Forcing Pass Systems

[csdenmark]

The average player is 65 and we are losing thousands of players each year. 

Maybe just maybe there is a correlation between the regulations and this fact? (Maybe in the way, that we would lose even more players when the regulations hadn't  been there to protect the frightend majority.)

I am very sure you are fairly right about age and loss of players. But to blame regulations for that is unfair and you know that Roland.

 

They are not frightened of anything. They have never heard the words and have no knowledge of what you are talking about.

 

The age of players is fairly much due to nature of the game. The problem is nobody seems care to come up with ideas on how to attract new segments.

 

In that respect this thread is empty loop only.

Maybe the regulations do not scare anybody off but the lack of freedom may discourage some new players coming to the game.

No Wayne - regulations is no topic until you are well established in the game.

 

Internet and information technology is the challenge.

 

Topics the persons responsible to run the bridge organizations has the similar lack of knowledge of such as they have about judicial matters.

[DrTodd13]

This is analogous to the use of a fert.  A fert has no true constructive meaning - it is really defined by what it is not - it is not 8 or more HCP and it is not a hand which can be described by another bid (a higher preemptive call) which is used for other hands of less than 8 HCP.  Whether it actually promises some length in a particular suit may be coincidental.

What do you mean by constructive? It it supposed to be a bid that helps us reach a contract we can make? Then I suggest we ban sacrifices. Is it supposed to be a bid that helps us get the best possible score on a hand? Then I suggest we allow any bidding system that can mathematically be shown to accomplish this.

I think people find that the more they try to define constructive and destructive the more illusive the definitions become. To me, the only thing I'm willing to call destructive is a bid that literally says nothing about the person's hand. However, I can't think of a single example of anyone ever trying to employ such a bid. The example many quote here is the 1♣ (precision) - mandatory 1♠ overcall auction but this "mandatory" was never really mandatory. There were definitions were 1♦, 1♥, 1N, etc. overcalls and so in essence they didn't use pass (or used it for something else) but instead made 1♠ the catchall. And catchalls do describe your hand by virtue of excluding all the other possible calls. If all bids besides 1♠ were undefined and never used and in effect all 1♠ meant was "I have 13 cards" then this is one thing I'd be willing to ban.

[Finch]

imo, the regulations need to be more open and more consistent.  In particular, for top level bridge:

 

- <snip>

- Since current regulations allow for transfer bids in many circumstances, allow them for all calls – any call that shows four or longer in a known suit is allowed.

 

These are simple, consistent, open regulations that top level bridge players can handle, albeit some will be grumpy for a while.

From the English regulations for level 4 events (most serious tournaments), the following are allowed:

 

- Any opening bid of one of suit is permitted that shows at least four cards in a specified suit, forcing or not.

- A 1NT opening may have any meaning as long as at promises at least four cards in a specified suit (there is other stuff about a natural 1NT, or a strong/forcing 1NT)

 

(there are also some restrictions about the strength of opening 1-bids)

 

....

- All responses and continuations are allowed with or without intervention (this is to any opening bid)

- From opener's rebid onwards, anything is allowed

 

Similarly transfer overcalls are allowed, and anything is allowed by 4th seat after partner has overcalled.

 

Come and play in England.

[TimG]

- Any opening bid of one of suit is permitted that shows at least four cards in a specified suit, forcing or not.

Are there anything like suggested defenses in England, or is each partnership responsible for preparing their own defenses to opponents' methods?

[Finch]

What's mildly interesting, however, is that while transfer openings have been legal since 1st August 2006, I only know of two pairs currently playing them in national tournaments. Obviously there may be many more who simply don't play in national events, e.g. at university bridge clubs.

 

Mind you, Polish club has been legal for the same length of time, and there are very few pairs who play that either (I can only think of one pair, one of whom is Polish)

[Finch]

I know that I personally played Multi 2D for many years and stopped playing it, not because of systems restrictions, but because I came to believe that this convention sucks (mostly because my opponents learned how to defend against it).

The multi 2D is an interesting convention to discuss, not least because outside the ACBL it can generally be played very freely. I can't argue with your belief, but I had a quick look at some of the convention cards from the last Bermuda Bowl of some of the teams, and the following pairs all played a multi:

 

- Brink/Drijver (NL)

- Muller/DeWijs (NL)

- Helgemo/Helness (NO)

- Salsenminde/Brogeland (NO)

- Grotheim/Tundal (NO)

- Zia/Rosenberg (US)

- Jassem/Martens (vul only) (PL)

- Gawrys/Chmurski (PL)

- and the third Polish pair I can't spell

- All three of the Chinese pairs

 

I stopped after six countries, the other one was Italy none of whose pairs do.

England weren't in the last Bermuda Bowl but they won silver medal at the WMSG with two of their pairs playing a multi.

 

I think that is enough top players that it is reasonable to say that many players believe it has substantial merit.

 

The multi is also interesting simply because it is allowed in so many places, that we can see how much it gets played. The multi 2H, for example, is allowed so rarely that no-one really knows if it's any good or not.

[Finch]

- Any opening bid of one of suit is permitted that shows at least four cards in a specified suit, forcing or not.

Are there anything like suggested defenses in England, or is each partnership responsible for preparing their own defenses to opponents' methods?

There is no such thing as 'suggested defences'. If it is legal, you are expected to be able to defend against it*.

 

We also don't exactly have 'pre-alerts' but you are obliged to exchange convention cards with your opponents, and the cards have to highlight any peculiarities that opponents should know about.

 

*In events where BSCs / HUMs are permitted you have to provide a written defence, much like everywhere else.

[Cascade]

Wayne, I should clarify that I don't disagree with many of your points. For myself I enjoy playing against pairs who play less common methods and I like to play some methods myself that are not legal at the local level in the US. I also like to tinker a little with methods although not as much as some others here. I often find the convention chards incomprehensible in some respects and I can't help thinking that it should be possible to make them more consistent and easier to understand. Unfortunately I have never played at the international level so as you said, I don't know what I'm talking about there.

Thanks.

 

My comment that you didn't know what you were talking about was simply about your comment that "The impression I get is that Wayne thinks the rules of bridge should be as he think they should be...".

 

It was not intended in response to anything else you have written.

 

And quite possibly I misinterpreted your intention. If so I apologize.

 

What I disagree with most strongly is that bridge should be bridge in its purest form, without any convention regulartions, and anything else is not bridge. The rules of most games and sports have evolved over time and bridge is as it is, nothing less and nothing more. You can state that you'd enjoy bridge more if the rules were different, or that it would attract more people if the rules were different, or that it would be a great benefit to the game if there were less regulations because they would be easier to understand. You could even try to argue that most North Americans would enjoy the game better if they got accustomed to the freedom of regulations that you are familiar with. But it doesn't make sense to me to say that the current WBF bridge rules as they are now are intrinsically wrong.

 

I certainly would enjoy bridge more if the rules were different.

 

However I have a much bigger problem with how the rules are made and the quality of the rules that are in place. The reasons given for rules don't seem to have much substance to me and don't match with the rules that are actually in place e.g. even the ACBL GCC allows for many things that are "unpopular". Additional the rules seems to be broken or overlooked in the case of some methods e.g. An artificial 1♣ that could be short was ruled "natural" in Shanghai 2007 so as to not allow their opponents to play Brown Sticker Conventions.

 

I would prefer a much more open and transparent process.

[glen]

From the English regulations for level 4 events (most serious tournaments), the following are allowed:

 

- Any opening bid of one of suit is permitted that shows at least four cards in a specified suit, forcing or not.

- A 1NT opening may have any meaning as long as at promises at least four cards in a specified suit (there is other stuff about a natural 1NT, or a strong/forcing 1NT)

...

- All responses and continuations are allowed with or without intervention (this is to any opening bid)

- From opener's rebid onwards, anything is allowed

 

Similarly transfer overcalls are allowed, and anything is allowed by 4th seat after partner has overcalled.

 

Come and play in England.

Wow, and England was not even on the Fred/Santa Claus list of "Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Poland". Has this sensible set of regulations resulted in a lack of talent development?

[H_KARLUK]

From the English regulations for level 4 events (most serious tournaments), the following are allowed:

 

- Any opening bid of one of suit is permitted that shows at least four cards in a specified suit, forcing or not.

- A 1NT opening may have any meaning as long as at promises at least four cards in a specified suit (there is other stuff about a natural 1NT, or a strong/forcing 1NT)

 

(there are also some restrictions about the strength of opening 1-bids)

 

....

- All responses and continuations are allowed with or without intervention (this is to any opening bid)

- From opener's rebid onwards, anything is allowed

 

Similarly transfer overcalls are allowed, and anything is allowed by 4th seat after partner has overcalled.

 

Come and play in England.

Did EBU ban Tony Forrester, Raymond Brock, Steve Lodge (TRS) system or not ? If they banned in past now lifted?

[RMB1]

Did EBU ban Tony Forrester, Raymond Brock, Steve Lodge (TRS) system or not ? If they banned in past now lifted?

The EBU L&E committee do not like the word "ban", they just fail to allow/permit. :)

 

In TRS was only briefly allowed under the previous arrangements for licencing systems and conventions, that was replaced by levels 1/2/3/4/5 over a decade ago. TRS only had an experimental licence - allowed in national events of 32 board matches or longer.

 

The relevant year books of the L&E committee show:

 

EBU Licenced System: June 1987

TRS - Experimental Licence application pending

 

EBU Licensed Systems: September 1988

TRS - Licence lapsed

 

 

As I remember, a successor to TRS was the DAW pass. The main difference was that the "responses" to the medium opening pass in TRS were artificial negatives 1C/1D and natural GF positives, in DAW I think there was one artificial GF positive.

 

DAW had an experimental licence after TRS. Under the new scheme, experimental licence were replaced by level 5, which was expressed in terms of other EBU and EBL permitted systems/conventions.

 

Robin

[csdenmark]

From the English regulations for level 4 events (most serious tournaments), the following are allowed:

 

- Any opening bid of one of suit is permitted that shows at least four cards in a specified suit, forcing or not.

- A 1NT opening may have any meaning as long as at promises at least four cards in a specified suit (there is other stuff about a natural 1NT, or a strong/forcing 1NT)

...

- All responses and continuations are allowed with or without intervention (this is to any opening bid)

- From opener's rebid onwards, anything is allowed

 

Similarly transfer overcalls are allowed, and anything is allowed by 4th seat after partner has overcalled.

 

Come and play in England.

Wow, and England was not even on the Fred/Santa Claus list of "Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Poland". Has this sensible set of regulations resulted in a lack of talent development?

No England was not on the list of countries where you may expect creativity and a widespread interest for experiments.

 

Frances refers to a regulation based on fair judicial principles, ordinary proof. The american approach is based on reverse proof.

 

Frances refers to a regulation which allows the traditional way for ACOL to be applied. Not much else as I read it.

 

England is therefore not even close to come on the list.

 

Whether it has weakened the british players is difficult for me to judge. Maybe try to ask Cardshap(Paul). He started a thread aimed to ask for sympathy about an attempt to ban HUM and BSC. The argument was such features are faced so rare that he feels the british players are unable to compete when they face those in international tournaments.

[RMB1]

Whether it has weakened the british players is difficult for me to judge. Maybe try to ask Cardshap(Paul). He started a thread aimed to ask for sympathy about an attempt to ban HUM and BSC. The argument was such features are faced so rare that he feels the british players are unable to compete when they face those in international tournaments.

I don't think Paul wanted to ban HUM/BSC in Scotland.

 

His concern was that of a team captain who would lose seating rights if his team had a pair playing HUM/BSC. He was not convinced that the advantage of his pair playing HUM/BSC was worth the loss of seating rights, he didn't think that his team's opponents should not play HUM/BSC.

 

The Scotish Bridge Union could decide that their international teams would not employ HUM/BSC because they prefered to retain seating rights. I understood Paul was looking for input to see if the SBU should adopt such a policy. It was an interesting question but the direction the thread went was not.

 

Robin

[Finch]

Frances refers to a regulation which allows the traditional way for ACOL to be applied. Not much else as I read it.

 

England is therefore not even close to come on the list.

 

Whether it has weakened the british players is difficult for me to judge. Maybe try to ask Cardshap(Paul). He started a thread aimed to ask for sympathy about an attempt to ban HUM and BSC. The argument was such features are faced so rare that he feels the british players are unable to compete when they face those in international tournaments.

1. If you think that regulation 'only' allows traditional Acol, then I think perhaps your English skills have failed you. I didn't quote the additional regulation allowing a strong, or a polish-type, 1C opening but together these allow e.g. Moscito.

 

2. Paul (Cardsharp) was not trying to ban HUM and BSC at all. He was asking something completely different.

[csdenmark]

Frances refers to a regulation which allows the traditional way for ACOL to be applied. Not much else as I read it.

 

England is therefore not even close to come on the list.

 

Whether it has weakened the british players is difficult for me to judge. Maybe try to ask Cardshap(Paul). He started a thread aimed to ask for sympathy about an attempt to ban HUM and BSC. The argument was such features are faced so rare that he feels the british players are unable to compete when they face those in international tournaments.

1. If you think that regulation 'only' allows traditional Acol, then I think perhaps your English skills have failed you. I didn't quote the additional regulation allowing a strong, or a polish-type, 1C opening but together these allow e.g. Moscito.

 

2. Paul (Cardsharp) was not trying to ban HUM and BSC at all. He was asking something completely different.

Do you think the benefits of Highly Unusual Methods (HUM) and Brown Sticker Conventions (BSC) are worth the cost of playing them?

 

Within the UK and the ACBL (although regulations vary), conventions and/or systems are permitted or not without direct reference to HUM and BSC, and so there is no cost to playing such a method.

 

But at international tournaments, a pair playing a HUM loses seating rights. And, at European Championships, a pair playing two or more BSCs also lose seating rights.

 

As an NPC I I think seating rights are important (when you have the opportunity). When you play a HUM pair it means you can sit your most proficient pair against them, then reducing the advantage of the HUM to my mind. Playing teams with multiple HUM and/or BSCs means that your pairs can spread the preparation load by only working on one pair's methods.

 

So I am considering petitioning my selectors to bar HUM systems and multiple BSC from future trials, as I consider it advantageous to play against teams with these restrictions.

 

Would you agree?

 

Paul

 

HUM and BSC definitions

I have no intensions to mis-interpretate Paul. The last sentence I can read in no other way than he want to ban them. The reason for that is my interpretation based on the discussion.

 

If you think that regulation 'only' allows traditional Acol

Certainly not. I dont expect you have careful read the whole thread here. Much of it is nothing but boring details. But if you had you would have been informed that I care very little about the exact regulations. I am not affected is an important matter for that but not the only reason. What I care about is the american abuse of ordinary principles for solid judicial decision making and the general lack of knowledge/understanding/applaying to good standards for democratic behavior by all bridge organizations.

[nige1]

If you think that regulation 'only' allows traditional Acol, then I think perhaps your English skills have failed you.  I didn't quote the additional regulation allowing a strong, or a polish-type, 1C opening but together these allow e.g. Moscito.

Strong Club

A 1 opening may have any combination of meanings if it is forcing and promises a minimum of ‘Extended Rule of 25'

Great news that the EBU L&E Committee has changed its mind, Frances! :)

Not long ago, it wrote to tell me that Moscito is still banned. ;)

The Moscito 1♣ opener specifies 15+ HCP or a good 14 HCP.

[H_KARLUK]

Did EBU ban Tony Forrester, Raymond Brock, Steve Lodge (TRS) system or not ? If they banned in past now lifted?

The EBU L&E committee do not like the word "ban", they just fail to allow/permit. :)

 

In TRS was only briefly allowed under the previous arrangements for licencing systems and conventions, that was replaced by levels 1/2/3/4/5 over a decade ago. TRS only had an experimental licence - allowed in national events of 32 board matches or longer.

 

The relevant year books of the L&E committee show:

 

EBU Licenced System: June 1987

TRS - Experimental Licence application pending

 

EBU Licensed Systems: September 1988

TRS - Licence lapsed

 

 

As I remember, a successor to TRS was the DAW pass. The main difference was that the "responses" to the medium opening pass in TRS were artificial negatives 1C/1D and natural GF positives, in DAW I think there was one artificial GF positive.

 

DAW had an experimental licence after TRS. Under the new scheme, experimental licence were replaced by level 5, which was expressed in terms of other EBU and EBL permitted systems/conventions.

 

Robin

Thank you so much Robin. No further questions.

Hamdi

[hrothgar]

Hi Jan

 

During the course of this thread, there was some discussion regarding some private email exchanges between members of the Conventions Committee about MOSCITO that accidentially leaked to the outside world.

 

At one point in time, you mentioned that you were going to ask Chip about this.

 

Curious what he had to say...

[foo]

Wow. This thread is =still= going on and =still= mostly going in circles. Wow.

 

1= The whole bridge world outside the ACBL routinely plays and successfully defends against things like the multi-2D. It =hurts= the development of high level bridge expertise in the ACBL for players to not have decent exposure to methods common round the rest of the bridge world.

 

2= Clearly the ACBL C&C has and is being ineffective in striking a balance that keeps the ACBL in step with most of the rest of the Bridge world.

 

3= Equally clearly, said development is not going to be helped if we do not teach adequate defenses along with these methods. The defensive DB is a good idea =IF= implemented and administered properly.

 

4= There =DO= need to be better records kept of the proceedings of ACBL commitees. All of them. And they need to be publicly available. All of them.

The ACBL is a membership organization. Volunteer or paid, if you are working for the ACBL, you are working for us the members. The membership is, always will, and always should be, your ultimate boss.

 

5= The clear flaws present do not change the fact that the folks working on the commitee are =volunteers= who have much more fruitful / rewarding things to do with their time. Whether the rest of us like the decisions being made or not, they deserve the utmost respect for doing a dirty, mostly thankless, job.

 

6= Nonetheless, if a commitee member, on any commitee, is using their position to pursue a personal agenda, or for personal gain, or is allowing their personal prejudices to outweigh their professionalism, they are doing something wrong. It is the duty of those serving to do what is in the best interest of all those being served.

 

7= The extreme "anything goes" crowd needs to read the above as well. Commitees can not and should not cater to the minority at the expense of the majority unless there is a =very= good reason for doing so (like making sure ACBL continues to develop talent who can take on the Poles and those playing common methods like the multi-2D)

 

8= Using the letter of the process to abuse the spirit of the process is a violation of the duties of a commitee member. The evidence is that exact thing has happened with regards to the process for approving new conventions visa-vie the defense DB.

 

9= Ditto using things like "if you want to play this method, we are going to punish you in unrelated ways". Like telling people who play HUMs that they lose their seating rights. Like telling those who want to play the KNT that they can't use Stayman or any other usual methods over a 1N opening. This sort of thing smacks of being small minded and mean spirited.

In the programming field, such stuff like this or the aforementioned abuse of the defense DB are examples of a phenomenon called "programming by side effect".

it's a BAD thing that even 1st year CS students are taught to avoid.

 

10= With all of the above muddying the process, it is nearly impossible to have a reasonable discussion on the proper way to legislate HUMs.

IMHO, they and Destructive methods like them are not good bridge; but that is beside the point. The real point is that as of now, the investigation and approval process is so cocked up that it is nearly impossible to give HUMs the fair trial they deserve. They are nearly 100% to be found "guilty" and not be allowable at most levels of play on pure bridge merits. That does not change the fact that they deserve a fair trail under objective conditions.

[paulg]

Frances refers to a regulation which allows the traditional way for ACOL to be applied. Not much else as I read it.

 

England is therefore not even close to come on the list.

 

Whether it has weakened the british players is difficult for me to judge. Maybe try to ask Cardshap(Paul). He started a thread aimed to ask for sympathy about an attempt to ban HUM and BSC. The argument was such features are faced so rare that he feels the british players are unable to compete when they face those in international tournaments.

1. If you think that regulation 'only' allows traditional Acol, then I think perhaps your English skills have failed you. I didn't quote the additional regulation allowing a strong, or a polish-type, 1C opening but together these allow e.g. Moscito.

 

2. Paul (Cardsharp) was not trying to ban HUM and BSC at all. He was asking something completely different.

Do you think the benefits of Highly Unusual Methods (HUM) and Brown Sticker Conventions (BSC) are worth the cost of playing them?

 

Within the UK and the ACBL (although regulations vary), conventions and/or systems are permitted or not without direct reference to HUM and BSC, and so there is no cost to playing such a method.

 

But at international tournaments, a pair playing a HUM loses seating rights. And, at European Championships, a pair playing two or more BSCs also lose seating rights.

 

As an NPC I I think seating rights are important (when you have the opportunity). When you play a HUM pair it means you can sit your most proficient pair against them, then reducing the advantage of the HUM to my mind. Playing teams with multiple HUM and/or BSCs means that your pairs can spread the preparation load by only working on one pair's methods.

 

So I am considering petitioning my selectors to bar HUM systems and multiple BSC from future trials, as I consider it advantageous to play against teams with these restrictions.

 

Would you agree?

 

Paul

 

HUM and BSC definitions

I have no intensions to mis-interpretate Paul. The last sentence I can read in no other way than he want to ban them. The reason for that is my interpretation based on the discussion.

 

If you think that regulation 'only' allows traditional Acol

Certainly not. I dont expect you have careful read the whole thread here. Much of it is nothing but boring details. But if you had you would have been informed that I care very little about the exact regulations. I am not affected is an important matter for that but not the only reason. What I care about is the american abuse of ordinary principles for solid judicial decision making and the general lack of knowledge/understanding/applaying to good standards for democratic behavior by all bridge organizations.

I think, perhaps, the context of my wishing to ban HUM and multiple BSCs may have been lost in translation.

 

I am very happy for other teams to play HUM and multiple BSCs.

 

I do not wish to see them banned from national or international events.

 

However, I wonder if *my* team will be stronger and perform better at international level if we have seating rights rather than have one pair play a HUM or multiple BSCs. In my opinion seating rights are more important when you do not have world-class or full-time players.

 

I thought it was an interesting question, to which a couple of people did provide interesting answers. Everyone else seemed to answer the question they thought was more important, which is the way of these topics.

[paulg]

I know that I personally played Multi 2D for many years and stopped playing it, not because of systems restrictions, but because I came to believe that this convention sucks (mostly because my opponents learned how to defend against it).

The multi 2D is an interesting convention to discuss, not least because outside the ACBL it can generally be played very freely. I can't argue with your belief, but I had a quick look at some of the convention cards from the last Bermuda Bowl of some of the teams, and the following pairs all played a multi:

 

- Brink/Drijver (NL)

- Muller/DeWijs (NL)

- Helgemo/Helness (NO)

- Salsenminde/Brogeland (NO)

- Grotheim/Tundal (NO)

- Zia/Rosenberg (US)

- Jassem/Martens (vul only) (PL)

- Gawrys/Chmurski (PL)

- and the third Polish pair I can't spell

- All three of the Chinese pairs

 

I stopped after six countries, the other one was Italy none of whose pairs do.

England weren't in the last Bermuda Bowl but they won silver medal at the WMSG with two of their pairs playing a multi.

 

I think that is enough top players that it is reasonable to say that many players believe it has substantial merit.

 

The multi is also interesting simply because it is allowed in so many places, that we can see how much it gets played. The multi 2H, for example, is allowed so rarely that no-one really knows if it's any good or not.

At the European Championships in Pau this year, 48 of the 73 pairs in the Women's Series were playing Multi 2♦.

 

p

[mich-b]

How about trying to regulate the use of destructive conventions , by changes to the scoring rules of the game of Bridge , rather than by regulations imposed by organizations?

 

I mean , for example change the scoring of the game so that

1. If a pair goes down 4 or more tricks (maybe 3 tricks on the 1 level) , the contract is automatically considered doubled.

 

Or :

 

2. If a pair reaches a suit contract with 5 or less trumps between them, and then go down , the penalty is automatically doubled.

 

 

I realize that better , or more precise suggestions may be made, I was just trying to show where I am aiming.

 

It seems to me that once such scoring changes are applied , the "anything goes" crowd can be free to design systems quite freely, because the very need they will have to arrive to reasonable contracts , will prevent them to use too much of destructiveness . On the other hand they will be free to do whatever they like within the rules of the game.

The various federations will no longer have to devote much effort to system regulation, because the bizzare , destructive, hard to defend against systems will become unplayable.

The (Many) "let us play normal bridge" players , will be able to play the game as they love it , because the scoring changes will have only a little effect on them.

 

So, does anybody think there is any merit in this?

[foo]

I do. Such thinking is what led Vanderbilt to create the scoring table he did when he created modern bridge.

 

Perhaps we need another such tune up.

[fred]

I know that I personally played Multi 2D for many years and stopped playing it, not because of systems restrictions, but because I came to believe that this convention sucks (mostly because my opponents learned how to defend against it).

The multi 2D is an interesting convention to discuss, not least because outside the ACBL it can generally be played very freely. I can't argue with your belief, but I had a quick look at some of the convention cards from the last Bermuda Bowl of some of the teams, and the following pairs all played a multi:

 

- Brink/Drijver (NL)

- Muller/DeWijs (NL)

- Helgemo/Helness (NO)

- Salsenminde/Brogeland (NO)

- Grotheim/Tundal (NO)

- Zia/Rosenberg (US)

- Jassem/Martens (vul only) (PL)

- Gawrys/Chmurski (PL)

- and the third Polish pair I can't spell

- All three of the Chinese pairs

 

I stopped after six countries, the other one was Italy none of whose pairs do.

England weren't in the last Bermuda Bowl but they won silver medal at the WMSG with two of their pairs playing a multi.

 

I think that is enough top players that it is reasonable to say that many players believe it has substantial merit.

 

The multi is also interesting simply because it is allowed in so many places, that we can see how much it gets played. The multi 2H, for example, is allowed so rarely that no-one really knows if it's any good or not.

At the European Championships in Pau this year, 48 of the 73 pairs in the Women's Series were playing Multi 2♦.

 

p

I would have thought that it was needless to say this but...

 

I apologize if my remark that I came to believe that multi sucks offended anyone who plays this convention and thinks that it doesn't suck.

 

This belief was formed about 15 years ago. It is entirely possible that I would form a different opinion now if I was willing to give this convention another try. But besides that, please consider:

 

- it is far from rare for conventions/systems to exist for which one group of experts thinks "yay" and another group of experts thinks "yuck".

 

- in the case of multi, I suspect that a significant % of pairs who use it do so out of necessity (because their system has some other need for 2H and 2S openings) as opposed to any great love of multi itself. The numbers may not tell the whole story here.

 

- assuming it is even possible to evaluate a proposition like "multi sucks" in terms of truth, I would not be even remotely surprised if my belief that this is true turned out to be wrong.

 

- while I generally do not give much credence to arguments that basically say "eat sh*t, a trillion flies can't be wrong", I have no problem acknowledging the obvious: some of the people who play multi are considerably more accomplished than I am. My opinion is that some of them are also considerably better bridge players than I am. If Zia or Helgemo (or...) wanted to try to explain to me why multi does not in fact suck, I would certainly listen to and think about what such players had to say.

 

Some flies really know their sh*t :P

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

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- it is far from rare for conventions/systems to exist for which one group of experts thinks "yay" and another group of experts thinks "yuck".

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

Truer words were never spoken.