[relknes]

WellSpyder, on 2011-June-02, 05:12, said:

An important objective in my mind with this sort of system is to avoid making it easy for oppo to double 1N when you get there - eg if they know you have 11-13 opposite 0-7 they can double all the time! (Presumably those using a 1♠ negative avoid this by rebidding 1N with eg 16-7 balanced as well as 11-13.)

It is true that the opponents could double, but that would also give us another chance to pull to a better contract. For instance, after 1♣-1♠-1N (confirming 11-13 or 17-18 balanced), responder passes with no 5 card minor (showing 44 or 43 in the minors with 33 or 32 in the majors), or bids 2m with 5.
If the bidding goes 1♣-1♠-1N-P-(x), then opener can bid their better minor which is guarenteed to be at least a 7 card fit, likely 8, or can pass with 17-18 points giving responder the choice to play it, redouble with a good 5-7 points or pull to their better minor.
If the bidding goes 1♣-1♠-1N-(x), then responder bids a 5 card minor, redoubles to show 44 or 43 in the minors, or passes to show 5-7 points and let opener decide if they want to pull it, play it, or redouble to show 17-18 points.
Either way, it seems there is little risk of playing in 1Nx and going for a bunch, unless there is something I had missed.

side note: it is true that you will end up playing 1N with 18 opposite 7, when the majority of the field will probably be in 3N, but my general phillosophy is never to bid a game with 23 points (with the exception of very good fits) and never to miss a game with 26 (with the exception of bad misfits), so this seems acceptable to me.

[hrothgar]

relknes, on 2011-June-02, 13:30, said:

Either way, it seems there is little risk of playing in 1Nx and going for a bunch, unless there is something I had missed.

Polish Club spends an awful lot of time and effort trying to avoid getting doubled when opener has a weak NT and the auction starts

1♣ - 1♦

Their prepared Club is a lot stronger than yours.
Moreover, they're scarmbling at the 1 level. You're hoping that 2mX will be your salvation.

Who knows, maybe you've figured something out that that whole country missed over the last 40 odd years.
Personally, I think that they know what they're doing...

[relknes]

Bende, on 2011-June-01, 02:05, said:

An expert Swedish pair plays the following responses to 1♣=17+ or 11-13 balanced (any 5-card suit; sometimes (4441) or (5431)):

1♦ = 4+♥, 0+ hcp
1♥ = 4+♠, 0+ hcp
1♠ = denies 4+M, denies 5+m with 8+ hcp
1NT = 5+♣, 8+ hcp
2♣ = 5+♦,8+ hcp

hrothgar, on 2011-June-02, 13:51, said:

Polish Club spends an awful lot of time and effort trying to avoid getting doubled when opener has a weak NT and the auction starts

1♣ - 1♦

Their prepared Club is a lot stronger than yours.
Moreover, they're scarmbling at the 1 level. You're hoping that 2mX will be your salvation.

Who knows, maybe you've figured something out that that whole country missed over the last 40 odd years.
Personally, I think that they know what they're doing...

Since I took the 1♠ bid almost directly from Bende's post, which he says is a system used by an expert sweedish pair, it is not that "I figured out something that the whole country missed over the last 40 odd years," it is that some expert pairs use one system while others use a different system. Maybe you think that I chose the wrong one, but both Bende and Free suggested a 1♠ negative. If you would like to point out some specific weaknesses of that and suggest an alternative approach, I'd like to hear it. If you think there is a better way to handle a 1♠ negative, I'd like to hear that too.

[olien]

relknes, on 2011-June-03, 11:40, said:

Since I took the 1♠ bid almost directly from Bende's post, which he says is a system used by an expert sweedish pair, it is not that "I figured out something that the whole country missed over the last 40 odd years," it is that some expert pairs use one system while others use a different system. Maybe you think that I chose the wrong one, but both Bende and Free suggested a 1♠ negative. If you would like to point out some specific weaknesses of that and suggest an alternative approach, I'd like to hear it. If you think there is a better way to handle a 1♠ negative, I'd like to hear that too.

The drawback to 1♣-1♠ as a negative is that constructive partscore bidding (when opener has 17-21ish) becomes more difficult. I'm not saying the losses aren't off-set by the gains of the transfer responses (of which I'm a fan), but that 1♣-1♠ isn't that great. I've played 1♣ (always strong) - 1♦ as any GF for a while and have had much more success than I expected (I thought opps would preempt more KNOWING we have game). The advantages have more than off-set the inferior part-scores we've reached after 1♣-1♠ (immediate double neg). We also gained by having immediate semi-positives in response to 1♣.

Anyways, I think the structure mentioned by Bende is a good starting point.

[Free]

relknes, on 2011-June-03, 11:40, said:

Maybe you think that I chose the wrong one, but both Bende and Free suggested a 1♠ negative.

For what it's worth, I didn't say this was a good method in a Swedish system. I also didn't say this approach of 1♠ as a negative or as a catchall works in that system. All I did was express that I'd prefer that approach opposed to the suggested method.

I used to play some sort of Fantunes which uses the transfer responses over 1♣ openings (1♦/♥ were transfers 0+HCP ; 1♠ was 0-9 without 4+M). This worked very well imo. However, the Swedish 1♣ opening is quite different: Fantunes 1♣ shows 14+ natural or 15+ balanced, Swedish shows 17+ any or 11-13 balanced.
- The balanced ranges in Fantunes are 15-18 (rebid 1NT)/19-20 (rebid 2NT)/23+ (rebid 2♦ artificial). After 1♣-1♠ responder already denied 4M, so there's no real need to start scrambling at the 1-level for a Major fit. This makes auctions like 1♣-1♠-1NT not much different than a strong 1NT opening (which is pretty safe). Changing the NT range to 11-13 or 17+ means a huge difference. If you can't show the difference between 11-13 and 17+ at 1-level you might end up in 2NT with ~17HCP vs ~0HCP. This is also one of the reasons why Polish ♣ uses 1♦ as a negative without denying a 4 card M. This way it makes sense for opener to rebid 1M (even on a 3 card) so they can show the difference between the strong and the weak NT version below 1NT.
- There's another huge difference: the other strong options in the Fantunes 1♣ opening imply opener has ♣ (not 'any distribution'), which means that opener can easily rebid a second suit at 2-level opposite a 0-9 'any' (without 4M) and responder will be able to evaluate properly. In the Swedish opening that's not possible because the first suit isn't known yet.

So while this approach works for Fantunes, it needs a lot of fixes to work with the Swedish 1♣ imo.

If you want to use transfers after a 1♣ opening, it requires negatives without 4M to respond at least 1♠. I don't think it's workable unless the stronger NT opening can be safely bid at 2-level (for example 19+). Therefor I'd suggest you make 1♣ 15+ balanced/17+ any, which basically means it's no longer Swedish... An alternative is to make 1♣ 11-13 balanced/17+ unbalanced/19+ balanced, but this will give you problems with balanced 14-18HCP.

[relknes]

Alright, I am going to take one more shot at improving this structure, then set it aside for a while if it still dosn't satisfy. Most of the concerns are about the responder having 0-7 points and no 4 card major with no long minor to run to (perhaps skipping a 3-4 major fit to play in a minor at a level higher).
So... how about:

1♦ = 0-7 with 3+ hearts OR 13+ with 4+ hearts
1♥ = 0-7 with 3+ spades OR 13+ with 4+ spades
1♠ = 0-7 with a 5+ minor OR 8-12 balanced or 4441
1N = 13+, no 4 card major
2♣ = 8-12, 5+
2♦ = 8-12, 5+
2♥ = 8-12, 5+
2♠ = 8-12, 5+

After 1♣-1♠-1N (confirming 11-13 balanced) the structure might look like:
Pass = 8-10 points, balanced or 4441
2♣ = 0-7, 5+ clubs
2♦ = 0-7, 5+ diamonds
2♥ = 11-12, 4 hearts (or 5332 with hearts)
2♠ = 11-12, 4 spades (or 5332 with spades)
2N = 12 (or a very good 11) points, balanced, no 4 card major

The big problem now would probably be in figuring out what to do after responder transfers into a major and passes (showing 0-7) and the opponents double. Figuring out when to scramble and when to play 1Mx could be tricky at times. Is this weakness preferable to the other structure, or am I simply trading one unplayable system for another?

[Free]

Whatever you do, I'm still not comfortable with the way opener has to show 17-19 (or some similar range) after 1♣-1♠.

[relknes]

Free, on 2011-June-06, 06:32, said:

Whatever you do, I'm still not comfortable with the way opener has to show 17-19 (or some similar range) after 1♣-1♠.

Ok, so I was fixing the wrong problem... in that case, if I were to use an opening notrump structure like:
1♣ = 11-13 balanced or 17+ (20+ balanced)
1♦ = 11-16 natural unbalanced or 17-19 balanced
1N = 14-16 balanced
which of the two response structures would work better, or should I ditch the idea of transfer responses?

[Free]

relknes, on 2011-June-06, 11:17, said:

Ok, so I was fixing the wrong problem... in that case, if I were to use an opening notrump structure like:
1♣ = 11-13 balanced or 17+ (20+ balanced)
1♦ = 11-16 natural unbalanced or 17-19 balanced
1N = 14-16 balanced
which of the two response structures would work better, or should I ditch the idea of transfer responses?

That definitely solves the NT-range problems, but... ...you lose the big advantage of the natural 1♦. At this moment I think the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.