JanM

Sure. I don't think this has changed in a long time. As someone said, one thing that is high on the priority list is penalizing the opponents - it's amazing what people will bid with in this position. So we use DBL as Penalty and Pass to promise 2 cards in the opponent's suit, so partner can DBL. Also, it makes a difference whether their bid is below or above 3NT. So: DBL of an overcall is always penalty. After 1M (P) 2NT (Bid below 3NT): P shows at least 2 cards in opponent's suit. (step by responder asks for SPL: none, low, high) Cheapest suit = extras, SPL in opponent's suit Next two suit bids = some extras, low other SPL, high other SPL 3NT = extra values, no SPL, but not interested in hearing a penalty dbl 4M = minimum, SPL in opponent’s suit 1M-(P)-2NT-(3M): This is treated as if they had made a 3-level overcall in the other major, rules above apply. After 1M (P) 2NT-(3NT): 4m = SPL After 1M (P) 2NT (4♣-4M): P shows at least 2 cards in opponent's suit. 4M = minimum, SPL in opponent's suit Cheapest other suit = extras, SPL in opponent's suit

Yes. See their Shanghai convention card meckstroth-rodwell.pdf Under signals it says "UD CT/ATT/SP" (edit: Made link to ecatsbridge "clickable")

Sorry, I realized I had left that out after I posted and just never got around to correcting it. Jeff Wolfson decided to take some time off from bridge while his children were young. He's been saying that he'll be back "soon" for the last year or so :). I don't know why Neil Silverman stopped playing actively. Maybe someone from the Washington, DC area might know.

UDSP is (for some reason I don't understand) much harder for declarer to adjust to than are UDCA. So even if you're not trying to confuse the opponents (certainly everyone knows that Meckwell use UDSP), you may get an advantage because you cause the opponent to use extra brain cells to figure out your SP signals. And those are brain cells that might be needed for other things, like analyzing the hand or calculating percentages, etc.

The Vanderbilt and Spingold are actually seeded based on "V/S/R seeding points" - points based on high finishes in those three team events, which decay over time (10% per year), in addition to MPs, in order that the vagaries of MPs not impact the high seeds in the events. Of course, once you get below the top 16 or so, most people don't have any of these seeding points and then MPs are all that's available. The team trials are seeded on the basis of V/S/R points plus positioning points awarded for high finishes in the three main events during the preceding year - these go away each year. The trials, and I think maybe also Vanderbilt and Spingold, also cap the number of seeding points awarded for MPs. In bracketed KOs, you'll get thrown out if you understate your MP holding, but not if you overstate it.

Yes, I recognize that was the meaning he intended. My point is that it's not an accurate meaning. C&C doesn't have the power to implement changes, only to suggest them. It *is* a "citizens committee" not a king/legislature. More relevantly to the rest of your comment, though, part of the problem is that the same people seem to do everything. Based on inside information ;), I know that one member of the convention approval committee has been spending a substantial amount of his time for the last year or two working on the new laws. The other two members of that committee also serve on the ITTC Conditions of Contest Committee, that has been very busy over the last two years adapting the Trials Conditions of Contest to the larger entry size we're now getting (don't get me wrong - I'm very happy about the number of people who are playing in the Trials, but it has meant a lot of work for the Conditions of Contest committee). I'm working on getting a draft of the new Midchart to post, but it was pointed out to me that letting more people comment on things like that may result in more work, not less, for the drafters. It's difficult to figure out how to take advantage of good comments without spending a lot of time weeding through bad ones. (Just as it's hard for the conventions committee to respond helpfully to submissions that have what seem to them to be really bad recommended defenses :)).

Today's good news :) The ACBL Intercollegiate finals will be held on Thursday and Friday, July 17 & 18 (if the days and dates don't match, trust me on the days, not on the dates). Therefore, the FISU trials will be Saturday & Sunday, July 19 & 20 (ditto). Players in the Intercollegiates will be encouraged to play in the FISU trials, either on their Intercollegiate team or on other teams. Unless the turnout for the FISU trials is significantly lower than we hope, it will be used to select both of the USBF's teams for the 2008 FISU event. More good news - there will be 8 teams in the Intercollegiate finals. Thursday will be a complete Round Robin. I think Friday will be a KO with the top 4 teams qualifying, but that's just my guess.

Jan, It's one thing to join in a process of constructive debate with some assurance that action will follow on the issues that have been identified as important, and quite another to try to sustain interest in the project when the best one can hope for is a sympathetic hearing. Fred could start a C&C forum here, but without a formal commitment from the ACBL and the committee to follow through with the rest of the process, it would be nearly pointless, and would ultimately die. It's the same experience people are having with "e-democracy:" Legislatures do not want to share power with the electorate. They only allow individual citizens and citizen groups a very limited, consultative role. Sure, we can get an audience with The King (or email our MP or Representative), but we can't even begin to submit a bill or force a vote. This is quite different though, you're not proposing getting the "king" (that would be the ACBL Board of Directors) to do something, you're proposing getting a committee that is already in place and already has the authority to make recommendations that are usually implemented and already consists of "citizens" to adopt a more efficient way of doing its job. The job of getting the "legislature" to listen to the "citizens" was already done when the C&C committee was set up.

That may be what you meant to be complaining about, but what you actually *said* was: "You, my friend, have clearly never tried to implement change in the ACBL." I replied to that statement by listing a large number of changes that have in fact been implemented as a result of the efforts of many players. As for whether "it would be easy, or even possible, to make a significant structural change to a committee that doesn't even reply to people the vast majority of the time?" I don't think that any significant structural change is needed - all that's needed is someone who has the time and energy to deal with communications to the committee and someone else who's willing to devote the time and energy to organize an internet discussion of the issues that face the committee. And yes, I think it would be possible, and in this particular case relatively easy, to make those changes, if there are really people with the time and energy to do the work.

Lets do it here. Can we send a representative to sit in when they discuss the new ideas? I'll double check, but I'd be very surprised if the committee was not willing to have a representative with reasonable ideas to present sit in while the ideas were discussed.

Why not? How can one even argue against proposals that make so much common sense? You, my friend, have clearly never tried to implement change in the ACBL. And you, my friend, are a mere child (I say that with a smile, remembering a million years ago (well 40) when it was said to me). You may not be aware of all the changes that have been implemented over the years. You take it as a given that there is money available to send you to the World Junior Championships. You probably also take it as "normal" that there is an Open Team Trials in which anyone can compete. You may not care, but not that long ago there wasn't a Women's Team Trials at all. You expect screens in the late rounds of the major KOs. And bidding boxes on every table. And a Competitions & Conventions Committee that tries to improve conditions of play. Should you have a child in the next few years, you will expect child care at NABCs. You know that bridge tournaments don't allow smokiing in the playing area. And internet Vugraph - can you even imagine having to wait until a day or two after a World Championship was over to find out who won? All of those things are changes that have been implemented since I was a mere child (actually, most of them in the last 20 years, so far more recently than that). The people on the Competitions & Conventions Committee may not always do everything everyone would like. The Committee to approve defenses may sometimes be what some people consider overly demanding. But they aren't trying to do the wrong thing. They would, I am sure, welcome many of the suggestions made here. The ACBL website is far from as good as it should be. Unfortunately, maintaining a website is a lot of work; you need manpower to make sure that things are kept up to date. I suspect that the reason you don't see the minutes of the C & C Committee is that no-one has kept good Minutes. Of course, you're right, they should, but are you prepared to volunteer to do it? The reason you don't always get good answers to your questions is also that the people who are in charge of answering them have too many other responsibilities. Maybe we need something like an Ombudsman to respond to convention questions and see that there's follow up. Maybe I'll even volunteer to do that starting in 2009 when I won't have anything else to do B). I'll bet if someone volunteers to organize a forum to discuss convention issues and present a reasonable list to the Conventions & Competitions Committee, you'll find that they will discuss them sensibly and implement many of them. And, by the way, a new Midchart is about to be released and hopefully will be more clear, eliminate some of the problems with figuring out what is allowed and reduce the number of things that need approved defenses.

Not the Olympiad, just the 2000 Bermuda Bowl, played in Bermuda in January of 2000 because that was 50 years after the first BB. Jeff Wolfson and Neil Silverman played on USA2, which lost to Nickell in the semi-finals. The rest of their team was Martel-Stansby and Zia-Rosenberg, and for a really exciting match, look at their Quarterfinal match against Poland - Chip & Lew finished before Zia & Michael, who were on Vugraph. They were trailing by something like 15 with 3 or 4 boards to go and when I asked them out in the hall if they had any chance, they asked me which boards were still to be played - I told them and they said "yes" and we went back into the Vugraph theatre to watch them win :(.

I'm not sure who is in charge of answering emails to the C&C committee, but I'm surprised that you don't get answers. I'd suggest following up if you haven't heard back - sometimes email gets lost, sometimes mail programs crash, sometimes people intend to respond and forget. Another suggestion, for those who regularly attend NABCs, would be to attend a C&C meeting - I don't actually *know* that they're open, but most ACBL committee meetings are, and if you have something to suggest, that's a good way to do it.

I think that the motion was defeated because a substantial majority of the ACBL BoD thought that things like this should go through the Conventions & Competitions Committee, where they can be fully discussed and combined with other changes, not decided without any serious discussion as a result of a motion before the Board because one particular Board member is in favor of his or her pet convention being allowed. The ACBL Board appoints several committees, on which players serve with no compensation and little thanks. If it starts ignoring those committees and just regulating based on what one Board member wants and can persuade others to agree to, very few players will accept appointment to these committees and they will become useless. So if you really want change in what is and is not GCC legal, the place to go is the C&C committee, which can consider your request along with everyone else's.

Considering the number of people I see playing transfer Lebensohl, I'm surprised that no-one has suggested 3♣ = invitational+ in diamonds. Now if partner accepts with 3NT (would s/he?), I think I'll bid 4♦, trying for the diamond slam. Partner's 3N over an invitational 3♦ should show some diamond fit, so slam is pretty likely. On this hand, it would work well for 4♥ to be natural and constructive, but I don't think I get to use one "toy" and abandon another - it would be RKC for diamonds, not what I want to bid on this hand.

The announcement you saw was published before our Junior Committee meeting in San Francisco. The reason for the "wiggle room" was to let us decide what would be most sensible. As Karlson said, at the meeting several people suggested that Intercollegiate players might be happier to form teams with players from other schools than to be locked into the team with which they competed in the Intercollegiates. That's why we're hoping that ACBL can change the dates of the Intercollegiate finals to Thursday and Friday, so the FISU trials can be after the Intercollegiate finals. It is also correct that we plan to send 2 teams to the FISU, so depending on the turnout for the Trials, it is still possible that the Intercollegiate winners could go intact. Which team is designated USA1 and which is designated USA2 is, of course, completely irrelevant - it's just a way of distinguishing between the teams. As for the "citizen" question, US citizenship is not required for USBF membership, but "residence" is. The definition of resident is a little complicated, combining a requirement of having lived in the US for 50% of both the last 12 months and the last 24 months with a requirement of being eligible to compete in the next World Championship. For Juniors, though, only the residence requirement applies, since the WBF rules on competing for different countries within a short time span do not apply to Juniors. Thus any Junior who has lived in the US for 6 of the last 12 months and 12 of the last 24 months and intends to remain in the US is eligible for USBF membership and to compete on USBF teams. I missed the "citizen" language when I looked quickly at the announcement being posted about the Intercollegiates, although given the complexity I'm not sure it would have made sense to be more accurate :P.

I heard back very promptly from the FISU organizers, and the September dates are correct - September 2-9, 2008 in Lodz, Poland for the FISU tournament. They apologized for the confusion which was apparently caused by slow updating of the website.

I expect that it will be settled in the next few weeks.

I think that the answer to the credits question is pretty vague - as I understand it, it's up to your University to "certify" you as eligible. I suspect that different universities may have different ideas about what that means. But I'm just guessing.

The scheduling of the Intercollegiate finals is up to ACBL. We are hoping that they will decide to schedule them for Thursday-Friday, so that the FISU trials can be on Saturday-Sunday, so it doesn't conflict with the GNT (although it does of course conflict with the Life Master Pairs) and also so that the players in the Intercollegiate finals will have an opportunity to meet other players and form teams for the FISU, for which all players don't have to be from one University. I have not yet heard whether that will work out, hence the uncertainty about the dates for the FISU trials.

Yes, there was discussion of holding it at a Regional and that was not a popular choice. The problem is cost & scheduling for the players, in case that wasn't clear. Holding it with the Open Trials wouldn't help that at all and would cause problems in some years for players who wish to play in both the Open and Junior Trials. Even this year, with the Under 28 team not being selected by a trials, I know of one Junior who plans to play in both the Open and Junior Trials (and that is not to say there aren't others, just that at this moment I only happen to know of one). There are usually fewer Juniors in the GNTs than in the mini-Spingolds and the final weekend Swiss, which are the other possible Summer NABC conflicts. Most people thought that adding another two days to the Summer NABC would be unattractive to the players, even if the space were available then. There is general agreement that it needs to be in the summer, so that people who are in school don't have a conflict. The consensus was that more Juniors come to the NABC than to any Regional and that they shouldn't have to make a special trip for the Junior Trials. Conflicting with the GNTs isn't a perfect solution, but there just isn't a perfect solution.

I believe that the information at http://www.fisu.net/site/page_1445.php is in fact wrong. If you click on the link on the right hand side of that page for the event website http://www.bridge2008.net you will find the September dates we've seen elsewhere. I will email the organizers to make sure, but I think that the June dates are simply a mistake, probably arising out of the entry closing date which is June 3.

The Junior Committee discussed at length whether to hold these Trials before the NABC or during the second weekend. There was general agreement that there were likely to be more conflicts at the end of the tournament than for the GNTs. Unfortunately, there is also general agreement that the Junior Trials need to be scheduled either immediately before or during the Summer NABC, rather than as a separate stand-alone event. The Junior Committee meetings are open to anyone who wishes to attend. The scheduling of the Trials was discussed at the Nashville and San Francisco meetings. With regard to the FISU website you point to, I am now confused. We've consistently been told that the FISU event was scheduled for Sept. 2-9. I will try to find out which dates are correct and thank you for the link.

No age limit for posting to this forum, just interest in youth bridge :). I'm afraid that you are too old to compete in the Youth events in Beijing though - you have to turn 28 in 2008 (been born in 1980 or later) in order to be eligible for the Mind Sports events. Sorry about that, but welcome to the forum.

The USBF will hold two Junior Trials in 2008, one for teams attempting to qualify for the WBF Patino Cup (26 & under) and Damiani Cup (21 and under) in Beijing October 4-13 and one for teams attempting to qualify for the FISU games in Lodz, Poland Sept. 2-9. Both Trials will be held in Las Vegas before and at the beginning of the 2008 Summer NABC. Both will be team trials. Current plans are to allow teams of 4, 5 or 6 players to compete in both trials. The "WBF Trials" will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, July 15 & 16. Advance entries will be required and the event will either start with a Round Robin to cut to 4 teams or with a Round of 8 (or if only 4 teams enter with the Semi-finals). Exact match lengths still to be decided. Teams must consist of USBF active members who were born in 1982 or later. Players who wish to compete in the Damiani Cup event (players born in 1987 or later) must compete in these Trials but do not need to play on a team all of whose players are under 21 - the USBF Damiani Cup team will be chosen from eligible players who competed in the "WBF trials." The winner of the "WBF Trials" will be the USBF team for the Patino Cup (the team will be required to augment to 6 if it has fewer than 6 players). The "FISU Trials" will be held either on Thursday and Friday, July 17 & 18 or on Saturday and Sunday, July 19 & 20, depending on when the ACBL Intercollegiate Championship finals are held. The FISU Trials event will be a team event for teams with 4, 5, or 6 players. The USBF will send 2 teams to the FISU championships. The winner of the FISU Trials will be one of those teams. How the other team is to be chosen is still TBD.