[Sigi_BC84]

[quote name='Aberlour10' date='May 4 2006, 04:06 AM'] [/QUOTE]
allowed are:
Green (natural systems, or systems like Polish Club or "Strefa")
Blue (Strong Club/Strong Diamond, where one club/one diamond is always strong)
[...]
allowed are: Green, Blue, Brown Sticker
[...]
allowed are: Green, Blue, and it is possible to use Yellow & Brown Sticker if
the opponents are agreed. [/quote]
So apparently they use WBF color codes. Is the Red category not being used at all? I find it a bit odd that they allow Yellow on mutual agreement in the lowest category but Red isn't even mentioned.

--Sigi

[Aberlour10]

Sigi_BC84, on May 4 2006, 12:00 AM, said:

So apparently they use WBF color codes.  Is the Red category not being used at all?  I find it a bit odd that they allow Yellow on mutual agreement in the lowest category but Red isn't even mentioned.

--Sigi

I checked it out.

correctly should be....

Blue ( polish "niebieski" ) contents systems:

Strong Club/Strong Diamond, where one club/one diamond is always strong)
AND all other systems that are not classified as Yellow or content
elements of Brown Sticker.

so "polish Blue" = Blue + Red ( in WBF version)

Robert

[mycroft]

But from the sound of things, "Polish Green" is Green + Red, as it includes a Forcing, but not necessarily strong (and, of course, not necessarily natural), 1 Club opening (Polish Club).

As Standard Polish (in whatever format, including Nasz, "Natural") is a WBF Red system, this isn't really a problem, *except* for the fact that they go to WBF events and claim their system is Green - which of course it is in Poland. I don't think the reputation for lack of disclosure is totally warranted, but when their opponents (some of whom are already biased) are presented - again - with WBF CCs with the most basic piece of information clearly wrong, it doesn't help.

But at least I now know why I keep seeing these Polish Club CCs self-labelled Green.
Michael.

(Edited for clarity)

This post has been edited by mycroft: 2006-May-04, 11:07

[JanM]

This thread has become so diverse and interesting! I keep thinking “I should respond to that” and by the time I get ready to do so there are three more pages of posts to read, by which time I have to go do something else. So I’m afraid this is going to be a bit long and rambling, for which I apologize.

I agree with several people who have mentioned that the ACBL convention charts are far from a model of clarity. I think there are several reasons for that, and for the fact that it’s very unlikely we’ll see any change. The convention charts were a valiant effort to do what all of us want done – describe in clear, general language what methods should be allowed at different levels of competition. That sounds easy, but in fact it is incredibly difficult. I know just how hard it is because a few years ago when I took on the project of drafting General Conditions of Contest for the USBF I foolishly thought I could write Systems rules that would allow us to ignore the GCC, Midchart, & Superchart that I found difficult to understand. I was doing this in an easy setting – I didn’t have to worry about the Mom and Pop club players, or even Regional players, only experts. I had to deal only with Round Robin and KO phases. I was writing for events that require advance entry and thus could require advance submission of methods. Nonetheless, after struggling with definitions for a while (and driving my husband crazy ?), I gave up and reverted to allowing Midchart methods in the Round Robins and Superchart in the KOs. Then I tried to define which Midchart methods required advance submission (and provision of a recommended defense). Although that was easier and I thought I had succeeded in writing reasonably easy to understand lists of what should and should not be submitted in advance, in fact people frequently submit methods they do not have to and fail to submit those that they should. I don’t know why; I don’t know how to make things more understandable, although I did try again this year. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the problem is some people pay more attention and read more carefully than others.

Which gets me to another area where there’s a problem – defenses. Josh complains, correctly, that an adequate defense to 2NT showing a 3 preempt should certainly say whether (2NT)-DBL[cards]-(3♦)-3♥ is forcing. I didn’t look, but I believe him when he says that it does not. And I can understand his frustration that there are such clearly inadequate defenses included in the database when at the same time new defenses are subjected to stringent examination and rejected as being inadequate. The problem is that the defense database has changed over the years. Initially, when the C&C committee foolishly believed that convention charts could be written that would adequately define what was allowed, and that only a few unusual methods would be allowed in Midchart events, they had the noble idea that the committee could produce defenses to those conventions, publish them, require the people playing the methods to bring the defenses to the table and then everyone would be happy – the proponents could play their unusual methods and their opponents wouldn’t have a problem because they could look at a defense whenever one of the unusual bids arose. So the committee wrote some defenses to some bids. We have two multi defenses because some members of the committee thought it was better to “get back to “normal” by having DBL show a T/O DBL of spades and 2♥ show a T/O DBL of hearts and others thought it was better to take advantage of the multi bid by using DBL to show a weak NT, a hand that would have to pass over a natural weak 2 bid. We have incomplete or inadequate defenses because the people writing the defenses hadn’t had a lot of experience either playing or opposing the methods involved. We still have those defenses today because, I suppose, no-one has complained and they’re there. Sometimes someone does complain, or the committee on its own notices that something isn’t adequate and removes it. In that case, they hope that one of the people who uses the method will notice that it no longer has an approved defense and submit one (guess who does more complaining – the people whose pet method isn’t allowed even though it was last tournament or the people like Josh who discover that a defense isn’t adequate?).

Sometime along the way, someone (I don’t know who) suggested that the defense database could be used to regulate methods – broad definition wasn’t working and there was general agreement that new things should be allowed so long as the opponents had a fair chance to defend reasonably against them. So the Midchart was changed to say that most Midchart methods would be allowed only if there was a defense posted, and defenses would be posted only after approval (I’m not at all sure that these two things happened simultaneously, that may be why your defense to TOSR was first posted and then removed). Thus the onus of coming up with an adequate defense is where it belongs – on the people who want to employ the method and who should know what problems it causes. But of course, it doesn’t work perfectly. Partly because those who like to experiment with new methods may not be good at developing defenses and at presenting them. I have a lot of sympathy with that – it’s very hard to develop a defense; to present it in such a way that someone can pick it up and use it with no advance study is even harder.

A long time ago we developed a defense to a 2♣ “fert.” I haven’t looked at it in years, so I have no idea whether it was a good defense or not; I do know that it included transfer overcalls, which is useful when you’re starting at that high a level. We were coaching a team in the Bermuda Bowl who were playing against a team using this method. Our team was trailing sufficiently in a KO match that we didn’t think the other team would use their “toy.” So we gave the defense to a pair that hadn’t played against this method before without much (if any) discussion. They were doing very well in the set, the opponents opened 2♣, one player read the defense, the other didn’t – they played in the transfer bid. Not a good result and one that changed the momentum in the match. I’ve always felt somewhat to blame for the fact that they lost. Now, before we give our players defenses, we discuss them and make sure that the specific pair is comfortable with the general approach – for example, I know that the “option 2” defense to Multi is “better.” But for some pairs, it’s not, because they just aren’t comfortable with being in a different context than normal. Just as most pairs would feel “funny” playing that a DBL of 2♦ that shows 4+ diamonds was penalty – it might be the right way to play, but it’s not a practical way and it’s not something to give a pair that isn’t going to study the defense in advance.

Why hasn’t a defense to MOSCITO been approved? I’m just guessing, not passing on Chip’s comments, since he hasn’t made any. There are two huge differences between something like multi and an opening 1 level bid that shows a limited hand with 4+ in the next suit and possibly a longer side suit. First, and the reason I’d be very surprised if any defense to MOSCITO would be approved for an event with 2 board rounds, multi, even as some of us use it, comes up maybe two or three times a session; the MOSCITO opening 1 bids probably come up every other round. Why does that matter? Because if someone comes to your table and says “we’re playing multi (or two under preempts or Precision 2♥ or any of the other things for which there are approved defenses)” your reaction (and it’s the right one) is to say OK, if it comes up we’ll use the recommended defense. You don’t worry much about whether the defense will be right for you, because you know that probably the bid won’t arise and if it does you may not care. If someone comes to your table and says “we play transfer one bids,” you’re much more likely to want to look at the defense in advance and discuss it a bit – not only do you know it’s reasonably likely to come up, but you know that you’re going to be in a substantially different position from everyone else who plays the board (when someone opens a preempt, whether natural or artificial, it’s reasonably likely that everyone has to confront some sort of disruption, so you might be in a marginally worse (or better) position than the rest of the field, but you won’t be in a significantly different position). So there’s going to be a time loss every round. That’s one of the things that we all want to avoid in pair events. The second difference that makes it difficult to develop a defense to MOSCITO is that the transfer bid affects the rest of the auction – the defense needs to deal with a lot of potentially different from normal continuations. And we can’t expect people to apply their “normal context” judgment. Sometimes when people say something is missing from the Option 2 multi defense, I can answer them by saying – just imagine that the person who doubled 2♦ opened a weak NT and figure out what your bids would mean (and sometimes people look at me as if I’m crazy – they just can’t translate that way). It’s harder to make the same sort of “translation” in the transfer opening bids auctions. The auction looks “normal” but it isn’t, and that can cause surprising problems. Here’s another story, most of which I’ve forgotten, to illustrate that. In the Jamaica Bermuda Bowl, our team had to play against a pair using a strong pass system. The WBF was only just starting to deal with things like that then. There weren’t things like written defenses, the team hadn’t had to submit their methods in advance, but if I’m remembering correctly, the on site tournament committee decided that the team would lose their seed when the strong pass pair played. So Chip & Lew played against this pair all the time. I looked at all of the early hand records to see what sort of hands were coming up. Chip developed a defense that seemed appropriate – when the opponents “opened” a Pass, our side’s bids would be overcalls (except I think that 1♣ was a weak NT, but I’m not positive). That made sense and didn’t seem as if it would be difficult to remember or to play. On one hand, the opponent Passed, Chip or Lew (I forget) “overcalled” 1♠ and then the auction went on a bit. Later in the auction Chip or Lew made a bid based on the fact that the 1♠ bid had been an overcall. The other one looked at the bidding tray and forgot that that the initial Pass was a bid. I think they ended up playing in a cuebid, although I’m not certain – at any rate, here was a very experienced pair, who had carefully thought out what they were doing and who are generally good at dealing with “science” who had an accident because the auction looked like something it wasn’t. That’s the sort of thing that can easily happen with transfer one bids. Of course, if half the field played them, the rest of the field would become used to them and the context wouldn’t be strange any more, but in our current world, it is.

Oh, that reminds me – early in this thread, Tim (I think) commented that probably Chip has a defense to MOSCITO that he considers nearly optimum. When I responded that in fact we don’t, I forgot one of the main reasons why – in WBF events, you have to memorize your defense to transfer 1 bids; you are allowed written defenses only to BS bids. The defense that is “right” when it has to be memorized is very different from the defense that is “right” when it’s written.

I’ve gone on way too long here, but I was amused to see Mycroft’s post, which almost brought this thread back to where it started . Polish club is, I think everyone agrees, a WBF “Red” system. But in Poland, it’s “standard.” The Verona Conditions of Contest require that “Red” systems be submitted in advance. I’d be willing to bet lots of money that we won’ see more than one or two Polish Club systems on the advance submission website. And I’d even be willing to bet that someone from Poland would argue that their 1♣ is no more unusual than mine (clubs or a strong NT). The context in Poland is different from that elsewhere. And that context difference makes it difficult for any of us to understand the issues confronting systems regulators in other countries.

[joshs]

Jan Thanks for your post,

I can't speak about Moscito, but the current incarnation of TOSR was modified from some methods that were played downunder by me so that
a. it coforms to the letter and spirit of the mid-chart
b. so that unusual auctions either fit into the category of
1. Strong Auctions (Game Invivational or better, and the game Invitational auctions become natural at the second round of the auction)
2. Isomorphic (in an obvious way) to a general chart auction with a natural opening

I actually put a great deal of time into this project. Time which it turns out I should have put into my career or other things since the ACBL made it all a waste of my time.

I also put extensive time into developing good defenses. I looked at well over 2000 hands (5 years ago) for each opening bid and investigated a number of meanings for the interveners bids. When results were close, I selected the easier/more natural sounding defense.

It may interest people to know that over the 1D and 1H x-fer opening bid (showing 4+ hearts and 4+ spades) the best uses for x and the 1 level "cue bid" were
a. x=natural, e/g the suit xed and the cue-bid is the takeout x
b. x=the takeout x, and the cue-bid = sound hand with 5+ cards in opener's suit!

All other uses for the extra bid (including 12-14 balanced, or a raptor hand etc) were inferior to these two. My orginal submission to the ACBL actually included the 12-14 balanced defense as an alternate defense because people seem to like these sorts of things over multi, but personally I found that despite occuring very often it didn't gain much when it did occur. You also have to play a lot of responsive type x's on the second round of the auction to make this effective at all.


Defenses a and b were about equal at imps (over 1D b was slightly better, and over 1H a was slightly better). Defense a was better at mps.

I decided that since later x's of ART bids in the middle of a relay sequence should be natural, that there was a strong reason to be consistant and use defense a since the principle "x's of ART bids show the suit xed" is easy for people to understand, to use defense a as the main suggested defense.

Having said that, I discovered that playing 1S(minors)-x as spades was enough inferior to playing it as takeout for the majors that I made an exception in that case. Otherwise with the sort of hands that would x a natural 1 of a minor opening (or a precision 1D bid) you had to commit to the 2 level, or pass. (I think I might have included the natural x as an alternate defense, I can't remember)

Further in the wierd auctions like:
1D(H)-P-2C(weak and not forcing)
I discovered that playing x as a 3 suited takeout was much better than playing it as a two suited takeout, so thats the suggested defense.

I am sure many other system designers did not go to the effort that I did, but I did go to this effort....

[DrTodd13]

JanM, on May 5 2006, 09:24 AM, said:

I agree with several people who have mentioned that the ACBL convention charts are far from a model of clarity. I think there are several reasons for that, and for the fact that it’s very unlikely we’ll see any change. The convention charts were a valiant effort to do what all of us want done – describe in clear, general language what methods should be allowed at different levels of competition. That sounds easy, but in fact it is incredibly difficult.

Thus the onus of coming up with an adequate defense is where it belongs – on the people who want to employ the method and who should know what problems it causes. But of course, it doesn’t work perfectly. Partly because those who like to experiment with new methods may not be good at developing defenses and at presenting them. I have a lot of sympathy with that – it’s very hard to develop a defense; to present it in such a way that someone can pick it up and use it with no advance study is even harder.

On one hand, the opponent Passed, Chip or Lew (I forget) “overcalled” 1♠ and then the auction went on a bit. Later in the auction Chip or Lew made a bid based on the fact that the 1♠ bid had been an overcall. The other one looked at the bidding tray and forgot that that the initial Pass was a bid. I think they ended up playing in a cuebid, although I’m not certain – at any rate, here was a very experienced pair, who had carefully thought out what they were doing and who are generally good at dealing with “science” who had an accident because the auction looked like something it wasn’t. That’s the sort of thing that can easily happen with transfer one bids. Of course, if half the field played them, the rest of the field would become used to them and the context wouldn’t be strange any more, but in our current world, it is.

To me, the fact that you can't manage to write regulations in such a way as to allow what you want to allow and disallow what you want to disallow indicates that you shouldn't be trying to do it in the first place. I understand you don't want to use words like "flannery" in the regulations and you try to be more generic than that but this genericness opens up the door for stuff you don't want. There is an inherent benefit to consistency. People will adapt to consistent regulations. What we have now is patch on top of patch.

"Thus the onus of coming up with an adequate defense is where it belongs – on the people who want to employ the method and who should know what problems it causes."

In a related news story, the US introduced a new missile weapons system today. The rest of the world is furious and demanding that we also provide them with defensive systems that can destroy our own missiles.

This argument that the auction "looked" normal but wasn't and this caused a problem is not specific to forcing pass systems. Any number of auctions with unusual meanings can appear "normal." If this example motivates anything, it is a ban on all artificiality. They were tired, they lost concentration and screwed up. This happens all the time even against natural systems. My regular pd and I play a forcing pass system almost everyday on BBO. Maybe once or twice in 3 years has some ridiculous auction occurred due to opps not paying attention and forgetting our opening pass was strong. Maybe this has something to do with the superior alerting and auction facilities on BBO.

[jdonn]

DrTodd13, on May 5 2006, 01:29 PM, said:

"Thus the onus of coming up with an adequate defense is where it belongs – on the people who want to employ the method and who should know what problems it causes."

In a related news story, the US introduced a new missile weapons system today. The rest of the world is furious and demanding that we also provide them with defensive systems that can destroy our own missiles.

It's that friendly spirit of looking at the ethics of a game the same way you look at the ethics of war which I'm sure will keep bridge players returning to tournaments for years to come.

[inquiry]

DrTodd13, on May 5 2006, 01:29 PM, said:

Maybe once or twice in 3 years has some ridiculous auction occurred due to opps not paying attention and forgetting our opening pass was strong. Maybe this has something to do with the superior alerting and auction facilities on BBO.

Having kibitzed you, I think it has more to do wiht the selected nature of your opponents in the main room. Many simply either not to join your table where forcing pass is used, others leave when they realize what you are playing.

If they would only allow players to do that in F2F tourneys you would have little trouble there either i guess.

[hrothgar]

JanM, on May 5 2006, 08:24 PM, said:

I’ve gone on way too long here, but I was amused to see Mycroft’s post, which almost brought this thread back to where it started . Polish club is, I think everyone agrees, a WBF “Red” system. But in Poland, it’s “standard.” The Verona Conditions of Contest require that “Red” systems be submitted in advance. I’d be willing to bet lots of money that we won’ see more than one or two Polish Club systems on the advance submission website. And I’d even be willing to bet that someone from Poland would argue that their 1♣ is no more unusual than mine (clubs or a strong NT). The context in Poland is different from that elsewhere. And that context difference makes it difficult for any of us to understand the issues confronting systems regulators in other countries.

For what its worth, I just reviewed the WBF definite of Red Systems becuase I wanted to triple check a couple facts. I quote

Red

Artificial: this category includes all artificial systems that do not fall under the definition of Highly Unusual Methods (HUM) systems [see definition below], other than Strong Club/Strong Diamond systems (see 'Blue').

Examples would be a system where one club shows one of three types - a natural club suit, a balanced hand of a specific range, or a Strong Club opener; or a system in which the basic methods (other than the no trump range) vary according to position, vulnerability and the like; or a system that uses conventional 'weak' or 'multi-meaning' bids (with or without some weak option) in potentially contestable auctions, other than those described in the main part of the WBF Convention Booklet.

First and foremost, I agree completely that Polish Club is a Red System as defined by the WBF. You are completely correct that anyone playing Polish Club should submit their methods in advance.

With this said and done, it would also seem clear that anyone playing Standard North American methods based on sound openings in first / second seat and light openings with Drury / fit showing responses in 3rd / 4th is also playing a red system. (The regulations make clear exception for variance in NT range but say nothing about the rest of this)

Is it silly to claim that using Drury and shifting the range of opening bids by a King or so is sufficient for a system to qualify as an artificial? Possibly - though it clearly seems to fall within the scope of the definition. However, I'd argue that its just as silly to label Polish Club an artificial system.

[JanM]

joshs, on May 5 2006, 01:15 PM, said:

I also put extensive time into developing good defenses. I looked at well over 2000 hands (5 years ago) for each opening bid and investigated a number of meanings for the interveners bids. When results were close, I selected the easier/more natural sounding defense.

It may interest people to know that over the 1D and 1H x-fer opening bid (showing 4+ hearts and 4+ spades) the best uses for x and the 1 level "cue bid" were
a. x=natural, e/g the suit xed and the cue-bid is the takeout x
b. x=the takeout x, and the cue-bid = sound hand with 5+ cards in opener's suit!

Josh, I know it can be frustrating when you've tried hard to get something right and it is rejected for what seem like unreasonable reasons. I'm not sure I should suggest this, because I don't know what the result would be, but have you resubmitted your methods and defense since there was the possibility of allowing something for events with more than 2 boards per round? I think that you'd have a much better chance of succeeding today when the method can be limited to longer matches. I say that because of the time issues involved in short rounds - your defense makes sense to me and I suspect I could grasp it and play it with relatively little study, but I'd want to look at it in advance, and people like the pair who insisted on studying the ACBL multi defenses before the round against me in Dallas (surprise - multi didn't come up) would certainly want to look at yours and might not understand it easily. If they're going to be playing a long KO match against you, it's not unreasonable to ask that they take 5 minutes to familiarize themselves with your methods and defense.

I find it interesting that you found using the cue bid as natural to be better than using it as some sort of 2-suited takeout, when DBL was T/O. I play transfer responses to a natural 1♣ opening bid. For some reason having to do with the esoterica of ACBL regulations, I don't have to recommend a defense, but if the opponents ask me to I usually recommend what to me is most intuitive - DBL shows the bid suit, cue bid is T/O. After some thought, however, I don't really think that's optimal - I've been playing that DBL is T/O of the real suit (after all, that includes many of the hands that would DBL to show the bid suit). I started out playing that a "cue bid" was natural, but have since changed to using the cue bid as Michaels - 5-5 in the unbid (or rather unshown) Major and a minor) and 2 of the shown Major is natural (as it would be for me if the suit were bid). Obviously, there are different issues when the transfer is a response, but I don't think it's all that different, so I wondered why you found the "natural" cue bid better.

And other Josh, whose post just appeared as I was writing this - thank you

[Sigi_BC84]

hrothgar, on May 5 2006, 07:55 PM, said:

Is it silly to claim that using Drury and shifting the range of opening bids by a King or so is sufficient for a system to qualify as an artificial?  Possibly - though it clearly seems to fall within the scope of the definition.  However, I'd argue that its just as silly to label Polish Club an artificial system.

What would be a good definition for "artificial system" in your eyes?

Of course it's silly to label Polish Club artificial as long as Precision or, say, Recursive Diamond, are not artificial per WBF definition.

Strictly speaking almost all Bridge bidding is artificial (except for actual sign-off bids). Opening eg. 1♠ doesn't mean you want to play 1♠ or even any number of ♠. You merely transport a conventional message where part of the message happens to be the suit symbol that is printed onto the bidding card. Now take the 1NT opener: very artificial to everybody who doesn't know what it means. It has become ingrained to us that a certain shape and range is associated with this bid, but artificial it still is. Who even thinks "artificial" after a Stayman or transfer over NT? And these bids are truly artificial, only they look natural to us because they naturally occur in most partnerships.

So assuming that we need some kind of systems regulations for certain classes of events, what are good definitions for the "non-evil" category? That is the category that should be used for short matches and events that don't allow for advance submission of methods.

The approach taken by the ACBL to positively define what is allowed and not allow the remaining methods per default is clearly wrong. You need easy to grasp definitions of the system categories that are not based on making exceptions. There are horribly unusual methods which are completely GCC legal. It just doesn't work.

What is completely beyond me is the reason behing the fact that those players in the midchart committe continue to waste their time there instead of putting some lobbying/whatever effort into establishing better systems regulations for the ACBL. If the likes of Jeff Meckstroth instead prefer to hold on to the present, clearly dissatisfactory body of regulations, they should not be surprised if others are wording suspicions that they in fact only cater to their own interests (as bridge professionals and national players).

About Bridge organizations memberships: I don't think that all of this regulations stuff will affect memberships or Bridge popularity as a whole significantly. As a new player you're learning something standard and simple anyway, and by the time you are seriously into Bridge (when you might realize that you can't play the methods you might prefer), silly regulations won't stop you from continue to play (even if it's merely online). So I don't think changing the regulations will have a significant influence on the influx of players in either direction -- it will, sadly, remain low as far as I can see.

About pampering the ACBL membership, serving their water with ice and whatever: apparently, the ACBL is a big bunch of old farts. Cater to their needs but don't be surprised if Bridge remains a terribly unsexy undertaking. I don't really care, I won't ever be an ACBL member and the situation in Germany is not much different anyway (BTW any old farts reading this don't be offended). I've pretty much given up hope for a positive trend outside of online bridge.

The Polish example shows that Bridge can be hugely popular without many restrictions to the game. Also keep in mind that having arbitrary conventions with partner is part of the rules, and if that should really turn out to be a problem in reality (I doubt it) then admit that there's something wrong with the game instead of inventing braindead regulations and bullying those who try to apply creative methods.

I'm sorry this has turned out to be a rant, I hope I have been slightly coherent. I'm not gonna proofread.

--Sigi

[pbleighton]

"the ACBL is a big bunch of old farts."

Generally nice old farts though

"Cater to their needs but don't be surprised if Bridge remains a terribly unsexy undertaking. I don't really care, I won't ever be an ACBL member and the situation in Germany is not much different anyway (BTW any old farts reading this don't be offended). I've pretty much given up hope for a positive trend outside of online bridge."

I've pretty much given up hope too.

Peter

[uday]

Maybe if we all walk away from the problem together, we can make a positive difference (especially if we pause to hurl fruit first ).

We actually seem to have the ear of someone who might be able to influence things and while I dont like sounding like a broken record, being nice is more likely to result in your post being acted upon.

If you are not a member of org hoohah and don't plan to ever be a member , why not let the members try to work w/hoohah in peace? what is it to a nonmember whether hoohah allows the worlds best convention or not ?

[joshs]

I will re-submit my defenses one of these days. I am just still sore about what happened the first time around, both from the time and effort I put into this, and from being very unhappy from a process standpoint about what happened to my friends.

As to natural over the x-fer openings. I believe these results were partially TOSR specific artifacts. We open 1D showing hearts even with a much longer side suit. AKQJxx xxxx xx x is a 1D opening showing hearts. If you can't show hearts directly here, your next chance will be at the 3 level (since opener will rebid 2S with this hand), and you need both a great suit and good strength to make that bid. Hands like xx AQJxx AQxx xx get totally shut out.
Lets just say, Ira Rubin would be proud of our opening major suit bids (he loved opening suits of quality at least as good as 2345). This really was not that big of a deal at mps, but at imps the occasional bid swings associated with stealing the opps major were more important than some of the swings you saw from other methods. Again, because of the canape nature of our opening bids, certain hand types for the opps, like 4 in the other major and 6 in a minor, were a bit less common than they were over a natural 5 card major opening bid, and they only worked better than a takeout x or natural overcall some of the time. I really don't remember the exact statistics here, just that these really didn't seem to happen very much.



I actually didn't do a detailed study of the best defense to x-fers over 1C when I submitted a defense for that (the obvious one). Here your major suit length is slightly higher than in tosr for the x-fer opener, but since your strength is lower on average your suit quality is probably worse on average. A natural overcall, and 2 suited x is a reasonable defense, I just haven't studied it in any detail.
Neither have I studied any 2 suited defense. Some results will depend on how many balanced hand types are put into the 1C opening.

[kfgauss]

Josh, did you test using 2H over 1D as natural and 1H as 2-suited? (This is effectively what Jan was talking about over transfer responses to 1C.)

Andy

[Sigi_BC84]

uday, on May 5 2006, 09:28 PM, said:

If you are not a member of org hoohah and don't plan to ever be a member , why not let the members try to work w/hoohah in peace? what is it to a nonmember whether hoohah allows the worlds best convention or not ?

Well, I've gotten yelled at on BBO for opening 2♣ meaning Wk2♦ or strong. The accusations were something like "this is an ACBL club and your bidding is wacky and you are both ____". (Edit: NB this did not happen in an ACBL event.)

So apparently I'm to a certain extent within the sphere of influence of the ACBL, if I want it or not.

Furthermore I'm acknowledging the fact that most of the world's influential players are in fact US Americans and/or affiliated with the ACBL. This and the general experience that the US are quite influental not only concerning sports makes me concerned that what happens in the ACBL could quite likely affect my own Bridge experience as well.

To put it another way: I'm pretty sure that if, suddenly, a strong group of US top-players decided that HUMs are in fact not evil and induced a change of regulations within the US, the world would follow rather sooner than later.

So please let me be concerned with the structures of the ACBL and decisions made within the ACBL to a certain extent.

About your remark regarding hauling fruit and then walking away: what do you expect? Fred Gitelman more or less admits that the system in place might be inappropriate, that he himself actually doesn't care too much about the mid-chart and that the likes of Meckstroth/Martel are experts and should know what they are doing? If even Fred (whom I have perceived as very open-minded, smart and generous so far) displays such an attitude please forgive me if I start to be inclined to walk away in frustration.

If you take offense about the "old fart" bit: that was a polemic remark nobody here hopefully takes too serious. I regularly play in clubs with lots of senior members and many of them are friendly and I enjoy their company. However, Bridge has a serious image problem because of the majority of senior players and my somewhat disrespectful remark only reflects how I think Bridge is largely perceived by the hip young crowd that we are missing.

Lastly, I'm aware that Jan Martel is actually listening and I appreciate a lot hearing from somebody in her position about all this.

--Sigi

[joshs]

kfgauss, on May 5 2006, 04:17 PM, said:

Josh, did you test using 2H over 1D as natural and 1H as 2-suited? (This is effectively what Jan was talking about over transfer responses to 1C.)

Andy

I did not try swapping the natural overcall and the michaels bid with the 2000 hands. I think I thought briefly about it but decided that it was riskier and I didn't really want to change the meaning of any bids that you could have made over a natural opener, in order to keep the defense as simple as possible.

It does merit a study, since the michaels hand may be more frequent than the natural overcall, especially over the 1H opening which denies holding 4 hearts.

And yes, my original suggested defense to 1C-P-1H(spades) was
x=hearts
1S=a hand that would have xed 1C-P-1S
2H=Weak 2 in hearts
x then freebid of 2H=Intermediate
1N,2C,2S=However you play them over 1C-P-1S

This is basically what most people play except some people prefer:
2H=Intermediate with hearts
x then freebid of 2H=Strong with Hearts

Again, I haven't actually done a study of this auction either....

[TimG]

JanM, on May 5 2006, 12:24 PM, said:

Why hasn't a defense to MOSCITO been approved? I'm just guessing, not passing on Chip's comments, since he hasn't made any. There are two huge differences between something like multi and an opening 1 level bid that shows a limited hand with 4+ in the next suit and possibly a longer side suit. First, and the reason I'd be very surprised if any defense to MOSCITO would be approved for an event with 2 board rounds, multi, even as some of us use it, comes up maybe two or three times a session; the MOSCITO opening 1 bids probably come up every other round.
...
The second difference that makes it difficult to develop a defense to MOSCITO is that the transfer bid affects the rest of the auction – the defense needs to deal with a lot of potentially different from normal continuations. And we can't expect people to apply their "normal context" judgment.

We may never find out what the best defense to a transfer opening is. As Josh has pointed out there are two options that appear to be close. There are probably more sophisticated approaches that are even better. But, I'm quite sure that no defense is ever going to attain 100% support; there isn't 100% agreement on how to handle a Standard American 1♦ opening bid. But, I don't think this should mean that some defense isn't approved.

The arguement that these methods are unfamiliar and will take more time for the opponents to cope with strikes me as flawed for a couple of reasons. First, players are already faced with a number of transfer methods: over NT openings (weak and strong) and after overcalls come to mind quickly. Transfers are not unfamiliar to any but the most novice of players. Yes, these transfers are a bit different, but it should not be a difficult thing for a pair to adapt to another transfer method, especially when they can refer to the opponents' cheat sheet.

Second, players are not going to develop a better ability to cope if they are always protected from facing new methods. I suppose you could decide that they shouldn't ever have to cope (which seems to be the view of many players in the ACBL). But, virtually all new methods have been met with initial resistance. I don't see why the ACBL should try to drag out the exposure process.

It seems to me that it shouldn't really be too hard to come up with some system regulations based upon the combination of known and unknown suits and whether the suit bid is one of the known suits and whether the method is constructive or obstructive. (I do realize there will probably have to be some sort of arbitrary evaluation technique used for this determination.) It also seems to me that it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with generic defenses which would be considered adequate for the average player (in the events where the methods are permitted) based upon those basic combinations.

But, maybe I'm fooling myself. Maybe there should be a new thread where this community undertakes an effort at such classifications.

[hrothgar]

TimG, on May 6 2006, 01:49 AM, said:

The arguement that these methods are unfamiliar and will take more time for the opponents to cope with strikes me as flawed for a couple of reasons. First, players are already faced with a number of transfer methods: over NT openings (weak and strong) and after overcalls come to mind quickly. Transfers are not unfamiliar to any but the most novice of players. Yes, these transfers are a bit different, but it should not be a difficult thing for a pair to adapt to another transfer method, especially when they can refer to the opponents' cheat sheet.

Second, players are not going to develop a better ability to cope if they are always protected from facing new methods. I suppose you could decide that they shouldn't ever have to cope (which seems to be the view of many players in the ACBL). But, virtually all new methods have been met with initial resistance. I don't see why the ACBL should try to drag out the exposure process.

One data point that i find quite interesting is comparing the licensing process for MOSCITO in the ACBL and the EBU.

I would argue that MOSCITO is equally "foreign" to both environments.

To my knowledge transfer based "Major's First" opening coupled with relays and non-forcing 2/1s really have never been playd extensively in either North America or Britain.

For all intents and purposes, the approval process in Britain consists of the following.

Someone told the authorities that they were interested in playing method XYZ.
The authorities said that they needed a bit of time to think things over.

A few monthes later the regulatory authorities came back and said "Mostly Harmless". Here's a temporary license to use the methods at level 4. It will all be made official in the next release of the Orange book. (And low and behold if you look in the new Orange books its right there)

No elaborate discussions how that extra step of bidding space over a 1♥ would cause folk's heads to explode. No massive arguments about the theoretical merits of the methods. No need to document the response structure three rounds into the auction.

[joshs]

A good way of giving a method exposure is to first let it be played for longer matches (especially swiss teams) and then as people become "less scared of it" allow it for pairs movements. I expect this to be a natural process, as long as methods are approved for swiss teams. If things are only allowed only in the top flights of KO's they will never get enough exposure for people in the rank and file to be able to say "oh x-fer opening bids, lets play the suggested defense" and move on in pairs movements. Also, players are less likely to want to start playing the methods if they can't play them very often. Its a lot of work to have 2 fundamentally different systems (this is very different from a convention like a multi which can be inserted into your system, here your whole system goes out the window without x-fer opening bids). This is a triple wammy, since less people will play the methods AND they get less exposure AND you can play them in few events, so few new players will want to play the methods or be comfortable playing against the methods....