[kenrexford]

mikeh, on Mar 26 2010, 10:02 PM, said:

Ken, you may be technically correct in stating that a 4333 hand can be defined as 3-suited, since the ACBL defines the required length as 3+ in each suit...thus with 3=3=3=4, after a 1♣ opening, you could bid 1N and argue that this shows the other 3 suits.

I think we all know or at least suspect that that is not what the drafters intended, but some people see rules, even of a game, as defining what they can get away with, rather than as indicating a 'spirit' of the game. I read years ago that this was a difference between Tom Watson and Gary Player as golfers...Tom thought that one should live by the spirit of the rules, whereas Gary thought that it was a triumph to find a way to argue that a rule didn't apply. I may be doing Player a disservice, since memory is fallible, but the distinction between two types of players has stuck with me.

But, you have done EXACTLY what I predicted...you have stressed the technically true parts of your argument while overlooking the fatal flaw.

Regardless of whether you can 'win' your way through on the argument that 3=3=3 in the unbid suits is a 3 suiter, there can surely be no doubt but that the primary purpose is destructive. As such it is illegal under the GCC.

Now, I will be seeing a national level director tomorrow, Matt Smith, and I will ask him his impression. I promise to make a full apology if he tells me I am out of line to view this as an illegal convention.

BTW, how are we to read your earlier assertion that runt is 'often called a Baron 1NT overcall' with your later assrtion that 'this is why I called it runt and not baron'.

if it is baron, why call it runt? If it is not baron, why allege that it is?

"RUNT" could be called "Baron for Lunatics." In other words, I use the "weak takeout" more aggressively.

And the idea is no more "destructive" than any other preempt. I get the auction to the two-level immediately, all while enabling partner to bid their suit (if they have one) knowing that a fit exists. If they have both mahors, they cue Opener's minor, and this could be 4-4. If they have both minors, hopefully they get help and can redouble. If they have a balanced hand, then we hope for the best, just like with any other takeout call.

What is wrong with trying to most effectively pre-balance to the two-level by immediately announcing a weak hand that has "support" for all unbids? Tactically, it might be very dangerous, but certainly not unethical to seek to compete more frequently and more aggressively.

[kenrexford]

awm, on Mar 27 2010, 02:13 PM, said:

I think the informal rule is that when playing in a "non-serious" game against much weaker opposition, it is rude to take actions (or play methods) which one knows to be unsound and which one would not use against decent players. It is true that certain such things will more effectively "take advantage" of weak players who have trouble dealing with unfamiliar situations, but doing things solely to take such advantage is deemed impolite (although not illegal and perfectly acceptable if weak players show up for a "serious" event).

So if you think RUNT is a good method, more power to you. But if you wouldn't play it against your peers and just whip it out at the club because LOLs (and LOM) have accidents against it, then you should reconsider your priorities.

I received this argument a decade ago -- it won't work against better players. But, it worked wonders in regional Flight A events. Maybe it won't work against WBF competitors, but then how often do you play those events?

Granted, the full RUNT worked even better, because there were complicated runouts. Also, as with any convention, you tailor for seat and vulnerability. A third-seat white on red weak 2S opening looks a lot different than a red-on-white second-seat 2H opening.

[aguahombre]

campboy, on Mar 28 2010, 04:43 PM, said:

While you can't use CRASH et al over 1NT, that is because they are explicitly prohibited.

Quote

DEFENSE TO:
[...]
natural notrump opening bids and overcalls, except that direct calls,
other than double and two clubs must have at least one known suit.

So whether or not CRASH's primary purpose is to destroy opponents methods is irrelevant; there is a different rule which prohibits it. On the other hand, RUNT is explicitly permitted unless you judge that it falls foul of the clause I quoted in my previous post.

Actually, it is quite relevant. That explicit prohibition was put in there (now n/a to mid-chart) because Jim Leary's gadget was being targeted, as well as Jim himself.
Jim sucessfully argued that an overcall of an opening NT showing either the next suit or the two suits beyond the transfer was not "primarily destructive".

So a new section was added, which accidentally caused CRASH to be included in the prohibition.
In addition to being a lawyer type, Jim was a practicing attorney

That could happen again.

[Dirk Kuijt]

Quote

What is prohibited is
QUOTE
Conventions and/or agreements whose primary purpose is to destroy the opponents’ methods.

I've always wondered about this. What is more destructive of the opponents' methods than opening with 3♠, or some other preempt? Of course, to protect yourself, you only do this with a long spade suit, but this is not a constructive bid. Of course, it is a very familiar bid with a long history, so preempts are not about to be banned.

I'm inclining more and more to the opinion that the problems of what conventions are or should be allowed, and the problems of disclosure of conventions and agreements are unsolvable, and so the only answer is: 1. anything goes, along with 2. no disclosure. (I am fully aware that this is incompatible with the current laws of bridge.)

[xcurt]

kenrexford, on Mar 28 2010, 05:58 PM, said:

I received this argument a decade ago -- it won't work against better players. But, it worked wonders in regional Flight A events.

I think you just made the case against you. Either

a) Flight A regional players are in general hopeless and go to pieces when faced with previously unseen methods

b) It works because opponents didn't bother to make a meta-agreement that covers this situation and aren't sure what is and isn't forcing

c) you are picking your spots only against the weakest pairs (alert: disclosure issues, probably also against ACBL regs)

d) some reason I missed, please enlighten me

I think (a) is not worth considering. I hope you aren't doing ©. That leaves (b) or (d). I think (b) is exactly what the clause about "destructive" methods is intended to address -- prohibiting methods that are, or are generally considered to be, effective only because they exploit opponents lack of a specific counter-agreements. So please tell me it is (d) and give me the reason you think it's effective. You advertise yourself as a theorist, after all. And keep in mind your answer must be consistent with the fact that if you do it on 4333 and 4432 garbage (possibly with 4 in their suit, 4333), these shapes represent a significant fraction of the hands you will be dealt in overcalling position. Also keep in mind you don't really get a preemptive advantage against 1H and 1S openings (you don't reduce their number of sequences below the most likely contracts) so you need to explain the theoretical advantage against could-be-prepared 1-of-a-minor openings.

I do concede the destructive methods clause is poorly worded, but that's a common state of affairs with the ACBL charts.

[kenrexford]

xcurt, on Mar 28 2010, 07:56 PM, said:

kenrexford, on Mar 28 2010, 05:58 PM, said:

I received this argument a decade ago -- it won't work against better players.  But, it worked wonders in regional Flight A events.

I think you just made the case against you. Either

a) Flight A regional players are in general hopeless and go to pieces when faced with previously unseen methods

It works because opponents didn't bother to make a meta-agreement that covers this situation and aren't sure what is and isn't forcing

c) you are picking your spots only against the weakest pairs (alert: disclosure issues, probably also against ACBL regs)

d) some reason I missed, please enlighten me

I think (a) is not worth considering. I hope you aren't doing ©. That leaves ( or (d). I think ( is exactly what the clause about "destructive" methods is intended to address -- prohibiting methods that are, or are generally considered to be, effective only because they exploit opponents lack of a specific counter-agreements. So please tell me it is (d) and give me the reason you think it's effective. You advertise yourself as a theorist, after all. And keep in mind your answer must be consistent with the fact that if you do it on 4333 and 4432 garbage (possibly with 4 in their suit, 4333), these shapes represent a significant fraction of the hands you will be dealt in overcalling position. Also keep in mind you don't really get a preemptive advantage against 1H and 1S openings (you don't reduce their number of sequences below the most likely contracts) so you need to explain the theoretical advantage against could-be-prepared 1-of-a-minor openings.

I do concede the destructive methods clause is poorly worded, but that's a common state of affairs with the ACBL charts.

(d) Too difficult to unwind rapidly. The two-level is too often a protected "Law" level. Hence, doubling seems to be difficult to accomplish reliably. Accordingly, the opponents often find themselves unsure whether to double or bid. Not to mention, on partscore battles it might be our hand anyway, or ours enough to make a two-level contract. Even if one side "knows," the other partner is wildly unsure.

Enabling, further, rapid decisions from Advancer, and sole focus on preemption rather than constructive (barring 16+ hands, perhaps), gives us an advantage.

Side inferential benefit -- reads on defense and reads after passes (smell the shortness). That cuts both ways, though.

[Bbradley62]

I'm intrigued that you correctly predicted that it would come up twice in a session. I've just reviewed my last 100 hands played on BBO, and RUNT bids were available on 15 of the hands. (Side note: there was only one standard 1NT overcall available on those 100 hands.) Maybe someone could run a larger-scale simulation?

It's not clear to me that it's against ABCL regs to pick your spots. Can my partner and I carry two convention cards with us, and play the weak NT card against weaker pairs and the strong NT card against stronger pairs? If so, we can omit the 0-3 range (or whatever) from our RUNT bid against certain opps as long as we correctly disclose. If my partnership agreement is that my weak 2 shows 5-10HCP and a six-card suit regardless of suit quality, is it against regs for me to refrain from opening xxxxxx Kx Qxx xx against some opps (and/or in some seats at some vulnerabilities) but not against others?

[awm]

The rules as I understand them are that you cannot modify your methods during a session for subjective reasons (such as perceived strength of the opponents, results so far in the session, etc). This means you can't play a different system card against weak opponents than you do against strong opponents.

However, it is perfectly legal to vary style for subjective reasons, as long as your agreements don't change.

Of course, the line between style and agreements can be a bit fuzzy, and this does create issues on occasion. For example, it's okay for me to open very sound weak twos against good pairs and friskier weak twos against bad pairs (or vice versa), provided that both styles fit in my official agreed range. But if partner starts playing me for different hands when I open a weak two against different pairs, now it starts to seem that we have an agreement rather than just my unilaterally taking tactical actions. The intent is that I'm allowed to bid differently against different people, but partner is not supposed to know that I do this (or should bid as if unaware that I do this).

[Echognome]

In the EBU, I believe we were allowed to play different systems against different opponents. In one of the clubs, we had one pair that we viewed as being... how shall we say it? ... how about that they exercised sharp practices. To explain, it seemed that every time we alerted a bid, if they wanted the lead they'd ask, otherwise they wouldn't. Regardless of how you view that accusation, we didn't want the fight and hassle of arguing it with them. So against them we played "If it's alertable, we don't play it." At the time, that meant that over 1NT, we couldn't play Stayman, since it was alertable. So we carried around 2 convention cards. One for them, one for the rest. We checked with a few TD's who said we were allowed to play that way, as long as we carried two sets of convention cards.

[jjbrr]

Echognome, on Mar 29 2010, 04:00 PM, said:

In the EBU, I believe we were allowed to play different systems against different opponents. In one of the clubs, we had one pair that we viewed as being... how shall we say it? ... how about that they exercised sharp practices. To explain, it seemed that every time we alerted a bid, if they wanted the lead they'd ask, otherwise they wouldn't. Regardless of how you view that accusation, we didn't want the fight and hassle of arguing it with them. So against them we played "If it's alertable, we don't play it." At the time, that meant that over 1NT, we couldn't play Stayman, since it was alertable. So we carried around 2 convention cards. One for them, one for the rest. We checked with a few TD's who said we were allowed to play that way, as long as we carried two sets of convention cards.

Did this practice work? Couldn't they ask "What does this bid mean?" even if it wasn't alerted to the same effect?

[Echognome]

jjbrr, on Mar 29 2010, 01:08 PM, said:

Echognome, on Mar 29 2010, 04:00 PM, said:

In the EBU, I believe we were allowed to play different systems against different opponents.  In one of the clubs, we had one pair that we viewed as being... how shall we say it? ... how about that they exercised sharp practices.  To explain, it seemed that every time we alerted a bid, if they wanted the lead they'd ask, otherwise they wouldn't.  Regardless of how you view that accusation, we didn't want the fight and hassle of arguing it with them.  So against them we played "If it's alertable, we don't play it."  At the time, that meant that over 1NT, we couldn't play Stayman, since it was alertable.  So we carried around 2 convention cards.  One for them, one for the rest.  We checked with a few TD's who said we were allowed to play that way, as long as we carried two sets of convention cards.

Did this practice work? Couldn't they ask "What does this bid mean?" even if it wasn't alerted to the same effect?

They could, but then they would have a hard time explaining why they asked about an unalerted bid. If it's alerted, they can say "We always ask about alerted bids," even if they don't. I think asking about an unalerted bid is harder, even if the rights for asking extend to all calls. It was also much less likely that they would want to ask about natural call.

Edit: And this practice did work a lot better. You may argue that it was bad that we didn't want to take up the fight to accuse them of being cheaters (or at least unethical), but instead tried to avoid the problem by changing systems against them. At the club, I found it wasn't worth the grief from past experiences. The scary part to us was that one of them taught the beginner lessons at the club.

[jjbrr]

I remember you telling me this story in Vegas, I think. It made me happy then and it makes me happy now. This is a good way to handle it, and you get to have a little fun with them too.

[Echognome]

jjbrr, on Mar 29 2010, 01:21 PM, said:

I remember you telling me this story in Vegas, I think. It made me happy then and it makes me happy now. This is a good way to handle it, and you get to have a little fun with them too.

I think it's a sign that I'm getting old. I'm telling the same stories...

[jjbrr]

Telling the same stories to different audiences is no indicator of age.

[Dirk Kuijt]

awm said:

The rules as I understand them are that you cannot modify your methods  during a session for subjective reasons (such as perceived strength of the opponents, results so far in the session, etc). This means you can't play a different system card against weak opponents than you do against strong opponents.

This can't be right. How many people, knowing that they are behind after 16 boards of a 32 board match, decide to "operate". Lots, if not everybody.

Surely I can change my standards for penalty doubles when playing against Mr. Hi Flyer as opposed to Ms. Rock Solid.

In both cases, I'm modifying my methods for subjective reasons.

[Bbradley62]

Dirk Kuijt, on Mar 29 2010, 06:48 PM, said:

awm said:

The rules as I understand them are that you cannot modify your methods  during a session for subjective reasons (such as perceived strength of the opponents, results so far in the session, etc). This means you can't play a different system card against weak opponents than you do against strong opponents.

This can't be right. How many people, knowing that they are behind after 16 boards of a 32 board match, decide to "operate". Lots, if not everybody.

Surely I can change my standards for penalty doubles when playing against Mr. Hi Flyer as opposed to Ms. Rock Solid.

In both cases, I'm modifying my methods for subjective reasons.

The variances you describe are variances in style, not methods. AWM is saying that doubling an opening 4♥ bid made by Mr. High Flyer must mean the same thing as doubling an opening 4♥ bid made by Ms. Rock Solid. Either it's take-out against both, or it's penalty against both. That does not preclude you from doubling more aggressively against one than against the other.

[campboy]

Bbradley62, on Mar 30 2010, 05:29 PM, said:

AWM is saying that doubling an opening 4♥ bid made by Mr. High Flyer must mean the same thing as doubling an opening 4♥ bid made by Ms. Rock Solid. Either it's take-out against both, or it's penalty against both. That does not preclude you from doubling more aggressively against one than against the other.

I don't think even that is true. If a partnership has agreed to play agressive pre-empts, you can use different methods against them than you use against a pair that has agreed to play solid pre-empts. That is not a subjective issue; you are varying your defence to a call based on opponents' agreements about it. I don't think it is very sensible to do this here, since you will have to have firm agreements with your partner exactly where the cut-off lies, and what you will do if you can't get a straight answer (and for that matter since t/o is obviously best against both), but it is permitted.

[Bbradley62]

Without commenting on the actual rules, I was simply pointing out that Dirk either misread or misunderstood AWM's post.

[Dirk Kuijt]

campboy said:

I don't think even that is true. If a partnership has agreed to play agressive pre-empts, you can use different methods against them than you use against a pair that has agreed to play solid pre-empts. That is not a subjective issue; you are varying your defence to a call based on opponents' agreements about it. I don't think it is very sensible to do this here, since you will have to have firm agreements with your partner exactly where the cut-off lies, and what you will do if you can't get a straight answer (and for that matter since t/o is obviously best against both), but it is permitted.

First, I may well have misunderstood awm's post, however...

No one has addressed the issue of 'shooting' when behind in a match; that is still changing your methods based on external issues.

Also, I have seen campboy's specific example debated. It goes like this: E/W says, "Our preempts are aggressive." N/S says, "We play penalty doubles of preempts." So, E/W says, "In that case, our preempts are sound." So, N/S says, "Well, in that case, we play takeout doubles of preempts." So, E/W says ...

The problem is that, if you are allowed to have different methods based on the opponents choices, and they are allowed to have different methods based on your choices, there is no way, that I know of, to break this loop. There is nothing the equivilant of "seating rights".

[campboy]

Firstly, Bbradley62 addressed the issue of shooting, in that you are not changing your methods based on your perception of how well you are doing, you are changing your style (which is fine).

Secondly, there is no problem there. N/S say "we play pen doubles of loose pre-empts, t/o of sound". That is a permitted agreement, since you are permitted to have agreements which depend on the meaning (or style) of previous calls by opponents. What do E/W play, given this agreement?