From: varvel@cs.utexas.edu (Donald A. Varvel)
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Subject: Re: A reply to Prof. Weird (was Assign the blame)
Date: 16 Dec 1992 11:02:54 -0600
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: im4u.cs.utexas.edu

In article <BzBCGG.Inp@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> bharat@cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>martino@courier6.aero.org(Nick Martino) writes:
>>In article <Bz41sp.CAF@cs.uiuc.edu>, bharat@cs.uiuc.edu (R. Bharat Rao)
>>wrote:
>I had said in response to the 1H-1S-2D-3C-?? auction
>   [I asked 2 partners and..]
>>> They said that 3S should promise 3 spades, 3N should show a club
>>> stopper, and 3H is the nebulous inbetween bid. that you will make on
>>> the ubiquitous 2-5-4-2.  This was what I had thought earlier.  Now,
>>> with no club stop and 5 spades partner can bid 3S and you can raise to
>>> 4S with the Kx.

>[Nick says]
>>The fact of the matter is that a SLOW 3H is probably a nebulous in-between
>>bid and a SLOW 3S is probably on a good doubleton.  However, a quick,
>>confident and cheerful 3H shows the good 6-4 hand and similarly, a fast 3S
>>shows the 3541 hand.  As for the "expert" opinion that 3H is the catch-all,
>>I cannot agree.  

>I think above implications about ethics and lack thereof is totally
>unwarranted.  I told you that (a) I play 3H as a catch-all and (b)
>that my partners do as well --- note, that I asked them the question
>WITHOUT telling them about a specific hand and merely asked what each
>bid would mean.

Today I was looking through Keith McNeil's hilarious _Match Your Bidding
Against the Masters_ and ran into the "no hand" hand.  (They had
inadvertently given a bidding problem but no hand to the readers,
although the panelists had received a hand.)  The *actual* hand and
Ron Klinger's comment:

    S: 7 6 4 3         --     --     --     1D
    H: 9               1S     2H     P      3C
    D: A K 8 6         P      3S     P      ?
    C: A Q J 3

Klinger: "4D.  In these situations returning to ones suit denies a
stopper in their suit, any support for partner and five cards in
the second suit -- ideally I should have a fifth diamond.  4D comes
closest to the requirements of any available action."

(I would think ideally he would have a sixth diamond, but what do
I know?  The main point of the hand seems to be that 4C would show
5-5 or 6-5, while 4D shows 5-4 or 6-4 and therefore is the lesser
distortion.  Klinger goes farther, though, to state a rule.  Since
he composed the hand he would seem to feel strongly about it.)

When you're forced to keep bidding after you may have finished
describing your hand, you need some sort of catchall.  Clearly
Silverman, Rao, and Klinger think it's the return to the original
suit.

On the original auction, 1H-1S; 2D-3C, I agree with bidding 3H with
a 2-5-4-2 and no club stopper.  (As I prefer to play it shows *some*
extras beyond a minimum opener since I would have rebid 2H rather
than 2D with a real minimum.)  I also think this treatment is at
least close to being standard among natural bidders worldwide.  (2H
without extras is not, of course.)

I also agree that there are players whose bidding is made more
accurate by carefully graded pauses and frowns.  Such people have
no need of agreements.  I think that's a red herring in the present
discussion, though.

-- Don Varvel (varvel@cs.utexas.edu)