Forcing Pass Systems

[JanM]

(2) When ACBL organizers banned transfer openings except for long team events, they were probably not in line with the will of the bridge playing population.

Transfer openings aren't banned; they are midchart but no one has presented an adequate defense for them. Just like 2♦ showing both Majors (sorry, I know that is completely off topic, but it happens to be my personal pet peeve that none of the people who play that have bothered to submit a defense and then they complain that they aren't allowed to play it, or just play it anyway). I know a lot of you think that the nefarious convention approval committee has insidiously refused to approve a defense to transfer openings, but actually, no defense has been submitted, at least recently. Now that the committee has the option of approving something for a stated number of boards, I would be very surprised if they wouldn't approve a reasonable defense to transfer openings, at least for 6+ boards or something like that.

[Cascade]

It seems to me to be driven by a minority of experts who want to preserve their perceived advantage over those that would innovate with new methods by making it as difficult as possible for the innovators to play their methods.

If you really think experts on regulatory committees are sitting there saying to themselves "Oh my gosh forcing pass is such a friggin good system, completely superior to what I play, I have to ban it or I'll have no chance!" then you are deluding yourself.

 

That your personal bias prevents you from looking at the issue objectively is plain as day and comes through in everything you type, such as if your opponents don't think it should be part of bridge to show you their bids then they are committing 'deliberate acts', but if they don't think preparation for unfamiliar systems should be part of bridge then they are 'lazy'. You think it's fine that your opponents have to spend huge amounts of time preparing for methods they never see in order to have a chance to even compete, fine you can feel free to think that and maybe you are right (whatever 'right' means in this context.) But if they dare disagree (and what makes them not 'right?) then they are just a lazy minority of experts trying to quash the innovators of the world.

I have never said that these methods are superior.

 

They might be they might not be. I don't think we have enough evidence to determine this. I don't even think it is well known where the optimum lies playing reasonably standard methods.

 

Hiding your bids is simply not part of bridge.

 

There is nothing in the laws that explicitly requires a player to play a standard system. It is hard to see what except laziness would motivate a player to not perpare adequately to defend against their opponent's system. I was dumbfounded by Jan's example that a US pair did not discuss two-level overcalls against their opponents methods. If it is not laziness then it is simply sloppy.

 

Yes I too have been sloppy in the past. We probably still have many holes in our system. However when I get caught out by a hole in my system it does not occur to me to blame the opponents methods. The blame rests solely with my inadequate preparation.

 

Until relatively recently I relatively rarely played against strong NT at least in anything approaching serious competition. Even now strong NTs is probably still in the minority in tournament play in New Zealand. Do you think it would be reasonable for strong NTers to lose their seating rights because they were playing against a player that was not used to those methods? It wouldn't occur to me to complain that I have to prepare to play against methods that I am not familiar with. Quite the contrary I almost always very much enjoy playing against unfamiliar systems and styles.

 

Your second paragraph is littered with hyperbole - e.g. "...comes through in everything you type..."; "...have to spend huge amounts of time...". I wonder what is not objective. I have stated facts about the WBF system policy.

 

In addition the tightening of the system policies has come about after moderate success by pairs playing these methods e.g. Australia with Burgess/Marston (actually two New Zealanders) in Perth 1991 (are those details correct?) and Balicki/Zmudzinski playing Suspensor. After a pair from the Netherlands (?) submitted a system including Brown Sticker Conventions against the "short club" system the regulations were changed and the "Conventional" 1♣ was declared "Natural" which it patently is not. The system policy says that the aim is to create a "equal chance" and then goes about discriminating against innovative systems. Yes I know I have stated some of this earlier but these are facts - How much more objective can one get?

[Codo]

So banning complex methods where the inference are impossible to draw for 99.9% of the opponents is just common sense.

So you think whe should ban the polish club too? It is not common enough in the US?

Or shall we ban precision in my home club because no regular member plays it?

 

What about Fantunes? Quite uncommon to anybody, because brandnew. We should ban this too?

 

I guess SAYC had been banned in Poland before the invention of the internet too. Nobody knew that system.

 

Sorry, this reasoning is not working.

 

It happens to all of us: You sit down the first time against an unknown system and you will write some bad scores.

 

There are three ways to handle this problem:

1. Prepare against weird stuff.

2. Accept the bad scores. Like you have to accept a bad score when you failed to learn the best way to handle AQ98 opposite J54 or when you are missing the right defence because your partnership plays length signals but you had need attitude this time (or vice versa).

3. Ban anything which is different from your POV.

 

I really dislike the current method nr.3.

[Codo]

It's worth commenting that the poll results on this thread are dramatically different from the results in the thread about transfer openings.

 

Obviously these are not exactly scientific polls, but the suggestion I'd make would be:

 

(1) When WBF organizers banned forcing pass except for long team events, they were probably following the will of the bridge playing population.

 

(2) When ACBL organizers banned transfer openings except for long team events, they were probably not in line with the will of the bridge playing population.

 

It is all very well to argue that the bridge population should for some reason share your viewpoint. But the rules really should reflect what their viewpoint is rather than what any particular person wants it to be...

Adam,

 

1. There is still a majority in your poll to allow FP Systems. Okay this majority will be a minority if you ask all ACBL members, but still, it is a larger minority then suspected.

 

2. It is not true that you must always serve the majority. As an example, we surely won't pay taxes when the majority has to decide what is right.

So in an idle world the authorities must and will decide what is best for the community. So if it will be best for the game to allow FP-Systems, the ACBL shall allow them, no matter what the members say. (Whether it is best is open to discussion, I am not sure what is best.)

 

3. That most people are against FP System is understandable.

It needs work to prepare against them.

It is new- what is horryfing enough for many senior citizens.

It was surely just invented to make them unhappy. Those system nerds try anything to win yadayadayada...

 

But, when these methods are allowed, they will get common over the years and nobody will complain anymore.

[Cascade]

In fact a club that can be "short" - as short as two - meets the WBF definition of "HUM".  Such a 1♣ opening shows a subset of hands with length (3+ cards) in clubs and it shows a subset of hands with shortage (2- cards) in clubs.

 

"By partnership agreement an opening bid at the one level shows either length or shortage in a specified suit "

While you made some good points in this post, I really think you are wrong about this one.

 

By your argument, a 1♥ opening that shows 5+♥ meets the definition of "HUM." Such a 1♥ opening shows a subset of hands with length (3+ cards) in spades and it shows a subset of hands with shortage (2- cards) in spades.

 

The point is that there's a difference between the definition including hands with length and with shortage, and showing length or shortage.

 

A bid that shows "either length in a suit, or a balanced hand" is not the same as showing length or shortage. The 1♣ opening described is actually extremely similar to a precision 1♦ opening. Both are certainly artificial (I agree with you there) but not HUMs.

I don't think this argument applies to a natural 1♥ opening with respect to what that bid shows about another suit like spades.

 

Many of the players who open this 1♣ describe their method as "Short Club" that in itself suggests that they are "showing" a hand with club shortage even if it is restricted balanced hands.

 

After they tell me that they play a "short club" then I will ask "Is it always short?" and they will tell me "no it can have club length" thus establishing that this bid shows "shortage" or "length" in clubs.

 

So if I play a system in which a 1♣ opening shows a normal natural (genuine length) in clubs or a hand with only one club (perhaps restricted in some way e.g any 4-4-4-1) is that a HUM? (That is exactly one club not two or none).

 

What if it shows Natural or No clubs (again restricted in some way e.g. any 5-4-4-0 or any 5-5-3-0 with two non-touching suits) is that a HUM?

 

If you think either of these is a HUM then what is the difference logically according to the definition between these openings and the "Short 1♣ that is "Natural" or two clubs in a balanced hand.

 

I certainly can't tell from the definition what the difference is and I think most would tell me that the two examples that I have given are HUMs.

 

One of the reasons I think that fewer system regulations is appropriate is that it seems to have been so hard to make sensible regulations. When I first started playing there was a long list of allowed conventions - I am not 100% sure if they actually applied or were a relic in the club library at the time. At some point someone realized that was not the best way to go and regulations have evolved into licencing generic types of openings - "Natural", "Strong Club" etc etc. These are more or less specific in different situations.

 

This situation has caused many problems. Sometimes from omissions, sometimes from oversights, sometimes because a Standard American 1♣ is taxinomically similar to what they want to define as a "HUM".

 

What would you open with:

 

♠ A

♥ AKQJ10

♦ AKQJ10

♣ AK

 

?

 

WTP 7NT you say.

 

For a while that would have been illegal in New Zealand as someone had decreed (with some exceptions like Gambling 3NT) that an opening in NTs had to show a balanced hand!!!

[Cascade]

But, when these methods are allowed, they will get common over the years and nobody will complain anymore.

Or they will prove ineffective and fade away.

 

How can we lose by allowing these methods. Either :

 

1. They will prove effective and we will all want to adopt them (really they are no more complex than many of the standard gadgets that we play) or

 

2. They will prove ineffective and we will beat those that choose to play them.

[cherdano]

Wayne, if you cannot see the difference between preparing for a specific fert and preparing for a strong NT, then I don't think anybody can help you...

[Cascade]

Wayne, if you cannot see the difference between preparing for a specific fert and preparing for a strong NT, then I don't think anybody can help you...

I think I understand the difference in detail.

 

In principle I do not see the difference if both methods are methods that I am unfamiliar with.

 

Coping with the Fert is made easier by:

 

1. In some jurisdictions a suggested defense is required

 

2. I am allowed to have a written defense

 

3. In most events I can choose whether or not to play against a HUM pair - they lose their seating rights - unless they have three HUM pairs. Its a bit like American Football where you have specialized Offensive and Defensive players.

 

It would be even easier if Ferts were more freely allowed. I am sure we would get a better feel for what an optimum or at least reasonably playable defense would look like.

 

Coping with 1NT is difficult as evidenced by the proliferation of defenses to 1NT none of which is ideal.

 

Having said that I think it is reasonably easy to create a playable defense against a Fert. I have played at least two different styles:

 

1. Sort of like Precision

 

X = 16+ with a step negative

and others 11-15

 

2. Double showing a weak NT or similar and including various strong hands

- Frequent hand type with one aim being hopefully to catch them more often

Overcalls being limited

 

Sure you don't have a cue-bid but you don't have one of those after they have passed either. So the only cost is that you are a little higher. You just need to learn to cope with that making more quantitative bids.

 

Alternatively you can devise something more complex.

 

The problems of playability are in many ways similar to defending against 1NT:

 

1. You have to start at a higher level

 

2. You have no cue-bid

 

3. There is a dilemma between showing a constructive hand and showing a forcing hand - should a new suit be forcing?

[hrothgar]

(2) When ACBL organizers banned transfer openings except for long team events, they were probably not in line with the will of the bridge playing population.

Transfer openings aren't banned; they are midchart but no one has presented an adequate defense for them. Just like 2♦ showing both Majors (sorry, I know that is completely off topic, but it happens to be my personal pet peeve that none of the people who play that have bothered to submit a defense and then they complain that they aren't allowed to play it, or just play it anyway). I know a lot of you think that the nefarious convention approval committee has insidiously refused to approve a defense to transfer openings, but actually, no defense has been submitted, at least recently. Now that the committee has the option of approving something for a stated number of boards, I would be very surprised if they wouldn't approve a reasonable defense to transfer openings, at least for 6+ boards or something like that.

What can I say...

 

On an abstract level, the ACBL has made it very clear that the Conventions Committee aren't considering ANY new requests so it seems quite pointless to submit anything. (perhaps one of the forum regulars would like to share one of the many "go away" themed emails that have come of Memphis in recent monthes)

 

On a personal level, I got [obscenity:ui] sick and tired of beating my head against a brick wall.

 

Do you want to review the email thread from the Convention Committee yet again where Meckstroth specifically says that we should reject a transfer opening because its too close to MOSCITO and that we don't want to allow said opening to cross the pond?

 

Do you want to see all the crap that your husband contributed to the process? (it sure doesn't make him look good)

 

Hell, I might even have the email from Fred where he said that the defenses that I submitted were much better and more complete than the typical submissions.

 

It will take a while, but I can try to track down the relevent correspondences (Including the ones involving defenses to assumed fit type methods)

Edited December 4, 2008 by uday

[Cascade]

(2) When ACBL organizers banned transfer openings except for long team events, they were probably not in line with the will of the bridge playing population.

Transfer openings aren't banned; they are midchart but no one has presented an adequate defense for them. Just like 2♦ showing both Majors (sorry, I know that is completely off topic, but it happens to be my personal pet peeve that none of the people who play that have bothered to submit a defense and then they complain that they aren't allowed to play it, or just play it anyway). I know a lot of you think that the nefarious convention approval committee has insidiously refused to approve a defense to transfer openings, but actually, no defense has been submitted, at least recently. Now that the committee has the option of approving something for a stated number of boards, I would be very surprised if they wouldn't approve a reasonable defense to transfer openings, at least for 6+ boards or something like that.

What can I say...

 

On an abstract level, the ACBL has made it very clear that the Conventions Committee aren't considering ANY new requests so it seems quite pointless to submit anything.

 

On a personal level, I got sick and tired of beating my head against a brick wall.

 

Do you want to review the email thread from the Convention Committee yet again where Meckstroth specifically says that we should reject a transfer opening because its too close to MOSCITO and that we don't want to allow said opening to cross the pond?

 

Do you want to see all the crap that your husband contributed to the process? (it sure doesn't make him look good)

 

Hell, I might even have the email from Fred where he said that the defenses that I submitted were much better and more complete than the typical submissions.

 

It will take a while, but I can try to track down the relevent correspondences...

Somehow I just new you would respond to this Richard :-)

[ArcLight]

>On a personal level, I got sick and tired of beating my head against a brick wall.

 

>Do you want to see all the crap that your husband contributed to the process? (it sure doesn't make him look good)

 

 

One can always count on Richard to make a well thought out response, that is sure to sway peoples minds. :rolleyes:

[Gerben42]

I know that the situation in Germany is the following: In the top league HUM was allowed until 2-3 years ago, and was played by one team (Essen, you know where the board game fair is held each year :rolleyes:). Anyway, this team managed to not know their system very well, which caused stress among the other teams in the league.

 

And now HUMs are forbidden rather than giving more severe penalties for not knowing your system. I think this was the wrong strategy.

[NickRW]

Well, I voted for even allowing them in the pairs. The OP did say top flight events.

 

My reason for saying this is that:

 

1. I cannot, in all conscience, say that a team should be able to win the Bermuda Bowl and claim to be world champs of bridge when what they actually won was a watered down version. HUMs (with proper disclosure of course) have to be allowed at the highest level otherwise you aren't playing the full version of the game to my mind. And, if that is the case, then the people who have some prospect of making their national team have to be allowed to practice/practice against such things - it isn't good enough to,restrict them to, say, just the national team trials as that isn't enough practice opportunity.

 

2. I also tend to think that people wouldn't be so afraid of HUMs if they were actually allowed to encounter them. I played Precision for quite a while in a club where it was wall to wall Acol. Initially I am sure we gained something due to the unfamiliarity aspect - but after a while that was no longer the case. The same would be true of any other system.

 

I do not feel that this should necessarily go any lower than top flight events - unless they (HUMs) really caught on - but in which case they'd no longer be "highly" unusual anyway.

 

Nick

[hrothgar]

>On a personal level, I got  sick and tired of beating my head against a brick wall.

 

>Do you want to see all the crap that your husband contributed to the process? (it sure doesn't make him look good)

 

 

One can always count on Richard to make a well thought out response, that is sure to sway peoples minds.    :rolleyes:

Jan's posting touched on two different themes:

 

Theme 1: The posting could be viewed as some kind of back communiqué from the Conventions Committee indicating that they are willing to consider licensing new defenses. More specifically, that they might agree to license some defense to MOSCITO style transfer openings.

 

If this were the primary intention, I consider this to be great news.

 

I would strongly prefer to see the ACBL use a more official and transparent manner to achieve the same end and I question whether any of the gatekeepers in Memphis has been made aware of this change in policy. But so be it...

 

Perhaps someone would like to try a test case and submit a suggested defense to some method and see what comes back.

 

Theme 2:: Is best described by the following quote from Jan

 

I know a lot of you think that the nefarious convention approval committee has insidiously refused to approve a defense to transfer openings, but actually, no defense has been submitted, at least recently

 

I could have potentially been more polite and indicated that Jan was engaging in historical revisionism. However, I tend to prefer to cut to the chase and lay all the cards out on the table. (It saves a lot of time)

 

The Conventions Committee wasted enormous amounts of my time playing passive aggressive little games. They never had the balls to openly admit that they would never approve any defense. Instead, they preferred to create ever more ridiculous hoops for me to jump through while privately agreeing that they were never going to approve any defense.

 

I want to point to another direct quote from Jan

 

Now that the committee has the option of approving something for a stated number of boards, I would be very surprised if they wouldn't approve a reasonable defense to transfer openings, at least for 6+ boards or something like that.

 

To me, this verges on a tacit admission that the Conventions Committee was never going to approve any kind of a defense back in the bad old days when there was no option to differentiate between 2 board pair events that used the Midchart and 7+ board Team events that use the Midchart.

 

Now that this has been rectified, the Conventions Committee might deign to approve a defense.

 

This whole process would have gone a lot smoother if the Conventions Committee had acted in a open and honest manner.

 

What really pissed me off throughout this process was the complete disconnect between the private discussions that was going on amongst the Conventions Committee and what was communicated to me. If Meckstroth hadn't accidentially cc:ed me on some of the private emails I wouldn't have ever known what was actually going on.

 

More specifically, I wouldn't have known that Chip was making ever more ridiculous requests (presumably) hoping that I'd get bored and give up. Yes, I eventually gave up (on the whole stinking ACBL I might add). But not before he really pissed me off...

 

So please excuse me if I take things a bit personally when foks try to whitewash this topic.

[brianshark]

I don't see a strong pass as being that special. It doesn't seem that much more strange to us than a strong or artificial club system is strange to people who are not used to it and play "standard" all the time.

 

Few are familiar with it and thus don't have defences to it, but it used to be that way with strong club as well.

 

I don't buy the whole non-disclosure argument. I'm sure it's not THAT hard to understand, no moreso that artificial club systems are. And I agree that it's a lot easier to get relevant information out of people playing artificial systems than people playing "natural".

 

I also don't believe it's a destructive system. Random openings that show or deny a suit are destructive. Methods where you overcall 1S over a strong club no matter what your hand are destructive. EHAA is a mildly destructive system. Strong pass is just a strange system to us who aren't used to it, but no less purposeful than strong club or fantunes or other "strange" existing systems.

 

My opinion would be to allow it in long serious matches where pairs know in advance they are going to be playing it and have a chance to come up with some sort of defence. Maybe if it becomes more common and there are plenty of easy and well known defences to it, it can be played in shorter matches where limited preparation is sufficient.

[benlessard]

So you think whe should ban the polish club too? It is not common enough in the US?

Or shall we ban precision in my home club because no regular member plays it?

 

What about Fantunes? Quite uncommon to anybody, because brandnew. We should ban this too?

 

I guess SAYC had been banned in Poland before the invention of the internet too. Nobody knew that system.

 

Sorry, this reasoning is not working.

There is lightyear of difference between Polish/Fantunes and a fert bid. In one case the defense fit in 1 page in the FP it take at least 10 pages of agreements.

 

I don't see a strong pass as being that special. It doesn't seem that much more strange to us than a strong or artificial club system is strange to people who are not used to it and play "standard" all the time.

 

Few are familiar with it and thus don't have defences to it, but it used to be that way with strong club as well.

 

I don't buy the whole non-disclosure argument. I'm sure it's not THAT hard to understand, no moreso that artificial club systems are. And I agree that it's a lot easier to get relevant information out of people playing artificial systems than people playing "natural".

The FP isnt really a problem it the frigging fert that the problem.

[NickRW]

Wayne, if you cannot see the difference between preparing for a specific fert and preparing for a strong NT, then I don't think anybody can help you...

I don't go along with that at all. Defending against any NT opening, strong or weak, is inherently difficult - witness the enormous number of defences that have been devised - none of which are entirely ideal. Defending a fert is not inherently more difficult - it is purely and simply that ferts are normally considered HUM and therefore not seen in most competition. No other reason whatsoever.

 

Nick

[david_c]

>On a personal level, I got  sick and tired of beating my head against a brick wall.

 

>Do you want to see all the crap that your husband contributed to the process? (it sure doesn't make him look good)

 

 

One can always count on Richard to make a well thought out response, that is sure to sway peoples minds.    :rolleyes:

Richard's response was perfectly proportionate. The way the ACBL has dealt with this over the years is absolutely shameful.

[cherdano]

Wayne, if you cannot see the difference between preparing for a specific fert and preparing for a strong NT, then I don't think anybody can help you...

I don't go along with that at all. Defending against any NT opening, strong or weak, is inherently difficult - witness the enormous number of defences that have been devised - none of which are entirely ideal. Defending a fert is not inherently more difficult - it is purely and simply that ferts are normally considered HUM and therefore not seen in most competition. No other reason whatsoever.

 

Nick

Yup (well some part of your response is non-sense, there are many different defenses against NT because people can't agree what is best, this has nothing to do with the question whether it is inherently difficult).

But that's a pretty big reason. You see, to me devising defenses is one the most boring parts of bridge. Discussing defenses vs 1NT is ok though, because I get to apply them many times, and that part is actually fun. But Wayne wants me to have to waste time to learn a defense vs ferts, and still give the opponents the choice of me never playing against these ferts (I am referring to his whining about seating rights).

And yes there is an inherent difference in popularity between ferts and strong NTs, so this isn't just due to ferts being outlawed in most competitions...

 

[i don't really have a strong opinion on whether FP and ferts should be allowed, but the "my rights are getting violated attitude" in some of the posts here is pretty annoying. If a huge majority of serious bridge players thinks that bridge is a more interesting game without ferts, then outlawing them in most competitions is the right thing to do.]

[NickRW]

Yup (well some part of your response is non-sense, there are many different defenses against NT because people can't agree what is best, this has nothing to do with the question whether it is inherently difficult).

But that's a pretty big reason. You see, to me devising defenses is one the most boring parts of bridge. Discussing defenses vs 1NT is ok though, because I get to apply them many times, and that part is actually fun. But Wayne wants me to have to waste time to learn a defense vs ferts, and still give the opponents the choice of me never playing against these ferts (I am referring to his whining about seating rights).

And yes there is an inherent difference in popularity between ferts and strong NTs, so this isn't just due to ferts being outlawed in most competitions...

 

[i don't really have a strong opinion on whether FP and ferts should be allowed, but the "my rights are getting violated attitude" in some of the posts here is pretty annoying. If a huge majority of serious bridge players thinks that bridge is a more interesting game without ferts, then outlawing them in most competitions is the right thing to do.]

Well, for most competition, I go along with the idea that these things should be banned, for the simple reason that they aren't common enough to warrant forcing average bridge players to have to learn to cope. The OP was talking about "top flight events" or some such.

 

Nick

 

P.S. Later edit. It seems to me that the ACBL has promoted (or perhaps gone along with) an overly paternalistic attitude to what is allowed and what is not. Some paternalism in the interests of protecting new/weaker players is, to my mind, entirely justified - indeed maybe more is required at lower levels in some jurisdictions - but I really can't get into the mind set that where people at higher levels want to blame their opponents methods for their own lack of preparedness and knowledge and then turn to their NBO to enforce their wishes to be protected from nasty opponents. That's not a game to me.

[JanM]

>On a personal level, I got  sick and tired of beating my head against a brick wall.

 

>Do you want to see all the crap that your husband contributed to the process? (it sure doesn't make him look good)

 

 

One can always count on Richard to make a well thought out response, that is sure to sway peoples minds.    :)

Jan's posting touched on two different themes:

 

Theme 1: The posting could be viewed as some kind of back communiqué from the Conventions Committee indicating that they are willing to consider licensing new defenses. More specifically, that they might agree to license some defense to MOSCITO style transfer openings.

 

If this were the primary intention, I consider this to be great news.

No, I'm not trying to communicate via some back door what isn't coming out the front door. I don't have much inside information on this, although I suppose I hear a little more than you. I was and am actually only saying what I think is the case based on what I've seen over the years and recently. I haven't seen the correspondence to which you refer - I know it was several years ago. And I know that whenever I ask Chip about some specific bid (usually it's 2♦ majors because for some reason that keeps coming up when I'm a Vugraph operator) he says that no one has submitted a defense.

 

Theme 2::  Is best described by the following quote from Jan

 

I know a lot of you think that the nefarious convention approval committee has insidiously refused to approve a defense to transfer openings, but actually, no defense has been submitted, at least recently

 

The Conventions Committee wasted enormous amounts of my time playing passive aggressive little games. They never had the balls to openly admit that they would never approve any defense. Instead, they preferred to create ever more ridiculous hoops for me to jump through while privately agreeing that they were never going to approve any defense.

 

I think that in this case as in most where there are two sides with strongly divergent views, both sides are right and both are wrong. The people who want to play a method aren't trying to submit a bad defense, but they haven't played against the method so they really don't know what problems will arise. Those who have to review the defenses don't have hidden motives, but they're busy and if it doesn't make sense to them, they're not going to spend extra time figuring it out. You weren't trying to waste the committee's time with bad defenses; they weren't trying to waste your time trying to get you to fill in the blanks. But that's how it looked to them and to you.

 

 

I could have potentially been more polite and indicated that Jan was engaging in historical revisionism.  However, I tend to prefer to cut to the chase and lay all the cards out on the table.  (It saves a lot of time)

 

The convention approval process has developed over a long period of time. First there was a time when the C&C committee was responsible for creating defenses for methods they approved - that's why we have the really inadequate defenses to multi by the way. With that burden on them, of course the committee didn't want to approve much - it's hard to create an adequate defense and then write it in a way that is comprehensible to someone who hasn't been part of the creation process.

 

The committee then realized that it wasn't making sense for them to do defenses, so they put the burden on the people who proposed a method. They got a lot of badly thought-out and incomplete defenses. Shockingly :), this made them unhappy and perhaps they did come across as having hidden agendas and never going to approve something when in fact they were tired of reviewing the 23rd defense that didn't include any continuations or didn't make any sense (I remember seeing one defense to a weak opening that provided no way to penalize the opening side) or wasn't clearly written.

 

After a long time and a lot of experience with how the whole midchart has worked, the committee decided to put a major effort into something they hoped would work better - separating out those methods that are sufficiently easy to understand and combat to be reasonable in events with 2 boards per round (such as 2M showing a weak hand with 5 cards in that major and a second 4+ card suit - both the meaning of the bid and the defense can be explained in about one sentence) and other more complex methods that needed long enough advance discussion to be reasonable only in longer events (such as multi). Individual people may disagree with how some bids have been classified, but it is now clear what is allowed when.

 

a tacit admission that the Conventions Committee was never going to approve any kind of a defense back in the bad old days when there was no option to differentiate between 2 board pair events that used the Midchart and 7+ board Team events that use the Midchart.

I did say that nothing had been submitted recently - if you were to dig out those old emails, I'll bet you'd find they were several years old. And whether the committee would have approved a reasonable defense back then if it had been presented at the start instead of only after much back and forth and a lot of work by the committee members on inadequate defenses, I don't know. I do know that the general attitude of people playing that particular method (transfer 1 bids) was less than wonderful - I remember one event where a pair arrived at my table and told me they were playing transfer 1 bids. I called the director who told them the bids weren't legal. They argued, appealed to higher authority and eventually didn't play them against me, but then I happened to overhear them when they arrived at the next table: "we play transfer 1 bids." That sort of attitude perhaps contributed to the response you received (I am not suggesting that you did that, just that it might have affected the committee's attitude).

 

Now that this has been rectified, the Conventions Committee might deign to approve a defense.

 

This whole process would have gone a lot smoother if the Conventions Committee had acted in a open and honest manner.

 

Reading that, can you see that it isn't the right way to approach a committee? Can you see that that "deign to approve" tends to make people angry? Can you even consider that just as you were not deliberately presenting an inadequate and unclear defense in order to gain an advantage when you played this unfamiliar method, the committee wasn't acting in a closed and dishonest manner, they were just learning what was and was not possible and have now changed the rules to try to make things better?

[JanM]

I don't see a strong pass as being that special. It doesn't seem that much more strange to us than a strong or artificial club system is strange to people who are not used to it and play "standard" all the time.

...

I also don't believe it's a destructive system. Random openings that show or deny a suit are destructive. Methods where you overcall 1S over a strong club no matter what your hand are destructive. EHAA is a mildly destructive system. Strong pass is just a strange system to us who aren't used to it, but no less purposeful than strong club or fantunes or other "strange" existing systems.

It isn't the opening Pass that's destructive or difficult to deal with, it's the opening bids that show all the hands you and I would pass with - hands too weak to open the bidding, with no long suit so they are appropriate for a preempt. Usually that's all the bids at the 1-level. They show different varieties of bad hands. Those are the bids that are difficult to defend against and those are (usually) the bids that are inadequately described, not in terms of the opening bid itself, but in terms of what responder will do in (& sometimes out of) competition.

 

Strong club pairs open 1x with the same hands as you and I - they've just removed some strong hands from the opening 1 bids. That's really nothing like, for instance, opening 1♠ with 0-7 and any shape - but not really any shape because some of the 0-7 hands are opened something else.

[uday]

Language, people ( well, just you, RW). If you like, I'll move this to the Watercooler.

[RichMor]

I don't see a strong pass as being that special. It doesn't seem that much more strange to us than a strong or artificial club system is strange to people who are not used to it and play "standard" all the time.

...

I also don't believe it's a destructive system. Random openings that show or deny a suit are destructive. Methods where you overcall 1S over a strong club no matter what your hand are destructive. EHAA is a mildly destructive system. Strong pass is just a strange system to us who aren't used to it, but no less purposeful than strong club or fantunes or other "strange" existing systems.

It isn't the opening Pass that's destructive or difficult to deal with, it's the opening bids that show all the hands you and I would pass with - hands too weak to open the bidding, with no long suit so they are appropriate for a preempt. Usually that's all the bids at the 1-level. They show different varieties of bad hands. Those are the bids that are difficult to defend against and those are (usually) the bids that are inadequately described, not in terms of the opening bid itself, but in terms of what responder will do in (& sometimes out of) competition.

 

Strong club pairs open 1x with the same hands as you and I - they've just removed some strong hands from the opening 1 bids. That's really nothing like, for instance, opening 1♠ with 0-7 and any shape - but not really any shape because some of the 0-7 hands are opened something else.

This is an excellent post, short and yet complete. I don't have anything significant to add, but will anyway.

 

If my opponents are playing a highly artificial big club relay system that won't give me any unusual problems in a contested auction.

 

If the opps are aggressive bidders that will give me (and them) some problems.

 

If the opps are playing a complex system and bidding aggressively, then they are probably named Jeff and Eric.

 

But it is much different when the opponents are playing a system that uses artificial weak openings. Unless the opps are bad players and forgetful, they will have an advantage solely from their experience with their methods.

[DrTodd13]

From what I have heard about the committee, my perception is that the level of goodness required for a defense to be approved by them is much much too high. It seems like they want perfection. Jan complained about how insufficient the two approved multi defenses are. To me, the purpose of an approved defense should be to allow play to continue in some reasonable way the vast majority of the time. For most people, even the simple multi approved defense is sufficient for this purpose. Sure, it isn't perfect but people should be rewarded for figuring out a better defense just as people should be rewarded for figuring out a better convention.