[Codo]

I agree, that BBO is a perfect place to try out any tool and any system you want to try. But is there any reaosn, why you must use it in a tourney? I would like to plaay opps with forcing pass and any conventional bid they like at any given table. F.E. Claus quite often arrange tables, where he announces just lambda any other "weird stuff" is allowed.
But I don´t think, that this is a good idea to use in the tourneys.

I don`t care about the score and anything else in a tourney, so for me personel, it is no problem to cope with any system. But I doubt, that this is the view of the majority.

And if I want to practice for the next real life team match, I would strongly prefer opps, who play systems, which I may face IRL. Wilkosz or strong pass is not allowed there, so there is not much use in playing online against this tool.

[Sigi_BC84]

hotShot, on Apr 4 2006, 02:26 PM, said:

Sigi_BC84, on Apr 4 2006, 02:28 PM, said:

What the WBF regulations say does not matter on BBO, because most BBO tournaments are not WBF endorsed events.

When I'm a BBO TD and chose to open a tourney where "anything goes", I'd certainly not accept if anybody pointed to any WBF regulation and told me I couldn't hold the event as I liked.

All the system regulations around, be it WBF, ACBL or national specialties only matter if the event is hosted under the auspices of the respective body.  This is not the case for a typical BBO tournament.

--Sigi

As far as i know, BBO has no book of laws of their own. So the only set of bridge laws arround are those of the WBL. Any other organisazion adapts them for their use.

The only organisations that certifies TD's, are doing this using the laws of the WBL. So this is the set of laws they are certified to enforce.

So if you decide only to use a subset of those laws, you should state that in your condition of contest.

The right to host tourneys on BBO, has nothing to do with beeing a certified TD.

1. There is no "certified BBO TD". You are a TD if uday makes you one. From what I've heard, in certain countries the situation is quite the same in f2f bridge even.

2. National bridge organizations are encouraged (but not enforced!) to follow the WBF guidelines, but many fail to do so (including Germany's organization and, most notably, the ACBL).

3. The fact that BBO has no governing body (and, hence, no formal regulations) does not mean that automatically the WBF regulations are adapted. Basically, BBO is a Bridge anarchy and table/tourney hosts decide if they want to play pure Bridge (which means, full disclosure but no restrictions) or want to somehow cripple the game by introducing system regulations. In the latter case, I still see no reason why the WBF regulations should be the model. A purely Polish tournament for sure will accept Wilkosz, which would be clearly against WBF guidelines for low-level tournaments.

BTW Todd has already mentioned in his original post that no restrictions had been advertised for the tournament he was playing in. Therefore, anything goes (I don't see a reason to assume any WBF category).

--Sigi

[david_c]

hotShot, on Apr 4 2006, 02:26 PM, said:

As far as i know,  BBO has no book of laws of their own. So the only set of bridge laws arround are those of the WBL. Any other organisazion adapts them for their use.

Yes, but there's a difference between Laws and system regulations. The WBF Laws are used by everyone. But Law 40D says

The sponsoring organisation may regulate the use of bidding or play conventions.

So then the WBF defines some system regulations which get used when the WBF itself is the sponsoring organision. Other sponsoring organisations (such as BBO TDs) can choose to use those if they like, but they usually make up their own instead. Default is for there to be no restrictions - if a TD wants to run a tournament with system regulations then these should be stated in the tournament description.

[hrothgar]

A number of posters on this thread are confusing two very different sets of regulations:

There are any number of bridge regulations that deal with sanctioning individual conventions. You may not like the fact that that the 2♦ opening that DrTodd was playing was legal in this event. However, the conditions of contest clearly permitted these methods to be played. The words "HUM" and "Brown Sticker Conventions" should never show up in this ruling. They are completely irrelevant to the topic being discussed. The fact that a number of individuals are continually raising these topics suggests a strong bias that should preclude them from participating in these sorts of decisions.

There is a second set of regulations that focus on whether or not a pair provides appropriate disclosure of (whatever) methods they are playing. Personally, I think that DrTodd's partnership has fallen short of providing adequat disclosure and that a proceedural peanlty is warranted.

[Walddk]

hrothgar, on Apr 4 2006, 02:43 PM, said:

A number of posters on this thread are confusing two very different sets of regulations:

There are any number of bridge regulations that deal with sanctioning individual conventions. You may not like the fact that that the 2♦ opening that DrTodd was playing was legal in this event. However, the conditions of contest clearly permitted these methods to be played. The words "HUM" and "Brown Sticker Conventions" should never show up in this ruling. They are completely irrelevant to the topic being discussed. The fact that a number of individuals are contiually raising these topics suggests a strong bias that should preclude them from participating in these sorts of decisions.

There is a second set of regulations that focus on whether or not a pair provides appropriate disclosure of (whatever) methods they are playing. Personally, I think that DrTodd's partnership has fallen short of providing adequat disclosure and that a proceedural peanlty is warranted.

Not often that I agree with Richard's posts, so this must be the exception to the rule. He is spot on!

Roland

[hrothgar]

kenberg, on Apr 3 2006, 10:48 PM, said:

It's not really reasonable to expect online players to discuss a defense to an unfamiliar system within the time confines of a tournament. If it happens in an event I care about, I insist on a complete disclosure of system togehter with follow up bids they use, and take my time discussinig how we will handle each and every possibility. If there is no longer time to play the hands, tough.

This is all fine and dandy, so long as you understand that the definition of "tough" boils down to an Avg+ / Avg - for any unplayable boards with your partnership taking the blame.

I'm perfectly happy with system regulations that are based on the length of the round being played. It seems reasonable for a two round pairs tournament to have a more restrictive set of conventions than a 28 board KO. However, once the sponsoring organization has made a decision regarding which set of conventions are allowed you have an obligation to play bridge. Spending 15 minutes documenting your methods over "each and every" call that the opponents could conceivably make seems a lot closer to masturbation than card play.

For better or worse, coping with the unexpected / unusual is part of bridge. You don't have the option of rendering boards unplayable because your not comfortable with this part of the game.

[zasanya]

45 replies in 2 days over the most ridiculous etc etc .I think this thread is degenerating into the most.......Where is the Editor?

[inquiry]

zasanya, on Apr 4 2006, 09:49 AM, said:

45 replies in 2 days over the most ridiculous etc etc .I think this thread is degenerating into the most.......Where is the Editor?

I assume you mean moderator. The only person "identified" in this thread is DrTodd. He didn't identify the director who made this ruling (I have no idea what law was used to assign averages to both sides here, that doesn't seem possible to me), nor who his opponents were.

The discussion is centering on whether

• the ruling was correct (clearly it can;t be)
  
• The alert was sufficient and adequate
  
• Rather the convention (brown sticker as played) should be legal
  
• And a few other issue of general interest

IF you promise 55 in a suit, you will always have a singleton. so is announcing 5-8 acceptible if you are counting points for your singleton and doubleton? Can this posssibly be A== and if not, and if the director wants to make a ruling against the non-offending side (that is, that there was an offense), what should the ruling be? IF there was a offense, specifically what was it? Was alerting 5-8 (their agreement) holding 3 an offense (answer no, as you alert agreement, not what actually is held). Is even 5-8 their agreement (statement that 3 with a singleton is worth 5 suggest their agreement is probably 2 to 6 or something).

There are a number of issues here worth hammering out (no doubt little consesus will be forthcoming). If the director assumes the alert was both insufficient and that the agreement was not explained (lighter than announced), then Ave+/- seems in order. The call for procedural penalty has to go unanswered, however, as taht is not possible on the BBO (as of yet).

Let the disucssion continue.

[jillybean]

helene_t, on Apr 4 2006, 12:52 AM, said:

jillybean2, on Apr 4 2006, 07:01 AM, said:

DrTodd13, on Apr 3 2006, 11:16 AM, said:

Not only have we violated no law but the opps have "failed to play bridge" by 1) not discussing a defense when this came up even though we told them they could do so,

Apart from the time constraints already mentioned are your opps expected to discuss their defense strategies openly at the table? Once a round has started it is not possible to talk privately with your partner.

jb

Full disclosure applies to defense against Wilkosz as well. Besides, if they could discuss this in private when it came up, the defense could be "my double shows A-Kxxx-Ax-Kxxxxx". OK, I'm being paranoid. But I think Todd was allready quite generous in offering the opps that they could discuss a defense when it came up.

This is somewhat irrelevant here perhaps but I was interested to know if players are expected or indeed are permitted to discuss defense after an unusual method is announced at the table?

[hrothgar]

inquiry, on Apr 4 2006, 06:51 PM, said:

Was alerting 5-8 (their agreement) holding 3 an offense (answer no, as you alert agreement, not what actually is held).

I repeat once again:

When DrTodd made his original post he did not defend his actions based either a deviation or a psyche. Rather, he makes the claim that stating that a 2♦ opening shows "5-8" represents appropriate disclosure because he gets to count points for distribution. I don't know what their agreement is, but its clearly not "5-8". I will note in passing that several people in this thread have mentioned that DrTodd always pre-alerts that their point count is based off a 4.5 / 3 / 1.5 / .75 point count structure. Using this metric, the hand in question isn't even a 3 count. its only worth 2.25. Even if you give yourself 2 points for a stiff you still don't have a 5 count.

If you had originally claimed that opening 2♦ on this particular hand represented a deviation or even a psyche I might rule very differently. But you didn't. You claimed that this hand is systemic and that "5-8" represents adequate disclosure. Trying to back into a different defense later on really doesn't reflect well on you...

Furthermore, DrTodd makes the claim that lots of people upgrade or downgrade hands and exercise judgement whether to upgrade or downgrade hands and suggests that the opponent's need to expect this... Unfortunately, this is where playing a "weird" system in a tournament is going to start causing you problems. I readily agree that experts regulary exercise judgement regarding what hands they open. Furthermore, if I run into an expert pair that opens on 15-17 HCP 1NT I'm not going to be shocked if they table a nice juicy 3=3=5=2 14 count. I run into lots of experts who exercise judgement regarding 1NT openings. However, its not reasonable to expect me to have the same degree of experience with whatever random crap you happen to be playing this week.

The only thing that I have available to protect myself is the accuracy of your alerts. I think that I have the right to expect that you actually describe the methods that you employ.

[dogsbreath]

hi
I am not qualified to comment on the director's ruling so i will not persue that part of the discussion.

As regards the use of these methods in on-line tournament play .. i think it is ridiculous to suggest that the opponents have been given a chance to discuss a defence. Many pairs in tourneys are formed at the partnership desk and may not have played together before .. they may have no idea what defensive options are available or likely to be effective and have insufficient time to discuss them ..quite apart from the possible issue of language barriers.
It is unreasonable to suggest that pairs entering such a tourney can discuss defensive options in advance other than to the 'normal' weak 2 or multi .. there are too many other variations such as this WIlk.. and (eg) Tartan two .
The effect of these methods being used in BBO tourneys is to randomise results, in favour I believe, of the pairs using them.

Additionally, my experience of playing against pairs using these methods is that they often stray considerably from the announced shape and range requirements.. a situation that they are better able to deal with than their opponents.

Further, in this part of the world (UK) it is forbidden to psyche a conventional bid.. again I dont know the prescribed penalties, but have no sympathy for someone who gets an inaccurate ruling subsequent to such action.

Maybe such tourneys should carry a clear 'health warning' that all unusual methods are permitted.. then I would accept that no 'unfair' situation had arisen.

I am not against these methods 'per se' .. in a teams match where my partner and I have had an opportunity to revise our actions against 1 known set of weak openings
or other 'unusual' methods then I anticipate an enjoyable and possibly challenging game..

Rgds Dog

[DrTodd13]

Look, I didn't know that this thread would turn into what it has or I wouldn't have been so sloppy with my original post. In subsequent posts I've tried to clarify that this was a deviation from our system. The whole point of the singleton comment was to indicate that it was "close" to the 5-8...meaning it was a deviation and not a psyche. My explanation was probably crappy. I didn't define it was "Wilkosz" at the table but gave the same explanation I did here. If people want to be pedantic that Wilkosz must be 5-5 then fine, we don't play Wilkosz. I'm uninterested in what the name of what we are actually playing is because you aren't supposed to use names to alert things.

There are lots of people bitching about these methods being allowed but Sigi and others are correct, no statement to the contrary and the WBF _LAWS_ are in force and the sponsoring organization's _REGULATIONS_ are in force. The sponsoring organization is in effect the tournament host and if they don't specify their regulations then there aren't any.

It is a sponsoring organization regulation that requires people to provide defenses to unusual systems/conventions. We don't feel it mandatory for us to provide such defenses or even to allow people to discuss them once the hand starts. However, we don't want unfamiliarity to generate ridiculous results. We want the inherent difficulty of the bid to generate IMPs but not unfamiliarity. As such, we encourage people to discuss when the bid comes up even if they to some degree tailor their defense to the hand they currently hold (if it comes up again then they are stuck with their original defense). We even tell them that we can provide a suggested defense if they want it.

[inquiry]

For what it is worth, I have taken the time to take a look at Dr. Todd's 2♦ openings that fall into this category using Bridgebrowser.

This is the first hand I can find where he held less than 5HCP. However there were six hands with 9 or more hcp (including 11 once). In addition a number of the 8 hcp hands had singletons (suggesting too strong if he counts distribution)? I don't think his 2♦ bid was a psyche, nor does the evidence show he opens this light routinely with 2♦ (although a significant proportion was stronger than 8 hcp (I was careful not to include his weak twos in diamonds in this total).

So I think we can move away from the partnership agreement it can be this light, and accept that he alerted his agreement (albiet his partner might expect a bit more than 8 on "good" hands). So the question becomes, is this brown sticker allowed in general? Should he provide a suggested defense? Were the opposition truely damaged by inadequante alert?

[hrothgar]

inquiry, on Apr 4 2006, 09:05 PM, said:

 

>So the question becomes, is this brown sticker allowed in general?

I see no reason to limit this discussion to "this" Brown Sticker Convention. I think that legal structures so be applied uniformly. If a given Law applies to Brown Sticker Conventions it should apply to all Brown Sticker Conventions - including the hallowed Multi 2♦ opening.

In this case, the tournament sponsor did not specify any type of convention regulations. From my perspective, this should force you into one of two different corners. We can either assume

1. Anything that is not explicitly banned is allowed in which which case we have an "anything goes" regime in which any/all conventions are legal

OR

2. Anything that is not explcitly allowed is banned in which players are not allowed to use any conventions including takeout doubles, Stayman, etc.

Logically, the two cases are equivalent. I suspect that the first system would be more popular.

>Should he provide a suggested defense?

Once again, this regulation defaults to the sponsoring authority. With this said and done, if I were the Dictator of the Bridge Universe here's how I'd handle things.

1. Establish a standard mechanism by which suggested defenses are provided to the opponents. Long term, I believe that this is best accomplished using the Full Disclosure application.

2. Create a committee that is tasked with developing suggested defenses to different conventional opening bids. I strongly believe that it is a mistake for the individuals who develop a new opening to provide a recommended defense. These individuals have a clear conflict of interest in creating an effective defense. They are also likely to suffer from some big blind spots regaridng the merits of their own methods.

3. Upon inventing a new convention I am obligated to submit said convention to the defense committee. 30 days from the date of submission I get to start using this convention in competition. If the Conventions committe hasn't been able to devise a new defense its not my problem.

>Were the opposition truely damaged by inadequate alert?

The damage was subsequent to the infraction, not consequent. The non-offending side is not entitled to redress.

[DrTodd13]

inquiry, on Apr 4 2006, 10:05 AM, said:

For what it is worth, I have taken the time to take a look at Dr. Todd's 2♦ openings that fall into this category using Bridgebrowser.

This is the first hand I can find where he held less than 5HCP. However there were six hands with 9 or more hcp (including 11 once). In addition a number of the 8 hcp hands had singletons (suggesting too strong if he counts distribution)? I don't think his 2♦ bid was a psyche, nor does the evidence show he opens this light routinely with 2♦ (although a significant proportion was stronger than 8 hcp (I was careful not to include his weak twos in diamonds in this total).

So I think we can move away from the partnership agreement it can be this light, and accept that he alerted his agreement (albiet his partner might expect a bit more than 8 on "good" hands). So the question becomes, is this brown sticker allowed in general? Should he provide a suggested defense? Were the opposition truely damaged by inadequante alert?

Did you use BUMRAP counting or standard counting?

Another problem is that even using BUMRAP counting we may have sufficient points to open 1♣ or 1♦ but lack sufficient controls (2) and therefore must treat the hand as weaker. This is another one of those things that was impossible to explain in the alert window before because the size of the alert explanation was limited. Is there a limit on the size of the FD explanation? In any case, this is the type of thing that we have tried to alert in the past and have been told we are giving too much information and it is confusing people. Another example of this is that our intermediate openings have a lower requirement of 9 but BUMRAP counting can give you values in increments of 0.25. We use to alert things using the fractions but several people including one of the posters in this thread suggested dropping the fractions and rounding down. So, 5-8 would actually mean 5-8.75.

[jdonn]

I think I suggested once that you should drop the fractions, though I have to admit I had no idea you were using some other point count method, I thought you were using standard point count and making minor adjustments for positive and negative features. It may be the wrong thing to do given that you are using a point count method that specifically involves decimals, but frankly what I think you should do anyway is translate into normal point count for your explanations. A fair amount of work? Yes, but you are the ones playing something very unusual, the onus is on you to make it easily understandable to the opponents.

As an analogy, picture a French player coming to the United States, and instead of explaining his bids in English he explains them in French and then hands the opponents flashcards translating each word he used into English. That is what you are doing, but with numbers instead of words.

Also since I believe (reading other posts in this thread) that in your methods queens and jacks count even less for you than 2 and 1 respectively, it becomes that much more difficult to classify this as a deviation rather than a psych (or to the cynical, an implicit agreement, although Ben's data seems to refute that.)

[pigpenz]

jillybean2, on Apr 4 2006, 12:01 AM, said:

DrTodd13, on Apr 3 2006, 11:16 AM, said:

Not only have we violated no law but the opps have "failed to play bridge" by 1) not discussing a defense when this came up even though we told them they could do so,

Apart from the time constraints already mentioned are your opps expected to discuss their defense strategies openly at the table? Once a round has started it is not possible to talk privately with your partner.

jb

I have even asked online acbl TD's about. Numerous times we are hit up with late alerts or only part of the system is pre announced....example we open shapely 8pt hands and lead small from xx.....
then they open a short club or short diamond.....

I have asked the TD's can we now say partner lets play this defense. Their answer was thats interesting I dont really know.

I fell is they can hit you with that then we should be able to say lets play this.

[whereagles]

I feel like awarding...

For EW: 4♠+3, +680
For NS: 7♠=, -2210

[DrTodd13]

jdonn, on Apr 4 2006, 12:44 PM, said:

I think I suggested once that you should drop the fractions, though I have to admit I had no idea you were using some other point count method, I thought you were using standard point count and making minor adjustments for positive and negative features. It may be the wrong thing to do given that you are using a point count method that specifically involves decimals, but frankly what I think you should do anyway is translate into normal point count for your explanations. A fair amount of work? Yes, but you are the ones playing something very unusual, the onus is on you to make it easily understandable to the opponents.

As an analogy, picture a French player coming to the United States, and instead of explaining his bids in English he explains them in French and then hands the opponents flashcards translating each word he used into English. That is what you are doing, but with numbers instead of words.

Also since I believe (reading other posts in this thread) that in your methods queens and jacks count even less for you than 2 and 1 respectively, it becomes that much more difficult to classify this as a deviation rather than a psych (or to the cynical, an implicit agreement, although Ben's data seems to refute that.)

We always pre-alert the scheme we use to count points. There is nothing in the rules that says you have to use 4321 or that your alerts must be made using that methodology. Hypothetically, if we did try to do what you suggest then the range would appear larger and would substantially overlap with other ranges. Our 2♦ might be 4.5-11.5 and our 1♣ might be 8-16.5 and our pass 12+. Anybody paying attention will then ask how do we know what to open when where this in an overlap in the ranges at which point we have to reveal our true point count scheme anyway after which there is very little overlap in ranges. Then those people will be pissed that we didn't tell them our real strategy up front.

Show me the law that says my explanations must be "easily understandable." I want them to be as understandable as possible but still be accurate. I have an obligation to full disclosure and I don't believe that hiding the way we evaluate our hands is in the spirit of full disclosure. My view is that many experts are effectively not using 4321 but are not effectively disclosing what they are using. This results in this "good 14" and "bad 18" stuff.

In our methods, the hand in question was worth 2.5 points. Is this a gross misstatement or a simple deviation? If you want to call it a psyche then I'll counter with we don't have an implicit agreement to psyche this frequently so there shouldn't be a penalty. If you want to call it a deviation then do we have an agreement to deviate like this frequently. I think the answer is no.

If we had a huge long history for this bid then how do we calculate what lower range we should announce? Drop the lower X% of instances and chalk those up to infrequent deviations and then list the next amount as the minimum? If that minimum in our scheme is 4.25, 4.5 or 4.75 then what should our alert say? Should it use the fraction? Should you round down? Round up? Are you going to penalize if somebody makes one of these decisions and you believe they should have made the other? Do we really want to go around penalizing people if they are making a valiant effort at full disclosure and hand analysis reveals their true minimum or maximum is off by a point?

[hrothgar]

DrTodd13, on Apr 5 2006, 12:26 AM, said:

If we had a huge long history for this bid then how do we calculate what lower range we should announce?

If it were me, I'd like to understand the following:

Is the distribution unimodal?
If so, what is the range and the Standard Deviation.