Foreword It is easy to dismiss Marvin French as a crank or a curmudgeon or as the contrarian that he certainly was but this does not do justice to the man’s life. Marvin was Life Master 10231 achieving the rank in 1956, “when it was hard” as he liked to say. This was not a boast, just a fact not well understood by many who started playing later, particularly after the great masterpoint inflation that kicked off shortly into the new millennium. Marvin was a force on the west coast bridge scene. Local San Diego Diamond LM, Anne Terry, never one to withhold an opinion positive or negative, called Marvin the “best of the best.” D22 Director, Ken Monzingo said, “Like him or not, he was a unique man. A leader, not a follower. A brilliant man of honesty and integrity.” Marvin made significant contributions to bridge literature and less known contributions to bidding theory. He was a contributor to Bridge World, Popular Bridge (published in the 1960s and 1970s), and the D22 Contract Bridge Forum, and editor for the latter prior to Joel Hoersch. For many years Marvin maintained his own website where he posted his writings on bridge, blackjack, and literature. His 90 page Squeeze Refresher (For Good Players) is undoubtedly the best reference that is available for free. Sometime in 2011 I got to know Marvin better because we started exchanging e-mail on various bridge topics in part because I had been reading his website and had taken some interest in his discussion of four card vs. five card majors. We almost played a double session at the 2012 San Diego regional. Roger Zellmer, one of Marvin’s regular bridge 1 A pleasing and easy to remember number for all conversant in binary. partners and long-time blackjack sidekick suggested I had saved myself some grief but I have come to regret not partnering once with Marvin. I told Marvin that I had vacuumed up a copy of Evan Bailey’s website shortly after Evan’s death in order to preserve it. Marvin thought that was cool and hoped I would do the same when he “kicked the bucket”. When Marvin’s webhosting contract ran out in 2015, I re-hosted his website under the La Jolla Unit website. Marvin railed against the proliferation of bidding conventions arguing that, “It’s a card game after all. First, learn how to play cards.” And yet paradoxically he dedicated a lot of time to documenting no fewer than three bidding systems. His Skeleton System was very basic, designed to focus the partnership on card play rather than system memorization. By using weak (12-15 HCP) notrump bids, it even excludes Stayman. His AmBIGuous Diamond system was designed for matchpoint competition. The present document, Four-Card Majors: Western Natural Updated was Marvin’s bidding handbook. Marvin never bought into the transition to five card majors, either in the form we call Standard American today or the now popular Two-Over- One Game Force (2/1). The title of this handbook, Four-Card Majors: Western Natural Updated, appears to be a challenge to 2/1 issued in response to Five Card Majors: Western Style (1975), Max Hardy’s first attempt to popularize the ideas of Dick Walsh that laid the foundation for 2/1. Should anyone care about four card majors inasmuch as they have been consigned to the dustbin of history? On technical merits, I don’t think they can be readily dismissed. Mike Lawrence, an expert and author of many key bidding books, has stated that four card and five card majors are comparable for bidding partials and games. He argued in part that the occasional 4-3 major suit fit reached by four card major bidders was compensated by the fact that some of these Moysian fits were the best contract and perhaps more importantly that the four card major bid regularly picked off the opponent’s major suit fit. Only for slam bidding did Mr. Lawrence feel five card majors were clearly superior. My opinion is that five card majors have prevailed in part because they are easier to teach and that the 2/1 variety is arguably easier yet to teach. Players march right into their 6-2, 5-3, 4-4, and 2-6 major suit fits and fly low into many two level 5-2 major suit fits. The New Minor Forcing convention handles the 3-5 ugly duckling often enough. The system bid is usually clear. Four card majors by contrast require good judgment. There are often multiple choices and suit quality matters more when you might find yourself playing in a 4-3 fit. This didn’t trouble Marvin―he had fine judgment and wasn’t interested in teaching, holding the philosophy that those who can do and those who can’t teach. Easier bidding systems allow the mediocre player to advance further much as a larger racquetball racket allows the beginner to return more shots. And yet the sweet spot on the large racket is no bigger than on the smaller racket. A good opponent will take excellent advantage of a shot returned poorly from the edge of a big racket. At some level, the large racket not only provides no advantage but in fact is a hindrance as it weighs more and reduces dexterity. And so it proves at bridge. To beat the best you need to improve the size of your sweet spot, your bidding judgment. The same might be said about defensive judgment. Marvin’s first rule of defensive carding was “trick preservation” by which he meant do not signal with a card that might be too valuable. Signaling is all well and good and does get the beginner off to a good start but it takes more experience, judgment if you will, to know when not to signal. I prefer a partner who knows what is going on in the defense because it provides many opportunities to mislead declarer. I encourage you to expand your bidding judgment by giving four card majors a go. If nothing else, you will surely generate some interesting swings. Combining four card majors with a weak notrump and decent card play may be enough to throw even an expert team for a loop, much as Marvin said in his essay Beating the Experts. Long live four-card majors! Matthew Kidd San Diego, July 2015 INTRODUCTION This is not a book--it's a handbook, used to document the bidding understandings I might want to have (if I could remember them), so it does not represent the agreements of any my partnerships. Many of the sections of the notebook are sketchy notes that assume the reader has an extensive knowledge of bidding. Other sections, many of which were written for publication, give a fuller exposition. This notebook is constantly changing as new ideas come in, errors get corrected, improve- ments are made, and excess baggage is removed. The reader's help is solicited in this effort. The basis for the bidding system used in the notebook is the old Culbertson system, which features natural bidding with non-forcing sequences. If in doubt, it isn't forcing. Also, the emphasis is on bidding suits, not distribution. AKQ3 is not given equal standing with 7642, as in so many modern bidding systems. There are many new gadgets that Culbertson would not like, I imagine. I have adopted them only in self-defense, not because I like gadgets. Marvin L. French [email protected] vii 1-1-1 ABBREVIATIONS AND DEFINITIONS Adequate trump support (for a raise of partner's one level opening or response) - Four small cards, J10x, or better. Raises must often be given with worse three-card support, especially in competition. Advancer - Partner of an overcaller or takeout doubler Biddable suit - Q10xx or better. It is often necessary to bid an "unbiddable" suit, however. Control - Ace is two controls, king is one. Forcing to a limit situation - A call that forces the partnership to keep bidding until one of the following situations is reached: -- A cue bidder's partner ("replier") rebids his own suit minimally or the cue bidder rebids his own minor suit minimally. -- Either cue bidder or replier raises partner's last suit bid. -- A cue bidder bids the same suit twice in a row, after the cue bid. -- Game is reached. -- A suitable penalty double is imposed on the opponents. -- Either partner bids notrump, thereby limiting his hand. (Exception: a cue bidder may not pass a 2NT reply by a partner who has not previously acted--and a double/redouble is an "act"). -- The person who made the force has inferentially given partner a final chance to show any values. For a further discussion of all these situations, see page 10-1-2. Free Bid - A bid made when partner will have another chance to call. Free bids with really minimum hands are frowned upon at IMP scoring or when vulnerable, but raises (even jump raises) may be quite weak over an opponent's takeout double. HCP - High card points, 4-3-2-1 point count, excluding distributional or long suit points. IMP - International Matchpoint Key Card - There are five key cards: the four aces and the king of the presumed trump suit. If in doubt, the last suit named is “presumed” for this purpose, but of course not if it was a cue bid.. LHO - Left hand opponent 1-1-2 Notrumper cue bid - A cue bid by a person who has bid notrump strongly. Not ace-showing, it shows the suit in which it would be least desirable for partner to be short.