[lamford]

Trinidad, on 2017-January-10, 08:25, said:

So, the correct explanation would be "strong, but could be as weak as...".

As I said earlier, regulating conventions and explaining them are two different things.

Rik

I can accept that. Then I think that SB's partner just has to say "any hand complying with the requirements of Blue Book 5C3", and to recite those. After all that is the exact agreement.

[Zelandakh]

You would be correct if SB was announcing the 2♣ opening but the opening is alerted, not announced. Upon questions being asked it is correct to give full disclosure and not use terms that can easily be misinterpreted. It is well-established that if you do use such terms and the opps inadvertently misinterpret them that you leave yourself open to a MI ruling. This case is worse though because SB, knowing the rules as well as he does, has specifically coached a partner not to provide full disclosure and that is something that I would personally consider a very serious breach of protocol, particularly in combination with the long history of rudeness and disputes.

[lamford]

Zelandakh, on 2017-January-10, 09:35, said:

You would be correct if SB was announcing the 2♣ opening but the opening is alerted, not announced. Upon questions being asked it is correct to give full disclosure and not use terms that can easily be misinterpreted. It is well-established that if you do use such terms and the opps inadvertently misinterpret them that you leave yourself open to a MI ruling. This case is worse though because SB, knowing the rules as well as he does, has specifically coached a partner not to provide full disclosure and that is something that I would personally consider a very serious breach of protocol, particularly in combination with the long history of rudeness and disputes.

So what should SB say when 2C is opened in this particular partnership? His partner will use the same phrase, of course.

[Zelandakh]

lamford, on 2017-January-10, 10:01, said:

So what should SB say when 2C is opened in this particular partnership? His partner will use the same phrase, of course.

He should alert of course. If asked he should provide a full description of the agreement. You know the agreement better than I but I would imagine the explanation might include a statement to the effect that some hands with little defensive strength are included.

[barmar]

Zelandakh, on 2017-January-10, 10:14, said:

He should alert of course. If asked he should provide a full description of the agreement. You know the agreement better than I but I would imagine the explanation might include a statement to the effect that some hands with little defensive strength are included.

Isn't that effectively covered if he says that it includes all hands that meet ER25 -- there's no requirement for defensive strength there. This isn't like when players explain a bid by using a convention name, because players don't all have the same understanding of what a named convention includes. Using terms that are defined in the Blue Book should avoid that misunderstanding.

The original problem was that he simply explained it as "strong, game forcing", and assumed this would be understood as a hand meeting any of the 3 criteria in the BB. But if he actually lists each of the 3 criteria, and says that it can be any of those hands, what more does he need to say?

[mycroft]

So, why not the explanation SB gives to the bloody TD (post 33)? Which is what everyone who plays these kinds of games does - the explanation to the TD is magically much closer to "full" than the one the opponents get, and while I'm sure it's just a lack of understanding, it's amazing how consistently these lack of understandings of the requirements benefit the people with said lack.

I play 2♣ the same way SB *describes* (give or take. We have requirements for defensive power, in that "partner with a flat yarb should be confident that their game is going down, barring duelling voids or the like.") That's what everybody would expect. It also bears little resemblance to "we can open 2♣ with any hand that meets BB 'strong'." (or we can choose to open with a weaker bid if we think that will be better, or on a mixed strategy, or whatever) or, as the SB said to the TD, "we *do* open 2♣ with any hand that meets BB 'strong'."

Now, that won't help the punters, who have no clue what BB "strong" actually means; but it will put a light into their little heads that the SB is trying something on again, and ask for further explanation. If they don't get it (or SB decides that after another "half-complete" answer, further questions are "badgering", and calls the TD), the TD can explain - it is his job to read the BB for the players!

The difference between "our 2♣ opener promises a 'BB strong' hand, because by regulation, it must" and "our 2♣ opener is bid on *every* hand that meets 'BB strong', without exception" is legion, and without qualification (especially to players who would "blank look" on one of the *parts* of that definition (post 35) - if SB said both "strong means BB strong, I don't have to read the book for them" and "but they wouldn't understand ER25 if you required me to explain that", then that looks like an automatic "failing to fully disclose" penalty, as he knows himself that his explanation is not given in a way understandable to his opponents.

What SB is saying is equivalent to me stating (ACBL GCC) that my 1♥ overcall is "natural". They don't play me for 8642? Well, the definition is right up on top of the GCC, not my job to read it for them...

[steve2005]

I don't have access to blue book but if you say this hand meets definition of rule of 25 I believe you.
To say this hand is FG except if 2N rebid is bid is ridiculous.

[lamford]

steve2005, on 2017-January-10, 17:22, said:

I don't have access to blue book but if you say this hand meets definition of rule of 25 I believe you.
To say this hand is FG except if 2N rebid is bid is ridiculous.

He has changed his explanation now to "any hand with one of 16 HCPs, a hand meeting the extended rule of 25, or a hand with 10 HCP and 8 clear-cut tricks. It is strong and forcing to game except a 2NT rebid can be passed." Opponents are still terrified to bid over it!

[Zelandakh]

lamford, on 2017-January-11, 06:26, said:

He has changed his explanation now to "any hand with one of 16 HCPs, a hand meeting the extended rule of 25, or a hand with 10 HCP and 8 clear-cut tricks. It is strong and forcing to game except a 2NT rebid can be passed." Opponents are still terrified to bid over it!

If they are terrified to bid after being given full disclosure then that really is their problem. That is not much different from being scared to bid over a 1NT opening. That is very different from deliberately hiding your real agreement from the opponents. Thankfully in my world I do not need to see any more SB threads for a while as he ought not to be back in the North London club for a while. Perhaps you will have us meet up at a national or international event instead though.

[weejonnie]

eagles123, on 2017-January-09, 15:07, said:

the law is ***** there's already been 600+ post discussion on bridgewinners about how ***** the law is, do we really need another point proving mission?

And I was just about to get warmed up.

The short answer is that the EBU have drawn a line in the sand about how you define a 'strong' hand. We may not agree with it, but at least it is easy for someone to work out relatively quickly. All EBU players should know what ER25 is. If they disagree then they should come up with a different definition of what is allowable before you use the word 'strong' and put it forward to the EBU - and 'I know it when I see it' is not IMHO expected to be allowed.

Many players in the past used the word 'strong' to try and psychologically prevent opponents from bidding. The now notorious hand (AKJ98765, X, X, AJT) does not meet the EBU definition under ER25. The other side are fully within their rights to ask the TD to see if there was a partnership agreement to open such hands as a 'strong' bid and, if the TD did find that out, the TD would naturally award a 3 IMP penalty as directed in the White book. There is a lot of posturing on bridgewinners. Terence Reese warned against a 'holier than thou' approach as this could affect table harmony if the offending side felt unable to reciprocate at a later stage.

[lamford]

barmar, on 2017-January-10, 10:35, said:

Isn't that effectively covered if he says that it includes all hands that meet ER25 -- there's no requirement for defensive strength there.

The trouble is that not all hands meet ER25. Junky balanced 16 counts and 10-counts with 8 clear-cut tricks are included. The lowest ER of the former is 23 and the lowest ER of the latter is I think 21 (my and SB's efforts to compose a 20 have fallen on stony ground).

[barmar]

lamford, on 2017-January-11, 09:04, said:

The trouble is that not all hands meet ER25. Junky balanced 16 counts and 10-counts with 8 clear-cut tricks are included. The lowest ER of the former is 23 and the lowest ER of the latter is I think 21 (my and SB's efforts to compose a 20 have fallen on stony ground).

I said "includes ER25 hands". That's not the same thing as "2♣ showsan ER25 hand", because it also includes 16+ HCP hands, and 8 CCT hands.

I suspect the expectation of the regulators was not that players would combine these. Rather, they would decide on a type of hand they would use 2♣ with, and ensure that their criteria meets one of these restrictions. E.g. Precision is sanctioned by the 16+ HCP criteria.

But the way it's written, nothing prevents players from adopting an agreement that combines them like this. And apparently there's nothing preventing methods to determine which type of hand opener actually has.

I question whether this is an effective system, though. In the given auction, the 4♥ rebid is described as "minimum". That can probably also be pretty wide ranging, and I suspect North was lucky when he guessed right not to look for slam. I suspect the players of this system are more likely to be hoist on their own petard, and it's wrong to cherry-pick the time when they got lucky with it.

[mycroft]

I assume, like we do here, that "strong is '22+ or equivalent PT w/defence' ", or "Precision 1♣ is 16+, maybe as low as 14 with say AKxxx AKxxx in the majors".

I fully expect that most if not all "strong 2♣" agreements in the EBU are "some from column A, some from column B, some from column C" agreements - as would mine or yours. And that is as it should be - "HCP is not the only way to evaluate hands", as they say; "length takes more tricks than Aces", as they say.

SB's issue is that he is:

• Playing that *all* bids that meet any of the three criteria are opened 2♣ (although how this could actually work in the normal hands eludes me; I'm sure that lamford's SB plays better than Your Humble SB);
  
• Carefully using definitions used for legality (but never used outside of that) to (mis-)describe his agreement to the opponents, in the hopes that they will misdefend (as opposed to playing an outlandish agreement in the hopes that it is difficult to defend against); and
  
• Obnoxiously claiming that this is IOTTMCO, and (likely) that, in fact, if the opponents describe their 2♣ opener as "strong, artificial and forcing to game or 2NT", but would open this hand anything *but* 2♣, they're the ones that are not carefully describing their agreements.

I, too, think that the *agreement* to open this hand 2♣ is legal under the "strong" definition - I've said so from the start. Deliberately crafting an explanation designed to produce a false expectation in the opponents, where such a misapprehension is to his advantage, is the problem.

It's like the pair who, pre-Announcements, played, and marked as such on their card, 1NT:

12-14 VUL
15-17 NV

and just hoped people would read what they expected to read. I don't know how much it got them, but after they had to Announce their NT ranges, they switched to "normal" variable PDQ, I'm told.

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2017-January-11, 10:19, said:

I said "includes ER25 hands". That's not the same thing as "2♣ showsan ER25 hand", because it also includes 16+ HCP hands, and 8 CCT hands.

These hands are all ER25

Last night a player opened 2♣ which was a Weak Two in a major or an Acol Two in any suit. His Acol Two was a balanced 17-count with some thing like ♥AKJxx. The ER25 breaks down on so many different hands in so many different ways.

[Vampyr]

weejonnie, on 2017-January-11, 07:21, said:

And I was just about to get warmed up.

The short answer is that the EBU have drawn a line in the sand about how you define a 'strong' hand. We may not agree with it, but at least it is easy for someone to work out relatively quickly. All EBU players should know what ER25 is. If they disagree then they should come up with a different definition of what is allowable before you use the word 'strong' and put it forward to the EBU - and 'I know it when I see it' is not IMHO expected to be allowed.

Many players in the past used the word 'strong' to try and psychologically prevent opponents from bidding. The now notorious hand (AKJ98765, X, X, AJT) does not meet the EBU definition under ER25. The other side are fully within their rights to ask the TD to see if there was a partnership agreement to open such hands as a 'strong' bid and, if the TD did find that out, the TD would naturally award a 3 IMP penalty as directed in the White book. There is a lot of posturing on bridgewinners. Terence Reese warned against a 'holier than thou' approach as this could affect table harmony if the offending side felt unable to reciprocate at a later stage.

Yes, one strange aspect of the ruling was that the players had not discussed their requirements for a 2♣ opener, had not seen each other bid one and had not, in fact, ever played together before. Opener was not sure whether she had ever knowingly played Benjy previously. Yet the players were assumed to have an agreement.

Anyway, all Benjy players have "8 playing tricks" on their card, in their explanations, and one presumes, especially going by the large number of players who opened 2♣ in the event, even if it was their only strong bid, in their hand.

[WellSpyder]

barmar, on 2017-January-11, 10:19, said:

I said "includes ER25 hands". That's not the same thing as "2♣ showsan ER25 hand", because it also includes 16+ HCP hands, and 8 CCT hands.

As Vampyr says, these hands are all ER25. It may not be entirely obvious from the quotes that have been provided, but the terminology in use here talks about the EXTENDED rule of 25 (ie ER25 rather than just R25) precisely because this rule extends the R25 to include the other two hand-types you mention.

[lamford]

WellSpyder, on 2017-January-12, 04:17, said:

As Vampyr says, these hands are all ER25. It may not be entirely obvious from the quotes that have been provided, but the terminology in use here talks about the EXTENDED rule of 25 (ie ER25 rather than just R25) precisely because this rule extends the R25 to include the other two hand-types you mention.

SB, being a minimalist when it comes to disclosure, is quite keen to just reply with the fully compliant "any ER 25 hand" if he can get away with it, and has written to the L&E to ask them if this is full disclosure. Last time he used the phrase an opponent replied "I'm none the wiser", to which SB immediately retorted, "No, but you are better informed."

[Zelandakh]

lamford, on 2017-January-12, 05:50, said:

SB, being a minimalist when it comes to disclosure, is quite keen to just reply with the fully compliant "any ER 25 hand" if he can get away with it,

Is there really no ER25 that he would ever open with any other call?

[lamford]

Zelandakh, on 2017-January-12, 07:17, said:

Is there really no ER25 that he would ever open with any other call?

Yes, there is; for example his opening 5NT would show a one-loser hand with both minors and would satisfy ER25, or even ER30 probably. A few hands would open at the five or six level and another small number would open 4NT, specific ace. No ER25 hand passes nor does any open at the one-level. So, the 2C bid does always show an ER25 hand but is not bid on the complete set of all ER25 hands.

[Zelandakh]

lamford, on 2017-January-12, 07:44, said:

Yes, there is; for example his opening 5NT would show a one-loser hand with both minors and would satisfy ER25, or even ER30 probably. A few hands would open at the five or six level and another small number would open 4NT, specicific ace. No ER25 hand passes nor does any open at the one-level. So, the 2C bid does always show an ER25 hand but is not bid on the complete set of all ER25 hands.

No ER25 hand would ever open at the 3 or 4 level, or with 5 of a minor? The disclosure issues usually come in the line between preemptive calls and strong ones. If SB always chooses 2♣ when it qualifies over an alternative preemptive call then it actually makes his disclosure position very easy.