[Vampyr]

 pran, on 2012-October-01, 02:55, said:

The Regulating Authority may disallow prior agreement by a partnership to vary its understandings during the auction or play following a question asked by either side, a response to a question given by own side, or any irregularity by own side.

I think that this would work well as simply being disallowed by Law.

The biggest problem with the ACBL regulation is that if a partnership has done something over their opponent's insufficient bid, and either guessed what it meant and/or discussed it afterwards, they cannot use a similar call to have a similar meaning if opponents make a similar insufficient bid.

[Vampyr]

 gnasher, on 2012-October-01, 01:43, said:

[auction with insufficient bid] doesn't restore equity - it gves an unfair bonus to the non-offenders, and unfairly punishes the offenders.
...
It's not a matter of punishing them. It's a matter of not giving them an undeserved advantage.

 bluejak, on 2012-September-30, 18:57, said:

If opponents do not want you to have extra agreements it is simple: they do not make illegal bids.

Andy, do you really disagree with bluejak's "solution" above?

[blackshoe]

I don't understand why you're trying to change the scenario. I expressed an opinion about a specific case. I have expressed no opinion about your new and different case. In fact, I haven't thought about it, and probably won't. Right now I'm off to play some bridge.

[gnasher]

 Vampyr, on 2012-October-01, 08:16, said:

Andy, do you really disagree with bluejak's "solution" above?

Yes, of course I disagree with it.

I'm not so worried about the offenders being disadvantaged, but I don't see any reason why the non-offenders should gain. Not do I see any reason for the size of the disadvantage to the non-offenders to vary arbitrarily, which is what happens under the existing rules.

Bridge is a game of skill - that's what makes it fun. It's inevitible that there is some luck, such as when you happen to be handed a good result by a careless opponent, but I don't see any benefit to having the rules add to the element of luck unnecessarily.

When an infraction occurs, it seems to me completely obvious that the rules should (1) restore equity for both sides, erring in favour of the non-offenders, and (2) if appropriate, penalise the offender, in proportion to the gravity of their offence. That's what we do in UI and MI cases; why on earth shouldn't we do the same in the case of an insufficient bid?

[nige1]

 gnasher, on 2012-October-01, 01:43, said:

If that's an answer to the question of whether you're allowed to have such an agreement, it's not allowed in the ACBL, though it is allowed in England. If you're answering the question "should it be allowed?", this is why not: When dealing with an accidental infraction, we should aim to restore equity, that is to return both sides to the position they were in before the infraction occurred. That objective is stated in the Laws, and I think most players would support it (though they might well argue about the practicalities).

If, before the infraction, the auction was going to be

1♥ (2♦) dbl [takeout]

allowing the non-offenders to choose between

1♥ (1♦) dbl [takeout]

and

1♥ (2♦) dbl [penalties]

doesn't restore equity - it gves an unfair bonus to the non-offenders, and unfairly punishes the offenders.
It's not a matter of punishing them. It's a matter of not giving them an undeserved advantage.

Only slightly off topic but relevant to the general question: A more controversial example, similar to Vampyr's, is

• You are playing in jurisdiction that doesn't allow variation of agreements after an infraction.
• You are playing for the first time with an expert partner.
• Your agreement is that double of a natural opening bid is takeout out to 4♥.
• You are dealer but LHO opens a natural 4♥ out of turn.
• The director explains options to everybody..
• After consideration, partner accepts the bid out of turn and doubles.
• Are you allowed to treat the double as penalty?
• For the sake of argument, suppose you think it must be penalty. so pass, and your guess tums out to be correct.
• What happens if the same thing happens again?

It is because of such gray areas, that the rules should not give players options over infractions..

[barmar]

 pran, on 2012-October-01, 02:55, said:

Literally this law (with corresponding regulations) forbids a partnership to have different defences depending on whether oppopnents' call in response to a question is described as "A" or "B", and also prevents them from taking advantage of some of opponents' irregularities like insufficient bids.

Are you suggesting that the law could be interpreted to prohibit different defenses to strong and weak NT, if you learn what they're playing by asking a question? I think it's clear that the law is referring to variation based on the act of asking/answering, not based on the information learned about the opponents' methods.

[barmar]

 gnasher, on 2012-October-01, 01:27, said:

But it doesn't. It reads "A partnership, by prior agreement, may not vary its understanding during the auction or play following a question asked, a response to a question or any irregularity." A rule of general applicability was probably written with a general objective. In this case the objective was probably to produce something close to a bridge result, by restoring the equity that existed before the irregularity without giving anyone an undeserved bonus.

I think another reason for this rule was simply to avoid a level of complexity to the game that adds little value. If we allow this kind of variation, we then have to worry about how to disclose it -- should there be a section on the CC for continuations over IBs and BOOT, plays after revokes and LOOT, etc.?

So we disallow agreements, but players are still allowed to use bridge logic.

[pran]

 barmar, on 2012-October-01, 15:37, said:

Are you suggesting that the law could be interpreted to prohibit different defenses to strong and weak NT, if you learn what they're playing by asking a question?

That is exactly what the law literally says.

 barmar, on 2012-October-01, 15:37, said:

I think it's clear that the law is referring to variation based on the act of asking/answering, not based on the information learned about the opponents' methods.

But that is not what the law says.

The law says "following a .... response to a question", not mentioning information at all and not distinguishing between responses given by own side (following which a partnership should certainly not be allowed to vary their methods), and responses given by opponents in which case there is every reason to allow them to adapt their methods to whatever they learn about opponents' calls.

[Zelandakh]

Still noone has answered my little thought experiment of a pair playing transfers over competition. Say they get an IB and have a misunderstanding - one thought transfers would be on and the other not. Are they really not allowed to discuss this? What happens on the third or fourth (or tenth) occasion - surely they have generated an (illegal) implicit understanding by then. If I keep making IBs against a pair using such a defence can I claim their methods are illegal? This law is total nonsense. Of course expert pairs have understandings for such situations. And of course it should be legal to do so.

[gnasher]

 Zelandakh, on 2012-October-02, 02:40, said:

Still noone has answered my little thought experiment of a pair playing transfers over competition. Say they get an IB and have a misunderstanding - one thought transfers would be on and the other not. Are they really not allowed to discuss this? What happens on the third or fourth (or tenth) occasion - surely they have generated an (illegal) implicit understanding by then. If I keep making IBs against a pair using such a defence can I claim their methods are illegal? This law is total nonsense. Of course expert pairs have understandings for such situations. And of course it should be legal to do so.

I didn't respond to it because I think it has a false premise, as does the original post in this thread. So far as I know, there is no law or ACBL regulation that prevents a partnership having agreements about an action that accepts an insufficient bid.

[campboy]

 gnasher, on 2012-October-02, 03:02, said:

I didn't respond to it because I think it has a false premise, as does the original post in this thread. So far as I know, there is no law or ACBL regulation that prevents a partnership having agreements about an action that accepts an insufficient bid.

Exactly. The law doesn't say anything about having agreements, just about varying them. Your agreements about 1♠ (1♦) 1♥ must be the same whether or not there was an irregularity -- well, they trivially are since the second case is impossible. But your agreements about 1♠ (2♦) 2♥ must also be the same whether or not there was an irregularity (such as an insufficient 1♦ call) -- that is a meaningful requirement.

[Zelandakh]

OK, say that we agree that 1♠ - (1♦) - X is to be played as negative and that we further agree that we always take the lower negative double when there is a choice. It is now logically impossible for 1♠ - (2♦) - X to have its original meaning. Can I claim GBK for this call now to revert to penalty since the original meaning has been removed by the irregularity?

[campboy]

 Zelandakh, on 2012-October-02, 04:54, said:

OK, say that we agree that 1♠ - (1♦) - X is to be played as negative and that we further agree that we always take the lower negative double when there is a choice. It is now logically impossible for 1♠ - (2♦) - X to have its original meaning. Can I claim GBK for this call now to revert to penalty since the original meaning has been removed by the irregularity?

Not in the ACBL. GBK doesn't overrule an agreement; for the meaning of the double to change you must be varying your agreement.

[Zelandakh]

 campboy, on 2012-October-02, 05:00, said:

Not in the ACBL. GBK doesn't overrule an agreement; for the meaning of the double to change you must be varying your agreement.

Why can I not frame the agreement to say that the lowest available double is negative and, where there are 2 possibilities, the higher is penalty? This agreement does not need to ne changed.

[campboy]

Because whether there was a lower available double depends on whether there was an irregularity. You are not permitted an agreement which determines the meaning of a call based on whether there was a particular type of irregularity.

[kenrexford]

 Zelandakh, on 2012-October-02, 05:36, said:

Why can I not frame the agreement to say that the lowest available double is negative and, where there are 2 possibilities, the higher is penalty? This agreement does not need to ne changed.

I really like this. If you have agreements that are defined properly, taking into consideration the possibility of an "impossible" auction by carefully wording the agreement, perhaps this is OK?

[campboy]

If the only difference between the auctions 1♠ (2♦) dbl for takeout and 1♠ (2♦) dbl for penalty is that in one case there was an insufficient bid and in the other case there wasn't then that is an illegal agreement in the ACBL however you word it.

[Vampyr]

 kenrexford, on 2012-October-02, 06:31, said:

I really like this. If you have agreements that are defined properly, taking into consideration the possibility of an "impossible" auction by carefully wording the agreement, perhaps this is OK?

I think maybe. I have always had some trouble understanding what "varying" one's agreements means. If you have agreements already in place -- following an irregularity or whatever -- then you do not need to vary them.

[pran]

There is a simple example to illustrate this:

In the precision strong club systems many calls carry information from how many available calls are bypassed.

So if during an auction one player bid (say) 1♠ and the next player passes then the "steps" are 1NT, 2♣, 2♦ and so on for "0", "1", "2" and so on "bypassed" calls.

However, if next player doubles then the "steps" are PASS, REDOUBLE, 1NT, 2♣ and so on while if the next hand bids 2♣ the "steps" are PASS, DOUBLE, 2♦ and so on.

Logically if next player bids 1♦ (insufficient) the "steps" will be PASS, DOUBLE, 1♥ (!) and so on.

This (by definition) is not varying any agreements, it is simply maintaining the same agreements unchanged all the way.

[TimG]

 Zelandakh, on 2012-October-02, 02:40, said:

Still noone has answered my little thought experiment of a pair playing transfers over competition. Say they get an IB and have a misunderstanding - one thought transfers would be on and the other not. Are they really not allowed to discuss this? What happens on the third or fourth (or tenth) occasion - surely they have generated an (illegal) implicit understanding by then. If I keep making IBs against a pair using such a defence can I claim their methods are illegal? This law is total nonsense. Of course expert pairs have understandings for such situations. And of course it should be legal to do so.

No pair ever has to face an accepted insufficient bid. They can always decline to accept and then play their agreed methods.