[rhm]

inquiry, on Aug 5 2010, 11:26 PM, said:

I have to agree with prisoner alex from clockwork orange.... you can not compare fred's 1NT to the 6♦ bid. In the locked thread (I did not lock it, but I think that was a good idea), I never expressed my personal view other than saying it was either crazy reckless or the product of UI.  But if it makes you feel better tim, I also don't believe it was the product of UI. I could explain why, but my opinion doesn't really matter one way or the other.

Years ago a leading German pair was invited to the prestigious Sunday Times invitational pairs at that time in London.
Late in the tournament when this pair was not any more in contention for winning the tournament they played against opponents, who were.

The German player opened 3♦ non vulnerable on KQJxx in ♦ and out.

The bid was a success, but came under criticism for "randomizing" the event.
It actually cost the opponents the first place.

Maybe you can call such a perfectly legal bid "crazy reckless".

But in a teams knock-out event?.

I have problems defining perfectly legal bids as "reckless" (reckless to whom?) or in any other way as improper, as long as the player tries to serve what he considers his best chance to win.

You may decide not to team up with such a person, because your bidding philosophies are at odds. Fine. But there is no such animal as a reckless bid to the opponents.

I maintain, my opinion, that a bid is not illogical or bizarre if it has a relative high chance of success, no matter whether you consider other bidding strategies to be less risky and more likely to be successful. (In fact I am with you in this particular case)
I do not care. That is why we all bid differently.
I do not care whether no leading player would choose this bid.
On many master solver's type bidding problems you quite frequently find a leading expert, who happens to be the "odd man out".
The bid did not find a miraculous lie of the cards, if about 10% of the deals will find 6♦ the only making contract and many of them would be difficult to find by other means.
Every single deal is of course unique and extremely unlikely to occur again.
But miraculous in my dictionary is certainly not a 10% chance.

Rainer Herrmann

[JLOGIC]

So far we have compared overcalling 6D on AQxx with balancing with 1N a little light, and opening 3D non vul with KQJxx. I don't even really know what to say to that, other than the fact that you guys can find no analogies that are even close to this bid just shows quite how special it was. Probably nothing like this has ever happened. Like...ever.

[rhm]

JLOGIC, on Aug 6 2010, 04:20 AM, said:

So far we have compared overcalling 6D on AQxx with balancing with 1N a little light, and opening 3D non vul with KQJxx. I don't even really know what to say to that, other than the fact that you guys can find no analogies that are even close to this bid just shows quite how special it was. Probably nothing like this has ever happened. Like...ever.

Just to clarify:

I have not compared a 3♦ preempt on KQJxx with the 6♦ bid and I do not claim that they are.

In fact they are not (even though a preempt on a 5 card suit in a top level tournament was virtually unheard of 30 years ago)

I spoke about that I have difficulties when somebody calls legal bids "reckless"

Rainer Herrmann

[gwnn]

I once doubled for takeout without 4 in the other major.

[Hanoi5]

Once I overcalled in NT without a stopper in the opponent's suit.

[rhm]

Hanoi5, on Aug 6 2010, 04:49 AM, said:

Once I overcalled in NT without a stopper in the opponent's suit.

And there was a time, when this overcall would not have been espoused, not to mention replicated, by any experts of that time gone bye.
And many at that time would have considered it very suspicious, if this bid would have been a success, miraculously finding partner with enough in the suit so that the suit turned out to be blocked.

Rainer Herrmann

[gwnn]

I once raised my partner's 1M bid with less than 6 high-card points.

[JLOGIC]

Once I opened One No Trump with SEVEN. Yeah, high cards. My partner transferred, and I super accepted! The kicker -- I wasn't even balanced!

[wclass___]

Once i opened 4♥ in 3rd seat with singleton♥, scored -500....

[Cyberyeti]

A partner of mine who I didn't feel was capable of such things opened a gambling 3N in 3rd seat non vul. I was confused and looking at xxx, xxx, Kxx, Qxxx or similar so passed.

Turned out partner had xx, KQxxxxx, xx, xx or similar, and the man on lead did what you're supposed to do in these circumstances and led his ace ... followed by another heart, -150 was lots of IMPS.

[the hog]

The fact is that this sort of stuff does happen,despite some stupid mocking posts above which contribute jack ***** to any meaningful discussion, but only show that some posters are full of wind.

Many years ago, and in a club competition, we played a Forcing Pass system. Partner opened 1S, showing any 0-4. Nv vs vul I bid 6H with
x KQJxxxx xxx xx
Next hand holding a 4144 and a 24 count bid 6S. His S were AKxx. He found pd with QJxx of S and a few other assorted goodies. 6S was absolutely on ice. I was ropeable
Now this player was no bunny. Granted, he was not an expert either, but he did go on to represent his state year later.

Did he cheat? No, of course not. He got lucky and that pissed me off. I didn't go around accusing him of cheating though.

[ArtK78]

The_Hog, on Aug 6 2010, 07:05 AM, said:

The fact is that this sort of stuff does happen,despite some stupid mocking posts above which contribute jack ***** to any meaningful discussion, but only show that some posters are full of wind.

Many years ago, and in a club competition, we played a Forcing Pass system. Partner opened 1S, showing any 0-4. Nv vs vul I bid 6H with
x KQJxxxx xxx xx
Next hand holding a 4144 and a 24 count bid 6S. His S were AKxx. He found pd with QJxx of S and a few other assorted goodies. 6S was absolutely on ice. I was ropeable
Now this player was no bunny. Granted, he was not an expert either, but he did go on to represent his state year later.

Did he cheat? No, of course not. He got lucky and that pissed me off. I didn't go around accusing him of cheating though.

I suspect that if you gave that hand to a number of experts and asked them to choose their top 3 calls, 6♠ would be mentioned by almost all of them. Probably not as their first choice, but it would be in their top 3 calls.

Such is not the case with the call that engendered this topic.

[TimG]

lmilne, on Aug 5 2010, 11:40 PM, said:

3. No one would question the ethics of Gitelman, because his track record speaks for itself. On the other hand, Piltch has been disciplined (at least twice, from memory) for ethics violations.

I believe there have been those who have questioned the ethics of Gitelman-Moss (in the area of proper disclosure of 1NT openings). I say this only to show that no one is immune to suspicion.

There have been numerous references to Mr. Piltch's disciplinary record, yet they have been rather lacking in specifics. Are you sure that Mr. Piltch has been disciplined twice for ethics violations rather than conduct violations?

I do not know whether a player's ACBL disciplinary record is open to the membership. If it is, perhaps someone ought to take a look at it and put an end to the speculation regarding what it contains.

[JLOGIC]

If Fred overcalled 6D everyone I know who thought there was UI in this case (which includes all people in the top 100 players in the world that I know) would probably think he had some UI unless he had a very good reason (such as OMG I PULLED THE WRONG CARD). You can substitute Fred with any other player who has a pristine record for ethics (Hamman, Versace, etc), and that would still be true.

The point is moot since I doubt Fred will ever overcall 6D on such a hand, so we should stop saying stuff like if Fred or Zia or Hamman or whoever did this. It's like starting something with "If a unicorn came to your house..." and then continuing on in seriousness. It's pointless to debate impossible hypotheticals, even if it may be amusing.

Edited because I said "everyone I know" with no qualifier

This post has been edited by JLOGIC: 2010-August-06, 08:14

[ArtK78]

JLOGIC, on Aug 6 2010, 09:06 AM, said:

If Fred overcalled 6D everyone I know who thought there was UI in this case (which includes all people in the top 100 players in the world that I know) would probably think he had some UI unless he had a very good reason (such as OMG I PULLED THE WRONG CARD). You can substitute Fred with any other player who has a pristine record for ethics (Hamman, Versace, etc), and that would still be true.

The point is moot since I doubt Fred will ever overcall 6D on such a hand, so we should stop saying stuff like if Fred or Zia or Hamman or whoever did this. It's like starting something with "If a unicorn came to your house..." and then continuing on in seriousness. It's pointless to debate impossible hypotheticals, even if it may be amusing.

Edited because I said "everyone I know" with no qualifier

Not that Justin needs me to back him up on this, but I stated this in my original post in the now closed thread. In my post, dated July 27, 2010, at 9:59AM, I stated that there had to be a point at which the bidding and the result speak for themselves absent clear and convincing evidence that there was no UI. I posted this before the identity of the perpetrator of the 6♦ call was made public. So, had the bid been made by Fred, Zia, Charles Goren or anyone else, it makes no difference to me.

[jdonn]

The_Hog, on Aug 6 2010, 07:05 AM, said:

The fact is that this sort of stuff does happen,despite some stupid mocking posts above which contribute jack ***** to any meaningful discussion, but only show that some posters are full of wind.

Coming from you this is one of the most amazing things I have ever read. Shall we go back and examine the level of your contributions to the thread, which as far as I can tell consists 80% of hypocritical veiled shots at people who disagree with you (me?!?!)

This just continues your 100% past track record of contributing nothing, then scolding others for not contributing, then replying to the first post that contributes something which you have no decent argument against with an insult or rude comment (see post prior to this one).

My favorite part was your wondering whether one of the most corrupt organizations in the world trying to make a potential huge controversy go away with one of its past presidents would result in any apologies for him. Wow way to latch onto something!

[gwnn]

The Hog may I ask you a few simple questions: do you really think that about 40 imps with 40 boards to go is a special, normally insurmountable difference? Also do you think that guessing to do something on this hand (say, x, 3NT, 4♣, 4NT, 5♣, 6♣) is not in itself a swingy action? What percentage of the time would you consider that the final contract at this table would not coincide with the other table (given no desire at all to swing on either table) and if they do not coincide, what IMP swing would be generated?

I hope it's not too much; I would be interested in your position on these matters.

It is crystal clear that you do not think there was UI, and it is likewise crystal clear that you think Justin is behaving in a less than courteous and more than inappropriate manner. I would not like to ask you about these -otherwise perfectly germane- matters.

[JoAnneM]

The ACBL is corrupt? How?

[pooltuna]

gwnn, on Aug 6 2010, 10:08 AM, said:

The Hog may I ask you a few simple questions: do you really think that about 40 imps with 40 boards to go is a special, normally insurmountable difference? Also do you think that guessing to do something on this hand (say, x, 3NT, 4♣, 4NT, 5♣, 6♣) is not in itself a swingy action? What percentage of the time would you consider that the final contract at this table would not coincide with the other table (given no desire at all to swing on either table) and if they do not coincide, what IMP swing would be generated?

I hope it's not too much; I would be interested in your position on these matters.

It is crystal clear that you do not think there was UI, and it is likewise crystal clear that you think Justin is behaving in a less than courteous and more than inappropriate manner. I would not like to ask you about these -otherwise perfectly germane- matters.

God I hate to enter into this debate. Nevertheless when do you start swinging to a team you expect to thrash you? Do you wait until you are down or is a particularly swingy hand enough? I mean how many hands do you expect in a 64 board match that are of a nature that can generate large swings? Is it a good strategy to try to swing them when you get them or do you wait til the last 16 boards?

[aguahombre]

At what point will we try to move on? I keep reading this thread because, dwarfed by the rhetoric directed back and forth, there are new situations introduced which seem worthy of new threads in the Laws and Rulings ---and rational discussion of them --- not of the personalities involved.

But, as Dennis Miller says, "It's just my opinion; I could be wrong."