[helene_t]

My first thought was that Richard's idea was great, but thinking more about it, I can see some problems:
- Submission of completely unplayable conventions which other players won't bother to discuss defense against. Will they automatically be allowed after some time, even if nobody bothers to come up with a defense? If not, who decides?
- Take the multi 2♦. If you post it on BBF with a request for a defense, you will get umpteen ideas. A few of them will be "obviously" inferior, but there may be no consensus about which of the 5-6 serious attempts that is better. How to decide which one(s) multi-players can present to their opps as suggested defense?

[billw55]

awm, on Dec 11 2009, 11:30 AM, said:

(6) Allow multi, even in two-board rounds. The fact that multi is banned in the Reisinger is simply embarrassing to ACBL, as this is a convention which is popular world-wide.

This is the kind of thing I have in mind with my "objection". Disallowing a widespread, established convention just sounds so junior league to me.

[jdonn]

I disagree with the common reasoning on multi. Why do people not seem to mind something being allowed (which otherwise wouldn't be) simply because it's popular, but so often those same people scream and howl at something being disallowed (which otherwise wouldn't be) simply because it's unpopular?

[awm]

jdonn, on Dec 11 2009, 12:16 PM, said:

I disagree with the common reasoning on multi. Why do people not seem to mind something being allowed (which otherwise wouldn't be) simply because it's popular, but so often those same people scream and howl at something being disallowed (which otherwise wouldn't be) simply because it's unpopular?

The general argument is that conventions should be allowed if:

(1) They are simple and easy to defend. There's no justification for banning these, since the main reasoning behind a ban is to save people the time/effort of devising a defense.

(2) They are very popular. Banning such a convention will upset a large number of people. Also, there has usually been a lot of discussion of how to defend popular methods, so there are many resources to draw on. It's reasonable to expect pairs in a serious event to be able to defend something "everyone plays."

Conventions which are unusual/unpopular and also difficult to devise a reasonable to defense to can be banned.

As far as multi goes, it's certainly not simple or easy to defend. But it is very popular in most of the world (outside north america). The ACBL likes to consider its premier events (Spingold, Vanderbilt, Reisinger) to really be "world championships" and in terms of the field attending these events they are justified in doing so. But to then ban such an immensely popular convention (worldwide) as multi in one of these premier events is kind of ridiculous. Imagine how Americans would feel if WBF banned the forcing notrump response to 1M in the Bermuda Bowl (for example).

[jdonn]

But they don't follow that logic and allow anything that is simple and easy to defend, that's my point.

[olegru]

helene_t, on Dec 11 2009, 09:59 AM, said:

[It is not much of a problem where I have played, IMO. Pairs who can't handle weird stuff generally can't handle normal stuff either.
Anyway, it sounds as if things are very different in the US. Maybe it has to do with the pro-client phenomena.

I believe it is a root cause of system limitations and disagreements with it in ACBL land.

Note: I am not talking here about Brown Sticker Conventions and HUM Systems they are completely different questions.
Being pre-alert about unknown but pretty kosher stuff with anchor suit normal players usually have no problem to agree the reasonable defence. It can be difficult for novices but nobody argument about convention limitation in novices tournaments.
Of course any player would prefer do not allow his opponents to use their weapons, but it does not mean that possible advantage they got by homework is unfair. It just means that any of us would like to win and would prefer to fight on the familiar ground. Those who play for fun usually accept it and have no reservations about use of not-standard conventions, if they will receive the full disclosure and possibility to use more or less working defence.

There is only one part of the bridge society who actually does have troubles to play against the new stuff. It is Pros playing with clients. They are forced to play in higher level of tournaments than client actually ready to play and pros are actually interested to limit use of conventions in those tournaments for their clients’ convenience. By obvious reasons Convention charts created by representatives of that interested part of the bridge society and it is a reason why in ACBL land using of new convention very limited.

[TimG]

Codo, on Dec 11 2009, 09:26 AM, said:

[I never heard that Kasparov gave a written defense to his improvements in the scot opening to Karpov, nor did I hear Tom Brady announce to the defenders that he will try a 42/8/double/double now and that this brandnew weapon in his playbook says, that he will pass to the wide receiver, who will be midfield at the 30 yard line.

A NFL team's offense must meet certain rules, things like a minimum number of men on the line of scrimmage and certain players must be set at the time of the hike. This, to me, is similar to system restrictions in bridge. Also worth noting is that the NFL and CFL (Canadian Football League) have different rules, but both are still football.

[ggwhiz]

My favorite Directors ruling in a midnight, I opened 1c in 4th chair and my LHO called the Director, "He opened 1c and it's my turn to bid".

The Director said " You are in the huddle and it's 3rd and 10. What do you call?"

He said "punt", The Director said "No no, the NFL", He said "pass" and the bid was accepted.

[helene_t]

jdonn, on Dec 11 2009, 07:14 PM, said:

But they don't follow that logic and allow anything that is simple and easy to defend, that's my point.

Who are "they"?

[jdonn]

helene_t, on Dec 11 2009, 06:35 PM, said:

jdonn, on Dec 11 2009, 07:14 PM, said:

But they don't follow that logic and allow anything that is simple and easy to defend, that's my point.

Who are "they"?

I think the conventions committee? What I really mean is whoever writes the ACBL convention charts.

The logic seems more like if most people are afraid to play against something it's illegal (on the GCC), even if in actuality it's very easy to defend against, or at least just as easy as many conventions that are allowed.

[hrothgar]

helene_t, on Dec 11 2009, 07:41 PM, said:

My first thought was that Richard's idea was great, but thinking more about it, I can see some problems:
- Submission of completely unplayable conventions which other players won't bother to discuss defense against. Will they automatically be allowed after some time, even if nobody bothers to come up with a defense? If not, who decides?
- Take the multi 2♦. If you post it on BBF with a request for a defense, you will get umpteen ideas. A few of them will be "obviously" inferior, but there may be no consensus about which of the 5-6 serious attempts that is better. How to decide which one(s) multi-players can present to their opps as suggested defense?

Here's how I see things:

The legality of a given convention should be defined by the Convention Charts and not the absence / presence of a defense in the Defensive Database. I understand the appeal in using the Defensive Database to provide more granularity to the Convention Charts. This certainly makes things more flexible. However, I think that the costs far outweigh the benefits. More explicitly, the ACBL has formalized institutional paralysis in the defense approval process. I would prefer to see a system that is incentivized to develop appropriate defenses.

As for your hypothetical example, I believe that any convention should become “legal” six months after the formal submission data regardless of whether an “adequate” defense has been posted. If people genuinely believe that it is impossible to create an adequate defense to the Ruritanian 2D opening then the Convention Charts should be amended to ban the convention.

I agree that there could be problems if the “community” is unable to identify a single dominant defense to a given method. I will, however, point out that the existing system fails in this aspect as well. The defensive database recommends multiple defenses against the multi 2D. (Some would argue that none of the suggested defenses are particular good). Moreover, I would argue that sifting the wheat from the chaff might be a very reasonable role for the actual members of the Conventions Committee.

My own belief is that a well designed process will lead to the development of better defensive methods. There will doubtlessly be a learning curve as the system gets established, however, it seems hard to do worse than we're doing right now.

[TimG]

What would be the incentive for players to submit good defenses under your proposal?

Suppose the XYZ 2D is submitted and I have what I consider a good defense to the method. If I wait out the six months and nothing as good as my defense comes along, I have an advantage over the field when this method is played.

Earlier this week, I posted two methods in the "General Bridge" section and asked what people had for defenses. There didn't seem to be much interest and the defenses that people did post were not nearly complete. Why would it be any different if those methods were submitted to an official at ACBL and open to six-month review?

Even if there is a review process of the submitted defenses so that in order for a method to be approved an adequate defense (in the opinion of the committee) must be submitted, there is incentive to submit a defense that will just meet the requirements rather than one that might approach best. And, we'd really be back to where we were when the C&C Committee was reviewing all submissions.

This kind of secretiveness regarding defenses has been in play for quite some time. Some of the methods that have been submitted to the C&C Committee have been played in World Championships. At least one member of the C&C Committee has been responsible for generating defenses for ACBL teams playing against those methods in WC play. Yet, when the methods were submitted to the C&C Committee, that member did not whip out the WC defense and put it in the defense database.

I honestly do not think the C&C Committee members should be required to share the work they did in preparation for WC play, but it does highlight that the fact that there is little incentive for players to submit good defenses.

It may also be the case that the WC defenses are considered too complicated for ACBL's rank and file. But, there again, you have a criteria that would have to be judged by the committee. What if the only adequate defenses submitted during the six month period were deemed too complicated?

[Echognome]

Maybe it would be a lot more useful to develop strong meta defenses and post those? Then bids could be allowed if they fall under one of the meta defenses.

E.g.

Unknown one-suiter, suit is major (e.g. multi)
Uknown one-suiter, suit unknown (e.g. DONT)
Two-suiter, opening is suit 1, suit 2 unknown (e.g. Muiderberg, DONT)
Two-suiter, opening is suit 1, suit 2 known (e.g. Ekrens 2H)
Two-suiter, opening is not suit 1 but is known, suit 2 is unknown (e.g. Astro 2D = spades and another)
Two-suiter, opening is not suit 1, but both suits known (e.g. 2C = majors)
Two-suiter, neither suit known (e.g. wilcosz)

Then you could go on to the three-suiters, such as mini-roman.

Then decide which of the categories is legal and assign conventions to the categories.

The advantage is you only need to get adequate defenses for the meta defenses. There are many potential meta defenses, but it is a much smaller set than having to make defenses for all possibilities.

The disadvantage is that you won't have "easy-to-follow" rules such as 2S = X and 3C = Y, but rather you would have to think and figure them out.

[TimG]

That's a good thought. I think the specific defenses could be derived from the meta defenses in a sort of formula-istic sort of way. So, when someone decided they want to play 2C = weak with a major, they could take the meta-multi defense and create a defense to 2C=multi that could be provided to their opponents.

[gerry]

ArtK78, on Dec 10 2009, 02:34 PM, said:

Are you aware of any bridge competition anywhere in which there were no restrictions whatsoever on the methods to be used by the competitors?

New Zealand inter-provincial championship.

"Open, Women, Senior and Youth: Pairs are not restricted in their choice of systems or conventions."


Also any open event with 8+board rounds- there are penalties for playing HUMs like losing lineup choices etc.

Quote:
“Teams style” − Eight boards or more are played in succession against the same pair.
This category will include nearly all Teams Tournaments and some Swiss Pairs Tournaments, the deciding factor being the number of boards being played in each match/round.
Green systems − All
Blue systems − All
Red systems − All
Yellow systems − All

These colour codes are very close to WBF definitions.

[Phil]

Richard, I know you haven't mentioned Moscito specifically, but I think the future bodes well for you.

A few years ago, transfer walsh was greeted with comments like, "an artificial 1♥ call showing spades"? WTF am I supposed to do over THAT? As players found that it isn't that difficult to play double = hearts and 1♥ = TOx, it became routine to defend against it.

I see no reason why the same cannot be true for a 1♥ opening.

However, change is tough. Two Grand LMs Gnome and I played against wanted a suggested defense against a Woolsey 2♦. Instead of wasting time working out a defense for them, we simply told them "We don't think a suggested defense is required". Fortunately the director agreed (AFTER consulting with another director ).

[hrothgar]

Phil, on Dec 13 2009, 06:50 PM, said:

Richard, I know you haven't mentioned Moscito specifically, but I think the future bodes well for you.

A few years ago, transfer walsh was greeted with comments like, "an artificial 1♥ call showing spades"? WTF am I supposed to do over THAT? As players found that it isn't that difficult to play double = hearts and 1♥ = TOx, it became routine to defend against it.

I see no reason why the same cannot be true for a 1♥ opening.

Hi Phil

Thanks for the update.

What I find particular laughable about the entire situation is that Chip Martel:

1. Plays transfer Walsh

2. Has implemented a system in which folks don't need to provide defenses against transfer Walsh

3. Refuses to sanction any defenses against MOSCITO opening

[JanM]

As I've been reading this, I've had a lot of thoughts, but haven't had time to try to formulate them. But let me try a bit. I guess I'd better use more than one post. So this is generalities and Richard's proposal. I'll try to do some specific answers next.

There was a time when I'd have agreed with Richard that letting the "interested parties" formulate defenses and vote on which was best would be a great approach. But I've been disillusioned about that by what has happened with the somewhat parallel scheme we use for the USBF championships. Those events are Super Chart, so pretty much anything goes (yes, there are some exceptions, but whether you happen to agree with them or not, I don't think they're relevant to this discussion). The USBF systems rules are that if you're playing something not GCC legal for which there isn't an ACBL approved defense, you need to post a full description and a recommended defense on the USBF website at least 4 weeks before the event in which you plan to play it. The other players then have one week to object to either the description of the method or the defense. If no one objects, everything is deemed adequate. When we put that procedure in place, I thought that after all most of the best players and systems designers were playing in the event and they'd have a strong incentive to review the submissions and object if there was something missing. But it just doesn't happen. No one ever objects to things. No, that's not fair - one or two people have mentioned that someone disclosed a method on their System Summary Form (the USBF addition to the ACBL convention card) that should have been submitted in advance with a recommended defense but wasn't. When that has happened, the USBF Systems Committee members or DICs (depending on the timing) have ruled on whether the method should be allowed and we've required a defense. But the overall method isn't working - people aren't reviewing and questioning either submissions or defenses. Why? I don't know. Maybe because the sophisticated ones know they'll be able to handle things at the table. Maybe because no one bothers. Notice that this is consistent with Tim's experience when he posted methods and asked for suggested defenses.

Just one other example about why I don't think people will bother to respond to requests for defenses. Sometime in the past (sorry, long enough ago that I don't remember when), one of the pairs on a US women's team asked me about a week before the World Championship if I could suggest a defense to an opening bid being used by Auken & von Arnim. I went to the WBF website to look at the Brown Sticker Form that had been filed. Instead of suit symbols it had Greek letters and the copyright sign (I'm sure all of you have seen those - the things you get in some fonts when you use option-c,s,d,h for suit symbols). Not the fault of the pair who submitted the form, but of the conversion program that had been used to make a PDF from it to post. It used to happen a lot with things posted on the WBF site for convention cards. I'd asked for corrections to the Open cards weeks earlier, and gotten them. But here it was one week before the event and NO ONE had complained about the Auken-von Arnim card, which was completely unreadable because of the bad conversion. Presumably no one had bothered even to look at it, what's more try to determine whether the Brown Sticker method had been adequately described and the defense was adequate. And as far as I can recall, it was the ONLY Brown Sticker bid being used in that event. I guess when we ask a large number of people to come up with things, everyone just figures someone else will do the work. In the WBF case, for the Bermuda Bowl, they're usually right - either Eric Kokish or Chip & I do look at everything and object to inadequate descriptions or defenses. But for the Women's, they're wrong. My guess is that for Richard's proposal they'd also be wrong - no one would do anything, whether for the somewhat self-serving reasons Tim suggests or because they're not interested or because it isn't worth it for any one player to bother since they are so unlikely to encounter the particular method.

It's like many things - they only get done if someone has a strong enough incentive to do them. For defenses to unusual methods, it seems as if the way to incentivize people to create them is to say that the people who want to play the method have to come up with an adequate defense or they can't use the method. The proponents are the ones with enough incentive. Their opponents have some incentive, but not enough, because each individual opponent knows that the odds are s/he won't actually have to defend against the method. So the way ACBL does it actually makes sense. What you're objecting to (or should be) is that there isn't enough "transparency." I think the reason for that is that this has been going on longer than there have been good ways, using the internet, to share things widely. I don't think even those of you who are most virulent against the conventions approval process would suggest that ten or fifteen years ago the approval committee should have sent emails to everyone who might be interested (how they'd identify those people is a whole other question) about each submitted defense. Now, of course, if someone could be persuaded to develop a web page, it would be easy to do that. But when the process started, it wasn't. So now there's a process that has been going on for some time - people are told to submit their methods and proposed defense by email and someone at ACBL (a changing someone, which is another problem) sends those out to the conventions approval committee and they email each other about the problems & then respond to the submitter. The submitter sometimes thinks nothing is happening because the committee members are corresponding privately. The committee members sometimes think someone else is thinking about it when in fact they've decided to resign from the committee. The ACBL person sometimes decides to ignore communications. People think that defenses have been proposed when in fact they haven't. Other people propose completely inadequate defenses (look at what Tim got in response to his request for defenses to 2♦ Majors) and don't understand why they aren't approved. The conventions approval committee feels as if they tell people over and over that they have to deal with the second round of bidding not just the bids immediately over the opening bid, but of course they're telling different people each time.

So my bottom line on process is that the basic process that's in place is fine, all that's needed is more transparency (post the methods and proposed defenses when they're sent out to the conventions approval committee; post the committee's comments; let other people comment if they want to; post the approval or non-approval). I think this is something that could happen and I'll try to suggest it to the people who might be able to make it happen.

[JanM]

hrothgar, on Dec 13 2009, 08:55 AM, said:

What I find particular laughable about the entire situation is that Chip Martel:

1. Plays transfer Walsh

Only with his wife.

Quote

2. Has implemented a system in which folks don't need to provide defenses against transfer Walsh

This is backward. The exception for responses to opening bids was in place long before transfer responses to 1♣ were even a gleam in my eye. That we didn't have to get them approved was certainly one reason it was attractive to adopt them. But they didn't become legal because we wanted to adopt them.

Quote

3.  Refuses to sanction any defenses against MOSCITO opening

It's not as easy to defend against a transfer opening as it is to defend against a transfer response. I know you think that adequate defenses have been submitted. But the defenses that have been submitted haven't been complete.

[JanM]

TimG, on Dec 12 2009, 07:31 AM, said:

This kind of secretiveness regarding defenses has been in play for quite some time.  Some of the methods that have been submitted to the C&C Committee have been played in World Championships.  At least one member of the C&C Committee has been responsible for generating defenses for ACBL teams playing against those methods in WC play.  Yet, when the methods were submitted to the C&C Committee, that member did not whip out the WC defense and put it in the defense database.

I honestly do not think the C&C Committee members should be required to share the work they did in preparation for WC play, but it does highlight that the fact that there is little incentive for players to submit good defenses.

It may also be the case that the WC defenses are considered too complicated for ACBL's rank and file.  But, there again, you have a criteria that would have to be judged by the committee.  What if the only adequate defenses submitted during the six month period were deemed too complicated?

When you posted the request for defenses to 2♦ Majors, I went to look at what we had done (not recently) for WC teams. It wasn't complete enough to be worth posting, whether because it was done for pairs who didn't want much, or (more likely) because for WBF events, you are not allowed to have a written defense to 2♦ Majors - you have to memorize the defense. When a defense has to be memorized, we always try to keep it as short and simple as possible. A defense that is appropriate for an expert pair who have discussed lots of similar situations when they have to memorize it isn't adequate to hand to an inexperienced pair when they can look at it throughout the auction.

So even though we are more than happy to share our defenses with anyone who asks, Chip couldn't have just "whipped out" the defense we did for 2♦ Majors and put it in the database - it isn't an adequate defense for that purpose. Not because it's too complicated, but because it doesn't include the exact things that you asked about with regard to several of the defenses people posted. What happens next round? What happens if the opponents bid something? etc etc

Of course, in some cases the fact that a defense has to be complicated to be adequate is the reason no defense gets approved, or the method gets approved only for rounds of 6 or 12 or more boards. The problem with multi, for example, is that the defense has to be sufficiently complicated that it takes too much time when only 2 boards are played per round. And don't tell me it's played everywhere and no one has a problem - of course they have problems, they just take the occasional zero because they had a misunderstanding on defense rather than spend the time to develop an adequate defense and then memorize it. Look at how many US experts just use the inadequate ACBL defenses instead of working out something better - even when they don't have to memorize it. Those multi defenses would never be approved today of course - they're completely inadequate and are only allowed because of history. If I wanted to crusade for something it would be for multi to be barred completely until someone proposes an adequate defense .