[gombo121]

 mjj29, on 2013-February-18, 12:29, said:

Well, we'll have asked you this at the start, so we'll make you discuss it before the hand starts.

Sorry, we are not in the mood. Why don't you and your partner now discuss and decide what kind of defence you play against our agreements instead? I see you have not discussed this case either. And then we will act accordingly to your choice.


(And this gets us to my original question - which regulations says that it is opening side that should produce unconditional agreement?)

[mjj29]

 gombo121, on 2013-February-18, 12:46, said:

Sorry, we are not in the mood. Why don't you and your partner now discuss and decide what kind of defence you play against our agreements instead? I see you have not discussed this case either. And then we will act accordingly to your choice.


(And this gets us to my original question - which regulations says that it is opening side that should produce unconditional agreement?)

but I have an agreement for all possible situations. If I'm the director and you try this you will get very short stick and increasing PPs until you stop

My defense isn't 'conditional' any more than playing my defense against a strong club is conditional on you playing a strong club. It's just a different auction so my bids mean something else.

Matt

[gombo121]

 mjj29, on 2013-February-18, 13:09, said:

but I have an agreement for all possible situations.

No, obviously, you don't - you have none for the situation at hand. And since we are talking before the start of the round we also have "an agreement for all possible situations" in exactly the same sense as you. Whatever opponents can through at us, we know how we should play provided their meaning is unconditional. We can even take into account some weird "value showing" doubles by treating them as penalty (for example).

 mjj29, on 2013-February-18, 13:09, said:

My defense isn't 'conditional' any more than playing my defense against a strong club is conditional on you playing a strong club. It's just a different auction so my bids mean something else.

But this is conditional - your agreemens are conditional on meaning of opponent's bids. Not on the auction - on the meaning of the auction. The only difference is that your defence is conditional on the meaning of bids that would have been done at the moment you are going to bid, and mine is conditional on the meaning of the bids that could be done later. It is significant, but it seems that there is no law against that.

 mjj29, on 2013-February-18, 13:09, said:

If I'm the director and you try this you will get very short stick and increasing PPs until you stop

Switching devil's advocate mode off - I fully sympathize
I think that there should be some kind of law that states that opening bids cannot be varied depending on opponents methods or who the opponents are and in general meaning of any bid cannot be varied depending on meaning of possible later bids by opposing side. I'm trying to find out is this kind of regulations enacted anywhere at present.

[Vampyr]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-February-18, 09:32, said:

How about: "Our 1NT is 12-14, unless the opps play a double of that as penalty; in which case we play 15-17, unless the opps play a double of that as something other than penalty; in which case it is 14-16."

 helene_t, on 2013-February-18, 09:41, said:

No you can't play that.

Maybe you can't, but in that case there is a large inconsistency:

If you happen to know the pair's defenses before you play them, you can set your NT range accordingly. Or perhaps the event you are playing in requires all convention cards to be submitted beforehand. Therefore you are able to learn each pair's defenses and use the NT range that you find most suitable against each of them.

But if you learn the defense only when you sit down at the table you aren't able to change your opening 1NT range?

[aguahombre]

 Vampyr, on 2013-February-18, 15:23, said:

Or perhaps the event you are playing in requires all convention cards to be submitted beforehand. Therefore you are able to learn each pair's defenses and use the NT range that you find most suitable against each of them.

Who submits their CC's first? They with their methods, or you with all possible defenses?

[CSGibson]

This is incredibly easy. Here is how it would go: Defense against strong NT is thus, weak NT is thus, here is how we define it. Now, your turn to bid. OK, you bid 1N (to his partner) what is the range?

If they cannot answer that question I'm going to get a good board out of it either through their own stupid contract, or through the fact that the director is ruling in my favor if any bad bidding situations hit me.

[gombo121]

 aguahombre, on 2013-February-18, 18:12, said:

Who submits their CC's first? They with their methods, or you with all possible defenses?

I believe you are not allowed to write in any additional defense for natural methods, are you? Only for HUM and brown stickers and this is not the case.

[gombo121]

 CSGibson, on 2013-February-18, 18:41, said:

... or through the fact that the director is ruling in my favor if any bad bidding situations hit me.

We are all (or almost all) TDs here and we all would generally like to rule in your favor. The point is, on what ground?

You can't apply failure of full disclosure because full disclosure is in place. It's agreements that are deficient, what we have to ban such an agreement?

[Zelandakh]

Gombo, my example was showing how you can formulate such an agreement and still (probably) fall within the regulations. The important point is that there is a default agreement for the opening bid should all of the conditionals beforehand fail. if you like, think of it as a set of nested if-then statements with an else statement at the end. And yes, the regulations do make it clear imho that the opening side have to "declare" first. Of course I see nothing stopping them from having a set of conditions that is 20 pages long for the meaning of a 1NT opening, such that you can pretty much always get the "best" possible defence played against it by your pair's judgement.

[helene_t]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-February-18, 10:08, said:

Why not? It is a complete description of methods given receipt of a complete set of opps' methods and never results in a loop.

Yes of course, you are right. It might be ok, maybe depending on whether the secretary bird is directing.

[mjj29]

 gombo121, on 2013-February-18, 12:46, said:

Sorry, we are not in the mood. Why don't you and your partner now discuss and decide what kind of defence you play against our agreements instead? I see you have not discussed this case either. And then we will act accordingly to your choice.

If you don't discuss an agreement for the bid and then open it, if your partner gets it right there is no way you're going to convince me that you don't have an implicit concealed agreement and rule against you under L40

[Fluffy]

 bluejak, on 2013-February-18, 06:15, said:

Personally I have always believed that the Loop is an imaginary problem. If I agree to defend weak pre-empts with penalty doubles and strong pre-empts with takeout doubles that is my defence. They can play what they like. If they say "How do you defend to our pre-empts?" I just tell the that.

The problem comes from deviations and psyches, if I recall correctly, the problem arised because Brad psyched 1NT opening thinking that no penalty double was avaible, when they lied and told him there was not. Someone said that Brad had claimed in the past that he would keep psyching 1NT in thrid position as long as opponents didn't play penalty doubles, this is the loop.

Your decision to psyche or not (or deviate your range/shape into) should not be based on what defence opponents have against your bid. But that is something impossible to take care off.

[campboy]

 Vampyr, on 2013-February-18, 15:23, said:

Maybe you can't, but in that case there is a large inconsistency:

If you happen to know the pair's defenses before you play them, you can set your NT range accordingly. Or perhaps the event you are playing in requires all convention cards to be submitted beforehand. Therefore you are able to learn each pair's defenses and use the NT range that you find most suitable against each of them.

But if you learn the defense only when you sit down at the table you aren't able to change your opening 1NT range?

You are allowed to base your bids on anything which is AI, so in particular anything you found out before either of you took your cards out of the board. So you can just look at the CC at the start of the round. If CCs are required but they haven't filled it in properly I think you have a right to ask.

[blackshoe]

 Fluffy, on 2013-February-19, 05:58, said:

The problem comes from deviations and psyches, if I recall correctly, the problem arised because Brad psyched 1NT opening thinking that no penalty double was avaible, when they lied and told him there was not. Someone said that Brad had claimed in the past that he would keep psyching 1NT in thrid position as long as opponents didn't play penalty doubles, this is the loop.

Your decision to psyche or not (or deviate your range/shape into) should not be based on what defence opponents have against your bid. But that is something impossible to take care off.

"Someone said" is not credible evidence. But i don't think it matters. Psyches are outside the loop in any case. And if his opponents lied to him, then they get the hammer.

I do not see why a decision to deviate from agreements, whether to a lesser degree than a psych or not, should not be based on what defense the opponents have agreed. Why not?

[jeffford76]

 blackshoe, on 2013-February-19, 15:12, said:

I do not see why a decision to deviate from agreements, whether to a lesser degree than a psych or not, should not be based on what defense the opponents have agreed. Why not?

Because the actual hands you will make calls with differ from those you told the opponents you would have.

[mjj29]

 jeffford76, on 2013-February-19, 18:01, said:

Because the actual hands you will make calls with differ from those you told the opponents you would have.

Yes... that's the definition of a psyche...

[blackshoe]

 blackshoe, on 2013-February-19, 15:12, said:

I do not see why a decision to deviate from agreements, whether to a lesser degree than a psych or not, should not be based on what defense the opponents have agreed. Why not?

 jeffford76, on 2013-February-19, 18:01, said:

Because the actual hands you will make calls with differ from those you told the opponents you would have.

 mjj29, on 2013-February-19, 18:06, said:

Yes... that's the definition of a psyche...

Precisely. The suggestion is tantamount to banning psychs in this position, and that's just wrong.

[Fluffy]

 mjj29, on 2013-February-19, 18:06, said:

Yes... that's the definition of a psyche...

unless it is so common that constitutes a partnership understanding

[iviehoff]

 gombo121, on 2013-February-18, 11:42, said:

(playing devil's advocate)
Why do you think it fails to define our methods? It's our complete agreement, we have nothing else. There is no requirement for our agreements to be good, or complete, or anything like that. There only requirement is full disclosure - we disclosed agreemnets completely, now take any conclusion you can. If you can't - too bad, nothing can be done about that.

You may think it is impasse equivalent to "no agreements-no agreements" and both sides are equally disadvantaged - think again! As opener I still can open 1NT and thoguh partner would not know my range we are unlikely to get to some completely ridiculuos contract. On the other hand, penalty double and conventional double are very different and opponents are bound to get lost if they venture into the bidding.

And indeed people do commonly play agreements that are not completely defined. But they will get done on a MI rap when the partners seem to understand each other, but give information to the ops that does not give the ops the same ability to understand it.

And in the case of someone playing a 1N opening defined by a rule that fails to compute in the circumstances arising, I will, at least in England, probably be further able to find that they are playing an non-permitted agreement. I don't think "I'm not sure in these circumstances" is a permitted range for a 1N opening. This problem will be rapidly revealed by the inability of the opener's partner to announce the range.

[barmar]

 Fluffy, on 2013-February-20, 02:18, said:

unless it is so common that constitutes a partnership understanding

Then it's MI, since you failed to disclose it.