Pre-Alert: Canape, Variable 1C Openings

Last weekend, I sat at the bridge table with the Feagins 3 times - once as a kibitzer and twice as an opponent - and each time (over a mere 14 boards) they had a bidding misunderstanding. This is easily one of the top 3 or 4 pairs in Georgia and a pair that has been playing together longer than I have been alive, maybe even twice that long. So, bidding misunderstandings happen even for the best and most experienced partnerships. The one against us in the Sunday Swiss epitomizes one of the main difficulties of playing against a mulit-meaning 1C opening such as Polish or Swedish and some problems with the ACBL pre-alert system.

We got to the table and, per ACBL procedures, pre-alerted that we play canape. I also mentioned we play a variable 1C opening and they quickly agreed to treat it as natural. I normally don't mention the 1C opening in a pair game because it's not a pre-alertable and can take up a lot of time, but in an 8 board match, I generally try to mention it to them as a courtesy. A couple of boards into the round, Sean opened 1C, alerted and explained as balanced 12-14 or unbalanced 17+ or any 18+. Jack overcalled 1H, I passed, and Claudia bid 2C. What happened with the rest of the hand is unimportant. The point is that they didn't know whether 2C was natural or a cuebid showing heart support, even after agreeing before-hand that they would treat our 1C as natural. In my opinion, and the opinion of most people, you should play "imaginary cuebids" to show a good heart raise. Opener is very likely to have a weak balanced hand, and you definitely need constructive bidding available. There are several specialized defenses to multi-purpose 1C openings, but I don't think any of them are worth playing - just assume it's a "could be short" 1C and bid naturally.

ACBL laws and most directors I have asked clearly state that canape is pre-alertable but any system with 1C as a forcing opening is not pre-alertable, whether it is precision, polish, swedish, or some similar variant. Most good players know what methods they use over a big 1C opening, over a standard 1C opening, and over a "short" 1C opening, but I have found that most do not know what they do over a variable 1C opening even though such systems are fairly common worldwide. In Poland, 1C is a typically a balanced 12-14 or 15+ with long clubs or any 18+. In Sweden, it is a balanced 11-13 or any 17+. In the Asbury-Gannon Swedish Canape system, it is a balanced 12-14 or unbalanced 17+ or balanced 18+.

The purpose of pre-alerting is to allow the opponents to discuss how they will defend against a system or convention that is highly unusual. Canape is definitely unusual and the fact that we can frequently open the bidding and conceal a 5 card side suit is unexpected (which therefore could never be alerted in the bidding), but there's not really anything the opponents could have to discuss about their bidding. Bidding is still natural (opening 4 card majors is and never will be any sort of an alert). The canape rebid of a 5 card side suit is definitely alertable, but there's still nothing the opponents should do different from standard, at least in what their bids mean. A variable 1C opening seems to need a pre-alert more than canape, at least in the US where most players are unfamiliar with such systems. Without a pre-alert, the opponents will be caught off guard and frequently do not know whether to treat 1C as "could be short", natural, or big, opening up many potential cases of mis-information, bad alerts, failures to alert, and general confusion.

I sometimes want to tell people what our 1C opening is and then tell them that they need to decide how they are going to defend against it but that is very time consuming, especially when playing only 2 or 3 board rounds. And sometimes I think that when I alert one club and explain it I should suggest some defense or tell them they can discuss what they play over it at that time even thought neither of those are technically allowed. But it would eliminate the need for a director call for misinformation or having all of us at the table just unsure about whether he had a takeout double of 1C, or the majors, or a strong hand, or just clubs. In a way, though, the lack of an agreement probably keeps many people from entering the auction and gives us a slightly unfair advantage, even though I'm sure we are following the alert procedures properly. The fact that our 1C could be a flat 12 count probably keeps out some of the ragged nuisance overcalls and preempts that people often make against a strong club because you don't want to deceive partner who may well hold a very good hand if we have the weak NT variety.

Polishish Canape Issues: Determining if Opener has a weak NT or a Strong Hand

When I first toyed with adopting a polish-like structure with canape about 3 months ago, I was really concerned that we would have difficulty distinguishing between the 12-14 balanced hands and the big hands in competition. That actually hasn't been a problem. With the 12-14, opener can just pass his rho is the one interfering or can raise partner's 1M response to 2M. With a big hand, opener should do something - anything - to show one of the big hands: cuebid for a strong takeout, jump raise or jump-shift to show support and a big hand, bid NT if balanced w/ a stopper, or bid a new suit. The only real difference from standard bidding is that a cuebid would not show support as a jump to 3M and all jump-shifts (fit-jumps) would be gf with support. I think we also decided that opener should be able to make a support double with a weak NT, so 1C-P-1H-2C-X = 3 card support, just as if it was a standard auction.

If lho of the 1C opener interferes, that's actually a little easier to deal with. Responder just bids as if partner opened a standard "could be as short as 2" 1C. Negative doubles are all on, negative free bids are on (for majors only), but 2C and 2D are both natural 1 round forces. Opener rarely has the big hand when lho and partner both bid, but there are still plenty of ways he can show a big hand - jumping and cuebidding, normally all below game and in a game-forcing situation.

If lho preempts, we even more bid as if we opened a weak NT. Lebensohl applies and opener bids over a signoff only if 17+ and obviously doesn't accept the relay to 3C is he has a big hand. But natural bidding takes over and we have yet to have any real problems that are worse than standard. I must say, in probably 25 sessions of playing this face to face, lebensohl after a 1C opening never came up.

Polish club is substantially superior to a strong club, in my opinion, because opponents don't so much go out of their way to make nuisance bids because they have to bid more constructively because it is still reasonably likely to be their hand. I probably should learn the Polish standard system WJ05, something I might be able to play with someone without weeks of discussion and practice.

Polish Club Canape

Yesterday I felt inspired to tweak our system (the canape precision system Sean and I use) by introducing a two-way 1C opening and to incorporate canape into the responses and rebids to a 1C opening. So, after brief discussions with Shaz and Bryan, I set out to write up a system that would accommodate these things, not to be played with them but. I used no reference material and I don't think these system notes now look anything like any other system but I do have it so that auctions follow basically the same form as our canape structure for the minimum opening hands. After a couple of hours, I had a couple of pages of sequences that made sense at the time but for all I knew could be quite horrible. Then a couple of hours at the partnership bidding table and we realized this actually makes a lot of sense and allows us to bid the big hands in much the same was as we do the intermediate ones.

There are 2 downsides that I see. Opening NT is 15-17. Okay, not really a downside. It's just totally normal while nothing else in this system (when we get to open the bidding) is normal. and the auction 1C-1D-2D is too difficult to handle. In this case, opener is 17-21 with long diamonds or (4 diamonds and a longer side suit), a lot like our 1D opening which is 11-16 with long diamonds or (4 diamonds and a longer suit). Responder could have up to 11 if balanced, 7 if unbalanced, and may be fearful of bidding on without significant values. We may find ourselves in an inferior diamond fit when everyone else has no problem getting to the 5-3 or 5-4 major suit fit.

Our 1D through 2C opening bids are basically the same as before, but now the max is 16 hcp instead of 15 - they all are one-suited in the suit bid or 4 in the suit bid with a longer side suit. 2D is still mini-roman, now 13-16 instead of 12-15. 2M openings are 8-12 with a 6 card suit. 1NT is 15-17 instead of 12-15. the big change is that 1C is now either 12-14 balanced OR 18+ balanced OR 17+ unbalanced instead of any 16+.

There are a couple of big upsides in that it's fun and the opponents may not know how to react. I suppose most will or should treat it like a natural 1C, but I don't really know. I don't recall every actually playing against anyone playing a Polish club system.

2♣ Opening in Canapé Systems

So, about a week ago I bought Ken Rexford's book on his Modified Italian Canapé System. If you know me at all as a bridge player, you are well aware of my interest in canapé bidding systems for a number of reasons, mainly that is fun and while it is actually a very natural system, it still confuses the opponents by frequently concealing your best suit for the first round of bidding. So, I spent a good bit of time thinking about how to improve my system, which I use with Sean and Ramesh but am interested in teaching it to and playing it with anyone else who is interested. There are definitely a few kinks that I have yet to work out but lately I've had more and more success with it. Anyway, if you are interested in a good book on the theory of canapé, check out this book.

There are some things I dislike about Rexford's system, mainly the fact that the 1♦ opening could be on a void. In my canapé system, the 1♦, 1♥, 1♠, and now 2♣ openings are the same: either one-suited in that suit or 4 in that suit with a longer side suit. hands with 5M and 4♣ are awkard to bid after opening 1M because of the difficulty of accurately showing the second suit (having to treat it like a one-suiter or a balanced hand), so I finally gave in to testing the effectiveness of 2♣ being a possible canapé hand instead of just single-suited with clubs, and the problems seemed to be relatively few.

The structure Sean and I came up with yesterday for how to bid over 2♣ as 11-16 hcp with either a canapé hand with a 5+ card major or single-suited with clubs is as follows:
2♦: artificial 1 rd force, may be any strength; if game-forcing, no 5 card major
     2M: 5 card suit
          raise: invitational
          cheapest bid in other major: mixed raise
     2N: max w/ long clubs
     3♣: min w/ long clubs
2M: 5 card suit, constructive but not forcing, usually tolerance to play 3♣ opposite a one-suiter
2NT: artificial game force w/ a 5 card major
     3♣: no 3 card major
     3♦: at least 1 3 card major
     3M: 5 card suit

The other option for dealing with the 5M and 4♣ hands in canape is to use 2M openings to show these hands, which really is easier to handle, but the value of a 2M preempt is too good to use for something else. Now, if we could use 2♦ as a weak 2 in either major, then I wouldn't be opposed to this treatment, but then this wouldn't be a general convention chart system.

Edited Sept 1, 2010:
The rest of our opening bids are now:
1♣: balanced 12-14, any 17+ unbal, any 18+ bal.
1♦/♥/♠ :11-16, 4+ card suit, could have longer side suit (1M could be 4441 w/ shortness in other major)
1NT: 15-17
2♦: 11-16, 4-4-1-4 or 4-4-4-1
2♥/♠: good weak 2 (9 to 12) in 1st and 2nd seat. 3rd seat much less disciplined
2NT: 5 to 10, 5-5 minors

Please see my other atricles on canape bidding.