Metin (Arda85) and I had an interesting session this morning with Metin trying his hand at the Complex Sys (with a good degree of success). One hand well pointed up the inadvisability of interfering against multi-style openings until your Opps have clarified their hand somewhat.
At game all I opened 2NT on the following motley collection:
AJ1042
J10843
Q
KQ
My LHO clearly assumed I had the Minors or Clubs and overcalled 2
. Metin doubled and I was perfectly happy to pass that for penalties. Metin was in the very happy position of
knowing that I must have the Majors, because he was sat with
K3
9
AK106
AJ10972
Poor Declarer was sat with
AKQ52 and the Spade Queen and Dummy just had
Jxxx. When the dust settled we let Declarer off with -4 for 1100 (could have got one more with perfect defence). One pair found and made the vastly inferior Spade slam but nobody found the much better Club slam and +1100 was pretty good.
This kind of situation is similar to Brozel/DONT Doubles over 1NT and defending against a Multi. You really are generally better off letting Opps define their hand-type before you jump in with both feet. Sometimes if you're 4th-in hand, you don't have that option, but when you're 2nd-in-hand over the Multi-style opening, you usually
can count on a 2nd chance.
We had one nice bidding hand for the system, which was rewarded with a top. Metin responded flawlessly on this:
NS Vulnerable, Dealer WestNorth J8
AK104
AK
108643
South AK1074
63
AK
AKQ5
Bidding (nothing from Opps)
North South1
1NT
(1)2
(2) 2
(3)3
(4) 4
(5)4
(6) 4
(7)5
( 8 ) 7
(9)(1) 14+ any shape
(2) 5+ Clubs
(3) Range Beta
(4) Max, 6 Controls
(5) Gamma in Clubs
(6) No Top Honour
(7) Epsilon in Spades (To guard against
xxx)
( 8 ) 3rd round control of Spades
(9) Knew North couldn't have the
Queen with AKAK in the Reds, so wasn't remotely tempted to try for 7NT.
The Clubs were 3-1 but the Spades were 3-3 so no problems. Amazingly, nobody else found 7
and the Grand was worth 15 IMPs. Overall, Metin showed a very good grasp of the system, so please give him a game if you get the chance.