[helene_t]

Probably most club players would take it as Blackwood or rkc or whatever they play. With a partner who has a better theoretical understanding eg someone from this forum I would assume it to be natural.

Acol or not is obviously irrelevant but maybe votes from hogs, rabbits, chimps, walruses and humans should be excluded from wombat-only polls.

If you want to use it as a slam try maybe shortness ask is more useful than rkc. Or maybe asking about the length of the suit.

Playing 4nt as natural maybe you could play 5c as a slam try.

[1eyedjack]

tommyst, on 2015-August-25, 01:59, said:

In topscore you might play 4nt as to play but at imps nope.

If you are bidding 4NT to play you would be doing so not because it outscores 5D but because you judge it likely to be the last making game. In that case it is every bit as relevant in IMPs.

[sfi]

It looks like I'm in a minority, but I think 4NT as natural is a rather poor agreement even compared to RKC (although clearly there are improvements that can be made here). At IMPs, the number of hands where 4NT is right and 5D is wrong seems to be much smaller than the number of hands that want to know about trump quality via key cards.

At matchpoints there is more going for it, but partner knows it's matchpoints and has chosen to bypass 3NT with the opening bid. So that reduces the likelihood of 4NT as natural working, and it is still useful for slam purposes.

Luckily, the two regular partners I have so far polled agree with me.

What is the counterargument?

[gwnn]

sfi, on 2015-August-25, 04:29, said:

It looks like I'm in a minority, but I think 4NT as natural is a rather poor agreement even compared to RKC (although clearly there are improvements that can be made here). At IMPs, the number of hands where 4NT is right and 5D is wrong seems to be much smaller than the number of hands that want to know about trump quality via key cards.

At matchpoints there is more going for it, but partner knows it's matchpoints and has chosen to bypass 3NT with the opening bid. So that reduces the likelihood of 4NT as natural working, and it is still useful for slam purposes.

Luckily, the two regular partners I have so far polled agree with me.

What is the counterargument?

You are not really in a minority, we are quite evenly split.

The counterargument to

"the number of hands where 4NT is right and 5D is wrong seems [to you] to be much smaller than the number of hands that want to know about trump quality via key cards"
is
"the number of hands where 4NT is right and 5D is wrong does not seem [to me] to be smaller than the number of hands that want to know about trump quality via key cards."
I guess you could add "game before slam" as well if you like. I like having a bunch of available strains to play in rather than a bunch of slam tries. I don't really mind missing a few slams by just raising to 5♦.

As in a lot of these bridge-related arguments, it just boils down to personal preference and it's tough to concretely quantify or build convincing syllogisms.

[sfi]

gwnn, on 2015-August-25, 05:02, said:

The counterargument to

"the number of hands where 4NT is right and 5D is wrong seems [to you] to be much smaller than the number of hands that want to know about trump quality via key cards"
is
"the number of hands where 4NT is right and 5D is wrong does not seem [to me] to be smaller than the number of hands that want to know about trump quality via key cards."
I guess you could add "game before slam" as well if you like. I like having a bunch of available strains to play in rather than a bunch of slam tries. I don't really mind missing a few slams by just raising to 5♦.

As in a lot of these bridge-related arguments, it just boils down to personal preference and it's tough to concretely quantify or build convincing syllogisms.

Fair enough. A well-placed simulation would probably go a long way to answering it, but meh.

I agree with game before slam, but IMO partner has already answered the question of strain.

[1eyedjack]

Any simulation is going to require a commitment as to the definition of your 4m opener, which preference may vary. The wider the definition, the greater the incentive to have 4N as a slam try. I know of some excellent players such as Marc Smith who like them rather wider than I find comfortable.

[Trinidad]

BillPatch, on 2015-August-24, 14:42, said:

I didn't care, until about a minute ago I looked up "wombat". It is indigenous to "Oz", the giant island south of New Guinea. They play acol there. There is therefore a high chance that wombatica is aussi and plays acol. Therefore the need for updated info on acol has become more urgent. The brave wombatica was willing to face being shot in order to achieve bridge enlightenment. The least those in the British Commonwealth can do is answer the poll.

I apologize to those who find my flippant humor offensive, especially the remark about the two royal majesties. There are technical reasons that Dutch Acol has developed separately from acol in the English speaking countries, and that is the reason I rejected the Dutch entry.

So, Wombatica may well be Australian.

I grant you that Dutch "Acol" has little to do with British Acol. But why is Acol relevant to begin with?

Unless you have agreed on something conventional (like Namyats or South African Texas), 4♦ is a preemptive opening, whether you play Acol, SAYC, 2/1, Precision, Viking club, Carrotti, Magic Diamond, Crazy Diamond, Polish club, Swedish club, Ultimate club, Regress or Säffle Spade. In any of these systems, you can play a variety of preempting styles that are mostly unrelated to the system.

Whether Wombatica plays Acol (British, Dutch) or anything else is less relevant than the fact that he is probably having a snack in front of the TV while I am typing this.

Rik

[The_Badger]

Hi Wombatica. Let's forget about the 4♦ opening - a bit unconventional to say the least

4NT by a non-passed partner over a 'true' suit opening (not a transfer type 4 level opening) should always be some form of Blackwood agreeing ♦s as trump by proxy. (Except if you have an agreement with your partner that it isn't.)

The final contract will be always decided by your partner. If after your response he/she bids 7♥ you must leave it.

[BillPatch]

The_Badger, on 2015-August-26, 10:33, said:

Hi Wombatica. Let's forget about the 4♦ opening - a bit unconventional to say the least

4NT by a non-passed partner over a 'true' suit opening (not a transfer type 4 level opening) should always be some form of Blackwood agreeing ♦s as trump by proxy. (Except if you have an agreement with your partner that it isn't.)

The final contract will be always decided by your partner. If after your response he/she bids 7♥ you must leave it.

However, Wombatica, when you improve and reach the intermediate level, you will learn that if partner next bids 5NT, ostensibly asking for kings, he is also promising your side has all the A's and asking you bid 7NT if you have an independent source of tricks. Here that would be a solid diamond suit.

[BillPatch]

Badger, I forgot to ask? Are you from the British Commonwealth? For the poll. If we don't get an answer I will assume yes, since the badger is endemic to UK.

The reason I ask for the British Commonwealth info is that I have played bridge for the last forty years, mainly in the US, and here US players would know that the standard w/o discussion would be their agreed form of Blackwood. I was surprised by the number of British votes for Natural, and curious about how widespread that treatment was. In much of the British Commonwealth acol is the standard teaching system(not so much in Canada where Barbara Seagram teaches SA). I am conducting this poll both to satisfy my curiosity and also as a service to the bridge world.

Come back, Wombatica. All is forgiven! I am curious about your background.

[gwnn]

I will venture to guess that 99+% of the bridge courses do not cover 4m-p-4NT and that even those who do will have nothing to do with whether they are Acol courses or Viking Club courses. Perhaps there are other ways you can serve the bridge world than conducting your poll of a handful of people.

[BillPatch]

Here in North America it is common to divide bridge courses according to the Teaching books of Amy Grant of the US or Barbara Seagram of Toronto, often using their texts. Blackwood and Gerber are given rudimentary coverage in book one for Grant's course on bidding. In the fourth course in the series on Commonly Used Conventions Blackwood is reintroduced and RKC added. The syllabus also includes some more discussion about when 4NT is asking, when natural, and when unusual.

The earlier courses are taught more often, but at least 4% of the bridge classes taught at the adult level are for the conventions level. Since the two large English speaking countries in ACBL have so many bridge players, I doubt gwnn's 99+% of bridge classes worldwide is accurate.

Perhaps later I will develop some curiosity about bridge teaching outside the ACBL and do some really relevant research for the bridge world. Fortunately, I have more pressing matters on my queue right now.

Thanks everyone, for your enquiries about this inane poll. I particularly thank those who respond to my poll.

[PhilKing]

BillPatch, on 2015-August-26, 16:32, said:

Here in North America it is common to divide bridge courses according to the Teaching books of Amy Grant of the US or Barbara Seagram of Toronto, often using their texts. Blackwood and Gerber are given rudimentary coverage in book one for Grant's course on bidding. In the fourth course in the series on Commonly Used Conventions Blackwood is reintroduced and RKC added. The syllabus also includes some more discussion about when 4NT is asking, when natural, and when unusual.

The earlier courses are taught more often, but at least 4% of the bridge classes taught at the adult level are for the conventions level. Since the two large English speaking countries in ACBL have so many bridge players, I doubt gwnn's 99+% of bridge classes worldwide is accurate.

Perhaps later I will develop some curiosity about bridge teaching outside the ACBL and do some really relevant research for the bridge world. Fortunately, I have more pressing matters on my queue right now.

Thanks everyone, for your enquiries about this inane poll. I particularly thank those who respond to my poll.

I may be out of line but I have put you on ignore. I think it's for the best.

[gwnn]

By covering 4m-4N, I meant covering specifically responses to 4-level preempts. Of course many students get taught what 4N means in various cases. I mean yes of course I've had also (I think with hearts but perhaps I'm misremembering):

p-p-4H-4NT
all pass

And the overcaller got upset (we slipped about 5 tricks on defence but he still went for -4) because he meant 4N as ace asking! And his partner just thought it was natural. Yea I know some people get taught "4NT is ALWAYS ace asking" or some such nonsense but that's not the same as discussing 4m-p-4NT or (4m)-4NT.

[1eyedjack]

The utility of 4N as ace asking in response to a 4C opener is rather less than over a 4D opener, there being half as many ace responses to 4N over 4C that do not commit to slam (ie one - 5C).

The obvious answer to that is to use 4D as the ace ask and 4N is then natural, giving you the best of both worlds.

Also we have been concentrating on 4m, which is a different universe than 4M openers, but again the utility of 4N as a natural bid over 4M is nil. Likewise a 4M opener is likely to be more widely defined an so elevating the benefits of an ace ask.

So the 4D opener seems to me to be the only one that has any scope for debate (on merits, whatever is standard).