[foo]

Find Bridge books from before Rapee (on this side of the puddle) and Marx (English player.) independently developed Stayman in the 1930's.

Stayman, and Transfers (developed by David Carter of Missouri, not Oswald Jacoby as most think. Carter also invented 2 Way AKA "Double Barreled" Stayman.) literally revolutionalized the use and popularity of NT openings.

From that point on, NT openings evolved from being Something Best Avoided (thus having requirements like "it must be a 4333 or 4432 with scattered values in all suits and exactly <mumble range> honor tricks.") to Something We Use at Every Opportunity We Can.

Goren is showing the effect of being at a relatively early stage of that evolution.

Bergen talks about opening NT with =any= balanced or semi-balanced hand in the right HCP range that would have rebid problems if opened 1ofasuit.
and specifically says not to worry about opening NT with a small doubleton.

That's a considerable change.

[helene_t]

Stephen Tu, on Jun 26 2007, 06:41 PM, said:

It's also completely ridiculous, because they also make some statement like "if it's judgment, it's OK, but if it's systemic, it's not".  That's stupid because if your judgment is at all consistent, that automatically means you'll open a class of hands with a singleton, if you ever open with a singleton, since if you change small spots surely you wouldn't change your mind.  And inherently that will become an implicit agreement with partner even if he doesn't cater to it and has no way to anyway.

Presumably it means that you are only allowed to play it with partners who are not regular and smart enough to follow your judgement.

I think the spirit of any law that constrains partnership agreements (if such constrains are desirable at all) should be that opps should be allowed to use their normal defense without that making them play grossly inferior methods. Since I think DONT, Capp etc. are approximately as good against a 2%-stiff-NT as against a 1%-stiff-NT I think this rule is unnecesary.

Presumably ACBL thinks that disallowing all "conventional" openings that are not explicitly allowed (according to some bureacratic definition of "conventional") is a practical proxy for whatever the spirit of the law is in ACBL land.

[blackshoe]

foo, on Jun 27 2007, 11:23 PM, said:

Thus the =original= and therefore most "natural" definition of a NT Opening...

This contains an unstated, and therefore suspect, assumption. Why should an "original" meaning (in what system? I should point out that the Vanderbilt Club is as old as Contract) necessarily be "natural"?

[SoTired]

I think the "1%" rule was an estimate. I think "1%" is a euphanism for "not very often." I don't think anybody actually sat down and computed how often reasonable 1N hands with a signleton actually came up. I think that people that would always open certain singleton honor hands with 1NT when that is the best description are within the rules even if those hands would comprise 2 or 3 % of the 1N bids.

Finally, I think that if you consider x AQJxx Kxx AQxx a 1N opener, then you will get in trouble with the TD.

[Fluffy]

SoTired, on Jun 28 2007, 02:44 PM, said:

Finally, I think that if you consider x AQJxx Kxx AQxx a 1N opener, then you will get in trouble with the TD.

You might get in trouble with your partner also

[foo]

blackshoe, on Jun 28 2007, 09:28 AM, said:

foo, on Jun 27 2007, 11:23 PM, said:

Thus the =original= and therefore most "natural" definition of a NT Opening...

This contains an unstated, and therefore suspect, assumption. Why should an "original" meaning (in what system? I should point out that the Vanderbilt Club is as old as Contract) necessarily be "natural"?

Mr Vanderbilt himself used the words "artificial and forcing" to describe his improvement on bidding that involved opening 1C with all strong hands rather than using Strong Twos or opening them at the 1level.

Prior to the development of the Vanderbilt Club (the 1st Forcing 1C System), a 1♣ opening promised 4+♣'s (remember people played 4cM's).

Thus a "natural" 1ofasuit opening originally showed 4+ cards in the suit. After the advent of 5cM's, the definition of a "natural" 1m opening was tweaked to 3+ cards in that suit. Even today, a 1m opening that systemically could be on < 3 cards requires an announcement, and of course if it has nothing to do with the minor opened, it is considered conventional and alertable.

[mycroft]

JT:

If you're asking me to justify the GCC, or convention regulation in the ACBL in general, I can't. View my history, here and elsewhere - I have longstanding, well known issues with it. In particular, I hate the fact that I don't know from one event to the next whether I will be able to play my preferred system, or whether I have to bastardize it; because of that, I don't play it - too much work remembering both. Because there's more like me around, the kinds of things that are Mid-Chart legal don't get played much, so don't get seen much, so are still "rare and scary", and so stay on the Mid-Chart.

But I think there are bigger fish to fry on the GCC than this vague regulation that says that "you normally won't have a singleton for 1NT. However, if you do, and if it looks to reasonable people like a 1NT opener, and there's nothing in either your system or your style that caters for that specific case, then it's a valid judgement call, same as thinking that AKT8 AQJ9 932 T5 is a 15-count." Much bigger.

2) On that note, one of the major influences on the GCC is history - sometimes long-dead history. You can still see the influences of the Good Old Days when convention regulation was by name - and if you think today is legalistic, read a lawyer's (now a judge's) take on The World of the time - Amalya Kearse's "Bridge Conventions Complete". And it was, in North America - if it wasn't in there, you couldn't play it. Even if it was in there, you could play it only at the right category. They moved away from that 30 years ago to "this call can mean these conventional options", but you can still see "you can play Roman or Flannery or Mexican or Benjamin 2D", "you can play Drury", "you can play Precision/Schenken 1D, but not generic Herbert Negatives", "you can't play Breakthrough", and so on in there, if you look closely. You can also see the influence of "prominent" or rich players, like all the stuff that allows you to play the way C.C. Wei or George Rosenkranz wanted to, and the gentle discouragement of partnerships the ACBL were unsure of, like the Breakthrough-crippling "forcing 1NT can't promise GI values" inclusion. It's also interesting to note that Kaplan Inversion was GCC until very late in Kaplan's life...

So if you read the GCC as "you can play these conventions, but we can't say that because nobody plays them the same way, so we're writing them as any bid that shows..." you'll know how it works. Like all legacy systems, it's very much due for a complete overhaul. Like all legacy systems, what's going to happen is incremental changes to "make it work", because actually doing the rewrite would open such a can of worms that the ACBL would never be able to close it. And given the complaints that came from the last time the ACBL did a complete overhaul of something (the Alert Procedure) - sorry, that should be read "the complaints that still come, 15 years later" - my guess is that it ain't happening soon.

As always, speaking only for myself.
Michael.

[jtfanclub]

Mycroft:

That was well written indeed, thank you.

I certainly agree that the 1NT regulation isn't one of the bigger problems of the GCC.

I've never had any trouble with the INV+ of 1NT forcing. I just include weak 5-5 in a minor as one of the possible hands, and it's legal (and it actually fits). We've been known to do it with 9 counts anyways, so it was unnecessary.

[foo]

I happen to agree with Mycroft that there is a need to reevaluate and rebuild from the ground up the laws and regulations on allowed bidding methods.

Petty politics and personal influence peddling have to be rejected in favor of a completely logical apporach based on deductive extension of a few well stated and easy to understand axioms.

At the least, whether you agree with what comes out of such a process or not, it will "start off" inherently fair and set the stage for any further discussion or debate to occur in a much better fashion than how we currently deal with these things.

[pbleighton]

Quote

Petty politics and personal influence peddling have to be rejected in favor of a completely logical apporach based on deductive extension of a few well stated and easy to understand axioms.

I'd like to move to the alternate universe where this will happen...

Peter

[foo]

pbleighton, on Jun 28 2007, 12:10 PM, said:

Quote

Petty politics and personal influence peddling have to be rejected in favor of a completely logical apporach based on deductive extension of a few well stated and easy to understand axioms.

I'd like to move to the alternate universe where this will happen...

Peter

I want the players to =create= "that alternate universe".

Last I checked, Bridge belongs to the =playing members=. If We want something badly enough, particularly if it's something designed to make the game more fair or reduce or remove inequities that exist, then it should be able to happen.

Else, like any other product, unhappy users will stop using it in numbers large enough to kill the product.

"If not me, then who? If not now, then when?"
"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."
etc.

What's missing is getting the vast majority of players aware of and to have a voice in these matters.

Every time a "big wig" gets 1.5-2 weeks free in Bermuda in return for attending a 1 day meeting or every time a "big wig" gets to manipulate the regulations in their SO, or every time "the badges" demand higher personal kickbacks as part of "vendor fees" at tournaments for people like booksellers, or ...

It hurts Bridge.

...and I'm =certain= that such things, if properly exposed and explained to the general membership, would get the backlash they deserve.

[Cascade]

SoTired, on Jun 29 2007, 02:44 AM, said:

I think the "1%" rule was an estimate. I think "1%" is a euphanism for "not very often." I don't think anybody actually sat down and computed how often reasonable 1N hands with a signleton actually came up. I think that people that would always open certain singleton honor hands with 1NT when that is the best description are within the rules even if those hands would comprise 2 or 3 % of the 1N bids.

Finally, I think that if you consider x AQJxx Kxx AQxx a 1N opener, then you will get in trouble with the TD.

In a previous discussion is was noted that expert practice is that occasional 1NT openings with a singleton are not queried even if more frequent than 1%. Personally I would prefer the rule reflected the practice.

As for the example hand. I think it is the wrong approach to ban 1NT on that hand. If the player thinks he is playing a natural 1NT and wants to open it with that hand then he should be free to do so. Bridge is a game of judgement and players should be free to exercise their judgement whether it be good or bad. They should not be regulated from using bad judgement.

[SoTired]

I read this story once about a track and field club at an elementary school. A teacher formed it for the elementary students as an after school activity. The teacher got some funding from the school system for equipment and such. To encourage students to perform their best, he gave out prizes and cash to the top performers every week.

Because of overcrowding at a nearby high school, there was a special afternoon class of high school students in the elementary school. The high school students heard about the track club and the cash prizes and joined. Of course, they won all the prizes. The teacher tried to get the HS students kicked out of the club, but the school board had rules that specified that all after school activities could not be restricted by age or grade, only by school. The rules were intended to prevent children from narrowly restricting their clubs to only their own age group. But rules are rules. Soon, all the young students dropped out. The parents did not want their children injured by the larger and older high schoolers. The teacher who started the program also dropped out in disgust. That was the end of that. A nice program run by volunteers destroyed by rules designed to encourage open competition, but in this case, created ridiculous and unfair competition.

[blackshoe]

foo, on Jun 28 2007, 09:52 AM, said:

blackshoe, on Jun 28 2007, 09:28 AM, said:

foo, on Jun 27 2007, 11:23 PM, said:

Thus the =original= and therefore most "natural" definition of a NT Opening...

This contains an unstated, and therefore suspect, assumption. Why should an "original" meaning (in what system? I should point out that the Vanderbilt Club is as old as Contract) necessarily be "natural"?

Mr Vanderbilt himself used the words "artificial and forcing" to describe his improvement on bidding that involved opening 1C with all strong hands rather than using Strong Twos or opening them at the 1level.

Prior to the development of the Vanderbilt Club (the 1st Forcing 1C System), a 1♣ opening promised 4+♣'s (remember people played 4cM's).

Thus a "natural" 1ofasuit opening originally showed 4+ cards in the suit. After the advent of 5cM's, the definition of a "natural" 1m opening was tweaked to 3+ cards in that suit. Even today, a 1m opening that systemically could be on < 3 cards requires an announcement, and of course if it has nothing to do with the minor opened, it is considered conventional and alertable.

Heh. I should have known better than to mention the Vanderbilt club in this context.

I said your original post contained an unstated assumption - which I suppose is properly expressed as "originally, all (opening?) bids were natural". On reflection, I suspect that's probably true - although, as I pointed out, it didn't take long before "natural" got tossed out the window.

I still wonder why the "original" meaning of a bid should be considered "more natural" than the current natural meaning of that bid.

[blackshoe]

SoTired, on Jun 28 2007, 01:38 PM, said:

I read this story once about a track and field club at an elementary school...

http://www.thisistrue.com/

[tbr]

Has anyone not opened 1no recently (with the right amount of high card points) but a weak doubleton?

[awm]

Here's an interesting website: Thomas Andrews' Double Dummy Analysis

It's not clear what sort of hand has "something to do with notrump" versus another suit. But it seems reasonable to state that a natural notrump bid requires a hand that would play well in notrump rather than a suit. After all, I think we agree that a 1NT opening showing "any 5-5 hand" is not a natural bid even if non-forcing. Here's some double-dummy analysis about the expected number of tricks in notrump versus the best suit fit by shape:

Shape NT Suit Difference
4333 6.15 7.76 1.61
4432 6.10 8.07 1.97
5332 6.07 8.13 2.06
5422 6.01 8.40 2.39
6322 6.00 8.50 2.50
4441 6.09 8.61 2.52
5431 6.03 8.68 2.65
6331 6.03 8.77 2.74
5521 5.94 9.03 3.09

It seems like the reasonable thing to do is to draw a line somewhere here, and say that hands that really play a lot better in a suit fit shouldn't be able to open notrump as a "natural bid" since even though there is some possibility of being passed out, most of the time a passout will leave you in the wrong strain. It can't be enough to say "well I want to play here opposite some hand partner can have" since then all NF bids would be natural and non-conventional.

Obviously it's not clear where the line should be, but it seems consistent as long as you don't have two patterns where the hand that plays a lot better in a suit can open 1NT but the other cannot. Sure, you can argue that "well 4441 is pretty close to 4432 with a small doubleton" but then you can continue and say "well 5440 is not that different from 4441 with a small singleton" and this has gotta stop somewhere. The selection of "no singletons" is a combination of a reasonable dividing line with historical practice.

[Cascade]

awm, on Jun 29 2007, 03:05 PM, said:

The selection of "no singletons" is a combination of a reasonable dividing line with historical practice.

Which serves to stifle progress. I mean lets continue making the mistakes we have made in the past.

I don't know what is best but I think I should be free to experiment and find out what works. And certainly if my NT bid is natural in that I am intending on offering to play in No Trumps opposite a similar sort of hand then I can't really see how it can harm the opponents if I happen to open my 1NT on a slightly different subset of hands than they do.

[the hog]

skaeran, on Jun 28 2007, 02:26 AM, said:

awm, on Jun 27 2007, 06:21 PM, said:

I'd be surprised if you could find any SO where an agreement to open 1NT with all 4441 hands in range doesn't require an alert; in other words, I don't think anyone really believes that this is the "natural" meaning of 1NT (although many places are inclined to allow more artificial/conventional bids than ACBL does).

That's not true (or you will be surprised). Here in Norway you don't have to alert a 1NT opening which promises an average+ hand which is balanced or semibalanced (semibalanced defined as 2 doubletons or 1 singleton and no doubleton).

Thus we can systemically open 1NT on 4441, 5431, 6331, 6322 and 5422 without alerting it.

The same is true in Australia. Another argument is that many players would in fact argue that a 4441 shape is at least semi balanced.

[david_c]

foo, on Jun 28 2007, 05:52 PM, said:

Petty politics and personal influence peddling have to be rejected in favor of a completely logical apporach based on deductive extension of a few well stated and easy to understand axioms.

It would be nice to eliminate the petty politics and personal influence. But I don't like your alternative either. System regulation is difficult - you shouldn't expect it to be possible to have an axiomatic approach.