[mycroft]

Not official guidance by any means (please insert appropriate feeling here), but the person I talk to on the committee for the Alert Procedure revamps said, in response to my original question:

Quote

Yes, and I assume directors will say that without needing to be explicit here.

To which my response was "well, if Barry Rigal doesn't know if it's legal to do" (not suggesting he *wants it* to be legal, he definitely doesn't, nor should anybody) "then it possibly should be something explicitly stated."

I expect to be Cassandra-ed on that. Hopefully, we never need to find out. I definitely will be implementing this "highly unofficial official guidance" if someone tries this in *my* games.

[weejonnie]

Gilithin, on 2021-August-08, 10:50, said:

If the TD wanted to penalise me for something like this I would tell them with complete honesty that what I really meant is "I understand what queen points are but I am not sure that you do," but did not want to cause offence. It happens very often that opponents think they are playing something with as well-known title but are actually playing something completely different. As an example, how many QPs is a singleton A, K or Q? Just because I know what QPs are does not mean that I do not have a bridge reason for asking; and saying something more polite than "I think my opps might be idiots" is, I would have thought, acceptable.

Well if your partner doesn't know what 'Queen points' are (I haven't the foggiest) then at their turn they can ask - you don't need to hold their hand.

[Gilithin]

weejonnie, on 2021-August-22, 03:26, said:

Well if your partner doesn't know what 'Queen points' are (I haven't the foggiest) then at their turn they can ask - you don't need to hold their hand.

You seem to have completely missed the point - how many QPs is ♠AQxxx ♥K ♦AQxx ♣ AQx? For some people this will be 11 (no downgrades); for others it will be 10 (-1QP for singleton king); and for the rest it will be 9 (ignore singleton king). The convention name "Queen Points" does not tell me how you play them, which is information I am entitled to. It is unimportant whether my partner knows or not, what is important to me is whether my opponents know what they are doing, that I understand what they mean by the term and that I can get that information without letting on that I think they might be idiots.

[Douglas43]

Could you advise please whether "queen points" are a real form of hand valuation or is it just a made-up example for the purposes of the thread? Excuse my ignorance but I've played for 40 years without ever hearing of them...

[paulg]

Douglas43, on 2021-August-24, 09:41, said:

Could you advise please whether "queen points" are a real form of hand valuation or is it just a made-up example for the purposes of the thread? Excuse my ignorance but I've played for 40 years without ever hearing of them...

I only played 30 years without hearing of them, but I use them now. I heard of them due to investing some time in relay methods, where after discovering the distribution you need some way to continue and slam points/queen points are one method of doing this.

Traditionally the slam point total (aka queen points) for a hand is calculated by counting three points for each Ace, two points for each King, and one point for each Queen held in the hand. Singleton Kings and Queens are not counted towards the slam point total. Kit Woolsey uses a method with two points for each ace and one point for each king, which presumably he does not describe as queen points.

There is a fuller description in this ten-page pamphlet on Moscito for those that are interested: https://bridgewithda...to2005intro.pdf

[Gilithin]

Douglas43, on 2021-August-24, 09:41, said:

Could you advise please whether "queen points" are a real form of hand valuation or is it just a made-up example for the purposes of the thread? Excuse my ignorance but I've played for 40 years without ever hearing of them...

As Paul mentions, the origin of QPs is from relay systems. In general, after shape has been shown there are 3 popular follow-up methods - 4-way RKCB, CP and QP. Most relay systems will be able to use 2 of these but not the third.

4-way RKCB is the simple concept of having a way of setting the trump suit and asking for key cards all in one go, with one auction for each suit.

CP are Control Points, also known as AK points or Blue Team Controls. This is the A=2, K=1 scheme that Paul assigns to Woolsey but they are actually much older than that. They are excellent for working out if slam is possible once partner's exact shape is known.

QP are queen points, often called AKQ points, and are similar to CP except that the scheme is A=3, K=2, Q=1. The advantage of these over CP is that they not only provide a good estimation of slam opposite a strong hand but are also provide a much better estimation of the general strength of the hand. The reason for this comes from their similarity to the AKQ parts of Zar Points (A=6, K=4, Q=2) and modified Milton (A=4.5, K=3, Q=1.5). For this reason some bidding systems even use them in the immediate response to a strong 1♣ opening and not just as a follow-up to shape relays. In this way QP can genuinely be described as a hand evaluation method even though that was not actually what they were invented for. The point about a singleton king is also completely true. Different authorities do use different values so if you want to know what a particular pair uses then you have to ask if all they do is use the term "Queen Points".

[barmar]

I've heard them called "relay points". GIB uses them (in addition to Work HCP), and that's the term used in its documentation of the bidding database.