Bridge & Humor: Transfer Bids History Given by Oswald Jacoby

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The Pittsburgh Press – 15 Ago 1980 By OSWALD JACOBY And ALAN SONTAG     

Dave Carter of St. Louis, who invented two-way Stayman, decided to go one step further in taking advantage of the precise information given by an opening notrump bid and invented what is called the Texas convention.

In this convention, the four-diamond response to a notrump opening shows hearts, and opener must respond four hearts.

Here is a typical hand for this response:

x x  K J 10 x x x  K x x  x x.

Responder wants online casino the hand to play in four hearts but also wants his partner to play the hand so that the lead will come up to the notrump bidder. Similarly, if responder has a long spade suit, he replies four hearts as a transfer to spades.

DAVE THOUGHT OF THIS, when Oswald Jacoby was intelligence officer on the original staff at the Korean armistice talks. When Jacoby got home, he heard about this convention and adopted it enthusiastically.

Then, in 1955 Richard Troxel, one of his opponents in the Eastern pairs, mentioned that he used transfers at the two level. The idea appealed to Jacoby, and he started the study of low-level transfers after a notrump opening.

He started using them, writing about them and today the Jacoby Transfer Bid (JTB) is played by almost every expert bridge player in the world. The Jacoby transfer fits beautifully with Stayman and Sam Stayman is Just as enthusiastic a JTB user as Jacoby is a user of Stayman.