[helene_t]

So I will be playing WJ2020 (expert edition) with my new partner. We still have some details to discuss but probably we will aim at playing the whole 300-page book without any exceptions.

I like many aspects of the system, and it makes life easier to have a book we can just follow instead of writing out own system book.

But the 1♣ opening is heavier loaded than in other WJ versions.

For one thing, they open 1♣ with (31)45. The upside of this is that it allows responder to raise the 1♦ opening very aggressively. I wonder if it is worth the costs, though. It means that an auction like
1♣-1any
2♣
can be a 5-card suit and does not show extras.

And WJ2020 has Ekren 2♣ instead of Precision. So 1♣ also covers the hands that would normally open 2♣. Those hands, along with the 4♦5♣ minimums, rebid 2♣ (unless a fourcard major can be bid at the 1-level), pushing the 16+ hands with clubs further up the ladder.

I am not so far in the book that I have looked into how we resolve the 1♣ variants in contested auctions.

Anyone here having experience with this style?

[DavidKok]

I have played older versions of Polish, and played against WJ2020 once. Unfortunately I have no experience with this system itself.
My impression is that, over the years, the WJ systems have become closer and closer to standard (or Dutch Doubleton). Possibly the costs of the limited natural 2♣ opening on a five card suit were too large - this is a known weakness of older Precision systems. My impession is that they have overshot the mark, that the WJ2020 Polish 1♣ is severely overloaded, and you will be left guessing in competition some amount of the time. You can play transfers in competition, which in my opinion is a good idea regardless, which can help remedy this a little bit but won't really solve the problem.
I also think at this point - 1♣ containing clubs or balanced or strong, 1♦ being natural and unbalanced and usually 5+, 1M 5+ limited to approximately 11-18, 1NT strong - you would be better off taking the very strong hands out of 1♣ and using a strong 2♣, playing a standard system (or, again, Dutch Doubleton). To me the nebulous strong hands in this system are making the 1♣ opening more vulnerable, and this is a liability rather than an asset.

Put differently (and bluntly), it's basically a standard system with some unusual problems on strong (say, 19+) hands. In return you get 2♣ showing both majors, weak.

[helene_t]

It seems to me that by putting the minimum unbalanced hands with primarily clubs into 1♣ we are losing the attraction of WJ and might as well, then, switch to something else, maybe Dutch Doubleton or maybe strong club.

As for the costs of the natural 2♣, I am not sure. Among strong-club players the modern trend is for 2♣ to promise 6. We could achieve the same in WJ if we wanted - treating (43)15 as balanced is only really a problem when partner makes an NFB in diamonds, the important thing is that all the weak variants have tolerance for both majors. (41)35 would have to open 1♦, then. I am not sure if this is a good thing. Maybe, ideally, we should play this when vulnerable and then allow 2♣ on a 5-card suit when nonvulnerable? And/or let it depend on the quality of the five-card club suit.

[DavidKok]

I'm not a fan of letting it depend on the suit quality. This means that you now need two different systemic ways to show the same hand pattern with the same playing strength but different honour concentration. This puts even more stress on a system, where instead I think you are looking to relieve the stress by moving away some of the problem hands. Something like "I might bid this on a good five card suit in third seat as a lead director, but partner will assume 6 and act accordingly and if it backfires so be it" is fine, to be clear, but I don't like systemically having opening suit quality requirements.

Strong Club and Polish both struggle with the unbalanced primary clubs hands, in particular the Raptors. I think your solution, opening 1♦ at 3+ with hands not suitable for any other bid, was part of standard Polish at some point? It's not in WJ2000 or WJ2005, but I've seen it before. This still leaves hands like (42)=2=5. Essentially this is the same problem Precision has: make 1♣ artificial (in the Polish case, balanced or strong), 1M 5+, 1NT natural, 2♣ 6+ and you're left with a nebulous diamond containing three-suited hands (4=4=1=4/4=4=0=5, for example), club Raptors and also primary diamonds hands.
From what I understand, your proposed solution for these problem hands is:

• With 3(+)♦, open 1♦ (note that this is only a 3-card suit on exactly (41)=3=5). In particular, also open 1♦ on x=y=4=5.
  
• With (42)=2=5, treat it as balanced(?).
  
• I don't know what your opening bid is with (43)=1=5, 4=4=1=4 or 4=4=0=5, especially with the values for a 1NT opening. Systemically opening 1NT with a small singleton or a void may not be legal.

Aside from the rebid problems, this also causes competitive issues. I'm not a fan of NFB's and thought they were finally removed from Wspólny Język, but if partner does pinpoint a short suit I think you'll have a hard time showing the two-suited nature of the hand as you haven't shown either suit yet. You also reintroduce ambiguous relative minor suit lengths.

I think Precision does a better job of using the limited openings, the strong aspect of 1♣, and even the handling of the awkward hands. It is also much better protected against interference than a Polish 1♣.
I think Dutch Doubleton does a better job of using a natural 1♦ and a balanced-or-natural fusion in 1♣. In my opinion the range of the Polish openings is sufficiently wide that there are very few benefits of it, and I think natural systems do better on balance.
To me the version of Polish you describe is a worst of both worlds.

[DavidKok]

Instead of calling WJ2020 a worst of both worlds it is perhaps interesting to think of it as a stepping stone towards Dutch Doubleton - though this might also be my personal bias showing. One quick point I'd like to make is that in my characterization of Polish as "basically natural but some problems on 19+ hands" I am implicitly stating that the (competitive!, but also constructive) system should focus primarily on the 11-18 hands, and deal with the strong aspect of 1♣ as an afterthought. Instead I think a lot of emphasis on the Polish bidding over 1♣ is placed on the rare strong hands, and the much more common weaker hands suffer for it. I'd much rather have a system that gets the decisions on the 11-18 hcp range correct and has guesses on 19+ than the other way around (though ideally I'd have no guesses at all, of course). In my mind, if WJ makes the shift towards better descriptions in and out of competition with the weak hands, what results is basically indistinguishable from Dutch Doubleton.

[helene_t]

Haha yes you would prefer to replace WJ with DD

Actually WJ2020 is similar to your Polish/Dutch Club except that the 1♣ opening in WJ2020 also includes the 18-20 unbalanced hands without primarily clubs, so even heavier loaded.

I wouldn't say that WJ is my favourite system but there are two things I do like:
- The 1♣ opening has only one weak variant which responder has to cater to. So for example, responder can safely make a negative freebid on a modest 5-card suit. Or sign off in a 5-card suit after a 1-level rebid.
- WJ is quite standardized, you can agree with a pick-up partner to play WJ2000 or WJ2005 without being nervous about misunderstandings.

It seems that WJ2020 loses both. Yes, WJ2020 is well defined but not many pick-up partners will have read the 300+ pages book. It obviously get something in return, and it is possible that the gains from the Ekren 2♣ (and the occasional gains from not having to open 2♣ on a five-card suit) are enough to compensate for the losses.

I really think that WJ2020 should adobt Dutch Doubleton continuations after 1♣. It doesn't matter so much in traditional WJ, because
1♣-1red
1M*
is ostensibly balanced, but in WJ2020 opener can still have either a balanced minimum or an unbalanced minimum. So here, DD responses and rebids would help.

[foobar]

Helene, if you are starting anew, why not take up AEC (the Nystrom-Upmark system)? It does a much better job of handling the Raptor hands and has a much better use of the 2m openings.

Basically, you are moving the min-balanced hands out of 1♣ into 1♦. The 1M and 1N openings are unchanged (and you can easily play a 10-12 NT with it if desired). Over the (arguably superior) 1♣ opening, you can use a response structure of choice. Some balanced hand can be offloaded to 2N if desired.

[helene_t]

Thanks, Atul, I will look it up

[foobar]

 helene_t, on 2025-August-20, 12:14, said:

Thanks, Atul, I will look it up

Great -- I will be happy to bid some hands with you or walk you through it. As I see it, sequences like 1♦ - 1M - 2m that reveal 9-cards in opener's hand are simply fantastic. It's also more resilient in competitive auctions.

BTW, if you are looking at their original notes, I would recommend ignoring the suggestion for the 1♦ - 1♥ as a maybe GF relay. Treating 1M as natural is good enough in most cases.

[helene_t]

So far we play WJ2020 plus Precision 2♣.

I have some misgivings about it.

As mentioned before, I like the Precision 2♣ opening. Not so much because of the opening itself (which I actually don't like that much) but because of the inference that p does no have an unbalanced minimum (other than 4-4-1-4) when she opens 1♣. For example yesterday, I held Jxxx-9xx-Kxx-xxx. It went
1♣-(2♠)-pass-(4♠)
pass-(pass)-X
I might not have dared to double if partner could have had an 11-count with a void in spades.

It is a quite well-described system but a lot of things have to be revised when we change something as fundamental as adding Precision 2♣ to it. For example,

1♣-1M
2♣
This is non-forcing in WJ2020, similar to Dutch Doubleton. But when we include Precision 2♣, it is presumably forcing for one round like in WJ2005, and one will have to look up the WJ2005 notes to see which follow-ups can be passed.

With 4♦5♣ you open 1♦ in J2005 but 1♣ in WJ2020. We should probably open 1♦ in WJ2020-with-precision but that has some other consequences, for example
1♦-1M
1NT-?
Now we should probably play Magister instead of XYZ to catter to opener having (31)45.

The there are freebids which are forcing in WJ2020 but nonforcing in WJ2005. I think we should now play negative freebids opposite a 1♣ opening but possibly not opposite other suit openings.

We will see how it goes. That we lost some 34 IMPs at yesterdays crossimps did not have anything to do with the system except maybe that it is diffult to keep stanigma wen one has to remember a bunch of exceptions on top of the 300 pages. Otherwise it was mostly due to a couple of crazy slams against us which happened to make. But at some point we have to tidy up this system mess.

[DavidKok]

That is a bold double, I'm not sure I would have found it! Knowing that partner has a non-minimum is very nice there, well bid.

As you say I think looking back to WJ2010 or WJ2005 is a good idea for integrating the 2♣ opening. The issue with Raptor clubs style hands still remains though - you can put them in 2♣, but it's not ideal.
Personally I'm not a fan of opening 1♦ with 4♦5♣, but I know many people consider it the least of evils. Depending on how the auction develops you can support partner's major or maybe get out in 1NT, which is much more difficult if you open 2♣. In return, opening 1♦ with this hand loses on the (54) minors either way, as partner won't know which one you've got if you show both. I played a Dutch Doubleton variant for a while with an unbalanced diamond that included x=y=4=5 11-15, which was shown by bidding 1♦-1M; 1NT. Since 1♦ is unbalanced that rebid was idle, so it specifically showed the 4♦5♣ 11-15 NF hand with at most a doubleton in support (with 3 we raised). Ultimately we abandoned it because our 1♦ was usually 5(+), and by putting this hand type in there we took on considerable difficulties on competitive auction when responder raised on 3 when it was wrong, or failed to raise on 3 when it was right, or we couldn't identify the better minor to play in after the opponents bumped us to 2M or the likes. If your 1♦ opening is usually 4 cards this gadget might work better for you?

In my opinion the negative free bids in Polish are bad, and are one of the main examples of putting too much emphasis on the strong hand and not enough on the more common weaker hands. Personally I would not play them over 1♣ either. If you want a best of both worlds though, transfers are also highly effective. And if you already have such a large system book, maybe you can make some room for the competitive auctions

[helene_t]

Yes I agree with transfer freebids. Or maybe Switch.

[foobar]

 helene_t, on 2025-September-06, 03:50, said:

...
top of the 300 pages.

Helene, this is a terrible analogy, but since you have a programming background, at 300-pages, you are giving the seriously bloated C++ language specification a run for the money .


On a more serious note, I would recommend rolling that back by a factor of 6x. Of course, if both you and pard have phenomenal memories, YMMV.

[mycroft]

300 pages written like a DJNeill book (plus a bunch of "we've agreed this style in this case" or "in case of a fight between these meta-agreements, this one wins") is just fine; we all would play that if it were written out with examples and clear arguments why X and not Y.

300 pages of bidding flowcharts? Yeah, too much.

"How to play Winning Bridge" + "Bid Better, much Better over 1NT" + Anderson's "Lebensohl convention" - way more than 300 pages. And that doesn't count the stuff we play that isn't in there (granted, much of that would be "replace these 2 pages with these 2" x 40 or so, but still). I don't have much trouble remembering all that (even if nobody else understands our auctions...)

[helene_t]

foobar, on 2025-September-07, 11:15, said:

On a more serious note, I would recommend rolling that back by a factor of 6x. Of course, if both you and pard have phenomenal memories, YMMV.

I an ideal World, we would start with some 50 pages covering the essentials and then agree to add some 25 more pages every week.

I am afraid it doesn't work this way. We could start with the WJ2020 Basic but I am afraid we would have to spend time clarifying a lot of things which would would ditch a couple of months later anyway.

So the decision is to go for all 300 pages from day one and then accept that it will take some time before it works effordlessly.

There's the additional complication that I am reading the English translation, my p is reading the Polish original, and our own notes and system card are in Danish