HUM and BSC - are they worth it?

[david_c]

If forcing pass systems didn't work, there wouldn't been a need to ban them...

Wouldn't there?

[hrothgar]

If forcing pass systems didn't work, there wouldn't been a need to ban them...

 

The folks who played these methods (many of whom were/are top talent) were quite clear how they felt about the merits of these system...

The argument goes something like this though:

 

These sorts of methods mess with inexperienced pairs who have no idea how to defend them. If you play these sorts of methods in a pairs event or the early rounds of a big team event, you will encounter lots of pairs who have no idea how to defend them. You will thus run up a big margin against these "bad pairs" or "unprepared pairs" regardless of how the methods perform against prepared opposition.

 

So in terms of "can these methods win a big tournament" the answer is certainly yes. Especially at pairs your score depends a lot on how effectively you beat up on the weakest/worst prepared opposition.

 

But the general feeling is that adopting weird methods just for the purpose of "bunny-bashing" is not very fair, even though it does improve your chance of winning a typical event with a wide-ranging field. The reason for banning these methods is not because "good players are afraid to face them" but because "good players think it is unfair that they can trounce a team using weird, inferior methods but still lose to that team in the overalls because the weird methods team was able to so effectively bash weaker unprepared opponents."

 

So we need to ask: "do these methods help you win against top-level opposition which has had time to prepare in advance"? The people who like these methods will claim that they do help you, since otherwise they are acknowledging that they participate in the ethically shady "bunny-bashing" activity (playing inferior methods simply to "mess up" weak players). Probably they believe what they claim too. But that doesn't mean they are right. In fact the tournament record of these methods is very mixed -- there are many examples of supposedly better players using supposedly better methods who nonetheless lose to supposedly weaker players using supposedly weaker methods even in fairly long team formats.

The Poles and the Aussies had great luck at top levels of competition playing forcing pass...

 

It seems rather ridiculous to refer to the finals of the Bermuda Bowl and the Olympiad as "bunny bashing"

 

In fact the tournament record of these methods is very mixed -- there are many examples of supposedly better players using supposedly better methods who nonetheless lose to supposedly weaker players using supposedly weaker methods even in fairly long team formats.

 

If one team is usng a strong pass system and the other isn't there is going to be a hell of a lot of variance. The reason that I threw in the Runyon quote was to try to forestall this rather obvious point...

[awm]

The Poles and the Aussies had great luck at top levels of competition playing forcing pass...

 

It seems rather ridiculous to refer to the finals of the Bermuda Bowl and the Olympiad as "bunny bashing"

Really? My impression was that the Aussies have not done particularly well internationally, despite having many teams that play unusual methods (forcing pass, transfer openings, etc). As mentioned previously, the Aussie team playing very vanilla methods in a recent Bermuda Bowl was their best performance in quite some time...

 

The Poles on the other hand have had a great deal of success internationally. But while their experiments with forcing pass were certainly successful, they also had teams do quite well playing Polish Club without a whole lot of BSCs. I don't see any strong indication that those Polish teams which were playing forcing pass did much better than the more recent ones using Polish Club.

 

The finals of Bermuda Bowl and Olympiad normally allow forcing pass don't they? The banning of these methods is in effect for the round robin which does include a great number of weaker teams.

[hrothgar]

The Poles and the Aussies had great luck at top levels of competition playing forcing pass...

 

It seems rather ridiculous to refer to the finals of the Bermuda Bowl and the Olympiad as "bunny bashing"

Really? My impression was that the Aussies have not done particularly well internationally, despite having many teams that play unusual methods (forcing pass, transfer openings, etc). As mentioned previously, the Aussie team playing very vanilla methods in a recent Bermuda Bowl was their best performance in quite some time...

 

The Poles on the other hand have had a great deal of success internationally. But while their experiments with forcing pass were certainly successful, they also had teams do quite well playing Polish Club without a whole lot of BSCs. I don't see any strong indication that those Polish teams which were playing forcing pass did much better than the more recent ones using Polish Club.

 

The finals of Bermuda Bowl and Olympiad normally allow forcing pass don't they? The banning of these methods is in effect for the round robin which does include a great number of weaker teams.

1. Pairs have a lot of lattitude to play what they want in the finals of the Bermuda Bowl, which means jack ***** compared to the costs associated with having having to switch systems mid event.

 

The pairs who abandoned these methods are VERY vocal about why they did so and make it perfectly clear that this decision was not based on their perceptions about technical merit.

 

2. The Australians actually have a pretty decent track record if you compare their success with their population. (Big populations give you all sorts of advantages when you're trying to put together a competitive team). More over, their top finish was back in the day when Martson and Burgess were anchoring the team and playing strong pass...

 

(BTW, before you start commenting that strong club, transfer based systems with relays, you might want to include pairs like Newell and Reid in your cacluations)

[NickRW]

You are asking who the message is aimed for. It is for the regulators.

There is plenty to criticise about the EBU, its regulations and decision making processes, but to say that its regulators act for themselves is a criticism even I can't endorse.

 

Nick

[nige1]

As one of the regulators I can answer a few of the (implied) questions here...

 

My personal preference is generally for more permissiveness and fewer restrictions. I believe that the personal preferences of the other regulators vary across the whole range of possible preferences.

 

The regulators however don't regulate according to their own preferences, but they try and do what they think is best for the game. 

 

Based on the correspondence received by the L&E, I would say that on balance there are an equal number of people asking for more permissive regulations, and complaints that the current position is already too lax.

 

As for initiating direct consultation of a 'representative sample', the EBU is supposedly a democracy.  There is a Council, consisting of representative of each county, and they are consulted on all new regulation.  There is also the new club committee, but in place to represent the interests of club players (rather than high-level tournament players) who are also consulted on such matters.

Players are grateful to legislators and regulators, who do well in difficult circumstances. As far as systems are concerned, consultation seems to me to be of limited efficacy. I still think that if regulators tried to indulge the preferences of all the different factions, then the game would become even more fragmented, pleasing even fewer players. At the extremes are ..

• Simple souls who want Bridge to be a test of play technique and bidding judgement. To that end, they would like a level battle-ground, with everybody using the same weapons. Especially, they resent opponents seeking "unfair" advantage, subjecting their victims to a new variety of poison-gas, at every encounter.
  
• System geeks who regard Bridge as the ultimate partnership game -- a communications war with easily jammed channels of narrow bandwidth. For them, making best use of the limited vocabulary available is a fascinating challenge.
  

Most players are in-between. They occasionally tinker with their conventional weapons but tend to feel safer with legal protection from the unfamiliar. Few of them will be satisfied with any given regulatory compromise. I feel that such players could quite quickly adapt to and enjoy one or other of the extreme regulation levels (standard system or anything goes).

[gerry]

As one of the regulators I can answer a few of the (implied) questions here...

 

My personal preference is generally for more permissiveness and fewer restrictions. I believe that the personal preferences of the other regulators vary across the whole range of possible preferences.

 

The regulators however don't regulate according to their own preferences, but they try and do what they think is best for the game. 

 

Based on the correspondence received by the L&E, I would say that on balance there are an equal number of people asking for more permissive regulations, and complaints that the current position is already too lax.

 

As for initiating direct consultation of a 'representative sample', the EBU is supposedly a democracy.  There is a Council, consisting of representative of each county, and they are consulted on all new regulation.  There is also the new club committee, but in place to represent the interests of club players (rather than high-level tournament players) who are also consulted on such matters.

Players are grateful to legislators and regulators, who do the best they can in difficult circumstances. As far as systems are concerned, consultation seems to me to be of limited efficacy. I still think that if regulators tried to indulge the preferences of all the different factions, then the game would become even more fragmented, pleasing even fewer players. At the extremes are

• 
   
  
• Simple souls who want Bridge to be a test of play skills and bidding judgement. To that end, they prefer everybody to use the same methods. Especially, they resent opponents seeking "unfair" advantage by subjecting them to a new variety of poison gas, at every encounter.
   
  
• System-geeks who regard Bridge as the ultimate partnership game -- a communications war with easily jammed channels of narrow bandwidth. For them, making best use of the limited vocabulary available is a fascinating challenge.
   
  

Most players are in-between. They occasionally tinker with their conventional weapons but tend to feel safer with legal protection from the unfamiliar. Few of them will be satisfied with any given regulatory compromise. I feel that such players could quite quickly adapt to and enjoy one or other of the above alternatives.

Hi everyone,

 

I was wayne's forcing pass partner all those years ago and there is one point that hasn't been mentioned before regarding judgement. When one plays forcing pass what happens in practice is that auctions when your side is dealer are much more competitive than when 'normal' methods are being used. The non-dealing pair do not get to plug their hands into the "black box" of their system, but ironically neither do the forcing pass pair because, of course, no one sits there quietly when the oppos "open" a 13+ pass or an 8-12 opener.

 

The upshot is that forcing pass results in more judgement being required, not less, by both pairs because no-one gets to lean on the crutch of a well oiled system that will bid most normal hands to a reasonable spot with little effort or judgement necessary.

[gerry]

Further, every bunny can bid 1nt-3nt and cash 9 tricks. This is not evidence of judgement or skill. If I open 1 1H fert in front of a good pair holding the same cards they will no doubt bid exactly the same way for a deserved result. The pair of bunnies may get confused and anything might happen. The point is that it is their lack of skill and judgement that is the cause of this, not my bid, after all the good pair had no problem. To me it seems that this is no different to opening a preempt. Weak pairs founder much more than strong pairs when confronted with a 3H opening, but without it they will still bid 1nt-3nt and cash 9 tricks. Bunnies have many weaknesses, that is why they they are bunnies, exploiting these weaknesses is perfectly fair; surely there is no-one out there who thinks it is unsporting to preempt freely against weak pairs.

[blackshoe]

At the risk of being derided by Hrothgar again...

 

Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How’s that again? I missed something.

 

I am not sure where folks get the idea that committees whose purpose is to regulate a game must necessarily be "democratic" anyway, at least in the sense that some here seem to be using the word. On which wall is that written?

[blackshoe]

Club can permit whatever methods they like.

The same is true here. In practice, at least in my area, this seems to be, as one club owner told me "you can play anything you like" - until someone complains, and then you're told "that bid is banned". B)

 

Club owners here refuse to say up front what the rules are. Makes it awfully hard to do anything that "everybody" isn't already doing, since those are the only things you "know" (or are at least pretty sure) are allowed.

 

The ACBL has recently made official their stance on happenings at clubs: they aren't getting involved. If you don't like the rules at your club, says the ACBL, either convince the club management to change the rules (fat chance, say I) or play somewhere else.

[blackshoe]

If forcing pass systems didn't work, there wouldn't been a need to ban them...

Wouldn't there?

Desire ≠ need.

[csdenmark]

Or do you mean regulators are suppose to cater for the demands of the minority even if that is contrary to what the majority wants?

Please read what I stated about democratic standards:

 

It is for the majority an obligation to pursue the interests of the electorate who elected them - the majority. But in a democracy it is also an obligation for the majority to guard the rights of minorities. That is what they are to be blamed for not to have done.

 

The american democracy has not guarded the rights of the indians, the australians have not guarded the rights of their aboriginals, the danes have not guarded the rights of the inuits, the Nazis did not guard the rights of the judes. Today we have all excused our deadly mistakes based on violations of basic democratic principles.

 

Democracy is not so easy - not least because there is no precise definition. But there are principles and lawyers knows these.

 

Therefore the lawyers - those are normally the regulators in bridge - are to blame. They act inside a democratic framework violating the basics of what they are asked to protect.

[marcD]

Further, every bunny can bid 1nt-3nt and cash 9 tricks. This is not evidence of judgement or skill. If I open 1 1H fert in front of a good pair holding the same cards they will no doubt bid exactly the same way for a deserved result. The pair of bunnies may get confused and anything might happen. The point is that it is their lack of skill and judgement that is the cause of this, not my bid, after all the good pair had no problem. To me it seems that this is no different to opening a preempt. Weak pairs founder much more than strong pairs when confronted with a 3H opening, but without it they will still bid 1nt-3nt and cash 9 tricks. Bunnies have many weaknesses, that is why they they are bunnies, exploiting these weaknesses is perfectly fair; surely there is no-one out there who thinks it is unsporting to preempt freely against weak pairs.

I do not think the issue is only jugement but preparation . Some Unusual systems/Fert bids do work for some time as long as opponents are unprepared (not to mention issues about full disclosure). Even something as mundane a Ekren 2♦ or 2♥ involves a learning curve and I do see the need for protection of players for whom is not their only occupation in life (irrespective of their skill level).

As for preempt, i actually think the opposite is true : I would rather preempt freely against stronger pairs. They will tend to better than weaker pairs judge on average but they are bound to get nailed sometimes whereas you can rely on weak pairs to make mistakes without pushing them around. Why increase the variance against weak pairs when/if the mean/average is in your favour ?

[hrothgar]

At the risk of being derided by Hrothgar again...

 

Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How’s that again? I missed something.

I am simply going to point at the following:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds

[Rossoneri]

Or do you mean regulators are suppose to cater for the demands of the minority even if that is contrary to what the majority wants?

Please read what I stated about democratic standards:

 

It is for the majority an obligation to pursue the interests of the electorate who elected them - the majority. But in a democracy it is also an obligation for the majority to guard the rights of minorities. That is what they are to be blamed for not to have done.

 

The american democracy has not guarded the rights of the indians, the australians have not guarded the rights of their aboriginals, the danes have not guarded the rights of the inuits, the Nazis did not guard the rights of the judes. Today we have all excused our deadly mistakes based on violations of basic democratic principles.

 

Democracy is not so easy - not least because there is no precise definition. But there are principles and lawyers knows these.

 

Therefore the lawyers - those are normally the regulators in bridge - are to blame. They act inside a democratic framework violating the basics of what they are asked to protect.

So if the majority does not want HUMs and BSCs, but the minority wants it, wouldn't the regulators be in a lose-lose situation either way? That is what you are implying.

 

You say democracy is not easy, then you blame the regulators for the result of the inherent problems of democracy. Wow.

[Cascade]

So if the majority does not want HUMs and BSCs

Where is the evidence for this speculation?

[Finch]

So if the majority does not want HUMs and BSCs

Where is the evidence for this speculation?

He doesn't need it. That's why it starts with an 'if'. The question works equally well written as

 

So if the majority wants HUMs and BSCs, but the minority doesn't want them, wouldn't the regulators be in a lose-lose situation either way? That is what you are implying.

[Codo]

For me and most others it is comfortably that HUMS are banned. We do not need to prepare for these systems.

 

I played quite a lot of chess when I was younger. Nobody had the silly idea to ban the scicilian defence. You had been allowed to play any opening you want.

The opponents had their defences against the most usual openings and maybe they had some general understanding which helped them in the other variants.

 

Really nobody claimed to ban some opening because the preparation tooks too long. You simply get used to these openings- or you accept the bad start because your opponent was better prepared.

 

So, if you call yourself a competetive chess player, you better be able to cope with all weird systems. You don not need to know all the best answers, but you need to have a basic understanding.

 

Same could be possible in Bridge. But unluckily the majority of the Bridge players are different from chessplayers.

 

Many of the competetive players do not want to spend as much time in their defence against their opponents possible openings as chess players.

They want a comfortably life and want to stay on firm ground. I do understand this. This is much easier then working hard on a defence against weird methods.

 

And to make things worse: The majority of all bridge players- the big majority, the social players- has no interest in new methods. They want their 4321 point count, one system for anybody and nothing new. They don`t want to spend time with discussing and learning. They want to play. A simple game.

 

I guess these two groups are about 95 % of all players. We must accept this and stick to our all fashioned systems. (No Wayne, I made no studies about this number, sorry, it is just a belive.)

 

I do regret this, but I won´t try to do sysyphos job and fight for a change here.

Claus had taken this task on his shoulders. I doubt that his fight makes him happy. And I doubt that he can win. But I wish him good luck, because I support the idea of anything goes.

[helene_t]

I think the comparison to chess is somewhat apt but not quite.

 

In bridge, it is essential to have partnership agreements. For most of us, this means agreements about how we defend against familiar methods.

 

A weird chess opening is more akin to coded signals, or weird systems being played at World Cup for computer programs. Those are restricted also, but (to me at least) it is less understandable why they are restricted. After all there are no restrictions on tactics for declarer play.

[cherdano]

So if the majority does not want HUMs and BSCs

Where is the evidence for this speculation?

Are you seriously doubting that this is the case? We must really live in two different worlds, Wayne.

[helene_t]

fwiw I think the majority of club players don't care, if only because very few would play hums even if allowed (and some get away with it even if not allowed).

 

In countries where only BSCs and HUMs are banned, there is plenty of scope for making weird agreements without violating the rules, and players don't even make use of those possibilities.

 

I can imagine it is different in North America (where the rules are much stricter) and at higher levels (where pairs will have elaborate agreements against Multi, Polish Club and blue-sticker systems but not against arbitrary BSCs and HUMs.

 

But where I play it isn't an issue. Nobody would notice if the rules changed to complete anarchy tomorrow.

[hotShot]

We believe that it's a benefit if opps can't exchange information, so we preempt with NT openings that get weaker and weaker. People playing a forcing pass system leave the 1 level to LHO so (s)he can inform his/her partner about his/her hand.

So preempting is overrated or forcing pass openings are not as superior as some think.

 

We don't open below opening strength without shape, in forcing pass systems you are forced to open such hands.

So opening strength is overrated or forcing pass systems are not as superior as some think.

 

 

But playing against forcing pass systems my agreed system won't work. Our openings in 2nd seat won't happen, because the HCP requirement is to high behind the strength of the opening forcing pass. If opps open, we don't have a penalty dbl, because we agreed that dbl is t/o up to 2♠.

As a result we might miss some of our partscores/games and we won't punish opps weak openings.

This does not prove that a FP-system is good, it just proves that we are unprepared.

[csdenmark]

There are in fact 3 topics of interest in this discussion.

 

- Pass-systems forcing opponents to use defensive bidding in 85% of the deals

- 4+♥ + 4+♠ openings, primarily weak ones

- Hammers

 

But else I completely agree with Roland(Codo) - the problem is lazy bridge players. That kind of lazyness has now in fact removed the intellectual part from the game. What is left is the competition in mechanical skills.

[david_c]

Most players are in-between. They occasionally tinker with their conventional weapons but tend to feel safer with legal protection from the unfamiliar. Few of them will be satisfied with any given regulatory compromise.

I don't think this is true. Maybe I have not been talking to the right people, but it seems to me that the English system regulations have progressed to a point where people are largely satisfied. Looking back a few years, there used to be widespread dissatisfaction with a number of issues, for example:

- not being allowed to play a non-penalty double of 1NT;

- not being allowed to open light systemically in third seat;

- not being allowed to make a strong opening on less than 16 HCP, regardless of how good the playing strength was.

These have now been dealt with, and I don't see anything else taking their place as major issues.

[nige1]

We don't open below opening strength without shape, in forcing pass systems you are forced to open such hands.

So opening strength is overrated or forcing pass systems are not as superior as some think.

The former: Most hands are in the 7-12 HCP range, so you open more hands, when you adopt a forcing-pass system. A relatively safe low-level exchange of useful information helps the partnership whether you end up declaring or defending. Also, you consume opponents' bidding space, winning more partscore battles.