From owner-bridge-laws Fri Aug 2 05:55:41 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA25378 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 05:55:41 +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 FAA25373 for ; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 05:55:33 +1000 Received: from cph51.ppp.dknet.dk (cph51.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.51]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA24887 for ; Thu, 1 Aug 1996 21:55:21 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Try this, but RTFLB first! Date: Thu, 01 Aug 1996 21:55:03 +0200 Organization: at home Message-ID: <32010b78.3641345@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99e/32.227 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Mon, 29 Jul 1996 16:53:30 +0200, Jens Brix Christiansen wrote: >Screens are in use; the screen puts N and E on the same side. W >is declarer in 4H after E has shown support. S leads the C2 face up >(out of turn) and W raises the screen without noticing. It turns out >that N has led a card face down and E has started to put down dummy, >exposing the H5 and the H4. At this point, everybody notices the >problem, and they call the TD. Now what? A face-down lead in turn, a face-up lead out of turn, and dummy putting down his hand. The laws know nothing about screens. In this case, the screen has the effect of making some not necessarily simultaneous actions visible at the same time; so, because of the screen, I would rule the two opening leads as being simultaneous leads. L59: A lead of play made simultaneously with another player's legal lead or play is deemed to be subsequent to it. But is N's face-down lead actually a lead in this sense? The terminology of L41 seems to indicate that a face-down lead is a lead which can sometimes be withdrawn rather than just a card that will probably soon be led. L41A: The face-down lead may be withdrawn only upon instruction of the Director after an irregularity ... We certainly have an irregularity here. However, my interpretation of L41A is that the TD should allow the lead to be withdrawn only when withdrawing it directly avoids an irregularity (lead from wrong hand) or repairs the consequences of a prior irregularity (wrong explanation from opponents). I would certainly find it unreasonable to allow N to withdraw his lead in turn because his partner has led out of turn, and then require W to accept the lead out of turn because E had begun to put down his hand (L54C). So the ruling is: the face-down lead from N stands; it is to be faced and E can then put down the rest of dummy. S is ruled to have played the C2 to trick one (out of turn); if this is a revoke, it becomes a major penalty card. This is what I get by reading the FLB. It is also what I got before reading it. However, I just now realize that if E had not begun to put his hand down, I might well in practice have committed the error of ruling lead out of turn from S without thinking further about the matter. -- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Fri Aug 2 21:11:03 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA29040 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 21:11:03 +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 VAA29035 for ; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 21:10:52 +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 MAA02244 for ; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 12:09:15 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Fri, 02 Aug 1996 12:10:15 +0200 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Fri, 02 Aug 1996 12:02:58 +0200 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: What does "destructive" really mean? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk The term "destructive bidding" is often used, but it appears to me to have varying meanings. So here is a short essay on meanings of "destructive". 1. As a synonym for "weak, pre-emptive". This meaning has a positive ring to it. I play destructive openings of 4M in this sense (doesn't everybody)? And I play destructive raises of overcalls in this sense. No one seems to want to restrict the use of destructive agreements in this sense. 2. As a synonym for "weak, requires special defenses". This meaning has a negative ring to it. The WBF uses the concept of "brown-sticker" to cover this meaning, and many SOs, (including the Danish DBF) restrict the use of such agreements. Examples include "opening bid of 2D shows 0-5 HCP and 5-5 in two suits, one of which is a major". The rationale for restrictions (which I support) is that the difficulty in adjusting defensive agreements in events with short runds gives the pair with the "destructive" methods an advantage which is against the spirit of the game: there is no time for the opponents to use the "full disclosure" adequately. 3. As a synonym for "unusual, hence not wanted". The label "destructive" in this sense has been applied to untraditional 1NT ranges, e.g. 9-11; to 2NT openers that show a pre-empt with 5-5 in the minors; to weak 1S overcalls of strong 1C-openings that do not imply a spade suit, but simply denies a two-suited hand. I believe that the movement to ban destructive bidding, which rears its head now and then, here and there, very often gets into a circular line of reasoning by using the term "destructive" in this sense. ---- Since there seem to be at least these three meanings of the word destructive, it appears that regulations on conventions, and also debate about such regulations, are best off if they avoid the term altogether. Did I get all of this wrong? Is there a real meaning of "destructive" which has eluded me? Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Sat Aug 3 02:05:47 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA03290 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 3 Aug 1996 02:05:47 +1000 Received: from dfw-ix5.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix5.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA03285 for ; Sat, 3 Aug 1996 02:05:39 +1000 Received: from (jonbriss@sbo-ca2-14.ix.netcom.com [205.184.185.78]) by dfw-ix5.ix.netcom.com (8.6.13/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA08432; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 09:04:43 -0700 Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 09:04:43 -0700 Message-Id: <199608021604.JAA08432@dfw-ix5.ix.netcom.com> From: jonbriss@ix.netcom.com (Jon C Brissman) Subject: Re: What does "destructive" really mean? To: Jens Brix Christiansen Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jens wrote: > >The term "destructive bidding" is often used, but it appears >to me to have varying meanings. So here is a short essay >on meanings of "destructive". > >1. As a synonym for "weak, pre-emptive". > >This meaning has a positive ring to it. I play destructive >openings of 4M in this sense (doesn't everybody)? And >I play destructive raises of overcalls in this sense. >No one seems to want to restrict the use of destructive >agreements in this sense. > >2. As a synonym for "weak, requires special defenses". > >This meaning has a negative ring to it. The WBF uses >the concept of "brown-sticker" to cover this meaning, >and many SOs, (including the Danish DBF) restrict the >use of such agreements. Examples include "opening >bid of 2D shows 0-5 HCP and 5-5 in two suits, one >of which is a major". > >The rationale for restrictions (which I support) is that >the difficulty in adjusting defensive agreements in >events with short runds gives the pair with the >"destructive" methods an advantage which is against >the spirit of the game: there is no time for the opponents >to use the "full disclosure" adequately. > >3. As a synonym for "unusual, hence not wanted". > >The label "destructive" in this sense has been applied to >untraditional 1NT ranges, e.g. 9-11; to 2NT openers that >show a pre-empt with 5-5 in the minors; to weak 1S overcalls >of strong 1C-openings that do not imply a spade suit, but >simply denies a two-suited hand. > >I believe that the movement to ban destructive bidding, which >rears its head now and then, here and there, very often gets >into a circular line of reasoning by using the term "destructive" >in this sense. > >---- > >Since there seem to be at least these three meanings of the >word destructive, it appears that regulations on conventions, >and also debate about such regulations, are best off if they >avoid the term altogether. > >Did I get all of this wrong? Is there a real meaning of >"destructive" which has eluded me? > >Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark > > I'm not sure what the modern interpretation of "destructive" is within the ABCL, but I can give you a historical perspective from the Eighties. Bids were considered to be used either constructively or destructively, or a combination of both. Traditional preempts, which adhered to the "Rule of 500" were considered to be in the "both" category. The ACBL wanted to legislate against the bids that were intended solely to destroy the opponent's bidding methods. For instance, you referred to a 1S overcall over the opponent's strong 1C opening; this was known as the Albright convention. The 1S overcall was artificial and started the overcalling partnership scrambling to find a home if the opening side wished to defend, but there was little risk since opener's partner was conventionally bound. Other two-suited overcalls, which promised as little as 4-4 in the indicated suits with no minimum HCP restriction, were deemed to be destructive (especially when freely used with few HCP and the shape fudged to allow 4-3 shape in indicated suits). Most of the bids designed to be purely destructive died a well-deserved death since they made little bridge sense. Still, the ABCL felt that some regulation was needed for the thrill-seekers who persisted with structures or approaches that were more directed toward their opponent's methods than their own search for the optimum contract. The problem that I saw develop was that the ACBL took the destructive concept as stated above and began to expand its reach. For instance, Bobby Wolff declared a wide-range 1NT opening (10-18 HCP) to be destructive. The WR 1NT bid was not encompassed within the original scope of the definition of destructive; its effect was more like a preempt -- partially constructive and partially destructive. Like preempts, the good results of the WR 1NT came partially from the opponent's inability to cope. Accordingly, the ACBL (recognizing it had no authority to regulate a natural bid) declared the approach destructive and proscribed the use of any conventions after the opening. I thought then, and still do, that the ACBL was wrong to expand the usage of the destructive bid to include calls driven by a combination of strategies. I hope I've shed some light on the issue. Jon C. Brissman Ontario, CAlifornia, USA From owner-bridge-laws Sun Aug 4 09:55:38 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA15727 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 4 Aug 1996 09:55:38 +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 JAA15722 for ; Sun, 4 Aug 1996 09:55:20 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ab29850; 4 Aug 96 0:55 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa27556; 4 Aug 96 0:51 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 4 Aug 1996 00:40:27 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Try this, but RTFLB first! In-Reply-To: <32010b78.3641345@pipmail.dknet.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jesper Dybdal wrote: >Jens Brix Christiansen wrote: [s] Help! I sent an answer to this problem to BLML before Jesper posted his reply [it was *totally* different]: I have also posted two further articles to the Claim and concession thread: one to answer [and accept] David's `a computer is an emailer' argument, and one in reply to Steve's last article. Has anyone seen any of these? If I get this back and they have not reappeared then I shall try to reconstruct them [no, I did not keep copies: yes, I will in future]. I also sent two emails to David Burn about the same time, and possibly to others, so I am getting extremely worried. Anyone know a good witch doctor? -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK Nothing ventured, nothing gained =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Aug 6 20:54:39 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA24414 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 20:54:39 +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 UAA24409 for ; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 20:54:29 +1000 Received: from cph33.ppp.dknet.dk (cph33.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.33]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA18959; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 12:54:12 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: Bridge Laws List , David Stevenson Subject: Defender's card that must be played Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 12:53:51 +0200 Organization: at home Message-ID: <3207240f.6579681@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99e/32.227 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk RGB has a thread named "ruling, committee, etc", where I gave a reply with which David Stevenson disagrees very strongly. Instead of continuing the discussion there, I'm moving it to BLML. The question is how to determine whether a defender has held a card in a position so that it must be played; L45C says >A defender's card held so that it is possible for his partner to see >its face must be played to the current trick (...). I wrote in rgb a rule of thumb that I don't remember where I got from, but which I believed to be generally accepted: >When in doubt, rule that the card is played if an opponent has seen it >so that he can name it. David has since informed me that such a rule of thumb most certainly is not accepted in England - he finds it appalling. Which makes me interested in the opinions of the rest of you. Below is my response to a message from David; some of the text has also been posted to rgb. On Mon, 5 Aug 1996 02:40:01 +0100, David Stevenson wrote: > Sorry Jesper: I have reconsidered your procedure and I now consider >it appalling. I have realised that along with being biased, unfair and It is biased in the sense that it can be a little hard on the side causing the problem (by fiddling with a card that is not the one wanted) in order to ensure full protection for the completely innocent side. But that is a general principle of the laws, too. >having no basis in the Laws of the game, The laws do not tell us how to determine facts; they tell us _to_ determine facts. They do not tell us exactly how much effort should be spent in order to gain a very precise knowledge of facts. In situations such as this one, I find it acceptable that the facts are not determined 100% accurately when the 100% accuracy cannot be achieved with a reasonable effort (or perhaps with _any_ effort). A "reasonable effort" in this respect is not the same in a club with a playing director (which was the original situation discussed) as it is in a championship with one or more non-playing directors. Don't forget that the rule starts with the words "when in doubt". No matter what procedure you use to determine facts, there will always be cases where you find yourself unable to do so with certainty; i.e., cases where you are in doubt. You must then choose "a ruling that will permit play to continue" (L85B). Surely using the fact of whether the opponents saw the card as an indication is then better (or at least not worse) than tossing a coin. >it also means that the TD >transmits UI when the card has not previously been named. No. You don't have to ask players to name a card before you have decided that if they can do it, you are going to rule that the card must be played; you can ask players _whether_ they saw the card before you have made that decision. Of course, you can also ask them away from the table, which however destroys some of the advantage of a simple and fast procedure. > Thankyou for the article anyway. It makes me realise the good we do >in the UK by training our club TDs. So do we - actually, I'm wondering whether that could be where I originally learnt that rule of thumb. When I wrote my first reply to that article, I didn't think too much about it - I just relayed a rule of thumb that I believed to be generally accepted. But now I have thought about it, and I still believe that it is acceptable to use rather imprecise rules of thumb in some cases where it will not damage a completely innocent side. It is certainly in accordance with the _spirit_ of many laws. If you look at the penalty for a revoke, for instance, that is a prime example of a situation where the lawmakers made a (supposedly) simple-to-use rule which will often penalize the offending side beyond anything even resembling equity - obviously because the TD would be too busy if he had to adjust scores in all revoke situations. "It has no basis in law", you say. I don't think it is against the law to take into account any fact (such as whether opponents saw a card) that may be correlated with the fact that we are trying to determine. I don't think it is against the law to sometimes be unable to determine the facts with certainty. And I don't think the law requires us in general, or a playing director in a club game in particular, to spend an unlimited amount of time investigating. On the other hand, the law does require us to spend _some_ effort in determining the facts. My first wording of the rule of thumb on rgb ("If there is any doubt at all, ... then the TD should certainly rule ...") did perhaps suggest that the TD need not make much of an effort to dispel the doubt before ruling in that way. That would probably have been too strongly worded if regarded as a general rule, even for playing directors in clubs, but it was an answer to a question of what the director should do in a specific case where he had already determined how the card was held (horizontal, face up, chest height). (The original posting that I replied to gave the clear impression that the director had determined that at the time; in a later posting from the director himself, he said that he had not.) -- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Tue Aug 6 22:44:25 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA24990 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 22:44:25 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id WAA24985 for ; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 22:44:19 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ae16381; 6 Aug 96 12:44 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa19833; 6 Aug 96 13:39 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 12:52:53 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Law 23B MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve Willner wrote: >David Stevenson writes: >> I agree with Adam that I would adjust if dealer psyched, but under >> L23B, not L23A as he quoted. Again, it is an interpretation of a poorly >> written Law, but I believe the pass has damaged the non-offending side >> in an unacceptable way by allowing a risk-free psyche. L23A refers to a >> different situation. > >I think there may be disagreement here. > >Just to recap to make sure we are discussing the same situation: >third hand passes before dealer calls. Then third hand will be >barred _for one round_ under L30A. And as David says, dealer now has >a "risk-free" psyche available -- risk-free at least in the sense >that partner cannot raise or otherwise go wrong on the first round of >the bidding. The various other risks of psyching are still present, >of course. > >I agree that the correct law is L23B and that this law is poorly >written. The disagreement is whether it applies to a psyche by >dealer in this situation. L23B talks about damage _from the >premature pass_, not damage from the action partner takes after the >premature pass, so I would claim that it should _not_ apply in this >situation. I would envision L23B applying if, for example, the out >of turn pass discouraged partner from taking some reasonable but >unsuccessful action. > >The meaning of L23B would be a good topic for BLML. My disagreeing >with David S. is nothing new, as readers of that list know. I claim >L23B is needed only because of L16C2; if that Law were eliminated, >the usual UI rules would be sufficient, and 23B wouldn't be needed. > >Pending further discussion, I think the "take-away" point is that the >answer to the original question is not clear. > True, like so many things it is an interpretation: however it is a reasonable interpretation. EBL 23.3 [referring to L23B] In this kind of situation damage is most likely to arise via the subsequent action of the partner, who may be placed to judge his choice of call with greater confidence - as, for example, a grotesque dealer's psyche which everyone will quickly realize [sic] to be potentially collusive (we might call it a psyche "fielded in advance"). [I had to type that in: what we need is everything on the WWW!] I am not saying that L23B cannot be read in other ways: it can. However, when we have an ambiguous Law and we know what the intent of that Law is then I think we should have an acceptable interpretation based on that intent. Of course, then we can discuss the intent ... When a player passes at his partner's turn to call, he creates a situation where psyches can be made in relative safety: therefore a psyche is a consequence of this, so damage results from the call out of turn, and L23B is applied. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Aug 7 01:24:24 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA28982 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 01:24:24 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA28977 for ; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 01:24:15 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ab10711; 6 Aug 96 15:22 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa25097; 6 Aug 96 15:43 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 15:28:24 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Defender's card that must be played In-Reply-To: <3207240f.6579681@pipmail.dknet.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jesper Dybdal wrote: >RGB has a thread named "ruling, committee, etc", where I gave a reply >with which David Stevenson disagrees very strongly. Instead of >continuing the discussion there, I'm moving it to BLML. > >The question is how to determine whether a defender has held a card in >a position so that it must be played; L45C says >>A defender's card held so that it is possible for his partner to see >>its face must be played to the current trick (...). > >I wrote in rgb a rule of thumb that I don't remember where I got from, >but which I believed to be generally accepted: >>When in doubt, rule that the card is played if an opponent has seen it >>so that he can name it. > >David has since informed me that such a rule of thumb most certainly >is not accepted in England - he finds it appalling. > Somewhere along the line my main objection to this procedure seems to have disappeared. When a player moves a card forward with intent to play it, it will in most cases appear in the sight of one of his opponents before it appears in partner' sight, assuming all three are looking. Even if no-one sees it, when he jerks it back it is likely to become visible to an opponent but not to partner. So this rule of thumb means that whenever you apply it, it will be often wrong. When there is a disagreement as to whether partner could have seen it [so the decision will normally be fairly close] then I would expect one out of dummy or declarer to have seen the card in 80% of cases and partner to have been able to see the card in say 40% of cases. So in 40% of cases this rule will lead to the wrong ruling, and always in the same direction. NOTE: in the original thread on RGB it has been suggested that my advice was negative [quite correctly] so I have now posted what I believe the TD should do. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Aug 7 01:52:43 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA29164 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 01:52:43 +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 BAA29159 for ; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 01:52:38 +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 LAA03222 for ; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 11:52:25 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA07252; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 11:55:21 -0400 Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 11:55:21 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199608061555.LAA07252@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Defender's card that must be played X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > >>When in doubt, rule that the card is played if an opponent has seen it > >>so that he can name it. > From: David Stevenson > So in 40% of cases this rule will lead to the wrong ruling, and > always in the same direction. That may not be so bad for a rule of thumb in a factually ambiguous situation, especially when the ruling will always protect the innocent side. Of course if one has a better way to determine the facts in a particular case, that is much to be preferred. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Aug 7 03:43:41 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA29814 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 03:43:41 +1000 Received: from dfw-ix1.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix1.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA29809 for ; Wed, 7 Aug 1996 03:43:34 +1000 Received: from (jonbriss@sbo-ca1-02.ix.netcom.com [205.184.185.34]) by dfw-ix1.ix.netcom.com (8.6.13/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA08657; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 10:42:58 -0700 Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 10:42:58 -0700 Message-Id: <199608061742.KAA08657@dfw-ix1.ix.netcom.com> From: jonbriss@ix.netcom.com (Jon C Brissman) Subject: Re: Defender's card that must be played To: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jesper wrote: > >> >>When in doubt, rule that the card is played if an opponent has seen it >> >>so that he can name it. > >> From: David Stevenson >> So in 40% of cases this rule will lead to the wrong ruling, and >> always in the same direction. > My contribution to the discussion, for what it's worth: Let's start with the recognition that the opponent who may have seen defender's card must be the declarer, not the dummy. It seems as if there there should be some middle ground between using the suggested rule of thumb (opponent's identification equals defender's commitment) and David's position that the rule is unsupportable. The TD's job is to ascertain the facts and subsequently render a ruling that will allow play to proceed, and there is no reason that Jesper's rule of thumb cannot be one of many factors that is considered in the process. I do not believe the rule advanced should be dispositive, but it may be persuasive when considered in concert with other data. Having seen on many occasions the defender purport to recreate the mechanics of the detachment and partial play gesture, followed by the declarer's re-enactment of the same sequence, I have concluded that the two seldom show much similarity and is generally a waste of time. When the defender recreates his action, he or she does som in a manner which, if believed, would clearly result in a ruling that it was impossible for his partner to see his card. The declarer's re-enactment inevitably shows that the card was unequivocally played. Thus, it is clear that other indicia are necessary for a TD to consider. I would suggest a check-list of objective questions that a TD could ask to the participants, and the list would include the rule of thumb that started this discussion. The answers to those questions could be assigned appropriate weight by the TD, given his knowledge of the players and factoring in his assessment of the player's credibility. However, the net result is that the process is, should be and will probably remain somewhat subjective. -- Jon C. Brissman Ontario, California, USA From owner-bridge-laws Thu Aug 8 08:04:03 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA28120 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 8 Aug 1996 08:04:03 +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 IAA28115 for ; Thu, 8 Aug 1996 08:03:53 +1000 Received: from cph23.ppp.dknet.dk (cph23.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.23]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA04978 for ; Thu, 8 Aug 1996 00:02:59 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: Bridge Laws List Subject: Auction period; Law 24 Date: Thu, 08 Aug 1996 00:02:38 +0200 Organization: at home Message-ID: <32090dfe.6510111@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: <4u3cgo$gm0@newsgate.dircon.co.uk> In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99e/32.227 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Tue, 6 Aug 1996 12:53:58 +0100, in an rgb thread named "A tricky ruling?", David Stevenson wrote: >I think the finer points of the `auction' >versus `auction period' should be discussed on BLML Since I actually have a hand where this question was an issue that I intended you give you at some time anyway (from the Nordic Championships in June), I'll react to this. S is dealer, playing with screens, S & W on the same side of the screen. The players take their cards and begin sorting them. Early in N's sorting process, before W has closed the screen aperture, N drops the S7 and the S8 on the table for all to see. First question: is this during the auction and covered by L24, or is it before the auction and covered by L16? Law 17 says: >The auction period on a deal begins when a player makes a call on >that deal. Even if no player has called, the auction period begins for >a side when either partner looks at the face of his cards. So has it begun when you are sorting your cards? I believe the argument for ruling that is has _not_ begun is that N hasn't looked at her cards in the sense that she has seen _all_ her cards or has begun evaluating the hand. The argument for ruling that the auction _has_ begun is that she certainly has seen the face of some of her cards. There is another point that makes me clearly prefer this interpretation: you could say that though L24 talks of the auction period having begun, the natural point in time to distinguish between L16 and L24 in a case like this is really the point where each player has taken responsibility of her own 13 cards; from that point on, it would seem reasonable to me to impose the penalty for showing cards during the auction. I ruled that the auction had begun. Do we agree? I read out L24C: S must pass at her first turn (and a reference to L23A). S passed, W passed, S pushed the tray to the NE side of the screen, N opened 1S, ... and W says "Director, may I ask a question?". "What happens if the fact that S has seen the S7 & S8 causes NS to get to a better contract than they would otherwise have reached?". Well, since I had just seen N open 1S on the other side of the screen (which W didn't yet know), I knew there was no great risk of such a problem in this case. I said something like "I don't think I'm allowed to adjust the score in that case; but while you play the hand, I'll check the laws to make sure". And there was of course no problem in practice (NS played a normal 4S contract). But what if there had been a problem? What if it had been two aces instead of the S7 & S8, and there had been a highly competitive auction in which NS bid a good slam against opponents' bidding that inhibited S from getting information - other than the shown cards - about N's controls? The shown cards are of course authorized information to S; this is L16C2 (though, strictly speaking, L16C2 talks of "withdrawn action", I have no doubt that it is intended to also cover this situation). My opinion is that we are not allowed to use L12A1 as an excuse to adjust in such a case. The idea behind L24 must be that the forced pass is a penalty that is severe enough to compensate for the shown cards, and that it is just bad luck for the opponents if it turns out that the advantage of seeing the cards is greater than the disadvantage of the penalty. My conclusion is that using a one-round forced pass as a penalty for seeing partner's cards is simply stupid. The laws have a general and quite well working mechanism to handle information from partner: UI. So why in the world does L24 impose a quite different penalty which will quite often be unreasonably hard or unreasonably favorable for the offending side? I hope the next L24 will say that the shown cards are UI, and no forced pass. -- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Fri Aug 9 08:36:29 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA16889 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Aug 1996 08:36:29 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA16884 for ; Fri, 9 Aug 1996 08:36:11 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ac01094; 8 Aug 96 11:23 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa05321; 8 Aug 96 12:13 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 12:11:25 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Auction period; Law 24 In-Reply-To: <32090dfe.6510111@pipmail.dknet.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jesper Dybdal wrote: >David Stevenson wrote: >>I think the finer points of the `auction' >>versus `auction period' should be discussed on BLML > >Since I actually have a hand where this question was an issue that I >intended you give you at some time anyway (from the Nordic >Championships in June), I'll react to this. >S is dealer, playing with screens, S & W on the same side of the >screen. > >The players take their cards and begin sorting them. Early in N's >sorting process, before W has closed the screen aperture, N drops the >S7 and the S8 on the table for all to see. > >First question: is this during the auction and covered by L24, or is >it before the auction and covered by L16? > >Law 17 says: >>The auction period on a deal begins when a player makes a call on >>that deal. Even if no player has called, the auction period begins for >>a side when either partner looks at the face of his cards. > >So has it begun when you are sorting your cards? > >I believe the argument for ruling that is has _not_ begun is that N >hasn't looked at her cards in the sense that she has seen _all_ her >cards or has begun evaluating the hand. > >The argument for ruling that the auction _has_ begun is that she >certainly has seen the face of some of her cards. There is another >point that makes me clearly prefer this interpretation: you could say >that though L24 talks of the auction period having begun, the natural >point in time to distinguish between L16 and L24 in a case like this >is really the point where each player has taken responsibility of her >own 13 cards; from that point on, it would seem reasonable to me to >impose the penalty for showing cards during the auction. > >I ruled that the auction had begun. Do we agree? > The auction period had begun. But had the auction begun? L24 refers to "during the auction": L16B refers to "before the auction begins". Are we to assume that they mean the auction period, rather than the auction? >I read out L24C: S must pass at her first turn (and a reference to >L23A). > >S passed, W passed, S pushed the tray to the NE side of the screen, N >opened 1S, ... and W says "Director, may I ask a question?". > >"What happens if the fact that S has seen the S7 & S8 causes NS to get >to a better contract than they would otherwise have reached?". > Write to the lawmakers? :):) >Well, since I had just seen N open 1S on the other side of the screen >(which W didn't yet know), I knew there was no great risk of such a >problem in this case. I said something like "I don't think I'm >allowed to adjust the score in that case; but while you play the hand, >I'll check the laws to make sure". And there was of course no problem >in practice (NS played a normal 4S contract). > >But what if there had been a problem? What if it had been two aces >instead of the S7 & S8, and there had been a highly competitive >auction in which NS bid a good slam against opponents' bidding that >inhibited S from getting information - other than the shown cards - >about N's controls? > This is rub of the green in general. Two specific exceptions come to mind. First, where 13 cards are deliberately thrown on the table: we must not condone such behaviour, so making the board unplayable seems a fair option. Second where a player [for example in a highly competitive auction, holding two aces] might perceive an advantage in showing partner the cards and taking the penalty: I understand that the approach of adjusting where the player "could have known ..." is to become general and be included in a general Law in the new book: good: that will solve this sort of thing. >The shown cards are of course authorized information to S; this is >L16C2 (though, strictly speaking, L16C2 talks of "withdrawn action", I >have no doubt that it is intended to also cover this situation). > Interesting: we have several discussions here on this type of matter, based on the assumption that L16C2 does not apply where there is no withdrawn action. >My opinion is that we are not allowed to use L12A1 as an excuse to >adjust in such a case. The idea behind L24 must be that the forced >pass is a penalty that is severe enough to compensate for the shown >cards, and that it is just bad luck for the opponents if it turns out >that the advantage of seeing the cards is greater than the >disadvantage of the penalty. > Of course you cannot use L12A1. The original article scratched the board under L12A2 not L12A1, because of the deliberate nature of showing 13 cards. >My conclusion is that using a one-round forced pass as a penalty for >seeing partner's cards is simply stupid. The laws have a general and >quite well working mechanism to handle information from partner: UI. >So why in the world does L24 impose a quite different penalty which >will quite often be unreasonably hard or unreasonably favorable for >the offending side? I hope the next L24 will say that the shown cards >are UI, and no forced pass. The Laws have specific penalties in many situations instead of UI, for example L26, lead penalties. I think that getting rid of all of them is a poor idea and would create too many problems for TDs, especially at lower levels. At the moment if you bid 3H over 3S, change it to a pass and do not bid again, then declarer can stop your partner leading a heart if he wishes. This covers the main potential UI problem, and in fact your heart bid becomes AI [though that will change in the next Laws, I understand]. This is an easy way of dealing with it and should not be made considerably more difficult. You have considered one small subset of the cases where UI could be present but the Laws have specific restrictions. The whole makes life a lot easier and should remain: given that, I see no reason why your specific example should differ. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK Nothing ventured, nothing gained =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Aug 9 08:37:43 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA16907 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Aug 1996 08:37:43 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA16901 for ; Fri, 9 Aug 1996 08:37:37 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id aa13069; 8 Aug 96 16:51 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa13837; 8 Aug 96 17:48 +0100 Message-ID: <$kpdE0A$QdCyEw0z@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 12:49:19 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Lost emails MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk It is clear that a number of emails sent by me on the 17th, 18th, 19th or 20th of August have been lost in the system. Having consulted my service provider it has been concluded that they are not recoverable. I do not have copies of most of them. In the few cases where I do have copies then I have sent a fresh email. I acknowledge or reply to most emails. If anyone has sent me an email to reach me at about that time then it is quite likely that I shall have answered it then deleted your email: if you have sent one that you would expect me to answer then please send it again. My apologies for the trouble caused: I shall review my deleting procedure especially for important emails. I shall try and reconstruct the few that I remember that were important and resend them. -- David Stevenson david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please From owner-bridge-laws Fri Aug 9 08:43:16 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA17047 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Aug 1996 08:43:16 +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 IAA17042 for ; Fri, 9 Aug 1996 08:43:07 +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 LAA04958 for ; Thu, 8 Aug 1996 11:52:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA08277; Thu, 8 Aug 1996 11:55:55 -0400 Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 11:55:55 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199608081555.LAA08277@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Auction period; Law 24 X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Some of the points raised are related to the problem on r.g.b: a player deliberately exposed his whole hand before the beginning of the auction. In the case Jesper is discussing, two cards were accidentally exposed. > From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) > I ruled that the auction had begun. Do we agree? I agree; don't know about anybody else. The key seems to me to be whether the exposure is the responsibility of the player himself or some outside entity. A tougher question: what if a player has a twitch removing the cards, and some are exposed? Nobody has seen any cards until this occurrence, yet it is clearly the player's responsibility. I would prefer to rule under L24, but the letter of the law seems to call for L16. > But what if there had been a problem? What if it had been two aces > instead of the S7 & S8, and there had been a highly competitive > auction in which NS bid a good slam against opponents' bidding that > inhibited S from getting information - other than the shown cards - > about N's controls? I think the relevant law is 12A2: normal play of the board is impossible. Probably the director ought to warn players of this possibility when making the original ruling. In the case of all 13 cards exposed (unless the hand is a flat bust), the ruling would be made at the beginning, but with a couple of spot cards, the director can wait and see how things proceed. This interpretation lets a normal score be found where the information from the exposed cards is immaterial and still protects the innocent side when necessary. Are there problems with this interpretation of L12A2? > The shown cards are of course authorized information to S; this is > L16C2 (though, strictly speaking, L16C2 talks of "withdrawn action", I > have no doubt that it is intended to also cover this situation). I'm glad we agree, both as to the information being authorized and as to the unclarity of L16C2. > So why in the world does L24 impose a quite different penalty which > will quite often be unreasonably hard or unreasonably favorable for > the offending side? I hope the next L24 will say that the shown cards > are UI, and no forced pass. That's an interesting alternative. I think it probably is a more severe but less random penalty. Discussion? From owner-bridge-laws Sat Aug 10 11:13:36 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA29057 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 10 Aug 1996 11:13:36 +1000 Received: from pip.dknet.dk (0@pip.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA29048 for ; Sat, 10 Aug 1996 11:13:29 +1000 Received: from cph47.ppp.dknet.dk (cph47.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.47]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA16393 for ; Sat, 10 Aug 1996 03:13:22 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Auction period; Law 24 Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 03:13:00 +0200 Organization: at home Message-ID: <320be05f.7944763@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: <199608081555.LAA08277@cfa183.harvard.edu> In-Reply-To: <199608081555.LAA08277@cfa183.harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99e/32.227 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Thu, 8 Aug 1996 11:55:55 -0400, willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) wrote: [">" is Steve, ">>" is me] >A tougher question: what if a player has a twitch removing the cards, >and some are exposed? Nobody has seen any cards until this occurrence, >yet it is clearly the player's responsibility. I would prefer to >rule under L24, but the letter of the law seems to call for L16. I think you have to rule under L16. Like you, I would prefer laws that distinguished between situations where a player has taken hold of his own hand and drops some of its cards from those where the board is still being handled with all 52 cards. >> But what if there had been a problem? What if it had been two aces >> instead of the S7 & S8, and there had been a highly competitive >> auction in which NS bid a good slam against opponents' bidding that >> inhibited S from getting information - other than the shown cards - >> about N's controls? > >I think the relevant law is 12A2: normal play of the board is >impossible. Probably the director ought to warn players of this >possibility when making the original ruling. In the case of all 13 >cards exposed (unless the hand is a flat bust), the ruling would be >made at the beginning, but with a couple of spot cards, the director >can wait and see how things proceed. > >This interpretation lets a normal score be found where the information >from the exposed cards is immaterial and still protects the innocent >side when necessary. > >Are there problems with this interpretation of L12A2? Yes, I believe it is against L12B. By following L24 we have issued a penalty specified by the laws; this penalty turns out to be "unduly advantageous" to the offenders, as L12B puts it, but we are not allowed to adjust for that reason. -- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Sat Aug 10 11:13:36 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA29058 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 10 Aug 1996 11:13:36 +1000 Received: from pip.dknet.dk (0@pip.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA29047 for ; Sat, 10 Aug 1996 11:13:26 +1000 Received: from cph47.ppp.dknet.dk (cph47.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.47]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA16389 for ; Sat, 10 Aug 1996 03:13:18 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Auction period; Law 24 Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 03:12:56 +0200 Organization: at home Message-ID: <320bd8da.6019816@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99e/32.227 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Thu, 8 Aug 1996 12:11:25 +0100, David Stevenson wrote: [">" is David, ">>" is me] > The auction period had begun. But had the auction begun? L24 refers >to "during the auction": L16B refers to "before the auction begins". >Are we to assume that they mean the auction period, rather than the >auction? Though the headlines are not legally part of the laws, they can still be used to get an idea of what the lawmakers were thinking about. Law 17 is called "Duration of the auction", but its contents define the "auction period". This would seem to indicate that "during the auction" is synonymous with "within the auction period". Correspondingly, L22 is called "Procedure after the auction has ended", but begins with "After the auction period has ended ..." On the other hand, there are places where the word "auction" seems to be used for the collection of calls made and for the action of making those calls. My impression is that the laws do not seem to distinguish intentionally between the two terms. > This is rub of the green in general. Two specific exceptions come to >mind. First, where 13 cards are deliberately thrown on the table: we >must not condone such behaviour, so making the board unplayable seems a >fair option. Yes. L24 is not intended to cope with intentional infractions. A different way to avoid condoning such behaviour could be to issue a penalty for violating L72B1. >Second where a player [for example in a highly competitive >auction, holding two aces] might perceive an advantage in showing >partner the cards and taking the penalty: I understand that the approach >of adjusting where the player "could have known ..." is to become >general and be included in a general Law in the new book: good: that >will solve this sort of thing. Correct - it will solve many things. >>The shown cards are of course authorized information to S; this is >>L16C2 (though, strictly speaking, L16C2 talks of "withdrawn action", I >>have no doubt that it is intended to also cover this situation). >> > Interesting: we have several discussions here on this type of matter, >based on the assumption that L16C2 does not apply where there is no >withdrawn action. The reason I find it obvious that this is intended to be AI is that there would be no point in forcing a pass if the information was unauthorized, since L16 will then solve the problem. On the other hand, if the new laws will change L16C2 so withdrawn actions become UI for the offending side but still impose penalties such as forced passes in these situations, then that is an indication that the lawmakers do not agree with me here. >>My opinion is that we are not allowed to use L12A1 as an excuse to >>adjust in such a case. The idea behind L24 must be that the forced >>pass is a penalty that is severe enough to compensate for the shown >>cards, and that it is just bad luck for the opponents if it turns out >>that the advantage of seeing the cards is greater than the >>disadvantage of the penalty. >> > Of course you cannot use L12A1. The original article scratched the >board under L12A2 not L12A1, because of the deliberate nature of showing >13 cards. What exactly is the limits of what we can use L12A2 for? It seems very reasonable to use it in the case of deliberately showing 13 cards. But if the 13 cards had been dropped accidentally, L24 would specify a penalty that we cannot replace with an adjustment under L12A2 simply because the L24 ruling may end up with a good score to the offenders (that is against L12B). >>My conclusion is that using a one-round forced pass as a penalty for >>seeing partner's cards is simply stupid. The laws have a general and >>quite well working mechanism to handle information from partner: UI. >>So why in the world does L24 impose a quite different penalty which >>will quite often be unreasonably hard or unreasonably favorable for >>the offending side? I hope the next L24 will say that the shown cards >>are UI, and no forced pass. > > The Laws have specific penalties in many situations instead of UI, for >example L26, lead penalties. I think that getting rid of all of them is >a poor idea and would create too many problems for TDs, especially at >lower levels. You're quite right. Many of the specific penalties are very practical and make life much easier for TDs while still generally avoiding situations where the offenders directly get an advantage from their irregularity. Some of the specific penalties, however, seem to be in risk of helping the offenders quite often; my usual example of this is L25B, and I now believe L24 is also quite bad (though the problem with L24 occurs seldom compared with the L25 problem). >At the moment if you bid 3H over 3S, change it to a pass >and do not bid again, then declarer can stop your partner leading a >heart if he wishes. This covers the main potential UI problem, and in >fact your heart bid becomes AI [though that will change in the next >Laws, I understand]. This is an easy way of dealing with it and should >not be made considerably more difficult. After the change to a pass, partner is forced to pass for the rest of the auction; that certainly protects the non-offenders perfectly during the auction (oops - I should have said "until the final pass"!). Though cases can probably be constructed where the information from the 3H bid can be directly used by the offenders in the play to get an unreasonably good score even though there is a lead penalty, I agree that the lead penalty is good enough in practice. > You have considered one small subset of the cases where UI could be >present but the Laws have specific restrictions. The whole makes life a >lot easier and should remain: given that, I see no reason why your >specific example should differ. The reason I find L24 worse in this respect is that it forces only a one-round pass, and therefore in quite a few cases (such as where the person forced to pass is the dealer and does not have an opening hand) gives no disadvantage at all to the offenders to compensate for the advantage of having seen some of partner's cards. -- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Sun Aug 11 05:32:50 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA04664 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 05:32:50 +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 FAA04645 for ; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 05:32:42 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ad14882; 10 Aug 96 20:32 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa12505; 10 Aug 96 20:29 +0100 Message-ID: <7EyokEBvGODyEwOe@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 20:23:27 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: A claim or concession In-Reply-To: <31FCD6A3@isdgate.agw.bt.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Yiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyy !!!!!! Four lost emails to BLML have appeared !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >After 10 days (236 hours), your message could not be fully delivered. I like the maths !!!!!!! OK, this is number two: Burn, David wrote: >Perhaps a better example would be: "A computer >is an electronic mailer". The argument: > >A computer is an e-mailer >There is no e-mailer >Therefore there is no computer > >is (of course) false; that component of the computer which >deals with e-mail may be missing, or broken, but the >computer still exists. And just as you can break the e-mailer >without breaking the computer, so you can cancel a concession >without cancelling the claim of which the concession is part. What is needed here is an acceptable interpretation. This argument is the only one I have seen which allows a reading of the Laws by which a concession can be cancelled without the accompanying claim becoming void. It may not convince everyone that it is the only way that the Laws may be read but it does seem to be an acceptable one and therefore since it leads to a commonsense conclusion I believe that we should accept it as our interpretation. Based on this, when there is a claim of some but not all of the remaining tricks then there is a concession of the remainder: even if no concession has occurred because partner immediately objects, then the claim remains and requires to be dealt with under Laws 68, 69 and 70: play ceases. The number of tricks claimed has been amended by the partnership [in the current case] to all the tricks and is then dealt within the normal way, which means that all cards may be seen and there are no penalty cards. I think there may still be a problem in sorting a case out where [for example] a defender claims two of the remaining four tricks, and his partner objects to this saying they would make one more: still the problem is probably not insurmountable since the above logic still allows that there is a claim, so play ceases and so on. It seems that the most clear conclusion is that after a concession play will only continue when partner objects if the concession was for all the remaining tricks. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Sun Aug 11 05:32:47 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA04658 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 05:32:47 +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 FAA04640 for ; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 05:32:39 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ae14882; 10 Aug 96 20:32 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa12508; 10 Aug 96 20:29 +0100 Message-ID: <5UWogBB+FODyEwu6@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 20:22:38 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: A claim or concession In-Reply-To: <199607261458.KAA02557@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Yiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyy !!!!!! Four lost emails to BLML have appeared !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >After 10 days (236 hours), your message could not be fully delivered. I like the maths !!!!!!! OK, this is number one: Steve Willner wrote: >> From: David Stevenson >> I think the progression: >> A claim of some [but not all] tricks is a concession >> No concession has occurred >> There is no claim >> is clear. Is it possible to come up with a sensible alternative >> interpretation? > >Not to belabor the point -- which I've already made at length but >evidently not clearly -- the third line could read: > Therefore there is a claim of all tricks > The trouble with your argument is that I am saying in effect that the progression: A claim of some tricks is a concession No concession has occurred There is no claim is the same IMO as: A giraffe is a quadruped There is no quadruped Therefore there is no giraffe which I believe is logical but you are saying: A claim of some tricks is a concession No concession has occurred Therefore there is a claim of all tricks which is the same IMO as: A giraffe is a quadruped There is no quadruped Therefore there is a shark >If you want to argue that this is not sensible, I'm ready to listen. > Fortunately David Burn has come up with an acceptable reading of the Laws. >> While L68A doesn't say that you should show your cards when making a >> claim, it clearly allows for it, and our rulings should reflect that. > >L68C says that a claimer "should" state a line of play. It is rather >hard to do that without showing one's cards or at least revealing what >cards one holds. The Preface uses this very Law to explain that >"should" means that failure to comply is an infraction that will >jeopardize one's rights. > >Any interpretation that results in a disadvantage for exposing cards in >the course of a claim is, IMHO, insupportable. (An erroneous claim >may, of course, result in disadvantage, but the accompanying exposure >of cards should not.) Well, I have a slight case insofar as I have always understood that showing your cards is a serious mistake as a defender until a claim has been accepted so the disadvantage is for doing it the wrong way. I was never happy with this interpretation but that of course is not sufficient to say it is wrong. However I am happy to accept another interpretation [see my current reply to David Burn] that appears to solve the problems [including when a defender claims two of the four remaining tricks and partner objects to one of those conceded]. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Sun Aug 11 05:32:51 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA04665 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 05:32:51 +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 FAA04652 for ; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 05:32:44 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ac14882; 10 Aug 96 20:32 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id ab12505; 10 Aug 96 20:29 +0100 Message-ID: <50QoIIBkHODyEwsF@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 20:24:20 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Try this, but RTFLB first! In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Yiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyy !!!!!! Four lost emails to BLML have appeared !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >After 10 days (236 hours), your message could not be fully delivered. I like the maths !!!!!!! OK, this is number three: Jens Brix Christiansen wrote: >I forgot to RTFLB at the EBL course at Milan this past January. Even >so, I got the ruling right. I have the right to be lucky. Apparently >no marks were lost for not reading the book, but ... > >Screens are in use; the screen puts N and E on the same side. W >is declarer in 4H after E has shown support. S leads the C2 face up >(out of turn) and W raises the screen without noticing. It turns out >that N has led a card face down and E has started to put down dummy, >exposing the H5 and the H4. At this point, everybody notices the >problem, and they call the TD. Now what? > >If too many wrong answers come in, I will be happy to function as >an oracle later. This is one of the cases in the course where there is >only one right ruling. I don't have any screen regulations to hand, and they are not on the ACBL regulations page. My memory suggests that South's lead could have been retracted under the screen regulations before the screen was raised, but this no longer applies once that has happened. Law 54 - Faced Opening Lead out of Turn C. Declarer Must Accept Lead If declarer could have seen any of dummy's cards (except cards that dummy may have exposed during the auction and that were subject to Law 24), he must accept the lead. So the C2 must be accepted, and dummy is put down in full. Law 54 - Faced Opening Lead out of Turn B. Declarer Accepts Lead When a defender faces the opening lead out of turn declarer may accept the irregular lead as provided in Law 53, and dummy is spread in accordance with Law 41. 1. Declarer Plays Second Card The second card to the trick is played from declarer's hand. Dummy goes down and declarer plays second [no surprise there!]. Law 41 - Commencement of Play A. Face-down Opening Lead After a bid, double or redouble has been followed by three passes in rotation, the defender on presumed declarer's left makes the opening lead face down. The face-down lead may be withdrawn only upon instruction of the Director after an irregularity (see Law 47E2); the withdrawn card must be returned to the defender's hand. So North's unseen lead is put back in his hand. --------- OK Jens: you have me worried: this just seems too easy and obvious: what have I missed? -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Sun Aug 11 05:32:49 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA04663 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 05:32:49 +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 FAA04642 for ; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 05:32:41 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ai14882; 10 Aug 96 20:32 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id ab12512; 10 Aug 96 20:29 +0100 Message-ID: <306roOBMIODyEwMC@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 20:25:00 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Unauthorised information MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Yiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyy !!!!!! Four lost emails to BLML have appeared !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >After 10 days (236 hours), your message could not be fully delivered. I like the maths !!!!!!! OK, this is number four: Eric Landau wrote: >Tim West-meads wrote: > >> Eric Landau (with regard to Larry Goode's hand) wrote: >> >- LAs? Yes. N has what he has already described, and might easily pass >> >with nothing further to add. >> >> Wait a minute. If South's double showed a 5/6 card suit and North uses the >> LOTT then there is no LA. Best estimate of the hand gives 18 total tricks and >> thus 4C is a 60%+ bid - ie nothing else is "logical" within the LAW. Apologies >> to Larry Cohen if my analysis is wrong. > >The "Law" of total tricks has yet to take its place among the >international Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge, and there are still a few >players out there (experts, even) who believe that there are "logical >alternative" bidding styles to one in which every competitive bidding >decision is based on the LOTT. > >Suppose North had told the committee that he considered his 4C bid to be a >100% action based on the theory that it's never right to let the opponents >play in 3H when you have nine black cards. I would ask to see it on his convention card. If it actually is on his convention card then the AC's ruling is becoming interesting. When deciding LAs over here we consider what players of like ability playing similar methods would do, which seems right. So this rather changes it. Maybe they will be convinced there is no LA. But I bet it isn't on his convention card! > We would laugh at him, or >worse. Should we really be tempted to reverse our ruling just because >North's claim that 4C was 100% rests on Larry Cohen's pet theory rather >than his own? -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Sun Aug 11 08:13:53 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA05256 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 08:13:53 +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 IAA05245 for ; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 08:13:43 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ad19555; 10 Aug 96 23:13 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa14084; 10 Aug 96 23:08 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 21:03:03 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Law 23B MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Further to all my problems over lost articles to BLML I am not sure whether I have posted this article or not. If it is a repeat then I am very sorry! :) Steve Willner wrote: >David Stevenson writes: >> I agree with Adam that I would adjust if dealer psyched, but under >> L23B, not L23A as he quoted. Again, it is an interpretation of a poorly >> written Law, but I believe the pass has damaged the non-offending side >> in an unacceptable way by allowing a risk-free psyche. L23A refers to a >> different situation. > >I think there may be disagreement here. > >Just to recap to make sure we are discussing the same situation: >third hand passes before dealer calls. Then third hand will be >barred _for one round_ under L30A. And as David says, dealer now has >a "risk-free" psyche available -- risk-free at least in the sense >that partner cannot raise or otherwise go wrong on the first round of >the bidding. The various other risks of psyching are still present, >of course. > >I agree that the correct law is L23B and that this law is poorly >written. The disagreement is whether it applies to a psyche by >dealer in this situation. L23B talks about damage _from the >premature pass_, not damage from the action partner takes after the >premature pass, so I would claim that it should _not_ apply in this >situation. I would envision L23B applying if, for example, the out >of turn pass discouraged partner from taking some reasonable but >unsuccessful action. > >The meaning of L23B would be a good topic for BLML. My disagreeing >with David S. is nothing new, as readers of that list know. I claim >L23B is needed only because of L16C2; if that Law were eliminated, >the usual UI rules would be sufficient, and 23B wouldn't be needed. > >Pending further discussion, I think the "take-away" point is that the >answer to the original question is not clear. > True, like so many things it is an interpretation: however it is a reasonable interpretation. EBL 23.3 [referring to L23B] In this kind of situation damage is most likely to arise via the subsequent action of the partner, who may be placed to judge his choice of call with greater confidence - as, for example, a grotesque dealer's psyche which everyone will quickly realize [sic] to be potentially collusive (we might call it a psyche "fielded in advance"). [I had to type that in: what we need is everything on the WWW!] I am not saying that L23B cannot be read in other ways: it can. However, when we have an ambiguous Law and we know what the intent of that Law is then I think we should have an acceptable interpretation based on that intent. Of course, then we can discuss the intent ... When a player passes at his partner's turn to call, he creates a situation where psyches can be made in relative safety: therefore a psyche is a consequence of this, so damage results from the call out of turn, and L23B is applied. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Sun Aug 11 08:13:52 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA05255 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 08:13:52 +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 IAA05246 for ; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 08:13:44 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ae19555; 10 Aug 96 23:13 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa14083; 10 Aug 96 23:08 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 21:02:29 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Defender's card that must be played In-Reply-To: <3207240f.6579681@pipmail.dknet.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Further to all my problems over lost articles to BLML I am not sure whether I have posted this article or not. If it is a repeat then I am very sorry! :) Jesper Dybdal wrote: >RGB has a thread named "ruling, committee, etc", where I gave a reply >with which David Stevenson disagrees very strongly. Instead of >continuing the discussion there, I'm moving it to BLML. > >The question is how to determine whether a defender has held a card in >a position so that it must be played; L45C says >>A defender's card held so that it is possible for his partner to see >>its face must be played to the current trick (...). > >I wrote in rgb a rule of thumb that I don't remember where I got from, >but which I believed to be generally accepted: >>When in doubt, rule that the card is played if an opponent has seen it >>so that he can name it. > >David has since informed me that such a rule of thumb most certainly >is not accepted in England - he finds it appalling. > Somewhere along the line my main objection to this procedure seems to have disappeared. When a player moves a card forward with intent to play it, it will in most cases appear in the sight of one of his opponents before it appears in partner' sight, assuming all three are looking. Even if no-one sees it, when he jerks it back it is likely to become visible to an opponent but not to partner. So this rule of thumb means that whenever you apply it, it will be often wrong. When there is a disagreement as to whether partner could have seen it [so the decision will normally be fairly close] then I would expect one out of dummy or declarer to have seen the card in 80% of cases and partner to have been able to see the card in say 40% of cases. So in 40% of cases this rule will lead to the wrong ruling, and always in the same direction. NOTE: in the original thread on RGB it has been suggested that my advice was negative [quite correctly] so I have now posted what I believe the TD should do. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Aug 12 01:21:11 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA12364 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 01:21:11 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA12359 for ; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 01:21:03 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ac10285; 11 Aug 96 15:20 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id ab15949; 11 Aug 96 16:17 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 11 Aug 1996 16:12:36 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Quick and easy MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Dummy contains AKxx of hearts. At trick 3, with the lead in dummy, declarer calls for the ace of hearts: the next defender plays a heart, so does declarer, but the other defender says "Hang on: that's not the ace of hearts!". It isn't, it's the ace of diamonds! It was put down as dummy at the top of the heart suit. Why do I give you these easy ones? -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Aug 12 05:18:39 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA21414 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 05:18:39 +1000 Received: from smtp2.erols.com (root@smtp2.erols.com [205.252.116.102]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA21374 for ; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 05:18:31 +1000 Received: from hirschda (as34s05.erols.com [206.161.187.133]) by smtp2.erols.com (8.7.3/8.6.5) with SMTP id PAA02685; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 15:18:25 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <320E3233.25CB@erols.com> Date: Sun, 11 Aug 1996 15:19:15 -0400 From: Hirsch Davis Organization: Erols Internet X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0b5 (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: David Stevenson CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Quick and easy References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > > Dummy contains AKxx of hearts. At trick 3, with the lead in dummy, > declarer calls for the ace of hearts: the next defender plays a heart, > so does declarer, but the other defender says "Hang on: that's not the > ace of hearts!". It isn't, it's the ace of diamonds! It was put down > as dummy at the top of the heart suit. > > Why do I give you these easy ones? > > -- > David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ > Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= > david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) > Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ Situation 1. Dummy has A of hearts. The correct card is substituted. No further correction or penalty. Situation 2. Dummy does not have A of heats. Law 46.4 indicates that if declarer calls for a call not in dummy, the call is void and declarer can substitute any legal call. Dummy is in violation of Law 45.D, having played a card that declarer did not name. Defenders may withdraw any cards played after this error without penalty. (LHO must be given the option of accepting declarer's heart play from hand. If so accepted, the heart lead from declarer is now the lead to the trick. RHOs heart still goes back into his hand (45.D still applies)). Tricky part is declarer. If, after naming a new card from dummy, his heart play is illegal, it can clearly be withdraw and a legal card played (47.B,48.A). However, if he changes the card played from dummy, can he change the card played from hand if it is still a legal play? If RHO has changed his card played, 47.D says yes. However, if declarer changes his card from dummy, RHO's heart is still legal and he elects to leave it on the table, 47.G indicates that declarer's card may not be withdrawn if it is a legal play. As you said, an easy one. Hirsch From owner-bridge-laws Mon Aug 12 06:59:06 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA23192 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 06:59:06 +1000 Received: from pip.dknet.dk (0@pip.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA23187 for ; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 06:58:59 +1000 Received: from cph25.ppp.dknet.dk (cph25.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.25]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id WAA06163 for ; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 22:58:52 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Auction period; Law 24 Date: Sun, 11 Aug 1996 22:58:30 +0200 Organization: at home Message-ID: <320e42bd.567766@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: <320bd8da.6019816@pipmail.dknet.dk> In-Reply-To: <320bd8da.6019816@pipmail.dknet.dk> X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99e/32.227 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Sat, 10 Aug 1996 03:12:56 +0200, I wrote: >On the other >hand, if the new laws will change L16C2 so withdrawn actions become UI >for the offending side but still impose penalties such as forced >passes in these situations, then that is an indication that the >lawmakers do not agree with me here. Having written that, I realized that _if_ they're going to change law 16C2 so that the offending side's withdrawn actions become UI for itself, then they will have to change a lot of laws, removing specific penalties. In many situations, making the offending side's withdrawn actions UI is in itself clearly the best way to ensure equity. It is not always easy to rule in UI situations, and I believe that is why the laws specify other, more rigid, penalties instead in some of the most common situations. An example is L27B2 (insufficient bids); it seems to me that the penalty of forced pass was probably invented in order to make life easier for particularly a director who is inexperienced and/or dealing with players who do not really understand the concept of UI - everybody can understand being forced to pass. However, if L16C2 is changed so that the withdrawn insufficient bid becomes UI for the offender's partner, then there is no sense in also requiring a forced pass and lead penalties. Since law 16 will then protect the non-offending side perfectly, any additional penalty must be considered pure revenge, contrary to the statement in "The scope of the Laws" that says: >The Laws are primarily designed not as punishment for irregularities, >but rather as redress for damage. We will not be able to convince players that those words are seriously meant if we impose specific penalties _and_ UI in situations where UI alone will ensure equity. So I'm getting very interested in seeing what the new laws look like. If L16C2 is changed and the specific penalties are removed accordingly, then I believe many things will be simpler and more fair in principle - in practice, this may be the case only in situations where there is a competent TD and players who understand the concept of UI. -- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Mon Aug 12 19:59:13 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA26366 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 19:59:13 +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 TAA26361 for ; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 19:58:46 +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 LAA03470 for ; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 11:56:31 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 11:57:30 +0200 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 11:54:48 +0200 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Try this, but RTFLB first! Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk With David's inadvertently belated response in, let me summarize. The following annotations apply: > me, originally (nothing) David's response +++ me, sign-off from this thread. >>> David Stevenson 10.08.96 21:24 >>> > >Screens are in use; the screen puts N and E on the same side. W >is declarer in 4H after E has shown support. S leads the C2 face up >(out of turn) and W raises the screen without noticing. It turns out >that N has led a card face down and E has started to put down dummy, >exposing the H5 and the H4. At this point, everybody notices the >problem, and they call the TD. Now what? > I don't have any screen regulations to hand, and they are not on the ACBL regulations page. My memory suggests that South's lead could have been retracted under the screen regulations before the screen was raised, but this no longer applies once that has happened. +++ Exactly right. [ L54C snipped here] So the C2 must be accepted, and dummy is put down in full. +++ Right. Jesper went wrong here. It is a trap that Jesper's +++ line of reasoning is hard to refute. We must know that the +++ gurus at the EBU want us to do like David, not like Jesper. [ more snippage of excerpts from Law 54 ] Dummy goes down and declarer plays second [no surprise there!]. +++ Right. TDs should make sure that they remember to guide the +++ players through this procedure, of course. [ Law 41 A snipped.] So North's unseen lead is put back in his hand. +++ Exactly. Jesper thinks that L41A does not apply here. The +++ EBU gurus agree with David that it does indeed apply. --------- OK Jens: you have me worried: this just seems too easy and obvious: what have I missed? +++ You missed the trap that Jesper fell into. +++ Neither you nor Jesper fell into the set trap that West had +++ accepted the lead by raising the screen. Well done. Much +++ emphasis was put in the course on distinguishing between +++ actions that accept an irregularity (i.e. playing or bidding on) +++ and mechanical actions that only change the set of rules +++ to be applied from "screen rules" to "usual rules" (i.e. passing +++ the bidding tray or raising the screen). +++ Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Mon Aug 12 20:38:40 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA26493 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 20:38:40 +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 UAA26487 for ; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 20:38:19 +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 MAA04007 for ; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 12:36:13 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 12:37:14 +0200 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 12:36:12 +0200 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Quick and easy Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Reading my law book, I find: D. Card Misplayed by Dummy If dummy places in the played position a card that declarer did not name, the card must be withdrawn if attention is drawn to it before each side has played to the next trick, and a defender may withdraw (without penalty) a card played after the error but before attention was drawn to it (see Law 47F). So the DA is withdrawn, some other card is played from dummy, and the defender gets to take back his card. If the defender changes his card, declarer may also change his, but if the defender does not change his card, declarer may not change his (L47D). Well, of course, if the defender was void in the suit led from dummy, and chooses to play his original heart, declarer may have to change his card after all in order to follow suit, and that is then allowed (L44C). And it would not be right to rule that dummy was suggesting the lead of the DA in the sense of L44F. It is likely that declarer's LHO rather than his RHO holds the Ace of Hearts (assuming, of course, that declarer does not). This is UI to declarer, but not UI from partner. The TD may have to adjust the score if it turns out not to be immaterial to the play who holds the Ace of Hearts, but the "logical alternative" concept is out of scope. It is AI to the defenders that declarer is unlikely to hold the Ace of Hearts. I agree. Quick and easy. Must have missed the catch. We ought to change the design of, say, the diamond suit marker, so that there would be less confusion of hearts and diamonds. Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark >>> David Stevenson 11.08.96 17:12 >>> Dummy contains AKxx of hearts. At trick 3, with the lead in dummy, declarer calls for the ace of hearts: the next defender plays a heart, so does declarer, but the other defender says "Hang on: that's not the ace of hearts!". It isn't, it's the ace of diamonds! It was put down as dummy at the top of the heart suit. Why do I give you these easy ones? -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Aug 12 21:57:56 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA26985 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 21:57:56 +1000 Received: from mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk (mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk [132.146.5.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA26980 for ; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 21:57:49 +1000 Received: from catullus.agw.bt.co.uk by mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk with SMTP (PP); Mon, 12 Aug 1996 12:56:59 +0100 Received: from isdgate.agw.bt.co.uk (isdgate.agw.bt.co.uk [147.150.219.16]) by catullus.agw.bt.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.11) with SMTP id MAA09925 for ; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 12:48:59 +0100 Received: by isdgate.agw.bt.co.uk with Microsoft Mail id <320F2871@isdgate.agw.bt.co.uk>; Mon, 12 Aug 96 12:49:53 GMT From: "Burn, David" To: "'Bridge Laws'" Subject: RE: Quick and easy Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 12:45:00 GMT Message-ID: <320F2871@isdgate.agw.bt.co.uk> Encoding: 12 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: >Dummy contains AKxx of hearts. At trick 3, with the lead in dummy, >declarer calls for the ace of hearts: the next defender plays a heart, >so does declarer, but the other defender says "Hang on: that's not the >ace of hearts!". It isn't, it's the ace of diamonds! It was put down >as dummy at the top of the heart suit. >Why do I give you these easy ones? More information, please. Does dummy really contain the ace of hearts? From owner-bridge-laws Tue Aug 13 00:32:39 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA00242 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 00:32:39 +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 AAA00237 for ; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 00:32:26 +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 KAA04342 for ; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 10:32:19 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA09861; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 10:32:14 -0400 Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 10:32:14 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199608121432.KAA09861@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: A claim or concession X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: David Stevenson I'm glad that the lost emails have resurfaced and that we now seem to agree on almost every aspect of this question. (A frightening thought, that... :-) ) Just one minor detail: > Well, I have a slight case insofar as I have always understood that > showing your cards is a serious mistake as a defender until a claim has > been accepted so the disadvantage is for doing it the wrong way. If play is over, it cannot hurt to show one's cards. Since L68C requires stating a line of play, showing the cards would seem to be normal. It is, of course, still a serious mistake to show one's cards when conceding all the tricks. This is the one instance where play may continue if partner objects. From owner-bridge-laws Tue Aug 13 01:18:57 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA01112 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 01:18:57 +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 BAA01107 for ; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 01:18:50 +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 LAA04497 for ; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 11:18:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA09889; Mon, 12 Aug 1996 11:18:35 -0400 Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 11:18:35 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199608121518.LAA09889@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Auction period; Law 24 X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) > Law 17 is called "Duration of the auction", but its contents define > the "auction period". This would seem to indicate that "during the > auction" is synonymous with "within the auction period". > On the other hand, there are places where the word "auction" seems to > be used for the collection of calls made and for the action of making > those calls. The definitions section gives both meanings. My impression -- not based on careful reading -- is that the Laws generally try to use "auction period" for definition one and "auction" for definition two, but I suspect the usage is not completely consistant. > What exactly is the limits of what we can use L12A2 for? It seems > very reasonable to use it in the case of deliberately showing 13 > cards. But if the 13 cards had been dropped accidentally, L24 would > specify a penalty that we cannot replace with an adjustment under > L12A2 simply because the L24 ruling may end up with a good score to > the offenders (that is against L12B). I'd like to see more discussion here. Agreed that we cannot use L12A2 just because we don't like the result if the board is played out, but I don't think that prevents using it in the case of 13 cards exposed. Surely anything like "normal play" is impossible in that circumstance. An analogous case is L27B1b (insufficient bid that transmits substantial information). Normally the prescribed penalty for an insufficient bid removes damage, but in special cases there needs to be an adjusted score. Another example is L64C, restoring equity after a revoke when the penalty doesn't. Similarly, Law 24 normally removes damage from exposed cards (or at least is supposed to!), but if a lot of cards are exposed, transmitting useful information primarily to the offending side, L12A2 is needed. Is anybody seriously suggesting that the _score adjustment_ should be different in the case of deliberate versus accidental exposure of many cards? (Obviously there should be a conduct penalty in the first case.) If so, that is nearly unique among all the Laws, and I think it requires quite strong arguments to be accepted. > in quite a few cases (such as where the > person forced to pass is the dealer and does not have an opening hand) > [L24] gives no disadvantage at all to the offenders to compensate for the > advantage of having seen some of partner's cards. Of course the same cards are also visible to the other side. They won't lose too many two-way finesses! That said, I agree with Jesper that L24 has little relation to restoring equity. From owner-bridge-laws Tue Aug 13 08:42:26 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA11022 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 08:42:26 +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 IAA11015 for ; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 08:42:14 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ae23484; 12 Aug 96 23:42 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa08959; 12 Aug 96 23:34 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 14:26:41 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Quick and easy In-Reply-To: <320F2871@isdgate.agw.bt.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Burn, David wrote: > >David Stevenson wrote: > >>Dummy contains AKxx of hearts. At trick 3, with the lead in dummy, >>declarer calls for the ace of hearts: the next defender plays a heart, >>so does declarer, but the other defender says "Hang on: that's not the >>ace of hearts!". It isn't, it's the ace of diamonds! It was put down >>as dummy at the top of the heart suit. > >>Why do I give you these easy ones? > >More information, please. Does dummy really contain the ace of hearts? In the original problem as occurred in the Lancs/Yorks match the defender who commented held the ace of hearts [no surprise!]. However I am interested in both possibilities: I presume if dummy does have the ace of hearts it must be at the top of the diamond suit! Have you ever known a dummy this stupid, David? -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please ~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Aug 13 21:49:40 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA17475 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 21:49:40 +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 VAA17467 for ; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 21:49:29 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ae03614; 13 Aug 96 10:56 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa21621; 13 Aug 96 10:49 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 02:52:23 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Auction period; Law 24 In-Reply-To: <199608121518.LAA09889@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve Willner wrote: >> From: Jesper Dybdal >> What exactly is the limits of what we can use L12A2 for? It seems >> very reasonable to use it in the case of deliberately showing 13 >> cards. But if the 13 cards had been dropped accidentally, L24 would >> specify a penalty that we cannot replace with an adjustment under >> L12A2 simply because the L24 ruling may end up with a good score to >> the offenders (that is against L12B). >I'd like to see more discussion here. Agreed that we cannot use L12A2 >just because we don't like the result if the board is played out, but I >don't think that prevents using it in the case of 13 cards exposed. >Surely anything like "normal play" is impossible in that circumstance. > >An analogous case is L27B1b (insufficient bid that transmits >substantial information). Normally the prescribed penalty for an >insufficient bid removes damage, but in special cases there needs to be >an adjusted score. Another example is L64C, restoring equity after a >revoke when the penalty doesn't. Similarly, Law 24 normally removes >damage from exposed cards (or at least is supposed to!), but if a lot >of cards are exposed, transmitting useful information primarily to >the offending side, L12A2 is needed. > I do not see how L27B1B or L64C are in any way analogous: they are Laws giving the TD rights to apply commonsense and judgement to restore equity in specific cases. Despite the famous claim that the Laws are primarily to restore equity they very often don't: in many cases it would just be too difficult. L24 is meant as a practical Law which will often restore equity, but there is no guarantee that it will in any specific case. >Is anybody seriously suggesting that the _score adjustment_ should >be different in the case of deliberate versus accidental exposure >of many cards? (Obviously there should be a conduct penalty in >the first case.) If so, that is nearly unique among all the Laws, >and I think it requires quite strong arguments to be accepted. > The Laws are primarily designed not as punishment for irregularities, but rather as redress for damage. [The Scope of the Laws, part of the Preface.] It is implicit in many Laws that they are not dealing with intentional actions. When we look at a bid out of turn and apply the relevant Law, that Law is not designed primarily to deal with a deliberate bid out of turn. The Laws on exposure of cards are designed to deal with accidental exposure of cards [or deliberate exposure at the wrong time: you know what I mean]. L72B1 refers to the difference without giving any specific guidance. As has been discussed before, there are Laws to deal with exposure of more than one card, and thirteen is more than one. If they meant "no more than six" then they would say so, and a board *is* playable with thirteen exposed cards. But deliberately showing one's hand is an infraction under L72B1 [and several other Laws, eg L74A1, L74A2 and L74A3] and does not need to be treated the same. It is known not to be the sort of thing that the Laws were designed for, because of the Scope of the Laws quoted above, and it seems reasonable to treat it differently. I believe that the deliberate nature of the act is such that no rectification can be made that will permit normal play of the board [apart from shooting the player and drafting a substitute] and so when the act is deliberate L12A2 can and should be used. You will presumably realise that I think that L12A2 might be used in other cases of deliberate infractions but it is not a catchall for times when life is difficult for TDs: see L12B. >> in quite a few cases (such as where the >> person forced to pass is the dealer and does not have an opening hand) >> [L24] gives no disadvantage at all to the offenders to compensate for the >> advantage of having seen some of partner's cards. > >Of course the same cards are also visible to the other side. They >won't lose too many two-way finesses! That said, I agree with Jesper >that L24 has little relation to restoring equity. But not all Laws restore equity! -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Aug 14 23:11:02 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA07215 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 23:11:02 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id XAA07210 for ; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 23:10:55 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ab14629; 14 Aug 96 13:06 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa07957; 14 Aug 96 14:04 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 13:50:08 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Quick and easy In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jens Brix Christiansen wrote: >Reading my law book, I find: > [s] >I agree. Quick and easy. Must have missed the catch. [s] >>>> David Stevenson 11.08.96 17:12 >>> > > Dummy contains AKxx of hearts. At trick 3, with the lead in dummy, >declarer calls for the ace of hearts: the next defender plays a heart, >so does declarer, but the other defender says "Hang on: that's not the >ace of hearts!". It isn't, it's the ace of diamonds! It was put down >as dummy at the top of the heart suit. > > Why do I give you these easy ones? > It does seem to be easy! It was really just the restrictions on declarer that intrigued me when I was given this over the phone but as Jens pointed out it is all a matter of RTFLB. I think that I shall include it in next year's TD training. NOTE: I shall be away and have no net access from 15/8 to 27/8. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Aug 15 01:56:29 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA11006 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 01:56:29 +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 BAA11001 for ; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 01:56:20 +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 RAA04578 for ; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 17:54:28 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 17:55:27 +0200 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 17:55:13 +0200 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Query on L93: May the national authority overrule the TD? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I would appreciate some opinions on an issue that has cropped up for me: When the national authority is ruling on a point according to L93C, may it overrule the TD, or is it to be considered an appeals committee in the sense of L92B3, which reads In adjudicating appeals the committee may exercise all powers assigned by these Laws to the Director, except that the committee may not overrule the Director on a point of law or regulations, or on exercise of his disciplinary powers. The committee may recommend to the Director that he change his ruling. In the case in point, the TD was called at the beginning of a teams match to give a ruling of the type "is this system legal". He ruled that the system was legal. This ruling was later appealed and has reached the national authority, who has no problem agreeing that the TD's decision was wrong, and the system was not legal. Obviously, the TD was making an interpretation of a regulation. Now, if this was an AC reaching this verdict, the AC would have to ask the TD to reconsider his ruling, as we see above. But when the national authority reaches this verdict, it is not clear to me whether the national authority can change the TD's ruling outright, or whether it needs to go through the motions of recommending that the TD change his ruling. In the case in point, the TD will no doubt agree with the national authority, but there is the question of creating a precedent. I should point out that the national authority (National Laws and Appeals Committee) is chartered as the final authority on intrepretation of laws and regulation with the DBF (the Danish NCBO). The EBU guide does not really shed any light on this issue. Can any of the distinguished readers of this mailing list help me? Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Thu Aug 15 02:02:34 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA11221 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 02:02:34 +1000 Received: from mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk (mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk [132.146.5.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA11216 for ; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 02:02:22 +1000 Received: from catullus.agw.bt.co.uk by mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk with SMTP (PP); Wed, 14 Aug 1996 17:01:04 +0100 Received: from isdgate.agw.bt.co.uk (isdgate.agw.bt.co.uk [147.150.219.16]) by catullus.agw.bt.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.11) with SMTP id QAA00114 for ; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 16:50:28 +0100 Received: by isdgate.agw.bt.co.uk with Microsoft Mail id <3212040A@isdgate.agw.bt.co.uk>; Wed, 14 Aug 96 16:51:22 GMT From: "Burn, David" To: "'Bridge Laws'" Subject: RE: Quick and easy Date: Wed, 14 Aug 96 16:51:00 GMT Message-ID: <3212040A@isdgate.agw.bt.co.uk> Encoding: 66 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >From David Burn >>>David Stevenson wrote: >>> >>>Dummy contains AKxx of hearts. At trick 3, with the lead in dummy, >>>declarer calls for the ace of hearts: the next defender plays a heart, >>>so does declarer, but the other defender says "Hang on: that's not the >>>ace of hearts!". It isn't, it's the ace of diamonds! It was put down >>>as dummy at the top of the heart suit. >>> >>>Why do I give you these easy ones? >>David Burn wrote: >>More information, please. Does dummy really contain the ace of hearts? >David Stevenson wrote: > >In the original problem as occurred in the Lancs/Yorks match the >defender who commented held the ace of hearts [no surprise!]. >However I am interested in both possibilities: I presume if dummy does >have the ace of hearts it must be at the top of the diamond suit! Have >you ever known a dummy this stupid, David? I had a partner once who left a card in the wallet and bid an 0-2-5-5 hand to 6D after counting his spade void as an ace when I used Blackwood. The spade void was useless, but the card in the wallet was the DA, so the slam made anyway. In the actual case, assuming dummy has the HA: Common sense dictates that dummy should just substitute the HA for the DA, and play should continue. But that is not what the Laws say. Instead, L45D says this: Dummy has placed in the played position a card (the DA) that declarer has not named. It must be withdrawn, and East may withdraw the heart that he played to the trick without penalty. The question is: what happens to the heart that declarer has played? In my view declarer should be able to withdraw it (there being no question of a penalty card or UI), but the Laws do not appear to me to cover this point. Now what? Again, common sense would dictate that the HA should be played from dummy (whereafter play would follow its "normal" course). Certainly declarer has played the HA (under L45B, since he has named it), and I would have no problem with the notion that it should now be played, except that this appears to allow an Alcatraz coup by dummy. It would help if L45D were to clarify the position, otherwise it would be possible to argue that declarer could now play some other suit. Suppose that if declarer knew that dummy had the DA, he would have wanted to play it instead of the HA? Would you allow this? If the HA is not in dummy, then declarer's call for it is void (L46B4), and after the DA has been replaced and the various hearts withdrawn, declarer may play anything from dummy. East's heart appears to me to be AI for West because of the "without penalty" clause in L45D, but it is bonus information of dubious provenance for declarer. I believe that the TD should award an adjusted score if declarer gains an advantage from an awareness of East's heart. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Aug 15 02:18:40 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA11353 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 02:18:40 +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 CAA11337 for ; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 02:18:15 +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 MAA31042 for ; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 12:18:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA10918; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 12:18:07 -0400 Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 12:18:07 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199608141618.MAA10918@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Query on L93: May the national authority overrule the TD? X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > When the national authority is ruling on a point according > to L93C, may it overrule the TD, or is it to be considered an appeals > committee in the sense of L92B3, I'm fairly sure Edgar Kaplan has written that the former is the case. At least in the ACBL, the appeal goes to the National Laws Commission, which is the final authority on the Laws (within the ACBL, of course). They are (I'm virtually certain) empowered to overrule the director on a point of law. This interpretation makes sense to me. How else would an erroneous interpretation of Law be overturned? > the national authority (National Laws and > Appeals Committee) is chartered as the final authority on intrepretation > of laws and regulation with the DBF (the Danish NCBO). Sounds the same as in the ACBL. > In the case in point, the TD was called at the beginning of a teams > match to give a ruling of the type "is this system legal". He ruled > that the system was legal. This ruling was later appealed and has > reached the national authority, who has no problem agreeing that > the TD's decision was wrong, and the system was not legal. Is this ruling a question of Law (regulation) or of fact? That is, is the question one of the meaning of the regulation or whether the system does or does not violate the agreed meaning? I gather you have decided the former, but it seems worth making sure. Just out of curiousity, how do you plan to rectify the ruling if you do overrule the TD? Law 82C? From owner-bridge-laws Thu Aug 15 02:27:24 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA11429 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 02:27:24 +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 CAA11424 for ; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 02:27:16 +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 SAA04804 for ; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 18:25:25 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 18:26:25 +0200 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 18:26:22 +0200 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Query on L93: May the national authority overrule the TD? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve, Thanks for your speedy reaction. We in the committee tend to agree with you. In this case, we are declaring that the match should be played again. It decides who gets promoted to the national third division. But if that had been impractical, we would have ruled a forfeit to both sides (in the spirit of L82C), giving the pair with the illegal system no more than they actually scored and the giving the plaintiff no less than they actually scored. We have elaborate rules for determining the score of a forfeit in round-robin tournaments -- too elaborate to mention here, but ask Jesper for a copy if you really want to know. /Jens >>> Steve Willner 14.08.96 18:18 >>> Just out of curiousity, how do you plan to rectify the ruling if you do overrule the TD? Law 82C? From owner-bridge-laws Thu Aug 15 10:34:34 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA21689 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 10:34:34 +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 KAA21669 for ; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 10:34:26 +1000 Received: from cph5.ppp.dknet.dk (cph5.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.5]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA12818 for ; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 02:34:02 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Query on L93: May the national authority overrule the TD? Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 02:33:40 +0200 Organization: at home Message-ID: <32126fea.3600557@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: <199608141618.MAA10918@cfa183.harvard.edu> In-Reply-To: <199608141618.MAA10918@cfa183.harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99e/32.227 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Wed, 14 Aug 1996 12:18:07 -0400, willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) wrote: >Is this ruling a question of Law (regulation) or of fact? That is, >is the question one of the meaning of the regulation or whether >the system does or does not violate the agreed meaning? I gather >you have decided the former, but it seems worth making sure. Which raises the interesting point that determining whether or not something is "a point of law" is (in my opinion) in itself "a point of law". So if an AC that is not the national authority changes a ruling that may conceivably be interpreted as "a point of law", they should in principle ensure that their ruling is presented to the TD first, so that he can (a) determine whether it is "a point of law" and (b) if he decides that it is, decide whether or not he wants to follow the recommendation of the AC. Aside from that, my opinion is that the national authority can do anything it wants with any aspect of an appealed ruling. This is consistent with the national authority being mentioned in a separate section of L93, and it is also the only practical interpretation - otherwise, as Steve also wrote, an incorrect ruling could never be corrected unless the TD could be convinced of his error. -- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Thu Aug 15 10:56:19 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA21808 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 10:56:19 +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 KAA21803 for ; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 10:56:12 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ac25037; 15 Aug 96 1:53 +0100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa25199; 15 Aug 96 1:52 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 01:42:11 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Query on L93: May the national authority overrule the TD? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jens Brix Christiansen wrote: >I would appreciate some opinions on an issue that has cropped >up for me: When the national authority is ruling on a point according >to L93C, may it overrule the TD, or is it to be considered an appeals >committee in the sense of L92B3, which reads > > In adjudicating appeals the committee may exercise all powers > assigned by these Laws to the Director, except > that the committee may not overrule the Director on a point of law > or regulations, or on exercise of his disciplinary > powers. The committee may recommend to the Director that he > change his ruling. > Law 93 - Procedures of Appeal C. Appeal to National Authority After the preceding remedies have been exhausted, further appeal may be taken to the national authority. If they had to deal with it in a particular way, would not L93C say so? What it actually says is that the former procedures are exhausted, and to me it seems clear that the wording effectively gives the National Authority a free hand where appeals are concerned. >The EBU guide I think you mean the EBL guide. EBU 93.10 in the EBU guide [which is published as a supplement to the EBL guide] does give guidance, but that guidance is not international. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Aug 16 00:27:42 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA29394 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 00:27:42 +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 AAA29389 for ; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 00:27:24 +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 KAA24933 for ; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 10:27:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA11266; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 10:27:07 -0400 Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 10:27:07 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199608151427.KAA11266@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Query on L93: May the national authority overrule the TD? X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) > Which raises the interesting point that determining whether or not > something is "a point of law" is (in my opinion) in itself "a point of > law". So if an AC that is not the national authority changes a ruling > that may conceivably be interpreted as "a point of law", they should > in principle ensure that their ruling is presented to the TD first, so > that he can (a) determine whether it is "a point of law" and (b) if he > decides that it is, decide whether or not he wants to follow the > recommendation of the AC. Interesting point. I've never seen it mentioned before, but I agree in principle. How often will this be applicable? Usually the TD will explain to the committee what they have to decide, and they will decide within those parameters. Over here, on an occasion when the TD turns out to be completely incompetent, the practical procedure is probably just to ignore him if the committee is sure it knows what it is doing. This is not really very satisfactory, but it may be the best we can do in that unhappy circumstance. From owner-bridge-laws Fri Aug 16 06:49:36 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA09791 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 06:49:36 +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 GAA09785 for ; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 06:49:27 +1000 Received: from aarh1.pip.dknet.dk (aarh1.pip.dknet.dk [194.192.0.97]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id WAA26955 for ; Thu, 15 Aug 1996 22:49:17 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Query on L93: May the national authority overrule the TD? Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 22:48:53 +0200 Organization: at home Message-ID: <321383bd.1351543@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: <199608151427.KAA11266@cfa183.harvard.edu> In-Reply-To: <199608151427.KAA11266@cfa183.harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99e/32.227 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Thu, 15 Aug 1996 10:27:07 -0400, willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) wrote: >> From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) >> Which raises the interesting point that determining whether or not >> something is "a point of law" is (in my opinion) in itself "a point of >> law"... >Interesting point. I've never seen it mentioned before, but I agree >in principle. >How often will this be applicable? I've never seen it in practice. But that may be partly due to the fact that most of the appeals I hear about are from Danish championships, and the immediate AC in most of those is actually the national authority. I am afraid that many Danish AC's (other than the national one) have never studied L93B3. >Usually the TD will explain to the >committee what they have to decide, and they will decide within those >parameters. Which is clearly the correct procedure whenever the TD is competent (but not in the case where the AC is the Danish national AC and therefore by definition is even more competent in questions of law). >Over here, on an occasion when the TD turns out to be completely >incompetent, the practical procedure is probably just to ignore him if >the committee is sure it knows what it is doing. This is not really >very satisfactory, but it may be the best we can do in that unhappy >circumstance. I agree that this probably gives the best results in practice. -- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Sat Aug 17 02:19:28 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA20216 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Aug 1996 02:19:28 +1000 Received: from emout07.mail.aol.com (emout07.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.22]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA20211 for ; Sat, 17 Aug 1996 02:19:15 +1000 From: AlLeBendig@aol.com Received: by emout07.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA02742 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 12:18:28 -0400 Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 12:18:28 -0400 Message-ID: <960816121827_261220336@emout07.mail.aol.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Defender's card that must be played Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jesper wrote: > >> >>When in doubt, rule that the card is played if an opponent has seen it >> >>so that he can name it. > >> From: David Stevenson >> So in 40% of cases this rule will lead to the wrong ruling, and >> always in the same direction. > Jon Brissman contributed: > My contribution to the discussion, for what it's worth: > Let's start with the recognition that the opponent who may have > seen defender's card must be the declarer, not the dummy. > It seems as if there there should be some middle ground between > using the suggested rule of thumb (opponent's identification equals > defender's commitment) and David's position that the rule is > unsupportable. The TD's job is to ascertain the facts and subsequently > render a ruling that will allow play to proceed, and there is no reason > that Jesper's rule of thumb cannot be one of many factors that is > considered in the process. I do not believe the rule advanced should > be dispositive, but it may be persuasive when considered in concert > with other data. > Having seen on many occasions the defender purport to recreate the > mechanics of the detachment and partial play gesture, followed by the > declarer's re-enactment of the same sequence, I have concluded that the > two seldom show much similarity and is generally a waste of time. When > the defender recreates his action, he or she does som in a manner > which, if believed, would clearly result in a ruling that it was > impossible for his partner to see his card. The declarer's > re-enactment inevitably shows that the card was unequivocally played. > Thus, it is clear that other indicia are necessary for a TD to > consider. > I would suggest a check-list of objective questions that a TD could > ask to the participants, and the list would include the rule of thumb > that started this discussion. The answers to those questions could be > assigned appropriate weight by the TD, given his knowledge of the > players and factoring in his assessment of the player's credibility. > However, the net result is that the process is, should be and will > probably remain somewhat subjective. Sorry for joining this thread late. I was in Miami making opponents enjoy the game. I agree with David and Jon that Jesper is being much too harsh in relying on whether an opponent has seen and can identify the subject card. I think Jon brings up a key point which I will generally use as the determing factor. I ask both sides to reinact what occurred, with the offender going last. Unlike Jon, I feel this serves a very real purpose. I will generally rule in favor of the side that I believe has come the closest to telling me the truth. So my assessment of the player's credibility becomes very important here. I think David's guess of the card being 'visible' about 40% of the time is accurate. Alan LeBendig Los Angeles From owner-bridge-laws Thu Aug 22 17:37:57 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA16773 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Aug 1996 17:37:57 +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 RAA16768 for ; Thu, 22 Aug 1996 17:37:11 +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 JAA00818 for ; Thu, 22 Aug 1996 09:34:40 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Thu, 22 Aug 1996 09:35:50 +0200 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 09:35:35 +0200 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Yes, they want to take their played cards back. Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Twice in the same eight-board round last night my LHO was declarer, played a card, discovered it was stupid, and insisted that she should be allowed to take it back, because she obviously would not do anything this stupid. LHO is the weaker player in a married couple, where the stronger player plays in the Danish national teams first or second division. In the first case, in the 11th trick I lead a low spade, declarer has the 9, my partner has no more, and declarer asks for the remaining trump in dummy, discovers (without pause for thought) that the 9 would be good, says "wait, my nine is good", and startsthinking about what to discard from dummy. Not that it would make any difference in this case, because the defense has exactly one trick coming anyway. However, I have this weakness where I cannot help to express my belief that the trump has been played. The nice TD refuses to rule, since it does not make any difference, so LHO is never instructed that the card was actually played. LHO is unhappy, and RHO (dummy) is downright rude to his partner. Some boards later, again on trick 11, declarer has the AK9 of trumps, I have the J of trumps, and partner leads a suit that I can ruff. Since partner could (in some bizarre situation) still hold the K, I ruff. Declarer detaches the 9, puts in on the table, letting it go, but not losing contact with it, sees my J (immediately!), and says, "No ... this time I must be allowed to take it back". This time it cost her a trick. The nice TD, who was not experienced, and who does not RTFLB, ruled correctly that the card is played and then turns to me and asks "that was right, wasn't it?" What can I do? My LHO now has me classified as a ****** bridge lawyer. Well, I will get over the bad impression I made on the opponents, especially now that you would listen to me so compassionately. The point of this, if you are still there, is that the bridge players out there don't always accept that when they have made their little goof, there is no way back. If I naively made the opposite point lately, I take it back. Jens Brix Christiansen, ****** bridge lawyer by reputation, Denmark. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Aug 24 01:33:29 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA13673 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Aug 1996 01:33:29 +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 BAA13667 for ; Sat, 24 Aug 1996 01:33:21 +1000 From: AlLeBendig@aol.com Received: by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA14837 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Fri, 23 Aug 1996 11:32:42 -0400 Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 11:32:42 -0400 Message-ID: <960823113242_266909604@emout19.mail.aol.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Yes, they want to take their played cards back. Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In a message dated 96-08-22 03:47:21 EDT, Jens writes: << The point of this, if you are still there, is that the bridge players out there don't always accept that when they have made their little goof, there is no way back. If I naively made the opposite point lately, I take it back. >> Goodness, it's nice to know that there are people still alive in Europe! So what's the solution? Club directors won't rule correctly because they're afraid players won't return. As a result players never think there is any finality to these mechanical errors. We have found it is best to let them know these rules are black and white. No takebacks. But you might disagree with how we handle hesitation situations. If inexperienced players are involved, we will almost never make adjustments. They always think they are being accused of cheating. I tell the more experienced players to not even bother calling us. I do want them to tell me about the problems and I then gently explain to the players what the Laws say and why they may have committed an infraction. But table adjustments are almost unheard of. At the same time, UI from other sources I find very easy to deal with because that can be explained without them feeling threatened. Are we wrong in treating club rulings in this fashion? Alan LeBendig From owner-bridge-laws Mon Aug 26 18:42:20 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA16305 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Aug 1996 18:42:20 +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 SAA16300 for ; Mon, 26 Aug 1996 18:41:20 +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 KAA16409 for ; Mon, 26 Aug 1996 10:38:46 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Mon, 26 Aug 1996 10:39:45 +0200 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 09:22:26 +0200 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: What's wrong with bridge lawyers? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I have been prompted by Jon's question: >>> Jon C Brissman 24.08.96 19:24 >>> >I'd like to know: What's wrong with bridge lawyers? I suspect that what might be wrong here is that I don't use the term bridge lawyer the way it should be. I only know the term from r.g.b and the like, so I may have misunderstood what it is all about. When Humpty Dumpty and I use the term, it characterizes the following type of player: Often, when he has made a bridge mistake, he summons the director to claim damage in the light of some irregularity committed by the opponent, hoping that the TD will play his hand again and not make the same mistake. He might even have a third go at it in the AC. My favorite example (my role was the TD) was a player of extremely high ranking in Denmark who made a wrong decision to compete in an auction and later claimed to have been misinformed about suit lengths in an explanation from the (much lower ranking) opposition. The opponents were playing Dansk Bridge Standard (you will never guess what that means), where, as we all know in this country, you need 5 spades to open 1S, 4 card suits otherwise (bid lower 4-card suit first with 4432), and a 3-card club suit is opened on 4-3-3-3 hands. The convention card showed this standard arrangement, and the explanation offered was "lower 4-card suit first". But on further questioning of the what-if type, an opponent had ended up making an inconsistent (contradictory) explanation. I ruled that the esteemed high-ranking player was unlike to have been damaged by the explanations given. So that it what I thought it takes to be a bridge lawyer. I may be using the term in an unusual manner, so let me explain what I think is wrong with this type of person: His social conduct is deplorable, and his opponents enjoy the game less. What I was worried about last week was to be perceived by nice, well-meaning people whom I wish to continue to treat well socially (while hopefully beating them at the game), as an obnoxious misuser of TDs. Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Tue Aug 27 00:08:24 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA17687 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 00:08:24 +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 AAA17681 for ; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 00:08:10 +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 QAA21532 for ; Mon, 26 Aug 1996 16:06:04 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Mon, 26 Aug 1996 16:07:08 +0200 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 15:09:03 +0200 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Yes, they want to take their played cards back. Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I support the spirit of Alan's treatment of inexperienced players in situations like these, but that is mostly because when an inexperienced player hesitates, that does not really indicate that one line of action may be better than another. Thus there would be no reason to adjust according to L16. If, however, a misbid is disclosed by an explanation given, and the misbidder takes corrective action based on that UI, we adjust the score and explain why, including, of course, that cheating is not the issue. >>> 23.08.96 17:32 >>> But you might disagree with how we handle hesitation situations. If inexperienced players are involved, we will almost never make adjustments. They always think they are being accused of cheating. I tell the more experienced players to not even bother calling us. I do want them to tell me about the problems and I then gently explain to the players what the Laws say and why they may have committed an infraction. But table adjustments are almost unheard of. At the same time, UI from other sources I find very easy to deal with because that can be explained without them feeling threatened. Are we wrong in treating club rulings in this fashion? Alan LeBendig From owner-bridge-laws Tue Aug 27 12:53:02 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA01919 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 12:53:02 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA01914 for ; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 12:52:53 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ab15712; 27 Aug 96 2:52 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa04860; 27 Aug 96 3:12 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 02:59:42 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Yes, they want to take their played cards back. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jens Brix Christiansen wrote: >The nice TD refuses to rule, since it does not make any difference, ... thus creating the later situation. If people don't think the laws apply then sometime in the future they will be more upset than people who do think the Laws apply. A nice but sensible TD would have ruled ***especially*** because it does not make any difference: by far the best time to teach someone to follow the rules. ----------- Alan LeBendig wrote: >So what's the solution? Club directors won't rule correctly because >they're afraid players won't return. As a result players never think >there is any finality to these mechanical errors. Don't they have opponents? Perhaps the opponents won't return if the TD treats them this way. >But table adjustments are almost unheard of. Are we wrong in treating >club rulings in this fashion? Yes. If you teach people there are rules and an umpire to decide between people they are happier. How can you expect to keep people happy by not adjusting when obviously you have made their opponents unhappy [they called you, didn't they?]. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Aug 27 12:59:21 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA01938 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 12:59:21 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA01933 for ; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 12:59:14 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ac16046; 27 Aug 96 2:53 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id ab04862; 27 Aug 96 3:12 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 03:07:27 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Query on L93: May the national authority overrule the TD? In-Reply-To: <321383bd.1351543@pipmail.dknet.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jesper Dybdal wrote: [s] >But that may be partly due to the >fact that most of the appeals I hear about are from Danish >championships, and the immediate AC in most of those is actually the >national authority. When I first heard that you used written appeals I did not like it because [as I explained] I feel players want to talk to someone. But if the AC is the National authority then your system IMO is considerably less fair because you have taken away a level of appeal to which a player has a right under the Law book. In effect, if a player feels he should appeal further under L93C then you make him appeal ***to the same body*** ??? !!! -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome RTFLB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Aug 28 02:08:54 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA11212 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Aug 1996 02:08:54 +1000 Received: from mipl7.jpl.nasa.gov (mipl7.jpl.nasa.gov [128.149.177.7]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA11207 for ; Wed, 28 Aug 1996 02:08:47 +1000 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [128.149.102.7]) by mipl7.jpl.nasa.gov (8.6.12/8.6.6) with ESMTP id JAA07990 for <@mipl7.JPL.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 09:08:07 -0700 Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au id JAA11683; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 09:15:06 -0700 Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 09:15:06 -0700 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199608271615.JAA11683@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson |David Stevenson wrote: |Alan LeBendig wrote: | |>So what's the solution? Club directors won't rule correctly because |>they're afraid players won't return. As a result players never think |>there is any finality to these mechanical errors. | | Don't they have opponents? Perhaps the opponents won't return if the |TD treats them this way. | |>But table adjustments are almost unheard of. Are we wrong in treating |>club rulings in this fashion? | | Yes. If you teach people there are rules and an umpire to decide |between people they are happier. How can you expect to keep people |happy by not adjusting when obviously you have made their opponents |unhappy [they called you, didn't they?]. The reasoning that club directors use around here (and in the rest of the US in my experience) is that club players don't want conflict. To that end, *calling* the director for anything short of a revoke or lead out of turn or such is strongly discouraged. In practice, good players learn not to call the director for anything other than problems that prevent continuation of play simply because the director will refuse to rule anyway. I'm of two minds as to whether this is reasonable or not. In my clubs, calling the director has never had any stigma attached to it; something possibly went wrong, so they call me over to figure out how to resolve it. There's no confrontation, no conflict, no hurt feelings. My clubs, however, have been special: the players are mostly students, mostly young. Other club games tend to be made up of older, more belligerant, players. For them, for whom a director call *is* a confrontation, *is* a conflict, perhaps director calls ought strenuously be avoided. Best would be to educate these people, but that is very unlikely ever to happen, so to maximize the enjoyment of most club players, it makes sense to me to have club directors just rule result stands nearly always. The grumbling that results from this is far less damaging than the screaming that will occur at the moment of an adjustment. --Jeff # Never ascribe to malice what can easily be # attributed to ignorance, laziness, or incompetence. # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Wed Aug 28 02:25:50 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA11371 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Aug 1996 02:25:50 +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 CAA11366 for ; Wed, 28 Aug 1996 02:25:42 +1000 Received: from cph5.ppp.dknet.dk (cph5.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.5]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA28694 for ; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 18:25:34 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Query on L93: May the national authority overrule the TD? Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 18:25:07 +0200 Organization: at home Message-ID: <32232087.3850727@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99e/32.227 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Tue, 27 Aug 1996 03:07:27 +0100, David Stevenson wrote: [snip] >But if >the AC is the National authority then your system IMO is considerably >less fair because you have taken away a level of appeal to which a >player has a right under the Law book. > > In effect, if a player feels he should appeal further under L93C then >you make him appeal ***to the same body*** ??? !!! It seems obvious to me that the purpose of the right to appeal to the national authority is to ensure that a case can be brought to the highest qualified committee there is, not to ensure that it can be treated by a high number of more or less qualified instances. I consider it a clear advantage that appeals from our national championships are treated by the national authority as the first instance of appeal: this means that all appeals from these championships are decided by the committe which by definition is the best. In tournaments where we do have a committee "below" the national one, it happens that such a committee gives a clearly incorrect ruling which is not appealed further. This problem could of course be solved by educating committees better, but in a small country like Denmark it can also be solved by simply letting the national authority handle all appeals from the national championships. Since we do have a competent national authority (and so few appeals that it can handle the work), my opinion is that we should try to avoid involving less qualified committees in our championships. L93B says "If a committee is available ...". This is not the case in most Danish national championships. So we turn to L93A which says that the chief TD shall then rule all appeals; since there is often just one TD, meaning that the chief TD made the original ruling, this does not make sense. We are therefore left with L93C: "After the preceding remedies have been exhausted..." - which leads us to the national authority when we have exhausted the non-existent preceding remedies. This is legal in my opinion - and, which is more relevant, it also seems to be legal in the opinion of the national authority. In international championships, I believe there usually is a committee whose rulings cannot be appealed. In the real world, I would not complain about the lack of the right to appeal if I was bringing a law suit and it happened to be treated by the supreme court as the first instance; on the contrary, I'd be happy to get a qualified ruling in the first attempt. -- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Wed Aug 28 04:12:29 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA11836 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Aug 1996 04:12:29 +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 EAA11831 for ; Wed, 28 Aug 1996 04:12:23 +1000 Received: from cais3.cais.com (cais3.cais.com [199.0.216.227]) by andrew.cais.com (8.6.9/8.6.9-cais) with SMTP id OAA24198; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 14:12:17 -0400 Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 14:12:17 -0400 (EDT) From: Eric Landau To: Bridge Laws Discussion List cc: elandau@cais.com Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: <199608271615.JAA11683@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Tue, 27 Aug 1996, Jeff Goldsmith wrote: > The reasoning that club directors use around here > (and in the rest of the US in my experience) is that > club players don't want conflict. To that end, *calling* > the director for anything short of a revoke or lead out > of turn or such is strongly discouraged. In practice, > good players learn not to call the director for anything > other than problems that prevent continuation of play > simply because the director will refuse to rule anyway. > > I'm of two minds as to whether this is reasonable or not. > In my clubs, calling the director has never had any stigma > attached to it; something possibly went wrong, so they call > me over to figure out how to resolve it. There's no confrontation, > no conflict, no hurt feelings. My clubs, however, have been > special: the players are mostly students, mostly young. Other > club games tend to be made up of older, more belligerant, players. > For them, for whom a director call *is* a confrontation, *is* a > conflict, perhaps director calls ought strenuously be avoided. > Best would be to educate these people, but that is very unlikely > ever to happen, so to maximize the enjoyment of most club players, > it makes sense to me to have club directors just rule result stands > nearly always. The grumbling that results from this is far less > damaging than the screaming that will occur at the moment of an > adjustment. An additional factor is that when a club director attempts to make an adjustment against these "belligerent" players (whose belligerency has, inevitably, been picked up on the tournament scene) the players feel as though the director has "pulled the law" on them. So they attempt to "get even" by "pulling the law" on the director and demanding that they be allowed to appeal to a committee. (I understand that they have no such right at the club level, but that doesn't stop them from insisting on it.) Few clubs are "equipped" to provide ACs, and, even for most of those that are, it's a major hassle. Also, many club-level director-callers (for "adjustment-type infractions like UI or MI) profess not to want anything for themselves, but rather to want their opponents taken to task for some real or imagined infraction. They feel vindicated if the director delivers a "don't do it again" lecture along with a "no adjustment" ruling. It's an ego thing. They don't really want the matchpoints; they want to be able to say "see, it wasn't my fault that I botched up that hand; it was the opponents'." 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 Wed Aug 28 04:40:35 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA13565 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Aug 1996 04:40:35 +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 EAA13542 for ; Wed, 28 Aug 1996 04:40:28 +1000 Received: from cais3.cais.com (cais3.cais.com [199.0.216.227]) by andrew.cais.com (8.6.9/8.6.9-cais) with SMTP id OAA25665 for ; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 14:40:11 -0400 Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 14:40:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Eric Landau To: Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: National authority as tournament AC In-Reply-To: <32232087.3850727@pipmail.dknet.dk> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I've been reading Jesper's comments on the Danish practice, and gather that the Danish players are quite satisfied with it. I strongly suspect that the reason for this satisfaction isn't so much the fact that a player facing a committee knows that it's the highest-level authority and that they will therefore get a genuinely authoritative ruling as it is that they know that it's the SAME committee that sits in judgment every time, and that they will therefore get the SAME ruling that anyone else in the same situation would. In the U.S., the vast majority of our players revile our committee system because they are absolutely convinced that the ruling they'll get from an AC, even (especially?) at the National level, has much more to do with who's on the committee than with the merits of the appeal, and history has proven this to be the case. The concern isn't that our ACs' rulings are biased; it's that they are RANDOM. If you skim through one of the NABC Appeals booklets, which supplement the rationale for the actual ruling that was made with commentary from other members of the National Appeals Committee (from which the members of any given AC are selected), it's clear in 95% of the cases that had the luck of the draw selected one or two of the appeals-book "dissenters" for the sitting committee, the ruling would have gone the other way. 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 Wed Aug 28 07:42:22 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA20595 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Aug 1996 07:42:22 +1000 Received: from hill.msri.org (msri.org [198.129.64.224]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA20590 for ; Wed, 28 Aug 1996 07:42:15 +1000 From: grabiner@msri.org Received: by hill.msri.org for (8.7/1.43r) id OAA00641; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 14:42:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from boole.msri.org(198.129.65.86) by msri.org via smap (V1.3) id sma000637; Tue Aug 27 14:42:13 1996 Received: by boole.msri.org (8.7/DW.6) id OAA23672; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 14:40:02 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 14:40:02 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199608272140.OAA23672@boole.msri.org> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: grabiner@msri.org In-reply-to: (message from Eric Landau on Tue, 27 Aug 1996 14:40:12 -0400 (EDT)) Subject: Re: National authority as tournament AC Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Eric Landau writes: > In the U.S., the vast majority of our players revile our committee system > because they are absolutely convinced that the ruling they'll get from an > AC, even (especially?) at the National level, has much more to do with > who's on the committee than with the merits of the appeal, and history has > proven this to be the case. The concern isn't that our ACs' rulings are > biased; it's that they are RANDOM. And some of these difficulties can be avoided. I don't necessarily expect two different committees to agree on whether a bid is a logical alternative; however, the problem is often on interpretation of the Laws. For example, suppose that a player may have acted on UI when he chose to pass 5S rather than bid 6S, with 6S going down because of a 4-0 trump split. Some committees will adjust the score from +650 to -100, ruling that the gain was caused by the use of UI; others will rule that the use of UI caused a loss, keeping the player out of a 90% slam. > If you skim through one of the NABC > Appeals booklets, which supplement the rationale for the actual ruling > that was made with commentary from other members of the National Appeals > Committee (from which the members of any given AC are selected), it's > clear in 95% of the cases that had the luck of the draw selected one or > two of the appeals-book "dissenters" for the sitting committee, the ruling > would have gone the other way. This is often, but not always, the case. There are sometimes cases in which there is more to the committee decision than was written in the report. (Not having been at the committee deliberations, I can't prove that this is the case, but I can sometimes infer that the basis for the decision must have been a committee conclusion which wasn't in the write-up.) But it is a real problem. In particular, there is often a dispute about procedural penalties. If these books are to be treated as case law, then the ambiguities in the case law should be clarified, and the National Appeals Committee could do this by publishing a set of accepted interpretations for common problems. Here are some examples; they happen to be the interpretations with which I agree, but the important issue is to have some of them. If a break in tempo is likely to show a hand which could suggest either one of two actions over the other (e.g.., a slow forcing pass, or a slow limit raise), it should not be considered to suggest either one for purposes of UI. Damage is not considered to be a result of the infraction if the non-offending side gained an equity advantage at the table (e.g., avoiding a 25% slam), even though luck or inferior play caused them to get an inferior result. No adjustment is in order for either side, although a procedural penalty may be imposed. It is your duty to correct a misexplanation at the proper time, even if the explanation which was given properly describes your hand. (For example, if you play that 1H-1S shows a forcing 1NT hand without five spades, and partner says that it denies four spades, you should correct even if you do not hold four spades.) Likewise, in this situation, if a player might have bid differently given the correct explanation, an adjustment may be in order even though the hand fit the actual explanation. A small procedural penalty (2 IMPS or 1/8 board) should be imposed by the director in an NABC+ event if a misexplanation is not corrected at the proper time, either by declarer or dummy not correcting it at the end of the auction, or be a defender correcting it then. The imposition of a procedural penalty for infractions such as the apparent use of UI is independent of the score adjustment; if a procedural penalty would have been imposed had there been no damage, then it should be imposed in addition to the adjusted score. -- David Grabiner, grabiner@msri.org (note new Email) I speak of MSRI and by MSRI but not for MSRI. 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 Fri Aug 30 22:09:54 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA04704 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Aug 1996 22:09:54 +1000 Received: from mail1 (mail1.cais.com [199.0.216.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA04699 for ; Fri, 30 Aug 1996 22:09:48 +1000 Received: from cais3.cais.com (cais3.cais.com [199.0.216.227]) by mail1 (8.7.5/8.7.5-CAIS) with SMTP id HAA01688 for ; Fri, 30 Aug 1996 07:43:36 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 08:09:41 -0400 (EDT) From: Eric Landau Reply-To: Eric Landau To: Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: Re: National authority as tournament AC In-Reply-To: <199608272140.OAA23672@boole.msri.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Tue, 27 Aug 1996 grabiner@msri.org wrote: > Eric Landau writes: > > > In the U.S., the vast majority of our players revile our committee system > > because they are absolutely convinced that the ruling they'll get from an > > AC, even (especially?) at the National level, has much more to do with > > who's on the committee than with the merits of the appeal, and history has > > proven this to be the case. The concern isn't that our ACs' rulings are > > biased; it's that they are RANDOM. > > And some of these difficulties can be avoided. I don't necessarily > expect two different committees to agree on whether a bid is a logical > alternative; however, the problem is often on interpretation of the > Laws. For example, suppose that a player may have acted on UI when he > chose to pass 5S rather than bid 6S, with 6S going down because of a 4-0 > trump split. Some committees will adjust the score from +650 to -100, > ruling that the gain was caused by the use of UI; others will rule that > the use of UI caused a loss, keeping the player out of a 90% slam. This is the Kaplan doctrine, which says that for the non-offending pair to be entitled to an adjustment in these situations the damage they sustained must be a direct consequence of the infraction. The "connection between the infraction and the damage" can be "broken" -- resulting in no adjustment -- after equity has been "restored." Kaplan would argue that in David's example equity was restored when the 90% slam was missed; the fact that it worked to the offenders' advantage due to the 4-0 break was subsequent, but not consequent, to the infraction, so the non-offenders aren't entitled to an adjustment. Much trickier cases arise in the even more common situation where the connection is broken by the actions of the non-offending side: If the infraction puts them in a position where they could have gotten a better (or the same) score (than they would have had there been no infraction), but they actually got a worse score due to a misbid or misplay on their part, they get no adjustment, since equity was restored when they were given their shot at a better score, and the damage thus merely subsequent, but not consequent. I have never subscribed to this doctrine, and believe that it's the single worst source of committee-decision randomness. In David's example, my view is that once the committee agrees that absent the infraction the non- offenders would have been +100 for sure, they should adjust. In current practice, they must then go on to apply the "Kaplan test" and ask whether the "damage" (-650 rather than +100) was consequent or merely subsequent to the infraction. And different committees will come up with different answers. The misbid/misplay situations are much tougher, because the answer to the Kaplan test may very well depend on the committee's assessment of the non- offending player's ability. I debated this doctrine with Kaplan in an article in the Bridge World back when he first propounded it (early 1970s). In the article, the same situation recurs a number of times, with the non-offenders holding exactly the same hands each time. They bid to 4H, the opponents, making blatant and obvious use of UI, find a good save in 5C, and the NOs go on to 5H, which could be made, but, on declarer's actual play, goes down. In case 1, the director (in reality this would be the AC) applies the Kaplan test and rules that declarer wasn't "good enough" to be expected to make the hand, and the score is adjusted to +620 for the NOs. In case 2, with a declarer whose knowledge of technique is slightly more advanced, the director rules that he "should have" made the hand, and rules -100. In case 3, with the same declarer as case 2, the defenders' hands are changed so that the play to make is a bit more difficult, and this time he rules +620. In case 4, of course, a still better declarer facing the same situation is given -100. And so on, the point being, of course, that every ruling is correct under the Kaplan doctrine given the director's assessment of declarer's ability. [Shameless plug: I believe the article is still in print in one of TBW's "Ruling the Game" reprint booklets.] If the Kaplan doctrine were to be done away with, rulings would become much more consistent. Then, if a committee was convinced that the NOs would have gotten a better score had there been no infraction, they would be entitled to that score, period. 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 Aug 31 01:50:21 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA08538 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 01:50:21 +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 BAA08532 for ; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 01:48:56 +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 RAA13293 for ; Fri, 30 Aug 1996 17:46:41 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Fri, 30 Aug 1996 17:47:42 +0200 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 17:43:46 +0200 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: National authority as tournament AC Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Eric's excellent articles were part of the course material at the EBL TD course in Milan earlier this year. I hope the EBL did not infringe anyone's copyright, including Eric's. The EBL doctrine is, BTW, that it is possible to "break the connection" after the infraction by doing something stupid, but it has to be seriously stupid, and should smack of the notorious double shot, before the compensation is taken away from the non-offenders. But we covered this in detail a few months ago. Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark >>> Eric Landau 30.08.96 14:09 >>> [snippage] [Shameless plug: I believe the article is still in print in one of TBW's "Ruling the Game" reprint booklets.] If the Kaplan doctrine were to be done away with, rulings would become much more consistent. Then, if a committee was convinced that the NOs would have gotten a better score had there been no infraction, they would be entitled to that score, period. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Aug 31 03:46:44 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA09299 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 03:46:44 +1000 Received: from emout07.mail.aol.com (emout07.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.22]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA09294 for ; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 03:46:37 +1000 From: AlLeBendig@aol.com Received: by emout07.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA07624 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Fri, 30 Aug 1996 13:46:03 -0400 Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 13:46:03 -0400 Message-ID: <960830134602_513033775@emout07.mail.aol.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: National authority as tournament AC Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In a message dated 96-08-27 17:44:15 EDT, you write: << And some of these difficulties can be avoided. I don't necessarily expect two different committees to agree on whether a bid is a logical alternative; however, the problem is often on interpretation of the Laws. For example, suppose that a player may have acted on UI when he chose to pass 5S rather than bid 6S, with 6S going down because of a 4-0 trump split. Some committees will adjust the score from +650 to -100, ruling that the gain was caused by the use of UI; others will rule that the use of UI caused a loss, keeping the player out of a 90% slam. >> This is preposterous!! I have never seen any such ruling from a Regional Committee let alone an NABC Committee. I assume that the author has an example to tell us about... Alan LeBendig From owner-bridge-laws Sat Aug 31 03:47:00 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA09315 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 03:47:00 +1000 Received: from emout09.mail.aol.com (emout09.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA09310 for ; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 03:46:54 +1000 From: AlLeBendig@aol.com Received: by emout09.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA11212 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Fri, 30 Aug 1996 13:46:19 -0400 Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 13:46:19 -0400 Message-ID: <960830134619_513033919@emout09.mail.aol.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: National authority as tournament AC Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In a message dated 96-08-27 17:44:15 EDT, David Grabiner writes: Eric Landau writes: << > If you skim through one of the NABC > Appeals booklets, which supplement the rationale for the actual ruling > that was made with commentary from other members of the National Appeals > Committee (from which the members of any given AC are selected), it's > clear in 95% of the cases that had the luck of the draw selected one or > two of the appeals-book "dissenters" for the sitting committee, the ruling > would have gone the other way. David writes: This is often, but not always, the case. There are sometimes cases in which there is more to the committee decision than was written in the report. (Not having been at the committee deliberations, I can't prove that this is the case, but I can sometimes infer that the basis for the decision must have been a committee conclusion which wasn't in the write-up.) **It is very difficult to get everything into a committee report. Keep in mind that the members have played two sessions and are sometimes handling two plus cases in one evening. When they finish, they want to get to bed. Overall, I think they do an excellent job. We are trying to have a scribe in as many committees as possible. This will help us get a more thorough write-up. There certainly have been times when I did not feel I could put on paper part of the reason for my decision. This certainly makes David's suspicions valid. But it is a real problem. In particular, there is often a dispute about procedural penalties. If these books are to be treated as case law, then the ambiguities in the case law should be clarified, and the National Appeals Committee could do this by publishing a set of accepted interpretations for common problems. **It has never been suggested that these books be treated as case law. They are published solely for the purpose of giving us all a chance to see how ACs are handling different types of problems. It was started as an effort at introspection. It was hoped that we could all learn from our mistakes once we were able to agree what was a mistake. I feel strongly that the books have done a great job of achieving their purpose. Anyone who thinks we could ever get to a point where all ACs see a similar problem and all make the same ruling is living in a dream world, My hope has always been that we can all approach the problems in the same manner. The fact that we might judge the outcome differently doesn't bother me in the slightest. Here are some examples; they happen to be the interpretations with which I agree, but the important issue is to have some of them. If a break in tempo is likely to show a hand which could suggest either one of two actions over the other (e.g.., a slow forcing pass, or a slow limit raise), it should not be considered to suggest either one for purposes of UI. **That is clearly dealt with in the Laws. The wording change in the new Laws (if approved) will make that point even better. Damage is not considered to be a result of the infraction if the non-offending side gained an equity advantage at the table (e.g., avoiding a 25% slam), even though luck or inferior play caused them to get an inferior result. No adjustment is in order for either side, although a procedural penalty may be imposed. **As to inferior play causing them to get a bad result, most of us tend to agree. But in such a case, the use of UI did not cause the bad result. The inferior play or defense did. Now we have subsequent damage. The offending side should not gain their ill-gotten result because of an error on the part of the non-offending side. A procedural penalty could certainly be imposed in addition to taking away the result. There is a good deal of disagreement when the gods allow the 10% slam to make. My personal belief is that the non-offending side should never be stuck with a result that they would not have gotten from ethical opponents. You seem to disagree. You are not alone with that point of view. Most notably, Bobby Goldman agrees. It seems that this viewpoint is a minority one. It is your duty to correct a misexplanation at the proper time, even if the explanation which was given properly describes your hand. (For example, if you play that 1H-1S shows a forcing 1NT hand without five spades, and partner says that it denies four spades, you should correct even if you do not hold four spades.) Likewise, in this situation, if a player might have bid differently given the correct explanation, an adjustment may be in order even though the hand fit the actual explanation. **The Laws clearly support this point of view. Some aspects of it bother me and others. Suppose I hold: KT9x QT9x Qx Jxx. Partner opens a NT (15-17) and I bid 2C. Partner bids 2D and I bid 2NT. Partner does not alert and bids 3NT. Everyone passes. There has clearly been a failure to alert. (2NT should have been alerted and defined as not promising a 4 card major.) I could legally inform the opponents of this ommission. But WHY would I? If my opponents gain from the knowledge that I have a four card major because of my silence, so be it. My partner won't make that error in the future. Some of us believe that technicallly a player that in this situation brings this failure to alert to the attention of the opponents is protected under the Law. However, his side may be penalized because his partner failed to alert at the proper time. It really bothers me when players appear to be trying to use the law to gain an edge. In the given situation, I could come to no other conclusion. A small procedural penalty (2 IMPS or 1/8 board) should be imposed by the director in an NABC+ event if a misexplanation is not corrected at the proper time, either by declarer or dummy not correcting it at the end of the auction, or be a defender correcting it then. **I have been pushing for such a penalty to be automatic if the failure to disclose can in any way be considered material. The current level of penalties is 3 IMPs or 1/4 board. Those are fairly standard. Don't forget that a defender cannot disclose until play has concluded and is then obligated to do so. The imposition of a procedural penalty for infractions such as the apparent use of UI is independent of the score adjustment; if a procedural penalty would have been imposed had there been no damage, then it should be imposed in addition to the adjusted score. **I totally agree. I feel that it should even be imposed if the blatant use of UI results in a bad board for the offending side. If L73C has been violated, the resulting score should have no bearing on whether or not a procedural penalty is in order. Alan LeBendig From owner-bridge-laws Sat Aug 31 08:21:29 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA10515 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 08:21:29 +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 IAA10510 for ; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 08:21:21 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id aa15542; 30 Aug 96 22:54 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa05728; 30 Aug 96 22:54 BST Message-ID: Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 22:47:15 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: UI: Damage: Misexplanations: PPs In-Reply-To: <960830134619_513033919@emout09.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Alan LeBendig wrote: >David Grabiner writes: [s] >> If a break in tempo is likely to show a hand which could suggest >>either one of two actions over the other (e.g.., a slow forcing pass, >>or a slow limit raise), it should not be considered to suggest either >>one for purposes of UI. > That is clearly dealt with in the Laws. The wording change in the new >Laws (if approved) will make that point even better. Now come on Alan. We had an awful fight about this. While I am prepared to accept what David Grabiner says, it is not clear in the Laws at all, and I can and did produce several arguments the other way. Let us say that we have decided it is an acceptable interpretation of the current Laws. >> Damage is not considered to be a result of the infraction if the >>non-offending side gained an equity advantage at the table (e.g., >>avoiding a 25% slam), even though luck or inferior play caused them to >>get an inferior result. No adjustment is in order for either side, >>although a procedural penalty may be imposed. > As to inferior play causing them to get a bad result, most of us tend >to agree. But in such a case, the use of UI did not cause the bad >result. The inferior play or defense did. Now we have subsequent >damage. The offending side should not gain their ill-gotten result >because of an error on the part of the non-offending side. A >procedural penalty could certainly be imposed in addition to taking >away the result. There is a good deal of disagreement when the gods >allow the 10% slam to make. My personal belief is that the non- >offending side should never be stuck with a result that they would not >have gotten from ethical opponents. You seem to disagree. You are not >alone with that point of view. Most notably, Bobby Goldman agrees. It >seems that this viewpoint is a minority one. My views are that all damage is consequent and should be adjusted: but that is not the current interpretation. You will find another article attached to this thread with the argument about this. >> It is your duty to correct a misexplanation at the proper time, even >>if the explanation which was given properly describes your hand. (For >>example, if you play that 1H-1S shows a forcing 1NT hand without five >>spades, and partner says that it denies four spades, you should >>correct even if you do not hold four spades.) Likewise, in this >>situation, if a player might have bid differently given the correct >>explanation, an adjustment may be in order even though the hand fit >>the actual explanation. > The Laws clearly support this point of view. Some aspects of it >bother me and others. Suppose I hold: KT9x QT9x Qx Jxx. Partner >opens a NT (15-17) and I bid 2C. Partner bids 2D and I bid 2NT. >Partner does not alert and bids 3NT. Everyone passes. There has >clearly been a failure to alert. (2NT should have been alerted and >defined as not promising a 4 card major.) I could legally inform the >opponents of this ommission. But WHY would I? Because it is an *absolute* requirement of the Laws, and a player is deliberately breaking the Laws of the game if he doesn't - and that is a very serious offence. > If my opponents gain from the knowledge that I have a four card major >because of my silence, so be it. My partner won't make that error in >the future. Some of us believe that technicallly a player that in this >situation brings this failure to alert to the attention of the >opponents is protected under the Law. However, his side may be >penalized because his partner failed to alert at the proper time. It >really bothers me when players appear to be trying to use the law to >gain an edge. In the given situation, I could come to no other >conclusion. It really bothers me when a player knows the Law and does not follow it. He should leave the ramifications to the lawmakers, the TDs, ACs, luck and so on. Once he treats himself as God ["I am not going to follow *this* Law, with the best of reasons"] then he is on a slippery slope to the awful place. He should follow the Laws and leave other matters to other people. >> A small procedural penalty (2 IMPS or 1/8 board) should be imposed by >>the director in an NABC+ event if a misexplanation is not corrected at >>the proper time, either by declarer or dummy not correcting it at the >>end of the auction, or be a defender correcting it then. > I have been pushing for such a penalty to be automatic if the failure >to disclose can in any way be considered material. The current level >of penalties is 3 IMPs or 1/4 board. Those are fairly standard. Don't >forget that a defender cannot disclose until play has concluded and is >then obligated to do so. While I am not particularly keen on automatic PPs, if you do have them then *publish* them. >> The imposition of a procedural penalty for infractions such as the >>apparent use of UI is independent of the score adjustment; if a >>procedural penalty would have been imposed had there been no damage, >>then it should be imposed in addition to the adjusted score. > I totally agree. I feel that it should even be imposed if the blatant >use of UI results in a bad board for the offending side. If L73C has >been violated, the resulting score should have no bearing on whether or >not a procedural penalty is in order. I don't particularly agree, but it probably depends on the level of the event: I find that arguments by Americans on BLML and RGB tend to concentrate on the top flights and the top events. We try and avoid PPs in ordinary events. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Sat Aug 31 08:30:03 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA10571 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 08:30:03 +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 IAA10565 for ; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 08:29:47 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ab15543; 30 Aug 96 22:54 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa05727; 30 Aug 96 22:54 BST Message-ID: Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 22:40:02 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Wild or gambling action: Action subsequent to infraction In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 1.12 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Eric Landau wrote: >If the Kaplan doctrine were to be done away with, rulings would >become much more consistent. Then, if a committee was convinced >that the NOs would have gotten a better score had there been no >infraction, they would be entitled to that score, period. Jens Brix Christiansen wrote: >The EBL doctrine is, BTW, that it is possible to "break the connection" >after the infraction by doing something stupid, but it has to be >seriously stupid, and should smack of the notorious double shot, >before the compensation is taken away from the non-offenders. >But we covered this in detail a few months ago. Maybe we should look at it again. Talking to Mike Swanson [one of the top British TDs] at Brighton he said that the idea of "wild or gambling action" [our equivalent to subsequent not consequent] seemed stupid to him. Suppose that the bidding goes W N E S 1S NB 4S NB[agreed hesitation] NB 5D X NB NB NB The 5D bid is adjudged as using UI, ie Pass would have been an LA. Generally we would adjust the board back to 4S, unless of course the other side does better out of 5D. But suppose that the double of 5D is adjudged as crazy, a total gamble. Then we have a different approach. Suppose 5D makes, as does 4S. In GB we would adjust to 4S making for N/S but let 5Dx remain for E/W. [This is legal: see earlier thread.] In the ACBL they would ... to be honest, I am not sure that they are consistent, but let us suppose that 5Dx stands for both sides. Why? The first argument is that the damage was subsequent to the infraction. This is actually irrelevant: damage is just about always subsequent to the infraction, and it is just poor wording. The second argument is that the damage was not consequent on the infraction, and thus the wording of L16A2 [an infraction of law has resulted in damage] and other damage laws is not followed. In other words, if it was not consequent, then it has not resulted in damage. At least this is a reasonable argument, and if accepted the question asked should not be "Was damage consequent or subsequent?" but it should be "Was damage consequent or not?" Take the example case. What would have happened if there was no infraction, ie the player had not chosen the illegal LA? He would have passed 4S out, and there could not have been a double of 5D. So the double of 5D was a consequence of the infraction, since it could not have happened without it. Mike's view is that *without* the infraction there *can* be no damage, and any damage subsequent to an infraction is consequent on it as a result. He believes that if players commit an infraction their opponents should have the right to see if they can benefit, and get a ruling if not. Simply, he sees the double-shot as reasonable: after all it only discommodes people who have committed an infraction. In the example case if the double of 5D is crazy, and makes, and if the TD/AC decides that North had no LA of Pass, then E/W get a fully deserved bad board because there is no infraction. I actually have a lot of sympathy for Mike's view. If people commit an infraction then their opponents probably should have the right to see if they can benefit before any adjustment is considered: what is wrong with a double-shot? Consider Rugby Union: If an infraction occurs, the referee lets play continue for a time to see if the non-offenders gain an advantage, and then whistles and brings play back only if they don't: classic double-shot technique! -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Sat Aug 31 09:20:51 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA10942 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 09:20:51 +1000 Received: from irvine.com (flash.irvine.com [192.160.8.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA10937 for ; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 09:20:41 +1000 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa09963; 30 Aug 96 16:20 PDT To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: UI: Damage: Misexplanations: PPs In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 30 Aug 1996 22:47:15 PDT." Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 16:20:04 PDT From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9608301620.aa09963@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > Alan LeBendig wrote: > > The Laws clearly support this point of view. Some aspects of it > >bother me and others. Suppose I hold: KT9x QT9x Qx Jxx. Partner > >opens a NT (15-17) and I bid 2C. Partner bids 2D and I bid 2NT. > >Partner does not alert and bids 3NT. Everyone passes. There has > >clearly been a failure to alert. (2NT should have been alerted and > >defined as not promising a 4 card major.) I could legally inform the > >opponents of this ommission. But WHY would I? > > Because it is an *absolute* requirement of the Laws, and a player is > deliberately breaking the Laws of the game if he doesn't - and that is a > very serious offence. > > > If my opponents gain from the knowledge that I have a four card major > >because of my silence, so be it. My partner won't make that error in > >the future. Some of us believe that technicallly a player that in this > >situation brings this failure to alert to the attention of the > >opponents is protected under the Law. However, his side may be > >penalized because his partner failed to alert at the proper time. It > >really bothers me when players appear to be trying to use the law to > >gain an edge. In the given situation, I could come to no other > >conclusion. > > It really bothers me when a player knows the Law and does not follow > it. He should leave the ramifications to the lawmakers, the TDs, ACs, > luck and so on. Once he treats himself as God ["I am not going to > follow *this* Law, with the best of reasons"] then he is on a slippery > slope to the awful place. He should follow the Laws and leave other > matters to other people. I'm new to BLML, so pardon me if this question has come up before, but . . . Would it do to announce something before the opening lead like, "There was a failure to alert, 2NT doesn't necessarily promise a 4-card major, but I happen to have one this time"? This would seem to solve both problems. You're still obeying the Laws, but you're also avoiding the problem that Alan is concerned about (as am I), that your (legally required) explanation could make the opponents think you misleading them. (If your partner doesn't like you telling the opponents what your hand is, maybe he'll remember to Alert next time.) -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Sat Aug 31 17:11:02 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA13614 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 17:11:02 +1000 Received: from emout17.mail.aol.com (emout17.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.43]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA13609 for ; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 17:10:55 +1000 From: AlLeBendig@aol.com Received: by emout17.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA19510 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Sat, 31 Aug 1996 03:10:20 -0400 Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 03:10:20 -0400 Message-ID: <960831031019_273787098@emout17.mail.aol.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: UI: Damage: Misexplanations: PPs Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In a message dated 96-08-30 18:23:24 EDT, David Stevenson writes: [s] Alan LeBendig writes: << > The Laws clearly support this point of view. Some aspects of it >bother me and others. Suppose I hold: KT9x QT9x Qx Jxx. Partner >opens a NT (15-17) and I bid 2C. Partner bids 2D and I bid 2NT. >Partner does not alert and bids 3NT. Everyone passes. There has >clearly been a failure to alert. (2NT should have been alerted and >defined as not promising a 4 card major.) I could legally inform the >opponents of this ommission. But WHY would I? Because it is an *absolute* requirement of the Laws, and a player is deliberately breaking the Laws of the game if he doesn't - and that is a very serious offence. **I cannot argue with you about what the Laws instruct me to do, David. You are absolutely right in that respect. At the same time, I have a very strong sense of what is RIGHT in a moral sense. I'm not alone here. I had this awareness, if you will, long before Bobby Wolff started the Active Ethics Campaign. Given the situation I quote above, you will never convince me that I am playing God by deciding now is the time that I must disclose that there has been a failure to alert. In such a simple situation the opponents can never be helped by this disclosure. They can clearly be damaged by the inference regardless of how I word it. If I say nothing, it is a totally level playing field. What can ever be wrong with that? I'm not saying there aren't some situations that may not be as clear as this. But this is clear AND simple, IMO. A few years ago a player held a 4-3-2-4 pattern and 13 count. His partner opened 1C and he bid 1S. Opener rebid 1NT and he raised to 3NT. After three passes he said there had been a failure to alert. His 1S bid may have bypassed a longer diamond suit. At the time this was clearly an alert. By your statements, I gather you have no problem with this disclosure and insist he must do so. I can understand the logic for nearly everything contained in the Laws and present valid arguments for all of it. However, I can see no logic or reason for any Law, either bridge or civil, that requires me to do something I know is morally wrong. The above case came to an AC and after much discussion with the TDs we realized that the Laws in fact required this player to do as he had. We were all very bothered by that. In later discussions with EK, he gave me an excellent (IMO) solution. The player was in fact required to disclose the failure to alert and has done nothing "wrong" in a legal sense. However, his partner's failure to alert at the proper time was a clear offense and, if we so choose, is punishable by a PP. Faced with such a situation in the future, I am comfortable in knowing it can be handled as legally as the player chose this hand to "fully disclose". > If my opponents gain from the knowledge that I have a four card major >because of my silence, so be it. My partner won't make that error in >the future. Some of us believe that technicallly a player that in this >situation brings this failure to alert to the attention of the >opponents is protected under the Law. However, his side may be >penalized because his partner failed to alert at the proper time. It >really bothers me when players appear to be trying to use the law to >gain an edge. In the given situation, I could come to no other >conclusion. It really bothers me when a player knows the Law and does not follow it. He should leave the ramifications to the lawmakers, the TDs, ACs, luck and so on. Once he treats himself as God ["I am not going to follow *this* Law, with the best of reasons"] then he is on a slippery slope to the awful place. He should follow the Laws and leave other matters to other people. **My way may indeed be a slippery slope to that awful place. I believe the alternative to be a full speed descent. [s] Alan LeBendig >>