[Gerben42]

I see what you mean but the problem is not with the players, who are from a country where these methods are allowed, but with the committee who

a) Approved a convention card that was not to be approved.
b) Making rules that when BSC are allowed, to actually count them without considering HOW to count them.
c) Force people to write down "suggested defence" which might not be up to the standards of those who are going to use it.

I would give the pair you are talking about the benefit of the doubt and say they are ignorant of the rules, IIRC they have not played in the Bermuda Bowl before.

Anyway, I still think that in the nr.1 team tournament should allow all systems. If you take part in a World Championship, you will have to come prepared. In fact it is better that in the RR all is allowed, because then you are SURE you are going to meet these systems. It is sort of odd having to prepare specially for the KO phase.

Just so that you know what I'm talking about: At the junior European championships we played against Finland. They had some pretty weird stuff on their CC and it was my job to get a defence and talk the team through it. I think this is part of it.

What CAN be done is that top players share their experiences defending against BSC and put good defences online. One can for example find the British defense to Wilkosz on the Weak Two Archive site. Except for the 2♠ opening / overcall, these methods are not new or unknown (BTW I agree that their suggested defences are junk).

[hrothgar]

fred, on Sep 2 2005, 05:37 PM, said:

I will be playing in this year's Bermuda Bowl and our team's Captain and Coach are in the middle of the mammoth task of studying the convention cards of all of the pairs on all of the teams we will face, coming up with defenses to unusual systems that me and my teammates may not be familiar with, discussing these defenses with the team members, and writing them up.

Fortunately our team has the financial resources to hire professionals to do this for us. Fortunately also only 1 of our 6 players has a "normal" full time job so it should be possible for most of us to learn this material in time. I would guess that there are only a few other teams in the Bermuda Bowl (out of 22 I think) who will have the resources to be properly prepared for what they rate to face in Estoril.

This is an area where Fred and I (obviously) disagree strongly...

We're talking about a world championship. It seems strange to contemplate that competing in such an event wouldn't require extensive preparation.

Equally significant, I think that there is a reason why so many of the complaints come from North America.

1. The ACBL has shielded the participants from getting practical experience with methods in common use throughout the rest of the world
2. There seems to be very fundamental differences in expectations regarding the game. North Americans want a low variance game where they can focus on declarer play and defense. Other regions seem to be willing to tolerate a bit "rub of the green".

My last comment has to do with Fred's complaints regarding the standards of disclosure of other participants. I agree completely that partnerships should be expected to provide complete disclosure regarding their methods and look forward to the day where (for example) Meckwell post their complete systems notes for us to see. Equally significant, Chip Martel has commmented several times that Polish Club is badly flawed and that he has devised/employed a defense against this insidious method. He also refused to publically disclose said defense...

As I've noted many times in the past, it seems assinine to design a set of system regulations in which players are expected to provide "optimal" defenses to their own methods. I'm a simple boy, but there seems to be a conflict of interest here. The North Americans have decided to "cope" with this problem by hiring private coaches to develop proprietary defensive methods. Many locales in Europe use a more socialist approach. For example, the Swedish Bridge Federation employs profesionals to create a defensive database that they then make freely available to the membership as a whole.

For what its worth, there is an interesting relationship between the last two points that I raised. Many North Americans (including, for example, Wolffe) claim that unusual methods harm the field because players can't guaruntee that third parties are adequately prepared to defend against system XYZ. Assume for the moment that the North American teams have devised an optimal structure against the Estonian Forcing Pass. Even if they employed their wonderful defense, they'd still be disadvantaged in the Round Robin as the Estonians racked up big victories versus less well prepared teams. Never had much sympathy with this argument. If you're unwilling to publish the defense, you don't get to complain that other teams aren't defending well...

[the hog]

Its no surprise that I totally agree with the above comments. Also in my experience of playing against and with such systems I have found that the practitioners generally go out of their way to give full disclosure, more so than many who play natural methods. There are exceptions to this of course, but some people will always try to bend the rules.

T Fred: if you were taking part in the say Marathon in the Olympic games, then no doubt this would involve a huge amount pf preparation and training. I see no difference at all with this and preparing for the BB. An athlete who has more support from his Association or other resources will be able to be better prepared than one who hasn't.

[mike777]

The_Hog, on Sep 2 2005, 05:20 PM, said:

I have found that the practitioners generally go out of their way to give full disclosure, more so than many who play natural methods. There are exceptions to this of course, but some people will always try to bend the rules.

Hamman and Martel among other world champs have echoed Fred's comments for years. Full disclosure is a major not minor problem at the very top levels of bridge. They say they have no good solution to this problem after years of dealing with it. Allowing even more use of HUM would make this issue worse in their opinion.

I would only repeat if 75 of the top 200 WBF ranked players want more HUM, then tell us.

[the hog]

Well Hamman would say that, wouldn't he? I can point you in the direction of just as many top players who argue that many players of so called natural systems are loth to divulge their full agreements.

You clearly have not read or perhaps not understood my post and Richard's post.

[fred]

The_Hog, on Sep 2 2005, 10:20 PM, said:

T Fred: if you were taking part in the say Marathon in the Olympic games, then no doubt this would involve a huge amount pf preparation and training. I see no difference at all with this and preparing for the BB. An athlete who has more support from his Association or other resources will be able to be better prepared than one who hasn't.

Maybe you will see a difference if you go further with your analogy...

Suppose that:

- A marathon runner invents a special new pair of shoes designed primarily to make the other runners get cramps in their legs.

- The only way to properly counter the effects of these shoes is to hire a world class coach and to spend many hours of extra time preparing for each marathon.

- 95% of world class marthon runners (most of whom do not even have the resources to try) do not want to spend whatever "training time" they have in this way. Furthermore, most of these people would enjoy their sport more if the offending shoes were made illegal under the rules.

If the World Marathon Federation makes the questionable to decision to continue to allow such shoes, their goal should be try to minimizing the effect of the unfair advantage that these shoes provide. Having strict rules about the use of such shoes and forcing the runners who use them to follow these rules is not a lot to ask.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[hrothgar]

fred, on Sep 3 2005, 03:58 AM, said:

Maybe you will see a difference if you go further with your analogy...

Here's another possible interpretation:

Suppose that you are competing in a marathon. For whatever reason, you decide that running is aesthetically unpleasing. Instead of “running”, you prefer to “skip”. Moreover, since the runners have an advantage over you, you start petitioning the governing body to prevent other people from running...

I think that this analogy is much more apt that yours. It is certainly true that many bidding systems are designed to damage other players ability to exchange information. However, this is part and parcel of the game of bridge and its always been part of it.

You might not like this part of the game. However, ultimately this boils down to whether your external aesthetics should be imposed on other competitors...

[Free]

If everyone runs the marathon with the same shoes Fred mentions, then nobody has an advantage or disadvantage anymore. So why should the creative mind of this awesome inventer be punished?

If someone finds a wonderful method to use in a bidding system, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be allowed, even if it's destructive. Ok, people will have some extra work to prepare themselves.
But look at another much more similar sport: chess. If you don't prepare, you don't stand a chance. You need to know all openings, and there are lots of books about these! If someone finds out a new opening, then his opponent will have to think hard at the table, and cope with it. Hopefully next time he'll have a good response to it. We play a sport where you have to think: at the table and away from the table. But in bridge, there's an advantage since you won't get new things, because you (should) get the opponent's methods way before you have to play them.

[fred]

Free, on Sep 3 2005, 02:25 PM, said:

If everyone runs the marathon with the same shoes Fred mentions, then nobody has an advantage or disadvantage anymore. So why should the creative mind of this awesome inventer be punished?

If someone finds a wonderful method to use in a bidding system, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be allowed, even if it's destructive. Ok, people will have some extra work to prepare themselves.
But look at another much more similar sport: chess. If you don't prepare, you don't stand a chance. You need to know all openings, and there are lots of books about these! If someone finds out a new opening, then his opponent will have to think hard at the table, and cope with it. Hopefully next time he'll have a good response to it. We play a sport where you have to think: at the table and away from the table. But in bridge, there's an advantage since you won't get new things, because you (should) get the opponent's methods way before you have to play them.

If 5% of the players want the rules to be one way and the other 95% want them to be another way, why cater to the 5%?

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[cherdano]

Free, on Sep 3 2005, 04:25 PM, said:

But look at another much more similar sport: chess. If you don't prepare, you don't stand a chance. You need to know all openings, and there are lots of books about these! If someone finds out a new opening, then his opponent will have to think hard at the table, and cope with it. Hopefully next time he'll have a good response to it. We play a sport where you have to think: at the table and away from the table. But in bridge, there's an advantage since you won't get new things, because you (should) get the opponent's methods way before you have to play them.

You are describing one of the biggest reasons why many people prefer go over chess.

I think your comparison is flawed anyway. In chess, if you are really great you don't need to prepare against your opponents preparation at all, you can find the refutation during the game. In bridge, you cannot devise the best defense at the table, since your partner needs to have devised the same.

I wouldn't mind playing against a brown sticker convention myself. But then, I am not playing at a level where one misunderstanding in a set would be considered a disaster.

Arend

[OSH]

cherdano, on Sep 3 2005, 04:44 PM, said:

In chess, if you are really great you don't need to prepare against your opponents preparation at all, you can find the refutation during the game.

Without entering the main topic of your post, this is not true.
In chess you need a lot of preparation against your opponent, especially at high level. You need to know for example the (monthly) openings' updating.
In 80s, during the WC between Kasparov and Karpov, both had supporting people studying the preferred openings of the opponent. When Bobby Fisher came back to play, he lost some matches because his "opening library" was not updated.
In present time i think it is still worse, with strong pc programs that can do a big part of the work.

Marco

[hrothgar]

fred, on Sep 3 2005, 06:32 PM, said:

If 5% of the players want the rules to be one way and the other 95% want them to be another way, why cater to the 5%?

Comment 1: The easiest response is to bring up the notion of "Tyranny of the Majority". Most democratic societies recognize that a system of checks and balances is necessary to constrain the great unwashed masses. With this said and done, the legal construct is typically invoked for "serious" issues (Civil rights, lynchings, that sort of thing). Even I would agree that invoking this analogy to protect the freedom to play Regres trivializes an important legal concept.

Comment 2: The fact that a large number of people agree on something does not actually make it correct. Case in point: A recent Pew poll shows that a plurality - 42% - of American's believe in that Creationism is literal truth. This does not mean that Creationism is true. It does, however, make me question the reliability of trusting large groups of Americans to reach intelligent conclusions.

Comment 3: Its unclear to me where your 95% figure is coming from. While this might hold true in ACBL land, I doubt that its indicative of world wide opinion. Brown Sticker Conventions and HUMs are in widespread use outside North America. The ACBL is one of many Zonal authorities. Based on the most recent figures publish by the WBF, the ACBL makes up slightly less than 25% of the total membership base. In contrast, Europeans make up 56% of the membership. The next largest block is the Pacific, coming in at approximately 10%, followed by the South Pacific with 5% or so. All of these Zones feature much more liberal sets of convention regulations than North America. Given the expectation of large contractions in the ACBL's membership base in the coming years, these figures should favor the Europeans even more. I recognize that the ACBL has an expectation that the WBF should cater to its whims, however, the demographics don't justify special treatment.

[fred]

hrothgar, on Sep 3 2005, 04:37 PM, said:

Comment 2: The fact that a large number of people agree on something does not actually make it correct. Case in point: A recent Pew poll shows that a plurality - 42% - of American's believe in that Creationism is literal truth. This does not mean that Creationism is true. It does, however, make me question the reliability of trusting large groups of Americans to reach intelligent conclusions.

The goal is not to find out what constitutes "truth". It is to define the rules of a game such that the enjoyment level of the participants is maximized.

Like you, I don't trust large groups of people (American or otherwise) to come to sensible conclusions on matters of "fact", but this is not about a matter of fact - it is about what people want. People want whatever it is they want, regardless of whether or not someone else considers it "intelligent" to want that.

About the 95% number, I just made it up of course. I have no idea what the number really is. What if 95% is accurate? Are you really advocating making the game less enjoyable for that big a majority in order to satisfy the desires of a small minority of players? What if the number was 99%? What if only 1 bridge player in the whole world wanted the rules to be a certain way? I think that at some point you have to admit that it is right to cater to the masses (especially if you want people to continue to play the game).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[EricK]

For very many situations the majority of people are generally in favour of the status quo. So if they are in a situation where very few methods are allowed they would vote to continue that, but if they were in a place were lots of methods were allowed they would vote for that. What this shows is that while people may know what they are happy with, they may not be as good at determining what they would also be happy with (or maybe even happier with) if some changes were made.

Fred seems happy with the rules in North America. But I bet if he had lived and played bridge all his life in Australia he would be happy with the Australian rules.

One problem bridge faces is that is a worldwide game played with local rules. This may very well change if internet bridge continues its rise. But as things stand you have the ridiculous situation of people qualifying for a competition playing methods which both they and the teams they beat are perfectly happy with, and yet not being allowed to use those same methods in the supposedly higher standard tournament they have qualified for.

Eric

[hrothgar]

fred, on Sep 3 2005, 08:34 PM, said:

About the 95% number, I just made it up of course. I have no idea what the number really is. What if 95% is accurate? Are you really advocating making the game less enjoyable for that big a majority in order to satisfy the desires of a small minority of players? What if the number was 99%? What if only 1 bridge player in the whole world wanted the rules to be a certain way? I think that at some point you have to admit that it is right to cater to the masses (especially if you want people to continue to play the game).

I certainly agree that mass market forms of entertainment need to cater to the specific needs of their customer base. There's all sorts of debate in the "literature" regarding whether its more important to be targeting the median as opposed to lead users. With this said and done, I think that most marketing types would love to be able to perfectly meet the needs of 95% of their membership base.

However, I think that we'd both agree that neither the ACBL nor the WBF is particularly good at surveying the opinions of the membership...

[Gerben42]

Quote

It is to define the rules of a game such that the enjoyment level of the participants is maximized.

While this might be the case for low level tournaments enjoyment should not be the first thing in mind when constructing rules for the Bermuda Bowl.

Take for example the pair who play the Brown Sticker openings AND overcalls. They are used to playing these methods, they are allowed in any tournament of interesting level in their home country, yet they cannot play this in the Bermuda Bowl.

And the overcalls of 1♣ are ONLY considered Brown Sticker after a std. American 1♣ opening bid but not after an opening bid that shows only 2♣ although this an almost equal opening bid, or a Standard Polish opening bid.

As it is now, one can play any convention you like against 1♣ "standard Polish", but not any convention you like against 1♣ "standard American". This can't be fair.

If there are NO system restrictions at the highest level then it makes sure that everyone is on equal grounds. This is the fairest solution for everyone.

[mike777]

hrothgar, on Sep 3 2005, 01:09 PM, said:

fred, on Sep 3 2005, 08:34 PM, said:

About the 95% number, I just made it up of course. I have no idea what the number really is. What if 95% is accurate? Are you really advocating making the game less enjoyable for that big a majority in order to satisfy the desires of a small minority of players? What if the number was 99%? What if only 1 bridge player in the whole world wanted the rules to be a certain way? I think that at some point you have to admit that it is right to cater to the masses (especially if you want people to continue to play the game).

I certainly agree that mass market forms of entertainment need to cater to the specific needs of their customer base. There's all sorts of debate in the "literature" regarding whether its more important to be targeting the median as opposed to lead users. With this said and done, I think that most marketing types would love to be able to perfectly meet the needs of 95% of their membership base.

With this said and done, I think that we'd both agree that neither the ACBL nor the WBF is particularly good at surveying the opinions of the membership...

Well the membership is not too good at telling the leadership what they want. Either that or they simply do not care enough about any change.

Case in point was my earlier post of a survey of South Calif. membership on local issues affecting them directly. Less than 1% responded to a series of questions over a 3 month polling period.

Of course as I stated in my above posts, should leadership lead or simply follow the expressed desires of the majority on this HUM issue?

1) Perhaps the great silence means there is no great desire for change on this issue?
2) Perhaps the masses need to be lead? Example there was no great demand for 24 hour sports network but once it was offered we cannot live without it .

[DrTodd13]

fred, on Sep 3 2005, 09:34 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Sep 3 2005, 04:37 PM, said:

Comment 2: The fact that a large number of people agree on something does not actually make it correct.  Case in point: A recent Pew poll shows that a plurality - 42% - of American's believe in that Creationism is literal truth.  This does not mean that Creationism is true.  It does, however, make me question the reliability of trusting large groups of Americans to reach intelligent conclusions.

The goal is not to find out what constitutes "truth". It is to define the rules of a game such that the enjoyment level of the participants is maximized.

Like you, I don't trust large groups of people (American or otherwise) to come to sensible conclusions on matters of "fact", but this is not about a matter of fact - it is about what people want. People want whatever it is they want, regardless of whether or not someone else considers it "intelligent" to want that.

About the 95% number, I just made it up of course. I have no idea what the number really is. What if 95% is accurate? Are you really advocating making the game less enjoyable for that big a majority in order to satisfy the desires of a small minority of players? What if the number was 99%? What if only 1 bridge player in the whole world wanted the rules to be a certain way? I think that at some point you have to admit that it is right to cater to the masses (especially if you want people to continue to play the game).

The majority is always unstoppable. Rules and constitutions cannot stop them because they can simply ignore the rules or change the constitution. Who can prevent it since they are the majority? Truth, right and wrong do exist but they are not defined by the majority. They are largely irrelevant because the majority will define their own false "truth." I personally find the viewpoint that society or a game should be modified for the maximum enjoyment of the most people to be highly offensive. I'd rather have a set of unchanging consistent rules even if I didn't like some of the consequences than a situation in which everyone is fighting to get their own agendas codified in the laws. I guess this opinion comes from being perpetually abnormal and always being in the minority. I might offer though that the initial developers of the rules were closer to the pure "right and wrong" versus "what rules would make people happy." If we took a vote on 40A, do we believe that most people would vote to retain the right to psyche when most people themselves never ever psyche and only get upset when people do it against them?

[fred]

Sorry Todd, but I don't understand your post.

Bridge is a game. The purpose of games is to provide enjoyment for those who play them. What could possibly be offensive about designing a game so that those who play it will enjoy it as much as possible?

I would actually go as far as to say it is a practical necessity for the people who make the rules of games to be concerned about such things. If people don't enjoy playing a particular game then they will find something else to do with their time.

How can concepts like "truth" apply to the rules of games (which are arbitrary)?

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Free]

fred, on Sep 3 2005, 09:04 PM, said:

Sorry Todd, but I don't understand your post.

Bridge is a game. The purpose of games is to provide enjoyment for those who play them. What could possibly be offensive about designing a game so that those who play it will enjoy it as much as possible?

I would actually go as far as to say it is a practical necessity for the people who make the rules of games to be concerned about such things. If people don't enjoy playing a particular game then they will find something else to do with their time.

How can concepts like "truth" apply to the rules of games (which are arbitrary)?

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

While I totally agree that bridge is a game and should be fun, when playing games at top level they're not for fun, they're for competition and money. Look at any sport, any game, any whatever I've forgotten: you'll see the same principle over and over again: at top sport it's about winning, not 'fun'. What's fun about running 42km alone? What's fun about tennis when you have to concentrate 100% for every point? What's fun in the pain during every training? (ok, some people just like pain, but that's not the point)

Topsport = competition
Topsport != enjoyment

So when defining the regulations for the players who want to enjoy, go ahead, restrict systems and conventions to protect the fun of the game, and what most people want. But when it comes to top competition, imo there's no need to ban any system or convention.
Over time, perhaps people all together will find perfect systems and defenses and the game will be fun since they'll all play the same system - that perfect one