[pescetom]

Cyberyeti, on 2018-October-22, 09:44, said:

Till partner perpetrates one on 2-2 majors. We do this, but no guarantee, one of the best bits of play of my life was convincing both defenders that I had a third trump so they couldn't simply draw trumps and claim, converting -1700 to -800, still cost IMPS.

We had the crawling gadget for years and ended up only employing it with both majors 5-4 or 5-5, which doesn't crop up that often. When we switched to allowing two doubletons or even a singleton within our NT openings we decided the gadget could go. But even opening only truly balanced hands as 1NT and bidding crawling with a 5-4 you can still end up in a 7-card trump fit despite having 8-card in the other major.

[pescetom]

nullve, on 2018-October-21, 13:00, said:

You seem to assume that playing 2M on a 4-3 fit when the field is playing 1N is almost as bad as playing 1N when the field is playing 2M on a 4-4 fit. I don't think it is.

I would assert that this is a Strawman argument
Nowhere did I suggest I think that it would be less than heinous to be playing 1N when the field is playing 2M on a 4-4 fit.
Nor is there a scenario here where most of the field would be playing 2M on a 4-4 fit, as the only ones doing that would be both playing crawling (which is not universal) and employing it with 4414 (which is not clearly advantageous).
The first scenario is the field playing 1N and the crawling-riskers playing 2M on a 4-4 fit (48% likely).
The second scenario is the field playing 1N and the crawling-riskers playing 2M on a 4-3 fit (52% likely).
Overall I'd rather be with the field, unless I need a lucky strike at the end of the day.