Sometimes, playing at a club can be really frustrating. It seems very few of the players there take bridge ethics very seriously, often including the director. For folks who try to take the game seriously and work on their play every time they sit down, club games can be really...difficult. At one of our regular clubs, hesitations and misinformation are the two biggest elements of partnership bidding. The only way we can deal with such ridiculous bridge is to give them something to hesitate over.
Introducing a system invented by McKenzie Myers: Strip Club.
I'll leave it to him to describe the system in detail, but basically it's a system where nearly every bid is artificial and we open any 10-count, as well as 3-9 point undisciplined preempts.
I only started studying the system about 90 minutes before game time, so of course there was a lot I didn't absorb. I knew we weren't playing to win yesterday so much as just to have fun and watch people squirm over our weird system, so whatever.
Somewhere early in the session, I picked up an awful hand: Txxx Jxx Qxxxx Q.
I was the dealer and we were favorable. Remembering the part about undisciplined preempts, I immediately pulled the STOP card and reached for 2D. Then I remembered that 2D shows both majors. But that damn STOP card was already on the table. Oh well. 3D.
LHO passes and McKenzie confidently pulls out 3N. Righty asks me what 3N is. I tell her it's an offer to play. RHO is holding three aces and three kings. She passes, and we buy the contract, undoubled, in 3N.
They took the first eight tricks, and the last four. McKenzie apologized afterward. "I should've held it to down 7." Ha!
His hand was almost as awful as mine. He had four diamonds, though (Jxxx), and reasoned that by going through 3N first, we were less likely to be doubled in 5D, or maybe we could even escape to 4D, in our "11-card" fit. Heh.
So my biggest screwup with the new system earned us a top board. All the other tables have results ranging from -660 to -1470.
I doubt this is a system we'll ever use in tournament play, but it was fun to mess around for a day. We finished with a 65%. Go figure.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
What was your 1NT range? Would be fun to figure out a way to put in 13-17 so it's both weak and strong (legal to have a 5 pt range). Or just play 8-10, which is one of my favorites since it lets you preempt with a balanced hand (legal, but can't play systems over it).
I also love making 2NT as preemptive with minors when I play strange systems, since I hate the standard 2NT.
Actually, I'm pretty sure 8-10NT isn't GCC. We played 13-15, and 2NT was weak with both minors, but it didn't come up. I did open 1NT a lot, and people didn't really know what to do about it.
8-10 NT is GCC. You can't play any artificial responses, which is no problem at all. You play 2c and 2d as 3+ cards and both are inv+ Stayman. Opener bids a 4-card major or NT, at which point responder can bid 2NT or raise (inv) or bid anything else (GF 5+). 3m is NF. You can define a 3M response as NF, inv, or GF (however you like) but it has to be natural. Also 3s can't show for instance a 4144 (that order) hand even though that's "natural" and not "artificial" because it's considered "conventional" even though it's "natural"
Whew.
BTW if you're playing 10-12 or weaker, it's right to play 2M/3any as "to play"
Those openings are preempts and you want to be able to continue the preempt.
Post a Comment