zenko

Years ago, late great Bobby Goldman was pushing hard for a similar type of modification. The idea has a lot of merit but the key problem is to define well "stop" situations without slowing the game too much. I think this issue appears to be more important in theory than in reality. Every player good enough to beat you knows the rule, and will stay away from taking the advantage of UI. Lesser players might, just because they do not know any better, so the focus should be on educating them in friendly manner, not scaring them away.

It is pretty obvious that N grossly misplayed the hand, in fact so grossly that something smells very fishy, and I can not shake off lingering suspicion about his true motives. I might be very paranoid but here is how I see it: lacking the spade bid from E, declarer recognized that he got wrong explanation. The double, the club bid and 9 of D play (giving W 5026 with either 5116/5125 as an alternative) made him believe that W has singleton H at best so his contract was doomed. The the only way out for him was via favorable ruling, and to get one he needs to find the line of play that appears to be influenced by that misinformation.

I wonder does ACBL have a recorder file for this kind of offenses too, so that some kind of disciplinary measure can be imposed if somebody is repeatedly caught trying to weasel out via director/appeal after making a bad play.

"You can observe a lot just by watching." - Yogi Berra

how about if you play with screens? is than OK to ask "do you have mix up? for example RHO (behind the screen) opens 1H you overcall 1S your screenmate LHO bids 3D (some kind of mix raise), then the tray comes back with 3H by your pard and 5D by RHO which looks very much like a diamond raise?

That's also featured in human-designed systems. even that is vaguely similar to the TRS major-suit openings I would be highly amusing if the Neural Network produced something akin to the Vulcan Variable Pass Actually I played that system, and I would again but it is illegal pretty much anywhere.

many thanks for very interesting on US trials sytems for World championships, but by Gnasher (hi) (and hi all) ** Nobody outside France thinks that Standard French is any good, ** => am on the same railway thinking. ** but their top players don't seem to have any difficulty ** => really any ? ** with getting good results playing it. ** => am very affraid for Ostend : like in South Afrika with soccer )) friendly all (French sys is the most difficult to play, in the universe )) Flannery or not.., French or Acol or Stand Am, or Precison... Here is a dirty little secret: the decision what system/conventions (except in competitive bidding of course) you will going to play matters very little, perhaps a tad more than does your partner have a bad breath, as long as you are on the same page and manage to avoid misunderstandings. If I have a time I can easily find quotes from many great players and theorist saying pretty much the same thing. Still, so why are we spending so much time tinkering with system instead of say studying "More Killing Defence" by Kelsey or doing some other things that would help our game way more? Because it is easier and way more fun, thats why!

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/elephant-memory.htm Oh I did that too AND I am still mad at him

But I do recall losing an important knock out match on the last board some 20 years ago because my partner super accepted with 3. Yes, I can hold a grudge with the best of them, longer than an elephant.

You probably meant 1S, regarding super accepting with 3, I do not recall ever anything good coming out of it

More than none, i.e. way too many

Playing light openings, Drury, and F 1N (or heavy NF), which most experts do these days, gives you an opportunity to use "advance overcalls" 3rd seat openings, i.e. if I have enough to overcall 1S why wait to see will I get another chance to bid it and to show to my partner "where I live"? To make this unlawful feels unnatural.

Really ? I saw like few thousands hands of them and they never passed 1NT. I doubt they would play system that bad btw. They didn't play drury for a long time but switched recently from other interesting things. Well you can click above on their CC and see for yourself: Under responses to 1S: 1NT = NATURAL; Also under subsequent auction 1S-1N-2C says it is is either weak with 4+clubs or strong any; no allowance for "prepared" response with 5332. BTW playing heavy but NF (i.e. kind of semiF) 1N response is quite common among top level pairs especially in Europe, nothing unusual there.

another unusual thing they do is 1M-2N bid showing 3-4 card limit raise, not very sound convention IMO, but it works for them, I guess it is needed because they play 1N response NF.

They often overcall on level 1 with very close to nothing, say Jxxxxx xx xxx xx (I saw that kind of overcall many times, especially by Versace)

Those were fairly predictable poll results, the modern top-level bridge style is to open 2 clubs only if you absoutely have to, as well as to almost never pass level one suit openings, which works together quite nicely, especially if you adopt some kind of Gazilli-like gadget too. IMO by far the best feature of 2 clubs opening is that it comes up so rarely.

3rd seat superlight non-vul opening? What a bizarre idea! Isn't Drury invented precisely for handling it? Honestly wouldn't it make more sense to requre pairs who do NOT do those to state that on their CCs?

This doesn't seem particularly clear to me, what am I missing? Pard is very unlikely to hold decent values, so bidding anything below 3N will give opponents too much room to find a minor suit fit or even spade game. And even if he has some values then he is odds on to have too many spades for you to survive 4H contract, 3N is much more likely (but not very likely either) to make.

Pass is clearly the best bid, but I might get greedy and try 3N, but that can backfire big time, if I do it I would write right away "sorry" on the score card. 4 hearts is disaster bid.

1 Spade of course, not even close to open 2 Clubs.

I absolutely hate leading from unsupported Jack, Jxx, Jxxx, even Jxxxx, unless pard bid that suit, I think over the last 2 years I did it 3 times (all 3 times it was mistake), which means that I will do it maybe once year from now on. Am I supposed to announce that every time I lead a small card and J is not on the table?

So what happens if somebody opens multi with 7 card suit, or with say 14 count? How about 8 card suit or 16 count? Does she/he gets penalized too?

Flash sucks, thats what it is, I have to deal with it at my job every day, it drives me bonkers.

Um, because this pair does it so much more often than "possible" that it's imperative that the opponents know it while listening to their auction, perhaps? In other words, it's a special partnership understanding that they can only play if they disclose it according to the regulations of the RA under which they're playing, and they're following the Law. Well that might be so, but in their "disclaimer" there is no mention at all about how frequently those deviations occur, and it can not be the base for any assumption how often that happens, and is that frequency below, or above of some imaginary average. Or in another words, if you want to speculate about what prompted them to put it on their CC (for WBF events) why would not that be for example the severity or maybe atypical nature of those deviations, instead of its frequency? In any case I think it is praise-worthy that they went that far in attempt to fully disclose their methods. My question was would such disclosure helped in the case given above, i.e. would the director be more sympathetic if they opened weak two one point short or in some other similar, borderline case between following rigid rules and deviation from it based on bridge logic, if they had something like stated on their convention cards.

Now I get it why Eric Rodwell-Jeff Meckstroth have prominently displayed on the front side of their CC: Judgement allowed in any situation. And on the back side: All points can be adjusted in any situation. I used to find it kind of funny, I mean of course that judgement and adjustments are possible, why do you even need to spell it out? Still I wonder is this kind of blanket disclaimer good enough to let you off the hook, especially if used by some mere plebeians?