[blml] De Whale

[Eric Landau]

At 05:27 PM 4/13/07, twm wrote:

>Herman wrote:
>
> > do you really believe a player is going to put all his eggs in one
> > basket by bidding 4H (either on a singleton or a 7-card suit) if he
> > believes it's a true 50/50 toss of the coin?
>
>But it's not a 50/50 toss of the coin.  Assuming the bid is undiscussed
>and equally likely to be either by inference I expect partner to have a
>good chance of working out which by looking at his hand.  There are is
>also the possibility that if I splinter my LHO will double and save
>partner a guess.  Of course an LHO with 7+ hearts might decide not to
>double when informed that the bid is undiscussed.
>
> > No, that is a case that I don't believe will come up.
>
>It does.  Don't forget that the 4H bidder may be unaware of the
>ambiguity (believing that everybody/nobody plays 4H as a splinter) but
>that his partner doesn't know to which camp 4H bidder belongs.
>
> > Rather, the bidder has some idea about this going to be understood. I
> > want to know what that idea was, and my AC will investigate fully,
> > and judge on the evidence. That's their job, as you say.
>
>What's wrong with the idea that the odds favour partner getting it right
>despite the complete lack of agreement?

One wonders what the De Wael school would make of the "two-way double", 
which, by explicit agreement, can be made with either a pure takeout 
double or a pure penalty double; partner is required to "guess" which 
it is based purely on the contents of his own hand.  Proponents of this 
particular convention claim that he will get it right "almost every 
time".  ISTM that because such an agreement could not be "disclosed" in 
a manner consistent with the requirements of the DWs without requiring 
the doubler's partner to base his disclosure solely on the contents of 
his hand (no other disambiguating criterion exists), a DWs-following TD 
would have either to require the doubler's partner to do precisely that 
or to rule that the use of this particular convention creates MI every 
time regardless of what is actually held or explained.


Eric Landau                     ehaa at starpower.net
1107 Dale Drive                 (301) 608-0347
Silver Spring MD 20910-1607