Annoying Opponents

[Shugart23]

Ok, so my wife and I play a complicated precision system and are pretty decent at it, even where there is interference. At Club games, people occasionally throw bids in an effort to 'mess things' up. Last night, after wife opened 1C, the next bidder overcalled 2D with 10 points and 5 Diamonds, 9 high......SO I double to show 5-7 HCP and wife leaves it in and we go for a top (Match points).

 

If bidding goes 1C, and Opponents bid at the one level, say 1H, and I want to penalize, I will pass and partner Doubles if she thinks I am doing a trap pass.

 

But it is a nuisance when opponents just throw a bid in for no other purpose but to disrupt...

 

I wouldn't mind a discussion on what and how other precision players deal with 'psych'bids, or even worse than psych bids. Occasionally, we do get messed up by them

[jjbrr]

Sounds like you're doing fine defending against these bids, but you're simply going to experience more "preempts work" type situations but also collect many more large penalties.

 

I think it's +EV to let the opponents bid this way and punish them as you can.

[jjbrr]

I'll also add that while they might be interrupting your auctions, they're also losing a lot of accuracy in their own constructive auctions, so they won't be able to compete or bid games as effectively in addition to opening themselves up to big penalties.

[Vampyr]

There are certain advantages to playing Precision, and the 1♣ opening is obviously not one of them. When you made the decision to play a strong club, you were accepting the fact that opponents were going to come in early and often over it.

[CSGibson]

I've played a lot of conventional stuff against people who love to throw unsound bids in to see if you can handle it. By and large, they find out that our partnerships can handle it, because we spend lots of time discussing what our bids mean in competition after ambiguous starts, and they inevitably donate matchpoints and imps.

 

We play precision also in my main partnership, and we had the following auction last Wednesday:

 

[hv=d=s&v=n&b=15&a=1c(16/17+)p2c(8+%2C%205+%20diamonds)p2d(relay%2C%20shows%20fit)2sdppp]133|100[/hv]

 

where a decent & imaginative but undisciplined player through in 2S with Txxxx in spades and a stiff diamond to see if we could handle it. With no game making our way except on extreme DD lines, we handed him his head for 800. There is a reason that these actions are called "unsound" - they rate not to work in the long run against competent opponents. All you can do in response is to become the competent opponent who benefits from these actions.

[ArtK78]

I've played a lot of conventional stuff against people who love to throw unsound bids in to see if you can handle it. By and large, they find out that our partnerships can handle it, because we spend lots of time discussing what our bids mean in competition after ambiguous starts, and they inevitably donate matchpoints and imps.

 

We play precision also in my main partnership, and we had the following auction last Wednesday:

 

[hv=d=s&v=n&b=15&a=1c(16/17+)p2c(8+%2C%205+%20diamonds)p2d(relay%2C%20shows%20fit)2sdppp]133|100[/hv]

 

where a decent & imaginative but undisciplined player through in 2S with Txxxx in spades and a stiff diamond to see if we could handle it. With no game making our way except on extreme DD lines, we handed him his head for 800. There is a reason that these actions are called "unsound" - they rate not to work in the long run against competent opponents. All you can do in response is to become the competent opponent who benefits from these actions.

Throwing in a bid AFTER the strong clubbers have had an opportunity to exchange information is truly unsound. Had he bid 2♠ at his first opportunity to bid, he might have survived (and, perhaps, benefitted, but that seems unlikely).

[Vampyr]

Throwing in a bid AFTER the strong clubbers have had an opportunity to exchange information is truly unsound. Had he bid 2♠ at his first opportunity to bid, he might have survived (and, perhaps, benefitted, but that seems unlikely).

 

Ah, was going to post exactly the same thing. I have, in fact, never heard of someone interfering in a strong club auction in this fashion -- until today.

[Free]

Basically there are 2 options:

- Get a certain reputation that you penalize opps a lot when they make stupid calls. Once you have that reputation, opps won't overcall as much anymore. But that takes time and lots of laughing at the bar each time you have a good score.

- Keep quiet, get better handling stupid calls (apparently you're doing fine) and keep getting those good scores, with an occasional bad one (can't win em all). You can even encourage stupid calls by complaining at the bar each time you have a poor score. ;)

[dake50]

You've hit one of my peeves.[rant on]

Opponents fill out a Convention Card, then anything goes against 1C-force.

Their overcalls are not as CC-shown, nor their jump overcalls; nor have

they disclosed their agreements to *disrupt* 1C (eg. Whirlwind,Suction).

If done against a 'natural' 1C those would be both "excessive psyching"

and "private understanding".[rant off]

Having preferred 1C force, including the conventional wisdom "opponents

will try to take advantage of your artificial start so 1C loses", I've

experienced 1C-forcing starts to be a BIG winner BECAUSE opponents

decide to stop playing bridge.

In a 1C-force system, hasn't interference handling been discussed so

they are prepared? "Step into my lair" with no experience to compare to ours.

This is so wild that we take penalty on our sound games, bounce on borderline

games, bid low to suggest slam. This strategy has been a winner even when we

alert which one is in play.

[Vampyr]

You've hit one of my peeves.[rant on]

Opponents fill out a Convention Card, then anything goes against 1C-force.

Their overcalls are not as CC-shown, nor their jump overcalls; nor have

they disclosed their agreements to *disrupt* 1C (eg. Whirlwind,Suction).

 

I don't understand this. Why not just ask?

[ArtK78]

Much easier to complain.

[Shugart23]

I don't believe Suction is a legal defense to 1C opening under general convention chart. Also, I don't believe partnership agreements or conventions whose sole purpose is to disrupt are legal under GCC. A dumb/psych bid is presumed (by me) to be legal, but the partner of the psych bidder can't know its a psych (IMHO).

 

So if bidding goes 1C -P -1D -1H and then if the 1 Club opener doubles, how do you all play the double ? penalty or take-out?

[dake50]

I don't understand this. Why not just ask?

 

*** You miss my point.

Asking works WHEN THEY HAVE A DISCUSSED AGREEMENT as eg. Whirlwind.

Of course the answer is often "we have no agreement"

but that's to their advantage as they're just annoying. Better to have

no agreement and just happen to read this time right.

Is that a weak jump overcall? .. Yup.

But it has 12 points. .. That's because you bid 1C.

That's not disclosed. .. Everyone does that to 1C.

[Vampyr]

I don't understand this. Why not just ask?

 

*** You miss my point.

Asking works WHEN THEY HAVE A DISCUSSED AGREEMENT as eg. Whirlwind.

Of course the answer is often "we have no agreement"

but that's to their advantage as they're just annoying. Better to have

no agreement and just happen to read this time right.

Is that a weak jump overcall? .. Yup.

But it has 12 points. .. That's because you bid 1C.

That's not disclosed. .. Everyone does that to 1C.

 

If you suspect a CPU or a fielded psyche you should call the director.

 

It might be worth finding out whether a WJO over a strong club which is, say, 0-14 points, is alertable.

[Elianna]

I don't believe Suction is a legal defense to 1C opening under general convention chart.

 

Yes, it is. All defenses to conventional calls are legal under the GCC. This is why certain people in ACBL have worked so hard to get a 1C opening that could contain 4432 counted as nonconventional.

 

See the GCC under "Competitive" #7a

[Vampyr]

This is why certain people in ACBL have worked so hard to get a 1C opening that could contain 4432 counted as nonconventional.

Are these 1♣ openers announced or alerted differently to those that might be short in other shapes?

[paua]

What about those annoying opponents who open 1C when they haven't got clubs ?

[Elianna]

Are these 1♣ openers announced or alerted differently to those that might be short in other shapes?

 

According the The ACBL Alert Procedures one's partner is supposed to announce "could be short" when one opens 1C if it could contain as few as 2 cards. This is also repeated on the Alert Chart.

 

This is the same announcement one makes when opening 1C that could be 4441, etc. (i.e. still less than three cards, but not strong.)

 

So the non-opening side still needs to ask to distinguish between announced openings that can only include 4432, and the announced openings that could include other shapes. This is especially annoying for pairs who would like to play a different defence to 1C "short" and 1C "standard", because the 4432, which is announced as "short", is actually defined as natural in the GCC.

 

(BTW, just to be clear, I am not claiming that any of this is ideal. I am just answering your question and reporting on the facts in ACBL as I understand them from reading the charts.)

[Vampyr]

(BTW, just to be clear, I am not claiming that any of this is ideal. I am just answering your question and reporting on the facts in ACBL as I understand them from reading the charts.)

 

Thanks. What is the ACBL policy on asking? Is it necessary for a pair who play different defences to ask every time the announcement is made (which I am guessing is a lot of the time).

[Elianna]

Thanks. What is the ACBL policy on asking? Is it necessary for a pair who play different defences to ask every time the announcement is made (which I am guessing is a lot of the time).

 

Officially, you're only supposed to ask if it makes a difference. So in other words, if a pair plays different defences, and someone wants to bid over 1C announced as short, they have to ask before they bid, but if they weren't planning on bidding, they aren't supposed to ask. Clearly, you can see that there is potential for both UI, and for the 1C opening side to gain information about the opponents' hand due to them having to ask questions.

 

From what I can tell, most people then take the policy of routinely asking about the first alerted bid in a sequence (whether they are planning on bidding or not), and waiting on subsequent bids until the auction is over. I am not sure if that's recommended or not by ACBL. I am feeling a bit sick, and leaving the research to others. :)

[jeffford76]

Officially, you're only supposed to ask if it makes a difference. So in other words, if a pair plays different defences, and someone wants to bid over 1C announced as short, they have to ask before they bid, but if they weren't planning on bidding, they aren't supposed to ask. Clearly, you can see that there is potential for both UI, and for the 1C opening side to gain information about the opponents' hand due to them having to ask questions.

 

I don't think this is right. I think if you play different defenses you should always ask rather than give partner UI. I've never seen any ACBL materials suggesting otherwise.

[Vampyr]

I don't think this is right. I think if you play different defenses you should always ask rather than give partner UI. I've never seen any ACBL materials suggesting otherwise.

 

I don't mean to be a pest, but I am planning to play in the ACBL in the near future. Do pairs who always ask usually put it on their convention cards?

[blackshoe]

I don't mean to be a pest, but I am planning to play in the ACBL in the near future. Do pairs who always ask usually put it on their convention cards?

Not in my experience, but then the ACBL is a big place, and I haven't been everywhere. B-)

[Siegmund]

If people put everything on their convention cards that they should, and kept the convention cards where they were visible, you wouldn't need to ask what their 1C was, because you'd be able to read it.

 

It is going to be eye-opening for Stefanie to see how little the average ACBL player puts on the card and how few cards are in sight. I just came back from playing 4 days at a regional, 2 sessions a day, and in that time, I had one person study my card before the beginning of a match and three people glance at it during a hand. Everyone else just ignored it as it sat on the table, and then asked about our carding when our side was about to make an opening lead.

[Vampyr]

They do at least tell you their basic system before the round begins?