Revision Club (Revised Precision)

Revision (short for "revised Precision") by John Montgomery is a big club system that is similar to, and based on, Precision. Of existing published methods, it most closely resembles the Precision style presented by Barry Rigal in his book Precision for the 90s.

I have closely followed -and used for some time)- the evolution of Precision since C.C. Wei published his book after designing the system to be first used by Chinese Teams in international events. As an aid to memory, this was the original design of Wei:

• 1♣ : 16+ hcp, strong, forcing for one round
• 1♦ : 11-15, three or more diamonds
• 1♥ : 11-15, 5+ hearts
• 1♠ : 11-15, 5+ spades
• 1NT: 13-15, balanced
• 2♣ : 11-15, 5+ clubs
• 2♦ : 12-15, 4-4-1-4 or 4-4-0-5 shape, short diamonds
• 2♥ : weak-two
• 2♠ : weak-two

Precision had several design flaws (my subjective view):

• 1♣ threshold is too low. In all competitive auctions, this leaves the strong club opener with no suit bid.
• 1♣ - 1♦ sequence. Despite being the most common sequence, the least attention has been given.
• 1♣ - positive responses. It is really difficult to limit the hands after a positive.
• 2♣ opening. This is the Achilles heel of most big club systems and little can be done about it within this framework.
• 2♦ opening. An opening bid has been assigned to a rare distribution.

Montgomery addressed a few of the above in a most exhaustive (I mean it) way. First, he switched the negative 1♦ response to a simple waiting bid where most of the positive responses now reside and moved all semi-positive hands in the range of 5-7 points to the positives; i.e. 1♣ - 1♥ now shows five or more hearts with 5-7 points. This, compared to the original design and most of the later Precision derivatives is a clever approach. By allowing responder to introduce a suit early in the auction, the partnership is now better positioned against an interference by fourth hand; plus, it facilitates finding a part score, not to mention that semi-positive hands, the most common ones against a big club, are now considerably better described.

Secondly, 5-4 clubs and a major hands are now in 1♦ opening and 2♣ shows 6 or more clubs. Although it crowds the 1♦ opener, it is a way better approach than bidding 2♣ with 5 clubs and a 4-card major. Losing a major fit after a 2♣ opener was almost a certainty in Wei's original scheme (and in most of Precision derivatives) if responder was not good enough to relay.

Third, 4-3-1-5 and 3-4-1-5 shapes have been stuffed into the 2♦ to make a rare event less rare. I still do not like it but there really is no way to solve it without making the 1♦ opening a mess.

Fourth is the explanation of why I used the word exhaustive to define Montgomery's work. He analyzed every possible meaning by giving an account of fifth or sometimes sixth round of bidding. And this is what sets Revision Club apart from others floating in the net. Revision Club (zipped pdf, 1.72 MB) is not an amalgamation of ideas taken from other systems, it is an in-depth and complete work. It is a system.