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nullve, on 2023-February-06, 05:58, said:
Not every good player thinks it's a good idea to start cuebidding at the five-level. For example:
Quote-mining out of context. You’ve quoted a 1993 article, but failed to point out that it entails an unusual agreement.
He advocated that, for example, in a slam try auction in hearts, a bid of 4S asked partner to keycard via 4N…it isn’t itself a cuebid
Also, having agreed upon a major, a bid at the 5-level is exclusion.
The usual agreement about exclusion is that it is a jump to the 5-level. Thus if we’ve reached 4S, 5C is a cuebid but if we’ve agreed spades at 3S, a jump to 5C would be exclusion
I’ve been a teammate of Fred’s in two WC events and have followed his career with interest ever since he won a silver medal in the BB in the mid 90’s. I may be mistaken but I think that he’d agree that his article contained suggestions that were not and never became mainstream. Certainly I don’t recall ever seeing or reading about any expert pair who followed that rule of never cuebidding at the five level. He had to invent that rule in order that a non-jump ‘cuebid’ at the five level would be exclusion.
You like to quote authority. Larry Cohen writes that asker must jump for a bid to be exclusion. Larry Cohen in 2018 would, I think, be viewed as more authoritative than would Fred Gitelman in 1993…with all respect to Fred, who is a good guy as well as a truly fine player: imagine how Canada would do in bridge were our top players not in the US��