ACBL restriction on opening 1nt

[pbleighton]

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.

 

I'm not that interested in the names of these players.

 

I am interested in why you think an unsupported assertion by you is credible to the rest of us.

 

Peter

[hrothgar]

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).

Please show me the where the expression "destructive" is defined in the Laws of Contract Bridge or even in official regulatory codes. For that matter, you might want to try to do the same for "random". (Regretfully, saying that the primary purpose of "destructive" bids is to destroy the opponent's bidding doesn't cut it. You don't get to use a word to define itself)

 

I strongly recommend that you look at the following thread from rec.games.bridge

 

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.b...151912a0c560773

 

In it, David Stevenson solicited advice from the rec.games.bridge community in defining the expression "random". At the point in time that David original made his posting, the EBU Orange book banned Random bids. Eventually, someone notices that

 

(a) The expression random was not defined anywhere

(B) No one could actually agree what the express random meant

 

As I understand matters, the core issue was never resolved. No one was ever able to devise a suitable definition for the expression random. (More specifically, the definitions of "random" that were offered didn't seem to match the goal of the prohibition)

 

The issue was (eventually) resolved by dropping the expression from the Orange book.

[sswarnendu]

My partnership is quite happy to open 1NT with all hands which lies in the range 15-17(may even be a great 14 sometimes with lots of tenaces) which will have predictable rebid problems.......4333,4432 is obvious......can easily be 5422 even with 2 small doubletons unless it is 5-4 in the majors...5431 with a small singleton only without 4 card spade( a genuine rebid problem then,what's ur rebid after p responded 1 hearts to ur 1 minor opening if u have 1=3=4=5,1=3=5=4,3=1=4=5,1=3=5=4,well one exception is there......we play 3 card raise to 1 major respone to one minor only in case of a 12-15 hcp unbalanced hand,we have methods so that partner can enquire about the degree of support before proceeding.....so some 5431 with 15 hcp,we wont open 1NT,but with 16/17 hcp,we must)...& finally 6332..without a 6 card suit which is too weak to attract me(or my p) to rebid that suit...with 6 spades,however weak it might be,we generally tend to rebid 2 spade,but we are allowed to use our judgement based on the nature of scattering of values....but not with any other weak 6 card suit..so our 1NT opening can contain even a 6 card Major(we can show a 5 or 6 card major in response to our "staymannish" 2 Club enquiry only if we're in the higher zone(17 or good 16,but with 15 hcp,& a weak suit we may respond to "stayman" treating it as 4 card,although partner will know it can be 5 or rarely,but can even be a 6 card major suit with 15 hcp).Actually we like the very narrow range of 1NT opening very much......only this opening bid limits our hand within a quite narrow range & describes the balanced,semi-balanced or quasi-balanced nature of our hand straight away......

We know this is Alertable & we DO alert our 1NT opening......but does this rule says it is illegel????can anyone explain?

[hrothgar]

We know this is Alertable & we DO alert our 1NT opening......but does this rule says it is illegel????can anyone explain?

From my perspective, opening 1NT on a singleton falls into a gray area in the Laws. Different local authorities have established very different sets of regulations.

 

I'm going to provide my own interpretation. While I think that this is a logically consistent approach, I certainly don't claim than any regulatory bodies would necessarily agree with the following comment.

 

The crucial issue that needs to be address is whether or not a 1NT opening which, by agreement, can be made with a singleton should be considered to be a natural bid or, alternatively, treated as a Convention. Just so we're all on the same page, I'm going to post the definition of a "Convention".

 

Convention

 

1. A call that, by partnership agreement, conveys a meaning other than willingness to play in the denomination named (or in the last denomination named), or high-card strength or length (three cards or more) there. However, an agreement as to overall strength does not make a call a convention.

 

2. Defender's play that serves to convey a meaning by agreement rather than inference.

 

In general, I prefer to be able to evaluate bids on their own merits. For example, if I were looking at a 2♠ opening and I was asked to rule whether or not the opening was a convention, I would ask to see the set of hands that correspond to a 2♠. Ideally, this would be the only data-point that I would need to use to make a decision. More specifically, I prefer NOT to use the response structure to evaluate the Conventional Nature of an opening bid. There are good response structures and there are bad response structures. I don't think that a player's skill in choosing/designing a response structure should impact the the Conventional nature of the opening.

 

However, evaluating a 1NT opening might be an exception to this rule. I'm having a very difficult time determining how one should determine whether an opening has a meaning other than "willingness to play" in NT without looking at the response structure. At the end of the day, I think that the most important question might very well be responder's action with different hand types.

 

1. If the partnership has explicit sequences by which the NT opener can show a singleton or a void, I'd argue that that their 1NT opening is conventional.

 

2. If responder doesn't pull the 1NT opening with some unbalanced hand patterns, I'd argue that the 1NT opening is conventional

 

I'm not entirely satisfied with this line of reasoning, but I haven't seen anything better.

 

One last point thats worth considering: Even if your 1NT opening is judged to be conventional, you still might be able to play it. For example, the ACBL Midchart allows "Any strong (15+ HCP) opening bid". If you wanted to, you could play that a 1NT opening is a conventional opening that shows 15-17 HCP and any of the following shapes (4432, 4333, 5431, 5332, ...)

[skjaeran]

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.

Huh?

That seems strange to me. A 2/1 in Acol doesn't promise a rebid - it's 9+ and forces opener to rebid. 1♠-2♣-2x may be passed.

[kenrexford]

I like to play that 1♠ shows less than 13 cards, myself.

 

That was what we are talking about, isn't it?

[skjaeran]

The Forcing NT is a necessary component of any 2/1 GF system.

Normal, yes. Necessary, no. Brogeland-Sælensminde play 2/1 GF and 1M-1NT as NF in a 4cM system. I play 5cM and 2/1 myself, but still use 1M-1NT as NF, and I know several others doing the same.

[pbleighton]

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. 

 

Another poster told you that is is standard Acol procedure. I play it myself, in one 5cM partnership, and I know others who play it. One teaching pro I know teaches it to his students, and yes, he knows that it is not original Standard American.

 

Now, as to *official scrutiny*, let me direct your attention to the ACBL's General Convention Chart #7 under Responses and Rebids:

 

"ALL CONSTRUCTIVE CALLS starting with the opening bidder’s second call"

 

You should read the GCC:

 

http://web2.acbl.org/documentlibrary/units...vChart12_03.pdf

 

You would find it enlightening.

 

Peter

[the hog]

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.

Foo, you make some unbelievable assertions at times. The above comment by you is sheer unadulterated nonsense. As Skaeran has already pointed out, this is a part of standard Acol bidding. You appear to enjoy making grandious statements and presenting them as a matter of fact when all they are is =YOUR= opinion, often very badly argued as well. Otehr bridge organisations have adopted regulations far more liberal than those in the States and the sky has not fallen, Chicken Little.

 

While we are at it, would you please refrain from those incredibly annoying abbreviations and keystrokes in your posts which only seem to be known to you.

[awm]

The crucial issue that needs to be address is whether or not a 1NT opening which, by agreement, can be made with a singleton should be considered to be a natural bid or, alternatively, treated as a Convention. Just so we're all on the same page, I'm going to post the definition of a "Convention".

 

1. If the partnership has explicit sequences by which the NT opener can show a singleton or a void, I'd argue that that their 1NT opening is conventional.

 

2. If responder doesn't pull the 1NT opening with some unbalanced hand patterns, I'd argue that the 1NT opening is conventional

 

I'm not entirely satisfied with this line of reasoning, but I haven't seen anything better.

I'd suggest the following alternate line of reasoning.

 

A notrump bid should be considered conventional if there's a particular other strain which (based only on opener's hand) is likely to take substantially more tricks than notrump. For example, a 1NT opening which included 5-5-3-0 hands would be conventional, because we would expect to take more tricks declaring the hand in one of my five-card suits than we would in notrump (opposite a randomly generated hand for partner). Of course, partner's hand could be such that in fact notrump is the best spot, but given the spectrum of random hands for partner this situation would be somewhat unusual. Whether a 4-4-4-1 hand is likely to take more tricks in a particular one of the four-card suits or in notrump would require some statistical study.

 

In fact one could define conventional for suit bids in a similar way -- essentially this will define any method where the suit named is always opener's longest suit (or tied for longest suit) as being non-conventional, whereas a method in which another longer suit might be held (canape preempts, etc) would be conventional. This would resolve some annoying issues about whether a basically natural call "becomes conventional" when certain hand types are excluded (for example, say I play a strong club system with five-card majors, weak notrump, and intermediate two bids -- it could be that my 1♠ opening actually guarantees a four-card side suit by negative inference -- am I playing a conventional 1♠ opening?).

[pbleighton]

say I play a strong club system with five-card majors, weak notrump, and intermediate two bids -- it could be that my 1♠ opening actually guarantees a four-card side suit by negative inference -- am I playing a conventional 1♠ opening?

 

Interesting question, but I would bet that if you polled 100 ACBL tournament-quality TDs (significant experience at the sectional and regional levels), none of them would consider the bid conventional.

 

If it guaranteed a specific suit, that's a different question...

 

Peter

[jtfanclub]

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. 

 

Another poster told you that is is standard Acol procedure. I play it myself, in one 5cM partnership, and I know others who play it. One teaching pro I know teaches it to his students, and yes, he knows that it is not original Standard American.

Actually, I think most beginners believe that 1♠-2♥-2♠ is nonforcing. There's nothing wrong with playing it that way.

 

I actually play Precision with Unlimited No-Trump, which means 2/1 not only doesn't promise a rebid, it isn't even forcing. 1♥-2♣ shows 5+ clubs, usually 8-11 hcp, usually no heart support. Partner passes with 11-12 balanced and 3+ clubs. We've gotten in trouble for the 'usually' part of it (we've been known to do it with 6 or 13 depending on the quality and length of the suit, lack of controls, misfit potential, etc.). Not one director, and there have been a lot of them, has claimed that the bid itself is in any way not GCC legal. It's natural, nonforcing, and doesn't promise anything in the other suits. That's always legal.

 

Now, on his other post claiming that 1♥-3♣ Bergen is a Limit raise, ah, no. It shows 6-10 and 4 card support. Not only is it often right to compete after the 3♣ bid, a spade game isn't out of the question either. The fact that the Bergen raise is one of the easiest and safest bids to psyche doesn't hurt any either: why bid 3♥ when you can bid 3♣ and shut your opponents out of game?

[foo]

Drury only appears to have been banned -- it really has not.  I have actually "played" drury in all seats.  It is easy to see how.

 

Suppose, for instance, that Opener must rebid his suit with a minumum.  So, after 1♠-P-2♣-P-2♠, Opener has shown a minimum.  Is Responder forced to bid?  Of course not.

 

What is the minimum for a GCC opening?  8 HCP.

 

What is the minimum length for a 2/1?  Natural means three.  You can tactically lie.

 

So, if you have an agreement like this, can you not bid 2♣ with a tweener hand, checking to see if Opener is light (he will rebid his suit), passing if he does?  Can't you even do that with "problem" big constructives with a fit?

 

Of course.  The only difference is that Drury says nothing about the club suit.  So, you use 2♣ and 2♦ as "Drury," in effect, and thereby have that tool available.  Simple.

 

This, of course, illustrates the nonsense of the GCC rule.

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.

[foo]

Now, on his other post claiming that 1♥-3♣ Bergen is a Limit raise, ah, no. It shows 6-10 and 4 card support.

 

Not only is it often right to compete after the 3♣ bid, a spade game isn't out of the question either. The fact that the Bergen raise is one of the easiest and safest bids to psyche doesn't hurt any either: why bid 3♥ when you can bid 3♣ and shut your opponents out of game?

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.

[pbleighton]

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.

 

My point (and others) was not that Ken was playing Acol.

 

My point was in response to your utterly ridiculous and ignorant statement:

 

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. 

 

The Acol references were an illustration. The main point is that 1M-2x-2M as nonforcing is clearly legal under the GCC. If you want to make statements about legality of bids in the ACBL, fine, but you really should read the Charts first.

 

Peter

[mike777]

"FTR, Marty Bergen no longer plays any form of Bergen unless forced to; having come to the belief that its negatives outweigh its positives"

 

 

Source?

[kenberg]

"FTR, Marty Bergen no longer plays any form of Bergen unless forced to; having come to the belief that its negatives outweigh its positives"

 

 

Source?

Let me add my own request for the source. I have long been a skeptic on Bergen Raises and since its advocates see this as a sign of mental disease I need all the ammunition I can get.

 

As to the legality of opening 1NT with a stiff I am sorry to hear that this is still an issue. As long as folks are bidding in a constructive manner I think that it is a very bad idea to legally restrict a player from making the bid that he believes to be the best. The world is full of people who wish to make it illegal for people to live their lives and bid their hands as they please. I don't favor this.

[blackshoe]

When I first read the comment about Marty Bergen no longer playing Bergen raises my first thought was "he must have read Max Hardy's book." (The Problem with Major Suit Raises and How to Fix Them).

 

I think the problem in the ACBL (if there is one) with opening 1NT with a singleton is that there are many many TDs at all levels, and they aren't all on the same page. Mostly, I think, this is a matter of training and dissemination of policy. And of course most players have their own ideas, many of which are, well, wrong. :rolleyes:

[foo]

"FTR, Marty Bergen no longer plays any form of Bergen unless forced to; having come to the belief that its negatives outweigh its positives"

 

 

Source?

Marty himself.

[foo]

As to the legality of opening 1N with a stiff I am sorry to hear that this is still an issue. As long as folks are bidding in a constructive manner I think that it is a very bad idea to legally restrict a player from making the bid that he believes to be the best. The world is full of people who wish to make it illegal for people to live their lives and bid their hands as they please. I don't favor this.

No one in this thread has thus far said that it should be illegal to open 1N with a stiff. Nor do the regulating authories say that.

 

The objection is to

a= having a system where it is =systemically= expected to regularly open NT with shapely hands.

b= Particularly if those wanting to do so think the bid is still "natural" and should not require an alert as a convention or a set of defensive methods to be provided against it.

 

I completely agree that judgement should never be legislated on; and I don't believe that any regulating authority has taken such a stance either.

[mike777]

"FTR, Marty Bergen no longer plays any form of Bergen unless forced to; having come to the belief that its negatives outweigh its positives"

 

 

Source?

Marty himself.

ok , when did Marty tell you this and what after 20 years of playing it convinced him to change that he did not know the past 20 years or more?

[foo]

"FTR, Marty Bergen no longer plays any form of Bergen unless forced to; having come to the belief that its negatives outweigh its positives"

 

 

Source?

Marty himself.

ok , when did Marty tell you this and what after 20 years of playing it convinced him to change that he did not know the past 20 years or more?

Marty lives in FL in the USA. I happened to be there a few years ago and noticed he wasn't playing "his" raises in some game or another we ran into each other in.

When I teased him about it (=Privately=. One does not make fun of a working professional "on the job".), he grimaced and told me he wasn't playing Bergen Raises much anymore. I did not feel it "politic" to ask him details as that could easily be construed as "twisting the knife".

 

Particularly since I had always been an opponent of Bergen Raises (Why force yourself to play 3M when you might not have to or it might not be a makable spot? Are raises showing 9 trumps =so= important that it is worth sacrificing the ability to show other hand types that a JS could show? etc).

[the hog]

So from:

 

"FTR, Marty Bergen no longer plays any form of Bergen unless forced to; having come to the belief that its negatives outweigh its positives"

 

We have now gone to

 

"he grimaced and told me he wasn't playing Bergen Raises much anymore."

 

That is quite a difference, especially as he did not even give you the reasons why.

[jillybean]

backspace,,

[foo]

So from:

 

"FTR, Marty Bergen no longer plays any form of Bergen unless forced to; having come to the belief that its negatives outweigh its positives"

 

We have now gone to

 

"he grimaced and told me he wasn't playing Bergen Raises much anymore."

 

That is quite a difference, especially as he did not even give you the reasons why.

...Because the reasons are bloody obvious at the expert (heck even the non-expert) level. And have been known and discussed ad-nausuem for years.

 

Marty's style has changed from his youth when he was an advocate of considerably more "in your face" aggressive bidding.

 

He'll never be Al Roth, but the days of Weak Two's on J9xxx are behind him. And so are the days of him simply assuming that "n trumps means when should play at the n tricks level no matter what."