[barmar]

Zelandakh, on 2014-June-10, 09:41, said:

By asking "And what does that mean precisely?" or words to that effect.

That doesn't solve anything. If you don't have common terminology, you won't understand the answer to that question, either.

"A source of tricks is at least a 4 card suit with at least 2 honors."
"What do you mean by 'honors'?" (Do they really count the 10?)

Eventually you may land in the vicinity of "that depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

[hotShot]

I would say, a "source of tricks" should produce at least 3 tricks in the selected denomination.

[aguahombre]

I won't be describing the tin cans that homeless guy collects as a source of income because "everyone" who is "anyone" knows what a source of income is and I wouldn't want to mislead the knowledgeable elite into thinking they would get rich taking his loot.

Or, I might ask myself: How can these smart people be so dumb they don't even ask how many cans are involved?

[Cyberyeti]

aguahombre, on 2014-June-11, 09:38, said:

I won't be describing the tin cans that homeless guy collects as a source of income because "everyone" who is "anyone" knows what a source of income is and I wouldn't want to mislead the knowledgeable elite into thinking they would get rich taking his loot.

Or, I might ask myself: How can these smart people be so dumb they don't even ask how many cans are involved?

This was more a case of finding he was getting £100 for 3 cans, it was a long way what I thought a source of tricks was, I didn't really consider anybody would describe that holding in that way.

I've been thinking about my definition, and it would be something like "50:50 or better for 2 tricks opposite xxx, and 75%+ for 3 tricks opposite Qxx". I didn't extend it to holdings including the Q, I don't know how other people think on this. So something like AJ98/AJ102/KJ102 would be the minimum for me. I suspect we play the same system as them and use the description of "reasonable 4 card suit" rather than "source of tricks".

[barmar]

Cyberyeti, on 2014-June-11, 10:23, said:

I suspect we play the same system as them and use the description of "reasonable 4 card suit" rather than "source of tricks".

That seems like a better description to me.

A similar issue can arise with a convention like Ogust. The responses distinguish between "good" and "bad" suits. Everyone I've ever played with seemed to understand that a good suit is 6 cards to 2 of the top 3 honors. Although I do have one occasional partner who likes to open weak 2's frequently with 5-card suits, so he considers almost any 6-card suit to be "good", but he doesn't use the good/bad terminology, he describes the responses as showing 5- or 6-card suits -- he knows his style is non-mainstream, and the usual wording would confuse opponents.

[Zelandakh]

Some players define a good suit to be 3 of the top 5 rather than 2 of the top 3, although I have not seen it for some time now.

[Cyberyeti]

Zelandakh, on 2014-June-12, 09:11, said:

Some players define a good suit to be 3 of the top 5 rather than 2 of the top 3, although I have not seen it for some time now.

We use that definition (3 of the top 5 but not QJ10) for our fit jumps, and explain it as that not "good suit"

[mycroft]

I know people who play Ogust, and their weak 2s are *always disciplined vul* (sometimes VUL or 1/2). So I ask them what's a bad suit. After a while, they find the clutch pedal and successfully change gears. (having said that, I've played this; so a good suit was at least AQ-sixth, but not AKQ-sixth at VUL)

I'd expect "source of tricks" to be something like AJTxx, given the OP context. I use, for what I think they're trying to play, "concentration of values" (and 2NT as "scattered values"). A warning that there might be a wide-open suit, or conversely that we may have two runners.