What's the problem with encrypted signals?

[wank]

Why are these banned in most jurisdictions? Are they considered to be too powerful? It shouldn't be a problem of disclosure as they're quite easy to understand.

[dake50]

Why are these banned in most jurisdictions? Are they considered to be too powerful? It shouldn't be a problem of disclosure as they're quite easy to understand. -- wank

.

*** Deviate from your disclosed agreement, or BIT, now try to defend your play.

Cheats CANNOT be caught if they use encrypted signals.

How then do you suggest ensuring our game's integrity??

.

Play all competitions on a computer screen?

I imagine that is coming. I even like the idea.

Not here yet.!

[wank]

where's the cheating?

 

declarer ruffs a suit at t2. defence have perfect count in the suit and on our convention card it says in such situations we give standard suit preference with an even number and reverse with an odd number. easy to understand and easy to verify afterwards that we weren't fibbing, no?

[whereagles]

I thought the point was declarer should have the same info defenders have. With crypted signals defenders know more.

[Free]

I guess they don't want to turn bridge into a guessing game.

[aguahombre]

I thought the point was declarer should have the same info defenders have. With crypted signals defenders know more.

Yes, and no. Declarer should have the same information about the defenders' carding agreements (say, right-side-up or uside down) when they signal. O.K. I nitpick, but that is different from having the same information the defenders have.

 

It can work against the defenders; they cannot disclose what signalling methods they are using at the moment without telling Declarer which of them holds the encryption key.

[benlessard]

lets just say I have 234 of H and declarer is out of H the 3 will be known to my partner as a middle card while declarer wont know, however this bonus knowledge will only apply to H. When you play cryptic the knowledge difference difference is in all the suits, you are using an disclose information to spread the disclosure in all the suits. So its clearly against the spirit of the game.

 

Its a good example of spirit of the laws vs letter of the laws.

[hrothgar]

*** Deviate from your disclosed agreement, or BIT, now try to defend your play.

Cheats CANNOT be caught if they use encrypted signals.

How then do you suggest ensuring our game's integrity??

 

 

[removed] Drivel like this almost makes me long for the days when Foo and 32519 were posting.

 

Learn something about encrypted signals before sharing any more of your wisdom.

 

(Recognizing that the key to an encrypted signaling system is available for the post mortem would be a good starting point)

Edited August 7, 2014 by diana_eva
edited for content

[WellSpyder]

(removed by mod) Drivel like this almost makes me long for the days when Foo and 32519 were posting.

 

Learn something about encrypted signals before sharing any more of your wisdom.

 

(Recognizing that the key to an encrypted signaling system is available for the post mortem would be a good starting point)

At the risk of stirring a snake with a stick, I wonder whether I could suggest that while many posters might sympathise with what you say, there will be rather fewer who sympathise with how you say it! It is in the nature of internet forums that different people will contribute to the discussion with different levels of expertise, and it is pointless to expect anything else. Those who wish to avoid driving themselves crazy learn who they expect to take any notice of and who they don't...

Edited August 7, 2014 by diana_eva

[ArtK78]

I have never been provided with a good explanation of why encrypted signals are not allowed.

 

They are not against the letter of the law nor the spirit of the law. The declarer has knowledge of the agreement of his opps, right down to the last detail. Only the key to unlocking the encryption is not known to declarer, as that is based on the opponent's length in a suit to which the opponents know declarer's length (and, hence, their partner's length). A typical explanation might go:

 

"Our signals are based on the number of cards each of us holds in a key suit - a suit in which we know or can assume how many cards you hold. On this hand, since you opened 1NT and bid 2♥ over your partner's Stayman response. we assume that you hold 4 hearts. We can see that the dummy also holds 4 hearts, so each of us knows (or believes that he knows) how many hearts the other of us holds. The one of us that has an odd number of hearts will play UDCA, and the other will play standard count and attitude. Once our heart suit distribution is known to you, we both revert to UDCA unless there is another suit in which your length has become known. In this case, you ruffed a spade revealing that you held 2 spades originally. Now spades is the key suit, and our signals are based on each of our original length in spades."

 

To save time, the explanation might be written on a card to be provided to the opps in advance of playing the first board of the round (or the match).

 

So, declarer has full knowledge of his opps' agreement, even though he does not know which signalling method each of his opps is using. That, of course, is exactly the point of encrypted signals.

[broze]

I remember when I first joined the forums one of my first topics was a question about this "novel" new idea I'd come up with, which of course was not all that original and turned out to be encrypted signals.

 

It makes no sense to me that they are not allowed. Often a 'normal' signal will mean more to the defenders than to declarer - they don't seem much different to me.

[rhm]

I have never been provided with a good explanation of why encrypted signals are not allowed.

 

They are not against the letter of the law nor the spirit of the law. The declarer has knowledge of the agreement of his opps, right down to the last detail. Only the key to unlocking the encryption is not known to declarer, as that is based on the opponent's length in a suit to which the opponents know declarer's length (and, hence, their partner's length). A typical explanation might go:

 

"Our signals are based on the number of cards each of us holds in a key suit - a suit in which we know or can assume how many cards you hold. On this hand, since you opened 1NT and bid 2♥ over your partner's Stayman response. we assume that you hold 4 hearts. We can see that the dummy also holds 4 hearts, so each of us knows (or believes that he knows) how many hearts the other of us holds. The one of us that has an odd number of hearts will play UDCA, and the other will play standard count and attitude. Once our heart suit distribution is known to you, we both revert to UDCA unless there is another suit in which your length has become known. In this case, you ruffed a spade revealing that you held 2 spades originally. Now spades is the key suit, and our signals are based on each of our original length in spades."

 

To save time, the explanation might be written on a card to be provided to the opps in advance of playing the first board of the round (or the match).

 

So, declarer has full knowledge of his opps' agreement, even though he does not know which signalling method each of his opps is using. That, of course, is exactly the point of encrypted signals.

Yes and no.

First of all I consider the word law inappropriate, even though many use this word.

A game is played according to rules not according to laws.

What the rules are depend on the rule makers.

If the rule makers decide encrypted signals are not allowed this is a rule.

 

Now the real question is, is such a rule sensible. One way to look at it is what we understand under the term "full disclosure"

If defenders pass information between them according to signals the question is:

Should declarer have in principle the same access to the interpretation of these signals as the defenders have, subject only to some random factors of the actual deal layout, which makes it sometimes harder for declarer and sometimes harder for the defender to interpret the signal.

If you believe that this is the spirit of the game, then encrypted signals, where the key to decode the encryption is always only known to the defenders, violate this.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[hrothgar]

At the risk of stirring a snake with a stick, I wonder whether I could suggest that while many posters might sympathise with what you say, there will be rather fewer who sympathise with how you say it! It is in the nature of internet forums that different people will contribute to the discussion with different levels of expertise, and it is pointless to expect anything else.

 

Take a look at some of the other "contributions" that dake50 has made in the last week or so.

He's a worthless troll.

 

I can accept claims that e should be ignored completely, however, if folks are going to interact with him, I see nothing wrong with treating him as he deserves.

[BillHiggin]

*rude stuff*

 

Always unacceptable! There is never any excuse for this sort of attack (no matter how stupid they are).

Edited August 7, 2014 by diana_eva

[the_clown]

I would be happy if my ops play this. It looks complicated enough so they will be concentrated on giving the correct signal and may lose quite a bit of their table presence. + they will still sometimes mess up and will have less time to actually think about the hand.

[steve2005]

with right-side up or upside down you always have a lowest or highest card to give the signal you want.

 

with encrypted signals you often don't have a card which will give the meaning you want. so you go into the tank in order to give best signal. this inability to play a card in tempo causes problems.

[aguahombre]

with right-side up or upside down you always have a lowest or highest card to give the signal you want.

 

with encrypted signals you often don't have a card which will give the meaning you want. so you go into the tank in order to give best signal. this inability to play a card in tempo causes problems. yes screens help, but screens aren't always in place.

Although I agree there could be tempo issues, I really don't understand what you are saying here.

 

If you always have a lowest or highest card to play, you always have a highest or lowest card to play. The encryption "key" only governs whether the signal is right-side up or upside down; it doesn't change the signaller's cards.

[BillHiggin]

with right-side up or upside down you always have a lowest or highest card to give the signal you want.

 

with encrypted signals you often don't have a card which will give the meaning you want. so you go into the tank in order to give best signal. this inability to play a card in tempo causes problems.

This statement is appropriate for o/e signalling, but does not apply to encrypted signalling. With encrypted signalling, the signal will either be hi encourage or low encourage (substitute suit preference or other as appropriate), depending on some "key" so there will be a lowest or highest card except when there is only one card. Tempo issues could possibly arise with regard to other issues but not with regard to having an appropriate card to signal with.

[steve2005]

thinking of dual meaning signals

[PhantomSac]

Do people believe bridge would be a better game with encrypted signalling?

 

IMO a lot of the fun in bridge is trying to figure out what they have and their signalling is a big part of that(and on defense, figuring out whether or not I should falsecard in order to mislead declarer even though it might mislead partner). As declarer you have to weigh whether or not they can/would falsecard in some situations and which signals to believe etc. With encrypted signalling you cannot read their signals and they don't have to falsecard at all since partner will be able to read their signals and declarer won't. It would make it a different game, imo a worse one. I'd be surprised if people would prefer that game, so I genuinely wonder if people think it would be an improvement.

 

It goes against the spirit of the game as is to be able to make a bid or a play that gives your partner information but does not tell the opponents anything. I think all bids and plays should give partner and the opps the same info, and of course you can bluff any of those whenever you want at the risk of fooling partner in order to fool the opps. I think that is the spirit of "full disclosure."

[Finch]

I don't know why they aren't allowed, I can see nothing wrong with them in theory.

The law is also dangerously fuzzy, because plenty of people do play signals which in principle are encrypted but are considered so much to be 'just bridge' that no-one complains. For example: declarer plays on an entryless suit in dummy in NT. The hand without the ace gives count. The hand with the ace gives suit preference. That's encrypted.

[ArtK78]

With encrypted signalling you cannot read their signals and they don't have to falsecard at all since partner will be able to read their signals and declarer won't.

 

That is not exactly true.

 

You know that one of the opponents is using UDCA and the other standard carding. You just don't know which is which.

 

So, you can make some assumptions based on UDCA by LHO and other assumptions based on UDCA by RHO. Then you have to decide whether one makes more sense than the other.

 

In some ways it is better to know that your opponents are signaling honestly even if you don't know how they are signaling. While I have tried encrypted signals way back before they were banned, I have never played against them. So I have not given the matter much thought. But I suspect that one may be able to work out what is going on or, at least, take a 50-50 shot.

[nige1]

I don't know why they aren't allowed, I can see nothing wrong with them in theory.

The law is also dangerously fuzzy, because plenty of people do play signals which in principle are encrypted but are considered so much to be 'just bridge' that no-one complains. For example: declarer plays on an entryless suit in dummy in NT. The hand without the ace gives count. The hand with the ace gives suit preference. That's encrypted.

IMO, like most system-regulations, the ban on encrypted signals should be dropped. I agree with Frances Hinden that there are many grey areas. It would also be fun to play an encrypted bidding system.

[RMB1]

It goes against the spirit of the game as is to be able to make a bid or a play that gives your partner information but does not tell the opponents anything. ...

 

Encrypted bidding is allowed - at least anywhere that does not regulate beyond the first round of the auction.

[ArtK78]

IMO, like most system-regulations, the ban on encrypted signals should be dropped. I agree with Frances Hinden that there are many grey areas. It would also be fun to play an encrypted bidding system.

And what would the "key" be in an encrypted bidding system? What can you or your partner know about the other's hand (or anything else) that the opponents don't know and you don't have to reveal to them? I find it hard to believe that you could establish a key at a low enough level of the auction so that encryption would be useful.