mycroft, on 2012-July-17, 09:57, said:
And as a side note, is there a reason why people would play "odd encourages, even discourages" with no SP implications over rightside-up or reverse attitude?
For the same reason they play all sorts of things which can demonstrably be shown to be inferior: because they want to, because they don't know any better, because simple things are easier to remember, because they have decided logically and their logic differs from yours, or a combination of these.
It is fairly easy to prove that Aspro [spades and a minor, hearts and another], Astro [spades and another, hearts and a minor] and longer major Asptro [spades and another, hearts and another, show longer major with both] are inferior to shorter major Asptro [spades and another, hearts and another, show shorter major with both]. But people play all of them for the reasons above.
aguahombre, on 2012-July-17, 10:54, said:
This is not without problems. We are "need to know" signallers with very few signalling conventions, and right-side-up for count, attitude or suit preference. When we believe we already know the layout, our carding means only that we don't want to keep what we throw away.
We are probably not as good at both of us knowing this on a given hand as (say) Zia, Schermer, Chambers, Hamman, etc. So, sometimes we get it wrong. But, here's the rub: what do we answer when declarer asks in follow-up, "Is this a signalling situation?" And should we answer separately so that partner doesn't hear? Sometimes it would be easy to say that nothing after trick whatever was a signal. Sometimes not.
You tell declarer your agreements. If it is that you judge each situation and you have no specific agreement about
this particular situation, then you tell him that. If you have indirect reasons for knowing in this specific situation, then you tell him the indirect reasons and let him judge. If you have experience of this specific situation, so you know what you do in this specific situation, you tell him that. No, you don't send partner away from the table. Let him deal with any UI.