Currified Precision is something that will have to be saved for another article, but suffice to say, Neill is one of those players who can find seventeen meanings for any call. To give you an idea of how his brain works, one of his other inventions is the Fighting Irish 3NT. It is sort of like a Gambling 3NT, but a bit more aggressive - an opening 3NT bid says, "Partner, I have a stopper; please pass if you have a running eight-card minor."
Anyway, I have gotten off topic. The first order of business is to explain what a food-asking bid is: well, it's any call a player makes that shows he's hungry, or that asks about the hunger level of his partner. This is the variation by Tony Melucci, one of Neill's regular partners:
1NT |
3![]() |
3 is a game-going hand that forces a relay to 3NT.
I think it's GCC legal (you should be able to just say, "game-forcing relay,
10+ points, any shape"), and
it's entertaining when it comes up.
(Opponents usually just look annoyed rather than damaged, anyway.)
The
.
1NT |
4![]() |
deny, by negative inference, interest in a postgame meal, because responder
could have gone through the : 3NT
Another nice thing about using the Melucci FAB is that it is tough for the
opponents to make a lead-directing double of .
1NT Pass |
(Pass) (Pass) |
3![]() 4 ![]() |
(Dbl) |
Now the doubler is on lead. Pretty fun stuff.
When I was first introduced to FABs, though, I didn't fully appreciate the importance of preventing the lead-directing double. Here was my first effort.
Pard 1NT 3 ![]() |
RHO Pass Dbl |
Me 3 ![]() 3NT |
LHO Pass All Pass |
This is the FAB that occurred at a Queen Mary Regional in California.
Partner: (after I bid )
LHO: Yes?
Partner: Shows a 3NT hand, and he's hungry. (Mulls his decision and bids
.)
Me: Alert!
RHO: What?
Me: Relay showing that he's hungry too.
RHO: (turns to pard) What was his
Partner: A hand that wants to play 3NT, but he's hungry, too.
RHO: Hungry? Like what? Hungry for slam?
Partner: (trailing off weakly in mirth) No, he's just hungry....
At this point RHO made a confused lead-directing double (although he was going to
be on lead), and I realized that this FAB variant was imperfect because
LHO could
have hit ,
With this in mind, I have come up with another good FAB variant. This one is
1M 2NT |
2M |
Playing 5-card majors, we have all heard the auction go 1M: 2M, 4M. But why
the rush? 2NT is a fairly useless rebid that can easily be implemented as
the perfect FAB. It's perfect because it shows a hungry 4M hand that
requests partner to rebid 3M if he's hungry too (remember, slow implies),
and 4M if he's not; as a result, neither opponent can make a lead-directing
double. An opponent could spank 2NT, 3M or 4M, but what advantage is gained?
I'm even pretty sure it's GCC legal. In Modern Losing Trick Count,
Ron Klinger suggests that 2NT can be used as a relay for a short-suit game
try, but that's no fun. Let's live a little.
Thinking along these lines, you can have some detailed sequences that would make Meckwell proud. Here are a couple examples:
1![]() 2NT 1 4 ![]() |
2![]() 3 ![]() 4 ![]() |
1 Before I play in game, I need to know if you're hungry, because I am.
Want to get some food after this session?
2 OK. What kind?
3 Let's go American. (
4 OK. You still have to declare ,
1![]() 2NT 1 4 ![]() |
2![]() 3 ![]() Pass |
1 Where do you want to go over the hand records?
2 Let's see...
3 Okie dokie.
Now, I am too lazy to memorize all this stuff and wouldn't expect any partner to remember either, but it's amusing to consider all the unused bids out there that can be implemented as FABs. If some director penalizes you for using an illegal FAB, though, don't write to me. You never read this here.
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