Hand Hogging

[nige1]

If a player adjusts his "style" to prevent partner playing the hand, on a regular basis, then, arguably, he isn't playing the same system as his partner. Anyway, presumably, his partner is oblivious to the details, so cannot disclose them, hence opponents are disadvantaged.

The issue I have with "asymmetric systems", especially ones where "nobody knows what's going on but me", is that there *are* going to be unavoidable disclosure issues that get good results because of the lack of disclosure.

Repeated hogging by departing from your declared system is already covered by the disclosure rules. If one player keeps opening 1NT on 14-counts, it's an implicit agreement even if the other partner hasn't noticed.

I see that this motion has been dropped. Too bad, I would like to know who is crazy enough to vote for it.

IMO the motion attempts to address the anomaly to which mycroft, gnasher, and I allude :(

When making up the numbers as a playing director, I used to tell my partners that the aim of the early part of the evening was for them to play as many hands as possible, so that I could go and do my administrative duties. Then as soon as became dummy, I would claim the board as a success, regardless of the outcome.

But most directors seem to believe that there's no problem :)

 

Suppose rule-makers came to recognise this as a problem. What could be done?

• Players may not even be aware of an opponent's undeclared hogging tactics and are unlikely to report them. Anyway, few directors would accept the evidence of a single board. Hence, to establish a pattern, the director would first have to systematically examine score-records. Traditionally, directors avoid such a pro-active role.
• An alternative would be to legalise asymmetric systems, so that hogs could start to declare the methods that they actually use.

[jallerton]

Hm. This is, as I understand it, usually a "pro-client" problem - or at least one where one player thinks he's much better at declaring than his partner. How do they arrange to disclose this? The "client" may not even pick up on what's going on unless somebody points it out. Is the "pro" going to want to say "you have to tell the opponents that I tend to try to become declarer"?

 

It's not just "pro-client" partnerships. I can think of plenty of "husband-wife" partnerships in which the husband rarely becomes dummy.

[barmar]

This weekend I played a hand where partner reversed. I had AJxx in the 4th suit, so there was no particular reason why I was worried about it for NT. But instead of bidding NT myself, I bid the 4th suit, essentially forcing him to bid 3NT. Our agreement is that I should have at least constructive values for this bid, but I only had a flat 7 count. I joked that I bid this way because I add 1 trick for his superior declarer play.

 

I wonder if this kind of "anti-hogging" would also have run afould of the proposed new regulation?

[billw55]

I see that this motion has been dropped. Too bad, I would like to know who is crazy enough to vote for it.

What I want to know is who advanced the motion to begin with.

[blackshoe]

It's not just "pro-client" partnerships. I can think of plenty of "husband-wife" partnerships in which the husband rarely becomes dummy.

That's why I included the caveat.

[jillybean]

It's not just "pro-client" partnerships. I can think of plenty of "husband-wife" partnerships in which the husband rarely becomes dummy.

Hopefully these are self policing and become "ex-husbands".

[mycroft]

Oddly enough, there are several husband-wife pairs where the opposite occurs. Usually, in that case, though, the husband understands, if he doesn't outright encourage it. He's only out because he "has" to be.

 

It is unfortunate, that in both of these cases, they're only playing with their partner because they've run out of other partners :-)

[aguahombre]

The husband/wife stereotypes of domination (either way) are overstated, IMO.

 

What I see of the prominent spousal pairs is a partnership at the table. At the lower levels, I see very little handhogging from one side of a pair which is a couple.

[TylerE]

Oddly enough, there are several husband-wife pairs where the opposite occurs.

 

Most famously, perhaps, Charles Goren and Helen Sobel.

[gordontd]

Oddly enough, there are several husband-wife pairs where the opposite occurs.

 

 

Most famously, perhaps, Charles Goren and Helen Sobel.

 

They were married?

[TylerE]

They were married?

 

Ugh, nope. Acted like it though.

[blackshoe]

They were married, just not to each other. B-)