[akhare]

 whereagles, on 2011-December-06, 06:13, said:

As you know, the fert is the replacement for 'pass'. Whatever else you do with it is your choice. One might want to try and stay out of trouble and open the fert as low as you can or give it some semi-preemptive meaning.

The tape-relay system had a low 1C as fert.

In the opposite range there was an old strong pass system where the 1NT opener was either a 0-7 fert or any 18-21. The opening bid scheme of this system (pass included) was however technically wrong as a whole and thus it never got popular, even within SP systems.

Actually have played FP myself, I am really ambivalent about ferts > 1♣ myself...see this thread for more discussion on FP.

http://www.bridgebas...g-pass-systems/

It's true that the low fert sounds ridiculous, but:

1) You are likely to get more opps willing to play against it in a random online game without a high churn rate. Also, there's no fun against winning against opps ill prepared to deal with such bids.

2) You still get the extra space to relay after the P

3) The higher ferts (1♥) etc. hurt our side as much as they help mess up the opps.

[the hog]

Having played strong pass systems, (sometimes erroneously called Forcing Pass systems), for longer than anyone else on these forums, I think I have a good idea of their costs and benefits. Over the last 25 years i have played WOR in National competitions, and have dabbled with Regres, No Name, Suspensor, Delta and even TRS.
Here is my take on the matter:

1) They are a huge amount of fun to play, both for those playing the systems and those playing against them. Simple defences are the best. Interestingly LOLs had little difficulty and were far less belligerent and hostie at the table than mid rank players. Mid rank players, who usually have an inflated opinion of their abilities, are often too lazy to think through a sensible, generic defence. This really puts the lie to those on this site and elsewhere who often argue that these systems should "be banned for the good of the game".

2) The opening pass is the greatest weakness in the system. Major gains are made with the 8-12 openings and bouncing after these. eg 1D 2S, which means your side has an 8+S fit and 8-24 HCP. These are hard to overcome.

3) The fert is not a losing bid. A 1C fert is a waste of time. The optimum fert is probably 1H. I can only remember getting hurt about 2 times after opening 1H, and I do not have a selective memory.

4) The 1S or 1NT bid in WOR which shows both Ms was a huge winner.

5) Top rank pairs who played these systems include Balicki Zmudsinski, who played Suspensor, Jim and Norma Borin who played Regres, Martston and Burgess who played WOR, a number of other strong Dutch, Swedish, Danish and Polish pairs.

[Statto]

 whereagles, on 2011-December-06, 17:07, said:

Well, I for one agree with banning them in lesser events. But once you get past regional level, I fully agree they should be allowed.

Lower events are to promote the game. We mussn't scare off customers, if you see what I mean lol. As soon as people start to get enthousiastic about the game, they *will* want to learn to play and defend strong pass systems and other HUMs.

Yep, totally agree too. But where does that leave me as a club player who would like to defend against HUMs, and perhaps try some HUMs? Perhaps I am a highly unusual player, though there must be some who have potential to be world greats who are stifled by the RAs. (The DONT defence to 1NT was banned under some RAs at certain levels for a while. Why? It isn't now.)

We sort of digress. Moscito is better because it's legal. Otherwise I'm not sure it is, because if it was the strong clubbers would have also dropped their 1♣ opening to 15+, and they haven't - yet. Though certainly some interesting ideas on how to use the weaker bids.

Only when the defence catches up will we really know, and this is currently (disappointingly) prevented from happening

[Statto]

 the hog, on 2011-December-06, 21:16, said:

Mid rank players ... often argue that these systems should "be banned for the good of the game".

Interesting. As a mid rank player I think quite strongly the opposite.

[the hog]

 Statto, on 2011-December-06, 21:51, said:

Interesting. As a mid rank player I think quite strongly the opposite.

I am glad to read this, but you are in the minority.

[Mbodell]

 Statto, on 2011-December-06, 21:51, said:

Interesting. As a mid rank player I think quite strongly the opposite.

Yeah, there are some mid rank players who feel that way. But there are also some beginners/old-timers who think the rules of bridge say that you have to play 5 card majors and strong nt and if dealt a balanced 16 count the laws say you have to bid 1nt. Those folks also tend to think every alert is cheating and passing information to the partner. I think it is attitude and teaching so much as complication.

[akhare]

 the hog, on 2011-December-06, 21:16, said:

2) The opening pass is the greatest weakness in the system. Major gains are made with the 8-12 openings and bouncing after these. eg 1D 2S, which means your side has an 8+S fit and 8-24 HCP. These are hard to overcome.

Did 1♦ shows 5+♠ in your structure? Many such systems I have seen promise only 4+. If so, what was the rest of the opening structure?

[the hog]

 akhare, on 2011-December-06, 23:08, said:

Did 1♦ shows 5+♠ in your structure? Many such systems I have seen promise only 4+. If so, what was the rest of the opening structure?

Atul, the structure varied from year to year, especially after discussions with PM.
What we stuck with reasonably consistently was
P = 13+ any
1C = 8-12 with H, may have a longer m
1D = 8-12 with S, may have a longer m
1H = 0 to a flat 8
1S = 9-12, no M. may have a stiff
1N = both Ms 8-12
2C/D/H/S = your choice. We played them as 2m = 8-12, good 6 carder, 2M = weak 2
2NT = 5/5/6 ms

The first version of the system actually had 2 ferts 1H = 5 to a flat 8, 1S = 0-4. This was a lot of fun.

[the hog]

 Mbodell, on 2011-December-06, 22:26, said:

Yeah, there are some mid rank players who feel that way. But there are also some beginners/old-timers who think the rules of bridge say that you have to play 5 card majors and strong nt and if dealt a balanced 16 count the laws say you have to bid 1nt. Those folks also tend to think every alert is cheating and passing information to the partner. I think it is attitude and teaching so much as complication.

At the risk of being accused of US bashing, (yet again!), I'd say that those older players from countries such as Aust, Asia and European countries largely do not feel this way.

[32519]

The Hog posted:
2) The opening pass is the greatest weakness in the system.

Flameous posted:
Pass (13+ or so) vs. 1♣ opening (15+)

Obvious advantage of the pass is that it saves one step and loses in definition only a little. This loss of definition might also work to your advantage, once it becomes more likely your opponents have game of their own and you must dedicate bids for constructive purposes instead of destructive. This point has been debated a lot for optimum strong club opening range but I don't think there is any conclusion. I think the advantages of stronger opening are obvious so I'm not listing them.

Seems like the opening pass 13+) is not such a great idea after all. One wonders then why the governing bodies don’t unban Strong Pass systems. Other posters have this to say about the defense to SPs –

Stratto posted:
I've learnt this about symmetric relays. Playing a strong ♣ system, opps will want stick an oar in so that they know their fit and push the level high before we're anywhere close to knowing the shape of P's hand. SRs would seem to exacerbate this...?

The Hog posted:
They are a huge amount of fun to play, both for those playing the systems and those playing against them. Simple defenses are the best. Interestingly LOLs had little difficulty and were far less belligerent and hostile at the table than mid rank players. Mid rank players, who usually have an inflated opinion of their abilities, are often too lazy to think through a sensible, generic defense. This really puts the lie to those on this site and elsewhere who often argue that these systems should "be banned for the good of the game".

So with a little bit of thought it would appear that the defence to these types of systems shouldn’t really pose a problem for any regular partnership. Here I want to toss a stone into a bush and see what jumps out / comes flying out.
Is it possible that money (entrance fees to competitions at all levels) is the real reason lurking in the background for banning these sorts of systems? Most intermediate/advanced players are quite willing to enter various tournaments where they come up against other players who play a similar system to their own or other more widely recognised systems in general. Getting consistent bad results against HUMs may scare them away from entering these tournaments again. Result: Drop in money for the organising body.
[ Just a thought LOL ].

[Zelandakh]

The very first system I ever played regularly against was FP. I found it great fun to play against and only found out later that such systems were banned. The other pair became our team mates but they played strong club in League matches. For me, FP systems should be legal in all events beyond the local club. When played against regularly I am confident that they would not be seen as any more difficult than defending legal systems, in some cases probably much easier.

[mycroft]

The issue with true dominant systems is the following line:

Quote

the defence to these types of systems shouldn’t really pose a problem for any regular partnership.

That is, in fact, true. It's possible to build a decent FP defence (not a great, or optimal, one, but a decent one) quite quickly.

But against normal systems, you use that defence when they open, and you get to play "your system" when they don't. That's the 25% of the time you're dealer, and the halfish-of-25% of the time that you're in second seat and dealer passes, and dribbles later - works out to "about" half the time (assuming your system is about as aggressive opening as your opponents'). Against a true dominant system like strong pass, you get to play the 25% of the time you're dealer - and only if you don't pass.

And people are attached to their systems, and spend much more time on it than their defences (right or wrong, that's how it works); and being told they're defending 85+% of the time is going to be a problem.

This problem goes away if you use a 1♣ fert - they can play their defence against the strong pass, and their system (with a stolen-bid double, if necessary) against 1♣ - which is, of course, why it's

Quote

a waste of time.

[Edit to add: Also, an "effective" defence against the fert - which effectively means "it's likely our hand, and we have to start without the 1 level or a 'suit we can ignore'/cuebid" - is likely *very* different if the fert is 1♦, 1♥ or 1♠. So a "generic" strong pass defence needs at least three "whole system"-level parts for each of those bids.]

[hrothgar]

 mycroft, on 2011-December-07, 11:44, said:

But against normal systems, you use that defence when they open, and you get to play "your system" when they don't. That's the 25% of the time you're dealer, and the halfish-of-25% of the time that you're in second seat and dealer passes, and dribbles later - works out to "about" half the time (assuming your system is about as aggressive opening as your opponents'). Against a true dominant system like strong pass, you get to play the 25% of the time you're dealer - and only if you don't pass.

I've seen people thrown around this line of argument since the days of Rosenkranz and have never been particularly impressed.

Consider the following two auctions (where the side that is passing is playing bog standard methods)

1♠ - (P) - 2♣

versus

P - (P) - 1♠ - (P)
2♣

I don't know about you, but in all of my partnerships the definition 1♠ openings and the 2♣ responses vary dramatically depending on whether we're opening in first seat or in third.

Players deliberately change the definition of their bids based on seat, vulnerability, you name it and this happens regardless of whether or not the opponent's are playing a weak opening system. This example happens to focus on major suit openings and drury responses. However, the same holds true for preempts, NT openings, psyches, you name it...

Admittedly, most people prefer to define their "standard" third seat methods as an opening structure rather than as a defense to the opponent's second seat pass, but this is purely semantics...

Weak opening systems do have a dramatic impact on whether or the opposing pair gets to play their own preferred set of second/third openings methods as opposed to being forced into some kind of overcall structure, but guess what...

Folks don't have a god given right to an unobstructed auction.
The sooner people get over that, the happier things will be...

[the hog]

 hrothgar, on 2011-December-07, 12:09, said:

I've seen people thrown around this line of argument since the days of Rosenkranz and have never been particularly impressed.

snipped.
I don't see the logic to this argument either. Mycroft are you saying that if people pay entrance fees they have a "right" to bid when it is their turn?

[awm]

I think the argument against forcing pass being allowed is more an argument against the fert than anything else.

Basically the point is that my partnership will need a defense to an opening of X which shows Y... for any choice of X and Y. Simply enumerating all the options is going to be impossible even under pretty stringent system restrictions, so I'm going to have to categorize these calls somehow. If everyone is playing methods which fall into a small number of categories, this is going to be a lot less work than if "anything goes."

In general it's not too hard to defend against methods which either show values or show length in a known suit. If they show values, we can give up on bidding "constructively" on (for example) weak notrump hands. Our goal is to find a fit and bid based on total trumps most of the time. If they show length in a suit, we can often eliminate that suit as a place to play (as well as figuring that most of the time one or both people on our side will be short in that suit) which helps a lot in the subsequent auction. These types of methods are also familiar to most players at least to some degree. Note that most methods which are allowed in most bridge competitions fall into one of these categories (at least if we define "values" to mean "an average hand or better").

Methods where neither of these are the case (i.e. call could be very light on values and doesn't show any known suit) tend to be tougher. Of course, it's still possible to come up with a defense! However, generic defenses to this type of call tend to be lousy, because we need to decide whether to bid constructively or try to penalize and whether to emphasize showing particular shapes, and this is going to depend a lot on the level of the opening and what it actually shows. A single generic defense of the form "if opponents opening could be weak and has no anchor suit, we play this" is going to be extremely bad! We could come up with a decent defense to a 1♥ fert... but that defense might not be so good against a 1♥ fert that promises a balanced hand, or against a 1♠ fert, or against a 1♥ fert which guarantees a four-card major. The number of these possibilities is pretty high, and it's not clear that we can categorize them in any way which will be particularly effective for designing defenses. Even the follow-ups can matter here (for example, if opponents don't pass the 1♥ fert unless they have heart length, we might want to play a different defense than if they pass on virtually any hand that can't make game).

Of course, if there were a lot of demand to play a particular type of forcing pass, it's quite possible the rules could be changed. We could all come up with our defense to the particular type of fert in that system and it would just be one more category to add. However, the situation is that there is not that much demand to play forcing pass (i.e. it's not that popular even in countries that allow it) and people who do want to play it typically have their own pet methods (frequently with their own unique fert or set of ferts). It's not clear that one "defense to fert" will come close to encompassing these, and allowing all of them means a huge amount of work for any serious partnership.

There is also the notion of "purely destructive" calls. Admittedly this is poorly defined, but a call that takes up quite a bit of bidding space while showing absolutely no values and giving virtually no information about distribution would seem to come pretty close...

Allowing forcing pass for long KO events seems fine to me (I can spend the half hour or so discussing methods to get a decent defense to whatever my opponents are playing today), but I honestly wouldn't want to have to deal with a different homegrown system of artificial non-value-showing openings at every table in a pairs event.

[the hog]

We have been through all this before and it is somewhat pointless going through it all again. It is unlikely that SP systems will be allowed in enough competitions to make it worthwhile for any serious pair to play it on a regular basis.
However Adam has raised some interesting points. I disagree with most of them, (no surprise), simply because the scenarios he describes are implausable to say the least. It is the following paragraph with which I take the greatest issue:

"A single generic defense of the form "if opponents opening could be weak and has no anchor suit, we play this" is going to be extremely bad! We could come up with a decent defense to a 1♥ fert... but that defense might not be so good against a 1♥ fert that promises a balanced hand, or against a 1♠ fert, or against a 1♥ fert which guarantees a four-card major. The number of these possibilities is pretty high, and it's not clear that we can categorize them in any way which will be particularly effective for designing defenses."

These scenarios are so unlikely as to really be meaningless. Take the comment about the fert that shows a 4 card M. Playing a method like this would so impact the rest of the system that it would likely be unworkable. What do you do with garbage hands that don't have a 4 card M? You cannot pass as your pass is strong. You see what I mean, Adam is describing scenarios that are extremely unlikely ever to occur.

I also disagree with this:
"we need to decide whether to bid constructively or try to penalize"
No you don't. This belief stems from the philosophy that they have opened on nothing therefore we need to punish them. I used to love playing against players who thought this way as, yes, they often tied themselves in knots by trying to secure a penalty at all costs. Those who bid consrtuctively were achieved far better results and in fact, still managed to secure their fair share of penalties. It is, of course, not that difficult to construct and play an effective generic defence.

"There is also the notion of "purely destructive" calls." So what? Why is this cast as a bad thing? I don't think Adam thinks this way, but to use this argument is really to push the two vs four handed argument. Just because one side is dealt say 28 points is no reason for the opposition to lie back, think of England and say this is your hand do as you like.

Anyway, as I said at the outset, this is an academic argument as the days of SP systems are gone. This is a huge pity in my view.

[32519]

 the hog, on 2011-December-07, 22:05, said:

We have been through all this before and it is somewhat pointless going through it all again. It is unlikely that SP systems will be allowed in enough competitions to make it worthwhile for any serious pair to play it on a regular basis.

Anyway, as I said at the outset, this is an academic argument as the days of SP systems are gone. This is a huge pity in my view.

According to the WBF Systems Policy HUMs are allowed in category 1 Championships (see paragraph 3) http://www.worldbrid...tems/policy.asp

Unless you are a truly top class player you will never get to use your HUM system anywhere else. The number of players who get to represent their countries at the Bermuda Bowl are few. The document doesn't say if HUM systems are allowed during the zonal qualifications. Naturally I would presume the same rules apply there as those which apply in the Bermuda Bowl itself.

So yes, I agree with The Hog. It is unlikely that SP systems will be allowed in enough competitions to make it worthwhile for any serious pair to play it on a regular basis.

[Free]

Also I don't understand why destructive methods, whatever the definition, shouldn't be allowed. Some people prefer offense, others defense, but it's a choice they can make, right?

[hrothgar]

 awm, on 2011-December-07, 21:19, said:

I think the argument against forcing pass being allowed is more an argument against the fert than anything else.

Basically the point is that my partnership will need a defense to an opening of X which shows Y... for any choice of X and Y. Simply enumerating all the options is going to be impossible even under pretty stringent system restrictions, so I'm going to have to categorize these calls somehow. If everyone is playing methods which fall into a small number of categories, this is going to be a lot less work than if "anything goes."

Hi Adam

I think that you have this one backwards.

In my experience, there isn't much difference between ferts.

Almost all weak opening systems have one fert.
This fert (essentially) shows a weak hand with 0-7 or 0-8 HCPs.

The edges may be a bit ragged. Potentially, you open a week bit lighter with a 4 card major or a wee bit stronger with a balanced hand.
But you don't have one fert for hands with four card major and another for hands without one.
The variance in the ferts shows up in what suit shows the bad hand.
Ranges between 1♦ and 1♠ seem most popular, though Marston - Burgess used a 2♣ fert NV.

Conversely, I see an amazing variance in the structure of the opening bids used in weak opening systems.

Some pairs prefer transfers
Others prefer wonder bids
Others clarify shape (1♠ shows a 5-5 pattern, but says nothing about suits)

This is where life gets really complicated.
You have a plethora of these different opening bids and they are often very artificial.

Regardless of what people says about ferts or destructive bidding or whatever, what they really object to is the fact that partnership that has studied their own set of openings is going to be better positioned when these occur that some random pair off the street.