[heart76]

Novice to strong club systems but relatively expert bidder otherwise, considering to try a strong club in my regular partnership.
I am looking for suggestions on (relatively) fully developed structures over 1♧ = 16+ HCP any hand, which are built on one of the following set of principles:
A) use of transfer responses to 5M/6m and always looking for the ideal orientation of a NT contract, i.e. responder not bidding NT in 1st/2nd round with weak balanced hands; agreed methods for accepting or breaking the transfer by opener; possible transfers at the 2nd round by responder.
For example (don't take it literally):
1♧ - 1♡ = 5+ ♤, GF
1♤ = balanced 16-17 HP 2+♤ / unbalanced 3+♤
1NT = unbalanced, distrib.?
2♧/◇ = 4+ ◇/♡
2♡ = 6+ ♤
1NT = 18-19, 0-2 ♤, 4- ♡
2♧/◇/♡ = 5+, 2- ♤
2NT = 20-21, 0-2 ♤, 4- ♡

B) Natural responses 4+ cards M and natural followups

Full integration of our NT systems (which cater for almost everything already) in both cases would be the starting point.
Integration of other conventions not an issue.

Does anyone have online references to full or partial systems? Books, other?

[DavidKok]

Hi! I don't have a system that does what you want, but here are some ideas and possible starting points:

• In a strong club system, most people use 1♣-1♦ to show any negative (say, 0-7 HCP) and the 1♥+ responses as game forcing positives. This immediately means that positive strong club auctions are very rare - the 1♣ opening itself is somewhat common (~8% of hands), but LHO will overcall around half the time (down to 4% remaining), partner will have a negative a little over half the time (down to 2% remaining), and of those deals around 3/4 will be 'boring game deals' where you check for 8cM fits and sign off in 3NT (0.5% remaining). In my opinion most positive response systems to a strong club are fighting over that 0.5%, and usually most of them end up working well - you don't need a brilliant system with opponents silent and a game force at the 1-level. So personally I would focus on everything else before worrying about the strong club structure.
  
• There are relay systems that maximise the odds of making the strong hand declarer. Transfer-Oriented Symmetric Relay is a classic example, I think IMPrecision does this and (in my opinion) ZZ Relay is another. But also, all are noticeable amounts of work and, in my opinion, not that great (see also point 1). All of these systems are available online, please let me know if you are interested in the system notes.
  
• Generally rightsiding and concealing the strong hand don't matter as much as people tend to think, unless you did a full shape relay. While you can design a response structure to it, I think it would not be a very productive use of time.

Edit: I just saw that you include 16 balanced in 1♣, this increases the frequency by a significant amount but also means you are more vulnerable in competition. I would focus more on your competitive agreements over 1♣, but with that bump in frequency the positive sequences will also come up more often.

[PrecisionL]

I have been designing Strong Club Systems for over 20 years. One was posted on the Internet:

bridgewithdan.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Ultra.pdf

I have improved this to what we now call C-3: Copious Canape Club with ideas from Sabine Auken (I LOVE THIS GAME, 2006) and Eric Rodwell's 5-5 response: 1♣ - 2♠.

To summarize C-3 responses to 1♣:

Negative hands (0-7/8+ wo 2 controls) respond 1♦. Johnson-Berkowitz design is used after 1♦ response.

Positive hands with a 4-cd Major respond in the other major (Canape design), may have a longer minor.

Positive hands with both majors (5-4 / 5-5 / 6-4) respond 1NT.
Positive balanced hands of 8-13 respond 2♦ per Meckwell RM Precision (long time design),

similar to KK Relay but with 5332 hands included.

Balanced hands of 14+ respond 1♥, rare and rebid 1NT.

Positive Hands with 6-cd minor or 5-4 in the minors respond 2♣.

5-5 hands respond 2♥.

4441 hands respond 2♠.

Semi-solid 6-cd suits or better respond with a transfer starting at 2NT.

Solid Suits respond 3♠ or 3NT.

Spoiler ALERT: Memory load is major. If interested in more details pm me.

[heart76]

Thanks for the answers.
A bit of reasoning behind adopting strong club, besides the obvious GF established at the 1 level: 1) having 1NT 12-15 HP balanced with its preemptive effect; 2) getting the somehow partly preemptive effect of 1♧; 3) opening for better slam bidding by allowing more space and possibly better description of the distribution.
Hence the nature of my question: I'd like to evaluate the memory load and effort in switching before choosing one version or another.
Regarding making the strong hand declarer, the NT structure takes care of that, so I feel it would be essential to right-side NT. This should be easy after 1♧-1◇, but I do not like for instance if 1♧-1NT was any decent 8+ HP without 4+M (a denying bid). If anything, it would make more sense to me if 1NT was either 5+♡ or 5+♧ in a transfer system, or a GF unbalanced e.g. 5-5+ minors / any 5-5+ slammish.

I am also somewhat negative to adopting something without understanding the principles it is built upon. So I feel I need some scouting work upfront.
It would be good for me to take a look at an already built system, incl. the structure to 1◇ opening.
Any good resource online for that, or anything you can share?
Feel free to pm me also.

[DavidKok]

To be blunt but honest, in a bullet point list:

• Strong club systems don't gain noticeably on slam auctions. Strong club systems gain on the limited openings, where as a responder you have a much better idea of whose deal it is and whether we are competing for partscore, game or slam (or likely will end up defending a game in a few rounds of bidding). In particular this shows on competitive auctions, but it also simplifies a lot of constructive auctions. The 1♣ opening is the Achilles' heel of the system, and when you open it you are behind, though not by an insurmountible degree. People bid over 1♣ a lot, and learning how to deal with that is more important than any constructive notes over that opening. The dream of magnificent uninterrupted slam auctions is great for bidding contests and "How should I have found this grand" polls, but an insignificant contribution to the system score at the table. What's more, when you do find a nice slam after 1♣, somewhat frequently opponents can find it too in a different system.
  
• Personally I think a 12-15 NT, and putting 16 bal in 1♣, are clear weaknesses. I am not sure that we are going to end up agreeing here, but in my mind this is a definite loser and something to steer away from if at all possible. If you want a preemptive effect I would recommend a 10-13 NT (or 11-13 NT), with 14-16 in 1♦ and 17+ in 1♣.
  
• I think the principles you set out, focusing on making the strong hand declarer, are less important than other system considerations. Making a strong hand declarer is a small plus, but it's more important to find the right strain and then the right level on as many hand combinations as possible. Modern systems tend to use slack to bid more aggressively rather than for siding purposes, and I think you might be overburdening the system, or at least taking a hit in effectiveness, by placing too much emphasis on siding.
  
• If you want a simple Precision system that is widespread, Standard Modern Precision (explained in some detail in the book with the same name by Daniel Neill) is a very solid starting point. Alternatively, I prefer a different system based on the Auby-Ebenius Club described in https://www.bridgeba...n-to-precision/, which I believe to be more effective and easier to learn, but not nearly as mainstream.
  
• Keep in mind that, so long as your openings aren't too different compared to what is commonly played, you can always opt to swap out the response system for something more complicated later. For this reason I would recommend picking up a simple strong club system at first, and then later evaluating where you feel the system has let you down.
  
• In the context of a different system I wrote down some thoughts on strong club systems in general in https://www.bridgeba...394-kok-canape/, and I think reading parts 1 and 2 (but not the rest! Everything after deviates from Precision, and is outside the scope of what I think you are looking for) might be useful.

Lastly I should mention that I think most of the relay systems are far worse than is commonly believed. I've spent a lot of time looking into this, collecting system notes, overviews, Vugraph results and simulations, and the more I looked the more lost IMPs I found. However, this opinion is not mainstream.

[hrothgar]

You can't really judge relay structures in isolation

Case in point: MOSCITO uses relays over its limited openings. This is not because there is any strong conviction that relay structures are the best way to bid with game forcing hands, but rather, because shoving lots of these hands into a a single bid means that there is lots of bidding space for various game invites and other constructive advances that do / do not show a fit.

With respect to relays over strong club openings, the advantage here is one of memory load.

The ratio of

number of defined bidding sequences : number of rules

is much better for for relay systems than anything else

You might find the following of interest

https://www.dropbox....t=0o2v25eh&dl=0

https://www.dropbox....t=1c6sk9dy&dl=0

https://www.dropbox....t=a6w14g1h&dl=0

[DavidKok]

Thank you, I will give it a read. I think I might not be in the target audience, having spent somewhere between a couple of hundreds to low thousands of hours studying, practicing and using relay systems already, but I look forward to it. At a first glance I don't think I agree with the contents of the introduction though. But let us move to a new thread to discuss that rather than hijack this one.

[heart76]

DavidKok, on 2024-July-24, 04:34, said:

The 1♣ opening is the Achilles' heel of the system, and when you open it you are behind, though not by an insurmountible degree. People bid over 1♣ a lot, and learning how to deal with that is more important than any constructive notes over that opening.

[*]Personally I think a 12-15 NT, and putting 16 bal in 1♣, are clear weaknesses. I am not sure that we are going to end up agreeing here, but in my mind this is a definite loser and something to steer away from if at all possible. If you want a preemptive effect I would recommend a 10-13 NT (or 11-13 NT), with 14-16 in 1♦ and 17+ in 1♣.

Thanks for the honest answer, that's what I'm looking for.
Could you please explain why 1♣ puts you behind and why 11-13 / 14-16 / 17+ is better than 12-15 / 16+?

[hrothgar]

heart76, on 2024-July-24, 09:14, said:

Could you please explain why 1♣ puts you behind

2♠

[awm]

I disagree that the 1c opening puts you behind — in the very common case that 1c bidder has a balanced minimum you’re substantially ahead of most other systems because partner will know to play you for this hand in competition. This frees partner to make a call over 1c-2s on a lot of hands where he would have to pass opposite a wide ranging natural 1m bid and the same overcall. And it makes your balancing decision after 1c-2s-pass-pass similarly easier.

It’s true that you are behind when opener has a true two suiter but the balanced hands are much more frequent.

Anyway it might be interesting to run some analysis on the vugraph archives and see how some well known strong club pairs do when they make various openings (and with/without competition).

[DavidKok]

heart76, on 2024-July-24, 09:14, said:

Thanks for the honest answer, that's what I'm looking for.
Could you please explain why 1♣ puts you behind and why 11-13 / 14-16 / 17+ is better than 12-15 / 16+?

Of course!

Why 1♣ puts you behind: on competitive auctions in particular, but even on most auctions in general, shape is king. The decision to defend or to bid one more, to raise or to go for NT, often depends to a much larger degree on the shape of your hand than on the strength of your hand. At the extreme end of this claim there is the Law of Total Tricks, but even without going too deeply into that in general knowing the degree of fit (typically for both sides) is a huge advantage in competitive bidding. 1♣ lags behind here because you are not showing any shape at all.
What's more, since 1♣ is so strong, most opponents will sacrifice the ability to find their own constructive games somewhat or even entirely (there are some methods where pass-then-bid, or an initial double, shows a strong hand, but still most overcalls are allocated to weak hands). This allows them to compete much more often than they would be able to over any standard opening. Furthermore, they know you can't penalise them very well, because you don't have the vital shape information required to decide when to bid one more and when to pass. This combination means that overcalling, if possible with a jump, of a strong club is somewhat easy, has almost no hand requirements, and is very effective.
There is some good news though:

• There is a 'Goldilocks zone' of preempting - if you always bid very high, strong clubbers can just shrug, double and collect +800, which is often enough a good result for the strong clubbers. But if you don't preempt enough they can bid on mostly as if uninterrupted. In my experience people will regularly over- or undershoot this zone, so while it may be tough to deal with preempts, against inexperienced opponents in particular it can also be profitable.
  
• Since 1♣ shows 16+ (I'll get back to this below), responder can and should force to game with a normal 8-count. This means that, unlike a standard system, responder can bid more freely in competition. 1♣*-(3♦)-3♠ showing 5 spades and a game force - no problem, only requires 8 points. On some deals this will actually be an advantage, where in standard it might have gone 1X-(3♦)-? and now you can't show your suit because the hand is not strong enough. Personally I think this should be taken to an extreme, and I would like responder to compete with invitational hands (traditionally called 'semi-positive' in strong club literature, and typically in the 5-7 HCP range). Making a negative double to show hearts after 1♣-(2♠)-? with only 5 HCP can be a big winner, when nobody else was able to show their major suit.
  
• When the opponents are a passed hand, or if their overcall gets bumped in fourth seat, in my experience many people will overcompete. Here you can really whack them - between the initial pass and/or partner's (lack of a) cheap response you have mostly recovered from the information deficit, and aggressive preempting in these spots is actually very dangerous. But most opponents won't know this, and now you do.
  
• When the opponents do not interfere (don't get your hopes up, but it does happen) you can have very clean auctions. This is true regardless of what response system you choose - establishing a game force often at the 1-level is simply very comfortable.

As for the notrump ladder, I explained this a little bit in my link about Kok Canapé, but here is the short of it:

• 4-point range 1NT openings are very awkward. With 10-11 points opposite, which is among the most common holdings, you may very well have a cold game if partner has a maximum, but also 2NT may be hopeless if partner has a minimum. 3-point ranges are much more comfortable in this regard. The same goes for if the opponents overcall your 1NT opening - despite the preemptive effect, now partner may well be guessing rather than the opponents. My preferred ladder of 11-13, 14-16, 17-19 has 3-point ranges for its lowest three rungs (and 2-point ranges above that), which means partner will only infrequently have an invitational hand.
  
• Putting 16 balanced in 1♣ not only bumps the frequency up significantly (without: 7.9% of hands. With: 9.5%. With, and also including 4M5m22's and some 6m322's: 9.75%. That's a 20-23% increase), which is the opening where you lose, it also makes your 1♣ opening more 'bottom-heavy'. Partner will find opener with a minimum balanced hand a noticeable fraction of the time. So this breezy natural GF overcall on 8 HCP I mentioned previously now comes with a risk - a defensive 16 bal opposite a light 8 doesn't make for a great game. And unfortunately this is now the most common hand type in the 1♣ opening (at 15-16% of the time you open 1♣). You have to draw the exact dividing line yourself, but the lower your requirements for 1♣ the higher the requirements for making a positive GF response, both in and out of competition.
  
• My "10-13 1NT, 14-16 in 1♦, 17+ in 1♣" does have a 4-point 1NT range. The key difference here is that partner will most of the time have a sub-invitational hand opposite such a weak NT. The weaker your bid, the less a wide range hurts you. Facing 10-13 you need approximately 12-13 points to invite, and on average you will have about 9.5. With 12-15 this is 10-11 with an average of ~9, much closer. Also if the 10-13 Kamikaze NT proves unwelcome you can always go to 11-13, and/or swap to 14-16 1NT (which I prefer) and put 11-13 in 1♦.
  
• Lastly I like opening. When anticipating a competitive auction, getting the first word in is really good. Shifting the opening requirements of balanced hands from 12-counts to 11-counts has a noticeable effect on your opening frequency. And, the system can handle it. In standard opening all balanced 11's can be somewhat challenging, but in strong club because the openings are limited anyway partner won't expect quite as much, and we can carve out a little room at the bottom. The exact system details vary a lot, but since I want to do it, and the system can support it, I think lowering the opening requirements to 'a hand that evaluates to the playing strength of a normal balanced 11-count' is good.

[foobar]

Don't have much to add to what DavidKok and others have said on the thread. However, since you mentioned transfer responses and relays were mentioned, try searching for TOSR (Transfer Oriented Symmetric Relay). It may be more than what you had in mind, but the responses over 1C might be a good starting point for a decent transfer structure.

[heart76]

Thanks a lot everyone!

[Kungsgeten]

The Carrot Club responses is pretty popular in Sweden:

1D = 0-7
1H = 8+, not suitable for other bid
1S = 8+, 5+ hearts
1N = 8+, 5+ spader
2m = 8+, 6+ minor
2NT = 8+, 5-5 minors

One variant is to have an artificial super-positive, which shifts everything one step up:

1D = 0-7 any
1H = 12+ any
1S = 8-11 no other suitable bid
1N = 8-11 5+ hearts
2C = 8-11 5+ spades
2D = 8-11 6+ clubs
2H = 8-11 6+ Diamonds
2S = 8-11 5-5 minors
2N = 8-11 5-5 majors

The method is probably worse than relays, but fine if you want natural(ish) continuations.