[nige1]

bluejak, on 2012-February-06, 09:07, said:

Players who play artificial agreements should expect opponents to defend against them robustly. Opening a doubleton is an artificial agreement. The fact that many pairs do so does not affect this.

Agree with Bluejak. Short club openers are the kind of convention adopted by sponsored American teams.The ACBL is uncharacteristically eager to facilitate such conventions. For the sake of the future of Bridge, let's hope the WBF starts to consider the interests of others. For example forcing pass seems equally natural. .

[Vampyr]

Coelacanth, on 2012-February-06, 10:33, said:

This is really the heart of the problem. Absent a pre-alert (which would not be required in any case), players who play such dual defensive methods are put into the position of having to ask a lot of questions and providing partner with UI.

I think the practical effect of the new regulation will be that nobody will play such methods anymore. Any artificial defense will be deployed only against a purely artificial 1♣ opener.

Well played, ACBL!

[aguahombre]

Coelacanth, on 2012-February-06, 10:33, said:

I think the practical effect of the new regulation will be that nobody will play such methods anymore. Any artificial defense will be deployed only against a purely artificial 1♣ opener.

The practical effect for us will be to decide at the table whether to use mid-chart defenses to 1C when the opponents have the courtesy to pre-announce a method other than the simple 4-4-3-2 short club style to which the new regulations apply.

Against others who don't disclose this in advance, we will use GCC stuff. Until such time as they are REQUIRED to let us know in advance, we can live with that; meanwhile, we just appreciate the thoughtfullness of some pairs, namely Boyd/Robinson (e.g), EBU visitors, and Europeans participating in ACBL events.

[barmar]

What percentage of ACBL pairs use short club for other than 4=4=3=2 hands?

What percentage of ACBL pairs have artificial defenses against artificial short clubs?

How often do pairs in the two groups intersect? If any of them face each other on any regular basis, I'm sure they know who they are.

[bluejak]

I do not see it makes any difference how many pairs there are. My partner and I use different defences: how do we find out? I don't see that saying we are in a minority helps one iota.

Or do you think Full Disclosure is not a GOOD THING?

[barmar]

It makes a difference in how severe the problem is, and how urgently it needs to be fixed.

How do you find out? When they announce "could be short", you ask for clarification if it affects your defense.

Just like in the old days when you had to ask the NT range if you played different defenses over weak and strong. Since this was exceedingly common, they introduced announcements to simplify it. But different defenses to different types of short clubs probably aren't common enough to warrant the same solution for this.