[Apollo81]

glen:

Your system's biggest problem by far is that (assuming youre in the ACBL) it is illegal in anything less than a 12-board mid or superchart event. Therefore you probably won't get to practice it as much as you'll need to develop good evaluating skills for your nonstandard auctions.

Aside from that, I would think you'd get poor results from all of your 2-level openings since they are so vague as compared to most other systems (and youre higher), and these strike me as incredibly common hands.

[rbforster]

Forget MidChart, I think glen's system is GCC legal. I would play it without reservation if I felt so inclined. I would alert 1♦ as "various unbalanced hands with 10-17 points and 4♠s." Perhaps other people have a different opinion of what an "all purpose" 1♦ opening can be used for, but there's a huge history of precision and/or Polish systems playing all manner of random stuff in 1♦ and I don't see how this is disallowed by the laws as written. 1♦ in these systems is just "everything else" as it is here and that's been fine for years.

hrothgar, on Jul 3 2008, 05:33 AM, said:

The issue at hand is not whether or not Memphis issues contradictory rulings or whether Beye has a clue how to read the convention charts.  Anyone who has any kind of dealing with the ACBL is well aware that the regulatory system is badly mismanaged. 

At least we agree on that .

Quote

Rather, the central issue is how should one behave in this type of environment.

Exactly. The problem is that in a confusing regulatory environment you can't get meaningful clarification via test cases so the whole exercise is futile. If precedents aren't followed and rulings continue to be inconsistent, reforming the system is presently impossible. The question is what to do then.

I think the right response to a confusing regulatory environment is to try to follow the rules as they are written, not as they are variously (mis)interpreted or reinterpreted every time someone dashes off an email to Memphis or every time some local TD makes some off-the-wall ruling about what's (il)legal in direct contradiction to the Charts. These Memphis emails don't get shared with directors and aren't official policy until they get written into the new General or Mid Chart rules.

Quote

You're recommending shopping for opinions, selectively ignoring the rulings that you don't happen to like, and hoping that you don't get caught.

This isn't my position at all, actually. Remember that in practice the local TD determines what is legal in his event and if you can convince the TD that you're following the rules as written, you get to play your convention. This is what I recommend. For the most part, this amounts to ignoring everything that comes out of Memphis one way or the other and reading the text of the Chart for myself. Afterall, if Memphis can't be bothered to publish all their rulings (that'd be good for a laugh!), they can hardly expect people to follow them if they don't know they exist!

[glen]

Apollo81, on Jul 3 2008, 12:26 PM, said:

...Your system's biggest problem by far is that (assuming youre in the ACBL) it is illegal in anything less than a 12-board mid or superchart event....

Aside from that, I would think you'd get poor results from all of your 2-level openings since they are so vague as compared to most other systems (and youre higher), and these strike me as incredibly common hands.

Actually the system as given (now) is 2-board mid-chart legal starting with this summer's chart change.

As to the 2-level vagueness, point taken. I've used the Fantunes approach as a model, but needed to extend the two bids to 14 points since mid-chart requires 15+ for the strong bids. To counterbalance that, I've taken out the 4♠s second suit possibility out of 2♣/♦/♥, and kept the Fantunes idea that if the two bid is only 5, it is a 5-4-3-1 or 5-5 shape. The concept is if you open 1X with these 10-14 hands, it can often let the opponents in with a 1♠ overcall - opening on the two level changes the risk/reward for the opponents introducing ♠s, and allows 3X to be bid with 3 card support if they do overcall 2♠.

[pigpenz]

Glen
what are the events you are tending to play in at the NABC's in the fall?

Also when you play an obtuse card, do you also carry around a card for the opps so they may play some sort of defense to what you play. Just curious, as to the reason for the char levels is so that opps have at least some experience to coming up with a defense to your system from the likelihood of having run into it before.

[glen]

In NABC would play in pairs, perhaps would not attend fall NABC but a subsequent one.

When one plays "an obtuse card", one wants to follow all the appropriate policies and guidelines, so I would like to know what they are. At this point, I haven't seen the requirement to "carry around a card for the opps", and I don't know even if we did whether the opponents would like being presented with a card or not.

[pigpenz]

glen, on Jul 3 2008, 06:00 PM, said:

In NABC would play in pairs, perhaps would not attend fall NABC but a subsequent one.

When one plays "an obtuse card", one wants to follow all the appropriate policies and guidelines, so I would like to know what they are. At this point, I haven't seen the requirement to "carry around a card for the opps", and I don't know even if we did whether the opponents would like being presented with a card or not.

at the NABC 's there are various forms of pairs which I am sure you are well aware of. The idea being of at least giving the opponents some chance of having a way of defending against your system If you are the only ones playing your system then opps most likely have not run up against it and then you are at a decided advantage against them. Put your self in their position say your oppenents had defenses to your system but did not let you know about them.

At certain levels the ACBL tries to protect players from running into these type of systems. Is that good for bridge or bad for bridge? Depends on your point of view. The ACBL in in the business of running these events and hmmm.... maybe selling points, so they tend to go out of their way to protect weaker players.

So the Nationally rated events have convention restrictions that being something that some Players are opposed to.