[bluejak]

The problem, Fred, is that you are suggesting treating partner's bid as real and assuming it is correct. That's all very well, and what I would do, but it is not the question: the question is whether [and how] you should inform your opponents if you are going to assume he has got it wrong, and if that assumption is based in part on your knowledge of the player.

[TylerE]

The other complication, at least in ACBL land, for this sort of thing is that an implicit agreement of "X, but might be Y" will often run afoul of the convention charts, so one has the choice of disclosing fully, and possibly being accused of playing an illegal system, or saying nothing.

[blackshoe]

I dunno about anyone else, but if I'm playing an illegal system, I'd like to know that, so that I can do whatever is necessary to make it legal. And I'd much rather be "accused" of playing an illegal system than of deliberately trying to conceal the fact that I'm playing an illegal system.

[jdonn]

My problem in all of this is that, because you can tell from your hand partner probably forgot, many people want you to alert. But you should only alert if you would alert it all the time. It makes no sense to me then when partner overcalls 2♦ and you are 2263 you alert as "diamonds but he often plays this as majors in other partnerships so he may have forgotten" but that when you are 5503 you don't alert at all, and explain the bid simply as diamonds. It's the bid that is or isn't alertable and should be explained the same way always, your hand has nothing to do with it.

As a side point, I want to mention that trying to determine whether partner has forgotten or not from your hand is a much riskier proposition than people realize. I have heard of more than a few 1-1 fits after 1♠ p 4♥ all pass. You had better be quite sure if you are going to make that assumption, regardless of what you intend to do about it.

[mink]

bluejak, on Jul 16 2009, 02:34 AM, said:

The problem, Fred, is that you are suggesting treating partner's bid as real and assuming it is correct. That's all very well, and what I would do, but it is not the question: the question is whether [and how] you should inform your opponents if you are going to assume he has got it wrong, and if that assumption is based in part on your knowledge of the player.

By assuming something, do I create a partnership agreement? No and never, because partner is not involved. There cannot be something like a single-sided agreement. This is different from partner having forgotten a specific convention in the past - this is something that partner knows, too, and therefore can be regarded as an agreement, and in this case I alert 2!D right before the double (or I rather do not play with that partner if I think he might have messed it up again). That I assume that partner forgot the system will for sure not come into his mind.

Agreements, implicit or explicit, are all what I have to disclose. Therefore no Agreement --> no disclosure.

There is something else. If you want me to disclose something after I see the double, not only my partner will know that I have diamonds, but opps will also know it. This means, I am disclosing something about my hand. No law can ever force me to do this, and if there is such a law, it should be made invalid by some high court right away.

Karl

[Mbodell]

My feeling is that this should not be alerted, but that you would want to describe partner's tendencies when they ask about your bid which includes things like "would make this bid as a lead direct on a shorter suit" or "often quite unsound in this positoin" or "occasionally forgets and does it with both majors" assuming the occasional is occasional and not often. But you should describe these tendencies all the time, when asked, not just when you suspect they are true.

[helene_t]

I think it is similar to the two-way Ghestem convention ("either clubs or both majors"). That is a BSC if you forget Ghestem so often that partner will expect you to have forgotten whenever his hand and/or opps auction (or your 4♣ bid next round) suggests so.

I think that is a BSC even if partner claims not to cater for it. It is like playing multi in a GCC event and defending it by saying "we only cater for hearts, not for spades".

Similarly, a 2♦ overcall showing either diamonds or majors is not GCC. I think in California all NT defenses are allowed, right? Call it "psycho suction", then your explanation will be correct whether he forgot or not.

Another issue: explaining 2♦ as "in principle diamonds but he often messes it up with Hamilton" is unhelpful to opps, as it is possible than one opp makes a cuebid of 3♦ (the suit your p is supposed to have) while the other takes the 3♦ bid as natural (a suit your p hasn't effectively promised). So I would certainly not mention the possibility of both majors during the auction.

[Echognome]

fred, on Jul 15 2009, 05:06 PM, said:

<snip>Perhaps it would be fair to note that I have very little sympathy for those who forget their systems. IMO people who don't know their systems ruin the game for everyone.<snip>

Fred,

Although I understand this is an opinion, do you feel this way only at the highest levels of bridge or at all levels of bridge? As an extreme, imagine a beginner who forgets that 2♣ is Stayman. Does that ruin the experience for everyone?

Having read quite a bit of Bobby Wolff's views on convention disruption, it struck me that the views seemed a lot more reasonable for the highest levels of the game rather than for the rank and file.

Of course I don't enjoy it personally when my partner forgets part of our system (or when I do), but then I work to either simplify the system or work harder to remember it.

We all have bidding misunderstandings. I recall a passage from Meckstroth's book that he and Rodwell have misunderstandings occasionally. Does it ruin it for everyone when that happens?

So if the top level players are prone to make mistakes (albeit very seldom), what is the rank and file to do? Should everyone be forced to play the most basic system, just because someone might forget if you add any complications?

As per the original post, many people have multiple bridge partners and the "forget" can come from either partner thinking of their agreement with another partner.

I guess I'm asking if you can clarify your point. Do you intend it to apply to all levels of bridge? or just the highest levels? What do you think would be the appropriate way to solve this "problem" of people forgetting their system?

[awm]

The obvious thing to do seems to be assessing procedural penalties for forgetting your agreements in basic auctions. Such a penalty can be waived in "beginner" events, but in a serious event partnerships are expected to know basic things like their notrump range, whether they play transfers, whether 2♦ is flannery, what their defense to 1NT is, etc.

This does not require anyone to play a "simple system" but it may deter partnerships from making agreements that they will forget with a very high rate of frequency.

[Echognome]

Define "basic auction".

Suppose you play a relay system and in competition you continue to play your relay as long as you are 4-up or below. Is that a "basic auction"? Maybe the auction has gone 1♣ - (1♠) - 2♣* - (2♠). That seems basic to anyone playing standard, but certainly isn't basic playing other systems.

I remember once playing where we were 4-down (the opponents had doubled twice) and partner had relayed his full shape out at the 2-level. I knew the first two steps were the weak and strong relay and that 3NT was to play, but it wasn't until later that we agreed the definition of extra intervening bids. The auction is so rare.

[fred]

Echognome, on Jul 16 2009, 05:34 PM, said:

I guess I'm asking if you can clarify your point.  Do you intend it to apply to all levels of bridge?  or just the highest levels?  What do you think would be the appropriate way to solve this "problem" of people forgetting their system?

I will try to clarify...

When someone forgets their system it is unfair to the opponents because they are frequently placed in a position where it is impossible for them to achieve a normal result. While it is true that there are other events in bridge that can place a pair in the same position (a particularly good bid/play, a particularly bad bid/play that happened to work, or a psysh) this is different because it is something that would never happen if players lived up to their responsibilities of knowing their systems.

My contention is that, when the opponents irresponsibility in this area makes it impossible for you to achieve a normal result on a given board, that board has been ruined for you. When boards are ruined, the game is ruined.

Let's use your example of the beginner forgetting Stayman. Suppose the auction goes:

1NT-2C-2H-3NT-P

Where the beginner meant 2C as "2/1 Game Force" and his partner correctly responded to Stayman (and luckily didn't hold 4 spades). Suppose the opening leader has a hand in which he would have led a spade if the bidding had gone "normally" (1NT-3NT-P). Expecting a 4-card spade suit in the dummy, he decides to lead something else.

Whether or not what he actually led works out, the hand has been destroyed for him as a result of the opponent's irresponsibility.

The solution in this particular case is easy - if a spade lead would have worked better than the lead that was actually made, the TD can adjust the score (and bend over backwards to make sure that the non-offending side takes as many tricks as they could ever reasonably take).

Regardless of the result, another part of the solution might be to assign a procedural penalty to the pair that forgot their system (though I think this would be somewhat heavy-handed in, say, a club game where you rate to find lots of beginners and lots of pickup partnerships).

IMO If supposedly serious players frequently forget then there should be further punishments. Maybe forcing them to play a less complex system for a certain amount of time would be appropriate.

Finally, I believe that the partner of the player who forgot his system must have very strong evidence from his own hand and the opponents' bidding (and NOT from previous experience) in order to play his partner to have forgotten. Playing partner to have forgotten without sufficient evidence should be treated in the same way as "fielding a psych".

Bottom line for me is, since forgetting system destroys the game, the rules should be set up so that it is very expensive for people to forget.

Yes, it is the case that players at even the highest levels sometimes forget their systems. The level of the player doesn't matter that much in my view except that, the more serious the event, the more serious the punishment should be for forgetting.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[jmcw]

Maybe, just maybe, the opponents have forgotten their agreements. The DBL of 2♦ could possibly be for takeout!.

[NickRW]

fred, on Jul 16 2009, 06:57 PM, said:

Bottom line for me is, since forgetting system destroys the game, the rules should be set up so that it is very expensive for people to forget.

Yes, it is the case that players at even the highest levels sometimes forget their systems. The level of the player doesn't matter that much in my view except that, the more serious the event, the more serious the punishment should be for forgetting.

This would make beginners even more nervous about learning any conventions. I can't see how that is a forward move.

fred, on Jul 16 2009, 06:57 PM, said:

The solution in this particular case is easy - if a spade lead would have worked better than the lead that was actually made, the TD can adjust the score (and bend over backwards to make sure that the non-offending side takes as many tricks as they could ever reasonably take).

For the typical playing director at a club this is utterly unworkable. As things are, the need for complex judgments are relatively rare in that environment. But we would be faced with calls on every other board from every other table from people who claimed that opps had abused their system and could the score be adjusted please - 50% of which would be on boards the director hadn't played yet. There would be a queue of players at the end of the evening badgering the director to scribble something on the travellers while the scorer who couldn't do their job yet was digging his/her finger nails in the wall in frustration.

Nick

[TimG]

System misunderstandings (or forgets) seem to me to be just another form of bad bridge (which I have been guilty of as often as the next) which usually works well for the other side, but sometimes results in a bad score for the innocent bystanders. Remembering agreements is just another bridge skill.

Penalizing players (or compensating the other side) for a bidding misunderstanding seems little different than penalizing a declarer for misplaying a suit combination (or awarding the other side the result that would have occurred had declared played the suit correctly).

[helene_t]

Suppose bridge was just like any other sport, in that some 80% of the time invested was spent on practicing/training and the remaining 20% on competition. Then one could expect partnerships to have sorted out their agreements when it came to competition. They would have applied this new fancy notrump defense 20 times in the partnership bidding or at training matches before it came up at competition.

But for most club players, there is only one mode of playing bridge, namely competition. Masterpoints are awarded on all club evenings, and we play (at least in theory) by the same rules as at serious competition.

Whenever a pair introduces a new convention, it will be something they come up with two minutes before the club evening starts. So the details are not worked out. They expect to develop a common understanding on how the convention works after some time. Or more likely they will decide to trash it next week. Maybe one partner assumes it was just a one-evening experiment while the other assumes they switched to the new agreement permanently, yadayadayada.

Add to this that for many players, experimenting with new (preferably homegrown) conventions is part of what makes bridge fun.

I agree that fielding a system-forget should be treated like fielding a psyche, but beyond that I see no reason to punish system forgets. Agree 100% with Tim, as well as with Nick.

[blackshoe]

I'm not at all sure that "people forgetting system destroys the game" is a valid premise. I am pretty sure that severe penalties will sooner or later destroy the game, particularly at club at lower tournament level, where players are likely to decide they didn't take up the game to be penalized for having a poor memory or being inexperienced.

[bluejak]

People make mistakes at bridge, as at everything else, and it does not ruin the game for the opposition at all. When your opponent forgets a safety play do you moan and say he is ruining the game as he gives you an unearned top or 13 imps? Certainly not. The most common result of a pair forgetting their system is that the opponents get a good board.

Penalising players for not knowing their system is an appalling idea. What next: are you going to penalise them for not leading fourth highest?

In the game of bridge there are many facets. One of those is trying to unravel what is going on when an opponent has done something wrong, whether it is to forget his system, not make a safety play, make a silly lead, fail to count trumps, and so on. Every so often such a player gets a good board for his idiocy and opponents moan and moan. I think they should grow up: they do not moan when their opponent's idiocy gives them a good result, do they?

This game is more interesting, and will certainly attract more young players, if there are interesting features, and playing fancy conventions is one of those features. But when people learn them, they get them wrong. No, they are not ruining the game for people: that is part of the game and players should live with it.

The WBF said:

Quote

In particular the WBF wishes to stress that a player who forgets his convention, misbids or misuses it, is not subject to automatic penalty. It is envisaged that a procedural penalty will only be applied in aggravated circumstances, as for example misuse several times repeated.

Since that was the WBF I expect that is their view at top level bridge: PPs at lower levels are especially unsuitable.

Bobby Wolff tried to popularise the idea of 'Convention Disruption'. the idea has not been accepted, and rightly so.

[mr1303]

I'm particularly unconvinced by the advice to play with a different partner either.

I play this game solely for enjoyment these days, and I would very much rather play with someone who is a friend who might be a less able player, or prone to forgetting the system etc, than to play with a better player who wasn't a friend.

In particular, if a friend of mine dropped me as a partner because of my mistakes I wouldn't want to be friends with him/her any longer

[jdonn]

In Fred's defense, the comparisons between what he is saying and play situations are comparing apples and oranges. Your bidding system is agreed ahead of time, so if you make a mistake then you have made an agreement that you either don't know how to use or can't remember. If you make a play error that is just part of the game, you can't reasonably make a determination prior to the game like you can with bidding. The play comparisons are equivalent to poor bidding judgment, not bidding system forgets.

Two more arguments against his point that I didn't agree with were that it would be bad to discourage beginners from playing lots of conventions, and that none of us mind when our opponents' terrible screw ups give us good boards (personally I don't enjoy that at all, and I know many would agree.) But there were also good arguments against him, such as that most people play on a very casual or social level, and that penalties against forgetting your system or some combination of impossible to judge and impractical to assign.

[Codo]

But there is no reason and no law why a mistake in your preparation should be handled different then a mistake in the play itself.