[Free]

nige1, on Jul 17 2010, 11:21 AM, said:

• Bridge events should be fun not serious -- another good reason for scrapping system restrictions.

This is quite a contradiction. People who are very comfortable with current methods won't like "anything goes".

Btw, bridge events should sometimes be very serious.

[TimG]

Free, on Jul 17 2010, 06:42 AM, said:

Btw, bridge events should sometimes be very serious.

Aren't serious events fun?

[nige1]

Free, on Jul 17 2010, 06:42 AM, said:

Btw, bridge events should sometimes be very serious.

TimG, on Jul 17 2010, 08:07 AM, said:

Aren't serious events fun?

Yes. Serious and Enjoyable is fine. Sorry. Good point TimG!

[Pict]

If I entered a competition against world class players and repeatedly failed to remember my basic bidding system, I'd enquire about withdrawing.

If I couldn't conveniently leave, I would cheerfully accept any prescribed penalties.

[NickRW]

Pict, on Jul 17 2010, 09:16 PM, said:

If I entered a competition against world class players and repeatedly failed to remember my basic bidding system, I'd enquire about withdrawing.

If I couldn't conveniently leave, I would cheerfully accept any prescribed penalties.

Would you have been invited? Perhaps, if your cheque book is quite thick.

[PrecisionL]

I play a transfer Strong Club System with about 60 pages of notes just for the opening bid of 1♣ and follow-ons. I believe I have 2 system forgets in 5 years playing at ACBL NABCs or Regionals with no harm to the opponents. We practice active ethics and alert and offer to explain the bidding before the opening lead. Many opponents pass on the offer to explain before the opening lead.

However, I have been harmed by the opponents system forgets and there has never been a penalty or equity restored. It appears to be the rub of the green.

Now, along comes Bobby Wolf: http://bobbywolff.bridgeblogging.com/    7/31/2009

Regarding Appeal #4 which happened during the 2d qualifying session of the Von Zedtwitz Life Master Pairs during the Washington DC, Summer Nationals:

"It is past time for us, in the interest of fairness and equity, to make what happened, Convention Disruption (CD), an official offense, to be penalized accordingly, which hopefully, in the fullness of time, will force conventioneers to either learn their conventions or exercise their other option of not playing them and, if necessary, scratch them off the convention card."

[Details of infraction and Appeal is discussed on Bobby's Blog.]

And I have to admit that I partially agree with his statement and would welcome an attempt to address CD.

P.S. Also a Reno Appeal and the USBF Teams Round Robin had another CD with no penalty that decided the KO.

[hrothgar]

PrecisionL, on Jul 19 2010, 01:04 AM, said:

"It is past time for us, in the interest of fairness and equity, to make what happened, Convention Disruption (CD), an official offense, to be penalized accordingly, which hopefully, in the fullness of time, will force conventioneers to either learn their conventions or exercise their other option of not playing them and, if necessary, scratch them off the convention card."

And I have to admit that I partially agree with his statement and would welcome an attempt to address CD.

What's so special about "Conventions"? (especially now, when the very concept has been stripped from the Laws)

If you want to start punishing players for screwing up a bidding sequence, fine... Just make sure that you apply the same standard uniformly. When Mrs. Guggenheim screws up her nice natural bidding sequence, make sure to haul her off to the woodshed as well.

On a more serious note: Wolff has argued repeatedly that the game would be improved if "the right sort of people" could issue whatever rulings they wanted, laws and regulations be damned. Sure, we'd all have to sacrifice little niceties like the rule of law, but at least the trains would run on time.

I find his entire line of argument abhorrent. Moreover, given his past behavior he's the last person I'd want to see enshrined as a strong man...

[awm]

The current laws seem to depend a lot on discerning what the actual agreement is. This creates a number of issues, for example:

(1) It seems to give an advantage to pairs who have written down system notes which they brought with them to the tournament, since otherwise it is difficult to "prove" an agreement. In extreme cases, a tournament result may depend on whether a pair has easy access to a printer...

(2) There are certainly pairs who have copious system notes, but where one or both partners have not actually read (or certainly memorized) the notes. It's questionable whether an agreement can really exist if only one partner knows about it. I'm even aware of pairs who adopt the notes of other pairs wholesale, such that neither of them may be aware of what their actual "agreement" is. It seems to me that in order for an agreement to be an agreement, it must be known by both partners -- and a "forget" implies that at least at the table, it wasn't.

(3) In some extreme cases (like Fred's opponents with 300 pages of notes) it seems possible that the same sequence might be defined more than once with different meanings at different places in the notes. Especially if the notes simply accumulate over time without serious re-reading and editing, this can certainly occur. Such a situation might actually give an advantage to a pair which can now "prove" whatever agreement was explained at the table...

(4) Even if a pair can prove that the explanation they gave really is their agreement, it seems likely that partnership experience gives some information about possible "forgets" as well as what might be the hand held on the occasion of a "forget" (i.e. based on a prior agreement that was changed, or an agreement partner is known to have in his other partnerships). Since this type of experience is never disclosed, it's arguable that even though the disclosure was the official "agreement" there is still an inequality of information.

It does seem like it would be easier if the ruling didn't depend on the official agreement. Why not just treat all such cases as if they were an incorrect explanation (unless the bidder indicates it was a deliberate psych)? This solves the problem of people needing to bring their hundreds of pages of system notes to the tournament (and the director needing to sort through them).

[zasanya]

Gödel’s Theorem http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ G%C3%B6del% 27s_incompletene ss_theorems .
Gödel proved that “A complete system cannot be consistent, and a consistent system cannot be complete”. The drive by lawmakers to achieve completeness on the one hand, and consistency on the other has frequently brought the lawmakers to a losing head to head tussle with Gödel. Most lawmakers, oblivious of the limitation, and in their attempt to achieve completeness invariably introduce inconsistencies.
Consistency, or completeness: Ultimately, we can have one or the other – not both. What will YOU choose?
This seems to be the crux of the matter in all discussions pertaining to Bridge Laws.

[helene_t]

Nah, Godel's theorem doesn't apply here since the words "consistent" and "complete" have much stronger meanings in mathematics than when it comes to bridge regulations.

[campboy]

helene_t, on Jul 19 2010, 11:43 AM, said:

Nah, Godel's theorem doesn't apply here since the words "consistent" and "complete" have much stronger meanings in mathematics than when it comes to bridge regulations.

True, and also because his results require certain assumptions about the complexity of the structure being modelled which do not apply here.

[gwnn]

helene_t, on Jul 19 2010, 10:43 AM, said:

Nah, Godel's theorem doesn't apply here since the words "consistent" and "complete" have much stronger meanings in mathematics than when it comes to bridge regulations.

Still one of the better attempts of applying it to unrelated areas I think.

[the hog]

Wolff spouts a great deal of nonsense and has lost any sort of credibility with the comments he has made both in his book and on his and other blogs. The term and concept "convention disruption" is an idiocy. I totally agree with Richard's point of view on this topic.

Partner and I had about 200 pages of notes detailing a relay canape system, constantly checked. There were very few system forgets in a partnership that extended over years.

[billw55]

It is all an interesting debate. I am wondering one thing: is this really a common problem in actual live events? i.e. is it a common occurrence for pairs in a "serious tournament" to have "frequent" misunderstandings in "basic" auctions?

[NickRW]

If you read Wolff's example:

1) North made a relatively sensible "unusual" or "sandwich" 1NT overcall, but as an unpassed hand in 4th seat.
2) South misdescribed it as "strong" (or North psyched - one or the other).
3) South then made a call (3S) that would have or might well have been minor suit stayman, had the overcall been strong - but held nothing like that sort of hand - indeed South held spades - when something like a 2H transfer would have been more in keeping with that sides general agreements.
4) North described this as "no agreement" - which might strictly have been correct, but, never the less, North, in receipt of UI that his overcall had been misinterpretted, passed the 3S bid holding spades himself.

There are several possible interpretations of what was going on there, but the least of which was E/W had been given serious misinformation - and therefore adequately covered under existing law - IMO. Can't see how the example is a good case for supporting a change in the laws.

[Pict]

NickRW, on Jul 18 2010, 11:56 AM, said:

Pict, on Jul 17 2010, 09:16 PM, said:

If I entered a competition against world class players and repeatedly failed to remember my basic bidding system, I'd enquire about withdrawing.

If I couldn't conveniently leave, I would cheerfully accept any prescribed penalties.

Would you have been invited? Perhaps, if your cheque book is quite thick.

I think that the forum experience encourages people to move from hesitant opinions, to ripping into imaginary foes, to telling the world what to think.

A useful first step (IMO) is to consider what I personally would do in the situation posed in the OP.

It's OK, of course, to talk about laws in general, or Bobby Wolff.

If you are saying that only sponsors could possibly forget their system all the time, then I'd expect you are wrong in the opinion of the OP, or else the OP could have been more direct.

[dburn]

campboy, on Jul 19 2010, 05:52 AM, said:

helene_t, on Jul 19 2010, 11:43 AM, said:

Nah, Godel's theorem doesn't apply here since the words "consistent" and "complete" have much stronger meanings in mathematics than when it comes to bridge regulations.

True, and also because his results require certain assumptions about the complexity of the structure being modelled which do not apply here.

Do you mean to say that bridge players are incapable of first-order arithmetic? (Not that I would necessarily disagree if you did, for in my experience most theorems about bridge are ineffectively generated, but still...)