Why IAC

[kenberg]

I read Sally's post and figured I would put up my thoughts.

Online play is iffy. Here are two extremes;
1. You play with a fully worked out system that the two of you have discussed at length. I have played that way (well maybe not thoroughly worked out but in general terms yes) in f2f but online I find the distance to be an issue.
2. Just play whatever with whomever. Ok, but it lacks something.

I was thinking IAC might work well, sort of a middle road. People get to know one another so that they have a reasonable idea of what each other's bids mean.

Sally mentioned that she is not up for precision or for the weak no trump and the same goes for me. I have played, briefly and a long time ago, the weak no trump. I have no quarrel with it, I just am not interested. I have never played a big club system. Too artificial for me. I just wouldn't enjoy it. Actually I find the play far more interesting than the bidding anyway, and so I prefer reasonably natural bidding. Supposedly a man came up to Charles Goren a long time ago and said "I agree with you Mr. Goren. When a man bids clubs a man ought to have clubs, as God intended."  Religious authority aside, I am in general agreement with the sentiment.

I am fine with negative doubles, support doubles and for that matter more exotic things such as snapdragon doubles. If agreed though, if agreed.  Competitive auctions need agreements, some of them artificial. But I see a lot of hands get tangled up  in artificial sequences where the partners have differing ideas of what means what, so my preference is to keep it simple and use the energy saved for the play.

So I was and am hoping for a place where  we often rely more on our judgment, rather less on exotic conventional agreements.  Then play the hands as best we can.  Later maybe more complexity can be introduced.

[OliverC]

LOL, Ken. You remind me of my father when he was teaching me Bridge at the age of 5 back in the early 1960's. He hated conventions with a passion ("We play BRIDGE, not CONVENTIONS" was his battle cry, and it took a fairly long effort on the part of my elder brother to get him even to play Stayman over 1NT (I take it you would disagree with Goren's fictional conversationalist to that extent LOL).


The play of the cards is endlessly fascinating, I agree, but it's different sides of the same coin: You can play the cards superbly, but if you're in the wrong contract in the first place, it won't do you much good. Similarly, getting to the right contract is of little use if you botch the play of the hand.

[kenberg]

There was a time when I traveled to tournaments. With that level of commitment, it made sense to develop a lot of understandings, many conventional. With a lesser level of commitment, I am less sure.

Yesterday I played at a club with my (more or less) weekly partner, we do not play 2/1.  As near as I can recall, the fact that we were not playing 2/1 did not affect the result on any of the 24 boards.  He also does not play Drury.  I like Drury very much, but not playing Drury paid off here. I opened a fourth hand 1S, he bid a natural 2C and with a fit for his clubs and a strong spade suit I went directly to 4S.  They did not find the right lead and with my spades and his clubs I took 13 tricks. Some luck was involved. We usually do well, this time we did badly for a variety of reasons, but none of those reasons would have been fixed by a convention.

Miscommunication is rampant. I always agree to play DONT but if there is not time to discuss it I simply hope that (1NT)-2C-(X) doesn't arise. It did arise with this f2f partner, we do play DONT, and we have discussed this. After the X the way to get partner to run is to XX, a call of 2D is natural. Larry Cohen agrees.  If two DONT players have not discussed this, I would say there is a fine chance that the 2D bid over the X will be misunderstood, either intended by one as asking for a run and taken by the other as natural, or the other way around. As it happened on this one, I had clubs so no run was needed but if my stiff spade and my four clubs were, instead, a stiff club and four spades I would XX. partner would bid spades.  With long diamonds I bid 2D over the X and partner will pass.


So my  objection to conventions is really an objection to agreeing to a convention without adequate discussion.

Added: I just looked up how that 4S making 7 scored. Not well. I have Kx of hearts and the A is on my left .We can make 6NT as long as the spades come in. I have AKTxxx and partner has the stiff Q. They come in. Nobody is in six ov anything, but 3NT makes 7 unless the heart ace is led at trick 1. Oh well.