[keylime]

Ben,

I meant this as being facetious!!! Of course I'd give them the "defense", written down, even though I'm not required to give one .

[the hog]

"very few opps have even figured out how to deal with it here in this part of the world. "

Now see, this is interesting. In this part of the world, where you face up to this stuff from the lols in the Saturday afternoon duplicate, most have figured out a way to cope. It is the old adage, "Familiarity breeds contempt". If US system regs were more sensible your lols would treat this stuff with contempt as well.

Like the last time I played Moscito in a congress -
Pd 1D, Me - alert "Yes Dear?", "Pd has 9-14 with at least 4H".
Lo lady "Thank you dear" - bids 4H making 11.

[Cascade]

hrothgar, on Jul 23 2004, 05:42 AM, said:

Hard to believe that the ACBL allows a BSC at the Midchart level.

Especially when I had to give up on this idea in NZ many years ago. NZ is supposed to be one of the homes of system innovation with forcing pass and all of that.

[Cascade]

inquiry, on Jul 23 2004, 09:29 AM, said:

Well, actually this "won't tell" attitidue is not in keeping with the game. When I spring a new convention on someone and it is obviously new, I will volunteer standard defense or defenses, and allow them to decide which to use. Active Ethics is not such a slippery thing... Besides, I hope to win by superior technique (note word hope...) rather than springing surpise conventions on an unssupecting public.

Some of the recommended defenses that I have seen are not worth the paper they are written on.

In general I am happier playing my own defenses or generic defenses than something that the opponents recommend.

It could create a problem when you follow a recommended defense and end up in trouble. Not sure how the officials would deal with this.

[Antoine Fourrière]

I don't think that wasting the 2N opening on the least useful two-suited preempt makes much sense. (Sure, more than showing 20-21 balanced, but that isn't a reference.) And I am more afraid of giving the opponents a delayed penalty double with a two-suiter than with a one-suiter, because the former is less sound than the latter. So I would suggest:

2N diamond preempt (3♣ by responder shows a problem somewhere and opener has to ask with 3♦), or perhaps some annoying strong hand with diamonds. It could also be played as a large-range diamond preempt, but in my opinion you need to open (4♣ or) 4♦ with less than a good 7 HCP if you really want to disrupt their bidding. Otherwise, they will end up into their normal contract just on power, and the preempt will now backfire.

3♣ club preempt (3♦ by responder asks for shortness, over which 3♥ is balanced or short in hearts, over which 3♠ shows heart weakness.)

3♦ both minors (unsound, but at least their double is for takeout now)

[Cascade]

Antoine Fourrière, on Jul 23 2004, 03:21 PM, said:

I don't think that wasting the 2N opening on the least useful two-suited preempt makes much sense.

I have played 2NT for both majors for a while now with three different partners. IMO this is a big improvement on both minors. Among the advantages are:

We are more likely to have a game at 4-Major;

This is slightly more pre-emptive 2NT (Pass) 3♠ is tougher than 2NT (pass) 3♦;

You can invite game at the three-level - 2NT 3♣/♦ = invitational with hearts/spades.

The most fun that I had with this bid was when I picked up 1174 and partner opened 2NT.

At that time we were playing Symmetric Relays (up one step normally 2♠ shows a 5/5 hand in Relay) over 2NT. I was tempted to relay with 3♣ as the first step 3♦ would be show high shortage and I would pass. With 74 in the minors I thought the odds favoured partner being short in diamonds. But I decided that it would be too disasterous if partner had diamond length - far from impossible. So I passed 2NT. This was the correct decision for two reasons - 1. Partner did in fact have diamond length and 2. The opponent led a diamond!!!!

Partner quickly racked up seven diamond tricks and then failed to take another trick for 2NT -1.

[kgr]

Free,

We wanted to play 2NT as weak 5/5 in minors or in majors.
But this was not allowed on the low level I play in Belgium.
...to brown

Now we play 2NT as a strong hand, but maybe we should go back to weak 5/5 in minors (or weak 5/5 in majors). Our current 2NT range is 24-25...does not come up a lot

Koen

[Free]

It would be to fit in a strong ♣ system, so no need for strong openers this high

I also play in Belgium, brown sticker is rarely allowed, rule of 18 most of the time active (sometimes not in 3rd&4th hand), but for the rest we can be quite happy for what is allowed! If you compare us with ACBL land, we can do whatever we want