Illegal Agreement

[blackshoe]

Sure I can.

[nige1]

Sure I can.

Judging by discussions on BBO and Bridgewinners, most ACBL players are ignorant of system regulations or interpret them liberally. Also, directors turn a blind eye to putative transgressions. Unfortunately, a few masochists believe that some rules and regulations restrict permissible understandings and actions. Predictably, these few players suffer a disadvantage compared with the majority. IMO, this two-tier playing field is unfair. It's a strong argument for rule-makers to simplify and clarify the rules, as soon as possible.

[mycroft]

In general, Oh. My. Trust me, no further comment.

 

On a side note:

At least some of that is obsolete, since there are no "class A conventions" any more.

I thought we'd got all the references by now. Lovely. They're cleaning up the codification, so let's see if we get there from here.

 

The numbers refer, I believe, to agenda items from various BoD meetings over the years. I think that if you know the code you can figure out which meeting and which item, but I've no clue how it works.

YYN-###, where YY is the last two digits of the year, N is 1-Spring, 2-Summer, 3-Fall, and ### is the number assigned to the item when first submitted to the agenda (I believe; I can't think of any other reason they're so scattered).

[blackshoe]

YYN-###, where YY is the last two digits of the year, N is 1-Spring, 2-Summer, 3-Fall, and ### is the number assigned to the item when first submitted to the agenda (I believe; I can't think of any other reason they're so scattered).

Makes sense, Mycroft. But this is the ACBL, so if it makes sense, it must be wrong. B-)

[Trinidad]

You can't just ignore the Tech Files and FAQs because they're not "official".

I would more or less agree with you if the Tech Files and FAQs were the only thing we had. Then it would be better to have something unofficial than not having anything at all.

 

The point is that we do have something official: the GCC. And then the official document simply trumps everything that is not official. And it stays that way until the ACBL repeals the GCC. So not only can you ignore the Tech Files and FAQs. You must ignore them.

 

Rik

[ArtK78]

I would more or less agree with you if the Tech Files and FAQs were the only thing we had. Then it would be better to have something unofficial than not having anything at all.

 

The point is that we do have something official: the GCC. And then the official document simply trumps everything that is not official. And it stays that way until the ACBL repeals the GCC. So not only can you ignore the Tech Files and FAQs. You must ignore them.

 

Rik

That would be true if that were the intention of the drafters of the GCC and the regulations.

 

However, we know, through experience, that this is not the case. The Tech Files and the FAQs are treated as authoritative by ACBL officials, such as TDs and management. Therefore, they have the force of law, as it were, and it would be foolish to ignore them.

 

Now, you can tilt at windmills and say that this is not the way it should be. And you may be right. But this is the way it is. You have to accept the facts. If you continue to ignore the facts, you do so at your own peril.

[blackshoe]

"In order for evil to triumph, it is only necessary that good men do nothing."

 

I'm not saying there's evil in this, but the principle is the same. The status quo is wrong. If we don't fight it, if we just "accept the facts", we deserve the game we get. One where the rules are arbitrary and capricious, and most players and club TDs are kept in the dark.

[barmar]

The point is that we do have something official: the GCC. And then the official document simply trumps everything that is not official. And it stays that way until the ACBL repeals the GCC. So not only can you ignore the Tech Files and FAQs. You must ignore them.

Yes, if there's a contradiction, the GCC wins.

 

But the GCC is notoriously vague and incomplete, and these other documents clarify it.

[mycroft]

So, since we have the Magna Carta, we must ignore 1000 years of Case Law? Because we have the U.S. Constitution, we must ignore the 200 years of Case Law and opinions and discussions? Because we have Torah, we must ignore the over 2000 years of rabbinic commentary?

 

There are several instances of case law and interpretation; this is clearly one. Yes, it's hard to get to - you either need to get a copy of ACBLscore or find the several places on the net that it has been copied to (almost certainly illegally, but I'm not sure anyone cares - and then it's out of date). Ever tried finding the case law that is relevant to you for anything real life legal?

 

It's not good; there are clearly better ways of handling this, as well as many other things in the ACBL. But it works, at least better than some alternatives.

[helene_t]

So, since we have the Magna Carta, we must ignore 1000 years of Case Law? Because we have the U.S. Constitution, we must ignore the 200 years of Case Law and opinions and discussions? Because we have Torah, we must ignore the over 2000 years of rabbinic commentary?

I think that's a bit unfair.

 

It would be quite difficult to ammend the Magna Carta or the Torah to reflect modern thinking.

 

Ammending the GCC to make it consistent with the way ACBL wants GCC events to be directed would not be that difficult, I suppose.

[Trinidad]

Yes, if there's a contradiction, the GCC wins.

There is, GCC wins.

But the GCC is notoriously vague and incomplete, and these other documents clarify it.

That is simply not true. All you need to know is that:

 

- the GCC regulates agreements (whatever someone decides by himself cannot be regulated)

- at the time the GCC was written "natural" meant by definition that the agreement was allowed

 

And then the GCC is not vague. If you would be dropped out of space and had never heard about the Tech Files, the FAQs, rulings@acbl.org, or the general attitude of many TDs, and you read the GCC, there is nothing vague about it: It allows you to agree to open 1NT with a singleton in exceptional cases. It is all these other texts that lead to the confusion.

 

Rik

[nige1]

• [sNIP] A no trump opening or overcall is natural if, by agreement, it is balanced (generally, no singleton or void and no more than two doubletons).
• [sNIP] ALL CALLS AFTER A NATURAL NOTRUMP opening bid or directovercall, EXCEPT for natural notrump opening bids or overcalls with a lower limit of fewer than 10 HCP or with a range of greater than 5 HCP (including those that have two non-consecutive ranges). See #7 under DISALLOWED.

All you need to know is that:

- the GCC regulates agreements (whatever someone decides by himself cannot be regulated)

- at the time the GCC was written "natural" meant by definition that the agreement was allowed

And then the GCC is not vague. If you would be dropped out of space and had never heard about the Tech Files, the FAQs, rulings@acbl.org, or the general attitude of many TDs, and you read the GCC, there is nothing vague about it: It allows you to agree to open 1NT with a singleton in exceptional cases. It is all these other texts that lead to the confusion.

:) Presumably, Trinidad's visiting Martian director would allow agreements...

• To open a "Natural" non-forcing notrump with one or more voids (exceptionally)
• To respond so as to locate those voids.

[Trinidad]

:) Presumably, Trinidad's visiting Martian director would allow agreements...

• To open a "Natural" non-forcing notrump with one of more voids (exceptionally)
• To respond so as to locate those voids.

fixed. If it can have a void on occasion, that means that two voids are too rare to be realistic.

 

Other than that, I completely agree. If the people in charge wanted to forbid agreements to open 1NT with a singleton, they would not have written the GCC as they did. Ergo, they didn't intend to forbid the agreement to open 1NT with a singleton. There is nothing vague about it. Any Martian can understand it.

 

Rik

[ArtK78]

Rik, I am sorry. But your viewpoint on this issue is just not realistic, let alone practical.

 

The idea that the regulations have to spell out that a "natural" 1NT opening should not contain singletons (to say nothing of voids), while certainly in keeping with jurisdictions that rely on codification of the law rather than the common law, is not in keeping with bridge history and tradition in North America. If it is necessary to codify everything in the game, then the rule book will become immense.

 

I realize that it is normal in Europe that everything is codified (the parallel to the difference in the legal systems of North America and Britain vs. the rest of the world is striking). It is just not that way here. In fact, there is a quote somewhere in the ACBL alert regulations about the deliberate use of "fuzzy" language to describe bids that are natural vs. conventional, alertable vs. not alertable, etc. Part of the reason for this is that we (North America) rely on the traditions of the game that have evolved over years of play, not just the black letter of the law.

 

So I don't need the GCC to spell out in black and white that a natural 1NT opening bid should not contain a singleton or a void, and that, if it does, it is a deviation from the norm, not an allowable partnership agreement. I know this to be a fact, and I am not shocked in the least that any partnership agreement that is used to locate a singleton or void in the opening 1NT bidder's hand is an indication that the partnership is playing an illegal method.

 

I assume that this post will generate a number of responses from some posters saying that this is not the way it should be. Well, for lack of a better phrase, get over it. This is the way it is.

[blackshoe]

"Indication" is not absolute proof, yet I get a sense that some here (and some ACBL directors) will consider it such. :(

[Trinidad]

Art, I think that you are misinterpreting the term case law. (And case law is very important in Europe too.)

 

Case law is the (ensemble of) interpretation(s) of the law, by people who need to use this law in practice. Case law is not throwing the existing law overboard and replacing it by something its users like better.

 

The statement: "Any agreement that allows opening 1NT opening with a singleton is illegal" is not a valid interpretation of the GCC. It is throwing the GCC overboard. That is not interpreting the law. It is breaking the law.

 

I can easily live with the "Well, Rik, that is just the way it is.". I don't need to get over that. I have never "gotten under it" to begin with. I know we live in an imperfect world and I know that the ACBL is (very) far from perfect. I have already said that I don't give a [beep] whether the agreement to open 1NT with a singleton should be allowed. My shoulders are getting stiff from all the shrugging. But I have trouble with the justifications, such as "The GCC forbids it" (not true) or "Case law throws law overboard" (not true either). Call it one of my many character flaws.

 

Rik

 

P.S. I am well aware that there are examples where case law does overrule law (and rightly so). This is not such a case.

[campboy]

The question is what, if anything, "generally" means. We seem to have two competing interpretations: "except for deviations" and "more than some fixed proportion, say 99%, of the time". But we should recognise that both of those are interpretations.

 

Now you say that if the writers meant the former they should have expressed themselves better. That is true, as far as it goes. But since it is equally true that if they meant the latter they should have expressed themselves better, that argument doesn't help us determine what they actually meant.

[ArtK78]

Art, I think that you are misinterpreting the term case law. (And case law is very important in Europe too.)

 

Case law is the (ensemble of) interpretation(s) of the law, by people who need to use this law in practice. Case law is not throwing the existing law overboard and replacing it by something its users like better.

 

The statement: "Any agreement that allows opening 1NT opening with a singleton is illegal" is not a valid interpretation of the GCC. It is throwing the GCC overboard. That is not interpreting the law. It is breaking the law.

 

I can easily live with the "Well, Rik, that is just the way it is.". I don't need to get over that. I have never "gotten under it" to begin with. I know we live in an imperfect world and I know that the ACBL is (very) far from perfect. I have already said that I don't give a [beep] whether the agreement to open 1NT with a singleton should be allowed. My shoulders are getting stiff from all the shrugging. But I have trouble with the justifications, such as "The GCC forbids it" (not true) or "Case law throws law overboard" (not true either). Call it one of my many character flaws.

 

Rik

 

P.S. I am well aware that there are examples where case law does overrule law (and rightly so). This is not such a case.

I looked through my post of yesterday afternoon for the term "case law." I did not find it.

 

I did use the term "common law." Perhaps you took a leap from common law to case law. But they are two different things. Admittedly, the common law tradition involves the reading of the statutes and the decided case law as part of a large body comprising the common law, while the civil law of many European countries (and Louisiana, which bases its legal tradition largely on that of France) is based almost entirely on codification of the law without regard to decided cases. Please note that these are generalizations. I am not a legal historian nor an expert on civil law.

 

You state that the statement: "Any agreement that allows opening 1NT opening with a singleton is illegal" is not a valid interpretation of the GCC. That is probably true if one reads the GCC as a stand-alone document. But the GCC is not a stand-alone document - it must be read in light of the history of the ACBL and the various interpretations of individual treatments and conventions which comprise the body of law surrounding the implementation of the GCC.

 

The body of law used by the ACBL and by its tournament directors in implementing it is much more than the GCC and other charts which reflect the regulations. And one must interpret the GCC in light of this body of law. One can argue that these other sources don't have the force of law, as they are just one man's opinion. But those opinions have been adopted by a long history of practice as authoritative, much like commentators on the law in America are often cited in court decisions as authoritative.

 

I am sure that many, if not most, of the readers of this thread are exhausted by this discussion. We have gone about as far as we can go with it. At this point, we will have to agree to disagree about what is and about what should be.

[barmar]

You have to apply bridge common sense when interpreting things like the GCC.

 

I think at one point in this thread someone suggested that "at most 2 doubletons, and generally no singletons" allows for the possibility of opening an 8-2-2-1 hand with 1NT. It has 2 doubletons and 1 singleton, and could be among the occasional exceptions to the "generally no singleton" criterion. But anyone with an ounce of sense understands that when they said "at most 2 doubletons" they actually meant "at most 2 suits of 2 cards or less". It also doesn't say anything about voids at all, but it doesn't need to -- everyone knows that a hand with a void is unbalanced.

 

I believe that the purpose of that bit of the GCC is not to be the precise, legal definition of what is "balanced". Bridge players already have a general notion of this, but it's kind of fuzzy, and different players may use it somewhat differently: we have square hands, semi-balanced hands, etc. So the point of that clause is simply to say that the GCC uses a relatively broad definition of balanced for allowing NT openings. But no one with any bridge experience needs the GCC to tell them whether 8221 is balanced or not -- it's clearly not. Interpreting that description in a way that makes it balanced is just ludicrous.

[mycroft]

The statement: "Any agreement that allows opening 1NT opening with a singleton is illegal" is not a valid interpretation of the GCC. It is throwing the GCC overboard. That is not interpreting the law. It is breaking the law.

I, the ACBL, and many posters here disagree. The statement under interpretation is:

 

A no trump opening or overcall is natural if, by agreement, it is balanced

(generally, no singleton or void and no more than two doubletons).

 

So, if it can be unbalanced by agreement, it's not natural. The parenthetical comment is an interpretation. An interpretation of the interpretation is "by 'generally', we mean that we all know that there are some hands that are 4441 or 5431 (or the kind of 2227s that are really 2226s or even 2225s; something like AK KQ KQ 8765432) that really look like a balanced hand, and we're not going to nail you to the wall if you deviate occasionally. Having either such a hand type that has no other option than NT opening, or any part of the system that can find out if the opening had a singleton, means that you deviate often enough that you have an agreement to open unbalanced hands, and that's not 'natural' (and therefore, not allowed)"

 

I don't see how that is unreasonable to the point of being obviously contradictory. Whether you or I agree on this interpretation is another story, but it's not "throwing the GCC overboard".

 

I also know that from the point of view of someone who would prefer more liberal system regulations, I *don't* want the ACBL Law Commission to update the GCC so that it regulates "special understandings" rather than "conventions" - because the chance that they will tighten the screws rather than loosen them is very high. I see DISALLOWED, 7, disappearing, as an initial case - replaced by what they wanted to do in the first place. I believe that more than that would happen, were they to do a complete rework.

[blackshoe]

You have to apply bridge common sense when interpreting things like the GCC.

 

I think at one point in this thread someone suggested that "at most 2 doubletons, and generally no singletons" allows for the possibility of opening an 8-2-2-1 hand with 1NT. It has 2 doubletons and 1 singleton, and could be among the occasional exceptions to the "generally no singleton" criterion. But anyone with an ounce of sense understands that when they said "at most 2 doubletons" they actually meant "at most 2 suits of 2 cards or less". It also doesn't say anything about voids at all, but it doesn't need to -- everyone knows that a hand with a void is unbalanced.

 

I believe that the purpose of that bit of the GCC is not to be the precise, legal definition of what is "balanced". Bridge players already have a general notion of this, but it's kind of fuzzy, and different players may use it somewhat differently: we have square hands, semi-balanced hands, etc. So the point of that clause is simply to say that the GCC uses a relatively broad definition of balanced for allowing NT openings. But no one with any bridge experience needs the GCC to tell them whether 8221 is balanced or not -- it's clearly not. Interpreting that description in a way that makes it balanced is just ludicrous.

This question is easily resolved by changing the definition of "balanced" in the GCC, and also changing the requirements for the 1NT opening "generally". Like this: "A balanced hand has 4-4-3-2, 4-3-3-3, or 5-3-3-2 distribution. A semi-balanced hand has 5-4-2-2 or 6-3-2-2 distribution. All other hands are unbalanced. A natural 1NT opening is generally balanced or semi-balanced, but may occasionally contain one singleton (which implies 4-4-4-1, 5-4-3-1 or 6-3-3-1 distribution). A natural 1NT opening may not contain a void." You could change "one singleton" in that last sentence to "a singleton A or K" if you want to make it more restrictive.

 

Before somebody points it out, I'm aware that this is not precisely what the GCC currently says, nor is it how some interpret it.

[Trinidad]

The question is what, if anything, "generally" means. We seem to have two competing interpretations: "except for deviations" and "more than some fixed proportion, say 99%, of the time". But we should recognise that both of those are interpretations.

No, that is a misunderstanding. The writers cannot possibly have meant to write "except for deviations" for the simple fact that they did not have the authority to regulate deviations (Law 40). Therefore, the whole GCC deals with agreements. That means that they are regulating that a balanced hand by agreement generally does not contain a singleton. And hence this can only mean that it is allowed to agree to open 1NT on a hand with a singleton, as long as the hand is "balanced".

 

That means something different to everybody. To me it means that ♠AKxx ♥x ♦Axxx ♣Axxx is not balanced, whereas ♠KJTx ♥K ♦KJTx ♣KQTx could well be seen as balanced.

 

Rik

[campboy]

No, that is a misunderstanding. The writers cannot possibly have meant to write "except for deviations" for the simple fact that they did not have the authority to regulate deviations (Law 40).

I often see signs "no dogs, except guide dogs" in establishments which I very much doubt are legally entitled to ban guide dogs. Even if the writers know they cannot regulate deviations, it would still be worth telling players (who may not know, and may otherwise misinterpret the GCC as banning opening 1NT with a singleton under any circumstances).

[barmar]

This question is easily resolved by changing the definition of "balanced" in the GCC, and also changing the requirements for the 1NT opening "generally". Like this: "A balanced hand has 4-4-3-2, 4-3-3-3, or 5-3-3-2 distribution. A semi-balanced hand has 5-4-2-2 or 6-3-2-2 distribution. All other hands are unbalanced. A natural 1NT opening is generally balanced or semi-balanced, but may occasionally contain one singleton (which implies 4-4-4-1, 5-4-3-1 or 6-3-3-1 distribution). A natural 1NT opening may not contain a void." You could change "one singleton" in that last sentence to "a singleton A or K" if you want to make it more restrictive.

One of the features of the GCC is that it's very short, it fits on one page. Clubs often have it posted on their well, and players can read it quickly and understand the rules.

 

So you've turned a simple, one-line rule into a detailed, 4-line "treatise". Continuing like this, you end up with a document like the White Book. Very complete and useful for directors/ACs, but not easily accessible by players.

[blackshoe]

"On their well"? Don't know that one.

 

The description or definition of "natural NT" in the GCC is two lines.

 

If it takes more precision to avoid ambiguity in the rules, then so be it.

 

I've never seen a club post the GCC or any other thing about what regulations are in force at that club. I have had a club director tell me, when I suggested that he do so, "I've been directing this game for twenty-five years, I've never done that before, and I'm not going to start doing it now." OTOH, he's pretty stubborn. I'd guess that once he's made up his mind about something, right or wrong, the only way to get him to change it would involve physical torture - and I'm not so sure even that would work.