[jdonn]

Cascade, on Jul 18 2009, 04:58 PM, said:

I mean do you think rules should mean something different than what is written down?

If so then this truely is a LOL.

Do you claim David Stevenson a LOL?

"I do not think it unreasonable to make certain assumptions when Laws or Regulations are unworkable if you follow them exactly and pedantically. In this case we know perfectly well it means 'or' so it is silly to assume otherwise."

[jnichols]

From the ACBL website - click Play, Then Charts, Rules and Regulations, then Convention Charts. Also in the ACBL Board of Director's Minutes from Detroit - Spring 2008

Quote

7. ARTIFICIAL AND CONVENTIONAL CALLS after strong (15+ HCP),
forcing opening bids and after opening bids of two clubs or higher. (For
this classification, by partnership agreement, weak two-bids must be
within a range of 7 HCP and the suit must contain at least five cards – See
#7 under DISALLOWED.)

[Cascade]

jdonn, on Jul 19 2009, 11:14 AM, said:

Cascade, on Jul 18 2009, 04:58 PM, said:

I mean do you think rules should mean something different than what is written down?

If so then this truely is a LOL.

Do you claim David Stevenson a LOL?

"I do not think it unreasonable to make certain assumptions when Laws or Regulations are unworkable if you follow them exactly and pedantically. In this case we know perfectly well it means 'or' so it is silly to assume otherwise."

1. This regulation is not unworkable if you follow it precisely. It just means that for otherwise natural weak twos you are only limited in playing conventions if both your range is wider than 7 HCP and your suit is shorter than five-cards. This interpretation is very workable it just happens to be more permissive than what you and others think it should be. That in no way makes it wrong or unworkable.

2. The laws of bridge explicitly require tournament directors to be bound by the announced regulations "The Director applies, and is bound by, these Laws and supplementary regulations announced under authority given in these Laws.". As far as I am aware this is non-discretionary. At least that is my understanding of "bound".

3. If David Stevenson or Josh Donn or anyone else advocates ignoring the laws of the game then I think that is worth "LOL". If not it is something far worse.

4. Arguing that you will not rule according to the announced regulations is ignoring the laws of the game.

[Cascade]

jnichols, on Jul 19 2009, 11:54 AM, said:

From the ACBL website - click Play, Then Charts, Rules and Regulations, then Convention Charts.  Also in the ACBL Board of Director's Minutes from Detroit - Spring 2008

Quote

7. ARTIFICIAL AND CONVENTIONAL CALLS after strong (15+ HCP),
forcing opening bids and after opening bids of two clubs or higher. (For
this classification, by partnership agreement, weak two-bids must be
within a range of 7 HCP and the suit must contain at least five cards – See
#7 under DISALLOWED.)

This is truely weird since this is what I found on this computer this morning but when I checked what I had looked at from my laptop last night it was this page Convention Chart

I have no idea why or how I got to this link that has a different chart than the one you are quoting from.

Actually I have some idea it was a google search.

I don't know why there would be more than one different versions of the convention chart available from the ACBL website.

[cherdanno]

I think the IBLF forum needs an off-topic discussion section, and the moderators would need to move any flamewars or discussion not relevant to the original question into the off-topic forum.

[jnichols]

Cascade, on Jul 18 2009, 08:35 PM, said:

I don't know why there would be more than one different versions of the convention chart available from the ACBL website.

The convention chart was updated (or at least published on the website) in 2003.
It was updated in 2008, but if I didn't follow the Board of Director's minutes I would never have realized it. I don't recall ever seeing anything resembling an announcement.

[LH2650]

NickRW, on Jul 17 2009, 08:18 AM, said:

LH2650, on Jul 17 2009, 01:04 PM, said:

bluejak, on Jul 15 2009, 07:29 PM, said:

Clubs are allowed their own restrictions on what may be played ......

No. Clubs can regulate conventions. ACBL Handbook, Chapter 4.

Isn't that what he said?!

No. Bluejak is contending that a club can ban a low-range weak two-bid. That is a natural call, not a convention, and therefore cannot be regulated by clubs.

[TimG]

Cascade, on Jul 18 2009, 07:35 PM, said:

This is truely weird since this is what I found on this computer this morning but when I checked what I had looked at from my laptop last night it was this page Convention Chart

The link you provide is to:

http://www.acbl.org/...vChart12_03.pdf

which makes it look like this is a convention chart from December 2003 in some sort of document archive. I wouldn't know how to find it at the ACBL site, but it is nice that it exists.

Anyway, this chart contains the same item that has been quoted here a couple of time:

Quote

(For
this classification, by partnership agreement, weak two-bids must be
within a range of 7 HCP and the suit must contain at least five cards – See
#7 under DISALLOWED.)

it's just #6 instead of #7.

Notice the "and" (that I bolded). In this allowed section it says P and Q; in the disallowed section it says ^P and ^Q.

This post has been edited by TimG: 2009-July-19, 08:43

[peachy]

LH2650, on Jul 18 2009, 09:00 PM, said:

NickRW, on Jul 17 2009, 08:18 AM, said:

LH2650, on Jul 17 2009, 01:04 PM, said:

bluejak, on Jul 15 2009, 07:29 PM, said:

Clubs are allowed their own restrictions on what may be played ......

No. Clubs can regulate conventions. ACBL Handbook, Chapter 4.

Isn't that what he said?!

No. Bluejak is contending that a club can ban a low-range weak two-bid. That is a natural call, not a convention, and therefore cannot be regulated by clubs.

In ACBL, clubs actually _can_ regulate however they wish. They are granted a lot of freedom in restricting or expanding on allowed methods and they are not GCC or any other chart or regulation bound. All they need to do, as courtesy, is to announce what restrictions or expansions the club wishes to have in place.

[Elianna]

cherdanno, on Jul 18 2009, 04:51 PM, said:

I think the IBLF forum needs an off-topic discussion section, and the moderators would need to move any flamewars or discussion not relevant to the original question into the off-topic forum.

Or just delete the posts.

[matmat]

i think the forums just need a /dev/null

[Cascade]

TimG, on Jul 19 2009, 03:22 PM, said:

Cascade, on Jul 18 2009, 07:35 PM, said:

This is truely weird since this is what I found on this computer this morning but when I checked what I had looked at from my laptop last night it was this page Convention Chart

The link you provide is to:

http://www.acbl.org/...vChart12_03.pdf

which makes it look like this is a convention chart from December 2003 in some sort of document archive. I wouldn't know how to find it at the ACBL site, but it is nice that it exists.

Anyway, this chart contains the same item that has been quoted here a couple of time:

Quote

(For
this classification, by partnership agreement, weak two-bids must be
within a range of 7 HCP and the suit must contain at least five cards – See
#7 under DISALLOWED.)

it's just #6 instead of #7.

Notice the "and" (that I bolded). In this section it says "and"; in the other section is says "or". They can't both be right. No amount of vituperation on your part is going to change the intent of the rule or the application of the rule in practice.

1. Which other section?

2. How do you know the intent of the rule?

[Lobowolf]

Cascade, on Jul 18 2009, 03:29 AM, said:

However my understanding of the GCC is that there is an implicit licence given for 'natural' methods e.g. 5-card majors (natural) are not explicitly licenced in the same way that weak twos are not licenced.

What's the difference between an "implicit license" and an unwritten rule?

[Cascade]

Lobowolf, on Jul 19 2009, 07:37 PM, said:

Cascade, on Jul 18 2009, 03:29 AM, said:

However my understanding of the GCC is that there is an implicit licence given for 'natural' methods e.g. 5-card majors (natural) are not explicitly licenced in the same way that weak twos are not licenced.

What's the difference between an "implicit license" and an unwritten rule?

In this case without the "implicit licence" there would be no licence to play any natural bids.

That is the "implicit licence" is what the convention chart is built upon.

An "unwritten rule" is something additional to the rules.

In this example the "implicit licence" is to allow natural weak twos and the "unwritten rule" that is being claimed is that "and" really means "or".

Clearly the "unwritten rule" is nonsense.

[TimG]

In the RESPONSES AND REBIDS section (allowed):

Quote

7. ARTIFICIAL AND CONVENTIONAL CALLS after strong (15+ HCP), forcing opening bids and after opening bids of two clubs or higher. (For this classification, by partnership agreement, weak two-bids must be within a range of 7 HCP and the suit must contain at least five cards – See #7 under DISALLOWED.)

Following directions and looking at #7 under DISALLOWED:

Quote

7. CONVENTIONAL RESPONSES, REBIDS AND A CONVENTIONAL DEFENSE TO AN OPPONENT’S CONVENTIONAL DEFENSE after natural notrump opening bids or overcalls with a lower limit of fewer than 10 HCP or with a range of greater than 5 HCP (including those that have two non-consecutive ranges) and weak two-bids which by partnership agreement are not within a range of 7 HCP and do not show at least five cards in the suit.

Sorry, it doesn't say "or" in either section. P and Q in one section, ^P and ^Q in the other section.

Seems to me that a strict reading of the GCC would result in a conclusion that conventional responses are permitted over weak two-bids which show a range of at most 7 HCP and contain at least a five card suit. This is specifically allowed by the first cited rule above.

The second cited rule makes reference to some things which are disallowed, it does not specifically allow any methods. One cannot look at the second cited rule and conclude "they did not specifically disallow it, so it must be allowed". Early on the chart is the rule "Unless specifically allowed, methods are disallowed". So, you cannot conclude a method is allowed by its failure to be disallowed.

[blackshoe]

LH2650, on Jul 18 2009, 10:00 PM, said:

No.  Bluejak is contending that a club can ban a low-range weak two-bid.  That is a natural call, not a convention, and therefore cannot be regulated by clubs.

I'll let Bluejak respond to your first sentence, if he likes. I will respond to the second one.

The Laws leave to the Regulating Authority (RA) the authority to designate "special partnership understandings". The RA for club games in North America is, de jure, in Canada the Canadian Bridge Federation, in Mexico the Mexican Bridge Federation, and in the US the US Bridge Federation. In practice, however, in the US the ACBL is the NBO, and hence the RA for club games.

The Laws also allow the RA to delegate or assign its responsibilities to Tournament Organizers(TOs). Clubs are TOs. The ACBL has not, to my knowledge, formally done that, but in practice the ACBL has demonstrated that it essentially does not care what clubs do, so long as they pay their sanction fees on time.

So while the legal situation is muddied by the ACBL's 500 pound canary stance and failure to address regulatory changes necessitated by (or at least desirable based on) the new laws, technically it appears your assertion is correct, but practically you will have no luck getting the ACBL to enforce it.

[blackshoe]

Hm.

P=="within a range of 7 HCP"
Q=="the suit must contain 5 or more cards"

Assert: P&Q -- if the assertion is true, the agreement is allowed.

Assert: ~P&~Q -- both must be false for conventional responses and rebids, and conventional defenses to opponents' defense, to be disallowed.

Opening bids at the 2 level which do not meet the criteria of the first assertion have not]/b] been designated by the ACBL as special partnership understandings. Therefore natural 2 level openings which do not meet the criteria of the first assertion are not illegal, and in fact not regulated at all by this assertion. They are, however, regulated by the second assertion, which requires that if [b]both conditions are false, conventional responses, etc. are disallowed.

Note that nowhere does any law or regulation specify a minimum point count for any of these 2 bids. The range could be 0-5 and 5+ cards (allowed by assertion 1, conventional responses, etc. allowed by assertion 2). It could be 0-8 and 5+ cards (not disallowed by assertion 1, but conventional responses, etc. disallowed by assertion 2).

[Gerben42]

Silly question: Is it allowed to play 2 - 6 HCP white vs red, 7 - 11 HCP otherwise, for example? And 0 - 13 in 3rd seat, but playing no conv. responses.

(in ACBL)

[TimG]

blackshoe, on Jul 19 2009, 10:45 AM, said:

(1) Assert: P&Q -- if the assertion is true, the agreement is allowed.

(2) Assert: ~P&~Q -- both must be false for conventional responses and rebids, and conventional defenses to opponents' defense, to be disallowed.

Opening bids at the 2 level which do not meet the criteria of the first assertion have not been designated by the ACBL as special partnership understandings. Therefore natural 2 level openings which do not meet the criteria of the first assertion are not illegal, and in fact not regulated at all by this assertion.

The opening itself is not regulated, just the conventional responses and rebids.

If the opening bid does not meet (1), then conventional responses and rebids are not permitted. It is the conventional responses and rebids that are being regulated, not the opening bid. There is no need to designate the opening bid a special partnership method in order to regulate conventional responses and rebids.

If the opening bid meets (2) then conventional responses and rebids, and conventional defenses to opponents' conventional defenses are not permitted. If the opening bid meets (2), it does not meet (1), so this is partially redundant -- there was no need to disallow conventional responses and rebids based upon (2) because they were already not permitted by (1). (2) further disallows conventional defenses to opponents' conventional defenses.

So, I guess if you want to play a 0-10 HCP weak two-bid promising 5+ in the suit named, you cannot play conventional responses and rebids. But, you can play conventional defenses to opponents' conventional defenses.

[TimG]

Gerben42, on Jul 19 2009, 02:12 PM, said:

Silly question: Is it allowed to play 2 - 6 HCP white vs red, 7 - 11 HCP otherwise, for example? And 0 - 13 in 3rd seat, but playing no conv. responses.

(in ACBL)

I believe the answer is "yes". Similarly, if you play 10-13 NTs in 1st and 2nd seat NV, 15-18 otherwise, you are not subject to the restrictions of DISALLOWED #7 (which would apply if your NT range were 10-13 or 15-18).