[Jinksy]

My P and I have been playing a third seat NV 1N opening as 8-14 points (which I thought was as low as we could legally reach, up to the point where P, who would have opened a decent 11 count, need never invite). A couple of people have remarked that they don't think this is a legal agreement. Are they right?

[manudude03]

EBU Blue Book 7A3 said:

Strength of Opening One-level Bids
A one-level opening bid in a suit, whether forcing or not, must by agreement show 8+ HCP and,
in first and second position, follow the Rule of 18. Natural 1NT opening bids must show 9+
HCP.

So it's not legal at level 4. I think you can play it at level 5 should you be in that kind of event.

[Zelandakh]

At the opposite end of the spectrum, if you are playing at Level 2 (or 3):

Quote

An opening 1NT must be non-forcing. It may show any agreed range with at least 10 HCP, with no singleton or void and no 7-card suit.

[Jinksy]

More questions:

• Which events are levels 4/5? (I'm pretty sure I never play in level 2 or 3 events)
  
• Suppose we play 9-14. If I'm dealt a good 8 count, is it legal to upgrade? (obviously being careful not to do this so liberally that we're effectively including most 8 counts in our opening)
  
• What range would be legal at level 5?

[manudude03]

Someone in England can better define it, but Level 5 AFAIK is things like the Premier League, Gold Cup finals, basically top level competitions. Level 4 is most other major competitions (some clubs play at level 4, but you will have to ask them). I don't think you can upgrade 8 counts. It says it must be a minimum of 9 HCP, but says nothing about your personal evaluation of the hand. Level 5 allows anything at lower levels, plus everything allowed in WBF Category 3 (which is basically no HUMs and no more than 3 BSCs)

[Zelandakh]

1. I am a little out of the loop since leaving the country but as I understand it the vast majority of EBU events are Level 4. Level 2 is primarily designed for novice tournaments and Level 5 is used for some major events such as the Gold and Silver Cups.
2. Again I am not sure if things have changed in the meantime but England is traditionally less strict on these requirements than the USA, meaning that judgement was allowed. But this is one I would definitely check with a senior TD before expecting it to be ok!
3. As far as I can tell, any range is allowed provided it does not qualify for a HUM. However, since one of the qualifications for a HUM is a king or more below average strength, anything below 8 might cause you some difficulties.

[Vampyr]

 manudude03, on 2016-November-11, 09:42, said:

(some clubs play at level 4, but you will have to ask them).

Most others, I think, are more liberal than level 4, But you would have to enquire about specific agreements that are not level 4.

[gordontd]

 Vampyr, on 2016-November-11, 09:59, said:

Most others, I think, are more liberal than level 4, But you would have to enquire about specific agreements that are not level 4.

Many clubs don't specify and don't really think about it until someone comes along and wants to play something a bit unusual that some of the club members would prefer they did not.

[lamford]

 gordontd, on 2016-November-11, 10:27, said:

Many clubs don't specify and don't really think about it until someone comes along and wants to play something a bit unusual that some of the club members would prefer they did not.

Ideally the club constitution or rules should specify what level or equivalent should be played and on which nights. A North London club that I attend does not allow HUMs, but otherwise has no restrictions. Young Chelsea, I believe, did have level 3 only on one or more nights, but I don't know if it still does.

[weejonnie]

So the final answer is:

You can't play 1NT as 8-14 by agreement.
You can play 1NT as 9-14 by agreement.
You can open 1NT on 8 points PROVIDED you don't have an agreement that you can upgrade 8 HCP to 9 HCP and partner has no reason to expect that you will. i.e. you can both do it once more.

So

KJT9
KT98
JT9
T9

is not a 1NT opener.

[lamford]

 weejonnie, on 2016-November-11, 12:52, said:

So the final answer is:

You can't play 1NT as 8-14 by agreement.
You can play 1NT as 9-14 by agreement.
You can open 1NT on 8 points PROVIDED you don't have an agreement that you can upgrade 8 HCP to 9 HCP and partner has no reason to expect that you will. i.e. you can both do it once more.

So

KJT9
KT98
JT9
T9

is not a 1NT opener.

I don't agree. The Blue Book states:
A partnership may define the strength of a hand using any method of hand evaluation that will be understood easily by its opponents (High Card Points (HCP), Playing tricks, Losing Trick Count, etc). Regardless, your understandings must meet the permitted minimums defined in terms of HCP and ‘Rule of 18/19/24/25’

There is no definition of HCP in the Blue Book (as far as I can see). That is left to the partnership. Binkie high-card points are 4.5-3-2-0.5 for AKQJ for example. Those are clearly high-card points, and understood easily by opponents. Some beginner's text books define HCP as 4-3-2-1-1/2 with half a point for a ten. Those are clearly high-card points. If the Blue Book intended high-card points to be the 4-3-2-1 scale only with no adjustment for aces, quacks or tens, then it would say so. So, I think one can define HCP in any easily understood manner, and then the understandings must meet the permitted minimums defined.

Postscript: The definitions in one place (on page 29 defining an average hand) give "Milton Work" as defining HCP for that purpose. Wikipedia (and several other sources) state: Although Work had strongly opposed point count methods for 25 years, beginning about 1927 he became a strong advocate of the 4-3-2-1-½ point count—so much so that it became known as the Work Point Count. So, your example hand clearly qualifies as a 1NT opening because it has two or more tens.

[pran]

 lamford, on 2016-November-12, 08:24, said:

I don't agree. The Blue Book states:
A partnership may define the strength of a hand using any method of hand evaluation that will be understood easily by its opponents (High Card Points (HCP), Playing tricks, Losing Trick Count, etc). Regardless, your understandings must meet the permitted minimums defined in terms of HCP and ‘Rule of 18/19/24/25’

There is no definition of HCP in the Blue Book (as far as I can see). That is left to the partnership. Binkie high-card points are 4.5-3-2-0.5 for AKQJ for example. Those are clearly high-card points, and understood easily by opponents. Some beginner's text books define HCP as 4-3-2-1-1/2 with half a point for a ten. Those are clearly high-card points. If the Blue Book intended high-card points to be the 4-3-2-1 scale only with no adjustment for aces, quacks or tens, then it would say so. So, I think one can define HCP in any easily understood manner, and then the understandings must meet the permitted minimums defined.

Postscript: The definitions in one place (on page 29 defining an average hand) give "Milton Work" as defining HCP for that purpose. Wikipedia (and several other sources) state: Although Work had strongly opposed point count methods for 25 years, beginning about 1927 he became a strong advocate of the 4-3-2-1-½ point count—so much so that it became known as the Work Point Count. So, your example hand clearly qualifies as a 1NT opening because it has two or more tens.

If this is true then the Blue Book must be seriously deficient.

Wherever I have met specifications of HCP-limits (for whatever purpose) the specification is always combined with a specification of the HCP scale to be used. The most common specification I have seen (sometimes referred to as the Milton Works scale) is explicitly stated as 4-3-2-1.

[ye17]

 lamford, on 2016-November-12, 08:24, said:

.....
There is no definition of HCP in the Blue Book (as far as I can see).....

5B in the Blue Book defines HCP (4,3,2,1)

[lamford]

 ye17, on 2016-November-12, 09:14, said:

5B in the Blue Book defines HCP (4,3,2,1)

It also contradicts itself later by saying:
9 A 1 Definitions
Average Hand a hand containing 10 HCP (Milton Work) with no distributional values
Weak high-card strength below that of an average hand
Strong High card strength a king or more greater than that of an average hand

The Milton Work HCP is 4,3,2,1,1/2 (according to the majority of sites I surveyed).

I presume that 9A1 is used where there is a reference to weak or strong, but the earlier definition is used for other purposes? Specificially, in defining HUM, it states:
( c ) An opening bid at the one level may be made with values a king or more below average strength.
That clearly refers to the Milton Work HCP just above. Given that 'Milton Work' first appears in Section 9, and not earlier, one could conclude that at Level 5, the Milton Work 4-3-2-1-1/2 is used. At lower levels one has to use the 4-3-2-1 method (correctly known as the McCampbell system after its inventor) and cannot add 1/2 for tens. I think that is bonkers and bad bridge. The hand you quoted has a K-R of 9.75 and yet one cannot open a 9-14 1NT on it!!

[FrancesHinden]

 lamford, on 2016-November-13, 07:33, said:

It also contradicts itself later by saying:
9 A 1 Definitions
Average Hand a hand containing 10 HCP (Milton Work) with no distributional values
Weak high-card strength below that of an average hand
Strong High card strength a king or more greater than that of an average hand

The Milton Work HCP is 4,3,2,1,1/2 (according to the majority of sites I surveyed).

I presume that 9A1 is used where there is a reference to weak or strong, but the earlier definition is used for other purposes? Specificially, in defining HUM, it states:
( c ) An opening bid at the one level may be made with values a king or more below average strength.
That clearly refers to the Milton Work HCP just above. Given that 'Milton Work' first appears in Section 9, and not earlier, one could conclude that at Level 5, the Milton Work 4-3-2-1-1/2 is used. At lower levels one has to use the 4-3-2-1 method (correctly known as the McCampbell system after its inventor) and cannot add 1/2 for tens. I think that is bonkers and bad bridge. The hand you quoted has a K-R of 9.75 and yet one cannot open a 9-14 1NT on it!!

Funnily enough, 9 A 1 only applies in Level 5 events. You can tell that if you look carefully, by the fact that it's in the section headed Partnership Understandings: Level 5
The definitions are a direct copy from the WBF systems policy.
In spite of what you might like to believe, I am 100% certain that the WBF reference to Milton Work means 4-3-2-1. However, the WBF being what they are, there is no definition of this.
You can try asking the WBF chief TD.

[lamford]

 FrancesHinden, on 2016-November-13, 11:45, said:

Funnily enough, 9 A 1 only applies in Level 5 events. You can tell that if you look carefully, by the fact that it's in the section headed Partnership Understandings: Level 5
The definitions are a direct copy from the WBF systems policy.
In spite of what you might like to believe, I am 100% certain that the WBF reference to Milton Work means 4-3-2-1. However, the WBF being what they are, there is no definition of this.
You can try asking the WBF chief TD.

Then why does "Milton Work" first appear in Section 9, which as I stated applied to level 5 (thanks for the echo; I had missed that which is why I stated it; "one could conclude that at Level 5, the Milton Work 4-3-2-1-1/2 is used" if you look carefully)? If they had intended "Milton Work" to be synonymous with HCP, then they (sh)would have stated it. And I surveyed "Milton Work" on the Internet and 11 of the 20 sites I visited had 4-3-2-1-1/2 which he appeared to use for around 20 years. Maybe sampling error, as you think it is 100% 4-3-2-1.

If there was no intention to change the HCP method at level 5, then there would be no requirement at all to have Milton Work in parenthesis, as HCP had already been defined, as pointed out by ye17.

[barmar]

 lamford, on 2016-November-12, 08:24, said:

I don't agree. The Blue Book states:
A partnership may define the strength of a hand using any method of hand evaluation that will be understood easily by its opponents (High Card Points (HCP), Playing tricks, Losing Trick Count, etc). Regardless, your understandings must meet the permitted minimums defined in terms of HCP and ‘Rule of 18/19/24/25’

There is no definition of HCP in the Blue Book (as far as I can see). That is left to the partnership.

The list in parentheses seems to be methods that the opponents are assumed to understand. What's left to the partnership is which of those methods you use, not your definition of them. The whole point is that you're not allowed to make up your own method, since a system card that says "1NT = 12.5-8 Lamford Points" will not be understood. Even more misleading would be to have your own definition of HCP, since someone reading your SC can't be expected to know that you're a follower of Humpty Dumpty.

Quote

Postscript: The definitions in one place (on page 29 defining an average hand) give "Milton Work" as defining HCP for that purpose. Wikipedia (and several other sources) state: Although Work had strongly opposed point count methods for 25 years, beginning about 1927 he became a strong advocate of the 4-3-2-1-½ point count—so much so that it became known as the Work Point Count. So, your example hand clearly qualifies as a 1NT opening because it has two or more tens.

Meanings change over time. That may have been what it meant a century ago, but these days everyone understands "Work Points" to mean the 4-3-2-1 system that practically every beginner is taught.

[lamford]

 barmar, on 2016-November-13, 19:42, said:

Meanings change over time. That may have been what it meant a century ago, but these days everyone understands "Work Points" to mean the 4-3-2-1 system that practically every beginner is taught.

Well. I surveyed half-a-dozen lower standard members of a North London Club, and none of them had heard of Milton Work. One of them thought it was Paradise Lost, and another thought it was a Nobel-prize-winning book on Consumptive Analysis by Friedmann.

Where I agree with you is that high-card points (HCP) are indeed understood by practically every beginner to be 4-3-2-1. However, the 4-3-2-1-½ system is also readily understood, but perhaps should be stated on the CC if this is what is used (as it is by almost all top players, even if not rigorously). When people write, as I found two cards yesterday stating, 11½ to 14, are they using an illegal HCP system?

If I then see, later in the same document, "Milton Work" in parenthesis after HCP, I naturally assume that this indicates that a (slightly) different scale is being used, particularly as HCP has appeared countless times before. The WBF and EBU could not possibly have been inconsistent, I think. Those lucky chaps playing Level 5 are able to use the (superior) 4-3-2-1-½ system, I conclude.

[weejonnie]

I was given a similar problem for the County TD course last year (except the hand was 'strong' in the major suits, including tens) and the consensus (Mike Amos) was that there could be no agreement to open such a hand.

[lamford]

 weejonnie, on 2016-November-11, 12:52, said:

You can open 1NT on 8 points PROVIDED you don't have an agreement that you can upgrade 8 HCP to 9 HCP and partner has no reason to expect that you will. i.e. you can both do it once more.

I am not sure that the last caveat (after the i.e.) is necessary. I would say that you can open 1NT on 8 points at level 4 provided that you don't have an agreement to that effect. Always provided that:

"A player may deviate from his side’s announced understandings always provided that his partner has no more reason to be aware of the deviation than have the opponents.Repeated deviations lead to implicit understandings which then form part of the partnership’s methods and must be disclosed in accordance with the regulations governing disclosure of system"

I do not see a problem if you answer, for example: "9-14, but both of us often deviate on an 8-count with two or three tens". Partner now has "no more reason to be aware of the deviation than have the opponents". And the "implicit understanding" has been disclosed "in accordance with the regulations".