Thursday, December 08, 2005 11:45 AM

Standard Edmonton Disease

PITBULLS:

Standard Edmonton needed a make over. Standard Edmonton was invented by Edmonton experts back in the 1970’s , when a new concept was just invented. This new concept was splinters and Edmonton Standard went “splinter happy” . Every time you made a bid practically it seemed to show a splinter. Over the years, experts realized that in some instances this bid was a waste as the splinter helped the opponents too much with their opening leads or defense. Also as Garozzo is fond of saying “Bridge is a game of suits”. Splinters took away the ability for the partnership to show suits which was not good.

The first makeover of Standard Edmonton is the strong jump shift hands into spades at the two level after opening 1♣ or 1♦ . 1♦-P-1♥-P 2♠ or 1♣-P-1♥-P 2♠ . These are strong jump shifts now not splinters ! Bidding at the one level is still a one round force but these jump shift bids are a game force and you describe your two suits and huge hand in one bid. There are other ways of showing singletons with a major suit fit.

6-5 hands without values for a true reverse are impossible to bid. People distort these hands by opening their 5 card suit first and then bidding their 6 card suit. This is not good as the advantage of a natural system is that you show you proper distribution and HCP when you bid. Enter the “jump shift reverse” to show these hand types. In order to play this “fun toy” something had to go from Standard Edmonton and that of course was the splinter. 1♦-P-1♠-P 3♥-P-? . Whenever you reverse and jump shift at the same time it shows a 6-5 10-14 HCP’s and not a splinter.

Passed hand bidding now throws out splinters. Splinters should suggest a slam as they give so much information to the enemy. Splinters & WJS as a passed hand are a waste of a good bid as slam is very remote.. Enter the strong jump shift as responder but specifically with a fit for partner. These are a far more useful bid , especially with the cheapest NT now asking for a singleton anyway.

In competitive auctions, when the opponents overcall is another scenario where splinters have out lived their usefulness. You have fit showing Q bids and with the Italian method of Q bidding to show 2^nd round control , splinters are now history. What is hard to show in competition is a pre-emptive jump shift. x xx xxx KJ1098xx with partner opening 1♥ and the opponents overcalling 1♠ , 3♣ shows a suit not a singleton.

The demise of the splinter is Standard Edmonton is now complete as BJ Trelford suggests playing fit showing jumps when we overcall also passed hand or not. This means the only place left where we do splinter is after a T/O double and directly after an opening bid in a major. A jump after a minor opening is weak and not a splinter. After a direct opening bid in a major , we “mask” the splinter though to keep out the enemy knowing the location of our singleton . A 3♣ bid is a forcing to game splinter somewhere and 3♦ is a mini-splinter somewhere.

One final place where a splinter ( void showing) still exists in our system is the 4 level in a minor after a major opening. There is a catch though , this splinter is Exclusion Blackwood ! 1♥-p-4♣/♦ is indeed a void show support for partners major but is defined to be Exclusion Blackwood. A jump to the 4 level in the other major is still natural however.

Anyway , the makeover of Standard Edmonton the way we play it now , is complete. The major casualty was the splinter. So long splinter I knew thee well ….