[Cascade]

jdonn, on Dec 13 2008, 10:42 AM, said:

Cascade, on Dec 12 2008, 04:24 PM, said:

This is utter nonsense.  You prealert so the opponents "don't have to prepare for those methods".

I doubt that you can find anything close to backing up that statement.

From the ACBL website:

# Pre-Alerts (Alerts before hands are removed from the first board of a round or match segment):

* Two-system methods (e.g., strong club when equal or favorable vulnerability; a natural two-over-one when not).
* Systems based on very light openings or other highly aggressive methods or preempts.
* Systems which may be unfamiliar to opponents, such as canapé. SuperChart and Mid-Chart methods.
* Leading low from a doubleton

Look at the third point. Do you have a suggestion on how I prepare for methods "which may be unfamiliar to" me?

Generic or meta defenses or even natural bids work reasonably well against most things.

[Cascade]

jdonn, on Dec 13 2008, 10:42 AM, said:

Cascade, on Dec 12 2008, 04:24 PM, said:

This is utter nonsense.  You prealert so the opponents "don't have to prepare for those methods".

I doubt that you can find anything close to backing up that statement.

From the ACBL website:

# Pre-Alerts (Alerts before hands are removed from the first board of a round or match segment):

* Two-system methods (e.g., strong club when equal or favorable vulnerability; a natural two-over-one when not).
* Systems based on very light openings or other highly aggressive methods or preempts.
* Systems which may be unfamiliar to opponents, such as canapé. SuperChart and Mid-Chart methods.
* Leading low from a doubleton

Look at the third point. Do you have a suggestion on how I prepare for methods "which may be unfamiliar to" me?

By the way, is there a difference between calling what I say "utter nonsense" because you assume I can't back it up (even when I can) and calling what you say "ridiculous"?

Your previous statement was:

Quote

The reason for prealerts is so you don't have to prepare for those methods that are prealertable!

I think there is a big difference between prealert in case the opponents happen to be unfamiliar with your methods and your assertion that prealerts are designed so that players do not have to prepare for those methods.

I can't imagine that your discussions with your partner would include:

Partner: Lets prepare a defense over canape openings?

Josh: We don't need to prepare against them because they are prealerted.

Whatever the purpose for a prealert happens to be I don't think it is designed to encourage players not to prepare defenses against relatively unusual systems as your statement contends.

"The reason..." as if there is no other reason.
"...is so you don't have to prepare..." is to encourage lack of preparation.

Maybe I am wrong that that argument seems to make no sense at all to me.

[DrTodd13]

Does everything that requires a pre-alert also require a suggested written defense? I don't think that is the case. If it isn't then the purpose of the pre-alert must be to give the opponents a chance to "on-the-fly" come up with a defense. Could they do better if they had discussed various unorthodox things they might encounter before hand? Certainly. They should be rewarded for more thorough preparation than their competitors. I don't think it would make sense to classify a bid as requiring a pre-alert and at the same time believe that it is impossible to come up with a reasonable defense on the fly.

I think part of the issue here is that the better you are, the higher your standards of reasonableness tend to be. Again, just from my own experience, the people who get the most bent out of shape when they encounter my FP system are either truly world class or mistakenly believe they are world class. Even intermediates just roll with the punches and bid naturally and most disasters are averted. At a world class level perhaps you need some super-complicated defense against a FERT but at the club level I personally don't see much problem from simple, natural bidding.

[mycroft]

No, in that case, the *illegal* method resulted in the board being thrown out and an Artificial Adjusted Score assigned. And then, I hope, more for each board that wasn't available to be played because the players wouldn't accept the original penalty.

And that's a different issue. I don't mind playing against a lot of things I haven't "prepared" for. But what I don't like is playing against things that I'd like to play, but don't because they're not allowed. It only rarely happens, but I do make a habit of pointing it out when it does. Petty of me, maybe, but ah well.

(totally offtopic, yes)

[mycroft]

In the ACBL, pre-Alerts (under the GCC) are designed for those methods where they think you will need to come to some, quick, agreement you may not have to hand, or you and partner might go different reasonable ways without the discussion, to deal with them - "treat it as NAT/ART"/"takeout of the canape promises 4 in opener's suit"/"Let's play Fishbein against *these* preempts", and so on; or they're odd carding agreements that most wouldn't think to ask about (low from 2 is the one that comes to mind). No agreement allowed under the GCC requires a suggested defence.

All non-GCC methods, where legal, require pre-Alerts, whether they require a suggested/approved defence or not.

[H_KARLUK]

Cascade, on Dec 12 2008, 08:29 PM, said:

H_KARLUK, on Dec 12 2008, 11:25 PM, said:

I thank you too tho in my view we disagreed.
"Chess opening theory developed since there were no restrictions on what openings could be played. Bridge bidding theory can benefit enormously by lifting arbitrary restrictions on what can be played."
I am sorry, there is also a restriction. Perhaps you skipped. Movement of the pieces aren't restricted?
...

In Chess they don't change the rules when someone starts having success with an innovative opening (or other set of rules).

I am sure Chess players would start complaining if they said "from now you can only move your bishop one square" or we are banning you from playing some particular opening.

And they would complain more if this ban came after certain players had started having success against the masters with the now banned opening.

Do you really play chess or just an assumption?

[maggieb]

DrTodd13, on Dec 12 2008, 05:19 PM, said:

The use of the term "ridiculous" instead of "incorrect" in my opinion serves only as a means to backhandedly insult the person who made the argument.

Ridiculous is not the same as incorrect. I would be sad if all my mistakes turned out to be ridiculous. (Cause I've made more than my share of them! )

[TimG]

DrTodd13, on Dec 12 2008, 06:41 PM, said:

Does everything that requires a pre-alert also require a suggested written defense? I don't think that is the case.

I don't think it is the case, either. I believe that canape methods require a pre-alert, but not a written defense, for instance. Variable NT ranges might also be an example.

[H_KARLUK]

Codo, on Dec 12 2008, 01:20 PM, said:

Forcing pass is like the latvian gambit. It may or may not be theoretically unsound but it needs quite a lot of preparation to defend against it. If you don`t prepare, you will sometimes lose despite being better in other parts of the game.

This is 100 % the same with a FP system: Maybe it has no merrits, but you need an awful lot of preparation to defend against it. So whoever claims that he does not want himself or the LOL to spend much time in preparation against this method has a fair point. It needs time.

The chess players live with this problem and have a more or less vague idee what they will do when this opening is played- or they even have a defence memorized.

The bridge players decided to ban the lativian gambit instead of working on a defence.

Freds analogy was right too: If you use the given "vocabulary"  with a total different meaning, this is not understandable for the opponents.



This is a real tricky issue and I belive that anybody who tries to paint black/white pictures will not be able to see the beauty of the rainbow. 

*What is the object of playing a gambit opening?... To acquire a reputation of being a dashing player at the cost of losing a game.

**The beauty of a move lies not in its' appearance but in the thought behind it.

***One doesn't have to play well, it's enough to play better than your opponent.

MD. Siegbert Tarrasch (March 5, 1862 – February 17, 1934) was a leading chess player


Days are passing quickly. I still have no idea why HUM professionals do not object WBF policy.

OTOH is it really bad to arrange competitions between stickers assigned by WBF?
A final somewhere and sometime hard ?

So we can see if only to play a HUM sys enough to win or not.

[DinDIP]

As, alas, happens virtually every time HUMs and weak opening systems are discussed, there is lots of heat and not nearly as much light. A few thoughts from someone who, as Fred would say, has spent too much of his time on such systems to become as good a player as he could have, but who still derives enormous pleasure from bidding theory:


Destructive vs constructive methods
Jan Martel (it’s good to have people in such positions as hers participating in discussions like this) argued that “Destructive methods are sort of like pornography - we all know them when we see them.” (Digression: In Australia there has been a heated debate this year about whether exhibited photos of a nude, pubescent, teenage girl are art or pornography.)

I think that reflects a bias about how one should play “a good game of bridge”. A key reason for bidding on 8-12HCP hands – the core of weak opening systems [not the fert as some misguidedly suggest] – is that it helps to make it more difficult for the opponents to find their best contract. This has long been recognised (and set out in print at least since S.J. Simon’s masterful Design for Bidding of 1949) as another way to achieve the objective of all serious bridge players: beating absolute par.

(Short explanation: absolute par is the least worst score that can be achieved by both sides on any board. If the NS par is 4S making four and the EW par is 4H making four then absolute par is EW playing 5HX, one down. NS cannot do better by bidding 5S and going down; EW cannot do better by letting NS play in 4S, making, or even in a S partscore, depending on vulnerability.)

Absolute par can be beaten either by reaching our best contract or by preventing the opponents from reaching their best contract. That is why almost all systems include elements of both approaches in their design, for example preemptive three-level and higher openings. (But not all systems: S Garton Churchill, an American theorist whose praises are not sufficiently sung, abjured most preempts until late in his life, I understand.) Some go further, for example, opening light in third seat or making weak jump overcalls or jump raises when the opponents open or weak jump-shifts or raises after partner opens.

Neither the bridge scoring table nor the rules of bridge place a premium on one method beating absolute par over the other. So, to claim that so-called constructive bidding (aiming to reach our best contract) is intrinsically better than so-called destructive bidding (aiming to disrupt the opponents from reaching their best contract) is a non-bridge judgement. However, it is a widely held view and has been a critical factor influencing regulators.


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.”

Ferts can be clearly defined: when I play one we explain it to the opponents as “0-7HCP, excludes hands suitable for openings of 2M+, might be bad 8HCP BAL, excludes shapely 7 HCP hands with good suits or good controls”. What that does not do is provide the opponents with the familiar things they are used to having as a basis for defensive bidding (a known suit or, after a natural notrump opening, sufficient high cards in opener’s hand so as to make bidding game or slam by the non-notrumpers relatively unlikely). If that’s what regulators mean then let them be explicit as to the reason for the decision.


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.”

Here in Australia lots of LOLs use such methods (e.g. 2H/2S/2N as 55 two suiters rank-colour-odd) and defend against them regularly. I agree that there is no really good defence but the same is true of lots of bids that take away space. (Simple example: I’m happy to compete on shape alone over their strong NT but I do so knowing that it makes it very difficult for us to bid games with much confidence if my 2S bid can be Qxxxxx x Qxxx xx or two aces stronger.)

What is harder to defend against is 2H showing a weak two in hearts or in spades (or analogous openings) but, again, a reasonable defence is available: assume they have the suit they bid.


Is having a defence to unusual bidding an integral part of the game?
If you accept that it is legitimate to take away the opponents’ bidding space as a way to do well then you need to be prepared when the opponents do that to you. Example: until Bergen raises were devised and used widely no-one needed to devise a defence to (1S) P (3C) because it was natural and strong. Now that it shows a weak hand with S support methods are needed: is X showing clubs or takeout of spades?

Generic (or meta) defences help to make situations like this easy: our agreement is that X is takeout of the suit they have shown. Yes, generic defences are not always optimal – it might be sensible to play X as lead-directing if their auction is GF – but generic defences that are easy to remember and apply make it possible to play against virtually anything and be satisfactorily equipped.

Note that generic defences to the cards the opponents play is considered an essential element of being a good declarer or defender. For example, if you want to encourage a continuation as declarer then you play high if they are using natural signals and low if reverse.

Just as such plays become easier – natural even – the more often you make them, so unusual bidding situations become easier to handle when one has generic defences and feels comfortable using them.

Restricting the opportunities for players to encounter such methods can only make people less familiar and reduce the need for them to prepare the generic defences that would enable them to compete. And allowing only some (such as Bergen or, until recently in North America, the Multi), leaves regulators open to criticism and accusations of favouritism, especially if these are methods they use.


Strong Pass or Weak Opening? And why people play such systems
*Strong pass* is somewhat misleading as a name for such systems (forcing pass is even worse). This is in part because not all systems in fact have a strong pass (for example, the Swedish Super Spade system uses Pass to show any hand with 8+points and 4+ spades). Even when showing a better than average hand, in some systems Pass is not unlimited but a limited call (because 1C is retained for stronger hands).

*Weak opening* is a better description because the theoretical driver of almost all these systems is to find ways to open hands with 8-12 points. Why? Because these are the most frequently occurring hands. (Hands with 8-12 HCP comprise more than 44 percent of all hands. In contrast, hands with 13+HCP comprise only 27 percent of all hands.) Many players were (and are) willing to overcall with hands in the 8-12 HCP range after the opponents have opened the bidding, so why not bid with them *before* the opponents have had a chance to start describing their hands?

For most system designers, a strong pass is a consequence of the desire to play limited openings on these 8-12 HCP hands. Despite the flaws in passing with strong hands (leaving the partnership open to competitive disruption, for example, when no suit has been identified), this has been judged better than alternatives such as lowering the requirements of standard opening bids, making them 8-22 HCP.

David

[hrothgar]

DinDIP, on Dec 13 2008, 01:20 PM, said:

As, alas, happens virtually every time HUMs and weak opening systems are discussed, there is lots of heat and not nearly as much light. A few thoughts from someone who, as Fred would say, has spent too much of his time on such systems to become as good a player as he could have, but who still derives enormous pleasure from bidding theory:


...

For most system designers, a strong pass is a consequence of the desire to play limited openings on these 8-12 HCP hands. Despite the flaws in passing with strong hands (leaving the partnership open to competitive disruption, for example, when no suit has been identified), this has been judged better than alternatives such as lowering the requirements of standard opening bids, making them 8-22 HCP.

David

wow...

Very nice post

[H_KARLUK]

I do hope somebody helps. Firstly please correct me if i am wrong. Thanks.

I think it was in th early 1980s, forcing-pass methods were highly popular. I was buying monthly English Bridge Magazines and Bridge Books. Hard years to follow new ideas, snail mail age. Anyway at least was happy trying to fix double dummy corner problems.

Started in Poland ? Then gained popularity in NZ and Australia?

At first sight I took very risky to open with a zero especially at vulnerability. As far as I remember the opponents got to use its bidding system only if it dealt and opened immediately. Maybe many pairs enjoyed that system allowed about twice th system "bandwidth". Who knows, it was fun for some players to put th opponents in highly unusual situations in their repertoire.

Not sure but either towards th end of th 1980s or in 1990, th WBF decided to bar and ban except in long matches of world championship.

2008 soon ends. From start point nearly 28 years passed. Say ban started in 1990. So 18 years passed. May someone tells me the benefit of such a discussion? Do we really all have credit to WBF?

Are there anyone who can lift this topic to water cooler please?

[shevek]

H_KARLUK, on Dec 12 2008, 08:53 PM, said:

Codo, on Dec 12 2008, 01:20 PM, said:

Forcing pass is like the latvian gambit. It may or may not be theoretically unsound but it needs quite a lot of preparation to defend against it. If you don`t prepare, you will sometimes lose despite being better in other parts of the game.

This is 100 % the same with a FP system: Maybe it has no merrits, but you need an awful lot of preparation to defend against it. So whoever claims that he does not want himself or the LOL to spend much time in preparation against this method has a fair point. It needs time.

The chess players live with this problem and have a more or less vague idee what they will do when this opening is played- or they even have a defence memorized.

The bridge players decided to ban the lativian gambit instead of working on a defence.

Freds analogy was right too: If you use the given "vocabulary"  with a total different meaning, this is not understandable for the opponents.



This is a real tricky issue and I belive that anybody who tries to paint black/white pictures will not be able to see the beauty of the rainbow. 

*What is the object of playing a gambit opening?... To acquire a reputation of being a dashing player at the cost of losing a game.

**The beauty of a move lies not in its' appearance but in the thought behind it.

***One doesn't have to play well, it's enough to play better than your opponent.

MD. Siegbert Tarrasch (March 5, 1862 – February 17, 1934) was a leading chess player


Days are passing quickly. I still have no idea why HUM professionals do not object WBF policy.

OTOH is it really bad to arrange competitions between stickers assigned by WBF?
A final somewhere and sometime hard ?

So we can see if only to play a HUM sys enough to win or not.

Aargh the Latvian.

One guy in Perth loved it so much, he would open E3 as white, hoping for
e3 - e5 - e4 -nf6 - f4!

I like it! He would have made an imaginitve bridge player.

Nick

[fred]

hrothgar, on Dec 13 2008, 10:57 AM, said:

DinDIP, on Dec 13 2008, 01:20 PM, said:

As, alas, happens virtually every time HUMs and weak opening systems are discussed, there is lots of heat and not nearly as much light.  A few thoughts from someone who, as Fred would say, has spent too much of his time on such systems to become as good a player as he could have, but who still derives enormous pleasure from bidding theory:


...

For most system designers, a strong pass is a consequence of the desire to play limited openings on these 8-12 HCP hands.  Despite the flaws in passing with strong hands (leaving the partnership open to competitive disruption, for example, when no suit has been identified), this has been judged better than alternatives such as lowering the requirements of standard opening bids, making them 8-22 HCP.

David

wow...

Very nice post

Agree.

Even if he is not as good a player as he could have been, he is an excellent writer

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Free]

H_KARLUK, on Dec 13 2008, 12:17 PM, said:

2008 soon ends. From start point nearly 28 years passed. Say ban started in 1990. So 18 years passed. May someone tells me the benefit of such a discussion? Do we really all have credit to WBF?

Are there anyone who can lift this topic to water cooler please?

First of all, they're not banned, but restricted heavily.

Second: what gives you the right to claim this topic should be moved to the water cooler? There are many people who are interested in this topic.

Third: people have been working centuries at laws and regulations in regular life, and they keep changing. Why would regulations never change in bridge? Just because some philosophy is currently accepted? Perhaps some people at the top suddenly get an open mind about this and decide to allow HUMs. You never know...

[csdenmark]

H_KARLUK, on Dec 13 2008, 01:17 PM, said:

I do hope somebody helps. Firstly please correct me if i am wrong. Thanks.

I think it was in th early 1980s, forcing-pass methods were highly popular. I was buying monthly English Bridge Magazines and Bridge Books. Hard years to follow new ideas, snail mail age. Anyway at least was happy trying to fix double dummy corner problems.

Started in Poland ? Then gained popularity in NZ and Australia?

The first edition of 'Introduction to weak opening systems - Regres system' is from 1974. Lukasz Slawinski/Stanislaw Ruminski.

I have no idea whether the Aussies was before or not. But that was the days of Sharif Bridge Circus and Dallas Aces started.

Much creativity in bridge those days.

[JanM]

Thank you for a thoughtful and clear post. I'll try to respond in order and without cutting out too much.

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

Destructive vs constructive methods
Jan Martel (it’s good to have people in such positions as hers participating in discussions like this)

Just as devising systems appeals to some, devising defenses has always been interesting to me. Guess that's why I was a good tax lawyer . I do want to be clear though, that I'm not really a "regulator" - I may be better able than some of the forum regulars to get regulators to listen to me, but I don't make the rules.

Quote

argued that “Destructive methods are sort of like pornography - we all know them when we see them.”  (Digression: In Australia there has been a heated debate this year about whether exhibited photos of a nude, pubescent, teenage girl are art or pornography.)

All right, perhaps that was too flip. We've all been down this road so many times that we tend to get tired of repeating the same things over and over. But even you and other proponents of a strong pass system (and I am deliberately saying that and not "weak opening" - I don't have a problem with a system where opening bids are defined as 8-12 HCPs, it's the openings that are defined as 0-7, maybe 8, any shape that for me make strong pass so unusual and difficult to deal with), admit that the Fert bid, whatever it is, is not a constructive bid - it's there to allow you to have other bids, specifically pass, that don't include those hands, and as such you'll say it's constructive because it allows the other things. But as someone pointed out earlier, the reason to use 1♠ or 2♣ instead of P or 1♣ for the fert is to cause the opponents problems. There isn't any constructive reason to open 1♠ on hands in the 0-7 HCP range that aren't suitable for other bids. Similarly, a 2♥ opening that shows a weak 2 in either hearts or spades is a REALLY terrible bid for constructive bidding (I suspect that is the main reason that its proponents gave up on it). But it's also a terrible bid for the opponents to deal with (more about that later).

Quote

I think that reflects a bias about how one should play “a good game of bridge” ...
Neither the bridge scoring table nor the rules of bridge place a premium on one method beating absolute par over the other.  So, to claim that so-called constructive bidding (aiming to reach our best contract) is intrinsically better than so-called destructive bidding (aiming to disrupt the opponents from reaching their best contract) is a non-bridge judgement.  However, it is a widely held view and has been a critical factor influencing regulators.

As I said, I'm not a regulator, but I suspect you're right. Maybe it would be possible to have a parallel universe where this wasn't the prevailing view, but we live in this universe, and you're not likely to change that view.

Quote

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.”

Ferts can be clearly defined: when I play one we explain it to the opponents as “0-7HCP, excludes hands suitable for openings of 2M+, might be bad 8HCP BAL, excludes shapely 7 HCP hands with good suits or good controls”.  What that does not do is provide the opponents with the familiar things they are used to having as a basis for defensive bidding (a known suit or, after a natural notrump opening, sufficient high cards in opener’s hand so as to make bidding game or slam by the non-notrumpers relatively unlikely).  If that’s what regulators mean then let them be explicit as to the reason for the decision.

The problem is that most players who use these bids aren't going to be able to explain when they will choose to open one and when they will choose to open an alternative. Of course, that's worst when they have the option of passing, but it arises when they have 2 or more 0-7 bids available also. If you are going to be completely honest, you know that in choosing between, say, 1♦ showing 0-7 with 4 or more spades, and 1♠ showing 0-7 any, you'll sometimes open 1♠ even with a hand that has 4 spades. When? It will depend on lots of things - vulnerability, seat, state of the match, your judgment about how likely these particular opponents are to try to "get" you, where your few honors are located, who knows what else. It's those sorts of things that you aren't going to be able to define adequately. Or at least, that never are adequately defined when people submit descriptions of "destructive" bids.

Quote

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.”

Here in Australia lots of LOLs use such methods (e.g. 2H/2S/2N as 55 two suiters rank-colour-odd) and defend against them regularly.  I agree that there is no really good defence but the same is true of lots of bids that take away space.  (Simple example: I’m happy to compete on shape alone over their strong NT but I do so knowing that it makes it very difficult for us to bid games with much confidence if my 2S bid can be Qxxxxx x Qxxx xx or two aces stronger.)

The problem is that when the opening bid might contain the suit opened, you can't safely Pass on some of the hands you want to bid with. And of course, you don't have a cue bid. Sure, I have a defense to CRASH openings. But it's long, complicated and not terribly good. I certainly wouldn't try to memorize it.

Quote

What is harder to defend against is 2H showing a weak two in hearts or in spades (or analogous openings) but, again, a reasonable defence is available: assume they have the suit they bid.

The problem with that is that they may (I say may, because this particular bid is one that the opponents NEVER adequately describe) be more likely to have spades than hearts when they open 2♥. That's because if the responder tends to bid 2♠ with hands with no preference between the majors, they're going to have to play in 3♥ when opener has hearts, but can play in 2♠ when opener has spades, so opener may want to have something that looks more like a 3♥ bid to open 2♥, but be willing to have a 2♠ bid. On the other hand, if responder is going to tend to pass with hands with no preference, opener is more likely to have hearts. When this bid was actually played in the Bermuda Bowl, the proponents were unable to tell us what responding hands would pass and what responding hands would bid 2♠ - that's what I mean by the bid isn't adequately described. And although I have a defense for this bid, it's one that is completely inadequate, despite the fact that we spent a lot of time on it. (Surprisingly, the bid came up only once in the Bermuda Bowl final, and resulted in a big pick up for the US for a strange reason - after 2♥-P-P, the US player had a balanced hand with okay stoppers in both Majors but better in one than the other (sorry, I don't remember exactly what the hand was) and bid 2NT, his partner raised to 3 which made easily. At the other table, after 2 of opener's real Major-P-P, balancer didn't think his stopper was good enough, so they missed the game).

Quote

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

I think this is probably the core of the whole argument we have over this. I may find it fun to play with figuring out defenses, just as I actually enjoyed parsing the Internal Revenue Code. But I know that most people don't enjoy that. And I don't think we should require things that most people don't enjoy.

[hrothgar]

JanM, on Dec 13 2008, 08:07 PM, said:

The problem is that most players who use these bids aren't going to be able to explain when they will choose to open one and when they will choose to open an alternative. Of course, that's worst when they have the option of passing, but it arises when they have 2 or more 0-7 bids available also. If you are going to be completely honest, you know that in choosing between, say, 1♦ showing 0-7 with 4 or more spades, and 1♠ showing 0-7 any, you'll sometimes open 1♠ even with a hand that has 4 spades. When? It will depend on lots of things - vulnerability, seat, state of the match, your judgment about how likely these particular opponents are to try to "get" you, where your few honors are located, who knows what else. It's those sorts of things that you aren't going to be able to define adequately. Or at least, that never are adequately defined when people submit descriptions of "destructive" bids.

Sorry Jan, none of these issues are specific in any way shape or form to forcing pass systems.

I agree completely that if you encounter specific pairs who practice poor disclosure this needs to be dealt with on a case by case basis. Regretfully, I'm left with the distinct impression that you and others fixate on certain examples in order to support a pre-conceived agenda.

Case in point: The Jeff Rubens developed a hand evaluation algorithm called "Caution, Complex Competer Count" (CCCC) that was designed to approximate the hand evaluation style that Edgar Kaplan applied at the table. (Kaplan commented that the CCCC did an OK job; however, he also noted that individuals sholdn't try to use this algorithm at the table because it was much to complex)

Simply put, Kaplan was incapable of providing a compete description of his hand evaluation methods; yet somehow he was still permitted to play bridge. This occured because people understood that perfect disclosure is a theoretical goal, but not a practical consideration. We accept and understand that disclosure will, by necessity, often be approximate. We hope for more, but accept what is practical.

[blackshoe]

Free, on Dec 13 2008, 08:16 AM, said:

H_KARLUK, on Dec 13 2008, 12:17 PM, said:

2008 soon ends. From start point nearly 28 years passed. Say ban started in 1990. So 18 years passed. May someone tells me the benefit of such a discussion? Do we really all have credit to WBF?

Are there anyone who can lift this topic to water cooler please?

First of all, they're not banned, but restricted heavily.

Second: what gives you the right to claim this topic should be moved to the water cooler? There are many people who are interested in this topic.

Third: people have been working centuries at laws and regulations in regular life, and they keep changing. Why would regulations never change in bridge? Just because some philosophy is currently accepted? Perhaps some people at the top suddenly get an open mind about this and decide to allow HUMs. You never know...

Agree with your second and third points, but as to the first:

WBF defines "Forcing Pass" (or whatever you want to call it) as a HUM, yellow sticker, system. It is allowed only in Category 1 events (i.e., the Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup), and banned in all others.
ACBL prohibits it at all levels.
EBU prohibits it at all levels.
New Zealand CBA allows it at "Teams Style" events - those which have 8+ board segments.
Australian BF regulations are a bit more complex, but it seems "yellow sticker" (same definition as WBF and NZ) are rarely permitted in pairs events, and frequently permitted (except in early rounds) in events of 8+ board segments (usually teams events).
European Bridge League permits HUMs only at European Team Championships.
USBF follows ACBL regulations.
Chinese Taipei appears to ban HUMs at all levels (hard to tell, I couldn't find general systems regulations, had to look in CoCs for various contests).
Japan, I dunno - I seem to have lost whatever small ability I once had to read the language.
Singapore follows WBF regulations. Whether there are actually any events in Singapore that allow HUMs is unclear. They refer to "category 1", etc, but I couldn't find a specification of events as to category.

Generally speaking, it seems that "banned" is accurate in most places, and "restricted heavily" in those few places where "banned" does not apply. On balance, "banned" is pretty damn close.

[DrTodd13]

Jan...if it were shown that on average you could scramble over a FERT to a fit and play that to lose fewer points on average than whatever the opps could get by declaring would you concede that FERTs are sound and therefore not destructive?