How am I to explain signoff and invitational bids?

[Trinidad]

He does...but it is quite clear from the responses that he does not agree with this.

I may be wrong, but that is not what I read.

 

He agrees with you that he and his partner need to explain their agreements. He does not agree wirh you that they need to have an agreement. (And he quotes the Blue team that you shouldn't have agreements where the information is more useful to the opponents than to partner.) If they don't have an agreement, there is nothing to explain. (Or if they have little agreement, there is little to explain.)

 

And, for the record, he is entirely correct about that. There is no law that says that you have to have an agreement about a call or how detailed the level of your agreements needs to be.

 

Rik

[Zelandakh]

No Rik, I think you are wrong here. Take #28 for example. Here he agrees that his partner has more information about shape than the opponents but says this is ok because it is a matter of style. Sorry, but you cannot hide behind GBK, "no agreement" and "style" to get around providing opponents with full disclosure. That is already true of a natural system but it is even more important when you play something highly unusual. Implicit agreements need to be disclosed just as much as explicit ones. I think the OP believes that implicit agreements are different and do not need to be disclosed and this is the source of his confusion.

 

There is also something to be said for the tone of the presentation within this thread even back on the first page. It has become all to common on BBF for a new poster to come here and ask a reasonable sounding question, then for the thread to turn sour once the response is not a particular way. It is making these forums a depressing place to hang out.

 

I hope avoscill learns something from the responses here and comes back as an active and constructive BBF contributor. Sarcasm as a response to posters trying to be helpful is rarely a good way to start out in a community. Hopefully the next thread will go more smoothly.

[blackshoe]

Style must be disclosed.

[nige1]

When explaining the significance of partner's call or play in reply to opponent's enquiry (see Law 20) a player shall disclose all special information conveyed to him through partnership agreement or partnership experience but he need not disclose inferences drawn from his knowledge and experience of matters generally known to bridge players.

The fact that some bit of knowledge is "generally available to bridge players" does not imply that every bridge player has made himself aware of that knowledge. In effect then, the law says that if something is "generally available" to you, but you are not aware of it, that's not your opponents' problem, it's yours. For example, the knowledge of how to strategize at matchpoints is "generally available" — it's in Kit Woolsey's book (not to mention Hugh Kelsey's). The latter may be out of print and thus hard to come by, but the former has just been published. LOTT is another example. It seems quite a few players don't really know how it works. Nonetheless, that information is widely (i.e., generally) available. Should players be required to disclose that their partnership has agreed to use LOTT in deciding what to bid? I'm not suggesting they should or should not, I'm asking.

IMO if a partnership have agreed to use LOTT when deciding what to bid, then they should divulge that fact. I think L40B6a has a pernicious influence on disclosure. On the contrary, the law-book should stipulate that, if opponents ask, then you must tell them what your partner's calls have revealed about his hand (shape, strength, and so on). Unfortunately, this information is often cumulative from several calls and might also involve general knowledge and inferences (positive and negative). Of course, I accept that this law-change would would require law-makers to revise their philosophy and it might radically alter the game.

As for the laws changes you keep talking about, come up with a revised version of the laws, post it somewhere folks can get at it, and then maybe we'll have something to discuss.

I think it's hard for an expert committee to write watertight rules, even for a game. For an individual, it's harder still. Anyway, judging from the feedback from discussion groups like this, my specific suggestions would be unwelcome -- but I like some of the suggestions proposed by others. I think the current laws are so subjective, complex, non-deterrent, and incomprehensible, that almost any simplification would be an improvement.

[blackshoe]

IMO if a partnership have agreed to use LOTT when deciding what to bid, then they should divulge that fact. I think L40B6a has a pernicious influence on disclosure. On the contrary, the law-book should stipulate that, if opponents ask, then you must tell them what your partner's calls have revealed about his hand (shape, strength, and so on). Unfortunately, this information is often cumulative from several calls and might also involve general knowledge and inferences (positive and negative). Of course, I accept that this law-change would would require a change of philosophy by law-makers and radically alter the game.

Hm. I have before, and will again, advocate that when opponents ask (as they should) "please explain your auction," both players of the partnership should explain what they have gleaned about partner's hand. I do not think it is necessary, nor in some cases desirable, to explain the agreed written down somewhere (system card or notes) meaning of each and every call. It seems implicit in that method of explaining that inferences, including negative inferences ("he doesn't have a balanced hand because he didn't either open or rebid NT," for example) unless otherwise obviated (on the auction 1m-1R-1S, the last bid showing an unbalanced hand, you say "he has an unbalanced hand". The negative inference is now redundant). "Knowledge generally available to bridge players" is a tricky one, as I tried to point out in my earlier post. Maybe it would be best to get rid of it. But I'd want to hear why it was included in the first place before making that decision.

 

I think it's hard for an expert committee to write watertight rules, even for a game. For an individual, that is a harder task. Anyway, judging from the feedback from discussion groups like this, my specific suggestions would be unwelcome but I like some of the suggestions proposed by others. I think the current laws are so subjective, complex, non-deterrent, and incomprehensible, that almost any simplification would be an improvement.

Oh, it's definitely hard. :)

 

I don't think all your suggestions would be rejected, but certainly some of them would be. That's the nature of debate. B-)

 

The non-deterrent bit, as least, I would attribute largely to the reluctance, particularly at clubs, to enforce the rules. IOW, the rules aren't the problem. I think subjectivity may be necessary in some parts of the laws; I would preserve the director's authority to apply his judgement in at least some situations. Complexity, well, it's a complex game. That doesn't mean the rules have to be complex — look at go, for example — but given the complexity of the game keeping the rules simple is not at all easy. Incomprehensible. I'm largely self taught in this area. I did it the old fashioned way — I read the book. David Stevenson once said here that if he and I disagreed on a matter of law, he would expect that I would be right. (The shoe would be on the other foot in a matter of judgment. :P ) If I can understand the laws, any reasonably well educated individual ought to be able to do the same. That said, I am no where near as erudite as, say, David Burn, and if he and I disagree on something, as we have both here and on Bridge Winners, I make sure to take a very close look at my position. Also, I don't claim to fully understand all of them. Some are easier, some are harder. :D

[Vampyr]

I may be wrong, but that is not what I read.

 

He agrees with you that he and his partner need to explain their agreements. He does not agree wirh you that they need to have an agreement. (And he quotes the Blue team that you shouldn't have agreements where the information is more useful to the opponents than to partner.) If they don't have an agreement, there is nothing to explain. (Or if they have little agreement, there is little to explain.)

 

And, for the record, he is entirely correct about that. There is no law that says that you have to have an agreement about a call or how detailed the level of your agreements needs to be.

 

Rik

 

I think that a problem has been revealed, and maybe it is a language thing. The phrases "no agreement" and "no discussion" seem to have become conflated.

 

Say a situation comes up where your partnership truly has no agreement. You explain to the opponents inferences available, what else partner could have bid, which hands are exclude etc. So far, so good.

 

You get the bid right, and everything proceeds smoothly.You now have an agreement, whether or not you ever discuss it. When the situation comes up again, you explain to the opponents the agreement that was created the last time.

 

It really is that simple.

[blackshoe]

Hm. Is memory a factor here? To cite a perhaps extreme case, I used to have a partner who was a brain cancer survivor. She was in her forties, and had been diagnosed in her twenties, and had the cancer surgically removed. This affected her memory. Her long term memory was fine. Her short term memory was not. We would agree something or other, and she would forget. We would discuss it, she would agree (again) and she would forget (again). At one point, having forgotten not only an agreement we had made, but all discussion of it, she said to me, somewhat angrily, "If I tell you I don't know something, then I don't know it!" Clearly this was true whether or not she had known it yesterday or last week. We went back to the methods she had learned as a child, and that solved that problem — but disclosure in the interim was somewhat difficult, to say the least. Anyway, I can imagine a similar problem even without the brain cancer thing. People get old, memories are hard to hang onto.

[Vampyr]

Hm. Is memory a factor here?

 

You found a solution that worked, and for others with different memory problems maybe playing a simpler more intuitive system, or just adding no further agreements would work. But when a new bit is added to a system, players without brain cancer have an obligation to at least try to remember it. And if the new bit was added, say, to plug a previously-unknown system hole, it'll probably stick in the mind. I find it frustrating when a poster says "we play convention PDQ, but partner often forgets, should I disclose this to my opponents?" My first question is, of course, why are you playing PDQ? And are you, in fact, really playing it?

 

There are so many problems with this, because if the opponents have seen PDQ on the CC, they will not realise that they need to know how to defend against [PDQ or EFG]. And [PDQ or EFG] may not even be legal, and if it is it may be pre-alertable in jurisdictions with pre-alerts, and required to be written in a prominent place on the card in others. The Laws do not deal very well with this issue.

 

But the OP has said that most of his auctions eventually wander into "no agreement" territory. Are all of these situations unique in a duplicate session, or a multi-session event, or a few months of playing regularly? Can he be forgetting newly-minted agreements from one hand to the next?

 

I don't know, I can't remember the last time a "no agreement" bid came up in any of my partnerships, even with infrequent partners. And in fact it would be unusual for it to happen in a first-time partnership, because a lot of our agreements will be implicit or assumed.

 

Yet to others it happens all the time? Really?

[johnu]

With exception of a few, people here seems to not being able to differentiate between "making inferences available to the opponents" and "telling one's own inferences to the opponents". Nowhere I said that I hide (or want to) information to the opponents, yet everybody implies I do it (or would like to find excuses for doing it). To Karlson I say: we open 4♠-6♦ hands in spades, and yes, we inform our opponents about this treatment.

 

Arturo Franco states that one of the principles upon which is based the Blue Team Club bidding system is: Don’t tell the opponents how to play the hand. In the ♠opening - 1NT overcall - 3♦ rebid example, West led a spade, and when he later had to decide the continuation, he felt he had the right to know the exact number of my spades, and therefore to know whether he can play a spade for East to ruff. Sorry West, but we like to follow the above Blue Team Club precept. I must conclude that in this forum the prevailing view is just the opposite: you are obliged by the Law to tell the opponents how to play the hand. I you don't need to define a bid (because partner don't need this information), never mind, you still must define it, because the opponents may need this information. But maybe we are playing different games (or speaking different languages).

 

 

Ridiculous. An ethical BTC player would pre-alert the canape tendencies, and alert the 3♦ bid and when asked, say something like "usually 15-16 HCP, 4+ spades, 5+ diamonds, diamonds longer than spades" or whatever their agreement was (I don't remember that particular auction ever coming up, but that's what I would expect). Not many players know how BTC canape works and I would never "expect" anybody to work it out based on inferences.

[blackshoe]

Perhaps we should consider whether the concept of "full disclosure" as we know it now was not quite so fully evolved 50 or 60 years ago. The view attributed to Arturo Franco may well have been widely accepted, and acceptable, back then. Times have changed. B-)

[johnu]

Perhaps we should consider whether the concept of "full disclosure" as we know it now was not quite so fully evolved 50 or 60 years ago. The view attributed to Arturo Franco may well have been widely accepted, and acceptable, back then. Times have changed. B-)

 

I'm guessing that the background to that statement was something like,

 

1♠ 3♠

4♠

 

where opener could have between 4 and 9 spades and could have a 7+ card side suit.

 

but I agree that full disclosure wasn't as full back in those days.

[Trinidad]

I think that a problem has been revealed, and maybe it is a language thing. The phrases "no agreement" and "no discussion" seem to have become conflated.

 

Say a situation comes up where your partnership truly has no agreement. You explain to the opponents inferences available, what else partner could have bid, which hands are exclude etc. So far, so good.

 

You get the bid right, and everything proceeds smoothly.You now have an agreement, whether or not you ever discuss it. When the situation comes up again, you explain to the opponents the agreement that was created the last time.

 

It really is that simple.

A one time occurrence doesn't create an implicit agreement.

 

So, it really is more complicated.

 

And you really don't have an agreement if you play with a partner who wouldn't be able to understand this "agreement", whether explicit or implicit.

 

Rik

[Vampyr]

A one time occurrence doesn't create an implicit agreement.

 

So then the second time it happens it won't occur to you that the bid might be the same as last time? How many times does the same bid with the same meaning have to be made before it becomes an implicit agreement? Twice? Three times?

 

Anyway if you want to call the one-time occurrence an implicit agreement or just partnership experience, it must be disclosed.

[Vampyr]

but I agree that full disclosure wasn't as full back in those days.

 

Was the statement really about disclosure and not just bidding? My partner and I used to play these transfer super-accepts where we could show xx or Hx in any other suit. Eventually we realised that all too often it is only the fact that a super-accept was made that matters to responder. So we changed to just one super-accept. Responder can still make a game-try if desired.

 

Before we were telling the opponents how to play the hand. Now we are not.

[blackshoe]

From the EBU White Book at 8.40.6, quoting a WBFLC minute: "an understanding may be created in the partnership by explicit discussion or by the implicit learning from repeated partnership experience out of which it may reasonably be thought the partner will recall and be influenced by earlier occurrences." (Emphasis is mine).

 

If your memory is so good that you will always "recall and be influenced by" one earlier occurrence, then I suppose you have an implicit understanding. Not everybody has a memory that good. Frequency matters, too. A situation repeated weekly is more likely to quickly form an implicit understanding than one which recurs monthly, or yearly, or once in a blue moon.

[barmar]

IMO if a partnership have agreed to use LOTT when deciding what to bid, then they should divulge that fact.

Is LOTT really something partnerships "agree" on? I use it in every partnership, and I assume my partners do as well, but I don't think we've ever made agreements about when we should or shouldn't. It's just something we all learned by reading bridge books and columns, and other general discussions. IMHO, LOTT is a perfect example of General Bridge Knowledge.

[axman]

Hm. I have before, and will again, advocate that when opponents ask (as they should) "please explain your auction," both players of the partnership should explain what they have.....

 

.... gleaned about partner's hand..................

 

I do not think it is necessary, nor in some cases desirable, to explain the agreed written down somewhere (system card or notes) meaning of each and every call. It seems implicit in that method of explaining that inferences, including negative inferences ("he doesn't have a balanced hand because he didn't either open or rebid NT," for example) unless otherwise obviated (on the auction 1m-1R-1S, the last bid showing an unbalanced hand, you say "he has an unbalanced hand". The negative inference is now redundant). "Knowledge generally available to bridge players" is a tricky one, as I tried to point out in my earlier post. Maybe it would be best to get rid of it. But I'd want to hear why it was included in the first place before making that decision.

 

 

 

When people say this they rarely comprehend what it means. For one thing, it means that you are telling the opponents (and for that matter all whom are present)what you have in your hand- because what you glean from partner's bidding includes judgments predicated upon your own holdings.

 

The best standard for describing your communication of system is when the describing is done for an auction with no cards dealt.

[nige1]

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be..

Generic example 3. RHO asks you the meaning of partner's undiscussed bid. Given your other agreements, there are some things it cannot mean and other things it is more or less likely to mean. Many experienced players answer "no agreement" which usually ends interrogation. Ultra-suspicious opponents may persist with cross-examination; but some experienced players will stick to their guns. In the subsequent auction, the "no-agreement" partners usually guess better than opponents ... Even if the TD is called, BLML experts would not all agree on his correct ruling.

This one will run and run ... until the law-makers finally clarify what they mean by general bridge knowledge and inferences therefrom -- or -- much better -- law-makers expunge all reference to general bridge knowledge and stipulate the protocol advocated by blackshoe:

Hm. I have before, and will again, advocate that when opponents ask (as they should) "please explain your auction," both players of the partnership should explain what they have gleaned about partner's hand. I do not think it is necessary, nor in some cases desirable, to explain the agreed written down somewhere (system card or notes) meaning of each and every call. It seems implicit in that method of explaining that inferences, including negative inferences ("he doesn't have a balanced hand because he didn't either open or rebid NT," for example) unless otherwise obviated (on the auction 1m-1R-1S, the last bid showing an unbalanced hand, you say "he has an unbalanced hand". The negative inference is now redundant). "Knowledge generally available to bridge players" is a tricky one, as I tried to point out in my earlier post. Maybe it would be best to get rid of it. But I'd want to hear why it was included in the first place before making that decision.

The non-deterrent bit, as least, I would attribute largely to the reluctance, particularly at clubs, to enforce the rules. IOW, the rules aren't the problem. I think subjectivity may be necessary in some parts of the laws; I would preserve the director's authority to apply his judgement in at least some situations. Complexity, well, it's a complex game. That doesn't mean the rules have to be complex — look at go, for example — but given the complexity of the game keeping the rules simple is not at all easy. Incomprehensible. I'm largely self taught in this area. I did it the old fashioned way — I read the book. David Stevenson once said here that if he and I disagreed on a matter of law, he would expect that I would be right. (The shoe would be on the other foot in a matter of judgment. :P ) If I can understand the laws, any reasonably well educated individual ought to be able to do the same. That said, I am no where near as erudite as, say, David Burn, and if he and I disagree on something, as we have both here and on Bridge Winners, I make sure to take a very close look at my position. Also, I don't claim to fully understand all of them. Some are easier, some are harder. :D

I think the laws themselves are the problem. The laws are too complex and sophisticated. Ordinary players aren't as good at interpreting them as Blackshoe. I agree with Vampyr that some directors don't understand them. IMO, the underlying philosophy of the laws is mistaken. Take deterrence as a case in point. When a player carelessly breaks the law, most directors simply try to restore the status quo, occasionally giving the benefit of the doubt to the victim. But victims don't always call the director, which leaves the habitual law-breaker in profit. In theory, the director can impose a procedural/disciplinary penalty, as a deterrent. In practice, directors are reluctant to do this because players naturally object to being singled out in that way, Some senior directors have never imposed such a penalty -- if you exclude verbal admonition. IMO more deterrence, should be built into the basic rules.

[nige1]

When people say this they rarely comprehend what it means. For one thing, it means that you are telling the opponents (and for that matter all whom are present)what you have in your hand- because what you glean from partner's bidding includes judgments predicated upon your own holdings. The best standard for describing your communication of system is when the describing is done for an auction with no cards dealt.

I think what Sven Pran, Blackshoe, and I suggest is that you divulge information about partner's hand, derived from his calls in the auction (i.e. without reference to the contents of your own hand).

[Vampyr]

From the EBU White Book at 8.40.6, quoting a WBFLC minute: "an understanding may be created in the partnership by explicit discussion or by the implicit learning from repeated partnership experience out of which it may reasonably be thought the partner will recall and be influenced by earlier occurrences." (Emphasis is mine).

 

If your memory is so good that you will always "recall and be influenced by" one earlier occurrence, then I suppose you have an implicit understanding. Not everybody has a memory that good. Frequency matters, too. A situation repeated weekly is more likely to quickly form an implicit understanding than one which recurs monthly, or yearly, or once in a blue moon.

 

Well, yes. A second time is, after all, a repeat, but if it was a very long time ago it is possible to have forgotten it, unless you have explicitly agreed to add it in your system. But if you do remember it and say that you have no agreement, you are lying. The above regulation appears to stipulate that it is not an agreement until the third time. But that would be bizarre, so I think that the first time the situation comes up again it is repeated.

 

Now the OP, in a couple of his posts, was not talking about memory issues; he believed that he could not make the agreement explicit and still hide behind "no agreement".

 

Anyway, I guess in a way neither the regulation not the OP's contention matters very much, because even if you did say "no agreement" you would be obliged to add "but this did come up before, and the bid showed Z". Now the agreement has become explicit.

[Vampyr]

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.. This one will run and run ... until the law-makers finally clarify what they mean by general bridge knowledge and inferences therefrom -- or -- much better -- law-makers expunge all reference to general bridge knowledge and stipulate the protocol advocated by blackshoe: I think the laws themselves are the problem. The laws are too complex and sophisticated. Ordinary players aren't as good at interpreting them as Blackshoe. I agree with Vampyr that some directors don't understand them. IMO, the underlying philosophy of the laws is mistaken. Take deterrence as a case in point. When a player carelessly breaks the law, most directors simply try to restore the status quo, occasionally giving the benefit of the doubt to the victim. But victims don't always call the director, which leaves the habitual law-breaker in profit. In theory, the director can impose a procedural/disciplinary penalty, as a deterrent. In practice, directors are reluctant to do this because players naturally object to being singled out in that way, Some senior directors have never imposed such a penalty -- if you exclude verbal admonition. IMO more deterrence, should be built into the basic rules.

Just want to note that I upvoted because of the deterrence issue and GBK. As far as the laws being too complex and sophisticated, I am not sure that further simplification is possible.

 

Except in the language. So many threads on here are a result of different interpretations of what the laws actually say/mean, not to mention the WBFLCminutes, which to my knowledge are not disseminated very well, or rather, at all. Others (particularly the North London Club threads) illustrate that we all "know" what a law means, even though what it says is something very different or even opposite.

 

Note to Nigel: actually what you have done here is dishonest, because my comment about poorly-educated directors was in another thread, and I never said or implied that it was relevant to this discussion. And for me the issue is what I said it was, that some directors are poorly-educated, not that the laws are too complex for them to understand. It's like saying that if a person has the misfortune of being illiterate, reading is too hard and should be eliminated from the world.

 

The EBU Club Directors' course is four full days long. The County course is a weekend of more intensive work. I do not know what National Directors do, but I know they have additional training and regular discussions about issues. And I am sure that I am not the only person in Englamd who has held seminars for untrained players to enable them to volunteer as directors at a club. I am sure that there are many countries that do not have this level of training, and in fact maybe so little that their senior directors have had about as much director education as the directors I have trained myself. And the latter have backup from more experienced and qualified directors at the club and even more experienced and qualified people by telephone.

[axman]

Just want to note that I upvoted because of the deterrence issue and GBK. As far as the laws being too complex and sophisticated, I am not sure that further simplification is possible.

 

Except in the language. So many threads on here are a result of different interpretations of what the laws actually say/mean, not to mention the WBFLCminutes, which to my knowledge are not disseminated very well, or rather, at all. Others (particularly the North London Club threads) illustrate that we all "know" what a law means, even though what it says is something very different or even opposite.

 

 

The law is host to nearly countless complex and convoluted principles; and merely arranging the words to clearly express complex and convoluted principles does not really achieve simplification. Identify sound principles and clearly express them so as to not be in conflict- that brings simplification that is worthwhile.

 

regards

axman

[barmar]

Several posts have suggested getting rid of the GBK reference, or questioned why it's there.

 

As I understand it, the point of that is that you don't have to "teach bridge" to the opponents. For instance, the combined strength required to bid game or slam is not a matter of partnership agreement, it's something we're all taught as part of learning the game. Although if your partnership has agreed to bid games very aggressively, that would be disclosable.

[nige1]

Note to Nigel: actually what you have done here is dishonest, because my comment about poorly-educated directors was in another thread, and I never said or implied that it was relevant to this discussion. And for me the issue is what I said it was, that some directors are poorly-educated, not that the laws are too complex for them to understand. It's like saying that if a person has the misfortune of being illiterate, reading is too hard and should be eliminated from the world.

 

The EBU Club Directors' course is four full days long. The County course is a weekend of more intensive work. I do not know what National Directors do, but I know they have additional training and regular discussions about issues. And I am sure that I am not the only person in Englamd who has held seminars for untrained players to enable them to volunteer as directors at a club. I am sure that there are many countries that do not have this level of training, and in fact maybe so little that their senior directors have had about as much director education as the directors I have trained myself. And the latter have backup from more experienced and qualified directors at the club and even more experienced and qualified people by telephone.

I apologise, Vampyr, I had no intention of misrepresenting you. Arguably, solo-study is not enough but judging by discussion groups like this, directors who attend many courses still disagree both on what the laws mean and on how they should be interpreted in particular cases. I suppose that more and longer courses, based on minutes and commentaries like the white book, might help directors to acquire a better consensus. I still hope the rules become simple enough for the ordinary player to read and understand and I think that aspiration is achievable.

[nige1]

Is LOTT really something partnerships "agree" on? I use it in every partnership, and I assume my partners do as well, but I don't think we've ever made agreements about when we should or shouldn't. It's just something we all learned by reading bridge books and columns, and other general discussions. IMHO, LOTT is a perfect example of General Bridge Knowledge.

By agreement, some of my partnerships have used LOTT as a guide to pre-emptive raises. If asked about a raise, we'd divulge that fact, among others. 40 years ago, our agreement came as a surprise to experts. In my experience, "GBK" changes with time and place, as theories come into and go out of fashion. It is hardly ever as "general" as is claimed.