[blml] System Classification

[Peter Eidt]

From: "José Júlio Curado" 
> 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? 

shortness: by definition "2 or less"
length: by definition "3 or more"

So, the sentence "either shortness or length" does not make
it "2 or more"!
It's rather "(2 or less) or (3 or more)" which means
"either max. 2 or min. 3" and that is ,what HUM-4 describes.

> 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.

Of course the exception can't apply to no. 1-3, but it does
apply to no. 4+5 and is not part of no.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?

agressive ;-)
otherwise GREEN
 
> 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...

IIRC there were/are CoCs that allow(ed) Brown Sticker conventions
in case of Long matches but not in Short matches.

Peter