[jillybean]

Back to the original question...

It was pointed out that I have a singleton and no aces and I should alert that my nt is not 14-17. I said it said it was standard, nothing to alert, I wasn’t taking the complaint seriously it was obviously mis defended. The next comment I got was ‘you win, you are the td’ so I suggested I post the hand here.

[1eyedjack]

jtfanclub, on Mar 20 2007, 06:51 PM, said:

jillybean2, on Mar 20 2007, 12:07 PM, said:

No, I dont follow ACBL laws and nor would I penalize anyone for opening this hand 1nt.

Well, it would be common courtesy then to define what you allow or don't allow, and put it in the rules (maybe you already do this, I dunno). Not fair to 'not follow ACBL laws' but not replace them with something else.

Me, I'm an 'all systems allowed if properly alerted', person, forcing pass, you name it. But I also announce it on those rare occassions I run my own tourney.

I should have thought that by default, unless the SO expressly lays down any proscriptions or prescriptions, by default "anything goes" that is otherwise permitted by the primary Laws, and this should be assumed and should not require express confirmation. If it comes down to "common courtesy", then the SO is actually being courteous beyond the boundary of necessity by pointing out to habitual ACBL players who attend the tourney, and who tend to forget that there is a universe outside of ACBLand, that ACBL rules do not apply. I would be astonished to enter an event on BBO where the TD takes the trouble to say "EBU rules do not apply".

[hrothgar]

jtfanclub, on Mar 20 2007, 06:53 PM, said:

Absolutely, and I'm sure you could design such a hand, as could

I. I'm also sure the hand I would desgin wouldn't look anything like this. I doubt yours would either. Most important to me, this hand does not have rebid issues. 1♣-1NT-P looks completely ordinary. It looked even more ordinary when as originally described it seemed not to have 10s or 9s.

To me there are three possibilities:
1. It was, effectively, a psyche. The last 100 times she had that hand, she'd opened 1♣, but this time one of her opponents had a gleam in his eye, or she knew them, or state-of-match said do something anti-field, or she just read a book, or whatever. Completely legal.

2. This is the exception hand where she opens 1NT with a singleton. She feels that opening 1NT is more protective of a singleton queen than a singleton king or ace (and there is, IIRC, a valid argument for that), and that there's a rebid issue here we don't expect: maybe 1♣-1NT shows 9-11 in her system so her rebid issue is with 15 instead of 17. Still completely legal.

3. She like opening 1NT. Any time her hcp total to 15-17 and she can squint and see it as semi-balanced she opens 1NT. This is the problem one. The way you're supposed to deal with it in an ACBL game is to report it to the director, who makes a note of it, and the next time she does it in an ACBL game she'll get warned about it. That's a problem when your opponent is a director.

I understand why a person would look at this hand, and say 'if you would open this as 1NT, is there any 15-17 count 4441 or 5431 with a 5 card minor where you wouldn't open it 1NT?' Certainly, if I was directing an ACBL game and a player asked me to record this as an off-shape 1NT opening, I would do so. I wouldn't adjust the score, unless there was a history of it, but I wouldn't tell him to shut his cakehole either.

I'm sure in Jilly's case it was #1. That's legal, and it's not alertable.

I think that its a big mistake to drag the concept of psyches into this discussion.

A psychic call is defined as follows: “A deliberate and gross misstatement of honor strength or suit length.”

If I agree that I am playing a 15-17 HCP 1NT opening and chose to open 1NT on

♠ 65
♥ 4
♦ AKT9764
♣ JT3

I have clearly made a gross mistatement regarding both strength and shape. However, a decision to treat a 1=4=4=4 hand as if it were a 4-4-3-2 is not the same thing.

From my own perspective, my own decisions to open 1NT with a singleton is almost always based on my anticipation of a rebid problem. I don't like playing a style in which the auction

1m - 1X
1N

can show anything from a 4432 12 count to a 4441 17 count. Accordingly, if I have a hand where I would be forced to make an uncomfortable rebid into NT, I will often prefer to open 1NT to begin with. At least partner will know my range.

The classic example is a hand like the following

♠ K
♥ KQT8
♦ AQT7
♣ KT98

After a 1♦ opening, your completely fixed if partner responds 1♠.

In a similar vein

♠ K
♥ KQT
♦ AQT7
♣ KT986

also prevents some real rebid problems after a 1♣ openingand the (anticipated) 1♠ response.

Lots of people bid in just this same way.

[Al_U_Card]

14 of your 147 1NT openers contained a singleton? I would alert the 1NT call with "frequently contains a singleton" no matter who I was playing with AND I would pre-warn my pard so that he could decide about the merits of that kind of a partnership agreement. People can play anything they want to....as long as they agree to it and inform the opps.

[jtfanclub]

One-eyed jack: If I joined a tourney run by a man with an English flag, I would assume that EBU rules apply.

Hrothgar, I think we're going past each other here. Perhaps you'd prefer abberation to a psyche for #1. If she has a policy of opening 1NT with a hand like this, and this one case she makes an exception, that's fine.

Quote

If I agree that I am playing a 15-17 HCP 1NT opening and chose to open 1NT on

♠ 65
♥ 4
♦ AKT9764
♣ JT3

I have clearly made a gross mistatement regarding both strength and shape.  However, a decision to treat a 1=4=4=4 hand as if it were a 4-4-3-2 is not the same thing.

Strengthwise. There is no difference as far as the ACBL is concerned between her 1NT opening the actually did and:

♠ Q5
♥ Q
♦ AKT9764
♣ AT9

as 6322 is explicitly defined as balanced. Right now, the ACBL considers any non-balanced hand opening 1NT to be a 'gross distortion', although I personally wouldn't record a strong-end hand with a singleton black ace or king, or a 7222 hand with honors in all three doubletons. Those are generally accepted exceptions, even here.

Both of your examples are fine, however in Jilly's case...
1. 10% of her 1NT openings are with a singleton. I seriously doubt that even 1% of your hands fit your more exacting standards, and

2. There is no 'least lie' coming up. Your hands are clear agonizers. She's got easy rebids.

Note that opening 1NT with Jilly's hand wasn't a bad idea. It was a very good idea, especially if the opponents think that the hand is balanced. As I play Precision, I would love to include 2-4-1-6 hands in the 1NT as well as more balanced ones. But it's not just alertable, it's banned by the ACBL.

Which it's fine if you don't follow in your tourneys- I don't. But if you start your own tourney, don't announce any rules, and play Moscito, don't be suprised if people are upset.

[1eyedjack]

jtfanclub, on Mar 20 2007, 08:44 PM, said:

One-eyed jack: If I joined a tourney run by a man with an English flag, I would assume that EBU rules apply.

I think that assumption would be unwarranted (unless of course expressly stated).

Heck, if the TD had an Abanian flag, and ran a tourney that did NOT suggest Albanian Bridge Federation rules applied, would I still be expected to acquire the Albania equivalent of our Orange book before participating?

[jtfanclub]

1eyedjack, on Mar 20 2007, 04:23 PM, said:

Heck, if the TD had an Abanian flag, and ran a tourney that did NOT suggest Albanian Bridge Federation rules applied, would I still be expected to acquire the Albania equivalent of our Orange book before participating?

What percentage of people do you think read the ACBL handbook before playing in ACBL tourneys? Far less than half, I'll bet.

But it really does help to have some standard. I don't read the traffic laws of every community I drive through, but if a cop pulls me over for having too many mirrors or whatever, you'd better believe that I want *some* book I can look it so I know the cop isn't just making stuff up.

[awm]

Seems like the conclusions here are:

(1) If you occasionally decide to open 1NT with a singleton, this is okay. You can do this because you anticipate rebid problems, or because you "just feel like it" based on opponents or state of the match. This is not really a "psych" if the hand is roughly similar to a notrump opening (i.e. about the same points, singleton probably an honor, etc) -- the term psych refers to bids that are "gross mistatements" like opening 1NT(15-17) with a 4-count or 1♠(5-card majors) on a three-card suit; not to "tactical actions" like opening 1NT(15-17) on a good 14 or with a singleton honor, or opening 1♠(5-card majors) on a strong four-card suit.

(2) However, if you frequently open 1NT on a singleton, or if your partnership has methods which specifically allow the 1NT opener to show the singleton in the subsequent bidding, then this sort of action becomes an agreement. If you have an agreement to open 1NT with a singleton on certain patterns, this requires disclosure (in the form of an alert) everywhere in the world, and may be considered an illegal agreement (thus barred) in certain very nit-picky places (like ACBL land).

(3) The hand that Jilly opened 1NT is not one that most of us would open 1NT, because of a combination of lack of strength, support for both majors, and no rebid problem. Of course, this by itself isn't particularly relevent to the issues at hand since her judgement may differ from other people.

(4) It is somewhat troubling that roughly 10% of Jilly's 1NT openings seem to contain a singleton. This percentage is high enough that it may qualify as an agreement and need to be disclosed.

[1eyedjack]

jtfanclub, on Mar 20 2007, 10:41 PM, said:

1eyedjack, on Mar 20 2007, 04:23 PM, said:

Heck, if the TD had an Abanian flag, and ran a tourney that did NOT suggest Albanian Bridge Federation rules applied, would I still be expected to acquire the Albania equivalent of our Orange book before participating?

What percentage of people do you think read the ACBL handbook before playing in ACBL tourneys? Far less than half, I'll bet.

But it really does help to have some standard. I don't read the traffic laws of every community I drive through, but if a cop pulls me over for having too many mirrors or whatever, you'd better believe that I want *some* book I can look it so I know the cop isn't just making stuff up.

We may be confusing the regulations regarding permitted methods with the regulations regarding alerting and disclosure requirements.

[hrothgar]

awm, on Mar 21 2007, 01:01 AM, said:

(4) It is somewhat troubling that roughly 10% of Jilly's 1NT openings seem to contain a singleton. This percentage is high enough that it may qualify as an agreement and need to be disclosed.

Ben ran a BRBR study for me suggesting that (roughly) 12.9% of my 1NT openings have contained a singleton.

He's going to go and send me a collection of the hands in question so I can look at them a bit more closely. (I readily admit that I've been experimenting with this style for a while now, so I expect that the percentage is a bit higher than it would normally be).

Once again, I will note that it would be useful to understand what the expression "generally" means.

[awm]

So here's the thing that bothers me...

Suppose my agreement was that an opening 1NT showed any 5332, 4333, 4432, or 4441 pattern within some point range. Suppose I will always open all 4441s in range with 1NT. It seems to me that this would be an alertable agreement?

However, the probabilities for these patterns are:

5332: 15.52%
4333: 10.53%
4432: 21.55%
4441: 2.99%

So overall, the 4441s comprise only about 6% of the 1NT openings.

If "I open 1NT on all 4441s in range" is alertable, I would think that another method of decision making where I more frequently have a singleton than this should also be alertable.

[helene_t]

bid_em_up, on Mar 20 2007, 05:51 PM, said:

Suppose you put this hand up as a poll, with the choices of 1C, 1H, 1S or 1N. What percentage would you expect 1N to receive? I am reasonably certain that the percentage would be fairly low, so the call is not justifiable by bridge logic. Given that few, if any, would open 1N on this particular hand, and that you are probably reasonably aware of this, I really think you should bend over backwards not to do it.

As a playing director, knowing that opening 1N on a stiff is, at least, "frowned" upon, do you not think that you should be "more accountable" to abiding by this?

Of course Kathryn should not "bend over backwards" not to open 1N on this hand just because most people wouldn't.

It could probably be argued that it's a good strategy to play a concensus style with an unknown p, even if it's contrary to one's prefered style. But style itself can never be an ethical issue. If Kathryn's partner complains about Kathryn opening 1N with this hand I might have some sympathy for them but I have absolutely no sympathy for these opps. If they are too paranoid to trust Kathryn they should set up their own tourneys. Then each paranoid player can have his own tourney 16-player tourney together with his 15 GIBs.

Disclosue is an ethical issue and it's possible that Kathryn should alert her 1N openings in regular partnerships. I'll take her words for it that it's not necesary, though.

Another thing: why on Earth do people keep complaining about strange 1N-openings. We see strange t/o doubles, strange jump shifts and strange uses of Blackwood all the time. This 1N opening doesn't come close to a "gross misstatement" of anything.

[hrothgar]

awm, on Mar 21 2007, 01:20 AM, said:

So here's the thing that bothers me...

Suppose my agreement was that an opening 1NT showed any 5332, 4333, 4432, or 4441 pattern within some point range. Suppose I will always open all 4441s in range with 1NT. It seems to me that this would be an alertable agreement?

However, the probabilities for these patterns are:

5332: 15.52%
4333: 10.53%
4432: 21.55%
4441: 2.99%

So overall, the 4441s comprise only about 6% of the 1NT openings.

If "I open 1NT on all 4441s in range" is alertable, I would think that another method of decision making where I more frequently have a singleton than this should also be alertable.

I did a slightly different calculation

I restricted dealer to produce hands with any of the following shapes

4432
5431
5332
4333
4441

5431 patterns comprise 20.3% of all hands
4441 patterns comprise 4.7% of all hands

So, approximately 25% of all the hands being considered contain a singleton. In my case, roughly 12.9% of all my NT opening contain a singleton. It looks like if

(I am dealt a hand with the right range for a NT opening)

and

(that hand has a 5431 or 4441 pattern)

then there is (roughly) a 51.6% chance that I will chose a 1NT opening and (roughly) a 48.4% chance that I'll chose to open 1x.

As I mentioned, I asked Ben to send me all of the hands in question. I'm going to try to look at them and see if I can find any additional patterns.

[bid_em_up]

helene_t, on Mar 20 2007, 05:33 PM, said:

bid_em_up, on Mar 20 2007, 05:51 PM, said:

Suppose you put this hand up as a poll, with the choices of 1C, 1H, 1S or 1N. What percentage would you expect 1N to receive? I am reasonably certain that the percentage would be fairly low, so the call is not justifiable by bridge logic.  Given that few, if any, would open 1N on this particular hand, and that you are probably reasonably aware of this, I really think you should bend over backwards not to do it.

As a playing director, knowing that opening 1N on a stiff is, at least, "frowned" upon, do you not think that you should be "more accountable" to abiding by this?

Of course Kathryn should not "bend over backwards" not to open 1N on this hand just because most people wouldn't.

It could probably be argued that it's a good strategy to play a concensus style with an unknown p, even if it's contrary to one's prefered style. But style itself can never be an ethical issue. If Kathryn's partner complains about Kathryn opening 1N with this hand I might have some sympathy for them but I have absolutely no sympathy for these opps. If they are too paranoid to trust Kathryn they should set up their own tourneys. Then each paranoid player can have his own tourney 16-player tourney together with his 15 GIBs.

Disclosure is an ethical issue and it's possible that Kathryn should alert her 1N openings in regular partnerships. I'll take her words for it that it's not necesary, though.

Another thing: why on Earth do people keep complaining about strange 1N-openings. We see strange t/o doubles, strange jump shifts and strange uses of Blackwood all the time. This 1N opening doesn't come close to a "gross misstatement" of anything.

Sorry Helene, I disagree. Playing directors should make every attempt possible to be beyond reproach. If someone called her to their table because their opponents opened this hand 1N, how would she rule? If she would rule in favor of the non-offending side then she sure as hell shouldn't be making the bid herself. If she would say to the non-offenders, "tough cookies, this is an anything goes tourny and they can open this hand 1N whenever they wish", then its ok for her to make the bid herself.

If she wasn't directing, she can do whatever the heck she wants as there is a 3rd party to appeal to. When she is directing, she should bend over backwards not to do something that could be considered to be "unethical" by some, underhanded by others, or downright offensive by still others.

Personally, I don't give damn what she does. Although, I do think that by a couple of her own admissions here, such as:

"fwiw, I've opened 14/147 hands 1N with a stiff" (a 10% ratio which is much too high for it not to be a partnership agreement, if playing with a regular partner)

and

"I'm looking for more opportunities to open 1N with a stiff" (paraphrased)

tend to indicate (to me, at least) that perhaps JB is prone to a more frequent opening of 1N containing a stiff than most people would reasonably expect and if the opponents happened to be aware of this fact, then they might just possibly be entitled to redress if there was a third party available to make an impersonal ruling.

Which is another reason why she should bend over backwards not to do this and especially not without disclosure.

[1eyedjack]

jtfanclub, on Mar 20 2007, 10:41 PM, said:

What percentage of people do you think read the ACBL handbook before playing in ACBL tourneys? Far less than half, I'll bet.

I think you are probably right. And yet every ACBL member will assume such erudition on the part of every opponent he plays against in a non-ACBL event (heck, perhaps even an ACBL one). Well, perhaps not every one, but it certainly seems that way.

[jillybean]

I can tell you how surprised I was that 14/147 of my nt openers included a singleton, though I have been experimenting with 1nt openings. I don’t know how many of those hands were with the partner in question and I’m still not convinced that it should be alerted, neither does my partner here. With other partners I'd say there could be a case for disclosure, though I havent to date.

Bid-em-up you asked how would I rule if I was called to a table where this bid was made? In effect I was and I ruled there was no grounds for appeal, you should be asking other TDs perhaps.

As a playing TD should I bend over backwards not to do something that could be considered to be "unethical" , yes and no.
I do take measures to ensure the game is run ethically If you mean that I should avoid such things as psyches, false carding, taking anti percentage plays the answer is a resounding no! I also can’t protect myself against lucky bids or bad contracts that turn out well due to poor defense.

[mike777]

10% of your 1nt openings have a stiff over the course of a year or two, that seems high and alertable.

[helene_t]

jillybean2, on Mar 21 2007, 02:29 AM, said:

As a playing TD should I bend over backwards not to do something that could be considered to be "unethical" , yes and no.
I do take measures to ensure the game is run ethically If you mean that I should avoid such things as psyches, false carding, taking anti percentage plays the answer is a resounding no! I also can’t protect myself against lucky bids or  bad contracts that turn out well due to poor defense.

If by false-carding you mean psyching a signal I can sorta understand although personally I think you're going too far. If you mean dropping an honour so that it looks like a singleton, or failure to cover an honour in a text-book cover-the-honour-situation, it's an essential part of the game and there's no ethical reason not to do it, unless maybe if playing as a teacher with novices. But that's probably not what you mean.

No matter how you play you'll always run into players who think it's unethical to deviate from their own idiosyncratic style. Personally I'd hate to let my style constrain by those "ethical" non-issues. If it's really a problem, just disclose a lot about your style and about the rules that apply in your tourneys.

Seeing it from the bright side: the best thing about full disclosure is that it forces you to make explicit agreements with your partner, which is good for your partnership.

And yes, 10% of all 1NT openings containg a stiff is alertable.

[hrothgar]

Ben was kind enough to forward all of the hands where I opened 1NT with a singleton. I looked them over and extracted a few key pieces of information.

1. None of these 1NT openings occured in any of my regular partnerships. (This should come as little surprise. I typically play strong club and 4 card majors in all of my serious partnerships which eliminates the incentive for an offshape 1NT). Several of the 1NT openings happened when I was partnering different players on the forums. I have found examples of offshape 1NTs partnering (Jillybean, cherdano, Inquiry, Barmar, Ecepal, Farfie, pclayton, and Geraldo) However, in each case, I made a grand total of one offshape 1NT opening with each partner. It's entirely possible that said players refused to ever partner with me again after said incident.

2. The following hand (coincidentally the first hand in the BRBR study) represents a "prototypical" offshape 1NT opening.

♠ 5
♥ AT94
♦ AK753
♣ A92

From my perspective, 1NT is by far the best opening with this hand. If you chose to open 1♦ you're poorly positioned over any 1 level response.

* If responder advances 1♥, you're too strong for 2♥ and too weak for 3♥...

* If responder bids 1♠, a 1NT rebid misrepresents both shape and strength. 2♥ is fine with respect to shape, but you're way too light for a reverse.

* If responder bids 1NT, you could have 3N opposite a 10 count. Alternatively, 7 tricks could easily be the limit of the hand if partner has a 6 count.

I readily admit that there are lots of treatments that might permit you to unravel all the different hand types, however, is it reasonable to expect that you and a pickup partner are playing any of these?

So here's the question for the peanut gallery:

Whats the "right" thing to do here? I certainly don't have any agreement to open offshape 1NTs with any of the folks in question. Most times that I am playing 5 card majors, the total system description is something like the following: 2/1 GF with sound openings 1st and second...

Yes, there are a bunch of hands when I open an offshape 1NT, but those are largely a function of the fact that partner and I have no systemic agreements, so I try very hard to chose bids that I expect will simplify the resulting auctions.

[bid_em_up]

jillybean2, on Mar 20 2007, 07:29 PM, said:

I can tell you how surprised I was that 14/147 of my nt openers included a singleton, though I have been experimenting with 1nt openings. I don’t know how many of those hands were with the partner in question and I’m still not convinced that it should be alerted, neither does my partner here. With other partners I'd say there could be a case for disclosure, though I havent to date.

Bid-em-up you asked how would I rule if I was called to a table where this bid was made? In effect I was and I ruled there was no grounds for appeal, you should be asking other TDs perhaps.

As a playing TD should I bend over backwards not to do something that could be considered to be "unethical" , yes and no.
I do take measures to ensure the game is run ethically If you mean that I should avoid such things as psyches, false carding, taking anti percentage plays the answer is a resounding no! I also can’t protect myself against lucky bids or bad contracts that turn out well due to poor defense.

Katherine,

I think its fairly clear that you are/were unaware of how frequently you open 1N with a singleton. I also think its fairly clear from your wording in some of these posts that "you have been experimenting" or "looking for opportunities to do this" which means that you may well be doing it more often than you actually intend to.

A 10% ratio is high enough such that any partner that you have played with on a regular basis (and I have no idea of how many partners that might be) could be aware of your tendency to open 1N with a stiff, even though you have no such actual agreement to do so. If you are going to continue to do it, I suggest you come to an agreement on it in your regular partnerships, and start to alert it.

I believe that a third party director would likely rule against you in this case, and definitely would, if he was aware of the frequency that you open 1N with a stiff or had cautioned you about it in a prior instance.

False carding, psyches, anti-percentage plays are all part of the game. That is not what I was referring to. Sorry that the written medium doesn't let me express it any better.