[mcphee]

The bbo tournaments need to enforce alert rules and start giving hefty penalties. It is rampant, asking nicely does not work

[steve2005]

Is true often failure to alert. also true some people ignore or refuse to answer.
Had someone who should be experienced say they dont have to tell us what their hand is. This true but they still have to explain what bid means.

But a failure to alert does not necessarily result in a penalty. There has to be damage too.

Repeated failures could be penalized but is this tracked?

[blackshoe]

steve2005, on 2018-March-16, 16:26, said:

But a failure to alert does not necessarily result in a penalty. There has to be damage too.

Erm, no. Damage is a prerequisite for a score adjustment, not for a procedural penalty.

[kenberg]

I'll approach this obliquely by pulling out a hand from the Vanderbilt:
Greco opened a precision club and the contested auction went as follows:
1C 1D 2D 2H
P P X P
3D

Ok, the club was precision, the diamond overcall was natural, the 2D was explained as GF without a diamond control.
But 3D? From the commentators: Hampson says that they are in uncharted territory with the 3D bid. I had to do something.
This was of course accepted as true.

This was hand 27 of the final session if you want to look.


I am not playing now or in the future at that level. So let's look at a simpler case:

I open 2H. Lho wants to know the details of what this shows. This is a bbo game. So, hopefully partner and I have had a chance to discuss whether 2NT would be Ogust or a feature ask, and whether 2S would be forcing, but I doubt any partner I have on bbo has any idea of the promised texture of my suit. Lho was insistent that I tell her.

Don't get me wrong, I often find myself saying "Intended as..." simply because I think the opponents should know about a conventional call even if I am not sure that partner understands my intent. The other day I was playing with someone I had never played with before, spades were set as trump. Partner bid 4NT,with some but not complete confidence I showed 4/1 keys with an alerted 5C, then he bid 5NT. Uh oh. I bid 6S and alerted it as no outside Kings, but this was not how partner took it. Oh well.

My point is that we are somewhat left to our own sense of what's right. For me that means I alert artificial bids, and I often explain whether I intend a natural call as forcing, invitational or a sign-off, even if I am not at all sure partner will understand it as such. But I think that asking me to explain just what sort of texture my heart suit has for my 2H bid is asking too much unless we are a far more regular partnership than is usually the case on bbo.

If we are going to have penalties, I think we need some pretty clear guidance as to what is expected. Greco-Hampson were in uncharted territory in the vdbt finals. This is far more frequent with me and my pards on bbo.

[barmar]

Anyone who expects "full disclosure" from random BBO hookups is just being unreasonable IMHO. The opponents are entitled to know as much about your bid as partner does -- if he has to guess, it's not unfair that they do as well. This is truly a situation where you can answer "No agreement".

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2018-March-22, 08:54, said:

Anyone who expects "full disclosure" from random BBO hookups is just being unreasonable IMHO. The opponents are entitled to know as much about your bid as partner does -- if he has to guess, it's not unfair that they do as well. This is truly a situation where you can answer "No agreement".

It is, perhaps, a little trickier. A recent uncontested auction:
1D 1S
1NT 3C

Now some like to play the 3C as weak, some as invitational, and some play it as natural and forcing. I was opener, I thought a bit and decided that this particular partner probably intended it as forcing, which it turned out she did. I bid 3NT and all was fine.

Here is the problem. She would not have bid 3C unless she thought it was forcing. If this problem were to occur at a club game, the opponents might ask me the meaning of the 3C call and I could honestly say that it was undiscussed. But on BBO we self-alert. She knows she intended it as forcing. Moreover , she would not have bid 3C if she thought that there was any chance that I might pass. So she both believes that it is forcing and believes that I believe it is forcing. That is, she thinks we do have an agreement. She is wrong about us having an agreement, but she believes that we do. So she would not have said "No agreement".


I try to steer a middle course on seriousness on bbo. I try to stay focused and do my best, but I am ok with telling opponents how I intend a bid even if technically it is correct to say that it is undiscussed. A large number of sequences on bbo are undiscussed. I would feel odd saying "undiscussed" over and over again.

Mostly I solve such problems by avoiding subtle sequences whenever possible.

[barmar]

Here is the problem. She would not have bid 3C unless she thought it was forcing. If this problem were to occur at a club game, the opponents might ask me the meaning of the 3C call and I could honestly say that it was undiscussed. But on BBO we self-alert. She knows she intended it as forcing. Moreover , she would not have bid 3C if she thought that there was any chance that I might pass. So she both believes that it is forcing and believes that I believe it is forcing. That is, she thinks we do have an agreement. She is wrong about us having an agreement, but she believes that we do. So she would not have said "No agreement".
[/quote]
Why did she think you had an agreement about it? I think she hoped you would interpret it the way she meant.

Maybe she assumed this is "standard", so she thought the "agreement" was implicit. I'm not sure why she'd think this, since this sequence has traditionally been used for weak hands with 4♠ and 6+♣. It even has a name: "bar bid" (meaning opener, who has limited their hand and shown at least 2 ♣, is barred from bidding again). Bridge World Standard agrees with this.

Quote

After opener's one-notrump rebid:
...
(b) responder's rebid of three of the cheapest unbid minor is weak;

The basic problem is that the rules about disclosure have an implicit assumption that the players actually have agreements. They work reasonably well for established partnerships, but are really hard to apply for last-minute partnerships. Theoretically you could explain "no agreement" for almost every bid, but this would frequently be disingenuous.

[kenberg]

We are in general agreement on the problem. At the risk of being a bore I will look a little closer.

It would be great if more players in pickup games were willing to simply go with BWS. Even if there were some slips then both players could quickly agree on that had gone wrong. I had to look it up to see just what BWS does after 1m-1M-1NT. They have "After any suit one-bid" and they explain:

Quote

After opener's one-notrump rebid responder's rebid of two clubs is a puppet to two diamonds (with responder's non-jump continuation invitational); responder's rebid of two diamonds is a game-forcing checkback; after one club — one diamond — one notrump — responder's rebid of two of a major is forcing to game, responder's rebid of three of the cheapest unbid minor is weak , four clubs is Gerber.

If I understand it correctly, this is what is usually called 2-way nmf. 2C is a puppet to 2D regardless of which minor was opened. This allows for a sorting of forcing (2D, then 3C), invitational (2C, then 3C) and weak (immediate 3C). But: The number of people that play 2-way nmf is not large. The bots play 1-way nmf, for example. Playing 1-way, after 1D-1M-1NT presumably (but there are those who disagree) 2C and then 3C is a forcing call in clubs and an immediate 3C is either weak or invit. From what I have seen, invit is more frequent than weak. I have only occasionally played 2-way, but I recognize its merits.

I have, at times, suggested to people that we play "bot standard": http://www.bridgebas...ystem_notes.php

I rarely get takers.

No doubt there is merit in keeping the write-up fairly brief but I note that it says, under "other conventions and treatments", "New minor forcing (one-way)". The details of what this means are unstated. After 1D-1M-1NT there is a two way sort for a natural club bid, either 2C followed by 3C or a direct 3C. There are three possible situations: Strong, invit, weak. I can assure you based on experience that there is a severe lack of consensus on what means what.

For me, the issue is just a matter of enjoying the game. I take no pleasure in getting a good result due to opponents having a mix up in a supposedly simple sequence. So anything that could help to keep pickup partners on the same page would be great.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2018-March-27, 08:38, said:

It would be great if more players in pickup games were willing to simply go with BWS.

That's unrealistic.

BWS is based on a poll of bridge experts, not the general bridge community. So it's more a reflection of what some people call "expert standard", not what at least 90% of bridge players are familiar with.

For instance, my guess is that at least 50% of bridge players don't play any form of NMF, and most that do just play 1-way (bidding the unbid minor as a checkback). Probably only around 5% use the convention described in BWS.