Stephen Tu, on 2019-October-06, 08:52, said:
Artificial bid is not equal to "lying about your holdings". Stayman is not a "lie about clubs", since no one is ever intending to have the 2c bid deceive anyone at the table about having clubs. It's just an artificial bid that says nothing about the club holding initially. A cue bid is an artificial call, and on the auctions being discussed functions more or less like fourth suit artificial and forcing, or third suit artificial and forcing. Your opponent has bid the suit, so your 3rd/4th suit call happens to coincide with this. Also the auction has sometimes consumed more space than it would uncontested, so you need the cue to create a low level GF, since having to jump with all your good hands would now bring you past 3nt, a valuable contract (why force yourself to declare 4nt and go down 1 when no bonus for being in 4 rather than 3, also 4nt is often blackwood/RKC), or have you bid a game contract (e.g. 4H), which partner would want to pass the vast majority of the time (because again, why go higher for no bonus), but if you have undisclosed slam interest this is not good.
Any experienced bridge player is "in on the secret". When you are bidding the opponent's suit you are looking for either for support for your suit, a notrump stopper, or setting up a forcing rebid on the next round, either in your partner's suit or your own suit. There is no "lying" involved. Artificial bids are fairly essential in bridge.
Auction has gone 1d-(1s)-2H. Uncontested, maybe you would have bid 1d-p-1h-p-2d to show a minimum hand and long diamonds. Now the auction is higher, 3d is also needed to show a minimum hand. But what if you have 6 diamonds and a good hand but no spade stopper? Obviously you can't bid 3d. You can't raise hearts without support. Do you really want to jump to 4d and go past 3nt? What is left but cue?
Sure artificial bids are essential. Artificial bids are inherently different from natural ones. I was just explaining that I see that difference. Artificial bids only work if partner knows what they mean. If they meant what they appear to be they wouldn't be artificial. I am not a newbie rejecting artificial bids, I'm just suggesting that DABs differ from reverses in their presumptive acceptance. I am positing that DABs are not "just part of the bidding" but something someone might not actually play.
I agree that this is a situation where natural bidding is not getting the job done well. I don't disagree DABs can be helpful when you are stuck guessing stoppers, they can. Every convention has something it does to make some sticky situation less sticky. Much like avoiding bad slams where a convention helps a lot. Much like identifying shortage. However. conventions are not just like a major suit minimum raise, they have a coded intent and you can opt not to play them.
I am trying to ascertain whether, in the presence of an extended partnership discussion of conventions where DABs did not come up and Western Cues were denied, I should just assume DABs are 'on.' I am not denying their value, just trying to find out if DABs are so universal that the cuebid shown will always be taken as a DAB and any exception is partner's mistake. It is obvious that some would take it as a Western Cue but they are close enough that it is almost semantics. But some would take it as diamond support (half of those I've asked) and some would take it as values with the next bid making that clearer. But if these people with other ideas about the meaning are JUST PLAIN WRONG then I can disregard their take. If it is plausible that DABs are not implicitly ON then they are NOT just plain wrong, exceptions might not be partner's mistake and I have to establish an explicit agreement with all partners on the matter.
So far, everyone's tone implies that DABs can never be off but their evidence is that it is helpful. Lots of things people don't play are helpful. Exclusion Blackwood comes to mind and you'd NEVER touch that one without an explicit agreement. That is why I seem argumentative. I am trying to battle past the rabid defense of the convention to determine whether it is an explicit agreement thing or a take-it-for-granted kind of thing.
The obscurity of the Eastern Cue stops me from taking it as indisputable proof that the convention must be explicitly agreed. The people who don't play a convention don't go around explaining the things they don't play (with the exceptions of Flannery and... wait for it... Western Cues - [there may be others]). So it is hard to find published thought detailing the not playing of DABs.
Although this discussion is becoming labored, I am still open to being convinced that DABs are as universal as "playing reverses" however I am not close to being persuaded of that.
Thanks to all for trying to help.
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