[mikeh]

mycroft, on 2024-April-04, 14:36, said:

You'd think so, wouldn't you? But no, it's legal (with a caveat) in any game your transfer Walsh system is legal. Probably because it's just as difficult to defend against.</s> Please note, anyone who takes up this style, expect *at least* two director calls per session from pairs who "know this can't be legal". From my experience playing EHAA back in the GCC days, it's also worth having a hard copy of the Charts with the relevant lines highlighted - because some of the Directors also "know what's legal".


Of course, they have to Pre-Alert this, just like the "clubs or balanced" people do. For the same reason. Actually, they don't. They do have to Alert the calls when made, though ("Alert any Quasi-Natural bid that is not Announced.") This one I think should be addressed (and may make a suggestion to the relevant people).

I do wish people would RTFCharts, rather than rely on their knowledge of what "real bridge" is (not aiming this *just* at you, Mike. It's amazing how many people "just know what's right" and are willing to spread their knowledge). Especially because...


I don't disagree with this statement in general - in particular the Yeti's old "weak 2" agreements. I don't think it *should* be legal. But I don't think that "opening AQTxx xx xxxx xx in third seat 1♠, it's the obvious call" (**) is appropriate against "the vast majority of club and low level tournament players", either. Or a lot of other agreements that are 100% Open chart legal (including *almost all* calls starting with Responder's call, no matter how skewy they are, including "purely destructive" ones).

But they are, and the time to argue that they shouldn't be is "any time in the last 4 years". But they haven't, because frankly nobody important has had to play against them yet. And, in this case at least, because the same people arguing that this shouldn't be allowed have also argued for their first seat favourable "JTxxxx and out" 3♥ opening to be "obviously legal and, in fact, the best agreement. It's so obvious that we shouldn't have to warn our 'low level tournament opponents' about it" (never mind their "expectation" assists in the preemptive quality of the call, and avoiding some 1100s). And they can't really explain why one is "zero constructive purpose" and the other is "the obvious call".

Sam Dinkin has made a specialty of "it's legal, I don't know what your problem is" over the last decade or so; whether it's "because he can", or "to show how ludicrous the regulations are", or "to show how free the regulations actually are", or "to gain a bit of an advantage over our 30th seed opponents in the Spingold from unfamiliarity" I don't know. He also doesn't tend to play this nonsense against the rank-and-file, but the thing about the Open Chart is that the committee has decided that this is what the rank-and-file playing in the Open game should be able to play/handle.

And they've been lauded for "opening up the charts to innovation". And that laud isn't wrong (and I definitely don't want to go back!) But No Good Deed Goes unPunished...

(*) I would also ask people be careful using Defined Terms like "Purely Destructive [Initial Action]", while we're at it. For one thing, "4+cards in a known suit" (not just "4+cards in the bid suit"!) is the *first* "is not PD" qualifier in the definition.
(**) Never mind what the committee decided to do to appease the "experts", which I'm quite sure involved "[-] this, we're going to get slippery-sloped to death, we can blame the 'experts' when it backfires on them". It's legal, Open chart, to have an agreement to open xxxxx xx xxxx xx in third seat 1♠ - with no Alert or Pre-Alert. "It's on the card, it's the obvious call". Deal with it, newly out-of-the-Gold-Rush pair!

Thanks for setting me straight on this…that’s a sincere thanks, btw!

As for Dinkum not doing his stuff against rank and file, I was playing in a Regionally rated team game at a NABC, playing with an expert partner/friend. Our teammates were our wives, neither of whom are experts, though they’ve won a few regionals. They’d be good ‘advanced’ players but definitely very inexperienced against the kind of player either Dinkum or his (pro) partner is.

They played a weird method, with ultra light major (not just light but limited) openings and artificial responses. So Dinkum opens 1S and his partner responded an artificial 2C gf relay….I don’t recall his hand other than that he held roughly a 3 count with a fit, thus he could safely assume that game was on for the opps. Our teammates understandably had trouble reaching their cold (on expert play) 4H contract but were sufficiently un-intimidated that they called the TD when dummy came down.

The TD ruled that psyching an artificial gf response was illegal, and adjusted the result to 4H making….which pushed the board….and imposed a 3 imp procedural penalty. The best part, other than our teammates not getting pushed around, was that our putative declarer would almost surely have gone down in 4H…it was a very difficult hand to play. So had they not hauled out an illegal psyche, trying to take advantage of two 70 something women whom they didn’t know (and therefore no doubt assumed they were weak) they likely would have won 12 imps.

[DavidKok]

The ACBL rules are particularly bad and there's a number of clauses in there that challenge me to think of a charitable reason for their existence. That being said I am happy with the amount of flexibility the Dutch rules and WBF rules/definitions offer me. Some people regrettably struggle to tell the difference between an uncommon agreement and poor disclosure - I am interested in the former but despise the latter. Personally I think the discussion could improve all around by splitting the discourse into which treatments are allowed, what treatments should be allowed, what the disclosure practices should be and, time and energy permitting, who is to blame for the current state of affairs. Both mikeh's and mycroft's posts read like they were at least partially written in frustration, and I think it is important to direct this to the proper issues. Something like "Most players are trying to enjoy the game and your style seems designed to destroy that enjoyment, with zero constructive purpose other than to annoy the vast majority of club and low level tournament players." is uncalled for.

[mikeh]

DavidKok, on 2024-April-04, 14:57, said:

The ACBL rules are particularly bad and there's a number of clauses in there that challenge me to think of a charitable reason for their existence. That being said I am happy with the amount of flexibility the Dutch rules and WBF rules/definitions offer me. Some people regrettably struggle to tell the difference between an uncommon agreement and poor disclosure - I am interested in the former but despise the latter. Personally I think the discussion could improve all around by splitting the discourse into which treatments are allowed, what treatments should be allowed, what the disclosure practices should be and, time and energy permitting, who is to blame for the current state of affairs. Both mikeh's and mycroft's posts read like they were at least partially written in frustration, and I think it is important to direct this to the proper issues. Something like "Most players are trying to enjoy the game and your style seems designed to destroy that enjoyment, with zero constructive purpose other than to annoy the vast majority of club and low level tournament players." is uncalled for.

Designed doesn’t mean intended…it merely means that an effect of an agreement to open 2D on xxx xxx xxxx xxx seems to me (I’d be interested in why you disagree) to almost certainly cause the average club player to struggle with how to deal with such an opening bid, and that at least some would feel that their opps are fooling around just to make life difficult. Indeed,I can’t imagine any motive for the method other than to maximize the chances of opps, confused by no pre-alert, no opportunity to discuss defences, going seriously wrong

Great, if you’re playing strong opps. Not great at the club level. I’m back playing quite a bit of club bridge, after many years of not doing so, and I’d guess 70-80% of the pairs I encounter are very weak.

Now, Cyber says, and I believe him, that he played this method against strong opps….more power to him and I can see the fun in doing so even if I think it’s a terrible method…and I could easily be very wrong on that. But I would definitely expect far better results from this method if played against average to below average club pairs, due to causing confusion. And that ,I am morally certain, would cause resentment, confusion and a loss of enjoyment for the opps.

To me, it’s akin to how I treat psyches. While I no longer psyche much, my main partner loves psyching (and, yes, I’m aware of the ethical issues involved) but even in tournaments, if we’re playing a weak pair (say in an open Swiss) we do not psyche. It’s legal to do so, but over the years I’ve learned that some weaker players view psyching as immoral if not illegal, and why would I cause an opponent to feel that way by psyching (admittedly, it’s highly unlikely that we ‘need’ to psyche against such players).

[DavidKok]

So disclose it? Over here I would pre-alert this method, and in fact did pre-alert some far less extreme agreements that I felt would nevertheless cause confusion if they came up. Over here "is not mandatory to pre-alert" does not mean "it is forbidden to pre-alert". In theory this can cause a problem on its own where we can overwhelm our opponents with useless information, but in practice this is not at all an issue (how many people do you know who spend too much time pre-alerting) and is easily resolved by starting with "We play some unusual preempts that do not require a pre-alert, shall we explain them anyway?" when first sitting down at the table.

Like I said, I really value disclosure. So I tell my opponents when I play something that they might not expect. So far this has been working out very well, and I think it's really weird to suggest that I should estimate the level of my opposition and adjust my methods or my disclosure accordingly.

Psyches are a completely different story. You've tried to sneak this in before, and I find it quite annoying that you draw parallels between disclosed systemic agreements and undisclosed deviations from agreements.

[mycroft]

[Note to start: just to be clear, I am *not* aiming at Mike in this one (there might be some splash though). There are hundreds of examples over on That Other Site, and likely in your club.]

Am I frustrated? Yes, of course I am. The people who believe that "the stuff we play, even if rare except in our rarefied air, is Obviously Correct and that should be Obvious to All; but that Weird crap-shoot Stuff they're playing (that none of us would play) is Clearly Bad for the Game, and Can't Possibly be Allowed" - especially if a quick read of the documents they were asked to review - and did, in some cases! - makes it clear that "your opinion has merit, but your conclusion is wrong"; those people frustrate me no end.

Because it's the same as the definition of Tactical Bid: "a psych I made, that worked against them" (whereas a Psych is "a tactical bid they - those nobodies! - made against me, which maybe I might have handled better").

And it's the same as the people who will not only insist - knowing that "a king less than Average" has been ruled in the ACBL as "7 or less HCP" forever, and who might know that the ACBL representatives to the WBF have got the same interpretation applied there - that their reputations as bridge players have been irredeemably besmirched because they opened AKxxx and out 1♠ at third, and was told it was an illegal agreement. "I mean, wouldn't everybody do that?" While, at the same time, agreeing to the hilt that KQT8 KJT7 T84 85, if opened 1NT, would ruin bridge as we know it (not against "us", mind you, we'd be able to handle it; but we need to protect the "low end tournament players" (or "not experts")).

Or that it's just "expected" that 3♥ could be JTxxxx and out white on red - and see no need to explain it if asked other than "preemptive" - and that 2NT "asking about opener's shape and strength" is clearly a sufficient explanation when it could be made with 3 trumps and a 3 count; but explaining 2♣ Precision - 2♦ as 'artificial inquiry' with that same 3 points and 3 trumps is an offense of epic proportions.

Or that it's ludicrous how the ACBL doesn't allow... but how can it be possible that ... is legal?

Or...

And Mike, I believe, gets frustrated for his own reasons. And "confusing the newer players out of the game" - hey, that I agree with. "Playing poker against players who aren't good enough to know when to chop it off" - yeah, that too (because it also can send players out of the game). And "doing something actually against the regulations" - I'm all behind being frustrated at that. But I won't speak for him.

As a director, I absolutely get frustrated when people don't RTFLB/regulations and are "surprised". More if they then go on to "but it shouldn'ta be". You know what? If you don't like what's allowed (or not allowed), tell the people who can do something about it. Don't just spread around information I then later have to disabuse players of, who will be righteously aggrieved because "<name player> said it wasn't legal". Now, you might have just as big a chance of getting change through as, say, those wanting to play Suction, or be allowed to say that "KQxxx xx xxxx xx is clearly a better hand than J8542 Ax Jxxx xx, why can't I upgrade that to a 6-12?" on the GCC had over their stuff - but that's a higher chance than you'll have complaining to Yr. Humble Director who just has to read and enforce what's written.

When the first draft of the "Gold Chart" (which became the Open Chart) was made public, my first response was "this is great! Now show me the chart *I'll be* playing and directing under". Because it clearly was a replacement for the Mid-Chart, not the GCC. I was told I was wrong, and I was proven wrong. Years in, I am still shocked. And frankly, years in, I still think the Open (not +) Chart could have been a little less open. But I'd rather they go overbroad[sic] and find out if they had to reel it back than gradually extend feelers into the 1980s and see if they might be able to go a little further... And it looks like they don't have to reel it back in, because the people who want to push the boundaries, by and large, haven't done it in the fields where it would cause people to stop playing, and lots of cool stuff is now not only legal, but kind of comfortable.

And absolutely, I am on the side of "good disclosure" - to the point of explaining to people where their "obviously complete" disclosure isn't (or relies on information that is obvious to them, but not to all). Many things *are* at least comfortable to defend against, if the opponents understand it. I get very frustrated with "unusual agreements, conveniently explained" as should be obvious from history (that other thread going on now being a great example) - because *that's* what gets the punters frustrated with the unusual people, not their actual bidding system.