Acronyms by Foxymoron

A friend worked for a while for NACRO, the National Association for the Care and Rehabilitation  of Offenders. I suggested that this was a nacronym but that just caused her to wince.

Acronyms are common in bridge, but one should try to avoid them if possible. My partner and I were told to explain HELD and HELO on our convention cards, and write them out in full, for the forthcoming European Championship. They are fairly standard, High Encouraging, Low Discouraging and High Even, Low Odd, but the danger with acronyms is that they can have more than one meaning.

F2F seems to have become a standard acronym as lockdown comes to an end, and it was good to play live bridge yesterday at the Woodberry. The online game ran in parallel and everything went smoothly. The use of "2" in acronyms is quite common for "to". After all it saves one key stroke. H2H for head-to-head, an expression that distinguishes league and knockout formats, is another acronym that uses the digit.

The online players yesterday had two more boards than the live players, having to spend less time washing their hands I suppose. They had the chance to bid 7NT on the following board, but only one pair, Derek and Maria Essen, managed it:

I came across an acronym I had not seen before when Anne and Andrew Stimson were EW. After 2C-2D-2H which was game-forcing with hearts, East bid 4C which was RKCLG, which every self-respecting acronymologist knows is Roman Key Card Ladder Gerber. The response showing 4 allowed East to ask for kings and bid the grand. There is no advantage in playing in hearts. If West has x AKQxx AKxx AQx for example then 7NT is still solid, but 7H might unluckily fail.

Derek was West and 2D showed 23+ and 2NT was a balanced positive, 10+. West showed his hearts and East bid RKCB for hearts - we know that acronym. West showed 4 and I think East should now ask for kings and then can bid the grand with confidence when she finds out that West has the king of diamonds. West could just about have Qx AKQJx AJx AQx, which would be 23 points, and now 7NT needs the diamond finesse. But it is always nice to bid 7NT and I quite like the gamble as it could well be solid, as it was. EW were given an easy ride, and a weak 2S opening bid by South at these colours would have been a good way to throw a spanner in the works.