From swillner at nhcc.net Sat Apr 11 21:04:18 2015 From: swillner at nhcc.net (Steve Willner) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2015 15:04:18 -0400 Subject: [BLML] screen problem Message-ID: <55297032.8010704@nhcc.net> Here's one I haven't seen before. Do the screen regulations cover the situation? Or what? This question is at least partly about practical directing, but of course the Laws and screen regulations are relevant. If jurisdiction matters for those, please mention. Playing with screens, there has been some bidding, and the tray comes back to the SW side after a two-minute pause. South calls the Director and wants to know whether he is under UI restrictions. How should the Director proceed? If the Director asks South, South will say it is likely but not certain that North caused the delay. If pressed, South will estimate a 2/3-3/4 chance it was North, but it could have been East. Or very remotely possible is some irrelevant delay, and there's no information. Assume West doesn't dispute South's estimate of the chances. If North really caused the delay, it must be unfair for South to "use the UI," but it seems equally unfair to restrict South's actions if North didn't act slowly. From hildalirsch at gmail.com Mon Apr 13 07:42:34 2015 From: hildalirsch at gmail.com (Richard Hills) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:42:34 +1000 Subject: [BLML] screen problem In-Reply-To: <55297032.8010704@nhcc.net> References: <55297032.8010704@nhcc.net> Message-ID: Steve Willner: Here's one I haven't seen before. Do the screen regulations cover the situation? [snip] Playing with screens, there has been some bidding, and the tray comes back to the SW side after a two-minute pause. South calls the Director and wants to know whether he is under UI restrictions. How should the Director proceed? [snip] Richard Hills: 1. WBF screen regulations require pauses when there is not a problem to mask pauses when there is a problem. 2. If I was the Director, I would open my Lawbook and point out Law 73C to South. 3. South seems to be a follower of the De Wael School. A pause is not in itself an irregularity, so South is definitely not entitled to summon the Director during a live auction to seek strategic advice. Steve Willner: [snip] it seems equally unfair to restrict South's actions if North didn't act slowly. Richard Hills 4. There are too many different definitions of "unfair". I prefer Justice - a Director ruling in accordance with the Laws. Best wishes, Richard Hills On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 5:04 AM, Steve Willner wrote: > Here's one I haven't seen before. Do the screen regulations cover the > situation? Or what? This question is at least partly about practical > directing, but of course the Laws and screen regulations are relevant. > If jurisdiction matters for those, please mention. > > Playing with screens, there has been some bidding, and the tray comes > back to the SW side after a two-minute pause. South calls the Director > and wants to know whether he is under UI restrictions. How should the > Director proceed? > > If the Director asks South, South will say it is likely but not certain > that North caused the delay. If pressed, South will estimate a 2/3-3/4 > chance it was North, but it could have been East. Or very remotely > possible is some irrelevant delay, and there's no information. Assume > West doesn't dispute South's estimate of the chances. > > If North really caused the delay, it must be unfair for South to "use > the UI," but it seems equally unfair to restrict South's actions if > North didn't act slowly. > _______________________________________________ > Blml mailing list > Blml at rtflb.org > http://lists.rtflb.org/mailman/listinfo/blml > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.rtflb.org/pipermail/blml/attachments/20150413/725d470f/attachment.html From agot at ulb.ac.be Mon Apr 13 12:58:20 2015 From: agot at ulb.ac.be (agot) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 12:58:20 +0200 Subject: [BLML] screen problem In-Reply-To: References: <55297032.8010704@nhcc.net> Message-ID: Le 13.04.2015 07:42, Richard Hills a ?crit?: > Steve Willner: > ? > Here's one I haven't seen before. Do the screen regulations cover the > situation? > ? > [snip] > ? > Playing with screens, there has been some bidding, and the tray comes > back to the SW side after a two-minute pause. South calls the Director > and wants to know whether he is under UI restrictions. How should the > Director proceed? > > [snip] > ? > Richard Hills: > ? > 1. WBF screen regulations require pauses when there is not a problem > to mask pauses when there is a problem. > ? > 2. If I was the Director, I would open my Lawbook and point out Law > 73C to South. > ? > 3. South seems to?be a follower of the De Wael School. A pause?is > not in itself an irregularity, so South is definitely not entitled to > summon the Director during a live auction to seek strategic advice. > ? AG : I beg to differ with this. A player should have the right to enquire about complex parts of the law. I agree with point 2, but that means that the request is legitimate. Notice that, in my country, similar cases, where one may easily guess who hesitated, have been adjudicated in both ways : UI and no UI. Random timing solves part of the problem (or even systemic timing, like the partner of the weak NT opener always taking some time before passing if he is second after screen), but a 2-minute pause can't follow from RT of course. Best regards Alain From swillner at nhcc.net Mon Apr 13 15:16:45 2015 From: swillner at nhcc.net (Steve Willner) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 09:16:45 -0400 Subject: [BLML] screen problem In-Reply-To: References: <55297032.8010704@nhcc.net> Message-ID: <552BC1BD.6000004@nhcc.net> [Please use plain text, not HTML, for messages to the list.] On 2015-04-13 1:42 AM, Richard Hills wrote: > 2. If I was the Director, I would open my Lawbook and point out Law 73C > to South. South won't find that very helpful. Should he roll a ten-sided die to decide whether he has information from partner (say 70%) or not (30%)? Alternatively, suppose South "carefully avoids" taking advantage by passing, and later it turns out that East was the one who took two minutes. South wanted to bid and would have benefited from doing so. Do NS have any claim to redress? If the pause itself was improper, we know how to deal with that. Assume somebody had a genuine bridge problem and took time to think about it. We just don't know (on the SW side of the screen) who that was. From hermandw at skynet.be Mon Apr 13 15:48:02 2015 From: hermandw at skynet.be (Herman De Wael) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:48:02 +0200 Subject: [BLML] screen problem In-Reply-To: <552BC1BD.6000004@nhcc.net> References: <55297032.8010704@nhcc.net> <552BC1BD.6000004@nhcc.net> Message-ID: <552BC912.1070101@skynet.be> The situation is in no way dissimilar to the one without screens. Reading L73, a player will be asked to not take the suggested action if there are LAs. But he does not know what actions the TD will consider suggested or what his peers will consider to be LAs. Yet he has to make a choice, and suffer the consequences if his choice is wrong. Behind screens, there is a third unknown: who was the thinker. The players should draw his own conclusions from the tempo. If it could have been both players who thought, he is free to act. Bbut most of the time it is clear which of the two players opposite took 2 minutes. Herman. Steve Willner schreef: > [Please use plain text, not HTML, for messages to the list.] > > On 2015-04-13 1:42 AM, Richard Hills wrote: >> 2. If I was the Director, I would open my Lawbook and point out Law 73C >> to South. > > South won't find that very helpful. Should he roll a ten-sided die to > decide whether he has information from partner (say 70%) or not (30%)? > > Alternatively, suppose South "carefully avoids" taking advantage by > passing, and later it turns out that East was the one who took two > minutes. South wanted to bid and would have benefited from doing so. > Do NS have any claim to redress? > > If the pause itself was improper, we know how to deal with that. Assume > somebody had a genuine bridge problem and took time to think about it. > We just don't know (on the SW side of the screen) who that was. > _______________________________________________ > Blml mailing list > Blml at rtflb.org > http://lists.rtflb.org/mailman/listinfo/blml > > From swillner at nhcc.net Mon Apr 13 15:51:00 2015 From: swillner at nhcc.net (Steve Willner) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 09:51:00 -0400 Subject: [BLML] screen problem In-Reply-To: <552BC912.1070101@skynet.be> References: <55297032.8010704@nhcc.net> <552BC1BD.6000004@nhcc.net> <552BC912.1070101@skynet.be> Message-ID: <552BC9C4.7080509@nhcc.net> On 2015-04-13 9:48 AM, Herman De Wael wrote: > most of the time > it is clear which of the two players opposite took 2 minutes. True, but that doesn't help us here. It is, say, 70-30 which player was the one thinking. What is South to do? From g3 at nige1.com Mon Apr 13 16:14:30 2015 From: g3 at nige1.com (Nigel Guthrie) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:14:30 +0100 Subject: [BLML] screen problem In-Reply-To: References: <55297032.8010704@nhcc.net> Message-ID: [Steve Willner] Here's one I haven't seen before. Do the screen regulations cover the situation? Or what? This question is at least partly about practical directing, but of course the Laws and screen regulations are relevant. If jurisdiction matters for those, please mention. Playing with screens, there has been some bidding, and the tray comes back to the SW side after a two-minute pause. South calls the Director and wants to know whether he is under UI restrictions. How should the Director proceed? If the Director asks South, South will say it is likely but not certain that North caused the delay. If pressed, South will estimate a 2/3-3/4 chance it was North, but it could have been East. Or very remotely possible is some irrelevant delay, and there's no information. Assume West doesn't dispute South's estimate of the chances. If North really caused the delay, it must be unfair for South to "use the UI," but it seems equally unfair to restrict South's actions if North didn't act slowly. [Nige1] Steve Willner highlights a real problem that the WBFLC should address. Richard Hills says the law is the law you should just obey the law; but as Steve points out, when you don?t know who hesitated, it?s hard to know how to do that. IMO a sensible solution would be to time-limit each player?s action and introduce artificial delays to make constant the wait on the other side of the screen. If a player exceeds his time-limit, then shoot him :) From agot at ulb.ac.be Mon Apr 13 17:26:49 2015 From: agot at ulb.ac.be (agot) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:26:49 +0200 Subject: [BLML] screen problem In-Reply-To: <552BC9C4.7080509@nhcc.net> References: "\"<55297032.8010704@nhcc.net>" " <552BC1BD.6000004@nhcc.net> <552BC912.1070101@skynet.be> <552BC9C4.7080509@nhcc.net> Message-ID: <8e4cb56e392d0c5277117c769ec864f6@imapproxy.vub.ac.be> Le 13.04.2015 15:51, Steve Willner a ?crit?: > On 2015-04-13 9:48 AM, Herman De Wael wrote: >> most of the time >> it is clear which of the two players opposite took 2 minutes. > > True, but that doesn't help us here. It is, say, 70-30 which player > was > the one thinking. What is South to do? He is free to act, because if it isn't obvious who hesitated, then the player does not have "available information from partner". Also, please notice that last time such a thing happened at my table, the dialogue went after the deal : - honestly, who hesitated so long ? - nobody ; I was just answering several written questions. Best regards Alain > _______________________________________________ > Blml mailing list > Blml at rtflb.org > http://lists.rtflb.org/mailman/listinfo/blml -- A. From swillner at nhcc.net Mon Apr 13 20:19:45 2015 From: swillner at nhcc.net (Steve Willner) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 14:19:45 -0400 Subject: [BLML] screen problem In-Reply-To: <552BC912.1070101@skynet.be> References: <55297032.8010704@nhcc.net> <552BC1BD.6000004@nhcc.net> <552BC912.1070101@skynet.be> Message-ID: <552C08C1.1040206@nhcc.net> On 2015-04-13 9:48 AM, Herman De Wael wrote: > The situation is in no way dissimilar to the one without screens. It occurred to me later that the analogy is with L16B2: without screens, EW say that North's call was slow. NS say it was in tempo. Per L16B2, the Director is called. How should he proceed? In particular, should he rule immediately on whether North's call was in tempo? Obviously South would like to know, one way or the other, before choosing his own call. I think the screen case can be seen as an extension of L16B2, whatever the answer for that may be.