[blml] Disclosure f2f

[Guthrie]

[Stefanie Rohan]
What fun! I can't wait to start teaching the old dears in my club all 
of this stuff so that they can alert their deviations from it!

I think that you overestimate the impact of online bridge. Most of the 
club players I know have never played online and never will.

In your examples, well... you and your sister knew you were going to 
the French Club, and could have investigated the alert regulations. 
Requiring all players in France and North America to alert their
three-card minor openings negates the whole purpose of alerts.

As to the experience in Reading (was it?) The pair who were nasty are 
clearly to blame. This kind of behaviour is addressed in a different 
way than with alert regulations.

[nige1]
I did *not* say that either pair was "nasty". The local pair felt that 
they were damaged and the argument became heated -- as it usually does 
when there are complex ill-understood regulations. As usual, IMO, the 
fault was with differing *local regulations* that the director and 
committee reluctantly and calmly administered, as best they could.

[Stefanie]
However, it would be nice if clubs had available a summary of the 
disclosure regulations (rather like the one produced by the EBU after 
the changes in the Orange Book.) Even the ACBL convention card, with 
its different-coloured ink, is helpful in this regard.

It would be good if you accepted the fact that there will never be a 
"global system" that all bridge players will learn so that they can 
alert their deviations from it. Even if this system were somehow a
good thing, it would be impossible in practice -- I have mentioned 
before how numerous are the long-time players who have not mastered 
their own system. I think that you are wasting your time and mental
effort.

[nige1]
Probably, we're all wasting our time. I admit that change in f2f rules 
is unlikely in my life-time; I accept that many long-term players are 
just as unfamiliar with other bridge-systems as they are with local 
disclosure-rules. Unless rule-simplification occurs sometime soon, 
however, I fear that f2f bridge may fall into terminal decline.