[jnichols]

Vampyr, on 2016-January-11, 18:19, said:

Is it so terribly unlikely that the ACBL mean to allow non-consecutive ranges, as long as 6 values are not use?

if non-consecutive ranges are to be counted as though they are a single range (12-13 / 18-20 counts as 8) then why even mention them in the regulations?

[helene_t]

They wanted to make it clear that 12-13 /18-20 is a nine point range, not a five point range as some might otherwise think. They could have done a better job, maybe, for example as Ed suggests.

It also makes perfect sense considering the purpose of the regulation. Opps may have the agreement that they play, for example, Landy against weak NT and DONT against strong NT. Now if the range is 12-17 they have a problem and that is what ACBL wants to avoid. And making it 12-13/16-17 would give opps the same problem.

[aguahombre]

helene_t, on 2016-January-12, 03:35, said:

It also makes perfect sense considering the purpose of the regulation. Opps may have the agreement that they play, for example, Landy against weak NT and DONT against strong NT. Now if the range is 12-17 they have a problem and that is what ACBL wants to avoid. And making it 12-13/16-17 would give opps the same problem.

I see a much bigger purpose for the regulation. We have seen, over the past several months, how pairs with either/or agreements in bidding or in carding have eliminated the confusion on their part -- leaving only the opponents in doubt.

[barmar]

aguahombre, on 2016-January-12, 09:01, said:

I see a much bigger purpose for the regulation. We have seen, over the past several months, how pairs with either/or agreements in bidding or in carding have eliminated the confusion on their part -- leaving only the opponents in doubt.

Maybe you're just joking, but I don't think the regulation was intended to address cheating. Especially since the regulation has been around for many years, far longer than the recent cheating scandals.

[aguahombre]

barmar, on 2016-January-12, 09:42, said:

Maybe you're just joking, but I don't think the regulation was intended to address cheating. Especially since the regulation has been around for many years, far longer than the recent cheating scandals.

The regulation has been around for many years, indeed. And for many years, people whose partner opens a 12-18 NT have always known when to invite game, bid game, or pass. The scandals are newer than the behavior.

[helene_t]

aguahombre, on 2016-January-12, 09:01, said:

I see a much bigger purpose for the regulation. We have seen, over the past several months, how pairs with either/or agreements in bidding or in carding have eliminated the confusion on their part -- leaving only the opponents in doubt.

Maybe the reasoning is that a wide-ranging 1nt opening would be unplayble without a wire. But I think it would be a poor philosophy to ban methods that would be unplayable without a wire. Plenty of popular methods (think 1♥-1♠-2♦ = 10-18 HCPs, or 4th best from any suit regardless of honour holding) could also benefit hugely from a wire.

[aguahombre]

helene_t, on 2016-January-13, 04:03, said:

Maybe the reasoning is that a wide-ranging 1nt opening would be unplayble without a wire. But I think it would be a poor philosophy to ban methods that would be unplayable without a wire. Plenty of popular methods (think 1♥-1♠-2♦ = 10-18 HCPs, or 4th best from any suit regardless of honour holding) could also benefit hugely from a wire.

I see a big difference between a method which could benefit from illegal communication and one which is unplayable without such help.

But, I agree with your "philosophy". Unplayable methods should be allowed simply because we would have a big jump start on the particular pair, leaving us only to figure out the code which makes the method playable.

However, the ACBL has a history of lazy solutions. The restriction placed on two-suited interference over 1nt where there is no immediately-known anchor suit was aimed (unjustly, IMO) at a very small target and resulted in collateral damage to others.

[helene_t]

What is the history behind this regulation? Presumably enough people must have been playing this in order for ACBL to see it as an issue. Is it about Blue Club or something else?

[mycroft]

You can play Blue Club (at least I know a pair that claims to). 1NT is 13-15, with certain 11s and 12s added. 5-point range, no problem.

Woodson Two-Way NT was a big one: 10-12 or 16-18. I haven't seen it much in the last 20 years for some reason.</sarcasm>

50 years ago there was a hate on for 10-12 NTs (especially ones that are aggressively shaded), so they put a floor down. I would like to see that floor revisited, now that the floor for "normal" openings includes a majority of 10-12 NT hands - the reason to play this is becoming irrelevant (you're preempting the entire 1 level on hands that are passed by "standard" systems; now more than half of them are trivally opened, usually with a more constructive call). But that'll never happen, because the reason it was hated in the first place is it's raison d'etre, so they won't liberalize to give that option back. Having said that, the reason the upgrade policy is so draconian is that people were abusing it "we can't *play* 9-12, so we'll agree to play "10-12 with liberal upgrades", and liberal == "all 9s that aren't 8s".

I assume most here remember "the Bergen Rule" and why DISALLOWED, 7, includes "weak 2s with a range wider than 7 HCP or could by agreement be shorter than 5 cards". Again, as far as I know, it wasn't "unplayable absent a wire", it was "too many people complained about playing against it, whether they got good or bad results from it."

I know that the 5 range makes it convention-denied to play by agreement the "Prof. Silver NT": "12-14, or 15-17 if partner forgot again"; which is convenient.

I have played, in the ACBL, an "8-'we don't have game'" (15 or so) NT, third seat playing EHAA. It never came up. It was in fact playable, but only because of the high information content of the initial pass.

So, it's a combination of "we don't think you can play it without 'assistance'" (or, as is the rule for odd-even *carding*, "we don't think you can play it without *giving* 'assistance'") and "we don't think the rank-and-file want to deal with this." Add in a sprinkling of "we're not banning this convention" and "we can't afford to annoy this well-known player" (mostly from when we converted from "regulating conventions by name", but not always), and you pretty much have the entire GCC.

re: two-suited O/C of NT: it's not just the S-word. When it was GCC legal, I used to play CRaSh/NT. Whether I'd go back were it legal/I was in SoCal now that I'm not a Junior, I don't know :-)

Note: there's an awful lot of personal opinion here. While I may occasionally work for the ACBL, I *never* speak online for them.

[Cyberyeti]

I used to play a 6 point 1N range for years with it causing far more issues for opps than it did for us.

We played 10-15 or 11-16 in first and second seat, 14-19 in 3rd and 4th IIRC. The thing that worked best of all was the 11-16 protective overcall.

I also currently play 0-9(10) 4+ card weak 2s, so definitely not playing in ACBLland if the Bergen rule is in place.

[Shugart23]

Cyberyeti, on 2016-January-13, 12:39, said:

I used to play a 6 point 1N range for years with it causing far more issues for opps than it did for us.

We played 10-15 or 11-16 in first and second seat, 14-19 in 3rd and 4th IIRC. The thing that worked best of all was the 11-16 protective overcall.

I also currently play 0-9(10) 4+ card weak 2s, so definitely not playing in ACBLland if the Bergen rule is in place.

Partner and I play 9-15 HCP when we are in 3rd seat white against red...We got tired of opening our 14 point hand 1D and letting opponents easily find their Major fit. So we open 1NT and then just bid naturally...This is strictly in Matchpoints and yields a lot of success and we see a lot of frustration by our opponents