Talk:Cue bid

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Duja asks why I unlinked "slam investigating" from a "slam seeking convention" page. I did so because a cue bid of the sort discussed in the paragraph containing the link is not a convention, but a treatment (to my mind, anyway, and I think that would be the mainstream view). OTOH, the mainstream would also hold that the Kickback use of 4NT as a stand-in for a cue bid is a convention due to its artificiality.

The contract bridge articles at present seem to dance around the issue of what is a convention, what is a treatment (also referred to as a "natural convention" in some articles), and what is neither. That's understandable, because the distinctions have never been crisp, anywhere. But the one used in the Wiki page "Bridge Convention" is almost useless:

"In the game of contract bridge, a convention is an agreed-upon meaning for a call (a bid, double or redouble, or a pass) during the auction phase of the hand."

Well, an opening bid of 1((Ss}} has an agreed-upon meaning, but apart from strong pass systems no one would regard it as a convention.

It's no answer to equate "conventional" with "artificial," although some people (not found here) do so. Nor do I much care for the definition found in the BW Glossary: "An understanding between partners that would not ordinarily be understood by the opponents in the absence of an explanation." That fails to distinguish "convention" from "treatment," which the BW Glossary unhelpfully defines as "A partnership's interpretaton of an action."

For "convention," I would suggest -- and I like -- the one presently used in Wiki's contract bridge glossary: "An agreement between partners on the meaning of a bid or sequence of bids, such that the meaning is not necessarily related to the length and strength of bid suits."

A control-showing cue bid, of the sort being discussed in the paragraph where I unlinked to "slam seeking convention," would not be considered a convention under that definition: it is necessarily related to strength in the bid suit.

I'd like to defer discussion of whether the restored link is appropriate until we're sure we have consensus on what constitutes a convention. Xlmvp 15:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

The criteria whether something is a convention or a treatment are moot indeed (it should be discussed in bridge convention more thoroughly, though). I objected to the link removal merely because it removed a context, as the slam-seeking conventions article gives an overview of slam methods. Alternatively, we could revert to your version and put that link to "See also" section.

Another problem is that the two meanings of the term "cue bid" are very weakly related, so much that I'd say that they deserve separate articles and some kind of disambiguation. I'm not sure how; one variant is:

• the control bids seem to be the primary meaning of "cue bid" (at least judging on the number of "What links here" articles); only they should be at cue bid, with additional control bid redirect.
• the cue bid of an opponents' suit is IMO less important; they could go to cue bid (competition). {{tl|for}] templates should be used to provide cross-links.

(Alas, the text on latter meaning is far more thorough than the control-bid one; the control-bid article would be a stub). Duja 07:44, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slam-Seeking

I beefed up some of the section on cuebids as slam-seeking devices. I wonder why cue-bids are hyphenated in the article, but I stuck to the established format as a matter of principle. I also noticed that someone threw in that the Blue Team did so well for slams, because of their cuebids, blah, blah, I think that is inappropriate and I'd rather have it as quoting someone who said the above rather than just throwing that in as the author's unsubstantiated opinion. I tried to put it as reference needed, but I confess that I don't know the wikipedia system well, so I did the best I could. Duja will undoubtedly find this fairly soon and clean it up for me. Thanks. I also question whether it matters if something is a treatment or a convention and take exception to the above-mentioned claim that a 1♠ opening would not be a convention - but it is indeed a convention, namely 5-card majors.Eljamin 17:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Advanced cue bidding

I'm not familiar enough with the game to be able to knowledgeably correct the mistake, but both players are shown as having the 2♥ 64.15.103.106 03:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)