[Rain]

In another string, irdaz said :

Quote

I  see online bridge as an integal part of the future of this game - and not as part of some recruiting strategy for getting new people to play face to face - while that will happen it is also the case that many people - both old and young - prefer to play on the Internet. "Real" bridge will only ever be recognised through what happens in face to face competition because of the unsolvable cheating problems endemic in online bridge. Online bridge should be recognised as a different game, played in a different media with different rules. For example, online bridge allows self-alerting. When I am queried if I have no agreement with my partner I disclose what I think my partner should know (or what I intended the bid to mean)..so often I get the firm lecture that 'your opps are not entitled to know more than yr partner' and 'if there's no agreement say so'...I think this is an example of a lack of lateral thinking, and not in the spirit of the intent of the laws.

.................



So one aspect in thinking about 'the future of bridge' might be articles about online bridge - about survival skills online, about how to communicate, about tolerance for cultural diversity and language differences, about the fact that ACBL laws, alerts and procedures aren't global, about how to find partners, about how to deal with some of the problematic personality types (the lecturing expert, the resulter, the implied accusations of cheating, the poor sport etc.) and some introductory guides to bridge online and tournament behaviour. 

I also recall Uday saying he feels that online bridge should have different alerting rules from live bridge. What should online bridge alerting rules be? What makes it different from live bridge? Anyone has opinion?


R.dog

[inquiry]

Well, I have an opinion....

First, recongnize that self-alerts where partner can not see the alert can convey no Unauthorized info to partner. Also, your alerting will not "wake" parnter up.

Second, online bridge allows people from all over the globe to play with and against each other. Even the normalist of sounding bids to your ears (say Jacoby Transfer) might not only not be standard where your opponents come from, perhaps they have never even heard of it. So alerting all bids (nmf, 4SF, jacoby, etc) seems only fair to me.

Third, if you have no agreement with your partner, then by all means don't alert the bid and if asked, explain that you have no agreement. What does this mean, however? Say the bidding is 1♥ to you and you jump to 2NT with

---

And your opponents ask about the meaning of 2NT, I don't think it is fair to say to them "we have no specific agreement". Cleary you meant it as unusual, and you expect your partner to take it as unusual. There is no need to get overly cute with the idea that you if you haven't specifically discussed some "standard treatment" with a partner you fully expect to understand your bid to try to hide behind the no prior discussion flag.

Ben

[luis]

inquiry, on Jan 28 2004, 06:18 PM, said:

Well, I have an opinion....

First, recongnize that self-alerts where partner can not see the alert can convey no Unauthorized info to partner. Also, your alerting will not "wake" parnter up.

Second, online bridge allows people from all over the globe to play with and against each other. Even the normalist of sounding bids to your ears (say Jacoby Transfer) might not only not be standard where your opponents come from, perhaps they have never even heard of it. So alerting all bids (nmf, 4SF, jacoby, etc) seems only fair to me.

Third, if you have no agreement with your partner, then by all means don't alert the bid and if asked, explain that you have no agreement. What does this mean, however? Say the bidding is 1♥ to you and you jump to 2NT with

---

And your opponents ask about the meaning of 2NT, I don't think it is fair to say to them "we have no specific agreement". Cleary you meant it as unusual, and you expect your partner to take it as unusual. There is no need to get overly cute with the idea that you if you haven't specifically discussed some "standard treatment" with a partner you fully expect to understand your bid to try to hide behind the no prior discussion flag.

Ben

I disagree Ben, I think we've already had this discussion 8-)
If you don't have an agreement then you should not tell the opponents what you have, why would you give LHO the advantage of knowing what your bid is while your pd has to figure it out by himself?
When you bid something without agreement you may have an advantage if your pd is better than your opponents getting the message, that fair advantage will be lost if you just tell what each bid means even if unagreed.
In other ocassions you bid something "strange" that you know your pd will understand because of his hand, in some way this is a perfectly legal encrypted bid, for example you bid a suit that your pd knows you can't have because of his cards and the bidding.

[Free]

I agree with Luis on this one. If your partner has to guess what you mean, your opps should also guess. Ben's example about unusual NT is imo not alertable when you don't have specific agreements. You bid and hope your partner will understand, so opps should hope they understand what you want to say either. If your partner misunderstands, opps wont complain, so they dont have to complain when they dont understand and your partner does.

[mikestar]

I agree in part with both sides. If in the example case, you mean 2NT as unusual and hope that partner takes it that way but are merely guessing he will, this is a bona fide "we have no agreement" situation.

On the other hand, if both of you are reasonably skilled SAYC or 2/1 players from the USA even though you haven't played together before, you have an implicit agreement that this is unusual unless you have made an explicit contrary agreement. The implicit agreement should be alerted and explained in case a player form other countires or an unskilled US player doesn't know about the unusual NT.

[inquiry]

Yes mike gets it... as I said "There is no need to get overly cute with the idea that you if you haven't specifically discussed some "standard treatment" with a partner you fully expect to understand your bid to try to hide behind the no prior discussion flag."

Mike's comment is exactly what I meant... when he said... "if both of you are reasonably skilled SAYC or 2/1 players from the USA even though you haven't played together before, you have an implicit agreement that this is unusual unless you have made an explicit contrary agreement. The implicit agreement should be alerted and explained in case a player form other countires or an unskilled US player doesn't know about the unusual NT. "

If I play with anyone marking themselves as "Advanced or higher" from the US, I would assume they play unusual 2NT, as I am sure they would assume the same. For that matter, anyone of that skill level playing sayc or 2/1 I would draw the same inference. This is exactly the point I was making... .

And yes, luis and I have disagreed on this specific case before.

Ben

[irdoz]

If you are playing with a partner who is more likely to know that 1x-2nt is unusual for the 2 lower suits than your opps then you have an implied agreement and 'not discussed' is a total furphy. Using this method good players who understand the most common competitive bidding agreements and methods would never discuss anything and answer 'not discussed' to most things - this is giving them an unfair advantage. This is NOT the intent of alerting and disclosure laws.

The small amount you may gain from a strict (and probably wrong) application of the law versus what you potentially lose in bad feeling is simply not worth it in my opinion.

Let's say an auction goes 1x-pass-pass-2nt and you know that your partner may take it as unusual even though a standard meaning of 2nt in this position is 18-19 hcp balanced which is what you have. When asked I will say '18-19 hcp balanced' because I assume that partner knows this meaning even though I know there is a high chance they will take it as unusual. In f2f the alert and explanation may clue in partner. In online bridge where you self-alert and explain on the basis of an assumed agreement then your side may be at some tiny disadvantage - but if it's your side who don't have an agreement about standard bids or have a misunderstanding then you should be at that disadvantage.

People schooled in f2f will keep repeating the arguments they have learnt appropriate for that environment. Self-alerting and playing regularly with pick-up partners in an online environment totally changes the possiblities - and the unthinking application of argument learnt from a face-to-face environment with a totally different context (partner alerts and explains) I find very unconvincing.

[Trpltrbl]

mikestar, on Jan 28 2004, 03:11 PM, said:

I agree in part with both sides. If in the example case, you mean 2NT as unusual and hope that partner takes it that way but are merely guessing he will, this is a bona fide "we have no agreement" situation.

On the other hand, if both of you are reasonably skilled SAYC or 2/1 players from the USA even though you haven't played together before, you have an implicit agreement that this is unusual unless you have made an explicit contrary agreement. The implicit agreement should be alerted and explained in case a player form other countires or an unskilled US player doesn't know about the unusual NT.

I agree with this. And I also think that people should look at online bridge like live bridge with screens.

Mike

[Rain]

Hmm, lemme start with an example.

I bid 4nt RKCB 1430. No agreement with partner. He may play it as RKCB0314. So, what do I alert? What does partner alert? Is there an unfair advantage for opponents, who will get to see both alerts?

Some time last year, I recall Uday saying that online bridge has different alerting rules from live bridge, so we should go ahead and alert anything that's in doubt. In fact, Fred also stated clearly in rules of the site that when in doubt, should alert. Yes internet is a relatively new media, but why should there be differences? Granted, self alert is different, you can't convey unauthr. info to p. But are you allowed then, to convey excessive information to opponents? Can't I also call it unauthorised information to inform opponents' of what they are not allowed to know?

What makes internet different from live bridge apart from the self alerting part? Why can't we also have internet bridge where your partner, and not you alert?
ie, you make a bid, if opponents click on it, your partner will be asked to type in partnership agreement. You can't see the agreement either, so there's no UI that way. Won't that resemble live bridge more closely?

thanks, Rain

[bearmum]

Rain, on Jan 29 2004, 05:23 PM, said:

Hmm, lemme start with an example.

I bid 4nt RKCB 1430.  No agreement with partner.  He may play it as RKCB0314. So, what do I alert? What does partner alert?  Is there an unfair advantage for opponents, who will get to see both alerts?

OK the FIRST thing I TRY to do with new P (assuming SAYC or 2/1 and assuming these are NOT specified on Pard's profile)
1 better minor or short club?
2 Transfers for minors as well as majors ?(and HOW to do 4 suit transfers)
3 Blackwood or RKCB 0314 OR 1430 ?

[COLOR=red](BTW is 4NT alertable ANYWHERE if RKCB??

OFTEN that's ALL we have time to agree - unless P has things I don't know HOW to bid (lebensohl Drury amoungst others I have seen on pard's profiles )



OK I agree it would PROBABLY be better if online bridge were like f2f - so the PARTNER of the player alerts ( AND then ONLY OPPS would know what the player assumes from the bid --- unlike f2f where the BIDDER can be alerted to the fact that the bid IS alertable - even if he has forgotten) --- but IMHO self alerting online seems better to me

[Free]

I still think with the self alert, you should already be able to type the explanation of your bid before you make it. Sometimes people just alert without explaining, and opps are waiting for an explanation without clicking on the bid itself.

But I'd love to get rid of the self alerting procedure, and let partner alert and explain. This might however complicate the code and the way of playing, and late alerts would become a problem I guess...

[inquiry]

I fully agree with FREE that you should be able to type the explaination for an alert BEFORE you enter the bid (hit alert, the little box opens up, you describe your bid click ok), then make your bid, and the alert shows up. The problem might be if you change your mind and bid something else, how do you clear your pre-typed text? I solve this by sending a private chat message to both opponents about what my bid means before I bid, I click alert, I bid, then I type see chat. Only problem is kibitizers can't see the info, so if there are many kibitizer, while the bidding goes around the table, I often explain to them via kibitizer chat.

Now, as to do away with SELF ALERTS... NOOOOOOOOO I very much like self alerts.

[Rain]

Well, you can like self alert, but won't it be truer to current bridge laws to have partner alerting for your bids? You can't see partner's alert, solves all problems.

[inquiry]

Rain, on Jan 29 2004, 12:55 PM, said:

Well, you can like self alert, but won't it be truer to current bridge laws to have partner alerting for your bids? You can't see partner's alert, solves all problems.

All but mis-information when partner alerts my bid wrong. Certainly no UI with silent alerts either way.

ben

[uday]

I suspect most of the games we're talking about are pickup games, right? I think 2 established partnerships should alert each other differently than ( say ) one established partnership playing against a pickup pair.

To me ( but I'm a programmer, not an administrator!) the primary goal is to make sure the experience is enjoyable. If you fail to correctly explain 2N as for the minors, the opps may pick up and bail after the hand. If partner misguesses, sure, they get a good score, but the bridge gets silly. And if partner is going to guess correctly, why not let everyone know what is going on?

I almost think open alerts would be better [ ie, announce "transfer" to the table ] in pickup situations. Otherwise, you have 4 people playing extremely defensively, and the bridge gets weird and maybe boring.

So maybe we should sort this out by deciding why the 4 players are at the table, and relaxing the "rules" as needed. At pickup games, the objective should be to play and bid well, but to do so you have to have agreements. Since you arent going to have time to make them, until we force SAYC on all tables, we might want to encourage more explanations ( maybe even to partner) so that the bridge is more interesting.

I just made this up as i went along, hope it doesnt look like nonsense when it shows up in the group!

[Free]

inquiry, on Jan 30 2004, 01:47 AM, said:

I fully agree with FREE that you should be able to type the explaination for an alert BEFORE you enter the bid (hit alert, the little box opens up, you describe your bid click ok), then make your bid, and the alert shows up. The problem might be if you change your mind and bid something else, how do you clear your pre-typed text?

Perhaps just a standard textfield next to an alert butten, which becomes enabled when you press the alert. If you disable the alert, the textfield is cleared and disabled (no typing possible). The rest of the bidding sequence is similar: press your number and suit, and after that your bid is displayed...

[the hog]

I think the above suggestion is excellent. I too have been frustrated by having to type the explanation after making the bid. With impatient opps this is even harder.

[irdoz]

The whole reason for self-alerts is that it avoids the problems of UI.

If it is left to partner to alert he may not alert a conventional call and you have the problem of lack of alerts.

If you alert and partner explains you have the problem of UI - partner knows that an alert has occurred because of the query.

Self-alerting just makes more sense and is more sensible and logical. It is the technology that allows the far more sensible and logical self-alerts. The equivalent f2f technology is screens.

In the case rain mentions where you haven't discussed whether you're playing rkcb 0413 or 1340 then that in essence is your problem. If it's a casual game with a pick up partner and not in a tournament then I for one am not going to object to you discussing which method you are playing openly in the room chat. It is bridge we are playing - not psychological games moderated by legalese.

The intent of the laws is that all people at the table are
i) aware of what bids should mean and
ii) have access to the same level of information.

The intent is to facilitate the playing of bridge fairly - not to use of the laws to gain some tiny advantage for the cost of bad feeling. And for me when people are playing with a pickup partner Id prefer them to let them form an agreement about a bid rather than have 3 people in the dark - that seems closer to bridge and that's why I say the context for online bridge is different - in face to face you don't usually start to play a game with a new partner with 5 seconds discussion before the bidding begins.

[Rain]

Quote

The whole reason for self-alerts is that it avoids the problems of UI.

If it is left to partner to alert he may not alert a conventional call and you have the problem of lack of alerts.

I don't quite understand your definition of UI. So now, if its self alert, and you don't alert a conventional call, is it UI ? Is it a lack of alert?

My suggestion is for partner to alert, and explain (ie, the full real life definition of alerting) instead of you doing it yourself. You have no idea if partner has alerted, only that partner knows, and partner can only alert your agreement.
Seems to me that solves all problems, except for the case when partner doesn't alert when he should, which should then fall under violation of rules.


r.dog

[Cave_Draco]

Rain, on Jan 29 2004, 04:23 AM, said:

I bid 4nt RKCB 1430.  No agreement with partner.  He may play it as RKCB0314. So, what do I alert? What does partner alert?  Is there an unfair advantage for opponents, who will get to see both alerts?

It is impossible to give opponents an unfair advantage!

What one should endeavour to do is avoid giving opponents an unfair disadvantage, .

If there is no agreement, 4NT is BW.
If you have agreed RKCB. It is 0314 and is alertable.
If you have agreed 1403? Alert 1403.

The BIG problem with RKCB occurs on the second round,
You have agreed ♥... 4NT-5♦(whatever)-5♠ or 5NT?-6♣?
"No agreement is No help"

Perhaps there should be a "Set P's CC as ours" option?