JanM

No, actually what I said (or at least intended to say) was that there are some methods for which it is intrinsically very difficult to provide adequate disclosure, and that is one of the reasons that those methods (such as strong pass) are barred. Certainly a disclosure method which included specific hands for specific bids would help, but when the purpose of a bid is to cause confusion (such as the multi 2♥) it's not at all surprising that the proponents actually haven't given a lot of thought to what hands will be opened - they're going to throw the ball up and see what happens. Fine: You want to focus on methods that are difficult to disclose rather than pairs that practice poor disclosure. So be it... This doesn't change the crux of my argument. If the disclosure system is broken, fix the disclosure system, don't ban the methods. I would love to see you introduce a constructive component to this discussion rather than just complaining about methods, pairs you've encountered, what have you. You seem to like to focus on on this multi 2♥ opening. (You bring this same example and this same pair up almost every time this topic gets discussed) Can you describe what you would consider adequate disclosure for this opening? What do you need? A WBF convention card? A written description? A representative sample of hands? An algorithm written for dealer or some other program that generates hands? If you can't describe what you want, there's very little hope that you're going to get it... Then again, maybe that's the point You consistently misunderstand what I'm saying. My reason for thinking that multi 2♥ should be banned is that I do not believe it is possible to develop an adequate defense to the bid, in part because I do not believe that the proponents can provide an adequate description. For instance, Dr. Todd (I think) suggested that responder to the 2♥ bid should choose whether to pass or bid based on suit length - if it seems more likely that the partnership has more hearts than spades, responder passes, else responder bids 2♠. So with equal length, or with 2 hearts and fewer than 5 spades (if I'm understanding his formula correctly) responder will pass. That means that opener will be happier to open marginal hands with hearts. It also probably means that opener will be happier to open marginal hands with at least 2 and preferably cards in the other Major than hands with shortness in the other Major. So if I'm trying to develop a defense, I should probably act in immediate position as if opener has hearts. Ah, but now it becomes more attractive for opener to open marginal hands with spades, since my defense won't work so well against that. Of course, people aren't allowed to change their methods based on the opponents' defense. But changing marginal calls? Perhaps it won't even be a conscious change, just a realization that the hands with spades seem to be more effective. And then, as Fred pointed out, there's the question of what actions the opener will take after 2♥-P-P-DBL. If the DBL is takeout of hearts and opener knows that responder would have bid 2♠ with 4 more spades than hearts, maybe opener should pass even with spades. But maybe not. And maybe what opener will do in this auction affects when responder should pass. It all gets very complicated. And that complexity makes it more and more difficult to devise an adequate defense. Which makes it more and more likely that the method shouldn't be allowed. You've been beating up on me for explaining why I find certain methods particularly unacceptable, and you have chosen to focus on disclosure because you think that can be fixed. I keep saying that it isn't disclosure that is the primary concern, it's the fact that these are the sort of bids where the proponents really don't want to decide exactly what they'll bid and how they'll continue, because the primary purpose of the bid is to spread confusion and from their point of view, it just isn't worth the work to figure out the complexities that make preparation of an adequate defense possible. That isn't a criticism of the pairs who like to play these things, it's a criticism of the methods. They are more likely to be effective if they're fuzzy. The choice of whether a fuzzy method that is difficult to deal with should be allowed is up to the regulators, not the players - if it's allowed, and it gives you an advantage, play it. If it turns out that you can't adequately describe it (because you have, sensibly, devoted your energies to defining sequences in your constructive bidding, not in primarily destructive bidding), then you shouldn't be allowed to play it even if it's "allowed." If it turns out that no-one is going to be able to adequately describe it than it makes more sense to bar it outright than to have to go through the whole debate over whether a particular pair has done an adequate job of defining things. I tend to use multi 2♥ as my example, because it is such a good one. It really is very disruptive and very hard to defend against and very hard to define. 2♣ 0-7 and not mandatory is even worse, but that hasn't (to the best of my knowledge) been played by a serious pair in over 15 years.

No, actually what I said (or at least intended to say) was that there are some methods for which it is intrinsically very difficult to provide adequate disclosure, and that is one of the reasons that those methods (such as strong pass) are barred. Certainly a disclosure method which included specific hands for specific bids would help, but when the purpose of a bid is to cause confusion (such as the multi 2♥) it's not at all surprising that the proponents actually haven't given a lot of thought to what hands will be opened - they're going to throw the ball up and see what happens. With a bid like 2♣ showing 0-7 any, but not in the context of a strong pass system, so it's optional, there are lots and lots of things (not least the temperament of the bidder and his or her view of how well the opponents will deal with this sort of bid) that will affect the decision of whether to make the bid on a specific hand. I don't think that the proponents of that particular bid are deliberately trying to be misleading when they can't provide much information about what hands they will open, I just think that it is inherently more difficult to describe such a bid than to describe most bids. By the way, the fact that a bid is difficult to describe is very unlikely to be anywhere near the top of the list of reasons a bid might be barred. Much more important reasons include the difficulty of preparing an adequate defense and the frequency of the bid. Obviously, the less likely it is that you will get a good description of the hands opened, the harder to prepare a defense, but it is the difficulty of preparing a defense that causes the bid to be barred, not the failure to describe it adequately. If I said something that sounded like "classes of bids should be banned when they often aren't adequately described," I didn't intend to.

This is the website that I think you mean, and it's still there, still has all of the most recent Vugraph LIN files available for download.

Exactly what I was about to say :P, although I voted "other" since 4♦ wasn't defined as a void in the choices.

The thing everyone seems to be either ignoring or not recognizing in the multi 2♥ situation is that what hands responder will pass with defines what hands opener will open. For instance, if responder will bid 2♠ with some hand like Ax, Jx, Kxxxx, Kxxx, opener will be likely to open KQxxxx, x, xxx, xxx but not x, KQxxxx, xxx, xxx. On the other hand, if responder will pass with that hand, opener wouldn't open some goodish hands with spades. That's just not in the same universe as deciding whether to open a natural 2♥ with a 46 hand depending on the location of your honors. I suppose that what hands opener will pass 1♠-3♠ with also defines what 3♠ is going to be bid on (for instance, if you are playing that 1♠ is 8-12, 3♠ limit would be a lot stronger than if 1♠ starts at 12). But we have different ways of finding out what sort of hands are opened 1♠ and usually it isn't the case that the hand might have 1 or 6 spades and 6 or 0 hearts. It's sort of funny that the thing that was missing from your description of "responses" is still missing when you add all those unnecessary definitions. What sort of hand will partner pass with? And that's important because the defense has to include what fourth hand's bids mean after 1♥-P-P. Of course we can guess, as we can about what hands will pass multi 2♦ (for a long time, our written defense to multi included a different defense if it went 2♦-P-P and one of the opponents was Kit Woolsey, because we knew that he would pass multi with hands on which other people wouldn't even consider doing so, but now the rest of the world has almost caught up with him and the "Kit" defense is the only one we include), but our guesses will be less and less accurate the more unusual the method is, eventually getting to the point where vs multi 2♥ we honestly had no idea of what their approach would be (and neither did they - they had just decided it would be amusing to play it and hadn't had any experience actually doing so).

Thank you for a thoughtful and clear post. I'll try to respond in order and without cutting out too much. Just as devising systems appeals to some, devising defenses has always been interesting to me. Guess that's why I was a good tax lawyer B). I do want to be clear though, that I'm not really a "regulator" - I may be better able than some of the forum regulars to get regulators to listen to me, but I don't make the rules. All right, perhaps that was too flip. We've all been down this road so many times that we tend to get tired of repeating the same things over and over. But even you and other proponents of a strong pass system (and I am deliberately saying that and not "weak opening" - I don't have a problem with a system where opening bids are defined as 8-12 HCPs, it's the openings that are defined as 0-7, maybe 8, any shape that for me make strong pass so unusual and difficult to deal with), admit that the Fert bid, whatever it is, is not a constructive bid - it's there to allow you to have other bids, specifically pass, that don't include those hands, and as such you'll say it's constructive because it allows the other things. But as someone pointed out earlier, the reason to use 1♠ or 2♣ instead of P or 1♣ for the fert is to cause the opponents problems. There isn't any constructive reason to open 1♠ on hands in the 0-7 HCP range that aren't suitable for other bids. Similarly, a 2♥ opening that shows a weak 2 in either hearts or spades is a REALLY terrible bid for constructive bidding (I suspect that is the main reason that its proponents gave up on it). But it's also a terrible bid for the opponents to deal with (more about that later). As I said, I'm not a regulator, but I suspect you're right. Maybe it would be possible to have a parallel universe where this wasn't the prevailing view, but we live in this universe, and you're not likely to change that view. The problem is that most players who use these bids aren't going to be able to explain when they will choose to open one and when they will choose to open an alternative. Of course, that's worst when they have the option of passing, but it arises when they have 2 or more 0-7 bids available also. If you are going to be completely honest, you know that in choosing between, say, 1♦ showing 0-7 with 4 or more spades, and 1♠ showing 0-7 any, you'll sometimes open 1♠ even with a hand that has 4 spades. When? It will depend on lots of things - vulnerability, seat, state of the match, your judgment about how likely these particular opponents are to try to "get" you, where your few honors are located, who knows what else. It's those sorts of things that you aren't going to be able to define adequately. Or at least, that never are adequately defined when people submit descriptions of "destructive" bids. The problem is that when the opening bid might contain the suit opened, you can't safely Pass on some of the hands you want to bid with. And of course, you don't have a cue bid. Sure, I have a defense to CRASH openings. But it's long, complicated and not terribly good. I certainly wouldn't try to memorize it. The problem with that is that they may (I say may, because this particular bid is one that the opponents NEVER adequately describe) be more likely to have spades than hearts when they open 2♥. That's because if the responder tends to bid 2♠ with hands with no preference between the majors, they're going to have to play in 3♥ when opener has hearts, but can play in 2♠ when opener has spades, so opener may want to have something that looks more like a 3♥ bid to open 2♥, but be willing to have a 2♠ bid. On the other hand, if responder is going to tend to pass with hands with no preference, opener is more likely to have hearts. When this bid was actually played in the Bermuda Bowl, the proponents were unable to tell us what responding hands would pass and what responding hands would bid 2♠ - that's what I mean by the bid isn't adequately described. And although I have a defense for this bid, it's one that is completely inadequate, despite the fact that we spent a lot of time on it. (Surprisingly, the bid came up only once in the Bermuda Bowl final, and resulted in a big pick up for the US for a strange reason - after 2♥-P-P, the US player had a balanced hand with okay stoppers in both Majors but better in one than the other (sorry, I don't remember exactly what the hand was) and bid 2NT, his partner raised to 3 which made easily. At the other table, after 2 of opener's real Major-P-P, balancer didn't think his stopper was good enough, so they missed the game). I think this is probably the core of the whole argument we have over this. I may find it fun to play with figuring out defenses, just as I actually enjoyed parsing the Internal Revenue Code. But I know that most people don't enjoy that. And I don't think we should require things that most people don't enjoy.

This example raises an issue that I see often, and a resolution of that issue by an ethical player that I think is wrong. The issue is what you are supposed to do when your partner has improperly made you aware of the fact that s/he interpreted your bid differently from the way you intended it (in this case, partner did so by volunteering information, but even the "alert" would have been enough; sometimes partner does so by what would be a proper announcement "transfer" when your actual agreement is that the bid is natural). As I understand the laws, in that situation: a. You are required to bid as if your bid meant what you believed it meant when you made it (even if partner's action reminds you that you remembered your system wrong). b. A director or committee may force you to choose, from among logical alternatives, a call other than that suggested by partner's action. So what happened here? Partner opened 1NT, the opponent overcalled 2♦ and I bid a natural 4♥. Partner bid 4♠. Assuming that I know partner and I are on the same wavelength, surely 4♠ has to be a slam try in hearts. Of course it's unusual for a limited opener to make a slam try over what most would consider a sign-off, but maybe partner opened a slightly off-shape 1NT that is so good for hearts s/he is willing to take the risk that 5♥ will go down in order to be able to get to a good slam. Maybe partner thinks I'll have a slammish hand for 4♥. Who knows? But what I'm pretty sure I do know is that 4♠ can't be intended as natural. You just don't open 1NT with a hand that would want to play in 4♠ if partner wanted to play in 4♥ opposite a "normal" 1NT. So Pass is actually not a logical alternative here. Partner just made a bid that agreed my suit and showed a good hand - the meaning of that bid may depend on partnership agreement (for me it would be Keycard, a really strange bid), but I can't imagine a partnership agreement where it would be natural. Responder has to bid as if opener knew that 4♥ is natural - with my agreements, responder should answer keycards; if 4♠ would be a cue bid, responder should either cue in response with a good hand or bid 5♥ with a bad one. Sometimes partner's bid can wake me up to the fact that partner misinterpreted my bid - maybe making a slam try in this auction is so unusual that I would know without the alert that partner thought 4♥ was a transfer, particularly when we don't have clear agreements. Then I am allowed to "field" this, just as (see the psyching thread) I can field my partner's psyche. What I should do if I have authorized information that partner misunderstood my bid is not clear - maybe passing is the best way to avoid a total disaster, but probably not. I've gone on and on about this because it's my experience that committees virtually never force action as opposed to non-action, and players trying to be ethical virtually never recognize that the ethical thing is to bid more. If UA shows that partner's slam try is really a signoff, committees very rarely force a player to bid slam. I don't know why, but blackshoe's post suggests to me that part of the reason may be a misunderstanding of how the person with UA is supposed to behave.

Well, Chip did use some word like "amazing" in describing the auction :)

Now that I've shown Chip the hand, he reports that the auction at his table was: 1♣-P-1♥-5♦ 5♥-P-6♥-All pass He then mentioned that 6♥ was actually cold (on a diamond lead, declarer ruffs, ducks a heart, wins the spade return, pulls trumps and overtakes the club K - because the 10-9 of clubs are tripleton, the clubs run; on a club lead, declarer wins the A, leads the J of hearts and whatever S does, he can clear the hearts before the A of spades is knocked out of the dummy and then cash clubs). Zia didn't double, because DBL would have called for a club lead and from his hand it looked as if a club lead would be very bad for his side. Chip led a diamond and declarer got the hand slightly wrong, given the actual layout - cashed the club K, ducked a heart, won the spade and tried to cash clubs - Zia ruffed in on the 4th club, and eventually took a spade trick for -1.

Ummmm - something like: "All other constructive rebids and responses are permitted - except for: a. relay systems that show less than game-forcing values, b. conventional calls after natural notrump opening bids or over-calls with a lower limit of fewer than 10 HCP or with a range of greater than 5 HCP (see #10 under RESPONSES AND RE-BIDS and #7 under DISALLOWED on the General Convention Chart) – however, this prohibition does not extend to notrumps that have two non-consecutive ranges neither of which exceeds 3 HCP - and c. conventional calls after a weak two-bid with an agreed range of more than 7 HCP or an agreement where the suit length may be four cards (see #7 under RESPONSES AND REBIDS and #7 under DISALLOWED on the General Convention Chart). THIS APPLIES TO BOTH PAIRS.) 4. Defenses to natural notrump opening bids and overcalls. 5. Any strong (15+ HCP) opening bid. " That's from the ACBL Midchart, and these bids are allowed without the requirement for an approved defense.

I think Stacy's main point has to do with being a woman and not with being a client, and it has to do with the timing for the new schedule. ACBL thinks of NABCs on a calendar year, but for Team Trials purposes, the Open "cycle" starts with the Summer NABC and ends with the Spring. The Women's cycle moves (because there are 3 Women's Trials every 4 years). For the 2011 Women's Trials, the Women's cycle will start and end with the Summer NABC. I'm not convinced that it makes any difference when a change takes place, though, so long as all of the relevant events occur once a year. I do know that many women have expressed dissatisfaction with the proposed schedule because it puts two Women's team events in one tournament (Spring) and none in another (Fall). I don't think that will be what we see in the end, although I don't have a good enough crystal ball to know what we will see. I definitely agree that the entry floor is too low - I didn't realize how much too low until I went to look at how many Platinum Points I have. I think I should be about at the bottom of people allowed to play in this event; I'm not, which leads me to believe that there are a lot of people who are going to be eligible who shouldn't be. I'd rather see the 50 PPs be during the last year, and have the lifetime requirement be at least 500 and probably 1000. At the very least, what about a rolling 10 year window instead of or in addition to "lifetime"? Then "lifetime" could be very high (2000, 5000?) to deal with people like Mike Lawrence, who drop out of serious bridge for many years, without letting people who've accumulated 10 PPs a year for 20 years play.

The reason that the NABC event schedule is being looked at is that to have the Platinum Pairs (which I think most people agree is a good idea) something has to be moved - you need to find 3 days to hold that event. Putting it in the Spring NABC makes sense, because there is a 6-session pair event in each of the other NABCs. Putting it the first weekend makes sense, because it seems to be the least disruptive place for it. Since that means adding an extra day to the first weekend event, the Vanderbilt has to start a day later. So the Mixed Pairs would be opposite the second day of the Vanderbilt instead of the third day. My best Mixed Pairs partner is generally unavailable on the third day of the Vanderbilt, but it isn't so bad for most people. On the second day of the Vanderbilt there will be far more unavailable people, making it a less attractive place for a "main" event (OK, maybe the Mixed Pairs shouldn't be considered a "main" event, but that is how it's considered). So the schedule designers looked for another place for the Mixed Pairs. And then the dominoes start to fall of course. There are really too many events and not enough time, and putting together a schedule that satisfies everyone is impossible. Personally, I think if they're going to give us back a "real" mixed event (iow one that doesn't conflict with a fairly early round of the Vanderbilt or Spingold), I'd like it to be a team event. It's hard to find a partner for a Mixed Pairs opposite the Vanderbilt, but people who really want to seem to manage. It is much harder to find 3, 4 or 5 people to play on a team opposite the 4th day of the Spingold. I'd like to see a Mixed Swiss the first weekend of the Fall NABC, I think that would be attractive to a lot of people, even if it wasn't open to men who can't stand to play with a woman, or women who can't stand to play with a man.

The only WBF events in which HUM or BS can be played are ones in which systems are disclosed substantially in advance (at least 2 months) and teams know which other teams they will play at least a reasonable length of time in advance, so teams can prepare defenses to HUM and BS methods. That is never true of ACBL events. Some players in ACBL events want to be able to employ methods that are defined as BS by WBF (2♠ showing a random preempt in a minor for example). They have persuaded C&C to allow that so long as there's an adequate defense available. There are other methods (multi, which of course would be BS if it hadn't become so popular before BS methods were defined), bids showing weak hands with both Majors, transfer preempts, I'm not sure what else) for which the average player in a Midchart event isn't prepared, so those also require an adequate defense that can be given to the opponents. For WBF events, players have to develop their own defenses to such methods and have to memorize the defense. I don't understand the second half of your sentence.

I assume you mean 02/6+. The good defense is simple and natural - you see it from your own holdings. No, actually what is meant is something like a 2♥ opening bid that shows either length in hearts or length in spades. Or a 2♦ opening bid that shows either a weak 2♥ bid or a weak hand with 5 spades and a 5 card minor (so might have diamond length). To suggest that "natural methods will do very well" over a bid like 1♠ showing 0-7 and any shape is laughable.

It does say that, but as a practical matter, in ACBL tournaments, there isn't much time before playing a team to do anything about their Superchart methods. Various approaches have been taken to telling future opponents that a team uses Superchart methods. Maybe the proponents submit a description and defense but more often the opponents figure out what to do and do it. Whether they choose to write down their defense is up to them. If thy choose to write it down, they can refer to that written defense during the bidding. Destructive methods are sort of like pornography - we all know them when we see them. Forcing pass is barred because to play a forcing pass, you have to play some fert and ferts just cannot be defined adequately and therefore aren't allowed. The other major thing that is disallowed is a weak bid that might or might not contain length in the suit opened. That type of method is impossible to develop a defense to, so it is explicitly barred. For USBF events, the proponents are required to file a description of unusual methods, as well as a defense. Their opponents may choose to use the defense that has been filed or their own. They have a substantial time before the event to review the opponents' methods and decide what to do about them. If someone thinks that an opponent's disclosure or defense is not adequate, he or she can complain and the USBF conventions committee reviews what was filed. By the way, the USBF International Team Trials Committee considered allowing more methods than those included in the Superchart and decided not to do so because a majority of the players preferred not to have to deal with those methods.

You're probably right and perhaps it was the order of things that caused the confusion. The "Yellow Book" of defenses was originally the way that defenses were disseminated. Those defenses were created by the C&C committee in response to requests by people to employ certain methods. I am reasonably confident that only methods for which there was a defense were allowed. I am far less confident about the order in which the change to defenses have to be presented with a proposed method and the method will be allowed only after the Defense Approval Committee has approved the defense and the change to having defenses online happened. But both of those did happen to get us where we are today. Along the way, the Midchart was somewhat revised but was pretty unclear. Now the Midchart has been revised to list the methods for which there are defenses instead of types of methods that would be allowed if a defense was approved. What will happen as new methods & defenses are approved I don't know - hopefully the Midchart whill be changed to include the new methods, but there is some indication that people will have to look at the Defense Database to figure out what's allowed - that would be unfortunate, I think.

Who has the responsibilty to see to that a pair is well equipped for the competition they may expect to face? In this instance (World Championship play), it is the pair's opponents, and I am not in any way criticizing the pair or the WBF. Just to be sure I have understood you correct Jan. I am not responsible to be ready. Those responsible ones are the persons who have no influence of my doings? Correct? I'm afraid I do not understand what you are trying to say. If you are competing in a World Championship where BS and HUM are allowed, you are responsible for preparing to defend against them. The players employing the methods are responsible for describing them fully so that their opponents can prepare a defense. I really don't understand what you mean by "Those responsible ones are the persons who have no influence of my doings?"

Who has the responsibilty to see to that a pair is well equipped for the competition they may expect to face? In this instance (World Championship play), it is the pair's opponents, and I am not in any way criticizing the pair or the WBF. I gave that example to suggest that although we expect people to review methods that need defenses in order to devise defenses, surprisingly few do it. Richard's suggestion is for Midchart methods. That means that a great number of players would face the particular method without any advance disclosure, except a pre-alert before the round. In that situation, the ACBL has concluded (and I agree) that it is the responsibility of the proponents of the method and the C&C committee to make sure that the people who face that method are given an adequate defense. I think in some of this discussion, people have lost track of the fact that the Super Chart applies to long events at the very top level (Vanderbilt, Spingold, GNT, Team Trials). The Super Chart allows virtually anything (only things that are really impossible to describe adequately are barred). Players playing in Super Chart events are responsible for devising their own defenses. We aren't hearing any complaints from either the proponents or opponents of unusual methods in that context. The Midchart covers a very large amount of ground - from many Regional events through the Reisinger. Maybe that's too large a field and causes some of the unhappiness here. Oh, and while I'm on the Midchart, I think there's some confusion (caused I am sure by the way the Midchart was originally presented) about what is "Midchart legal." The original presentation of the Midchart listed a bunch of things that would be allowed IF & ONLY IF the proponents presented an adequate defense. Many people, including some ACBL Directors, didn't understand the requirement for a defense. So when it said that a bid showing 4 or more cards in a known suit was okay, players and even some directors, thought that a transfer 1 bid was automatically allowed. The intention was always that bids falling into the allowed categories would only become legal when an adequate defense was posted on the ACBL defenses list. The poor communication caused a lot of frustration - people would be told they could play something one time and then told they couldn't another time. Add to that the fact that there wasn't a great deal of clarity about what makes a defense "adequate" (in part more failure of communication, in part the fact that to some extent it depends on the sort of bid you're defending against), and there was a lot of frustration (both among the proponents of methods and the reviewers of defenses).

I like it! It may not be perfect, but it's a damn good start. Well, I've heard that there will be a new ACBL committee next year to look into "electronic" things - from the standpoint of how better to use the internet and things like electronic scoring devices, not barring cell phones ;). That committee might be the appropriate one (along with C&C) to which to present this sort of idea. Your suggestion is close to what is done in the WBF, where all methods are allowed for the Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup, but the methods have to be described in advance, and when opponents ask for clarification so they can develop defenses, the proponents have to provide that clarification. There is usually 2-3 months from the date on which unusual methods have to be disclosed until the date of the tournament. There are some situations where a recommended defense is also required but I've forgotten when. Your approach is pretty much exactly what the USBF does - require disclosure of unusual methods well in advance (disclosure includes submission of a defense); allow the method unless other players object to the disclosure and/or the defense. If there is an objection, the conventions committee gets involved and either approves the submission or works with the proponents to correct what they've submitted or disapproves it. But the situation with the Midchart is quite different from that in either the WBF Championships or the USBF Trials - most of the people who will play against the proposed methods probably aren't going to be involved in looking at a website and reviewing proposed methods and defenses. I don't know whether there will be enough people who are interested in reviewing to make it work. I'm just saying that there is less incentive for people to review methods that they might or might not encounter than there is for people to review methods that they are certain to encounter. And my experience suggests that even in the WBF & USBF not very many people actually review what is submitted. For example, about 2 weeks before one World Championship, someone asked me to look at a BS method that had been submitted by a pair in the Venice Cup. I downloaded the convention card and supplementary notes, only to find that the suit symbols were all garbage. That happens, and Anna Gudge fixed it as soon as I pointed it out. But this was 2 weeks before the tournament, probably about 6-8 weeks after the system cards had been posted, the card and particularly the notes were completely unreadable, and NO-ONE had yet complained. To me that means that no one had bothered to read the submission, even though it was clearly identified as Brown Sticker and the team was a definite contender in the event. That experience and some others I've had make me less than confident that review by people not charged with the task will work. But it might - after all, there will be more people who might be interested in reviewing Midchart methods than there are who are playing in a World Championship. I have no idea whether you can convince the ACBL Board that this is the way to go. And it is the Board and not the C&C committee whom you will have to convince.

I have a feeling that one of the "constraints" was that the second day has to be "real" (i.e. head to head) KO. I know that in the one Vanderbilt where there were multi-way matches the second day there were a lot of complaints. I am also pretty sure that although the most disliked match is a 3-way with 1 survivor, there are also significant numbers of people who don't like 3-ways with 2 survivors. That's because, whether rightly or wrongly, people think there's a possibility for the top team to "dump" to the team it views as worst and thus eliminate a middle team. The current scheme at least avoids both of those problems. I didn't mean to imply that the current format was bad in identifying the best teams; it isn't. The team that wins the Vanderbilt or Spingold is almost certainly going to be the team that played the best during that particular week. The very mild cut the first day means that it is extremely unlikely that any team that could win will be eliminated early through bad luck. The major consideration here is the opposite of one at the NABCs - the WBF wants all of the teams to play for at least one week. So they use Round Robins with long matches to guarantee everyone a significant amount of playing time. The longer matches make the Round Robins more true to form. At NABCs, there's a limited amount of time for the entire event, so in order to have long matches at the end, there can't be a lot of time spent on the beginning. Although there are some people who agree with you (I'm one of them - the thing I now like least about playing in the Vanderbilt & Spingold is that I have too many masterpoints to be seeded at the bottom so I don't get to play against a top team unless I win at least 2 matches), most don't seem to. Look at the TINY entry in the Reisinger, an event in which on the very first day you get to play against a significant number of really top players.

August 15-23, 2009, there will be a World Youth Bridge Championship in Istanbul, Turkey. It's open, anyone can play. There are Team and Pair events. The events are all Transnational - players from different countries can play on the same pair or team. For more information, go to <http://www.ecatsbridge.com/Documents/files/2009WYCIstanbul/1stannouncement.pdf> to download a flyer which directs you to www.worldbridge.org (the WBF website) where I can't find any additional information, but I always have trouble navigating the WBF site so perhaps you can do better. B) The USBF is currently considering whether to send an official US team to this event, whether to provide financial support for any US Junior who wants to go, or what else to do about it. In order to make that decision, the USBF Board wants to know how many US Juniors will be interested in going to Istanbul. It occurred to me that this forum might provide an opportunity to reach some US Juniors who might not know about the event, thus this post. If you are a US Junior and are interested in going to the 2009 World Youth Bridge Championship, please email me (marteljan at gmail dot com) and I'll see that your name is on a list of people who are interested and with whom we should be discussing what will be done. I probably am not the person who will be in charge of this eventually, but since I don't know who will be...

That was what they did at the beginning, and no, it doesn't work. For one thing, it is far harder than you may think to come up with an adequate defense. For another, there's no way that a committee will have time to devise defenses to everything that is suggested. As a result, they're going to make a preliminary judgment of which methods "deserve" to be allowed so that they should devote their limited time and energy to coming up with a defense. That's exactly what all of you don't like - judgment calls by a committee with whom you don't always agree.

If you could provide a complete list of constraints, folks around here could take a gander at the problem... I don't know what the current restraints are (they changed during the 2-3 years that the committee worked on it and may not be clear to anyone). The big problem is the format - large entries of random numbers of teams with wide variance in ability (please don't think I disapprove of that - I am personally strongly in favor of letting anyone who wants to play enter the major events). I think that most people are satisfied with the resolution that was reached, which uses byes and 4-ways with 3 survivors for almost all initial entries. The field is cut to a power of 2 the first day, so that the rest of the event runs smoothly. I think I was in a minority of people who didn't like the fact that the Senior KO in Boston used a full day to cut from 37 or 38 (I forget) to 32. There may be some people who think often having a lot of byes is bad, but so long as you're going to have an event where anyone can enter and you're going to seed it, the top seeds are going to have a big advantage the first day. Of course a bye is a bigger advantage than playing a low seed, but that's better than unfairness to teams in the middle of the field where seeding is a lot more random than at the top and bottom. I'm pretty sure the only way to have a "better" format would involve either Round Robins or a Swiss for the first day(s) and the majority of players don't want that, they want a KO from the start.

Wow! Go away for a day and there are so many posts I don't know which ones to reply to. So I guess I'll ramble a little. First, one thing that not everyone seems to understand is that C&C stands for Competition & Conventions, not just conventions. Over the last few years the committee's biggest challenge has been trying to come up with a reasonable format for the major KO's, given the restriction that there should never, ever be a 3-way match with 1 survivor. At one point in this process, I think there was also a restriction that there shouldn't be any byes - that was what got us the combination of 4-ways with 3 survivors and 2-ways that was really unfair to those who were in the 2-ways. I don't happen to be personally familiar with other issues the committee has dealt with, but I know there are a lot of them. Second, the subcommittee that is charged with reviewing suggested defenses and recommending their approval was formed several years ago when all 3 of its members (Chip, Jeff & Steve) were serving on C&C. Only one of them (Jeff) currently serves on C&C. They have continued to review defenses and work on the Convention Charts. I think that Steve no longer has time to do this and has resigned from the subcommittee - I do not know who will take his place. They did redraft the Midchart to make things more clear - instead of listing the sort of bids that would be allowed, it now lists the specific bids for which defenses have been approved, as well as some general descriptions of actions that are specifically disapproved. The only generalities on the new Midchart are the things for which a defense is not required. Multi is barred in events with 2 board rounds because it slows things down too much. I know you're all going to jump up and down and say that isn't true, but it is. :D I play multi in one partnership. When we used to play it in pair events we'd waste an incredible amount of time answering questions about it and listening to our opponents discuss defenses to it before many rounds. Probably the players in the Reisinger are not the ones who wasted our time in pair events, and perhaps if enough people complain, multi will eventually be allowed in the Reisinger. But in most events with 2 board rounds, there are just too many people unfamiliar with it who cause time to be spent over and over and over again, making the game run more slowly. If anyone ever compiles a list of the reasons that people don't enjoy a bridge event, I'll bet that slow play and having to wait for your opponents for the next round would be on that list. So one of the things that the committee considered in deciding what methods would be allowed in events with 2 board rounds was how much time would be consumed by allowing the method. I agree that the C&C committee and all other committees should have minutes and the minutes should be available to everyone. However, as the person responsible for posting minutes from USBF Board and committee meetings, and the one who often seems to be stuck with writing those minutes, I don't think it's fair to ascribe bad motives to committee members who don't cause minutes to be taken and published. I'm willing to bet that C&C had good minutes when Gary Blaiss was the ACBL staff person assigned to it and stopped having good minutes when he no longer filled that role. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and taking & writing up minutes happens to be one of Gary's many strengths. Unfortunately, I don't think that the offer to do minutes for one meeting is going to help much. As for whether there was some "plan" to bar Moscito and that's why Tim & Richard had so much trouble with the transfer 1 bids, I honestly don't know, although I seriously doubt it. Of course I could ask Chip, but as Fred says sometimes memories of things that happened several years ago are hazy, so that wouldn't provide a definitive answer, and anyway he's not here now. What I do know is that a lot of extremely inadequate defenses to lots of methods have been submitted over the years and that those methods are not allowed - the way the Midchart works is that, with a few exceptions, only methods for which there is an approved defense are allowed. When the Midchart was first written, that wasn't communicated as well as it should have been. As a result people thought they could play methods "listed" on the Midchart, not realizing that there also had to be an approved defense. Thus, for instance, the statement about a bid showing 4+ cards in a known suit led people to believe transfer 1-bids were legal, even though there was no approved defense. Ditto for 2♦ showing Majors - it's a bid showing known suits, so it's Midchart legal, right? Wrong - no one has submitted an adequate defense so it's not Midchart legal. The new Midchart hopefully clarifies things, at least if people read it and if a line break is placed between "Any strong (15+ HCP) opening bid." and "The following items are approved for all Mid-Chart events of the specified round length (#), but pairs playing them must bring two copies of the approved written defense, offering a copy to each opponent." which is followed by a list of specific bids instead of general descriptions. I agree that it would be a good thing if there were guidelines for what's supposed to be included in an adequate defense. In fact, Chip tells me he wrote something up, but neither of us could find it online (I didn't ask him to find it and give it to me). But having spent a fair amount of time trying to get people who play unusual methods to provide an adequate description of the method so we could figure out defenses, I have a pretty good idea of the sort of back and forth that can go on, with good faith on both sides but leaving both sides completely exasperated. I suspect that's what happened with Tim & Richard and the defense approval committee. Obviously, there was also some dropping of the communication ball by someone (probably someone in Memphis). That is unfortunate, but I don't know how to remedy it. It's bedtime and I still have to write up the minutes from the Senior ITTC meeting in Boston, so I'm sorry if this is rambling and unclear, and if I didn't respond to some things I should have.

In the "reports" department, Chip thinks that he bid 5♦, the opponents bid at the 5-level, Zia doubled them and they went down 1. But no guarantees (if you could identify the session and board number, I could tell you for sure).