[awm]

Other sports generally do have rules regarding both equipment and strategies.

For equipment:

(1) Tennis has rules about the size and shape of the racquet.
(2) Chess players are not allowed to bring chess computers to the table to consult between moves.
(3) Hockey has rules regarding the size and shape of hockey sticks.
(4) Soccer has regulations about the size of the goal, length of the field, and so forth.

For strategies:

(1) Tennis players are required to serve from behind the baseline.
(2) Soccer players are not allowed to stand in front of the opposing goal and wait for a pass (offside).
(3) Soccer teams are not allowed to substitute a player out, then back in.
(4) Volleyball teams are required to rotate the server.
(5) Chess players are not allowed to trash-talk their opponent during a match.

It is easy to see how violating any of these rules about equipment or strategies could lead to greater success (if the rules were not enforced). But the rules are in place to protect the "sanctity" of the game, to make sure it is a contest which matches the types of skills that the game is about, rather than substituting other skills or replacing the skill component entirely with "who has the better equipment."

[TimG]

Didn't someone make something of a mockery of the America's Cup a few years ago by defending a challenge with a catamaran (which created a complete mismatch)?

I'm not suggesting that forcing pass systems are the catamarans of bridge. Just citing a sports example of a difference in equipment rendering the competition meaningless.

[helene_t]

All these analogies are meaningless.

First, most of the restrictions in other sports have been made for completely different reasons than the reasons for restricting conventions.

Second, even if someone came up with a good analogy, so what? Maybe the other sports have it wrong and the bridge legislators have it right?

[H_KARLUK]

Are there really need a rearrangement according to some systematic division into classes or groups ?

[DrTodd13]

To me, the chess equivalent of banning forcing pass is like saying it takes too much time and effort to play against the Sicilian defense and for the enjoyment of chess players we'll ban it from almost every competition. So, we'll let you play the french, queen's or king's gambit....you don't need anything else to enjoy the game do you?

[ArtK78]

There is no chess equivalent to a forcing pass system.

[jdonn]

DrTodd13, on Dec 11 2008, 05:37 PM, said:

To me, the chess equivalent of banning forcing pass is like saying it takes too much time and effort to play against the Sicilian defense and for the enjoyment of chess players we'll ban it from almost every competition. So, we'll let you play the french, queen's or king's gambit....you don't need anything else to enjoy the game do you?

That's not an accurate analogy. No legal call is banned, it's meanings for calls that are banned. You are suggesting a situation in which legal moves would be banned. As Art said, there is no chess equivalence.

[glen]

fred, on Dec 10 2008, 11:56 AM, said:

When and where I learned to play bridge was in the early 1980s in Canada. At that time and place it was natural for me to gravitate toward Eric Kokish as a role model (because he had enjoyed a great deal of success, because he was very approachable, and because he was obviously brilliant).
...
I have little doubt that I never would have amounted to anything as a bridge player had it not been for Joey Silver.
...
He immediately slashed and burned the entire system that I had worked so hard to develop and memorize (which had been based heavily on Eric's way of thinking). In all seriousness, SAYC was considerably more sophisticated than the system that Joey forced me to play. I was terrified and deeply skeptical - I could not believe that it was possible to achieve good results playing "the Joey way".

It turned out that not only was I completely wrong about this (we achieved some great results together, including a Gold Medal at the IOC Grand Prix in Salt Lake City that many probably count as one of the great bridge miracles of modern times), but I became a much much better player as a result of this experience.  Joey's way forced me to learn to think and judge for myself instead of relying on the system to do all the hard work.
...

The other associated thread mentions the Gladwell book Outliers (a must read for every parent), and a key theory of the book is that opportunity matters a lot (as well as the 10K hours of practice). I know you credit Silver and his lack of a complex system as a very important developmental factor, but consider this:

- You were well on your way to your 10,000 battle hours
- You were now starting a partnership with one of Canada’s top players
- This partnership would coach/mentor you to become better.

Now what would have happened if instead of Silver, you had partnered Kokish over the same Joey years? Instead of 2 pages of system notes, you would have had 2,000 pages. However you would not have wasted much time yourself on system design, as it would have been totally inflicted on you by EOK. Instead, with plenty of time (including bridge as it related to your work), tough competition, and a great writer/analyst/coach/mentor as your partner, you would have seen your game improve immensely.

To return to the theories in Outliers, maybe it was the opportunity to play with one of Canada’s top players and the investment of thousands of hours, that spurred your game on? Maybe system had little to do with it at all.

[DrTodd13]

It isn't a technical equivalence I'm talking about but an equivalent theme of preparedness. In unrestricted bridge you have to be prepared for any system or convention that may come up. Likewise, in chess you have to be prepared for any opening or defense. There are some rare openings that have fallen out of favor but my understanding is that occasionally someone will spring one on someone who may have not prepared against it because it is so rare. Chess players have decided as a whole that they like this situation and they would dislike artificially limiting the game by banning certain positions in the early game. Bridge players have come to the opposite conclusion and have chosen to place artificial restrictions on the game that aren't present in the laws (the authority to do so is there I grant you). The opinion of the bridge mob will rule as in the rest of life and the bridge public does not seem to care a lot about the purity of the game but instead favor ease.

[shevek]

jdonn, on Dec 11 2008, 07:13 PM, said:

DrTodd13, on Dec 11 2008, 05:37 PM, said:

To me, the chess equivalent of banning forcing pass is like saying it takes too much time and effort to play against the Sicilian defense and for the enjoyment of chess players we'll ban it from almost every competition.  So, we'll let you play the french, queen's or king's gambit....you don't need anything else to enjoy the game do you?

That's not an accurate analogy. No legal call is banned, it's meanings for calls that are banned. You are suggesting a situation in which legal moves would be banned. As Art said, there is no chess equivalence.

I guess that's true but trivial.

There were King's Gambit tournaments in the 1890s, where the first 3 moves were pre-ordained. It was thought it would lead to more exciting games and that happened for a while. In the end, the restriction only served to shift analysis a few moves further into the game. Then - as per usual - the well-prepared would build a winning advantage away from the table and triumph over their more talented but lazier opponents.

In bridge there are designated tinkering areas. There are 30 methods over their 1NT opening and 1½ ways to open 1♥. Those who feel the need to invent and have a bit of fun will find an outlet "Look they play strong club! Let's play Wokka Squared!"

Transfers are all the rage. Rubensohl, transfer responses to 1♣, transfer rebids by opener, like 1♠ - 1NT - 2♦ = hearts. What fun! The possibilities are virtually endless. Just remember that opening 1♥ with spades is not one of them. That might frighten the horses.

Nick

[lilboyman]

If FP systems allowed, an immediate double should be allowed under the rules to mean whatever opponents desire.

[H_KARLUK]

I hereby declare I support the present WBF policy.

[Cascade]

lilboyman, on Dec 12 2008, 02:09 PM, said:

If FP systems allowed, an immediate double should be allowed under the rules to mean whatever opponents desire.

Double of a pass?

What happens when partner leaves this in?

[fred]

glen, on Dec 12 2008, 12:38 AM, said:

Now what would have happened if instead of Silver, you had partnered Kokish over the same Joey years? Instead of 2 pages of system notes, you would have had 2,000 pages.  However you would not have wasted much time yourself on system design, as it would have been totally inflicted on you by EOK.   Instead, with plenty of time (including bridge as it related to your work), tough competition, and a great writer/analyst/coach/mentor as your partner, you would have seen your game improve immensely.

EOK is widely known as one of the best (if not THE best) bidding coaches, authors, and theorists in the world. It is less well known that he is truly a great player, perhaps because he rarely plays any more. I would go as far as to say that, in all of my experience playing bridge, EOK's level of play during the 3 or so years that we played on the same team was at least as high as that of any of the other teammates I have ever had. That says a lot - I am fortunate in having had the opportunity to play with a lot of amazing players as my teammates.

So I am sure you are right that I would have learned a lot from EOK, but with all due respect to him (and hopefully the above paragraph goes some way toward saying just how much respect I have for the man), I am quite sure that he would have been the wrong partner for me at the time in question. Joey was not only right in terms of system (or lack thereof), he was also what I needed in terms of temperament.

EOK is basically a very gentle soul while Joey can be a real tyrant. He was not adverse to slapping me around (I don't mean this in the physical sense of course!) when I needed it. EOK would not have done that. Joey also has a remarkable will to win - the killer instinct. That sort of thing does not come naturally to me, but it is very important. Some of Joey's killer instinct rubbed off on me and that was a very good thing. Of course EOK (and everyone else) loves to win too, but he is not a tiger like Joey in this regard (few people are).

I guess what I am saying is that EOK and I have similar personality types and I think, at the time, I really benefited from playing with someone who was of a very different personality type.

But more important as far as this discussion goes, I do believe that I was not even close to being ready to deal with 2000 pages of system notes. Even if I could deal with it, memorizing notes is very much not the way to learn to think and judge effectively. I needed to have my all crutches stripped away so that I would be forced to learn to walk. The alternative of being given a very high tech wheelchair was not going to help me, even if I could learn to drive it.

I agree with you that opportunity is important. I was certainly lucky to be in the right place at the right time (Canada when the best Canadian bridge players were looking for some new and young blood to add to their team and when there were not many choices other than me).

That being said, to some extent we create our own opportunities. I did study very hard and something else I had going for me was that I rarely acted like a jerk. I showed the more experienced players the respect they had earned and I listened to their answers to the questions I asked them. Not all young (or old) talented players do that and some manage to miss out on opportunities as a result.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[jdonn]

DrTodd13, on Dec 11 2008, 07:43 PM, said:

It isn't a technical equivalence I'm talking about but an equivalent theme of preparedness.  In unrestricted bridge you have to be prepared for any system or convention that may come up.  Likewise, in chess you have to be prepared for any opening or defense. There are some rare openings that have fallen out of favor but my understanding is that occasionally someone will spring one on someone who may have not prepared against it because it is so rare. Chess players have decided as a whole that they like this situation and they would dislike artificially limiting the game by banning certain positions in the early game. Bridge players have come to the opposite conclusion and have chosen to place artificial restrictions on the game that aren't present in the laws (the authority to do so is there I grant you). The opinion of the bridge mob will rule as in the rest of life and the bridge public does not seem to care a lot about the purity of the game but instead favor ease.

Sorry, still not buying the comparison.

- In chess, it's out in the open. Even if you haven't seen your opponent's move made before, you were welcome before you moved to see that it would be possible, and you can see (to the extent your abilities allow) anything in the future your opponent can possibly do. In bridge you have no practical way of knowing what other options your opponents might have had on a slightly different hand, what future options they will have in the auction, etc.
- In chess, you are on your own. No matter what move the opponent makes, I can at my turn decide what I think is best and then do it. In bridge you have a partner. If my opopnent starts with 1♥ showing 0-7 or whatever then I can't just decide what I think is best to play here because I don't know if my partner will agree that it's best, and I don't know if my partner will think that it's what I am doing.
- In chess, you are on your own time. Either you have a clock and are fully welcome to take as much of that time as you want to figure out how to react, or you have no clock and can literally take as much time as you want. In bridge you can't take a day, or an hour, or frankly even two minutes to figure out how to react. There are times constraints much more severe than in chess, and ethical obligations due to the partnership aspect that don't appear in chess.

Anyway I do agree with your conclusion, as I have all along, which is that like it or not, it just ends up coming down to what the most people want bridge to be. (Or what the people in charge think the most people want bridge to be. Or what the people in charge want me to believe the most people want bridge to be. Or...) But you can't really make accurate analogies like you are trying to do. There is no game like bridge.

[H_KARLUK]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess
http://en.wikipedia....iki/Bridge_game

I play both.

I know they are "de fi ni te ly" not same. Why do not you try start to compare from opps and setup ?

Sorry Doc, wrong example this time. Can you imagine a 40 moves allowed in an hour or adjournment rules works bridge party like in chess?

[cherdano]

If forcing pass was allowed in two events, then I think there would be two possible developments:
- Many players decide it is a good idea to play FP. Others would be forced to come up with defenses, but since they play against FP with reasonable frequence, they do as well as they should do when they are confronted with a fert/FP.
- Only very few players see it as worth playing (maybe because everyone realizes FP is a bad system, more likely for other reasons). Others would still be forced to come up with defenses, but since they rarely play against FP they will have misunderstandings about the subtleties of their defenses. The FP players get a competitive advantage from that (possibly making up for the theoretical inferiority of the FP).

From a practical viewpoint, the latter scenario would make bridge a lot less pure. (Given that the majority seem to be against allowing FP, and even in Australia very few people play it - if I understand Wayne right -, I don't think the latter scenario would be very unlikely.

[fred]

I think the chess anology is both ridiculous (Jdonn is doing a good job of explaing why) and obviously self-serving.

So I think I will make my own ridiculous and self-serving anology that argues the other side:

A partnership at a bridge club are taking lessons is Swahili. Like everyone else in the club, they can speak English, but they think bridge is more interesting and challenging if, when asked what their bids means, they can answer in Swahili. The club manager, who cares deeply for the rights of the minority, decides to allow this.

That means that all the other players have a choice. They can either learn Swahili so that they can understand the explanations they have been given, or they can continue to play without understanding what the opponents' bids mean. Not surprisingly, most players do not like either of these choices - it ruins their favorite game for them.

So they come up with a third choice: they go to another club.

They are dismayed to learn that their new club has a pro-Swahili-explanations policy as well.

They decide to stop playing bridge.

How unlucky for the Swahili-speakers - they have nobody left to play against!

Despite my analogy being admittedly ridiculous and self-selfing, I happen to think (perhaps self-servingly) that it comes closer to the mark than the chess analogy

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[jdonn]

fred, on Dec 11 2008, 09:37 PM, said:

Despite my analogy being admittedly ridiculous and self-selfing, I happen to think (perhaps self-servingly) that it comes closer to the mark than the chess analogy

I actually think it's a very accurate analogy, with the exception that you should not be saying they are explaining their bids in Swahili, but that they are actually bidding in Swahili.

[DrTodd13]

H_KARLUK, on Dec 11 2008, 06:23 PM, said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess
http://en.wikipedia....iki/Bridge_game

I play both.

I know they are "de fi ni te ly" not same. Why do not you try start to compare from opps and setup ?

Sorry Doc, wrong example this time. Can you imagine a 40 moves allowed in an hour or adjournment rules works bridge party like in chess?

Who said I think bridge and chess are the same because I made a hypothetical comparison on one small point? If I know the names of several chess defenses then you should assume I know a little about the game.

With respect to jdonn, I'm not against pre-alerts. So, while I take your point about the partnership aspect being different I think that pre-alerts gives them a chance to devise something reasonable on the spot. You don't have to pre-prepare for every possible meaning. Time constraints are something else appended onto the laws in practice as a matter of public preference. There are two separate issues here. #1 Should unrestricted bidding be allowed? #2 Is it even feasible for unrestricted bidding to be allowed at all levels?

With respect to #1, I am not lobbying here for unrestricted bidding to be allowed. Sure, that would be my preference but I didn't start this thread. I've said time and again that the public opinion rules here and that the public doesn't want it. So, I really resent Fred saying some statement was self-serving when I'm not trying to change it or even complaining about the current state of affairs!

With respect to #2, what I am starting to hear in this thread is that it is not even possible to ever accommodate unrestricted bidding. While I agree that given current rules, regulations, and time constraints that it isn't possible, if every bridge player woke up tomorrow and started demanding unrestricted bidding then my assertion is that it would be possible to re-configure bridge events to satisfy public demand...flexible movements that accommodate slow or fast tables based on system complexity, different timing regimes, defense workbooks with prepared defenses to various things that people could reference, etc. Just because I argue that this is possible does not mean that I believe it should be done.

There is no shame in preferring a more restrictive and therefore simpler game to maximize your enjoyment or the number of people playing but at least have the balls to say that this is purely a matter of preference rather than trying to pile on specious arguments about how its not even feasible.