[blml] Consult the people.

[gesta at tiscali.co.uk]

Grattan Endicott<gesta at tiscali.co.uk
[following address discontinued:
grandeval at vejez.fsnet.co.uk]
*************************
"True luck consists not in holding
the best cards at the table,
 Luckiest he who knows just when
to rise and go home."  [John Hay ]
"*************************
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Frick" <rfrick at rfrick.info>
To: "Bridge Laws Mailing List" <blml at amsterdamned.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 10:29 PM
Subject: Re: [blml] Consult the people.


> On Tue, 20 May 2008 13:57:42 -0400, Eric Landau <ehaa at starpower.net>
> wrote:
>>
>> Player holding 3-4-3-3 with opening values attempts to open 1H
>> (promising 4+), and is informed that the auction has gone 1S-P-.  1H
>> is not accepted, and he chooses to bid a non-systemic 2H, which shows
>> a game force with 5+ hearts.  The auction (opponents silent) proceeds
>> 1S-2H-3H-3S-4H-P.  IBer's normal call over 1S would be 2C (game force
>> with 4+ clubs or exactly 3-4-3-3), in which case the (systemic)
>> auction would most likely have been 1S-2C-2D-2S-4S, but IBer could
>> not bid 2C here, as his partner would have been barred.  4H, in the
>> 4-3 fit, turns out to be a superior contract to 4S in the 5-3 fit
>> due, and duly makes an extra trick.  L27D would have us adjust the
>> contract to the normal 4S, with the normal (one trick less than 4H)
>> result.
>
> Is this an example? It seems to be that if they thought they were getting
> to a 5-3 fit, but ended up in a 4-3 fit that just happened to work better,
> that seems to be rub of the green. (If the insufficient bid allowed them
> to intelligently find the 4-3 fit, that would probably be different.)
>
> To return to the old example of 1C - P - 1C/3NT, missing a 4-4 spade fit,
> I thought the consensus was to allow rub of the green if 4S did worse
> because of a bad spade break. Wouldn't it also be rub of the green if it
> just happened to be one of those hands where 3NT played better than 4S for
> a different reason, like duplicate distribution?
>
> I thought 27D would kick in only when there was use of AI from the
> insufficient bid. This would be easy if anyone was allowed to construct
> conventions following an insufficient bid.
>
> Perhaps other examples can be constructed starting with the 1S - 1C/2C
> auction, where partner of the insufficient bidder knows that the
> insufficient bidder has at least an opening hand and may not have clubs.
> Maybe partner will be more likely to shoot out a 2NT contract. Maybe no
> action would have been possible over 1S without the insufficient bid.
>
+=+ The opinion that has been expressed to me is that the example
we are seeking is one where the opener fields the misbid. My personal
view is that the key is whether  the IB helps the pair to reach a contract
that their normal methods will perhaps not reach. This could be higher
or lower than the norm, to the advantage of the partnership.
                                                      ~ Grattan ~   +=+