From: altus@leland.Stanford.EDU (Steve Altus)
Subject: Re: Precision, anyone?
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 22:06:24 GMT

In article <17j68iINNmdq@overload.lbl.gov> asya@ux5.lbl.gov (Asya Kamsky) writes:
>In article <1992Aug26.163952.9341@ariel.ec.usf.edu> pollock@eggo.tmc.edu (Wayne Pollock) writes:
>>of competitive bids are decreased.  For example, would you rather be playing
>>SA, 2/1, or Precision and hear the auction preceed 1-diamond, 2-spades, ???
>>The major weakness in Precision is the 1-club opening bid; now that opponents
>
>I think this is absolutely backwards.  (I've played a strong club system
>for a year or two and 2/1 for the rest of my natural bridge life) (well,
>ok and 4 card majors too).
>

[stuff deleted about the 1D openings of most big club systems]

>
>If 1 club is the *weakness* of a strong club system, then it would be
>pretty idiotic to play it, since the whole system is built around the
>concept of precise bidding over a strong artificial opening bid which
>preserves the most amount of room.



my turn!  just my STUPID opinions:

1.  you LOSE BIG on 1D openings, BREAK EVEN on 1C openings (sometimes get to 
    better spots, esp. slams, b/c you save room early, sometimes get to
    the wrong strain, especially games, especially but not always when 
    the opponents compete;  i was talking to(*) Bob Hamman in Pasadena and
    he gave a hand on which he said that he & Wolff would never have gotten
    to the correct strain, but he & Zia, playing very natural methods, had
    no trouble--btw, this was a non-competitive slam auction, and this is
    consistent with Chip Martel's comment about Hamman & Wolff's strength
    not being their competitive bidding).  WHERE YOU WIN BIG WITH STRONG
    CLUB SYSTEMS is on 1 MAJ openings, especially because you can have the
    auctions 1H-4H and 1S-4S more often since the openings are more limited.


2.  It would NOT be idiotic to play a strong club system if 1C is the 
    weakness, because there are OTHER advantages!  having stricter limits
    on opening one-bids can be advantageous, especially if you play very
    light initial action.  note that a few people DO play 13+ clubs, which
    certainly can't be the advantage of their system (they play 8-12 openings,
    etc.),  but each person can judge for his or her self whether that falls
    under the category of "idiotic."  :-)


3.  I think the more time you put into a partnership, the more likely you
    are to win than lose on the 1C auctions, and for top-level partnerships
    i'd bet they "win" a lot more than they "lose" on 1C auctions...why?  
    two reasons:  they have the time to make more agreements about 
    constructive development of the auction, both with and without comp.,
    and they also have more experience dealing with competition (and also
    more agreements there).  Some people i know play everything completely
    natural after the first round of big-club auctions.  They STILL have
    an advantage with REALLY strong hands, that they keep the auction low
    and often know more about responder's hand;  but they don't have as much
    of an advantage as the pairs that have a lot of special little gadgets
    or even just more developed agreements about what EXACTLY their bidding
    on the second or third or fourth round of a club auction shows.
 

i'm sure plenty of people disagree with these....have fun figuring out
what you think!


--steve altus



*  mostly LISTENING to, actually!