[awm]

It does seem like Jan and friends have had several bad experiences with:

(1) Pairs who do not disclose their methods properly.
(2) Improperly designed defenses which do not go deep enough into auctions.
(3) Forgets of their defenses (from before written defenses were allowed).

While I agree that these things are unfortunate, and that in some cases something should be done about it (i.e. penalties to pairs who don't disclose properly, better written defenses) it doesn't seem like "banning the methods" is really the right approach.

In fact, I seem to recall that the ACBL prohibition against 1NT responses showing invitational or better values was a direct response to the Katz-Cohen Breakthrough system, and accusations of cheating. Well, maybe that pair was cheating and maybe they weren't, and it is perfectly acceptable to investigate the pair and ban them from playing together... but ban their system? Are we now going to ban the "Nightmare" system somehow because the "racecars" were caught cheating? This simply doesn't make sense.

[shevek]

JanM, on Dec 14 2008, 06:31 PM, said:

jdonn, on Dec 14 2008, 05:05 PM, said:

JanM, on Dec 14 2008, 03:37 PM, said:

You consistently misunderstand what I'm saying. My reason for thinking that multi 2♥ should be banned is that I do not believe it is possible to develop an adequate defense to the bid, in part because I do not believe that the proponents can provide an adequate description. For instance, Dr. Todd (I think) suggested that responder to the 2♥ bid should choose whether to pass or bid based on suit length - if it seems more likely that the partnership has more hearts than spades, responder passes, else responder bids 2♠. So with equal length, or with 2 hearts and fewer than 5 spades (if I'm understanding his formula correctly) responder will pass. That means that opener will be happier to open marginal hands with hearts. It also probably means that opener will be happier to open marginal hands with at least 2 and preferably cards in the other Major than hands with shortness in the other Major. So if I'm trying to develop a defense, I should probably act in immediate position as if opener has hearts. Ah, but now it becomes more attractive for opener to open marginal hands with spades, since my defense won't work so well against that. Of course, people aren't allowed to change their methods based on the opponents' defense. But changing marginal calls? Perhaps it won't even be a conscious change, just a realization that the hands with spades seem to be more effective.

Jan I don't understand this part of your argument. I think I could make the same argument for any opening bid at all. I could play devil's advocate and agree that the exact agreements and style by which partner responds will impact the precise hands I open (even though I don't think you can ever prove that about a person?) But....so what? The way Todd described it seems fine to me, it's a specific agreement and they will follow it, so what's the big deal?

Of course I would expect a pair to give an equally good explanation for later in the auction too (such as when to p/c after 2♥ p p X), but given that I just don't see the problem. What you are describing seems to me nothing more than completely normal slight stylistic variances. You are arguing something that to me, you don't know is true, and that wouldn't matter even if it were true.

The difference is that what you call stylistic differences don't matter when the bid is basically natural, except in the play - obviously, when you're playing or defending, you're going to care whether the opponents would ever open a weak 2 bid with 4 cards in the other Major and if so what sorts of things would influence their decisions. But in the bidding, it really doesn't matter. You're not going to use a different defense depending on whether a 2M opening bid can have 4 cards in the other Major. On the other hand, when the opponents open 2♥ showing either a weak 2[H] bid or a weak 2♠ it makes a HUGE difference to your choice of defense if there is a 70% chance that they will have hearts or a 30% chance that they will have hearts. So advance disclosure of "style" is relevant to that sort of bid, whereas it isn't important to most natural opening bids.

We face these problems all the time and deal with them. There is a limit to which legislaters should go to cosset players, steer them clear of uncharted territories.

To me, this trivial 2♥ opening is very similar to having a Precision 1♦ opening passed round to me. That 2♥ opening is hearts or not, a Precision 1♦ is diamonds or not.

Say 1♦ is passed round to me and I'm trying to decide whether to protect with 1NT on some 12 count with 4 diamonds. Say they are vul.
I don't like to look silly but it happens. Say I bid 1NT to find they would go for -400 in the 2-2 fit. Oh well. Or I pass and dummy tracks with a 6-count including 5 diamonds and we score an ignominious -70.
I might have quizzed opener about when responder passes, hoping the opponents will solve my bidding problem. It gets quite circular.
I find out that responder often passes with random 6-counts to keep other responses honest. Then I maybe infer that opener is therefore less likely to have 3325 (distort pass, 1NT or 2C with that) therefore it's 62% likely he has 4+ diamonds, therefore I bid 1NT .....

"Move please."

How petty.

[DrTodd13]

JanM, on Dec 14 2008, 03:34 PM, said:

And maybe some people (probably the majority) want to have fun by playing against methods that they can understand and not having to spend hours and hours developing defenses to unusual methods. That's much more likely to be the reason to ban a method than Fred's (IMO correct) assertion that not spending time on complex methods is a better road to becoming a good bridge player.

I agree. I also think that while the majority's preference is sufficient and the ultimate, proper reason why it is banned that the majority for some reason are reluctant to admit this to themselves. And so there is this impetus to persuade oneself that there is some other reason why you believe it should be banned.

[awm]

It's also worth mentioning that there are questions about standard methods that make a difference in the bidding, and that it's hard to get a straight answer to. For example:

(1) How light will you respond to a "non-forcing" minor suit opening? This effects whether I want to play a natural 1NT overcall in sandwich position, as well as how aggressively I want to act in that position in general.

(2) How often will you conceal three-card support for partner's major and bid a forcing 1NT? This effects how aggressively I want to intervene over the 1NT response, and how often I want to balance over a 2M correction.

(3) How often will you make a game-forcing 2/1 bid on a very light but shapely hand that might be difficult to describe after 1NT forcing? This effects how often I want to intervene in a 2/1 auction and might effect whether I want to discuss conventional methods there.

(4) How often do you upgrade good offensive hands without a lot of high cards in order to open a strong 1NT? This effects whether I want to play a defense to notrump that includes a penalty double.

(5) What is your runout method after a penalty double of your 1NT opening? Is responder's pass forcing? How do you play subsequent doubles after one side or the other runs from 1NTX? This effects my scramble tactics when I double 1NT for penalty and partner is broke.

It's quite unusual to see a pair that puts these on a convention card, or will even answer them when asked. And if you ask at the table you often end up giving opponents information which they could easily use against you.

I just don't see a huge difference between the problems with pairs playing 2♥ weak either major and these issues. What if they just said "it is pretty much the same hands you would open a weak two bid in a major suit with, we don't do anything particularly different just because we play this weird convention"? Is that acceptable disclosure or not enough?

[fred]

awm, on Dec 15 2008, 12:44 AM, said:

It does seem like Jan and friends have had several bad experiences with:

(1) Pairs who do not disclose their methods properly.
(2) Improperly designed defenses which do not go deep enough into auctions.
(3) Forgets of their defenses (from before written defenses were allowed).

While I agree that these things are unfortunate, and that in some cases something should be done about it (i.e. penalties to pairs who don't disclose properly, better written defenses) it doesn't seem like "banning the methods" is really the right approach.

As far as I can tell, neither Jan nor anyone else has suggested that these are valid reasons for banning specific methods.

Again I don't want to put words in Jan's mouth, but I believe the main reasons she has given (which I happen to agree with) are:

1) Most of the players prefer that certain classes of methods are banned (yes it is hard to know where to draw the line)

2) For some types of methods, it is not practical or not possible for the opponents to have an effective defense.

Whether or not 2) is "fair" might be an interesting discussion, but it is my contention (and probably Jan's) that most players do not want to play under these circumstances. Probably that is one of the reasons why 1) appears to be the case.

Another reason which I believe in (I have no idea if Jan does or not):

3) The stranger the bidding, the less accessable the game becomes to the masses

Finally, let me state a couple of things I have already said more than once, but which apparently I have not said clearly enough:

- I do not think that strange or unusual methods are inherantly inferior (or superior for that matter) to relatively simple or natural methods.

- While I do think that players, especially young players, who are serious about becoming really good at bridge would be better off not getting too involved in experimenting with bidding, I do not see this as a valid reason for banning unusual methods.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[the hog]

fred, on Dec 14 2008, 10:25 PM, said:

The_Hog, on Dec 14 2008, 06:45 AM, said:

With regard to passing the 2H bid, NV I have played this 2H = weak 2 in H or S.
we pased when we held a good 5 card H suit and no S tolerance because the odds were that pd held S. We also passed sometimes, no agreement - when we were weak, the opps were vul and we had equal tolerance for both Ms - dont mind going 5 or 6 down undoubled against the opps game.

If you play the same bid vul as well, you are much more likely to bid 2S over 2H, hence if you hold H you will have 6 very good ones maybe even 7. This was never written in stone in our system notes, but really anyone who thinks about this for a couple of minutes will arrive at this hand set.
Looking at world champ books, I notice the Swedes played it the same way. With all due respects, it is not rocket science to work this out, its common sense and I find it surprising to read that professional players seem so threatened by this.

I agree that it is not rocket science to figure this out. In fact, it sounds a lot like the strategy that I came up with (after very little thought) in my previous post.

But I think you are wrong to suggest that professional players feel "threatened" by this. The reason Jan and I were annoyed by the 2H opening is that we could not get the pair in question to tell us something like what you posted. Conventions and systems aren't threatening - they are challenging. But it is not fair for the other side to enter such a challenge unless they are told what they are up against.

Sure we could have guessed that this would be a sensible way to respond. Probably we did guess that. But it should not be up to us to guess what the opponents think is sensible. It should be up to them to tell us what they do. The degree of (perceived) rocket science does not come into play.

Anyways, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine the auction goes:

2H-P-P-DBL

Now the 2H opener has to decide when to Pass and when to bid 2S. Maybe this still doesn't qualify as rocket scicence, but to me there is no obvious answer as to which of the following strategies is best:

1) Always Pass with hearts, always bid 2S with spades
2) Always Pass
3) Hands with spades can exercise their judgment based on the qualify of their spade suit and their degree of fit in hearts

Whatever the answer is, I would be surprised if it did not change depending on whether or not you are vulnerable. Maybe there is even a case for using RDBL to mean something.

Whatever the answer is, it will have an impact on how the other side's defense should work from this point forward (and perhaps even from this point backwards).

Perhaps there is a clearly right answer and perhasp to you the clear answer does not qualify as rocket science, but IMO it is crazy to think that the opponents should be expected to figure this out at the table and that they both be on the same wavelength. If you really believe that they should be on their own here, then I am afraid we are playing 2 different games (and I have no interest in playing the game that you play).

This simple example also illustrates why these conventions can be a lot harder to defend against than many people (including you!) seem to think. There are a lot of ways the auction can continue and, in many of these variations, there are several possible sets of agreements that the opponents might have. For a defense to have any hope of being effective, it must take these variations into account.

Just saying "double is always takeout" might result in you landing on your feet more often than not at the local club, but when the goal is to win a World Championship the players (and the coaches responsible for preparing them) need to do better (much) than that.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Ok Fred, thats a fair comment and I accept that. I DO agree that even though I think its common sense, it is polite and ethical if nothing else, for your questions to be answered.

[jdonn]

fred, on Dec 14 2008, 07:33 PM, said:

jdonn, on Dec 15 2008, 12:10 AM, said:

So the pair tells you, we have hearts 50% of the time (or 70%, or whatever). I'm still not seeing the problem.

Here is an example of why these sort of numbers are important...

Suppose they open 2H and you overcall 3D (natural). If you knew that they had hearts 99% of the time, you would certainly play that a 3H advance was a cuebid and a 3S advance was natural. Probably you would do the same if you knew they had hearts 90% of the time. I have no idea where the cutoff would be before it became right to change the meaning of 3H to something else, but in principle you could at least estimate this via a simulation.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Oh I agree they are important (maybe I didn't at first, at least not 100%, but in any case I do now.) When I said I'm not seeing the problem, I mean I'm not seeing why a pair couldn't give a very straightforward and honest answer like that. The argument has been put out there that this method is too difficult to disclose, and I guess what it amounts to is (admitting that I have a lot less experience in this area than Jan) I just don't agree.

[qwery_hi]

fred, on Dec 14 2008, 08:04 PM, said:

1) Most of the players prefer that certain classes of methods are banned (yes it is hard to know where to draw the line)

3) The stranger the bidding, the less accessable the game becomes to the masses

Do you have references to back up these statements? How do we know that most of the players don't want precision to be banned, perhaps in the GNT flight C, for example?

Unless there are concrete references behind these statements, the regulations seem to be determined by the arbitrary whims of the regulators.

[shevek]

jdonn, on Dec 14 2008, 08:38 PM, said:

fred, on Dec 14 2008, 07:33 PM, said:

jdonn, on Dec 15 2008, 12:10 AM, said:

So the pair tells you, we have hearts 50% of the time (or 70%, or whatever). I'm still not seeing the problem.

Here is an example of why these sort of numbers are important...

Suppose they open 2H and you overcall 3D (natural). If you knew that they had hearts 99% of the time, you would certainly play that a 3H advance was a cuebid and a 3S advance was natural. Probably you would do the same if you knew they had hearts 90% of the time. I have no idea where the cutoff would be before it became right to change the meaning of 3H to something else, but in principle you could at least estimate this via a simulation.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Oh I agree they are important (maybe I didn't at first, at least not 100%, but in any case I do now.) When I said I'm not seeing the problem, I mean I'm not seeing why a pair couldn't give a very straightforward and honest answer like that. The argument has been put out there that this method is too difficult to disclose, and I guess what it amounts to is (admitting that I have a lot less experience in this area than Jan) I just don't agree.

Not sure what's allowed in America but say Suction over 1NT is okay. That is, 2♣ = diamonds or the majors. You play system off over this but have to wing it on the status of 2♦/♥/♠ by you.
If they need 5-5 majors for 2♣ but any old 5-carder in diamonds, then surely it's about 90% a 1-suiter in diamonds so 2♦ by you is a clear cue.
If they require a decent 6-carder but majors could be 4-4, I suggest 2♦ by you should be natural.
Well you could call the director and say it's indefensible, or you could take your shot. Maybe use your usual meta-defence, in our case "no assumptions".

[shevek]

Here's a better candidate for "it's all too hard."

The auction goes

(1♥) - X - (1♠) - ?

♠QT65  ♥AT63  ♦76  ♣952

so you bid 1NT.
Let's say opener alerts 1♠ "Natural. Very occasionally this is a baby psyche, short spades and probably heart support."

The WBF Code of Practices discourages this, using "heightened awareness". If East has done this more than once, it verges on an agreement. "Spades or not spades" may not be legal in the jurisdiction.

Anyway, say you accept this helpful offer. Your normal style is double for tko here since nobody psyches these days but the odds have changed. What should you do?

Why weren't you pre-alerted? This is not a silly question. It may or may not help you but it could have helped partner, who held

♠AKJ743  ♥9♦A85  AJ7

Partner could say "Had I known that East was liable to pull this one, I would have bid 1♠ rather than double. Please give us our +620."

A fair point?

[nige1]

qwery_hi, on Dec 14 2008, 10:05 PM, said:

Unless there are concrete references behind these statements, the regulations seem to be determined  by the arbitrary whims of the regulators.

• I've taught and played for a long time and asked a lot of people for their views. Most are in favour of more liberal regulation but they may not constitute a representative sample. Regulators probably talk to adminstrators and top players to arrive at their strict censorship policy. But, to the best of my knowledge, no regulator has consulted any acquaintance of mine. Admittedly, Fred and I do mix in quite different circles
  
• National bodies are in an ideal position to organise proper opinion polls of all members on such topics.
  
• The EBU used to issue temporary licenses for proposed new methods. The WBF might take this further, conducting proper controlled experiments and collating results: asking different countries to issue experimental licences for different BSCs and to monitor player views.
  
• And pigs might fly

[blackshoe]

Agree about the pigs.

The WBF is concerned about regulated world championships - reasonably so, since that what they run. NBOs have a whole gamut to deal with, from "novice" games up to national championships. It's a tougher problem. Some bodies (the ACBL is the prime example, IMO) are really too large, in terms of geography, anyway. IMO, the ACBL ought to either decide it will be the NBO for the US and give up it's Zonal Authority position, or decide to be the ZA, and let the USBF be the NBO for the US. Again, when pigs fly.

As to NBOs (or ACBLs) polling players, some of us have been saying that for years. I don't think anybody's listening.

[JanM]

blackshoe, on Dec 15 2008, 12:05 AM, said:

Agree about the pigs.

The WBF is concerned about regulated world championships - reasonably so, since that what they run. NBOs have a whole gamut to deal with, from "novice" games up to national championships. It's a tougher problem. Some bodies (the ACBL is the prime example, IMO) are really too large, in terms of geography, anyway. IMO, the ACBL ought to either decide it will be the NBO for the US and give up it's Zonal Authority position, or decide to be the ZA, and let the USBF be the NBO for the US. Again, when pigs fly.

As to NBOs (or ACBLs) polling players, some of us have been saying that for years. I don't think anybody's listening.

Actually, the ACBL is the Zonal Authority and the CBF, MBF & USBF are the NBO's. But don't worry, you're far from the only person out there who doesn't realize this. The confusing factor is that we have something that resembles a sandwich - ACBL is at the top as ZA, CBF, MBF & USBF are in the middle as NBO's and then ACBL is at the bottom as the "membership organization" that pays WBF dues and appoints delegates to the WBF.

On the polling question, I don't know about the ACBL and other NBO's, but the USBF has taken several online polls (using Google spreadsheets, which makes it very easy to create and evaluate online polls - note, although I do have a close relationship to the USBF and was the instigator of our online polls, I have no personal connection with Google, just think it's great). There is a USBC (Open Trials) in Rosenblum years because a large majority of players in USBCs wanted one. The format of the USBC and the USSBC have been revised in accordance with the opinions of the players in those events. It's probably not surprising that the percentage response to the polls about format was significantly less than the percentage response to the question about whether we should hold a USBC in Rosenblum years.

We haven't polled all of the players about systems regulations, because the members of the Open, Women's & Senior International Team Trials Committees, who are mostly players in the Trials, had a strong opinion that we should use the ACBL rules about what to allow. At my suggestion, we did have an "anything that is allowed in the World Championships" policy in the Women's for a while (the Open committee rejected that suggestion), but no one actually played anything not allowed by the ACBL Superchart and life is easier for the Directors and Systems committees if we follow ACBL rules, so we changed.

[JanM]

jdonn, on Dec 14 2008, 08:38 PM, said:

fred, on Dec 14 2008, 07:33 PM, said:

jdonn, on Dec 15 2008, 12:10 AM, said:

So the pair tells you, we have hearts 50% of the time (or 70%, or whatever). I'm still not seeing the problem.

Here is an example of why these sort of numbers are important...

Oh I agree they are important (maybe I didn't at first, at least not 100%, but in any case I do now.) When I said I'm not seeing the problem, I mean I'm not seeing why a pair couldn't give a very straightforward and honest answer like that. The argument has been put out there that this method is too difficult to disclose, and I guess what it amounts to is (admitting that I have a lot less experience in this area than Jan) I just don't agree.

Of course, a large part of the problem is that this particular method is barred at most levels of competition in most countries. As a result, the people who want to play it when it's allowed (Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup) don't have much experience playing it. So they don't really know what hands they'll feel are suitable. Then they propose to play it and we say we can't devise a defense because you don't tell us what hands you'll open, and the Systems Committee has to decide whether their disclosure is adequate, and someone ends up unhappy. In fact, probably everyone ends up unhappy. And the ACBL C&C Committee, having seen a lot of this sort of unhappiness and recognizing that it arises when an opening bid is weak and might or might not have length in the suit opened (because those are the bids that are most difficult to defend against), decided to avoid the problems by not allowing such bids.

I don't really know that's what happened - I don't serve on the C&C committee, and although I do discuss conventions issues with Chip, who has served on that committee in the past, I don't think he'd put it that way, I'm just guessing at what might have been part of the motivation.

Several people have suggested that it's possible to arrive at the answer to some of the questions about what people will have for this sort of bid by doing simulations. When we first confronted the 2♦ = weak 2♥ or weak with 5-5 in spades and a minor opening, we tried that. It makes a HUGE difference what sort of restrictions you place on the weak 2 bid - whether you require a 6 card suit, whether you have any honor requirements, that sort of thing. So only the proponents of the method can tell you what the percentages are and you may have to develop different defenses for different pairs playing the "same" method.

[rbforster]

DinDIP, on Dec 13 2008, 05:20 AM, said:

Why are some things prohibited?
Jan also wrote “Forcing pass is barred because to play a forcing pass, you have to play some fert and ferts just cannot be defined adequately and therefore aren't allowed.”

Impossible to devise defences?
Jan also wrote “The other major thing that is disallowed is a weak bid that might or might not contain length in the suit opened. That type of method is impossible to develop a defense to, so it is explicitly barred.”

Is having a defence to unusual bidding an integral part of the game?

Nick - I particularly appreciated your well thought out post on the issues here, and for clarifying them in a way that is rarely done. It's been nice to see some largely logical discussion of the issues at hand, which is a pleasant contrast from the usual unfounded assertion by those with preconceived biases.

I want to agree with Richard, Josh, etc, about how poor disclosure isn't an issue for selecting methods to legalize (or not), but rather for the pairs who play them. I think this is a red herring argument regarding the legal status of FP or other methods.


Regarding your last point, I want to discuss the issue of defending against the unfamiliar. It seems like it's the opinion of many people unfamiliar with ferts or forcing passes or whatever weird thing that they are being robbed whenever anyone these conventions come up against them. Perhaps they are, but when the conventions are legal they really have no one to blame but themselves for not having a good defense (or meta defense). I want to emphasize that this widespread perception isn't because the methods are necessarily "hard" to defend (maybe, maybe not), but rather because they are unfamiliar.

Some brief examples -

1♦(precision 0+ 11-15 no 5cM unless longer minor) - (?)     "isn't precision illegal? help I need a defense!"
(1♣) - 2♣(10-15 points, 1-suiter in either major) - (?)     "but how do I know which major? help I need a defense!"
(1♣) - 1NT(3-suited takeout of ♣, 0-10 HCP) - (?)     "wait, that's not a strong NT? help I need a defense!"
1♣(strong 15+) - (P) - 1♠(0-4 any shape) - (?)     "it's almost like a 1♠ fert?! help I need a defense!"
1NT(10-12) - (P) - 2♥(0-2 multi 6+ either major) - (?)     "we have values for game, but I don't know what's going on - help I need a defense!"

What do all of these situations have in common? Whining. Everyone one of the bids is legal under the GCC and so any defender has absolutely no grounds to complain when faced with these auctions. Sure they are strange auctions, unusual conventions, etc, but the Conditions of Contest clearly allowed these (and have for years if not decades) so if someone complains they don't have a good defense that's just laziness on their part. They gambled no one would play precision 1♦ (or the dumbed down GCC Xango Club or whatever) when they didn't bother having a defense, and they lost when it came up.

So what's the point? My point is that situations with "hard" and unusual defensive bidding issues can arise legally at the lowest levels of play and everyone agrees that the defenders need to just "make do" with no advance warning and no written defenses. As such, it's hypocritical to say that some conventions (like ferts or 2♥ multi) must be banned because they are "too hard" when similarly hard things entitle the defenders to no defense at all - no prealert, no defense, nothing.

I didn't include any "ferts" since those aren't GCC (except maybe in "anything goes" 3rd seat), but the arguments about how this puts the opposing side "on the defensive" whenever the fert comes up differ only by matters of degree from perfectly legal systems. For example,

P - 0-7
1♣ 13-15 bal or any 16+
1♦♥♠ 4+ natural, canape style, unbalanced 8-15
1N 8-12 balanced
2♣ 5+ natural unbalanced 8-15

Here's a perfectly legal Swedish club variant that opens all its very common 8-12 point hands. Effectively you are opening a "strongish" fert whenever you have 8-10 or a bad 11-12 (hands the field wouldn't open). Yet this is 100% legal and the defenders must learn to deal without any legal protection. If you don't think these openings are sufficiently "hard", consider this system -

P - any 0 count, or 8-9 with a primary minor (non forcing)
1♣ any 16+
1♦ 0+ 13-15 balanced, or 10-15 no 5cM
1♥♠ 5+ 8-15
1N 8-12
2♣♦ 3+ 1-7 (open your shortest 3+ minor, best of equals by suit quality)
2♥♠ 4+ 1-7 (open your shortest 4+ major if you have no 3 card minor, best of equals)

Here with all 0-7 hands, we'll be opening "ferts" at the 2 level regularly on 3 card suits. These are natural, legal under GCC, and will come up often. These are much higher than a mere 1♥ fert, and while they give a small amount of suit information, having a 3 card minor isn't a whole lot more information than nothing when 2♣ will be bid on 3343 or 6043 or 5503 or 3316.

Let me conclude with an all-too-common anecdote about how some of the average players respond to legal but unfamiliar conventions even before they come up. At a NAOP qualifier finals (so a reasonable field, one might hope), you should have heard the howls from the LOL's when they saw "suction" on our card and immediately called the director. They were afraid we'd play the deadly and confusing "suction" defense against their 1NT openings, but since I know the GCC better than basically anyone, we only (legally) played suction against strong 2♣ or 2N openings and played Meckwell against their 1NT. The director didn't believe me when I said it was legal against these higher bids, but to her credit, she actually had a copy of the General Chart where I could point out the specific place where it was allowed. All this hassle was before play even started, and of course they didn't open a strong 2♣ or 2N in the 2 board round so the whole issue was moot. Sheesh, I should have played Lorenzo Twos against them so they'd have had nothing to complain about (legality-wise), but I don't really think those are such a great convention and I was trying to win.

[blackshoe]

JanM, on Dec 15 2008, 01:33 AM, said:

Actually, the ACBL is the Zonal Authority and the CBF, MBF & USBF are the NBO's. But don't worry, you're far from the only person out there who doesn't realize this. The confusing factor is that we have something that resembles a sandwich - ACBL is at the top as ZA, CBF, MBF & USBF are in the middle as NBO's and then ACBL is at the bottom as the "membership organization" that pays WBF dues and appoints delegates to the WBF.

I do know that the ACBL is the ZA and who the NBOs in the zone are. In theory, or according to the claims of the ACBL, anyway. I'm just not sure they've done the right thing here.

The ACBL, when the WBF decided to "go Olympic" was de facto both the Zonal Authority for North America and the NBO for the US. It has always appeared to me that the USBF was created solely to meet the letter of the Olympic Charter rule that a national sports organization cannot have international responsibilities. The fact that the USBF concerns itself only with national championships, and not with day to day bridge at lower levels, has only reinforced this opinion.

Article 5 of the WBF Constitution says

Quote

The National Contract Bridge Organization, herein also called NBO, of any country is eligible, subject to the By-Laws, to apply for membership of the WBF, and may be elected by the Executive.

The ACBL is not, you say, an NBO. Therefore your point that the ACBL is a "membership organization" of the WBF makes no sense.

Article 6 of the WBF Constitution says

Quote

For purposes of administration and zonal competition, the world shall be divided by the Executive into appropriate geographical Zones. The NBOs in each zone shall unite in a Zonal Conference, herein called ZC.

The ByLaws have further things to say, but the bottom line, IMO, is that while the ACBL historically was both ZA (for North America) and NBO (for the US), the current Constitution and ByLaws of the WBF make that dual-hatted position no longer tenable. Maybe a lawyer would argue otherwise, I don't know.

Frankly, I suspect that the ACBL's problem with this is that they would have to acknowledge that they are, as a ZA, an arm of the WBF and not an independent entity. IOW they would have to give up some power.

It occurs to me to wonder where other ZAs get their money. A quick look at the EBL website shows that the member NBOs of that ZA pay dues to it. I haven't delved further but I suspect that the NBOs get their money from the dues of individuals (ignoring other sources, such as table fees at sponsored events). Here, we individuals pay directly to the ZA, and (iirc) the ZA subsidizes the NBO.

It just seems all backwards to me. It may be legal, but is it right?

[blackshoe]

A further point: it seems to me that lower level tournaments (Sectionals and Regionals) except perhaps insofar as they are qualifiers for Zonal Championships, are or should be in the purview of the USBF as NBO, rather than the ACBL. Again, possible loss of political or economic power for the ACBL. Which IMO is why it hasn't happened, and probably won't.

[jdonn]

JanM, on Dec 15 2008, 12:49 AM, said:

Of course, a large part of the problem is that this particular method is barred at most levels of competition in most countries. As a result, the people who want to play it when it's allowed (Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup) don't have much experience playing it. So they don't really know what hands they'll feel are suitable.

It would be very easy for such a pair to do either of the following:

- Agree to open the bid on exactly the hands they open either a normal weak 2 or multi, whichever they normally play.
- Take advantage of the BBO bidding practice rooms!

BTW, on the topic of creating defenses. Of course I can understand the need for things like defining what your doubles are in each likely situation, and balancing actions, and most other things. However, there have been a number of mentions of the difficulty of knowing what is a cuebid. I don't understand why people feel entitled to a cuebid. You don't have one when you overcall over a 1NT opening, or over a precision 1♣. Sure, if there is one it will help you, but it is not a right for there to always be one. I don't have much sympathy if you were trying to always make sure there was some 'cuebid' available and it caused problems in creating a defense. I equate that to claiming your opponents should not be able to overcall your major suit openings with 4NT on any weak hands since it takes away your blackwood.

[JanM]

jdonn, on Dec 15 2008, 01:21 AM, said:

It would be very easy for such a pair to do either of the following:

- Agree to open the bid on exactly the hands they open either a normal weak 2 or multi, whichever they normally play.
- Take advantage of the BBO bidding practice rooms!

But it isn't playable if you open all the hands you would normally open a weak 2 on - you have to either have better hands for hearts (because with hearts you'll often have to play at the 3-level) or open more hands with hearts (so partner leans toward passing unless s/he has serious heart length or spade length).

Of course they could practice, but the BBO bidding practice rooms wouldn't be suitable for practicing these methods, because you need opponents to see how the methods are working - this isn't a constructive method, where it's useful to bid just two hands. And seriously, if you had a certain number of hours to practice (even a fairly large number of hours) and you could use those hours either to hone your slam bidding or to clarify your preempts, which would you do? Well, you say, but they have to practice in order to be able to tell you what they play. But they don't want to "waste" time on that, so instead they take the position that our "ridiculous" (sorry, couldn't resist) requests for more adequate disclosure are really just a way to prevent them from playing their pet method, whatever it is.

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BTW, on the topic of creating defenses. Of course I can understand the need for things like defining what your doubles are in each likely situation, and balancing actions, and most other things. However, there have been a number of mentions of the difficulty of knowing what is a cuebid. I don't understand why people feel entitled to a cuebid. You don't have one when you overcall over a 1NT opening, or over a precision 1♣. Sure, if there is one it will help you, but it is not a right for there to always be one. I don't have much sympathy if you were trying to always make sure there was some 'cuebid' available and it caused problems in creating a defense. I equate that to claiming your opponents should not be able to overcall your major suit openings with 4NT on any weak hands since it takes away your blackwood.

It isn't the problem of not having a cue bid, it's the problem of not knowing what contracts you're investigating and which suits you want stopped for NT. Of course, those issues are related to whether there's a cuebid, but not the same. After 1NT or 1♣, we know that we might want to play in any suit and we probably don't care about stoppers for NT, because the opponents haven't shown a long suit they might run against us. After a multi 2♥ we need to explore both possible suits to play in and stoppers - that's tough.

[JanM]

blackshoe, on Dec 15 2008, 01:14 AM, said:

A further point: it seems to me that lower level tournaments (Sectionals and Regionals) except perhaps insofar as they are qualifiers for Zonal Championships, are or should be in the purview of the USBF as NBO, rather than the ACBL. Again, possible loss of political or economic power for the ACBL. Which IMO is why it hasn't happened, and probably won't.

But ACBL is very good at running lower level tournaments. They've been doing it forever and they are set up to do it. They really are the "membership organization" for most of the bridge players in North America. Of course it's anomalous that they're both the ZA and the membership organization, but that's the way it happened. And honestly, I don't see why events that aren't qualifiers for the Zonal Championships (which are run by USBF) should be the purview of the NBO. Isn't that something like suggesting that the USFSA (if that's the right acronym for the figure skating association) should be running my local skating rink?

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The ACBL, when the WBF decided to "go Olympic" was de facto both the Zonal Authority for North America and the NBO for the US. It has always appeared to me that the USBF was created solely to meet the letter of the Olympic Charter rule that a national sports organization cannot have international responsibilities. The fact that the USBF concerns itself only with national championships, and not with day to day bridge at lower levels, has only reinforced this opinion.

That's part of how the USBF came into being (although the Olympic rule people worried about was the one requiring a separate national sports organization for each country). The other part is that the players in our selection events wanted to control the Conditions of Contest of those events, so were eager to have an organization that was concerned only with running selection trials, and not with running "lower level events."

I've deleted references to the WBF Bylaws, which are definitely confusing and probably don't completely accurately reflect what goes on. I think everyone recognizes that the ACBL/CBF-MBF-USBF/ACBL organization structure is strange, but it's what we have.

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It occurs to me to wonder where other ZAs get their money. A quick look at the EBL website shows that the member NBOs of that ZA pay dues to it. I haven't delved further but I suspect that the NBOs get their money from the dues of individuals (ignoring other sources, such as table fees at sponsored events). Here, we individuals pay directly to the ZA, and (iirc) the ZA subsidizes the NBO.

ACBL members pay dues to ACBL for running those "lower level games" and providing us with the ACBL Bulletin and things like that. In many smaller countries, those tasks are performed by the NBO. In the US they aren't. And no, ACBL doesn't subsidize the CBF, MBF or USBF, except that ACBL does run "International Fund Games" and distribute the proceeds from those games to the NBO's to support the players the NBO's send to international events. ACBL also distributes money to USBF to support Junior players in international events. But the three federations are self-supporting otherwise. We can't use the money from the ACBL International and Junior funds to pay the expenses of running the organization or putting on our tournaments. USBF active members support the organization by paying dues, we try very hard to make our tournaments break even (not terribly successfully, but we do try) and many people generously support our activities with contributions.