[Elianna]

I don't really have a strong opinion about this. Personally, I just want to know what to expect before I enter an event. I don't like entering a KO and not knowing it was Midchart or GCC until a director is called about a convention.

And I don't like certain people in my district characterizing me as a b***h because I want the rules evenly enforced, and am ruining their fun. I might be a b***h, but not for that reason.

But the main reason I posted is to say that people should not write a higher number of masterpoints on their KO card than they actually have. Teams have gotten in trouble and been kicked out of events for this, being treated in the same way as people who write lower numbers to get in lower brackets. (I realize that some directors encourage this, but as some directors are strict about it, you should be really careful about it.)

[rduran1216]

JLOGIC, on 2012-June-19, 11:30, said:

without fail the worst field ever).

Teams in the loser swiss I played in in san diego on saturday of the last regional.

Lou Ann O'Rourke, Scottsdale AZ; Marc Jacobus - Curtis Cheek - Mike Passell, Las Vegas NV; Steve Weinstein, Andes NY; Robert Levin, Henderson NV 64.00
4.44 2

Rebecca Clough - Roger Clough, Culver City CA; Alex Fowlie, San Marcos CA; Judy Roberts, Kearney NE 62.00
3.33 3

Chi-Chong Yu, Hacienda Hgts CA; Jack Chao, Chino CA; David Wei Chuan, Rancho Mirage CA; Shiu-Ming Huang, San Marino CA 61.00
2.50 4

Susan Key - Chris Compton, Dallas TX; Eddie Wold, Houston TX; Geoff Hampson, Las Vegas NV 54.00
1.87 5

Ron Lien, Brea CA; Aaron Jones, Long Beach CA; Yas Takeda, Hacienda Hgts CA; Mark Tang, Seal Beach CA; Subba Ravipudi, Downey CA 52.00

[blackshoe]

Today I asked the Chairwoman of the Tournament Committee for our next upcoming Regional (Syracuse, next month after the Nationals) if there were any events or sections of events in which the Mid-Chart would be allowed. Then I had to explain to her what the Mid-Chart is. In the end, her answer was "I don't have a clue, ask Bernie". Bernie will be directing. I told her that deciding which events, etc., might be Mid-Chart is a TO function, not a director function. She said again "I don't have a clue, ask Bernie".

Maybe I'll just have to play the "Nuttin'" system.

[TimG]

blackshoe, on 2012-June-26, 22:03, said:

Today I asked the Chairwoman of the Tournament Committee for our next upcoming Regional (Syracuse, next month after the Nationals) if there were any events or sections of events in which the Mid-Chart would be allowed. Then I had to explain to her what the Mid-Chart is. In the end, her answer was "I don't have a clue, ask Bernie". Bernie will be directing. I told her that deciding which events, etc., might be Mid-Chart is a TO function, not a director function. She said again "I don't have a clue, ask Bernie".

Maybe I'll just have to play the "Nuttin'" system.

In New England, the Executive Board makes decisions like this (mid-chart or not). If there is a tournament chairman, he/she would not have been in on the decision making process unless he/she also happened to be on the Executive Committee.

[blackshoe]

TimG, on 2012-June-27, 10:37, said:

In New England, the Executive Board makes decisions like this (mid-chart or not). If there is a tournament chairman, he/she would not have been in on the decision making process unless he/she also happened to be on the Executive Committee.

Does the Executive Board inform the Tournament Chairs what the rules will be, or is it a secret?

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2012-June-27, 12:34, said:

Does the Executive Board inform the Tournament Chairs what the rules will be, or is it a secret?

Does it have to be one or the other?

The important people to inform are the directors, not the chairs. And assuming they do so, the chair should refer you to the director, as she did.

I think the main responsibilities of tournament chairs in our local tournaments are logistical: dealing with the venue, arranging for refreshments, hiring caddies, etc. Anything related to the bridge play is handled by the directors.

[blackshoe]

The chair is usually responsible, among other things, for advertising the tournament. If the EB isn't telling the chair about allowed Mid-Chart events that need to be advertised, whose fault is that? Certainly not the TD's. If I were a tournament chair, I wouldn't assume that the EB has told me what I need to know, I'd ask. Of course, I might not get a straight answer (I can envision an EB whose response is the same as my Tournament Chair's but they're wrong; it's their responsibility to make that decision — at least in New England).

"This is what I've observed to happen, therefore this is what is supposed to happen" is not a valid logical argument.

[barmar]

I don't think I've ever seen information about convention charts on the advertising for any tournament. I'd expect it to be in the Conditions of Contest, not the flyers.

[CSGibson]

barmar, on 2012-June-27, 17:17, said:

I don't think I've ever seen information about convention charts on the advertising for any tournament. I'd expect it to be in the Conditions of Contest, not the flyers.

We regularly have it on flyers, because mid-chart defenses to 1N are legal in our district in all events.

This is an example of such advertising on the Seaside regional (Lower right hand corner of the flyer)

http://www.acbld20.o...ges/1209002.pdf

[TimG]

blackshoe, on 2012-June-27, 16:17, said:

The chair is usually responsible, among other things, for advertising the tournament. If the EB isn't telling the chair about allowed Mid-Chart events that need to be advertised, whose fault is that? Certainly not the TD's. If I were a tournament chair, I wouldn't assume that the EB has told me what I need to know, I'd ask. Of course, I might not get a straight answer (I can envision an EB whose response is the same as my Tournament Chair's but they're wrong; it's their responsibility to make that decision — at least in New England).

Actually, in New England, we have a Tournament Manager/Business Manager. That person is responsible for negotiating with sites (which includes room rates, convention space, hospitality, and other things) and producing tournament advertising. We also have a Caddy Master who is responsible for all things caddy (this job may have been eliminated recently and could now be the responsibility of the Tournament Manager).

The Tournament Chairman is generally responsible for finding volunteers to man the hospitality and partnership desks. I'm sure there are other responsibilities, but it is mostly involved with coordinating local volunteers. In New England, I would expect a Tournament Chairperson who was asked about convention charts (or any other conditions of contest sort of item) to consult an official before answering (or simply refer the questioner to the appropriate official).

Things are done differently in other districts. It could well be the case that in some districts the Tournament Chairman has many more responsibilities. I think the number of districts with a Tournament Manager/Business Manager can be counted on one hand.

[Mbodell]

CSGibson, on 2012-June-27, 17:32, said:

We regularly have it on flyers, because mid-chart defenses to 1N legal in our district in all events.

This is an example of such advertising on the Seaside regional (Lower right hand corner of the flyer)

http://www.acbld20.o...ges/1209002.pdf

This is a good example up above of a couple of things that you sometimes see that show that it isn't all KO with players above 1500 and where compact KO are often not real KO for midchart purposes.

Quote

ACBL Mid Chart allowed in: 1) All stand alone Flight A/AX events and top bracket of Open Bracketed KO’s (excluding Compact KOs). Mid chart defenses to the opponents’ 1NT are allowed in all events.

So you can only play midchart (not counting defenses to 1nt) in the top bracket of the five full KO and then on the final Sunday A/X Swiss. And this is for a regional which in ACBL is the biggest most prestigious type of tournament after the nationals.

[blackshoe]

Yep.

In our case (the Syracuse Regional) it's the Unit that handles the details. AFAIK, the District (most of the people on the District board seem to be from Maryland and SE Pennsylvania) just hands off the whole thing to the Unit. The Tournament Chair for this Regional is from Rochester, one of two (or three, perhaps) reps from here to the Unit Board. The Chair's duties don't seem to be defined anywhere, so maybe I got it wrong. It did surprise me, though, that someone involved with the planning and organization of a tournament wouldn't know what the Mid-Chart is, and at least who is responsible for deciding whether it applies (and IMO it's not the TD).

When I see him, I'll talk to Bernie (who will be the TD) and see what he says.

[CSGibson]

Mbodell, on 2012-June-27, 21:17, said:

This is a good example up above of a couple of things that you sometimes see that show that it isn't all KO with players above 1500 and where compact KO are often not real KO for midchart purposes.



So you can only play midchart (not counting defenses to 1nt) in the top bracket of the five full KO and then on the final Sunday A/X Swiss. And this is for a regional which in ACBL is the biggest most prestigious type of tournament after the nationals.

To be fair, I am a player with less than 1500 MP's, and in my regular partnership we have a couple of mid-chart methods* (though my regular partner has more than 5000 mps, and we regularly play with other top local pairs as partners, so we get to play in bracket 1 a lot on MP weight for D20 tournaments despite my relatively low MP total). We have found that we can play those methods regularly in sectionals, regionals, nationals, and even club games with regularity if we try (for the club games we have 2 clubs in the area, one of the club owners has given us permission to practice in his open game using mid-chart methods, as is his discretion). If we can't play those mid-chart conventions, we have a couple of different adjustments we make to make our system GCC legal.

*our mid-chart methods are the incorporation of bad 3 card limit raises into 2C over 1M, and using 2H to show either a balanced 11-12, a balanced 16-17, or a game forcing hand with clubs over either of our minor suit openings. For the first, we simply take out the bad 3 card limit raises, loading everything into either the traditional limit raise or a direct raise to 2M. For the 2nd, we play that 2H guarantees 3 clubs, giving it an anchor suit and (I think) making it GCC legal.

[blackshoe]

It seems District 4, Unit 112, and my local clubs aren't as enlightened as the equivalents in Chris's neck of the woods. Or maybe it's just that there's more "old fogeys" here (I'm old - well, maybe not as bridge players go - but I'm not a fogey).

[barmar]

CSGibson, on 2012-June-27, 17:32, said:

We regularly have it on flyers, because mid-chart defenses to 1N are legal in our district in all events.

Maybe we would have it on the flyers if we allowed it, too. If not mentioned explicitly, it may be safe to assume only GCC is permitted.

[jeffford76]

Mbodell, on 2012-June-27, 21:17, said:

So you can only play midchart (not counting defenses to 1nt) in the top bracket of the five full KO and then on the final Sunday A/X Swiss. And this is for a regional which in ACBL is the biggest most prestigious type of tournament after the nationals.

Yes. This is much different than "allowed if no team averages below 1500". Our team with about 20K total MPs was in bracket 2 in Seaside last year, and the bottom team was at least 10K. I realize this isn't an enormous number, but it should have been enough to play midchart.

[JLOGIC]

jeffford76, on 2012-June-28, 09:47, said:

Yes. This is much different than "allowed if no team averages below 1500". Our team with about 20K total MPs was in bracket 2 in Seaside last year, and the bottom team was at least 10K. I realize this isn't an enormous number, but it should have been enough to play midchart.

That seems pretty dumb that they would make a policy where a bracket like that would not be allowed to play midchart.

I view GCC only events as attempting to "protect" people from playing against strange conventions that they either don't want to play against, or could not defend against due to inexperience/lack of skill.

I think once you reach a certain point, you should not get that protection and should have to play against relatively simple things that are on midchart (the only midchart things I ever play (I think) are kaplan inversion and multi over the opps NT...these are not that hard to play against)).

You can debate where to draw the line, but certainly a bracket that ranges from 10k-20k must cross that threshold.

[CSGibson]

jeffford76, on 2012-June-28, 09:47, said:

Yes. This is much different than "allowed if no team averages below 1500". Our team with about 20K total MPs was in bracket 2 in Seaside last year, and the bottom team was at least 10K. I realize this isn't an enormous number, but it should have been enough to play midchart.

Quick question: Did you ask the directors whether mid-chart was allowed in your event/Bracket?

One possible interpretation of this is that all of the specified events will allow mid-chart no matter what the bottom team average MP is, and that other brackets will conform to the ACBL guidelines; based on prior experience, I feel like this is actually what is meant, but I have nothing concrete.

[jeffford76]

CSGibson, on 2012-June-28, 13:42, said:

Quick question: Did you ask the directors whether mid-chart was allowed in your event/Bracket?

No, although we also didn't know we were in bracket 2 until reporting our match. We would have asked to move up if we'd thought there was any chance we wouldn't be in bracket 1, but they had a weird number and only put 9 in bracket 1.

[Mbodell]

CSGibson, on 2012-June-27, 23:54, said:

*our mid-chart methods are the incorporation of bad 3 card limit raises into 2C over 1M, and using 2H to show either a balanced 11-12, a balanced 16-17, or a game forcing hand with clubs over either of our minor suit openings. For the first, we simply take out the bad 3 card limit raises, loading everything into either the traditional limit raise or a direct raise to 2M. For the 2nd, we play that 2H guarantees 3 clubs, giving it an anchor suit and (I think) making it GCC legal.

I'm about 95% sure that your fix to 2♥ doesn't make it GCC unless "balanced 11-12" is a game force for you. Having an anchor suit doesn't impact GCC for responses (although if you 2 anchor suits that include a known 5 card suit and a second known 4 card suit then you'd be ok - since reverse Flanery and the like is ok - but 54 in the minors is not ok since it could be 5=4 or 4=5). You might be ok if it is either a force to game or a raise of the opened minor with the clause "5. SINGLE OR HIGHER JUMP SHIFTS AND/OR NOTRUMP BIDS AT THE TWO LEVEL OR HIGHER to indicate a raise or to force to game." It is a little unclear how to read the or in the sentence but I think it means a 2-way bid that is either a raise or any force to game is ok since responses 3 already allowed all conventional responses which guaranteed game forcing values as long as they aren't a relay system.

Quote

One possible interpretation of this is that all of the specified events will allow mid-chart no matter what the bottom team average MP is, and that other brackets will conform to the ACBL guidelines; based on prior experience, I feel like this is actually what is meant, but I have nothing concrete.

That hasn't been my experience when that wording is used elsewhere. In theory of course, because you don't need to advertise for midchart in KO >1500 average it could well be that this only specifies some places midchart is allowed, and doesn't explicitly say that GCC is elsewhere. But in practice, this is proscribing the only place midchart is around and everywhere else is GCC+1nt defenses.