[bluejak]

 blackshoe, on 2012-June-25, 23:46, said:

I don't understand this. AFAIK, the "American approach" to Brown Sticker conventions is to not use the term at all.

The American approach to complicated opening bids [like Lucas, 2♠ is spades and a minor, yeah, real complicated, played by grannies in Australia and mediocre players in England but only super-duper experts in the USA] is to insist on written defences being made available to the poor opponents who will burst into tears and tell their mothers otherwise.

 gnasher, on 2012-June-26, 01:03, said:

Not on the basis of what you've told us so far. For you to get an adjusted score, there has to have been damage. The damage you're alleging is that with firm agreements you might have got to 6NT. So, tell us how you might have got there.

This is why I approve of the English approach to illegal methods, ie to rule under a regulation based on Law 12C1D and give Average Plus - Average Minus. Either you make up an adjustment based on agreements the non-offending pair do not have, or you let them make up agreements [a 4♦ overcall shows precisely that hand, now 6NT by West is obvious] to suit the hand.

[blackshoe]

 bluejak, on 2012-June-26, 12:43, said:

The American approach to complicated opening bids [like Lucas, 2♠ is spades and a minor, yeah, real complicated, played by grannies in Australia and mediocre players in England but only super-duper experts in the USA] is to insist on written defences being made available to the poor opponents who will burst into tears and tell their mothers otherwise.

Oh, that American approach. I see now, and agree with you in principle, although I would say "burst into tears" is a maybe, and "tell their mothers" is highly unlikely, because their mothers are mostly long dead.

We have a Regional coming up. Somewhere in one of these threads I said earlier that I would ask the Tournament Chair if there were any events in which the Mid-Chart would be allowed. Today I did so. She said "I haven't a clue. Ask the TD". I point out that this is a Tournament Organizer responsibility. She said "I wouldn't know where to begin; ask the TD". Hell, I had to explain to her what the Mid-Chart is!

 bluejak, on 2012-June-26, 12:43, said:

This is why I approve of the English approach to illegal methods, ie to rule under a regulation based on Law 12C1D and give Average Plus - Average Minus. Either you make up an adjustment based on agreements the non-offending pair do not have, or you let them make up agreements [a 4♦ overcall shows precisely that hand, now 6NT by West is obvious] to suit the hand.

Huh. I had thought the regulation in question pre-dated the current Law 12C1D. No matter, I understand the approach - it's just too hard to always find the right adjustment otherwise. And it's great that you have a regulation that points the way, but... is a regulation really necessary? Can't the TD just apply the relevant laws without it? Is this a case of "yes, but they don't"?

[bluejak]

A TD might struggle to adjust, and the EBU thinks that is the wrong approach. Thus, the regulation.

The legal basis for the regulation was not clear before Law 12C1D. No matter, now it is.

[LH2650]

 blackshoe, on 2012-June-26, 15:08, said:

I said earlier that I would ask the Tournament Chair if there were any events in which the Mid-Chart would be allowed.

The tournament sanction application will list the allowed conventions. Ask the Tournament Chairman for a copy of that.

[blackshoe]

There's a thought. Hm. I wonder who's responsible for sending those in?

[sfi]

 mrdct, on 2012-June-26, 00:33, said:

So, hypothetically, if a ruling was sought on the hand would you consider adjusting to 6NT making or at least some percentage thereof?

I posed the original question to the international director at our club this evening, putting myself in your position, and he said that he would have no sympathy for me with a random partner of similar standard. His opinion was that we have a responsibility to look at the main features on the card. He would consider a procedural penalty against the opposition though and would consider an adjustment if the non-offending side were inexperienced players. Once he knew the people involved, he would have been more likely to impose a PP (assuming I worked out your opponents correctly), but would not consider adjusting.

Curiously, the other day my (regular) partner and I sat down against a pair whose card was exactly as you describe. Myxo Twos with nothing in the pre-alert section and no brown sticker. Not that this proves anything at all, but I found it amusing.

[mrdct]

 sfi, on 2012-June-28, 07:21, said:

I posed the original question to the international director at our club this evening, putting myself in your position, and he said that he would have no sympathy for me with a random partner of similar standard. His opinion was that we have a responsibility to look at the main features on the card. He would consider a procedural penalty against the opposition though and would consider an adjustment if the non-offending side were inexperienced players. Once he knew the people involved, he would have been more likely to impose a PP (assuming I worked out your opponents correctly), but would not consider adjusting.

Curiously, the other day my (regular) partner and I sat down against a pair whose card was exactly as you describe. Myxo Twos with nothing in the pre-alert section and no brown sticker. Not that this proves anything at all, but I found it amusing.

That's all very well, but if the ABF want pre-alerting to be optional the regulations should say so. I'm sick and tired of TDs, including very senior ones who regularly get gigs at WBF events, making up their own rules. If no Australian directors are going to enforce the pre-alerting rules, they should take it out of the regs and formally put the onus back on the players to read their opponents system card thoroughly at the start of each match.

Your example does illustrate that, sadly, a lot of bridge players do not take their disclosure obligations seriously. At best it's just laziness, but at worst it intentionally trying to conceal some aspects of their system to retain the element of surprise.

[mrdct]

 sfi, on 2012-June-28, 07:21, said:

... international director at our club ... His opinion was that we have a responsibility to look at the main features on the card.

I wonder how that "international director" reconciles that opinion with the ABF Alerting Regulations:

Quote

3.1 Pre-alerts
3.1.1 At the start of a round or match, pairs should acquaint each other with their basic system, length of their one-level openings and the strength and style of their opening 1NT. Subsequent questions about these, whilst legal, may be regarded as unauthorised information.
3.1.2 This is the stage where you should draw the opponents’ attention to any unusual agreements you have which might surprise them, or to which they may need to arrange a defence. Examples: transfer preempts, unusual two level openings, canapé style bidding, very unusual doubles, unusual methods over the opponents’ 1NT or strong club openings, unusual cue bids of the opponents’ suit, etc. Pay particular attention to unusual self-alerting calls. These should appear on your system card, but should also be verbally pre-alerted.
3.1.3 Highly unusual carding (e.g. leading low from doubletons) should also be pre-alerted at this stage.

[sfi]

 mrdct, on 2012-June-28, 16:04, said:

I wonder how that "international director" reconciles that opinion with the ABF Alerting Regulations:

That's where the procedural penalty for the offending side came in. And I suspect you can work out very easily who the director I asked is without needing to cast aspersions on their credentials.

[mrdct]

 sfi, on 2012-June-28, 16:44, said:

That's where the procedural penalty for the offending side came in. And I suspect you can work out very easily who the director I asked is without needing to cast aspersions on their credentials.

TDs, particularly senior ones on the international panel, should be applying the rules and regulations as written; not selectively determining which rules and regulations they agree with or not.

I'm pretty sure I know which TD you are talking about and I've generally found him or her to be quite good; although I did have an curious situation involving that TD earlier this year where he or she made-up a regulation that an appeal from the final round of the SWPT requires a monetary deposit due the fact that a potential AWM VP penalty is not really a disincentive for a team that has missed qualifying and is just throwing a Hail Mary to sneak into a qualifying position. As it happens, I think that's quite a sensible regulation; but it hasn't been written into the ABF Appeals Regs or the SWPT Supplementary Regs so it's inappropriate for TDs to be implementing it on the fly.

There will only be real improvement in compliance with ABF Alerting Regs if TDs actually enforce them.

[nige1]

 gnasher, on 2012-June-25, 02:00, said:

The rules in use were perfectly clear. The problem was that the director didn't enforce them. The only solution to this type of problem is uniformly good directors.

My impression is that relevant rules-variants are perfectly clear to neither directors nor players

[sfi]

 nige1, on 2012-June-28, 19:08, said:

My impression is that relevant rules-variants are perfectly clear to neither directors nor players

There is a requirement for players to protect themselves at times. For example, if you have the auction 1S-(2NT) with no alert, and your side proceeds on the assumption that this shows a strong balanced hand, do you really think you will get an adjustment if you are at all above tournament beginner status? This is one of the issues in this thread - the OP thinks this is not an analogous situation in Australia while at least two experienced directors disagree with him.

[nige1]

 gordontd, on 2012-June-25, 01:17, said:

I agree with this. I wouldn't have allowed you to discuss your defence during the hand, but I would have been prepared to consider an adjustment after the hand if you had been damaged, and I would have allowed you some time to discuss a defence after the hand for the rest of the match.

Woudl gordontd allow mrdct and partner to consult a written defence under any circumstances e.g..

• Mrdct explained privately that he and his partner had agreed a written defence, a long time ago, but neither partner had revised it recently?
• Mrdct's opponents offered to provide a written defence?
• An official written defence were available?

[mrdct]

 sfi, on 2012-June-28, 20:25, said:

There is a requirement for players to protect themselves at times. For example, if you have the auction 1S-(2NT) with no alert, and your side proceeds on the assumption that this shows a strong balanced hand, do you really think you will get an adjustment if you are at all above tournament beginner status? This is one of the issues in this thread - the OP thinks this is not an analogous situation in Australia while at least two experienced directors disagree with him.

The example you have given bears little similarity with my case as it would be completely obvious to any experienced player that 2NT probably isn't strong balanced and they should, indeed, ask in order to protect themselves. I would comment, however, that in my local club about 90% of the players there would play 2NT there as strong balanced (believe it or not) so it probably wouldn't be unreasonable there to proceed on that basis without asking.

My case is quite different in that my opponents volunteered a verbal system overview, did not draw my attention to anything unusual in their system, did not give any pre-alerts and did not have any BS aspects of their system flagged on their convention card. In that context, playing in a 9-board match in a country congress, I think it's completely reasonable to proceed on the assumption that they are not playing any unusual two-level opening that I might need to prepare a defence for. I also think that it's reasonable for me to assume that a pair with a computer-generated colour printed system card who have won at least one national open title, represented their state and routinely contest national open and seniors team playoffs; would be familiar and compliant with their disclosure obligations.

I'm sure that the TDs consulted on this matter mean well and are working within a framework where their primary goal is the orderly conduct of events in compliance with the general principles and intent of the laws and regulations, but not necessarily a literal interpretation. In fairness also to the TDs, a lot of the laws and regs around this matter are "should" requirements which are rarely penalised as provided for in the laws and I guess quite rightly they would only look at handing our procedural penalties for flagrant breaches by players who ought to know better. My main gripe here is that even though I'm the NOS, I'm being held to this "you ought to have protected yourself" concept whilst my opponents with their dodgey convention card and inadequate disclosure get away scott-free.

You need to understand also that in most Victorian coountry congresses the time allocation is usually only about 6.5 minutes per board (in this event we had one hour to play 9 boards). This was the last round and I had a four-hour drive ahead of me to get home, so I was understandably quite keen to get started as soon as I'd adequately ascertained what my opponents were playing.

Another interesting aspect of this case is that when my opponents were contesting this year's Australian open team playoffs, where Brown Sticker conventions are not allowed¹, their convention card had six different conventions/treatments listed in the pre-alerts section; so they obviously know how to do it properly but just chose not to for this particular country congress.

¹This is done to mirror the target event which in Olympic years is the Category 3 WMSG which bans BS conventions at all stages.

[mrdct]

 nige1, on 2012-June-28, 21:40, said:

Woudl gordontd allow mrdct and partner to consult a written defence if....

• If Mrdct explained privately that he and his partner had agreed a written defence, a long time ago, but neither partner had revised at it recently.
• If mrdct's opponents offered to provide a written defence.
• If an official written defence were available.

One of the outcomes of this incident is that going forward I'm going carry around with me a couple of copies of a written defence for unanchored twos and twerb/suction (which an increasing number of people are playing over a short club opening in Australia) and if my opponents pre-alert I'll produce the written defence then and, and if they fail to pre-alert and it comes up I'll call the TD and ask that my partner and I be allowed to use our written defence. That may or may not work as under the ABF regs, written defences need to be approved by the TD and handed to the opponents prior to the start of play. I guess it will be easy enough for me to get the Victorian State CTD to pre-approve my written defences and surely opponents who fail to pre-alert won't have a leg to stand on if they wheel-out a BS mid-match after not pre-alerting.

Unlike the ACBL, the ABF doesn't maintain "official" written defences to unusual conventions; but google has many! At the moment I usually use a hybrid of the Triple-X defence (1st double values, 2nd double takeout, 3rd double penalties - which I think Keiran Dyke was one of the original proponents) in conjunction with lebensohl but I think I might try to put together something a bit more involved if I don't need to memorise it.

[blackshoe]

Yesterday, at a local Sectional, the TD was the same one who's going to run the Regional at the end of the month — the one to whom that Regional's Tournament Chair referred me regarding my questions about the availability of the Mid-Chart, as I mentioned upthread. I asked him this general question: "Are there any events at Sectional or Regional level in this Unit at which the Mid-Chart would be allowed?" He said "at Sectionals, no way". Of Regionals, he said "in theory the top bracket, etc, etc, (events where the mid-chart may be allowed at Regionals and Sectionals without advertising, yes, but the field is never large enough to meet the requirements. Pairs events, no way." He then commented that only a few methods could be played at pairs anyway. However, of the 15 entries that required an approved defense (and are thus limited to N boards) 9 of them can be played at pairs (2+ boards per round), 4 require 6 board rounds, and 2 require 12 board rounds. There are 20 total entries on the Mid-Chart's approved list. The first five do not require a defense and can be played in any Mid-Chart event. Item 1 on the list is "all of the General Convention Chart".

In theory, the Tournament Organizer (the Unit) could authorize the Mid-Chart for any of these events, but it seems that's never going to happen.

Apparently we just don't have enough players around here. Maybe I should move back to Albuquerque. Or to Vegas.