[nige1]

In an old English Bridge Magazine Bidding quiz, 3rd in hand, holding ♠ x x x ♥ A K Q J ♦ x x x ♣ x x x, almost all competitors opened 1♥,
although an understanding to routinely open such hands and to bid normally thereafter would have been illegal according to EBU rule-of-19, then in force.

This high-lights the common problem when system-regulation clashes with common practice and common-sense.

Players tend to fudge the issue, appealing to "frequency", psych" "deviation" and other considerations.
Nevertheless, a few conscientious players who try to follow the rules assiduously suffer a significant handicap.

Such controversy and contention will persist until the system-regulation Tower-of-Babel is demolished,..

[msjennifer]

Sirs,we shall never open 2S in 3rd seat as the STAR players do against very weak opponents (so to say beginners).It is like Rabada or Cummings bowling bouncers against a team of school children.May be the STAR players enjoy it that way.The beginners DO expect to be taught by STAR players.I have seen quite a few new young ,but enthusiastic,beginners shun the game altogether when such tactics are used against them.The worst part is the STAR players then proceed to ridicule the red faced beginners with sarcastic remarks.NO! we PERSONALLY shall never even think of such tactics.We will never enjoy the game that way.

[helene_t]

A 3rd seat preempt is just to play, it is not particularly descriptive.

Of course you still need to disclose your style. But if your CC says (say) 6 cards, 6-10 points, then opps should understand that this applies in 1st/2nd seat only.

[mycroft]

To the OP: this is, like many things (including psychics!), an education issue. And we are awful at education.

Really, this is no different from the "less experienced" players learning that not everybody thinks 1NT openers are 15-17, that's a valid way to play, and that you have to think differently about interference when you could easily have game than when you're just disrupting. Or similarly, that not everybody thinks they need to have a solid overcall to "disrupt" their strong NT auctions. Or that some people play 1M-2NT as limit+, and the responses aren't what they'd expect, either. Or that some people play first-and-second cuebids (or first-round-first, if they've been taught first-and-second from the beginning).

It seems to hit harder when experienced players bid "aggressively" against newer players (the same aggressively they do against me, and I do against them!) than when it's their constructive auctions that are different. This applies even if the "different information" causes them to misdefend and let the slam through (for a bad score) instead of being talked out of their game (for a bad score). I don't know why, but I know we have to let people know about it.

I'd love for the "let people know" to happen before "expert psyched against me! That's not fair!" (even though the one I remember was my partner, and "novice" meant 1600 MPs. Because we protect the novices, then we protect the "less experienced" players, then we protect the "normal club players", ...)

When the less experienced players learn that passed hand preempts can be wild to the point of insane (or, also, "not weak"), or that people are allowed to deliberately misbid to confuse, provided they're confusing everyone, not just the opponents, or that people play conventions differently from how they do, so asking for names (or getting just a name) doesn't necessarily tell them what they need to know, they become - more experienced. Odd that.

But it has to be done in such a way that it doesn't seem like the world is all against them so they don't come back.

[blackshoe]

Violating an agreement is not an infraction of law. It may be, in an unenlightened jurisdiction, an infraction of (an illegal, IMO) regulation. In general the construction "get away with violating an agreement" does not mean what Mycroft seems to be implying it means. Except, of course, in the afore-mentioned unenlightened jurisdiction where the rule makers assert the right to restrict a player's use of judgement in hand evaluation.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2019-November-02, 10:35, said:

Violating an agreement is not an infraction of law.

Unless you do it too often, because then your actual style becomes an implicit agreement, and explaining it with your explicit agreement is MI.

I suppose you'll say that this is a different infraction, but they're tied together.

[blackshoe]

blackshoe, on 2019-November-02, 10:35, said:

Violating an agreement is not an infraction of law.

barmar, on 2019-November-02, 11:55, said:

Unless you do it too often, because then your actual style becomes an implicit agreement, and explaining it with your explicit agreement is MI.

I suppose you'll say that this is a different infraction, but they're tied together.

Well, it's not the putative infraction I envisioned when I said that. In fact, if the bid falls under your implicit agreement, it is a different infraction, and one of law rather than regulation. Frankly, even if I'm stuck with the regulation in question, or perhaps especially if I am, I would be happier if I were able to rule a violation of the disclosure laws.