Is it true that “funny things’ were going on when weak two bids first appeared on the market (way before my time) — but I heard of some restrictions.

RK:

I started playing in the mid fifties and although weak twos began sometime in the forties, I still played 2C as my strong opening action. However, there are all sorts of stories of shady practices with the objective to keep the opponents out of the auction with the minimum requirement of HCP’s instead of what was then normal.. I learned that at one time the law (rules) required you to have a minimum of 6 HCP with no other specifications. Thus, an ideal WTB would be KQ10XXX, XX JXX xx. However, at the same time, you would meet the requirements by holding the following: 9XXXXX K XXXX QJ, but not KQ109xx, x, xx, xxxx. That restriction may have solved the cheating problem, but it did nothing for logical bridge, which would have been better served to teach the TD’s what to allow and what not to, but not have the rules require inaccuracies in the value judgment of what constituted what a WTB should look like. Also, as everyone has seen, some open with a five bagger — others with six or seven. Whatever floats your boat should have been the rule back then also, with cheating determined by whatever subjective reasoning was applicable.

I think the important consideration is that your convention card gives a truthful and accurate point count range (upper and lower) and you have no private arrangement with partner.

HBJ : Yes….even more damning evidence to prove for once and for all that the world of bridge is utterly bizarre. But what’s worse is that the bridge governing bodies permit all sorts of crazy new conventions, gadgets, call-em-what-you-like bids ” that completely fly in the face of A BIDDING SYSTEM WHICH OPPONENTS CAN (a) COMPREHEND AND UNDERSTAND or (b) ENABLE DEFENDERS TO COUNTER THEM.
In every other sport in an attempt to provide a level playing field participants must use identical equipment that means strict requirements and specifications. I don’t see golfers going out with 36 different clubs. I don’t see baseball players going out with a 10 inch wide bat. So why should bridge players be allowed to have convention cards which are 10 pages long as opposed to say a regulation 2.
Leave the enigma codes to those who fight battles…. and let bidding systems that are sensible, straightforward , honest, and fair to all.

SPOKEN LIKE A SANE BRIDGE PLAYER!

While I agree with nuch if what HBJ has to say, I do have to comment upon his remarks about every other sport.

Much is regulated in golf, such as the maximum number of clubs he can have for use in a round, but he may choose a different mix than his opponents. His shafts can be wood, metal, graphite or some other substance. Various putter designs are in use. There is not a requirement to use identical equipment.

Perhaps you don’t see baseball players with 10 inch wide bats because they would be too hard to swing. But players are allowed to play with bats of different lengths, thicknesses, and shapes. I am sure there are some regulations, but some of the limitations are due to practicality.

In football, baseball, and other sports signals are often used. Unlike bridge, their methods are kept secret from the opponents and efforts are made to keep the opponents from learning them.

I love bridge but would hate to see us all have to use the same bidding system. Perhaps an HBJ of a 100 years ago might have objected when someone came up with an alternative to Culbertson’s methods. Innovation is part of our game. (That being said, the place for new and unusual methods is in an environment where the opponents have an opportunity to prepare for such methods.)

There are hundreds of systems out there, and as far as them being sensible, straightforward, etc, this becomes a matter of opinion, and whose opinion then becomes more important? What is sauce for the goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander. From what I understand, certain conventions are banned except at the highest level of competition. I believe if a convention is allowed, and is explained fully to the opponents if they ask, then what is the harm in that?

I also agree that some of the “rules” for what is allowed for certain conventions should be studied and perhaps revamped, such as the one Judy mentioned regarding two club opens for strong hands. Points are not that important with shapely two suiters, that is for sure. Once again, if the opponents ask for an explanation, and the explanation given is clear and concise,, go for the gold, so to speak.

Ethics are a totally different matter, needless to say.

Interesting discussion.

HBJ : To all those who have argued for the other side…..I am to some extent in agreement…..but in life the optimum position requires establishing that elusive balance or boundary. There has to be limits to what bids are legitimate, sensible and in keeping with perceived ethical standards.
When opening bids come in with a very wide point range, or with 3 or more completely different hand possibilities ( of which the actual one will only be determined after subsequent bids ) the game has moved onto a form enigma-type codes. So when players start asking for explanations then this opens up all sorts of problems at the table : unethical inferences from the type, timing or tone of the question, answers given that are not full disclosures, and of course lengthy delays in the auction ( which put presssure on all concerned to make up the time ).
So I repeat again a balance has to be found, or system cards will once more double in size to become utterly confusing, complex 20 page manuals that would take code-breakers weeks to unravel and decipher.

And there is always Larry Cohen’s classic remark about a Matyt Bergen Weak Two opening. It was that Marty might be the only player who thinks the hand is worth a weak two opening bid.

There are just 1) too many opinions, and 2) too many possible deals that just make any bidding systemhave problems. Distribution makes fools of all bidding system. Apologies to matt Granovetter who first noted how bridge makes fools of all of us.

To all of you who have written above. It is obvious judgment is in the eyes of the beholder. I find that far too many of the “judges” who are asked to decide upon the right and wrong of an action are not nearly as qualified as many of the players of yore. Today everyone is an expert. Just ask them!!!!! I think the laws and rules need revamping and the players should give more thought to the fairness and equity of what they are doing — be it system or alerting. It has become a doggy-dog world and the bottom line seems only to be who comes out on top. I, for one, was hoping it would never reach this point in time, but unfortunately it appears I am wrong.

I would have thought that the best requirement for a ‘strong hand’ (or even ‘weak hand’ would be the expected number of tricks that can be made. The total number of tricks that can be made on a deal is more a function of the lengths of the suit (which can vary considerably) rather than the number of high card points (which is fixed).

If, for instance, the rules required a weak hand to have the potential to make 5 tricks and a strong hand to make 8 tricks, but without saying how, then this would be a reasonable compromise. (Interestingly many people here in the UK play a weak 1NT – and very often this hand can only make 3 or 3 1/2 tricks!)

Hi John Portwood,

The subject of how strong a hand has to be in order for it to be opened with the strongest bid in the holder’s system is not understood.

The real subject of this discussion again, as it seems to always be, is how to keep advantage seekers from distorting the game and using whatever legal???? means they can to intimidate their opponents.

We all know that having 10 solid of a major suit will produce game, but that has nothing to do with the problem. To bore some, but to educate others, once this strongest bid in a pair’s system, such as a forcing club or more likely in the USA an artificial 2 clubs is opened, some of their lesser opponents may be intimidated to come into an auction that they know not of, but are used to playing against hands with 20+ high card points and often also very strong defensively.

Thus the result may be a stolen contract, often without interference, in favor of the sly dogs. The answer as I see it, is not to necessarily have strict rules but rather create bridge vigilante groups who seek to keep bridge ethical by patrolling what happens and by whom. Also and above all we need our top level players to be role models instead of they, themselves, sometimes engaging in poison gas labs of their own in order to gain similar advantage.

Sure a basketball player may swing his elbow and give an opponent a serious concussion, but the answer lies in the home office coming down hard on such behavior. When we basically have no home office or almost anyone anywhere to turn to, we indeed are lost in the desert with little hope of survival. On such a circumstance are we now involved and unless accusations are made, judgment decided and serious penalties enforced on guilty parties, our sensational game will become lost to a bunch of would be crooks who belong in bridge jail.

At least to me, anyone who studies our bridge laws with the intent of taking unethical advantage in any way he can, doesn’t have a right to continue playing our game, no matter what his talent is. However, I’m getting worn out being a one man gang preaching the above and getting political answers of nothing being done, for fear of being ostracized by powerful, but totally guilty, high level groups.

I’ve heard people try to use rerocd cold temperatures as proof of global warming as well. I have no idea how that works, but there you go.From what I can tell, rerocd high temperatures have been used to say “look, global warming is occurring” in the past, so the reverse argument (cold temperatures mean it’s not happening) is used to counter that argument. I have to admit there is something about the point that the same people who use rerocd high temperatures as proof of global warming suddenly back off and say it’s just climate when temperatures are extremely cold doesn’t seem very consistent.