sadist. How do you punish people for butting in?
you: 1C (strong hand)
LHO: 1S (no info and possibly no cards)
partner: X (from what you wrote earlier, 5-8 hcp)

you: ? (you and partner know you have majority pts but nothing about other's distribution or a fit