[jeremy69]

Quote

It is probably fair to say that at Nick's club, and my local too, that the de facto rule is that it is not necessary for pairs to have a convention card if they are playing the 'club standard' system.

I think this is very common at most clubs and no-one much cares unless the opponents are playing something bizaree when IMO they are obliged to have one. Some players take their scorecard and write 12-14 on the front of it and stop there. I don't see it much matters save for the comment above about out of the ordinary systems. I take a card along to my local duplicate when I play Strong Club and I am sure that no-one has looked at it in 2010. In England, at least, I think announcements have reduced the need or desire to look at them and whilst I generally approve of rules being enforced I am not sure it is productive here to make a big fuss about soemthing that most people don't see as a problem.


As far as moaning is concerned it is a requirement when anything new/different is tried. This applies at club level (e.g. iniquity of the clock) or at national level (e.g the end of the game as we know it because of bidding boxes, announcing etc etc)

[NickRW]

mgoetze, on Sep 18 2010, 10:30 AM, said:

Wow... so you'd have a real riot on your hands if you tried to get them to play a Howell, huh?

They'll tolerate a Howell for 6 tables or less. But some grump about doing, for example, a Hesitation Mitchell for 7.5/8 despite the fact that this gives them their 27 boards. Fortunately we mostly get 9 or 10.

[NickRW]

cardsharp, on Sep 18 2010, 01:44 PM, said:

nige1, on Sep 18 2010, 12:35 PM, said:

A game is its rules.
Enforce the rules or change them. At all levels.
Otherwise you encourage players to break the rules and handicap those who comply with them.
Simple.

It is probably fair to say that at Nick's club, and my local too, that the de facto rule is that it is not necessary for pairs to have a convention card if they are playing the 'club standard' system.

Its not so much that convention cards are considered not necessary - most have at least something vaguely reasonable filled in - its more that nobody ever reads them. Indeed a few actively refuse to read one when offered and the card might have provided a more succinct explanation.

Frankly cards are more of an arse covering exercise in my view. I have a detailed one that I take to league matches - but there is no way they are going to study its four A4 pages of type written notes - usually I just say something like "5 card spades, strongish NT, transfers over 1C and 1D, two level stuff we alert, carding agreements are on the back" - which is really about all they want to hear or can take in quickly.

Nick

[blackshoe]

There's a rule. It seems everybody thinks he knows better than the rulemakers how things should go.

[bluejak]

NickRW, on Sep 17 2010, 11:30 PM, said:

The club has a markedly better field N/S than E/W.  The secretary wants to break this up and have tables cut for who sits N/S.  It is about to happen - and I know what the reception will be - moan moan moan from a few.

Why not allow N/S to be better than E/W?

[nige1]

NickRW, on Sep 17 2010, 05:30 PM, said:

The club has a markedly better field N/S than E/W.  The secretary wants to break this up and have tables cut for who sits N/S.  It is about to happen - and I know what the reception will be - moan moan moan from a few.

There's a scamble fior NS seats in many clubs. Even if you are meant to cut for seats players can embarrass you with "Do you mind if we sit NS?" I suppose you can run a Howell. Vampyr's suggestion of an arrow-switch might work. Most players at our club want to play so I've suggested a club-rule (not yet taken up) that NS rather than EW sit-out whenever there is a half-table.

[blackshoe]

We have one club here where the TD used to put notes on certain tables: "only A pairs (1500+ MPs) at this table". He did this specifically to avoid all the A pairs sitting NS. He may still be doing it — I haven't played at that club in several years. IAC, he's probably still getting the occasional moan about it.

[NickRW]

bluejak, on Sep 21 2010, 02:04 PM, said:

NickRW, on Sep 17 2010, 11:30 PM, said:

The club has a markedly better field N/S than E/W.  The secretary wants to break this up and have tables cut for who sits N/S.  It is about to happen - and I know what the reception will be - moan moan moan from a few.

Why not allow N/S to be better than E/W?

Well, certainly in something like a national sims event with green points available and even more particularly if it is the Monday session (slightly weaker than Friday's session) we get:

1) Some of the pairs who usually only play on Friday showing up. They sit NS.
2) The (generally) stronger pairs who would have been there anyway sitting NS
3) Other visitors sometimes - invariably strong players - also sitting NS.
4) The (typically playing) director (who is almost always one of the stronger players) always sitting in a north seat at the head of the room.

The end result of this is, in the local figures, is a normal looking result with most scores somewhere between 40 and 60%. The scores are then uploaded to Ecats and suddenly you find that the NS scores have all gone up - by as much as 10% or even more in some cases and the EW scores plummet.

Factually what is happening is that a whole series of relative tigers are beating up on succession of relative lambs coming to their table. It doesn't seem right.

Nick

[NickRW]

nige1, on Sep 21 2010, 02:22 PM, said:

There's a scamble fior NS seats in many clubs. Even if you are meant to cut for seats players can embarrass you with "Do you mind if we sit NS?" I suppose you can run a Howell. Vampyr's suggestion of an arrow-switch might work. Most players at our club want to play so I've suggested a club-rule (not yet taken up) that NS rather than EW sit-out whenever there is a half-table.

Actually, the main scramble at my club is by the weaker players turning up more than 30 mins early grabbing an EW seat. As director, if I have to amalgamate two half tables prior to the start, it is never two NS tables - sometimes it is a NS and an EW - but most commonly it is two EW tables.

A Howell is impractical in a lot cases - we often have too many tables to have nearly the whole room moving - people would be falling over the chair legs.

I note that when we do a county (not national) sims event they often specifically mandate a one winner movement - which means using an arrow switch in most cases. Perhaps someone is wise to this phenomenon. However, one winner movements are not generally popular - for some weird reason - I can understand when the room is nearly full.

Nick

[Vampyr]

NickRW, on Sep 21 2010, 06:50 PM, said:

Actually, the main scramble at my club is by the weaker players turning up more than 30 mins early grabbing an EW seat.  As director, if I have to amalgamate two half tables prior to the start, it is never two NS tables - sometimes it is a NS and an EW - but most commonly it is two EW tables.

If you are usually playing two-winner movements then it is actually sensible to have two disparate fields. But if not, my suggestion for how to mix up the room is to have people draw starting positions.

[VixTD]

jeremy69, on Sep 18 2010, 10:38 AM, said:

Quote

It is probably fair to say that at Nick's club, and my local too, that the de facto rule is that it is not necessary for pairs to have a convention card if they are playing the 'club standard' system.

I think this is very common at most clubs and no-one much cares unless the opponents are playing something bizaree when IMO they are obliged to have one.

It is written into the rules of our Club that players are encouraged to use convention cards, and that if they don't rulings are likely to go against them if there is doubt about what systems they are playing. We also have a rule that level 4 conventions are permitted only if both members of the partnership are using convention cards properly, i.e. anyone using systems permitted at level 4 only will be ruled to be playing an illegal convention unless they provide their opponents with correctly completed convention cards at the beginning of the round.

I think this is a good idea in principle, but in practice it's a token rule, because very few, if any, players use level 4 conventions. I would have preferred the ban to apply at level 3, as this would not inconvenience the unsophisticated players, and would encourage the more advanced to take their responsibilities of full disclosure seriously.

It also requires a director who is able to read and interpret the Orange (or Tangerine) Book, of course.