Crawling Stayman

Here’s a hand that came up in a pairs session with Elwood.

N-S Vulnerable, dealer West
♠ K Q J 4
♥ J 10
♦ A K J 9
♣ K 10 5

  []

♠ 10 8 6 5
♥ 9 7 4 2
♦ 4 3
♣ 8 6 3

W    N    E    S
1♣   1NT  Pass Pass
Pass

There was no way for Elwood to make his contract, despite his high point count. -100 didn’t get very many matchpoints at all, though, because several pairs playing our way made impossible contracts, and several others registered small pluses as E-W “won” the contract but found they couldn’t make much either.

Elwood wasn’t happy, and I was very embarrassed. With my other partners, I play the usual Garbage Stayman. On this hand, I considered the bid, but rejected it, on the grounds that if the answer from North was 2♦, I wouldn’t have anywhere to go. But at Elwood’s insistence, many months ago, I had agreed to play a variation he calls Crawling Stayman. In this version, a bid of 2♥ over the 2♦ reply doesn’t promise more than a 4-card suit. Opener (or overcaller, in this case) is expected to correct from 2♥ to 2♠ in the event that he holds a doubleton heart. Of course, this isn’t something that comes up very often, but there’s very little downside, and it just so happens to work very well on this particular hand. The crawling mechanism doesn’t come into play, but because it is available, South can bid 2♣. The answer of 2♠ finds the one contract that N-S can make against any defence.

And I just forgot all about it. Completely. Never even entered my mind.

I hate it when that happens.

I think, in general, I’m pretty good about remembering the different systems I play with my various partners. I have two regular partners, and two fairly regular but somewhat less frequent ones (including Elwood). And then again I play occasional games with all sorts of people as I fill my roles as TD/house player. No two of them play exactly the same stuff, except maybe the 299ers when I have to fill in the movement in their game. But my recent experiences with Elwood are ruining my self-image, and maybe my reputation. He is one of the most intense and thoughtful players in the club (the biggest fault he ever gets accused of is over-thinking things, which isn’t a complaint you hear too often at the club level). I love that in a partner, and I’m more than willing to listen to what he wants in our bidding system. I know that anything he brings up will have been considered, usually in great detail, and often in some directions and situations that wouldn’t have occurred to me. I do get my ideas in, of course, and veto some of his, but the end result is that our bidding system is probably 60%-40% his ideas versus mine. I’m sure it’s very good, but the result of this mixture is that there’s a memory burden on me that I haven’t successfully addressed. With him, I’ve agreed to play stuff that I don’t play with anybody else – and I’m failing in my obligation to remember it all.

So this is coming at an awkward time, and it’s the wrong time of year anyway, but I’m making a resolution. I resolve to document our frigging system, and read the system summary before every session. I think I remember stuff better after I’ve written it down in my own words. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll blame Mad Cow Disease and English roast beef.