[Bad_Wolf]

How does Law 40A1(b) fit in to this.

"Each partnership has a duty to make its partnership understandings available to its
opponents. The Regulating Authority specifies the manner in which this is done."

This doesn't specify that one has to wait for them to come up...

[blackshoe]

Bad_Wolf, on 2018-July-04, 18:58, said:

How does Law 40A1(b) fit in to this.

It doesn't.

[barmar]

pescetom, on 2018-July-03, 11:08, said:

Of course they are entitled to it. I prefer that they read it themselves for two reasons:
1. I just don't have time to explain a page of developments, as blackshoe pointed out, or at least I'm unwilling to lose all that time knowing that hurried card play it will work to the advantage of opponents

Is it really faster for them to read a page of notes than for you to summarize them?

Quote

2. I might risk supplying UI to my partner, either by emphasising some part of developments or simply by reminding him of something he might forget.

As I said before, that's not a valid reason not to explain fully. You have to risk giving partner UI, and trust him not to use it.

And if partner forgets your agreements so much that you're constantly worried about this when explaining, maybe you need to simplify your system. Remember, it's not UI if he hasn't forgotten.

[Tramticket]

barmar, on 2018-July-03, 08:10, said:

You can't use avoiding UI to partner as an excuse not to provide full disclosure to opponents. Full disclosure is a MUST, avoiding UI is a SHOULD. If partner has forgotten the system, it's their responsibility to keep forgetting after hearing the explanation, not yours.

The information that partner is forced to bid 2♣ is pertinent to the opponents, as they then know that interference will get in the way of this.

This response seems to be conflating different requirements. If a player asks for an explanation of the auction they are exercising their right under Law 20F1:

Quote

LAW 20 - REVIEW AND EXPLANATION OF CALLS
F. Explanation of Calls
1. During the auction and before the final pass any player may request7, at his own turn to call, an explanation of the opponents’ auction. He is entitled to know about calls actually made, about relevant alternative calls available that were not made, and about inferences from the choice of action where these are matters of partnership understanding…

In responding to this request, a proper explanation of a 4NT bid would not be:
- "Roman Key-card Blackwood" - This is a name of a convention not an explanation of the call
It would also not be:
- "1430 Roman Key-card Blackwood" - This is wrong on two counts, since it simply gives the convention name and it transmits unauthorised information to partner concerning how you intent to respond to the bid.
A better response would be:
- "4NT asks for the number of key-cards" (playing against novices you might need to explain further what a key-card is!)

Opponents are also entitled to ask about a specific call and you would give a similar response:

Quote

LAW 20 - REVIEW AND EXPLANATION OF CALLS
F. Explanation of Calls
3. Under 1 and 2 above a player may ask concerning a single call but Law 16B1 may apply.

You are not required under either of these Laws to provide an explanation of future calls, either by you or your partner. However, there is a more general requirement to inform your opponents of your system generally, which will allow them to find out about your response structure. This is covered by:

Quote

LAW 40 - PARTNERSHIP UNDERSTANDINGS
A. Players’ Systemic Agreements
(b) Each partnership has a duty to make its partnership understandings available to its opponents. The Regulating Authority specifies the manner in which this is done.

I would expect that, for most Regulating Authorities, the standard way to make your partnership understanding available to opponent's is through a convention Card. This is reasonable, since it avoids transmitting Unauthorised Information. If the opponents wanted me to orally explain future calls I would call the director and seek his guidance.

[barmar]

Tramticket, on 2018-July-05, 05:27, said:

You are not required under either of these Laws to provide an explanation of future calls, either by you or your partner.

I didn't think I was suggesting this. I thought we were talking about a call that encompasses multiple hand types, so you're required to explain what they could be.

[Tramticket]

barmar, on 2018-July-05, 08:26, said:

I didn't think I was suggesting this. I thought we were talking about a call that encompasses multiple hand types, so you're required to explain what they could be.

Yes, you must describe the hand types - just not tell opponents at this stage how your future bids will further define your hand.

[barmar]

Tramticket, on 2018-July-05, 09:15, said:

Yes, you must describe the hand types - just not tell opponents at this stage how your future bids will further define your hand.

Now I get your point. If the opponents want to know how the response structure works, they can look at your notes without forcing you to potentially give UI to your partner before he responds. Alternatively they can wait until after the responses, and ask how things were refined.

[pran]

barmar, on 2018-July-06, 10:05, said:

Now I get your point. If the opponents want to know how the response structure works, they can look at your notes without forcing you to potentially give UI to your partner before he responds. Alternatively they can wait until after the responses, and ask how things were refined.

Remember that whenever there is a (possible) conflict between giving full explanation to opponents and not giving UI to partner then giving full explanation to opponents takes precedence.

It is partner's worry not to make use of the UI he receives.

[ahydra]

Tramticket, on 2018-July-05, 05:27, said:

A better response would be:
- "4NT asks for the number of key-cards" (playing against novices you might need to explain further what a key-card is!)

Even better: "4NT asks for the number of keycards in <X suit>" (or "...keycards, that is the four aces and the king of X")

ahydra

[Manastorm]

My view of full disclosure is give the list of all the possible hands, which match the bidding so far. From this point of view the possible suits are revealed automatically. I do not think that a player can withhold this information, when it is available to himself according to the their coarser agreements. On the otherhand I disagree with the view that a player must reveal so called what if scenarios. However it is sometimes easier to describe what you couldn't have to illuminate what you could have. If you actually have the list of possible hands, what more could you possibly want. Maybe you wish for complete a list of botched cold contracts to weigh whether should you bid or let it go.

[blackshoe]

Manastorm, on 2018-July-07, 14:12, said:

My view of full disclosure is give the list of all the possible hands, which match the bidding so far. From this point of view the possible suits are revealed automatically. I do not think that a player can withhold this information, when it is available to himself according to the their coarser agreements. On the otherhand I disagree with the view that a player must reveal so called what if scenarios. However it is sometimes easier to describe what you couldn't have to illuminate what you could have. If you actually have the list of possible hands, what more could you possibly want. Maybe you wish for complete a list of botched cold contracts to weigh whether should you bid or let it go.

There are more than 635 billion possible bridge hands. Even if your agreement on a particular call eliminated 90% of those hands, that still leaves 63.5 billion hands. So your "give the list of all the possible hands" is not feasible. Furthermore, I sincerely doubt that your agreements, even late in an auction, list specific possible hands.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2018-July-07, 14:41, said:

There are more than 635 billion possible bridge hands. Even if your agreement on a particular call eliminated 90% of those hands, that still leaves 63.5 billion hands. So your "give the list of all the possible hands" is not feasible. Furthermore, I sincerely doubt that your agreements, even late in an auction, list specific possible hands.

635013559600 to be precise. (American billion, not European billion that is)
But I wouldn't believe that Manastorm intends his statement to be taken literally in this respect.

[barmar]

pran, on 2018-July-06, 15:21, said:

Remember that whenever there is a (possible) conflict between giving full explanation to opponents and not giving UI to partner then giving full explanation to opponents takes precedence.

It is partner's worry not to make use of the UI he receives.

I thought I'd already made this clear at least twice in this thread.

[barmar]

pran, on 2018-July-07, 16:07, said:

635013559600 to be precise. (American billion, not European billion that is)
But I wouldn't believe that Manastorm intends his statement to be taken literally in this respect.

There's a recent thread on BW about a neural network that developed a bidding system on its own. I brought up the issue of how a bridge program like that could disclose its system. The researchers analyzed the hands that went with the bids and determined that it had essentially implemented transfer openings. But the program itself doesn't really "understand" what it's doing, and all I imagine it could do if asked to explain what its bids mean is provide a list of all the training hands where it made the same bid.

[pescetom]

ahydra, on 2018-July-06, 21:19, said:

Even better: "4NT asks for the number of keycards in <X suit>" (or "...keycards, that is the four aces and the king of X")

Sounds to me like a good reason never to ask about 4NT until the other opponent has already replied.

[Vampyr]

Tramticket, on 2018-July-05, 05:27, said:

You are not required under either of these Laws to provide an explanation of future calls, either by you or your partner. However, there is a more general requirement to inform your opponents of your system generally, which will allow them to find out about your response structure. This is covered by:

I would expect that, for most Regulating Authorities, the standard way to make your partnership understanding available to opponent's is through a convention Card. This is reasonable, since it avoids transmitting Unauthorised Information. If the opponents wanted me to orally explain future calls I would call the director and seek his guidance.

All of this really depends on what the RA’s requirements are as to how thoroughly the convention card must be filled out, and suggests that many people can gain an advantage by removing things from their convention cards. For example, you and a partner agree to play Ogust, that gets written on the convention card, and stays there even if/when the card is later printed. When a opponents ask what 2NT means, you can say that it is an enquiry, they can look at your convention card and learn about your future calls. So it is best to write “enquiry” only. Similarly RKCB and probably many other bids, especially when they are named conventions. The opponent’s can ask after the call is made. 2-way reverse Drury? Jacoby 2NT? No. “Inv (or whatever) raise” and nothing else.

This does get a bit tricky, as the EBU card, at least, has sections where you should specify your agreements about what you do when the opponent’s open, when they double your 1NT or interfere in other ways. I guess nothing should be written in these sections, and in fact perhaps they are just there to help players to clarify their agreements when they are writing it out.

What about opening bids? Should anything be written down? Is it even permitted to arrive at a table and say, “we play 5-card majors, Weak NT and 3 week twos”? Should you answer when the opponent’s ask, “what’s your basic system?” After all, you have not made any bids yet. Maybe the CCs could be converts into a series of cards, which can be given to the opponents at different stages of the auction. This will eliminate the problem with being disadvantaged by having calls that have not yet been made listed on your convention card. When the auction begins they get nothing.

Of course when playing in an environment where CC use is not enforced, never have one, if you have one by accident, keep it in your bag or throw it away.

[barmar]

I don't think any RA expects a 1- or 2-page convention card to be the full explanation of a pair's agreements, it's just an easy to read summary of the most important aspects. In particular, checkboxes make it easy to show which choice they've made among common styles (4- or 5-card majors, regular/vs inverted minors).

Meckwell has hundreds of pages of system notes, but I don't think they're required to bring them to the table or make them available to opponents. Probably only the most organized pairs have detailed, written notes at all -- what agreements everyone else has beyond what's summarized on the CC are likely to just be in their heads. The only extra notes I have with my regular partner is a couple of pages with all the followups to our Mexican 2♦ opening (but even though we've been playing it for at least 8 years, I still don't have many of the rare bids memorized).

I think the main expected use of detailed notes is in providing the "evidence to the contrary" when it's necessary to decide between misbid and misexplanation.

[pescetom]

barmar, on 2018-July-09, 09:41, said:

I don't think any RA expects a 1- or 2-page convention card to be the full explanation of a pair's agreements, it's just an easy to read summary of the most important aspects. In particular, checkboxes make it easy to show which choice they've made among common styles (4- or 5-card majors, regular/vs inverted minors).

Meckwell has hundreds of pages of system notes, but I don't think they're required to bring them to the table or make them available to opponents. Probably only the most organized pairs have detailed, written notes at all -- what agreements everyone else has beyond what's summarized on the CC are likely to just be in their heads. The only extra notes I have with my regular partner is a couple of pages with all the followups to our Mexican 2♦ opening (but even though we've been playing it for at least 8 years, I still don't have many of the rare bids memorized).

I think the main expected use of detailed notes is in providing the "evidence to the contrary" when it's necessary to decide between misbid and misexplanation.

My RA (FIGB Italy) expects both a 2-page convention card (the format is quite good) and system notes for every convention, with clear links between the two. I have this level of documentation and bring it to the table, which costs me nothing. The problem is that they don't bother to enforce these rules except in championships or other high level competition, so in clubs and even regional tournaments CCs are largely absent and with the complicity of TDs: one TD even shrugged understandingly at my opponents with no CC at all and warned me that I was breaking the rules because some system notes were in English

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2018-July-09, 09:41, said:

I don't think any RA expects a 1- or 2-page convention card to be the full explanation of a pair's agreements, it's just an easy to read summary of the most important aspects. In particular, checkboxes make it easy to show which choice they've made among common styles (4- or 5-card majors, regular/vs inverted minors).

Checkboxes also greatly reduce the space for writing. Plus with its one side smaller than A4, it seems that the ACBL CC is designed to show as little information as possible.

[blackshoe]

More like it's designed to force people into playing only what the designers of the card want them to play.