[gwnn]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2011-October-25, 17:27, said:

What about CRASH over a strong 1C ?

DBL! = 2 suits of same Color
1D! = 2 suits of same Rank ( either minors or majors)
1NT! = 2 suits of same Shape ( pointed Sp/Diam or rounded Ht/Cl )

1H = natural, one suited
1S = natural, one suited

I don't like it.

Psycho suction and inverted psycho suction are fun to play and no doubt cool but I slowly grew tired of them.

2♥=hearts or spades is a very tough bid to cope with. I think you should include it in your defence no matter what else you play. Of course 2♥=hearts or spades+clubs or something is very similar to hearts or spades.

[gwnn]

semeai, on 2011-October-25, 15:33, said:

@gwnn Ultimately everything in chess is material too, with the only material being the king. Maybe the problem is that chess as a whole is harder than the card play of one bridge hand?

Even so, most think in reductive terms even in bridge. Certainly we have the phrase non-material in bridge, as in say non-material squeezes, and have things like entries and stoppers and so forth.

The difference between double dummy and single dummy suggests there are other types of non-material things about in a bridge hand as well.

Fair enough. Good food for thought.

[Free]

Bidding your 2nd longest suit is also fun. Or any suit you bid is either your longest or your shortest suit. Or 1♠ showing 0-3♠s. Be creative.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

I just ran across this quote ( while looking up BIG CLUB defenses ... http://chrisryall.ne...strong-club.htm ) ... excerpts from a discussion from 2001 :

" I believe it was Benito Garozzo (if it wasn't him it was Belladonna) who when asked about the best defence to a big club said 'Bid 2 spades" You want to chew up as much space as is safe (and borrow a little since they may well pull when you're dead).' "
Ron Johnson

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Then a different poster offered up the following defense:

" Years ago, Kitty Munson Cooper showed me a structure that struck me as very well designed. Her name for it was "British CRASH." Over their big 1C opening:

X = hearts
1D = spades
1H = black suits or red suits
1S = majors or minors
1NT = pointed or round suits

After their big 1C and little 1D response, the structure changes:

X = black suits or red suits
1H = natural
1S = natural
1NT = majors or minors
2C = pointed or round suits

In aggregate, this method captures most of the advantages you could want vs. their big club:

1. it gets the edge that accrue to CRASH methods: the big hand often doesn't know whether advancer will be taking another bid or not, and so cannot pass the decision around to partner

2. it puts the big club opening bidder on lead about as often as possible, and that's the hand we want on opening lead."

Steve Grant

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Here's another defense from KenRexford ( from 2008 ) :

kenrexford said...

" Many years ago, I played in a midnight game with a young player of great talent. We were supposed to play six boards but only made it through four before the round was called, comparing to a huge win. The opponents played Precision and fell apart against our defense.

The idea was that all two-level overcalls showed various rwo-suited bids (nothing exciting), and 1NT shows balanced (weird, but OK). One-level calls (double for clubs) showed either the suit bid (1♠ shows spades) or shortness in that suit and the other three suits (1♠ also could be 1-4-4-4 or something resembling that). If Responder liked spades, he picked the side suit that he liked best. If partner disliked spades but liked some side suit a lot, he raised spades. If partner liked spades and liked some side suit, he could jump. Kind of psychotic paradox advances.

Needless to say, the opponents had no idea what was going on. I'm not so sure this would work against good opponents, but it was hilarious in the midnight game. Beer makes all conventions work better. "

August 11, 2008 9:52 PM