BBO Discussion Forums: Illegal Agreement - BBO Discussion Forums

 nige1, on 2014-May-29, 10:54, said:

I like this - "Conditions of context." It is a sort of a contradiction - a malapropism which actually makes some sense.

[For those who may be missing the point, what Nigel should have written in his post was "conditions of contest."]

 Trinidad, on 2014-May-28, 23:45, said:

That depends by what you mean by occasionally.

The word "generally" appears inside the bracketed part which defines "balanced". Hence the rule says two things:

- A no trump opening or overcall is natural if, by agreement, it is balanced.
- "Balanced" means "generally no singleton or void and no more than two doubletons".

That is, the rule doesn't mean "You can agree to open 1NT with a singleton as long as it's only occasionally." It means "In general a 1NT opening can't have a singleton by agreement, but there are some special cases where it can."

 gnasher, on 2014-May-29, 17:18, said:

Special cases occur "occasionally".

Your interpretation would be permitting even more than "occasionally" since it allows you to have specific agreements about these special cases (e.g. in the special case of a 5 card major strong club system, 1NT could be 4=4=1=4).

Rik

George Rosenkranz, in one of his books on Romex, commented that "we treat a singleton Ace or King as if it were a doubleton" in determining whether a hand is "balanced". Do folks think this is an illegal agreement?

Suppose you have the (common in the US) agreement to open 1NT with a 5-card major, when it's in your NT range. If you systemically open 1NT with a 5-card major and also a singleton A/K, I think that would probably not accord with ACBL's expectations.

We shouldn't have to guess what "would probably not accord with ACBL's expectations".

 barmar, on 2014-May-30, 08:51, said:

I think using "systemically" to make your point convolutes this discussion. It connotes a package including responses and rebids to uncover the singleton, which we already know is ACBL illegal (unless Romex).

However, if opener has both a 5cM and a singleton somewhere and chooses (by express or implied understanding) to open 1NT ---then, Opener is not choosing 1NT to solve a difficult rebid problem but rather for some other reason which is indeed frowned upon.

If there are no illegal methods to uncover the situation is he engineering to be declarer? Does his partner do it too, or just him?

If there are such methods to uncover the shortness, it is illegal.

 aguahombre, on 2014-May-30, 09:49, said:

Would the idea of a weak NT not cross your mind with ♠A ♥xxxx ♦xxxxx ♣AKQ agua? How about with the black suits reversed? Are you completely happy with your rebid options in both cases for any given response structure?

Putting my earlier Devil's advocacy aside, my understanding is that my system would be illegal, inter alia, because the only systemic opening I have for a minimum 4414 hand is 1NT, not to mention that 1NT - 2♦; 2♠ and 1NT - 2♥; 3♣ show this distribution. If I played a Precision 2♦ opening but still chose to open the 4414 hands with a singleton ♦A 1NT, this would be ok providing I also dropped the special super-accepts. It is the expectation that matters. Responder needs to be playing Opener for a balanced hand for the 1NT to be considered natural.

Zel---Barry was referring to a hand with a 5-card Major...and so was I (hence "5cM") What you are talking about is not that. A 1-5-(43) opener does not have a rebid problem unless he invents a rebid problem...it bids the five bagger and then the 4-bagger. Life is simple.

How about ♠xxxxx ♥A ♦AKQ ♣xxxx not playng 2/1 then?

I am reading the latest ACBL Bulletin. Page 16.
"A creative bid by Katz on this board produced another swing..."
As you can guess Katz open 1NT with 15 points and singleton Queen.

How often the big names in bridge open 1NT with singletons?
I checked the 2014 USBF final.
During the final match it was only 3 boards when player have an opportunity to open 1NT with singleton honor.
And (surprise, surprise) in each of those 3 board one of players choose to open 1NT:
http://usbf.org/docs...F_1_s3.htm#bd40 (Meckstroth)
http://usbf.org/docs...F_1_s4.htm#bd52 (Bathurst)
http://usbf.org/docs...F_1_s4.htm#bd58 (Moss)

There were 2 more boards with opportunity to open 1NT with singleton in Semifinal, and again exactly 1 player used this opportunity:
http://usbf.org/docs...F_2_s3.htm#bd36 (Grego)
http://usbf.org/docs...SF_2_s5.htm#bd8 (Diamond)

I did not check earlier stages, I believe picture is clear. Majority of "big names" in bridge do not mind to open 1NT with singleton honor if they feel like that. I do not know if they discussed it with their partners or not, but common knowledge about such possibility is implicit agreement anyway. I don't know if in any of their system exist possibility for responder to discover if opener had a singleton or not; but there is nothing in law or charts that make that "follow up agreement" illegal anyway - only agreement about opening 1NT could be illegal.

Problem is that nobody will dare to call 1NT opening with singleton made by any of famous people "the illegal agreement" - it is "just bridge" or "creative bid" as it was called in the bulletin.

Of course if opening 1NT with singleton honor will be produced by not so well known (or foreign) player reaction will by quite different. And if they will naïve enough to admit that they already saw that kind of bids ...

PS.
One can argue that Vanderbilt or USBF final are not general chart tournament and in general chart tournament top players playing differently and never open 1NT with the singleton. Sorry, I simply do not believe in it.

 olegru, on 2014-June-05, 08:41, said:

Of course any systemic way of discovering if the 1NT opener has a singleton is illegal. The mere existence of such a method implies that there is an agreement to open 1NT with a singleton.

In a sense it is the same as a psychic control - a bid used to determine if the bidder's partner has psyched. The psych itself is not illegal - with the exception of psychs of artificial calls, no psych is illegal. However, any method used to find out if the bid is a psych is illegal.

It is also an agreement once you have done it a few times Art - and many of the top pairs have done it more than just a few.

 Zelandakh, on 2014-June-05, 10:32, said:

No doubt you are correct. However, if a pair has a systemic method of determining whether the 1NT opening has a singleton, that is many steps beyond mere awareness of the possibility that opener has a singleton for his 1NT opening - that is a partnership agreement.

 ArtK78, on 2014-June-05, 10:00, said:

By itself? Why?
Could you refer to any regulation to confirm your opinion?

 ArtK78, on 2014-June-05, 10:00, said:

This make much more sense.
Existing of this methods may be a proof that pair has illegal agreement to open 1NT with singleton. (Of course if agreement to open 1NT with otherwise balanced hand and singleton honor is illegal). But as a proof it is not any better of worse than other evidence. I believe it will not be too hard to check archives and collect the evidence that the number of top players opened 1NT with the singleton honor often enough to make it implicit agreement. Do they all play illegal methods too?

 ArtK78, on 2014-June-05, 10:00, said:

Difference is huge. Bluff is legal. Psychic control is illegal. That is it. We have regulation that makes any agreements to control psychs illegal. We do not need to look for any logic or for any analogies. Any methods to find out if the bid was psych is illegal by regulation. Period.

In our case there is no regulation to make follow up constructive bid illegal. Logic is exactly reversed. We have no limitation for the agreements about second bids, but our original bid maybe illegal. If our original bid indeed was illegal, questions about legality of our agreements about the second bid make no sense. The original illegal bid was enough to null the situation. But if our agreements about the original bid was legal, subsequent agreement cannot make it illegal. There is no analogies or better to say that existing analogy is misleading.

And one more. I believe I wrote it in some earlier post, sorry for repeating.
Let’s take your example with psychic control. It is possible that bidding would go such a way that partner of psychic bidder was able to recognize the psych. He did not used any special psychic control bids, but opener made a subsequent bid that not possible according their system and responder was able to deduct that original bid was psych. Responder scratched his head and replied on your answer: "There is no such bidding possible. The only explanation according our system - he psyched originally." Are you going to call it psych control? I purposely make an unlucky wording; people in general are not lawyers and not linguists. (It is possible that original bid was not psych and they have illegal agreement and you have all rights to call director and report psych, but there is no psych control).

This post has been edited by olegru: 2014-June-05, 12:29

 olegru, on 2014-June-05, 12:00, said:

The expression "psychic control" has a specific meaning.

Back before there was dirt, a number of systems such as Kaplan-Scheinwold (and I believe Roth Stone) systemically included mandatory psyches.

A white on red third seat opening systemically would show either a normal 1S opening OR 0-4 HCP with 3 spades or some such...
The bidding system also included defined checkback mechanism to ask which hand type the opener held.
These checkbacks were specifically called psychic controls.

(Now-a-days I hope that we would describe these as a two way opening bid rather than the less precise description of a systemic psyche)

In any case, the reason that I point this out is that the expression "psychic control" has a precise meaning and it is not "some latter action which exposes the psyche"

Thanks for clarification. Actually it was my point exactly.
According the original message responder did not use any special checkback mechanism to ask opener if he has singletons, he merely bid transfer to spades. But opener did not complete the transfer and bid something else. It was the "some latter action which exposes the singleton" kind of bid, not "singleton control bid."

All what I was trying to say is we are using wrong analogies trying to criminalize something. The only agreement that can be illegal is agreement to open 1NT with singleton. But if it is illegal way it was done so often on the highest level of game? They don't have an agreement and just psyching in the certain positions almost every time them have opportunity?

 olegru, on 2014-June-05, 14:19, said:

Because, as you said yourself, at the highest level of the game the regulations in force are different so it is not illegal. The fact that lots of people drive at 70mph* on the motorway does not tell you very much about the number of people who would drive at the same speed in a residential area.

*the motorway speed limit where I am; your mileage may quite literally vary.

Any call that can find out if the opener has some particular hand may not in itself be an illegal agreement, but is prima facie evidence that you have an agreement that opener can have that particular hand. If agreeing that that hand can make that call is illegal, then you're playing an illegal system.

I'm not sure in what circumstance it truly matters if we shortcut it to "the call (that can flag an illegal handtype) is illegal", unless you're a lawyer trying to get off on a technicality. But yes (given what I claim myself to be), the correct explanation why you have to change your system and why I'm fining you 1/4 board for every time this session I can find out that you've opened 1NT (with or without a singleton) is "the existence of this response to this call shows an agreement to open 1NT with a singleton, and that agreement is illegal", not "that response is illegal".

I've occasionally read posts about systemic bids some players have to discover if the rails have come off in an auction. This isn't evidence that you have an agreement to misbid or misunderstand, just acknowledgement that this sometimes happens inadvertently and you've come up with a way to catch it.

So someone could argue that a method to find a singleton in the NT opener's hand is simply a way to deal with opener missorting their hand, it doesn't imply that the opening is among their agreements.