Now I've seen everything

[hrothgar]

A firend and I were driving to a friend's birthday bash on Saturday and she happened to have a copy of the ACBL bulletin in her car. I started reading through the Bulletin and was happy to discover that it seems to have improved in the last five years. A lot more articles. The good writers have stayed and the new crop has some interesting things to say.

 

What I found truly amusing was a letter to the editor describing an exciting new preemptive opening. The player was recommending that 2♦ show 5+ Diamonds and 4+ Hearts or 4+ Spades. The author alos pointed out that this was a GCC legal opening since it promises 5+ cards in a know suit.

 

5 years ago, I get into a truly annoying fight with the Conventions Committee over this opening. (Amittedly, I wanted it to show 4+ Diamonds) Now the Bulletin is printing letters explaining that this is suitable for GCC level events.

[Winstonm]

It's a bitch to be ahead of one's time. B)

[kenrexford]

Strangely, the Bulletin missed the ball here. It is not GCC legal.

 

I had the same arguments, except with 2♥ and 2♠ openings, Roman-style (5+ of major, 4+ in an unknown minor). I argued that it was a treatment, but the GCC Dictatorship decided that the GCC did not allow this call because it guaranteed a minor.

 

The solution was strange. We decided that it showed an "unbalanced" hand. This was fine. The fact that major two-suiters were handled in other ways, and that 6331's were handled in different ways, left only 7222's or longer major holdings. We decided that, if the LTC was right, we could tolerate an occasional 2M opening on some 7222 or similar one-suiter. 2NT, then, asked for "more description."

 

Absolute silliness. But, if the law has not changed, then it is still not GCC legal. That is, unless the GCC is a "living, breathing document," just like the United States Constitution, subject to reinterpretation as the world modernizes and the definition of political correctness evolves.

[rbforster]

It's all well and good to know all the details of the GCC chart and which things can be slipped through where, but as a practical matter, things are "legal enough" if the director at the sectional/regional/whatever tournaments lets you play them. These directors aren't GCC experts, and having a copy of the Bulletin in hand stating said convention was GCC should go a long way towards getting to play your favorite convention as a matter of practice.

 

The next step is clearly to start suggesting more conventions we like to the Bulletin and claiming in our discussion that they are legal B).

[awm]

Well this is actually a curious problem. The issue is that you can make various "exceptions" out to be negative inferences, which can never be disallowed. And ACBL doesn't even have the authority to regulate natural bids (laws of bridge basically forbid that, except for very-light one-level openings). So you can argue:

 

(1) Opening 2♦ showing a weak hand with 4+♦ is a natural bid. Therefore it's allowed.

(2) Of course, we're free to decide that certain hands with 4+♦ are "not suitable" for a preempt. No one argues that just because you play weak twos that you have to open every hand in the point range with an appropriate length suit. All sorts of restrictions are quite common (and generally not even alerted), for example "no four-card major" or "no void" or "two of the top three honors."

(3) In particular, we can decide that 4333 and 5332 hands are not suitable for a preempt, and that hands with 6+♦ should open at the three-level because it's more annoying. This is simply a negative inference: there are certain hands that might seem suitable for the 2♦ opening which we normally choose to pass.

(4) Putting these together, we're playing 2♦ promising 4-5♦ and 4+ in another suit. Gee.....

 

Of course, you can similarly argue that if multi 2♦ is allowed (and can be used with only five cards in a weak two hand) then Wilcosz should also be legal.... B)

 

Anyways if you want to play this style of two bids, just tell the opponents your agreement is "it shows four or five diamonds" and there are some negative inferences about shape and/or location of values. Of course you'll be restricted as to the followups if it doesn't promise five cards.

[hrothgar]

Its probably worth clarifying a couple points:

 

First, I had a number of long drawn out arguments with the ACBL Conventions Committee about certain methods that I wanted to use. While these arguments were triggered by the approval process for certain conventions, for me the my core criticism and main issue with the ACBL is one of competence. The main reason that I posted this letter was that I was shocked that the ACBL's official publication would describe this method as GCC legal. This method is clearly conventional and clearly not approved at the GCC level. (The method is Midchart legal, however, there are no approved defenses to this method)

 

Second, after the last run in with the Conventions Committee, I decided to stop playing in ACBL events. I had another option. I could start playing silly little symantic games like the ones that Adam is using to try to claim that this 2♦ opening is not conventional. I rejected this approach. Maybe I'm being naive or idealistic, however, I don't want to be playing a game where the legal structure is this subjective.

 

Assume that that Adam and I are playing an identical 2D opening. I describe this opening as 4+ Diamonds and 4+ Cards in either major. Adam describes his opening based on "negative inferences". I argue that the legality of the methods should be based on the set of hands being shown, NOT the vocabulary that is used to describe it.

 

My entire complaint with the ACBL focuses on the fact that they are abusing the regulatory structure. I don't want to lower myself by responding in kind.

[awm]

I agree that ACBL's convention regulations have some issues. Unfortunately WBF shares some of those issues as well.

 

In my opinion the primary goal should be to encourage disclosure. Any regulation on conventions which serves to discourage disclosure should be done away with. There are several consequences of this:

 

(1) Suppose it's allowed to open 2♦ showing one of some set of hands A. Then it should also be legal to open 2♦ showing one of some set of hands B if B is a subset of A. Otherwise, it's all too easy to simply claim that you play "2♦ showing A" and then actually play "2♦ showing B" since no one will ever spot an example where you opened 2♦ on an unsuitable hand. Partner is "in the know" about the criteria you use for "judgement calls" about when to open 2♦ and opponents are not. While this seems on the surface fairly straightforward, there are any number of examples where ACBL and WBF have failed to make rules that respect this, for example Multi is legal (even with 5-card suits) but Wilcosz is not, or Multi must include strong options (recently done away with), or 2♦ showing 4+♦ is okay but showing 4+♦ and another suit is not.

 

(2) Bids that are extremely common "tactical calls" need to be made legal agreements. For example, I know that many good players will occasionally respond to 1m with a three-card major suit. Especially playing a short club or diamond method (where you might not want to raise with four small in the minor) this is essentially systemic. Many strong pairs agree to virtually never raise partners 1M response on less than four, and play support doubles and redoubles in part to protect the 3-card suit. The more ethical of the players (Fred being an example) who do this would be happy to disclose their tendency to respond on three cards -- except that the ACBL's general chart makes this an illegal agreement! Similar issues arise when partner is known to psych occasionally in certain auctions, but disclosing the tendency to psych makes it an illegal agreement!