cherdano, on Aug 13 2008, 02:17 PM, said:
I guess my point is that the meaning of a bid such as 4N 5C 5D (queen ask) 5N (have the queen, and s.th. else) is HIGHLY context specific after an informative natural auction. Of course you can make up rules about how your spiral scan changes when one partner is limited/has cued suit x/has not cued suit y/hasn't shown slam interest etc. etc. but I would assume you need a lot of rules to make it as efficient as a 5N bid in a good partnership just playing specific king asks.
This is certainly true and a good point. One thing to note is that the spiral scan automatically excludes suits when shortness is known. That increases the efficiency immensely. It also makes for a good use of the bidding space where it might otherwise be unclear.
Example:
1
♠ - 4
♣*
4NT - 5
♥**
5NT - 6
♣
*Splinter
**2 Keycards no
♠Q
Does 6
♣ show a void or singleton A? Does partner care? It might be difficult now for partner to know if you have a red King on top of that. Does 6
♦ ask for the
♦K or show it with concern about the
♥K? I mean you can come up with sensible rules, but as you say, it is HIGHLY context specific. In spiral, 6
♣ would deny the
♦K and opener can ask about the
♥K by bidding 6
♦ or ask about the
♦Q by bidding 6
♥. Also, opener could have chosen to skip asking about the
♦K initially and asked straight about the
♥K,
♦Q, etc.
I'm not saying that spiral is necessarily better than other methods, I am saying that I think it's as good as a lot of other methods and is actually quite easy to learn.
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