Penalties for fogetting system

[helene_t]

I suppose pairs who often forget their methods won't qualify for the Blue Ribbon Pairs.

 

So what's the problem? That pairs who forget their system are no challenge to play against? We already have all kind of barriers against weak pairs. That pairs who make fun of the event by deliberately having no system destroy the event? We already have rules against dumping. That pairs who claim to play ghestem very well know that they sometimes play natural 3♣ overcalls? We already have rules about inadequate disclosure.

 

I am not convinced that there is a problem. It is only a minor problem at the level I play, and I would expect it to be much less of a problem in events where zombies like me are barred from playing, or discouraged from playing by high entry fees.

 

If there is a problem, I can´t see a need for specific rules about system forgets. Why it can't be dealt with by applying the existing laws.

[cherdanno]

I suppose pairs who often forget their methods won't qualify for the Blue Ribbon Pairs.

I don't think so.

[awm]

I suppose pairs who often forget their methods won't qualify for the Blue Ribbon Pairs.

I don't think so.

Blue ribbon qualifications are not necessarily earned as a pair. I know of a couple local pairs who play complicated methods and have serious trouble remembering their agreements (they are also getting older). But all the players involved are considered good players and have had considerable success in other partnerships (and probably have a lifetime supply of blue ribbon qualifications).

[TimG]

I suppose pairs who often forget their methods won't qualify for the Blue Ribbon Pairs.

I don't think so.

I've got enough Blue Ribbon Qs to last me until I'm a senior. (That is: they aren't that hard to come by.) And, I've had plenty of forgets and misunderstandings over the years.

[matmat]

I don't understand this attitude at all. Unless you have a financial interest in winning, what on earth do you get out of having a match thrown at you?

doesn't this just boil down to what your end goal is?

[Phil]

If this were in a head to head team game, I would love nothing more than my opponents to forget their agreements, psyche randomly or drink, so lets forget about TGs.

 

I don't understand this attitude at all. Unless you have a financial interest in winning, what on earth do you get out of having a match thrown at you?

Andy, Fred's premise was that forgetting systems randomizes results, and thus should have a punitive element. In a direct match, there is no need for punishment, per se.

[cherdanno]

Andy, Fred's premise was that forgetting systems randomizes results, and thus should have a punitive element.

I think you missed Fred's main motivation. Forgetting systems spoils some of the fun for opponents.

[JoAnneM]

I agree with Fred, even though I am not a high level player, I experience the same frustrations at the club level.

 

I am not clued into the mechanics of the Cavendish, but I get the impression that a lot of these games are pro/client type situations. Who is the responsible party?

 

Or, if it is two professionals, players who are accustomed to playing with pages and pages of notes, how do they switch from partner to partner without meltdown?

 

I can see lots of scenarios here that might lead to this problem at the table, many of them not deliberate. Maybe they should throw out the high and low scores. :rolleyes:

 

 

As an aside, I know you aren't interested in the club aspect, but if I have a pair who misbids or fails to alert a convention more than twice I make them take it off their card until they can prove to me they know what they are doing. And I do this in a mentoring way, usually with a short private lesson.

[the hog]

One more thing. In this and the other thread, people have argued that forgetting your system is no different from any other bridge error, such as making a bad bid or play.

 

They're right: it is the same, and it's no more fun to play against comparatively weak players than it is to play against people who often forget their methods. Excluding weaker players is one reason that we have flighted events, representative events, and events requiring qualification.

 

Take the Blue Ribbon Pairs. In order to enter that you have to have earned a qualification*. That helps to exclude people who are going to repeatedly make bad bids and plays, thereby making the event better and more enjoyable for the people who are good enough to play in it. If we excluded people who don't know their methods, that would also make the event better and more enjoyable for the other participants.

 

* Or be a visitor from overseas. How come there's no smiley for "smug"?

I would strongly agree with Gnasher here. Many posters, I think including Fred, are forgetting that bidding is just as valid a part of the game as card play or defense. A system error, because you don't know your system 100% is akin to miscounting someone's hand. Are you also going to impose penalties for bad defence and bad declarer play? If not, then the case for imposing a penalty for a system error is inconsistent.

[spotlight7]

Hi Everyone

 

So Zia will not be allowed to play in 'serious' events because of his bidding?

 

Regards,

Robert

[Echognome]

As an aside, I know you aren't interested in the club aspect, but if I have a pair who misbids or fails to alert a convention more than twice I make them take it off their card until they can prove to me they know what they are doing. And I do this in a mentoring way, usually with a short private lesson.

This sounds awful to me. As far as I am aware, it is not the director's job to tell people how to play bridge. If a TD told me to take a convention off my card (that was a legal convention), I'd be outraged.

[jdonn]

One more thing.  In this and the other thread, people have argued that forgetting your system is no different from any other bridge error, such as making a bad bid or play.

 

They're right: it is the same, and it's no more fun to play against comparatively weak players than it is to play against people who often forget their methods.  Excluding weaker players is one reason that we have flighted events, representative events, and events requiring qualification.

 

Take the Blue Ribbon Pairs.  In order to enter that you have to have earned a qualification*.  That helps to exclude people who are going to repeatedly make bad bids and plays, thereby making the event better and more enjoyable for the people who are good enough to play in it.  If we excluded people who don't know their methods, that would also make the event better and more enjoyable for the other participants.

 

* Or be a visitor from overseas.  How come there's no smiley for "smug"?

I would strongly agree with Gnasher here. Many posters, I think including Fred, are forgetting that bidding is just as valid a part of the game as card play or defense. A system error, because you don't know your system 100% is akin to miscounting someone's hand. Are you also going to impose penalties for bad defence and bad declarer play? If not, then the case for imposing a penalty for a system error is inconsistent.

I don't know how many times I can say it, but the comparison does not hold. Bad defense or declarer play is equivalent to bad bidding judgment, not to forgetting your system. Yes it's more like forgetting there is a trump out, but for one thing I don't find it particularly fun when my opponent does that, and for another I have never even once seen someone gain from that.

[awm]

There's a general point that the laws usually attempt to restore equity rather than punish offenders. While this is fine in principle, there is merit to the idea that very frequent offenders should be punished in some way. The laws even provide for the possibility through procedural penalties. There is a difference between frequent offenses of this sort and simple poor play. Examples include:

 

(1) Repeatedly failing to alert particular methods (even after being told to alert by director).

(2) Repeatedly psyching or forgetting particular calls, such that partner knows they're suspect.

(3) Repeatedly making insufficient bids or leading out of turn or revoking.

(4) Continuing to play illegal methods even after the director orders them taken off the card.

 

All of these indicate either insufficient attention to the game or the director. All have the potential to make a substantial number of boards basically "unplayable" such that the director is forced to assign or at least consider artificial scores. And they all generate a huge amount of work for the directing staff. Again, these sorts of problems happen occasionally to almost anyone, but doing these things repeatedly and with high frequency should be subject to an actual penalty rather than just an attempt to restore equity. In some cases these things might be deliberate attempts to cheat, in that if the opponents don't realize what has occurred and don't call the director (or if the director makes a bad ruling) some advantage can accrue to the offending side... and if the worst thing that ever happens to the offenders is for equity to be restored, it remains to their advantage to do this stuff.

 

Again, these are different from "bad play" or "bad bidding" in that they require interaction with a director and are really violations of law (although usually inadvertent).

[Echognome]

Maybe as a constructive point, someone can attempt the wording of a regulation (or amendment to the law) along with guidance to the TD's (am thinking of something like the EBU White Book) with an example of where a TD should give a penalty and an example where a TD should not give a penalty. Maybe as a starting point to it, just a few examples where people will think it is clear enough to give an additional penalty and where it is not.

[Codo]

The discussion did not reflect about Gonzalos (Fluffy) main point:

 

When people do not care enough for a good result to prepair their methods, they may not care about penalties either.

 

The guys who play the Cavendish do care, so I guess that they will know their system well enough.

 

I am with Andy and Ron that people who really forget their agreements are as bad as opponents as people who make serious errors in card play. There is no joy in killing sheeps.

 

So I would like to get more penalites in case people forget their system and partner may field the misunderstanding, but I would not like to introduce a pp just for the fact that someone simply forgot his system.

[gnasher]

I would strongly agree with Gnasher here. Many posters, I think including Fred, are forgetting that bidding is just as valid a part of the game as card play or defense. A system error, because you don't know your system 100% is akin to miscounting someone's hand. Are you also going to impose penalties for bad defence and bad declarer play? If not, then the case for imposing a penalty for a system error is inconsistent.

I don't think that you entirely agree with me. My point was that whilst miscounting a hand and forgetting your system are both bridge errors, I don't want to play against opponents who do either. We find ways to separate weak players from strong players, and I'd be happy if we could also separate serial system-forgetters from the rest of us.

[Trinidad]

Frankly, I just like it when I play against opponents who truely do not know what NT range they are playing.

I don't understand this attitude at all. Unless you have a financial interest in winning, what on earth do you get out of having a match thrown at you?

I probably didn't phrase this right. Indeed, I don't get anything out of having matches thrown at me, other than the possibility to qualify to play against better opponents.

 

However, opponents are going to make mistakes. And the real question is: Should I be picky about which mistakes they make? Do I care whether they misbid, miscount, or forget their system? My answer: No, I don't.

 

Would you feel better qualifying for the Bermuda Bowl because an opponent miscounted the hand or because they had a bidding misunderstanding? My guess is that you don't consider it your problem.

 

Rik

[Trinidad]

I would strongly agree with Gnasher here. Many posters, I think including Fred, are forgetting that bidding is just as valid a part of the game as card play or defense. A system error, because you don't know your system 100% is akin to miscounting someone's hand. Are you also going to impose penalties for bad defence and bad declarer play? If not, then the case for imposing a penalty for a system error is inconsistent.

I don't think that you entirely agree with me. My point was that whilst miscounting a hand and forgetting your system are both bridge errors, I don't want to play against opponents who do either. We find ways to separate weak players from strong players, and I'd be happy if we could also separate serial system-forgetters from the rest of us.

What is a serial system forgetter other than 'a type of weak player'? The system that separates the miscounters from the correct counters is the same one that separates the system forgetters from the pairs with solid agreements.

 

Rik

[hrothgar]

Maybe as a constructive point, someone can attempt the wording of a regulation (or amendment to the law) along with guidance to the TD's (am thinking of something like the EBU White Book) with an example of where a TD should give a penalty and an example where a TD should not give a penalty. Maybe as a starting point to it, just a few examples where people will think it is clear enough to give an additional penalty and where it is not.

There is a very simple metric here (and least for ACBL tournaments)

 

If the pair in question is playing Standard America, let them play the convention. If they're playing Precision, throw the book at them.

[hrothgar]

As an aside, I know you aren't interested in the club aspect, but if I have a pair who misbids or fails to alert a convention more than twice I make them take it off their card until they can prove to me they know what they are doing. And I do this in a mentoring way, usually with a short private lesson.

This has always struck me as incredibly shortsighted:

 

Let's assume that some random is screwing up Smolen.

You force them to stop playing the convention.

 

Does this somehow improve their ability to show game foricng hands with 5-4 in the majors opposite their partner's 1NT opening? Hardly... At it does is make sure that the next time they get dealt a Smolen hand they're going to be completely confused about what they should be doing.

 

The pairs I know rarely adopt conventions at random. They adopt conventions to plug specific holes in their bidding methods. Taking their conventions away doesn't suddenly improve their ability to bid. If anything, it exacerbates the problem while simultaneously pissing off the non offending side.

[helene_t]

Maybe as a constructive point, someone can attempt the wording of a regulation (or amendment to the law) along with guidance to the TD's (am thinking of something like the EBU White Book) with an example of where a TD should give a penalty and an example where a TD should not give a penalty.  Maybe as a starting point to it, just a few examples where people will think it is clear enough to give an additional penalty and where it is not.

There is a very simple metric here (and least for ACBL tournaments)

 

If the pair in question is playing Standard America, let them play the convention. If they're playing Precision, throw the book at them.

I would be worried about that, too.

 

Many people consider their own methods "simple" and everything else "complex". For example, here in England many people think that weak notrump is easier and more natural than strong notrump. I can imagine a novice pair messing up Jacoby transfers would be tolerated, while a novice pair messing up the relay to a Precision 2♣ would be punished.

 

I am sure most TDs will enforce the rules wisely, whatever the rules are. But it is already a problem that the rules are too complicated and give the TDs too much leeway for judgment which some of them are not capable of.

 

OK, I know Fred is addressing "serious" competition, but the laws are applied (or at least: TDs and club boards try to apply them) at all levels. If the needs wrt laws are different for ordinary clubs and for serious events, I think the serious events are the ones that should have to live with inadequate laws. For two reasons. First, there are much more nonserious events than serious events. Second, it is mainly the organizations behind serious events that have the expertise to formulate custom rules for their own events. Case in point: the Dutch people here are probably familiar with the mess the Amsterdam district made of it when they tried to customize the regulations for weak two openings for their own district competition.

 

If there is a need for law reforms (the thing I hear people complaining about most is that the laws change to often), then the aim should be to make the laws simpler.

 

Btw, out of curiosity: Are notorious system-forgetters so prevalent at serious events that there is a need for addressing the issue explicitly? It sounds strange. If I were somehow to qualify for an event several levels too high for me, then I am sure I would randomize the results a lot with my bad judgment and bad play, but the one thing that would be easy to keep at low frequency would be system forgets. In my own partnerships I have often experimented with badly-worked-out methods at club nights and at home practicing with teammates, but for external competition the main system selection criterion is "the one we are least likely to screw up".

[Trinidad]

Btw, out of curiosity: Are notorious system-forgetters so prevalent at serious events that there is a need for addressing the issue explicitly? It sounds strange.

I strongly agree with Helene. Are there really many (any?) pairs in serious tournaments who frequently screw up basic auctions? If not, why are we discussing this?

 

The answer that I see: Because the real problem isn't with opponents screwing up their system. We wouldn't care, we take the good result. The real problem is with people alledgedly screwing up disclosing their system. And that is a communication problem with cultural (what is 'standard'?) and linguistic aspects. (And keep in mind that 'communication' involves the 'sender' as well as the 'receiver'.)

 

Rik

[glen]

... Are there really many (any?) pairs in serious tournaments who frequently screw up basic auctions? ...

Yes, there are pairs that will sometimes "screw up basic auctions" in serious tournaments. For example this will occur in the upcoming Bermuda Bowl.

[kenrexford]

Doesn't this whole concept open up a can of worms?

 

I mean, what is the functional difference between non-disclosure of a written-down agreement and non-disclosure because the partnership lacks any agreement as to a specific auction? If a series of calls leads to a certain bid that neither partner has any agreement on, then disclosure is off, and results can be affected.

 

Should we then penalize people who have insufficient complexity also? If two peeple end up indicating "no agreement" too often, is that also actionable?

 

What if the agreement is insufficiently stated?

 

I mean, as a person who, for instance, has developed cuebidding style into a complicated but precise structure, should I be able to call the TD because my opponents have a more free-style general values cue style, where neither of them really knows what the other means by his cues or by inference of not taking another call? Whereas I can fullyu discclose the "meaning" both definitionally and inferentially, which is full disclosure, others cannot. Should that be punished by an adjustment?

 

My point is that there seems to be a bias against systemic errors or forgetting when the system is deemed different from standard, but the standard approach is a mess of jumbled nonsense itself and seems to more often lead to wags and hunches than a structured approach. And, the "nuances" from "style" are never deemed systemic, subject to disclosure, and sometimes "forgotten." The "that's common sense" type of response, if there even is one, stands in stark contrast to the incredibly tight definitional glitches that raise ire when a "different" approach is used.

[hrothgar]

For what its worth, most times that I am playing in a "real" event my partnership will contribute 1-2 very random boards that result from a system foul up. The reason for this is fairly simple: I'm not playing in any serious partnerships these days. As a result, there are plenty of auctions in which I assume X, partner assumes Y, and the result gets very screwed up.

 

The following hand is a classic example:

 

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=32675&hl=

 

Sue and I were up in Portland playing an event with TimG and IdiotVig...

 

I passed in direct seat, Sue balanced with 3♠, and I needed to decide what to do. I decided to advance 4♦ (since I was sure that this couldn't be passed). Sue assumed that i was broke with long Diamonds. So, I go to declare 4♦

 

or what its worth, I can definitely see how events like this can be seen to randomize the results. However, foricng us to change system in the midst of an event won't have ANY significant impact on the number of times these sorts of things happen.

 

What it might do is get me annoyed.

And I tend to get "creative" when I get annoyed...