[mycroft]

1. I don't know what Mike thinks. Ask him.

2. I'm not in England, however:
- they do and have had the concept of pre-alerts; they consist of a prominent section of the card that is to be handed to the opponents before the round starts.
- they *now* have announcements of certain things over and above the Alerts (which explicitly kills the "inverted variable NT" strategy).

3. I am not denigrating the requirements - I am simply expecting those playing odd systems to be scrupulous - yeah, possibly more scrupulous than "normal", who really should be more scrupulous themselves, but because "everybody knows", it doesn't cause a problem - about meeting those requirements. I believe that those who play odd systems because they are fun, better, more suited to their mind, whatever... do so, and take pride in doing so. I also believe that many players playing "normal" systems do not meet the requirements (although many do); if it ever causes a problem, they'll get nailed for it the same as the crazy Symmetric Relay Precision guys would. The only reason they don't get nailed as often is that lack of full disclosure of a standard system doesn't cause a problem very often (because everyone knows what it means anyway).

4. There are those who try to minimize disclosure (playing "standard" as well as not - how often have you head the complete description of 2H as "weak"? And how many times are you 100% sure that that isn't their complete agreement?). There are those who actively try to subvert the disclosure requirements. Can anyone see the technical merit to playing inverted variable notrump (12-14 V, 15-17 NV)? That's because there isn't any; in fact, it's more dangerous and less preemptive than normal, for no advantage. But in a good field used to regular variable NT, and without announcements to act as a double-check, especially if you write it the "standard way" (12-14 first, rather than NV range first), 75+% of the people reading the pre-alerts will read it wrong. And defend wrong. There's your "bridge merit". That's unethical.

It's not the "fairness" I object to. If you play a system because against an aware opponent who understands what's going on, you think it's a winner - for whatever reason, including "it makes them think where otherwise they wouldn't have to", fine. If you play a system - any system - hoping to catch people who don't read carefully enough, or couching your disclosure of that system in such a way that you don't get "aware opponent[s] who understand[] what's going on", that's unethical.

UDSP is a "special carding". If the "special carding - please ask" box (in the ACBL) isn't checked, you haven't met your standards for disclosure any more than if (to use one of Bobby Wolff's other examples) you mark your NT range as 10-12, and your real range is 8-10 (okay, that's both lying and trying to bypass convention restrictions, whereas this is simply doing what they think they can get away with and hoping people won't read properly. Deliberately playing a method for the reason that people will read it wrong, and actively trying to mislead by the way the disclosure is written, is a middle point).

Other examples I've noticed are 1C Precision - 1D "waiting" (anyone who plays Precision knows that's - well, let's just say "deliberately ingenious"?), and people who play 2C-2H to be "no A no K, could be 12 high" who describe it as "garbage". I'm sure that everyone here can parrot their own example, and know a pair who tries to give away the least information they can, rather than bringing the opponents up to speed. If they do it because they don't know any better, fine, they need to be educated. If they do it because keeping the opponents in the dark as much as possible is an advantage, it's an improper advantage, and need to be corrected. If they deliberately design their system in such a way as to mislead "careless" opponents, it's even more so. If they do both - design a system that works only when the opponents are out of the loop, and do their best to ensure that the opponents stay out of the loop - well, it's people like those at whom, in my opinion, "bridge is not poker, sir" should be targeted.

Michael.

[ArtK78]

I can think of the technical merit to playing weak NT vul and strong NT nonvul - it is an attempt to be deliberately "anti-field" so as to create unusual results. This is probably a good strategy for a pair with less technical ability than the rest of the field. Better to create nonstandard results in the hope that more of them will be in your favor than against on a random basis than to rely on skill to attain a good result.

[jdonn]

ArtK78, on Jan 3 2008, 04:52 PM, said:

I can think of the technical merit to playing weak NT vul and strong NT nonvul - it is an attempt to be deliberately "anti-field" so as to create unusual results.

Since the large majority of pairs in almost every field (only in USA?) play strong notrumps, it would be more anti-field to simply always play a weak notrump, yet also technically superior to this silly agreement (well maybe, but certainly it would take less brain power.)

[Gerben42]

I think I would be so confused with my backward variable NT I would mess it up myself!

I am also for FULL disclosure, like alerting a 2♣-overcall when you play Raptor and things like that.