David Stevenson
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
There is no obligation whatever to tell opponents about your mistakes in bidding, whether it be a misbid in live bridge where you (for example) forget the system or an online misclick. The hand in question would be a remarkable psyche but the same applies to psyches, misbids and misclicks.
Normal politeness suggests you explain at the end of the hand, or when you put down dummy. In fact only an hour ago I misclicked signing off in 2D instead of 2H, a costly mistake. I told everyone once I was dummy.
For those who may not understand the distinction the difference between a psyche and a misbid is intent. If you make the wrong call deliberately to mislead opponents that is a psyche, if you make the wrong call by accident, forgetting your system, having a complete brain failure or a misclick, that is a misbid. Both are legal, except in some tournaments designed solely for very inexperienced players in which psyches are often banned, but misbids are common enough but often unrecognised.You are required to announce your 1NT or 2NT ranges before you bid them online, just as partner announces them in live bridge once you have bid them. It is helpful and correct to do so with all NT ranges even if not opening bids, so you should really write the range in the explain box before a NT rebid (for example 1C – 1H – 2NT or 2C – 2D – 2NT) or overcall (for example bidding 1NT when your RHO bids 1S).
It is a good idea to write in the explain box rather more things than would be alerted or announced in live bridge, for example conventions above 3NT. When you respond to Blackwood it is helpful to write ‘two aces’ or just ‘2A’ in the box.
Note that this is self explaining rather than self alerting. The important thing is what you write in the explain box, whether to alert becomes less important.
————(While I do tend to avoid abbreviations since not everyone will understand them, I do use the following as in Mr Bridge’s magazine and Yellow book:
RHO = right hand opponent
LHO = left hand opponent)
It is possible to find a way of playing non-strong hands such as the one above in an apparently strong bid. You should read the regulations carefully and there are methods of mixing strong bids and non-strong bids. I think the gain from doing so will be very slight and the loss in confusing your partner enormous but it is not up to me to advise on methods. I should read the EBU Blue book and find what non-strong bids may be mixed in with strong bids. You will then have to explain to your opponents each time the bid is made that it might be strong, it might be non-strong with certain requirements.
As for your description of game forcing that implies a strong hand, not just the EBU definition of strong, but really strong. If you are going to open hands with fewer than 16 points with 2C when it is legal then “Game forcing, but may have limited high cards in a distributional hand” is a better description. Incidentally, do you really play it as game forcing? Most players play 2C – 2D – 2NT as a very big balanced hand, typically 23-24, but may be passed. If you play that then you must not call it game forcing anyway. Perhaps “23-24 balanced or game forcing, but may have limited high cards in a distributional hand”.The problem is that the reason for the rule is to protect your opponents. You seem to think you have a right to ignore that protection because of your judgement but you have no such right. The EBU has been fighting a growing abuse by which players frighten opponents out of the bidding by claiming a bid is strong which is understood to mean a certain amount of top card strength and you cannot just ignore the rules.
The comparison with 1NT is inapt. Most 2C openings have a lot of high card strength, typically 19+, and the EBU has, in effect given limits to the amount of leeway is allowed in judgement so as not to mislead opponents
I am afraid that I cannot really help. You have asked this in a discussion about online Undos which is not really the right place. Please may I suggest that you go to the General Discussion forum and ask there.
The point about unusual actions is not that you should be unduly suspicious since they may be as you say inexperienced players making poor decisions and getting lucky. But, assuming you are playing in a duplicate, you should certainly have asked the director to look at the second one, and quite probably the first one as well. Just as in live bridge he will ask the players what is going on and he will discover whether it is just one of those things, or misinformation, or even something worse.
If you are playing a casual game I think you have to grin and bear it!
Of course people playing takeout doubles of a weak two do not always play according to Bernard’s rules: one thing you will find amongst less experienced players is that some of them think you have to do something anytime you have an opening bid so often choose an unsuitable call.
That would be different. I do not know that page myself but at least it is likely to be mainly people from the British Isles.
Bridge is a game of mistakes more than anything else. When an opponent makes a mistake, whether it is a misclick, a system forget, counting his points wrong, forgetting which cards have gone, misunderstanding the odds on whether to finesse or not, or accidentally playing the wrong card, you will get a good result pretty often. Occasionally you will get a bad result. That is what bridge is all about and you just accept it and move on. You feel the director should have adjusted for you? So why not in the case of every other mistake opponents make? Simply because there is nothing illegal about making a mistake so there is no reason for an adjustment.
You cannot use it as a get out, as you put it, that the hand is rare. No-one is forcing you to play a strong 2C bid but you must play something legal. You could take up a 2H opening that is intermediate to strong. But why not follow the better players who would open 1H on this hand?
In England and Wales it is not permitted to open 2C as a strong artificial opening unless you have:
(a) 16+ points, or
(b) 12+ points with 5+ controls where ace is two controls, king is one control
This hand contains 15 points and four controls (AKK) so is one point or one control short.
I can imagine people asking why the rules are like this. Over the last decade or two more and more people seem to be worried about opening distributional hands at the one level so they either open a preemptive three or a weak two with hand strong enough to open at the one level, or they opened a strong bid such as an Acol 2C or a Benjamin 2C or 2D with lots of playing strength but not the top cards that other players might expect. This led, not unreasonably, to arguments when opponents having been told the opening bid was strong have failed to realise they have the majority of points and sometimes have missed the game. As a result the EBU have produced rules for artificial opening two bids. While these have been changed a few times the ones quoted above are current.
You should note that these rules apply to the word strong. The EBU does not allow artificial two bids that can show any suit and are either distributional or strong, however these rules do not apply in the same way to natural openings. So you could play an opening 2H to be very strong or to include the above hand but in that case you must warn your opponents by describing it as “Intermediate to Strong”.
When asking questions of this sort on Facebook it is important to remember that a lot of answers will be given by people in other countries where the rules are different. In fact my experience is that quite a few answers will be from people who did not read the question correctly and seem to be answering something else!
There are rules as to what is sensible and regulations as to what is allowed. Julian will tell you what is sensible but if you want to know what is allowed please ask in the Ask David forum. For example most 14 point hands are not allowed.
While it gains something to play 1S – 2NT as a raise to 3S or better (I do myself) I do think you should not then call it Jacoby which is a raise to game or better.
Very few people read all an opponent’s system card – what would be the point? But the advantage of a system card you are used to is that when an opponent bids something it is easy especially with 7 minutes a board which is normal bridge timing anyway to look at the relevant part of the card.
Each to his own, I suppose. If you create your own it has to be to the same basic design as the EBU card, ie you may not put things in a different order or omit items. Personally, I play very complex methods with my regular partner and have found the EBU template works well, with occasional resizing, and I have English/Welsh and Scottish cards that way, similarly with WBF (World Bridge Federation, acceptable in many countries) cards and French cards. However for ACBL (American Contract Bridge League for the USA and Canada) and Ireland I use Excel based cards.
One of the disadvantages of BBO is that you cannot upload such cards and have to use either an ACBL type card which is not understood in the British Isles or a very basic card, so I use the basic card.Well, Martin, I am afraid I cannot see that anyone has been rude to you.
You should never make decisions in whether and how to play bridge based on one unfortunate experience. You will always have the occasional unfortunate experience whether live or online. I am afraid that is life.
You say it was a teams event. If you mean one run by a director, did you ask the director for an adjustment?
If it was an event with matches played privately you could put the case to a director afterwards.
