On Wednesday, October 5, 2016 at 11:44:52 AM UTC-4, Barry Margolin wrote:
> In article <
6ad43d44-3ac4-4452...@googlegroups.com>,
> "
judyo...@verizon.net" <
judyo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In the current Bridge Bulletin, Larry Cohen recommends marking upper limit of
> > negative double as infinity. I believe that is misinformation.
> >
> > I always thought that "neg dbl through y" meant that double of an overcall of
> > y or lower was shape-showing. Above y, it was not shape-showing, but
> > something else. That something else need not be trump tricks. In fact, in
> > his lectures, Cohen says high-ish doubles should be card-showing.
> >
> > He thinks card-showing doubles are negative doubles.
>
> I think he's basically saying that a double that isn't intended as
> penalty-oriented, and partner is usually expected to take it out unless
> they have a bunch of the opponent's suit, is negative.
>
> BWS has 4 categories of doubles, but ACBL doesn't have this level of
> detail.
>
Actually, it does. The ACBL article by Richard Colker, which introduced the revised alert rule, had the same 4 levels.
But surely it means that "card-showing" and "negative" are different.