[csdenmark]

coyot, on Aug 3 2005, 08:37 AM, said:

csdenmark, on Aug 2 2005, 11:12 AM, said:

coyot, on Aug 2 2005, 02:40 PM, said:

I want to educate them so that they will alert!

Please don't try to educate me. I am not interested in the american way!

If you really want to teach somebody something - try to explain the americans what it means to go international.

A nice and completely wrong assumption, Claus. I am not american and I don't think that educating people to follow WBF rules is "the american way".

I will correct my statement as below:

Please don't try to educate me. I am not interested in your way!

If you really want to teach somebody something - please think carefully what it means to go international.

Done so please try to explain to the majority up the upsetted posters here what it means to go international.

It would be an act of courtesy to devote special auditions for selected groups of persons.

[helene_t]

sceptic, on Aug 2 2005, 05:46 PM, said:

I think that a polish club (I club bid) should not be alerted as it is their standard and I think that it slows the game down more than people nipping off to make a coffee, (it is heck of a bid to type out in full)

Of course, you should pre-alert your general approach, and then it could be argued that the most basic elements of your system (1-level openings) are allready known to opps. After all, there are no systems in which a 1♣ opening is both natural and commonly played: the only systems I know that feature a natural 1♣ opening are Acol and EHAA, and those systems are not very common on BBO.

However, in this (arguably imperfect) World some people might expect a 1♣ opening to be SAYCish, SEFish or something similar. Therefore, you must alert it.

Just explain it as "WJ" and chances are that opps will either understand or don't care. Otherwise they can ask.

[epeeist]

coyot, on Aug 3 2005, 01:50 AM, said:

....
Epeeist: If you happen to assume (from their profiles) that opps play SA2/1 and later discover that they were playing precision, what will you do? Will you just think "oh, my bad, I should have not made that assumptions"? Will you report them to abuse for "misleading you"? (And will you report them to abuse, if they alerted their 1♣ opening?)

You seem to be interpreting this in the opposite way to what I meant. I was referring to what I alert/explain, based on opponent profiles, not what I expect/assume opponent bids to mean.

If e.g. I am 99% certain, for whatever reasons, that my opponents know that my bid is Stayman, I don't alert it. Even if, technically, I should.

If an opponent bids 2 clubs over their partner's 1NT, I may assume it's Stayman. If it turns out not to be, my fault for making an assumption (unless a previous announcement re their bidding system means I am entitled to make that assumption -- for instance if they previously announced SAYC).

So yes, "my bad" if I've made an unwarranted assumption.

To the best of my recollection, only twice have I ever reported someone to abuse. Once was when an opponent continued to send me messages accusing me of cheating both during and after a tournament was over, because they felt that my asking what type of transfer their 2♠ bid was (i.e. whether clubs, or either minor i.e. what type of transfers they used) was an attempt to cheat. The second instance was when an opponent, in a fit of pique (didn't like their partner's bidding I assume), attempted repeatedly to concede all tricks to me.

In at least two other instances of deliberate repeated attempts to wrongly concede all tricks in a tournament, I have simply reported the matter to the TD rather than to abuse.

For all except grievously insulting behaviour, I'll generally just set the person to "enemy" status and perhaps make notes. For ill behaviour in a tournament I'll call the TD, if I think the situation warrants such. Which once included calling the TD to complain about my own partner's behaviour, and arguing that the opponents were entitled to A+ instead of A=. This was in an individual tournament

[badderzboy]

I have read the comments with interest and I must admit that worrying about someone alerting when at times you can't even some people to tell you the system they are playing out of them can be difficult which may be due to language grounds !

In a tourney (a rare event) I failed to get a response from every pair on their system and also never saw an alert once or NT range, should I really hassle the director if I have 4 pts for example - I would ask if I need to at the end or during at least no UI issues.

I just feel there is a general apathy about alerting not underhand tactics..

In the MBC I always post - ACOL natural 1 level opening & 4 Card majors Weak NT 12-14 with weak 2's in the majors when playing with my regular partner and you hope the pick-up opps at least agree a system but with them changing every board for 5/6 boards until u get a stable pair it can be difficult to tell.

I don't alert major suit openings as 4+ as I've said we play 4 Card Majors...

I alert any artificial bids but don't necessarily enter what it means if it is obvious (Stayman) like F2F - opps can ask at the end of the auction like in f2f or if they intend to bid at the time just like F2f - I do this to remind myself when I need to alert in real life.

I do tend to play with people I know or those playing ACOL or SAYC and we don't alert anything - we know what systems our friends play.

OF course it could all be settled if we had CCs filled in and I do have a Benji Card!

Steve

[coyot]

epeeist, on Aug 3 2005, 06:19 AM, said:

coyot, on Aug 3 2005, 01:50 AM, said:

....
Epeeist: If you happen to assume (from their profiles) that opps play SA2/1 and later discover that they were playing precision, what will you do? Will you just think "oh, my bad, I should have not made that assumptions"? Will you report them to abuse for "misleading you"? (And will you report them to abuse, if they alerted their 1♣ opening?)

You seem to be interpreting this in the opposite way to what I meant. I was referring to what I alert/explain, based on opponent profiles, not what I expect/assume opponent bids to mean.

I did that on purpose. I wanted to show that making an assumption either way is bad.

I agree that in MBC, when playing against two ppl who play a similar system, you can do without most alerts if you tell them what you play (and it is roughly the same). I don't pester people for not alerting better minors and stayman and transfers IF their profiles show "sayc" - but that holds for me in MBC only. In tournament, there is no room for assumptions. If they don't have CC posted, I assume they bid natural and want to be made aware if not - and I do it for one simple reason - to let people know that they cannot expect their opponents to KNOW their bidding system, whether it is SAYC or WJ.

[coyot]

Edited this out, unnecessary teasing .

Claus now knows I'm not American and my "education" is explained below.

[coyot]

csdenmark, on Aug 2 2005, 05:19 PM, said:

inquiry, on Aug 2 2005, 11:00 PM, said:

Coyot talks about alterting procedures in Czech Republic

Czech does not look right Ben. I have checked all postings. Several references to SA and as far as I know Czech is Precision-land. The comments about poles(neighbours?) looks not so friendly.

Yes, I will gladly inform.
Claus, you seem to know little about Czech. Not at all precision land.

There is a strong ACOL group around the Open Team, most of them play Mr. Svoboda's variant of ACOL. Roughly a 100 followers

There are three more "local" flavours of ACOL, which are spreading among the new bridge players, usually of older age.

In the Eastern part of country, there are lots of WJ players

True, the precision group would amount to another hundred.

Then there are smaller regional groups - usually one system per town (Limit, Trutnov Dragon - probably precision based).

Then there is a strong SA group, mainly among the younger players.

(There is a saying that says that we have a thousand players and thousand one bidding systems ))

Living and playing in such a jungle, you learn to alert a lot and explain a lot and it seems ill not to do so.

I don't think I have made any unfriendly comments about Poles.

I quite understand their position - they come from a country that is almost homogenous when it comes to bidding. Their players regularly score very high, so they have all the reasons to think that WJ = bridge :-). And that's why I spoke about educating them. Some of them don't realize that 1♣ opener should be alerted (and why).

This debate arose because the thread starter complained about getting rude comments as the only reaction to his request that someone alert their unnatural bids. I don't think Poles are rude, but I certainly admit that I've seen quite many unalerted 1♣ openers and my experience when asking the players to alert those bids was not 100% positive, as well.

BTW, you've checked all postings and think that Czech does not look right? Well, check them again. I explicitly said "here in Czech Republic" at least once.

[coyot]

Just to clarify, yes, I happen to be the same "coyot" as the one on BBO, and yes, I fly Czech Republic flag (with the short exception of Union Jack a few weeks back).

So I did not bother setting the time zone, sorry, never knew I could do that :-).

I am sorry if my sentence about educating seems arrogant, but I find it appropriate. Most of the absent alerts are caused by lack of knowledge. Players don't know they should alert, either because they've never heard about alerting or because they assume that everyone plays the system they play... so the transfer of knowledge (=education) seems appropriate.

I must admit that I didn't know about BBO alerting rules. What about moving them from bridge library? Or making a link to them so that every new player has to acknowledge them?

It has been said before that the purpose of this debate is NOT to make TDs hand out penalties, not in the first place. But, on the other hand, somebody very nicely stated that we need TDs that know the rules, not just babysitters that will sub reds.

The purpose of this debate could perhaps be to get to a little more detailed alerting rules, let them be BBO rules, which would not only say "alert if you have any doubt" but also "this should include the following bids".

I don't particularly care what the contents of the list would be. I could live with alerting Stayman, Transfers and better minors, I could live without alerting them as well, but I want to have some GROUNDS - and I don't want those grounds based on "what does this particular player THINK is natural".

[dogsbreath]

I dont play with P***** 'cos I'm too lazy to learn P***** club
I dont play with F***** 'cos one of them was rude to me in 2001
I dont play with I**** 'cos they cant count and chat too much
I dont play with D**** 'cos one of them stole my bicycle (A'dam 1985)
I dont play with T****** 'cos they are all crazy (widest-known 'fact' on BBO)
I dont play with A********* why should i get up in middle of the night for a game
I dont play with G****** 'cos they insist on using their own language
I dont play with J******* 'cos they put daft characters all over my chat box.
I dont play with C******** 'cos i cant see why anyone would want to use 'udca'
I dont play with A******** 'cos lots of them are closet Yankee fans.
I dont play Individuals 'cos I always get all the weak players as partners
I dont play MP tourneys 'cos they are too slow
I dont play pay tourneys 'cos I'm too mean
I dont play teams 'cos i always get put with the weaker team

..I havent played much recently ... please advise.

Rgds Dog

[hotShot]

Nice one dog