[acgoldis]

Hi!

This is a bit of a stretch, but bear with me. You know how the bidding sometimes depends on whether your side has unfavorable, neutral, or favorable vulnerability? And it doesn't matter as to which member of the partnership plays the contract when vulnerability is concerned?

Well, check out this idea.

The dealer and his LHO are non vulnerable.
The other two players are vulnerable.

Whether the contract is vulnerable depends on which partner is declarer.

What do you think?

[Vampyr]

acgoldis, on 2020-December-28, 18:18, said:

Hi!

This is a bit of a stretch, but bear with me. You know how the bidding sometimes depends on whether your side has unfavorable, neutral, or favorable vulnerability? And it doesn't matter as to which member of the partnership plays the contract when vulnerability is concerned?

Well, check out this idea.

The dealer and his LHO are non vulnerable.
The other two players are vulnerable.

Whether the contract is vulnerable depends on which partner is declarer.

What do you think?

The trouble is that natural bidding will be the casualty of this approach. Foe example, two-under transfer preempt would be the norm, with the non-vulnerable player bidding the actual suit. A lot of agreements would have to be non-symmetrical; this is not permitted in any NBO I know of.

[TylerE]

Vampyr, on 2020-December-28, 22:20, said:

The trouble is that natural bidding will be the casualty of this approach. Foe example, two-under transfer preempt would be the norm, with the non-vulnerable player bidding the actual suit. A lot of agreements would have to be non-symmetrical; this is not permitted in any NBO I know of.

Variation by vulnerability IS allowed everywhere I know of. What isn't is. "I play 12-14 NT, he plays 15-17".

[smerriman]

TylerE, on 2020-December-28, 22:31, said:

Variation by vulnerability IS allowed everywhere I know of. What isn't is. "I play 12-14 NT, he plays 15-17".

.. isn't that exactly what Vampyr said? Normal variation by vulnerability is symmetric; here it would not be, like your latter example.

[sfi]

I've been mulling bidding ideas for too long already - everybody would be using transfer openings of some sort. If you have the values, the vul player needs to declare. If not, the non-vul player can take the sacrifice.

Interesting idea though.

[sfi]

Vampyr, on 2020-December-28, 22:20, said:

A lot of agreements would have to be non-symmetrical; this is not permitted in any NBO I know of.

To be fair, the rules don't cater for the posited conditions in the first place. A few things would need to be modified, but first you would need people to start playing it and work out the kinks in the concept. Codified rules can come later.

[paulg]

System geeks would like it and be even more ostracised than they currently are. Club players would not be interested, just frustrated that there is something else that they should worry about but don't.

I think it would be too complicated for my Xmas pairs, although it is fair to say that they struggle with playing a board anti-clockwise and then struggle again playing the next board normally.

[paulg]

System geeks would like it and be even more ostracised than they currently are. Club players would not be interested, just frustrated that there is something else that they should worry about but don't.

I think it would be too complicated for my Xmas pairs, although it is fair to say that they struggle with playing a board anti-clockwise and then struggle again playing the next board normally.

[pescetom]

Playing a board anti-clockwise... I suspect not high on BBO's long TODO list

[sfi]

pescetom, on 2020-December-29, 03:25, said:

Playing a board anti-clockwise... I suspect not high on BBO's long TODO list

We used to extend this concept:

• Play is anti-clockwise
  
• Clubs are high, spades are low
  
• Twos are high, aces are low
  
• Partner of hand that wins the trick leads to the next one

Most are cosmetic changes, but the last one changes the cardplay in an interesting way. You can no longer run a long suit in one hand, for example.

Tip - never play this between bridge sessions. The first couple of boards in the next session are likely to be dreadful.

[paulg]

pescetom, on 2020-December-29, 03:25, said:

Playing a board anti-clockwise... I suspect not high on BBO's long TODO list

I didn't run my Xmas pairs this year because I suspected BBO would not implement half of the modifications necessary: to be fair to BBO I never actually asked.

[Vampyr]

paulg, on 2020-December-29, 07:23, said:

I didn't run my Xmas pairs this year because I suspected BBO would not implement half of the modifications necessary: to be fair to BBO I never actually asked.

Hmmm... interesting to think of Christmas party rules that you could use on BBO:

Dummy chooses own cards
Opening leader and dummy switch seats but each is still playing for their own side
You can never bid your longest suit.
Except for the lead to a trick, all players must play the highest card of the suit led
Dealer plays the hand in 2NTxx
Overtricks score the same as undertricks (if not using BBO to do the scoring)
Every bid must be a level higher than the previous one
The one-level is abolished; bidding starts at 2C (might stipulate that this is natural)
Everyone is allowed two bids (other calls unlimited)
Both sides have a dummy
Minors and majors scoring is reversed (again only if not scored by BBO)
If a contract is doubled, the pair’s vulnerability is reversed (again only etc)

These are off the top of my head. I’ll bet it is not too hard to produce a BBO Christmas party.

[shyams]

Vampyr, on 2020-December-29, 07:50, said:

Hmmm... interesting to think of Christmas party rules that you could use on BBO:

Dummy chooses own cards

There is an interesting variation in blitz chess called Hand & Brain.
* The stronger player is usually "The Brain" and he/she decides which piece to move. The other player ("The Hand") then moves that piece.
* The Brain is not allowed to state where the piece should land. Only The Hand gets to decide it.
* For example, The Brain looks at a position and wants to move the Queen side Rook 4 squares forward --- so the Brain says "Rook". Now the Hand has to assess whether The Brain wanted to move the King side Rook or the Queen side one. The Hand also has to decide how far the chosen Rook moves and in which direction.
* Funny positions and complications arise frequently because The Hand moves a piece too far or in the wrong direction, or chooses the wrong piece to move (e.g. light square bishop instead of the dark square bishop).

The analogous bridge variant could be Hand and Brain for dummy's cardplay. Declarer gets to call the suit alone. However, Dummy and only Dummy decides which card to play.

The impact on many deals will be minimal but occasionally it will lead to funny situations and unexpected complications when dummy plays the "wrong" card.

[apollo1201]

Vampyr, on 2020-December-29, 07:50, said:

Hmmm... interesting to think of Christmas party rules that you could use on BBO:

Dummy chooses own cards
Opening leader and dummy switch seats but each is still playing for their own side
You can never bid your longest suit.
Except for the lead to a trick, all players must play the highest card of the suit led
Dealer plays the hand in 2NTxx
Overtricks score the same as undertricks (if not using BBO to do the scoring)
Every bid must be a level higher than the previous one
The one-level is abolished; bidding starts at 2C (might stipulate that this is natural)
Everyone is allowed two bids (other calls unlimited)
Both sides have a dummy
Minors and majors scoring is reversed (again only if not scored by BBO)
If a contract is doubled, the pair’s vulnerability is reversed (again only etc)

These are off the top of my head. I’ll bet it is not too hard to produce a BBO Christmas party.

For a ladies’night we had stated that the 4 Qs (SHDC in that order) were the highest trumps. Even in a NT contract.

Other Xmas ideas:

We also created a « tarot » deal where everyone was bidding with 12 cards and 4 were hidden and taken face upwards by declarer, who then gave 1 to each player.

There was also a player who had « you can’t pass » (lots ended in 7XX!).