Preemptive Transfers

[Antoine Fourrière]

I agree that the opponents should be warned beforehand of personal potentially disruptive conventions, such as hrothgar's Frellings, the Aussie's 2C Ekren, or my 2C as a weak two in a major or a weak two-suiter with at least a major.

 

But 2C strong or weak with diamonds, 2D minimulti, 2D/H Ekren, 2D Wilkosz, 2H and 2S as alternatives to Wilkosz, even 2D hearts or spades and a minor, 2H spades or hearts and a minor and 2S majors or minors, maybe 2H weak in hearts or spades, surely 2S as a weaker or stronger preempt and transfer preempts all have been played by several pairs at the highest level.

 

In my view, it is reason enough not to prealert them if they are explained on your convention card. Nor should the strong club, the Precision nebulous diamond, the Polish Club or the weak notrump be prealerted.

 

You should be prepared against them (and maybe Fred could label a BBS defense against each of them).

[csdenmark]

You really don't need using very much power to take the air out of this balloon.

 

State your own suits in absolute terms and not in relative terms - and the problems are over. Truscott convention is created for such.

 

http://groups.msn.com/bridgeFILES/truscott.msnw

[mishovnbg]

Misho said "Bridge is only game, but is clear war game. How in any war better weapons and better training normally win."

 

I would ask; have you read "The Art of War"?

 

The key to war is deception! Best is to win without fighting, :-D.

 

Bridge is NOT war, deception has its place in bridge but "Never give a sucker an even break" is not the bridge I play.

 

Yes, i regular use deceptive play, it is part of my style. In my opinion bluff is normal play, like any other and is not unfair to use it. Ofcourse sometimes i go for my phone number B). But how in poker, you mostly win not from bluffs, rather from opponents thinking about you MAY bluff ;D.

Anybody can play way he prefer and lose/win by this way. I can only quote Hog ( Victor Mollo book hero ): "Everybody care for losers ( my - little old ladies ). Why nobody care for winers? Do you think winers like executions?".

Misho

[DrTodd13]

The most ridiculous thing about the Meckstroth 2C Ekrens situation was

that 2D (or 2H I can't remember which one) Ekrens was allowed in the event

because the defensive database had a defense against that bid. However,

solely because 2C was used rather than 2D (thus making defense

theoretically easier) it was disallowed. Moreover, a subsequent "official"

defense to 2C Ekrens was vetoed even though a defense to 2D Ekrens was

on the books.

 

I disagree with official defensive databases because there are being used

to stop conventions from proliferating by refusing to accept an official

defense. This is in exact opposition to their initial purpose of allowing new

conventions but making sure adequate defense was available. If you are

going to have a defense database then you must mandate that the people

on that committee draft a defense to all submitted conventions in a timely

manner. As it is, the creation of the defense is a burden to the convention

creator and the committee can always say "not good enough."

 

It always confuses me that people who take up an intellectually difficult

game that requires serious study suddenly argue for the right to not to

have to think anymore. Confronting a new method, pairs should be given

a chance to discuss a defense. Start from the base of a meta-defense

and modify as appropriate. If the convention becomes popular enough

then defenses tailored to it will emerge and people should adopt them.

I'm not convinced that memorization should be required. Allowing a pair

to check their notes when opponents spring something on them I think

is fair. You shouldn't be able to check your notes in an uncontested

auction though.

[hrothgar]

I'm in complete agreement with DrTodd regarding his general theme, however, the case that he is bringing up is a bit more complicated:

 

The Australian Pair in question originally wanted to use a 2D opening showing 4+ cards in Diamonds and 4+ cards in either major, which is very close to the Frelling 2D opening that I play. The Aussies quickly ran into a problem based on a lack of sugegsted defense in the defensive database. The situation degenerated from there.

 

There is a more complete description available in the travel blogs from the trip.

[sadly, I lost the URL]

[the hog]

There is a more complete description available in the travel blogs from the trip.

[sadly, I lost the URL]

 

 

http://www.nswba.com.au/news/letters.htm

 

The above is the URL which is a collection of letters detailing the Aussie's trip to the states.

[Free]

IMO bidding systems should be as they want. If someone wants to play 2C = 0-5HCP so be it. If you want to pass with 18 HCP who cares. Everybody can do the same thing: making a system like they feel it's best. I heard of some systems which open 1H with a 4 card S, and 1S with a 4 card H. It works for them, but it's a bit harder for the opponents to defend against that... It's like playing in defense: on the first trick you play obvious shift so your partner knows what suit he has to play. If opponents dont play that, they just dont know and that's too bad for them.

 

Now to stick on the topic, I've played transfer pre-empts for about 4 years now, and I haven't got a lot of troubles with it. The disadvantage is that ops have an extra bid, but the advantages are far better: the good hand normally plays and most importantly you can put strong hands in these biddings. Example how I play it:

2S or 2NT = pre-empt C OR FG 55+ C and another suit

3C = pre-empt D OR FG 55+ D and a major

3D = pre-empt H OR FG 55+ H-S

3H = pre-empt S OR FG with H (10 tricks), 3 card S

3S = FG S (10 tricks) with 3 card H

After the relay was bid, opener bids his second suit. If opponents intervene, you can still bid your suit or pass (as a trap) if ur strong.

Btw, a pre-empt doesn't keep good players out their best contract and a transfer pre-empt won't do it either. Not a big difference there...