1M:2D

[kenrexford]

But, slam bidding, IMO, has nothing to do with any sort of quantitative analysis. It best lives in a world of declaring the hand during the bidding.

 

Thanks for answering and you have pretty much said what I suspected was the situation all along - we come from widely divergent schools of thought.

 

I am of the school that believes bidding should be a dialogue between the two hands, a joint venture to come to an agreement on the best contract.

 

It seems your view is more like a captaincy method with one hand asking and the other telling. This obviously has merit else the Precision relay system used by what's-their-names years ago wouldn't have been so effective.

If you actually understood what I was saying, you would see how ridiculous this "captaincy" analysis is.

 

Consider the diamlogue motivation, for a minute.

 

If and when you have an approach where Responder's calls are designed to describe your hand to partner, then, in a sense, your approach could be construed as reverse-captaincy. In other words, you tell a tale, and partner knows what to do about it. Or, you force partner to be captain, and you can then (being sarcastic) blame him if he gets its wrong, because you described your hand perfectly, according to some set of rules.

 

In any event, if the bidding style is one of purely categorizing bids based upon some useless piece of information for partner, but a one-hand focused bid, then the bidding is not cooperative. Rather, you are placing your hand into a category and bidding per an abstract one-hand focused category.

 

My style, in contrast, is much more communication-oriented. Consider why.

 

One of the motivations behind bidding 2♣ with many balanced hands is empathy. One cannot truly assess and describe one's hand, as it fits with partner's hand, unless one gives partner room to describe his hand. By bidding a frequent 2♣ GF, you give partner freedom to describe aspects of his hand.

 

So, consider a simple auction. Partner opens 1♠ and you have a balanced hand with spade support. By bidding clubs, you often will allow partner to bid 2♦ or 2♥ with his hand, depending on what he has, and then you can set trumps (2♠), before cuebidding starts.

 

By doing this, you have encouraged a better two-partner communication. Partner has been freed to describe his hand better, and cheaper, which allows you to better focus your cues in a way that better helps him assess fit. Meanwhile, you have also allowed partner to better focus his cues to enable you to likewise better assess fit. Thus, both sides can better communicate their relevant assets to partner and both sides can better read partner's revelations when assessing their own hand. All of this, as well, is done at a lower level, which allows more communication back and forth.

 

Contrast back. Consider some call that shows a balanced hand with support and some range. In your description, you place some sort of control count restriction, which is closer to what I mean. In my description, I place a control type limitation.

 

Understand the difference, and you understand the empathetic-communicative nature of my bidding style. In your style, you count how many controls you have and act accordingly, if I understand you right. In my approach, I limit punch bids like this to hands with control-type holdings (primary controls externally, secondary controls only allowed internally). Why? Because I limit jamming bids as much as possible to calls where partner will know all of my controls are working (barring perhaps voids). This is a partner-focused distinction, whereas your distinction is your-hand specific.

[Winstonm]

One of the motivations behind bidding 2♣ with many balanced hands is empathy. One cannot truly assess and describe one's hand, as it fits with partner's hand, unless one gives partner room to describe his hand

.

 

I see - so it depends on what the definition of is is. :)