Thursday, October 15, 2009

Canape Bidding System

Last weekend was an interesting experience. I played at the sectional in Athens with Sean Gannon, a 17 year old who seems to be about as good as I was when I was 17. It's nice to be on a team where I'm not nearly the youngest person. We had several interesting hands - you're bound to have some interesting times when playing 144 hands over 2 days. Our results were mediocre - lost in the finals of the K/O with Megan and Patrick and did horribly in the Sunday Swiss but with another round or two probably would have made it back to average after having 16 out of a possible 80 VPs after 4 rounds. Then, to get the bad taste of the Swiss teams out of our mouth, we played at the Atlanta club Sunday night and came home with a decent 59% game for 3rd overall.

We played an interesting bidding system - strong club with canape style openings. I basically picked out various parts of other systems and then tried to work out the kinks to have everything decently covered. Here is the system summary:
1C - 17+ hcp balanced, 16+ unbalanced, with transfer responses (no further relays)
1D - 14-16 balanced OR 11-15 unbalanced w/ 4+ diamonds and possibly a 5 (but not 4) card major
1H/S - 11-15 hcp, 4+ card suit. if only 4, has another 5+ card suit
1NT - 11-13 hcp
2C - 11-15, 6+ clubs, no 4 card major
2D - any 4441 or 5440 w/ 5 of a minor
2H/S - weak2
2NT - 5-10 hcp, 5-5 minors
Negative doubles after 1M-2m show 3 card in OM, negative doubles after 1m-1M show 4, negative doubles after both majors have been bid show 3 card support in opener's major.
I've decided that the 1D opening occurs too frequently. At least it felt like it happened too much. So, I think next time I play this system, I'll change the NT range to 12-15 or 13-15. 1D becomes a totally natural bid (although it could still be a 4 card suit with a 5 or 6 card major).
The hands where canape style openings don't work so well is with 4 clubs and a 5 card major. We decided we had to treat it like a major one suiter or a balanced hand, but some other systems use 2H/2S to show that hand. I think weak 2's are too important. Another option is to use 2C as either 6+ clubs or 4 clubs with a 5 card major. That one may be midchart, though, and I don't want a system I can only play in flight A events.

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