Canary Club

This is an old revision of the document!

The Canary Club system was devised by Paul Heitner and John Lowenthal sometime in the late 50's or early 60's. There is a high level description of the system in The Encyclopedia of Bridge.

The system is really Roman Club with a strong 1 opening rather than the Roman weak 1 opening. One of the drawbacks to Roman Club was the necessity to create the suggestion of strength by bidding two suits rather than bidding and rebidding one suit. In addition there was no way to show a one suiter with the opening bid - one always had to bid a shorter suit first. As a consequence, there frequently were opening bids in 3 card suits.

Canary avoids that problem altogether. In fact there is no bid in the system of a suit less than 4 cards in length unless the bid is pre-defined as artificial. There is no illusion of naturalness as there is in Roman Club or in so-called natural systems.

A second feature of Roman Club was the use of a step response to 1/1/1 as an artificial negative. This is part of the description of Canary Club which appears in The Encyclopedia of Bridge too. It has also been a basis of Canary Club as described in earlier versions of this document.

As of version 3, we will substitute 1N as the first relay response. This serves two purposes:

1. This puts us more in line with what the ACBL considers legal. The 1N response to 1D being treated as forcing is unique to this system, I believe, but probably causes no “legal” problems.
2. Theoretically it probably is superior as well since it causes the hand which is more likely to be balanced to be declarer.

There is a problem introduced with this change. Auctions such as 1 - 1 - 1N (which showed a suit with a suit at least as long as the suit) and 1 - 1 - 1N (which showed a suit with a suit at least as long as the suit) served as a way for opener to show that he didn't have “true” reversing values in the old method. There no longer is a means to show the distinction between reversing values and weaker hands. Experience will show whether this is a problem or not.

Basis of the System

Opening Bids

Opening bids	Description
1	17 + HCP, all hand patterns except 23-24 balanced; (mostly) natural responses
1/1/1	11 - 16 HCP unbalanced or semi-balanced hand. Suit of at least 4 cards. Natural in the canapé sense
1N	13 - 16 HCP 4333, 4432, 5332, 4441 (if singleton is A or K). Could have a 5 card major if the suit has only one high honor
2	11 - 16 HCP 6 card suit, no secondary major
2	11 - 16 HCP 3-suited hand (4441/5440) 544 hands with a major suit void are opened 1 / rather than 2
2/2	11 - 16 HCP 5/6 or bid major with 4/5 C. The hand has 5 or 6 (Roman) losers.
2N	23 - 24 HCP balanced (note: we do not open the slam-buster 2N bid very often! )
3C	11 - 16 HCP 5+ cards in each minor. Hand has 4 to 6 (Roman) losers.

Hand Type	Opening Bid	Notes
Balanced
13 - 16 HCP	1N	Could have a 5 card major if it has only one high honor. A hand pattern of 4441 is also allowed if the singleton is an A or K.
17 - 20 HCP	1	Rebid 1N if 1 response
21 - 22 HCP	1	Rebid 2N if 1 response
23 - 24 HCP	2N
25+	1	Rebid 2. if a 1 response. Responder will usually rebid 2 to find out whether opener has a hand or a strong balanced hand. Opener rebids 2N with the balanced hand.
Hopes of 9 tricks using a long suit	1	3N if 1 response
One suiters
11 - 16 HCP	1/1/1/2
17 +	1
Two suiters
11 - 16 HCP	1/1/1
11 - 16 HCP	3	minors
11 - 16 HCP	2/2	major and secondary s
14 - 16 HCP	2	s and secondary s
17+ HCP	1
Three suiters
11 - 16 HCP	2	singleton in any suit, Can be 544 with void in a minor (and 5 cards in the other minor. No Major suit void, please!
17+HCP	1