Handbook - International Bridge Press Association

compete over the relay, hoping to shut out the forthcoming
major fit. Our own style is to use a double by
opener for penalties when fourth hand interferes, and
a double by responder for takeout. This extends to
cases where overcaller's partner raises. Since responder
may have to bid at the three-level at his
second turn against aggressive opponents, he should
be prepared to respond on reasonable four-card major
suits when there is some danger of being unable to
compete later. Again, the system is designed to encourage
good judgment, not suppress it.
In my bridge odyssey I have only encountered one
other pair outside the Montreal area who play anything
like this. They were from the deep South. It's surprising
to me that something so simple and yet so sound
has been disregarded by so many great theoreticians.
* The Montreal Relay is used only in this one situation
and replaces one natural bid only, while throwing open
a world full of new possibilities. You'll be amazed at
the indirect advantages that seem to fit in with this
type of approach, and you may even discover your
own version, like the Winnipeg Waiting Bid, or the
Pottstown Pause . . . or ...
THE 1975 PRECISION AWARD
George Rosenkranz (MEX)
Mexico's Jorge Rosenkranz won the Precision Award
for best article on a system or convention for his
'CONFI' pieces in 'Bridge World', which are reproduced
below. With Jorge called home on business,
IBPA's plaque was charmingly accepted by his wife
Edith, a member pf Mexico's ladies team, at the hands
of Terence Reese, a previous winner of the award
founded by C.C. Wei.
CONFI
By Dr. George Rosenkranz, Mexico City
I
n "More Slams on Fewer Points" (April 1964
BRIDGE WORLD), I challenged readers to bid slam
intelligently on hands of this sort:
West East
♠ K Q 7 5 ♠ A J
A K J 8 4 3
K 6 2 A 8 4
♣ Q 7 5 3 ♣ K J 10 2
Both hands are balanced, and the standard requirement
for slam under these conditions (33 HCP) is not
nearly met; yet six clubs is an excellent contract. At
that time I suggested a method called CATCH, which
was useful for reaching suit-fit slams with fewer than
33 HCP. In brief, CATCH allowed the responder to a
limited, balanced opening bid to make a series of
asking bids, until he had enough information to name
the final contract. Even though more than 10 years of
statistics showed that CATCH was superior to other
available methods, I was not fully satisfied with its
operation: it was complicated; it required a lot of room
(and thus used a valuable low response); it was relatively
ineffective when responder had a five-card suit;
there were only the weakest negative inferences from
failure to use it.
Most significant, the basic CATCH requirement of
31 HCP turned out not to be an adequate standard for
measuring slam prospects. The total number of controls
seemed more important to success. If the partnership
is missing as many as three controls, it is
unlikely that any slam will be significantly better than a
50% chance.
[If an ace and a king are missing, declarer will usually need at least
a finesse against the missing king. If three kings are missing,
declarer often needs at least two out of three finesses (a 50%
chance).-G.R.]
When I readjusted CATCH to bring controls into
the picture, several good things happened; and I
found I had a new and far superior convention. The
convention that arose out of the ashes of CATCH I call
"CONFI," an acronym that summarizes the conventional
procedures. The partner of the player who
showed a balanced hand first asks about controls.
Then, if the information received is satisfactory, he
investigates for a suit fit. Controls are shown according
to a simple step scheme (the more controls, the
higher the bid) and the search for a fit is "natural"
(each player bids the suits he has). So the mechanics
of CONFI are simple compared to other artificial conventions.
Finally, CONFI retains the important quality
of being independent of range. It can be used effectively
whenever either partner makes a limit bid showing
a balanced hand with a restricted RCP total.
I call a hand pseudo-balanced if it is distributed 4-
3-3-3, 4-4-3-2, 5-3-3-2 or 5-4-2-2. When one partner
shows a limited balanced hand, the other should use
CONFI when he has a pseudo-balanced hand of such
strength that a small slam based on an eight-card (or
longer) trump fit may be the best contract, either as a
safer alternative to six notrump when the combined
total is 33 or more RCP, or as the only playable slam
when the combined total is just under 33 RCP. Assuming
that the potential CONFI bidder's hand is
relatively rich in controls (he should not be thinking in
terms of a suit slam otherwise), the approximate re-
IBPA Handbook 2010 101