Artificial Openings - How to Direct?

[Yzerman]

Hello all, I have been confronted with a "type" of problem recently, so naturally I come here to get some feedback regarding this problem. This problem I have encountered is regarding conventional and/or artificial openings (non Standard/SAYC). I can say now that I have been confronted with this "type" of problem 3 times in last week, 2 times as director and 1 time as player.

 

For the purpose of running tournaments, as well as participating in tourney and knowing my boundaries (as well as opps boundaries) here is the problem;

 

For the purpose of an ALERTED and EXPLAINED conventional and/or artificial NON-SAYC opening, how much tolerance should be allowed in the stated explanation. I give a few examples, and please I ask all that read this consider the problem from a few perspectives;

 

Consider from -

 

1-Tournament Host/Director Perspective

2-From a Players Perspective (your own)

3-Consider from a Novice/Beginner/Intermediate Perspective

 

Problem Statement/Examples -

 

1C, precision opening, ALERTED and EXPLAINED as "16+", when in fact they held ONLY 12 high card points and argued that distribution compensates for stated point range.

 

2C, precision opening, ALERTED and EXPLAINED as "11-15", when in fact they held ONLY 8 high card points, and argued that distribution compensates for stated point range.

 

2D, Flannery opening, ALERTED and EXPLAINED as "11-15", when in fact they held ONLY 8 high card points, and argued that distribution compensates for stated point range.

 

My understanding of ACBL governance on such issues is that a partnership is NOT allowed to deviate from state high card point ranges (within +/- 1 point of stated range) for an ARTIFICIAL/NON-STANDARD/NON-SAYC opening. So you can argue the merits of following the ACBL model of governance on this issue.

 

Furthermore, I argue that to alert such artificial (non-sayc) bids with the stated point ranges is to purposely gain unfair advantage. I support that argument with the following;

 

1 - The opps might (might) take other course of action during bidding if EXACT agreements are disclosed.

 

2 - For the purpose of defending, the defense is entitled to the information of stated range for purpose of counting out a hand. (Example, when defending, a player might visualize a defense based upon the stated range that assumes a certain holding when a separate defense might be reasonable if was aware of distribution conditions).

 

For the purpose of the tournaments that I direct, I have temporarily solved this issue with the following "rule", in which I announce at beginning of every tournament. Furthermore, as my policy for enforcing this rule, 1st violation is warning and 2nd and subsequent violations results in adjustment of result.

 

"Please, as a matter of policy, any ARTIFICIAL bid with upper or lower point limit .. partnerships may NOT deviate more than +/- 1 HIGH CARD POINT from that limit by agreement ... if you have agreements to deviate more than +/- 1 then you must give full disclosure of that agreement ..."

 

I appreciate any and all feedback/discussion on this subject, thanks in advance.

 

Regards,

Michael A Lucy

[inquiry]

This is an interesting problem, I guess from a director stand point, but not much from a bridge standpoints. There are some 8 point hands that should be opened 1 of a suit, and there are some 12/13 point hands that might best be passed.

 

I think if a pair routinely open's 8 point hands, the alert, if they are going to alert, should be 8-15 (think moscito). Or, alert 15 hcp or less... that will probably do as well...

 

As far as opening a 12 hcp hand and saying it is worth 16 hcp, this maybe a true evaluation of the hand, but I believe that would be an ACBL violation. Now, is your event governed by ACBL rules? If so, this is clear violation.

 

I find it personally discomforting to be looking at 8 hcp and then alert the bid as 11-15. I do open lightish hands, I do not go out of my way to alert, because my bid is what I consider an opening bid, up to just short of a game forcing bid... quite a range-indeed. And I certainly don't make a habit of opening at one level with 8 hcp...

 

So from the three perspectives...

 

1) as a director... I set the rules, so what I think counts. If I thought this was a violation, I would penalize. Of course, this assumes you made rules clear.

 

2) From a beginner standpoint... I am not sure an accuarte description would help. But we must protect them so one really should be forthcoming.

 

3) From a player perspective... points, smoints... if it looks like a hand you should bid on, BID..... just give some kind of proper alert.

 

Ben

 

BTW, Mike, I open nearly 100% game force on hands like...

 

AKxx

Axxx

x

KQxx

 

I try to alert all the potential meanings of my 2♣ bid... 1) true game force, 2) Acol 2 in a major, or 3) three suiter can be 16hcp or so or more...

 

That is a lot to type...usually I do a "see below" and send in private chat... but to be honest, almost everyone has bid somethign before I get all that typed....

[hrothgar]

Comment 1: Milton Work style HCPs are notoriously poor descriptions regarding hand strength. For better or worse, certain Zonal authorities require that players use HCP's to describe their agreements. Associated with this, there will be necessarily be imprecision.

 

Comment 2: BBO is an international forum. From my perspective, if I see an announcement of 11-15 HCP, I assume by default that the opponents mean 11-15 HCP or compensating distribution rather than assuming that I am playing against a Walrus.

 

Comment 3: I don't see why a natural versus artificial distinction is at all relevent. I think that it only crops up because players who open natural bids don't bother to provide their opponents with any range information.

 

Comment 4. The sooner that beginners learn that HCP are not the be and and end all, the better. I mean, its not like anyone really uses these.

 

As I noted before, long term I think that full disclosure ultimately needs to be based on a database documenting actual historical patterns rather than subjective agreements.

[mikestar]

A suggestion for these types of hands. HCP is just not accurate for unbalanced hands. For unbalanced hands, I suggest adding 9 (the mininum combined length of the two longest suits in an unbalanced hand excluding the 4-4-4-1) shape and use the reselting Bergen Rule.

 

So Precision 1C=16 means Rule of 25 unbalanced,

 

Precision 2C=11-15 means Rule of 20.

 

But the Flannery case is different as it shows specific distribution--I would follow the ACBL on this. They could of course state something like 8-12 with a void,10-14 with a stiff, 12-15 wtih two doubletons (probably this is something like their actual agreement.)

 

So no problem opening Precision 1C on 15 and 5-5 or 14 and 6-5, but that 12 point opener had better be 7-6!

[McBruce]

The way to deal with these is by using the Principle of Coincidence. If a player is significantly out of the normal HCP range for a bid -- and I would extend the "safety limit" to +/- 2 HCP for calls that do not promise balanced hands -- there is no infraction unless his partner ALSO takes an unexpected action which compensates for the first distortion, AND damage to the non-offending side results.

 

More details at this link: http://www.acbl.org/regulations/ethics.htm#Coincidence

 

When a Director judges that a partnership has an implied agreement in such a situation, he may adjust the score and/or give a further penalty. So far on BBO we are able to do the former but not the latter. I hope this will change at some point.

[spwdo]

mikestar wrote But the Flannery case is different as it shows specific distribution--I would follow the ACBL on this. They could of course state something like 8-12 with a void,10-14 with a stiff, 12-15 wtih two doubletons (probably this is something like their actual agreement.)

 

 

if thats the parnershipagreement they shoud explain this and not given any other information that might trick opps.

 

 

one of these i adjusted today, at first i was just making a warning and adding it to thier profile, but my efforts for convincing the 2♣opener to give an accurate explanation next time had no result, they kept saying to me it was "natural" to do so, probaly is is presision or polish club but hardly is outside polish club/presision land so i end up adjusting, i dont like to do that in a cold game but if that is what it takes i keep on doing that, most do learn after an adjust or two, i have a polish td working several times a week, well he is not as patient with polish club as i am(off course he knows most players and language isnt barrier for him) god bless his soul cause since he is on baord i learned a thing or two about that convention and alerts and good explantions are way up nowa days, My point: explain your convention to opps and give full info to your opponents

[ehhh]

I find it quite curious that no one has used the dreaded 'pysch' word in their discussion. These bids seem to sit outside the +/_ range to which others constantly are referring. Pyshic bids always congure up negative feelings whenever they rear their ugly head; regardless of the harst reality of being a legal part of the game.

 

However, a psych of a conventional bid is an entirely different issue. Are these bids not conventional (certainly flannery is)? If they are, a TD job of making a ruling is a lot easier. From a players point of view, given that they recognize these bids for what they are, they are distasteful. The players only course of action is to call the TD and then they must rely on the expertise of the TD to protect them and the integrity of the game.

[Trpltrbl]

I will and do penalize people for that, a lot of people that play precision or some relay system give the minimum amount of info they can get away with. Just so they know what is going on and opps don't. Sickning :)

When I run my tourneys I tell players, to alert with FULL disclosure. If not and I get called, to bad for them, but they will lose most of the time.

And I use, as a guideline, the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge 1997. I am not a big fan of precision type systems, mostly because of these reasons. If you play a complicated system, be prepared to answer many questions, and don't try to get away with something lame like "undiscussed", since next time that person will play in my tourney they better play a normal system.

 

Mike ;)

[hrothgar]

I will and do penalize people for that, a lot of people that play precision or some relay system give the minimum amount of info they can get away with. Just so they know what is going on and opps don't. Sickning :)

Please spare me....

 

The Precision players do a MUCh better job disclosing their methods than those playing "standard".

[Trpltrbl]

I will and do penalize people for that, a lot of people that play precision or some relay system give the minimum amount of info they can get away with. Just so they know what is going on and opps don't. Sickning  :)

Please spare me....

 

The Precision players do a MUCh better job disclosing their methods than those playing "standard".

Some do, most don't. I run a lot of tourneys, or at least I used to. And it is always the precision type players with these problems, and they always come up with excuses, "undiscussed", no speakie English, thought my pd alerted, I forgot, we don't alert too much work etc etc etc. Come and play in my tourneys like that and `Fear the Reaper` since he will have no mercy at all.

 

Mike ;)

[hrothgar]

Your "no speakie English" comment is extremely offensive.

 

With this said and done, I find that, by and large, players who willing decide to learn an unusual system typically know the ins and outs out of this system much better than players who blindly follow "standard" practice. They are better preared to explain their methods and typically do a much better job doing so. In my experience, most SAYC players either have no clue regarding their methods or outright refuse to describing them, hiding behind the defense "its just bridge" or "its standard".

 

I have run run into some trouble with players who "grow up" playing Polish club or precision. For the Poles, Polish club is "standard" and here, once again, there is often trouble with disclosure. In particular, the combination of novice players being forced to disclose methods in a foreign language is problematic.

 

However, I typically attribute this to the experience level of the players.

[the hog]

MAL, this probably does not help you much, but in Australia:

If you played a big C system and regularly opened 1C with say 14 or less, you would be expected to pre alert this and have it marked on your cc else risk an adjustment. The same goes for consistent light openers.

 

As a matter of interest, I agree with Richard in that big C players and those who play complicated systems tend to be more forthcoming than others. I find this is true in ftf as well as on line bridge. (Just try to get an average sayc player to explain their possible hand types for Stayman and you will see what I mean.)

 

Ron

[JRG]

Getting back to the original post.

 

I agree with your actions. I also agree with the sense of Richard's post. Nevertheless:

 

From all perspectives my take is: If you are going to deviate by more than 1 (or perhaps 2) points from a STATED HIGH CARD POINT range, by partnership agreement, then you are not explaining your calls. It is hard to infer intention (beginner ignorance, unintentionally misleading, or purposefully deceptive), but change the way you explain.

 

If you open hands that are less than average strength (an Ace, King, Queen, and Jack -- or some approximation) with other than a preemptive bid, then I also agree with pre-announcing (e.g. "We open (unusally) light" or somesuch) -- the opponents have the right to know.

 

This does NOT mean you have to have long-winded explanations.

 

E.g. 2♦ - alert as "4♠ 5♥ less than 16HCP"

E.g. 1♣ - alert as "Artificial, forcing, may be as low as xx HCP"

 

If you don't use a "common" guideline such as 4-3-2-1 HCP, Quick-tricks, Losing Trick Count, then explain bids with a minimum of:

 

- Artificial or Natural

- Not forcing or forcing to whatever level (eg. for 1 round, to the level of 2NT, to Game or 4 of a minor)

 

A side issue is that I think "Precision" is now as ambiguous as "Standard American". There is a significant issue that a lot of people know a little bit about the early versions of Precision and tend to make assumptions when someone announces they play "Precision" (I have personally been guilty of such, but I know such assumptions are my own fault), such as a 1♣ opening shows 16 HCP (perhaps 15 when judgement is factored in).

[kleek]

Hi Mike, Ben, et. al.,

 

As Mike is aware, this issue has concerned me to a considerable extent in local tournament and club circles. Without casting aspersions on those who, with partnership understanding, if not explicit agreement, routinely give such alerted explanations, while at the same time hold hands with many fewer HCP than described, I would like to make the following observations:

 

1. Correct me if I am wrong, anyone, but wasn't the purpose of a strong, artificial, and forcing opening bid, e.g., 1C (Precision), to convey a minimum number (typically 16 or 17) of HCP upon which to construct a more "precise" subsequent auction, i.e., being on a game force after a positive response, economical slam tries, etc.? In the absence of a known fit, can the 1C opener really "know" that his ordinary 12 HCP hand, with perhaps a 6-card suit, and a singleton and doubleton on the side, qualifies the hand to be the equivalent of a 1C opener for the purposes of a constructive and "precise" auction? This is highly doubtful, unless there are further (generally UNALERTED, and therefore unexplained) controls in the auction. Is there any systemic reason that these hands cannot be opened with, e.g., 1H or 1S and still be bid accurately to the limit of the hand, without abusing and overworking the 1C opening? I respectfully doubt (but am glad to be corrected) that the authors of the various 1C forcing systems intended such hands to be opened with 1C.

 

2. There is a fundamental distinction to be made between opening light with a natural call, e.g., 1S on 8 HCP, and opening an "artificial and forcing" bid about which nothing is known with a severe shortfall from the expected number of HCP. Even a 2D Flannery opener, although artificial, opened light, doesn't rise to quite the same level of unexplained agreement, because so much more is known about a Flannery hand, i.e., the alerted shape.

 

3. Although the problem, as originally stated, specifically mentioned a 1C, artificial and forcing, opening, let's not forget the 2C, and any other, forcing and artificial opening bids. Ad absurdam, does AKQxxxxxx and out represent a strong, forcing, and artificial opening bid, merely by the number of tricks which can presumably be taken if that suit is trump? Obviously not. There are other considerations as well. Minimum number of HCP, minimum number of quick tricks, tricks on defense, etc. Actually knew someone who opened 2C on x, x, AKQxxxxxxx, x....the director was only mildly amused.

 

4. Now, I am NOT saying that anybody who wants to play, or abuse, a system in such ways is going beyond what they may have a right to do, BUT, IF those are their parttnership understandings, which clearly go well beyond what the average person understands a 1C (Precision), or 2C (Standard), opening bid to be, then the ONUS shifts to that partnership clearly to state that their strong, forcing, and artificial opening bids may ROUTINELY contain as FEW as x number of HCP, such as 9 (or whatever it is), with compensating distributional features, and NOT say, in the case of 1C (Precision), 16 or 17 points which may include distribution. The clear intent of the latter, if not the main reason to play a forcing club system with such agreements in the first place, in my opinion, is unfairly to attempt to silence the opponents and/or make them severely misjudge the prospects for competitive bidding.

 

5. Further, if the partnership has controls in their system which helps them identify distributional and sub-minimum HCP hands, any of these follow-up bids should be very clearly alerted and explained. Such as, after having gotten a positive, "game-forcing" response, they can still identify such hands and stop the auction below game.

[spwdo]

hi,

 

i ve run a few tourneys to say the least and i hardly ever get a call from a non alert or poor explantion of sayc based systems, maybe three calls in all the tounrys i hosted, however the calls i get from presision are countless, im not getting in any discussion about who alert/doesnt alert/explain correct/not correct just giving you the facts on it as i ve encounterd in my tourneys, when i come to a table after a call in most cases i see the first bid coming up(alerted) and explain as presision, this is done in most cases again after a query(cliked on that bid) but for lots of players around presision means nothing im afraid so we (several tds i know) have regulary problems with this and are forced to adjust on it.

 

 

i most hereby also state that we off course will nevr encounter the ones that explains /alert in a proper way so off course not all, maybe even a majority does it the way it shoud, i cant say more without knowing proper % of players actually playing presision, i had the same issue for long with polish club till a polish td strted to help out on regular basis in my tourneys, complaints where down and if something happen, he dealt with it(no language barrier for him and he knows the system inside out)where i maybe would let it with a warning he adjusts and he made a change for polish club players so hopefully i will achieve that goal for presision as well

 

sidedrift of the initial topic but i gave my idea on the matter already, full disclosure,limit of 1 point outside agreement and actually giving a range is simple a must

 

 

marc

[hrothgar]

If any good bridge players actually used High Cards Points to evaluate hands, I have much more sympathy for the position of many of the posters...

 

Assume for the moment that partner and I are using a bidding system in which "Zar Points" are the primary mechanism for hand evaluation. I argue that making alerts and annoncements based on "Zar Points" doesn't provide the opponents with any useful information. 99% of all players won't be able to process the information provided. For better or worse, the description of our methods that we provide needs to be based on a metric that most people use. We need to describe methods using High Card Points.

 

Now the big problem sets in: While High Card Points can approximate Zar Points, the two systems are based on different theories. As a result, the boundary conditions for the maximum and minimum strength of opening hands which are nice and distinct using Zar Points become fuzzy and porous when expressed using High Card Points.

 

This inherently creates problems.

 

Right now, people are obsessing with the case in which players alert 11-15 HCPs, or so yet occasionally open 8 counts or 9 counts. I readily admit that this creates problems and it would certainly be possible to take the tails of the distribution into account an announcence the range of an opening bid as 8 - 17 HCPs. However, this simply creates another set of problems since the occasions on which a Precision player opens 1S with an 8 count or a 17 cont are few and far between.

 

One way or another, using High Card points as a mechanism to describe agreements expressed in Zar Points will create problems I suppose the question is how best to balance the innaccuracies...

 

How about it? Where do we draw the line and say "this" is the edge of our range when we are forced to express this in High card Points?

 

One standard deviation away from the mean?

2 standard deviations?

4.89 standard deviations?

 

As I commented earlier, I don't see a good short term solution to this problem. In the long term, I can certainly see "technical" fixes that could be applied. For example, ultimately, the best way to describe methods would probably be to present the opponents with 500 hands that correspond to the bidding sequence in question. The opponent's can then use some form of expert system to parse the hands and express hand strength as some form of Probability Density Function using any one of a variety of hand evaluation metrics. However, we're a long ways away from any such system. My guess is that I could very well be the only person out there who would actually LIKE to see such a system implemented.

[aisha759]

I'm going to try to reply to your question from an intermediate/player point of view (not a seasoned director yet) ..

I expect to get a truthful explanation to those bids... if they say 16+ that's what it should be.... not a big deal if missing one point... they have the chance to explain

with a private message to opponents that it could be less points with distributional values, or whatever else needs to be described... as far as not alerting right away, it happens to many of us, where we actually forget; again, a privvy can be sent to opps sayin "ooppppps sorrrryyy forgot to alert, this is what my opening means etc.."

There is no excuse for not describing an alerted bid properly and fairly :unsure:

Of course if opponents are friends, then I definitely wouldn't want to antagonize them (he he) or even potential friends... Remember, i am answering this as an itermediate player, and a novice TD ;)

Good luck with figuring this out Mike :D maybe you should take a poll...

[Trpltrbl]

So if somebody plays precison and opens 1♣ and alerts it as 16+ and his pd replies 1♦ 0-7 what does that stand for ? Everybody(more or less) takes that as HCP, if you play something else, maybe alert it as 16+ adjusted points or something like that.

 

Mike :D