[Free]

fred, on Apr 23 2010, 03:28 AM, said:

bluecalm, on Apr 23 2010, 01:09 AM, said:

It's easy to defend, it's quite clear how people bid after it

You are wrong about this.

Multi is not easy to defend against and one of the main reasons for this is because there are many ways that people bid after it, especially in competition.

For example, when Multi gets DBLed, there are several reasonable ways to define both Pass and RDBL by the responder to Multi (to say nothing of all the other actions that he/she might take). Coming up with sensible meanings for various calls by the 4th hand will be largely a function of what Pass and RDBL happen to mean for the particular opponents you happen to be facing.

Just getting the first round of bidding covered is far from trivial. If you want to do this properly, there are a LOT a sequences to discuss (and bidding effectively in many of these sequences requires agreements that are both unintuitive and artificial). Some of the world's leading bridge coaches have actually made a serious effort to do this properly. The defenses they ended up with consist of a lot (well over 10 if I recall correctly) typewritten pages.

Please note that I am not telling you this to try to justify the fact that Multi is not allowed in most ACBL events - I personally think it should be allowed in several contexts where it currently illegal.

The reason for this post is to attempt to counter some widely-held misconceptions like "multi is easy to defend against" and "you won't have any problems if you rely on just a few simple meta-agreements".

Statements like these are simply not true. Those who argue "it must be easy since people in my club are comfortable with it" are missing the point - comfort does not imply effectiveness.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

I agree with you that there are some situations where it's difficult to defend against a multi. Probably everyone I know has encountered some problem hand after a multi opening, but most of the time we manage to get to the correct contract. So it's acceptable.

What is the difference between this and a 1NT opening? You don't get to your best contract everytime, does this mean it's difficult to defend against?
A few weeks ago my partner has a 3=3=3=4 with 22HCP in 4th seat, his LHO opened 1NT and responder bid 2♦. This was just a problem hand...

[nige1]

nige1, on Apr 22 2010, 08:28 PM, said:

I wish the rule book recommended Sven Pran's question, at the end of the auction:
"what can you tell about your partner's hand from his calls?"

blackshoe, on Apr 22 2010, 08:22 PM, said:

Last time I asked that question, the response was "Huh?" and a blank look.

Dirk Kuijt, on Apr 22 2010, 11:43 PM, said:

Let me give you a simple situation.  You are West, and South deals, and the opponents have bid the exiting and unusual: (1C)-P-(1H)-P-(1NT)-P-P-P.
You have: KTxx xxx Kxx Qxx
You lead a spade from KTxx, and the dummy comes down with:
xxx Axxx xx Kxxx
Declarer wins the Queen, leads a club to the King, and a club to his Jack and your Queen.  Your partner's carding shows that opener has 4 clubs.  Do you shift to diamonds?
Against me, you probably should.  I should have 3=3=3=4 for this auction, since I didn't raise hearts, didn't bid spades, would open 1D with 4-4 in the minors and a balanced minimum hand, so I'm likely to be  3=3=3=4.  Against Frank Stewart, a diamond shift is much more dangerous, since he, as declarer, might be (23)=4=4, since he opens 1C with a minimum balanced hand.  If declarer has AQ (tight) of spades, then a spade continuation will likely beat the hand.  If declarer has AQJ of spades, then a spade continuation is, shall we say, "unwise".
I'm not enough of an expert to fully analyze this, or almost any situation, but it is clear to me that if you know what declarer has (i.e. declarer's agreements are) you are better off than otherwise, and getting that information is difficult at best, and impossible at worst (the unauthorized information situations are decreased by screens, but not eliminated.)
Even if some better analyst than I can show that a diamond shift (or spade continuation) is clearly right regardless of the opponent's agreements, my point is:
1.  The defense will do better with full disclosure than without it.
2.  Full disclosure is rare, if not impossible.
3.  What people think of as full disclosure is far from that; rather it assumes a large body of "standard" agreements, which may not, in fact, be all that "standard".  This is, perhaps, acceptable if your opponents do have the same standard agreements, but it violates both the spirit and letter of the law if they don't.  (A major problem is, if the opponents don't have the "standard" agreements, then they are unlikely to complain.  They are the outsiders, since they are non-standard.  Some, of course, will still ask, or complain if the explanation is inadequate, but, in general, outsiders keep their mouths shut.  One consequence of this is that one can not conclude that since there are few people who complain that our rules are just fine.  No.  Outsiders don't complain, in general.  They just go away quietly, and don't show up in statistics.)

Examples like Dirk's occur many times a session. At the end of the auction, if you ask the Sven Pran question
"what can you tell about your partner's hand from his calls?"
and opponents answer honestly, then you will receive the necesary information.

Blackshoe's experience with the Sven Pran question shows why it should be recommended in the law book:

• Otherwise, prevaricators may question the legality of the Sven Pran question.
  For example, the "I'm not here to teach you Bridge" brigade.
  
• Unless the Sven pran question is in common use, players won't become adept at asking or replying to it.

[bluecalm]

Quote

Multi is not easy to defend against and one of the main reasons for this is because there are many ways that people bid after it, especially in competition.

Why "difficult to defend" should dictate the law? If it's easy to understand for opponents and it's easy to have some meta agreements to reasonably deal with it I don't see reason for banning other than comfort of some today players in some countries (mainly USA).

Quote

The reason for this post is to attempt to counter some widely-held misconceptions like "multi is easy to defend against" and "you won't have any problems if you rely on just a few simple meta-agreements".

Statements like these are simply not true. Those who argue "it must be easy since people in my club are comfortable with it" are missing the point - comfort does not imply effectiveness.

Even semipro/pro pairs here don't have much agreements against multi. Those are great players, they don't complain about efficiency of their defense to multi at all and they face it in every tournament and match they play because multi here is default (it's in very first bidding system people learn and most beginners/recreational players/old players play it; rest usually play Wilkosz which is much more difficult to defend than multi).
I wonder if the coach you mention plays/played vs multi every tournament/match. While it may be true that it's difficult to come up with "optimal" defense. It's very easy to come up with defense which makes pair playing multi worse off than the one playing weak twos on hands when they come up.

[jeffford76]

Bbradley62, on Apr 22 2010, 04:05 PM, said:

Do people still use the "impossible negative" in response to a strong club opening?  If so, do most people include it in the explanation of the 1D response?

In my one precision partnership 1C - 1D was always explained as "Usually 0-7, but could be a good 4441 hand". I would think this would be normal if you're playing impossible negatives.

[Fluffy]

bluecalm, on Apr 23 2010, 12:47 PM, said:

Quote

Multi is not easy to defend against and one of the main reasons for this is because there are many ways that people bid after it, especially in competition.

Why "difficult to defend" should dictate the law? If it's easy to understand for opponents and it's easy to have some meta agreements to reasonably deal with it I don't see reason for banning other than comfort of some today players in some countries (mainly USA).

The problem is those meta agreements. Most of my meta agreements are based on having a cuebid avaible. I am very comfortable playing in my country where 2♦ is strong or weak 2 in diamonds and 1NT is always 15-17. However I lose a big lot of points when moving outside and facing 2♦ multi and weak NT because that cuebid we always had before is no longer avaible and our metagreements don't do well.

I made a quick poll about what a simple sequence opposite multi meant, and it was almost a 50% split, shows you that meta agreements aren't that easy.

I don't mean banning multi is the answer at all, kinda the contrary, best for me would be to face multi openings and something rare all the time, then I would have experience and less problems.

[Mbodell]

jeffford76, on Apr 23 2010, 07:25 AM, said:

Bbradley62, on Apr 22 2010, 04:05 PM, said:

Do people still use the "impossible negative" in response to a strong club opening?  If so, do most people include it in the explanation of the 1D response?

In my one precision partnership 1C - 1D was always explained as "Usually 0-7, but could be a good 4441 hand". I would think this would be normal if you're playing impossible negatives.

I agree. In one partnership we need 2 controls (A=2,K=1) to make a positive response so we say 1♦ is artificial and negative which is typically 0-7 but "could be more if it is quacky" or "could be more if it lacks an A or 2 K" or what not. In theory we could have 15, but the most I've had is 12.

[blackshoe]

In my last Precision partnership we played control showing responses (0-1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or more) so our explanation of 1D was "artificial, fewer than two controls". Normally we didn't say anything about quacks unless somebody asked a followup question. It was never a problem.