[barmar]

helene_t, on 2014-June-10, 06:09, said:

I am sure Art is right, I just find it strange that ACBL doesn't write it up clearly.

Why do you find it strange? They don't write up anything in the Convention Charts or Alert Procedures clearly, why should this be any different?


Or maybe what you're saying is that you find it strange that they're so incompetent at writing these regulations on the whole. Good point. But we have to deal with them as they're written, which means interpreting much of it in light of bridge tradition -- you can't just read the words.

There was a motion at the last BoD meeting to hire someone to rewrite these regulations. It failed.

[hrothgar]

barmar, on 2014-June-10, 09:01, said:

There was a motion at the last BoD meeting to hire someone to rewrite these regulations. It failed.

My understanding is that the motion failed because it required using a specific individual to do the rewrite.
A more general motion might be able to pass.

[jeffford76]

hrothgar, on 2014-June-10, 09:06, said:

My understanding is that the motion failed because it required using a specific individual to do the rewrite.
A more general motion might be able to pass.

The motion failed mainly because any motion that comes up from the Board of Governors must be strictly voted up or down with no change in language, so almost every motion from the Board of Governors fails. This doesn't mean the Board of Directors rejected the idea.

In fact, the BoD asked the C+C committee what they thought of the idea at the most recent meeting in Dallas. The committee was in favor of the work going forward. Given the speed at which things typically happen, even if this succeeds, it will be multiple years before the document is approved.

My personal suspicion is that such a document will be difficult to produce because many places in the regulations and charts are ambiguous, and the process to make official interpretations is onerous.

[hrothgar]

jeffford76, on 2014-June-10, 12:45, said:

The motion failed mainly because any motion that comes up from the Board of Governors must be strictly voted up or down with no change in language, so almost every motion from the Board of Governors fails. This doesn't mean the Board of Directors rejected the idea.

In fact, the BoD asked the C+C committee what they thought of the idea at the most recent meeting in Dallas. The committee was in favor of the work going forward. Given the speed at which things typically happen, even if this succeeds, it will be multiple years before the document is approved.

My personal suspicion is that such a document will be difficult to produce because many places in the regulations and charts are ambiguous, and the process to make official interpretations is onerous.

thanks for clarifying

[nige1]

Trinidad, on 2014-June-10, 06:48, said:

But my argument is not that there is no rule that forbids .... therefore it is allowed.
My argument is that there is a rule - in writing - that does allow the agreement to open 1NT with a singleton and that does allow any constructive rebid by opener (i.e. also a rebid that reveals a singleton). It is in the GCC (here) which you claimed in your post #112 (here) was governing this situation.
So exactly those people who are responsible for the rules of the game, within the ACBL, have written a rule -seemingly deliberately and consciously- that says it is allowed to agree to open 1NT with a singleton and to have an agreement for the 1NT opener to reveal the singleton with his rebid.

ACBL Convention chart said:

Conventional agreements permitted by the ACBL Convention Charts...

• [SNIP] A no trump opening or overcall is natural if, by agreement, it is balanced (generally, no singleton or void and no more than two doubletons).
• [SNIP] ALL CALLS AFTER A NATURAL NOTRUMP opening bid or direct overcall, EXCEPT for natural notrump opening bids or overcalls with a lower limit of fewer than 10 HCP or with a range of greater than 5 HCP (including those that have two non-consecutive ranges). See #7 under DISALLOWED.

Is the following a fair summary of Trinidad's interpretation of the regulation?

• It's legal to agree to open/overcall 1N on a balanced hand.
• Generally, a "balanced" hand has no more than two doubletons but, exceptionally, may contain a singleton/void.
• You are allowed to agree to open 1N with singletons and voids and any subsequent agreement is allowed so you you may define conventions to locate that singleton/void.

[hrothgar]

nige1, on 2014-June-10, 18:48, said:

Is the following a fair summary of Trinidad's interpretation of the regulation? [/size]

• It is legal to agree to open/overcall 1N on a balanced hand.
• Generally, a "balanced" hand has no more than two doubletons but, exceptionally, may contain a singleton/void.

No. He also claims that the GCC permits any rebid by opener.

[sfi]

Trinidad, on 2014-June-07, 00:28, said:

In other words: It is one person's opinion that some others found interesting enough to repeat. And it is not even 100% clear who that person is, but probably it is John "Spider" Harris. Perhaps someone here knows him personally. I quickly googled his name and he seems to have been a TD in the 70's (when opening 1NT with a 5 card suit was still frowned upon).

Spider was for many years a top national director from Texas. He retired in 1993, if memory serves me correctly, and passed away shortly thereafter. He invented the Web movement among other accomplishments.

[nige1]

hrothgar, on 2014-June-10, 19:02, said:

No. He also claims that the GCC permits any rebid by opener.

OK, I've added that

[Trinidad]

nige1, on 2014-June-10, 18:48, said:

Is the following a fair summary of Trinidad's interpretation of the regulation?

• It's legal to agree to open/overcall 1N on a balanced hand.
• Generally, a "balanced" hand has no more than two doubletons but, exceptionally, may contain a singleton/void.
• You are allowed to agree to open 1N with singletons and voids and any subsequent agreement is allowed so you you may define conventions to locate that singleton/void.

Yes.

(I used a different rule for the rebid showing opener's singleton, but this is fine too, if not better.)

Rik

[Zelandakh]

nige1, on 2014-June-10, 18:48, said:

Is the following a fair summary of Trinidad's interpretation of the regulation?

Surely the regulation is much simpler. It is legal to open a natural 1NT. Natural means not more than 2 doubletons and no shortage. You may open 1NT as a deviation with a singleton on some hands but that must remain a deviation and not be systemic.

So the generally is essentially the same for balanced hands as the deviation of one card does for suit bids. If you define a call as a 6+ suit then it is legal to do so with 5 on occasion - it is generally 6 but a deviation is allowed. The same for a 1NT opening with a singleton (deviation of two cards to one in the shortest suit). Similarly, you would not include an ask for a 5 card suit if the call was systemically 6+ as that would effectively be misinformation, not a deviation but systemically 5+. And the same for a 1NT opening - you cannot ask for the singleton because the singleton is not systemic, merely a deviation.

In this respect I feel the discussion about how frequently "generally" might be is a red herring. Of course I am not in ACBLland and do not know how it really works. But this reading seems completely logical and approximately matches what appears to be the most common interpretation. And yes, I think the interpretation is pretty silly but that does not mean that what Rik proposes has a snowball's chance in Hell of getting past a typical ACBL TD. And good luck on getting a change on this in the GCC anytime this decade...

[sfi]

Zelandakh, on 2014-June-11, 03:36, said:

Surely the regulation is much simpler. It is legal to open a natural 1NT. Natural means not more than 2 doubletons and no shortage.

Why is that the definition of "natural 1NT"? That seems to me to be just as much a convention as anything else, but the word natural has been co-opted to describe this convention. Natural would be "a hand that has reasonable expectations of taking 7 tricks", and should cover a range of hand types. Mind you, this is the same organisation that has defined a 1C opening on 4-4-3-2 hands to be natural, so I'm not surprised by this odd view.

[blackshoe]

I think Rik is right as to what the regulation really says. I think Zel is right as to the chance that Rik's interpretation will be followed, or the GCC changed.

[Trinidad]

Zelandakh, on 2014-June-11, 03:36, said:

Surely the regulation is much simpler.

It surely isn't.

Zelandakh, on 2014-June-11, 03:36, said:

Surely the regulation is much simpler. It is legal to open a natural 1NT.

So far, so good.

Zelandakh, on 2014-June-11, 03:36, said:

Natural means not more than 2 doubletons and no shortage.

That is not what the GCC says. It says "Naturally means generally no singleton/void".

Sorry, I didn't write it and I do not open or even rebid 1NT with a singleton (overcalls could be a different story), but that is what it says.

Rik

[Zelandakh]

The rest of my post was devoted to the generally Rik. What I am saying is that the generally is allowing for deviations whereas leaving it out would potentially result in any 1NT opening with a singleton being ruled illegal. Basically an illogical and ill-conceived shorthand, which therefore fits perfectly and is completely logical within that context.

[olegru]

nige1, on 2014-June-10, 18:48, said:

Is the following a fair summary of Trinidad's interpretation of the regulation? [/size]

• It's legal to agree to open/overcall 1N on a balanced hand.
• Generally, a "balanced" hand has no more than two doubletons but, exceptionally, may contain a singleton/void.
• You are allowed to agree to open 1N with singletons and voids and any subsequent agreement is allowed so you you may define conventions to locate that singleton/void.

I would reword it a little.
2. You are allowed to agree to open 1N with specific singletons in a specific distribution and any subsequent agreement is allowed so you may define conventions to locate that specific cases.

[Trinidad]

blackshoe, on 2014-June-11, 05:40, said:

I think Rik is right as to what the regulation really says. I think Zel is right as to the chance that Rik's interpretation will be followed, or the GCC changed.

I think you are right (particularly regarding your first sentence ). But I think the interpretation that you get in practice depends on the TD and the way you treat them. There are TDs in the ACBL who are sensitive to what the regulations say (at least there were when I used to play there). I think the people from the OP would have a good chance to get a ruling in their favor if they would get one of those TDs and say, politely and friendly:

"Look, the GCC regulates what agreements are allowed in this event. The GCC allows a 1NT opening for balanced hands, specifying that they generally do not contain a singleton. Our 1NT opening shows a balanced hand and generally does not contain a singleton: On most hands with a singleton we wouldn't dream of opening 1NT. The word 'generally' means that exceptions are allowed. This hand contained a singleton ace and the longest suit was jack empty fifth. I felt that this hand was really balanced, making it such an exception. I know my partner feels exactly the same, which inevitably means that we have an agreement to open such a hand - indeed with a singleton- 1NT. I think that the GCC allows such an agreement. The word 'generally' must be in there for a reason. Please, do me a favor and check the GCC before you give your ruling. Thank you."

Rik

[hrothgar]

Trinidad, on 2014-June-11, 08:07, said:

"Look, the GCC regulates what agreements are allowed in this event. The GCC allows a 1NT opening for balanced hands, specifying that they generally do not contain a singleton. Our 1NT opening shows a balanced hand and generally does not contain a singleton: On most hands with a singleton we wouldn't dream of opening 1NT. The word 'generally' means that exceptions are allowed. This hand contained a singleton ace and the longest suit was jack empty fifth. I felt that this hand was really balanced, making it such an exception. I know my partner feels exactly the same, which inevitably means that we have an agreement to open such a hand - indeed with a singleton- 1NT. I think that the GCC allows such an agreement. The word 'generally' must be in there for a reason. Please, do me a favor and check the GCC before you give your ruling. Thank you."

No one disputes that.

The disagreement comes about when your response structure to the 1NT opening includes methods that explicitly show a singleton.

Your thought experiment should also include the following:

"Thanks for your ruling. You should also be aware that our response structure to 1NT openings includes bids that ask for singletons. How does this change your answer?"

You're going to get a VERY different answer to this question.

[campboy]

No doubt the word "generally" is there for a reason. But perhaps the reason is to clarify that deviations are perfectly fine (contrast deviations on minimum opening strength, which I suspect would be treated as evidence of an illegal agreement). If you have methods to find out whether partner has a singleton, it stops being a deviation and becomes part of your agreements.

Is the current wording a good way of expressing that? Of course not. But after all, the current wording isn't a good way of expressing anything.

[ArtK78]

I don't know that I agree with the idea that the current wording is not a good way to express that opening 1NT with a singleton or void is a deviation and not a normal action. Sure, the wording could be clearer. It could state "While it is not illegal to open a natural 1NT with a singleton or a void, it is considered to be a deviation from standard practice and it is not permitted to have any agreements which recognize the possibility of this deviation." But the overwhelming majority of players would never consider opening 1NT with a singleton or a void, so it probably never occurred to the person or group of people who put together the Convention Chart that the language "generally not containing a singleton or a void or more than two doubletons" could be misinterpreted.

Quite frankly, I don't see the problem, either, although several esteemed posters (primarily from outside of ACBL land) seem to have a problem with it. Having played in ACBL tournaments for 42 years, I have never seen any dispute about opening 1NT with a shortness. As I mentioned in a prior post, I opened 1NT with a singleton K recently and got a good result. My opponents didn't realize what I had done until I told them about it, and they did not have any problem with it. Now, my partner and I employ a very sophisticated system over our 1NT openings, consisting of Stayman, 4-suit Transfers, 2 suited responses at the 3 level, Texas and Gerber. But since the auction continued ALL PASS we never got a chance to whip out our sophisticated methods and avoided any problem about disclosing the singleton later in the auction.

[aguahombre]

ArtK78, on 2014-June-11, 13:33, said:

As I mentioned in a prior post, I opened 1NT with a singleton K recently and got a good result. My opponents didn't realize what I had done until I told them about it, and they did not have any problem with it. Now, my partner and I employ a very sophisticated system over our 1NT openings, consisting of Stayman, 4-suit Transfers, 2 suited responses at the 3 level, Texas and Gerber. But since the auction continued ALL PASS we never got a chance to whip out our sophisticated methods and avoided any problem about disclosing the singleton later in the auction.

And I will guess that none of your elaborate methods would have uncovered the singleton anyway..but, if they were designed to do so, there could be a problem.