[hrothgar]

Curious how people would view the following:

1. I submitted an inquiry to the ACBL asking whether an "All purpose" 1♦ opening could be used to show any hand with 4+ Spades.

2. I received a ruling from on high stating that this is not permitted

3. I still want to play this method so, I decided to munge the description. This time, I asked whether I was permitted to use an all purpose bid to show any hand with 0+ Diamonds. This time, the ACBL told me that the method is perfectly legitimate.

4. I now, happily, start playing a 1D opening that shows zero+ Diamonds (but only use it when I have 4+ Spades)

Is this behavior legal?

Suppose that I, as a TD, was aware that someone was behaving as describe...
How should I respond?

[bixby]

I don't see how this can possibly be lawful.

You say that ACBL has told you that you can use 1♦ to show "any hand with 0+ Diamonds." But you're not using it to show "any hand" with 0+ diamonds, you're using it to show hands with 4+ Spades, which ACBL has told you is not permitted.

[Bbradley62]

hrothgar, on 2010-December-21, 19:03, said:

... I asked whether I was permitted to use an all purpose bid to show any hand with 0+ Diamonds. This time, the ACBL told me that the method is perfectly legitimate.

You should forward this response to the supervisor of whoever sent you the response and ask whether it's correct.

hrothgar, on 2010-December-21, 19:03, said:

I now, happily, start playing a 1D opening that shows zero+ Diamonds (but only use it when I have 4+ Spades)... Is this behavior legal?

Does your partner know about your (presumably undisclosed) restriction? If so, you are guilty of having undisclosed agreements.

hrothgar, on 2010-December-21, 19:03, said:

Suppose that I, as a TD, was aware that someone was behaving as describe... How should I respond?

Clearly, punish someone who has undisclosed agreements. Then also see my first answer.

[mgoetze]

hrothgar, on 2010-December-21, 19:03, said:

Suppose that I, as a TD, was aware that someone was behaving as describe...
How should I respond?

I wake up to the fact that I am trying to apply a regulation which is not worth the paper it is written on and immediately move to another country where bridge regulations have some semblance of sanity.

Seriously, it is a matter of fact that the ACBL regulatory scheme does not care what a bid actually shows, but how it is described. Sure if an opponent asks detailed questions I would expect people to disclose their negative inferences, that they have other bids available which also show 0+ diamonds, which they would tend to use instead on hands with less than 4 spades. But I think it is quite clear that allowing a bid to show "0+ diamonds" is a license to play that bid as whatever you want.

By the way, I have designed an entire bidding system where every bid shows 0+ diamonds.

[peachy]

Illegal to have a concealed partnership agreement. Unethical to play a method that one knows is ruled as not-allowed by the RA. Also, 1D showing 4+ spades is not an "all-purpose bid with 0+ diamonds" when it specifically shows 4+ spades.

In response to mgoetze, no RA regulations are perfect and ACBL is not an exception. Their regs just happen to be the one of the best known, in English, readily accessible, and commonly criticized by people who don't play in ACBL.

[pran]

hrothgar, on 2010-December-21, 19:03, said:

Curious how people would view the following:

1. I submitted an inquiry to the ACBL asking whether an "All purpose" 1♦ opening could be used to show any hand with 4+ Spades.

2. I received a ruling from on high stating that this is not permitted

3. I still want to play this method so, I decided to munge the description. This time, I asked whether I was permitted to use an all purpose bid to show any hand with 0+ Diamonds. This time, the ACBL told me that the method is perfectly legitimate.

4. I now, happily, start playing a 1D opening that shows zero+ Diamonds (but only use it when I have 4+ Spades)

Is this behavior legal?

Suppose that I, as a TD, was aware that someone was behaving as describe...
How should I respond?

Without knowledge of the ACBL regulations it still sounds to me as if you either have received an incomplete response from ACBL or (deliberatly) are concealing part of the response you received, because you do not mention anything about the strength for your opening bid:

I would expect your opening bid to be legal also under ACBL if it shows at least 13 HCP (a King above average) and otherwise satisfies the conditions for what WBFLC designates a "blue" system. (Old fashioned Vienna is a typical example.)

I would expect your opening bid (and in fact your entire system) to be illegal (everywhere) if it can be made with a hand of less strength than a different hand with which you would pass.

And whatever you have been told: If you "stretch" an approved agreement with conditions not mentioned and not properly disclosed you are cheating - there is no other word for it.

[campboy]

I can't imagine why you would think that this could be described as an "all-purpose" opening when it is clearly very specific. Anyway, the replies you received are in no way inconsistent. There are other situations where the writers of the ACBL convention charts have made it clear that permission for a bid with a certain meaning does not necessarily imply permission for the same bid with a significantly more restricted meaning.

[bluejak]

peachy, on 2010-December-22, 01:27, said:

In response to mgoetze, no RA regulations are perfect and ACBL is not an exception. Their regs just happen to be the one of the best known, in English, readily accessible, and commonly criticized by people who don't play in ACBL.

Yersssss ....

Having read a lot of posts in various forums over the years, the ACBL regulations are also commonly criticised by people who do play in the ACBL as well.

I really do think that I could write them a lot better. Sure, no-one's perfect, and regulations can be tricky, but I think the ACBL regulations - like the WBF's - are a long way off perfect, further than some other RAs.

[paulg]

peachy, on 2010-December-22, 01:27, said:

Illegal to have a concealed partnership agreement. Unethical to play a method that one knows is ruled as not-allowed by the RA. Also, 1D showing 4+ spades is not an "all-purpose bid with 0+ diamonds" when it specifically shows 4+ spades.

+1

[paulg]

bluejak, on 2010-December-22, 07:48, said:

Yersssss ....

Having read a lot of posts in various forums over the years, the ACBL regulations are also commonly criticised by people who do play in the ACBL as well.

I really do think that I could write them a lot better. Sure, no-one's perfect, and regulations can be tricky, but I think the ACBL regulations - like the WBF's - are a long way off perfect, further than some other RAs.

To be fair to the ACBL, the vast majority of its paying members are quite satisfied with its regulations. This is helped by the lack of diversity in methods at all levels. The vast pool of professionals, the elderly constituency and, in the past, the domination of the public by a couple of authors perpetuates a cosy environment for the majority where change seems unwelcome.

I thought Gerben has rewritten them at some point in the past, but can't find the post.

[hrothgar]

peachy, on 2010-December-22, 01:27, said:

In response to mgoetze, no RA regulations are perfect and ACBL is not an exception. Their regs just happen to be the one of the best known, in English, readily accessible, and commonly criticized by people who don't play in ACBL.

I'd go so far as to say that (in some cases) there is a casual link between

1. The incompetence with which the ACBL manages its regulatory structure
2. The willingness of individuals to play in ACBL events

In all seriousness, the ACBL does an incredibly bad job managing this aspect of the game.

I find it absolutely disgraceful that ACBL's top officials are incapable of providing consistent rulings on very simple questions.

What makes the system even worse is the fact that national organizations that are much smaller with many fewer resources are able to do so much, much better.

[mgoetze]

peachy, on 2010-December-22, 01:27, said:

In response to mgoetze, no RA regulations are perfect and ACBL is not an exception. Their regs just happen to be the one of the best known, in English, readily accessible, and commonly criticized by people who don't play in ACBL.

I would not dare to criticize the ACBL regulations for not being perfect - the standard I am applying is much, much lower than that.

[barmar]

hrothgar, on 2010-December-22, 08:18, said:

I'd go so far as to say that (in some cases) there is a casual link between

1. The incompetence with which the ACBL manages its regulatory structure
2. The willingness of individuals to play in ACBL events

But is #1 increasing or decreasing #2?

While there may be a vocal handful of players like you who consider ACBL's poor regulations onerous, I suspect that 99% of the membership is mostly blissfully ignorant of the details. They're not interested in playing funky conventions, so none of this matters to them.

It's like a bug in a computer program that affects only 0.1% of users. Sure, it would be nice to fix it, but it's not likely to have a big impact on sales. Of all the things impacting the number of people playing bridge and joining ACBL these days, I suspect this is the least significant.

[hrothgar]

barmar, on 2010-December-22, 11:06, said:

But is #1 increasing or decreasing #2?

While there may be a vocal handful of players like you who consider ACBL's poor regulations onerous, I suspect that 99% of the membership is mostly blissfully ignorant of the details. They're not interested in playing funky conventions, so none of this matters to them.

It's like a bug in a computer program that affects only 0.1% of users. Sure, it would be nice to fix it, but it's not likely to have a big impact on sales. Of all the things impacting the number of people playing bridge and joining ACBL these days, I suspect this is the least significant.

Agreed, but its one of the few things that are actually in the organizations control...

Can the ACBL wave a magic wand and stop the bulk of its membership from ageing and dying in ten years?
Can the ACBL suddenly make people forget that World of Warcraft ever existed?
Can the ACBL make bridge "cool" once again? (We saw how well that worked)

I still believe that the ACBL needs to make a transition from

"Bridge as mass market form of entertainment" to
"Bridge as a niche market"

In accordance with this, I expect that users are going to expect a higher level of competence...

[Phil]

Why would the ACBL ever want to transition into portraying bridge as a niche? Do you think that is what the membership as a whole wants?

LOL at "the bulk of its membership will be dead in 10 years". I have been hearing that since I started playing 30 years ago.

I do agree that they can go a long way toward improving the alert and system regulations however. Clearly your ideas should be allowed in Superchart. If I were pope I'd allow them mid-chart as well.

[kenrexford]

The response was incorrect, IMO. "All purpose" means any purpose you want. Sometimes, however, you have to explain things in a way the idiots can follow. For instance, if you claim that 1♦ promises 4+ spades as the definition, they will give you the wrong answer. I would try a different definition, like "1♦ handles any hands not otherwise biddable, just like with Precision, but we do require an anchor suit, in our situation spades." Something like that.

Your course was almost a good idea. I would have at least explained it as "0+ diamonds, but we use the [your home town] treatment where as chickens we always have spades as an anchor suit."

You might even be able to do better. For instance, I was faced with a problem of wanting to open 2♠ for spades plus a minor in a GCC event. Not allowed. So, I re-defined the bid a 5-6 spades and unbalanced." That got me closer, but they wanted more specifics. So, I showed them that 2♦ showed both majors, limiting inferentially 2♠ to spades+minor in practice. They disliked that. So, I then made it "5-6 spades and unbalanced or seven spades." I convinced them that this was similar enough to Precision 2♣, and they bought it. We even added a response to our asking bid to show seven spades.

[TimG]

hrothgar, on 2010-December-21, 19:03, said:

3. I still want to play this method so, I decided to munge the description. This time, I asked whether I was permitted to use an all purpose bid to show any hand with 0+ Diamonds. This time, the ACBL told me that the method is perfectly legitimate.

Although it may amount to the same thing, I think it is a little different if you go about defining your other opening bids and then use 1♦ as a catchall for everything that is not defined.

I say this because it seems to me that the "catchall" option was the intent of the regulators when they wrote the regulations. It was meant to be in the context of a strong club, but they intentionally wrote it sufficiently vague so as to allow for catchalls in other systems. I doubt they imagined a system that would be otherwise GCC legal and would use a 1♦ opening to catch just hands with 4+ spades, but really why should one otherwise GCC legal system be allowed to use a catchall 1♦ while another otherwise GCC legal system is not?

I'm sure we've gone round and round on what "all-purpose" means and it's doubtful that we all came to agreement.

I would point out that regardless of how it is described to regulators or officials, the explanation given to opponents should not obfuscate. It would be improper to explain a 1♦ opening which shows spades to opponents by describing all your other opening bids and leaving it to them to figure out that this means 1♦ promises 4+ spades.

It seems to me that it would also be wrong to do the same with regulators and officials. I would have little respect for someone who asked an official about the 1♦ opening which shows 4+ spades by referring to it as a catchall and not also explaining that a consequence of system is that the opening always includes 4+ spades.

[campboy]

kenrexford, on 2010-December-22, 11:55, said:

The response was incorrect, IMO. "All purpose" means any purpose you want.

I think you are wrong here. That would be "any-purpose". A swiss-army knife is an all-purpose tool but a pair of grape scissors isn't, even if all you happen to want to eat is grapes.

[hrothgar]

Phil, on 2010-December-22, 11:54, said:

Why would the ACBL ever want to transition into portraying bridge as a niche?
Do you think that is what the membership as a whole wants?

Of course the ACBL doesn't want bridge to be a niche social activity.
However, at a certain point in time you need to bow to reality.

Quote

LOL at "the bulk of its membership will be dead in 10 years".
I have been hearing that since I started playing 30 years ago.

As of December 31st 2009, the average age of ACBL members was 68.91.
This number is steadily increasing

Just how long do you expect these individuals to keep playing?
(Honestly, the ACBL's best hope is that the bulk of their members will continue to tithe to Memphis long after their playing days have ended)

[campboy]

hrothgar, on 2010-December-23, 07:26, said:

As of December 31st 2009, the average age of ACBL members was 68.91.
This number is steadily increasing

No doubt, but that information on its own doesn't really tell us anything. Average lifespan is also going up, and medical conditions which might stop people playing are capable of being held off longer.