[blml] Encrypted signals (was: nearest card)

[Konrad Ciborowski]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Adam Beneschan" <adam at irvine.com>
To: <blml at rtflb.org>
Cc: <adam at irvine.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 5:16 PM
Subject: Re: [blml] Encrypted signals (was: nearest card)


>
> Konrad wrote:
>
>> Ed wrote:
>>
>> > We nonetheless have committees who make decisions - although in some
>> > cases, at least, the committee is dominated by one man, so in effect
>> > it is *his* (or her, for that matter) decision that gets made "by the
>> > committee". But I think they should "protect" players as little as
>> > possible. It seems to me (never having played against such things as
>> > Forcing Pass systems) that an atmosphere of "anything goes, so long
>> > as there is full disclosure" is much better for the game than a lot
>> > of regulations designed to protect the clueless.
>>
>> When I was a student I played regularly in tournaments on my
>> university. Plus, naturally, I participated in Junior Championship
>> of Poland. In the university tournaments more than 50% of pairs
>> played some artificial (not necessarily strong pass) system
>> of their own. Most of these systems were unplayable from
>> a professional point of view, very often the pairs in question
>> had no clue how to use them etc. but it was A LOT of FUN.
>
> This doesn't sound like fun at all to me.  My strength is in
> problem-solving, and that's what I find fun;

My point exactly! This tournament was made for people
who loved to experiment, who loved unorthodox systems,
who enjoyed playing forcing pass systems and playing
against them. You wouldn't like it - fine, you can
play in your tournaments, I can play in mine and we can both enjoy it.
So why is there almost no place in the
world where you can participate in such an "everything goes" tournament 
right now?
Because bridge organisations introduced regulations that
forbid this type of tourney - and that restriction has a total
character. There is no single tournament in Poland
(or France, or USA etc.) where you could play a forcing
pass system any more (I am talking about tourneys
where you play no more than 2 or 3 boards against other pairs)
- such a tournament would be illegal under
the systems policy that is currently in place here even if
100% of participants had no objections. This is what I call
intoxication with power - why hasn't it even occurred
to all these legislation committees in various bridge governing
bodies that there are people who actually might *want* to play
against pairs using encrypted signals?

Instead of leaving as much freedom as possible to the organisers
of various tournaments (which is essentially what is being
done on BBO where "all systems allowed" and "Acol only"
tourneys coexist - what is wrong with that?) they prefer
to impose their idea of fun and enjoyment on everyone.
Thou shalt not use encrypted signals. Period. Even if your
opponents would like to play against this method.
This totalitarian state of mind is what I vehimently
object to - uniformization sucks. Diversity rulez.

Konrad Ciborowski
Kraków, Poland


PS I fell in love with strong pass systems not because
they create chaos at the table but because of something exactly
opposite - their internal logic, aesthetic and logical construction,
and a plethora of very interesting, non-trivial tactical problems
they create at the table. If your idea of the strong pass systems
is "putting the chesspieces on the board and having fun with
the pieces" then I am afraid it is a far from the truth as
it can possibly be.


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