[blml] ACBL LC Detroit minutes

[Alain Gottcheiner]

Eric Landau a écrit :
> Was it?  Nothing in TFLB forbids a pair from entering a bridge event  
> without having "covered the bases".  

I know of some pairs who don't have any forcing opening bid. They claim 
game forces are too uncommon to bother about them, at least at pairs.

I played relay systems about 20 years, and we hadn't any bid to describe 
7-6-0-0, 8-5-0-0 and 9-carders. We never needed them, either. Once 
partner had 0580, but he was the opener, and he improvised a sequence (I 
even understood him), but as a responder he wouldn't have been able to 
describe his pattern. Once I held 9013, but they opened in front of me.

And I don't think understanding "impossible" bids means you have a 
"background agreement".
An "impossible" bid may be understood by using bridge logic. If the 
bidding goes pass-1NT-4NT, and it means partner has found an Ace back, 
so be it. You need no agreement to be able to decipher that.

Say you're playing a relay system, where all non-game, non-relay, 
non-2nd-step bids by relayer are splinters agreeing the last suit 
partner has shown.
So, if the bidding goes 1C - 2D (13-15, 44+ in diamonds and another 
suit), a 3C, 3H or 3S bid is a splinter agreeing diamonds.
Now, what about partner's 3D bid ? It is obviously impossible to have 
both a singleton diamond and a diamond raise. So it has to be ... 4414, 
a splinter telling that whatever parner's second suit, we can raise it.
I manufactured it. Partner understood it. Some players, when asked about 
the sequence, decoded it, even not knowing the first line of our system.

Of course, this made the sequence part of our agreements for the future, 
but it wasn't at the time I made it.


Best regards


   Alain