Opening 2C And Responses

I have described in an older post what Agent 99 and I play. I wanted to put out another post, because there are a couple of good alternatives floating around that I would be interested in trying, and in hearing how other people get on with them.

An idea I used to like is an artificial positive set-up, perhaps similar to:
• 2D: any 0-3, or 4-7 with a 5-card or longer major
• 2H: any 8+ unbalanced or 10+ balanced
• 2S: 4-6 balanced, or 4-7 with a 5-card or longer minor
• 2NT: 7-9 balanced
The reason why I consider this sort of scheme playable is that while it seems harmful or perhaps just not useful to condense all positive replies into 2H, I have looked at hundreds of deals where a 2C opening is faced by a positive response. In virtually every case, the final contract should be a slam. So it actually makes sense to use only one bid for those hands, and use two or three responses to categorize the "semi-positive" hands.

A similar sort of philosophy gets a very different implementation as described by Martin Johnson at
http://www.freewebs.com/bobbybridge/
(some interesting stuff there). He calls it "Two, Weak, Transfer".
• 2D: A positive hand with at least an ace or 6 working points, unsuitable for any of the special higher responses. All hands of 10+ HCP and most hands with 1.5 quick tricks use this response.
• 2H: A negative response, the auction may stop at 2NT, 3 of a major or 4 of a minor
• 2S: A medium strength TWO-suited hand. Minimum strength is any hand that does not intend to stop below game, maximum of two kings or 1 quick trick.
• 2NT: A WEAK single suited hand with no side entry, and a decent suit. The bid denies two top honors, but any seven card suit qualifies as "decent".
• 3C, 3D, 3H: A good single suited hand minimum suit KQJxxx or AQ10xxx with no side king or ace, suit shown is the next higher (TRANSFER response).
Once again, there is a positive response and a negative response. But this time, the other bids are used to describe particular types of responder hands that are difficult to get across otherwise. I like this idea, because while I appreciate that the ideal auction has the opener as captain (because his hand is so strong), I also feel that standard methods provide too few mechanisms for responder to describe whatever contribution he might make. Discovering point count or controls can be done later: identifying shape, or that there is a suit without an outside entry, is both more difficult and more useful. That makes this set-up far better than, say, step responses.

For something completely different, you can go to Dr. Chris Ryall’s website
http://chrisryall.net/bridge/two/clubs.htm#responses
for his description of Paradox responses.
• 2D: Can supply a trick in support of either hearts or spades.
• 2H: Cannot supply a trick for hearts, may or may not have a trick for spades.
• 2S: Cannot supply a trick for spades, but promises a trick for hearts.
Both the 2H and 2S responses are a form of negative, bidding the suit that responder doesn’t like (hence, Paradox). They are therefore not forcing, if opener doesn’t have game in his own hand. An auction like 2C – 2H; Pass would probably make the opponents blink, but it’s perfectly logical. Suppose you open 2C on a hand that is single-suited with hearts, and you estimate 8 or 9 tricks in hand. Partner responds 2H, saying he has no help. Obviously, the thing to do is pass. Of course, that means the requirements for the 2H and 2S responses must be pretty tight – opposite a typical 2C opening, you really don’t need much to contribute a trick. But the general idea is interesting, and may be worth exploring.

Of the three methods, Martin Johnson’s “Two, Weak, Transfer” system has me the most excited at the moment. I’m going to run up some random 2C openings and try to compare possible sequences.