HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jpnicol@eng.auburn.edu (Jean-Paul N. Nicol)
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Subject: Re: Law questions
Date: 5 Oct 92 16:02:37 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.1992Oct5.160237.14562
Reply-To: jpnicol@eng.auburn.edu
Organization: Auburn University Engineering

In article 718059897@sage0, ted@sage0.gsfc.nasa.gov (Ted Ying) writes:
>jpnicol@eng.auburn.edu (Jean-Paul N. Nicol) writes:
>
>> For what kind of hands would it be considered good bridge judgement to
>> accept insufficient and/or out of rotation calls?  In a long standing
>> partnership, does partners awareness of your usual action (good bridge
>> judgement) in these situations constitute an 'agreement', and if so,
>> are you now barred from exercising the aforementioned 'good judgement'?
>
>	I will accept an insufficient bid if it will allow me to make
>	a weak lead directing bid that I otherwise wouldn't have been
>	able to make.  For example, holding  xx,Txx,AKxxx,xxx and
>	hearing the auction:
>
>	Pard     RHO     Me     LHO
>	---------------------------
>	1S       1C      ?
>
>	I will accept and "overcall" 1D to allow me to get my lead
>	directing bid in.  Otherwise, if partner is on lead, I'll
>	never be able to show my diamonds over 1S-2C...
>
>	This is legal and allowable.  If I have no reason to want
>	to come into the auction, then I'll require that RHO correct
>	the bid.  There aren't too many times to accept the insufficient
>	bid, but there are some.
>
>	Ted Ying			ted@rosserv.gsfc.nasa.gov
>	Hughes/STX			Goddard Space Flight Center

Yes, this is legal and allowable on its face (and sounds like good bridge to me).  The point I'd like to get addressed by net Law experts is, if AGREEMENTS regarding action over illegal bids are illegal, would such action be illegal in a long standing partnership in which this situation has arisen many times and you have taken this action consistently enough that it is a de facto AGREEMENT.
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
From: davidm@voltaire.Rational.COM (David Moore)
Subject: Re: My fault ?
Organization: Rational
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 18:51:52 GMT

doug@cm.deakin.OZ.AU (Douglas Newlands) writes:

>It is no more  bogus than say Milton Work count. It's  just a helpful 
>method for judging competetive situations.

I have been told that usually, the law is given as saying the TOTAL number of
tricks that can be taken by BOTH sides is equal to the total number of trumps
held by BOTH sides (Actually, my correspondent wrote EACH instead of BOTH, which
is confusing, but summation was implied)

Either definition (using the total, or the average) effectively removes one degree
of freedom from the system, but using the total is easier to measure.

Douglas's point is a good one; the Milton Work point count is indeed also bogus
if you apply it mechanically and rigidly, rather than as a starting approximation
to a hand's value. No doubt anybody who has progressed beyond reliance on point
count is also capable of using the Total Trick law judiciously. 



Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: Law questions
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 07:50:44 GMT

> > are you allowed to have a set of agreements about what it would mean to
> > accept the insufficient bid vs. what bids might mean if you require RHO
> > to correct the bid?  Similar situations would be calls out of rotation
> > and untimely or incorrect alerts ...
> 
> I posed this very question to an ACBL director several months ago at a
> sectional and was informed in no uncertain terms that such agreements
> were ILLEGAL and I had better not be caught using them.

This has come up in this newsgroup once before.  I found it bizarre and
incomprehensible then, and I still do.  Let me take a very simple case.
My partner and I still play that extra values are required for a free
raise over an overcall in most cases.  1H-P-2H shows 6-10 points as a
heart dummy, while 1H-2D-2H shows 8-12.  Okay, partner opens 1H and
next hand overcalls 1D.

If I have 6 points and was going to raise hearts, I'll accept the 1D
bid and "raise" to 1H.  But if I have 9 points, I'll reject 1D and
plan to bid 2H if the expected 2D occurs, and partner will know that
I didn't have a minimum raise.  If we assume for the sake of argument
that the treatment described in the previous paragraph is good bridge,
isn't the treatment described in *this* paragraph *also* simply good
bridge?  And it doesn't even involve any conventions.  So on what
grounds could I possibly be prohibited from discussing it with partner?

To take another example, the ACBL General Convention Chart allows any
defense to opponents' notrump bids.  So if partner opens 3H and next
hand overcalls 2NT, why should we not be allowed a conventional
defense against this bid?  Supposing that we had some sort of conventions
in place for legitimate NT bids over our preempts, would this mean that
I would be *forced* to reject the insufficient bid if I have a hand for
which such a convention would apply?  Again, this seems to me both
ridiculous and unjustified by the laws.

(I don't have any particular bidding in mind here; I just wanted an
example where the GCC allowed any conventions.)
-- 
Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com
		"It is hard to believe that any Biblical passage, no matter
		 how powerful, could make an entire Soviet submarine crew
		 speak English and not even realize they were doing it."
							-- Mark Leeper

This article is in the public domain.
From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Subject: Re: Scoring program.
Date: 29 Sep 1992 22:27:09 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: telecaster.think.com


Does anyone know of a scoring program for the Macintosh (or maybe an Excel
spreadsheet)?  The director of our club has a Powerbook that we could use
for scoring.  All we really need is a program that can do normal American
matchpoint scoring with factoring.
-- 
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
From: bpwing@phoenix.princeton.edu (Ben Wing)
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Date: 4 Oct 92 18:47:34 GMT
Subject: Re: Different opening meanings in different positions
Organization: Princeton University
X-Subliminal-Message: You can quit reading news anytime you want.

In article <29689@olympus.wustl.edu> geppo@dworkin.wustl.edu (Giuseppe Bianchi) writes:
|
|I think that the idea of a light or sound opening is not in contrast with
|this principle, that is a more frequent light opening nevertheless doesn't
|describe a different hand than the solid one. 
|For example in case of 1 level opening, you must follow (in Italy) the 
|rule of 19 (the sum of the length in the two longest suits + the total 
|HCP must be greater or equal than 19), as a matter of fact, in first and 
|second position, lots of people don't open ALL the "19" hands, while in 3~ 
|and 4~ they probably do.

This "rule of 19" sounds awfully bogus to me ...  precision players will
open hands like Qxx AKxx Qxx xxx, mini-NTers will open even weaker hands,
and I often play a light opening system where most 9-counts are opened.
All of these violate this rule, and none of these are illegal in the ACBL.

|Another example is that a weak two in first of third position is structurally
|always a weak two, although partnership agreements can guarantee more solidity
|in the first and second seat.
|
|The openings that should be in contrast with this law seems to be ALL THE 
|OPENINGS THAT RADICALLY DESCRIBE A NEW HAND (like a 2 opening with 12-16 
|points, or a NT opening with a differen point count range), that, according 
|to this law, should be banned. 
|

I think "radically different" is a matter of opinion here.  "Standard" players
who use Drury will commonly open 8-counts and 9-counts third seat with long
spades, and many players will sometimes open 4-card majors third seat but
never first or second seat.  Most players will do all sorts of strange
pre-empts third seat, often on hands they might have opened normally in first
or second seat.  Are different NT ranges any more "radical" than this?

ben
--

Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
From: taylor@foraker.tivoli.com (Eric Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Subject: Re: bidding problem after support redouble
Date: 2 Oct 92 20:19:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: tivoli.4698
Organization: TIVOLI Systems, Inc.

In article <29287@olympus.wustl.edu>, geppo@dworkin.wustl.edu (Giuseppe Bianchi) writes:
|> A friend gave me the following problem:
|> 
|>   You hold AJx, xx, AKQxxx, Ax unfavorable at IMPs
|> 
|>              1D   P  1S  X
|>              XX   3H  P  P
|>              ?
|> 
|>   What do you do if 
|>      a) redouble was a support redouble
|>      b) redouble showed general strength
|> 
|> He proposed this problem to 5 people and, for the case a), he received 5 
|> different answers. 
|> 
|> He cannot read r.g.b, so I decided to post this, thinking that the problem is
|> quite interesting and hoping to get some other considerations.
|> 
|> Somebody cares to answer? 


Well I do not like a redouble in any case.
It gets too little information across.   I would
reserve it for penalty situations.

You have an 18 point hand with a good diamond suit.
Bidding 3 diamonds immediately should show this type
of a hand.

Now you are stuck.
If meant as a support double I will bid 4S now.  Too much
catching up to do.

If I showed general strength, I will bid 3S so not to
bid my hand twice.
From: davidm@voltaire.Rational.COM (David Moore)
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Subject: Re: More 4th suit forcing
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:04:14 GMT

turin@jarre.euromath.dk (Soren Turin) writes:


>Hi there.

>While we are discussing 4th suit forcing. What is 1S-2H-3D-4C ? Is it a
>normal 4th suit ? I had the problem a couple of days ago with an
>unfamiliar partner. He thought it was a cue-bid agreeing spades!!!

What happened after the 4C bid. Am I right in thinking partner hurled into 6S?
It seems that partner should take the bid as a general force and go slow so as
to give you time to clarify your hand. I would have simply showed my Kx in hearts
and waited to hear further.
From: piglet.caltech.edu!hastings (Curtis A. Hastings)
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Subject: Re: Restricting Conventions
Date: 3 Oct 1992 19:34:41 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Reply-To: bidboxes for leftys and 'pls hesitate' discussion
NNTP-Posting-Host: pooh.caltech.edu
Originator: hastings@pooh

In article <1aip39INNp5d@agate.berkeley.edu> jaffray@oreo.berkeley.edu  
(Alan Jaffray) writes:
> In article <1992Oct2.193944.10380@linus.mitre.org> bs@mendel.mitre.org  
(Robert D. Silverman) writes:
> >In article <1992Oct2.173132.18978@head-cfa.harvard.edu>  
willner@head-cfa.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) writes:
> >:In article <17675@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, martel@spider.cs.ucdavis.edu
> >:(Chip Martel) writes: 
> >:> it is wrong for a pair to gain a substantial advantage by playing a
> >:> convention due to its SURPRISE EFFECT.  The surprise effect is the
> >:> gain which comes purely because the opponents have not had a
> >:> reasonable chance to prepare to play against the convention.
>  
> >Please tell me why Roman, which has been around for at least 30 years,
> >published in books, and used extensively in international competition
> >has been banned by the ACBL.  One cannot claim 'surprise'. This is an
> >old and well published system.
> 
> Well... No-Name, a bizarre forcing pass system that I've played against
> a couple of times, has been around for at least ten years, has been 
> published, and has been used in international competition multiple  
times.
> Clearly one cannot claim surprise, since it's an old and published  
system.
> Right?
> 
> No.  The surprise effect is caused not by the unfamiliarity on a world  
level,
> but by personal unfamiliarity, by never having played against the system
> before.  And this is what's wrong with barring conventions just because 
> the opponents haven't seen it before.  There always has to be a first  
time.
> 

> -- Alan

i think surprise should be defined somewhat differently...
The difficulty in defending forcing pass arises because one does not
have any experience against a similar system (primarily this expresses
itself in the lack of the most useful bid, double, after p!)
To me, surprise is something that one could not be reasonably expected to  
defend after discussing for, say, 1 minute, what to do (an amount of time  
available between rounds of a pairs event, proveided you play at a  
reasonable pace)

Personally, at imps, i would defend fp with crash, and at matchpoints i  
would use a variable pass system i have developed for that purpose, but it  
will never come up...

curt
From: ckincy@mcs213c.cs.umr.edu (Charles Kincy)
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Subject: Re: play problem
Date: 29 Sep 92 19:14:42 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri - Rolla

In article <5651@news.duke.edu> jose@math.duke.edu (Greg Lawler) writes:
>Here is a hand I played last night.  I am interested in
>other opinions on the play (I guessed wrong!)
>
>
>A Q J 8 x
>x
>J 4
>A K Q x x
>
>
>
>9 x
>A K x x x
>A 8 5 3
>x x

Well, the good news is that the lack of overcalls or doubles would
indicate to me that there is humane distribution.  So all is not lost.

Duck two diamonds.  This may keep you from losing a third.  I betcha
W has the fourth (or fifth) diomand, so taking two spade finesses
toward north should be a winner.  If you can get 4 spade tricks. . .

4S + 2H + 1D + 3C = 10 tricks.  Voila.

So lead the 9 of spades toward the north.  If W has either the 10 or
the K, you win, as long as you don't get worse than a 4-2 break with
the K-x-x-x to yer left.

>On the first two diamond leads (if you duck the first round), 
>RHO will play the ten and the queen (in
>which order depends on your play from dummy at trick one).

Yeah, but I duck two rounds.  I'm sneaky.  Then if my finesse loses
to E, he can't lead a diamond back to W.  *snicker*

>
>In this case defenders are not particularly strong players.  Would that
>affect your decision?
>
>Suppose you were playing 3N instead of 4N.  Would that change your
>decision?

Nope.  Unless I have a feeling that most N/Ss would not take two
finesses towards N, then I would only take 1.

cpk
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
From: jpnicol@eng.auburn.edu (Jean-Paul N. Nicol)
Subject: E-Bridge Party
Reply-To: jpnicol@eng.auburn.edu
Organization: Auburn University Engineering
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 15:51:00 GMT


The following note is forwarded (indirectly) from PRODIGY.  The bridge players there are planning a get-together at the fall national tournament in Orlando for all those interested in Computer Bridge (E-Bridge). 

PRODIGY(R) interactive personal service         09/27/92         4:25 PM
 
         HOMELIFE
TOPIC:   HOBBIES
TIME:    09/25  3:09 PM
 
TO:      ALL
FROM:    CHYAH BURGHARD   (DMFV47B)
SUBJECT: BRIDGE ORLANDO PARTY
 
Okay folks, it is official the "Computer Bridge Users" party
will be November 23, at the Olive Garden at 5:15pm. Please  
RSVP.  Grant Baze is Launching a duplicate game via computer
network called Tel-A-Bridge, played in an environment as if 
you were playing with Screens. He will talk to the group    
and Tel-A-Bridge and answer questions. Plus you get to put  
faces to the names. Tel-A-Bridge is currently scheduled     
to debut in January 1993.                                   
                                                            
                                                            
                                                            
                                                            
Chyah - Rochester,MN, 09/25 12:47 pm CDT
From: ohlrich@cs.washington.edu (Wayne Ohlrich)
Subject: Re: Law questions
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 20:38:09 GMT


   A clear example of an illegal conventional agreement over an 
untimely alert, call out of turn or an insufficient bid is on 
the common auction:
			P  -  P  -  1S  -  P
		       2C* - ???

The two clubs call is not alerted, but the opponents convention card is
marked "Drury."  
It is illegal to have an agreement that differentiates between
	a) Lead direction for clubs ("Partner, I want a club led against 4S")
and	b) Club length ("Partner, I have Qxxxxxx if you want to sac in 5C")

This agreement might be :
	a) PASS and then DOUBLE over a belated alert
and 	b) Call attention to, or wait for an Alert and then DOUBLE

In both cases, you are doubling an alerted artificial 2 clubs call.  

Similarly, in the auction 1H - (1D) - 2H  vs. 1H - (2D) - 2H
where the 1D bid is made sufficient to 2D in the second auction,
you should not have a similar lead direction or suit length agreement...
-------------

IMHO, conventional responses to 3H - (2NT) - ?? should be the same as if
the bidding proceeded 2H - (2NT).  i.e. to show a splinter you might
jump to 4D over 2NT, but if you had diamond length and hearts you might
request a sufficient bid (3NT) and then bid 4D.  Although these responses
are conventional, they are not conventional in the sense that the 
conventional agreements depend on the bid being insufficient, but rather 
depend on the bid itself.

-- 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                Wayne Ohlrich
			  University of Washington
From: olle@astro.uu.se (Olof Morell)
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Subject: Re: Different opening meanings in different positions
Date: 5 Oct 1992 17:08:59 GMT
Organization: Uppsala University
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: solaris.astro.uu.se

This seems very strange. Here (Sweden) I play 1NT 12-14 1/2 hand and
14-16 3/4, 1C 9-11/17+ 1/2 and 11-13/17+ 3/4. This definitly legal
here. Also zone varying: my team met parts of the Carrot team last
spring, they played Carrotti (FP) in all zones except red <-> green,
when they played "just" a two way club.

Might this be pure Italian rule ?  Anyone knows ?

*** Olle ***
----------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail - Olle.Morell@astro.uu.se

Snail Mail - Astronomical Observatory, Box 515, 751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
From: tnh@sw.stratus.com (Tim Hill)
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Subject: Re: Scoring program?
Date: 28 Sep 92 21:05:23 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.

In article <1992Sep28.154559.4285@cs.tu-berlin.de>, qed@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de (Peter Gober) writes:
> Does there exist a public domain or cheap program for scoring Mitchell and
> Howell tournaments? A friend of mine is president of a bridge club, they
> have bought a computer and a commercial program, but have many problems 
> with it.

The American Contract Bridge League had a program developed to their
specifications.  It's called ACBL Score, runs under MS-DOS, handles a wide
variety of movments and scoring methods, and the price is cheap.  The ACBL
uses it to score tournaments and encourages member clubs to use it to score
club games and to report master points electronically.

I don't know whether they're willing to sell it outside of ACBL land, but I
can't imagine why they wouldn't be.

The ACBL is in Memphis, Tennessee, USA (1-901-332-5586).


                                      Tim
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
From: henk@pdsf.ssc.gov (Henk Uijterwaal)
Subject: Re:  Bidding boxes in the US...
Followup-To: rec.games.bridge
Reply-To: henk@pdsf.ssc.gov (Henk Uijterwaal)
Organization: Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 18:54:35 GMT

In article <dej.01md@qpoint.ocunix.on.ca>, dej@qpoint.ocunix.on.ca (David Jones) writes:
|> In article <davidm.717271728@voltaire> davidm@voltaire.Rational.COM (David Moore) writes:
|> >The hardest part of the whole thing would be the extra work for the
|> >organizers transporting that many boxes. I guestimate 4000 bidding boxes
|> >would occupy around 3 cubic metres when adequately packed; not something you
|> >can put in the back of the family car.

3 m^3 seems right to me and that won't fit into a car. But the boards, score-
sheets, convention cards, PC and whatever else you need for a 1000 table
tournament don't fit into the back of a family car either. For tournaments that
big you have to arrange special transport anyway and then 3 m^3 bidding boxes
extra isn't that much of a problem anymore.

|> Simply require each ACBL member to buy his/her own bidding box.

This is common in Belgium and it seems to work for them. (Although the director
has to bring a couple of spare boxes for the players that have forgotton to
bring their own box).
 
|> The ACBL doesn't have to fund it,

I can understand that the ACBL has some problems against buying boxes for
1000 tables at once. But why don't they take a few years to introduce them?
Start with the final rounds of the bigger tournaments, then introduce them
in earlier rounds and smaller tournaments. You can spread the costs of the
boxes over a few years. And it has the side effect that players have more
time to get used to them (they don't have to use them all the time from 
give day on) and can see for themselves what the advantages of biddingboxes
are.

This happened in Holland and worked fine. 10 - 15 years ago boxes were only 
used in the finals of the national championships, now every club uses boxes. 
(And everybody seems happy about it). 

Henk.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henk Uijterwaal                                      Email: henk@pdsf.ssc.gov 
SSC-labs, MS 2005.                                          46082::henk
Building 4, room F-428
2550 Beckleymeade Av.
Dallas, TX 75237                                     Phone: 1-214-708-6192
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
From: sgm@sgfb.ssd.ray.com (Steve Myerson)
Subject: Re: You Hold
Organization: Raytheon Company, Portsmouth, RI
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 21:40:24 GMT

In article <BvGCtz.FJq@cs.psu.edu> morgan@math.psu.edu (Ilene Morgan) writes:

>In article <92275.103758JSM135@psuvm.psu.edu> <JSM135@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>All red.   You are in 2nd seat with    S - T
>>Auction                                H - Axx
>>       1NT (15 - 17)     ???           D - AKxxx
>>                                       C - AJxx
>>By the way, you are playing the following:
>>
>>2C - single suiter
>>2D - majors *
>>2H, 2S - that suit & a minor *
>>2NT minors *
>>Dbl - business             * Partnership expects 5-5 or better.
>>
>I would pass.  I have no texture and no source of tricks.  If my LHO has a
>good hand, I am likely to get creamed if I act.  Also, note that if I bid
>2C planning to show a 1-suiter in diamonds, I have to pass partner's forced
>2D rebid; what this boils down to is, I am hoping that partner has something,
>but if he does we may miss a game or play in our worst spot!
>
>I could consider doubling, but one of two things is likely to happen: (1) LHO
>was planning to retreat to spades anyway, and retreats to spades now, or (2)
>partner retreats to spades from my double!  Yuck!
>
>All in all, pass is my best initial action.  If RHO makes a weak bid, I can
>consider coming in on the next round.

I agree with passing, but I'm confused by the last statement.
RHO can't make a weak bid. RHO has already bid 1 strong NT.

If you mean LHO, then I ask this:
If LHO bids 2H as a transfer to spades, and RHO bids 2S as ordered,
are you saying that you will now bid?
You're still in the dark about where the rest of the points are,
and if you pass and LHO passes, your next action will be to find
an opening lead.

Steve Myerson (sgm@sgfb.ssd.ray.com)
From: adam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Adam Hamilton)
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Subject: Re: Restricting conventions
Date: 5 Oct 92 09:28:21 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University


	Starting a change of thread here.

	I have never played against a forcing pass system or fert bid system
and would not like to do so without chance to prepare a defence.  Would
some kind soul out there be prepared to post or make available by ftp or
mail some "known" defences against these systems.

	I think there will be a LOT of interest in this.

		Adam