[rbforster]

I'm going to stop derailing this thread and start its own topic. My general questions involve what you are legally entitled to know about your opponents' bidding before it has come up. I am mostly interested in ACBL rules, but welcome other comments about how other parts of the world address these issues.

In practice it seems you aren't entitled to much - certainly lots of people would like to know Meckwell's full bidding system, but it seems they aren't required to provide it (despite the fact it would assist their defenders in agreeing on defenses, understanding which auctions might be more vulnerable to preemption since they lack a penalty X, etc) and we are forced to try to infer it piecemeal from individual disclosed auctions at recorded events.

Excerpts from the prior thread to start the discussion:

gnasher, on 2013-August-27, 16:00, said:

You're allowed to play methods that vary according to the meaning of the auction that has already occurred. Most authorities say that your methods can't depend on what the opponents' subsequent actions would mean.

For example, you're allowed to play penalty doubles against aggressive overcallers and takeout doubles against sound overcallers. [You're] not allowed to play sound overcalls against penalty doublers, but aggressive overcalls against takeout doublers.

This is necessary to avoid a situation where neither side can determine what its methods are. This is mainly a theoretical problem, which is just as well as the solution seems hard to enforce.

gnasher, on 2013-August-28, 02:17, said:

Regarding what you're entitled to know:
Law 20F1: "... any player may request, but only at his own turn to call, an explanation of the opponents’ prior auction. He is entitled to know about calls actually made, about relevant alternative calls available that were not made, and about relevant inferences from the choice of action where these are matters of partnership understanding."
Law 40B2C: "Unless the Regulating Authority provides otherwise a player may consult his opponent’s system card ... during the auction"
Law 40B2a: "The Regulating Authority may prescribe alerting procedures and/or other methods of disclosure of a partnership’s methods."

In other words, the default is that you''re not entitled to know what their future actions might mean, but you are allowed to look at the convention card. That can be changed by regulation, so the RA could require the opponents to answer questions about future actions, or to make their system file available.

Assuming this is accurate, I have the following questions:

1. I play a system with some artificial opening bid (strong club, short club, nebulous diamond, etc). Am I entitled to know my opponents defensive/overcalling methods before they come up? My guess - no, because they don't seem to be required on the convention card. This contrasts with 1NT openers where I can expect to know their defensive methods from looking at their card before I elect to make my opening bid on any particular hand (especially when there might be some discretion involved in choice of openings).

2. I want to psych a major bid in the auction 1m-X or 2D-X, but would like to know if the advancer's double is penalty or not (i.e. 1m-X-1M-X, or 2D-X-2M-X) before I make my call. Am I allowed to know this before the auction has come up? Note that this does not run afoul of issue about "making your bidding agreements depend on things that have not yet happened" since our agreement is standard (M bids are natural and forcing 1 round), but we still might want to psych those bids.

3. In the section of the ACBL convention card "other convention calls", am I required to list every conventional meaning I have agreements for with my partner, including complicated multi-round auctions? In practice people seem to list a few basic agreements ("unusual over unusual", "Mathe vs strong club", etc), but this seems to be more for their memory/partnership agreement than disclosure. Would any non-natural defense to #1 above be required to be listed here? Would any non natural treatment of double in #2 above (i.e. non penalty) be required to be listed? If they weren't listed and I made a bid based in this and it worked out poorly, would I have legal recourse (i.e. two-way shot at psyching)?

I can imagine all sorts of tricky ways to avoid what reasonable people might think of as "full disclosure" assuming one is not able to get proper information about opponent's defenses along the lines of these examples. While I understand that methods are not to change during an event and assuming one cannot get disclosure until an auction occurs, I could have an agreement that the first time against this set of opponents when they open a strong club our defense is X and the second time it's Y. Then they could mistakenly assume after getting the alerted explanation of X the first time that they didnt need to ask again the second time (or worse, Y=natural and isn't alerted which might lead them to think you're confused when you aren't). I can probably come up with slightly less convoluted examples, but you get the idea.

[blackshoe]

1. If they play an artificial defense to your strong club, you're entitled to know what it is before you take your cards out of the board. It is supposed to be on their card.
2. The card has a checkbox for "responsive doubles" but does not necessarily include information on exactly when they apply. Other than the checkbox, you're on your own.
3. Yes, unless there's another place for it on the card. If people are using the card for their own convenience or as a memory aid instead of as a tool for full disclosure, then they're doing wrong — and using it as a memory aid during a hand is illegal. Yes. No (it would be listed in the "doubles" section as I said above). No.

Don't let your imagination run away with your good sense.

[FrancesHinden]

Many years ago, there was a hand where (if I remember rightly) some opponents took advantage of the fact that they knew Berkowitz & Cohen systemically could not pass a redouble for business. If you know your opponents have that agreement, you just redouble on a hand where you suspect the next hand is about to pass the double for penalties. (This is mainly a matchpoint tactic!). I believe B&C changed their methods subsequently.

One of England's top pairs at one point played anti-lead-directional doubles of all cue bids, even in suits that had been bid naturally (e.g. 1S P 2C P 3S P 4C cue bid dbl said don't lead a club). This wasn't on their card anywhere. Our usual defence to lead-directional (or anti-lead-directional) doubles is to redouble to show a control. Against this method, it's better to play redouble as to play, but when it came up in the middle of an auction we hadn't discussed it.

There are quite a few methods that work best when opponents aren't aware of them in advance. I disapprove as a matter of principle (against the idea of full disclosure) but the way the laws are worded it's hard to find any penalty. The EBU card has a section for special things that should be brought to the opponents' attention, but it often isn't filled in well.

Anyway, to answer your questions in a way that actually avoids some of them:

1. I can't say about the ACBL, but both the EBU and WBF cards have a space on them specifically for your defence to strong artificial openings. (And your defence to a short 1C opening) But as a general rule, you should be prepared for all defences against whatever methods you want to play.

2. I don't think that you are allowed to know. There are two very good practical reasons why you shouldn't ask, however. The first is that the 1M psyche works best when the opponents do not know what double means (if they both know that double is penalty, or they both know that double is t/o they probably won't get into trouble; it's most effectively when one doubles showing spades and the other thinks it is responsive). Asking just helps them sort out their methods in advance. The other is that if you markedly more likely to psyche against a particular agreement, then partner probably also knows that and your psyche is no longer equally surprising to opponents and partner.

Zia is one of a number of players who have sat down against me and asked only one thing about our methods: how we play a double of an opening 1NT bid. We briefly played double as conventional except penalties against a third seat opening, and penalties against anyone who asked before the start of the round! [Now we just play it as penalties.]

3. There obviously isn't room to do so. My EBU convention card is filled in with as much detail as can be fitted onto it, and it doesn't cover all first round auctions, never mind everything that can happen later. We put on the main things that we think opponents should know about - but that's a subjective choice which those are.

[Trinidad]

You are entitled to know whatever the regulating authorities say that you are entitled to know.

Most RAs will state that full disclosure is the leading thought behind the game. That means that you can ask anything that you would like to know - as long as it is relevant for the boards that you will be playing and as long as you keep in mind that there is only limited time. (This means that you cannot ask Meckwell how they play 1♣-1♠; 2♣-2♥; 2NT-3♦; 3♠-4♣. If you would really like to know, you could ask them after the boards. They may well tell you.)

• If you want to have a special defense against an unbalanced 1♦ opening, just ask whether their opening is unbalanced.
  
• If you want to know what a double of a splinter or a cuebid means, just ask.
  
• If you want to know in what situations the opponents signal count and when attitude, just ask.

Most of the things that most people would be interested in will be found on the opponents' convention card. But if you are interested in something else, go ahead and ask.

The principle of the game is full disclosure. The convention card is meant to help with that. It is not a suggestion to limit disclosure to those things that the RA thought should be on a convention card.

Rik

[mgoetze]

rbforster, on 2013-September-01, 04:08, said:

1. I play a system with some artificial opening bid (strong club, short club, nebulous diamond, etc). Am I entitled to know my opponents defensive/overcalling methods before they come up? My guess - no, because they don't seem to be required on the convention card.

I don't think it's smart to assume anything about the laws based solely on how convention cards happen to look in your part of the world.

Quote

3. In the section of the ACBL convention card "other convention calls", am I required to list every conventional meaning I have agreements for with my partner, including complicated multi-round auctions? In practice people seem to list a few basic agreements ("unusual over unusual", "Mathe vs strong club", etc), but this seems to be more for their memory/partnership agreement than disclosure.

In Germany there are also parts of the convention card where it is completely unclear what you should and should not disclose. Regulations about convention cards in Germany and many other places are a joke. The WBF, on the other hand, has produced an extensive booklet on how to fill out the WBF card, it is just too bad hardly anyone reads it (even if I strongly disagree with one or two things therein).

Quote

I could have an agreement that the first time against this set of opponents when they open a strong club our defense is X and the second time it's Y.

In Germany, this could run afoul of a seldom-enforced regulation about how many different systems you are allowed to play, depending on the exact competition.

[Vampyr]

In the EBU, I believe (hopefully someone will correct me if I am wrong) you are allowed to change methods only between rounds -- ie you must play the same agreements against any given pair. Of course even during a round you may play different systems based on position or vulnerability.

[gordontd]

Vampyr, on 2013-September-03, 00:41, said:

In the EBU, I believe (hopefully someone will correct me if I am wrong) you are allowed to change methods only between rounds -- ie you must play the same agreements against any given pair. Of course even during a round you may play different systems based on position or vulnerability.

The first bit of this is correct; the second not exactly. From the Blue Book:

Quote

It is always permitted to vary certain parts of a system according to position and/or
vulnerability. This includes, for example, variable NT openings and playing four or five card
majors in different positions.

A partnership may play any number of different basic systems in one event provided that they
play only one system against any given opposing partnership

[gnasher]

mgoetze, on 2013-September-03, 00:24, said:

I don't think it's smart to assume anything about the laws based solely on how convention cards happen to look in your part of the world. the exact competition.

But it may be sensible to make assumptions about the regulations regarding convention cards.

There is no law that requires you to disclose the means of bids that you haven't yet made and which weren't alternatives to the bids you have made. The only thing that might require such disclosure is a regulation. One of the ways that the ACBL requires advance disclosure is by filling in an ACBL convention card, so finding out what it contains seems a sensible step.

[Vampyr]

gordontd, on 2013-September-03, 01:25, said:

The first bit of this is correct; the second not exactly. From the Blue Book:

Quote

It is always permitted to vary certain parts of a system according to position and/or
vulnerability. This includes, for example, variable NT openings and playing four or five card
majors in different positions.

A partnership may play any number of different basic systems in one event provided that they
play only one system against any given opposing partnership

Is this at all levels? I have played a number of pairs recently that were playing precision or Acol based on their vulnerability (it is arguable that they should instead play it based on their opponents' vulnerability). Is this illegal?

[gordontd]

Vampyr, on 2013-September-03, 08:40, said:

Is this at all levels? I have played a number of pairs recently that were playing precision or Acol based on their vulnerability (it is arguable that they should instead play it based on their opponents' vulnerability). Is this illegal?

Quote

A partnership may play two basic systems at different positions or vulnerabilities only in Level
4 or Level 5 competitions, and only where rounds are of 7 boards or more.

[nige1]

mgoetze, on 2013-September-03, 00:24, said:

In Germany there are also parts of the convention card where it is completely unclear what you should and should not disclose. Regulations about convention cards in Germany and many other places are a joke. The WBF, on the other hand, has produced an extensive booklet on how to fill out the WBF card, it is just too bad hardly anyone reads it (even if I strongly disagree with one or two things therein).

Agree with Mgoetze. IMO:

• Understandably, regulators create regulations to protect local players and disadvantage strangers and foreigners. Idisyncratic local system-card formats and rules are part of that strategy. For competitions at national level, however, local regulators should relent and allow the WBF card, even if used only by a few masochists, trying to abide by the spirit as well as the letter of disclosure laws.
• As discussed in another thread, regulators could mandate clear, comprehensive and well-structured supplementary sheets that would help opponents and could replace system-notes.
• Clubs should provide a stock of default system-cards for locally popular methods (e.g. Precision, Acol, 2/1, SEC, and so on), that would provide a template for beginners, pick-up partnerships, and casual club-players.

[aguahombre]

Vampyr, on 2013-September-03, 08:40, said:

(it is arguable that they should instead play it based on their opponents' vulnerability).

Excellent point. It seems the wording which allows two different systems based on vulnerability doesn't mention WHOSE vulnerability, so it would be o.k.

I recently watched a pair in our trials who played Precision or 2/1 based on their vulnerability. But, like you, I thought they should consider the opponents' vulnerability rather than their own.

[barmar]

You might base it on both, i.e. favorable vs. unfavorable.

[GreenMan]

Vampyr, on 2013-September-03, 08:40, said:

Is this at all levels? I have played a number of pairs recently that were playing precision or Acol based on their vulnerability (it is arguable that they should instead play it based on their opponents' vulnerability). Is this illegal?

As I read the quoted bits, a "system" may include variations based on position and vul; so you can play 5cM WNT 1/2 and 4cM SNT 3/4 against the same pair, or Precision NV/Acol V, if that's what you're doing for the whole session, but can't switch to Fantunes halfway through.

[blackshoe]

aguahombre, on 2013-September-03, 09:36, said:

I recently watched a pair in our trials who played Precision or 2/1 based on their vulnerability. But, like you, I thought they should consider the opponents' vulnerability rather than their own.

Rosenkranz and his cronies seem to think the form of scoring is pertinent as well. They play a two card system, Romex, and Romex Forcing Club (RFC). The latter is similar to Precision, but has features from Romex and also Blue Club. At match points, they play Romex when vulnerable, and RFC when not vulnerable. At IMPs, they play RFC only at favorable vulnerability.

[rbforster]

Let me get back to the much simpler question I originally posted about

1. knowing the opps defense to my strong club under ACBL rules, and
2. knowing their agreement on advancers double after overcaller's double

The replies so far seem strongly to favor being allowed to know #1 but not #2. The ACBL regs cited in OP suggest that perhaps neither can be required to be disclosed until they come up (which doesn't help in case #2 since you want to bid before their call has come up).

blackshoe, on 2013-September-01, 08:24, said:

1. If they play an artificial defense to your strong club, you're entitled to know what it is before you take your cards out of the board. It is supposed to be on their card.
2. The card has a checkbox for "responsive doubles" but does not necessarily include information on exactly when they apply. Other than the checkbox, you're on your own.

FrancesHinden, on 2013-September-01, 08:55, said:

1. I can't say about the ACBL, but both the EBU and WBF cards have a space on them specifically for your defence to strong artificial openings. (And your defence to a short 1C opening) But as a general rule, you should be prepared for all defences against whatever methods you want to play.

2. I don't think that you are allowed to know....

Trinidad, on 2013-September-01, 09:16, said:

You are entitled to know whatever the regulating authorities say that you are entitled to know.

Most of the things that most people would be interested in will be found on the opponents' convention card. But if you are interested in something else, go ahead and ask.

It seems very contradictory that the answer to these two would be different, which is why I asked when I originally got feedback along the same lines (yes to #1, no to #2). This wouldn't be the first time the ACBLs rules have been wildly contradictory but I wanted to see if the legal experts could try their hand at unravelling this. I admit I am still as confused to the difference between these two questions as I was when I first asked.

[blackshoe]

There are two things (well, three, if you count TD whim, but let's ignore that) that affect the answers to your questions: the laws, and the Regulating Authority's (the ACBL's, for purposes of this thread) regulations. The Laws on disclosure are Law 20F, which deals with questions during the bidding and play, and Law 40 which deals with partnership understandings and disclosure thereof. Of particular pertinence is Law 40A1(b ): "Each partnership has a duty to make available its partnership understandings to opponents before commencing play against them. The Regulating Authority specifies the manner in which this shall be done." One could argue that the first sentence means that all partnership understandings must be made available prior to commencing play, but there's a practical problem — actually two. The first is that disclosure takes time, and you don't have a lot of time to spare for it in a round or even a match. The second is related to the second sentence of the regulation. The ACBL's specification is based largely on the convention system card (SC), and the ACBL system card sucks as a means of disclosure. But it and the alert procedure are what we have.

So I would say: make it a point to look at opp's SC at the start of every round or match, at least until you're pretty sure you're familiar with it. If the "responsive double" (or whatever else you're interested in) box is checked, and you need to know, or expect to need to know during a deal, something about how they play those, ask at this time. Don't be surprised though, if the card is not properly completed, or they can't answer — or don't understand — your question, or if you get no help from the director on this. Later, during the actually play of a deal, you cannot ask hypothetical questions about future calls — you can only ask about calls that have already been made, or possible alternatives to those calls (see Law 20F). The main purpose of that restriction, I suspect, is to keep the game on track and on time.

I hope this makes at least a little sense.

[aguahombre]

Yeh, I used to think the ACBL CC was a reasonably reliable source I could count on. But, the more I read these fora and the more I see in practice, I find that in several areas it is not worth much.

There isn't even a place for the alleged one-way checkback in which 2C is always a checkback even when Opener has opened 1C and rebid 1S. Or the one-way 2C checkback after 1C-1M-1NT.

Also, I read what people on here call a Responsive Double or a Negative double, and wonder how the heck they mark their card. Even the simple "take-out" really means nondescript card-showing values to many people.

Then I discover "Jump-Shift=weak" could be full responding values.

[Vampyr]

aguahombre, on 2013-September-04, 00:06, said:

Yeh, I used to think the ACBL CC was a reasonably reliable source I could count on. But, the more I read these fora and the more I see in practice, I find that in several areas it is not worth much.

The big problem with the ACBL card is all the printing on it. It is a very small CC to begin with, and all of the space is given over to suggested methods and check-boxes.

The one-of-a-suit opening section here could easily fit into this space taken up on this card, and you could put so much more information. Also, since the EBU cards are available in Word format, you can remove the lines and combine your entries, say for majors and minors.

But really no space created could leave room for many footnotes etc, so the ACBL card will not be a particularly good one until it is changed to 2-sided.

[Trinidad]

blackshoe, on 2013-September-03, 23:02, said:

The first [problem] is that disclosure takes time, and you don't have a lot of time to spare for it in a round or even a match.

But if rbfoster only wants to know the opponents'defense to his strong 1♣ and the meaning of advancer's double after 1x-1/2y-1/2z-Dbl (or 1x-Dbl-1y-Dbl) that doesn't take much time, does it?

Rik