Always ask?

[jallerton]

An extension of jallerton's suggestion has merit:

• Announce all your partner's calls.
• Ideally each table would have a card with common explanations (eg "Take-out", "Pre-emtive") to facilitate this while minimising disturbance to neighbouring tables.
• Opponents can switch-off such explanations during the auction (but can still ask for them at the end of the auction)

IMO, this would simplify and streamline disclosure law.

 

I suggested announcements on the first round of the auction only as:

• In general, players tend to know the agreed meanings of opening bids, overcalls and responses (scratch partnerships can announce "no agreement" when appropriate). In the rare cases where someone has forgotten the system and the annoucement provides UI to the bidder, the bidder would have received UI under traditional alerting rules anyway as there would have been an alert of the bid and, quite likely, a subsequent explanation in response to the prompted question.
  
• Knowledge of the meanng of each player's first bid is of great assistance to the opponents in understanding the rest of the auction.
  
• Players tend to have less firm agreements about the meanings of calls on later rounds of the auction so annoucements impart less useful information to the bidding side's opponents, whilst at the same time are more likely to create UI issues for the bidding side.
  

[Vampyr]

Don't you mean: "The only other pair I met last weekend whom I noticed playing transfer responses to 1♣ volunteered it before the round began."?

 

No, I asked every other pair. Even if they gave us basic system information.

[Vampyr]

there is no requirement to play according to the spirit of the game.

 

True, but playing according to the spirit of the game makes it more enjoyable for everyone. Honestly, did you think it was fun when you had to guess what to switch to and knew it couldn't be a spade, even if it seemed likely to be best?

 

I am going to enquire about certain pairs' agreements thus: "Is there anything you'd rather we didn't know about your system?"

[jh51]

It would be less expensive if everyone simply brought their own laptop and sat in a different part of the room from their partner and played electronically... <sigh> When that point is reached I will restrict myself to rubber. I hope I can afford it.

 

When that point is reached, Why have face to face tournaments at all? In order to ensure security, one might require players to go to a monitored location in order to prevent disallowed communication (telephone, texting, email) but the players at a table need not even be on the same continent. It would reduce the costs for the sponsoring entities if they did not have to rent a facility in order to host a tournament.The participants would not need to travel or obtain a hotel room for an out of town tournament. :o

[axman]

True, but playing according to the spirit of the game makes it more enjoyable for everyone.

 

 

The ones that I identify with are the schmucks that get drawn and quartered because they answered some frivolous question.

[AlexJonson]

We have come a long way from the idea that when oppos alert you can ask.

 

Do we need to get overwrought about this simple proposition.

[Finch]

When that point is reached, Why have face to face tournaments at all? In order to ensure security, one might require players to go to a monitored location in order to prevent disallowed communication (telephone, texting, email) but the players at a table need not even be on the same continent. It would reduce the costs for the sponsoring entities if they did not have to rent a facility in order to host a tournament.The participants would not need to travel or obtain a hotel room for an out of town tournament. :o

 

But we can't go for drinks & dinner afterwards.

OK, we can, but drinking alone is sad.

[barmar]

But we can't go for drinks & dinner afterwards.

OK, we can, but drinking alone is sad.

Bring your laptop and skype :)

[bluejak]

But it's always folded and kept under the bidding box, to save room on the table. So if you are looking at the "front", you can either unfold it or look at each half separately.

Well, when I play in England it is not folded and out of sight. The front is in sight. Perhaps London is not England. :lol:

 

What do you consider to be "the required information"?

 

I play transfer responses to 1♣ with a few of my partners. In my experience, when I specifically tell the opponents that we are playing transfer responses to 1♣, most seem grateful to be told and a significant proportion then discuss with their partners what defence they play after 1♣-Pass-1♥. On the occasions when I do not tell the opponents about our system and leave them to look at our (quite thorouoghly completed) convention card, it is extremely rare that either opponent mentions anything about our system before the start of the round. (This doesn't stop them commenting on our complicated system when the auction does start 1♣(alerted)-Pass-1♦/♥/♠ (alerted)!) So in practice, the previous method is a lot closer to achieving full disclosure than the current official method.

I would expect transfer responses to 1♣ to be on the front of the SC.

 

Any pair that does not pre-alert any agreement has impeccable ethics too, according to the EBU. Blame the lawmakers, not those following it.

Pre-alerting in England is by putting it on a particular part of the SC and exchanging cards at the start of the reound. If they do not pre-alert correctly, of course I do not blame the lawmakers, I blame them, the law-breakers.

[Vampyr]

Well, when I play in England it is not folded and out of sight. The front is in sight. Perhaps London is not England. :lol:

 

This is very possible.

[jallerton]

I would expect transfer responses to 1♣ to be on the front of the SC.

 

We do have "transfer responses to 1♣" written on the front of our convention card but the problem is that few opponents read this before the start of a 2-board pairs round. Yes, I know we could say that it is the opponents' fault if they don't read our convention card in advance, but is that how we want the game to be played?

 

Interestingly, the SBU alerting rules contain the following statement:

 

Remember the spirit of the WBF policy: to ensure that opponents are not disadvantaged by ignorance of your agreements.

 

At the other end of the spectrum, I can think of a few opponents who do take the trouble to read the convention card in great detail before starting play, but these opponents seem to take a significant proportion of the time allotted for the round in doing so!

[Vampyr]

We do have "transfer responses to 1♣" written on the front of our convention card but the problem is that few opponents read this before the start of a 2-board pairs round. Yes, I know we could say that it is the opponents' fault if they don't read our convention card in advance, but is that how we want the game to be played?

 

Right. You don't, but some people do. This is the idea I had when starting the thread.

[paulg]

Interestingly, the SBU alerting rules contain the following statement:

Remember the spirit of the WBF policy: to ensure that opponents are not disadvantaged by ignorance of your agreements.

We are also required to pre-alert unusual methods at the start of the round. Transfer responses to 1♣ are rare and definitely require pre-alerting.

 

Time for Stefanie to move to Edinburgh?

[gnasher]

Time for Stefanie to move to Edinburgh?

Suppose that Stefanie plays two sessions of bridge a week. With two-board rounds, that's 2500 different opponents a year. If she spends 15 seconds looking at the front of the card at the start of each round, that's about 10 hours a year. If she stays there for 20 years, the move has saved her 200 hours. Can you find a suitable home, buy it, sell your own house, pack and move in 200 hours?

 

And then there's the weather. Wikipedia tells us that the climate in Edinburgh compares favourably with Moscow, Labrador and Newfoundland, which is reassuring I suppose, but only in a rather limited way.

[gordontd]

And then there's the weather. Wikipedia tells us that the climate in Edinburgh compares favourably with Moscow, Labrador and Newfoundland, which is reassuring I suppose, but only in a rather limited way.

She's already lived in at least one of those places.

[Vampyr]

To be perfectly honest, the weather in Moscow was in some ways preferable to that in England. Yes, it would be between -10 and -35 all winter and snow every day, but it was all under bright blue skies. They do not have the grey oppressive skies we often get here, or the dampness that often accompanies cold weather.

 

In any case, I have never been to Edinburgh :( , but I have heard it is beautiful and want very much to go there. Persuading the other half to move, though, is a different matter.

[mycroft]

Ah, well, if that's what you like, you picked the right one of the three to go to. "The Rock" and Labrador are beautiful, I'm told, the two days a year you can see them through the fog (yes, that's sort of a joke).

 

You could come to Saskatchewan, though. That's right up there with Moscow.

[jallerton]

Suppose that Stefanie plays two sessions of bridge a week. With two-board rounds, that's 2500 different opponents a year. If she spends 15 seconds looking at the front of the card at the start of each round, that's about 10 hours a year. If she stays there for 20 years, the move has saved her 200 hours. Can you find a suitable home, buy it, sell your own house, pack and move in 200 hours?

 

Does Stefanie normally play about 50 boards per session?

[ArtK78]

Suppose that Stefanie plays two sessions of bridge a week. With two-board rounds, that's 2500 different opponents a year. If she spends 15 seconds looking at the front of the card at the start of each round, that's about 10 hours a year. If she stays there for 20 years, the move has saved her 200 hours. Can you find a suitable home, buy it, sell your own house, pack and move in 200 hours?

 

I just wasted 25 seconds of my life.

[Vampyr]

 

You could come to Saskatchewan, though. That's right up there with Moscow.

 

My luggage went to Saskatchewan once. While I waited for it in Honolulu.