[blml] System Classification

[José Júlio Curado]

Hello!

I apologise in advance if this has been discussed before here in blml,
but I don't seem to recall it.

The WBF (and EBL) System Policy under its General Definitions defines
*Length* as 3 or more cards in a suit and *Shortage* as 2 or less
cards in a suit.Later it goes on to define HUM Systems and in point 4
we can read:

4 - By partnership agreement an opening bid at the one level shows
either length or shortage in a specified suit.

By a strict interpretation of this, we might include among yellow
systems those where a One Club opening shoes 2 (*Shortage*) or more
(*Length*) cards in the Club suit. This is a popular agreement among
some players that use the Standard French or SAYC approaches however I
never heard of someone trying to "yellow"this... Apparently they must
be right not to try it because last Monday I got an e-mail where the
WBF Laws Drafting Subcommittee states:

1. - It will recommend to the WBF Laws Committee and the WBF Rules &
Regulations Committee that it be agreed that an opening bid in a suit
where the hand may contain fewer than three cards in the named suit is
among those calls that are 'artificial'.  The rationale is that such
calls do not express a willingness to play in the denomination named
(see definition of 'Artificial Call').

So, here are my questions: How should we read the Systems Policy in
order not to consider this 2-card One Club as HUM? Should we read the
exception bellow point 5 in the HUM definitions as applying to*all*
the previous 5 points? The problem is that in the Portuguese Systems
Policy, recently published, this exception is slightly mistranslated
and *part of* point 5.

One last question: One pair is playing 1NT 15-17,  5 card majors, 4
card diamonds and this One Club opening. If by partnership agreement
they con open One Club with S:A1087 H:A986 D:K85 C:75 how would you
classify their system?

Sorry for the long post and thanks for all the answers.

Best regards,
Jose Curado

Post Script - Why are the definitions of Long Match and Short Mach
there? I don't seem to find the need for that anywhere else in the
Policy...