[gnasher]

 nige1, on 2012-September-30, 21:29, said:

I hope Gnasher (or somebody else) can cite a few cases where players have been ruled against for flouting 7HCP opening regulations. That would also provide a welcome practical illustration of what the rules mean,

No, of course I can't. Almost everybody I know plays by the rules, or at least is intelligent enough not to flout them in such an obvious way. So far as I know, I've never seen this rule broken, so it's impossible for me to have seen action being taken against an offender.

You have asserted first that "few players comply with such rules", and second that "breaking such rules is unlikely to result in an adverse ruling". Do you have any evidence to support this assertion, or did it come entirely from your imagination?

[TimG]

 gnasher, on 2012-October-01, 00:33, said:

You have asserted first that "few players comply with such rules", and second that "breaking such rules is unlikely to result in an adverse ruling". Do you have any evidence to support this assertion, or did it come entirely from your imagination?

For what it's worth, I have cited an example of a pair knowingly violating the rule and not being ruled against, or even told to stop.

[blackshoe]

One swallow does not make a summer.

[Zelandakh]

And one summer does not make a global catastrophe. (ooops, wrong thread! )

[nige1]

 nige1, on 2012-September-30, 21:29, said:

I hope Gnasher (or somebody else) can cite a few cases where players have been ruled against for flouting 7HCP opening regulations. That would also provide a welcome practical illustration of what the rules mean. I suspect that most players don't know what the rules mean (ACBL GCC 6 and Orange Book 12.C.1). As is plain from my repeated questions, I'm unsure too. Although I've tried to explain my guesses in my posts here. If my guesses are right as to what the rules mean, then few players comply with them and few directors enforce them. According to my interpretation, the only tentative evidence available to players is an opponent's "deviation".. (Vampyr and I gave examples of apparent rule of 18/19 violations, earlier in this thread but they were slightly easier to pin down). .I write only of the limited experience of myself and acquaintances. I would be relieved to be persuaded by practical evidence to the contrary. from directors with relevant experience.. If a Bridge authority has gathered and published statistics on such matters that would be even more illuminating.

 gnasher, on 2012-October-01, 00:33, said:

No, of course I can't. Almost everybody I know plays by the rules, or at least is intelligent enough not to flout them in such an obvious way. So far as I know, I've never seen this rule broken, so it's impossible for me to have seen action being taken against an offender.
You have asserted first that "few players comply with such rules", and second that "breaking such rules is unlikely to result in an adverse ruling". Do you have any evidence to support this assertion, or did it come entirely from your imagination?

 TimG, on 2012-October-01, 05:54, said:

For what it's worth, I have cited an example of a pair knowingly violating the rule and not being ruled against, or even told to stop.

If neither the ACBL nor the EBU can supply examples of adverse rulings under these rules, then that confirms my experience. Seven HCP shapely hands, suitable for an opening bid are fairly rare but occur often enough for us to notice that many players do open them. Recently, for example, I failed to open ♠ KJTxx ♥ - ♦ xx ♣ QJ9xxxx, while other players were less inhibited. I can't judge whether any particular player flouts this rule. Nevertheless, such examples are common enough for me to believe that many opening-bidders in regular partnerships are breaking the rules -- assuming I've guessed what they mean

• Unfortunately: there is little agreement among posters about interpretation.
• Violations (if any) don't seem to result in adverse rulings.
• These rules handicap only those who try to comply with them.
• So it's hard to understand why such rules exist.

[VixTD]

 nige1, on 2012-September-30, 21:29, said:

I hope Gnasher (or somebody else) can cite a few cases where players have been ruled against for flouting 7HCP opening regulations. That would also provide a welcome practical illustration of what the rules mean

I'm not sure it provides a "practical illustration of what the rules mean", but the last one I ruled on was at the Brighton Congress this year:

Pairs, love all, dealer with ♠J1076 ♥- ♦AJ108754 ♣98 opened 1♦, and eventually bid and made 4♠. The opponents called me and asked if it was a legitimate 1♦ opener. I asked her why she had chosen to open 1♦, and was told that she didn't feel she had any alternative; she couldn't open 3♦ with a four-card major. I asked her if she had considered passing, and she said that was out of the question as she had a seven-loser hand. Her partner also thought this was an obvious opening bid, so I ruled that they had an illegal agreement to open this kind of hand at the one level.

Usually when I ask both players whether they consider it normal to open the hand at the one level they both confess that they might well do so. It's rather more difficult to judge if one or both of them swear they would not normally open it, but that doesn't happen very often.

[lamford]

 blackshoe, on 2012-October-01, 05:59, said:

One swallow does not make a summer.

As the interviewer said, rejecting Monica Lewinsky's application for a job as an accounts clerk.

[blackshoe]

 nige1, on 2012-October-01, 07:37, said:

Seven HCP shapely hands, suitable for an opening bid are fairly rare but occur often enough for us to notice that many players do open them.

I have never seen this happen. Never.

[nige1]

 VixTD, on 2012-October-01, 07:39, said:

I'm not sure it provides a "practical illustration of what the rules mean", but the last one I ruled on was at the Brighton Congress this year:

Pairs, love all, dealer with ♠J1076 ♥- ♦AJ108754 ♣98 opened 1♦, and eventually bid and made 4♠. The opponents called me and asked if it was a legitimate 1♦ opener. I asked her why she had chosen to open 1♦, and was told that she didn't feel she had any alternative; she couldn't open 3♦ with a four-card major. I asked her if she had considered passing, and she said that was out of the question as she had a seven-loser hand. Her partner also thought this was an obvious opening bid, so I ruled that they had an illegal agreement to open this kind of hand at the one level.

Usually when I ask both players whether they consider it normal to open the hand at the one level they both confess that they might well do so. It's rather more difficult to judge if one or both of them swear they would not normally open it, but that doesn't happen very often.

Thank you

[Vampyr]

 VixTD, on 2012-October-01, 07:39, said:

Her partner also thought this was an obvious opening bid, so I ruled that they had an illegal agreement to open this kind of hand at the one level.

I am pretty certain this was not correct. The fact that both would have opened it does not mean that they had had an agreement to open it, or even that opening a hand like this one had ever occurred to either player before.

Now this particular hand did not qualify under the Rule of 18, unless you give a point for the two supporting jacks.

I really don't see how this regulation can be fairly enforced (and it cannot be uniformly enforced anyway, since director calls will be rare), and think that it is a big problem that those who know of it "self-enforce" and receive poor results therefrom. Scrapping it is the only sensible thing to do.

[bluejak]

 gordontd, on 2012-September-28, 16:46, said:

Oh, I must have misunderstood. I thought you were saying that players don't really need to follow the "rule of ..." regulations.

I wasn't saying anything. But some people thought that citing this as an opening bid in the official EBU publication meant that the EBU was saying that.

 Fluffy, on 2012-September-29, 05:56, said:

I don't see the difference between 650 or 680, you would have to be playing 5m or 3NT for the overtrick to matter

Now you mention it, nor do I. I don't score, and I [stupidly] believed what I was told.

[VixTD]

 Vampyr, on 2012-October-01, 09:08, said:

I am pretty certain this was not correct. The fact that both would have opened it does not mean that they had had an agreement to open it, or even that opening a hand like this one had ever occurred to either player before.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "correct". I can assure you it is an accurate account of what happened. If you mean you think it was an incorrect ruling, I'll have to disagree with you on that count as well.

I don't think an "agreement" has to be based on prior explicit discussion. If we strengthen the hand slightly to ♠J1076 ♥- ♦AKJ10875 ♣98 and ask them if they have an agreement to open such hands they could equally well say they haven't discussed this unusually distributional hand, and can't remember being dealt a similar one.

If they both declare that the hand (the actual hand they were dealt) is an obvious opening bid, then they are playing a style in which such hands are routinely opened. That constitutes an implicit agreement to open them. I would have probably ruled the same way if both players had said the hand was borderline and they might or might not open it.

I also had to deal with a number of psyches at Brighton. Now if both members of the partnership claimed they would psyche this hand 1♦ and could give reason for doing so, I might believe they had no agreement to open it.

I have to admit I'm not entirely happy with this regulation, although I'm not sure scrapping it would be any better.

[Vampyr]

 VixTD, on 2012-October-02, 07:17, said:

If you mean you think it was an incorrect ruling,

This.

Quote

I don't think an "agreement" has to be based on prior explicit discussion. If we strengthen the hand slightly to ♠J1076 ♥- ♦AKJ10875 ♣98 and ask them if they have an agreement to open such hands they could equally well say they haven't discussed this unusually distributional hand, and can't remember being dealt a similar one.

If they both declare that the hand (the actual hand they were dealt) is an obvious opening bid, then they are playing a style in which such hands are routinely opened. That constitutes an implicit agreement to open them. I would have probably ruled the same way if both players had said the hand was borderline and they might or might not open it.

I also had to deal with a number of psyches at Brighton. Now if both members of the partnership claimed they would psyche this hand 1♦ and could give reason for doing so, I might believe they had no agreement to open it.

I have to admit I'm not entirely happy with this regulation, although I'm not sure scrapping it would be any better.

So what you are doing here is claiming that there is an agreement unless one member of the partnership strongly disagrees with partner's decision to open the hand? And that routinely psyching with such a hand is permitted?

I think that this is simply wrong, and the idea that if both players would open it "as an opening bid" constitutes an agreement, while if both players would open it "as a psyche" does not, truly boggles the mind.

[VixTD]

 Vampyr, on 2012-October-02, 12:24, said:

So what you are doing here is claiming that there is an agreement unless one member of the partnership strongly disagrees with partner's decision to open the hand? And that routinely psyching with such a hand is permitted?

I'm saying there is an implicit partnership agreement to open this hand 1♦ if both members of the partnership consider it normal to open the hand 1♦. I can't see how this is controversial. I might also consider there is such an agreement if only one member of the partnership considered this a normal opening, or if one or both of them would frequently open the hand.

I'm sure my introduction of psyching to the debate didn't help, but if a player intentionally opens this hand 1♦, it must either be a systemic bid, a deviation or a psyche. The player may be able to convince me that this instance was a deviation or a psyche (although I think they'd have a hard job doing so). The partnership cannot have an agreement to open the hand "as a psyche", and a psychic opening cannot be "routine" for the partnership without becoming part of their agreement.

Perhaps this hand is a poor example, but I was trying to cover a hypothetical situation in which a player psyches, I ask their partner whether they would have taken the same action on the hand and they can understand the reasons for the psyche and admit that they might well have psyched in that situation as well. I'm not sure this constitutes an agreement.

I'm not sure how well that sits with OB6A2 and 3, but there are no clear boundaries in these situations, and a TD just has to do their best.

[Vampyr]

 VixTD, on 2012-October-03, 07:00, said:

I'm saying there is an implicit partnership agreement to open this hand 1♦ if both members of the partnership consider it normal to open the hand 1♦. I can't see how this is controversial. I might also consider there is such an agreement if only one member of the partnership considered this a normal opening, or if one or both of them would frequently open the hand.

So doing it constitutes having an agreement to do it? This is rather nonsensical, but perhaps it is what the regulation is hoping to achieve.

My Lawbook describes a psyche as a "gross misrepresentation". Is one card or HCP away from the 8pt/Ro18, the Extended Ro25 or the like, a "gross" misrepresentation? I submit that it is not, and so such a bid is therefore not a psyche. Is it a "deviation"? What exactly is a "deviation"? Is it just a word that means circumventing the regulations?

[campboy]

"Gross" is the difference between the hand in question and the pair's actual agreements, not the difference between the hand and the minimum permitted agreements. If a pair says that their agreement is 8+ points and rule of 18 and this was a deviation then the TD might suspect that actually the hand was simply good enough to open in their methods, in which case those methods are not permitted. On the other hand if a pair claim to play very sound openings, that this hand is at least a king short of what they would normally need and that they opened it as a psyche, then it is much less likely that they have an implicit agreement to open this sort of hand.

As to the problems with enforcing the regulation when players can hide behind not having an agreement, I do not find it at all believable that a pair can play together for more than a couple of sessions and not have at least an implicit agreement on what constitutes a minimum opening. The question then becomes whether the hand is consistent with their implicit agreement or not, and in VixTD's case it seems very likely that it was.

[VixTD]

 Vampyr, on 2012-October-03, 07:25, said:

So doing it constitutes having an agreement to do it?

I haven't said that. I said that I may consider that they have an agreement if I believe one or both of them do it with appreciable frequency. The fact that they've done it, and the answers to my questions, help me to decide how likely they are to do it.