Precision Club
Precision Club is a bidding system in the game of contract bridge. It is a strong club system developed in 1969 for C. C. Wei by Alan Truscott, and used by Taiwan teams in 1969. Their success in placing second at the 1969 Bermuda Bowl launched the system's popularity.
The central feature of the Precision system is that an opening bid of one club is used for any hand with 16 or more high card points, regardless of distribution. An opening bid of one of a major suit signifies a five-card suit and 11–15 HCP. A one notrump opening bid signifies a balanced hand and 13–15 HCP.
Popularity
After the success of Taiwan teams in 1969 and 1970 Bermuda Bowls with the system, the entire Italian Blue team switched to Precision Club and won yet another World Team Olympiad in 1972. The modifications to the system were made chiefly by Benito Garozzo and he titled it Super Precision. Today, multiple world champions Jeff Meckstroth and Eric Rodwell play their own variant known as RM Precision. In North America, Precision is less commonly played than Standard American or 2/1 game forcing, especially at the club level.Advantages and disadvantages
Advocates of Precision say that it is generally more efficient than systems such as Standard American. Because all opening bids except 1 are limited, the responder almost immediately knows the hand potential and the chances for a part score, game or slam.Critics of Precision question the wisdom of combining a strong club with 5-card majors. This causes certain hand shapes to bid awkwardly, and a high percentage of hands are opened with one diamond, including in some cases hands with only a doubleton diamond.
The main disadvantage of the strong-club system is its vulnerability to preemptive bids. Knowing that they rarely can make game against a strong-club opening, experienced opponents will compete in the bidding with distributional hands, regardless of strength, and rob bidding space from the opening side.
Main opening sequences
- 1: Conventional, 16+
- *Responses:
- *1: negative, 0–7. If playing the "impossible negative", any 4–4–4–1; this will be followed by a strong rebid.
- *1, 1, 2, 2: 8+, 5-card suit
- *1NT: 8–10, balanced
- *2, 2: 4–7, 6-card suit
- *2NT: 11–13 or 16+, balanced
- *3, 3, 3, 3: 4–7, 7-card suit
- *3NT: 14–15, balanced
- 1: 11–15, no 5 card major or 6 card club suit. Originally 4+ suit and unbalanced hand. A notrump range is included in some versions, 2+ suit in this case. In some versions, where classic precision 2 opening is not played diamonds can be even shorter.
- 1, 1: 11–15, 5-card suit
- 1NT: 13–15, balanced
- 2: 11–15, 6-card suit or a 5-card suit with a 4-card major
- 2: Conventional, 11–15, 4=3=1=5, 3=4=1=5, 4=4=1=4 or 4=4=0=5 distribution.
- 2, 2: Weak two bid, 6–10, good 6-card suit
- 2NT: 22–24, balanced
- 3, 3, 3, 3: normal preempts
- 3NT: Conventional, solid 7-card minor suit leading with AKQ, no outside strength
Precision today
When 1 – 1 is no longer a 4–4–4–1,
- 1 – 2 = 8+ HCP, 4–4–4–1 singleton ;
- 1 – 2 = 8+ HCP, 4–4–4–1 singleton ;
- 1 – 3 = 8+ HCP, 4–4–4–1 singleton ;
- 1 – 3 = 8+ HCP, 4–4–4–1 singleton
RM (Meckwell) Precision
RM Precision is a bidding system played by Eric Rodwell and Jeff Meckstroth – one of the most successful bridge partnerships of all time. Meckwell bidding is highly sophisticated variation of Precision system. Most of RM Precision was developed subsequently in the early '80s with adaptations following more slowly thereafter. Meckwell notes are a guarded secret. Though many conventions has been openly described and used: support double, conventional transfers in many situations, the pass-double inversion, Meckwell Defense...They trade long and verbose Alpha, Beta and Gamma Asking Bids for the shorter and concise descriptive sequences. The convention card is available on the internet.
Eric Kokish nicely outlines the Meckwell system: