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There has been some discussion about my earlier article on Screen Huddles. Chip Martel has raised a specific point, namely that with time penalties being applied players are not too happy about always delaying an auction.
In my earlier article I stressed the advantage of delaying the return of the tray but I did not stress that randomising the huddle length is even better. Let us look at some examples.
Suppose LHO (South) opens
1
, partner bids
2
, RHO bids
5
and you pass. Both RHO's 5 and your pass are very quick: should you delay the tray? In my view, yes. It is quite a surprising auction to be done quickly, and it is better that the other side of the screen does not know that neither of you had any problem. Furthermore, next time you have a similar auction, if that takes thirty seconds but there is a problem it will look similar the other side of the screen.
Now suppose LHO (South) opens
1, partner passes, RHO bids 2 and you pass. Both RHO's 2 and your pass are very quick: should you delay the tray? Sometimes you should, but not always. This is a good auction to catch up a little time. Perhaps it is going to go
4 all pass. What you should do is to randomise the time. If you hold the tray back sometimes on this auction then the other side of the screen will not know whether there is a problem or not. Of course when you do not delay the tray they do know there is no problem but in a normal auction that tells them very little.
After I wrote this [and too late to put in the Bulletin] I had a discussion with Kit Woolsey. He thought I should have stressed that some auctions are known to be tempo-sensitive and it is important to try to randomise the tempo with those auctions particularly.
Editor's note:
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