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Bridge: Two level preempts

Weak Two bids - when to do it

This page has spun off my weak.two collection as I have seen some really terrible judgement used in opening preempts. They always cause problems, but with experience less so, and you get to punish the silly ones or get to games you couldn't otherwise have made.

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Originally weak two's started as a sound 6 card suit but many variations have evolved. As the six suit isn't that common players started to make them with five (or even four. The North American EHAA Style is one system which incorporates 'anything goes' weak twos. In contrast the very successful Italian Blue Team would only play sound 6 suits. SQ9xxxx was not enough. To some extent this reflects the divide between constructive and offensive bidding, and between teams and match point play.

I have also received a nice email from Al Kimel detailing the so called Club Letter approach

This just my approach to preempting, it reflects what I have read and seen elsewhere.

Club letter approach

Writes Al Kimel: Chris, the experts of the Club Letter (Bernie Chazen, Paul Soloway, Alan Sontag, and Alvin Roth) recommend the following adaptation of the Standard American weak 2: The Club Letter approach may be summed up in the following words: "There is no hand that is too good for a weak two-bid but not good enough for an opening one bid. Pick one or the other. The more distributional your hand is, the more often you should try to enter the bidding."

I would very much endorse this line myself. I have little time for those who argue that a hand is too good for a weak two, but must be passed {Chris}



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