[vodkagirl]

Hi guys,

Playing with a random opponent something happened that has not happened before: Partner repeatedly refused to lead to any 1♣ I had opened.

He argued as I was playing short ♣ this was reasonable. Furthermore, he would rather play me for the unbid major when opponents had found a fit in one of them.

I was flabbergasted. What do people make of his reasoning?

I thought it was chiselled in stone that one lead the suit partner had bid.

Looking forward to the replies.

[helene_t]

No you don't have to lead partner's suit:
- if you have a great alternative
- if you have a singleton in partner's suit, defending a notrump contract
- if you have Axx and prefer partner to lead the suit through declarer's king
- when partner opened a minor suit and the bidding strongly suggest that partner is balanced

[jallerton]

The big weakness of short club is when partner needs to guess whether you have clubs or not.

There's no general answer here. It depends on the auction and the hand. Sometimes it's not right to lead partner's suit anyway.

Style of opening bid is also relevant here. If you agree to open 1♣ on all 4432 shapes, including those with 2 clubs and 4 diamonds, then the 1♣ opening bid is a lot more likely to be short than if playing 'better minor', for example. Your opening NT range will also affect the relative percentages of the clubs/not clubs hands.

[vodkagirl]

 jallerton, on 2014-May-22, 15:49, said:

The big weakness of short club is when partner needs to guess whether you have clubs or not.

Thank your for your post.

I play short♣ because my 1♦ is alway four and I play 2♣/1♦ as 2/1 GF.

Is this not a fair trade off?

[vodkagirl]

 helene_t, on 2014-May-22, 15:45, said:

No you don't have to lead partner's suit:
- if you have a great alternative
- if you have a singleton in partner's suit, defending a notrump contract
- if you have Axx and prefer partner to lead the suit through declarer's king
- when partner opened a minor suit and the bidding strongly suggest that partner is balanced

Thanks for elucidating the alternatives.

I play Inverted Minors and your post has made me wonder how use of short ♣ impacts on that.

Is it the price of doing business or should I ditch one of the two 'conventions'?

[Mbodell]

 vodkagirl, on 2014-May-22, 19:44, said:

Thanks for elucidating the alternatives.

I play Inverted Minors and your post has made me wonder how use of short ♣ impacts on that.

Is it the price of doing business or should I ditch one of the two 'conventions'?

There are really very few hands where I'd lead 1♣ if partner opened 1♣ where it promises 3+ and the minimum lengths are 5 for 1♠, 5 for 1♥, 3 for 1♦ but only when 4=4=3=2 and otherwise 4+, and 3 for 1♣ but yet wouldn't lead the club if the minimum lengths were 5, 5, 4, and 2 respectively where the 4=4=3=2 is the only hand with 2 clubs to open 1♣, otherwise 1♣ promises 3. In other words the 4=4=3=2 shape, at opening strength but outside a 1nt opening, is such a small percentage of the 1♣ openers that I'd pretty much ignore (what you open with 4=4=3=2) for opening lead reasoning. If you play all balanced hands without 5 Major and outside your 1NT range start with 1♣ and 1♦ is 4+ and unbalanced, now there might be enough difference to have some reasonable set of hands where I'd lead a club with standard bidding but something else with this treatment of 1♣.

But as helene_t nicely listed there are numerous reasons why I might not lead a club. Heck, there are a decent number of hands I wouldn't lead a club if my partner opened a club playing all opening suits as 4+ cards! As for inverted minors, mostly the same thing (ignore what you do with 4=4=3=2, at least for your initial action).

[Trinidad]

AS Helene has pointed out, there are many factors that decide which suit to lead. One (and only one) of those factors is what suit partner did bid. Within the category of what suit partner did bid, certain bids carry more weight than others.

If partner overcalled, he is suggesting/promising a good suit, so this should weight heavily.

If partner opened 1♥/♠, he is promising 5 cards there. He is not saying anything about strength there, but if one holds 12+ points and shows 5+ spades, obviously the probability that there are points in spades is larger than that there are points in, say, clubs. So a major suit opening should also be given some weight.

If partner opened 1♣, he is promising 2 clubs. That means that a 1♣ opening doesn't carry too much weight. If you have a good reason to lead another suit, by all means do. On the other hand, it is important to realize that a 1♣ opening certainly does not suggest any other lead. Though it only promised 2 ♣, it is important to realize that it promised 0 spades, 0, hearts and 0 diamonds. In fact, it denies a 5 card side suit, unless the club suit was six cards long*. So refusing to lead clubs, with the argument that 1♣ can be short, is reasoning the wrong way.

Rik

* Exception: Some play a style where hands with 5 spades and 5 clubs are opened 1♣.

[PhilG007]

I play the short club because I play 5 card majors. I always alert the bid(even thought its not mandatory(although I think it should be) I always warn prospective partners beforehand to be careful of raising the suit with only 3 card support.
It also warns not to lead the suit unless also short. As always,its a question of being on the same wavelength (!)

[helene_t]

 vodkagirl, on 2014-May-22, 19:44, said:

Thanks for elucidating the alternatives.

I play Inverted Minors and your post has made me wonder how use of short ♣ impacts on that.

Is it the price of doing business or should I ditch one of the two 'conventions'?

I am personally not so fond of inverted raises of the short 1♣ opening. You need 6-card support to raise to the 3-level unless the suit is good and you are nonvulnerable. It is a shame not being able to show 5-card (or even 4-card) support in case opps interfere and opener would like to compete, although I suppose a 1NT response suggests some club support.

It is not clear what the alternative is, though, and the strong single raise works great. So probably best just to stick to inverted raises. They work great with the 1♦ opening and it might be too confusing to play different structures for 1♣ and 1♦.

In any case, I don't think this should make you reconsider playing short club. Inverted minors doesn't come up very often anyway so it's not a big deal.

[TheoKole]

If he has what I would call a GOOD reasonable alternative lead not leading your suit is fine. Something like KQ, AK, QJ10 and so on. Also I can see leading a singleton hoping to get a ruff perhaps he has trump control and hopes to use your suit for entries to give him ruffs in a side suit.

However partners who REFUSE to lead my suit, especially an overcall I made and instead lead a small doubleton or something else that is not a good alternative are not the type of partner I like to play with. It is basically an insult to the opener or overcaller that his bidding judgement is not as good as the ops.

Example: If I overcall and ops end up playing in a NT contract, and partner refuses to lead my suit, why should they ever have a good stopper or stoppers in it?

Good luck.

Theo

[DougC43]

I fail to see much advantage to the "short club"; the only one (I imagine) is that 1♦ guarantees 4 of them. Sure, if you play the more mainstream "better minor", only 1 1♦ opening out of 20 will have only 3, so assuming 4 is only a small gamble. The flip side is that, especially playing inverted minors, you could get in real trouble raising pard's 1 club opener if they only have 2 of them. In short, assuming 3 clubs where there are only 2 seems more risky than assuming 4 diamonds when there are only 3.

[Zelandakh]

Doug, there are some good write-ups around if you search for them. Basically the problem hand to position for many natural systems is 4=4=3=2. In Swiss Acol you open this 1♥, in Standard American 1♦ and in short club 1♣. As you move along this system chain from Acol to Short Club, you gain additional bidding space fr the problem hand; Short Club maximises this space to help with unravelling everything before getting too high. You also gain several extra tools from a 1♣ opening with Transfer Walsh being high up on the list of these. In truth a 1♣ opening is badly underused in Standard and Short Club addresses this nicely. From a theory point of view it is a no-brainer to do this; it is just that there are certain practical issues (when the opps bid we lose the extra space) and, most of all, custom and tradition is against it.

I will also mention that many advocate including more balanced hands within a 1♣ opening than simply the 4=4=3=2 shape, in order to maximise the advantages of the additional tools and bidding space of the 1♣ opening. In other words, ask yourself whether you are skeptical because the system is unusual to you ot whether you are really judging the comparison on their merits. I am personally close to certain that opening 4=4=3=2 hands 1♣ rather than 1♦ is winning bridge for a Standard system when combined with the proper tools. I think it is quite likely that adding additional balanced shapes to 1♣ is better still but the rotund lady has yet to exercise her vocal chords on that one.

[blackshoe]

It seems that bidding a suit is not, in spite of what the Italian expert allegedly said,* a command. Nor should it be.

*"If I have bid a suit, and you are on lead, lead my suit. If you don't have a card of my suit, find another deck."

[m1cha]

I have played the short club system for quite a while with my regular partner and got really fond of it. We went some steps further though.

First, 1♣ - 1♦: What is this supposed to be, or rather, what may be the point of bidding a 4-card minor here when you want to hear about the majors? So we play 1♣ - 1♦ as 0 - 5 pts with almost any distribution. (The exception is a long ♣ suit, in this case you may pass 1♣.) The obvious advantage is: Never again play 1♣ in a 3:1 fit for -200 (though undoubled) while you have a 4:4 fit in a major.

Second, as Zel mentioned, once you have this tool available you may want to open any balanced distribution within the given point range with 1♣ unless you have a different 5-card suit. Playing it like this, a 1♦ opening usually brings a 5-card diamond suit, the only exception being 4441. This also greatly reduces the chance of playing 1♦ in a 4:1 fit for -200.

If you like inverted minors (we do), 1♣ - 2♣ needs at least 5 cards. 1♣ - 2♦ is also sort of inverted minors showing the same type of hand with 5 ♦s rather than 5♣s. This is possible because opener has most likely two ♦ cards and otherwise has something else worth telling. These bids take much bidding space but that is worth it because they describe the hands quite precisely: showing a long suit and denying a 4-card major. Opener will know how to make use of them.

I should mention we have played this with a Weak NT opening. Opposite a 1♥ or 1♠ rebid from partner, the 1NT rebid from opener shows 15 - 18 pts, 2NT shows 19 - 20 pts; but 1♣ - 1♦ - 1NT is anything from 15 - 20 pts and if you decide to play this you will probably not get doubled and can score well even in NT.

The obvious disadvantage is that if the distribution is balanced, responder will not learn easily which of opener's minors is longer. They may be 4-2 just as well as 2-4 but who cares? First priority is a fit in the majors anyway, and if that does not work out, you want to play NT, and if that does not look nice either, you want to play responder's very long minor suit no matter if opener adds 2 or 4 of them. (When was the last time you aimed at playing 5♣ or 5♦ in a 4-4 fit? )

[FM75]

Mike Lawrence, in one of his books, spent several pages on the weaknesses of the "short club" opening. He pointed out many defects - typical of partnership agreement holes in the bid. He did not mention the problem faced by the partnership in the play when they end up defending. Perhaps if he revised his book, this would be added. (Or agree to never defend after a 1♣ opening. )

Play it if you want. But it would make good sense to find his discussion and make sure that your partnership has satisfactory answers - or don't play it. After shoring up your agreements on the bidding, clearly you need to discuss your defenses, which certainly should allow for your partner to make decisions based on the auction and his holding if he is the opening leader, as well as decisions based on what he sees in dummy after the opening lead.

[blackshoe]

You play "short club", opening 1♣ when you have 4=4=3=2 distribution. How often do you have that exact shape? That's how often you would open 1♦ with fewer than four, if you switched. Also, if you switched, you would guarantee at least three clubs when you open a club, which if you're worried about minor suit length has to be better than guaranteeing only two.

I don't know which book FM is talking about, but if Mike Lawrence argues against it, I'd be pretty leery of disregarding that.

None of which, of course, says anything about whether partner should lead your suit.

[jdgalt]

I lead partner's suit unless I have a good reason not to. But the good reason can simply be that the lead is my singleton, if I have short trumps and need to get the ruff quickly.

Playing short club shouldn't make any difference to the lead decision, although that can be one more reason not to play short club.

[helene_t]

It is no big deal whether you play 5542 or 5533 since it is only when you have exactly 4=4=3=2 that you make a different opening bid. Either way, you assume partner's 1♦ shows 4 and 1♣ shows 3.

If you play in a country in which certain weird defences are popular against the short club but not allowed against a 3+ minor suit opening, you might want to play 5533 to prevent opps for playing such defences. But otherwise it barely matters.

[Trinidad]

 helene_t, on 2014-May-24, 11:09, said:

If you play in a country in which certain weird defences are popular against the short club but not allowed against a 3+ minor suit opening, you might want to play 5533 to prevent opps for playing such defences. But otherwise it barely matters.

... or you might want to play 5542 to encourage some of these (often inferior) defenses.

Rik

[mycroft]

I've heard many horrible things around a short club - "I couldn't raise you, you could have been short!" "I had to rebid my AT842, you might have thought I had a doubleton!" "I can't lead your suit; what if it's their 9-card fit?". I think in theory, the short club has its merits (especially if you are allowed to play T-Walsh); in practise, any merit it has is outweighted by the above comments.

*IF* you're playing 5542, forget all of that. Assume partner has 3, and bid accordingly (in competition, assume partner has 4, and bid accordingly, just like you would with 5533). If you're playing "clubs or balanced", maybe less so.

I feel free to look for another lead when my partner opens a minor and we defend (especially as we play weak NT, so she's frequently got a strong NT). If I don't have a positive reason to lead something else, however, why not lead partner's suit? She's willing to bid it. I don't see much difference between this argument (playing 5533) and the same discussion (playing 5542).