[Mbodell]

Gerben42, on Jul 19 2009, 11:12 AM, 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'd say yes. You are allowed in practice to play different nt ranges in different seats and vulnerabilities and allowed the conventional followups even if the union of all your nt ranges in all your seats is greater than the 5 point limit (so long as any given 1nt opening is within the limit).

Likewise, nearly everyone plays a 4th seat 2 level bid with a different range than 1st-3rd.

[bluejak]

Cascade, on Jul 17 2009, 04:15 AM, said:

bluejak, on Jul 17 2009, 12:28 PM, said:

Cascade, on Jul 16 2009, 05:22 PM, said:

I think it is strange how some people assume the laws and regulations mean something different from what they actually say.

How on earth anyone with the inside knowledge is supposed to know that the regulation means something completely different than what is written I have no idea.

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.

Our intention is to run a game of bridge, not win brownie points for pedantry.

It is impossible to run a game of any sort with any credibility if the rules do not mean what they say.

Certainly untrue. All games, sports and mindsports have rules: all games, sports and mindsports have rules which are not clear. Yet they all manage to be played perfectly well. Bridge is no exception. The vast majority of people running the game of bridge use commonsense, and that includes people making sensible interpretaions of Laws and Regulations.

Credibility? All bridge players apart from a very pedantic few have a belief in the rules generally, and the game survives happily as a result.

Cascade, on Jul 17 2009, 04:17 AM, said:

Further the law requires the director to rule according to the announced regulation.

It is entirely improper for a director interpreting a regulation that says 'and' to interpret it as if it said 'or'.

Wrong. It is not the TD's job to interpret: it is his RA's or TO's job. Everone knows what the ACBL means, so over-pedantic attempts to spoil the game are unnecessary, and certainly do not add credibility.

[bluejak]

LH2650, on Jul 19 2009, 03:00 AM, 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.

I think this is a dubious assertion. Until the current Law book, natural bids could not be regulated, and I expect that is why the statement in the ACBL handbook is as it is. Now they can be regulated by designating them as a special partnership agreement.

But it does depend on whether the RA allows the TO to regulate them. The ACBL's stance on this is not very clear, probably because they have not bothered to make it clear. If you think that they have not delegated or assigned any powers to clubs except as that statement in the ACBL handbook then clubs cannot appoint TDs, take entries, and so forth. As a matter of custom & practice, the ACBL certainly allow some clubs as TOs to make some decisions, but do not really say what.

So you may be right that a club cannot regulate natural bids, but it is not clear, and I very much doubt that Memphis would do anything to a club that told its members that weak twos were only permitted in the range 8-10.

[hrothgar]

bluejak, on Jul 21 2009, 12:34 AM, said:

Everone knows what the ACBL means, so over-pedantic attempts to spoil the game are unnecessary, and certainly do not add credibility.

Everyone knows what the ACBL means?

Care to explain the ACBL's position on either of the following:

1. Suppose that I am playing a 2♠ opening that shows 5+ Spades, 4+ cards in either minor and ~6-10 HCP. Is this bid sanctioned at the GCC level, the Midchart level, or neither (the Limited Chart, the Superchart, some such)?

2. Suppose that I am playing a 2♣ opening that shows ~ 9 -14 HCP and either 6+ Clubs or (5+ Clubs and a 4 card major). Is this bid sanctioned at the GCC level, the Midchart level, or neither.

Official chapter and verse would be appreciated...

[TimG]

bluejak, on Jul 21 2009, 12:34 AM, said:

Quote

Everone knows what the ACBL means, so over-pedantic attempts to spoil the game are unnecessary, and certainly do not add credibility.

Everyone knows what the ACBL means?

Surely you knew that this was in reference to the weak two discussion.

Quote

Care to explain the ACBL's position on either of the following:

1.  Suppose that I am playing a 2♠ opening that shows 5+ Spades, 4+ cards in either minor and ~6-10 HCP.  Is this bid sanctioned at the GCC level, the Midchart level, or neither (the Limited Chart, the Superchart, some such)?

Mid-chart. #12. I believe it is reasonable to conclude from its inclusion on the mid-chart that it is not permitted in GCC events.

Quote

2.  Suppose that I am playing a 2♣ opening that shows ~ 9 -14 HCP and either 6+ Clubs or (5+ Clubs and a 4 card major).  Is this bid sanctioned at the GCC level, the Midchart level, or neither.

This one ACBL admits is insufficiently covered. There are plans to address the problem in Washington, DC later this month.

[bill1157]

I play weak 2 bids as 5 card+ suit, 6-12 hcp with 1 partner. The directors in the local clubs want us to alert the bid when we do it. Is this appropriate?

Bill

[bluejak]

Seems correct. Local clubs can modify alerting regulations, I presume, and even if [incredibly, in my view] the ACBL does not permit this, I am sure they are not going to interfere in a local club's private alerting rules.

Mind you, I am not saying that I necessarily approve. Any club that has different alerting rules from the ACBL will cause a lot of grief for members who do not play solely at that club.

Compare an English problem: we have introduced announcemnets, based on my personal experiences in the ACBL and South Africa. This includes announcing natural opening 1NT ranges [and whether a singleton is permitted]. Quite a large minority wanted us to exclude players playing a 12 to 14 1NT, which is as common in England as the 15 to 17 1NT in the ACBL. We decided this was wrong, partly becasue of advice from the ACBL. One or two clubs however [and one County, I understand, thouhh they may have changed their mind since] decided to not announce 12 to 14 1NTs. Their players are confused, except the ones who only ever play in a single club. Apparently those particular clubs are losing players and they do not know why!

[jeffford76]

bill1157, on Jul 22 2009, 03:32 AM, said:

I play weak 2 bids as 5 card+ suit, 6-12 hcp with 1 partner. The directors in the local clubs want us to alert the bid when we do it. Is this appropriate?

You haven't said where you're from. The ACBL alert chart includes these as alertable:

Natural 2D, 2H or 2S, if intermediate or better
Natural weak or intermediate 2C

The interpretation here is that what this really means is if the bid includes intermediate hands that the bids should be alerted. So if you're there you should be alerting these everywhere, not just the club.

[Cascade]

bluejak, on 2009-July-20, 15:34, said:

Cascade, on 2009-July-16, 21:17, said:

Further the law requires the director to rule according to the announced regulation.

It is entirely improper for a director interpreting a regulation that says 'and' to interpret it as if it said 'or'.

Wrong. It is not the TD's job to interpret: it is his RA's or TO's job. Everone knows what the ACBL means, so over-pedantic attempts to spoil the game are unnecessary, and certainly do not add credibility.

I was rereading this thread and found this inaccuracy in David's final response.

The law clearly states that the director's responsibility is to interpret the regulations:

Quote

Law81C2. to administer and interpret these Laws and to advise the players of
their rights and responsibilities thereunder.

[blackshoe]

jeffford76, on 2009-July-22, 10:47, said:

You haven't said where you're from. The ACBL alert chart includes these as alertable:

Natural 2D, 2H or 2S, if intermediate or better
Natural weak or intermediate 2C

The interpretation here is that what this really means is if the bid includes intermediate hands that the bids should be alerted. So if you're there you should be alerting these everywhere, not just the club.

6 to 12 is not "intermediate".

[mycroft]

Assertion: clear from context that it is sloppy clausing, and that what is intended is:

DISALLOWED: conventional followups...after [] 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".

Which, without the proper use of parentheses (quotes in English) to bind order of operations, is readable both ways. Those who read it the obviously wrong way for any reason other than amusement at the ACBL Laws Commision's sense of priority in writing manuals (which, mind you, are still better than "translated into English from the Chinese by people from Seoul" typical of computer manuals - even those written by U.S. corporations, on U.S. soil, solely) are being annoying. Note: in amusement I am including "trying to get changes made through ridicule" - a valid tactic, with unfortunately little more chance of success than any other way.

My opinion of the GCC is public and well-known, but griping about ambiguous order of operations is *way* down the list.

Related to clubs: since September 2008, for "conventions", read "special partnership understandings" throughout. As I have said before, eventually, sometime around 2015 or so, the ACBL's relevant committees will get around to fixing the documentation to the new rulebook. As I have said before, as well, I dread the day, as I strongly expect that other changes will come as well; and they won't be liberalizing the GCC.

On a side note, I had a club tell me that we couldn't open a 1-7 weak 2, "it has to be 5 and 5 in this club". "Okay", we said, and changed it to deal with a hole in our system. Two pairs later, 2S "Alert". "12-16, at least 6 spades."

[nige1]

Cascade, on 2010-December-28, 03:45, said:

The law clearly states that the director's responsibility is to interpret the regulations:

Cascade is obviously correct: The director must not make up his own rules. The director's task is to enforce the rules, as written. It is the law-maker's responsibility to correct faulty rules or scrap them. If the fault is a simple typo, then it is easy to do that, immediately, in place.

[mgoetze]

bluejak, on 2009-July-20, 15:34, said:

Certainly untrue. All games, sports and mindsports have rules: all games, sports and mindsports have rules which are not clear.

I invite you to point out the unclear parts of the following rules: http://homepages.ihu...arryp/rules.htm

[mrdct]

mgoetze, on 2011-January-02, 06:40, said:

I invite you to point out the unclear parts of the following rules: http://homepages.ihu...arryp/rules.htm

Why does the black player get an extra stone?

[mgoetze]

mrdct, on 2011-January-03, 06:43, said:

Why does the black player get an extra stone?

It's more a traditional thing, but the general idea is that this gives enough stones for 361 moves (since black plays first), that being the number of intersections on the (standard-sized) Go board. An average game takes about 200 moves, so you will likely have plenty to spare. The number of unplayed stones each player has has no effect on the result.

[gwnn]

If the rules were so clear, why was it necessary to add

supposedly clear rules said:

The rules should be used in a spirit of fairness and cooperation. Where disputes arise they should first of all be settled by the players themselves.

[mgoetze]

gwnn, on 2011-January-03, 11:41, said:

If the rules were so clear, why was it necessary to add

That's just a part of the explanation, not in the rules themselves.

Go rules theorists distinguish between the rules of the game (such as the ones I have presented here) and tournament rules (such as "you are not allowed to go to the bathroom and there look up sequences in a book"). Most would agree that it is possible to make the former absolutely clear, but not the latter. The "spirit of fairness and cooperation" helps more with the things which aren't covered directly by these rules.

Nevertheless, I believe that the given rules, on their own, are clear (for me even without the explanation, but I assume it helps for non-Go-players).

[barmar]

Go is a much simpler game. Not in the intellectual challenge of playing it, but in the mechanics of play. So it's hardly fair to compare the rules of the two games.

Furthermore, the partnership aspect of bridge, and the flexibility of partnership agreements, adds a dimension that's almost unique among mind sports. Writing laws and regulations for bridge is really challenging because so much of the game is based on judgement. Players toss around words like "weak" and "strong", but only novices go strictly by HCP when judging the strength of hands, more advanced players use judgement, but they have different styles. Yet somehow we need regulations that allow for this.

[mgoetze]

barmar, on 2011-January-03, 15:39, said:

Go is a much simpler game. Not in the intellectual challenge of playing it, but in the mechanics of play. So it's hardly fair to compare the rules of the two games.

Sure, I agree with this, I was just disagreeing with Mr. Stevenson's assertion.

[pretzalz]

mgoetze, on 2011-January-02, 06:40, said:

I invite you to point out the unclear parts of the following rules: http://homepages.ihu...arryp/rules.htm

Are there different variations of the rules or was I just taught the wrong rules?

a) The scoring is completely different from how I learned it.
Are suicide moves legal? I had learned that they were explicitly illegal, but the rules seem to explicitly endorse them.
c) The end of game rule seems a complete mess. You agree the game is over, disagree on dead stones, disagree on whose turn it is, thereby throwing the scoring into complete chaos. Additionally the method of deciding the game is over seems confrontational[instead of say two consecutive passes ending the game]. Can players pass back and forth in a game of chicken while not agreeing the game is over thereby extending the game indefinitely?