[ColdCrayon]

barmar, on 2012-May-25, 10:01, said:

Why shouldn't he draw that inference? Like you said, "a double jump shift is a splinter in any language."

Which part of your story was someone misreading the auction or pulling the wrong card, to fit this thread, rather than just confusion over agreements? Did you mean to bid 4♣ to splinter, and pulled 3♠ by mistake?

Look, I have no objection to either discussing the hand again, or discussing the discussion of the hand, again, but I won't promise not to get bored with this eventually.

Now, had my partner drawn the inference that 3S was a splinter, that would've been fine, or "okay, great" as I put it in the original post. He'd either know it was a concealed splinter, so he'd relay to 3nt and wait for me to show where my shortness was (which is what happened, up until I was passed out), or think I was direct splintering. Either way we'd have an auction in hearts, our nine-card suit. A splinter shows a fit the way most people play it: otherwise, it would make very little sense to make your first call take up all the bidding space below the four level just to announce a suit you're short in and nothing else about your hand. If you think about it, it would be hard to reach contracts playing that way.


I told the story here because it had just happened, and because the burning feeling all over my face when my opponents saw my trump suit seemed to go along. Plus I've never seen someone ignore two of their own conventions.