pran, on 2012-April-24, 15:17, said:
Maybe I should prepare myself to start educating all those players I meet who explains 2♠ after 1NT as "transfer to a minor suit", but I don't think I shall care.
I am quite happy with "transfer to a minor" (or words to similar effect) as an explanation, it is widely used and even more videly understood without any problem.
Considering possible definitions of "transfer" and "relay" I believe "relay" here in Norway is taken to mean a bid that asks about further information from partner without essentially revealing anything about the caller's hand while "transfer" simply means a bid that reveals something about the caller's hand without asking any information about his partner's hand. The prime purpose of a transfer call seems for me to be having the caller become dummy.
Feel free to argue about these attempts for a definition, again i shall not care, and specifically I shall not enter any further comment on this discussion which I consider rather fruitless.
Let's take the auction 1NT - 2
♠. Pair A plays this as a weak take-out in either minor. Pair B plays this as a weak take-out in either minor or a GF hand with clubs and a major. Pair C plays it as a weak take-out in clubs or GF with diamonds. Pair D plays it as a weak take-out in diamonds or GF with clubs. All 4 pairs describe their 2
♠ bid as "transfer to either minor". Does this seem ok to you?
As for Norwegian terminology I am interested how you would define some bids that are a part of my system. After a Precision-style 2
♣ opening I play 2
♦ as 4+ hearts and 2
♥ as 4+ spades. The responses show the length that Opener has in the suit, so after 2
♣ - 2
♥: 2
♠ shows 0-2 spades, 2NT is 3 and min, 3
♣ is 3 and max, 3
♦ is 4 and min, 3
♠ is 4 and max. So the bid is both showing a suit and asking something about partner's hand at the same time. Personally I just describe it as something like "either a weak hand with hearts or 4+ hearts and invitational or better". Similarly I would describe each of the 2
♠ bids used by Pairs A-D by what the bids actually show without trying to use some terminology that might be misinterpreted. Pair A: "a weak hand with either 6+ clubs or 6+ diamonds that thinks 3 of the minor will play better than 1NT".
This is actually what I do not understand in all of these FD discussions - why can we not simply describe what a bid shows? Stayman: "a weak hand with 3+ hearts, 3+ spades and 4+ diamonds; or any hand with a 4 card major and game interest (including 5-4 majors but not 5-5); or a hand interested in a minor suit slam." Add or remove as appropriate - the point is that a bid usually shows something, even if it is a relay.