[pigpenz]

i had read also that even random leads are outlawed.

[pigpenz]

Jlall, on Sep 27 2005, 12:00 PM, said:

awm, on Sep 27 2005, 11:57 AM, said:

On the other hand, another of Justin's favorites, caddy system where the only opening bids are 3NT (to play) and 3♠ (transfer to 3NT) could well qualify as a randomizing tactic and might be barred from serious competition for this reason.

lol, I'm sure it was illegal. I pre-alerted the opps, and it was a midnight game so they either didn't care or didn't say anything. I would never try to play this in anything serious

we used to play a game in the midwest after sectionals with Alan Stout Dave McGee called 4NT. opening bid had to be four nt or higher and dummy got to pick if they wanted to be with delcarer or defenders. If I remember right you passed 3, then 2, then 1 cards one way alernating on deals.

[DrTodd13]

Random lead: mixing your cards and then leading the one that ends up on top.
Random bid: close your eyes, spin around, keep jabbing with your finger until you hit the bidding box, open your eyes, if what your finger is on is a valid bid then make it, if not then repeat process until you do poke a valid bid.

We should really differentiate between a probabilistic bid and a random bid. If on a hand with 0 points, I pass 50% of the time over a strong 1♣ and I bid 1N 50% of the time then neither of these bids are random. The problem is...how many such choices can I make until it becomes random? What about 4 bids each with 25% probability? What about 10 bids each with 10% probability?

Nobody always bids 1♠ or 1N over a strong 1♣. The other bids always have some meaning so what the overcalls are are really catch-all bids for which no SO should have the right to tell you which call should be your catch-all.

[SoTired]

They are right about methods designed to destroy opponents methods. And 1N overcall a strong 1C showing 13 cards is one of them. The purpose of the bid is to prevent responder from making a conventional response. It serves no other purpose, therefore it is illegal in ACBL-land. And any place else where they want to play bridge rather than craps. It also has 100's of negative inferences - all the hands you choose to bid something else.

And no defense is offered. You can't spring something like that on unsuspecting opps. Where is the fair play? You devoted great thought to your system, only fair that opps have a similar opportunity.

They will think about it and get back to you next week with their bid.

[awm]

ACBL has ruled that essentially any defense to strong (or polish) club is okay. Before everyone gets all annoyed about ACBL and their silly regulations, WBF has the same ruling.

Certainly it seems to me that this places strong club pairs at a severe disadvantage, since most highly artificial defenses to a "natural" 1♣ (even if "natural" means better minor) are severely restricted (brown sticker in WBF-land, mid-chart with a pre-alert and suggested countermeasures in ACBL-land).

But those are the rules. Perhaps 1NT showing "13 cards" will run afoul of full disclosure assuming it's not always bid, but something like 1NT showing "0-12 points, no six-card suit" seems within the realm of legality. One could argue that on the vast majority of hands, our side will have some playable contract at the two-level which will not pay the opponents as large a score as the best contract they can reach on their own.

[david_c]

SoTired, on Sep 27 2005, 09:35 PM, said:

And no defense is offered. You can't spring something like that on unsuspecting opps. Where is the fair play? You devoted great thought to your system, only fair that opps have a similar opportunity.

This shouldn't really be an issue. In general, any defence is allowed against strong club, and this includes things like suction and crash where no particular suit is promised. If you play a strong club you will need to have agreements which cover those types of interference. In particular, you will have to have a defence which you use for any sufficiently nebulous 1NT overcall. So can use the same methods to counter a 1NT overcall which shows "any 13 cards".

[luis]

We've been using the "comic" 1♠ overcall here against 1♣ for some time and I must tell you it has worked quite well for us. The opponents frequently getting confused about when doubles are for penalties and when not and about when spades are spades and when they are not etc.

I think that if you are allowed to overcall 1♠ = 13 cards against a strong club then there's something to let the 1♣ opener psyche his 1♣ opening randomly. This will counter the effect of 1♠ since you can be ruining your constructive bidding as well as the opponents bidding. Just a thought.

[hrothgar]

luis, on Sep 28 2005, 01:01 AM, said:

We've been using the "comic" 1♠ overcall here against 1♣ for some time and I must tell you it has worked quite well for us. The opponents frequently getting confused about when doubles are for penalties and when not and about when spades are spades and when they are not etc.

I'm not surprised that this tactic works effectively beating up on unprepared idiots. However, systemically overcalling 1♠, worse yet 1NT, on ANY / EVERY hand really doesn't appeal to me much.

I readily conceed that the 1♠ uses up bidding space, however, this is a two edged sword.

1. This overcall style prevents you from making high level preempts which might very well inconvenience the strong club pair much more

2. This overcall style preempts you... You've suddenly used up three steps of bidding space that could otherwise be used to help you to scramble to your best fit. Competant defenders players are going to have an array of penalty oriented methods available to use against you. You might find yourself regretting bundling quite some many hand types into a single bid.

3. Sitting in direct seat, RHO has already had the chance to show a strong hand... Blinding jumping into the auction on balanced trash seems questionable.

I'm not what the best defense is to this convention, however, I'd probably start with

Pass = balanced semi-positive
Double = Game forcing values, balanced or three suited - Establishes a forcing pass
1NT = unbalanced GF
2♣ = Fert
2♦ - 2NT = 2 suited semi-positives

[pigpenz]

I have always been a proponent of the less you have the more you can bid theory. It just gives you more chances to make lead directing overcalls.

As far as full disclosure, what is important are the inferences from what the other bids may be when opps dont bied 1NT over big club

[glen]

pigpenz, on Sep 27 2005, 11:32 PM, said:

I have always been a proponent of the less you have the more you can bid theory.

Have you had much success opening 7NT on 3-3-3-4 0 counts?

Over a strong 1♣, bidding 1NT to showing 13 cards has to be the worse [or pick your own appropriate worse word] idea yet.

Now responder can:

Pass to await developments, including opener's pass with just a minimum (16-17 balanced/semi-balanced).

Double to show values: play this as 7+ and forcing to 2NT or the opponents playing a doubled contract.

Bid a suit: best approach is to play suit bids as transfers, with 2♠ a single suit transfer with ♣s, and 2NT a two suit transfer with long ♣s and a shorter second suit. Jumps to 3 of a suit are natural, long suit, slam tries.

Instead of bidding 1NT, 1♠ or even 2♣ would be a better bid - now the opening side has to worry about suit lengths in the overcalled suit as well as values.

[mikestar]

The essense of the so-called random spade (or NT) is not that 1♠ is always bid over 1♣--obviously a hand worth a high level preempt is better bid as such. The real purpose is to have a call that can be bid on anything so that a big ♣ is never passed and the big clubbers never have an unobstructed auction. Rather like a fert in a FP system. It is a losing tactic over a big club--the more space you cut away, the more likely you are to be nailed for a telephone number.

Some random spade player do pass on very strong hands (say 15+), but this is so rare that it doesn't much affect the idea above.


A conceptual definition of "purely destructive": a call whose expected score against well-prepared opponents is significantly worse than the expectation for a natural pass. In this case, the attempt is to score off of the opponents' lack of prepration, rather than the merits of the call.

Where the line is drawn will be subject to controversy, but clearly preempts are not purely destructive, as opening 3♠ for example on a reasonable hand has a smaller negative expetation than passing. It is highly unlikely that FP systems are purely destructive by this definition.

[kfgauss]

mikestar, on Sep 28 2005, 06:23 AM, said:

A conceptual definition of "purely destructive": a call whose expected score against well-prepared opponents is significantly worse than the expectation for a natural pass. In this case, the attempt is to score off of the opponents' lack of prepration, rather than the merits of the call.

Where the line is drawn will be subject to controversy, but clearly preempts are not purely destructive, as opening 3♠ for example on a reasonable hand has a smaller negative expetation than passing. It is highly unlikely that FP systems are purely destructive by this definition.

This comparison to forcing pass systems raises an interesting point: if the "fert" 1♠ bid over a strong 1♣ means that now your pass shows values, is it no longer "purely destructive"? This is surely technically true (it now has a purpose other than destruction). To have this be valid you'd really have to make sure you only passed with good hands, of course.

Andy

[helene_t]

The 1♠ overcall takes up 0.25 steps of enemy bidding space (they get pass and dbl instead of 1♦, 1♥ and 1♠, but the 1♣-opener gets the added option of passing responder's pass or dbl).

It removes three options from advancer, assuming responder would otherwise bid 1♦ ((1♦)-pass, (1♦)-dbl and 1♥).

To justify this inefficiency the 1♠ overcall must either be
- very informative and, therefore, infrequent, or
- suggesting that 1♠ undoubled would be a good spot (i.e. natural or not too strong) and preferably also that 1♠x would be a good spot, i.e. natural. Or at least offer a playable spot if 1♠x is not good (such as psycho-suction).

[mikestar]

hrothgar, on Sep 27 2005, 03:26 PM, said:

Case in point: Many people (myself included) believe that the US needs to decrease its consumption of fossil fuels. Accordingly, they have proposed enormous numbers of complex mechanisms to deal with this issue:

1. Legislating fuel economy standards
2. Subsidizing alternative energy sources like ethanol or wind farms

From what I can tell, most of these efforts are badly flawed...

Me, I like SIMPLE. If you want to discourage gasoline consumption, then add a $4 a gallon. Rebate some money to deal with redistributive effects.

Richard,

Your case in point shows that you really don't get it. The reason that your simple and correct solution to the issue isn't going to happen is that any American politician proposing to add $4 per gallon to the price of gas is commiting political suicide (he may get away with proposing it at a meeting of the Sierra Club where no ordinary voters hear him.)

The ACBL has a very fair number of older members who are sceptical of "modern innovations" like Jacoby transfers. (In fairness, also a fair number of older members who like ultra-modern stuff as much as the youngters.)

Bridge regulations are subject to what we learned in Real World Politics 101 just as much as government policies.

[Gerben42]

Quote

Me, I like SIMPLE. If you want to discourage gasoline consumption, then add a $4 a gallon. Rebate some money to deal with redistributive effects.

That would make the price close to the European price. Even after the price rise it's still as good as for free in the US!
And about political suicide, how about Bush isn't he about to die a political death already?

Enough about politics. I think the problem with disclosing on what hands you make your "13 cards" bid is too great to allow this. Yes this is coming from the same guy who wants no system restrictions AS LONG AS YOU CAN PROPERLY DISCLOSE THEM!

Defense to 1NT showing 13 cards: Dbl = GF, at least two suits I can double. Suit is natural, pass is forcing.

Apply the axe often and loud. See my blog on what I feel are effective bids against a strong Club. This ain't one of them!

[helene_t]

You're probably right, Mike. But if it's sufficient to defeat an argument to notice that it would be political suicide, we could close just about every discussion. The reason to discuss things must be an idea that is might be possible, however remotely, to influence the public (or the policymakers, or whatever applies) by reason.

Btw, $4 per gallon would still be cheap. We pay more than that and and it's still a far cry of the governement's expences related to road infrastructure etc. But even in Europe, there is a notion of political suicide.

[mikestar]

My point wasn't about gas prices per se but that political realities mean that many rules, regulations, and policies will be suboptimal, including convention regualtions. What else can be expected when some want a game where anything goes (as long as properly disclosed) znd others only want a simple standard system for everyone.