NABC Reno Day 3: Competitions and Conventions Committee

The C&C Committee is holding their meeting on Monday, March 14th 2022 in Reno at the Silver Ballrooms. They are responsible for a variety of procedures and regulations around competitions, convention charts, alert procedures, and many other tournament and competition functions.

Tablets for Late Stages of Live Tournaments

From a security standpoint, using a tablet might help prevent types of unauthorized information or cheating that has previously taken place when using physical cards and bidding boxes (even when behind screens).

Uday has agreed to help develop a mode on BBO that could accommodate. It should not require any changes from ACBL technologies in most cases. It is best thought of us running an offline version of BBO with most chat and community features turned off. There are a few cases where a complicated type of team game would require work from the tournament sponsor, and BBO would allow for it.

The motion passed unanimously.

Side note: ACBL is required to use BridgeBase for the majority of events. They had a special waiver for certain USBF events where they used a different platform. The motion to use tablets as a security measure is independent of implementation method.

Event Eligibility Problems

There were 8 pairs that entered the Platinum Pairs who were not eligible (though one pair was asked to join as a fill-in). They all played the first day but then did not play the second day.

One idea is to place software checks for eligibility when attempting to register online (and moving registration for most events online). Other ideas push the responsibility to the player, but ACBL must still provide a way to easily check your own eligibility. It is not as trivial as knowing your masterpoint total. There are many others way to no longer be eligible for events.

Perhaps the printed bridge bulletin could clarify eligibly for each individual player. That is, in addition to the pigmentation breakdown, list various qualification metrics. However, many foreign ACBL members do not receive the physical bulletin. Perhaps instead it shows up in the MyACBL Login page.

The committee did not come to a resolution yet, but a subcommittee will convene and submit a proposal.

Polling Procedures

Right now directors use polling to resolve various disputes when unauthorized information disputes occur. Directors ask several equivalently experienced players what action they might take, but the procedure usually does not provide the polled players with enough context.

Also, often the player polled does not think through the hand as carefully as if he or she actually held the cards and sitting at the table. Players on the committee mentioned they are polled often, and sometimes minutes later are upset with themselves for giving an inaccurate poll response.

Polling came into being because of the words “logical alternative” in the codified bridge laws.

ACBL Directors can provide knowledge of the laws and knowledge of the rulings. However, they cannot provide expert opinions. That is the motivation for polling.

A committee member asked if there should be an appeals casebook to publish various situations, rulings, and appeals in the past. None exists at the moment for cases that result in a resolution from polling.

The committee did not come to a resolution yet, but a subcommittee will convene and submit a proposal.

Charts for Limited Events

This item was added to the agenda on my request. I told the committee two stories and provided to proposals to solve the problem.

First, for Memphis 2019 NABC, I played in NAP Flight C, governed by the Basic chart. My partner and I carefully modified our card to be compliant with the Basic chart (which required many changes from GCC). During the 4 sessions in Memphis, we personally witnessed 3 violations.

1NT-(2D) showing an unknown major is disallowed in Basic.

Opening 2NT showing both minors but a hand that could have less than Average strength is disallowed in basic.

Opening 1C strong and artificial and responding 1H artificial and game forcing is disallowed in Basic, because it is not a game forcing response at the 2-level or higher.

We called the director in each case and received a fair resolution. However, there must have been countless other violations when players were unaware they were harmed (and unaware they made any violations).

All three of the examples were allowed in the General Convention Chart, which previously governed a wide range of events from 99ers all the way to fairly high levels where Mid Chart took over. The former Limited Chart only applied to 0-20 events!

I urged the committee to propose that Basic Chart only govern events with a limit of 299, or brackets where every team has a masterpoint average below 299, instead of the current 750. The ACBL cutoff for intermediate / newcomer events is 299, which is appropriate for the Basic Chart, while events such as NAP, GNT, and Gold Rush will use Basic+.

Initially, Danny Sprung motioned to change Basic Chart to cover 299er and below, while using Basic+ for the events and brackets from 300-2500. However, ACBL Staff cautioned that we should not make incremental changes to the chart rules each quarter. The committee should carefully consider any other related chart changes such as the Basic+ cutoff, whether Basic+ should apply to GNT B and NAP B, and other matters such as charts used in bracketed teams. Then, any and all changes should be made once and not made again.

We will circulate a motion between the committee via email and vote soon.