convention police

I’m spending lots of time prepping for the Trials (which start May 22). There’s a mountain of paperwork involved — convention cards, system summary forms, supplementary paperwork for a few treatments, defenses to this and that, and so on and so forth. The LaserJet is humming away in George’s office and the kids are happy to collate so it’s a fairly chipper industry around here.

It’s annoying to have so much material one must generate and study. Jenny and Shannon and Sue and I have a little extra to prepare since we play methods which are disallowed during the Round Robin phase of the tournament. You know, that 2 :D: opener (showing 9+ major suit cards, 6-11 high cards) I’ve written about an awful lot — we’re not allowed to play it unless we make it out of the round robin.

I find this appalling. The ACBL convention police have no business limiting the allowable systems in the USBC, USSBC and USWBC. I believe the Trials should be conducted under the WBF Conditions of Contest governing the event for which we are attempting to qualify. I understand that the ACBL wishes to protect its clientele from excessively complicated or destructive methods and so are disallowing things like Multi 2 :D: (forbidden in pairs games beginning with the Summer NABC in July). Fine. The league makes the rules, it’s my responsibility to follow them.

But when we go to Raleigh next week there will be seven teams duking it out for three spots in the KO phase. The winners will go on to represent the United States at the World Championships in Beijing next fall and face all but the most unusual treatments from the very first day, with no written-defense crutches of any kind. Players needing the comfort and protection of the convention police have, in my opinion, no business entering these qualifying Championships.

Published by stacy on May 13th, 2008 tagged Bridge


4 Responses to “convention police”

  1. Jeff Smith Says:
    May 13th, 2008 at 9:35 am

    Stacy,

    I agree with your comments that qualifying events should definitely allow the same sort of conventions and treatments as the event to which you aspiring to compete in. Canada is reasonably liberal in that we allow the SuperChart in the round robin of our trials and Highly Unusual Methods (HUM’s such as a forcing pass system) in the KO portion. North American teams have to spend a considerable amount of effort and energy preparing to face these sorts of methods in the World Championships and the ACBL puts all aspiring internationalists at a disadvantage with its draconian conventional restrictions.

    The ACBL’s recent outlawing of Multi in pairs events is yet another step of dumbing down our game. It’s interesting to note that many of the top American pairs have stopped playing Multi yet most European pairs swear by it (try finding a Polish Pair that does not play 2D multi and 2M 5+-5+). I wonder if the fact that the top American pairs have stopped playing multi had anything to do with the recent changes. Call it home court advantage if you will, if the home team is not playing it, lets forbid anyone from playing it thereby putting the European Pairs at a serious disadvantage!

    Don’t get me wrong here I am not advocating allowing people to run around in club games playing forcing pass, cause lets not kid ourselves this is not good for the game, but outlawing a part of the mid chart at North American Championships? Let the politicians protect the overwhelming majority of the membership where protection is appropriate but lets let North American Championships be played as such. (I know the ACBL claims that this is to avoid time issues at NABC’s but that is simply an excuse)

  2. Suzi Says:
    May 13th, 2008 at 10:46 am

    Here! Here! When the winning teams go on to represent the USA, they will be handicapped by lacking familiarity with these unusual treatments. Not allowing qualification for these events under the same conditions under which the events will be played is ludicrous.

    Go Sox!

  3. Michael Says:
    May 15th, 2008 at 4:05 am

    I agree qualification should be, as much as possible, played with the same conditions of contest as the event you go to play.

    I also think the clamp down of different conventions is very silly. It creates a self-fulfilling loop where people don’t want to allow a convention because it is unfamiliar and as a result it becomes even more unfamiliar.

  4. Justin Lall Says:
    May 18th, 2008 at 3:28 pm

    Agree totally, the trials should use the conditions of contest for the event that you are qualifying for.

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