[fred]

TimG, on Dec 5 2008, 01:20 AM, said:

fred, on Dec 4 2008, 07:44 PM, said:

In general, they don't even play in or care about tournaments where the mid-chart is in use.

Perhaps the committee charged with the responsibility of making rules for an event should be made up of people who do care about the event.

At least when I was on the C&C Committee, besides several leading players, the committee also consisted of a club manager, a leading TD, an ACBL BOD-type, and a representative from ACBL management (who I believe took at least some notes).

If I recall correctly, these people tended to be even more conservative than the leading players in terms of what systems/conventions they thought should be allowed.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Cascade]

JanM, on Dec 5 2008, 02:27 PM, said:

I now have a new understanding of one reason why transfer 1-bids shouldn't be allowed in 2 board rounds, one I hadn't thought of for myself but that indeed makes sense. The transfer 1-bids are very high frequency bids - look over any hand record and you'll see at least 10 times as many 1 of a Major opening bids as 2 of a Major openings (probably even more than that). So if the transfer 1-bids are allowed, they'll come up a lot. And each time they come up it is going to take time for the opponents to comprehend the meaning of the bid, review the defense and then try to figure out what to do. As a result, it's pretty likely that the table at which the transfer players are playing will get behind, not once, not twice, but several times during a session. That will make the session of bridge less enjoyable for all the other players, especially the poor pair who happen to be following them. The more boards there are per round, the less overall delay there will be - people will only have to go through the comprehension process the first time the bid is used, and there will be "fast" hands on which the table will catch up.

As far as I am aware nothing like this happens in jurisdictions where transfer openings are allowed in the system regulations.

[nige1]

fred, on Dec 4 2008, 07:44 PM, said:

This may be hard for you to imagine, but the fact that you apparently consider such tasks as note-taking to be trivial does not imply that everyone feels the same way. The fact that some very talented people happen to suck when it comes to doing things that may seem easy to you makes them neither lazy nor corrupt.

I'm not in the ACBL but IMO

• Those that select the committee should have appointed a delegate capable of taking minutes.
  
• The committee should have the power to co-opt a minute-taker.
  
• If all else fails a committee-member could volunteer to attend an adult-literacy course.

[the hog]

JanM, on Dec 5 2008, 08:27 AM, said:

I now have a new understanding of one reason why transfer 1-bids shouldn't be allowed in 2 board rounds, one I hadn't thought of for myself but that indeed makes sense. The transfer 1-bids are very high frequency bids - look over any hand record and you'll see at least 10 times as many 1 of a Major opening bids as 2 of a Major openings (probably even more than that). So if the transfer 1-bids are allowed, they'll come up a lot. And each time they come up it is going to take time for the opponents to comprehend the meaning of the bid, review the defense and then try to figure out what to do. As a result, it's pretty likely that the table at which the transfer players are playing will get behind, not once, not twice, but several times during a session. That will make the session of bridge less enjoyable for all the other players, especially the poor pair who happen to be following them. The more boards there are per round, the less overall delay there will be - people will only have to go through the comprehension process the first time the bid is used, and there will be "fast" hands on which the table will catch up.

Jan, this is not correct. These systems have been played in pairs events in the past in Australia, (not any more). Time constraints were no more a problem when pairs used these systems than for any other systems.

[jdonn]

fred, on Dec 4 2008, 08:24 PM, said:

Regardless, I still think it is completely inappropriate to suggest that these fine people serve on these committees in order to give themselves some kind of edge in such events. Believe me, the extra few hours of sleep instead of having to be awake at multi-hour horrible meetings, would provide a much bigger edge than they could ever hope to gain by restricting systems.

I completely agree. I've certainly been frustrated by both decisions made and by never being able to get a reply to my attempts at correspondance (in particular I was interested in exploring avenues to make a 3NT opening showing 8-9 tricks in either major legal), but I would never question the motives of those who choose to serve. It's completely ludicrous to think anyone would be on that committee as an attempt to gain any sort of competitive edge.

[glen]

imo, the volunteer committee should not have the additional workload of producing minutes, tracking outstanding issues, producing draft charts etc. - the committee members are busy enough donating their limited time to looking into the complex issues at great depth - the ACBL should supply the (paid) admin support to the committee to assist the committee - this would include telling the committee which correspondence is still awaiting their reply.

I do relate to the frustrations with the current setup.

[awm]

Discussing motivations is guesswork, especially when there are no minutes to refer to.

But it seems fairly clear that:

(1) The committee has repeatedly refused to approve transfer openings showing 4+ cards in the suit transferred to.

(2) This is not really the fault of the defenses. Many defenses have been submitted, some have specifically been commented upon as adequate, and a number of emails from members of the committee indicate that they do not want Moscito approved regardless of defenses.

(3) The current policy of ACBL disallow transfer openings in mid-chart events. This includes events that top players like Fred care about, such as the Life Master Pairs, Blue Ribbon Pairs, Keohane National Swiss, and Reisinger Board-a-Match teams. The only events which are super chart are the long KO matches (Spingold/Vanderbilt/Wagar).

(4) The decision to ban these transfer openings in national championship level events is unlikely to be due to the will of the membership at large. The vast majority of ACBL members don't care. The poll on these forums (consisting of people who likely do care) is overwhelmingly in favor of allowing transfer openings even in pairs events. While there is surely some bias in these polls (BBF crowd is younger, more international, etc than even the nationally-competitive subset of ACBL members) it is unlikely that a substantial majority wants transfer openings banned in team events.

I don't know what the "motives" of the committee are and I don't care to guess. But they have imposed a rule that a lot of people don't like, and they have not exactly been transparent about the reason for this imposition (no minutes, etc). I think this is a problem.

[jikl]

Well said

[NickRW]

fred, on Dec 5 2008, 12:44 AM, said:

Fortunately, the people in the group I am referring to happen to be highly-skilled in some other areas that are rather important given the (thankless) jobs they have volunteered for. For example, I would happily sit down with any of them for the first time and play SAYC against you and the partner of your choice playing forcing pass (or whatever system you want) for a nice game of (very) high stakes rubber bridge.

Are you interested?

No, quite apart from anything else, money bridge has a huge element randomness and I don't have a Bill Gates to provide the necessary bank roll. Also, I am not interested in proving the utility of a forcing pass system either.

Nor, however, am I interested in backing off in a debate by school boy tactics. Whichever of us is the better at another activity has not one ounce of relevance to what is right or wrong here.

I repeat that men of advanced years with hands hardened by years of toil on the land and of no particular administrative talent are quite capable of taking notes and presenting them in a form legible to others - and indeed do so. I do not therefore buy for one minute the rest of your silly justifications for not providing minutes, which, as per Ken's recent post in another thread are required.

Quite frankly, though it is no direct relevance to me, the ACBL has made itself look like an international laughing stock. I suggest, if it matters to you, that you devote your efforts to solving that problem, rather than put up ridiculous arguments in support of a committee that apparently has not one iota of interest in properly discharging its duties.

Frankly, per this thread, this committee are more interested in stamping out development than doing literally anything of actual use whatsoever. You look like you are merely sticking up for your friends.

Nick

[NickRW]

As a further answer to you Fred, you, by your own admission on this forum, are primarily interested in besting your opponents through superior card play and that it is not in your interests to buck the field by arriving at different contracts or go by different bidding sequences. This is, of course, an entirely fair strategy.

However, there are those of us who were not that interested at an early age in learning hundreds of card combinations, but are interested in trying to do better than our opponents by finding game contracts etc that they can't and vice versa stay out of the unmakable ones that standard methods sometimes tend to get you into. People such as that seek not to outplay you, but outbid you. I count myself among such a group of people.

I suggest that:

1) A person such as yourself is totally unsuitable for serving on a committee such the one under discussion here as your motive for being there is not, and indeed cannot be, the correct one. (Which is not an attack on you or them - merely an observation that your heart isn't in it)

2) You are obviously totally oblivious to the frustration which is being caused by this committee. Witness your attack on me about the relatively trifling matter of the minutes rather than address the core issue here which is that this committee does not and has not produced one thing of value in years.

Nick

[rbforster]

I wanted to voice my support of Adam and Nick's comments. Specifically on the C&C committee minutes and their recent lack -

NickRW, on Dec 4 2008, 07:07 PM, said:

JanM, on Dec 4 2008, 11:08 PM, said:

It's not as easy as it seems to do minutes and if the committee doesn't happen to have someone who's good at it, they just don't get done.

What?! ... If "they just don't get done" then it is because the committee is plain lazy or not interested in transparency. --Nick

The lack of minutes and transparency is a clearly a problem. We can debate whether it's a problem because of the suspect motives of the C&C members to suppress the minutes and hide their biased deliberations from exposure, or whether it's a problem that the ACBL can't provide a volunteer (or paid) secretary for a few hours at one of its few national level committee meetings a few times a year, but someone is clearly falling down on the job here. Find out the root of the problem and get it fixed! No excuses!

In addition, the lack of transparency has generated all sorts of ill-will not to mention widespread confusion as we've seen discussed here and widely elsewhere regarding the ACBL's conventions regulations. A number of the issues raised in this thread would be addressed in a sensible way if only the committee published their minutes. For example,

- when not approving a convention, include the discussion of why it wasn't approved, so at least by the next Nationals when the C&C meets, you'll have a published response to why your convention wasn't accepted. This will a) prevent multiple people from submitting the same thing and wasting everyone's time, and B) lead to a better understanding of the convention approval process so further requests can be more appropriate.

- when not approving a defense, include the discussion of why it wasn't approved. Was it too complex, or not "standard" enough in style, lacked sufficient continuations, or overlooked treating some reasonable hand type? If the C&C committee finds fault with a defense, they should certainly be able to point to such reasons or similar ones. By publishing their rationale for rejection, future defense submissions can be of higher quality and more tailored to committee's requirements.

Perhaps I'm being presumptuous, but I view the job of the C&C members to consider and approve appropriate conventions and defenses, and to offer guidance as to what ought to be appropriate at given levels and durations of competition. By analogy with the "everyone knows those guys cheat" story, I'm afraid the C&C committee's reputation has gotten to the point where "everyone knows they won't approve anything". It no longer matters whether or not the charges are accurate - the state of their reputation is bad for morale and makes them less effective at doing their job. Through their actions or inactions they've created an atmosphere of and reputation for intimidation and stonewalling, and this causes players to give up in submitting perfectly reasonable conventions and defenses since they reasonably conclude it's just a waste of everyone's time.

[rbforster]

Specifically on the topic of C&C Committee members' secretarial inclinations and mildly off-topic challenges, Fred wrote:

fred, on Dec 4 2008, 07:44 PM, said:

I have served on this particular committee before and I am good friends with most of the others who have been involved over the years. It would not surprise me in the least if most/all of them, similar to me, were completely lacking in skills in this area.

...

I would happily sit down with any of them for the first time and play SAYC against you and the partner of your choice playing forcing pass (or whatever system you want) for a nice game of (very) high stakes rubber bridge.

Are you interested?

Fred Gitelman

Let me offer my own challenge as well as offer a solution to the problem in question -

I will personally show up to the next Nationals and take the full minutes of the C&C Committee meeting, and I'll do it for free.

I'm 100% serious. Houston is my home town, and I won't need that much of an excuse to visit. I have a deep interest in the ACBL's conventions and their regulation, and I would be more than happy to hear the thoughts of players of such caliber discussing whatever topics might be before them at the time. If you're interested, feel free to contact me or refer me to the appropriate person in charge of such volunteers.

[hrothgar]

Rob F, on Dec 5 2008, 02:25 PM, said:

Specifically on the topic of C&C Committee members' secretarial inclinations and mildly off-topic challenges, Fred wrote:

fred, on Dec 4 2008, 07:44 PM, said:

I have served on this particular committee before and I am good friends with most of the others who have been involved over the years. It would not surprise me in the least if most/all of them, similar to me, were completely lacking in skills in this area.

...

I would happily sit down with any of them for the first time and play SAYC against you and the partner of your choice playing forcing pass (or whatever system you want) for a nice game of (very) high stakes rubber bridge.

Are you interested?

Fred Gitelman

Let me offer my own challenge as well as offer a solution to the problem in question -

I will personally show up to the next Nationals and take the full minutes of the C&C Committee meeting, and I'll do it for free.

I'm 100% serious. Houston is my home town, and I won't need that much of an excuse to visit. I have a deep interest in the ACBL's conventions and their regulation, and I would be more than happy to hear the thoughts of players of such caliber discussing whatever topics might be before them at the time. If you're interested, feel free to contact me or refer me to the appropriate person in charge of such volunteers.

Hi Rob:

Let me start by saying that I think that you're making a very gracious offer...

At the same time, I'm not sure that its a productive one. The ACBL suffers from a severe inability to follow simple, repeatable, transparent processes. This crops up in all sorts of areas:

Convention licensing is an obvious example, but lets move past this for a moment: Consider the way in which the decisions of the conventions committee is communicated to members / TDs. Does anyone prefer the structure in North America to that in the EBU (insert your home here?)

Alternatively, we can look at Vugraph coverage. I'm largely an outside observer here, however, the process in North America looks a lot more ad hoc than other locations in the world. [Please note: I'm not faulting Jan here. I think that she does a a great jon in light of the circumstances. However, I've seen how this is done in different parts of the world and the difference is night and day]

(I'm sure that we can all insert our own favorite examples here)

Isolated efforts to lend a hand and help out are certainly better than nothing. However, they are no substitute a real plan to address the issue...

[paulg]

awm, on Dec 5 2008, 03:12 AM, said:

(4) The decision to ban these transfer openings in national championship level events is unlikely to be due to the will of the membership at large. The vast majority of ACBL members don't care. The poll on these forums (consisting of people who likely do care) is overwhelmingly in favor of allowing transfer openings even in pairs events. While there is surely some bias in these polls (BBF crowd is younger, more international, etc than even the nationally-competitive subset of ACBL members) it is unlikely that a substantial majority wants transfer openings banned in team events.

From my limited experience, which is playing only in national and regional events at NABCs, the vast majority of players are very happy with the C&C Committee and would prefer it to go further and remove the Mid Chart. The very top teams are pleased to play against methods that they will encounter internationally, but the next level down, especially those with client-pro partnerships, often seem to think we are almost cheating when we sit down and play 4 or 5 Mid Chart conventions - indeed in Vegas it frequently resulted in a TD call prior to play.

So I think the forum membership is very unrepresentative.

[fred]

Quote

Frankly, per this thread, this committee are more interested in stamping out development than doing literally anything of actual use whatsoever.

Wrong. They are interested in doing what they think is best for the game.

Quote

You look like you are merely sticking up for your friends.

I am sticking up for my friends, but there is nothing "mere" about it. I am sticking up for them because they are not here to stick up for themselves, because they deserve to be stuck up for, and because I will not allow a site that I created by used as a medium for unjustified personal attacks (especially when those attacks are against people I care about).

Quote

A person such as yourself is totally unsuitable for serving on a committee such the one under discussion here as your motive for being there is not, and indeed cannot be, the correct one. (Which is not an attack on you or them - merely an observation that your heart isn't in it)

Your observation is correct that I have no particular interested in such matters, but I do have an interest in doing what I think is best for bridge and, while I was on the committee, I tried my best to do a good job. For whatever its worth, I did manage to accomplish something good while I was on this committee which had nothing to do with the mid-chart. It had to do with "announcements" that you, not being an ACBL player, may not be familiar with. I will save the details of that story for another time.

Besides that, I think it has been at least 5 years since I have served on the committee and I did not have especially strong opinions on these matters when I was first appointed. Probably I was a reasonable person to join the committee at the time since I was dedicated, hard-working, and honest (just like all the other members) and since I had a lot of skill and experience both as a bridge player (just like all the other members) and as a coach (as did some of the other members).

Perhaps now I would be "totally unsuitable" to serve on such a committee, because I now have a strong bias concerning what should be allowed. At least I can admit my bias - it doesn't seem like a single person on "the other side" is able to do that. Still, I suppose there is something to be said of such a committee including experts with a broad spectrum of opinions so perhaps I would not be such a bad person to have on board.

But it doesn't matter. I am not on board and I will never be on board again.

Quote

You are obviously totally oblivious to the frustration which is being caused by this committee.

Untrue. In fact I am highly sympathic to those who have been frustrated, especially those who claim to have never received a response to their submissions.

But I don't think it is completely fair to necessarily blame this frustration entirely on the committee. I can tell you for sure that some of the people who submit conventions for approval deserve to be rejected (for a variety of reasons). No doubt these people feel frustrated. Too bad for them. Those blinded by the ridiculous notion that "everything should be allowed even in pairs games" should get used to being frustrated. That is not the committee's fault.

Quote

Witness your attack on me about the relatively trifling matter of the minutes rather than address the core issue here which is that this committee does not and has not produced one thing of value in years.

My attack on you was for (wrongly) suggesting that the people on the committee were either lazy or corrupt.

I also attempted to make you understand that just because something is relatively trifling matter to you and a bunch of farmers, that does not imply that such a matter is trifling to a group of expert bridge players. Apparently this message did not get through to you, but it was not an attack.

I attacked you because (IMO) you very much deserved it.

Quote

(from awm)
I don't know what the "motives" of the committee are and I don't care to guess.

There is no need to guess. I know and I have told you. Jan knows and she has told you. Frances knows and she has told you. Anyone who has a personal relationship with any past or current members of the committee will know and I am sure they will tell you too if you ask them.

If you really think that all of us are lying and that there is some kind of massive conspriracy going on, that is your right of course. But you seem to be too bright to be swayed by such a stupid notion. The obvious explanation is that the committee consists of people with good intentions whose judgment differs from yours (plus what sounds like some poor administration and I don't think it is reasonable to assign all of the blame for this to the bridge experts who served on the committee).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[RichMor]

Cascade, on Dec 4 2008, 12:49 AM, said:

Perhaps this was a flaw in the conditions of contest but presummably at least it was symmetrical - they had as much time to prepare against your methods as you had to prepare against theirs.

Wayne,

This is a portion of one of your posts. I snipped the rest to focus on one statement and not to take anything out of the original context.

If we assume that all teams in a major international contest submit complete system descriptions at the same time, then each would have the same amount of time to prepare for their opponent's methods.

So in that sense it is 'symmetrical'; one team has the same amount of time to prepare for its opponents Acol or 2/1 system as another team has to prepare for its opponents artificial weak-opening system.

But in the practical sense it requires more time to adequately prepare for methods that are both artificial and new then to perpare for methods that are natural and well known.

Plus, it is a safe assumption that the players who use an artificial weak-opening system have played it for some time. (I don't beleive that Balicki and Zmudzinski made up Suspensor on the plane flight to the Burmuda Bowl) They will have more experience with the ways their system works in competetive auctions than will players who are facing an artificial weak-opening system for the first time.

IMO, artificial weak-opening systems gain more from unfamiliarity that from any theoretical or practical advantages.

[DrTodd13]

RichMor, on Dec 5 2008, 08:34 AM, said:

IMO, artificial weak-opening systems gain more from unfamiliarity that from any theoretical or practical advantages.

Have you ever played a weak-opening system or played against one? Unless you've had many hands worth of experience then I don't think that you are in any position to talk about practical advantages or disadvantages. From the theoretical standpoint, some analysis has been done comparing many different systems for how accurately they describe hands and forcing pass systems either win or come very close to the winner. If you think that preempting with a long suit is an advantageous and ethical strategy then I think you should consider that a FERT has similar advantages. It robs bidding space from the opponents and generally gets them into less accurate defensive bidding. The only question that remains is, is the FERT as "sound" as a long-suit preempt? In my years of playing one forcing pass system or another, I have to say that at least when non-vul the answer is yes. If doubled you can generally scramble and find a fit at worst at the two level and it is a rare hand that doubling said bid and setting it results in a better score than the opponents have by playing the contract themselves.

If you have experience then do tell us about it, otherwise, uninformed opinion is meaningless.

[Cascade]

cardsharp, on Dec 6 2008, 02:01 AM, said:

...indeed in Vegas it frequently resulted in a TD call prior to play.

If these calls were simply because you were playing mid-chart in an event that was mid-chart then I think this type of TD call is simply gamesmanship.

[mycroft]

I'm not trying to defend Nick, or attack you or any other member or ex-member of the C&C committee, but there are 3000 people at an average National, and probably 1000 of them go to every one. I'm sure if there was interest that one of those could be found with reasonable enough bridge skills to follow along and reasonable enough secretarial skills to keep minutes for the cost of their day's play (two free sessions). Even though I am (definitely) not a morning person, were I retired, and going to 3 NABCs a year instead of one every two, you could probably convince me to do it.

Now that I think about it, the requirements for a minute-taker at the C&C committee are pretty much equivalent to those of Appeal Scribes. I wonder if one of those could have one of their "team days" be the meeting.

Sure that doesn't help with the out-of-NABC email "meetings", but I'm sure that could be arranged as well (if necessary, with a bit more formal NDA).

Yes, I realize that transparency is one of the shining lights of the ACBL in general, not just C&C; but really, the seed has been sown throughout the "want to actually play the mid-chart, not 'these 10 conventions'" crowd that the defence-approval process is "we'll red-tape them to death, and they'll eventually give up, but we can *say* we have an experimental process", and if that's not the case, the visuals *have* to be looked at or this issue will never go away.

- The meetings have to look open: that means minutes, agendas, all the normal things my Condo Board needs to do.
- reasons for decisions need to be given, and not just "too complicated" or "not complete".
- guidelines for what constitutes an effective defence need to be generated and posted. There's nothing wrong with the COA statement of "meeting these minimum requirements is no guarantee that the defence will be approved, as every convention generates unique issues that may have to be dealt with in the defence"; there's little wrong with saying "use defence (x) in the database as an example. Please note that many of the other defences in the database are artifacts of history and would not be approved under these guidelines"; there's a lot wrong with the current guidelines, which do seem to be canonical "beware of the leopard" territory.
- In particular, while I appreciate (really, really I do - what she does for North American Bridge ranks right up there with chicken coop cleaning in tediousness, amount of crap, and lack of appreciation - but also in absolute necessity) what JanM does, "I'll ask my husband" should not be the best way to get information about what's going on. Not that I want her to stop!
- There needs to be some active cooperation in getting something approved, because something new *has* to be approved (anything, really! as I said, it's the visuals). Once the pump is primed, less active help from the committee will be needed.

Having said all of that, I like what the USBF does for it's "weird stuff". The default is approve; the competition is responsible for challenging it and explaining the issues. Not with bringing the defence up to code, but it's only when someone brings up a problem and clearly specifies it, and the committee agrees, that the onus is put back on the players to improve the defence. Clearly with an unrestricted playerset and no advance submission that can't work for the Mid-Chart, but something like it could - say, have a bunch of players whose job it is to review defences, who are not on the committee; the committee could then take those reviews and decide whether the objections make sense; all of those reports go back to the submitter for v0.2. And while you need Chip-quality (or near-Chip quality) reviewers, you also need people like me who play Mid-Chart conventions when they are available, but are just rank-and-file A players, not the Establishment - because those are the ones you're ostensibly protecting, right?

Finally, even though this is always the case, I feel I should state for the record that I am speaking only for myself.

[Edit 2010: updated "beware of the leopard" link as it had become stale]

[david_c]

fred, on Dec 5 2008, 04:50 PM, said:

The obvious explanation is that the committee consists of people with good intentions whose judgment differs from yours (plus what sounds like some poor administration and I don't think it is reasonable to assign all of the blame for this to the bridge experts who served on the committee).

Sorry Fred, but it is not enough to have good intentions. The committee has a job to do, and they failed to do it adequately.

To be specific, the worst failings in my opinion are:

1. The fact that the convention charts are riddled with ambiguities, and yet the committee has made no attempt to correct them in at least five years.

2. The fact that from 2002 (maybe earlier?) to 2007 the committee received several proposed defences for transfer openings, without doing one of the following:
- approve a defence (doing some of the work itself if necessary); or
- amend the midchart to say that such openings were not allowed.
I can just about understand turning away one such application without further investigation. But once several had been received it becomes incumbent on the committee to do something about it.

These two things are absolutely not acceptable.

Yes, doing this properly would have required the committee to do some work for itself, rather than just approving things. But that's their job! These people are selected, out of the entire ACBL membership, to do exactly that. Complaining that it's difficult, or that it takes time, just doesn't wash. I can name half a dozen people just from this forum who have proved themselves capable of doing it. If the committee is incapable of doing their job then they should be replaced.