JanM

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.

The rule against psyching an artificial opening bid was added to ACBL laws sometime in the 60's. I remember because Mike Lawrence used to like to do it, and right before the rule became effective, he found several opportunities. I'm afraid I don't remember the hands or whether it worked - you'd have to ask Lew Stansby about that, since he never forgets a bridge hand. :D

The flags show on BBO-win if you have it set to (I think) wide screen - so if you're not seeing flags, try ctrl-W and see whether that makes them show. The profile information that appears if you mouse over the name of a player only appears if the operator has typed in the player's "real name" in the profile.

Hijacking a little :). I haven't been able to find an easy way to convert Word documents to good HTML. The converter in Word itself doesn't do a good job, copying and pasting usually messes up formatting and numbering. As a result, all of the Conditions of Contest posted on the USBF site are PDFs and I spend a ridiculous amount of time converting tables that are easy to produce in Word or Excel into web pages (I'm not good at HTML; I'm using the Joomla editor). I'd actually prefer to post HTML if there was an easy way to do that. Any suggestions?

I don't know what a person's WBF number is - it isn't your ACBL number. I think it just gets assigned the first time you play in a WBF event. I also don't know where on the WBF website to find the "Registration Form" that we were asked to have all of our Junior players fill out before Beijing. I think that if you fill that form out and email it to WBF, they'll give you a number. I do know that as an ACBL member you are a WBF member - ACBL pays WBF dues for all of its members. Because I can deal with the USBF website better than I can with the WBF website, I put the Registration Form on the USBF website. It's an Excel document. You can download it from the USBF website. Complete it and follow the instructions to email it and hopefully you'll get a WBF number. If you've ever played in a WBF event and need to find your number, you can do that by going to the WBF masterpoints site. There you can enter your name and find out what your number is.

Personally, I love Reno - I can drive there, I enjoy the scenery on the way and the view from the hotel, there are good restaurants, the playing conditions are good (at least now that we don't have to play in (on?) the tennis courts any more. But of course, what I like is completely irrelevant - I'm going to go to the NABC wherever it is. The people whose attendance affects the table count are surely the ones for whom NABCs are discretionary - those who don't go to all of them. lt's an interesting question what makes those people choose to go to one city but not another. There are lots of possibilities, I just don't know which are more important. How easy is it to get to the site? Reno isn't very good on this, Las Vegas is great, Boston & Houston probably somewhere in between. Does it matter a lot or a little to the "discretionary" people whether they have to change planes on the way to an NABC site? Are there things to do around the playing site? Within walking distance or easy to get to on public transportation. Since I have a car in Reno, it's easy for me to get to the restaurants and casinos that aren't nearby. In Boston I could walk to interesting places. I don't know about Houston, but my recollection from the last time we were there is that there was very little nearby. Are there convenient restaurants? Within walking distance? Does that matter to people? I'm a "bridge tournaments are for playing bridge" kind of person, so I tend to go grocery shopping and eat dinner in my room when I'm playing, but it's nice to be able to go out when not. San Francisco was great, Reno's good except you need to have a car or take a cab. Boston was somewhat limited. I don't know about Houston. How much difference does it make to the "discretionary" players when there isn't one site where all the games are played? I'd think it would be something of a problem, since I suspect that the "discretionary" players are more likely to want to play in the NABC events but then if they get eliminated would tend to want to play in the Regional events rather than kibitz the NABC events. That might have been a problem with Boston.

I use Shevek's method, with 3B (cue bid is Michaels, though, not the unshown Major and diamonds). I think that's more useful than natural. If I were going to play the cue bid as natural, I'd want to keep 2♣ as Michaels because that's my "normal" agreement and I think it's more important to be able to get into the auction with a 2-suiter that includes the other Major than with a club one-suiter. In this situation, as in most memorized defense situations, and even to some extent in written defense situations, I like to get the auction to what's "normal" for me and my partner as soon as possible. So perhaps one of the reasons I like to use the cuebid as 2-suited instead of natural is that I normally play (1m)-P-(1M)-2M as natural, so I have a way of bidding the natural hands with their Major (if it isn't good enough to bid at the 2 level probably it isn't good enough to bid :P).

I agree that it's very frustrating when the rules aren't clear and the directors don't understand them. And it doesn't only happen at club games. I was a Vugraph operator on a hand in a Vanderbilt or Spingold match once where a question came up about something having to do with systems and it took something like three director consultations to get an answer - at some point during the rather lengthy delay, the two pairs involved agreed that they'd let me tell them what the rules were :P. Have you looked at the newly drafted Midchart? That was designed primarily to clarify what is and is not allowed (although of course no one is paying any attention to that, they're just griping about not allowing multi in events with short rounds). Hopefully, that will reduce the inconsistent director rulings, and make it less likely for the examples you gave to happen. Although I confess I don't know what will work to correct the notion that if you don't call something a relay it isn't. I do like your idea of giving directors examples of borderline things - I'll pass it on.

But that wasn't the problem on that hand. They both "knew" that the 1♠ bid was an overcall and therefore their agreements about overcalls applied. The problem was that on the second round of the auction, Lew looked down at a bidding tray that had P-1♠-P-2♠ on it and it was such a normal looking auction that he momentarily forgot that the P was strong and 1♠ therefore an overcall.

Sorry - he said he didn't remember it. Not that it didn't happen, but he hadn't any recollection of it.

But all of that is a matter of semantics. Certainly ACBL is the organization that organizes and promotes bridge in the US, Canada & Mexico. It isn't a National bridge organization because it operates in 3 countries (actually 4, since for this purpose Bermuda is part of ACBL). But why is that wrong? Why should bridge be promoted only in one country at a time? Meanwhile, we have a tiny group of players who are good enough to represent the US in World Championships. Those players want a say in how our international teams are selected. It is easier for them to have that say if there's a small organization that runs the selection events. So the USBF serves that purpose. What difference does it make whether we call the USBF an NBO or something else? Its purpose isn't to promote bridge in the US, it is to select, train and support our international competitors. If that means, to you, that it shouldn't be called an NBO, that's fine, call it whatever you want. But if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it.

In the world in which I live (which seems to be a different one from yours), the fact that a method is destructive, unusual and extremely difficult to combat effectively, so that a HUGE majority of players would prefer not to have to play against it, particularly in an event with short rounds, is a good reason for the method not to be allowed. Most of these methods (forcing pass, multi, Wilkosz, multi 2♥, 2♦ = weak 2♥ or ♠s + minor, I'm sure there are others) are only effective if the opponents don't have a good defense and some experience playing against them. But most people don't want to spend a lot of time and effort developing and practicing a defense to something that will come up only rarely. If a very large majority will be more likely to enjoy bridge (and thus to play it) if those methods aren't allowed, that seems to me to be a good reason not to allow them. Obviously, I don't know that I'm right that a large majority would prefer not to play against these things, nor do I make the rules, but I think I am right, and if I am, I think that is a good reason to ban things.

Helgemo played the method in one Bermuda Bowl and then abandoned it. I think that is good evidence for my position that it is an unsound method.

LOL. Perhaps you and I have a different definition of "unplayable." I would be happy to revise my statement to say "unsound" instead of "unplayable" :)

I think that's the result of a confusion over what "zonal championships" are - and admittedly it's confusing because different zones do it differently. Zonal championships are the events where teams are selected for the World Championships. In Zone 1 (Europe) the European Championships chooses which countries are allowed to send teams to the Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup (and probably the Senior Cup too). Each country then gets to choose its team. But the European Championship is the Zonal Championship. In Zone 2 (North America), WBF has already decided which countries get to send teams - the US gets to send 2 teams to the Bermuda Bowl, Venice Cup & Senior Cup; Canada & Mexico get to compete for the right to send one team. So our Zone has two Zonal Championships in each division - the US Championship selects the US teams, what used to be called the Tri-Country Playoff and I guess is now the Bi-Country playoff selects the third team. Those events are Zonal Championships for purposes of awarding WBF masterpoints. But the US event is open only to US players and therefore is run by the US NBO - the USBF. I would certainly not argue that the way the North American organizations are set up makes a lot of sense, but I also can't see arguing that we should all at once change the method of running lower level events that has worked well for so long. And I'm not sure why you would feel that only an NBO can run local events. NBO's are organizations that interact with the WBF. Running local events has nothing to do with the WBF so why should it matter what organization does it? And surely the fact that an organization is doing a good job at something is, in fact, an excellent reason to have them continue doing it.

I'm pretty sure that a Wilkosz 2D is a weak opening showing 4+-4+ in the majors. I think it's a 2♦ opening that shows any 5-5. Its ambiguity makes it hard for both sides, but since it's a weak bid, the opponents will more often be hurt by the ambiguity.

I'm bad at reading tone online, but did you intend "ridiculous" and "diabolical" like you think they ought to be illegal, or like you think they're bad methods for those who play them (or both)? I meant that these are bad methods that you were only proposing in order to show that it is possible to "get around" the GCC if you want to. I think the problem with those bids (which are also allowed against my basically natural 1♣ that might have only 2 clubs because 1♦ promises 4 and a shaped hand) is exactly what you've pointed out - they are rarely adequately described. Because they aren't "Brown Sticker" many people don't think that they have an obligation to describe them fully (they're wrong of course, but when you're reviewing 60+ convention cards, it's often hard to notice and object to things like that - I don't think that Eric Kokish, Meckwell's coach, did before Beijing for instance). You tell me why a natural weak 2M is legal with a 6 card suit and I'll tell you why my 3+ 2m bid is legal. How do you know what was intended by the definitions of natural? If they were "clearly" meant to apply only to 1-level bids, you think maybe they might have actually said that? I'm not the expert on international bridge law and the ZAs, but I thought it was beyond the scope of the ACBL to regulate natural bidding if one read the laws carefully. Since the GCC specifically says 3+ minors are natural, with no reference to 1 level or 2 level etc, I think the only reasonable interpretation is that all natural bids are allowed. After all, otherwise there's no explicit rule allowing one to open a natural SAYC 1♥ or a standard weak 2♥ for example unless it's because they are natural under the given definitions. Perhaps next time I run into someone questioning my 2♣ bids on 3 cards, I'll ask them to prove why their SAYC 1M and 2M bids are legal and hassle them since "disallow unless specifically allowed" is the rule, right? This is a pretty telling response - basically it's legal but if you play it the "establishment" will ban it (just like those Midchart weak twos on 4/4 two-suiters, right?). Not that I'm disagreeing with you - we've seen plenty of anecdotal evidence about the way the C&C committee operates in practice and what their biases are. Someone on the committee must like opening 5 card weak twos in 3rd position, or frankly I'm surprised they haven't banned those yet either. Once again, you're deliberately exaggerating to try to make a point and your hyperbole makes me respond with things like diabolical and ridiculous. The "natural" 3 card minor would be interpreted to mean at the 1 level because that's what was intended, not because the "establishment" wants to ban something they don't happen to like. You know that a 3 card weak 2 bid is in a completely different universe from a 5 card weak 2 bid. You probably know that the drafters of the GCC (who admittedly didn't do a very good job, but there was a lot of ground to cover) could have limited the "3 card minors are natural" definition to "at the one level." You probably even know that that would be the appropriate thing to do. So you're just deliberately setting up a straw man. I don't know why, but I don't find it productive.

Pretty much the same problems you have over a 1♣ that could be as short as two. That's not true - so far as I know everyone who plays that 1♣ can be as short as 2 but is not a strong club, opens 1♣ with 2 clubs only on a balanced hand. Just like everyone else opens 1♣ with 3 only on a balanced hand. The 1♣ bidder won't have 6 hearts. That means that the opponents don't have to worry about stoppers in suits other than clubs. You can defend against 1♣ that might be 2 exactly as against a standard club except perhaps you'll want a natural club bid (which is also true against 1♣ that might be 3). On the other hand, when someone opens 2♥ that might have 6 spades, you need a way to explore both hearts and spades as places to play AND suits in which you might want stoppers.

Obviously, your entire post was designed to point out that someone who wants to be diabolical can play ridiculous methods in GCC events. I've chosen just this particular one because in this case I think you're wrong. The statement that a 3 card suit is "natural" was intended to apply only to bids at the 1-level. If anyone actually tried to play 2 bids with 3 card suits, the rule would either be interpreted not to apply or it would be re-written. Oh, and any time you want to play suction against my 1NT opening, please feel free! It's one of those things I would happily pay my opponents to play because it always seems to cause them much more trouble than it does me.

But ACBL is very good at running lower level tournaments. They've been doing it forever and they are set up to do it. They really are the "membership organization" for most of the bridge players in North America. Of course it's anomalous that they're both the ZA and the membership organization, but that's the way it happened. And honestly, I don't see why events that aren't qualifiers for the Zonal Championships (which are run by USBF) should be the purview of the NBO. Isn't that something like suggesting that the USFSA (if that's the right acronym for the figure skating association) should be running my local skating rink? That's part of how the USBF came into being (although the Olympic rule people worried about was the one requiring a separate national sports organization for each country). The other part is that the players in our selection events wanted to control the Conditions of Contest of those events, so were eager to have an organization that was concerned only with running selection trials, and not with running "lower level events." I've deleted references to the WBF Bylaws, which are definitely confusing and probably don't completely accurately reflect what goes on. I think everyone recognizes that the ACBL/CBF-MBF-USBF/ACBL organization structure is strange, but it's what we have. ACBL members pay dues to ACBL for running those "lower level games" and providing us with the ACBL Bulletin and things like that. In many smaller countries, those tasks are performed by the NBO. In the US they aren't. And no, ACBL doesn't subsidize the CBF, MBF or USBF, except that ACBL does run "International Fund Games" and distribute the proceeds from those games to the NBO's to support the players the NBO's send to international events. ACBL also distributes money to USBF to support Junior players in international events. But the three federations are self-supporting otherwise. We can't use the money from the ACBL International and Junior funds to pay the expenses of running the organization or putting on our tournaments. USBF active members support the organization by paying dues, we try very hard to make our tournaments break even (not terribly successfully, but we do try) and many people generously support our activities with contributions.

But it isn't playable if you open all the hands you would normally open a weak 2 on - you have to either have better hands for hearts (because with hearts you'll often have to play at the 3-level) or open more hands with hearts (so partner leans toward passing unless s/he has serious heart length or spade length). Of course they could practice, but the BBO bidding practice rooms wouldn't be suitable for practicing these methods, because you need opponents to see how the methods are working - this isn't a constructive method, where it's useful to bid just two hands. And seriously, if you had a certain number of hours to practice (even a fairly large number of hours) and you could use those hours either to hone your slam bidding or to clarify your preempts, which would you do? Well, you say, but they have to practice in order to be able to tell you what they play. But they don't want to "waste" time on that, so instead they take the position that our "ridiculous" (sorry, couldn't resist) requests for more adequate disclosure are really just a way to prevent them from playing their pet method, whatever it is. It isn't the problem of not having a cue bid, it's the problem of not knowing what contracts you're investigating and which suits you want stopped for NT. Of course, those issues are related to whether there's a cuebid, but not the same. After 1NT or 1♣, we know that we might want to play in any suit and we probably don't care about stoppers for NT, because the opponents haven't shown a long suit they might run against us. After a multi 2♥ we need to explore both possible suits to play in and stoppers - that's tough.

Here is an example of why these sort of numbers are important... Oh I agree they are important (maybe I didn't at first, at least not 100%, but in any case I do now.) When I said I'm not seeing the problem, I mean I'm not seeing why a pair couldn't give a very straightforward and honest answer like that. The argument has been put out there that this method is too difficult to disclose, and I guess what it amounts to is (admitting that I have a lot less experience in this area than Jan) I just don't agree. Of course, a large part of the problem is that this particular method is barred at most levels of competition in most countries. As a result, the people who want to play it when it's allowed (Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup) don't have much experience playing it. So they don't really know what hands they'll feel are suitable. Then they propose to play it and we say we can't devise a defense because you don't tell us what hands you'll open, and the Systems Committee has to decide whether their disclosure is adequate, and someone ends up unhappy. In fact, probably everyone ends up unhappy. And the ACBL C&C Committee, having seen a lot of this sort of unhappiness and recognizing that it arises when an opening bid is weak and might or might not have length in the suit opened (because those are the bids that are most difficult to defend against), decided to avoid the problems by not allowing such bids. I don't really know that's what happened - I don't serve on the C&C committee, and although I do discuss conventions issues with Chip, who has served on that committee in the past, I don't think he'd put it that way, I'm just guessing at what might have been part of the motivation. Several people have suggested that it's possible to arrive at the answer to some of the questions about what people will have for this sort of bid by doing simulations. When we first confronted the 2♦ = weak 2♥ or weak with 5-5 in spades and a minor opening, we tried that. It makes a HUGE difference what sort of restrictions you place on the weak 2 bid - whether you require a 6 card suit, whether you have any honor requirements, that sort of thing. So only the proponents of the method can tell you what the percentages are and you may have to develop different defenses for different pairs playing the "same" method.

Actually, the ACBL is the Zonal Authority and the CBF, MBF & USBF are the NBO's. But don't worry, you're far from the only person out there who doesn't realize this. The confusing factor is that we have something that resembles a sandwich - ACBL is at the top as ZA, CBF, MBF & USBF are in the middle as NBO's and then ACBL is at the bottom as the "membership organization" that pays WBF dues and appoints delegates to the WBF. On the polling question, I don't know about the ACBL and other NBO's, but the USBF has taken several online polls (using Google spreadsheets, which makes it very easy to create and evaluate online polls - note, although I do have a close relationship to the USBF and was the instigator of our online polls, I have no personal connection with Google, just think it's great). There is a USBC (Open Trials) in Rosenblum years because a large majority of players in USBCs wanted one. The format of the USBC and the USSBC have been revised in accordance with the opinions of the players in those events. It's probably not surprising that the percentage response to the polls about format was significantly less than the percentage response to the question about whether we should hold a USBC in Rosenblum years. We haven't polled all of the players about systems regulations, because the members of the Open, Women's & Senior International Team Trials Committees, who are mostly players in the Trials, had a strong opinion that we should use the ACBL rules about what to allow. At my suggestion, we did have an "anything that is allowed in the World Championships" policy in the Women's for a while (the Open committee rejected that suggestion), but no one actually played anything not allowed by the ACBL Superchart and life is easier for the Directors and Systems committees if we follow ACBL rules, so we changed.

That's got to be one of the worst arguments out there. This discussion is about allowing/banning methods in organized competitions. If you're out to "just have fun" there are other venues available to you. Of course, many of us think that the competition adds significantly to the fun. Sheesh..so picky. Maybe some people just want to have fun at bridge by experimenting with systems and being with people and don't care to aspire to greatness. Clear enough for you? The argument I am hearing is that at least in part these methods should not be allowed so that people can concentrate on what will make them better bridge players overall. This attitude is to presume that people should want to become better players. Some might like to experiment with systems but not care about getting better. And maybe some people (probably the majority) want to have fun by playing against methods that they can understand and not having to spend hours and hours developing defenses to unusual methods. That's much more likely to be the reason to ban a method than Fred's (IMO correct) assertion that not spending time on complex methods is a better road to becoming a good bridge player.

Jan I don't understand this part of your argument. I think I could make the same argument for any opening bid at all. I could play devil's advocate and agree that the exact agreements and style by which partner responds will impact the precise hands I open (even though I don't think you can ever prove that about a person?) But....so what? The way Todd described it seems fine to me, it's a specific agreement and they will follow it, so what's the big deal? Of course I would expect a pair to give an equally good explanation for later in the auction too (such as when to p/c after 2♥ p p X), but given that I just don't see the problem. What you are describing seems to me nothing more than completely normal slight stylistic variances. You are arguing something that to me, you don't know is true, and that wouldn't matter even if it were true. The difference is that what you call stylistic differences don't matter when the bid is basically natural, except in the play - obviously, when you're playing or defending, you're going to care whether the opponents would ever open a weak 2 bid with 4 cards in the other Major and if so what sorts of things would influence their decisions. But in the bidding, it really doesn't matter. You're not going to use a different defense depending on whether a 2M opening bid can have 4 cards in the other Major. On the other hand, when the opponents open 2♥ showing either a weak 2[H] bid or a weak 2♠ it makes a HUGE difference to your choice of defense if there is a 70% chance that they will have hearts or a 30% chance that they will have hearts. So advance disclosure of "style" is relevant to that sort of bid, whereas it isn't important to most natural opening bids.