Looser regulation of artificial club opening

[jeremy69]

My desired system of most 16+, plus a few 15 point hands that usually but sometimes might not obey the Ro25 could be described as "strongish". Helen's suggested 14+ could be described as "intermediate to strong" or whatever. I don't think opponents would be misled by such disclosure, and they could obviously ask for further details if wanted.

 

But if you played against two or three conventional 16+ points or I die Precision diehards and then came across you with the best disclosure (and you seem to be extending the announcing rules here) in the world would they then need to adapt their defence because you were more likely to have a strong playing strength hand? In preactice of course they would not so they would be stuck with something that perhaps was not best.

[WellSpyder]

But if you played against two or three conventional 16+ points or I die Precision diehards and then came across you with the best disclosure (and you seem to be extending the announcing rules here) in the world would they then need to adapt their defence because you were more likely to have a strong playing strength hand? In preactice of course they would not so they would be stuck with something that perhaps was not best.

I don't see any particular reason to announce these descriptions rather than to alert and give them in response to a question, but I don't mind either way. In any case, opponents might want to consider adapting the defence to a strong club when they come up against a two-way club, regardless of exactly how strong the strong option is within the two-way club.

[blackshoe]

Well what I am trying to argue is that it should be 100% irrelevant how good the hand is, the only thing that should matter is the number of HCPs.

Why? Because the regulation is written in terms of HCP? (It's not, btw.) Because the regulators have decided that HCP is the evaluation method of choice, no others need apply? (I don't think they've done that.) Some other reason?

[mjj29]

The EBU regulations for what you may open fall into a small number of categories:

 

- promising a suit (may be any* strength)

- denying a suit (2-level only, may be any strength)

- strong enough that the opponents probably don't want to be constructive over it, does not have to promise a suit.

.....

A 1 club opening which doesn't promise any particular suit but yet is not strong does not fit into that system.

There is something in this argument - but it doesn't really apply in my case! I have been arguing about a Precision 1♣ because it is simple to understand the issues in this case, but I actually play a two-way club, in which 1♣ shows either 11-13 balanced (including a 4-card major) OR a Precision 1♣.

OK, you got me (-: One of the other categories is "a balanced(ish) hand with a defined range". The EBU allow you to mix some categories, so you can have "strong or weak with a known suit" or "strong or a balanced hand with a defined range", but it still restructs what people have to deal with and doesn't include "intermediate hands with no defined suit or shape" and some of the hands you think should be openable with a precision 1 club the L&E committe think are intermediate and therefore won't let you

[helene_t]

Well what I am trying to argue is that it should be 100% irrelevant how good the hand is, the only thing that should matter is the number of HCPs.

Why? Because the regulation is written in terms of HCP? (It's not, btw.) Because the regulators have decided that HCP is the evaluation method of choice, no others need apply? (I don't think they've done that.) Some other reason?

Yeah, the reasons are that

- HCP roughly translates into the hands defensive potential which is what matters to opps when they need to decide whether or not to bid constructively against it

- HCP>=14 is a rule all TDs and most players would be able to memorize, and which one could enforce objectively

 

I really don't see how the offensive potential of the hand can be any relevant. But as I said, maybe I just misunderstood what the whole purpose of regulations is.

 

Of course offensive potential is relevant for whether or not a treatment is sensible. But is it really a purpose of the regulations to prevent pairs from making stupid agreements?

 

If the regulation says 14+, then sensible agreements could for example be:

- 15+ with very little scope for upgrading

- 20+ with lots of scope for upgrading

- any evaluation that has nothing to do with HCPs but which won't let you open 1♣ on less than 14 HCPs. 4 quick tricks and 7 playing tricks might do for example.

[blackshoe]

- HCP roughly translates into the hands defensive potential which is what matters to opps when they need to decide whether or not to bid constructively against it

- HCP>=14 is a rule all TDs and most players would be able to memorize, and which one could enforce objectively

I suppose that the purpose of regulation is to attempt to level the playing field.

 

I think HCP + Quick Tricks is a better measure of defensive potential. Or perhaps just QTs alone. So why don't they use that?

 

That second is an easily memorized and enforced rule that leaves no room for judgment at the boundary. Which is precisely the objection that's been raised.

If the regulation says 14+, then sensible agreements could for example be:

15+ with very little scope for upgrading

20+ with lots of scope for upgrading

 

Well, sure, but the regulation doesn't say 14+, it says 16+, which eliminates using judgment to upgrade hands of 15, and possibly 14, points which are traditionally considered "standard" Precision openings.

 

Go back to early books on Precision (Wei, Jannersten, Sontagg, Reese, Garozzo, Goren). lf the author recommends opening 1♣ on a particular hand, then the regulation should allow it, even if it's < some arbitrary number of points.

[gnasher]

I agree that there is a minor problem in applying exactly the same regulation to Benji 2C and Precision 1C but simplicity of boundary is sometimes a good move and personally having played a strong club for about 36 years I think most of the 14/15 counts are not strong club openings but the desire to lower the start line for almost everything takes over.

...

b. At Level 5 we will be governed by WBF Category 3 which of course allows a strong club with a king more than average so Level 5 won't be bound by the extended rule of 25 and indeed in some competitions for some time e.g. Premier League, Spring 4's that has been the case but no-one actually noticed because they didn't read the rules.

...

Even if we didn't we read Goldfinger and marvelled at the Duke of Cumberland's hand to show us how poxy this point count method was with extreme hands however it is a widely understood method and players generally get a good feel for what is a good or less good hand and changing it so that the 1.27% who play strong club(including me) can wheel out our 13 counts and call them strong is not in our games best interest IMO. We should just learn to live with the fact that hands with 10 card suits don't fit our conventional evaluation systems all that well but as they don't happen often it doesn't much matter.

...

But if you played against two or three conventional 16+ points or I die Precision diehards and then came across you with the best disclosure (and you seem to be extending the announcing rules here) in the world would they then need to adapt their defence because you were more likely to have a strong playing strength hand?

Do you have something against the comma?

[jallerton]

Bottom line. It is your responsibility to know whether your methods are legal or not.

Of course. I fully accept this, and that opponents were fully entitled to seek an artificial score. (I do think it is a bit ironic, though, that one of them told me that he thought it was a completely ridiculous regulation but that while it existed he didn't see why he shouldn't take advantage of it.)

My personal view is that the current rule for strong club openings is slightly too restrictive, but as long as the regulation exists [and my strong club team-mates religiously adhere to this (and also to other arbitrary regulations)], I don't see why my opponents should be allowed to gain a potential advantage through an illegal agreement, especially when the true agreement is not properly disclosed.

[bluejak]

We're just saying that the way that the regs are worded right now makes illegal something that was always intended to be part of a 1♣ opener in Precision.

Oh, no. That is definitely untrue. When Precision was invented players believed much more that points were necessary for strong openings. At that time, Precision players had 16 points for 1♣. It is a new idea to open distributional hands with strong artificial openings.

 

What does the sequence 1♥ 1NT 3♥ show in Precision? Simple: a hand that these days players want to open 1♣.

[helene_t]

I think HCP + Quick Tricks is a better measure of defensive potential. Or perhaps just QTs alone. So why don't they use that?

Well if a QT rule would be just as simple, just as understandable to ordinary club players, and more adequate than a HCP rule, then I am all for it.

 

I think it should be allowed to open 1♣ on KQJx-KJxx-Kxx-Kx. I am not familiar with QT but I don't think that hand has four quick tricks. So the rule would have to be something with "x QT or y HCP". Which I suppose would be acceptable, but I also think it is unnecessarily complex.

 

The problems with the current regulations are that

- they are too complicated

- "The points normally associated with a 1-level opening" is not spelled out.

- if opps are allowed to make an artificial opening with 11 HCPs and nine tricks, say void-AKQJxxxxx-Jxx-x, then it is not clear to me that we don't need to bid constructively against it. Then we might as well say that all artificial openings are allowed.

[NickRW]

We're just saying that the way that the regs are worded right now makes illegal something that was always intended to be part of a 1♣ opener in Precision.

Oh, no. That is definitely untrue. When Precision was invented players believed much more that points were necessary for strong openings. At that time, Precision players had 16 points for 1♣. It is a new idea to open distributional hands with strong artificial openings.

 

What does the sequence 1♥ 1NT 3♥ show in Precision? Simple: a hand that these days players want to open 1♣.

Not as I recall it. Some of you perhaps have the benefit of a copy of the old books - I gave my Reese book on Precision to a former partner - but I seem to clearly recall a couple of examples that were powerful rule of 24 hands that he did recommend be included in 1♣.

[blackshoe]

I'm with Nick here — and as I mentioned upthread, Reese wasn't the only one.

[Cascade]

Even if they overcall then they probably won't have discussed a cue bid to show a good hand with support so they are disadvantaged in my view if 1C sinks to a lower level as they will have more of these hands so this is a further reason for the limit that has been set.

If this is true they are disadvantaged by their own lack of preparation.

[dburn]

Even if they overcall then they probably won't have discussed a cue bid to show a good hand with support so they are disadvantaged in my view if 1C sinks to a lower level as they will have more of these hands so this is a further reason for the limit that has been set.

If this is true they are disadvantaged by their own lack of preparation.

Not really. You see, they need to know that there is something against which they should prepare.

 

Whereas I don't mind my opponents opening 1♣ with any thirteen cards they happen to hold, I take considerable exception to their doing so under the guise of playing a "strong club system". They are not playing a strong club system - what they are actually doing is playing a system in which it is safer for them than it would otherwise be to open some horrible nine count, since partner will know that they did not open a "strong" club.

 

Now, all that is also perfectly fine - if it's what you want to play, you should be allowed to play it. My experience with systems such as Magic Diamond, which is more closely defined than this New Precision in that it uses two nebulous openings rather than one for most hands better than a horrible nine count, is that they do not work. But I do not want to prevent you from playing a method that does not work - I just do not want you as a team-mate.

 

What you should not be allowed to do, though, is go around confusing people into thinking that they should play their strong club defence against your "strong club system". They should not. But they will not know that they should not, and that is why we make the regulations we make. If you had to disclose your methods properly, they would fall foul of those regulations, and it is not open to you to attempt to circumvent this by calling your methods something that they are not.

 

Of course Reese wouldn't open a 1=6=5=1 13-count a strong club. He knew what would happen if his opponents bid spades, and in those days (unlike these days) his opponents had to have spades before they could bid them.

[helene_t]

dburn, if you are happy for opps to play a 1♣ opening that is basically defined as rule-of-23, but just not happy for them to call it "strong club", then it sounds to me as if you and Cascade agree, at least with respect to what the regulation should say.

 

As for whether or not it is adequate to disclose it as "strong club", I think that's a separate issue.

[jallerton]

We're just saying that the way that the regs are worded right now makes illegal something that was always intended to be part of a 1♣ opener in Precision.

Oh, no. That is definitely untrue. When Precision was invented players believed much more that points were necessary for strong openings. At that time, Precision players had 16 points for 1♣. It is a new idea to open distributional hands with strong artificial openings.

 

What does the sequence 1♥ 1NT 3♥ show in Precision? Simple: a hand that these days players want to open 1♣.

Not as I recall it. Some of you perhaps have the benefit of a copy of the old books - I gave my Reese book on Precision to a former partner - but I seem to clearly recall a couple of examples that were powerful rule of 24 hands that he did recommend be included in 1♣.

I am afraid your memory is faulty. I repeat below the results of my research from several months ago.

 

In Precision Bidding for Everyone (Goren & Wei), it is explained that the correct opening bid is 1♦ on:

 

♠AQ ♥none ♦KJ1095 ♣ KQ10973

 

Even though your playing strength is exceptional, you lack the required 16HCP to open 1♣.  As we shall discuss later, strong rebids are available to describe excellent distributional hands  after a "limited" opening bid like 1♦ 

 

So in original Precision, it seems that there are no upgrades for distribution or exceptional intermediates!

 

In Precision Bidding and Precision Play, Terence Reese is slightly less strict. Although he explains that it would be a mistake to open 1♣ on:

 

♠5 ♥AK10974 ♦KQJ86 ♣4

 

he goes on to say that:

 

It is quite right to open 1♣ on an exceptional hand such as:

 

♠AQJ10852 ♥none ♦AK84 ♣62.

 

Here you have three first round controls and will not be carried into space by a partner who may also have a good hand.

 

Interestingly, Reese's exceptional hand both conforms with the Rule of 25 and contains eight "clear cut tricks", whilst the hand on which it would be a "mistake" to open 1♣ does not meet either of those criteria.

 

In "either or" 1♣ systems such Carrot/Swedish Club and Polish Club then the traditional minimum strength for the strong option is 17, 18+ or 19+HCP so the EBU's 16+ minimum does allow slack for judgement upgrades when playing the traditional versions of these system.

[dburn]

dburn, if you are happy for opps to play a 1♣ opening that is basically defined as rule-of-23, but just not happy for them to call it "strong club", then it sounds to me as if you and Cascade agree, at least with respect to what the regulation should say.

When I say that I am happy for my opponents to play whatever they like, it does not follow that I think there should be a regulation to the effect that everyone should be happy for the opponents to play whatever they like.

 

I don't think that at all. As I have remarked elsewhere, I think that people who organise tournaments should be free to impose whatever restrictions they want to impose on the methods that may be played in those tournaments. If you don't like the restrictions, don't play in the tournaments.

 

I also think it ridiculous for the organisers of any event billed as a World, or European, or English, or Outer Mongolian Championship to impose any restrictions at all on what people play in those tournaments. But, as above, they can if they want to - after all, no one is going to say "we won't play in the Bermuda Bowl if we can't play a strong pass". Moreover, although I believe that the USA currently hold only the World Championship For People Who Still Bid Like Your Auntie Gladys, there isn't any other World Championship for them to hold, and their achievement is as considerable as it could possibly be.

 

Whatever you play, though, you must tell the opponents what it is. Because there are considerable restrictions on the methods we allow, it is just about possible to describe those methods in a way that can readily be understood by those who must play against them at short notice for a limited period of time. We should be (nay, we are) gradually relaxing those restrictions, but there are limits.

 

If you want to play "1♣ shows 16+ balanced or 13+ unbalanced, but unbalanced 13-15 point hands will only be opened 1♣ if they conform to the Rule of 25", try asking us whether you may. No one has actually done that yet, and I don't know what our answer would be. But don't ask us "if we call our system a strong club, may we open 1♣ on some thirteen counts?" You may not.

[hrothgar]

If you want to play "1♣ shows 16+ balanced or 13+ unbalanced, but unbalanced 13-15 point hands will only be opened 1♣ if they conform to the Rule of 25", try asking us whether you may. No one has actually done that yet, and I don't know what our answer would be. But don't ask us "if we call our system a strong club, may we open 1♣ on some thirteen counts?" You may not.

Out of curiosity, what are the alert/announcement requirements if I were to play a Blue Club style 1NT opening in the EBU?

[blackshoe]

The problem as I see it is that if you say "anything goes" at World Championships (which are held by the WBF, not the USA), but disallow some methods at all lower levels, people don't get a chance to practice their methods, perhaps to refine them, at least to become familiar with them.

 

No one in his right mind is going to wake up on the first day of his first (or tenth) World Championship match and suggest to his partner "today, let's play Regres", never having played it before.

[dburn]

Out of curiosity, what are the alert/announcement requirements if I were to play a Blue Club style 1NT opening in the EBU?

Oh, you simply announce "13-17". The fact that you will be 13-15 only if you do not have a four-card suit other than clubs is left for your opponents somehow to discover. The regulations do not permit them to do this very easily, if at all, but the purpose of alerting and announcing anything in England is to conform to the regulations, not to assist the opponents.

[Cascade]

Even if they overcall then they probably won't have discussed a cue bid to show a good hand with support so they are disadvantaged in my view if 1C sinks to a lower level as they will have more of these hands so this is a further reason for the limit that has been set.

If this is true they are disadvantaged by their own lack of preparation.

Not really. You see, they need to know that there is something against which they should prepare.

 

Whereas I don't mind my opponents opening 1♣ with any thirteen cards they happen to hold, I take considerable exception to their doing so under the guise of playing a "strong club system". They are not playing a strong club system - what they are actually doing is playing a system in which it is safer for them than it would otherwise be to open some horrible nine count, since partner will know that they did not open a "strong" club.

 

Now, all that is also perfectly fine - if it's what you want to play, you should be allowed to play it. My experience with systems such as Magic Diamond, which is more closely defined than this New Precision in that it uses two nebulous openings rather than one for most hands better than a horrible nine count, is that they do not work. But I do not want to prevent you from playing a method that does not work - I just do not want you as a team-mate.

 

What you should not be allowed to do, though, is go around confusing people into thinking that they should play their strong club defence against your "strong club system". They should not. But they will not know that they should not, and that is why we make the regulations we make. If you had to disclose your methods properly, they would fall foul of those regulations, and it is not open to you to attempt to circumvent this by calling your methods something that they are not.

 

Of course Reese wouldn't open a 1=6=5=1 13-count a strong club. He knew what would happen if his opponents bid spades, and in those days (unlike these days) his opponents had to have spades before they could bid them.

I agree with most of what you have written.

 

However I see this as an argument about disclosure not for system restriction.

[mjj29]

We should be (nay, we are) gradually relaxing those restrictions

How ironic, given the most recent Laws and Ethics committee meeting just banned my system in all the tournaments that I play in

[bluejak]

Out of curiosity, what are the alert/announcement requirements if I were to play a Blue Club style 1NT opening in the EBU?

Oh, you simply announce "13-17". The fact that you will be 13-15 only if you do not have a four-card suit other than clubs is left for your opponents somehow to discover. The regulations do not permit them to do this very easily, if at all, but the purpose of alerting and announcing anything in England is to conform to the regulations, not to assist the opponents.

Maybe. Or maybe not. The only pairs whom I know who play this alert it.

[helene_t]

yeah I think it makes sense to alert it.

[jallerton]

Well it might make sense from an "active ethics" point of view, but the pairs Bluejak knows are clearly breaching the Orange Book regulations (5C1 says that natural 1NT openinggs are announceable and 5E1 implies that announceable bids are not alertable) and despite their good intentions they should apparently (according to 5H2) be given procedural penalties.

 

If I were playing this system I would make an effort to draw my opponents' attention to this part of the system at the start of the round. I might also risk procedural penalties by announcing it as something like: "16-17 or perhaps 13-15 with a precise shape"

 

How ironic, given the most recent Laws and Ethics committee meeting just banned my system in all the tournaments that I play in

 

I thought you played Strong Diamond. That is still allowed at Level 4, isn't it?