From owner-bridge-laws Wed Apr 24 20:56:29 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA17584 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 20:56:29 +1000 Received: (from markus@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA17578 for bridge-laws@rgb; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 20:56:26 +1000 Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 20:56:26 +1000 From: Markus Buchhorn Message-Id: <199604241056.UAA17578@octavia.anu.edu.au> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: test 2 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Does this work ? Start an archive - 2 From owner-bridge-laws Wed Apr 24 21:01:41 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA17700 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 21:01:41 +1000 Received: from merlin (merlin [150.203.89.16]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA17685 for ; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 21:01:36 +1000 Received: by merlin (SMI-8.6/MSO-1.1) id VAA18373; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 21:01:34 +1000 Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 21:01:34 +1000 From: markus@merlin.anu.edu.au (Markus Buchhorn) Message-Id: <199604241101.VAA18373@merlin> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: testing from merlin Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Test 3 From owner-bridge-laws Thu Apr 25 02:08:43 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA22395 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 02:08:43 +1000 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (cfa.harvard.edu [128.103.40.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA22390 for ; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 02:08:38 +1000 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA10960 for ; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 12:08:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (5.x/SMI-SVR4) id AA19184; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 12:09:52 -0400 Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 12:09:52 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <9604241609.AA19184@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: test message X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This is only a test. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Apr 25 22:18:27 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA04299 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 22:18:27 +1000 Received: from pip.dknet.dk (root@pip.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA04291; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 22:18:09 +1000 Received: from cph24.pip.dknet.dk (cph24.pip.dknet.dk [194.192.0.56]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA07027; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 14:15:15 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Cc: allebendig@aol.com, david@blakjak.demon.co.uk, elandau@cais.cais.com, willner@cfa183.harvard.edu, hermandw@innet.be, JBC@nov.cri.dk, markus@octavia.anu.edu.au, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: bridge-law mailing list Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 12:14:59 GMT Organization: at home Message-Id: <317f6aa5.806149@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: <9604241602.AA19166@cfa183.harvard.edu> In-Reply-To: <9604241602.AA19166@cfa183.harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99d/32.182 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi Steve, On Wed, 24 Apr 1996 12:02:32 -0400, you wrote: >Markus Buchhorn has set up a list for us. His directions follow. Great. This is much better than our manually maintained list. I suggest that we start using it immediately, perhaps with copies to the old "manual list" for the first day or so (as I am doing with this; I hope a lot of you gets this twice). When it has been seen to work for some days, we (you, Steve?) should then announce it on RGB and remember to repeat the announcement once in a while in the future. I agree 100% with your suggested changes to the description of the list. --- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Thu Apr 25 23:41:15 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA04713 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 23:41:15 +1000 Received: from pip.dknet.dk (root@pip.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA04708 for ; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 23:41:02 +1000 Received: from cph30.pip.dknet.dk (cph30.pip.dknet.dk [194.192.0.62]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA10598; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 15:39:23 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au, Alan LeBendig , David Stevenson , Eric Landau , Herman De Wael , Jens Brix Christiansen , Steve Willner , Richard Bley <101557.1671@compuserve.com> Subject: Re: Procedural penalties Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 13:39:07 GMT Organization: at home Message-Id: <317f7d4a.5579933@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: <9604171344.AA17298@cfa183.harvard.edu> In-Reply-To: <9604171344.AA17298@cfa183.harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99d/32.182 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk [Copied to bridge-laws _and_ manually maintained list; if you're on the bridge-laws list, you should get two copies] I have a little extra information about the way Europeans handle penalties in matches (though this is not about knockout matches). When Jens was at the EBL course for TDs in Milan, he brought home the tests they used, and I took them a few days ago just for fun. In one of the questions, you have to calculate the result in VPs of a match where one team has a procedural penalty in IMPs and where there is a split score. The official correct result in this situation is one where the penalty is taken from one team but not given to the other, and this must therefore be considered the EBL's attitude. Personally, I cannot understand why anyone would penalize in IMPs in a match to be scored in VPs _except_ in a situation where for some reason it is intended that team B should get the IMPs taken from team A. In other situations I would always prefer a penalty in VPs directly. On Wed, 17 Apr 1996 09:44:58 -0400, you wrote: >A new question, primarily directed toward the Europeans. > >In a knockout match, Team A wins by 1 IMP in the raw scoring but has >received a 4 IMP procedural penalty. Procedural penalties do not >accrue to Team B, of course. > >In the US, the ruling would be that Team B has lost and Team A has also >lost. Thus the teams must break the tie in whatever manner is >prescribed in the conditions of contest (normally play a few more >boards). > >Would the ruling be the same in Europe, or would 86B be applied to >the procedural penalty (giving Team B the victory)? --- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 01:14:27 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA07905 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 01:14:27 +1000 Received: from andrew.cais.com (andrew.cais.com [199.0.216.215]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA07900 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 01:14:20 +1000 Received: from cais3.cais.com (cais3.cais.com [199.0.216.227]) by andrew.cais.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id KAA06527 for ; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 10:38:28 -0400 Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 10:38:27 -0400 (EDT) From: Eric Landau X-Sender: elandau@cais3.cais.com To: Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: Re: Reserving Your Rights In-Reply-To: <9604242147.AA19294@cfa183.harvard.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Wed, 24 Apr 1996, Steve Willner wrote: > Seems a fine summary to me except that using 16A1 is up to the sponsoring > organization, not the NCBO. It is in fact used by some clubs even here > in the backward USA. My understanding is that we are a hierarchy of sponsoring organizations; decisions left by the Laws to the SO can be made by the ACBL or "passed on" to the individual districts, which can in turn decide or pass on the decision to its individual units. Under ACBL policy, tournament regulations made at the ACBL level are binding on districts and units, but are not binding on clubs. For example, the ACBL's 8 HCP requirement for opening bids (authorized by Law 40.D) can be waived at the club level. I suspect this is a similar case. > This may have been a holdover from the 1975 Laws, which _required_ > that the director be called. I guess the ACBL just didn't want to > try the new procedure. I stand corrected on this; I had earlier thought that the major revisions to the UI laws were made in 1975, but it turns out they're new in 1987. On reading the 1975 Laws it looks like failing to call the director at the time of the irregularity could have entailed a significant loss of the non-offending side's subsequent rights, since all there is to go on is Law 16.C (75), which addresses "Report of Alleged Illegal Information." That this is no longer the case is the result of adding the language of Law 16.A.2 (87), which, for the first time, addresses "When Illegal Alternative Is Chosen." That language grants the right to call the director at the point at which the potential infraction is revealed, a right which would (arguably) otherwise be lost if the director weren't called under 16.A.1 (87). A far more important change in the language of the Laws from 1975 to 1987 is the terminology used to describe the information exchanged when there's a break in tempo or the like. The 1975 Laws call this "illegal information." The 1987 Laws call it either "extraneous information" or "unauthorized information," and introduce the term "illegal alternative." This is subtle but critical change, which recognizes that the exchange of UI per se is not illegal; it's the subsequent use of the UI by the player receiving it that constitutes the legal infraction. /eric Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 02:20:25 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA08389 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 02:20:25 +1000 Received: from andrew.cais.com (andrew.cais.com [199.0.216.215]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA08384 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 02:20:19 +1000 Received: from cais3.cais.com (cais3.cais.com [199.0.216.227]) by andrew.cais.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id MAA18744 for ; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 12:20:14 -0400 Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 12:20:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Eric Landau X-Sender: elandau@cais3.cais.com To: Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: Re: Follow-up to Opinions Requested In-Reply-To: <960424233437_382207906@emout14.mail.aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Wed, 24 Apr 1996 AlLeBendig@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 96-04-23 22:04:04 EDT, you write: > >Some of the comments made in this discussion suggest that you think > >our English rule is wider than it is. We consider that a slow raise to > >two generally indicates a raise to two-and-a-half. That does not mean > >that a slow raise to three is considered to indicate a raise to three- > >and-a-half: it is specifically the raise to two. > > I'm having trouble keeping up with reading everything you guys produce. How > am I ever going to comment on it. > > As I've said before, I personally believe that this guideline of yours is > correct. Slow actions in general seem to contain extras. However, I have > arrived at this conclusion mostly through personal observations. I can't > arrive at a decision by what I see in committee. As has already been pointed > out, that would be a biased sample. I have discussed this issue with others > and we have similar feelings. But we are still not willing as a group to > define such actions as conclusively as you have. Everytime I witnessed a > slow action at the table that was lacking in values I would have doubts as to > whether we were correct. I might even begin to believe that O.J. was > innocent. I do not believe, as Alan does, that, as a general rule, "slow actions... contain extras." But I'm coming around to the view that the British guideline is empirically reasonable. We assume that a slow bid indicates a holding that is marginal to either some stronger action or some weaker one. My own conclusion from observation is that the stronger hand is significantly more likely when the weaker alternative is a pass, but not when the weaker alternative is a bid. I'm not sure why this should be the case, unless it's just a result of the fact that people like to bid. The English regulators' judgment is apparently consistent with this notion, since they presume strength for a slow single raise, but not for a slow double raise. I don't care for the theory, but it does look to me like they have the empirical evidence on their side. > > We do have some other rules: quoting from memory I believe they are: > > > > A slow penalty double would not be unhappy if partner removed it > > A slow bid of no-trumps would not be unhappy to play in a suit > > A slow pass would not be unhappy if partner bid > > > > Of course these are merely guides. > > But these feelings are universal. And I have no problem with any of them. Ditto, with the caveat that the third rule doesn't apply when the pass is systemically forcing (which I think we've said more than once already). > >(2) You do not have the English rule. If opener progresses after the > >hesitation and is successful then you let it stand because you do not > >know what the hesitation means so you cannot say he has chosen the LA > >suggested by the UI. If opener does not progress after the hesitation > >and game would fail then you let it stand because you do not know what > >the hesitation means so you cannot say he has chosen the LA suggested by > >the UI. > > Whether I like it or not, this is still the only alternative I am comfortable > with. One option we have used in some situations where we were uncomfortable > with what occurred is to apply Law 16B. When we cannot determine that the > slow action carried a suggestion with it in a bridge sense, we are willing to > say that we believe the player had some UI from some source and we do not > need to identify what the source was. After receiving this UI, he did not > report it to the TD as required. We only have used this when we were very > uncomfortable with what occurred and not willing to say that the UI carried a > specific suggestion. And while I could live with the English rule, I too am far more comfortable with this. Especially since what Alan reports as occuring in practice coincides precisely with the approach I was expounding in my rather lengthy message of yesterday: "When [Because] we cannot determine that the slow action [conveying manifest UI] carried a suggestion with it in a bridge sense [was useful], we are willing [given evidence] to say that we believe the player had some [other, hidden, useful] UI from some source [presumably from observing his partner's huddles and holdings in similar situations that occurred previously]..." /eric Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 04:04:24 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA08716 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 04:04:24 +1000 Received: from andrew.cais.com (andrew.cais.com [199.0.216.215]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA08711 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 04:04:18 +1000 Received: from cais3.cais.com (cais3.cais.com [199.0.216.227]) by andrew.cais.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id OAA04956 for ; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 14:04:14 -0400 Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 14:04:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Eric Landau X-Sender: elandau@cais3.cais.com To: Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: Re: Logical alternative: how to interpret In-Reply-To: <960425095850_477964427@emout16.mail.aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Thu, 25 Apr 1996 AlLeBendig@aol.com wrote: > I believe this word, demonstrably, is what is going to be used in the new > Laws to define whether the UI suggests one action over another. It must > "demonstrably" do so before we discuss LAs. I think this is a huge > improvement since TDs and ACs seem to be interpreting this phrase in a much > looser sense than I believe it was ever intended. All of you seem to agree > with me on that point. Hmmm... My initial take is that this change would be an overreaction. The problem is that TDs/ACs are too often trying to read "suggests" as "presumptively suggests," which we agree is too loose. "Demonstrably suggests" may be too tight. In particular, it would seem to preclude the application of the doctrine we've been developing in our little group and which Alan reports seeing in real life, which depends on what Alan calls "some UI from some source" and I call "hidden UI." Perhaps "inferentially suggests"? Let's consider the 1S-P-3S case and assume that this entails prima facie "useless" UI. We don't wish to presume suggestion (usefulness), as that would "hang the lot" (since committees see UI situations only when the receiver appears to have "read" the UI correctly). If, on the other hand, we require that the suggestion be demonstrated, as opposed to presumed, they all walk. Is that what we want? Suppose the offending side is a successful regular partnership that we know has played thousands of sessions together over several years. IMO they should hang. We don't want to presume that they have hidden UI, and can't demonstrate that they do (unless we have some record of previous similar offenses), but we can, and would like to be able to, infer it from common sense and experience, which tells us that such a partnership can't help but develop, over time, a pretty good sense of what kinds of hands each of them is likely to huddle with in situations like this. On the other hand, if the offenders are a first-time pick-up partnership, then they should walk, since we have no such inference. This strikes me as a perfectly sensible interpretation of the Laws as they read now. Conversely, I do not believe that the "presumptive suggestion" interpretation is sensible given the current wording. So I think we have a problem with how the Laws are being interpreted "in the field," not a problem with how they're worded, except perhaps one of clarity. /eric Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 04:10:54 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA08759 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 04:10:54 +1000 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (cfa.harvard.edu [128.103.40.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA08754 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 04:10:47 +1000 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA32065 for ; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 14:10:43 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (5.x/SMI-SVR4) id AA19573; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 14:12:36 -0400 Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 14:12:36 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <9604251812.AA19573@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Reserving Your Rights X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Eric Landau > My understanding is that we are a hierarchy of sponsoring organizations; Not exactly; the sponsoring organization is the body responsible for each event. For a club game, it's the club; for a sectional, it's the Unit, etc. Units and Districts are products of the ACBL, of course, and the ACBL can make regulations that must be obeyed by all its bodies. For that matter, it can make regulations that must be obeyed in all sanctioned games, but it rarely does. Clubs, as sponsoring organizations, can make their own rules on conventions and alerts (under Law 40D), can prescribe their own convention cards (40E), and can choose to follow 16A1 or not. Most follow ACBL regulations on these matters, but some do not. Units and Districts have the same privileges as sponsoring organizations except when there are specific ACBL regulations to the contrary. There are such regulations about conventions, for example, but I don't know about 16A1. The distinction here is that the sponsoring organization has authority under the laws mentioned (and others) unless the ACBL passes a regulation specifically denying that authority. > For example, the ACBL's 8 HCP requirement > for opening bids (authorized by Law 40.D) can be waived at the club > level. I suspect this is a similar case. I don't think it's quite the same. The authority for the 8 HCP requirement is granted to the Zonal organization. The ACBL has chosen to delegate this authority to clubs but not to Units or Districts. The distinction is that the club would have no authority without specific action from the ACBL. In Europe, the corresponding authority would come from the European Bridge Union (hope I've got that right -- anyway, the Zonal organization), not the individual NCBO's. What has the EBU done, by the way? > > This may have been a holdover from the 1975 Laws, which _required_ > > that the director be called. I guess the ACBL just didn't want to > > try the new procedure. > > I stand corrected on this; I had earlier thought that the major revisions > to the UI laws were made in 1975, but it turns out they're new in 1987. You were mostly right. The really major change -- treating UI as a score adjustment matter and not as a conduct offense -- indeed came in 1975. The Laws were, however, significantly reworded in 1987. > On reading the 1975 Laws it looks like failing to call the director at > the time of the irregularity could have entailed a significant loss of > the non-offending side's subsequent rights, since all there is to go on > is Law 16.C (75), which addresses "Report of Alleged Illegal > Information." That this is no longer the case is the result of adding > the language of Law 16.A.2 (87), which, for the first time, addresses > "When Illegal Alternative Is Chosen." That language grants the right to > call the director at the point at which the potential infraction is > revealed, a right which would (arguably) otherwise be lost if the > director weren't called under 16.A.1 (87). This is correct, and I suspect it's where the whole "reserving rights" business comes from. I hope the phrasing is changed in the next revision. > A far more important change in the language of the Laws from 1975 to 1987 > is the terminology used to describe the information exchanged when > there's a break in tempo or the like. The 1975 Laws call this "illegal > information." The 1987 Laws call it either "extraneous information" or > "unauthorized information," and introduce the term "illegal alternative." > This is subtle but critical change, which recognizes that the exchange of > UI per se is not illegal; it's the subsequent use of the UI by the player > receiving it that constitutes the legal infraction. This is a very good summary, though I think the change was smaller in practice than in principle. The change also had the (in my view unfortunate) effect of eliminating the distinction between "bad" UI (hesitations, mannerisms) and "normal" UI (e.g. a correct explanation of the partnership's agreements). Now the two are (legally) the same, though in practice committees are much more likely to adjust the score after the former than the latter. From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 06:18:57 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA16809 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 06:18:57 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA16804 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 06:18:09 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id aa15278; 25 Apr 96 21:16 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa02387; 25 Apr 96 21:16 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 21:04:37 +0100 To: Alan LeBendig Cc: Jesper Dybdal , Steve Willner , Jens Brix Christiansen , Herman De Wael , Eric Landau , Richard Bley <101557.1671@compuserve.com>, Bridge Laws From: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Logical alternative: how to interpret In-Reply-To: <960425095850_477964427@emout16.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi Alan > I am actually much happier with the >>> percentage idea than most people now seem to be because good TDs/ACs >>> will not take the percentages too seriously and poor TDs/ACs need >>> something to help them making decisions. I have been getting less and >>> less happy with Europe's 30% and I believe that 15% is nearer the mark. > [s] >> >>I suspect that the reason is because we had a big problem and wanted to >>fix it. In the long run, I think 5-10% may be about right, though I >>certainly wouldn't argue with 15%. But I think enforcing the current >>stringent standard for few years first may be a good idea. It should >>get people thinking along the right lines, after which we can go back >>to a more reasonable standard. (Al LeBendig's messages suggest we are >>already heading that way.) > >I went to the Laws Commission during the Toronto NABC and told them it was my >belief, as well as the belief of quite a few members of Appeals, that our >current 25% guideline was to liberal. It seemed that more and more players >felt actions were being permitted that should not have been. What I actually >asked the Laws Commission for was a reduction to 10%. They wanted AC to stop >quantifying things. It was their belief that once ACs saw the full hand, >many of them felt that they would have gotten this problem right at the table >and therefore were very prone to allow the others would also. The Laws >Commission then gave me this wording: An action is deemed to be a LA if some >number of your peers would seriously consider the action in a vacuum. Make >note that these are my words but accurately reflect what was stated and later >published. They wanted us to totally eliminate any percentage discussions. > I have asked for clarification as to what they mean by some number. They >have said that is up to each AC member. In Philly they allowed that they >didn't expect it to be 1 and it wasn't as many as 20. But they still want us >to get away from any quantification of the concept. So they want to make sure that different ACs will reach different answers in similar circumstances? >> >>The problem with percentages is that nobody really knows what >>percentage of players would choose a given action. Thhis is what is wrong with this approach. If people do not know what the basis is for an action they cannot really get the answer right. Unfortunately the American view seems to be if we cannot provide a statistical analysis then we should not use a staistical approach at all. Let me give a similar example. You open 1S with a near minimum and partner raises to 3S (limit). do you pass or bid 4S? Now we have learnt that at imps you should bid any game with a 36% chance of success if we are vulnerable, or with a 45% chance of success if we are not vulnerable. So the correct answer is to bid 4S if you will be in a 36%+ contract NV or 45%+ Vul. But how do we know before seeing partner's hand what perrcentage chance there is of making 4S? We don't. So what do we do? The American approach to statistical analysis seems to be: we cannot discover what the perrcentage chance of making 4S is so therefore we cannot use this approcah at all: let us not consider these 36%s or 45%s at all. The European approach to statistical analysis seems to be: we cannot be sure what the perrcentage chance of making 4S is so therefore we shall use our best guess, accompanied by whatever aids are available. Which would you prefer? Put that way, the European approach clearly has more sense. so we translate this into LAs: it seems reasonable to use as much statistical analysis as we can, not to say since we cannot prove it by statistical analysis, we shall not use it at all. > In his November >>editorial, Kaplan explained the meaning he gives to "seriously >>consider" by using words like "obviously foolish, an egregious error, >>absurd" to define what actions are not logical alternatives. So why >>not use those words in a policy? I may not know what fraction of >>players would choose a given action, but (alas) I know quite a lot >>about errors. This standard isn't perfect either -- there are >>arguments against any bridge action -- but at least it seems a more >>objective _sort_ of standard than pretending we can take a poll when we >>can't. I do not know where this pretending to take a poll comes from. When I decide that an action is (say) 25% I do not take a poll: I do not pretend to: nobody should be taking polls. [s] >I want everyone to know that ACs are currently very unhappy with what they >feel they must do. They are no different than the players in that they don't >really want to be preventing people from "playing bridge". At the same time, >they want things tighter than they were in the past. I just want Eric to >know that his friends are not the only ones dissatisfied. I wonder if the unhappiness is because the thinking has gone astray? Our TDs and ACs do not seem to have the same worries. Cheers -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Nothing ventured, nothing gained |o o| david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome =( @ )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please \~/ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 06:25:26 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA16862 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 06:25:26 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA16855 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 06:23:43 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id af15408; 25 Apr 96 21:17 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa02405; 25 Apr 96 21:16 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 20:38:58 +0100 To: Steve Willner Cc: Alan LeBendig , Eric Landau , Jesper Dybdal , Jens Brix Christiansen , Herman De Wael , Richard Bley <101557.1671@compuserve.com>, Bridge Laws From: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Fwd: Followup to Quick Opinions Requested In-Reply-To: <9604251417.AA19443@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi Steve >> In several of these posts there seems to be a sort of feeling that we >> have simplified a tricky situation by coming up with an arbitrary >> situation. I actually find that quite insulting. > >I plead guilty to this and apologize. The rule does seem completely >arbitrary to me, but of course I've not sat in on the discussions >that led to it. > >> I say again: we believe that a slow raise to two is normally stronger >> not weaker. This is based on our experience and various discussions. > >What is the evidence for this belief, though? I find it impossible >to imagine how you could possibly have valid evidence that this is >the case, but perhaps my skepticism is simply based on ignorance. > Ahhhhhh, that's different. Actually, I am not sure! This decision was made after discussion by our Laws & Ethics committee (in future I shall say L&EC) some time ago before I was on it. I doubt that it has a statistical background but I think that just shows the difference in our approaches: we are prepared to make decisions based on our impressions after consideration and do not require statistical analysis. "Valid evidence": we have evidence from experience: whether it is valid is part of the decision-making process. Cheers -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Nothing ventured, nothing gained |o o| david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome =( @ )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please \~/ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 06:56:40 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA17083 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 06:56:40 +1000 Received: from andrew.cais.com (andrew.cais.com [199.0.216.215]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA17078 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 06:56:34 +1000 Received: from cais3.cais.com (cais3.cais.com [199.0.216.227]) by andrew.cais.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id QAA02908 for ; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 16:56:30 -0400 Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 16:56:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Eric Landau X-Sender: elandau@cais3.cais.com To: Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: Timing of director call Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk An interesting discussion arose in a committee hearing here recently, and has yet to be resolved. I thought this group might provide some insight. High level event (Flight A GNT qualifier in a very strong unit), but both pairs involved are normally Flight B players. N-S are playing "1D/1C: May bypass" and have so marked their CC. With E-W silent, N-S bids 1C-1H-2NT-3NT. No alert. W leads a D. Dummy hits with 4 hearts and 5 diamonds. Nothing is said at the time. 3NT makes. C or H lead would have beaten 3NT. At the other table, 3NT goes down on a H lead after the auction 1C-1D-2NT-3NT. After the match (round robin teams), E-W compares scores. Teammates want to know how 3NT was made, and story comes out. Prodded by teammates, E-W now take this to a director, admitting that they don't know whether or not there was a failure to alert. Director checks N-S CC and decides that there was, rules 3NT down 1 plus small procedural penalty to N-S for failure to alert. N-S appeals. Procedural penalty doesn't matter, but the score adjustment decision will determine qualification to the next level for both sides. After much discussion, the committee reverses the director, reinstating the result at the table. They decide that there was no reason to suspect that full information would have changed the outcome. On this auction, knowing that N might possibly have longer D than H wouldn't matter; they'd have led a D anyhow, or if forced to choose another suit, would have led a S for the same result. During deliberations, though, there's been a hot debate among the committee members that turned out in the end to be moot: Should the ruling be affected by the fact that E-W did not call the director, or take any action at all (said nothing, didn't look at CC) when dummy appeared with 4-5 in the reds, but waited until after the match to raise their objection? One side argues that the conditions of contest specify that the director must be called within a set correction period; since E-W did so, they are perforce timely. They point out that the Laws apparently require that the director be called when dummy hits in UI cases but contain no such requirement in misinformation cases. They find no basis for allowing the actual timing to affect their decision. The other side argues that E-W could and should have realized that waiting until after the match, when the results and the whole hand were known, could only work to their advantage, and they should not be allowed to do this with complete impunity. One member points out that had the director been called when dummy hit, he would have immediately established the failure to alert. He could then have taken W away from the table and asked him point-blank, now that he has been fully informed of the opponents methods, what he thinks he might have led. With W's answer on record, the committee would not be sitting there discussing what W might or might not have done. Who's right? Can, and should, the fact that E-W waited until after the match to call a director be allowed to affect the ruling? /eric Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 07:53:56 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA17328 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 07:53:56 +1000 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (cfa.harvard.edu [128.103.40.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA17316 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 07:53:50 +1000 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id RAA09372 for ; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 17:53:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (5.x/SMI-SVR4) id AA19710; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 17:55:38 -0400 Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 17:55:38 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <9604252155.AA19710@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Comments on lots of issues X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk [Sending only to the list now. Comments consolidated for easier reading. Hi, all.] > From: AlLeBendig@aol.com > I went to the Laws Commission during the Toronto NABC and told them it was my > belief, as well as the belief of quite a few members of Appeals, that our > current 25% guideline was to liberal. Thanks for the inside report of what happened. I, for one, really appreciate your efforts. > I believe this word, demonstrably, is what is going to be used in the new > Laws to define whether the UI suggests one action over another. We need to keep separate the two questions: 1. What action did the UI suggest, and what standard of evidence is needed? 2. What are the logical alternatives, and what standard is used to decide? > It must > "demonstrably" do so before we discuss LAs. I think this is a huge > improvement since TDs and ACs seem to be interpreting this phrase in a much > looser sense than I believe it was ever intended. All of you seem to agree > with me on that point. Along with Eric, I worry about whether "demonstrably" is too strong, but I'm not sure of anything I like better. "Vaguely" or "maybe in some other universe" or the current "may suggest" seems too weak! :-) Maybe "...likely to suggest?" Or just "...suggests?" "...more likely than not suggests?" As I say, nothing I'm very happy with. > I want everyone to know that ACs are currently very unhappy with what they > feel they must do. They are no different than the players in that they don't > really want to be preventing people from "playing bridge". At the same time, > they want things tighter than they were in the past. I agree with the goal: tighter than the bad old days but some reasonable scope for playing bridge. Certainly not an automatic penalty for a hesitation. How do we best get there and have reasonable consistency? > From: Eric Landau > Subject: Re: Logical alternative: how to interpret > Suppose the offending side is a successful regular partnership that we > know has played thousands of sessions together over several years. IMO > they should hang. We don't want to presume that they have hidden UI, and > can't demonstrate that they do (unless we have some record of previous > similar offenses), but we can, and would like to be able to, infer it > from common sense and experience, which tells us that such a partnership > can't help but develop, over time, a pretty good sense of what kinds of > hands each of them is likely to huddle with in situations like this. On > the other hand, if the offenders are a first-time pick-up partnership, > then they should walk, since we have no such inference. I tend to agree with the last, but I'm skeptical about the first. It certainly seems unlikely (based on my own experience) than an unfamiliar partnership would have an implicit understanding. Of course if an implicit understanding is widespread in some area, that would be different. What about an experienced partnership? Unless you have data, it could well be that they hesitate with close decisions _in either direction_. (I'm fairly sure I do that myself; certainly I do sometimes hesitate and pass when considering a raise to 2, so I don't fit the English stereotype. I'm fairly sure I sometimes hesitate with a strong raise too.) So indeed the UI may convey no useful information. On the other hand, it could well be that a pattern exists in some partnerships. If you accept Eric's argument, why doesn't it apply equally strongly to forcing pass auctions? I guess what I'm beginning to think is that you can't really do much about this problem without punishing innocent pairs. People who develop a pattern are probably going to get away with it except at the top levels of play, where the pattern will be noticed. Is that an acceptable outcome? > From: David Stevenson > Subject: Re: Logical alternative: how to interpret > I do not know where this pretending to take a poll comes from. When I > decide that an action is (say) 25% I do not take a poll: I do not > pretend to: nobody should be taking polls. The usual interpretation (at least over here) of a "25% action" is that if you took a poll, 25% of equivalent players would choose that action. Of course it's quite impractical to take a poll in real life. Though you could in principle ask a bidding panel for their opinions, that isn't something an AC could easily do at a tournament. Let me offer a few definitions: (Perhaps someone else can do even better. These have only a little thought in them. No doubt there is room for more categories, too.) Error: a bridge action that is inferior to a specific different action. Demonstrable Error: an error that can be demonstrated by analysis. For example, if a line of play A wins in all cases another line B wins and in at least one besides, B is a demonstrable error. (Things are seldom so clear for bidding, alas, but passing out the deal when most of the time partner will have enough for game is usually a demonstrable error. You might use a simulation program, for example.) Clear Error: a demonstrable error where the analysis is simple enough that a player should normally be able to perform the required analysis at the table. (Passing a forcing bid is in this category. So is passing a normal 11-count when partner has opened a 15+ 1NT.) Outrageous (or egregious) Error: an error so blatant that a player deliberately committing it could only be trying to lose. I submit that one of the above (probably 3 or 4) could be used as the definition of "not a logical alternative." Of course there's still judgement, but the question is at least a step removed from "How many players would...?" The danger, of course, is that we go back to the bad old days. All the AC members see the whole hand and convince themselves that they would have gotten it right, hence the losing action is a clear (or outrageous) error. > From: David Stevenson [Regarding English rule that slow raise to two shows a maximum] > Ahhhhhh, that's different. Actually, I am not sure! This decision > was made after discussion by our Laws & Ethics committee (in future I > shall say L&EC) some time ago before I was on it. I doubt that it has a > statistical background but I think that just shows the difference in our > approaches: we are prepared to make decisions based on our impressions > after consideration and do not require statistical analysis. Well, Eric Leong agrees with your L&EC. I don't, but I may have the least playing experience of anybody commenting. And things could certainly be different here than there because of different methods if nothing else. I'm sure your position would be supported by the vast majority of cases coming to the attention of a TD, but that could easily be what we astromers call a "selection effect." People don't call the TD if opener passes, even if responder was weak and opener abnormally strong. (And they certainly never will in England, since they now know for sure that they won't get redress!) > From: AlLeBendig@aol.com > Subject: Re: Reserving Your Rights > Yes, Eric, it does happen. Not by the better players, however. It > constantly amazes me how stories change before a pair gets to an AC. Someone told me of a pair who sat right in front of an AC and erased and rewrote their convention card. (At issue was what the card said in a misinformation case.) Unbelievable, but alas, I do believe it. From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 08:53:46 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA17900 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 08:53:46 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA17895 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 08:53:38 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id aa01476; 25 Apr 96 23:52 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa13485; 25 Apr 96 23:38 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 22:02:13 +0100 To: Steve Willner Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Reserving Your Rights In-Reply-To: <9604251812.AA19573@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi Steve >Units and Districts have the same privileges as sponsoring >organizations except when there are specific ACBL regulations to the >contrary. There are such regulations about conventions, for example, >but I don't know about 16A1. > >The distinction here is that the sponsoring organization has authority >under the laws mentioned (and others) unless the ACBL passes a >regulation specifically denying that authority. > >I don't think it's quite the same. The authority for the 8 HCP >requirement is granted to the Zonal organization. The ACBL has chosen >to delegate this authority to clubs but not to Units or Districts. The >distinction is that the club would have no authority without specific >action from the ACBL. In Europe, the corresponding authority would >come from the European Bridge Union (hope I've got that right -- >anyway, the Zonal organization), not the individual NCBO's. What >has the EBU done, by the way? The Zone is the European Bridge League (EBL): the NCBO is the British Bridge League (BBL): the main regulation maker is the English Bridge Union (EBU), which is neither a Zone nor a NCBO. Law 16A1 is actively discouraged unless there is a playing TD. As far as opening bids are concerned we do not allow openings on hands that do not conform to the Rule of 19 (I can feel the vultures hovering over my head as I type this). The regulations for what conventions people are allowed to play are mandatory for the EBU: for Congresses and events licensed by the EBU: for County Associations (which are really constituent parts of the EBU). However clubs can do what they like, though most follow the EBU. >This is correct, and I suspect it's where the whole "reserving rights" >business comes from. I hope the phrasing is changed in the next revision. As you will have realised from other posts we do not seem to mean the same thing by this phrase but I agree with the hope here. Cheers -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Nothing ventured, nothing gained |o o| david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome =( @ )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please \~/ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 08:58:51 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA17958 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 08:58:51 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA17949 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 08:58:20 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ac01585; 25 Apr 96 23:53 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa13490; 25 Apr 96 23:38 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 21:45:45 +0100 To: AlLeBendig@aol.com Cc: elandau@cais.cais.com, willner@cfa183.harvard.edu, jbc@cri.dk, jd@pip.dknet.dk, 101557.1671@compuserve.com, hermandw@innet.be, Bridge Laws From: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Reserving Your Rights In-Reply-To: <960425103311_521715054@emout10.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi Alan cc Bridge-laws >>At the table: >>W (to N and S): "Do you agree that N took an unusually long time to >>make his call?" >>N: "Yes, I did." >>S: "Yes, he did." >> >>In the committee room: >>W: "N took an unusually long time to make his call." >>N: "No, I didn't." >>S: "No, he didn't." >>W: "But at the table you both admitted that he did." >>N or S: "Well, but we didn't really mean it. Your question confused >>us." >> >>Does this really happen? Is this really a problem? /eric > >Yes, Eric, it does happen. Not by the better players, however. It >constantly amazes me how stories change before a pair gets to an AC. The AC >can usually figure out who is lying. So therefore it's not that big a >problem. > >I am in total agreement with you that this practice of 'reserving your >rights' translates in a time saver. I will discuss it with the Laws >Commission in Miami. We should at the very least have it in place in the >NABC+ events. Of course this is one advantage of the European approach. ACs just assume that the TD knows what happened. They look on their job to consider the Bridge implications and just about never over-rule a TD on his deduction as to what the facts are. I strongly believe that the best way to find out the truth is to ask questions as soon as possible after the event. My belief is in line with other European views. Cheers -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Nothing ventured, nothing gained |o o| david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome =( @ )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please \~/ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 09:53:08 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA18210 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 09:53:08 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA18203 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 09:52:56 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id af07070; 26 Apr 96 0:52 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa26724; 26 Apr 96 0:47 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 00:17:29 +0100 To: Bridge Laws From: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Timing of director call In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi Eric >An interesting discussion arose in a committee hearing here recently, and >has yet to be resolved. I thought this group might provide some insight. > >High level event (Flight A GNT qualifier in a very strong unit), but both >pairs involved are normally Flight B players. N-S are playing "1D/1C: >May bypass" and have so marked their CC. > >With E-W silent, N-S bids 1C-1H-2NT-3NT. No alert. W leads a D. Dummy >hits with 4 hearts and 5 diamonds. Nothing is said at the time. 3NT >makes. C or H lead would have beaten 3NT. At the other table, 3NT goes >down on a H lead after the auction 1C-1D-2NT-3NT. > >After the match (round robin teams), E-W compares scores. Teammates want >to know how 3NT was made, and story comes out. Prodded by teammates, E-W >now take this to a director, admitting that they don't know whether or >not there was a failure to alert. Director checks N-S CC and decides >that there was, rules 3NT down 1 plus small procedural penalty to N-S for >failure to alert. N-S appeals. Procedural penalty doesn't matter, but >the score adjustment decision will determine qualification to the next >level for both sides. > >After much discussion, the committee reverses the director, reinstating >the result at the table. They decide that there was no reason to suspect >that full information would have changed the outcome. On this auction, >knowing that N might possibly have longer D than H wouldn't matter; >they'd have led a D anyhow, or if forced to choose another suit, would >have led a S for the same result. > >During deliberations, though, there's been a hot debate among the >committee members that turned out in the end to be moot: Should the >ruling be affected by the fact that E-W did not call the director, or >take any action at all (said nothing, didn't look at CC) when dummy >appeared with 4-5 in the reds, but waited until after the match to raise >their objection? > >One side argues that the conditions of contest specify that the director >must be called within a set correction period; since E-W did so, they are >perforce timely. They point out that the Laws apparently require that >the director be called when dummy hits in UI cases but contain no such >requirement in misinformation cases. They find no basis for allowing the >actual timing to affect their decision. > >The other side argues that E-W could and should have realized that >waiting until after the match, when the results and the whole hand were >known, could only work to their advantage, and they should not be allowed >to do this with complete impunity. One member points out that had the >director been called when dummy hit, he would have immediately >established the failure to alert. He could then have taken W away from >the table and asked him point-blank, now that he has been fully informed >of the opponents methods, what he thinks he might have led. With W's >answer on record, the committee would not be sitting there discussing >what W might or might not have done. > >Who's right? Can, and should, the fact that E-W waited until after the >match to call a director be allowed to affect the ruling? Law 92C: Any appeal for ... a Director's ruling must be made within the time period established in accordance with Law 79C. Law 79C: ... Unless the sponsoring organisation specifies a later time, this correction period expires 30 minutes after the official score has been completed and made available for inspection. So the laws definitely permit a player to ask for a ruling at a later time. In our TD training weekends we have discussed this because the laws do not really make it clear. If a player asks for a late ruling then he will not get it if the facts cannot be established: for example if the opposition have already left the playing area. If a player asks for a late ruling and has a good reason why he has asked late (eg he did not know what happened until he saw hand records at the end of the session) then so long as the facts can be established he will be treated in the normal way. If a player asks for a late ruling otherwise then so long as the facts can be established he will be given one but the opposition will be given any benefit of doubt, especially in respect of facts that are not agreed. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Nothing ventured, nothing gained |o o| david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome =( @ )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please \~/ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 09:53:22 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA18227 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 09:53:22 +1000 Received: from pip.dknet.dk (root@pip.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA18220 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 09:53:11 +1000 Received: from cph16.pip.dknet.dk (cph16.pip.dknet.dk [194.192.0.48]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA03422; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 01:52:56 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: AlLeBendig@aol.com, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: jbc@nov.cri.dk Subject: Re: E-Mail Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 23:52:40 GMT Organization: at home Message-Id: <31800ed4.1172385@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: <960425105637_382457699@emout18.mail.aol.com> In-Reply-To: <960425105637_382457699@emout18.mail.aol.com> X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99d/32.182 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Thu, 25 Apr 1996 10:56:38 -0400, you wrote: >For some reason, everything I send to Jens is coming back as undeliverable. > Does anyone know what the problem is? Am I the only one having this >problem. It only started this morning. > >I'm hoping it is going through to everyone else. > > Alan There is a problem with the name "cri.dk" not being known by some name server; I've seen it too. I don't think it has been fixed. The name "jbc@nov.cri.dk" (to which Jens' mail is normally forwarded from cri.dk) seems to work. Jens has subscribed to the bridge-laws list, and he seems to have done so with an address that works. --- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 12:55:03 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA19142 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 12:55:03 +1000 Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA19136 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 12:54:34 +1000 From: AlLeBendig@aol.com Received: by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA16754 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 22:38:08 -0400 Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 22:38:08 -0400 Message-ID: <960425223807_478530768@emout19.mail.aol.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Timing of director call Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In a message dated 96-04-25 17:02:16 EDT Eric Landau writes: >An interesting discussion arose in a committee hearing here recently, and >has yet to be resolved. I thought this group might provide some insight. > >High level event (Flight A GNT qualifier in a very strong unit), but both >pairs involved are normally Flight B players. N-S are playing "1D/1C: >May bypass" and have so marked their CC. > >With E-W silent, N-S bids 1C-1H-2NT-3NT. No alert. W leads a D. Dummy >hits with 4 hearts and 5 diamonds. Nothing is said at the time. 3NT >makes. C or H lead would have beaten 3NT. At the other table, 3NT goes >down on a H lead after the auction 1C-1D-2NT-3NT. > >After the match (round robin teams), E-W compares scores. Teammates want >to know how 3NT was made, and story comes out. Prodded by teammates, E-W >now take this to a director, admitting that they don't know whether or >not there was a failure to alert. Director checks N-S CC and decides >that there was, rules 3NT down 1 plus small procedural penalty to N-S for >failure to alert. N-S appeals. Procedural penalty doesn't matter, but >the score adjustment decision will determine qualification to the next >level for both sides. > >After much discussion, the committee reverses the director, reinstating >the result at the table. They decide that there was no reason to suspect >that full information would have changed the outcome. On this auction, >knowing that N might possibly have longer D than H wouldn't matter; >they'd have led a D anyhow, or if forced to choose another suit, would >have led a S for the same result. Good ruling by the AC. I'm not sure about the TD. I suppose they were still legally entitled to protection under the letter of the Law since they didn't discover the failure to alert till later on. However, the dummy was right in front of them. I would have never listened to this argument from a Flight A pair. I would feel the same about some Flight B pairs. I would give procedural penalty to N-S for failing to disclose the MI prior to the opening lead. I refuse to believe they're playing in this event and don't know it's alertable. Of course it won't be in 45 days. > >During deliberations, though, there's been a hot debate among the >committee members that turned out in the end to be moot: Should the >ruling be affected by the fact that E-W did not call the director, or >take any action at all (said nothing, didn't look at CC) when dummy >appeared with 4-5 in the reds, but waited until after the match to raise >their objection? I firmly believe it is relevant. E-W asked no questions when dummy struck. > >One side argues that the conditions of contest specify that the director >must be called within a set correction period; since E-W did so, they are >perforce timely. They point out that the Laws apparently require that >the director be called when dummy hits in UI cases but contain no such >requirement in misinformation cases. They find no basis for allowing the >actual timing to affect their decision. > Aren't they supposed to summon the director when they first become aware of an irregularity? Are they blind? >The other side argues that E-W could and should have realized that >waiting until after the match, when the results and the whole hand were >known, could only work to their advantage, and they should not be allowed >to do this with complete impunity. One member points out that had the >director been called when dummy hit, he would have immediately >established the failure to alert. He could then have taken W away from >the table and asked him point-blank, now that he has been fully informed >of the opponents methods, what he thinks he might have led. With W's >answer on record, the committee would not be sitting there discussing >what W might or might not have done. > What's more, had the dummy disclosed the failure to alert after the final pass, we would know what W would have led before he saw the dummy because he would have led it. And as a result, this committee would have never had this problem. >Who's right? Can, and should, the fact that E-W waited until after the >match to call a director be allowed to affect the ruling? /eric At the very least, it should affect the thought process of the AC. Alan From owner-bridge-laws Fri Apr 26 19:27:35 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA20656 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 19:27:35 +1000 Received: from cabra.cri.dk (cabra.cri.dk [130.227.48.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA20586 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 19:19:45 +1000 X-Organization: Computer Resources International A/S, Bregneroedvej 144, DK-3460 Birkeroed, Denmark Received: from nov.cri.dk (nov.cri.dk [130.227.50.162]) by cabra.cri.dk (8.6.12/8.6.10) with SMTP id LAA13358 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 11:17:50 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 11:17:36 +0200 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 11:17:24 +0200 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Reserving Your Rights -Reply Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >>At the table: >>W (to N and S): "Do you agree that N took an unusually long time to >>make his call?" >>N: "Yes, I did." >>S: "Yes, he did." >> >>In the committee room: >>W: "N took an unusually long time to make his call." >>N: "No, I didn't." >>S: "No, he didn't." >>W: "But at the table you both admitted that he did." >>N or S: "Well, but we didn't really mean it. Your question confused >>us." >> >>Does this really happen? Is this really a problem? It happened in the Danish National Open Pairs Final this year. Players agreed to a break in tempo at the table. The TD had them agreeing when he was later called. The offending side flatly denied any break in tempo in the (written) appeals procedure. The non-offending side got away with using the word "uetisk" (i.e. "unethical") when commenting on this on the appeals form; such a choice of words is otherwise not known to be condoned by the AC. On the appeals form, the TD drily stated that he had established the break in tempo as a fact. Admittedly, the persons denying were probably in the weakest third of the field, but we are talking about a 40-pair tournament where contenders have to qualify in local tournaments thourghout the country. /Jens From owner-bridge-laws Sat Apr 27 01:08:54 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA27700 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 27 Apr 1996 01:08:54 +1000 Received: from andrew.cais.com (andrew.cais.com [199.0.216.215]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA27695 for ; Sat, 27 Apr 1996 01:08:46 +1000 Received: from cais3.cais.com (cais3.cais.com [199.0.216.227]) by andrew.cais.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id LAA01072 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 11:08:41 -0400 Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 11:08:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Eric Landau X-Sender: elandau@cais3.cais.com To: Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: Re: Comments on lots of issues In-Reply-To: <9604252155.AA19710@cfa183.harvard.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Thu, 25 Apr 1996, Steve Willner wrote: > > From: Eric Landau > > Subject: Re: Logical alternative: how to interpret > > Suppose the offending side is a successful regular partnership that we > > know has played thousands of sessions together over several years. IMO > > they should hang. We don't want to presume that they have hidden UI, and > > can't demonstrate that they do (unless we have some record of previous > > similar offenses), but we can, and would like to be able to, infer it > > from common sense and experience, which tells us that such a partnership > > can't help but develop, over time, a pretty good sense of what kinds of > > hands each of them is likely to huddle with in situations like this. On > > the other hand, if the offenders are a first-time pick-up partnership, > > then they should walk, since we have no such inference. > > I tend to agree with the last, but I'm skeptical about the first. It > certainly seems unlikely (based on my own experience) than an > unfamiliar partnership would have an implicit understanding. Of course > if an implicit understanding is widespread in some area, that would be > different. > > What about an experienced partnership? Unless you have data, it could > well be that they hesitate with close decisions _in either direction_. > (I'm fairly sure I do that myself; certainly I do sometimes hesitate > and pass when considering a raise to 2, so I don't fit the English > stereotype. I'm fairly sure I sometimes hesitate with a strong raise > too.) So indeed the UI may convey no useful information. On the other > hand, it could well be that a pattern exists in some partnerships. > > If you accept Eric's argument, why doesn't it apply equally strongly > to forcing pass auctions? > > I guess what I'm beginning to think is that you can't really do much > about this problem without punishing innocent pairs. People who > develop a pattern are probably going to get away with it except at the > top levels of play, where the pattern will be noticed. Is that an > acceptable outcome? It probably would be. But I wonder whether "noticing" a pattern is really any stronger than inferring it. A pair goes to committee after having had the auction 1S-P-(huddle)2S-P-3S-P-4S. The 2S bid was marginal to a limit raise, and the 3S bid was marginal to a pass. 4S makes and the opponents want redress. The committee says to the offenders: We're going to disallow the 3S bid because, thanks to the ACBL's new computerized appeals-tracking system, we've noticed that you've been in front of committees for almost exactly the same actions three times in the last six months. This is clearly a pattern. You hang. And the offender replies: Wait a minute. He huddles all the time with both strong hands and weak ones. I always try for game when I hold a marginal hand. What you don't know is that three other times in the past six months we bid 1-2-3 after he huddled with a weak hand and I re-raised on a marginal one, and we went down at the three-level. Of course, these hands never went to a committee. The committee has no way to refute this short of "We think you're a liar and we don't believe you," which would be well out of bounds. So how do we EVER "discover" a pattern? > Error: a bridge action that is inferior to a specific different action. > Demonstrable Error: an error that can be demonstrated by > analysis. For example, if a line of play A wins in all cases another > line B wins and in at least one besides, B is a demonstrable error. > (Things are seldom so clear for bidding, alas, but passing out the > deal when most of the time partner will have enough for game is > usually a demonstrable error. You might use a simulation program, > for example.) > Clear Error: a demonstrable error where the analysis is simple enough > that a player should normally be able to perform the required analysis > at the table. (Passing a forcing bid is in this category. So is > passing a normal 11-count when partner has opened a 15+ 1NT.) > Outrageous (or egregious) Error: an error so blatant that a player > deliberately committing it could only be trying to lose. > > I submit that one of the above (probably 3 or 4) could be used as the > definition of "not a logical alternative." Of course there's still > judgement, but the question is at least a step removed from "How many > players would...?" The danger, of course, is that we go back to the > bad old days. All the AC members see the whole hand and convince > themselves that they would have gotten it right, hence the losing > action is a clear (or outrageous) error. (4) is out of the question, since it represents an offense in a whole 'nother league from what we're talking about. If an AC believes that a player's action "could only be trying to lose," its only correct course is to close up shop and send the whole thing on to a C&E committee, which, unlike an AC, has the power to mete out the punishment that player deserves. The problem with (3) (or (2)) is that to be fair to players at all levels, when the result of an adjudication depends on a bridge analysis, it can't be the committee's actual analysis that applies, but must be the results of such analysis as the committee feels the player in question is or should be capable of -- an expert's "clear error" may be a novice's "reasonable alternative" based on a hypothetical poll of the player's peers. Rulings based on committee members' judgment of how well someone plays are invariably problematic; regular committee folks know this all too well and hate to be required to do it. Often both sides go away angry -- one side at having lost the case, the other side at having been told that they won the case only because they're lousy players! And it opens the door to some appalling behavior. I've personally seen one of the US's top players (McKenney winner) on two occassions get off in situations where any of us would hang by browbeating the committees into conceding (truthfully, to be sure) that he's a better bridge player than any of them, convincing them, on that basis, to accept his "bridge judgment" as superior to their own, and giving him a favorable ruling based on his own analysis. Our regulators have done rather a good job lately of reducing the need for committees to make decisions based on their judgments of a player's level of ability (although it pains me to say it, the redefinition of "logical alternative" has helped a lot in this regard), and I doubt that anyone wants to buck that trend. /eric Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Sat Apr 27 02:03:22 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA28161 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 27 Apr 1996 02:03:22 +1000 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (cfa.harvard.edu [128.103.40.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA28156 for ; Sat, 27 Apr 1996 02:03:16 +1000 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA10922 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 12:03:12 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (5.x/SMI-SVR4) id AA19920; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 12:05:07 -0400 Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 12:05:07 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <9604261605.AA19920@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Comments on lots of issues X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Eric Landau > And the offender replies: Wait a minute. He huddles all the time with > both strong hands and weak ones This was exactly my point. There's no way to track all huddles via the committee system. Unless you are prepared to punish innocent pairs who do indeed huddle with both strong and weak hands, you have to let the guilty go. > So how do we EVER "discover" a pattern? For most pairs, I claim you cannot (practically) discover a pattern specific to that pair. For the top pairs, you can. They all know each other and will know if one of their number starts hesitating only with weak or strong hands. The other thing you could perhaps do is notice whether "typical" pairs more often hesitate with weak or strong hands. This is what the EBU claims to have done. Then you apply this _statistical_ result to _all_ pairs, regardless of whether it really applies in a particular case. Personally, I'd rather just let the guilty go in this situation. But hit them with serious procedural penalties in situations that are less ambiguous. > > Error: a bridge action that is inferior to a specific different action. > > Demonstrable Error: an error that can be demonstrated by > > analysis. For example, if a line of play A wins in all cases another > > line B wins and in at least one besides, B is a demonstrable error. > > (Things are seldom so clear for bidding, alas, but passing out the > > deal when most of the time partner will have enough for game is > > usually a demonstrable error. You might use a simulation program, > > for example.) > > Clear Error: a demonstrable error where the analysis is simple enough > > that a player should normally be able to perform the required analysis > > at the table. (Passing a forcing bid is in this category. So is > > passing a normal 11-count when partner has opened a 15+ 1NT.) > > Outrageous (or egregious) Error: an error so blatant that a player > > deliberately committing it could only be trying to lose. > > > > I submit that one of the above (probably 3 or 4) could be used as the > > definition of "not a logical alternative." Of course there's still > > judgement, but the question is at least a step removed from "How many > > players would...?" The danger, of course, is that we go back to the > > bad old days. All the AC members see the whole hand and convince > > themselves that they would have gotten it right, hence the losing > > action is a clear (or outrageous) error. > > (4) is out of the question, since it represents an offense Perhaps you read this too hastily. A revoke is an outrageous error, but it's usually an accident and not a conduct offense. We have all committed outrageous errors at the table (or at least I have :-( ), but they weren't deliberate, nor did anybody complain about my conduct. (Certain partners have had some choice words about ability, of course. :-) ) The current US definition of "not a logical alternative" is not very different from number 4. > The problem with (3) (or (2)) is that to be fair to players at all > levels, when the result of an adjudication depends on a bridge analysis, > it can't be the committee's actual analysis that applies, but must be the > results of such analysis as the committee feels the player in question is > or should be capable of If you adopt that approach, the problem is only rephrased. Instead of "How many equivalent players would...?" we ask "Would this player normally...?" I think what I'm suggesting involves making "logical alternative" not depend very strongly on the player's level. That has advantages and disadvantages. Certainly number 2 is independent of the player's level. Another, perhaps slightly humorous, definition of "clear error" might be: a player who did it at the table, at the time thinking it was right, would not even try to defend himself in the post-mortem. Maybe this is really the definition of "demonstrable error." From owner-bridge-laws Sat Apr 27 04:21:24 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA28838 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 27 Apr 1996 04:21:24 +1000 Received: from andrew.cais.com (andrew.cais.com [199.0.216.215]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA28833 for ; Sat, 27 Apr 1996 04:21:12 +1000 Received: from cais3.cais.com (cais3.cais.com [199.0.216.227]) by andrew.cais.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id OAA06617 for ; Fri, 26 Apr 1996 14:21:08 -0400 Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 14:21:08 -0400 (EDT) From: Eric Landau X-Sender: elandau@cais3.cais.com To: Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: Re: Comments on lots of issues In-Reply-To: <9604261605.AA19920@cfa183.harvard.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Fri, 26 Apr 1996, Steve Willner wrote: > This was exactly my point. There's no way to track all huddles via > the committee system. Unless you are prepared to punish innocent > pairs who do indeed huddle with both strong and weak hands, you have > to let the guilty go. So we have to. Fairness in bridge law, like fairness in real-life law, means that we must be willing to let a substantial number of the guilty get off to protect a small number of innocents. > For most pairs, I claim you cannot (practically) discover a pattern > specific to that pair. For the top pairs, you can. They all know each > other and will know if one of their number starts hesitating only with > weak or strong hands. But do members of the genuinely "top" pairs, who would indeed have this knowledge, sit on committees? With a very few notable exceptions, they do not. > The other thing you could perhaps do is notice whether "typical" pairs > more often hesitate with weak or strong hands. This is what the EBU > claims to have done. Then you apply this _statistical_ result to _all_ > pairs, regardless of whether it really applies in a particular case. That's being just as unfair as hanging the lot, only an improvement because you do it less often. > Personally, I'd rather just let the guilty go in this situation. But > hit them with serious procedural penalties in situations that are less > ambiguous. We don't seem to be able to come up with any way to avoid letting them go that doesn't risk punishing the innocent, so whether we like it or not it seems to be where we're heading. Compensating by increasing the severity of penalties for infractions we can catch safely will help us deal with the marginally ethical thickheads who are convinced that they're not doing anything wrong and won't learn better. It won't help with the real nasties, who have an amazing ability to learn very quickly what they can and can't get away with. Of course, we recognize that problems with the real nasties are endemic. We don't, don't want to, and never will have a regulatory scheme so tight that someone determined to win at all cost, self-respect notwithstanding, can't find ways to beat it. Again, this is like real life. If avoiding crime is your number one priority, move to a police-state dictatorship! > Perhaps you read this too hastily. A revoke is an outrageous error, > but it's usually an accident and not a conduct offense. We have all > committed outrageous errors at the table (or at least I have :-( ), but > they weren't deliberate, nor did anybody complain about my conduct. > (Certain partners have had some choice words about ability, of course. > :-) ) I did (missed the implied subjunctive). In my terminology, those wouldn't be "errors" at all; they'd be "accidents." (If I shoot you unintentionally because I dropped the gun and it went off, that's an accident. If I shoot you unintentionally because I mistook you for someone else, that's an error.) Accidents are never hypothesized as "reasonable" (when we adjudicate "the most unfavorable result that was at all probable" we don't consider revokes or mis-pulled cards, even if the pair in question does it all the time, so that it's in fact quite probable). But whatever we call them, they don't apply. When a player considered alternative actions and selected one, however illogical his choice may have been, it wasn't an accident. We may occasionally revoke, but we never decide to revoke. > The current US definition of "not a logical alternative" is not very > different from number 4. So it would seem. We don't allow for accidents, which by definition are unconsidered actions. Beyond that, anything goes. After all, how do you conclude that a particular action in a particular situation would be the most outrageous stinkeroo you've ever seen in your entire life unless you've "seriously considered" it? > If you adopt that approach, the problem is only rephrased. Instead of > "How many equivalent players would...?" we ask "Would this player > normally...?" I don't see any difference between these questions. Both translate to what a player at that ability level would do "on average." > I think what I'm suggesting involves making "logical alternative" not > depend very strongly on the player's level. That has advantages and > disadvantages. Certainly number 2 is independent of the player's level. That might be acceptable to the players. We can get away with treating everyone as though they all played at the same level provided that doing so breaks to the advantage of the weaker players, not the stronger ones. > Another, perhaps slightly humorous, definition of "clear error" might > be: a player who did it at the table, at the time thinking it was > right, would not even try to defend himself in the post-mortem. > Maybe this is really the definition of "demonstrable error." Too tough for a committee. Besides, we all know players who'll jump to their own defense in the post mortem no matter what ridiculousness they've perpetrated. /eric Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Sun Apr 28 23:03:12 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA20616 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 23:03:12 +1000 Received: from mail.be.innet.net (mail.be.innet.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA20602 for ; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 23:03:05 +1000 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-91.innet.be [194.7.10.75]) by mail.be.innet.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA20128 for ; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 15:02:57 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <31838354.124@innet.be> Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 14:40:20 +0000 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws Subject: percentage of players for logical alternative Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk The problem with percentages should be set in another way : Suppose at the table they produced an action, and you want to find out whether there is a logical alternative. You ask a first player, he gives the same answer. You ask a second, he too. You ask a third, he produces an alternative. You now have 25% of the players who give another bidding. If you decide that the percentage should be even less, then you must ask even more players for their opinion. When have you ever heard more than 4 bridge players agree ? -- Herman DE WAEL E-Mail HermanDW@innet.be Michel Willemslaan 40 tel ++32.3.827.64.45 B-2610 WILRIJK (Antwerpen) fax ++32.3.825.29.19 Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Sun Apr 28 23:03:13 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA20617 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 23:03:13 +1000 Received: from mail.be.innet.net (mail.be.innet.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA20603 for ; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 23:03:05 +1000 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-91.innet.be [194.7.10.75]) by mail.be.innet.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA20133 for ; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 15:03:00 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <31838592.2AA7@innet.be> Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 14:49:54 +0000 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws Subject: procedural penalties Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I think most penalties should be expressed in IMP's, not VP's. When you let opponents score an extra trick, this will usually give them an IMP. This IMP can be very costly indeed in a six-board match, but will hardly matter in a 32-board match. The same with procedural penalties. If for an infraction, you get a 3IMP penalty, in a small match, this will be a VP, in a larger one, about half of a VP. But then again, you are more likely to make infractions in longer matches ! -- Herman DE WAEL E-Mail HermanDW@innet.be Michel Willemslaan 40 tel ++32.3.827.64.45 B-2610 WILRIJK (Antwerpen) fax ++32.3.825.29.19 Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Sun Apr 28 23:21:21 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA20697 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 23:21:21 +1000 Received: from sunset.ma.huji.ac.il (sunset.ma.huji.ac.il [132.64.32.12]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA20692 for ; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 23:20:54 +1000 Received: (from grabiner@localhost) by sunset.ma.huji.ac.il (8.6.11/8.6.10) id QAA07589; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 16:17:31 +0300 Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 16:17:31 +0300 Message-Id: <199604281317.QAA07589@sunset.ma.huji.ac.il> From: David Joseph Grabiner To: hermandw@innet.be CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-reply-to: <31838592.2AA7@innet.be> (message from Herman De Wael on Sun, 28 Apr 1996 14:49:54 +0000) Subject: Re: procedural penalties Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk You write: > I think most penalties should be expressed in IMP's, not VP's. When you > let opponents score an extra trick, this will usually give them an IMP. > This IMP can be very costly indeed in a six-board match, but will hardly > matter in a 32-board match. > The same with procedural penalties. If for an infraction, you get a > 3IMP penalty, in a small match, this will be a VP, in a larger one, > about half of a VP. But then again, you are more likely to make > infractions in longer matches ! Procedural penalties in VP's can be adjusted for the length of the match. Two or three VP's is a common penalty in a seven-board Swiss; one or half a VP is more appropriate in a 32-board round robin. The problem with procedural penalties in IMPs is that they have an uneven effect. If you lost a blitz, or won a blitz with three IMPs to spare, or had certain other scores, a three-IMP penalty for slow play or using UI won't change your score. If you won by seven (13 VP's in a 20 board match), it will cost you two VP's. At matchpoints, a quarter-board has the same effect on your score whether you got a top, bottom, or average on the board with the penalty. -- David Grabiner, grabiner@math.huji.ac.il, http://www.ma.huji.ac.il/~grabiner I speak at the Hebrew University, but not for it. Shop at the Mobius Strip Mall: Always on the same side of the street! Klein Glassworks, Torus Coffee and Donuts, Projective Airlines, etc. From owner-bridge-laws Sun Apr 28 23:27:34 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA20727 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 23:27:34 +1000 Received: from mail.be.innet.net (mail.be.innet.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA20722 for ; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 23:27:25 +1000 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-91.innet.be [194.7.10.75]) by mail.be.innet.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA21214; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 15:27:12 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <31838E25.6BAE@innet.be> Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 15:26:29 +0000 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws , David Joseph Grabiner Subject: Re: procedural penalties References: <199604281317.QAA07589@sunset.ma.huji.ac.il> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Joseph Grabiner wrote: > > > Procedural penalties in VP's can be adjusted for the length of the > match. Two or three VP's is a common penalty in a seven-board Swiss; > one or half a VP is more appropriate in a 32-board round robin. > Why try to adjust if the IMP-VP table does just that ? I think the same error should give the same penalty, and only 10% (in pairs') or 3IMPs (in teams') can do this. -- Herman DE WAEL E-Mail HermanDW@innet.be Michel Willemslaan 40 tel ++32.3.827.64.45 B-2610 WILRIJK (Antwerpen) fax ++32.3.825.29.19 Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Sun Apr 28 23:33:13 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA20762 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 23:33:13 +1000 Received: from sunset.ma.huji.ac.il (sunset.ma.huji.ac.il [132.64.32.12]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA20757 for ; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 23:32:37 +1000 Received: (from grabiner@localhost) by sunset.ma.huji.ac.il (8.6.11/8.6.10) id QAA07792; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 16:30:41 +0300 Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 16:30:41 +0300 Message-Id: <199604281330.QAA07792@sunset.ma.huji.ac.il> From: David Joseph Grabiner To: hermandw@innet.be CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-reply-to: <31838E25.6BAE@innet.be> (message from Herman De Wael on Sun, 28 Apr 1996 15:26:29 +0000) Subject: Re: procedural penalties Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk You write: > David Joseph Grabiner wrote: >> >> >> Procedural penalties in VP's can be adjusted for the length of the >> match. Two or three VP's is a common penalty in a seven-board Swiss; >> one or half a VP is more appropriate in a 32-board round robin. >> > Why try to adjust if the IMP-VP table does just that ? > I think the same error should give the same penalty, and only 10% (in > pairs') or 3IMPs (in teams') can do this. I have the same principle in mind, but I don't see 3 IMPs as "the same" penalty because it doesn't count the same in your final score, depending on when it happens. VP's are used rather than total IMPs to prevent a team from getting a big advantage by beating up on a very weak team; they should also be used for penalties so that the team has to pay the same penalty for playing slowly against the weak team. -- David Grabiner, grabiner@math.huji.ac.il, http://www.ma.huji.ac.il/~grabiner I speak at the Hebrew University, but not for it. Shop at the Mobius Strip Mall: Always on the same side of the street! Klein Glassworks, Torus Coffee and Donuts, Projective Airlines, etc. From owner-bridge-laws Mon Apr 29 08:33:28 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA02408 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 29 Apr 1996 08:33:28 +1000 Received: (from markus@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA02402 for bridge-laws@rgb; Mon, 29 Apr 1996 08:33:24 +1000 Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 08:33:24 +1000 From: Markus Buchhorn Message-Id: <199604282233.IAA02402@octavia.anu.edu.au> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: From Jeff Goldsmith Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk [Forwarded to the list after accidentally coming to me.. Note that the posting address is bridge-laws, not owner-bridge-laws -MB] > Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 09:24:41 -0700 > From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) > To: owner-bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au > > >From owner-bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Fri Apr 26 08:25:22 1996 > > |From: Eric Landau > | > |And it opens the door to some appalling behavior. I've personally seen > |one of the US's top players (McKenney winner) on two occassions get off > |in situations where any of us would hang by browbeating the committees > |into conceding (truthfully, to be sure) that he's a better bridge player > |than any of them, convincing them, on that basis, to accept his "bridge > |judgment" as superior to their own, and giving him a favorable ruling > |based on his own analysis. > > I've seen this happen, too, although not by a McKenney winner. > A local player who fancies himself as an expert was the defendant > in a committee hearing I requested. He is pretty big and stood > up the whole time, leaned over the table, shouted throughout, > was rather abusive and profane, and ... won the appeal, even > though his position was almost entirely without merit. Appeals > committee members are human and are subject to such frailties. > Someday, however, he'll try that tactic against a committee > who won't stand for it and he'll be in C&E. I couldn't believe > that he didn't go there for that particular performance. > --Jeff > # Cthulhu in '96! Why vote for the lesser evil? > # --- > # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff > From owner-bridge-laws Mon Apr 29 08:38:30 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA02427 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 29 Apr 1996 08:38:30 +1000 Received: (from markus@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA02421 for bridge-laws@rgb; Mon, 29 Apr 1996 08:38:27 +1000 Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 08:38:27 +1000 From: Markus Buchhorn Message-Id: <199604282238.IAA02421@octavia.anu.edu.au> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: From Jeff Goldsmith 2 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk [Forwarded to the list after accidentally coming to me.. Note that the posting address is bridge-laws, not owner-bridge-laws. Your mailer should use the 'Reply-To:' or 'From:' header, never the 'From ' -MB] > Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 09:40:20 -0700 > From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) > To: owner-bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au > > >From owner-bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Fri Apr 26 09:23:38 1996 > From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) > > |> So how do we EVER "discover" a pattern? > | > |For most pairs, I claim you cannot (practically) discover a pattern > |specific to that pair. For the top pairs, you can. They all know each > |other and will know if one of their number starts hesitating only with > |weak or strong hands. > > I don't believe that. I'm not a full-time professional, and > those who are might have a shot at detecting this sort of thing, > but I doubt it. > > Even if someone were to KNOW there is a pattern, how could > he prove it? "...I've been playing against Joe Foo for years > now, and he only huddles with weak hands." "Bullshit." "Here's > some evidence: I wrote down your huddles on every hand of our > 64-board Vanderbilt match." "I only had problems on those hands. > In the previous match, I huddled a bunch of times with strong > hands." "Show me." "Yeah, right. I keep track? Be serious." > > What will happen, however, is that if such a pattern does get > noticed, the player will get the brand "unethical." That needs > no proof. How much of a penalty is that? Some---some of the best > players won't play on teams with such players. There are enough > very good players who will, however, that such offenders seem not to suffer. > I've often considered (in many applications) the appropriateness of > imposing sanctions against teammates of folks who commit egregious > unethical actions. Sometimes the innocent will be forced to suffer, > but maybe that'll cause the innocent to do a better job of picking > their teammates. > > |The current US definition of "not a logical alternative" is not very > |different from number 4. > > My opinion of what is not a logical alternative is > "an error you'd be embarrassed to show your peers." > I think it lies somewhere between 3 and 4 on the > list that's been going around here. That definition > has the secondary benefit in that if someone lost an > appeal, to complain about it he'd have to show his > friends his error. :) > --Jeff > # Cthulhu in '96! Why vote for the lesser evil? > # --- > # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Tue Apr 30 02:27:07 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA11698 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 02:27:07 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA11693 for ; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 02:26:51 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ac17924; 29 Apr 96 17:26 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa19981; 29 Apr 96 17:24 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 17:24:14 +0100 To: Bridge Laws From: David Stevenson Subject: Re: E-Mail In-Reply-To: <31839b49.11570327@pipmail.dknet.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi Alan Hi Jesper Hi All >>I got absolutely no e-mail from Friday afternoon till this morning. I just >>received some discussion about Procedural Penalties >> >>I can't believe y'all were able to be silent for that long and just wanted to >>make sure I hadn't somehow missed something of substance. >> >>I thought something might have gone wrong with our new system. > >I've seen the same hole in the flow - perhaps we just _were_ silent, >strange as it may seem. I went to Jersey on Friday, came back Monday, played as a professional. I shall often be away at weekends. Next Friday I am going to Stratford for our Spring Foursomes: 48 teams, 32 board matches, double elimination, invited Polish Team: very high level competition. I am one of five TDs, including Max Bavin, England's Chief TD. I am always with the top stream. When next Tuesday comes there will be only four teams left and only one TD: me. Even Max will go home. As a special dispensation the Polish Club will be allowed (first time ever in an English competition). So I shall not be posting between Friday morning and Wednesday morning. Cheers -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Nothing ventured, nothing gained |o o| david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome =( @ )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please \~/ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Apr 30 11:03:25 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA21250 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 11:03:25 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA21245 for ; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 11:03:16 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ay22589; 30 Apr 96 2:01 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa09542; 30 Apr 96 1:39 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 00:24:37 +0100 To: Bridge Laws From: David Stevenson Subject: Procedural penalties In-Reply-To: <199604281330.QAA07792@sunset.ma.huji.ac.il> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi David >> David Joseph Grabiner wrote: Welcome. Hi David Hi Herman Hi All >>> Procedural penalties in VP's can be adjusted for the length of the >>> match. Two or three VP's is a common penalty in a seven-board Swiss; >>> one or half a VP is more appropriate in a 32-board round robin. >>> >> Why try to adjust if the IMP-VP table does just that ? >> I think the same error should give the same penalty, and only 10% (in >> pairs') or 3IMPs (in teams') can do this. > >I have the same principle in mind, but I don't see 3 IMPs as "the same" >penalty because it doesn't count the same in your final score, depending >on when it happens. VP's are used rather than total IMPs to prevent a >team from getting a big advantage by beating up on a very weak team; >they should also be used for penalties so that the team has to pay the >same penalty for playing slowly against the weak team. The EBU supplement to the EBL Tournament directors' Guide contains: Law 90 Procedural penalties 90.4 Expressed in final method of scoring Procedural penalties are expressed in terms of the final method of scoring, or the method by which the contestants are primarily ranked. They do not affect other contestants, except in a 'head-to-head' contest, when they reduce the score of the offender, as expressed in the basic method of scoring. The 'standard amount' (referred to elsewhere in this supplement and defined in EBU 12.24) is 10%: the equivalent Victory Points (VPs) to 10% of a top in a pairs event, is: maximum VPs in match --------------------------------- 6 x number of boards in the match If not a multiple of 1/2 VP, this is rounded to the next higher such multiple. Thus in a three board match, the fine is 20/(6*3), or 1 1/2 VPs (after rounding). The EBL 25 to 0 scale is treated the same as the EBU's 20 to minus 5 scale, so the maximum is deemed to be 20. ----- Of course this is not an authority outside England (or possibly Great Britain) but it has been discussed, thought about, decided and the conclusions published. The English approach to regulations which so amused people in Milan has the advantage of giving a TD a clear line on how to act and the documentary evidence so that he can show he has acted properly. Cheers -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Nothing ventured, nothing gained |o o| david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome =( @ )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please \~/ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Apr 30 11:23:32 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA21385 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 11:23:32 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA21379 for ; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 11:23:12 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id aa22731; 30 Apr 96 2:01 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa09555; 30 Apr 96 1:39 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 18:54:41 +0100 To: Bridge Laws From: David Stevenson Subject: Re: percentage of players for logical alternative In-Reply-To: <31838354.124@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi Herman >The problem with percentages should be set in another way : >Suppose at the table they produced an action, and you want to find out >whether there is a logical alternative. >You ask a first player, he gives the same answer. >You ask a second, he too. >You ask a third, he produces an alternative. >You now have 25% of the players who give another bidding. >If you decide that the percentage should be even less, then you must ask >even more players for their opinion. When have you ever heard more than >4 bridge players agree ? No, the problem with percentages is that some people think that it means that taking a poll is acceptable. Cheers -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Nothing ventured, nothing gained |o o| david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome =( @ )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please \~/ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Apr 30 11:27:39 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA21416 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 11:27:39 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA21395 for ; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 11:23:37 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ad22731; 30 Apr 96 2:01 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa09581; 30 Apr 96 1:39 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 18:44:20 +0100 To: Bridge Laws From: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Comments on lots of issues In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi Eric Hi Steve Hi All > Outrageous (or egregious) Error: an error so blatant that a player > deliberately committing it could only be trying to lose. Certainly not! You should see some of my errors! This is a very poor definition because on occasion all human beings (except Pietro Forquet) make decisions that make it appear that their brains were not switched on. --------------- > And it opens the door to some appalling behavior. I've personally > seen one of the US's top players (McKenney winner) on two occassions > get off in situations where any of us would hang by browbeating the > committees into conceding (truthfully, to be sure) that he's a better > bridge player than any of them, convincing them, on that basis, to > accept his "bridge judgment" as superior to their own, and giving him > a favorable ruling based on his own analysis. Don't your AC decisions get reviewed? No, I suppose not, now I think of everything I have seen, especially from Alan. If an English AC did this then our L&EC would write some extremely stroppy letters! --------------- >>> And the offender replies: Wait a minute. He huddles all the time >>> with both strong hands and weak ones >> This was exactly my point. There's no way to track all huddles via >> the committee system. Unless you are prepared to punish innocent >> pairs who do indeed huddle with both strong and weak hands, you have >> to let the guilty go. > So we have to. Fairness in bridge law, like fairness in real-life > law, means that we must be willing to let a substantial number of the > guilty get off to protect a small number of innocents. The whole problem with your approach lies in the word "punish". These adjustments are **not** punishments. The approach of the TD/AC is to attempt to achieve equity by adjustments, and perhaps to penalise via procedural penalties. We have to adjust on a reasonable basis: that does **not** mean we need proof before we adjust. > Personally, I'd rather just let the guilty go in this situation. But > hit them with serious procedural penalties in situations that are less > ambiguous. This is totally wrong and penalises the so-called non-offending pair. If you have to maltreat someone, whom do you maltreat: the perpetrator or the victim? --------------- > Another, perhaps slightly humorous, definition of "clear error" might > be: a player who did it at the table, at the time thinking it was > right, would not even try to defend himself in the post-mortem. > Maybe this is really the definition of "demonstrable error." If this is meant to be funny, OK. :-) Just so long as you realise that in practice players defend their actions even when out of their tiny minds. Cheers -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Nothing ventured, nothing gained |o o| david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome =( @ )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please \~/ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Apr 30 11:30:23 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA21438 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 11:30:23 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA21433 for ; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 11:30:11 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ad22731; 30 Apr 96 2:01 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa09581; 30 Apr 96 1:39 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 18:44:20 +0100 To: Bridge Laws From: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Comments on lots of issues In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi Eric Hi Steve Hi All > Outrageous (or egregious) Error: an error so blatant that a player > deliberately committing it could only be trying to lose. Certainly not! You should see some of my errors! This is a very poor definition because on occasion all human beings (except Pietro Forquet) make decisions that make it appear that their brains were not switched on. --------------- > And it opens the door to some appalling behavior. I've personally > seen one of the US's top players (McKenney winner) on two occassions > get off in situations where any of us would hang by browbeating the > committees into conceding (truthfully, to be sure) that he's a better > bridge player than any of them, convincing them, on that basis, to > accept his "bridge judgment" as superior to their own, and giving him > a favorable ruling based on his own analysis. Don't your AC decisions get reviewed? No, I suppose not, now I think of everything I have seen, especially from Alan. If an English AC did this then our L&EC would write some extremely stroppy letters! --------------- >>> And the offender replies: Wait a minute. He huddles all the time >>> with both strong hands and weak ones >> This was exactly my point. There's no way to track all huddles via >> the committee system. Unless you are prepared to punish innocent >> pairs who do indeed huddle with both strong and weak hands, you have >> to let the guilty go. > So we have to. Fairness in bridge law, like fairness in real-life > law, means that we must be willing to let a substantial number of the > guilty get off to protect a small number of innocents. The whole problem with your approach lies in the word "punish". These adjustments are **not** punishments. The approach of the TD/AC is to attempt to achieve equity by adjustments, and perhaps to penalise via procedural penalties. We have to adjust on a reasonable basis: that does **not** mean we need proof before we adjust. > Personally, I'd rather just let the guilty go in this situation. But > hit them with serious procedural penalties in situations that are less > ambiguous. This is totally wrong and penalises the so-called non-offending pair. If you have to maltreat someone, whom do you maltreat: the perpetrator or the victim? --------------- > Another, perhaps slightly humorous, definition of "clear error" might > be: a player who did it at the table, at the time thinking it was > right, would not even try to defend himself in the post-mortem. > Maybe this is really the definition of "demonstrable error." If this is meant to be funny, OK. :-) Just so long as you realise that in practice players defend their actions even when out of their tiny minds. Cheers -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Nothing ventured, nothing gained |o o| david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome =( @ )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please \~/ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Apr 30 22:47:38 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA24639 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 22:47:38 +1000 Received: from opera.iinet.net.au (www.iinet.net.au [203.59.18.33]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA24634 for ; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 22:47:33 +1000 Received: from grunge.iinet.net.au (grunge.iinet.net.au [203.0.178.34]) by opera.iinet.net.au (8.7.1/8.7.1) with ESMTP id UAA01298 for ; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 20:47:47 +0800 Received: from grunge38.nv.iinet.net.au (grunge54.nv.iinet.net.au [203.59.25.54]) by grunge.iinet.net.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA01435 for ; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 20:47:20 +0800 Message-Id: <199604301247.UAA01435@grunge.iinet.net.au> X-Sender: dyovich@mail.iinet.net.au X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 20:42:26 -0400 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Dennis Yovich Subject: Law 27B Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi The National Authority Committee of the Australian Bridge Federation has been asked to make a determination about Law 27B, as there appears to be variations in interpretation among senior directors. Dr Reg Busch has posed the question to the Committee for an interpretation and poses the following two sides to the question. The interpretation is particularly in reference to an insufficient response to a 4NT Blackwood bid. He believes that the great majority of insufficient Blackwood responses are inadvertent, in that there was never an intention to make a 4 level response, and that in many cases the offender was unconsciously "echoing" his partner's 4 level bid. Law 27 requires the director to decide, not that a bid has been conventional, but that it was definitely not conventional. In making his decision, the bid in isolation is meaningless. The director must consider such things as the auction to date, the partnership system, what the offender thought he was responding to, and the intention in the offenders mind when he made the bid. If the director is quite satisfied that the bid was not conventional he will apply Law 27B1. If he is not so satisfied, then he will apply Law 27B2 and will bar partner from bidding. The phrase in 27B2 "if the insufficient bid may have been conventional" could equally well be written "if there was a possibility that the bid was conventional" or even " in all cases where the director is not fully that the bid was not conventional". Dr Busch's interpretation is that in every case where he is not satisfied that the bid is not conventional, he must bar partner. He feels that this is very Draconian, because the insufficient Blackwood response rarely causes damage. The alternative view is: 1. A conventional bid serves by partnership agreement to convey a meaning not necessarily related to the denomination named. How can an insufficient bid be conventional? How many partnerships have an agreement about a 4NT - 4H sequence? The argument that it would have been conventional if sufficient is not relevant, because the Law talks about whether an insufficient bid itself could have been conventional. 2. Law 27B1 (b) provides for an adjusted score if the insufficient bid damaged the opponents, so there is already protection for the non-offenders. 3. There is greater emphasis in the 1987 Laws on equity and redress for damages, not on punishing infractions. 4. The phrase in 27B2 "if the insufficient bid may have been conventional" allows the director discretion in deciding on the possiblity of damage in reaching his decision. This view would consider the question of possible damage before applying 27B2. The two views enunciated by Dr Busch in his submission to the committee will require resolution, and input from those interested would be appreciated. Dennis Yovich Dennis Yovich Electronic Bridge Accessories P/L Ph: 61-9-341-8116 (Home) 61-9-420-2458 (Work) Fax: 61-9-341-4547 (Home) 61-9-420-3178 (Work) From owner-bridge-laws Tue Apr 30 23:21:22 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA24778 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 23:21:22 +1000 Received: from opera.iinet.net.au (www.iinet.net.au [203.59.18.33]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA24773 for ; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 23:21:18 +1000 Received: from grunge.iinet.net.au (grunge.iinet.net.au [203.0.178.34]) by opera.iinet.net.au (8.7.1/8.7.1) with ESMTP id VAA03978 for ; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 21:21:31 +0800 Received: from grunge38.nv.iinet.net.au (jazz180.dy.iinet.net.au [203.8.222.180]) by grunge.iinet.net.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA02726 for ; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 21:21:07 +0800 Message-Id: <199604301321.VAA02726@grunge.iinet.net.au> X-Sender: dyovich@mail.iinet.net.au X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 21:16:09 -0400 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Dennis Yovich Subject: Law 27B Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi The National Authority Committee of the Australian Bridge Federation has been asked to make a determination about Law 27B, as there appears to be variations in interpretation among senior directors. Dr Reg Busch has posed the question to the Committee for an interpretation and poses the following two sides to the question. The interpretation is particularly in reference to an insufficient response to a 4NT Blackwood bid. He believes that the great majority of insufficient Blackwood responses are inadvertent, in that there was never an intention to make a 4 level response, and that in many cases the offender was unconsciously "echoing" his partner's 4 level bid. Law 27 requires the director to decide, not that a bid has been conventional, but that it was definitely not conventional. In making his decision, the bid in isolation is meaningless. The director must consider such things as the auction to date, the partnership system, what the offender thought he was responding to, and the intention in the offenders mind when he made the bid. If the director is quite satisfied that the bid was not conventional he will apply Law 27B1. If he is not so satisfied, then he will apply Law 27B2 and will bar partner from bidding. The phrase in 27B2 "if the insufficient bid may have been conventional" could equally well be written "if there was a possibility that the bid was conventional" or even " in all cases where the director is not fully that the bid was not conventional". Dr Busch's interpretation is that in every case where he is not satisfied that the bid is not conventional, he must bar partner. He feels that this is very Draconian, because the insufficient Blackwood response rarely causes damage. The alternative view is: 1. A conventional bid serves by partnership agreement to convey a meaning not necessarily related to the denomination named. How can an insufficient bid be conventional? How many partnerships have an agreement about a 4NT - 4H sequence? The argument that it would have been conventional if sufficient is not relevant, because the Law talks about whether an insufficient bid itself could have been conventional. 2. Law 27B1 (b) provides for an adjusted score if the insufficient bid damaged the opponents, so there is already protection for the non-offenders. 3. There is greater emphasis in the 1987 Laws on equity and redress for damages, not on punishing infractions. 4. The phrase in 27B2 "if the insufficient bid may have been conventional" allows the director discretion in deciding on the possiblity of damage in reaching his decision. This view would consider the question of possible damage before applying 27B2. The two views enunciated by Dr Busch in his submission to the committee will require resolution, and input from those interested would be appreciated. Dennis Yovich Dennis Yovich Electronic Bridge Accessories P/L Ph: 61-9-341-8116 (Home) 61-9-420-2458 (Work) Fax: 61-9-341-4547 (Home) 61-9-420-3178 (Work) Dennis Yovich Electronic Bridge Accessories P/L Ph: 61-9-341-8116 (Home) 61-9-420-2458 (Work) Fax: 61-9-341-4547 (Home) 61-9-420-3178 (Work)