Leaderboard

It looks a pretty good defining feature to me. Even if we accept that the EBU owns Acol (it doesn't) the Standard English System File that you quote has: "A change-of-suit response at the one level promises at least six points and introducing a new suit at the two level at least 10 points. There is no upper limit. Opener must bid again (unless, exceptionally, responder has already passed).". The requirement for opener to bid again makes the bid forcing and the 10-point requirement is certainly not enough to force to game, so the response is forcing for one round.

[hv=handviewer.html?nn=Argine&n=SQHA95DAT6532CQ96&d=w&a=p1d(4+!d; HCP 11-23; 4-card !d opener)P1S(4+!S; HCP 4+; natural - Forcing)P2D(5+!D; HCP 11-16; unbalanced)P3H(4+!D; 4+!S; HCP 13+; Splinter, shortness in this suit and big fit in last suit bid - Game forcing)P4H(5+!D; 3-4!H; HCP 11-15; to play)]450|200[/hv] Robots just can't get splinters right, can they? Admittedly, this may be yet another case of the logic not matching up with the description, given 4♥ seems a reasonable bid otherwise.

The difference between flavours of 5cM isn't very big, and he explains that anything under approximately 0.5 IMPs per 24 board match should be dismissed. In the relevant comparison (of 300 24-board matches, so 7,200 boards) the systems scored: 5533 +0.67; 4444 HSCD +0.25; 5542 +0.18; 4444 HCSD +0.00; 4444 CDHS -0.43; 5551 -0.68. I would not be surprised if the continuations of 5542 do not resemble modern expert systems, but the book doesn't go into further detail. My personal interpretation is that all these differences are small. Just for comparison (and because I can't resist), he compares strong (15-17), variable (weak only when NV) and weak (12-14) NT on the same scale: 5533 Strong NT +1.67, 4444 Strong NT +0.97, 5533 Variable +0.44, 5533 Weak -0.22, 4444 Variable -1.08, 4444 Weak -1.78. My interpretation is: the more frequently you play weak NT, the more IMPs you're handing over.

"You will be taken apart by the top players if you signal honestly". Yes, you absolutely will. But if you're wondering "when do you give honest signals", you're at a level where "you will be taken apart by the top players" no matter what you do. You're not good enough to falsecard usefully either - and as David says, partner isn't good enough to see what you're doing and follow along rather than giving the game away (at least that someone isn't being honest). And very very quickly, "the top players" are going to work out which of you is the honest customer and which is trying to play games - at which point, you're "signalling honestly" again, at least as far as information leakage to the top players is concerned. But like a lot of discussions we have here, "beating the top players" isn't always the goal. Are you playing 60 boards against the #11 seed in the Spingold (or are you the #11 seed in the Spingold)? Fine. Are you playing the local club duplicate and trying to break 50% consistently? Take advantage of signalling to get your points against the field who won't "take[ you] apart" for it, do your best to get your 35-40% against the top players - and that includes giving them the overtrick from signalling, rather than the three overtricks from fooling partner into thinking it's safe to pitch from 8xxx and letting them run that suit as well. Are you the best player in the room? Well then you probably know which players don't look at your signals (so you can be honest), which do and can use them (so you "tell partner only what he needs to know"), and which are known for falsecarding games (most of whom assume "all good players" do it. So they'll misread your "honest" signals, as long as you're not "religiously honest"). But then you don't need my help, either.

I agree with akwoo, subject to a huge caveat Giving honest count on a regular basis will, against good players, doom you to a series of bad results But…. Until one learns how to visualize declarer’s hand from the myriad of more subtle clues, having both partners give honest count will, if both pay attention and THINK about what that information is telling the defenders will help. Sort of like training wheels on our first bicycle. Once we’re competent, the training wheels detract from our cycling. So too does giving frequent and honest count detract from our ability to defend well…..once we’ve mastered some of the subtler skills. What are those skills? Paradoxically, once learned, they work better against good players than against bad ones. The bidding. Different auctions leak different information but there’s an entire world of information available to an attentive listener. It’s not merely what they bid…it can also be what they didn’t bid. Declarer play. Good declarers know proper technique. So if a defender also knows that technique then he or she can infer much about the hand. As with the bidding, what declarer did not do is as informative as what he did do. Simple example. Dummy has KQJxxx in a suit, the hand being declared in notrump. Declarer wins an early trick and doesn’t tackle the KQJxxx. Where’s the Ace? Unless you’re looking at it, the smart money says declarer has it….since the normal (but as with most inferences, this isn’t 100%) approach is to establish the suit. So maybe now that you’ve placed those 4 hcp in declarer’s hand, you have a better idea…if only a slightly better informed guess…about whether partner has a useful holding in some other suit.You also ‘know’ that you can’t screw around since declarer will be running that long suit in dummy quite soon. Partner’s carding. While experts generally signal count infrequently (compared to non-experts) they often try to help partner out by their carding. What’s partner telling us? Most experts give suit preference when following suit in trump. Many experts give suit preference when following suit as declarer cashes a long suit. This, of course, requires watching and remembering EVERY card, but that’s a learnable skill. If you think you can’t do it, you haven’t really tried (unless you suffer from some cognitive issue, which is an increasing issue in the aging bridge population). So my advice….if you and partner aren’t yet comfortable drawing inferences and/or giving attitude when following suit then keep giving honest count but make sure that both of you are doing the work required for that to help. Giving count merely because ‘we always give count even though we don’t know why it’s important’ is worse than useless…you’re helping declarer, assuming declarer is better at this than you are, without helping each other at all. Finally, I rarely give count beyond the situation Precision set out…except I think he overlooked an important one. Say declarer has all the rest of the tricks save one. You guard two suits and you need to know, as you come down to one card, which one to keep. Count is essential