Loading ...leaving las vegas
Well, my flight’s delayed, but there’s free WiFi at the airport, so at least I won’t be stranded and bored. Supposed to board in 90 minutes, we’ll see about that.
Shannon and I played pairs this afternoon, did pretty well all things considered. What things? Noticed that I’d lost my cell phone when I went to turn it off as we sat down at the start of the afternoon session. Played really fast the first three rounds and then found it happily overheating in the car. Couldn’t have been happier to find the darned thing. Are there even pay phones at airports any more?
Tell me what you think of this: as you already know, we like to play 2D transfer preempt at matchpoints (because we’re not allowed 2D weak with both majors. Check the archive if this doesn’t ring a bell.); I want to play it as a weak 2 in hearts except when opener rebids 3D, at which point it’s a diamond preempt with 6 instead of 7 cards. If we want to preempt in diamonds now, we have to open 3D. 2NT asks, assuming 2D shows hearts. 3C is a non-minimum weak 2 in hearts, 3D is a diamond preempt, 3H is a minimum weak 2 in hearts, 3S is a feature (guaranteeing non-minimum weak in hearts) and 3NT is 6 solid diamonds.
Our first reaction is “that can’t be legal,” but the more we think about it … why not?
June 21st, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Yeah, when I saw the field for that KO, I wasn’t quite so jealous. Almost as tough as Gatlinburg. Were you always planning to go home early?
I don’t think your proposed treatment is playable. I love opening 2 Diamonds weak, which is one of the main reasons I resist playing Multi. But your either/or idea almost guarantees disaster. You prevent partner from extending the preempt in either suit (unless she has both,) you force the auction to 3 Diamonds with only 6 of them (unless your partner guesses to pass, a risky proposition on most hands) and if the opponents come in (in spades, perhaps,) partner has no idea whether to drop the hammer or compete with a good hand because she’s not sure what your suit is. Yes, she can usually figure it out, but less often than you might think.
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:31 am
I say; You go, Girls. I think it will cause more havoc for the opps than for you. Given time you can overcome Jonathon’s arguments. For instance, bidding 2 spades can mean “I have both suits, show mw where you live”. Thus, you have extended the preempt, bid their spades, (will anyone know just what X means here unless you tell them)and conveyed info to pard.
3 Clubs could be a Diamond raise only, with 3 diamonds showing hts, but pard is free to pass. 2 NT can still be the forcing bid with gadgets galore!
Since it focuses on diamonds and hearts and one of you is a redhead and one of you was; and since it is a pre-empt, I suggest naming it Pre-emptive Reds in Either To Torture You or by its acronym of PRETTY.
June 22nd, 2007 at 8:30 am
As far as I can tell, 2D showing hearts or diamonds (both weak) wouldn’t even be legal on the superchart.
The superchart allows this:
1. Artificial weak bids at the two or three level (including those
with strong adjuncts) must possess,
a) a known suit or
b) one of no more than two possible suits not to include the
suit bid.
So you could play 2D showing hearts or clubs (both weak) at superchart level, but not H+D.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:25 am
Jon is worried about losing the weak 2 in diamonds — we lost that long ago. Our 2D openers have been conventional for quite a while; if we have a preemptive 6-card diamond suit, we have to open it at the 3-level anyway.
I agree the superchart says what Alex says it does (though I haven’t read it with this particular treatment in mind); I’m still not convinced it’s not legal. It’s legal to play 2/1 game force “except when suit rebid,” right?
Though it’s a pretty slim hair to split, I’m not looking to play 2D “showing hearts or diamonds,” as much as 2D transfer preempt “except when suit rebid.”
Nobody seems to be harmed — most of the time it’s a weak 2 bid in hearts. Somewhere between most of the time and almost always, in fact, and so we bid accordingly.
Kitty Cooper raised the issue of further preemption when she and I were talking about it yesterday. (Kitty and Steve play the same imps/matchpoints stuff we play.) I don’t agree that it’s a problem: with a hand that would have bid a game, partner starts with 2NT. It’s no more tricky for opponents to field 2NT - 3H - 4H than 2H-4H. Could still be any hand where responder thought she had a 4H bid.
I haven’t checked it out yet, but I’m hoping I can find adequate support in the mid-chart to at least try it out and see if it’s a loser.
Yes, I was always planning to go home early. Can’t stand being away from the family any longer.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:34 am
Hi
Nice blog. I am always bemused when I find out about the limitations top pairs encounter when trying to introduce competitive agreements in their system, a misguided approach which hardly prepares them to face top international competitions. Why should 2D as weak major only be forbidden? That is what I play and is a really nice idea (It also works statistically as we found out in a comparative study on many thousands of hands from top level events). If you need a strong option to get past such silly restriction then add in a 5-4-4-0 with 2 or less losers, it wont bother you in practice and the once it lifetime it occurs you only need a simple check relay to find out the void and place the contract.
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:41 am
As to the legality, I don’t see why its legality would be any different than Multi (Mid-chart.) If 2 Diamonds can show a weak hand with 6 Hearts or 6 Spades, why can’t it show a weak hand with 6 Diamonds or 6 Hearts? That being said, I haven’t read the GCC lately.
And it’s not that I think you’re losing the weak 2 in Diamonds, just that it sounds like you think you can somehow get it back this way. (If I wanted to get the weak 2 in Diamonds back, and it were legal, I’d stick it in the 2 Club opener. There it won’t do you much harm.) If your hand is going to force the auction to 3 Diamonds anyway, just open 3 Diamonds.
Finally, I don’t see why weak hands with biddable 6 card Diamond suits would come up any less often than weak hands with biddable 6 card Heart suits. The only difference in frequency relates to a major on the side making a weak 2 inappropriate, which would happen slightly more frequently in Diamonds (since there’s 2 majors on the side, instead of just one.) There’s barely a ‘most of the time’ there but certainly no ‘almost always, in fact … and so we bid accordingly’ there.
This treatment has potential against weak fields, but then, most unusual stuff does. Against the Meckwells, Berkowitzs, Lairs, Wolds and Passells of the world (to name a few from the Vegas bracket,) it’s gonna be ugly. I hope you get to try it out, though, if you have your heart (and diamonds) set on it.
June 22nd, 2007 at 11:01 am
I should have read the Mid-chart first before offering my opinion on legality. Having now done so, I agree with Alex, I don’t think it’s legal, even under the Super-chart.