Inverted Forcing Pass?

[jillybean]

We had a very enjoyable game in the final of the Teams game tonight against a good team who knew what they were doing,

were ethical, friendy and all had identical, fully completed convention cards. :)

 

I was chatting to one of my opponents about their forcing pass and he mentioned that he was playing "Inverted" Forcing Pass

I was not able to get more information as my partner and team mates wanted to finish up, score up and get home so I'm hoping

someone here will know more about it? A google search does not come up with anything.

 

We lost to them but it was the most enjoyable game of the day. U430 results are now posted using Bridge Results dot com which is fabulous, it would be perfect if we had handrecords for the team games too. Edit, try this link. http://bridgeresults.net/cal_list.cgi?month=11&year=12&club=25

[Trinidad]

This treatment is getting more and more popular.

 

Pass says: "I want to defend, please double, unless you really want to play."

Double says: "I slightly prefer to play, please bid, unless you chose to defend."

 

One advantage is that the pass and pull is much clearer, sort of "split range". Pass says you either want to defend or that you really want to bid.

 

Rik

[Trinidad]

U430 results are now posted using Bridge Results dot com which is fabulous, it would be peferect if we had handrecords for the team games too http://www.bridgeresults.net/25/html/121110-3841.html

Well, fabulous... Check out these links for how scoring is presented by bridge clubs in some other countries:

The Netherlands

Sweden

EBU (see what happens when you click on a pair)

 

These are the results of some random bridge clubs that use the scoring program (and infrastructure) provided by their national leagues. These are typically results from the standard club nights, not from special tournaments (except for the Swedish one). This is how the "Aunt Millie - Uncle Bob"-s can see their bridge results. I think the ACBL has a long way to go before the presentation of scores in the USA earns the qualification "fabulous".

 

Rik

[jillybean]

Hi Rik, I guess "fabulous" is relative, this is fabulous compared to what we had before :)

Thanks for posting the links, it is good to see what other countries are doing. BTW, BridgeResutls are a private company,

the ACBL have nothing to do with it.

[Trinidad]

Hi Rik, I guess "fabulous" is relative, this is fabulous compared to what we had before :)

Thanks for posting the links, it is good to see what other countries are doing. BTW, BridgeResutls are a private company,

the ACBL have nothing to do with it.

I realize that BridgeResults are a private company, and in that sense, it is fabulous that they are doing something like that. And I don't want to kill free enterprise, but I think it ought to be the task of the "central government" (ACBL) to provide the infrastructure. After all, if the ACBL doesn't provide this kind of infrastructure, why would I be an ACBL member? For the masterpoints? Really?

 

I also realize that the ACBL is organized different from the European NCBO's. In many European leagues, the clubs are associated to (or even members of) the league. The members of the clubs are members of the league through their clubs. This means that the national league can provide this infrastructure as a service to its associated clubs. (Clubs that are not associated don't have access to this service.)

 

In the ACBL, the clubs are not associated to the ACBL, individual members are. Nevertheless, I think that the ACBL could provide this service to their certified tournament directors for their games. They could even make it possible to put in a condition: They could require that a certain percentage of the participants is either an ACBL member or a registered student. If the condition is met, the results will be available on the internet at "www.acbl.org\My_results\TD-number-xyz". If it isn't met there could be a message: "Unfortunately too small a fraction of participants of this event were ACBL members. You and your friends can join ACBL now to show the results through 'My ACBL results'!!".

 

Also nobody says that the ACBL has to reinvent the wheel. I expect that if they contact some other NCBO's that they can "buy into" existing infrastructure.

 

Rik

[Trinidad]

Double post deleted

[jillybean]

Interesting information, thanks.

 

I realize that BridgeResults are a private company, and in that sense, it is fabulous that they are doing something like that. And I don't want to kill free enterprise, but I think it ought to be the task of the "central government" (ACBL) to provide the infrastructure. After all, if the ACBL doesn't provide this kind of infrastructure, why would I be an ACBL member? For the masterpoints? Really?

Absolutely, people wear them as a badge of honor. The ACBL have done a wonderful job of marketing MP's, or maybe it is just human nature that makes them so attractive.

 

I also realize that the ACBL is organized different from the European NCBO's. In many European leagues, the clubs are associated to (or even members of) the league. The members of the clubs are members of the league through their clubs. This means that the national league can provide this infrastructure as a service to its associated clubs. (Clubs that are not associated don't have access to this service.)

 

In the ACBL, the clubs are not associated to the ACBL, individual members are. Nevertheless, I think that the ACBL could provide this service to their certified tournament directors for their games. They could even make it possible to put in a condition: They could require that a certain percentage of the participants is either an ACBL member or a registered student. If the condition is met, the results will be available on the internet at "www.acbl.org\My_results\TD-number-xyz". If it isn't met there could be a message: "Unfortunately too small a fraction of participants of this event were ACBL members. You and your friends can join ACBL now to show the results through 'My ACBL results'!!".

The clubs pay a fee to run ACBL sanctioned games and I assume all ACBL sanctioned games are run by ACBL certified directors. Shouldn't the ACBL then provide this service to all clubs running ACBL sanctioned games and make the results available only for and to ACBL members?

[Vampyr]

(Clubs that are not associated don't have access to this service.)

 

This is not true in England. Non-affiliated clubs are able to post their results in the same way, complete with travellers and hand records.

[Trinidad]

The clubs pay a fee to run ACBL sanctioned games and I assume all ACBL sanctioned games are run by ACBL certified directors. Shouldn't the ACBL then provide this service to all clubs running ACBL sanctioned games and make the results available only for and to ACBL members?

I would certainly think so.

 

Personally, I think it should be available to bridge students too. (Don't they have some kind of special "introduction membership" status within ACBL?)

 

Rik

[nigel_k]

I would not bother with inverted forcing pass.

 

It can help when you intend to pass and pull partner's double to make a slam try because it's more likely that partner will actually double, as your pass is usually based on a hand that wants to defend. However, the converse is that if your pass is encouraging and partner does something, you have useful information that his hand is more suitable for going on. If your pass was discouraging and partner doubled, you would not have that information.

 

Why add complexity when it's hard to even figure out if the extra complexity gains anything? Also, if you ever have a disagreement about whether a sequence is forcing, and just about everybody does from time to time, pass-double inversion is likely to make it worse.

[Zelandakh]

The pass/double inversion is theoretically better in most auctions but probably not worth it for I/A players. If you play "all doubles are takeout except..." then there is a certain appeal to it since you are now (arguably) less likely to have a costly misunderstanding.

 

The basic is that Pass is a transfer (some play Puppet) to Double, and shows either an interest in defending (pass the double) or a slam try (bid something); Double shows interest in bidding on but can be converted; bidding our suit is natural without slam interest; bidding a new suit shows extra shape but not extra values. If the bidding is low enough you can also do some things with 4NT - Bridgewinners has some discussion of this (see the comments). I have also seen Sabine Auken's book "I Love This Game" recommended several times regarding this, so that would probably be a decent place to start before incorporating it into your partnerships (should you decide to do so).

[helene_t]

Also, if you ever have a disagreement about whether a sequence is forcing, and just about everybody does from time to time, pass-double inversion is likely to make it worse.

I think this depends on what pass and double would mean in a non-FP high-level situation. Obviously this depends on the level of the auction and other factors (have we found a fit?), but if you generally play double as encouraging to bid on, regardless of whether pass would be forcing or not, then you may survive a misunderstanding about forcing pass.

[billw55]

EBU (see what happens when you click on a pair)

Wow, that is really nice presentation.

 

But ... 100 masterpoints given out at club game? And I thought ACBL had MP inflation :o

[Vampyr]

Wow, that is really nice presentation.

 

But ... 100 masterpoints given out at club game? And I thought ACBL had MP inflation :o

 

Well, you need 60,000 of them to become a life master.

[paulg]

We played Pass/Double Inversion above the level of three spades, as per Sabine Auken's book. Now, courtesy of Roy Hughes' recent book, we now play Pass/Double Inversion at all levels when pass is forcing. We do prefer the consistency of our current methods.

 

Of course the key is to have a common understanding of when pass is forcing.

 

I believe you play 2/1 normally, so one way is to consider the simple auction 1♠ - (Pass) - 2♦ - (2♥). What would you feel confident playing double as?

[paulg]

But ... 100 masterpoints given out at club game? And I thought ACBL had MP inflation :o

These are equivalent to black points and my conversion formula divides by 35 to get the ACBL equivalent.

[Phil]

I would encourage a bright young carpenter to master the hammer and plumb-bob before taking the time to learn about a plasma cutter.

[NickRW]

Well, fabulous... Check out these links for how scoring is presented by bridge clubs in some other countries:

The Netherlands

Sweden

EBU (see what happens when you click on a pair)

 

These are the results of some random bridge clubs that use the scoring program (and infrastructure) provided by their national leagues. These are typically results from the standard club nights, not from special tournaments (except for the Swedish one). This is how the "Aunt Millie - Uncle Bob"-s can see their bridge results. I think the ACBL has a long way to go before the presentation of scores in the USA earns the qualification "fabulous".

 

Rik

 

The "EBU" example is not strictly EBU - it is a privately run service which is availble to US clubs as well as elsewhere - see here for a list of US clubs participating:

Bridge webs Costs are something in the order of £50 per year for a middle sized club in this country. Not sure what the chap who runs this service is charging his US customers - but I doubt he is exactly profiteering.

 

There is also freebie software to do good results pages if you want to operate your own web sites.

 

Hand records are primarily dependent on using dealing software - unless you want to manually and tediously make an uploadable file whatever solution you adopt.

 

Nick

 

The results for a US club can be seen here Almost certainly the results will have originally been scored using the standard ACBL scoring program and simply uploaded.

[jillybean]

Thanks, there is a fair number of America and Canadain clubs using this service.

Having handrecords for all games here seems to be dependant on having sufficent sets of boards and paying the cost of the operator to duplicate those boards or getting smarter with movements which seems to have some resistance because #1, we need more caddys and #2 the risk of players discussing hands or messing up movements.

 

fwiw, the link I posted to the results in the OP was the link to my results from the team game which aren't interesting at all since we don't have handrecords. I intended to post this link http://bridgeresults.net/cal_list.cgi?month=11&year=12&club=25

[Vampyr]

Having handrecords for all games here seems to be dependant on having sufficent sets of boards and paying the cost of the operator to duplicate those boards or getting smarter with movements which seems to have some resistance because #1, we need more caddys and #2 the risk of players discussing hands or messing up movements.

 

I can understand the problem of not having enough boards and the manpower to duplicate them, but I do not understand the need for caddies. Or about people discussing hands. I assume you are talking about team games, which are often hand-dealt in the US. Doesn't everyone play the same hands in a pair game? Is there a problem with people discussing hands? Or messing up movements?

[antonylee]

Some clubs in the US get it done nicely too: http://www.quicktricks.org/california/bay_area/quicktricks/results/201211/recap_20121112_391.html (usual club game)

[Vampyr]

Some clubs in the US get it done nicely too: http://www.quicktricks.org/california/bay_area/quicktricks/results/201211/recap_20121112_391.html (usual club game)

 

Just looking at this now -- it's OK, but it lacks the ability to click on a pair and get their personal score.

 

I am curious; maybe someone in the US can answer this: why have a stratified game when it looks as if there are enough pairs to separate the flights?

[jillybean]

I don't know enough about movements, strats etc to comment on that but one thing that happens here that I find bewildering is we have

a game running 2 sections (non duplicated boards) and the results are posted as section results and an overall result. I've never understood

how you can get an overall result when the 2 sections are playing different boards.

[Vampyr]

I don't know enough about movements, strats etc to comment on that but one thing that happens here that I find bewildering is we have

a game running 2 sections (non duplicated boards) and the results are posted as section results and an overall result. I've never understood

how you can get an overall result when the 2 sections are playing different boards.

 

In the US you can even see "overall" winners from a 2-winner movement without arrow-switching.

 

I don't see any reason not to use duplicated boards for a game with two sections. Even if for some reason the club does not have a duplicating machine, it does not take too long to make up a couple of sets by hand, and you will still be able to give out hand records.

[blackshoe]

ACBLScore lets you do a lot of things that don't make any sense. :lol: