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Zia made that theory publicly known. It's not "crap", it's Psychology. ...and since people are governed at least as much if not more by Psychology than Mathematics...

Hmmm. I like Leaping Micheals with this hand since it at least gets my hand strength and 10 of my cards into the bidding. What does (2H)-4D-5D;5S show? Is this a reasonable way to show a two suiter with longer Spades than Diamonds (and clearly slam interested)? What would other rebids show? It seems to me that most playing Leaping Micheals don't discuss the later auction to this degree.

An immediate 6♣ is just plain silly.

So far 2 National Champions have now come up with 4♣ as their preferred alternative in this situation with the given hand when I gave them the problem w/o relating any of this discussion. The assumption is that Opener will a= raise ♥'s any time they have 3+♥'s b= bid NT with ♣'s and ♠'s stopped c= raise ♣'s with 5 d= rebid ♦'s with 5 or 6 Both of them agreed with josh that slam is way too likely to bid cautiously and both caustically described bidding 3N as "giving up". They were equally contemptuous of X. Well, I can admit when I'm wrong. Advocating 3N was silly and 4♣ appears to be the master bid.

Ah, you were talking about the original and later deemed inferior (by Marty) form of Bergen. I assumed the most modern and most commonly played variation. My apologies. The only difference between the older form and the newer form (once called "reverse Bergen") is that the meanings of the 3♣ and 3♦ responses are reversed. FTR, Marty Bergen no longer plays any form of Bergen unless forced to; having come to the belief that its negatives outweigh its positives. The defense vs the JS showing 6-9 or a bad 10 and 4 card support is based on the fact that if They have a 9 card fit, We are =very= likely to have a fit ourselves. The expectation is that the opening side has ~21 HCP most of the time. 2 suiters and other high ODR hands should bid as aggressively as the colors allow. If a pair makes a habit of psching any of the Bergen Raises, they have to start warning opponents about this behavior and about any methods they put in place to field it or they are being unethical and =will= get nailed at some point on C&E grounds.

Folks, Ken is a player who lives and plays in NA. His system is 2/1 GF or SA and he makes explicit mention of the GCC- a =definite= "ACBL-ism". In either SA or 2/1 GF, a 2/1 by an unpassed hand promises a rebid. In ACBL-land systems where a 2/1 by an unpassed hand do not promise a rebid are unusual. While this is obviously not true in jurisdictions like the EBU, this conversational point was =obviously= not set in such jurisdictions. Anyone attempting to pretend that this discussion point involving Ken had anything to do with Acol or any other system other than SA or 2/1 GF or any other regulatory area than the ACBL is simply being confused themselves or attempting to mislead others. Now those of you attempting to pick a silly fight please stop being disingenuous.

As you are no doubt aware, I claim that expressions like "Destructive" and "Random" are useless. They are too imprecise to be used in drafting regulations. They (essentially) mean "Whatever I don't like" Actually, I was not aware of this POV on your part. Interesting. My POV is that we do need precise language for dealing with legal and regulatory situations. If we do not yet have such "jargon", it should be developed post-haste. OTOH, If we do have precise terms and they are being twisted or misused, that's a different issue. I'd be curious to hear more about why you believe "Destructive" and "Random" as used in an official Bridge Laws and Regulations sense are ill-defined or too loosely defined. Again, I'd consider that to be an independent issue vs. those terms being misused or abused (or ignored).

So you can't back it up. Peter Yes, I can back it up. I will not in a public forum. Nor will I do it simply to satisfy your curiousity. The parties in question were punished and that's supposed to be the end of it. If you are an official that the likes of Rick Bye and David Stephenson will recognize as having a germane and/or professional reason for wanting details as to various Conduct & Ethics decisions, send a PM to me and I'll talk to them about how much in the way of further details would be appropriate to go into in =private= conversation with you. Tossing people's names about in public and in a unflattering light, no matter how true, =would= be malicious. ("slur" would require said statements to be lies.) Such public approbation is reserved within bridge for "capital" crimes on the order of being banned from play for systemic cheating. Less serious violations of ethics or law are considered best dealt with quietly. There are reasons for such restraint. IMHO they are fair and just reasons.

That person should either not be allowed to play the boards they made or not be allowed to play Bridge due to being "ethically challenged". Their choice.

Impact gave a wonderful analysis as to why one should not X here

Implied apology accepted. :) Please just try to avoid "acting more stupid than usual" in this fashion a bit more in the future? As Fred says, this =is= a teaching site and Bridge doesn't come off looking very good when the most frequent posters and givers of advice resort to cursing... Since those quotes all occured within the context of a thread on light openings within a 2/1 GF system context, that's a generalization =you've= made. TBF, I =do= believe that there are reasonable requirements for opening the bidding. I also have been quite explicit that they have little to do with "light" or "sound" in terms of HCP. Does that make me an advocate or an opponent of either style given that I'm saying the basic premise of the discussion (HCP) is flawed? Just in case anyone has forgotten, Arclight's central thesis was the following Simply put, at one point in the thread you are claiming that your sound opening style is technically superior. Later in the thread, you are claiming that your sound opening needs to be protected against light opening methods. Ummm, no. I said that agreed with Arclight's stance vs =destructive= and random bidding methods. And I never claimed it was for =my= sake. I never claimed any need for "protection" against anything. My opponents can play whatever they want as long as they Fully Disclose and I have the opportunity to compete equitably. However, most players are not going to be as comfortable with as many situations as I am. The average player who makes up the bulk of the membership and the revenue is who I'm trying to protect. OTOH, if you are saying that your definition of "light" is equivalent to the definition of Destructive or random... Yes. You've drawn some specious conclusions based a fallacious reasoning on your part.

1= The vast majority of players do not have the time, money, or expertise like Eric Kokish on staff to figure out how to defend against various bidding treatments. Without reviewed and published defenses, there would be =less= bidding innovation since the only way to prtotect the equity of the average player would be to out and out ban new and unusual bidding treatments. (...or people would start quitting Organized Bridge in droves. Those that were left would be those that do not mind such a situation. What's that? 1% of the membership? 10%? Surely not enough to keep Organized Bridge alive.) 2= Presumably, the panel is there to make sure that any and all alllowed methods present challenges while still being equitable. Thus you are not supposed to get approval to play Bizarro w/o there being a known and adequate defense against it designed beforehand. ...and of course, the panel is responsible for seeing that you =do= provide an adequate defense vs Bizarro rather than "sneaking the least effective defense possible through". However, as others have rightly noted, there is evidence that at least within the ACBL this process has broken; causing other problems.

As usual, this is quite clever Ken :) However, 1= Any 2/1 by an unpassed hand that does not promise a rebid is non-standard enough that I think you are going to come under official scrutiny. 2= The 8 HCP GCC floor is rather higher than one would like if one wants to freely psyche tactically. 3= While this comes close to offering the benefits of Drury, you still have make a bid that says something about the minor bid. Which means you give up such useful things as being able to clarify the degree of support you have. Which means either You gamble more often or this sequence comes up less often. Either way, it's less effective than actually playing 2way Reverse Drury. I'm not sure you've made a convincing presentation of your case counselor.

What =are= you talking about? And why do you feel it necessary to curse while doing it? Within the context of 2/1 GF, one's opening bids have to be reasonably limited or bidding accuracy suffers. That was the POV I gave and that you agreed with. Since the GF 2/1 has a minimum "floor", that puts a minimum reasonable "floor" on 1bids within 2/1 GF unless you want serious bidding problems. I never changed my position, and I =certainly= never claimed I needed some sort of special protection against a 2/1 GF pair opening 1 with very wide ranging hands. Their punishment is in their methods. :) I have no idea where you drew the conclusions quoted above. They certainly are not representative of any statements I made in that thread.

..and w/o a pre-published defense that restores equity, Bergen Raises should not be allowed IMHO. OTOH, defending against something where I know exactly how many cards in a suit to assume between the two hands and what the values are around the table is a darn sight easier than most of the other stuff that has regulating authorities concerned. To answer your specific questions, if I had to decide "on the fly" w/o further opportunity for thought, I'd be thinking along these lines: 1= This sequence shows a 9 card fit and a Limit Raise by Responder. Therefore any bidding by Us is most likely to sacrifice or direct the defense, not constructive. 2= Therefore, (1M)-pa-(3♣)-?? is a very dangeroous auction to dive into. X here should suggest a lead and a suit that would not mind taking the sac if pd has a suitable hand. ...now I =do= have the advantage of "knowing the right answers", but I still think any advanced+ player could figure the above out faster than it could be typed. Even if not optimal (The above isn't. On purpose. I wanted to demonstrate figuring out a defense on the fly.), this is a reasonable defense to this Bergen sequence.

Banning Drury in all seats was indeed a =very= good idea. If I can play Drury in all seats, I can pretty much guarantee that the vast majority of the time We sit before your strong hand, you will not be able to open. Give me a 4cM, in a hand of any strength, and I can open 1M w/o fear in many situations because Drury allows Us to differentiate sub-minimums and psyches from real openings. Under such circumstances, the opposing side's constructive auction is often going to have to start at the 2 level and often a round later. Good luck to their bidding accuracy. (For =real= "fun" We'll combine Drury in All Seats with 1N=10-13. Bye bye the vast majority of constructive auctions by the opponents unless they Deal.)

The current system sucks only because the ACBL refuses to keep up to date and to correct the ambiguities that have been pointed out to them. Other countries regulate conventions in a similar way to the ACBL, but for them it works much better because the authorities actually care about finding ways to improve the regulations. Any system based primarily on the opinions of private individuals is more susceptible to abuse than a system based on publicly posted axioms and logic that is subject to member review. The present unfortunate situation with regards to convention regulation in the ACBL is evidently proof of this. If the system is provably subject to being "gamed", IMHO the proper course is to improve the overall system so it is less so, rather than just cleaning up the symptoms in one SO and then counting on every other SO to be of greater virtue for all eternity such that they never have the same problem. Let's clean up the symptoms +and+ make it less easy for the same problems to occur in the future.

Do you know anyone who fits this description? This sounds like a malicious slur to me. Peter Yes. In some cases, the situation was extreme enough that the players involved got jusitifiably in trouble with the officials. That these players did these things and that they were deemed unacceptable behavior by the officials is a statement of fact, and therefore neither malicious nor a slur. ...and I shall avoid names to further avoid being malicious or making a slur :)

1= I believe we have mathematical evidence that 5431's and 4441's are not "about as notrumpy as 5422's and 6322's": Shape NT Suit Difference 4333 6.15 7.76 1.61 4432 6.10 8.07 1.97 5332 6.07 8.13 2.06 5422 6.01 8.40 2.39 6322 6.00 8.50 2.50 4441 6.09 8.61 2.52 5431 6.03 8.68 2.65 6331 6.03 8.77 2.74 5521 5.94 9.03 3.09 2= Opening 1N w/ most 5422's would be considered abberant (there are 3 that are semi-commonly: =2245, =2425, =2452 of the right texture.). Opening NT with the vast majority of 6322's would be considered highly abberant (6m322 w/o any honors in the 6 card suit is the unlikely hand type most likely to open in NT). Unless playing the NT opening as a preempt rather than as a constructive game probe. 3= What is "Drury over 1 diamond"? I will tell you that Barry Crane tried to get Drury over 1 Major allowed in all seats and the regulating authorities turned him down flat because it was felt to offer too many opportunities to be used as a psychic control. 4= Bergen Raises were not invented by Marty Bergen. They or things very similar had been kicking around various local areas in NA for quite some time before Marty gave one specific version a serious publicity boost. They involve Limit Bids in a Known Suit with a known degree of fit. In short, they are easy to understand and in theory easy to defend against. 5= The Forcing NT is a necessary component of any 2/1 GF system. 2/1 GF simplifies the average player's constructive bidding chores substantially. While I'm sure Al Roth, Edgar Kaplan, etc of the 2/1 GF crowd had some pull, the reality is that overall 2/1 GF makes it easier for most players to a greater degree than the Forcing NT complicates things. 6= In NA, the most usual 2♦ opening is a Weak Two. Anything else is considered alertable. In GB and many parts of Europe, the most usual 2♦ opening is The Multi. ...and a "natural" Weak 2♦ is alertable in many places. A 2N overcall that shows Invitational values in NT is "natural", yet it is not the "usual Unusual NT" and therefore has to be announced or alerted in most jurisdictions! Bottom line: familiarity matters; and =all= SO's put some effort into protecting their paying customers from the alien. 7= Plenty of people play things to take advantage of unfamiliarity or to randomize things. Marty Bergen did it in the 1980's with his preempt style for instance. Caused quite the uproar in official circles.

1. Who in their right mind teaches novices about assumed fit preempts? 2. Almost anyone using using assumed fit methods will open a 5-4-2-2 hand. Most assumed fit structures permit preempts with 4-4-3-2 shapes. I said "Assumed Fit principles" not "Assumed Fit Preempts". The reason we teach that a two level preempt requires 6 cards and a 3 level preempt requires 7 cards and a "n" level preempt requires "n+4" cards is that the most likely degree of fit in your trump suit can be mathematically proven to be equal to the number of tricks you are offering to take. (Schenken also said the shapely component was important to keep the maximum loser count down. This is why 7222's are usually opened at the 2 level and not the 3 level.) =That= is real "assumed fit". Side Note: Not all AFP's that I've seen proposed are as well thought out as to degree of fit and low enough number of expected losers as traditional single suited preempts. The "assumption" for those AFP's is at best considerably less strong and at worst downright speculative compared to their more traditional single suited brethren.

Not only is there the practical matter that the majority "pays the bills", there is also a matter of ethics involved. If the sole or even main reason you are using method "x" is because you think you will get better results due to the opponents unfamiliarity with it or due to the randomizing effect of it, then at the least you are not being very sportsmanlike. At the worst you are being unethical.

Folks, I submit that a good default definition of "natural" is that it would make intuitive sense to an utter Bridge novice. Thus when you bid a suit, you are offering to play in that suit. And when you say that you are going to take "n" tricks over Book without a trump suit (" 'n' with No Trumps"), then you have a hand that is best designed for NT rather than suit play. It is never going to be intuitive to a novice that a hand containing a stiff or void, for which We teach novices to add 3 or 5 Dummy Points respectively for ruffing value, is a hand best played w/o a trump suit! Nor is it ever going to be intuitive to a novice that a hand shape that We teach novices to open 2suit based on Assumed Fit principles is a "natural" for a NT opening. ...and thus, "natural" shapes for a NT opening become 4333, 4432, 5332, 5422 Let me be clear. I do not necessarily think that "unnatural" or "conventional" NT openings are somehow "bad"; any more than I think Stayman, Gerber, Blackwood, Transfers, puppets, relays, etc are "bad" because they are not natural. I simply think that we should not call them "natural". The debate / discussion as to whether any specific "not natural" treatment is "bad" or how it is best regulated for the good of the game is a =different= matter that has nothing to do with whether or not a treatment is "natural" or not. "Natural" does not inherently mean either "good" or "bad". It does, however, strongly imply "simpler". Simpler to understand; simpler to use; simpler to defend against; and thus simpler to teach. As the Shakers said- "Tis a gift to be simple."

It would be nice to eliminate the petty politics and personal influence. But I don't like your alternative either. System regulation is difficult - you shouldn't expect it to be possible to have an axiomatic approach. "It is not that Democracy is demonstratively bad. Of course Democracy is demonstratively bad. The issue is that every other form of government is demonstratively worse."- Winston Churchill "Let me be a free man - - free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk and think and act for myself - - and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty."- Chief Joseph of the Nez Pierce Native American tribe. IOW, doing things based on logic and axioms that we do everything we can to make fair is the best system I can think of and demonstratively much better than the current situation. Got a better idea, I'd be happy to hear it.

I thought most versions of the The Multi-2♦ include a big balanced hand type? The response structures I'm seeing in this thread do not seem to be catering for it?

Your analysis is only "correct" because partner does not have a 1NT overcall. The lack of any sort of diamond stop is a fairly notable feature. (North's pass of the 1NT overcall is also a little strange) Yes, we both know a better auction would've been along the lines of (1♦)-1♠-(3♦!)-?? Why? You don't like your chances in 4 spades? Well, the Moysian that E doesn't know about can certainly lead to some interesting assumptions and bidding... My best guess is that E would make the forcing call of 3♥ intending this as a way to show an Invitational hand with 3 card support and a side suit. Although a simple raise to 3♠ is also reasonable. Bottom line is that DD there are only 9 tricks in ♠'s for EW. 4♠ is -1 on the ?obvious? trump lead. 4♠ makes on any other lead.; but the line of play needed to make is fairly precise. Given that, I think 4♠ is a superior contract to 4♥ by just a smidge.