JanM

I think that if you "experiment" with this system in the BBO Partnership Bidding section, you will quickly find that it really isn't a playable system, even without competition. However, I also think that if you really wanted to play it, it would be GCC legal. I can't see any reason that canape openings are not allowed (I suspect you'd want to open 1♥ with some hands with a longer minor in order to limit the 2m bids). The opponents could easily treat your 1♦ opening the same as a Precision ♦ in the bidding but have additional information if you were on defense. Limiting the 1♦ bid to exactly 4 spades makes it much easier for the opponents to deal with (and much less effective :P).

I see that I didn't phrase my statement about Cascade's attitude in this thread well. First, I don't think that any C&C members are reading this thread. Second, I don't think that C&C members act capriciously or based on their own personal prejudices. What I do think is that attitudes like Cascade's are less likely to get positive responses than attitudes like Fred's. If you think that means people are prejudiced and the "high and mighty" C&C committee in particular act in their own best interests, so be it. As far as the legality of 1♦ showing spades: I believe that in order for a 1♦ bid showing 4 spades to be a "catchall" it would have to be played as part of a system that no one would seriously want to play (a system where every other bid denied 4 spades). In addition, it would probably have to show exactly 4 spades, not 4 or more spades. When someone suggested that was the way to get a 1♦ bid showing spades approved it sounded to me as if that was somewhat facetious. What you really want to play is 1♦ showing 4+ spades and an opening bid (at least I think that's what you really want to play) That bid is clearly not GCC legal; it isn't a catchall 1♦ bid and that's the only way it would qualify under the GCC. That bid is currently not Midchart legal because no defense to it has been approved. To the best of my knowledge there is no defense being reviewed for approval, but I could be wrong on that. I believe that there is a defense to 1♦ showing 5+ spades being reviewed, but I am not certain of that either. The current Midchart makes it very clear (I think) what bids are and are not allowed; you shouldn't be guessing about whether something that is not GCC-legal is allowed under the Midchart. The argument for 1♦ showing 4 spades as a "catchall" is based on the GCC. Once you realize that it is very unlikely for that argument to apply to a system anyone would want to play, it is easy to see that the transfer 1 bids are not Midchart legal because they are not listed in opening bids that are allowed. 1♣ showing hearts and 1♦ showing spades are Superchart legal. No recommended defense is required for Superchart events. On the other hand, there aren't very many of them (perhaps only the Vanderbilt, Spingold and Team Trials KO stages). Marston played Moscito in the Vanderbilt a couple of years ago (I know that because Chip's team played them so we put together a quick and dirty defense). They had rolled over their first few opponents and then lost badly to Chip's team. Whether that means that Moscito is more successful against unprepared opponents or simply that Chip's team was significantly better than the ones they had played earlier I do not know. I see that your initial post also asked about responses to the 1♣ and 1♦ bids should you be allowed to play them. The responses would have to be included in the recommended defense - IOW, the defense needs to include what bids should mean after your response, so I suppose that means that your response structure is reviewed in the context of whether your defense works against it, but in general constructive responses and rebids are allowed (I don't know why the chart lists rebids before responses).

You may think that rules that define 1♦ as showing 4+ spades are ridiculous, but those are in fact the rules that pertain in the ACBL. For a director to rule that 5 card Majors are illegal would be ridiculous and impossible - it just wouldn't happen. For a director to rule that 1♦ showing 4+ spades is illegal is not only not ridiculous, it is the correct ruling. Your comments on this thread remind me of a time many years ago when I was playing in an NABC pair event with Chip. A pair came to our table and explained that their 1♣ opening showed 4+ hearts and their 1♦ opening showed 4+ spades. I asked Chip what we did against that and he said that we called the director because it was illegal. We called the director; the opponents said that the method was legal because the Midchart said you could play any bid that showed 4+ cards in a known suit. Chip said that he knew it was illegal because the Midchart also requires an approved defense. The director looked confused, went off to consult with someone else and eventually returned to say that (surprise) Chip was right and the opponents could not use their methods in this event. We played the two boards against them. They went off to the next table, where we heard them explaining to their new opponents that their 1♣ opening showed 4+ hearts and their 1♦ opening showed 4+ spades! Of course, by this time we were late, so although we did call the Director, we didn't pay attention to what went on at the next table, so I don't know whether they were penalized or just told not to do that any more. As I've been reading the various threads here about the C&C committee (or the Convention Approval Subcommittee) not approving these particular bids, I can't help but wonder whether the attitude of this pair might make Chip, subconsciously at least, less positively inclined towards the method. And if any member of the C&C committee were to read your posts here, surely the result would be to make them more opposed to allowing whatever methods you favor than they might be now.

Well, I was better at estimating :). I got 4, felt like that was about all I was the least bit confident about.

I think it was RHO who opened 2♠, so LHO didn't preempt with a 10-high suit, he just raised partner's preempt. It seems to me that we can either play RHO for a stiff diamond or 3 diamonds from the lead of the diamond 2 at trick 3. With a stiff, he'll probably be 6313 or 6214, and the former is more likely. With 3, he'll be 6331, 6232 or 6133; 6331 seems very unlikely (why not shift to a club). If has 3 diamonds and either 6232 or 6133, we can make by winning in hand, cashing the heart A (just in case there's a stiff Q), then AK of diamonds (pitching a club), AK of clubs, and J of hearts finessing into RHO. If he wins this, having been 6232, he's out of everything but spades and has to give us a ruff-sluff to get rid of another club. If he was 6133, the finesse wins and we lose a club. But if he has a stiff diamond, he'll ruff the second diamond and we may still lose a club. So which is more likely? This is the sort of hand where it helps to look at the hands you're playing both opponents for - maybe you can decide that one set of hands is more likely than the other. RHO: AKJxxx, Qx, xxx, xx or AKJxxx, x, xxx, xxx, which gives LHO: Txx, xx, Jxxxx, Qxx or Txx, Qxx, Jxxxx, Qx. Pretty weak raises for LHO, but not unreasonable (of course he might have the spade A, but it seems strange not to lead it). or RHO: AKJxxx, Qxx, x, xxx or AKJxxx, xx, x, xxxx and LHO: Txx, x, Jxxxxxxx, Qx or Txx, Qx, Jxxxxxx, x - might have led a club with that, mightn't he? But certainly the 7 diamonds make the raise more attractive. I'm not sure. If you're looking for a "newspaper" hand, you definitely go for the endplay. And you did provide the "aggressive" information about LHO, so presumably he'd have raised 2♠ to 3, even vul against not, with something like Txx, xx, Jxxxx, Qxx. Also, if you think that RHO would have opened 1♠, not 2, with AKJxxx, xx, x, Qxxx or AKJxxx, Qxx, x, Qxx, that makes the endplay line a winner many times even when it's wrong, since LHO will have the club Q either stiff or doubleton a significant number of the times that RHO has a stiff diamond, so although you'll lose the diamond ruff, you won't lose a club.

I would love to hold the Junior Trials at a time separate from an NABC. Every time I have suggested that, the Juniors have strongly rejected it. That problem does not arise for the Open, Women's or Seniors Trials. So long as the Juniors are adamant that they want their Trials to be with an NABC (preferably the Summer NABC), we have very limited possibilities. We can't start any earlier than Wednesday because there isn't playing space (the reason I do not know for certain that we will start Wednesday is that there may not be space on Wednesday). We could start on Friday, which would avoid most of the GNTs (but not all) at the cost of making all of the participants miss the LMPs. I don't think there is any other time during the Summer NABC that would be better. If we put the Trials the final weekend (possibly starting Friday), we'd risk conflicting with late rounds of the Spingold and mini-Spingolds, as well as the final weekend Swiss, which many of you want to play in. During the week, we're sure to conflict with the Spingold and mini-Spingolds. I'm sorry that you didn't know this was going to happen. That's one of the reasons we're trying to put together a USBF Junior mailing list and send out a regular newsletter. But in the meantime, I probably should have announced tentative plans here and on the usbf website a month ago when they were starting to gel. I apologize for not doing so.

REALLY!?!?!?!?!?! Yes, really. As soon as we have confirmation of space, we'll be posting dates and Conditions of Contest on the usbf website. I think that the Trials will start on Wednesday, July 22nd and continue for 2, 3 or 4 days depending on the number of teams that enter. The format will be very much like last year's FISU Trials; the event will be open to teams of 4, 5 or 6 players who are eligible to compete in the U26 event in 2010.

Thanks for all the prompt replies here :). And a special thanks to Uday & Adam for helping me get some names and email addresses. I agree with Adam that there aren't very many eligible players out there, and I hope that during the next year and a half we can find them and also give them some training. My personal opinion (not to be confused with any USBF position) is that we shouldn't use a Pairs Trials to select international teams. I believe that for two reasons - first, as some people have said, "team spirit" is more important than it might seem. Sure, you don't actually play at the same table as your teammates, but it's still a big deal how you get along. I've seen too many under-performing and over-performing teams not to believe in that. Second, and probably equally important, even in a relatively small and select IMP pairs event, there's a lot of randomness. Look at the Cavendish. For them, the randomness is good - how else would they get people to put so much into the auction? But for purposes of choosing the best team, it isn't. If you told me we had to use a pairs format, I'd prefer a matchpoint event, not IMP pairs. But of course that's not a good idea either.

How can you proctor online tournements? Maybe send an ACBL Tournement director to the person's house? I guess that would make sense :rolleyes:. I think that we could do this by having players play at a local bridge club where the director would wander by occasionally to check that the player isn't talking on a phone or IM'ing. In a world where we all have easy internet access and laptops, I don't think it would be hard to find a club within at most an hour's drive for each player.

This is an attempt both to solicit ideas for how to recruit, train and select players for the U21 event at the 2010 World Junior Championship and to get expressions of interest from players who will be eligible for the event. I'm sure there are countries other than the US who have the same issue, but there are some ways in which the US is different, so I'll limit to our issues. Some background facts: There will be a World Junior Championship in 2010, but we don't know where or exactly when; it may be held in conjunction with the Open World Championship. The WJC will include an event for U21 teams, which means players all of whom turn 21 no earlier than 1/1/2010. The US is entitled to two U21 teams, as well as two U26 teams (please let's not get sidetracked into whether this is right or wrong :huh:). The U26 teams will be selected by a team trials, probably immediately preceding the summer 2009 NABC. Right now, I have contact information for only about 5 or 6 eligible players. Given that: 1. Are you an eligible player who thinks s/he would want to play in the U21 WJC? If you are, please send me an email (marteljan at gmail dot com) with your name, birth year & email address. 2. If you were the USBF Junior Committee and Board of Directors what would you do to find & train these teams? I'm actually interested in wide-ranging discussion here, but just to get things started, some suggestions that have been made are: Run a Trials for U21 teams at the same time as the U26 Trials Run a Trials for U21 teams at some other time during the 2009 Summer NABC Run a Trials for U21 teams at the 2009 Fall NABC/2010 Spring NABC Hold training sessions on BBO that are open to any US player in the right age group, then select teams based on performance in these training sessions Hold training sessions on BBO then have a Team Trials sometime in 2010 (when? one possibility I've thought of is at the end of our 2010 Open Team Trials, which will be the end of June) Hold training sessions on BBO then have a Team Trials also on BBO (what do we do about security? Does it matter?) Caveat: We do want to hear from you, whether you're eligible to play or not, but of course the final decisions will be made by the USBF Junior committee and Board. Jan Martel, this time writing in a quasi official capacity as USBF Tournament Committee Chair

Interestingly, this same theme is presented, from the defender's point of view, in this month's Swiss Match in the Bridge World. See Board 3, February 2009. It's on page 16 :) [hv=n=sakqthkqj6dj5cakj&w=sj65ha2dakt84cq53&e=shdc&s=shdc]399|300|1♦ DBL 2♦ P P DBL P 2♥ P 4♥ PPP You lead the Diamond A and partner encourages.[/hv] Chip, who showed me the BW hand after I'd shown him the amusing one here, had refused to play the hand I gave him, saying he'd need to know the auction and who RHO was. The auction because it would be relevant whether RHO could know that his partner had no tricks. Who RHO was, to know whether RHO might lead a club from three small to try to develop a trick out of thin air.

I agree about late rounds of long matches, but this was the 2nd or 3rd quarter and they were playing on a 6 person team. Maybe it was just normal tiredness, but I'm not convinced.

Watching for a bit last night, I wondered whether playing a system like this with a lot of artificiality might involve so much drain on one's memory as to make other things more difficult. The last hand of the set I watched (I think it was the third set of the semi's, but perhaps the 2nd), one of them played 4♠ on this hand (how do some of you make those nice hand diagrams?) ♠ 98x ♥ --- ♦ Qxxx ♣ KQTxxx ♠ Txx ♠ Kx ♥ Q98xx ♥ Jxx ♦ --- ♦ AKJxxxx ♣ AJxxx ♣ x ♠ AQJxx ♥ AKxxx ♦ xx ♣ x Auction was 3[C] - 3♦ - 3♠ - P - 4♥ - P - 4♠ -PPP West led the heart 9, making it obvious to everyone within miles that he didn't have any diamonds. Declarer ruffed the heart, led the K of clubs to the A. West shifted (wisely) to a trump, which went to the K and A. Declarer ruffed another heart and led the Q of clubs, which East ruffed. Overruff, pull trumps, cash heart AK leaving: ♠ --- ♥ --- ♦ Qx ♣ Txx ♠ --- ♠ --- ♥ Q ♥ --- ♦ --- ♦ AKJxx ♣ Jxxx ♣ --- ♠ x ♥ x ♦ xx ♣ --- Now declarer claimed (correctly in my opinion) but he claimed -1, conceding the 3 red tricks. Surely if he'd been alert he would have known he could play a heart to West and pitch his diamonds on the J and ten of clubs? Maybe this was just "last boarditis," a disease from which lots of us suffer, but maybe it was aided by the drain of all the artificial bids.

I watched Ware & McManus last night. Their system isn't really a forcing pass - their pass shows either 0-6 or 15-18. I suppose that after PP, third hand would be likely to bid with enough for game opposite the 15-18 hand, but in fact that never arose, since their opponents were (sensibly I think) just playing their normal methods after the opening Pass, so 2nd hand always bid. All of the opening Passes by Ware-McManus were 0-6 and the main effect of the pass was to deter partner from competing on one hand where competing probably would have been successful, and to help the opponents with the play of a couple of other hands. They opened 1♥ showing 7-10 any once, and the rest of the time opened 2-under 1 of a minor, which did cause some difference to the final contract from that at the other table, but not much.

Back in the misty past, before this rule applied, the sort of hands that psyched 2♣ (at least the ones I heard of) and that caused the imposition of the rule were xxx,xxx,xxxx,xxx, not AKQJxxxs, Jxx, --, xx.

I think that all methods have their "I hate it" auctions. Certainly when you're playing weak NTs, 1♦-1NT is one of those. There isn't any really good solution to it. You can improve things by not opening 1♦ as often with a strong NT (your example hand can comfortably open 1♣, lying a little about minor suit shape). But if you're going to open 1♦ sometimes with a strong NT, responder is going to have to bid 1NT with too wide a range of hands and you'll either go down in 2NT when you could make 1, or miss game. Opening all strong NTs 1♣ helps, especially if you play transfer responses and 1♠ shows any response with no 4 card major. Then you can respond 1NT only with a narrow specific range of hands (we use it for hands that would invite opposite a strong NT, because we hate to play 2NT if we don't have to). But you also add a lot of complexity. It took us months to put the structure in place and we're still working on it, especially in competitive auctions. If there were a method that avoided all of the "bad" sequences, we'd all be playing it, wouldn't we? So mainly it's a matter of knowing what the problems are and being prepared for them. For instance, before I'd open 1♦ with a strong NT, I'd always decide what I was going to do if partner responded 1NT - after all, you know that's the problem auction, so be ready for it. And once in a while a smooth 1♦-1NT-P auction will convince the opponents to balance. Not often, but it does happen. It won't if it goes 1♦-1NT- agonized huddle P.

Actually, Bermuda has "moved" to the Central American Zone in order to improve its chances of qualifying for the BB. It is in the somewhat strange position of being a member of ACBL but not in WBF Zone 1. The second team is selected by a playoff between teams from Mexico and Canada. I believe that Canada has won that playoff every time it has been held. In some years, Mexico has not participated and then the Canadian team is the third North American representative. The Canadian team is chosen at the CNTC. The US qualifies two teams from one Trials in a year like this one where the previous year was an Olympiad year. For the BB, we qualify one team a year in advance in Rosenblum years. For the VC and SB, we qualify 2 teams in each odd numbered year.

I don't think I understand your question. The Zonal Authority for each Zone gets to decide how its representatives are chosen (except in our Zone, where the ZA is restricted by the rule that there have to be 2 US teams and one team from either Mexico or Canada). The EBL, as I understand it, uses the European Championships in even numbered years to select its teams. The countries that finished in the the top 6 in the Europeans in 2008 are entitled to send teams to the 2009 Bermuda Bowl. ACBL has authorized USBF to choose the 2 US teams - they will be selected by a Team Trials to be held in June of 2009. I'm afraid I'm not so familiar with the selection procedures in other Zones, but I think that most of them also have some sort of Trials or Zonal Championship to select the countries that will be entitled to send teams. I believe Orlam was joking :rolleyes:

You're right and I'm the one who's tired :rolleyes:. No wait, double dummy I think declarer can still do it. Ruff the heart, cash AK of spades, AKQ of clubs, A of diamonds, J of clubs, diamond. Now West can't cash the long club if he ruffs the diamond.

The teams qualifying from the Zones will be as follows: Zone 1 - 6 Teams Zone 2 - 3 Teams Zone 3 - 3 Teams Zone 4 - 2 Teams Zone 5 - 1 Teams Zone 6 - 3 Teams Zone 7 - 2 Teams Zone 8 - 2 Teams If any Zone does not fill its quota the first berth will be offered to Zone 1, the second one to Zone 6 Zone 1 is Europe Zone 2 is North America, and although it says "3 teams" in fact that's 2 from the US and 1 from Canada or Mexico. Zone 3 is South America Zone 4 is Asia & Middle East Zone 5 is Central America Zone 6 is Pacific Asia Zone 7 is South Pacific Zone 8 is Africa

It doesn't really help West to pitch a diamond on the third heart, does it? Declarer plays 3 spades, cashes the AKQ of clubs, then plays A and a diamond. Same 10 tricks. You can fix that by giving West all of the clubs, but then West can defeat the hand when declarer makes the "right" play of pitching a diamond on the third heart, by ruffing and giving partner a club ruff. I think you probably have to give East the 4 spades in order to make the "right" play right :rolleyes:

It's an Excel form, and unfortunately it has some funny formatting (a hard page break between columns I think) that makes it impossible to save it as a one page PDF. If you don't have Excel, maybe you can us Open Office or something like that to open the file. Or if someone more knowledgeable about Excel than I can turn it into a PDF (or just get rid of the page break), I'd be happy to post a PDF version of it, and I'm sure Molva would also.

OK, I have to confess - somehow your wtp made me scroll and before I did I thought "what joke is he about to make about Gerber?" :ph34r:

You make some good points, Justin. I think my feeling that the competitive hands work out better in a weak NT based system is just that I more often see problems caused by 1m openers that can be either quite good shaped hands with a real suit or a weak NT than I do ones caused by 1m openers with either a real suit or extra strength. But maybe it's just that I've played this style for a long time so it feels more comfortable to me. There are going to be awkward hands playing any system, and particularly after the opponents make a weak jump overcall (especially 2♠ of course :ph34r:). But it seems to me that I see hands where it goes 1m-2♠ and I look at the responding hand and think "3m, wtp" and then I realize that for this particular responder, partner might have a 4333 12 count, so the raise might get them to a very silly contract. OTOH, if it goes 1m-2♠-P-P to me and I have a 4333 16 count, I might get a poor result by passing, but it won't be a disaster - if we could make a partscore higher than 2♠ maybe we'll beat them. And if we can't beat them, maybe our teammates bid 2♠ over 1NT at the other table and got to play it there. The worst thing that's going to happen is that we'll end up defending a making partscore when we had a making partscore and our teammates couldn't bid over 1NT and the opponents got to the partscore that makes - I know, that's 7 IMPs, but on balance I think the losses because responder can't compete with moderate support for the opened minor are worse. Rarely, we can make a game and responder can't bid, but usually if we can make game, responder will be able to do something (of course your 3235 9 count after 1♦-2♠ is an exception, although sometimes I might raise diamonds with that). Maybe I'm wrong. It's a long time since I've played a strong NT system for more than a very few sessions (and those were matchpoints). And it is clearly true that to get full benefit from taking the weak NT hands out of our opening minor suit bids, we have to add a lot of agreements. For instance, we solve the unbalanced minimum with 3 card support by playing transfer responses to 1♣ and transfer rebids after 1♦-1M. That allows us to find out which hand opener has below 2M (out of comp). Still, we used to raise 1m-1M with both 3 and 4 in unbalanced hands, as well as with the 15-17 4 card support hands, and didn't have a lot of problems. But my opening bids may be a little sounder than yours, and maybe even more so when I didn't have as many gadgets available.

I found that an interesting comment, because my impression is the opposite - the main advantage I think I gain from playing a weak(ish) NT (12-14, sliding about half a point depending on vul) is on the hands where I don't open 1NT. And it's those hands that make it hard for me to adjust to playing a strong NT - my instincts are all wrong when one of us opens 1 of a minor and there's competition. So perhaps both Frances and I are thinking about what happens for us when playing an unfamiliar range. The competitive auctions become less comfortable for each of us without the experience we have from having played a lot of hands using our preferred NT range. Could it be that Frances is playing in an environment that is dominated by weak NT, while you are playing in a strong NT environment? I suspect that any significant advantage is more likely to be caused by opps that are unfamiliar with your methods (here NT range), than any technical merit. That's true about hands where we open 1NT - then what the opponents are familiar with is important. But on the hands where we don't open 1NT, I think it's our familiarity with the sorts of hands partner will have and how different bids will work out (in competitive situations) that's more important. So I don't think that the fact that I play in a strong NT dominated culture and Frances in one where weak NT is more common is what influences our opinions about the hands where we don't open 1NT.