[jdonn]

"There is nothing in the rules that says you have to use 4321 or that your alerts must be made using that methodology."

I didn't say you couldn't use whatever methodology you want. And I wasn't trying to suggest that it says in the rules you must convert into the methodology most people readily understand, only saying that I thought it would be a good idea.

"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."

I don't see the problem with an apparent overlap. Many people would open a weak two bid on some hands with 11 points and a one bid on some hands with 9 points. Anyway I don't think they should be upset about something like that. Many people base their decision to open the bidding or not on losing trick count, but I've never seen anyone bothered when they weren't told that by the opponents up front. It's true though, no matter what you do someone will always find something to be pissed about. You know that better than anyone, I'm sure.

"Show me the law that says my explanations must be "easily understandable." "

I don't mean to suggest you can't play something complicated, just that your opponents have to be able to understand your explanations. Are you suggesting you could explain in Urdu since technically you may be fulfilling your requirement?

"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."

Nothing is wrong with evaluation that is based on aspects other than strict point count. Emphasis on the word evaluation (as opposed to apparently random deviations.) Indeed, if you had opened 2H because you felt your hand was worth the equivalent of 5-8 on whatever scale you are using then this would be a whole different story. The problem largely arose from you making the bid on a hand you knew was worth less, or at least you probably couldn't convince me that you didn't know.

"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."

All totally reasonable arguments, and honest I do believe you. The problem is your opponents have absolutely no way of knowing if this is true. They may not have legal recourse, but I could understand if they felt a little robbed. I would call this instance a psych though. If someone playing 14+ to 17 notrumps opened 1NT with an average 12 (essentially 2.5 points light) that sure seems like a psych to me.

"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?"

Now you are being way too nitpicky. Just pick something reasonable! I think a reasonable test (just off my head, with no basis in law) is that the lower would start on hands where you expect to make this bid every time, not merely hands where you have made it at some time.

[joshs]

How about:
Announce ranges as :"Approximently A to B HCP but we actually use a modified point count that gives more weight to aces and tens, and less weight to queens and jacks "

[1eyedjack]

For what it is worth, my opinion:

We accept that the conventional agreement is not banned in the event, whether the bid was in accordance with the agreement or otherwise.

It was not a psyche. A psyche is a gross mis-statment, which this was not, even if it was a deviation of sorts.

It may have been inadequate disclosure. There is some prima facie evidence of this, from DrTodd's initial posting. Personally I am currently inclined to believe that it may well have been sloppy wording in the forum posting, ie that his partner may well not have expected such weakness, in which case there is no question of damage, and that seems to be supported by Inquiry's research. But proceeding for the time being on the reasonable if perhaps not conclusive assumption that as a matter of fact the disclosure was inadequate:

There is no doubt in my mind that E-W contributed considerably to their own appalling score. I base this conclusion on the fact that had South held full values for his bid E-W had good reason to investigate slam with every expectation of success. Perhaps the granny was out of the picture, but there is no excuse for stopping in 4.

Whilst I have an aversion to players feeling that they have an automatic right to a "double shot" at a good score whenever they come up against an artificial method, simply by picking some technical hole in the disclosure, by the same token those playing the artificial methods have a higher standard of disclosure to live up to when they choose to use these methods.

I am no TD and have no particular expertise in the laws. I do feel that I have something of a sense of fair play, and I feel uncomfortable in this case of providing E-W with any adjustment that provides them with anything approaching an average score. On the other hand, if as a question of fact the TD were to conclude that disclosure is inadequate then I would hope that N-S incur a procedural penalty of sorts, but not so as to benefit the E-W pair.

[Sigi_BC84]

DrTodd13, on Apr 4 2006, 10:26 PM, said:

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.

For what it's worth, if I played a method like Moscito or Dejeuner, where a point count different from Milton-Work is systemically applied, I would translate the ranges into M-W and use those in my announcements.

This certainly is not as accurate a description as when using your "native" point count, but you do players a better service because they can apply their own "point count feel" to your bids. In my eyes this outweighs the lack of accuracy.

When facing expert oppos or when playing in a longer event you could still offer to explain accurately if your opponents prefer that.

--Sigi

[kenberg]

I see that in response to Inquiry's finding that 2D has sometimes been opened on 11 hcps, the defense is that Inquiry mistakenly used standard carding. On the other hand, poster originally asserts that the posted hand has 3hcps. If I understand his counting method, actually the posted hand has 2.5 hcps. Oh well.

What we have here is an unusual mathod described in a manner that can be called accurate only by using methods that have landed various accountants in jail or in bankruptcy court.

Not my problem, really. Best of luck to those with the responsibility to deal with it.

[pigpenz]

kenberg, on Apr 5 2006, 11:32 AM, said:

I see that in response to Inquiry's finding that 2D has sometimes been opened on 11 hcps, the defense is that Inquiry mistakenly used standard carding. On the other hand, poster originally asserts that the posted hand has 3hcps. If I understand his counting method, actually the posted hand has 2.5 hcps. Oh well.

What we have here is an unusual mathod described in a manner that can be called accurate only by using methods that have landed various accountants in jail or in bankruptcy court.

Not my problem, really. Best of luck to those with the responsibility to deal with it.

he was just referring to the fact that he had checked DR Todds bids with Bridgebrowser...which would allow him to see all of the hands that he opened on BBO with that bid.

[inquiry]

To be fair to DrTodd, I think now there was extenuating circumstances on his 11 hcp hand.

IMP-6       foobar      Dlr: West  
Board 56673 S           Vul: Both
            H 6432      
isobay1     D AQT97     yls1975     
S Q874      C AK83      S A952      
H AQJT7                 H K95       
D 54        DrTodd      D 82        
C T2        S KJT63     C 9764      
            H 8         
            D KJ63      
            C QJ5       

09-Feb-06  8:16:06 PM 
First  7:59:04 PM, Last  8:19:16 PM

West       North      East       South      
isobay1    foobar     yls1975    DrTodd     
Pass       Pass*      Pass       2D!        
2H         5D         Pass       Pass       
Pass       

 1. 14+; any shape
 2. 8-11,5+!S,4+!D

Opening lead: D5    Result: Made 6
Score: 620          Points: 6.53  

As you can see, his partner made a forcing pass (part of their system). I didn't take forcing pass into account when I did my search. So tos 2!D turns out to be different from the other ones.

But here is one wth 10 hcp... (and if you use winking blinking and nod points (K=3, Q=1.5, J = 0.75, and Tens = 0.25, he has two kings (6), a queen (1.5), two jacks (1.5) and 3 tens (0.75) = 9.75 of those before you add for the singleton.

IMP-7       foobar      Dlr: South 
Board 39676 S A4        Vul: Both
                 H QJ6       
TATAGLIA    D 54        lalise      
S K653       C Q98742    S QJ72      
H 54                           H A87       
D 983       DrTodd        D A762      
C AKT5      S T98         C 63        
                H KT932     
                D KQJT      
                C J         


First  7:09:50 AM, Last  7:18:57 AM

West       North      East       South      
TATAGLIA   foobar     lalise     DrTodd     
                                 2D!        
Pass       2H!        Pass       Pass       
2S         Pass       3S         Pass       
4S         Pass       Pass       Pass 

But again, I think he generally is within the range promised.

[DrTodd13]

Of course on that last one I discounted the singleton ♣J so it was really more like a 9 pt hand.

[jdonn]

The sort of evidence Inquiry presents (if available) would be able to convince me to simply record what happened and give no penalty at all, as it seems to prove that no implicit agreement to make the bid on lighter hands exists. Without such evidence I still think it would be difficult to convince a director that partner was unaware of the possibility of such a light hand, and I still think a (small) procedural penalty would be fine, as the burden of proof tends to be on the accused for his own innocence in such cases.

Of course this evidence would only be useful in the case of an appeal, as there is no way you could instantly offer it to a director on the spot, not to mention that there would be no time to analyze it anyway. So the laws of bridge are inconvenient and often unfair, what else is new.

[inquiry]

DrTodd13, on Apr 5 2006, 01:34 PM, said:

Of course on that last one I discounted the singleton ♣J so it was really more like a 9 pt hand.

Ok.. but you added an aweful lot of points for a singleton on an earlier hand in htis thread to push 2.5 winky, blinky points up to 5.... and here your own count is nine before the stiff. But remember, I am defending you here.

[DrTodd13]

Yes. Thanks for the analysis Ben. It makes me want to get BridgeBrowser so that I can verify all of our ranges. Also, I'd like to see the ratings system that they have implemented. Does it only compute ratings for the sets of deals you have bought or does it give you up-to-date ratings for everyone for all the deals they know about?

[pigpenz]

i believe it gives ratings base on all the hands that you have played on bbo. The datasets I have are four tournament play, so I think they only reflect tournament play not main club play.

Having been a district recorder something like bridge browser would have been great. Too bad we can record all hands played at a sectional or regional and make a bridgebrowser database...granted it could be done....but having the strokes recorded by computer make life alot easier.

[inquiry]

DrTodd13, on Apr 5 2006, 03:29 PM, said:

Yes. Thanks for the analysis Ben. It makes me want to get BridgeBrowser so that I can verify all of our ranges. Also, I'd like to see the ratings system that they have implemented. Does it only compute ratings for the sets of deals you have bought or does it give you up-to-date ratings for everyone for all the deals they know about?

it gives real time taring based on all hands played in main room. If you want tourney hands i think you have to recalculate. I really ignore the ratings (mine varies from roughly average to very good, very rythmically. One could think of new reasons to take a peak at ratings these days.

[pigpenz]

Ben you have a database different than I did, when i got my data from Steve I just wanted BBO Tourney data not main bridge club.

[sfbp]

I would like to know this: if 2 points are added for a singleton, how many points are SUBTRACTED for a singleton Queen or King?

Without wishing to provoke a flame war, it seems to me at the very least self-serving to attempt to justify the range used by adding in distribution.

Experience from BRBR shows that when we hold the majority of the points, every singleton J pulls its weight. So an un passed partner with 20 points, can they rely on opener having 5 points or not? If not, bidding game becomes an extremely random exercise.

When we have very few points, suit concentration IS an issue - and it would concern me if the bid was used on ANY hand of acceptable point range without regard to honours being in the suits being bid. Add to the fact that the suits are unknown, and one starts to see the rationale behind the "destructive bidding" shibboleth used by the ACBL in deciding to ban some of these conventions.

Stephen

[han]

I have a couple of comments:

1) The opponents clearly bid this hand very badly, there is no reason to assume that they would bid differently if Doctor Todd had alerted his opening bid as 3-8. I see no reason why Doctor Todd's explanation caused any damage.

2) I'm 100% sure that the director would not have made an adjustment if Doctor Todd was playing natural preempts and had opened light. Don't we all sometimes?

3) I was kibitzing Doctor Todd during this hand and some of the rest of the tournament. The opponents were quite weak and had no idea how to handle their system, they made mistake after mistake. I would feel bad about it if I were Doctor Todd. But once the director allowed the system he should not make be influenced by it in case of a director-call.

[Sigi_BC84]

Hannie, on Apr 6 2006, 02:36 AM, said:

The opponents were quite weak and had no idea how to handle their system, they made mistake after mistake. I would feel bad about it if I were Doctor Todd.

I would not.

I even think that it would be beneficial if more people would play unusual methods in events where this is allowed. This would help create a bridge culture of which unregulated bidding is a part of. It would also heighten the TDs' awareness of what to allow in their events and what not.

I think that most TDs don't even consider the possibility of pairs like DrTodd/foobar turning up, so they don't bother about installing restrictions for their tournaments in the first place (most people play natural methods, with the occasional Strong/Polish Club).

The only restrictions I've seen so far have been "no polish club", "no multi", "no psyches". This is presumably because the TDs don't know of any other unusual methods to disallow. What would happen if in a tourney with the above restrictions you start playing Dejeuner? You'd certainly comply with the regulations but still would be way outside the intended system bounds.

If more true system freaks were around in BBO tourneys (without feeling bad about it), maybe even the occasional TD would bother to look at existing models for regulations (eg. the WBF ones) and start labeling his/her tourney appropriately (eg. "Everything upto and including WBF RED systems allowed", which would be a very complete and definite description).

--Sigi

[han]

Hmm, I agree with most of what you say Sigi, perhaps I should reconsider.

[DrTodd13]

I find that how opponents react to our system is a function of day and a function of their attitude. Some people decide they need to react to weirdness with their own weirdness and these people get themselves into trouble. People who don't freak out and have the attitude that they are going to bid as normally as possible often do quite well. I see tons and tons of crazy bidding even against normal systems. I think it is more a function of the particular opponents you get than our system.

Sigi is right. Directors should announce system limitations based on things like WBF color codes or ACBL GCC, midchart, superchart, etc. Many directors don't seem to know that in the absence of any statement on their part that their are no system restrictions. They need to know what systems people are out there playing so that they know what they want to allow or disallow.

[han]

I find that how opponents react to our system is a function of day and a function of their attitude. Some people decide they need to react to weirdness with their own weirdness and these people get themselves into trouble. People who don't freak out and have the attitude that they are going to bid as normally as possible often do quite well. I see tons and tons of crazy bidding even against normal systems. I think it is more a function of the particular opponents you get than our system.

I disagree. Almost all weak opponents play far worse when they play against a system they have never heard of. The same is probably true for most strong opponents, although they probably have seen more in the past and are not as easily flustered by a new gadget.

Sigi is right. Directors should announce system limitations based on things like WBF color codes or ACBL GCC, midchart, superchart, etc. Many directors don't seem to know that in the absence of any statement on their part that their are no system restrictions. They need to know what systems people are out there playing so that they know what they want to allow or disallow.

I agree with you and Sigi. Still, if I was playing in this tournament and got present after present because the opponents just have no clue what's going on, I would think that perhaps this wasn't the tournament for me.