From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 1 06:24:41 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA05947 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 1 Jan 1998 06:24:41 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA05942 for ; Thu, 1 Jan 1998 06:24:35 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1021711; 31 Dec 97 19:22 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 18:07:43 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Lady Milne Trial. In-Reply-To: <199712291943.OAA10340@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve Willner wrote: >> From: "John (MadDog) Probst" >> The convention card was mis-leading - NS screwed up because of it. > >It seems to me that this is the first of many key questions, not yet >answered by the facts we have. Was the CC misleading or not? > >If it said something like, "Describe your defense to two-bids" and >leaves a large blank space, failing to note the possibility of a >penalty double seems to me a clear infraction. > >If, OTOH, the CC simply has "Double of two bid = T/O, penalty" and a >couple of check boxes, checking the box that applies to _natural_ >two-bids seems quite reasonable, even if a different agreement applies >to artificial two-bids. > >Most likely, the real CC is somewhere in between (both check boxes and >blanck space available). Is it? If so, the TD (and no doubt AC) has >to judge whether the CC was or was not properly filled out. If it was >not, EW have committed an infraction, and any damage is primarily their >own fault. If the CC and alert are correct (and there is no other EW >infraction relating to proper disclosure), we have some further >questions about exactly what happened when, but there is potential for >an adjustment because of NS misinformation about the meaning of >the redouble. It is likely that it was an EBU 20A CC. To see it in detail I suggest you download the CC editor from http://www.acbl.org/convcard/edwards.htm and then you will see exactly what it looks like. The only other cards that would be likely to be in use would be an EBU 20 [simpler version: the bit containing defensive bidding is identical] or a WBF card, which will be found on the same editor. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 1 06:23:43 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA05935 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 1 Jan 1998 06:23:43 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA05930 for ; Thu, 1 Jan 1998 06:23:36 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id ac2009337; 31 Dec 97 19:23 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 19:20:03 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: was Use L12C3 here?, now Stevenson over-ruled! In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk John (MadDog) Probst wrote: >Jens & Bodil writes >>After having made a fool of myself in the Lady Milne Trials case, >>whose thread is still active, I would like to offer this case. It >>is from the Danish first devision and involves players at or just >>below the Bermuda Bowl level. This time I will force myself to >>listen to your opinions before offering my own. [723 repeated lines deleted] Lost your scissors? >This is bollocks. S knows they can play in 7NT or 4H after the response. >North knows that S knows which contract will be sensible (whatever it >is). They wouldn't play such *stupid* methods unless they could sort out >the mess in a competitive auction. To rule 4S is perverse. 4H tick. >Easy. > >Now to the meat course: >Pairs: Love all > >K92 >- >xx >AKxxxxxx Look, John, I don't care whether you quote this hand or not. But why do you have to mess another thread up? As Karen has said elsewhere several articles are too long. You quote the whole of the first hand just too put some quick comment on and then you put a new hand on that has *no* relevance whatever to the previous hand. If you have a new subject please out it in a separate thread. >To be continued ....(It's a bit unfair - Me lives 2 miles from the >Tourney & he is 200 miles from home & away from his PC). BTW I have >bought him a whisky. ... and now you owe him another. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 1 06:25:25 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA05972 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 1 Jan 1998 06:25:25 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA05967 for ; Thu, 1 Jan 1998 06:25:20 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2009341; 31 Dec 97 19:23 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 19:14:52 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Quoting In-Reply-To: <43345e26.34a8fde0@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk KRAllison wrote: >It seems that in order to read virtually any posting on BLML these days, you >have to scroll through the entire posting being responded to. Frankly, this >is an effort that I think unnecessary as well as a lengthening of each message >for those (not me) who pay for that. > >Isn't it possible to quote just enough of the relevant posting to bring the >reader's attention to it and then to get on with the response? It's quite a complicated subject. In the time I have been reading two bridge newsgroups, one wibble newsgroup, one trains newsgroup and four cats newsgroups [I cannot remember subscribing to rec.pets.sexy.cats.sexy.binaries or alt.cooking.indian.mice!] I have seen a lot of problems. Certainly you should consider snipping whenever replying. However, snipping too much is also unhelpful: changing the attribution accidentally [as has happened just now in another thread] causes problems. Just quoting enough to remind is good enough when everyone knows what's being talked about. However, when answering someone else's comments, it *is* useful to quote the relevant part of the comment. Worst of all has always been quoting eight pages to add a one-liner at the end. But the other end of the spectrum is the messages I have seen which say nothing more than [from RGB]: ********************************************************************** I would bid 3S. 3D is ALWAYS forcing [unless the ACBL has changed the rules AGAIN]. ********************************************************************** Work that out! I agree that people should snip, but too much is as bad as too little. Let's try for the happy medium. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 1 19:18:31 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA07374 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 1 Jan 1998 19:18:31 +1100 Received: from terminator2.xtra.co.nz (terminator2.xtra.co.nz [202.27.184.2]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA07368 for ; Thu, 1 Jan 1998 19:18:25 +1100 Received: from notebook (p20-m13-wn4.dialup.xtra.co.nz [203.96.105.20]) by terminator2.xtra.co.nz (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA11986 for ; Thu, 1 Jan 1998 21:17:07 +1300 (NZDT) Message-ID: <34AB4FDA.208A62E0@xtra.co.nz> Date: Thu, 01 Jan 1998 21:12:10 +1300 From: LizorWayne Reply-To: wayne.burrows@xtra.co.nz X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en]C-XTRA (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Inadvertent Play X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi. I've been a regular reader of bridge laws for most of the last year. This is my first posting. Declarer, sitting East was playing 6NT and received a low diamond lead. Axx KQxx AQxx Kxx Qx Axxx KQ10x Ax The Queen of Diamonds held the first trick. Early in the play before testing the majors declarer played Ace and another club. The Jack appeared in front of the dummy on the second round and declarer called for the ten! I believe her words were in this tempo "Ten, sorry ... (pause) I mean the King". What are the relevant principals in determining whether declarer's play was inadvertent? Declarer was a relatively weak and inexperienced player. When this occurred I asked her what her intention was in leading towards the dummy and she responded that she was always going to play the king. I could find no reason to doubt her honesty so I ruled that the change of card was a legal change of an inadvertent designation. -- Wayne Burrows mailto:wayne.burrows@xtra.co.nz World Juggling Day 20 June 1998 http://www.juggle.org/wjd From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 2 03:21:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA10777 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 03:21:09 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA10772 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 03:21:00 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1026578; 1 Jan 98 16:18 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 15:56:08 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Year End Congress MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk BLML is worthwhile! We had a case which seemed to follow from one of our long discussions so was easy! -- -- -- K xx A -- -- -- 7 x xx -- -- -- -- Spades are trumps. East is on lead. "One each" he says. "NO!!!" says West. How do you rule? -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 2 04:52:24 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA11396 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 04:52:24 +1100 Received: from sand.global.net.uk (root@sand.global.net.uk [194.126.82.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA11390 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 04:52:18 +1100 Received: from vnmvhhid (client27fe.globalnet.co.uk [195.147.27.254]) by sand.global.net.uk (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id RAA04382 for ; Thu, 1 Jan 1998 17:52:13 GMT From: "Anne Jones" To: Subject: Inadvertent Play? Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 17:52:32 -0800 Message-ID: <01bd1721$16e7ede0$LocalHost@vnmvhhid> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0021_01BD16DE.08C4ADE0" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0021_01BD16DE.08C4ADE0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From: LizorWayne To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Thursday, January 01, 1998 12:43 AM Subject: Inadvertent Play Sorry Wayne.I think it is unreasonable that the player ever intended to spurn this finesse and cut her chances of making this contract. I would rule that she had in fact changed her mind. My approach if she was really a very weak player would have been to congratulate her for planning the play correctly but sympathise with her = for letting her tongue work faster than her brain,and explain carefully = how Law 45 works. Of course I would allow play to continue and hope that one of the majors broke for her! Of course if that happened, everyone else would be making = 13 tricks! A Happy New Year to everyone. Anne ------=_NextPart_000_0021_01BD16DE.08C4ADE0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
From: LizorWayne <liz.burrows@xtra.co.nz>
= To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.ed= u.au=20 <bridge-laws@octavia.anu.ed= u.au>
Date:=20 Thursday, January 01, 1998 12:43 AM
Subject: Inadvertent=20 Play


Sorry Wayne.I think it is unreasonable that the player = ever=20 intended to
spurn this finesse and cut her chances of making this=20 contract.
I would rule that she had in fact changed her mind.
My = approach=20 if she was really a very weak player would have been to
congratulate = her for=20 planning the play correctly but sympathise with her for letting her = tongue work=20 faster than her brain,and explain carefully how Law 45 works.
Of = course I=20 would allow play to continue and hope that one of the majors
broke = for her!=20 Of course if that happened, everyone else would be making 13 = tricks!
A Happy=20 New Year  to everyone.
Anne
 
------=_NextPart_000_0021_01BD16DE.08C4ADE0-- From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 2 13:59:23 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA12809 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 13:59:23 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA12804 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 13:59:17 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1024463; 2 Jan 98 2:57 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 02:29:05 +0000 To: David Stevenson Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: Year End Congress In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message , David Stevenson writes > > BLML is worthwhile! We had a case which seemed to follow from one of >our long discussions so was easy! > > -- > -- > -- > K xx A > -- -- > -- 7 > x xx -- > -- > -- > -- > > Spades are trumps. East is on lead. "One each" he says. "NO!!!" >says West. How do you rule? > I'd rule that West's "No" is UI to East and that it would be careless, but not irrational for East to cash his A -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 2 15:56:19 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA13020 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 15:56:19 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA13015 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 15:56:10 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2013071; 2 Jan 98 4:45 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 04:44:33 +0000 To: Anne Jones Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: Inadvertent Play? In-Reply-To: <01bd1721$16e7ede0$LocalHost@vnmvhhid> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <01bd1721$16e7ede0$LocalHost@vnmvhhid>, Anne Jones writes >From: LizorWayne >To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au >Date: Thursday, January 01, 1998 12:43 AM >Subject: Inadvertent Play > > >Sorry Wayne.I think it is unreasonable that the player ever intended to >spurn this finesse and cut her chances of making this contract. >I would rule that she had in fact changed her mind. >My approach if she was really a very weak player would have been to >congratulate her for planning the play correctly but sympathise with her for >letting her tongue work faster than her brain,and explain carefully how Law 45 >works. >Of course I would allow play to continue and hope that one of the majors >broke for her! Of course if that happened, everyone else would be making 13 >tricks! >A Happy New Year to everyone. >Anne > I think that's a very good ruling and concur -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 2 22:20:54 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA14011 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 22:20:54 +1100 Received: from isa.dknet.dk (root@isa.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA14006 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 22:20:46 +1100 Received: from default (cph57.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.57]) by isa.dknet.dk (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA13596 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 12:20:37 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199801021120.MAA13596@isa.dknet.dk> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Jens & Bodil" Organization: Alesia Software To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 12:21:05 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Year End Congress Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42a) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk John (MadDog) Probst wrote: > In message , David Stevenson > writes (snip) > > Spades are trumps. East is on lead. "One each" he says. "NO!!!" > >says West. How do you rule? > > > I'd rule that West's "No" is UI to East and that it would be careless, > but not irrational for East to cash his A I agree that EW only get one of the last two tricks, but I don't agree on the way you arrive at this. Your use of "careless but not irrational" seems to imply that you are applying L69, L70, or L71. In my opinion, these laws don't apply here. Should you not rather apply L68B and let play continue, using L16A2? If E now does not cash his Ace, you should adjust the score because cashing the Ace must be a logical alternative when E was willing to concede the last trick, and W's comment demonstrably suggests that it might be a good idea not to cash the Ace. I really appreciate that BLML exists, so that I get a chance to get nitpicking comments like these off my chest. -- Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 2 23:07:28 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA14166 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 23:07:28 +1100 Received: from isa.dknet.dk (root@isa.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA14161 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 23:07:20 +1100 Received: from default (cph7.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.7]) by isa.dknet.dk (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA15095 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 13:07:11 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199801021207.NAA15095@isa.dknet.dk> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Jens & Bodil" Organization: Alesia Software To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 13:07:39 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Year End Congress Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42a) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Less than an hour ago, I wrote: > John (MadDog) Probst wrote: > > > In message , David Stevenson > > writes > > (snip) > > > > Spades are trumps. East is on lead. "One each" he says. > > > "NO!!!" > > >says West. How do you rule? > > > > > I'd rule that West's "No" is UI to East and that it would be > > careless, but not irrational for East to cash his A > > I agree that EW only get one of the last two tricks, but I don't > agree on the way you arrive at this. Your use of "careless but not > irrational" seems to imply that you are applying L69, L70, or L71. > In my opinion, these laws don't apply here. > > Should you not rather apply L68B and let play continue, using L16A2? > If E now does not cash his Ace, you should adjust the score because > cashing the Ace must be a logical alternative when E was willing to > concede the last trick, and W's comment demonstrably suggests that > it might be a good idea not to cash the Ace. Bodil, who must put up with one BLMLer as a partner in daily life and another at the bridge club, who is not and does not want to be a TD, and who tolerantly listens to my unsolicited and frequently incredibly boring accounts of ostensibly interesting rulings, asked an innocent question over lunch just a few moments ago: What if E could just as well think that it was partner who had two small trumps left and declarer who had the singleton King? We cannot easily pass judgement on what E might or might not think, since we don't know what the bidding and the play was, but let us assume that the TD is convinced that E really does not know either way. Then I would rule that W's "NO!!!" does not demonstrably suggest one lead over the other, so play continues, and no adjustment is appropriate. A ruling like this in the Danish first division is the stuff that appeals are made of. -- Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 3 00:26:52 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA16759 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 00:26:52 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA16754 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 00:26:46 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic20.cais.com [207.226.56.20]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id IAA07523 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 08:16:38 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980102083048.006b62ec@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 1998 08:30:48 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Inadvertent Play In-Reply-To: <34AB4FDA.208A62E0@xtra.co.nz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 09:12 PM 1/1/98 +1300, LizorWayne wrote: >Early in the play before testing the majors declarer played Ace and >another club. The Jack appeared in front of the dummy on the second >round and declarer called for the ten! > >I believe her words were in this tempo "Ten, sorry ... (pause) I mean >the King". > >What are the relevant principals in determining whether declarer's play >was inadvertent? "Inadvertent" refers to a mechanical error, in this case (spoken bidding) a genuine "slip of the tongue." A change of mind, even an obvious one based on seeing (or "registering") an opponent's played card, is not correctable. >Declarer was a relatively weak and inexperienced player. When this >occurred I asked her what her intention was in leading towards the dummy >and she responded that she was always going to play the king. > >I could find no reason to doubt her honesty so I ruled that the change >of card was a legal change of an inadvertent designation. This is a judgment call which we can't make. You were there; we weren't. If you believed that declarer intended all along to call for the king -- that she would have attempted the same correction in the same manner had her LHO played a small card rather than the jack -- your ruling was correct. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 3 00:37:31 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA16843 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 00:37:31 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA16838 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 00:37:26 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic20.cais.com [207.226.56.20]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id IAA08439 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 08:27:20 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980102084131.006b825c@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 1998 08:41:31 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Year End Congress In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 03:56 PM 1/1/98 +0000, David wrote: > -- > -- > -- > K xx A > -- -- > -- 7 > x xx -- > -- > -- > -- > > Spades are trumps. East is on lead. "One each" he says. "NO!!!" >says West. How do you rule? One each. E's mental picture of the hand is obviously such that it doesn't matter which card he plays. W's objection makes the D7 lead more attractive; L16A applies (L68B). I don't consider the SA "irrational" in the sense of L69Bfn. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 3 00:41:22 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA16865 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 00:41:22 +1100 Received: from ncc.ripe.net (ncc.ripe.net [193.0.0.129]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA16860 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 00:41:16 +1100 Received: from localhost by ncc.ripe.net with SMTP id AA08611 (5.65a/NCC-2.41); Fri, 2 Jan 1998 14:39:56 +0100 Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 14:39:56 +0100 (MET) From: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" To: Jens & Bodil Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Year End Congress In-Reply-To: <199801021207.NAA15095@isa.dknet.dk> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Fri, 2 Jan 1998, Jens & Bodil wrote: > > John (MadDog) Probst wrote: > > > In message , David Stevenson > > > > Spades are trumps. East is on lead. "One each" he says. > > > > "NO!!!" > > > >says West. How do you rule? > > > > > > > I'd rule that West's "No" is UI to East and that it would be > > > careless, but not irrational for East to cash his A > > > > I agree that EW only get one of the last two tricks, but I don't > > agree on the way you arrive at this. Your use of "careless but not > > irrational" seems to imply that you are applying L69, L70, or L71. > > In my opinion, these laws don't apply here. > > > > Should you not rather apply L68B and let play continue, using L16A2? > > If E now does not cash his Ace, you should adjust the score because > > cashing the Ace must be a logical alternative when E was willing to > > concede the last trick, and W's comment demonstrably suggests that > > it might be a good idea not to cash the Ace. > > Bodil, who must put up with one BLMLer as a partner in daily life and > another at the bridge club, who is not and does not want to be a TD, > and who tolerantly listens to my unsolicited and frequently incredibly > boring accounts of ostensibly interesting rulings, asked an innocent > question over lunch just a few moments ago: > > What if E could just as well think that it was partner who had two > small trumps left and declarer who had the singleton King? > > We cannot easily pass judgement on what E might or might not think, > since we don't know what the bidding and the play was, but let us > assume that the TD is convinced that E really does not know either > way. Then I would rule that W's "NO!!!" does not demonstrably suggest > one lead over the other, so play continues, and no adjustment is > appropriate. But suppose east has some idea of the remaining distribution but doesn't know every detail, doesn't he improve his chances to recover by his attempt to claim? Let's, in order to make the discussion a bit easier, say that the remaining spades are AK32. East claims. If west has either 2, K2 or K3 left, he'll simply show his cards and in the last 2 cases point out that declarer cannot make a trick on any line of play and EW get the remaining tricks. If west has 3, K or 32 left, he'll object. East now knows that west may have a trump trick. If it's the K or 3, he should lead a diamond (in the latter case, declarer may misguess and ruff with the 2), if it's the 32, he should lead a spade. However, from a random guess of spade or diamond, east improves his chances to 2:1 in favor of a diamond by just watching west's reaction to his claim. HNY, Henk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Henk Uijterwaal Email: henk.uijterwaal@ripe.net RIPE Network Coordination Centre WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk Singel 258 Phone: +31.20.535-4414, Fax -4445 1016 AB Amsterdam Home: +31.20.6651962 The Netherlands Pager: +6.57626855 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ %DCL-E-NOCFFE, unable to locate coffee - keyboard input suspended. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 3 01:00:44 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA16964 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 01:00:44 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA16958 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 01:00:33 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic20.cais.com [207.226.56.20]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id IAA10528 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 08:50:25 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980102090434.006b954c@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 1998 09:04:34 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Year End Congress In-Reply-To: <199801021207.NAA15095@isa.dknet.dk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 01:07 PM 1/2/98 +0100, Jens wrote: > What if E could just as well think that it was partner who had two > small trumps left and declarer who had the singleton King? > >We cannot easily pass judgement on what E might or might not think, >since we don't know what the bidding and the play was, but let us >assume that the TD is convinced that E really does not know either >way. Then I would rule that W's "NO!!!" does not demonstrably suggest >one lead over the other, so play continues, and no adjustment is >appropriate. The hypothetical is correct, but the premise seems unlikely. It assumes that E knew what cards were in the S and W hands combined but not how they were distributed. But if that were the case he would not have conceded. It seems much more likely that E knew that S was trump-tight, but forgot that there was a third trump still in the game. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 3 01:05:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA16999 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 01:05:09 +1100 Received: from cshore.com (cshore.com [206.165.153.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA16990 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 01:04:55 +1100 Received: from [192.168.3.19] ([192.168.3.19]) by cshore.com with SMTP (IPAD 2.03/64) id 3845700 ; Fri, 02 Jan 1998 09:06:07 EST Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: David Stevenson From: bills@cshore.com (Bill Segraves) Subject: Re: Year End Congress Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Fri, 02 Jan 1998 09:06:07 EST Message-Id: <199801021406.3845700@cshore.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk One each. Concession canceled but E cannot be allowed to play the 7D after the UI arising from the concession/objection. Happy New Year, Bill S. > BLML is worthwhile! We had a case which seemed to follow from one of >our long discussions so was easy! > > -- > -- > -- > K xx A > -- -- > -- 7 > x xx -- > -- > -- > -- > > Spades are trumps. East is on lead. "One each" he says. "NO!!!" >says West. How do you rule? From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 3 01:19:39 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA17078 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 01:19:39 +1100 Received: from bkinis.ms.com (firewall-user@bkinis.ms.com [204.254.196.6]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA17071 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 01:19:34 +1100 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by bkinis.ms.com (8.8.6/fw v1.22) id JAA06016; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 09:19:25 -0500 (EST) Received: from unknown(140.14.69.95) by bkinis.ms.com via smap (3.2) id xma005936; Fri, 2 Jan 98 09:19:12 -0500 Received: from lnsun39.morgan.com (lnsun39.morgan.com [140.14.98.39]) by cwmail1.morgan.com (8.8.5/hub v1.50) with ESMTP id OAA15906; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 14:19:11 GMT From: Edward Sheldon Received: (sheldone@localhost) by lnsun39.morgan.com (8.8.5/sendmail.cf.client v1.05) id OAA04290; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 14:19:11 GMT Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 14:19:11 GMT Message-Id: <9801021419.ZM4288@ms.com> In-Reply-To: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" "Re: Year End Congress" (Jan 2, 2:12pm) References: X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.1 10oct95) To: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" Subject: Re: Year End Congress Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Jan 2, 2:12pm, Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC) wrote: [snip] > Let's, in order to make the discussion a bit easier, say that the > remaining spades are AK32. > > East claims. > > If west has either 2, K2 or K3 left, he'll simply show his cards and in > the last 2 cases point out that declarer cannot make a trick on any line > of play and EW get the remaining tricks. > > If west has 3, K or 32 left, he'll object. East now knows that west may > have a trump trick. If it's the K or 3, he should lead a diamond (in the > latter case, declarer may misguess and ruff with the 2), if it's the 32, > he should lead a spade. However, from a random guess of spade or diamond, > east improves his chances to 2:1 in favor of a diamond by just watching > west's reaction to his claim. He hasn't improved his odds at all. By acting as you suggest, he gains nothing over simply playing a diamond at trick 12. Cheers, Ed From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 3 01:40:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA17188 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 01:40:09 +1100 Received: from ncc.ripe.net (ncc.ripe.net [193.0.0.129]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA17182 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 01:40:02 +1100 Received: from localhost by ncc.ripe.net with SMTP id AA14512 (5.65a/NCC-2.41); Fri, 2 Jan 1998 15:39:20 +0100 Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 15:39:20 +0100 (MET) From: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" To: Edward Sheldon Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Year End Congress In-Reply-To: <9801021419.ZM4288@ms.com> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Fri, 2 Jan 1998, Edward Sheldon wrote: > On Jan 2, 2:12pm, Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC) wrote: > He hasn't improved his odds at all. By acting as you suggest, he gains > nothing over simply playing a diamond at trick 12. No, he gains the knowledge that it is still relevant what he leads to trick 12, he can then work out that it's probably better to lead a diamond over flipping a coin to decide his play at trick 12. Henk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Henk Uijterwaal Email: henk.uijterwaal@ripe.net RIPE Network Coordination Centre WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk Singel 258 Phone: +31.20.535-4414, Fax -4445 1016 AB Amsterdam Home: +31.20.6651962 The Netherlands Pager: +6.57626855 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ %DCL-E-NOCFFE, unable to locate coffee - keyboard input suspended. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 3 04:14:05 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA18109 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 04:14:05 +1100 Received: from news.hal-pc.org (news.hal-pc.org [204.52.135.10]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA18104 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 04:13:59 +1100 From: r.pewick@bbs.hal-pc.org Received: from bbs.hal-pc.org (uucp@localhost) by news.hal-pc.org (8.8.3/8.6.12) with UUCP id LAA19613 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 11:13:56 -0600 (CST) Received: by bbs.hal-pc.org id 0FH7R00K Fri, 02 Jan 98 11:01:04 Message-ID: <9801021101.0FH7R00@bbs.hal-pc.org> Organization: Houston Area League of PC Users X-Mailer: TBBS/PIMP v3.35 Date: Fri, 02 Jan 98 11:01:04 Subject: YEAR END To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Owner-bridge-laws@octavia, I have decided to put 2 cents in after all. I am not so quick to apply L68. East claimed one trick and conceded one trick.. L69D says play ceases. L70C defines that the opponents are entitled to the trick. L71 does not apply to cancel the concession of that trick. That there is UI is not relevant. Has DS chosen to start off the new year with a not so straight forward offering? Roger Pewick O>John (MadDog) Probst wrote: O>> In message , David Stevenson writes O>(snip) O>> > Spades are trumps. East is on lead. "One each" he says. O>"NO!!!" O>> >says West. How do you rule? O>> > O>> I'd rule that West's "No" is UI to East and that it would be O>careless, O>> but not irrational for East to cash his A O>I agree that EW only get one of the last two tricks, but I don't O>agree on the way you arrive at this. Your use of "careless but not O>irrational" seems to imply that you are applying L69, L70, or L71. O>In my opinion, these laws don't apply here. O>Should you not rather apply L68B and let play continue, using L16A2? O>If E now does not cash his Ace, you should adjust the score because O>cashing the Ace must be a logical alternative when E was willing to O>concede the last trick, and W's comment demonstrably suggests that O>it might be a good idea not to cash the Ace. O>I really appreciate that BLML exists, so that I get a chance to get O>nitpicking comments like these off my chest. O>-- O>Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark R Pewick Houston, Texas r.pewick@bbs.hal-pc.org __ ___ * UniQWK v4.4 * The Windows Mail Reader From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 3 04:37:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA18229 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 04:37:29 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA18224 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 04:37:23 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA28355 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 12:37:20 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA12656; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 12:37:22 -0500 Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 12:37:22 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801021737.MAA12656@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Inadvertent Play X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: LizorWayne > I believe her words were in this tempo "Ten, sorry ... (pause) I mean > the King". > What are the relevant principals in determining whether declarer's play > was inadvertent? This doesn't seem to have been answered adequately. The relevant Law is 45C4b, which allows a change if the player "does so without pause for thought." What does this mean? The usual interpretation is that the TD must ascertain the player's intent when the original card was designated. If the player meant all along to play the king, but the words came out "ten," then and only then is a change allowed. In my usual minority (of one?) way, I have a different view. I dislike the idea that intent should matter in a score adjustment matter, and I recall the historical basis for the change in wording (in 1975) from the former "without pause" to the current "without pause for thought." Anyway, I'd prefer a factual determination along the following lines: 1) Was the change made without pause? If so, allow it. If there was not pause, then _a fortiori_ there can have been no pause for thought. (In this case, we are told there was a pause.) 2) If not, could the pause have been used for thought? (In this case, the relevant time is the interval from "ten" to "sorry," at which moment declarer wished to change. The subsequent pause is irrelevant, because it was not "for thought." So, was there a pause before the "sorry?" In particular, when did declarer notice that the jack and not a low card had been played? If the jack was noticed first, there is no evidence of a pause _for thought_, and the change should be allowed. If the ten was called first, we can't know for sure, but most likely the change was the result of noticing the jack, and the pause therefore involved thought.) In effect, the TD must decide which of two events came first: declarer noticing LHO's card, or declarer naming dummy's card. This is a purely factual determination, even though it may be a difficult one in practice. The outcome will often be the same as the "intent" determination, but the process is different. As I say, deciding on the basis I suggest is not the usual practice, but I don't believe a TD who proceeds this way could be called wrong. Incidentally, a nearly identical incident was mentioned in the December ACBL Bulletin. The wording was to the effect of "low (gasp!) high," where the gasp was (apparently) the result of seeing the card played by LHO. In this case, noticing came after saying, so no change would be allowed. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 3 04:50:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA18290 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 04:50:10 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA18285 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 04:50:04 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA28259 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 12:50:00 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA12665; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 12:50:02 -0500 Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 12:50:02 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801021750.MAA12665@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: YEAR END X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: r.pewick@bbs.hal-pc.org > I am not so quick to apply L68. East claimed one trick and > conceded one trick. I hope we all agree with the second sentence. So L68 certainly applies. L68B tells us that if West "immediately objects, no concession has occurred" and L16 applies. So the concession is cancelled. What happens now? When we discussed this before (at considerable length!), there were two points of view. One was that the claim was cancelled as well, play continued, and L16 applied. The second view, which seems more practical to me (and I believe gained majority support, although no poll was taken), was that _only_ the concession was cancelled, the claim in effect being converted to a claim of all the tricks. Of course we know how to deal with a claim of all the tricks (L70). From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 3 05:01:19 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA18367 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 05:01:19 +1100 Received: from malady.cais.net (malady.cais.net [199.0.216.100]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA18362 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 1998 05:01:14 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic6.cais.com [207.226.56.6]) by malady.cais.net (8.8.7/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id NAA03282 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 1998 13:04:00 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980102130513.006b8b58@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 1998 13:05:13 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: YEAR END In-Reply-To: <9801021101.0FH7R00@bbs.hal-pc.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 11:01 AM 1/2/98, r wrote: >I am not so quick to apply L68. East claimed one trick and >conceded one trick.. L69D says play ceases. L70C defines that >the opponents are entitled to the trick. L71 does not apply to >cancel the concession of that trick. That there is UI is not relevant. E claimed one trick and conceded one trick. Only the latter is in dispute, however, so we are talking only about the concession here. L68B says "... if a defender attempts to concede one or more tricks and his partner immediately objects, no concession has occurred; Law 16, Unauthorized Information, may apply..." This tells us two things: (1) Since W immediately objected, there has been no concession, therefore L68D (with its references to Laws 69-71) does not apply. (2) L16 is explicitly relevant. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 4 08:01:56 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA25983 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 4 Jan 1998 08:01:56 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA25977 for ; Sun, 4 Jan 1998 08:01:48 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2023147; 3 Jan 98 20:58 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 02:22:52 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Stevenson over-ruled re-visited MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This thread collapsed very suddenly when Henk sent me an e-mail, specifying where the infraction occured, what the ruling was and what the appeals committee decided. To remind you Kxx - xx AKxxxxxx 2C 2D 2S 3H (2C precision, 2S Nat NF) 4C 4H P P 4S 5H x P 5S x End Henk correctly predicted the double of 5H was slow, that Mr. Stevenson adjusted to 5Hx making, and the appeals committee ruled it back to 5Sx down 1, since they couldn't see (even with me defending how we could allow 5H to make) and so although they accepted UI, they ruled no damage. FWIW I held QTxxxx Ax Jxx Qx and the stiff club was in dummy, partner defeating the contract either by leading a spade, or switching after cashing the CA. BTW two people voted for 5S and one for pass (with no knowledge of the infraction), so Partners actions may not even be UI influenced Well done Henk -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 4 11:35:59 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA26600 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 4 Jan 1998 11:35:59 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA26595 for ; Sun, 4 Jan 1998 11:35:52 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1005602; 4 Jan 98 0:29 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 23:01:37 +0000 To: David Stevenson Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: Quoting In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message , David Stevenson writes >KRAllison wrote: >>It seems that in order to read virtually any posting on BLML these days, you >>have to scroll through the entire posting being responded to. Frankly, this >>is an effort David Stevenson: > It's quite a complicated subject. ............ > Just quoting enough to remind is good enough when everyone knows >what's being talked about. However, when answering someone else's >comments, it *is* useful to quote the relevant part of the comment. > > Worst of all has always been quoting eight pages to add a one-liner at >the end. But the other end of the spectrum is the messages I have seen >which say nothing more than [from RGB]: > .......................etc. It is so hard to be perfect. But if you take too much away it rarely matters because the reader can usually turn to some parallel message that sets it out in full! (Until we all follow Karen's example, of course ...) -- Labeo Quand la populace se mele de raisonner, tout est perdu. From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 4 11:36:15 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA26615 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 4 Jan 1998 11:36:15 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA26602 for ; Sun, 4 Jan 1998 11:36:04 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2011506; 4 Jan 98 0:28 GMT Message-ID: <7kBFsOA8usr0Ew1O@coruncanius.demon.co.uk> Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 23:37:32 +0000 To: Jens & Bodil Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: Year End Congress In-Reply-To: <199801021207.NAA15095@isa.dknet.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801021207.NAA15095@isa.dknet.dk>, Jens & Bodil writes >Less than an hour ago, I wrote: > >> John (MadDog) Probst wrote: >> >> > In message , David Stevenson >> > writes >> >> (snip) >> >> > > Spades are trumps. East is on lead. "One each" he says. >> > > "NO!!!" >> .....much Karenised .... > What if E could just as well think that it was partner who had two > small trumps left and declarer who had the singleton King? > .............. and again ........ I was just wondering if playing the Ace would not then be correct, so that it is a possibility that might not perhaps influence the Director against requiring the play of the Ace? -- Labeo Quand la populace se mele de raisonner, tout est perdu. From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 5 00:21:03 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA01483 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 00:21:03 +1100 Received: from isa.dknet.dk (root@isa.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA01478 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 00:20:57 +1100 Received: from default (cph11.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.11]) by isa.dknet.dk (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA20954 for ; Sun, 4 Jan 1998 14:20:47 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199801041320.OAA20954@isa.dknet.dk> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Jens & Bodil" Organization: Alesia Software To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 14:20:46 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Stevenson over-ruled re-visited Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42a) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk John (MadDog) Probst wrote: > BTW two people voted for 5S and one for pass (with no knowledge of the > infraction), so Partners actions may not even be UI influenced For what such a poll is worth, and we must be careful not to over-interpret it, I disagree with your suggestion. The vote for pass indicates to me that pass is indeed a logical alternative to 5S, so that 5S should be ruled as an illegal alternative. Of course, this does not affect the ruling when the infraction did not cause any damage. -- Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 5 09:59:43 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA03764 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 09:59:43 +1100 Received: from acsys.anu.edu.au (acsys [150.203.20.41]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA03759 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 09:59:38 +1100 Received: from acrobat (acrobat.anu.edu.au [150.203.20.55]) by acsys.anu.edu.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id JAA13559; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 09:59:27 +1100 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19980105095927.0094ad40@acsys.anu.edu.au> X-Sender: markus@acsys.anu.edu.au X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 09:59:28 +1100 To: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner), bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Markus Buchhorn Subject: Re: New Year's (was Christmas) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >> Merry Christmas! Have a Happy New Year! Enjoy your Bridge! I'll echo David's sentiments ! >specifically for bridge laws. I replied that there probably wouldn't >be enough support but suggested a mailing list instead. Markus >Buchhorn was kind enough to set up the machinery (Thanks, Markus!), and >here we are. No problems :-) >Now we have around 200 subscribers. This is a common threshold for >converting a mailing list to a newsgroup. Uhm - nope. The threshold isn't the number of subscribers but the number of messages per day. The usual rule of thumb is many tens per day, and up to 100 per day if there is strong opposition to a new newsgroup. > Personally, I think the list >is working well, and I'd prefer to keep it as it is, but others (Markus >in particular, if the load on his machine is too high) may have other >opinions. I don't have a problem with the load. Most of the other purposes of the machine rgb (currently on octavia) have gone, so it'd be mostly idle otherwise. It currently handles around a dozen messages a day to BLML, times 205 subscribers. So about 2500 emails outbound a day. It is also of course the archive machine which gets around 2500-3000 web hits per day. It also receives about a third of my incoming email, so add another 100 or so inbound messages a day. All in all not too much load. Of course - I've just traded in octavia (a Sun 4/690) on a new Sun 450 server so it's lifespan is limited. Fortunately I now have a spare Sparc 5 with plenty of disk. So, at some stage in about a month or so all of rgb, the archive and this list, will move to that machine (and the archive will get a new look). So watch out for that bit of fun in the not too distant future.... >Starting a new newsgroup is a lot of work, though, so unless >there is strong sentiment in favor of doing so, it won't happen. Agreed - I like the list, and it works well. It's also one of the few spam free areas left in the world.... and starting a newsgroup *is* a lot of work - I've helped a little on a couple, and it's not a lot of fun (unless you just want a badly distributed alt.* group :-( ). Cheers, Markus Markus Buchhorn, Advanced Computational Systems CRC | Ph: +61 2 62798810 email: markus@acsys.anu.edu.au, snail: ACSys, RSISE Bldg,|Fax: +61 2 62798602 Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia |Mobile: 0417 281429 From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 5 12:34:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA04122 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 12:34:10 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA04117 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 12:33:58 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1021741; 5 Jan 98 1:27 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 01:15:50 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Year End Congress In-Reply-To: <199801021120.MAA13596@isa.dknet.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jens wrote: [k] >I agree that EW only get one of the last two tricks, but I don't >agree on the way you arrive at this. Your use of "careless but not >irrational" seems to imply that you are applying L69, L70, or L71. >In my opinion, these laws don't apply here. > >Should you not rather apply L68B and let play continue, using L16A2? >If E now does not cash his Ace, you should adjust the score because >cashing the Ace must be a logical alternative when E was willing to >concede the last trick, and W's comment demonstrably suggests that >it might be a good idea not to cash the Ace. The result of the last thread was IMO that it was agreed that a defensive claim/concession which was not to claim all the tricks nor to concede all the tricks is to be treated as a claim *and* a concession. Once partner objected there is no concession, but the claim still exists so play ceases. Steve Willner wrote: >When we discussed this before (at considerable length!), there were two >points of view. One was that the claim was cancelled as well, play >continued, and L16 applied. The second view, which seems more >practical to me (and I believe gained majority support, although no >poll was taken), was that _only_ the concession was cancelled, the >claim in effect being converted to a claim of all the tricks. Of >course we know how to deal with a claim of all the tricks (L70). I do not remember converting it to a claim of all the tricks, but it is an interesting idea, and a practical way to proceed. Jens wrote: >I really appreciate that BLML exists, so that I get a chance to get >nitpicking comments like these off my chest. I am not really sure why this remark is here, but feel it might have been better added to a different answer! :) -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 5 12:34:33 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA04136 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 12:34:33 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA04131 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 12:34:28 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1021740; 5 Jan 98 1:27 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 01:04:42 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: YEAR END In-Reply-To: <9801021101.0FH7R00@bbs.hal-pc.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Roger Pewick wrote: [k] > Has DS chosen to start off the new year with a not so >straight forward offering? Who, me? Perish the thort! -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 5 12:38:49 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA04159 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 12:38:49 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA04154 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 12:38:44 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2017631; 5 Jan 98 1:28 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 01:02:11 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Inadvertent Play In-Reply-To: <199801021737.MAA12656@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve Willner wrote: >> From: LizorWayne >> I believe her words were in this tempo "Ten, sorry ... (pause) I mean >> the King". > >> What are the relevant principals in determining whether declarer's play >> was inadvertent? >This doesn't seem to have been answered adequately. The relevant Law >is 45C4b, which allows a change if the player "does so without pause >for thought." > >What does this mean? The usual interpretation is that the TD must >ascertain the player's intent when the original card was designated. >If the player meant all along to play the king, but the words came >out "ten," then and only then is a change allowed. That is not correct. Let's start 1998 as we mean to continue: telling Steve he is wrong! The interpretation that the TD must ascertain the intent is an interpretation of the word "inadvertent" and not "without pause for thought". I believe the meaning of inadvertent is quite clear. I believe the "pause for thought" bit is rarely relevant. We train our TDs to be elastic in the matter of the pause: it is the inadvertent bit that matters. -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 6 02:49:05 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA09285 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 02:49:05 +1100 Received: from ns2.tudelft.nl (ns2.tudelft.nl [130.161.180.65]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA09280 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 02:48:59 +1100 Received: from duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl by mailhost1.tudelft.nl (PMDF V5.1-10 #27613) with SMTP id <0EMB00IPBILIXL@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 16:48:54 +0100 (MET) Received: by duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl (16.6/15.6) id AA22998; Mon, 05 Jan 1998 16:48:17 +0100 Date: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 16:48:16 +0100 (MET) From: "E.Angad-Gaur" Subject: adjusting 3NT-score ? To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Message-id: <0EMB00IPCILIXL@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> Mailer: Elm [revision: 66.25] Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I got the following problem last Sunday on a teams-tournament. board : 12 Qxx W N E S W/NS AQx 1S X p 2H Ax p 3NT p p AKJ105 N 952 K94 W E xxx J10742 S K98 ---- 6432 43 J10xx Qxx J10xx E starts with spade 2 for spade Ace of West. W continues with spade 5 and now the leader North asks what spade 2 meaned. Answer of West was : "start of small spade means value in the suit. N plays a small spade and the spade 9 of E won the trick. Spade return and the contract was defeated. On the other table the contract was 3NT +1. North said to the TD that if he had the correct answer he would play the spade Q. He now played for blocking the suit. Would you change the score ? Evert. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- S.E. Angad-Gaur | email :evert_np@duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl Technische Universiteit Delft | tel. : 015-2786150 Faculteit der Technische Natuurkunde | fax : 015-2783251 Lorentzweg 1 | 2628 CJ Delft | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 6 03:09:33 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA09461 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 03:09:33 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA09454 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 03:09:24 +1100 Received: from casewise.demon.co.uk ([158.152.187.206]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab1015700; 5 Jan 98 15:58 GMT Received: by bridge.casewise.demon.co.uk with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63) id <01BD19F1.2CB87220@bridge.casewise.demon.co.uk>; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 15:47:06 -0000 Message-ID: From: David Martin To: "'bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au'" Subject: RE: Year End Congress Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 15:47:04 -0000 X-Mailer: Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63 Encoding: 22 TEXT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk [David Martin] DWS wrote: > > The result of the last thread was IMO that it was agreed that a >defensive claim/concession which was not to claim all the tricks nor to >concede all the tricks is to be treated as a claim *and* a concession. >Once partner objected there is no concession, but the claim still exists >so play ceases. > >[David Martin] Maybe the last thread that is referred to was before my time >on BLML or perhaps I was just asleep when the above treatment was proposed so >please forgive me if I am going over old and well trodden ground. I am at >work at present and do not have my Law Book to hand but isn't a claim of some >of the remaining tricks *simultaneously equivalent* to a concession of the >rest and vice-versa? From memory, Law 68 defines claims and concessions in >precisely such terms. If this is correct then I do not see how the >concession can be cancelled without simultaneously cancelling the claim. >Also, the reference to Law 16A2 only makes sense if play is allowed to >continue as a claimer is not allowed to embelish his original statement of >claim and is therefore unable to take advantage of any UI that his partner >may have given by objecting. > From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 6 03:55:35 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA09776 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 03:55:35 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA09770 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 03:55:28 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic215.cais.com [207.226.56.215]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id LAA25409 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 11:44:52 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980105115648.00690b04@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 11:56:48 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-Reply-To: <0EMB00IPCILIXL@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 04:48 PM 1/5/98 +0100, E wrote: >E starts with spade 2 for spade Ace of West. W continues with spade 5 and >now the leader North asks what spade 2 meaned. Answer of West was : >"start of small spade means value in the suit. N plays a small spade and the >spade 9 of E won the trick. Spade return and the contract was defeated. >On the other table the contract was 3NT +1. >North said to the TD that if he had the correct answer he would play >the spade Q. He now played for blocking the suit. >Would you change the score ? It sounds as though N did have "the correct answer", assuming that W described the E-W partnership agreement about their leads. If so, there's no case for changing the score. Only if did NOT mean value in the suit according to E-W's agreements, should a score change be considered. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 6 04:05:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA09854 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 04:05:29 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA09849 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 04:05:23 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic215.cais.com [207.226.56.215]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id LAA27065 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 11:54:49 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980105120644.006c0adc@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 12:06:44 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-Reply-To: <0EMB00IPCILIXL@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I apologize on behalf of the cat who walked on my keyboard and sent a half-composed message rather prematurely. Let me try again... At 04:48 PM 1/5/98 +0100, E wrote: >E starts with spade 2 for spade Ace of West. W continues with spade 5 and >now the leader North asks what spade 2 meaned. Answer of West was : >"start of small spade means value in the suit. N plays a small spade and the >spade 9 of E won the trick. Spade return and the contract was defeated. >On the other table the contract was 3NT +1. >North said to the TD that if he had the correct answer he would play >the spade Q. He now played for blocking the suit. >Would you change the score ? It sounds as though N did have "the correct answer", assuming that W described the E-W partnership agreement about their leads. If so, there's no case for changing the score. Only if the S2 did NOT mean value in the suit according to E-W's agreements should a score change be considered. What E actually held when he led the S2 doesn't matter -- he is entitled to decide that 952 constitutes "value in the suit", and is also equally entitled to decide that it doesn't and lead the 2 anyhow. You can only ask your opponents about their agreements, not about what cards they hold. Therefore whether an answer is "correct" or not depends only on those agreements, not on what anyone actually held. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 6 04:41:36 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA10165 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 04:41:36 +1100 Received: from bkinis.ms.com (firewall-user@bkinis.ms.com [204.254.196.6]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA10159 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 04:41:30 +1100 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by bkinis.ms.com (8.8.6/fw v1.22) id MAA02496 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 12:41:24 -0500 (EST) Received: from unknown(140.14.69.95) by bkinis.ms.com via smap (3.2) id xma002349; Mon, 5 Jan 98 12:41:05 -0500 Received: from lnsun39.morgan.com (lnsun39.morgan.com [140.14.98.39]) by cwmail1.morgan.com (8.8.5/hub v1.50) with ESMTP id RAA18342 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 17:41:03 GMT From: Edward Sheldon Received: (sheldone@localhost) by lnsun39.morgan.com (8.8.5/sendmail.cf.client v1.05) id RAA01806 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 17:41:03 GMT Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 17:41:03 GMT Message-Id: <9801051741.ZM1804@ms.com> In-Reply-To: "E.Angad-Gaur" "adjusting 3NT-score ?" (Jan 5, 4:48pm) References: <0EMB00IPCILIXL@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.1 10oct95) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Jan 5, 4:48pm, E.Angad-Gaur wrote: > Subject: adjusting 3NT-score ? > I got the following problem last Sunday on a teams-tournament. > > board : 12 Qxx W N E S > W/NS AQx 1S X p 2H > Ax p 3NT p p > AKQxx > AKJ105 N 952 > K94 W E xxx > J10742 S K98 > ---- 6432 > 43 > J10xx > Qxx > J10xx > > E starts with spade 2 for spade Ace of West. W continues with spade 5 and > now the leader North asks what spade 2 meaned. Answer of West was : > "start of small spade means value in the suit. N plays a small spade and the > spade 9 of E won the trick. Spade return and the contract was defeated. > On the other table the contract was 3NT +1. > North said to the TD that if he had the correct answer he would play > the spade Q. He now played for blocking the suit. > Would you change the score ? Perhaps. We would need to establish that North was in fact misinformed. As I play attitude leads, a low card means "I think we should try to establish tricks in this suit". If this was the East/West agreement, then West has given a careless (especially in view of his hand) explanation of his style, which IMHO constitutes misinformation, and warrants a score adjustment for both sides. However, if their agreement was that starting with the smallest card promises an honour (or "means value"), then they have done nothing wrong - in fact, both partners have defended fairly well, and no score adjustment should be made. Establishing which of these is the case might be difficult, though. Cheers, Ed From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 6 07:16:21 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA11454 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 07:16:21 +1100 Received: from mineshaft.odi.com (mineshaft.odi.com [198.3.16.17]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id HAA11449 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 07:16:14 +1100 Received: from mastermind.odi.com by mineshaft.odi.com (5.65c/SMI-4.0/ODI-5) id AA15687; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 15:15:39 -0500 Received: from heinz.odi.com (heinz.odi.com [198.3.19.59]) by mastermind.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI2.2) with ESMTP id PAA17001 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 15:15:36 -0500 (EST) Received: from heinz (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by heinz.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI1.1) with SMTP id PAA01717 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 15:15:31 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <34B13F61.6AE4@odi.com> Date: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 15:15:29 -0500 From: "QQSV (Dick Wagman)" Organization: Object Design, Inc. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4c) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? References: <0EMB00IPCILIXL@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk E.Angad-Gaur wrote: > I got the following problem last Sunday on a teams-tournament. > > board : 12 Qxx W N E S > W/NS AQx 1S X p 2H > Ax p 3NT p p > AKJ105 N 952 > K94 W E xxx > J10742 S K98 > ---- 6432 > 43 > J10xx > Qxx > J10xx > > E starts with spade 2 for spade Ace of West. W continues with spade 5 and > now the leader North asks what spade 2 meaned. Answer of West was : > "start of small spade means value in the suit. N plays a small spade and the > spade 9 of E won the trick. Spade return and the contract was defeated. > On the other table the contract was 3NT +1. > North said to the TD that if he had the correct answer he would play > the spade Q. He now played for blocking the suit. > Would you change the score ? Previous posters have correctly pointed out that if West gave North correct information, then no adjustment can be contemplated. If the explanation was sloppy, however, they suggested that adjustment might be possible. I have a problem with the second half of this. Suppose that West's answer was blatantly wrong. What exactly did North hope to accomplish by ducking? In other words, for what (presumably plausible) holding was he catering? The only East holdings that seem to create a blocked spade position are honor doubleton or KJx. (Remember, West did open 1S, and thus presumably holds at least four of them (five if playing five card majors.)) On either of these holdings, the suit will block regardless of what North does. On any other holding, the suit cannot block. In other words, ducking with the queen is losing bridge for any plausible East holding. The only chance to get anything out of the spade queen is to play it at trick two. Additionally, agreement or no agreement, leading low from honor doubleton is just poor bridge. It is thus a wildly implausible East holding anyway. (KJ2 is more plausible, but the play of the Q can't cost in that case.) Thus, regardless of what agreement East-West give to the lead of the spade 2, ducking must be a losing play. Accordingly, I would never give North an adjustment. The lead explanation is a red herring. --Q (Dick Wagman) Email: wagman@odi.com From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 6 07:59:31 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA11743 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 07:59:31 +1100 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 HAA11737 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 07:59:22 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa02910; 5 Jan 98 12:58 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 05 Jan 1998 15:15:29 PST." <34B13F61.6AE4@odi.com> Date: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 12:58:07 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801051258.aa02910@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Dick Wagman wrote: > E.Angad-Gaur wrote: > > > I got the following problem last Sunday on a teams-tournament. > > > > board : 12 Qxx W N E S > > W/NS AQx 1S X p 2H > > Ax p 3NT p p > > AKJ105 N 952 > > K94 W E xxx > > J10742 S K98 > > ---- 6432 > > 43 > > J10xx > > Qxx > > J10xx > > > > E starts with spade 2 for spade Ace of West. W continues with spade 5 and > > now the leader North asks what spade 2 meaned. Answer of West was : > > "start of small spade means value in the suit. N plays a small spade and the > > spade 9 of E won the trick. Spade return and the contract was defeated. > > On the other table the contract was 3NT +1. > > North said to the TD that if he had the correct answer he would play > > the spade Q. He now played for blocking the suit. > > Would you change the score ? > > Previous posters have correctly pointed out that if West gave North correct > information, then no adjustment can be contemplated. If the explanation was > sloppy, however, they suggested that adjustment might be possible. > > I have a problem with the second half of this. Suppose that West's answer > was blatantly wrong. What exactly did North hope to accomplish by ducking? > In other words, for what (presumably plausible) holding was he catering? > > The only East holdings that seem to create a blocked spade position are > honor doubleton or KJx. (Remember, West did open 1S, and thus presumably > holds at least four of them (five if playing five card majors.)) On either > of these holdings, the suit will block regardless of what North does. On > any other holding, the suit cannot block. In other words, ducking with > the queen is losing bridge for any plausible East holding. The only chance > to get anything out of the spade queen is to play it at trick two. Wrong. Here are two layouts (rotated to make South declarer) where playing the queen at trick 2 is wrong: 43 J10xx Qxx J10xx K92 AJ1065 xxx Kxx 98xx KJ10x 6432 --- Q87 AQx Ax AKQxx ========================================= 43 J10xx Qxx J10xx K2 AJ10965 K94 xxx 98xx KJ10x 6432 --- Q87 AQx Ax AKQxx -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 6 08:07:42 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA11809 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 08:07:42 +1100 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 IAA11799 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 08:06:47 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa03137; 5 Jan 98 13:05 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 05 Jan 1998 12:58:07 PST." <9801051258.aa02910@flash.irvine.com> Date: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 13:05:29 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801051305.aa03137@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I wrote too hastily: > Wrong. Here are two layouts (rotated to make South declarer) where > playing the queen at trick 2 is wrong: > > 43 > J10xx > Qxx > J10xx > > K92 AJ1065 > xxx Kxx > 98xx KJ10x > 6432 --- > > Q87 > AQx > Ax > AKQxx Aaaaagh!! My first hand diagram of the new year, and I committed this atrocity. I'm sure you all knew what I meant. Take one of West's small diamonds and give it to East. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 6 08:09:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA11829 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 08:09:29 +1100 Received: from mineshaft.odi.com (mineshaft.odi.com [198.3.16.17]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA11823 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 08:09:22 +1100 Received: from mastermind.odi.com by mineshaft.odi.com (5.65c/SMI-4.0/ODI-5) id AA16535; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 16:08:48 -0500 Received: from heinz.odi.com (heinz.odi.com [198.3.19.59]) by mastermind.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI2.2) with ESMTP id QAA21669 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 16:08:46 -0500 (EST) Received: from heinz (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by heinz.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI1.1) with SMTP id QAA01778 for ; Mon, 5 Jan 1998 16:08:39 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <34B14BD5.3CD5@odi.com> Date: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 16:08:37 -0500 From: "QQSV (Dick Wagman)" Organization: Object Design, Inc. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4c) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? References: <0EMB00IPCILIXL@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk E.Angad-Gaur wrote: > I got the following problem last Sunday on a teams-tournament. > > board : 12 Qxx W N E S > W/NS AQx 1S X p 2H > Ax p 3NT p p > AKJ105 N 952 > K94 W E xxx > J10742 S K98 > ---- 6432 > 43 > J10xx > Qxx > J10xx > > E starts with spade 2 for spade Ace of West. W continues with spade 5 and > now the leader North asks what spade 2 meaned. Answer of West was : > "start of small spade means value in the suit. N plays a small spade and the > spade 9 of E won the trick. Spade return and the contract was defeated. > On the other table the contract was 3NT +1. > North said to the TD that if he had the correct answer he would play > the spade Q. He now played for blocking the suit. > Would you change the score ? About half an hour ago I posted a note to the effect that the score should never be adjusted because ducking was a never-win play. I commented that only honor small or KJx with East could block the spades, and that for those cases North's play didn't matter. Obviously, if East holds K102, K92, or K52, ducking will block the suit while playing the Q will let East-West cash it. This means that ducking is not, in fact, a never-win play. Thus I was guilty of over quick sloppy analysis, and my previous post should be disregarded. Mea maxima culpa. Based on the reanalysis, I am in agreement with other posters thus far: adjustment seems unlikely, but possible. --Q From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 6 13:33:30 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA14129 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 13:33:30 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA14124 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 13:33:22 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1010205; 6 Jan 98 2:32 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 18:47:48 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Year End Congress In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Martin wrote: >DWS wrote: >> The result of the last thread was IMO that it was agreed that a >>defensive claim/concession which was not to claim all the tricks nor to >>concede all the tricks is to be treated as a claim *and* a concession. >>Once partner objected there is no concession, but the claim still exists >>so play ceases. >>Maybe the last thread that is referred to was before my time >>on BLML or perhaps I was just asleep when the above treatment was >>proposed so please forgive me if I am going over old and well trodden >>ground. I think it was before your time. > I am at >>work at present and do not have my Law Book to hand but isn't a claim of some >>of the remaining tricks *simultaneously equivalent* to a concession of the >>rest and vice-versa? From memory, Law 68 defines claims and concessions in >>precisely such terms. Yes. > If this is correct then I do not see how the >>concession can be cancelled without simultaneously cancelling the claim. That is what I argued, but I was convinced otherwise, especially I seem to remember by David Burn. Perhaps if he liked to repeat his argument it would help. >>Also, the reference to Law 16A2 only makes sense if play is allowed to >>continue as a claimer is not allowed to embelish his original statement of >>claim and is therefore unable to take advantage of any UI that his partner >>may have given by objecting. True but irrelevant. The argument was that play only proceeded when the player had conceded all the remaining tricks, which thus was a concession but no claim. -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 6 14:14:01 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA14374 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 14:14:01 +1100 Received: from sand.global.net.uk (root@sand.global.net.uk [194.126.82.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA14369 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 14:13:52 +1100 Received: from vnmvhhid (client254f.globalnet.co.uk [195.147.25.79]) by sand.global.net.uk (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id DAA09606 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 03:13:42 GMT From: "Anne Jones" To: Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 03:14:26 -0800 Message-ID: <01bd1a94$3ffbf200$LocalHost@vnmvhhid> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk -----Original Message----- From: QQSV (Dick Wagman) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Monday, January 05, 1998 2:29 PM Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? Surely this is a case of MI or not. Is their style to lead small from a significant holding or not? The CC will probably help but otherwise questions about the lead style of partners suit! W has returned a card which indicates the expectation of the SQ with E. however partnership understanding may be of significaance. Possible, but unlikely cdjustment I think. From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 6 14:31:38 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA14503 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 14:31:38 +1100 Received: from imo18.mx.aol.com (imo18.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.175]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA14497 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 14:31:33 +1100 From: KRAllison Message-ID: <5dd942ef.34b1a0c8@aol.com> Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 22:11:02 EST To: wagman@odi.com, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Dick Wagman writes: << In other words, ducking with the queen is losing bridge for any plausible East holding. The only chance to get anything out of the spade queen is to play it at trick two. >> Not precisely true. Any Kxx holding with east will block the suit (meaning that while the suit is established, e/w cannot cash it because of lack of entries) and any ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 18:54:10 +1100 Received: from kontoret (p180.vestnet.dk [194.234.160.180]) by mail.vest.net (8.8.4/8.7.3) with ESMTP id KAA02841 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 10:12:31 +0100 Message-Id: <199801060912.KAA02841@mail.vest.net> From: "Jens Ulrik Fougt" To: "mailinglist" Subject: opposing a director Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 08:54:05 +0100 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Last night at the club I was playing the following board against one of our national TD's (W) Pairs event, the bidding was: N E S W 1C P 1H P 1S P* P P * small pause W had Jxx Qxx EDxx Qxx at trick 9 E comments "You have a very good hand, partner!" W replies: "Yes, but I could not bid because you paused!!!" I only had 5 tricks, -200 and a lousy score. I called the director, but there was no help. Is it just too bad that I played against a W with good ethics? :-)) juf From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 00:18:17 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA18683 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 00:18:17 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA18678 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 00:18:05 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1014895; 6 Jan 98 13:10 GMT Message-ID: Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 02:36:59 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-Reply-To: <9801051305.aa03137@flash.irvine.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote: >Aaaaagh!! My first hand diagram of the new year, and I committed this >atrocity. I'm sure you all knew what I meant. Take one of West's >small diamonds and give it to East. Do you have "New Year resolutions" in other countries? Many bridge players would gain from this one: I must learn to count up to thirteen -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 00:41:55 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA18766 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 00:41:55 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA18761 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 00:41:49 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1017631; 6 Jan 98 13:24 GMT Message-ID: <5u19fPAo+is0EwsN@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 13:20:40 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: opposing a director In-Reply-To: <199801060912.KAA02841@mail.vest.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jens Ulrik Fougt wrote: >Last night at the club I was playing the following board against one of our >national TD's (W) [k] >W replies: "Yes, but I could not bid because you paused!!!" >I only had 5 tricks, -200 and a lousy score. >I called the director, but there was no help. >Is it just too bad that I played against a W with good ethics? >:-)) Jolly unlucky, I call it. There are some situations where there are unlooked-for results from the ethics of the game [and from the rest of the Laws, come to that]. In some situations these seem a little unfair. You just have to live with it. Of course, if E had paused with nothing to stop her partner bidding then we should adjust, but so long as nothing like that happened here, you were just unfortunate. -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 04:37:19 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA19666 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 04:37:19 +1100 Received: from mail.vest.net (root@mail.vest.net [194.234.160.30]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA19660 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 04:37:11 +1100 Received: from kontoret (p183.vestnet.dk [194.234.160.183]) by mail.vest.net (8.8.4/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA10172; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 19:55:38 +0100 Message-Id: <199801061855.TAA10172@mail.vest.net> From: "Jens Ulrik Fougt" To: "David Stevenson" , Subject: Sv: opposing a director Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 16:40:05 +0100 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk (snip) > >Is it just too bad that I played against a W with good ethics? > >:-)) > > Jolly unlucky, I call it. There are some situations where there are > unlooked-for results from the ethics of the game [and from the rest of > the Laws, come to that]. In some situations these seem a little unfair. > You just have to live with it. > > Of course, if E had paused with nothing to stop her partner bidding > then we should adjust, but so long as nothing like that happened here, > you were just unfortunate. I agree - there is nothing to the pass - it is the statement by west, that he would have acted, had partner not paused, that creates this awkward or perhaps backwards case. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 05:44:52 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA19980 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 05:44:52 +1100 Received: from accord.cco.caltech.edu (hastings@accord.cco.caltech.edu [131.215.48.152]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA19975 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 05:44:46 +1100 Received: (from hastings@localhost) by accord.cco.caltech.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA15446 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 10:44:20 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 10:44:20 -0800 (PST) From: "Curtis A. Hastings" Message-Id: <199801061844.KAA15446@accord.cco.caltech.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Sv: opposing a director Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > Of course, if E had paused with nothing to stop her partner bidding > then we should adjust, but so long as nothing like that happened here, > you were just unfortunate. Why adjust even of East passed in tempo? West can do anything he likes in the absence of Unauthorized Information. There are also good bridge reasons to let the opponents play in this sort of auction if they are vulnerable, if they are making with their 7-card fit you probably can't make much (and they may make only 80 vs 100 on defense). If they aren't making you can still score well for +100 if +90 is your limit on play. curt From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 07:43:54 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA20534 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 07:43:54 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA20529 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 07:43:48 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA23191 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 15:43:46 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA14222; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 15:43:51 -0500 Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 15:43:51 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801062043.PAA14222@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Year End Congress X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: David Stevenson > I do not remember converting it to a claim of all the tricks, but it > is an interesting idea, and a practical way to proceed. If you have a claim but no concession, the only possibility allowed is that you have a claim of all the tricks. But this is a minor issue. The main point is whether there is a claim at all and thus play stops. I'm pleased that we now seem to agree on this fundamental point. Once you have got this far, the rest is automatic. The alternative would have play continue, but I gather most of us are happy to reject this. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 09:17:59 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA20998 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 09:17:59 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA20993 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 09:17:54 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id RAA30852 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 17:17:53 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id RAA14356; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 17:17:58 -0500 Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 17:17:58 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801062217.RAA14356@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Edward Sheldon > Perhaps. We would need to establish that North was in fact misinformed. > > As I play attitude leads, a low card means... > However, if their agreement was that starting with the smallest card > promises an honour... > Establishing which of these is the case might be difficult, though. The last sentence is the key point, of course. Law 75 (footnote) tells us we are to rule mis-explanation rather than misplay "in the absence of evidence to the contrary." So the real question is what evidence we would need to rule that the explanation is correct. Many pairs lead low in partner's unsupported suit from any three cards. Could East have been playing that way, even if West thought otherwise? And other agreements are, of course, possible. What evidence should we expect to find? Or is the unsupported EW testimony enough? From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 11:53:54 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA22009 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 11:53:54 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA22004 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 11:53:47 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2003492; 7 Jan 98 0:48 GMT Message-ID: Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 23:50:14 +0000 To: "E.Angad-Gaur" Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-Reply-To: <0EMB00IPCILIXL@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <0EMB00IPCILIXL@mailhost1.tudelft.nl>, "E.Angad-Gaur" writes >I got the following problem last Sunday on a teams-tournament. > > board : 12 Qxx W N E S > W/NS AQx 1S X p 2H > Ax p 3NT p p > AKJ105 N 952 > K94 W E xxx > J10742 S K98 > ---- 6432 > 43 > J10xx > Qxx > J10xx > >E starts with spade 2 for spade Ace of West. W continues with spade 5 and >now the leader North asks what spade 2 meaned. Answer of West was : >"start of small spade means value in the suit. N plays a small spade and the >spade 9 of E won the trick. Spade return and the contract was defeated. >On the other table the contract was 3NT +1. >North said to the TD that if he had the correct answer he would play >the spade Q. He now played for blocking the suit. >Would you change the score ? > >Evert. I'd need to check their opening leads in partner's suit. If they play BUM (bottom up middle) then I'd adjust because that information should have been given. If they play MUD (middle up down) I'd let the result stand (equally if TON - Top of nothing). If there's no clear agreement I'd accept the standard practice of the field as their method. I don't think this is very much of a problem, but think West has got a fabulous pard to find such a brilliant opening lead false card. I presume N has the missing clubs, and makes 1S, 5C and 3-4H when he gets in >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >S.E. Angad-Gaur | email :evert_np@duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl >Technische Universiteit Delft | tel. : 015-2786150 >Faculteit der Technische Natuurkunde | fax : 015-2783251 >Lorentzweg 1 | >2628 CJ Delft | >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 11:56:17 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA22048 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 11:56:17 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA22040 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 11:56:11 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2003481; 7 Jan 98 0:52 GMT Message-ID: Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 23:55:59 +0000 To: Jens Ulrik Fougt Cc: mailinglist From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: opposing a director In-Reply-To: <199801060912.KAA02841@mail.vest.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801060912.KAA02841@mail.vest.net>, Jens Ulrik Fougt writes >Last night at the club I was playing the following board against one of our >national TD's (W) > > >Pairs event, the bidding was: > >N E S W >1C P 1H P >1S P* P P * small pause > >W had > >Jxx Qxx EDxx Qxx > > >at trick 9 E comments "You have a very good hand, partner!" > >W replies: "Yes, but I could not bid because you paused!!!" > >I only had 5 tricks, -200 and a lousy score. > >I called the director, but there was no help. > >Is it just too bad that I played against a W with good ethics? > > >:-)) > >juf > > I think West knew he'd get a good score by passing and used the UI to his advantage. I'd adjust. Presumably I'll be in a minority of one as usual. -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 12:03:40 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA22160 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 12:03:40 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA22155 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 12:03:29 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2003492; 7 Jan 98 0:54 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 00:03:17 +0000 To: "Curtis A. Hastings" Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: Sv: opposing a director In-Reply-To: <199801061844.KAA15446@accord.cco.caltech.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801061844.KAA15446@accord.cco.caltech.edu>, "Curtis A. Hastings" writes > >> Of course, if E had paused with nothing to stop her partner bidding >> then we should adjust, but so long as nothing like that happened here, >> you were just unfortunate. > >Why adjust even of East passed in tempo? West can do anything he likes >in the absence of Unauthorized Information. There are also good >bridge reasons to let the opponents play in this sort of auction >if they are vulnerable, if they are making with their 7-card fit >you probably can't make much (and they may make only 80 vs 100 on defense). >If they aren't making you can still score well for +100 if +90 is >your limit on play. > >curt So now you "know" that pass will maybe fetch 200, but bidding will get 120. ethics Schmethics! I still want to adjust, if the guy has a normal balancing bid of any sort. There IS UI and Pass rates to gain. -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 12:52:40 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA22579 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 12:52:40 +1100 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 MAA22574 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 12:52:31 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa01182; 6 Jan 98 17:51 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: opposing a director In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 06 Jan 1998 23:55:59 PST." Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 17:51:35 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801061751.aa01182@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk John wrote: > In message <199801060912.KAA02841@mail.vest.net>, Jens Ulrik Fougt > writes > >Last night at the club I was playing the following board against one of our > >national TD's (W) > > > > > >Pairs event, the bidding was: > > > >N E S W > >1C P 1H P > >1S P* P P * small pause > > > >W had > > > >Jxx Qxx EDxx Qxx > > > > > >at trick 9 E comments "You have a very good hand, partner!" > > > >W replies: "Yes, but I could not bid because you paused!!!" > > > >I only had 5 tricks, -200 and a lousy score. > > > >I called the director, but there was no help. > > > >Is it just too bad that I played against a W with good ethics? > > > > > >:-)) > > > >juf > > > > > I think West knew he'd get a good score by passing and used the UI to > his advantage. I'd adjust. Presumably I'll be in a minority of one as > usual. Probably. How on earth does the UI that East passed out of tempo "demonstrably" suggest a pass by West over other logical alternatives? If East was considering any other action (presumably a natural club bid or some sort of takeout double without spades[?], since East didn't act the first time), wouldn't that fact suggest *balancing* over passing, if it suggests anything? I think West agreed that it would, and was telling the truth that he thought he ethically had to pass. I can't for the life of me see how West was "us[ing] the UI to his advantage." (BTW, I also agree with Curt that, from a bridge standpoint, pass is a good call. This 4-3-3-3 hand with minor honors in all three of the opponent's suits looks a lot more like Defense than Offense to me.) -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 17:15:13 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA23001 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 17:15:13 +1100 Received: from smtp3.erols.com (smtp3.erols.com [205.252.116.103]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA22996 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 17:15:07 +1100 Received: from hdavis (spg-as105s30.erols.com [207.172.78.221]) by smtp3.erols.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA19889 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 22:54:36 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980106225346.008303b0@pop.erols.com> X-Sender: hdavis@pop.erols.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 22:53:46 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Hirsch Davis Subject: Re: opposing a director In-Reply-To: References: <199801060912.KAA02841@mail.vest.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 11:55 PM 1/6/98 +0000, John (MadDog) Probst wrote: [snip] >> >> >I think West knew he'd get a good score by passing and used the UI to >his advantage. I'd adjust. Presumably I'll be in a minority of one as >usual. >-- >John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: >451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 >London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk >+44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game > > John, The presence of UI is not sufficient to adjust a score. The UI must suggest the LA taken by the player over another before we can think of adjusting. In this case, W had a balancing decision. The hesitation suggests that his partner might have had a possible action, which increases the probability that E has values (and a likely fit for diamonds) and that the balance will be successful. If you wish to argue that values in the W hand also argue for pass, then the UI is at best ambiguous, and again there can be no adjustment. I think West's ethics were sounds, and that his analysis that the hesitation suggested a balance was correct. The pass was good ethics, good bridge, and IMO did not represent a violation of any Law. Best wishes, Hirsch From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 23:55:58 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA23961 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 23:55:58 +1100 Received: from UFO.star.net.il (UFO.star.net.il [195.8.207.10]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA23956 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 23:55:49 +1100 Received: from star.net.il (Herzelia-AS2-79.star.net.il [195.8.208.79]) by UFO.star.net.il (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA08250; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 14:56:35 -0200 (GMT) Message-ID: <34B37BB1.F707CBD9@star.net.il> Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 14:57:21 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Eric Landau CC: "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? References: <3.0.1.32.19980105120644.006c0adc@pop.cais.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=x-user-defined Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Eric Landau wrote: > > I apologize on behalf of the cat who walked on my keyboard and sent a > half-composed message rather prematurely. Let me try again... hmmm - you are a lucky man Eric !!! only one cat ! 4 of my 5 cats like to play on the keyboard ..... one on the keyboard and the others try to "catch" the letters running on the screen !!!! > At 04:48 PM 1/5/98 +0100, E wrote: snip> > You can only ask your opponents about their agreements, not about what > cards they hold. Therefore whether an answer is "correct" or not depends > only on those agreements, not on what anyone actually held. This is the only "ruling" . The question for TD is to try to find the agreement. > Eric Landau elandau@cais.com > APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org > 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 > Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 7 23:57:40 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA23978 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 23:57:40 +1100 Received: from UFO.star.net.il (UFO.star.net.il [195.8.207.10]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA23972 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 23:57:32 +1100 Received: from star.net.il (Herzelia-AS2-79.star.net.il [195.8.208.79]) by UFO.star.net.il (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA08262; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 14:58:23 -0200 (GMT) Message-ID: <34B37C1C.2EA97CC7@star.net.il> Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 14:59:08 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "QQSV (Dick Wagman)" CC: "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? References: <0EMB00IPCILIXL@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> <34B14BD5.3CD5@odi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=x-user-defined Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk QQSV (Dick Wagman) wrote: > > E.Angad-Gaur wrote: > About half an hour ago I posted a note to the effect that the score > should never be adjusted because ducking was a never-win play. I > commented that only honor small or KJx with East could block the spades, > and that for those cases North's play didn't matter. > > Obviously, if East holds K102, K92, or K52, ducking will block the suit > while playing the Q will let East-West cash it. This means that ducking > is not, in fact, a never-win play. Thus I was guilty of over quick > sloppy analysis, and my previous post should be disregarded. Mea > maxima culpa. One more thought please ... The lead of small from Kx maybe either poor bridge or Genial !!!just try to see some of the late Belladona's and lively Garruzzo's leads from Kx ...... > Based on the reanalysis, I am in agreement with other posters thus far: > adjustment seems unlikely, but possible. > > --Q From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 8 02:35:37 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA26878 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 02:35:37 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA26873 for ; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 02:35:30 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id KAA07256 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 10:35:27 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA14668; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 10:35:34 -0500 Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 10:35:34 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801071535.KAA14668@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: opposing a director X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Hirsch Davis > I think West's ... analysis that the > hesitation suggested a balance was correct. The pass was good ethics, good > bridge, and IMO did not represent a violation of any Law. I was going to write something along the same lines, but it didn't seem necessary. I believe the hesitation suggests values, but we cannot tell whether it suggests length or shortness in spades. Thus I'd rule double illegal (suggested over either pass or 2D, since it caters to both possibilities) but allow pass or 2D (since neither is suggested over the other or over double). Perhaps my analysis is wrong, but if so, I'm curious what action others would consider legal. (There has to be at least one.) From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 8 11:56:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA29316 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 11:56:04 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA29311 for ; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 11:55:57 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2007748; 8 Jan 98 0:40 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 23:37:58 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: opposing a director In-Reply-To: <199801071535.KAA14668@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve Willner wrote: >I believe the hesitation suggests values, but we cannot tell whether it >suggests length or shortness in spades. Thus I'd rule double illegal >(suggested over either pass or 2D, since it caters to both >possibilities) but allow pass or 2D (since neither is suggested over >the other or over double). > >Perhaps my analysis is wrong, but if so, I'm curious what action others >would consider legal. Happy with this. > (There has to be at least one.) I am happy with this. However, it has been strongly and competently argued on RGB that this is not so under ACBL interpretations. Anyone like to propound this argument here? -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 8 13:00:40 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA00237 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 13:00:40 +1100 Received: from smtp3.erols.com (smtp3.erols.com [205.252.116.103]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA00232 for ; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 13:00:32 +1100 Received: from hdavis (spg-tnt22s193.erols.com [207.172.45.193]) by smtp3.erols.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA29908 for ; Wed, 7 Jan 1998 21:01:39 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980107210030.00807be0@pop.erols.com> X-Sender: hdavis@pop.erols.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 21:00:30 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Hirsch Davis Subject: Re: opposing a director In-Reply-To: <199801071535.KAA14668@cfa183.harvard.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 10:35 AM 1/7/98 -0500, Steve Willner wrote: >> From: Hirsch Davis >> I think West's ... analysis that the >> hesitation suggested a balance was correct. The pass was good ethics, good >> bridge, and IMO did not represent a violation of any Law. > >I was going to write something along the same lines, but it didn't seem >necessary. > I didn't think it was necessary either, until someone wanted to adjust the score. >I believe the hesitation suggests values, but we cannot tell whether it >suggests length or shortness in spades. Thus I'd rule double illegal >(suggested over either pass or 2D, since it caters to both >possibilities) but allow pass or 2D (since neither is suggested over >the other or over double). > >Perhaps my analysis is wrong, but if so, I'm curious what action others >would consider legal. (There has to be at least one.) > > I'm not entirely happy with allowing a 2D bid. E had a chance to call over 1C, and didn't. That tends to rule out a one-suited hand, unless it's clubs, particularly if E has values for a later call. If E was thinking about bidding at the hesitation, the likely alternatives were a delayed double, or a club overcall (if natural), with odds favoring the double. While I certainly don't know enough about the style being played to determine if a double would have shown spades or not, almost certainly it would have shown ability to play in the unbid suit: diamonds. IMO the hesitation does suggest that a 2D call would be more likely to be successful than pass, so I would disallow it. Best wishes, Hirsch From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 8 23:37:45 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA01206 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 23:37:45 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA01201 for ; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 23:37:39 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-44.uunet.be [194.7.13.44]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA07099 for ; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 13:37:32 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34B393F0.6D62327C@innet.be> Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 15:40:48 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <3.0.1.32.19980105120644.006c0adc@pop.cais.com> <34B37BB1.F707CBD9@star.net.il> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Dany Haimovici wrote: > > Eric Landau wrote: > > > > I apologize on behalf of the cat who walked on my keyboard and sent a > > half-composed message rather prematurely. Let me try again... > > hmmm - you are a lucky man Eric !!! only one cat ! > 4 of my 5 cats like to play on the keyboard ..... > one on the keyboard and the others try to "catch" the letters > running on the screen !!!! > Eric's cat sends messages ... Dany has 5 of them ... Nanki Poo and Quango are actual members of blml ... No wonder my nose keeps acting up whenever I read my daily dose of blml ! hatcheeeeee -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 02:11:25 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA03961 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 02:11:25 +1100 Received: from dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.6]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA03956 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 02:11:20 +1100 Received: (from smap@localhost) by dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id JAA28412; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 09:10:44 -0600 (CST) Received: from 67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.att.net(12.68.17.67) by dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com via smap (V1.3) id rma028393; Thu Jan 8 09:10:31 1998 Received: by 67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET with Microsoft Mail id <01BD1C1D.6064F3E0@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET>; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 10:08:33 -0500 Message-ID: <01BD1C1D.6064F3E0@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> From: Craig Senior To: Bridge Laws , "'Herman De Wael'" Subject: RE: adjusting 3NT-score ? Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 10:08:30 -0500 Encoding: 42 TEXT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk My ten cats and I are wondering if there is some connection between an interest in bridge law, and being owned by cats. Are there other cat-lovers also on this group? Craig Senior ---------- From: Herman De Wael[SMTP:hermandw@innet.be] Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 1998 9:40 AM To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? Dany Haimovici wrote: > > Eric Landau wrote: > > > > I apologize on behalf of the cat who walked on my keyboard and sent a > > half-composed message rather prematurely. Let me try again... > > hmmm - you are a lucky man Eric !!! only one cat ! > 4 of my 5 cats like to play on the keyboard ..... > one on the keyboard and the others try to "catch" the letters > running on the screen !!!! > Eric's cat sends messages ... Dany has 5 of them ... Nanki Poo and Quango are actual members of blml ... No wonder my nose keeps acting up whenever I read my daily dose of blml ! hatcheeeeee -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 02:19:01 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA04010 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 02:19:01 +1100 Received: from dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA04005 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 02:18:55 +1100 Received: (from smap@localhost) by dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id JAA08921; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 09:18:15 -0600 (CST) Received: from 67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.att.net(12.68.17.67) by dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com via smap (V1.3) id rma008895; Thu Jan 8 09:18:03 1998 Received: by 67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET with Microsoft Mail id <01BD1C1E.7481C460@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET>; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 10:16:16 -0500 Message-ID: <01BD1C1E.7481C460@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> From: Craig Senior To: Bridge Laws , "'Herman De Wael'" Subject: RE: adjusting 3NT-score ? Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 10:16:15 -0500 Encoding: 42 TEXT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk My ten cats and I are wondering if there is some connection between being owned by cats and being interested in purr-fecting the bridge laws. Craig Senior ---------- From: Herman De Wael[SMTP:hermandw@innet.be] Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 1998 9:40 AM To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? Dany Haimovici wrote: > > Eric Landau wrote: > > > > I apologize on behalf of the cat who walked on my keyboard and sent a > > half-composed message rather prematurely. Let me try again... > > hmmm - you are a lucky man Eric !!! only one cat ! > 4 of my 5 cats like to play on the keyboard ..... > one on the keyboard and the others try to "catch" the letters > running on the screen !!!! > Eric's cat sends messages ... Dany has 5 of them ... Nanki Poo and Quango are actual members of blml ... No wonder my nose keeps acting up whenever I read my daily dose of blml ! hatcheeeeee -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 02:42:49 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA04074 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 02:42:49 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA04068 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 02:42:44 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-199.uunet.be [194.7.13.199]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA03134 for ; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 16:42:35 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34B4CD22.8D575B22@innet.be> Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 13:57:06 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: opposing a director X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > > Steve Willner wrote: > > > > (There has to be at least one.) > > I am happy with this. However, it has been strongly and competently > argued on RGB that this is not so under ACBL interpretations. Anyone > like to propound this argument here? > I knew David would pick in on this. I suppose his snipe at ACBL is intended to be sarcastic, but I do hope the ACBL sees that indeed there must always remain ONE option that partner is allowed to choose. I do sometimes see decisions which seem to conradict this fact but they are of course WRONG. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 04:18:12 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA04638 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 04:18:12 +1100 Received: from inet16.us.oracle.com (inet16.us.oracle.com [192.86.155.100]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA04633 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 04:18:00 +1100 Received: from mailsun2.us.oracle.com (mailsun2.us.oracle.com [144.25.88.74]) by inet16.us.oracle.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA06685; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 09:14:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from dlsun565.us.oracle.com by mailsun2.us.oracle.com with ESMTP (SMI-8.6/37.8) id JAA19656; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 09:25:54 -0800 Received: (from jboyce@localhost) by dlsun565.us.oracle.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA22890; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 09:16:48 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 09:16:48 -0800 (PST) From: Jim Boyce Message-Id: <199801081716.JAA22890@dlsun565.us.oracle.com> To: bnewsr@blakjak.demon.co.uk CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-reply-to: (message from David Stevenson on Sat, 20 Dec 1997 03:32:00 +0000) Subject: Re: Christmas Reply-to: jboyce%sun-jboyce@us.oracle.com Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi, I am finally finding time to write a little bit. Name: Jim Boyce E-mail: jboyce@us.oracle.com (work) or jboyce%sun-jboyce@us.oracle.com (preferred for friends non-work) I am one of the 2nd 100 in BLML. I am not a respected authority on the laws by any means. But I am interested in bridge as a field of endeavor. I grew up in a house the received The Bridge World. So I grew up with the opinions of Kaplan and Reubens every month. My parents recently moved out of the house I grew up in to a smaller place. I volunteered to give the Bridge World collection a new home. I now have a nearly complete collection from, I believe, Oct 1958. (The ones I am missing are still in print; I just have to get around to ordering them.) I was attracted to BLML from rec.games.bridge by the discussion of the revoke and claim laws. I am a mathematician by training and a programmer by trade. I currently play bridge at a friend's house about once a week. It is easier to schedule things that way than it is to go to a club. It is also more pleasant then the clubs that I remember. -jim From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 04:26:58 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA04659 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 04:26:58 +1100 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 EAA04653 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 04:26:49 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa22106; 8 Jan 98 9:26 PST To: Bridge Laws CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 08 Jan 1998 10:08:30 PST." <01BD1C1D.6064F3E0@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 09:26:05 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801080926.aa22106@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > My ten cats and I are wondering if there is some connection between an > interest in bridge law, and being owned by cats. Are there other cat-lovers > also on this group? > Craig Senior I have two, Mickey (big longish-haired black cat) and Mango (smallish short-haired gray tabby with some cream markings), but so far neither of them has shown any interest in bridge. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 06:14:57 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA05240 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 06:14:57 +1100 Received: from UFO.star.net.il (UFO.star.net.il [195.8.207.10]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA05234 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 06:14:49 +1100 Received: from star.net.il (Herzelia-AS2-77.star.net.il [195.8.208.77]) by UFO.star.net.il (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA11496; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 21:15:28 -0200 (GMT) Message-ID: <34B525FC.ED1A6755@star.net.il> Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 21:16:12 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Craig Senior CC: Bridge Laws , "'Herman De Wael'" Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? References: <01BD1C1E.7481C460@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk No doubt - the cats are the best advicers to purr-fect and imprrrrrrrrrrrrooooooouuuuuuuuve the laws. I love cats but can't take care for more than 5 , meanwhile...... Well - I suggest Craig will be elected the head of the cat-laws club/list. And for you Herman - just see how we all , busy persons , get our help from our lovely assistents ... they are the best contributors ; so don't be astonished your nose found the true "odeur" on this list....... I think Quango will be ellected the president and Shobo his deputy.... Have a nice day, week , year Dany Craig Senior wrote: > > My ten cats and I are wondering if there is some connection between being > owned by cats and being interested in purr-fecting the bridge laws. > > Craig Senior > > ---------- > From: Herman De Wael[SMTP:hermandw@innet.be] > Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 1998 9:40 AM > To: Bridge Laws > Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? > > Dany Haimovici wrote: > > > > Eric Landau wrote: > > > > > > I apologize on behalf of the cat who walked on my keyboard and sent a > > > half-composed message rather prematurely. Let me try again... > > > > hmmm - you are a lucky man Eric !!! only one cat ! > > 4 of my 5 cats like to play on the keyboard ..... > > one on the keyboard and the others try to "catch" the letters > > running on the screen !!!! > > > > Eric's cat sends messages ... > Dany has 5 of them ... > Nanki Poo and Quango are actual members of blml ... > > No wonder my nose keeps acting up whenever I read my daily dose of blml > ! > > hatcheeeeee > > -- > Herman DE WAEL > Antwerpen Belgium > http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 06:27:28 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA05304 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 06:27:28 +1100 Received: from UFO.star.net.il (UFO.star.net.il [195.8.207.10]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA05299 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 06:27:20 +1100 Received: from star.net.il (Herzelia-AS2-77.star.net.il [195.8.208.77]) by UFO.star.net.il (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA11503; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 21:27:53 -0200 (GMT) Message-ID: <34B528E7.76A64585@star.net.il> Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 21:28:39 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jens Ulrik Fougt CC: mailinglist Subject: Re: opposing a director References: <199801060912.KAA02841@mail.vest.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk The case below has lack of "full disclosure" , IMHO. The fact W said "... I passed because you hesited...." is not a reason to decide any decision. The TD should inquire what happened and try to see if the hesitation was either : .......a. an accident (it just happened without any reason). .......b. a real hesitation reevaluating his hand. .......c. an adventent one ( which I prefer to rub off.....). (Jens didn't tell us if the TD acted this way or what was the actual situation around the table). The judgement and the decision , IMO , depends only on this information; W is allowed to do anything he thinks and/or wants. Dany Jens Ulrik Fougt wrote: > > Last night at the club I was playing the following board against one of our > national TD's (W) > > Pairs event, the bidding was: > > N E S W > 1C P 1H P > 1S P* P P * small pause > > W had > > Jxx Qxx EDxx Qxx > > at trick 9 E comments "You have a very good hand, partner!" > > W replies: "Yes, but I could not bid because you paused!!!" > > I only had 5 tricks, -200 and a lousy score. > > I called the director, but there was no help. > > Is it just too bad that I played against a W with good ethics? > > :-)) > > juf From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 09:10:52 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA05747 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 09:10:52 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA05742 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 09:10:45 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1024114; 8 Jan 98 22:04 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 14:47:18 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Nanki Poo Reply-To: Quango Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-Reply-To: <34B393F0.6D62327C@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: >Dany Haimovici wrote: >> Eric Landau wrote: >> > I apologize on behalf of the cat who walked on my keyboard and sent a >> > half-composed message rather prematurely. Let me try again... >> hmmm - you are a lucky man Eric !!! only one cat ! >> 4 of my 5 cats like to play on the keyboard ..... >> one on the keyboard and the others try to "catch" the letters >> running on the screen !!!! >Eric's cat sends messages ... >Dany has 5 of them ... >Nanki Poo and Quango are actual members of blml ... > >No wonder my nose keeps acting up whenever I read my daily dose of blml >! > >hatcheeeeee How unlucky ! Puuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr !!!!!!!!!!!! -- Quango /\_/\ /\ /\ quango@blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= @ @ Nanki Poo ( | | ) =( + )= nankipoo@blakjak.demon.co.uk (_~^ ^~ ~ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 09:52:44 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA05900 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 09:52:44 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA05895 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 09:52:37 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2028753; 8 Jan 98 22:38 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 22:24:42 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: opposing a director In-Reply-To: <34B4CD22.8D575B22@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: >David Stevenson wrote: >> Steve Willner wrote: >> > (There has to be at least one.) >> I am happy with this. However, it has been strongly and competently >> argued on RGB that this is not so under ACBL interpretations. Anyone >> like to propound this argument here? >I knew David would pick in on this. > >I suppose his snipe at ACBL is intended to be sarcastic, but I do hope >the ACBL sees that indeed there must always remain ONE option that >partner is allowed to choose. I think you should re-read what I wrote. I have made no snipe at the ACBL of any sort, and [unusually!] there was no sarcasm whatever in my message. It was a statement of fact, namely that the argument had been put forward strongly and competently on RGB. -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 10:50:00 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA06063 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 10:50:00 +1100 Received: from imo20.mx.aol.com (imo20.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.177]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA06058 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 10:49:54 +1100 From: KRAllison Message-ID: <4aa6e135.34b56027@aol.com> Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 18:24:19 EST To: rts48u@ix.netcom.com, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au, hermandw@innet.be Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Craig, Ten cats? Gee, and here I thought three was a lot!! Stella, Blanche, Stanley and I greet you and wish you the best of the New Year. Karen From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 11:12:48 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA06172 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 11:12:48 +1100 Received: from sand.global.net.uk (root@sand.global.net.uk [194.126.82.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA06166 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 11:12:42 +1100 Received: from vnmvhhid (client2623.globalnet.co.uk [195.147.26.35]) by sand.global.net.uk (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id AAA10449 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 00:12:35 GMT From: "Anne Jones" To: "Bridge Laws2" Subject: opposing a director Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 00:13:33 -0000 Message-ID: <01bd1c93$6c20c8a0$LocalHost@vnmvhhid> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0014_01BD1C93.6C20C8A0" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0014_01BD1C93.6C20C8A0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Once again can we please see the whole deal =20 Anne ------=_NextPart_000_0014_01BD1C93.6C20C8A0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Once again can we please see the = whole=20 deal
 
Anne
------=_NextPart_000_0014_01BD1C93.6C20C8A0-- From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 11:26:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA06199 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 11:26:08 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA06194 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 11:25:07 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1015488; 9 Jan 98 0:19 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 23:42:25 +0000 To: Craig Senior Cc: Bridge Laws , "'Herman De Wael'" From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-Reply-To: <01BD1C1D.6064F3E0@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <01BD1C1D.6064F3E0@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET>, Craig Senior writes I claim two cats Gnipper & Figaro, seriously unpleasant specimens they are. >My ten cats and I are wondering if there is some connection between an >interest in bridge law, and being owned by cats. Are there other cat-lovers >also on this group? > Craig Senior > >---------- >From: Herman De Wael[SMTP:hermandw@innet.be] >Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 1998 9:40 AM >To: Bridge Laws >Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? > >Dany Haimovici wrote: >> >> Eric Landau wrote: >> > >> > I apologize on behalf of the cat who walked on my keyboard and sent a >> > half-composed message rather prematurely. Let me try again... >> >> hmmm - you are a lucky man Eric !!! only one cat ! >> 4 of my 5 cats like to play on the keyboard ..... >> one on the keyboard and the others try to "catch" the letters >> running on the screen !!!! >> > >Eric's cat sends messages ... >Dany has 5 of them ... >Nanki Poo and Quango are actual members of blml ... > >No wonder my nose keeps acting up whenever I read my daily dose of blml >! > >hatcheeeeee > >-- >Herman DE WAEL >Antwerpen Belgium >http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm > > > > > > -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 13:07:21 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA06356 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 13:07:21 +1100 Received: from malady.cais.net (malady.cais.net [199.0.216.100]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA06351 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 13:07:11 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic-dc28.cais.com [207.226.209.28]) by malady.cais.net (8.8.7/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id VAA04316 for ; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 21:09:34 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980108210850.006c3330@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 21:08:50 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-Reply-To: References: <01BD1C1D.6064F3E0@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 11:42 PM 1/8/98 +0000, John wrote: >In message <01BD1C1D.6064F3E0@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET>, >Craig Senior writes > >I claim two cats Gnipper & Figaro... > >>My ten cats and I... >>---------- >>From: Herman De Wael[SMTP:hermandw@innet.be] >> >>Dany Haimovici wrote: >>> >>> Eric Landau wrote: >>> > >>> > I apologize on behalf of the cat who walked on my keyboard and sent a >>> > half-composed message rather prematurely. Let me try again... >>> >>> 4 of my 5 cats... >>Dany has 5 of them ... >>Nanki Poo and Quango are actual members of blml ... >> >>No wonder my nose... >> >>hatcheeeeee >Stella, Blanche, Stanley... Karen Well, since I seem to have started this, greetings to all those other cats out there from Glory (Glorianna O'Toole), Wesley, Shadow, Query, and their dog Wendell. /eric Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 13:48:37 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA06456 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 13:48:37 +1100 Received: from smtp3.erols.com (smtp3.erols.com [205.252.116.103]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA06451 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 13:48:32 +1100 Received: from hdavis (rkv-as1s07.erols.com [207.172.239.7]) by smtp3.erols.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA27226 for ; Thu, 8 Jan 1998 21:49:09 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980108214732.00810100@pop.erols.com> X-Sender: hdavis@pop.erols.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 21:47:32 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Hirsch Davis Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-Reply-To: <4aa6e135.34b56027@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Two cats here. Greetings from Shadow and Smokey! A breeder I know told me that they are British shorthairs, which could explain their disagreement with some of my ACBL style rulings... ;) Hirsch From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 19:36:48 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA07137 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 19:36:48 +1100 Received: from u1.farm.idt.net (root@u1.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.10]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA07132 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 19:36:42 +1100 Received: from idt.net (ppp-60.ts-3.lax.idt.net [169.132.208.204]) by u1.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA27166; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 03:36:33 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <34B5E0AB.525ED064@idt.net> Date: Fri, 09 Jan 1998 00:32:43 -0800 From: Irwin J Kostal X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Eric Landau CC: Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? References: <01BD1C1D.6064F3E0@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> <3.0.1.32.19980108210850.006c3330@pop.cais.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk And the Kostal Family sends regards from Bill, Albert, Cleo and Sabrina. My wife is the REAL cat aficionado, but I have grown quite fond of them, even Cleo, who avoids my like I had the plague! Truly a one-woman cat :( Irv Eric Landau wrote: > At 11:42 PM 1/8/98 +0000, John wrote: > > >In message <01BD1C1D.6064F3E0@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET>, > >Craig Senior writes > > > >I claim two cats Gnipper & Figaro... > > > >>My ten cats and I... > >>---------- > >>From: Herman De Wael[SMTP:hermandw@innet.be] > >> > >>Dany Haimovici wrote: > >>> > >>> Eric Landau wrote: > >>> > > >>> > I apologize on behalf of the cat who walked on my keyboard and sent a > >>> > half-composed message rather prematurely. Let me try again... > >>> > >>> 4 of my 5 cats... > >>Dany has 5 of them ... > >>Nanki Poo and Quango are actual members of blml ... > >> > >>No wonder my nose... > >> > >>hatcheeeeee > > >Stella, Blanche, Stanley... Karen > > Well, since I seem to have started this, greetings to all those other cats > out there from Glory (Glorianna O'Toole), Wesley, Shadow, Query, and their > dog Wendell. /eric > > Eric Landau elandau@cais.com > APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org > 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 > Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 9 21:20:14 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA07355 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 21:20:14 +1100 Received: from imo17.mx.aol.com (imo17.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.174]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA07350 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 21:20:09 +1100 From: RuefulR Message-ID: Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 05:20:00 EST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: opposing a director Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In a message dated 1/8/98 10:47:55 AM EST, hermandw@innet.be writes: > David Stevenson wrote: > > > > Steve Willner wrote: > > > > > > > (There has to be at least one.) > > > > I am happy with this. However, it has been strongly and competently > > argued on RGB that this is not so under ACBL interpretations. Anyone > > like to propound this argument here? > > > > I knew David would pick in on this. > > I suppose his snipe at ACBL is intended to be sarcastic, but I do hope > the ACBL sees that indeed there must always remain ONE option that > partner is allowed to choose. > > I do sometimes see decisions which seem to conradict this fact but they > are of course WRONG. I believe that all ACBL committees believe that their is ONE option. However, some poor committees take the view that the option allowed is the one that doesn't work. Only if all roads lead to the same place do they allow the bid. Part of this is just ignoring or reinterpreting of the "suggested by the UI" rule. For example, a player hesitates and bids 2NT after his partner bids 1NT. If he has the lower end of his values than the committee assumes that this is suggested by the UI. If he has the upper end of his values than the committee assumes this is suggested by the UI. If he has a normal range 2NT with a small singleton than this is suggested by the UI. Personally I feel that any player who takes an abnormal action that may be based on UI should be ruled against when it succeeds, but this is a strong test, and I don't believe it's supported by the laws, IMHO. For example, in the previous test a player playing a 16-18 1NT passes his partner's hesitant 2NT with an 18 count and finds his partner with a well below standard 2NT. Seems to follow the "Rule of Coincidence", but as we all know what a divisive subject that is. David A. Blizzard From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 10 00:34:24 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA10418 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 00:34:24 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA10413 for ; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 00:34:18 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic32.cais.com [207.226.56.32]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id IAA03218 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 08:23:09 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980109083609.006c0944@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 1998 08:36:09 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-Reply-To: <34B5E0AB.525ED064@idt.net> References: <01BD1C1D.6064F3E0@67.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> <3.0.1.32.19980108210850.006c3330@pop.cais.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk If we ever were to decide to convert our mailing list to a newsgroup, I don't think rec.pets.cats.bridge-laws is taken. /eric Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 10 00:40:06 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA10459 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 00:40:06 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA10454 for ; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 00:40:01 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic32.cais.com [207.226.56.32]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id IAA04225 for ; Fri, 9 Jan 1998 08:28:52 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980109084152.006c05d4@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 1998 08:41:52 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: opposing a director In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 05:20 AM 1/9/98 EST, RuefulR wrote: >I believe that all ACBL committees believe that their is ONE option. However, >some poor committees take the view that the option allowed is the one that >doesn't work. Only if all roads lead to the same place do they allow the bid. > >Part of this is just ignoring or reinterpreting of the "suggested by the UI" >rule. >For example, a player hesitates and bids 2NT after his partner bids 1NT. >If he has the lower end of his values than the committee assumes that this >is suggested by the UI. If he has the upper end of his values than the >committee >assumes this is suggested by the UI. If he has a normal range 2NT with a >small singleton than this is suggested by the UI. > >Personally I feel that any player who takes an abnormal action that may be >based on UI should be ruled against when it succeeds, but this is a strong >test, and >I don't believe it's supported by the laws, IMHO. For example, in the >previous test a >player playing a 16-18 1NT passes his partner's hesitant 2NT with an 18 count >and finds his partner with a well below standard 2NT. Seems to follow the >"Rule of Coincidence", but as we all know what a divisive subject that is. For those who missed it, we had an extensive discussion on this point several months ago. Our consensus was that the 1997 change to L16A which replaced the word "reasonably" with "demonstrably" was specifically intended to preclude this interpretation. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 10 01:17:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA10581 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 01:17:08 +1100 Received: from imo16.mx.aol.com (imo16.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.172]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA10576 for ; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 01:17:01 +1100 From: KRAllison Message-ID: <69e8077.34b63155@aol.com> Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 09:16:53 EST To: elandau@cais.com, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On the subject, it should be remembered that (in my mind) the greatest Bridge Laws giver of all, Edgar Kaplan, had a cat, Selassie, who participated in the most recent of the drafting committees. Selassie, by the way, is at home in Toronto where he welcomes inquiries and visitors. Karen From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 10 01:38:42 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA10685 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 01:38:42 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA10678 for ; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 01:38:19 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1020717; 9 Jan 98 14:21 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 14:19:34 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Nanki Poo Reply-To: Quango Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980108214732.00810100@pop.erols.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Bbbrooooooooooowwwwwwwwww !!!!!!!!! Karen Allison Stella, Blanche, Stanley Adam Beneschan Mickey, Mango Hirsch Davis Shadow, Smokey Dany Haimovici Shobo +4 Eric Landau Glory, Wesley, Shadow, Query John Probst Gnipper, Figaro Craig Senior 10 David Stevenson Quango, Nanki Poo plus, of course Selassie Miiiiiiiaaaaaoouuuuwwwwww !!!!!!!!! -- Quango /\_/\ /\ /\ quango@blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= @ @ Nanki Poo ( | | ) =( + )= nankipoo@blakjak.demon.co.uk (_~^ ^~ ~ From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 10 02:49:49 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA11144 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 02:49:49 +1100 Received: from ncc.ripe.net (ncc.ripe.net [193.0.0.129]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA11139 for ; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 02:49:43 +1100 Received: from localhost by ncc.ripe.net with SMTP id AA20748 (5.65a/NCC-2.41); Fri, 9 Jan 1998 16:48:51 +0100 Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 16:48:51 +0100 (MET) From: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" To: KRAllison Cc: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws In-Reply-To: <69e8077.34b63155@aol.com> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Fri, 9 Jan 1998, KRAllison wrote: > On the subject, it should be remembered that (in my mind) the greatest > Bridge Laws giver of all, Edgar Kaplan, had a cat, Selassie, who > participated in the most recent of the drafting committees. Hmmm.... did Selassi by any chance write the Law on mis-MOUSE-ing in online bridge? Just curious :-) Henk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Henk Uijterwaal Email: henk.uijterwaal@ripe.net RIPE Network Coordination Centre WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk Singel 258 Phone: +31.20.535-4414, Fax -4445 1016 AB Amsterdam Home: +31.20.6651962 The Netherlands Pager: +6.57626855 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ %DCL-E-NOCFFE, unable to locate coffee - keyboard input suspended. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 10 09:53:26 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA12921 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 09:53:26 +1100 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 JAA12915 for ; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 09:53:18 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa25597; 9 Jan 98 14:52 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Christmas In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 08 Jan 1998 09:16:48 PST." <199801081716.JAA22890@dlsun565.us.oracle.com> Date: Fri, 09 Jan 1998 14:52:11 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801091452.aa25597@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > Hi, > > I am finally finding time to write a little bit. > > Name: Jim Boyce > E-mail: jboyce@us.oracle.com (work) > or jboyce%sun-jboyce@us.oracle.com (preferred for friends non-work) > > I am one of the 2nd 100 in BLML. I am not a respected authority on > the laws by any means. But I am interested in bridge as a field of > endeavor. > > I grew up in a house the received The Bridge World. So I grew up with > the opinions of Kaplan and Reubens every month. My parents recently > moved out of the house I grew up in to a smaller place. I volunteered > to give the Bridge World collection a new home. I now have a nearly > complete collection from, I believe, Oct 1958. (The ones I am missing > are still in print; I just have to get around to ordering them.) > > I was attracted to BLML from rec.games.bridge by the discussion of the > revoke and claim laws. > > I am a mathematician by training and a programmer by trade. > > I currently play bridge at a friend's house about once a week. It is > easier to schedule things that way than it is to go to a club. It is > also more pleasant then the clubs that I remember. Jim, Thanks for introducing yourself. Please fill out the following official BLML questionnaire. This will help us keep statistical records of our membership, and it will give our other members the important information they need to know when responding to your contributions. (1) How many cats do you have? (2) What are their names? -- thank you, Adam :) From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 10 19:36:41 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA13953 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 19:36:41 +1100 Received: from imo20.mx.aol.com (imo20.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.177]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA13948 for ; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 19:36:36 +1100 From: RuefulR Message-ID: <8d64377c.34b73238@aol.com> Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 03:32:55 EST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Christmas Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In a message dated 1/9/98 9:11:16 PM EST, adam@flash.irvine.com writes: > > > > Hi, > > > > I am finally finding time to write a little bit. > > > > Name: Jim Boyce > > E-mail: jboyce@us.oracle.com (work) > > or jboyce%sun-jboyce@us.oracle.com (preferred for friends non-work) > > > > I am one of the 2nd 100 in BLML. I am not a respected authority on > > the laws by any means. But I am interested in bridge as a field of > > endeavor. > > > > I grew up in a house the received The Bridge World. So I grew up with > > the opinions of Kaplan and Reubens every month. My parents recently > > moved out of the house I grew up in to a smaller place. I volunteered > > to give the Bridge World collection a new home. I now have a nearly > > complete collection from, I believe, Oct 1958. (The ones I am missing > > are still in print; I just have to get around to ordering them.) > > > > I was attracted to BLML from rec.games.bridge by the discussion of the > > revoke and claim laws. > > > > I am a mathematician by training and a programmer by trade. > > > > I currently play bridge at a friend's house about once a week. It is > > easier to schedule things that way than it is to go to a club. It is > > also more pleasant then the clubs that I remember. > > Jim, > > Thanks for introducing yourself. Please fill out the following > official BLML questionnaire. This will help us keep statistical > records of our membership, and it will give our other members the > important information they need to know when responding to your > contributions. > > (1) How many cats do you have? > (2) What are their names? OK, I've not responded, but since this is obviously such an important matter, I'll chime in. I own 0 cats. However, my roommates have two cats, Herbert Sherbet (Herbie) and Mittens. Since I feed them they respond to me as much or more than my roommates. Herbie cares not for bridge. However, Mittens will sit on your lap and help you play your bridge hand. Sometimes he'll lie in the middle of the table and help play the dummy. David A. Blizzard From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 11 11:29:48 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA18786 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 11 Jan 1998 11:29:48 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA18781 for ; Sun, 11 Jan 1998 11:29:41 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1010068; 11 Jan 98 0:23 GMT Message-ID: <9M6cnMAc6Au0EweP@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 00:13:16 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Nanki Poo Reply-To: Quango Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws In-Reply-To: <69e8077.34b63155@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Bbbrooooooooooowwwwwwwwww !!!!!!!!! Karen Allison Stella, Blanche, Stanley Adam Beneschan Mickey, Mango David Blizzard Herbie, Mittens Hirsch Davis Shadow, Smokey Dany Haimovici Shobo +4 John Kuchenbrod Rah-Rey, Leo Irv Kostal Bill, Albert, Cleo, Sabrina Eric Landau Glory, Wesley, Shadow, Query Sue O'Donnell Casey, Yazzer-Cat John Probst Gnipper, Figaro Craig Senior 10 Grant Sterling Panther David Stevenson Quango, Nanki Poo plus, of course Selassie Miiiiiiiaaaaaoouuuuwwwwww !!!!!!!!! -- Quango /\_/\ /\ /\ quango@blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= @ @ Nanki Poo ( | | ) =( + )= nankipoo@blakjak.demon.co.uk (_~^ ^~ ~ From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 11 12:57:36 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA18967 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 11 Jan 1998 12:57:36 +1100 Received: from minerva.pinehurst.net (root@minerva.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA18960 for ; Sun, 11 Jan 1998 12:57:29 +1100 Received: from pinehurst.net (pm4-20.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.241]) by minerva.pinehurst.net (8.8.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA15299 for ; Sat, 10 Jan 1998 20:57:22 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <34B8282D.905CDCB6@pinehurst.net> Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 21:02:22 -0500 From: "Nancy T.Dressing" Reply-To: nancy@pinehurst.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Fifth Friday Game. Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi All.... Herman's club in Belgium and my club in Southern Pines, NC, US will be playing against each other on January 30, 1998. We are considering making this a standard event on months that have the 5th Friday. We would love to have any other interested groups join us in this friendly across the ocean game. Please let either one of us know if you would like to participate. Herman will prepare the hands and email them to you and I am sure he will do his usual great job of scoring the event. Perhaps David will even volunteer to be appeals chairman!! Would you care to join us? Nancy From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 11 13:29:58 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA19060 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 11 Jan 1998 13:29:58 +1100 Received: from imo16.mx.aol.com (imo16.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.172]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA19055 for ; Sun, 11 Jan 1998 13:29:53 +1100 From: KRAllison Message-ID: <11953a19.34b82e76@aol.com> Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 21:29:09 EST To: quango@blakjak.demon.co.uk, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk To all members: We think it only normal that human subjects interested in legalistic and otherwise intellectually demanding activities should require comfort, company and, above all, assistance from the perspicacious members of the feline society. Stella, Stanley and Blanche and we quote Cleveland Amory's late, great feline companion "Polar Bear" in saying "aeiou!" From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 12 02:30:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA22884 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 02:30:10 +1100 Received: from u3.farm.idt.net (lighton@u3.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.12]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA22879 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 02:30:05 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u3.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA16633 for ; Sun, 11 Jan 1998 10:30:01 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 10:30:01 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u3.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws In-Reply-To: <9M6cnMAc6Au0EweP@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Sun, 11 Jan 1998, Nanki Poo wrote: > > Bbbrooooooooooowwwwwwwwww !!!!!!!!! > > Karen Allison Stella, Blanche, Stanley Etc > > Miiiiiiiaaaaaoouuuuwwwwww !!!!!!!!! > I have enjoyed the time I have spent as a subscriber to blml. Alas, I think I should now unsubscribe. It has been good to know you, but I have no cat. -- Richard Lighton | May all your troubles last as long (lighton@idt.net) | as your New Year's resolutions. Wood-Ridge NJ | --Joey Adams USA | From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 12 03:08:40 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA23039 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 03:08:40 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA23034 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 03:08:29 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2008246; 11 Jan 98 16:00 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 23:11:56 +0000 To: David Stevenson Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: Inadvertent Play In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message , David Stevenson writes >Steve Willner wrote: >>> From: LizorWayne > >> >>> What are the relevant principals in determining whether declarer's play >>> was inadvertent? ....................cut but not quite to KA standards.................. > The interpretation that the TD must ascertain the intent is an >interpretation of the word "inadvertent" and not "without pause for >thought". I believe the meaning of inadvertent is quite clear. > > I believe the "pause for thought" bit is rarely relevant. We train >our TDs to be elastic in the matter of the pause: it is the inadvertent >bit that matters. > Labeo:- Yes, But....... The words are:"may, without penalty, change an inadvertent designation if he does so without pause for thought...." The Director has to judge that the designation was inadvertent; he also has to judge that, if there was a defined pause, it was not 'for thought'. The elasticity is fine since it encourages the Director not to get knotted up in self-doubt about the pause element; however, this is based upon the general experience that a player correcting an inadvertent slip invariably (almost) does so instantaneously. That much said, one may note that even an inadvertent designation may not be changed if the player takes time out to think before correcting it, or so the law says. -- Labeo Quand la populace se mele de raisonner, tout est perdu. From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 12 03:50:56 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA23173 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 03:50:56 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA23168 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 03:50:50 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1022780; 11 Jan 98 16:44 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 16:43:09 +0000 To: David Stevenson Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: Year End Congress In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message , David Stevenson writes >Jens wrote: >Jens wrote: > >>I really appreciate that BLML exists, so that I get a chance to get >>nitpicking comments like these off my chest. David S: > > I am not really sure why this remark is here, but feel it might have >been better added to a different answer! :) > Oh, that's all right then, so long as you do not mean "different added to a better answer" -- Labeo " Cats and monkeys, monkeys and cats - All human life is there. " (Hy. James) From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 12 03:58:05 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA23195 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 03:58:05 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA23190 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 03:57:59 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1020088; 11 Jan 98 16:26 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 16:25:14 +0000 To: Quango Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws In-Reply-To: <9M6cnMAc6Au0EweP@blakjak.demon.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <9M6cnMAc6Au0EweP@blakjak.demon.co.uk>, Nanki Poo writes > > Bbbrooooooooooowwwwwwwwww !!!!!!!!! > > .......Karen Allison........ > Miiiiiiiaaaaaoouuuuwwwwww !!!!!!!!! > Why am I getting all these catcalls ? -- Labeo Two old bachelors were living in one house: One caught a muffin, the other caught a mouse. From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 12 04:04:11 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA23221 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 04:04:11 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id EAA23216 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 04:04:03 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1022444; 11 Jan 98 16:42 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 16:39:15 +0000 To: RuefulR Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: Christmas In-Reply-To: <8d64377c.34b73238@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <8d64377c.34b73238@aol.com>, RuefulR writes >In a message dated 1/9/98 9:11:16 PM EST, adam@flash.irvine.com writes: > >> > >> > Hi, >> > >> > I am finally finding time to write a little bit. >> > >> > Name: Jim Boyce >> >> ......cut........... RR: >> Thanks for introducing yourself. Please fill out the following >> official BLML questionnaire. This will help us keep statistical >> records of our membership, and it will give our other members the >> important information they need to know when responding to your >> contributions. >> >> (1) How many cats do you have? >> (2) What are their names? >.............................cut..................... > Sometimes he'll lie >in the middle of the table and help play the dummy. > Some cats I know lie in the middle of the auction. -- Labeo " Cats and monkeys, monkeys and cats - All human life is there. " (Hy. James) From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 12 06:31:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA23917 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 06:31:29 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA23912 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 06:31:21 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2011338; 11 Jan 98 19:17 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 03:07:20 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Fifth Friday Game. In-Reply-To: <34B8282D.905CDCB6@pinehurst.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Nancy T.Dressing wrote: >Hi All.... Herman's club in Belgium and my club in Southern Pines, NC, >US will be playing against each other on January 30, 1998. We are >considering making this a standard event on months that have the 5th >Friday. We would love to have any other interested groups join us in >this friendly across the ocean game. Please let either one of us know >if you would like to participate. Herman will prepare the hands and >email them to you and I am sure he will do his usual great job of >scoring the event. Perhaps David will even volunteer to be appeals >chairman!! Would you care to join us? Nancy I would love to join you but my club is not suitable. However, I will be happy to be Appeals Chairman, the other members being Quango and Nanki Poo, of course. -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 12 06:33:37 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA23932 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 06:33:37 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA23927 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 06:33:29 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2010787; 11 Jan 98 19:14 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 03:07:20 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Fifth Friday Game. In-Reply-To: <34B8282D.905CDCB6@pinehurst.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Nancy T.Dressing wrote: >Hi All.... Herman's club in Belgium and my club in Southern Pines, NC, >US will be playing against each other on January 30, 1998. We are >considering making this a standard event on months that have the 5th >Friday. We would love to have any other interested groups join us in >this friendly across the ocean game. Please let either one of us know >if you would like to participate. Herman will prepare the hands and >email them to you and I am sure he will do his usual great job of >scoring the event. Perhaps David will even volunteer to be appeals >chairman!! Would you care to join us? Nancy I would love to join you but my club is not suitable. However, I will be happy to be Appeals Chairman, the other members being Quango and Nanki Poo, of course. -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 12 13:44:57 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA24807 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 13:44:57 +1100 Received: from acsys.anu.edu.au (acsys [150.203.20.41]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA24802 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 13:44:52 +1100 Received: from acrobat (acrobat.anu.edu.au [150.203.20.55]) by acsys.anu.edu.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA13223 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 13:44:51 +1100 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19980112134438.00919510@acsys.anu.edu.au> X-Sender: markus@acsys.anu.edu.au X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 13:44:38 +1100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Markus Buchhorn Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Please refrain from using words like s*bscribe and uns*bscribe in your messages as these get bounced to me as administrative requests - majordomo is just too clever for my own good at times.... :-) And I'm sure the cat enthusiasts will return to the higher plane of bridge laws soon, or I will add the word 'cat' to the filter list for majordomo ;-) >Richard Lighton wrote: > >>I have enjoyed the time I have spent as a s**scriber to blml. >>Alas, I think I should now uns**scribe. It has been good to >>know you, but I have no cat. > > That's very sad. :( > > We shall miss you. However, there is one obvious alternative ... > > > [Isn't it time that someone posted a bridge laws problem to BLML - it >seems some time since we had one!] > >-- >David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk > We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters > will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the > internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California > > Markus Buchhorn, Advanced Computational Systems CRC | Ph: +61 2 62798810 email: markus@acsys.anu.edu.au, snail: ACSys, RSISE Bldg,|Fax: +61 2 62798602 Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia |Mobile: 0417 281429 From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 12 21:17:48 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA25602 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 21:17:48 +1100 Received: from terminator2.xtra.co.nz (terminator2.xtra.co.nz [202.27.184.2]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA25597 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 21:17:41 +1100 Received: from LOCALNAME (p36-m4-ch7.dialup.xtra.co.nz [202.27.179.228]) by terminator2.xtra.co.nz (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id XAA26834 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 23:16:25 +1300 (NZDT) Message-ID: <34BB1642.2C56@xtra.co.nz> Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 23:22:42 -0800 From: B A Small Reply-To: Bruce.Small@xtra.co.nz X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0C-XTRA (Win95; I; 16bit) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Multiple dilemias Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Perhaps it is time for a bridge query. Auction starts N E 1D - 2D (=my pard). South now leans across and alerts norths bid. East asks and is told that it is Precision 11-15 and may be as short as three diamonds. The director is called. Before east could explain south complained that he hadn't been given enough tome to alert and we should know that is precision anyway. East now explains that the alert had come after her bid. Director (it was a holiday session and he was playing as well) ruled that bidding continue and he'll review. Our system is that over a natural bid easts bid would be a cue indicating a strong hand but over the artifical precision bid it shows a diamond suit strong enough to play. I'm sitting with Qx Jxxxx xx Jxxx. South now asks what easts bid means. How do I respond? My actual response was " The bid now means has diamond suit to play". South now passes!! Under their system this indicates less than 8pts. How do I now bid as I have a heap of UI and AI? According to our sys I should pass. Should I call director back and point out his error (21B1)? Your thoughts would be appreciated Bruce From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 12 22:54:40 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA25882 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 22:54:40 +1100 Received: from waffle.cise.npl.co.uk (waffle.cise.npl.co.uk [139.143.18.92]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA25877 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 22:54:14 +1100 Received: from tempest.cise.npl.co.uk by waffle.cise.npl.co.uk; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 11:53:37 GMT Date: Mon, 12 Jan 98 11:53:36 GMT Message-Id: <22700.9801121153@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> From: Robin Barker To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au, Bruce.Small@xtra.co.nz Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi > Perhaps it is time for a bridge query. > > Auction starts > N E > 1D - 2D (=my pard). South now leans across and alerts norths bid. East > asks and is told that it is Precision 11-15 and may be as short as three > diamonds. The director is called. Before east could explain south > complained that he hadn't been given enough tome to alert and we should > know that is precision anyway. East now explains that the alert had come > after her bid. Director (it was a holiday session and he was playing as > well) ruled that bidding continue and he'll review. It looks as if the director has made a mistake, L21 seems to be applicable. He may have decided that East was at fault for bidding to quickly and not entitled to redress -- I would not be happy to rule this way, but a senior EBU director gave a similar ruling at Brighton last year. In any case the director should explain what information is authorised/ unauthorised to which players. I think this is the point at which West should say "That ruling could put us in an almost impossible position, are you sure it is the right ruling?" > Our system is that > over a natural bid easts bid would be a cue indicating a strong hand but > over the artifical precision bid it shows a diamond suit strong enough > to play. I'm sitting with Qx Jxxxx xx Jxxx. South now asks what easts > bid means. How do I respond? My actual response was " The bid now means > has diamond suit to play". I think the answer should be "over a natural bid 2D would be a cue indicating a strong hand but over the artifical precision bid it shows a diamond suit strong enough to play"; that is your agreement: it is clear to the table that there may be doubt as to what East intended his bid to apply to. > South now passes!! Under their system this > indicates less than 8pts. How do I now bid as I have a heap of UI and AI? In the absence of specific instruction from the director, I would bid. > According to our sys I should pass. Should I call director back and > point out his error (21B1)? I think you should do that earlier. Robin Robin Barker, \ Email: Robin.Barker@npl.co.uk Information Systems Engineering, \ Tel: +44 (0) 181 943 7090 B10, National Physical Laboratory, \ Fax: +44 (0) 181 977 7091 Teddington, Middlesex, UK. TW11 0LW \ WWW: http://www.npl.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 12 23:02:32 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA25952 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 23:02:32 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA25947 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 23:02:27 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-187.uunet.be [194.7.13.187]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA24645 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 13:02:22 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34B9FA4D.109F5438@innet.be> Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 12:11:09 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <34BB1642.2C56@xtra.co.nz> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk B A Small wrote: > > Perhaps it is time for a bridge query. > > Auction starts > N E > 1D - 2D (=my pard). South now leans across and alerts norths bid. East > asks and is told that it is Precision 11-15 and may be as short as three > diamonds. The director is called. Before east could explain south > complained that he hadn't been given enough tome to alert and we should > know that is precision anyway. East now explains that the alert had come > after her bid. Director (it was a holiday session and he was playing as > well) ruled that bidding continue and he'll review. Our system is that > over a natural bid easts bid would be a cue indicating a strong hand but > over the artifical precision bid it shows a diamond suit strong enough > to play. I'm sitting with Qx Jxxxx xx Jxxx. South now asks what easts > bid means. How do I respond? My actual response was " The bid now means > has diamond suit to play". South now passes!! Under their system this > indicates less than 8pts. How do I now bid as I have a heap of UI and > AI? According to our sys I should pass. Should I call director back and > point out his error (21B1)? > > Your thoughts would be appreciated > > Bruce I would now bid on (no matter what - even using UI) and call afterwards and say that if the original ruling turns out to be incorrect (as I think it is - but this is a matter of weighing facts - not of interpretation of laws) I want A+ to both sides. If you wanted to point out the director's error, you should have done so at the time when it was still possible to change it (rule misinformation directly and allow E to change call). One bid later it is to late anyway. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 00:05:15 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA26088 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 00:05:15 +1100 Received: from UKCC.uky.edu (ukcc.uky.edu [128.163.1.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA26083 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 00:05:08 +1100 Received: from t2.mscf.uky.edu (128.163.132.102) by UKCC.uky.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with TCP; Mon, 12 Jan 98 08:04:51 EST Received: from t5.mscf.uky.edu by t2.ms.uky.edu id aa16802; 12 Jan 98 8:04 EST Received: (from kuch@localhost) by t5.mscf.uky.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA24022 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 08:04:50 -0500 (EST) From: John A Kuchenbrod Message-Id: <199801121304.IAA24022@t5.mscf.uky.edu> Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 08:04:50 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <34BB1642.2C56@xtra.co.nz> from "B A Small" at Jan 12, 98 11:22:42 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > Perhaps it is time for a bridge query. > > Auction starts > N E > 1D - 2D (=my pard). South now leans across and alerts norths bid. East > asks and is told that it is Precision 11-15 and may be as short as three > diamonds. The director is called. Before east could explain south > complained that he hadn't been given enough tome to alert and we should > know that is precision anyway. East now explains that the alert had come > after her bid. Director (it was a holiday session and he was playing as > well) ruled that bidding continue and he'll review. No, no, no! One of the things that gets me about the laws is the treatment about failure to alert. For once, an opportunity comes about that the bids actually can be changed, and the director won't let it happen. As for not having enough time to alert, that's a load of refuse. South should be ready to alert practically any bid offered up by North. > Our system is that > over a natural bid easts bid would be a cue indicating a strong hand but > over the artifical precision bid it shows a diamond suit strong enough > to play. I'm sitting with Qx Jxxxx xx Jxxx. South now asks what easts > bid means. How do I respond? Response should be "Director!" Obviously director wasn't aware of the defense against precision and should be made aware of it in private. > My actual response was " The bid now means > has diamond suit to play". South now passes!! Under their system this > indicates less than 8pts. How do I now bid as I have a heap of UI and > AI? According to our sys I should pass. Should I call director back and > point out his error (21B1)? Yes, definitely when you're asked to interpret the bid. If you were friendly with the director, I would have mentioned the error earlier. John -- | John A. Kuchenbrod | kuch@ms.uky.edu | http://www.ms.uky.edu/~kuch | | finger kuch@wagner.ms.uky.edu to see when I last checked my mail | From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 02:35:43 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA28873 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 02:35:43 +1100 Received: from dira.bris.ac.uk (dira.bris.ac.uk [137.222.10.41]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA28868 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 02:35:36 +1100 Received: from elios.maths.bris.ac.uk by dira with SMTP-LOCAL (PP) with ESMTP; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 15:35:20 +0000 Received: from pc19.maths.bris.ac.uk (pc19 [137.222.80.59]) by elios.maths.bris.ac.uk (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA11977 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 15:33:20 GMT From: Jeremy Rickard Reply-To: "Rickard, Jeremy" To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias In-Reply-To: <199801121304.IAA24022@t5.mscf.uky.edu> Message-ID: Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 15:31:51 +0000 (GMT) Priority: NORMAL X-Mailer: Simeon for Windows Version 4.1.1 Build (16) X-Authentication: none MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Mon, 12 Jan 1998 08:04:50 -0500 (EST) John A Kuchenbrod wrote: > > > > Perhaps it is time for a bridge query. > > > > Auction starts > > N E > > 1D - 2D (=my pard). South now leans across and alerts norths bid. East > > asks and is told that it is Precision 11-15 and may be as short as three > > diamonds. The director is called. Before east could explain south > > complained that he hadn't been given enough tome to alert and we should > > know that is precision anyway. East now explains that the alert had come > > after her bid. Director (it was a holiday session and he was playing as > > well) ruled that bidding continue and he'll review. > > No, no, no! One of the things that gets me about the laws is the treatment > about failure to alert. For once, an opportunity comes about that the bids > actually can be changed, and the director won't let it happen. > > As for not having enough time to alert, that's a load of refuse. South > should be ready to alert practically any bid offered up by North. I was wondering when the hours I spent playing Snap as a child would pay off at the bridge table. Anyone for the "Fastest Draw in the West" defence to a strong club? Overcalls before 1C is alerted are natural, but ... Seriously, I have no idea whether South had time to alert in this case, and I don't think you do either. But of course it's *possible* that he didn't, if East had faster reactions: I certainly don't think we've been given enough information to judge South's complaint to be "a load of refuse". Jeremy. ------------------------- Jeremy Rickard email: J.Rickard@bristol.ac.uk tel: 0117 928 7989 fax: 0117 928 7999 ------------------------- From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 03:22:14 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA29067 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 03:22:14 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA29062 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 03:22:05 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA30647 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 11:22:05 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA03560; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 11:22:03 -0500 Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 11:22:03 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801121622.LAA03560@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Markus Buchhorn > majordomo is just too clever for my own good at times.... :-) And here I was thinking we s*bscribers were the clever ones! (Most mailing lists have a daily dose of s*bscribe and uns*bscribe messages, but blml has been mercifully free of them.) I should have known it was majordomo all along. No humans could be as clever as that. :-( Thanks, Markus. From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 05:57:24 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA29943 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 05:57:24 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id FAA29938 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 05:57:12 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1000279; 12 Jan 98 16:58 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 14:04:02 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias In-Reply-To: <199801121304.IAA24022@t5.mscf.uky.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Robin Barker wrote: >It looks as if the director has made a mistake, L21 seems to be applicable. >He may have decided that East was at fault for bidding to quickly and not >entitled to redress -- I would not be happy to rule this way, but a senior >EBU director gave a similar ruling at Brighton last year. John A Kuchenbrod wrote: >As for not having enough time to alert, that's a load of refuse. South >should be ready to alert practically any bid offered up by North. I think we should consider the Laws of Bridge. LAW 73 - COMMUNICATION D. Variations in Tempo or Manner 1. Inadvertent Variations It is desirable, though not always required, for players to maintain steady tempo and unvarying manner. However, players should be particularly careful in positions in which variations may work to the benefit of their side. Otherwise... Let us consider a ploy. RHO makes an alertable call, one that you know is alertable. You call at the speed of Quango when he hears a catfood tin being opened. You beat the alert! Wahey! Now the TD allows you to change your call - whoopee! - two calls for the price of one! Do you think this is desirable? fair? reasonable? legal? No, none of these. Bridge is not meant to be won by deliberately getting penalties, and certainly not by deliberately altering tempo. In fact it is not meant to be won by accidentally altering tempo. Read the Law above. Thus we do not want to give people who bid out of tempo an advantage *by* bidding out of tempo, and the Law quoted agrees. If a call is made in the normal tempo of the auction, and the next player has failed to alert the previous call, then that is his fault, and L21 applies. But if the reason the previous call is not alerted is because of the haste of the next call then there is no "failure to alert promptly" so no misinformation. Thus the original ruling should either have been [1] that there was a failure to alert promptly, and the 2D bid can be taken back, OR [2] the 2D bid was out of tempo, and consequently there was no failure to alert promptly, your partner can protect himself as best he can, and you must avoid using UI. -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 06:13:22 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA00110 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 06:13:22 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA00103 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 06:13:08 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2003395; 12 Jan 98 16:58 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 13:40:01 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias In-Reply-To: <34B9FA4D.109F5438@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: >I would now bid on (no matter what - even using UI) and call afterwards >and say that if the original ruling turns out to be incorrect (as I >think it is - but this is a matter of weighing facts - not of >interpretation of laws) I want A+ to both sides. I trust that this post was meant to be light-hearted and not serious. For those of you who have taken it seriously then I would point out that to adjust to A+ for both sides is just as bad a ruling as the original one may have been. L82C requires us to award an adjusted score: L12C tells us how to adjust: L12C1 makes it clear that an ArtAS is not suitable, and L12C2 requires us to issue an AssAS. Since Herman says he will use UI if necessary, I am fining him a quarter-board penalty [25% of a top]. It is difficult to imagine him saying "I want A+ to both sides" in a courteous manner, so I would probably fine him another quarter-board for breach of L74B5: this would be a DP, so not appealable. Two wrongs *NEVER* make a right. Actually, despite what he wrote, I cannot believe Herman would act in this way. >If you wanted to point out the director's error, you should have done so >at the time when it was still possible to change it (rule misinformation >directly and allow E to change call). One bid later it is to late >anyway. It is not too late. Until you bid, your partner's 2D can be withdrawn, see L21B1. -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 07:19:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA00389 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 07:19:10 +1100 Received: from ncc.ripe.net (ncc.ripe.net [193.0.0.129]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id HAA00384 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 07:19:04 +1100 Received: from localhost by ncc.ripe.net with SMTP id AA02208 (5.65a/NCC-2.41); Mon, 12 Jan 1998 21:18:26 +0100 Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 21:18:26 +0100 (MET) From: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, David Stevenson wrote: > Thus the original ruling should either have been > [1] that there was a failure to alert promptly, and the 2D bid can be > taken back, OR > [2] the 2D bid was out of tempo, and consequently there was no failure > to alert promptly, your partner can protect himself as best he can, and > you must avoid using UI. The original poster wrote that south claimed that EW should have known that 1D was Precision. I have no idea if there is anything in that statement, but I can imagine cases where there is: board N of a long match, a weekly duplicate where NS and EW meet approximately every week or something like that. In that case shouldn't there be a [3] yes, there was a failure to alert, but EW should have realized this and the auction continues 1D-2D, where 2D is whatever it shows over a conventional 1D. Henk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Henk Uijterwaal Email: henk.uijterwaal@ripe.net RIPE Network Coordination Centre WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk Singel 258 Phone: +31.20.535-4414, Fax -4445 1016 AB Amsterdam Home: +31.20.6651962 The Netherlands Pager: +6.57626855 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |meckwell:36> man cat Reformatting cat(1), please wait... From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 07:35:58 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA00443 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 07:35:58 +1100 Received: from cs.bu.edu (root@CS.BU.EDU [128.197.13.2]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA00438 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 07:35:52 +1100 Received: from csb.bu.edu (metcalf@CSB.BU.EDU [128.197.10.4]) by cs.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-01/27/97-fc1)) with ESMTP id PAA14953; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 15:35:39 -0500 (EST) From: David Metcalf Received: by csb.bu.edu (8.8.5/Spike-2.1) id PAA07992; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 15:35:34 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801122035.PAA07992@csb.bu.edu> Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 15:35:33 -0500 (EST) Cc: metcalf@cs.bu.edu Reply-To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-Reply-To: <0EMB00IPCILIXL@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> from "E.Angad-Gaur" at Jan 5, 98 04:48:16 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi-- I have a mild problem with most of the non-cat related answers to this posting (repeated below), in that west had information from looking at his hand which meant that he "could have known" that his response was misleading, and possibly untrue. If it turns out that E-W have a clear agreement (borne out by partnership experience) that a low spot lead shows an honor, then of course west is free to recognize that for some reason either (a) his partner violated the agreement today, (b) north bid 3NT on 987 of spades, or (c) the 2 was a singleton. He is legally free to recognize that (a) is the case, but to inform north only of their firm agreement. However, I have found that in the majority of these cases E-W do *not* have a clear agreement (assuming this is not a top level event). Unless E-W are serious players with a longstanding partnership, I would suspect that this is the case. In this case, I would adjust the score. I feel that west, given his spades and the auction, was fully aware that north had Qxx of spades, and could have known that by, stating that there was a firm agreement when there wasn't, he could cause north to go wrong. He was right, but this is misinformation, and a violation of proprieties. David Metcalf E.Angad-Gaur wrote: >> >>I got the following problem last Sunday on a teams-tournament. >> >> board : 12 Qxx W N E S >> W/NS AQx 1S X p 2H >> Ax p 3NT p p >> AKJ105 N 952 >> K94 W E xxx >> J10742 S K98 >> ---- 6432 >> 43 >> J10xx >> Qxx >> J10xx >> >>E starts with spade 2 for spade Ace of West. W continues with spade 5 and >>now the leader North asks what spade 2 meaned. Answer of West was : >>"start of small spade means value in the suit. N plays a small spade and the >>spade 9 of E won the trick. Spade return and the contract was defeated. >>On the other table the contract was 3NT +1. >>North said to the TD that if he had the correct answer he would play >>the spade Q. He now played for blocking the suit. >>Would you change the score ? >> >>Evert. >>--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>S.E. Angad-Gaur | email :evert_np@duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl >>Technische Universiteit Delft | tel. : 015-2786150 >>Faculteit der Technische Natuurkunde | fax : 015-2783251 >>Lorentzweg 1 | >>2628 CJ Delft | >>--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Eric Landau wrote : >>It sounds as though N did have "the correct answer", assuming that W >>described the E-W partnership agreement about their leads. If so, there's >>no case for changing the score. Only if did NOT mean value in the suit >>according to E-W's agreements, should a score change be considered. [others wrote similar comments] From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 08:53:13 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA00687 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 08:53:13 +1100 Received: from UKCC.uky.edu (ukcc.uky.edu [128.163.1.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA00682 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 08:53:07 +1100 Received: from t2.mscf.uky.edu (128.163.132.102) by UKCC.uky.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with TCP; Mon, 12 Jan 98 16:52:51 EST Received: from t5.mscf.uky.edu by t2.ms.uky.edu id aa26625; 12 Jan 98 16:52 EST Received: (from kuch@localhost) by t5.mscf.uky.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA00108; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 16:52:33 -0500 (EST) From: John A Kuchenbrod Message-Id: <199801122152.QAA00108@t5.mscf.uky.edu> Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias To: bnewsr@blakjak.demon.co.uk Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 16:52:33 -0500 (EST) Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-Reply-To: from "David Stevenson" at Jan 12, 98 02:04:02 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > Robin Barker wrote: > > >It looks as if the director has made a mistake, L21 seems to be applicable. > >He may have decided that East was at fault for bidding to quickly and not > >entitled to redress -- I would not be happy to rule this way, but a senior > >EBU director gave a similar ruling at Brighton last year. > > John A Kuchenbrod wrote: > > >As for not having enough time to alert, that's a load of refuse. South > >should be ready to alert practically any bid offered up by North. > > > > I think we should consider the Laws of Bridge. > > > If a call is made in the normal tempo of the auction, and the next > player has failed to alert the previous call, then that is his fault, > and L21 applies. But if the reason the previous call is not alerted is > because of the haste of the next call then there is no "failure to alert > promptly" so no misinformation. > > Thus the original ruling should either have been > [1] that there was a failure to alert promptly, and the 2D bid can be > taken back, OR > [2] the 2D bid was out of tempo, and consequently there was no failure > to alert promptly, your partner can protect himself as best he can, and > you must avoid using UI. Agreed. When I made my comment, I wasn't aware of how quickly East bid. I apologize if people interpreted my comment in that fashion. South shouldn't have to alert within 0.01 seconds, but if more time has passed than it would take for south to go, "Hey, partner didn't pass, so I should alert," then I would have to say that it wasn't prompt enough. Then again, if this were a perfect world....no, I won't go there. John -- | John A. Kuchenbrod | kuch@ms.uky.edu | http://www.ms.uky.edu/~kuch | | finger kuch@wagner.ms.uky.edu to see when I last checked my mail | From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 09:42:59 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA00854 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:42:59 +1100 Received: from dfw-ix11.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix11.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.11]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA00849 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:42:50 +1100 Received: (from smap@localhost) by dfw-ix11.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id QAA03573 for ; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 16:42:04 -0600 (CST) Received: from 99.middletown-04.va.dial-access.att.net(12.68.16.99) by dfw-ix11.ix.netcom.com via smap (V1.3) id rma003263; Mon Jan 12 16:40:26 1998 Received: by 99.middletown-04.va.dial-access.ATT.NET with Microsoft Mail id <01BD1F80.E27C16E0@99.middletown-04.va.dial-access.ATT.NET>; Mon, 12 Jan 1998 17:38:25 -0500 Message-ID: <01BD1F80.E27C16E0@99.middletown-04.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> From: Craig Senior To: "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" Subject: RE: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 17:38:23 -0500 Encoding: 66 TEXT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk To complete the official record, my ten are: Streak (black & white, smart & very fast) Shaney (long haired brown & honey coloured)(the only non-domestic shorthair) 4 litter mates:(wife couldn't choose which kitten) Rascal (orange tigre) Stubby (likewise but chunkier and born with a bobbed tail) Precious (dainty black tigre) Smoke (grey) Next generation: (too slow to the vet) Scamp (midnight black) Bandit (solidly built black tigre hulk) Shadow (grey with black tigre pattern showing faintly) Found after Smoke was lost: Smokey (grey and hard to tell from Smoke...quite a double take when Smoke came home & started to eat and Smokey came downstairs...but that's another story) Streak is best at real live bridge, and often moves the cards. But Shaney and Rascal are much better at getting on the computer (literally and figuratively). Craig Senior Bridge was invented for poor souls who will never know the joy of catnip. ---------- From: Nanki Poo[SMTP:nankipoo@blakjak.demon.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, January 10, 1998 7:13 PM To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws Bbbrooooooooooowwwwwwwwww !!!!!!!!! Karen Allison Stella, Blanche, Stanley Adam Beneschan Mickey, Mango David Blizzard Herbie, Mittens Hirsch Davis Shadow, Smokey Dany Haimovici Shobo +4 John Kuchenbrod Rah-Rey, Leo Irv Kostal Bill, Albert, Cleo, Sabrina Eric Landau Glory, Wesley, Shadow, Query Sue O'Donnell Casey, Yazzer-Cat John Probst Gnipper, Figaro Craig Senior 10 Grant Sterling Panther David Stevenson Quango, Nanki Poo plus, of course Selassie Miiiiiiiaaaaaoouuuuwwwwww !!!!!!!!! -- Quango /\_/\ /\ /\ quango@blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= @ @ Nanki Poo ( | | ) =( + )= nankipoo@blakjak.demon.co.uk (_~^ ^~ ~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 11:47:51 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA01210 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 11:47:51 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA01205 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 11:47:45 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2027890; 13 Jan 98 0:28 GMT Message-ID: Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 00:06:38 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC) wrote: >On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, David Stevenson wrote: >> Thus the original ruling should either have been >> [1] that there was a failure to alert promptly, and the 2D bid can be >> taken back, OR >> [2] the 2D bid was out of tempo, and consequently there was no failure >> to alert promptly, your partner can protect himself as best he can, and >> you must avoid using UI. >The original poster wrote that south claimed that EW should have known >that 1D was Precision. I have no idea if there is anything in that >statement, but I can imagine cases where there is: board N of a long >match, a weekly duplicate where NS and EW meet approximately every week >or something like that. In that case shouldn't there be a > >[3] yes, there was a failure to alert, but EW should have realized this > and the auction continues 1D-2D, where 2D is whatever it shows over > a conventional 1D. Why? Am I not allowed to rely on the alert to remind me? Surely a failure to alert is misinformation even if I know what system they play? >|meckwell:36> man cat >Reformatting cat(1), please wait... ...and where did this part of your sig come from? -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 11:51:42 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA01225 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 11:51:42 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA01220 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 11:51:34 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1000836; 13 Jan 98 0:28 GMT Message-ID: <$WX8xHAr6qu0Ew+O@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 00:00:43 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Quango Reply-To: Nanki Poo Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws In-Reply-To: <9M6cnMAc6Au0EweP@blakjak.demon.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Bbbrooooooooooowwwwwwwwww !!!!!!!!! Karen Allison Stella, Blanche, Stanley Louis Arnon Dorus, Edna, Evelyn Adam Beneschan Mickey, Mango David Blizzard Herbie, Mittens Mary Buckland Neko, Four foot two Hirsch Davis Shadow, Smokey Dany Haimovici Shobo +4 John Kuchenbrod Rah-Rey, Leo Irv Kostal Bill, Albert, Cleo, Sabrina Eric Landau Glory, Wesley, Shadow, Query Sue O'Donnell Casey, Yazzer-Cat John Probst Gnipper, Figaro Craig Senior Streak, Shaney, Rascal, Stubby, Precious, Smoke, Scamp, Bandit, Shadow, Smokey Grant Sterling Panther David Stevenson Quango, Nanki Poo plus, of course Selassie Miiiiiiiaaaaaoouuuuwwwwww !!!!!!!!! -- Quango /\_/\ /\ /\ quango@blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= @ @ Nanki Poo ( | | ) =( + )= nankipoo@blakjak.demon.co.uk (_~^ ^~ ~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 19:15:15 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA02352 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 19:15:15 +1100 Received: from ncc.ripe.net (ncc.ripe.net [193.0.0.129]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA02347 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 19:15:08 +1100 Received: from localhost by ncc.ripe.net with SMTP id AA10331 (5.65a/NCC-2.41); Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:14:33 +0100 Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:14:33 +0100 (MET) From: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, David Stevenson wrote: > Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC) wrote: > >On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, David Stevenson wrote: > > >> Thus the original ruling should either have been > >> [1] that there was a failure to alert promptly, and the 2D bid can be > >> taken back, OR > >> [2] the 2D bid was out of tempo, and consequently there was no failure > >> to alert promptly, your partner can protect himself as best he can, and > >> you must avoid using UI. > > >The original poster wrote that south claimed that EW should have known > >that 1D was Precision. I have no idea if there is anything in that > >statement, but I can imagine cases where there is: board N of a long > >match, a weekly duplicate where NS and EW meet approximately every week > >or something like that. In that case shouldn't there be a > > > >[3] yes, there was a failure to alert, but EW should have realized this > > and the auction continues 1D-2D, where 2D is whatever it shows over > > a conventional 1D. > > Why? Am I not allowed to rely on the alert to remind me? Surely a > failure to alert is misinformation even if I know what system they play? I agree that it is still misinformation BUT suppose this is board N of a long match with N' precision 1D openers so-far. After it has been alert N'-1 times, my reaction will be along the lines of "yeah, Precision, I know...", so a failure to alert is IMHO far less serious as it would be in, say, a 2 board set. > >|meckwell:36> man cat > >Reformatting cat(1), please wait... > > ...and where did this part of your sig come from? Meckwell is my unix box at home, I thought I'd ask if it knew about cats. Let's see. I'm now on x22 at work: [x22:1] which cat /bin/cat Henk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Henk Uijterwaal Email: henk.uijterwaal@ripe.net RIPE Network Coordination Centre WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk Singel 258 Phone: +31.20.535-4414, Fax -4445 1016 AB Amsterdam Home: +31.20.6651962 The Netherlands Pager: +6.57626855 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [x22:1] which cat /bin/cat From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 20:55:27 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA02498 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 20:55:27 +1100 Received: from bkinis.ms.com (firewall-user@bkinis.ms.com [204.254.196.6]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA02492 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 20:55:21 +1100 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by bkinis.ms.com (8.8.6/fw v1.22) id EAA19156 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 04:55:12 -0500 (EST) Received: from unknown(140.14.69.95) by bkinis.ms.com via smap (3.2) id xma019123; Tue, 13 Jan 98 04:54:59 -0500 Received: from lnsun39.morgan.com (lnsun39.morgan.com [140.14.98.39]) by cwmail1.morgan.com (8.8.5/hub v1.75) with ESMTP id JAA28506 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:54:58 GMT From: Edward Sheldon Received: (sheldone@localhost) by lnsun39.morgan.com (8.8.5/sendmail.cf.client v1.05) id JAA15177 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:54:57 GMT Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:54:57 GMT Message-Id: <9801130954.ZM15175@ms.com> In-Reply-To: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" "Re: Multiple dilemias" (Jan 13, 8:55am) References: X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.1 10oct95) To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Jan 13, 8:55am, Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC) wrote: > Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias > On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, David Stevenson wrote: > > > Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC) wrote: > > >On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, David Stevenson wrote: > > > > >> Thus the original ruling should either have been > > >> [1] that there was a failure to alert promptly, and the 2D bid can be > > >> taken back, OR > > >> [2] the 2D bid was out of tempo, and consequently there was no failure > > >> to alert promptly, your partner can protect himself as best he can, and > > >> you must avoid using UI. > > > > >The original poster wrote that south claimed that EW should have known > > >that 1D was Precision. I have no idea if there is anything in that > > >statement, but I can imagine cases where there is: board N of a long > > >match, a weekly duplicate where NS and EW meet approximately every week > > >or something like that. In that case shouldn't there be a > > > > > >[3] yes, there was a failure to alert, but EW should have realized this > > > and the auction continues 1D-2D, where 2D is whatever it shows over > > > a conventional 1D. > > > > Why? Am I not allowed to rely on the alert to remind me? Surely a > > failure to alert is misinformation even if I know what system they play? Supposing this board had been played under EBU rules. There is IIRC a regulation which states that players are expected to find out at the start of the round their opponents' basic system, no-trump range, and the meaning of a 2C response to 1NT. My understanding was that this was in part designed to protect players who do not alert Stayman. Would it also apply to this situation, protecting the failure to alert 1D? [snip] > > >|meckwell:36> man cat > > >Reformatting cat(1), please wait... > > > > ...and where did this part of your sig come from? > > Meckwell is my unix box at home, I thought I'd ask if it knew about > cats. Let's see. I'm now on x22 at work: > > [x22:1] which cat > /bin/cat I use SunOS at work: lnsun39 /bin 22$ touch cat touch: cannot touch cat: Permission denied Cheers, Ed From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 21:19:33 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA02573 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 21:19:33 +1100 Received: from waffle.cise.npl.co.uk (waffle.cise.npl.co.uk [139.143.18.92]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA02567 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 21:19:21 +1100 Received: from tempest.cise.npl.co.uk by waffle.cise.npl.co.uk; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 10:19:06 GMT Date: Tue, 13 Jan 98 10:19:04 GMT Message-Id: <23182.9801131019@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> From: Robin Barker To: bnewsr@blakjak.demon.co.uk, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David > Robin Barker wrote: > > >It looks as if the director has made a mistake, L21 seems to be applicable. > >He may have decided that East was at fault for bidding to quickly and not > >entitled to redress -- I would not be happy to rule this way, but a senior > >EBU director gave a similar ruling at Brighton last year. > > > > John A Kuchenbrod wrote: > > >As for not having enough time to alert, that's a load of refuse. South > >should be ready to alert practically any bid offered up by North. > > > > I think we should consider the Laws of Bridge. > > LAW 73 - COMMUNICATION > > D. Variations in Tempo or Manner > 1. Inadvertent Variations > It is desirable, though not always required, for players to > maintain steady tempo and unvarying manner. However, players > should be particularly careful in positions in which variations > may work to the benefit of their side. Otherwise... > > > Let us consider a ploy. RHO makes an alertable call, one that you > know is alertable. You call at the speed of Quango when he hears a > catfood tin being opened. You beat the alert! Wahey! Now the TD > allows you to change your call - whoopee! - two calls for the price of > one! Do you think this is desirable? fair? reasonable? legal? > > No, none of these. Bridge is not meant to be won by deliberately > getting penalties, and certainly not by deliberately altering tempo. In > fact it is not meant to be won by accidentally altering tempo. Read the > Law above. Thus we do not want to give people who bid out of tempo an > advantage *by* bidding out of tempo, and the Law quoted agrees. I know that players could use this ploy, but I don't think it is ever used in practice. I understand that from your greater experience you think it is used -- we will just have to disagree. Robin Robin Barker, \ Email: Robin.Barker@npl.co.uk Information Systems Engineering, \ Tel: +44 (0) 181 943 7090 B10, National Physical Laboratory, \ Fax: +44 (0) 181 977 7091 Teddington, Middlesex, UK. TW11 0LW \ WWW: http://www.npl.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 22:03:52 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA02763 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 22:03:52 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA02757 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 22:03:46 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-9-115.uunet.be [194.7.9.115]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA18821 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 12:03:40 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34BB40B3.DFCC3E08@innet.be> Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 11:23:47 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > > Herman De Wael wrote: > > >I would now bid on (no matter what - even using UI) and call afterwards > >and say that if the original ruling turns out to be incorrect (as I > >think it is - but this is a matter of weighing facts - not of > >interpretation of laws) I want A+ to both sides. > > I trust that this post was meant to be light-hearted and not serious. > For those of you who have taken it seriously then I would point out that > to adjust to A+ for both sides is just as bad a ruling as the original > one may have been. L82C requires us to award an adjusted score: L12C > tells us how to adjust: L12C1 makes it clear that an ArtAS is not > suitable, and L12C2 requires us to issue an AssAS. > I have since read David's posting on this matter and as usual, he says it far better than I can, and (not as usual) I agree with him. The director must indeed decide whether it is one of two cases : - either partner has bid too fast, and the decision given is the correct one; - or he has made an error. The original post did not give us enough evidence as to the former, and I did not believe that this was the correct decision. However, I wanted to state that as partner, I would not let it stand at that. I would (hopefully courteously) ask TD to review his decision before my opponent could bid again. The player asking the original question did not do that. He let the matter stand and, still convinced the TD had it wrong, now asks us what to do next. That is an unanswerable question. It is that question to which I responded, I will now use UI. I am quite certain that if DWS were directing, and he would be firmly convinced that my partner had "bid faster than Quango", I would either: -agree with him, and try to avoid using the UI; or -disagree, state I would want to appeal and play on knowing I'm having a bad result (partner's fault) if the appeal doesn't come through. If the appeal does go my way however, I don't see how it can decide otherwise than A+/A+ since the problem is then clearly down to director's error. > Since Herman says he will use UI if necessary, I am fining him a > quarter-board penalty [25% of a top]. It is difficult to imagine him > saying "I want A+ to both sides" in a courteous manner, so I would > probably fine him another quarter-board for breach of L74B5: this would > be a DP, so not appealable. > to quote what somebody recently wrote : "I trust that this post was meant to be light-hearted and not serious." > Two wrongs *NEVER* make a right. > > Actually, despite what he wrote, I cannot believe Herman would act in > this way. > As I said, no, I would not have it come this far. > >If you wanted to point out the director's error, you should have done so > >at the time when it was still possible to change it (rule misinformation > >directly and allow E to change call). One bid later it is to late > >anyway. > > It is not too late. Until you bid, your partner's 2D can be > withdrawn, see L21B1. > You're right, as usual. Forget I said it was too late. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 13 22:03:48 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA02758 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 22:03:48 +1100 Received: from terminator2.xtra.co.nz (terminator2.xtra.co.nz [202.27.184.2]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA02751 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 22:03:42 +1100 Received: from LOCALNAME (p49-m5-ch7.dialup.xtra.co.nz [202.27.183.49]) by terminator2.xtra.co.nz (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id AAA14736 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 00:02:27 +1300 (NZDT) Message-ID: <34BC7291.67D2@xtra.co.nz> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 00:08:49 -0800 From: B A Small Reply-To: Bruce.Small@xtra.co.nz X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0C-XTRA (Win95; I; 16bit) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias References: <199801122152.QAA00108@t5.mscf.uky.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk John A Kuchenbrod wrote: >(snip). > > > > > Agreed. When I made my comment, I wasn't aware of how quickly East bid. > I apologize if people interpreted my comment in that fashion. South shouldn't > have to alert within 0.01 seconds, but if more time has passed than it would > take for south to go, "Hey, partner didn't pass, so I should alert," then I > would have to say that it wasn't prompt enough. > > Then again, if this were a perfect world....no, I won't go there. > > John > -- > | For your refernce Easts call was not superfast and would be considered in Tempo. While I also agree that in a long match systems should be known and therefore the meaning of the bid is accepted, this wasn't a long match. Both north and south play mainly precision but were a new combination so their system was technically unknown. Another query arises. Having bid with UI and getting a good board can South complain that he believes I have used UI? Bruce PS I enjoy the way this group manages to raise multiple issues out of each question. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 14 01:23:15 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA05551 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 01:23:15 +1100 Received: from ns2.tudelft.nl (ns2.tudelft.nl [130.161.180.65]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA05542 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 01:22:56 +1100 Received: from duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl by mailhost1.tudelft.nl (PMDF V5.1-10 #27995) with SMTP id <0EMQ0049A7XCRB@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 15:22:24 +0100 (MET) Received: by duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl (16.6/15.6) id AA21149; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 15:21:39 +0100 Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 15:21:38 +0100 (MET) From: "E.Angad-Gaur" Subject: Re: adjusting 3NT-score ? In-reply-to: from <"E.Angad-Gaur"@Jan> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Message-id: <0EMQ0049B7XCRB@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> Mailer: Elm [revision: 66.25] Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > I got the following problem last Sunday on a teams-tournament. > > board : 12 Qxx W N E S > W/NS AQx 1S X p 2H > Ax p 3NT p p > AKQ98 > AKJ105 N 952 > K94 W E xxx > J10742 S K98 > ---- 6432 > 43 > J10xx > Qxx > J10xx > > E starts with spade 2 for spade Ace of West. W continues with spade 5 and > now the leader North asks what spade 2 meaned. Answer of West was : > "start of small spade means value in the suit. N plays a small spade and the > spade 9 of E won the trick. Spade return and the contract was defeated. > On the other table the contract was 3NT +1. > North said to the TD that if he had the correct answer he would play > the spade Q. He now played for blocking the suit. > Would you change the score ? > > Evert. --------------------------------------------------------------- Hi, The different reactions on the list showed that the dicision is dependent of the agreements of EW. In practise I had the folowing. It was a SWISS event of 89 teams. Each round 8 boards. To complete I arranged a team 90, which consists of reasonably players, but with not so much agreements. It was the first round and they had not yet a systemcard. West told what he thought spade 2 had to be in his way of playing, but he he did not tell what their agreemnets were. So his explanation about spade 2 was wrong. His answer had to be :"we just play and we don't have agreements about this lead of spade 2", nothing more. So I think that NS are damaged by the explanation of W. Evert. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- S.E. Angad-Gaur | email :evert_np@duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl Technische Universiteit Delft | tel. : 015-2786150 Faculteit der Technische Natuurkunde | fax : 015-2783251 Lorentzweg 1 | 2628 CJ Delft | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 14 01:30:35 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA05593 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 01:30:35 +1100 Received: from u2.farm.idt.net (lighton@u2.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.11]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA05588 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 01:30:29 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u2.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA22169 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:30:25 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:30:25 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u2.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias In-Reply-To: <199801122152.QAA00108@t5.mscf.uky.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, John A Kuchenbrod wrote: > > Agreed. When I made my comment, I wasn't aware of how quickly East bid. > I apologize if people interpreted my comment in that fashion. South shouldn't > have to alert within 0.01 seconds, but if more time has passed than it would > take for south to go, "Hey, partner didn't pass, so I should alert," then I > would have to say that it wasn't prompt enough. > A few months ago I got all sorts of flak on rec.games.bridge when I mentioned our habit of alerting opening bids at the one level as soon as we knew that partner was making a one-level bid (they are all alertable)--i.e. he hadn't pulled the STOP card and he was pulling a bidding card (or was obviously about to). At least it avoids problems for the next bidder :-) -- Richard Lighton | Fastest Alerter West of the Hudson and (lighton@idt.net) | East of the Passaic Wood-Ridge NJ | USA | From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 14 02:24:00 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA05988 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 02:24:00 +1100 Received: from ns2.tudelft.nl (ns2.tudelft.nl [130.161.180.65]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA05983 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 02:23:52 +1100 Received: from duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl by mailhost1.tudelft.nl (PMDF V5.1-10 #27995) with SMTP id <0EMQ0073UAQJM1@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 16:23:07 +0100 (MET) Received: by duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl (16.6/15.6) id AA21409; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 16:22:22 +0100 Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 16:22:21 +0100 (MET) From: "E.Angad-Gaur" Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias In-reply-to: <34BB1642.2C56@xtra.co.nz>; from "B A Small" at Jan 12, 98 11:22 pm To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Message-id: <0EMQ0073VAQJM1@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> Mailer: Elm [revision: 66.25] Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > Perhaps it is time for a bridge query. > > Auction starts > N E > 1D - 2D (=my pard). South now leans across and alerts norths bid. East > asks and is told that it is Precision 11-15 and may be as short as three > diamonds. The director is called. Before east could explain south > complained that he hadn't been given enough tome to alert and we should > know that is precision anyway. East now explains that the alert had come > after her bid. Director (it was a holiday session and he was playing as > well) ruled that bidding continue and he'll review. Our system is that > over a natural bid easts bid would be a cue indicating a strong hand but > over the artifical precision bid it shows a diamond suit strong enough > to play. I'm sitting with Qx Jxxxx xx Jxxx. South now asks what easts > bid means. How do I respond? My actual response was " The bid now means > has diamond suit to play". South now passes!! Under their system this > indicates less than 8pts. How do I now bid as I have a heap of UI and > AI? According to our sys I should pass. Should I call director back and > point out his error (21B1)? > > Your thoughts would be appreciated > > Bruce > -------------------------------------------------------------------- I suppose the TD made a mistake to let the bidding go on. (Only when you bid so quick that S had not the chance to alert then it in opnion your fault). I take the case that it is not your fault. Then the TD made a mistake. You have two options : 1. Just go on and if necessary call the TD afterwards . He must then award both sides 60+ (rule 88) or +3IMP (86). 2. Call the TD . It is not to late as long as you did not bid. Just try to see what is best for you as player. Evert. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- S.E. Angad-Gaur | email :evert_np@duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl Technische Universiteit Delft | tel. : 015-2786150 Faculteit der Technische Natuurkunde | fax : 015-2783251 Lorentzweg 1 | 2628 CJ Delft | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 14 02:55:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA06116 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 02:55:04 +1100 Received: from freenet1.carleton.ca (root@freenet1.carleton.ca [134.117.136.20]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA06109 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 02:54:56 +1100 Received: from freenet5.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (ac342@freenet5.carleton.ca [134.117.136.25]) by freenet1.carleton.ca (8.8.8/8.8.8/NCF_f1_v2.01) with ESMTP id KAA21939 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 10:54:45 -0500 (EST) Received: (ac342@localhost) by freenet5.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (8.8.5/NCF-Sun-Client) id KAA26054; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 10:54:44 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 10:54:44 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801131554.KAA26054@freenet5.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> From: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca (A. L. Edwards) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias Reply-To: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >>[3] yes, there was a failure to alert, but EW should have realized this >> and the auction continues 1D-2D, where 2D is whatever it shows over >> a conventional 1D. > > Why? Am I not allowed to rely on the alert to remind me? Surely a >failure to alert is misinformation even if I know what system they play? > That is an interesting point. I would argue that here in the ACBL the alert is NOT there to remind a player what the opponent is playing, and that a player should not rely on the alert to do so. Indeed, the ACBL regulations are written in such a way that *experienced* players are required to protect themselves: "In all Alert situations, tournament directors should rule with the spirit of the Alert procedure in mind and not simply by the letter of the law. Players who, by experience or expertise, recognize that their opponents have neglected to Alert a special agreement will be expected to protect themselves." Tony (aka ac342) From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 14 05:42:28 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA07105 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 05:42:28 +1100 Received: from ux1.cts.eiu.edu (ux1.cts.eiu.edu [139.67.8.3]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA07100 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 05:42:21 +1100 Received: (from cfgcs@localhost) by ux1.cts.eiu.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA21911 for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 12:40:30 -0600 (CST) From: "Grant C. Sterling" Message-Id: <199801131840.MAA21911@ux1.cts.eiu.edu> Subject: Becoming a Director in the ACBL To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au (Bridgelaws) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 12:40:30 -0600 (CST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Felines and their Humans: This isn't an appeals problem, but it does deal with something that seems important [to me] regarding bridge laws. I have recently completed the ACBL Club Director's Exam. I am interested in what sorts of training directors receive in other countries. The ACBL exam is entirely multiple choice, requiring 75% correct answers to pass. It is open book--the candidate is allowed and expected to have the Laws and any other study materials with him and to consult them on each question. It is timed, but the two hour time limit is more than adequate. It is monitored by a local director, usually informally. The questions on the exam cover basic rules questions [Loots, insufficient bids, penalty cards, etc.], as well as administrative matters [ACBL Masterpoint regulations, factoring and scoring boards, etc.]. OTOH, the exam contains _no_ questions regarding alerting, skip bid warnings, hesitations, UI, misinformation, etc. This strikes me as a major mistake. How can the ACBL expect clubs to be run properly when club directors are not required to answer any questions regarding any of these issues on the exam? If most tournament directors start out as club directors, wouldn't it be better to make sure they get in the habit of making correct rulings from the start, rather than hope they learn it later? [What training, if any, is required before serving as a director at an ACBL tournament?] So, my questions: a) How are things done in other countries? b) Does the ACBL proceedure seem adequate to you? c) What further training is required before an ACBL club director becomes a director at a tournament, and is this further training sufficient? -Grant Sterling [and Panther] cfgcs@eiu.edu From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 14 06:36:48 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA07320 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 06:36:48 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA07315 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 06:36:40 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2009707; 13 Jan 98 19:31 GMT Message-ID: Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 19:29:30 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias In-Reply-To: <34BB40B3.DFCC3E08@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: >If the appeal does go my way however, I don't see how it can decide >otherwise than A+/A+ since the problem is then clearly down to >director's error. The original ruling was 1D 2D x to you. Assume no-one vulnerable. There is an apparent late alert, the TD rules that your pd called out of tempo and there is no MI. Given that your pd has not made any stupid comments then you can guess whether [a] he was relying on alerts so has a major 2-suiter [b] he remembered the system or looked at the CC so has diamonds Let us assume you decide he has diamonds, so you bid 3NT and go 4 off with 4H a possible make - but not a certain one. Alternatively, pd gives you UI so you _know_ he has a major 2-suiter, so you decide to be ethical and duly go off in 3NT. You convince the AC that your pd's call was in tempo so they adjust under L21B3. What to? L12C2 requires them to adjust to 4H making: +420. This is perceived as an unfair ruling in Europe, and the European ruling based on L12C3 would be a percentage of 4H making, and going off. Say 60% +420, 40% -50, compared to a table result of -200. ------- Now this is based on the AC disagreeing with a TD's judgement. Let us now say [as apparently happened] that there was no tempo problem but the TD did not allow the 2D to be taken back [RTFLB!]. For one of the above reasons you get it wrong again and duly finish in 3NT, 4 off. The TD has now discussed it with his superior, who opens the Law book! Wahey! Now they rule it TD error. Thus they have to assign a score treating both sides as non-offending. Let us assume that reaching 4H is automatic without the MI. So the TD will assign a score of 4H to both sides. They will give you +420 for 4H making, and they will give your opponents 50 for 4H-1. ------- Note the difference. When there was no TD error, a NAmerican AC should give +420 both ways: a European AC should give 60% +420, 40% -50. However a TD using TD error [or an AC ruling under the same Law] should split the ruling and give +420 one way, -50 the other. Only if it is k/o teams does this come to nearly the same thing. One last thing: my main objection to the ruling of A+/A+ is not that it is illegal, even though it is: my main objection is that it is totally unfair. In the example we have considered, if +420 is about a 60% board, and -50 is about 40% board, it is not too bad to give A+/A+, though unnecessary. But suppose +420 is a 100% board? Then you have given the pair 60% rather than 100% - why? To save you trouble? It is very difficult to see the justification for the ArtAS approach. -- David Stevenson bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet we know this is not true. Robert Wilensky, California From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 14 13:23:32 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA08416 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 13:23:32 +1100 Received: from camel8.mindspring.com (camel8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.58]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA08411 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 13:23:26 +1100 Received: from mike (ip177.baltimore10.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.12.244.177]) by camel8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA24102 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 21:23:14 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980113212318.006d2724@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 21:23:18 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: Becoming a Director in the ACBL In-Reply-To: <199801131840.MAA21911@ux1.cts.eiu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 12:40 PM 1/13/98 -0600, Grant wrote: >Felines and their Humans: > > This isn't an appeals problem, but it does deal with something >that seems important [to me] regarding bridge laws. I have recently >completed the ACBL Club Director's Exam. I am interested in what sorts of >training directors receive in other countries. > The ACBL exam is entirely multiple choice, requiring 75% correct >answers to pass. It is open book--the candidate is allowed and expected >to have the Laws and any other study materials with him and to consult >them on each question. It is timed, but the two hour time limit is more >than adequate. It is monitored by a local director, usually informally. > The questions on the exam cover basic rules questions [Loots, >insufficient bids, penalty cards, etc.], as well as administrative matters >[ACBL Masterpoint regulations, factoring and scoring boards, etc.]. > OTOH, the exam contains _no_ questions regarding alerting, skip >bid warnings, hesitations, UI, misinformation, etc. This strikes me as a >major mistake. How can the ACBL expect clubs to be run properly when club >directors are not required to answer any questions regarding any of these >issues on the exam? This certainly makes it easier to understand some of the rulings I've gotten in club games! Mike Dennis (Casino has no interest in bridge laws) From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 14 18:20:45 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA08867 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 18:20:45 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA08862 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 18:20:35 +1100 Received: from casewise.demon.co.uk ([158.152.187.206]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1003553; 14 Jan 98 7:04 GMT Received: by bridge.casewise.demon.co.uk with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63) id <01BD205E.47CF3B20@bridge.casewise.demon.co.uk>; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 20:03:14 -0000 Message-ID: From: David Martin To: "'bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au'" Subject: RE: Becoming a Director in the ACBL Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 20:03:12 -0000 X-Mailer: Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63 Encoding: 65 TEXT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Grant wrote: [David Martin] SNIP > > So, my questions: > a) How are things done in other countries? > b) Does the ACBL proceedure seem adequate to you? > c) What further training is required before an ACBL club director >becomes a director at a tournament, and is this further training >sufficient? > > >In England, the EBU runs a number of TD training courses (all of which are >tutored by qualified EBU directors) as follows: > >'Prelim' Course - 1 day - An optional basic introduction to club directing >open to anyone who wishes to attend. The content covers such things as the >role of the director, the EBU's expectations in terms of attitude and manner >etc., the Law book, basic bridge movements, basic matchpointing and >factoring, etc. > >'A' Course - 1 day - Covers all mechanical rulings for club directors and is >open to anyone who wishes to attend. The course contains a number of >simulation exercises but no formal evaluation or exam. > >'B' Course - 1 day - Covers all judgemental rulings for club directors and is >open to anyone who wishes to attend. The course contains a number of >exercises but no formal evaluation or exam. > >A CERTIFICATE OF ATTENDANCE is awarded to all delegates who attend both the >'A' and 'B' courses. > >'C' Course - 1 day - This course is open to anyone who wishes to attend and >consists only of simulation exercises that are used to formally assess each >delegate. Those delegates who pass the course are subsequently awarded a >CLUB DIRECTOR'S CERTIFICATE OF COMPETENCE. > >'D' Course - 1 day - This is a refresher course for delegates who have >previously qualified on a 'C' course and also covers things such as changes >in the Laws or their interpretation, etc. > >'County' Course - 2 days - This course is only open to delegates who have >been nominated by their county and is an advanced course for those who will >be running county level events. The course includes an exam and numerous >assessed simulations and those delegates who pass are subsequently awarded a >COUNTY DIRECTOR'S CERTIFICATE OF COMPETENCE. > >'County Refresher' Course - 2 days - This is an advanced refresher course for >delegates who have previously qualified on a 'County' course and also covers >things such as changes in the Laws or their interpretation, etc. > >Delegates who perform outstandingly well on the 'County' course might, >subject to availability of places, be invited to become Trainee Directors on >the EBU's panel of TDs. It normally takes about two years of directing EBU >events to become a fully qualified EBU TD and there are various levels of >seniority/rank. Applications for promotion are considered by a committee and >may involve taking exams. > >'Panel' Course - 2 days - This course is an extremely advanced course that is >run twice a year and is only open to EBU panel directors. All EBU panel >directors must attend one of these courses each year. It is not formally >assessed but involves numerous simulations and discussions, both plenary and >in work groups. > > From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 14 19:23:42 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA09103 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 19:23:42 +1100 Received: from ncc.ripe.net (ncc.ripe.net [193.0.0.129]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA09098 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 19:23:36 +1100 Received: from localhost by ncc.ripe.net with SMTP id AA15897 (5.65a/NCC-2.41); Wed, 14 Jan 1998 09:23:01 +0100 Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 09:23:01 +0100 (MET) From: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Becoming a Director in the ACBL In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980113212318.006d2724@pop.mindspring.com> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, Michael S. Dennis wrote: > At 12:40 PM 1/13/98 -0600, Grant wrote: > > >Felines and their Humans: > > > > This isn't an appeals problem, but it does deal with something > >that seems important [to me] regarding bridge laws. I have recently > >completed the ACBL Club Director's Exam. I am interested in what sorts of > >training directors receive in other countries. > > The ACBL exam is entirely multiple choice, requiring 75% correct > >answers to pass. It is open book--the candidate is allowed and expected > >to have the Laws and any other study materials with him and to consult > >them on each question. It is timed, but the two hour time limit is more > >than adequate. It is monitored by a local director, usually informally. > > The questions on the exam cover basic rules questions [Loots, > >insufficient bids, penalty cards, etc.], as well as administrative matters > >[ACBL Masterpoint regulations, factoring and scoring boards, etc.]. > > OTOH, the exam contains _no_ questions regarding alerting, skip > >bid warnings, hesitations, UI, misinformation, etc. This strikes me as a > >major mistake. How can the ACBL expect clubs to be run properly when club > >directors are not required to answer any questions regarding any of these > >issues on the exam? While I agree that people should learn about UI, misinformation and all that before become a fully qualified director, I doubt if you should deal with all this in the first director's course. A first director's course should, IMHO, deal with the basics, a director who passes this exam should be allowed to run a game do the simple cases and leave the complex things to a more senior director. This is what most clubs need anyway (at my club, there is maybe 1 UI related case a month). Also, by splitting up the course, people will get an idea if they are likely to become decent directors. If somebody cannot pass the first basic test, he knows he doesn't have to bother with everything else. Henk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Henk Uijterwaal Email: henk.uijterwaal@ripe.net RIPE Network Coordination Centre WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk Singel 258 Phone: +31.20.535-4414, Fax -4445 1016 AB Amsterdam Home: +31.20.6651962 The Netherlands Pager: +6.57626855 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [x22:9] find cat find: cat: No such file or directory From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 14 20:03:35 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA09259 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 20:03:35 +1100 Received: from mhaaf.inhouse.compuserve.com (mhaaf.inhouse.compuserve.com [149.174.64.79]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA09248 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 20:02:12 +1100 Received: from notes2.compuserve.com (cserve-aagw2.notes.compuserve.com [149.174.221.199]) by mhaaf.inhouse.compuserve.com (8.6.9/8.6.12) with SMTP id FAA28251.; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 05:57:25 -0500 Received: by notes2.compuserve.com (IBM OS/2 SENDMAIL VERSION 1.3.17/2.0) id AA7206; Wed, 14 Jan 98 03:27:11 -0500 Message-Id: <9801140827.AA7206@notes2.compuserve.com> Received: by External Gateway (Lotus Notes Mail Gateway for SMTP V1.1) id 005027340012F89CC125658C002C4761; Wed, 14 Jan 98 03:27:11 To: bridge-laws From: "christian.farwig" Date: 14 Jan 98 9:13:40 Subject: Re: Becoming a Director in the ACBL Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >>a) How are things done in other countries? b) Does the ACBL proceedure seem adequate to you?<< I won't comment on b), but will give you an overview about the procedure in Germany. First some facts: We are a pretty small federation (28.000 players) with about 12 national TD's. The TD's can achieve certain degrees: - The white certificate is meant for interested players or TD's in small clubs. It has no test, it just requires your attendence to two seminars. - The bronze certificate gives you the right to direct regional tournaments (they have about 30 tables). It consists of a 90 min. written test in the fields of tournament techniques, general rules and judgement decisions. - The silver certificate is for TD's in national tournaments. To achieve it, you have to pass a weekend-long test. First day has a practical test with staged problems (other TD's acting as players), second day has 120 min. written test. There are also lectures between the practical tests. You have to repeat this test every two years to keep your diploma. - The golden certificate is the European Bridge Leagues TD-certificate. The EBL makes a course every 5 years or so, which takes about a week. Yours, Christian From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 14 20:08:58 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA09300 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 20:08:58 +1100 Received: from hera.frw.uva.nl (HERA.frw.uva.nl [145.18.122.36]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA09295 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 20:08:51 +1100 Received: from 145.18.125.142 (JPPals.frw.uva.nl [145.18.125.142]) by hera.frw.uva.nl (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA05442; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 10:08:30 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199801140908.KAA05442@hera.frw.uva.nl> X-Organisation: Faculty of Environmental Sciences University of Amsterdam Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130 NL-1018 VZ Amsterdam X-Phone: +31 20 525 5820 X-Fax: +31 20 525 5822 From: J.P.Pals@frw.uva.nl To: "Grant C. Sterling" Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 10:12:18 Subject: Re: Becoming a Director in the ACBL Reply-to: Jan Peter Pals CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au X-Confirm-Reading-To: Jan Peter Pals X-pmrqc: 1 Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Grant Sterling wrote: -----snip----- > So, my questions: > a) How are things done in other countries? > b) Does the ACBL proceedure seem adequate to you? > c) What further training is required before an ACBL club director > becomes a director at a tournament, and is this further > training sufficient? Although not associated with feline life of any form, I would like to give an outline of the procedure in the Netherlands: There are basically two levels of directors: Club Directors (CD) and Tournament Directors (TD). The CD course, organized by the districts, is again split in two: CD-A and CD-B. Each course comprises about ten evenings and is completed by an exam, which consists of two parts: a multiple choice part concerning the Laws, and an 'open' part concerning score calculation and how to run a bridge club (BTW, bridge clubs in the NL are quite different from those in the USA, but that's another story). The difference between the levels A and B is, as you may have guessed, is that level A is much easier. About 80% of the candidates pass the CD-A exam, for the CD-B exam this percentage is considerably lower, about 50. I would guess that the level of the CD-B is about the same as the ACBL exam you described: elementary problems on the most frequently occurring irregularties, but nothing about the so-called 'ethical' problems. Once you have passed the CD-B exam you are allowed to follow the TD course, **on the condition that your standard of play is at least comparable to the lowest National League** (in Dutch: Tweede Divisie). If you don't play at that level, you have to pass another test first, the "spelkennis test", where you have to solve single and double dummy problems, problems on bidding and defence, and questions about conventions. This "spelkennis test" is a large obstacle. If you finally made it to the TD course, you are in for another ten evenings, where you learn to run large tournaments and where the more complicated rulings are discussed, often presented as 'life problems'; alerts, UI, MI, etc. The TD exam consists of a multiple choice part (three hours) and another three hours of life rulings. I am not sure about the percentage of candidates that passes this exam, but it is low. There are a couple of hundred TD's and over a thousand CD's in the NL (ask Henk Uijterwaal for the exact numbers...) The more ambitious and/or brilliant TD's are asked by the NBB (Dutch Bridge League) to join the exclusive society of League Directors (LD's, about thirty or forty), who run the important tournaments and competitions and the national championships. The LD's have discussion meetings twice a year. For the TD's, every two years a weekend is organized by the NBB, intended as a refresher course. In addition, many districts (the NBB has 28) organize refresher courses for TD's and CD's once a year. So, this pretty much answers your question a). The answer to question b) would be: for directing at club level: OK, but insufficient for tournaments. This would require something comparable to the Dutch TD course. Kindest regards, JP * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Jan Peter Pals * e-mail: j.p.pals@frw.uva.nl * Faculty of Environmental Sciences, dept. European Archaeology * University of Amsterdam * Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, NL-1018 VZ Amsterdam * Tel: (31)-20-525 5811/5172/5830, Fax: (31)-20-525-5822 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 14 23:06:53 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA09747 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 23:06:53 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA09741 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 23:06:47 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-42.uunet.be [194.7.13.42]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA19053 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 13:06:37 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34BCA06A.10B16AAA@innet.be> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 12:24:26 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Becoming a Director in the ACBL X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <199801131840.MAA21911@ux1.cts.eiu.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Grant C. Sterling wrote: > > > So, my questions: > a) How are things done in other countries? In Belgium too, there are two levels of training : - Club directors do not get any training in ethical matters either and are not expected to rule on ethical cases - League directors get a complete training (one year later) Many directors in fact take the second course. > b) Does the ACBL proceedure seem adequate to you? I enough directors get access to a second level course, yes. > c) What further training is required before an ACBL club director > becomes a director at a tournament, and is this further training > sufficient? > We have a course of some 10 to 13 evenings. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 15 03:15:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA13155 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 15 Jan 1998 03:15:29 +1100 Received: from UKCC.uky.edu (ukcc.uky.edu [128.163.1.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA13150 for ; Thu, 15 Jan 1998 03:15:17 +1100 Received: from t2.mscf.uky.edu (128.163.132.102) by UKCC.uky.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with TCP; Wed, 14 Jan 98 11:15:00 EST Received: from t4.mscf.uky.edu by t2.ms.uky.edu id aa00938; 14 Jan 98 11:14 EST Received: (from kuch@localhost) by t4.mscf.uky.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA04603; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 11:14:30 -0500 (EST) From: John A Kuchenbrod Message-Id: <199801141614.LAA04603@t4.mscf.uky.edu> Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias To: bnewsr@blakjak.demon.co.uk Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 11:14:30 -0500 (EST) Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-Reply-To: from "David Stevenson" at Jan 13, 98 07:29:30 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > Note the difference. When there was no TD error, a NAmerican AC > should give +420 both ways: a European AC should give 60% +420, 40% -50. > However a TD using TD error [or an AC ruling under the same Law] should > split the ruling and give +420 one way, -50 the other. Only if it is > k/o teams does this come to nearly the same thing. > > One last thing: my main objection to the ruling of A+/A+ is not that > it is illegal, even though it is: my main objection is that it is > totally unfair. In the example we have considered, if +420 is about a > 60% board, and -50 is about 40% board, it is not too bad to give A+/A+, > though unnecessary. But suppose +420 is a 100% board? Then you have > given the pair 60% rather than 100% - why? To save you trouble? It is > very difficult to see the justification for the ArtAS approach. Yes, having the A+/A+ by itself would be just to "save trouble." I would prefer protecting both sides with A+, so that if +420, -50, or whatever was better than an average plus (given that the result is attainable with the situation provided), then the side would not be penalized. John -- | John A. Kuchenbrod | kuch@ms.uky.edu | http://www.ms.uky.edu/~kuch | | finger kuch@wagner.ms.uky.edu to see when I last checked my mail | From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 15 06:05:11 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA14464 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 15 Jan 1998 06:05:11 +1100 Received: from mail.inter.net.il (root@parker.inter.net.il [205.164.141.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA14459 for ; Thu, 15 Jan 1998 06:05:02 +1100 Received: from internet-zahav.net (Hertzelia-198-107.access.net.il [192.116.198.107]) by mail.inter.net.il (8.8.6/8.8.6/PA) with ESMTP id VAA16313 for ; Wed, 14 Jan 1998 21:00:40 +0200 (IST) Message-ID: <34BD0CC2.5E91CD0@internet-zahav.net> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 21:06:42 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" Subject: Revival Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Dear friends , colaborators and contributors My "late" Internet provider went to bankrupt in a very ugly way ... it took us (all their clients ) 4 days until we understood there was no temporary interruption or accident ... but they closed the business..... Now you see my new adress !!! Last day I got mail was 9.1.98 ----- Please TRY TO SEND ME the messages you wrote 10.1.98, because when I opened my box I got partial threads. THANK YOU VERY MUCH DANY From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 15 09:51:58 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA15284 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 15 Jan 1998 09:51:58 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA15279 for ; Thu, 15 Jan 1998 09:51:53 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1022282; 14 Jan 98 22:45 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 22:06:58 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws In-Reply-To: <$WX8xHAr6qu0Ew+O@blakjak.demon.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Bbbrooooooooooowwwwwwwwww !!!!!!!!! Karen Allison Stella, Blanche, Stanley Louis Arnon Dorus, Edna, Evelyn Adam Beneschan Mango David Blizzard Herbie, Mittens Mary Buckland Neko, Four foot two Hirsch Davis Shadow, Smokey Wally Farley Andrew, Panda, Templeton, Scratcher, Joy Dany Haimovici Shobo, Rosario, Shemaya, Joseph, Hershey John Kuchenbrod Rah-Rey, Leo Irv Kostal Bill, Albert, Cleo, Sabrina Eric Landau Glory, Wesley, Shadow, Query Sue O'Donnell Casey, Yazzer-Cat John Probst Gnipper, Figaro Craig Senior Streak, Shaney, Rascal, Stubby, Precious, Smoke, Scamp, Bandit, Shadow, Smokey Grant Sterling Panther David Stevenson Quango, Nanki Poo plus, of course Selassie Miiiiiiiaaaaaoouuuuwwwwww !!!!!!!!! -- Quango /\_/\ /\ /\ quango@blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= @ @ Nanki Poo ( | | ) =( + )= nankipoo@blakjak.demon.co.uk (_~^ ^~ ~ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 16 17:50:35 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA22838 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:50:35 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA22830 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:50:18 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2025061; 16 Jan 98 3:50 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 03:49:23 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias In-Reply-To: <199801141614.LAA04603@t4.mscf.uky.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk John A Kuchenbrod wrote: >Yes, having the A+/A+ by itself would be just to "save trouble." I would >prefer protecting both sides with A+, so that if +420, -50, or whatever >was better than an average plus (given that the result is attainable >with the situation provided), then the side would not be penalized. Why should we "protect" both sides with A+? This quaint NAmerican notion seems unjustifiable in either Law or commonsense. Suppose that we have a situation where without the UI we expect players would have received 80% N/S [the offending side] and 20% E/W [the non-offenders]. By using the UI the table result is 100% N/S and 0% E/W. According to L12C2 we assign a score which restores equity, namely 80% N/S and 20% E/W. What possible justification is there for this strange "assign a score OR average-plus, whichever is greater"? It is illegal, inequitable, and downright stupid. I think we should follow the Law book, and not strange NAmerican rulings designed to destroy equity. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@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 Jan 17 02:21:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA26611 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 02:21:10 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA26606 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 02:21:04 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1012722; 16 Jan 98 15:14 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:12:21 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >>I have received this email from Shelagh Hi David, So nice to hear from you again, along with the greetings from Nanki Poo and Quango. Selassie and Maggie (two-year-old female dsh) are the best of friends these days, snuggling up together when I leave the bedroom window open, grooming each other, and sending me into helpless giggles as they "fight" for turf, usually over my sleeping body in the middle of the night. I am so delighted to have been able to offer Selassie a home. He's very affectionate, but somehow remains dignified and refined, much like Edgar. By all means, spread the word. With purrs, Shelagh -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@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 Jan 17 03:02:47 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA26780 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 03:02:47 +1100 Received: from freenet1.carleton.ca (root@freenet1.carleton.ca [134.117.136.20]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA26774 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 03:02:39 +1100 Received: from freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (ac342@freenet6.carleton.ca [134.117.136.26]) by freenet1.carleton.ca (8.8.8/8.8.8/NCF_f1_v2.02) with ESMTP id LAA08722 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 11:02:27 -0500 (EST) Received: (ac342@localhost) by freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (8.8.5/NCF-Sun-Client) id LAA01590; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 11:02:40 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 11:02:40 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801161602.LAA01590@freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> From: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca (A. L. Edwards) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: An Appeal to Insanity Reply-To: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Brd 36 S AT96 Both vul H A7 W N S E Dlr: W D 53 P 1NT(1) P 2H(2) C AKQ43 P 6S P P P S J82 S 3 H T432 H KQJ96 (1) announced as 11-14hcp D AT2 D J876 (2) announced as transfer to spades C J62 C 975 S KQ754 H 85 result: 6S making, +1430 NS D KQ94 ruling: 4S+2, +680 NS C T8 The table consisted of high flight B players. I was called to the table by West. He suggested that North might have bid 6S because he was supposed to have only 11-14hcp. He now knew by his partner's explanation that he had considerably more. I agreed that there was UI present. I decided that the call not suggested by the UI was simple acceptance of the transfer (NS were not using super-accepts).I awarded 4S+2 (I originally awarded A+/A-; 30 seconds later I felt a chill, and imagined Stevenson and his 2 cats going "tsk, tsk"; I decided I was being lazy and took a closer look at the hand--mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa). NS appealed. The committee agreed that there was UI. They agreed that UI was used. They decided, however, that the 6S call was in no way a logical alternative suggested by the UI (the appeal chairman called it "insane") and therefore permissible. They ruled 6S making, +1430 NS. What do you think of the a) director's ruling b) committee's ruling In my own defense, I was taught that, baring special circumstance, the director should rule in favour of the NOS, and let the OS take it to committee. As for the committee ruling, they failed to apply the screen test (fact, not opinion; it didn't even come up.) The arguement: if North had not heard the explanation, and thought he was playing strong notrumps, would he have bid 6S? If the answer is no, can 6S be allowed to stand? So, a third question: as the director, I am supposed to inform the committee of the pertinent laws; however, am I supposed (or even permitted?) to discuss things like the idea of the screen test? The committee consisted of low flight A players with some, but not alot, of committee experience, if that's of any help. Tony (aka ac342) From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 04:03:17 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA27037 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 04:03:17 +1100 Received: from waffle.cise.npl.co.uk (waffle.cise.npl.co.uk [139.143.18.92]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA27032 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 04:03:04 +1100 Received: from tempest.cise.npl.co.uk by waffle.cise.npl.co.uk; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:01:46 GMT Date: Fri, 16 Jan 98 17:01:44 GMT Message-Id: <24154.9801161701@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> From: Robin Barker To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au, ac342@freenet.carleton.ca Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Tony > The committee agreed that there was UI. They agreed > that UI was used. They decided, however, that the 6S call > was in no way a logical alternative suggested by the UI > (the appeal chairman called it "insane") and therefore > permissible. They ruled 6S making, +1430 NS. > What do you think of the a) director's ruling > b) committee's ruling > Law16A repeated below for reference. On first reading I thought you were right and the AC was wrong. I have heard this argument "it was not even a logical alternative so it does not matter that there was UI" before, and did not give it any credence. However there seems to be an inconsistency or sloppiness in Law16A. At first it says (L16A) "the partner may not choose from among logical alternative actions one that ...". This appears to define what constitutes the irregularity and it appears to say that if the player does not consider an action to be logical, he may nonetheless make that action, even if there is UI. Later the law says (L16A2) "that an opponent who had a logical alternative has chosen an action that could have been suggested by such information". This states that the action chosen need not be a logical alternative but only that an alternative to the action chosen be logical. But L16A2 only say when a player should call the director, not what counts as an irregularity. However this is just quibbling, surely we only need to consider - whether there was UI, - whether there were logical alternatives, - whether the action chosen was demonstrably suggested over a logical alternative by the UI, - and whether there was damage. Whether the action chosen is a logical alternative is surely an irrelevance. Alternatively, the action chosen must have been a logical alternative as the player actually chose that action. Robin LAW 16 - UNAUTHORISED INFORMATION Players are authorised to base their calls and plays on information from legal calls and or plays, and from mannerisms of opponents. To base a call or play on other extraneous information may be an infraction of law. A. Extraneous Information from Partner After a player makes available to his partner extraneous information that may suggest a call or play, as by means of a remark, a question, a reply to a question, or by unmistakable hesitation, unwonted speed, special emphasis, tone, gesture, movement, mannerism or the like, the partner may not choose from among logical alternative actions one that could demonstrably have been suggested over another by the extraneous information. 1. When Such Information Is Given When a player considers that an opponent has made such information available and that damage could well result, he may, unless the regulations of the sponsoring organisation prohibit, immediately announce that he reserves the right to summon the Director later (the opponents should summon the Director immediately if they dispute the fact that unauthorised information might have been conveyed). 2. When Illegal Alternative Is Chosen When a player has substantial reason to believe {2} that an opponent who had a logical alternative has chosen an action that could have been suggested by such information, he should summon the Director forthwith. The Director shall require the auction and play to continue, standing ready to assign an adjusted score if he considers that an infraction of law has resulted in damage. Robin Barker, \ Email: Robin.Barker@npl.co.uk Information Systems Engineering, \ Tel: +44 (0) 181 943 7090 B10, National Physical Laboratory, \ Fax: +44 (0) 181 977 7091 Teddington, Middlesex, UK. TW11 0LW \ WWW: http://www.npl.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 05:04:18 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA27352 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 05:04:18 +1100 Received: from chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (root@[141.211.60.224]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA27347 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 05:04:12 +1100 Received: from mush.math.lsa.umich.edu (grabiner@mush.math.lsa.umich.edu [141.211.64.210]) by chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA16240 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 12:58:40 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 13:04:06 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801161804.NAA29652@mush.math.lsa.umich.edu> From: David Grabiner To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-reply-to: <199801161602.LAA01590@freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> (ac342@freenet.carleton.ca) Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Tony (aka ac342) writes: [1NT-2H-6S, 1NT announced as 11-14 but opener had AT96 A7 53 AKQ43] > The committee agreed that there was UI. They agreed > that UI was used. They decided, however, that the 6S call > was in no way a logical alternative suggested by the UI > (the appeal chairman called it "insane") and therefore > permissible. They ruled 6S making, +1430 NS. I think this is an attempt to read the letter rather than the spirit of the law. If an illogical alternative is chosen but it is suggested by the UI over a logical alternative, this still shouldn't be allowed. In the case at hand, the UI suggests 3S over 2S, 4S over 3S or 2S, and 6S over 3S or 2S. If the partnership has no agreements on super-accepts, then 2S and 3S are both LA's; if they do, then 2S is not an LA. In either case, N-S will not reach the slam unless North uses UI, so the correct ruling is the probable result of 4S making six. It seems that North was trying to rescue himself from his misbid based on the UI, and this shouldn't be allowed. The law should be written, "A player may not choose a call which could demonstrably have been suggested by the unauthorized information over a logical alternative." -- David Grabiner, grabiner@math.lsa.umich.edu http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~grabiner 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 Sat Jan 17 05:04:13 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA27346 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 05:04:13 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA27340 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 05:04:07 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA27828 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 10:04:02 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id KAA01880; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 10:06:22 -0800 Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 10:06:22 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801161806.KAA01880@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk A. L. Edwards wrote: |Brd 36 S AT96 |Both vul H A7 W N S E |Dlr: W D 53 P 1NT(1) P 2H(2) | C AKQ43 P 6S P P | P |S J82 S 3 |H T432 H KQJ96 (1) announced as 11-14hcp |D AT2 D J876 (2) announced as transfer to spades |C J62 C 975 | | S KQ754 | H 85 result: 6S making, +1430 NS | D KQ94 ruling: 4S+2, +680 NS | C T8 | | The committee agreed that there was UI. They agreed |that UI was used. They decided, however, that the 6S call |was in no way a logical alternative suggested by the UI |(the appeal chairman called it "insane") and therefore |permissible. They ruled 6S making, +1430 NS. | What do you think of the a) director's ruling | b) committee's ruling By the ACBL's definition, 6S is a logical alternative. Their definition of LA is "an action that some [of the player's peers] would seriously consider." Given that the action was taken by one of the player's peers (him), we have prima facie evidence that it would be seriously considered. Since it was a blatant misuse of UI, I'd adjust the score to 4S+6. Moreover, it was such a blatant misuse of UI, I'd give North a stern talking-to. In an ACBL tournament, if I felt that he was a decent player ("high Flight B" is the borderline in my opinion) who should know better, I'd give him a procedural penalty to help him remember not to do this again. Half a board is appropriate. This doesn't answer the real question, of course. Given a definition of logical alternative that is more normal, does Law 16 apply to actions that are not logical alternatives, yet are clear misuses of UI? I think it does not, but fortunately, Law 73 C does. L73C clearly makes 6S illegal, but does not specify a penalty. L84E, therefore, instructs the director to restore equity, which is to assign an adjusted score. The committee's ruling is disturbing. Their reasoning should begin with, "North took unfair advantage of the Alert system. He is not permitted to profit from that," and then continue on to how to apply the laws. Isn't that just common sense? --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 05:23:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA27449 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 05:23:04 +1100 Received: from sand.global.net.uk (root@sand.global.net.uk [194.126.82.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA27439 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 05:22:48 +1100 Received: from default (client839c.globalnet.co.uk [194.126.83.156]) by sand.global.net.uk (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id SAA18445; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 18:22:40 GMT From: "Grattan Endicott" To: "David Stevenson" , Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 18:20:17 -0000 Message-ID: <01bd22ab$659d46c0$LocalHost@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk gester@globalnet.co.uk Grattan Endicott Liverpool L18 8DJ : -----Original Message----- From: David Stevenson To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: 16 January 1998 16:47 Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws ......... All clawses struck out ..... My purr-puss is to enquire about Honorary Membership of the Catenation: my felines are on the walls of my office - one magnificent snow leopard who rules, a tiger and a tiger cub, all three painted by my friend, the late Bill Whalley. It is a bit difficult to keep my sort of cat in a domestic environment, so I do the next best I can. The leopard I did actually commission following the gift of the two tigers. ####Grattan#### >David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ >Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ >bridge@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 Jan 17 07:08:05 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA27934 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 07:08:05 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA27929 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 07:07:59 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA07861 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:08:00 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA06246; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:08:11 -0500 Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:08:11 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801162008.PAA06246@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca (A. L. Edwards) > I decided that the call not suggested by the > UI was simple acceptance of the transfer (NS were not > using super-accepts). In this case, isn't it fairly likely that South would pass 2S? I think you should at least consider (and probably award) +230 NS. You might also consider a split score; one would be proper if you consider South's pass "at all probable" but not "likely." As I say, I vote for "likely" holding an average 10-count opposite a putative 11-14 1NT. (NS were vulnerable; was this IMPs? If so, perhaps I could be persuaded that pass was less than likely, although it would definitely take some persuading. I cannot imagine that pass was not "at all probable.") I suppose you might have investigated a bit further -- what could North possibly have been thinking? -- but I doubt your ruling would change. I suppose it might help you judge how experienced a player North is and thus whether or not to give a PP. (I'm curious though. What did North say to the AC?) > The committee agreed that there was UI. They agreed > that UI was used. They do not need to make the latter finding to award an adjusted score, but having made it, an adjusted score is required under L73C. I agree with Jeff's comments about this and about a PP. > The arguement: if North had not heard the explanation, and thought > he was playing strong notrumps, would he have bid 6S? If > the answer is no, can 6S be allowed to stand? Or rather, does the UI make the 6S bid more attractive than it would have been without UI? "More attractive" can be by any miniscule amount, even 0.010% to 0.011% or whatever. (In this case, it probably changes 6S from a 0.01% action to a 10% action or something like that.) This is the "suggested over another" (for L16A) or "advantage" (for L73C) question. We also have the usual "logical alternative" question, but there doesn't seem to be any doubt about that here (2S). If NS were playing 15-17 notrumps and had agreed on super-accepts, I suppose there might be an argument that 2S was not an LA (some superaccept being mandatory). I would probably agree in the Europe but probably not in the ACBL. Anyway, on the facts stated (superaccepts not being played), this doesn't appear relevant. If it were, it would be the difference between +230 and +680; no way are we getting to +1430! > So, a third question: as the director, I am supposed > to inform the committee of the pertinent laws; however, am I > supposed (or even permitted?) to discuss things like > the idea of the screen test? I should think so. Are there any regulations to the contrary? The TD's job is to know the laws, and the AC's job is to apply bridge judgment. You might even have asked specific questions: is 2S an LA? (Define LA for the committee.) Was 6S made more attractive by the UI? This shouldn't be necessary if the AC members are all familiar with the laws, but it sounds as though that was not the case. Frankly, unless there are facts we haven't been told, the appeal sounds frivolous to me. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 07:19:01 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA27976 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 07:19:01 +1100 Received: from adm.sci-nnov.ru (adm.sci-nnov.ru [193.125.71.2]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA27971 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 07:18:51 +1100 Received: from s_foxy.p2p.sci-nnov.ru (foxy.p2p [194.190.176.114]) by adm.sci-nnov.ru (8.8.5/Dmiter-4.1) with ESMTP id XAA07077 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 23:15:21 +0300 (MSK) Message-Id: <199801162015.XAA07077@adm.sci-nnov.ru> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit From: "Sergei Litvak" To: Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 22:48:08 +0300 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jeff Goldsmith wrote: > A. L. Edwards wrote: > > |Brd 36 S AT96 > |Both vul H A7 W N S E > |Dlr: W D 53 P 1NT(1) P 2H(2) > | C AKQ43 P 6S P P > | P > |S J82 S 3 > |H T432 H KQJ96 (1) announced as 11-14hcp > |D AT2 D J876 (2) announced as transfer to spades > |C J62 C 975 > | > | S KQ754 > | H 85 result: 6S making, +1430 NS > | D KQ94 ruling: 4S+2, +680 NS > | C T8 > | > | The committee agreed that there was UI. They agreed > |that UI was used. They decided, however, that the 6S call > |was in no way a logical alternative suggested by the UI > |(the appeal chairman called it "insane") and therefore > |permissible. They ruled 6S making, +1430 NS. > | What do you think of the a) director's ruling > | b) committee's ruling > > By the ACBL's definition, 6S is a logical alternative. > Their definition of LA is "an action that some [of the > player's peers] would seriously consider." Given that > the action was taken by one of the player's peers (him), > we have prima facie evidence that it would be seriously > considered. Since it was a blatant misuse of UI, I'd > adjust the score to 4S+6. Moreover, it was such a > blatant misuse of UI, I'd give North a stern talking-to. > In an ACBL tournament, if I felt that he was a decent > player ("high Flight B" is the borderline in my opinion) > who should know better, I'd give him a procedural penalty > to help him remember not to do this again. > Half a board is appropriate. By normal bridge 6S is not LA. N may choose between 2s and 3s. South's hand could be Jxxxxx xxx xx xx and the result would be down 2 or even worse. In this case N try to guess the contract. (Similar situation when S pass OOT on 3-rd hand and N bid 3NT with 16 HCP). If the bidding sequence was 1NT-2h-2s-4s-6s of course you should adjust 4S making 6. But in this case the score stands. Under 1997 Laws 6S is not demonstrably suggested over 2s by UI. If you want to give PP to NS for not knowing the system you can do it but I don't think it is necessary. > This doesn't answer the real question, of course. Given > a definition of logical alternative that is more normal, > does Law 16 apply to actions that are not logical alternatives, > yet are clear misuses of UI? I think it does not, but fortunately, > Law 73 C does. L73C clearly makes 6S illegal, but does not > specify a penalty. L84E, therefore, instructs the director > to restore equity, which is to assign an adjusted score. > > The committee's ruling is disturbing. Their reasoning > should begin with, "North took unfair advantage of the > Alert system. He is not permitted to profit from that," > and then continue on to how to apply the laws. Isn't > that just common sense? The committee' s ruling is correct one! N takes advantage from Alert system but he was lucky and may be wouldn't be lucky next time > --Jeff > # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of > # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? > # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. > # --Watterson > # --- > # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff Sergei Litvak, Chief TD of RBL. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 07:25:32 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA28016 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 07:25:32 +1100 Received: from u3.farm.idt.net (lighton@u3.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.12]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA28011 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 07:25:27 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u3.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA08841 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:25:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:25:16 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u3.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws In-Reply-To: <01bd22ab$659d46c0$LocalHost@default> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, Grattan Endicott wrote: > ......... All clawses struck out ..... > > My purr-puss is to enquire about Honorary Membership of the > Catenation: my felines are on the walls of my office - one > magnificent snow leopard who rules, a tiger and a tiger cub, all > three painted by my friend, the late Bill Whalley. > It is a bit difficult to keep my sort of cat in a domestic > environment, so I do the next best I can. The leopard I did > actually commission following the gift of the two tigers. > ####Grattan#### > If you allow Grattan's cats, then I have four. Three leopard cubs (in two prints) and a purrpussful cat sitting on a tree branch waiting for a passing bird. The cat has large and efficient-looking wings. May I return? :-) -- Richard Lighton Wood-Ridge NJ USA From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 08:01:28 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA28102 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 08:01:28 +1100 Received: from sand.global.net.uk (root@sand.global.net.uk [194.126.82.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA28097 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 08:01:21 +1100 Received: from vnmvhhid (client25fe.globalnet.co.uk [195.147.25.254]) by sand.global.net.uk (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id VAA05020 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 21:00:46 GMT From: "Anne Jones" To: "Bridge Laws2" Subject: An Appeal to Insanity Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 21:02:22 -0000 Message-ID: <01bd22c2$0a7547e0$LocalHost@vnmvhhid> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0008_01BD22C2.0A7547E0" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0008_01BD22C2.0A7547E0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable The original says that the strength of the 1NT, and the 2H bid to be a = transfer were "announced as" I wonder at which point in time was this announcement made. Were = questions asked during the auction on this particuler hand. I find it = surprising that either East or West had any interest in this auction and = should not have been asking questions. Certainly upper B Flight players = should know their opponents basic system and NT strength before the = start of play. If this is when the announcements were made I would rule = that there was no UI. If however the questions were asked during the auction I would consider = that N had chosen from logical alternatives. I would however frown upon = E/W for muddy-ing the waters when they had no reason to do so. Anne ------=_NextPart_000_0008_01BD22C2.0A7547E0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
The original says that the strength = of the 1NT,=20 and the 2H bid to be a transfer  were "announced = as"
 
I wonder at which point in time was = this=20 announcement made. Were questions asked during the auction on this = particuler=20 hand. I find it surprising that either East or West had any interest in = this=20 auction and should not have been asking questions. Certainly upper B = Flight=20 players should know their opponents basic system and NT strength before = the=20 start of play.  If this is when the announcements were made I would = rule=20 that there was no UI.
 
If however the questions were asked = during the=20 auction I would consider that N had chosen from logical alternatives. I = would=20 however frown upon E/W for muddy-ing the waters when they had no reason = to do=20 so.
 
Anne
------=_NextPart_000_0008_01BD22C2.0A7547E0-- From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 08:10:24 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA28129 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 08:10:24 +1100 Received: from mineshaft.odi.com (mineshaft.odi.com [198.3.16.17]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA28124 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 08:10:17 +1100 Received: from mastermind.odi.com by mineshaft.odi.com (5.65c/SMI-4.0/ODI-5) id AA16516; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 16:09:40 -0500 Received: from heinz.odi.com (heinz.odi.com [198.3.19.59]) by mastermind.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI2.2) with ESMTP id QAA04880; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 16:09:37 -0500 (EST) Received: from heinz (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by heinz.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI1.1) with SMTP id QAA07958; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 16:09:36 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <34BFCC8F.3B13@odi.com> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 16:09:35 -0500 From: "QQSV (Dick Wagman)" Organization: Object Design, Inc. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4c) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: wagman@odi.com Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity References: <199801161602.LAA01590@freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk A. L. Edwards wrote: > Brd 36 S AT96 > Both vul H A7 W N S E > Dlr: W D 53 P 1NT(1) P 2H(2) > C AKQ43 P 6S P P > P > S J82 S 3 > H T432 H KQJ96 (1) announced as 11-14hcp > D AT2 D J876 (2) announced as transfer to spades > C J62 C 975 > > S KQ754 > H 85 result: 6S making, +1430 NS > D KQ94 ruling: 4S+2, +680 NS > C T8 > > The table consisted of high flight B players. > I was called to the table by West. He suggested that > North might have bid 6S because he was supposed to have > only 11-14hcp. He now knew by his partner's explanation > that he had considerably more. I agreed that there was > UI present. I decided that the call not suggested by the > UI was simple acceptance of the transfer.[...] NS appealed. > The committee agreed that there was UI. They agreed > that UI was used. They decided, however, that the 6S call > was in no way a logical alternative suggested by the UI > (the appeal chairman called it "insane") and therefore > permissible. They ruled 6S making, +1430 NS. > What do you think of the a) director's ruling > b) committee's ruling I think that this entire hand is from never-never land! For the last hour I have been thinking over the significance of the 11-14 hcp announcement and the resulting 6S bid. Here are some observations: 1. We were told that 11-14 hcp was announced, but we were not told what North-South's actual agreement about 1NT was. Was this a correct explanation? If so, does it seem likely that North forgot his notrump range? Or was the range actually 15-17, with North having decided to make an offshape call? Or was North trying a bizarre action? Actually, I can answer the last part even without being at the table: bidding 1NT with 4-2-2-5 shape with most of the hcp in the black suits and with a hand loaded with controls qualifies as bizarre, regardless of what notrump range was in use. But it's certainly not illegal to make a bizarre bid. 2. Assuming that the 11-14 hcp announcement is correct, what does it suggest? So far as I can determine, the announcement does not, a priori, suggest anything about the South hand at all. Furthermore, the subsequent 2H call by South doesn't change this: whether the notrump range is 11-14, 14-16, 15-17, 16-18, or, I suspect, 17-20, 2H shows five spades and 0-20+ hcp. So (up to this point) North has no unauthorized information about South's hand. Nonetheless, there is a suggestion present here: If North thought the notrump range was 15-17 and South thought the range was 11-14, then the resulting discrepancy will very likely cause South to underbid his hand *later in the auction* (relative to the North hand.) Thus what North knows is not what South's hand is, but rather that a cautious auction (at whatever range) is very unlikely to work well. 3. Was 6S a "logical alternative action [] that could demonstrably have been suggested over another by the extraneous information", to quote from Law 16A? To me, the unauthorized info suggests that unilateral bidding will be more likely to work than delicate bidding. However, nothing about the announcement tells me (up to now) that this particular unilateral call will work. Still, if this hand called for delicate treatment I would rule against North. However, there is yet another thing to consider: Doesn't North's hand scream that some sort of unilateral action is called for, too? Let's go back to our infamous screen test: holding the North hand, you decide for some reason to bid 1NT instead of 1C. Partner pushes a 2H call back under the screen, showing spades and 0-20+ hcp. You have no agreements about super accepts. What is your call? Give South five spades and a balanced zero count and 3S is a favorite to make. Give South as little as king fifth of spades and 4S is a strong favorite. My (North) hand is, in fact, very much stronger than its 17 hcp suggest when partner shows up with five spades. Partner can hold many hands on which it will not occur to him to invite game and which will nonetheless be cold for game. So bidding only 2S on this is a massive underbid, regardless of my agreements. Sure; our agreement is that 2S is the only call. But isn't that foolhardy with this hand? (Yes; my silly opening bid has backed me into a corner. Oh, well...) What else can I do? I certainly am not going to attempt to bid some non-spade strain, given our lack of agreements. That leaves 3S, 4S, and higher spade bids to consider. With 23 hcp out among the other players, an average hand for them would contain just under 8 hcp. That makes 4S look like the sweet spot to me. If I bid 4S I get to the right spot the great majority of the time. Partner is unlikely to significantly misunderstand this call, and if he goes farther I will be charmed to cooperate. What about 5S or 6S? These can't be sensible. 5S presumably asks partner to bid a slam with good trumps. But (a) good trumps aren't enough, and (b) partner won't be able to judge what the definition of "good" is from this auction, anyway. And 6S rates to be a wild shot in the dark. It's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility, but it will require enough extras from partner that we should give partner a shot at continuing over game before we bid higher. Now back to the actual situation: given that we know South thinks that North's 1NT shows 11-14, was 6S "demonstrably suggested"? Not in my opinion. Look at the perfecto that South hit with. Make the KQ of diamonds into the KQ of hearts and slam is down two cashing diamonds; make the spade K into the heart K and you will have to bring the spade K down stiff to have a chance. South could be even stronger, of course, but this is even less likely. It still looks like 4S will be the winner to me. Nothing about South's announcement suggests extra strength. So, to summarize: (1) Was there unauthorized information? It's subtle, but yes, there is. (2) Did the use of that unauthorized information result in damage? No; massive luck resulted in damage. I'm unwilling to adjust for that. I am not saying that there are no situations where I would not adjust the score here. If North decided on 3S, South bid 4S, and North then bid 6S, then I would adjust back to 4S making 6. (Now North really does have a handle on South's strength.) But on the auction to this point there is no such hint. David Grabiner wrote: > If an illogical alternative is chosen but it is suggested by > the UI over a logical alternative, this still shouldn't be allowed. In > the case at hand, the UI suggests 3S over 2S, 4S over 3S or 2S, and 6S > over 3S or 2S. I can't buy this. I don't see where the unauthorized info in any way suggests that 6S is more likely to get to the correct contract than will 3S or 2S. All that it said was that *if* 6S is the correct contract, then you probably can't get there by bidding 3S or (shudder) 2S. However, it in no way suggested that 6S was any less a wild shot in the dark than before. jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) wrote: > By the ACBL's definition, 6S is a logical alternative. > Their definition of LA is "an action that some [of the > player's peers] would seriously consider." Given that > the action was taken by one of the player's peers (him), > we have prima facie evidence that it would be seriously > considered. Since it was a blatant misuse of UI, I'd > adjust the score to 4S+6. Moreover, it was such a > blatant misuse of UI, I'd give North a stern talking-to. > In an ACBL tournament, if I felt that he was a decent > player ("high Flight B" is the borderline in my opinion) > who should know better, I'd give him a procedural penalty > to help him remember not to do this again. I think this is a complete misreading of the law. If we go by this, then any action taken by any would-be offender is logical. That interpretation stretches beyond my credulity; surely, there must exist some bids made by some offenders that are basically illogical, notwithstanding the fact that they made them. Further- more, Jeff has not made the case that this was a "blatant misuse of UI". How did the UI help him? How did it give him anything that his (notrump inappropriate) hand didn't already give him? How did it remotely suggest that 6S (rather than 4S) was the most likely contract? Whatever is going on here, it isn't "blatant". If North bid 3S and then rebid 6S over North's 4S call, I could go along with the description "blatant". This just isn't it. --Q (Dick Wagman) From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 08:44:20 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA28265 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 08:44:20 +1100 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 IAA28256 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 08:44:14 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa07745; 16 Jan 98 13:43 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 16 Jan 1998 21:02:22 PST." <01bd22c2$0a7547e0$LocalHost@vnmvhhid> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 13:43:39 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801161343.aa07745@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Anne Jones wrote: > The original says that the strength of the 1NT, and the 2H bid to be a = > transfer were "announced as" > > I wonder at which point in time was this announcement made. Were = > questions asked during the auction on this particuler hand. I find it = > surprising that either East or West had any interest in this auction and = > should not have been asking questions. Certainly upper B Flight players = > should know their opponents basic system and NT strength before the = > start of play. If this is when the announcements were made I would rule = > that there was no UI. > > If however the questions were asked during the auction I would consider = > that N had chosen from logical alternatives. I would however frown upon = > E/W for muddy-ing the waters when they had no reason to do so. (1) In the ACBL, the strength of 1NT and the use of transfers must be announced by the bidder's partner without waiting for the opponents to ask. This rule has been in effect for a couple years. (More precisely, the strength of 1NT must be announced if it doesn't fall within 15-18.) (2) Your last sentence is controversial. Lots of people, myself included, believe that players should be consistent about asking for information, even if they don't have a good enough hand to be interested, because asking inconsistently gives away free information to the opponents and unauthorized information to partner. Others say that players with no interest in the auction shouldn't ask questions, because (a) improper questions can be used to tell partner what to lead or give partner information or (b) mislead the opponents into thinking that the asker has something they don't. Before the rule about announcements was passed, some players would always ask "Range?" when righty opened one notrump; this didn't cause any problems because they were very consistent about it. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 09:07:20 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA28394 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 09:07:20 +1100 Received: from minerva.pinehurst.net (root@minerva.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA28388 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 09:07:13 +1100 Received: from pinehurst.net (pm6-04.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.50]) by minerva.pinehurst.net (8.8.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id RAA19039; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:06:19 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <34BFDB1B.C3C8A3B2@pinehurst.net> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:11:39 -0500 From: "Nancy T.Dressing" Reply-To: nancy@pinehurst.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity References: <199801161602.LAA01590@freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk A. L. Edwards wrote: > Brd 36 S AT96 > Both vul H A7 W N S E > Dlr: W D 53 P 1NT(1) P 2H(2) > C AKQ43 P 6S P P > P > S J82 S 3 > H T432 H KQJ96 (1) announced as 11-14hcp > D AT2 D J876 (2) announced as transfer to spades > C J62 C 975 > > S KQ754 > H 85 result: 6S making, +1430 NS > D KQ94 ruling: 4S+2, +680 NS > C T8 > > The table consisted of high flight B players. > I was called to the table by West. He suggested that > North might have bid 6S because he was supposed to have > only 11-14hcp. He now knew by his partner's explanation > that he had considerably more. I agreed that there was > UI present. I decided that the call not suggested by the > UI was simple acceptance of the transfer (NS were not > using super-accepts).I awarded 4S+2 (I originally awarded > A+/A-; 30 seconds later I felt a chill, and imagined Stevenson > and his 2 cats going "tsk, tsk"; I decided I was being lazy and > > took a closer look at the hand--mea culpa, mea culpa, > mea maxima culpa). NS appealed. > The committee agreed that there was UI. They agreed > that UI was used. They decided, however, that the 6S call > was in no way a logical alternative suggested by the UI > (the appeal chairman called it "insane") and therefore > permissible. They ruled 6S making, +1430 NS. > What do you think of the a) director's ruling > b) committee's ruling > > In my own defense, I was taught that, baring special > circumstance, the director should rule in favour of > the NOS, and let the OS take it to committee. As for > the committee ruling, they failed to apply the screen > test (fact, not opinion; it didn't even come up.) > The arguement: if North had not heard the explanation, and thought > he was playing strong notrumps, would he have bid 6S? If > the answer is no, can 6S be allowed to stand? > So, a third question: as the director, I am supposed > to inform the committee of the pertinent laws; however, am I > supposed (or even permitted?) to discuss things like > the idea of the screen test? The committee consisted of low > flight A players with some, but not alot, of committee > experience, if that's of any help. > Tony (aka ac342) I would like to know what their convention card said about thier NT range. If the card stated 11-14, one is allowed to deviate from their system as long as partner does not expect it and if that is the case, I would think no UI. Nancy From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 09:22:59 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA28475 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 09:22:59 +1100 Received: from mineshaft.odi.com (mineshaft.odi.com [198.3.16.17]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA28470 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 09:22:53 +1100 Received: from mastermind.odi.com by mineshaft.odi.com (5.65c/SMI-4.0/ODI-5) id AA17481; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:22:19 -0500 Received: from heinz.odi.com (heinz.odi.com [198.3.19.59]) by mastermind.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI2.2) with ESMTP id RAA09351 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:22:17 -0500 (EST) Received: from heinz (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by heinz.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI1.1) with SMTP id RAA07964 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:22:12 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <34BFDD81.5C6C@odi.com> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:22:12 -0500 From: "QQSV (Dick Wagman)" Organization: Object Design, Inc. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4c) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity References: <01bd22c2$0a7547e0$LocalHost@vnmvhhid> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Anne Jones wrote: > The original says that the strength of the 1NT, and the 2H bid to be a > transfer were "announced as" > > I wonder at which point in time was this announcement made. Were > questions asked during the auction on this particuler hand? Judging by the suffix on the email address of the original poster, ac342@freenet.carleton.ca (A. L. Edwards), I conclude that A. L. Edwards (or Tony, as he signed the article) is from Canada. That means he has to be playing under the rules of our ACBL, where it is now mandatory that an opening 1NT whose range does not fit within 15 to 18 hcp must be "announced" at the time it is bid. Thus, South had to say "11 to 14" when North said "1 notrump." It is most unlikely that anyone asked a question at the time, although the poster didn't say. --Q From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 09:49:14 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA28605 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 09:49:14 +1100 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 JAA28600 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 09:49:06 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa11817; 16 Jan 98 14:48 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 16 Jan 1998 16:09:35 PST." <34BFCC8F.3B13@odi.com> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 14:48:28 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801161448.aa11817@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > A. L. Edwards wrote: > > > Brd 36 S AT96 > > Both vul H A7 W N S E > > Dlr: W D 53 P 1NT(1) P 2H(2) > > C AKQ43 P 6S P P > > P > > S J82 S 3 > > H T432 H KQJ96 (1) announced as 11-14hcp > > D AT2 D J876 (2) announced as transfer to spades > > C J62 C 975 > > > > S KQ754 > > H 85 result: 6S making, +1430 NS > > D KQ94 ruling: 4S+2, +680 NS > > C T8 > > I think that this entire hand is from never-never land! No, I don't think Mr. Edwards is from California. > For the last hour I have been thinking over the significance > of the 11-14 hcp announcement and the resulting 6S bid. Here are > some observations: > > 1. We were told that 11-14 hcp was announced, but we were not > told what North-South's actual agreement about 1NT was. Was this > a correct explanation? If so, does it seem likely that North > forgot his notrump range? Or was the range actually 15-17, with > North having decided to make an offshape call? Or was North > trying a bizarre action? It doesn't matter what the actual agreement was; North has the UI that the partnership wasn't on the same wavelength, and when judging cases like this, it's irrelevant which one was right. Determining the actual agreement is important only in cases where the opponents were led by a misexplanation to take a losing action---not the case here. > Actually, I can answer the last part even without being at the > table: bidding 1NT with 4-2-2-5 shape with most of the hcp in > the black suits and with a hand loaded with controls qualifies > as bizarre, regardless of what notrump range was in use. But > it's certainly not illegal to make a bizarre bid. I have to agree. In standard bidding, this is a terrible notrump opener regardless of what range you play. > 2. Assuming that the 11-14 hcp announcement is correct, what does > it suggest? > > So far as I can determine, the announcement does not, a priori, > suggest anything about the South hand at all. Furthermore, the > subsequent 2H call by South doesn't change this: whether the > notrump range is 11-14, 14-16, 15-17, 16-18, or, I suspect, 17-20, > 2H shows five spades and 0-20+ hcp. So (up to this point) North > has no unauthorized information about South's hand. > > Nonetheless, there is a suggestion present here: If North thought > the notrump range was 15-17 and South thought the range was 11-14, > then the resulting discrepancy will very likely cause South to > underbid his hand *later in the auction* (relative to the North > hand.) Thus what North knows is not what South's hand is, but > rather that a cautious auction (at whatever range) is very unlikely > to work well. > > 3. Was 6S a "logical alternative action [] that could demonstrably > have been suggested over another by the extraneous information", to > quote from Law 16A? > > To me, the unauthorized info suggests that unilateral bidding will > be more likely to work than delicate bidding. However, nothing about > the announcement tells me (up to now) that this particular unilateral > call will work. > > Still, if this hand called for delicate treatment I would rule against > North. However, there is yet another thing to consider: Doesn't > North's > hand scream that some sort of unilateral action is called for, too? > > Let's go back to our infamous screen test: holding the North hand, > you decide for some reason to bid 1NT instead of 1C. Partner pushes a > 2H call back under the screen, showing spades and 0-20+ hcp. You have > no agreements about super accepts. What is your call? "Abstain". At least, that's the call MSC panelists sometimes make when they feel a stupid call has been foisted upon them earlier in the auction. There's no Abstain card in the bidding box, however. OTOH, I realize it's possible that my eyes could have blurred and I could have thought my clubs were KQ432 (it's *still* not a notrump opener, though); and now that I see my ace I'm in a bind. > Give South five spades and a balanced zero count and 3S is a favorite > to make. Give South as little as king fifth of spades and 4S is a > strong > favorite. My (North) hand is, in fact, very much stronger than its 17 > hcp suggest when partner shows up with five spades. Partner can hold > many hands on which it will not occur to him to invite game and which > will nonetheless be cold for game. So bidding only 2S on this is a > massive underbid, regardless of my agreements. Sure; our agreement is > that 2S is the only call. But isn't that foolhardy with this hand? > (Yes; my silly opening bid has backed me into a corner. Oh, well...) > > What else can I do? I certainly am not going to attempt to bid some > non-spade strain, given our lack of agreements. That leaves 3S, 4S, > and higher spade bids to consider. With 23 hcp out among the other > players, an average hand for them would contain just under 8 hcp. > That makes 4S look like the sweet spot to me. If I bid 4S I get > to the right spot the great majority of the time. Partner is unlikely > to significantly misunderstand this call, and if he goes farther I will > be charmed to cooperate. If my partner bid 1NT-2H-4S, I might play him for a five-card spade suit, not an error in the opening bid. > What about 5S or 6S? These can't be sensible. 5S presumably asks > partner to bid a slam with good trumps. But (a) good trumps aren't > enough, and (b) partner won't be able to judge what the definition of > "good" is from this auction, anyway. And 6S rates to be a wild shot in > the dark. It's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility, but it > will require enough extras from partner that we should give partner a > shot at continuing over game before we bid higher. > > Now back to the actual situation: given that we know South thinks > that North's 1NT shows 11-14, was 6S "demonstrably suggested"? Not > in my opinion. Look at the perfecto that South hit with. Make the > KQ of diamonds into the KQ of hearts and slam is down two cashing > diamonds; make the spade K into the heart K and you will have to bring > the spade K down stiff to have a chance. South could be even stronger, > of course, but this is even less likely. It still looks like 4S will > be the winner to me. Nothing about South's announcement suggests extra > strength. Right, North has no information about South's hand except that South has 5+ spades. And 6S was definitely a shot in the dark. However, as has been discussed on BLML previously (IIRC), there are some cases where one specific call doesn't have to be demonstrably suggested---just an "action", which may include a group of calls. For example, suppose that in some auction you have a hand where everyone in their right mind would pass. However, your partner hesitated, suggesting extra values. In this case, bidding (or [re]doubling) is demonstrably suggested over passing, and therefore bidding is illegal under Law 16A. It doesn't matter what the bid is, even if it's a stupid one, even if it's an overly aggressive bid that gets your side to a 2% slam that happens to make---if it gets your side a good result (*), it has caused damage and an adjustment is in order. (**) The same argument could be made here, that "any abnormal action" (i.e. anything other than 2S or a super-accept) is an _action_ suggested by the unauthorized information, and therefore any abnormal action, whether a sane one like 4S or an insane one like 6S, would be disallowed after hearing partner's explanation. (*) Should probably read "if it gets your side a good result that wasn't due to an egregious error by the opponents, on certain continents." (**) Some people might disagree with this. I seem to recall that some experts have debated what should happen if a partnership gets to a 2% slam that happens to make, but I don't recall whether that was a debate about UI or some other irregularity. So perhaps Dick has good company in thinking 6S should be allowed to stand, because of the luck factor. > So, to summarize: (1) Was there unauthorized information? It's subtle, > but yes, there is. It's not that subtle--Law 16A is clear that replies to questions are UI (and it must be assumed that announcements are equivalent to replies). Of course, *correct* replies to questions when no one has forgotten the system are technically UI, but such information never suggests anything. > (2) Did the use of that unauthorized information > result in damage? No; massive luck resulted in damage. I'm unwilling > to adjust for that. No, it was a combination of massive luck and North's blatantly breaking the rules. I'm not willing *not* to adjust for that. . . . > jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) wrote: > > > By the ACBL's definition, 6S is a logical alternative. > > Their definition of LA is "an action that some [of the > > player's peers] would seriously consider." Given that > > the action was taken by one of the player's peers (him), > > we have prima facie evidence that it would be seriously > > considered. Since it was a blatant misuse of UI, I'd > > adjust the score to 4S+6. Moreover, it was such a > > blatant misuse of UI, I'd give North a stern talking-to. > > In an ACBL tournament, if I felt that he was a decent > > player ("high Flight B" is the borderline in my opinion) > > who should know better, I'd give him a procedural penalty > > to help him remember not to do this again. > > I think this is a complete misreading of the law. If we go by > this, then any action taken by any would-be offender is logical. > That interpretation stretches beyond my credulity; surely, there > must exist some bids made by some offenders that are basically > illogical, notwithstanding the fact that they made them. Further- > more, Jeff has not made the case that this was a "blatant misuse > of UI". How did the UI help him? How did it give him anything > that his (notrump inappropriate) hand didn't already give him? It woke him up to the fact that he blew it. You are not allowed to take advantage of an explanation by partner that wakes you up. > How did it remotely suggest that 6S (rather than 4S) was the most > likely contract? Whatever is going on here, it isn't "blatant". North blatantly broke the rules by letting partner's explanation influence his action, which you're not supposed to do. And he made a blatant overbid. There's plenty of blatancy to go around. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 09:57:43 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA28640 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 09:57:43 +1100 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 JAA28635 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 09:57:36 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa12364; 16 Jan 98 14:57 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:11:39 PST." <34BFDB1B.C3C8A3B2@pinehurst.net> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 14:57:01 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801161457.aa12364@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > I would like to know what their convention card said about thier NT > range. If the card stated 11-14, one is allowed to deviate from their > system as long as partner does not expect it and if that is the case, I > would think no UI. Not true. If you've deliberately deviated from your system, that's one thing. But if you forgot what system you're playing, then partner's explanation that reminds you that you blew it is most definitely UI, and you're not allowed to use the information. (I can't believe North's bid was a deliberate deviation---it's impossible for me to believe that someone could treat a 17-count with prime controls and an excellent 5-card suit as an 11-to-14-count.) -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 10:17:14 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA28704 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 10:17:14 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA28698 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 10:17:08 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA28372 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:17:03 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id PAA02918; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:19:28 -0800 Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:19:28 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801162319.PAA02918@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote: > (I can't believe North's bid was a deliberate deviation---it's > impossible for me to believe that someone could treat a 17-count with > prime controls and an excellent 5-card suit as an 11-to-14-count.) I find it difficult to believe that someone treated this hand as a 15-17 NT. K&R calls it a 21-count, which seems about right. When partner shows a 5-card spade suit, it's even huger...absent UI, even 3S would be an underbid. If I were sitting down for a poor fellow who bid this hand up to this point, then was rushed off to the hospital, assuming UI wasn't an issue, I'd bid 4S. It has play opposite a Yarborough. I don't think it's particularly close, either. 3S is a huge underbid. Of course, 1NT was a huge underbid, too. Another point: just because the pair doesn't play superaccepts after weak NTs, North isn't barred from superaccepting when he thinks he's playing strong NTs. --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 11:42:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA28913 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 11:42:09 +1100 Received: from oznet02.ozemail.com.au (oznet02.ozemail.com.au [203.2.192.124]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA28908 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 11:42:04 +1100 Received: from dialup.ozemail.com.au (port1.liz.hare.net.au [203.55.88.51]) by oznet02.ozemail.com.au (8.8.4/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA29565 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 11:42:00 +1100 (EST) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 11:42:00 +1100 (EST) Message-Id: <199801170042.LAA29565@oznet02.ozemail.com.au> X-Sender: ardelm@ozemail.com.au (Unverified) X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Tony Musgrove Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk ..an extreme Nancy type hack.. My sympathy is with North. He obviously has trouble maintaining a steady partnership and has just been dumped by his previous strong NT partner. In the present case, he finds himself on a hiding to nothing. He can no longer make the standout 4S bid, since, if this contract is making it will inevitably be rolled back to 2S(+4). In fact, he can see no logical continuation which will allow his side to get even an average score. Under these circumstances, he decides to offer his opponents a sporting proposition. The 6S bid would in about 80% of cases (or 100% when I try it), have given the opponents a better score than the 2S making 4 or 5. Indeed, if they had taken it for 500, we never would have heard of this case. I say, let him keep his 1430. Tony Musgrove From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 12:04:31 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA28972 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 12:04:31 +1100 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 MAA28966 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 12:04:26 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa20321; 16 Jan 98 17:03 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:19:28 PST." <199801162319.PAA02918@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:03:51 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801161703.aa20321@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jeff Goldsmith wrote: > I find it difficult to believe that someone treated this > hand as a 15-17 NT. Been a while since you've played Flight B bridge, right? :) (From personal experience, there was a time I learned that I could open offshape hands 1NT and no one would shoot me, and there was a time I learned that some hands are suit-oriented and some hands are notrump-oriented. And in between those two times, I'm sure I perpetrated my fair share of atrocities like this.) -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 12:44:33 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA29072 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 12:44:33 +1100 Received: from d2.ikos.com (d2.ikos.com [149.172.200.202]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA29067 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 12:44:28 +1100 Received: from denali.ikos.com (denali [149.172.200.93]) by d2.ikos.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id RAA01720; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:43:54 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:43:54 -0800 (PST) From: Everett Boyer Message-Id: <199801170143.RAA01720@d2.ikos.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From owner-bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Fri Jan 16 14:55 PST 1998 > > A. L. Edwards wrote: > > > Brd 36 S AT96 > > Both vul H A7 W N S E > > Dlr: W D 53 P 1NT(1) P 2H(2) > > C AKQ43 P 6S P P > > P > > S J82 S 3 > > H T432 H KQJ96 (1) announced as 11-14hcp > > D AT2 D J876 (2) announced as transfer to spades > > C J62 C 975 > > > > S KQ754 > > H 85 result: 6S making, +1430 NS > > D KQ94 ruling: 4S+2, +680 NS > > C T8 > > > > The committee agreed that there was UI. They agreed > > that UI was used. They decided, however, that the 6S call > > was in no way a logical alternative suggested by the UI > > (the appeal chairman called it "insane") and therefore > > permissible. They ruled 6S making, +1430 NS. > > What do you think of the a) director's ruling > > b) committee's ruling > > If the card stated 11-14, one is allowed to deviate from their > system as long as partner does not expect it and if that is the case, I > would think no UI. Nancy Really? It was my understanding that one is not allowed to be awakened by partner's explanations (announcement). I think the presumptive interpretation of North's 1NT is that he miscounted or overlooked an honor or forgot his system, rather than that he decided to deviate. (Perhaps the director should ask early on what North was thinking for 1NT.) And I think the announcement is the presumptive awakening cause underlying any attempt to correct whichever error he might have made. There seems to be no question that 6S was only suggested by the UI. Since they don't play superaccepts, though it may be a minority view, 2S is surely an LA -- plenty of players prefer sticking to methods, to avoid stressing partner, even when a hand screams for inventing a bid. Is 6S demonstrably suggested over 2S by the UI? I think it is. Absent the UI, there's little excuse to mastermind like that. Consider that South can be expected to have about a random 8-count, perhaps more since neither opponent found a bid against the purported wknt. >From North's seat, 4S seems likely to make and to be reached at other tables opposite most hands which would pass an 11-14 2S, including many very poor hands, so 2S is very likely a bottom board. 6S may go down for a bottom board, but at nominal cost--likely not losing many matchpoints to 2S making 2 or 3 overtricks. But if partner has about 8 or more HCP, 6S may well make, and blasting improves its chances when DAK are available to the defense. Surely, if 6S makes it will gain many matchpoints over 2S or 4S. Now compare products of frequency of difference with magnitude of difference. Even allowing that 6S is an odds-against shot in the dark on the information available, its chance of making multiplied by its large expected gain may be more than its chance of failing multiplied by its small expected loss. I contend that it is, because I believe its expected loss is quite small and its chance of making is significantly larger, not the 2% someone guessed. Thus I contend that 6S is indeed demonstrably suggested over LA 2S by the UI. I agree that south is not at all likely to pass 2S. I like the director's ruling and think the AC went badly astray. The varying opinions from blml persuade me that the appeal isn't frivolous. I suspect that the NOS just needed a good bridge lawyer :) > Another point: just because the pair doesn't play superaccepts > after weak NTs, North isn't barred from superaccepting when > he thinks he's playing strong NTs. > --Jeff The likelihood that 4S is a normal rebid suggests to me that 6S is just an offset from there, blatantly inspired by UI. Everett Boyer Californian ;> From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 15:16:36 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA29479 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 15:16:36 +1100 Received: from camel8.mindspring.com (camel8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.58]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA29474 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 15:16:31 +1100 Received: from mike (ip91.baltimore6.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.12.182.91]) by camel8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA01644 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 23:16:25 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980116231623.006c24fc@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 23:16:23 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <199801162008.PAA06246@cfa183.harvard.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 03:08 PM 1/16/98 -0500, Steve Willner wrote: >If NS were playing 15-17 notrumps and had agreed on super-accepts, I >suppose there might be an argument that 2S was not an LA (some >superaccept being mandatory). I would probably agree in the Europe but >probably not in the ACBL. Anyway, on the facts stated (superaccepts >not being played), this doesn't appear relevant. If it were, it would >be the difference between +230 and +680; no way are we getting to >+1430! Although I definitely agree with the general thrust of your comments, I do have one tiny quibble, and that is with the judgement that 2S might be a LA even if super-accepts were in effect. Even applying the very broad ACBL standard for LA, this is a stretch. For many players who use super-accepts, such a bid is automatic and mandatory with ANY 4-card trump holding, so certainly 2S is not a LA for them. But even for those players who use super-accepts with some discretion (which is my preference), it is completely automatic with this holding. In fact, this hand is too good for a 15-17 1nt opening; it certainly couldn't be considered anything less than a maximum. The only possibility for "some number" of players to "seriously consider" 2S is if they've forgotten they're playing super-accepts. Certainly that could happen, as could a stroke, an alcoholic stupor, or simply pulling the wrong card from the bidding box. But it is not enough to meet the standard for a LA, anywhere. Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 15:46:49 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA29568 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 15:46:49 +1100 Received: from camel8.mindspring.com (camel8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.58]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA29563 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 15:46:43 +1100 Received: from mike (ip91.baltimore6.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.12.182.91]) by camel8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA02967 for ; Fri, 16 Jan 1998 23:46:28 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980116234630.006c6a98@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 23:46:30 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <34BFCC8F.3B13@odi.com> References: <199801161602.LAA01590@freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 04:09 PM 1/16/98 -0500, Dick Wagman wrote: >3. Was 6S a "logical alternative action [] that could demonstrably >have been suggested over another by the extraneous information", to >quote from Law 16A? > >To me, the unauthorized info suggests that unilateral bidding will >be more likely to work than delicate bidding. However, nothing about >the announcement tells me (up to now) that this particular unilateral >call will work. > >Still, if this hand called for delicate treatment I would rule against >North. However, there is yet another thing to consider: Doesn't >North's >hand scream that some sort of unilateral action is called for, too? > >Let's go back to our infamous screen test: holding the North hand, >you decide for some reason to bid 1NT instead of 1C. Partner pushes a >2H call back under the screen, showing spades and 0-20+ hcp. You have >no agreements about super accepts. What is your call? > >Give South five spades and a balanced zero count and 3S is a favorite >to make. Give South as little as king fifth of spades and 4S is a >strong >favorite. My (North) hand is, in fact, very much stronger than its 17 >hcp suggest when partner shows up with five spades. Partner can hold >many hands on which it will not occur to him to invite game and which >will nonetheless be cold for game. So bidding only 2S on this is a >massive underbid, regardless of my agreements. Sure; our agreement is >that 2S is the only call. But isn't that foolhardy with this hand? >(Yes; my silly opening bid has backed me into a corner. Oh, well...) Your analysis is correct, but misses the point. To be a LA, 2S need not be the best, or correct, or in any way a sensible option (which, I agree, it absolutely is not). But as the systemically mandated response to a 2H bid, it IS an option which some players at this level would consider, and some would even take. Some of these players would hear the transfer and automatically accept with 2S. Others might think the matter over, realize that 2S was inadequate, but bid it anyway, because that's the system. I don't expect to see their names on the leader board at the next Bermuda bowl, but they are out there. The question is, in the set of all players who a) consider this a strong nt opener and b) do not play super-accepts over transfers, are there some who would bid (or at least consider bidding) only 2S? The answer is, indubitably, yes. >What else can I do? I certainly am not going to attempt to bid some >non-spade strain, given our lack of agreements. That leaves 3S, 4S, >and higher spade bids to consider. With 23 hcp out among the other >players, an average hand for them would contain just under 8 hcp. >That makes 4S look like the sweet spot to me. If I bid 4S I get >to the right spot the great majority of the time. Partner is unlikely >to significantly misunderstand this call, and if he goes farther I will >be charmed to cooperate. > >What about 5S or 6S? These can't be sensible. 5S presumably asks >partner to bid a slam with good trumps. But (a) good trumps aren't >enough, and (b) partner won't be able to judge what the definition of >"good" is from this auction, anyway. And 6S rates to be a wild shot in >the dark. It's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility, but it >will require enough extras from partner that we should give partner a >shot at continuing over game before we bid higher. > >Now back to the actual situation: given that we know South thinks >that North's 1NT shows 11-14, was 6S "demonstrably suggested"? Not >in my opinion. Look at the perfecto that South hit with. Make the >KQ of diamonds into the KQ of hearts and slam is down two cashing >diamonds; make the spade K into the heart K and you will have to bring >the spade K down stiff to have a chance. South could be even stronger, >of course, but this is even less likely. It still looks like 4S will >be the winner to me. Nothing about South's announcement suggests extra >strength. > You are right again in your analysis that 6S is a wild, swingy action which doesn't rate to be the winner. But the point of the problem is that North feels compelled to take such a unilateral action precisely and only because of the UI that partner has a wrong idea about his strength (regardless of the actual agreement). That UI makes ANY action other than the systemic 2S bid more attractive than the LA of 2S. Hence roll back the score to +230. Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 18:30:13 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA29860 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 18:30:13 +1100 Received: from helium.btinternet.com (helium.btinternet.com [194.73.73.91]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA29855 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 18:30:04 +1100 Received: from snow.btinternet.com [194.73.73.90] by helium.btinternet.com with smtp (Exim 1.70 #1) id 0xtSj6-0003kY-00; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 07:31:32 +0000 Received: from D457300btinternet.com [195.99.51.152] by snow.btinternet.com with smtp (Exim 1.70 #1) id 0xtSiq-0005TE-00; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 07:31:16 +0000 Message-ID: <000801bd2319$b4a7eae0$983363c3@D457300btinternet.com> From: "David Burn" To: "Bridge Laws" Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 07:29:46 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk [Original snipped, because we know what it says by now] The question of "selection from among illogical alternatives" is a deep and tortuous one. I was wondering when it was going to surface in this group, but this case is - sadly - trivial. North would never have bid 6S if he had known that his partner was expecting a strong no trump. His actual selection was clearly predicated on UI, and should equally clearly be disallowed. Personally, I would have had him taken out and shot - 6S is cheating with a capital C, and it worries me that there are people capable of doing such a thing. But the general question is complex and profound, and I will listen to the continuing debate with great interest. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 23:15:52 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA00476 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 23:15:52 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA00465 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 23:15:45 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-57.uunet.be [194.7.13.57]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA10094 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 13:15:40 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34C09BA3.80C05538@innet.be> Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 12:53:07 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Richard Lighton wrote: > > If you allow Grattan's cats, then I have four. Three leopard cubs > (in two prints) and a purrpussful cat sitting on a tree branch > waiting for a passing bird. The cat has large and efficient-looking > wings. > > May I return? :-) > On the painting behind my computer (a reproduction of a Breughel) there are 5 dogs and 6 pigs but no cats. I will leave this alternate newsgroup. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 23:15:50 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA00474 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 23:15:50 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA00461 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 23:15:43 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-57.uunet.be [194.7.13.57]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA10089; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 13:15:38 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34C09AE0.82F74204@innet.be> Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 12:49:52 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Adam@innet.be, Bridge Laws Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <9801161457.aa12364@flash.irvine.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Was I off-line so long that you managed to get in this many posts on noe subject ? Truly amazing. Rather than replay to any one post, I'd like to contribute some thoughts on the 'luck' factor. I agree with the majority of posters that want to change the score. I even agree with the minority that adjusts to +230. I'd even go as far as giving the halgf board penalty that someone suggested. Some posters wanted to know what the system was. Totally irrelevant. We should only be interested in what N thought he was playing and what his 1NT call meant when he made it. (this might even include some things like - I thought 15-17 but I failed to notice the 5th club) We need not read further than the intro to L16 : to base a call or play on other extraneous information may be an infraction of Law. Some things have been said that N may not 'choose from among logical alternative actions' and that 6S is not a logical action. However I agree with the idea that actions may include such things as 'bidding anything other that the standard call'. Some people state that since the damage is there because of the 'luck' factor, one should not adjust. But this leads to undesirable bridge happenings : - I know I have UI. - I know what I should now bid, without UI (in this case 2S) - I know this will be a bad contract and give me a zero. - Why not go for something outrageous (like 6S) because this can only lead to : either a zero, which I had anyway; or a top, which will not be changed because of some 'luck' ruling. That is the reason why we should not accept this type of ruling. North should have bid 2S (not even 3 or 4) and he should be hoping that partner has enough to get them back into the correct contract of 4S. In fact, South just has enough to push on to 3S after 2S and I would be somewhat inclined to let 4S be the result. Of course, if N convinces me or the AC that with his other partners (the ones he plays Strong NT with) he does use super-accepts, then 3S would be his correct reply, of course raised to 4S by S. But I suspect that this North has some bridge-laws knowledge (or so he thinks) and that he's trying to fool the TD into letting him have this wild shot. And he succeeded ! -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 17 23:15:47 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA00469 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 23:15:47 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA00457 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 23:15:41 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-57.uunet.be [194.7.13.57]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA10084 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 13:15:35 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34C09245.64C2C2DE@innet.be> Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 12:13:09 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > > John A Kuchenbrod wrote: > > >Yes, having the A+/A+ by itself would be just to "save trouble." I would > >prefer protecting both sides with A+, so that if +420, -50, or whatever > >was better than an average plus (given that the result is attainable > >with the situation provided), then the side would not be penalized. > David is getting very 'edgy' on this issue. Let me first state that I agree with him when he says that there are far too many A+ scores, and some of those just to make TD's life easier. However, in the case as I saw it (with the TD at fault) play has become virtually unplayable. A bid was made, and become unchangable, with the whole table now having UI which should be AI. I thought as partner now to be having so much UI, not by anyone's fault but TD, that I even stated I would bluntly use the UI and let the AC decide. How anyone can still say what a normal result of play would have been is beyond my limited capabilities, if apparantly not beyond David's. Up to the point of the errors, not a lot had happened so there should be no way of figuring out the final outcome of the board from there. That translates into A+ to both sides in my book. > Why should we "protect" both sides with A+? > > This quaint NAmerican notion seems unjustifiable in either Law or > commonsense. > > Suppose that we have a situation where without the UI we expect > players would have received 80% N/S [the offending side] and 20% E/W > [the non-offenders]. Although this can sometimes happen, in the case presented originally, not enough bidding has been going on to warrant such an expectation. > By using the UI the table result is 100% N/S and > 0% E/W. According to L12C2 we assign a score which restores equity, > namely 80% N/S and 20% E/W. What possible justification is there for > this strange "assign a score OR average-plus, whichever is greater"? It > is illegal, inequitable, and downright stupid. > Agreed, but irrelevant to the original case. > I think we should follow the Law book, and not strange NAmerican > rulings designed to destroy equity. > Agreed, but irrelevant to the original case. David, please read the original case again. Suppose (as AC) you decide TD has got it wrong. The bid was not 'as fast as Quango' and the alert 'somewhat late'. Now award your score given all these facts. Please explain how you will awards an AS. Remember that both sides ought to be considered as non-offending. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 18 00:53:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA03032 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 00:53:04 +1100 Received: from mail.compulink.co.uk (mail.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.20]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA03027 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 00:52:51 +1100 Received: (from root@localhost) by mail.compulink.co.uk (8.8.7/8.8.6) id NAA20158 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 13:52:17 GMT Date: Sat, 17 Jan 98 13:51 GMT0 From: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tim West-meads) Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Reply-To: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Message-Id: Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In-Reply-To: <199801161602.LAA01590@freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> Tony (aka ac432) wrote: > Brd 36 S AT96 > Both vul H A7 W N S E > Dlr: W D 53 P 1NT(1) P 2H(2) > C AKQ43 P 6S P P > P > S J82 S 3 > H T432 H KQJ96 (1) announced as 11-14hcp > D AT2 D J876 (2) announced as transfer to spades > C J62 C 975 > > S KQ754 > H 85 result: 6S making, +1430 NS > D KQ94 ruling: 4S+2, +680 NS > C T8 > > The table consisted of high flight B players. > I was called to the table by West. He suggested that > North might have bid 6S because he was supposed to have > only 11-14hcp. He now knew by his partner's explanation > that he had considerably more. I agreed that there was > UI present. I decided that the call not suggested by the > UI was simple acceptance of the transfer (NS were not > using super-accepts).I awarded 4S+2 (I originally awarded > A+/A-; 30 seconds later I felt a chill, and imagined Stevenson > and his 2 cats going "tsk, tsk"; I decided I was being lazy and > took a closer look at the hand--mea culpa, mea culpa, > mea maxima culpa). NS appealed. > The committee agreed that there was UI. They agreed > that UI was used. They decided, however, that the 6S call > was in no way a logical alternative suggested by the UI > (the appeal chairman called it "insane") and therefore > permissible. They ruled 6S making, +1430 NS. > What do you think of the a) director's ruling Reasonable at least, and infinitely better than A+/A-. Personally I am not sure whether the south hand is worth a game try opposite an 11-14 NT followed by 2S (no super accept) there are plenty of 11/12 counts with 2 spades where 3S goes down. I could be persuaded that 1/3 of players would pass 2S and rule 2S+4 if I did decide to adjust. Anybody who considers the North hand a 1nt opener (even 15-18) has demonstrated insuffucient bidding judgement to make a super-accept if that is outside their agreements. Playing behind screens the only reason I might try 6S as North is if I "woke up" to my own error* (but even then I prefer 4C) and a wake-up is not allowed here (2H is hardly anti-systemic). I would guess that North saw that a bad score was on the cards if he bid 2S, 3S or 4S/4C and decided that the only way to try and salvage a few MPs would be a loony punt at six. I doubt this was deliberately unethical - he knows that he cannot bid 3S or 4S and that the UI is not a prima facie suggestion that 6S will work. Given that the committee agreed with his analysis a PP, or shooting are out of the question - but a bit of education all round would help. *ie found the CA and that I didn't have a 4-2-2-4 13 count! > b) committee's ruling Wrong. The UI suggests that any other bid will be probably be worth precisely 0 MPs whereas 6S might get lots - this clearly demonstrates the advantages of bidding 6S over 2S. Tim West-Meads From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 18 02:44:35 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA03441 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 02:44:35 +1100 Received: from freenet1.carleton.ca (root@freenet1.carleton.ca [134.117.136.20]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA03436 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 02:44:27 +1100 Received: from freenet3.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (ac342@freenet3.carleton.ca [134.117.136.23]) by freenet1.carleton.ca (8.8.8/8.8.8/NCF_f1_v2.02) with ESMTP id KAA08908 for ; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 10:44:13 -0500 (EST) Received: (ac342@localhost) by freenet3.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (8.8.5/NCF-Sun-Client) id KAA11698; Sat, 17 Jan 1998 10:44:37 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 10:44:37 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801171544.KAA11698@freenet3.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> From: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca (A. L. Edwards) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Reply-To: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >In-Reply-To: <199801161602.LAA01590@freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> > >Tony (aka ac432) wrote: >> Brd 36 S AT96 >> Both vul H A7 W N S E >> Dlr: W D 53 P 1NT(1) P 2H(2) >> C AKQ43 P 6S P P >> P >> S J82 S 3 >> H T432 H KQJ96 (1) announced as 11-14hcp >> D AT2 D J876 (2) announced as transfer to spades >> C J62 C 975 >> >> S KQ754 >> H 85 result: 6S making, +1430 NS >> D KQ94 ruling: 4S+2, +680 NS >> C T8 My apologies to the BLML group. It seems I left out some information. This was a club championship Swiss Team of 4 (22 teams), therefore imps. NS had a filled out convention card and were playing 1NT=11-14. I thought that the South hand was worth a game try, especially at imps, vulnerable.One of the reasons I thought A+/A- was lazy was because it occured to me that -3 imps might be too *little* to award the other team; they might deserve 10 imps if +230 was a posibility. Tony (aka ac342) From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 18 06:33:00 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA04198 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 06:33:00 +1100 Received: from terminator2.xtra.co.nz (terminator2.xtra.co.nz [202.27.184.2]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA04193 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 06:32:54 +1100 Received: from LOCALNAME (p7-m1-ch7.dialup.xtra.co.nz [202.27.179.7]) by terminator2.xtra.co.nz (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id IAA11521 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 08:31:40 +1300 (NZDT) Message-ID: <34C22FEF.4DCC@xtra.co.nz> Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 08:38:07 -0800 From: B A Small Reply-To: Bruce.Small@xtra.co.nz X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0C-XTRA (Win95; I; 16bit) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: re Appeal to insanity Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Sergei Litvak wrote: > > By normal bridge 6S is not LA. N may choose between 2s and 3s. > South's hand could be Jxxxxx xxx xx xx and the result would be down 2 or > even worse. > In this case N try to guess the contract. (Similar situation when S pass > OOT on 3-rd hand and N bid 3NT with 16 HCP). > If the bidding sequence was 1NT-2h-2s-4s-6s of course you should adjust 4S > making 6. But in this case the score stands. > Under 1997 Laws 6S is not demonstrably suggested over 2s by UI. > If you want to give PP to NS for not knowing the system you can do it but I > don't think it is necessary. > > The committee' s ruling is correct one! N takes advantage from Alert system > but he was lucky and may be wouldn't be lucky next time > > > Sergei Litvak, > Chief TD of RBL. I agree with Sergei here. North has guessed and the UI that his partner believes he is weak is irrelevant. Even if S correctly states the NT range the bidding logically will go 1NT-2h-3S(or 3NT) North has no way of knowing how weak or strong south is at the time of the UI. The insanity is the jump to 6S and anyone who does this on this bidding and UI is taking risks bordering on insane. A question from the original Whaqt is "the Screen test"? Bruce From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 18 07:26:12 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA04563 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 07:26:12 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id HAA04557 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 07:26:06 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1013919; 17 Jan 98 20:23 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 20:21:43 +0000 To: Jeff Goldsmith Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <199801161806.KAA01880@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801161806.KAA01880@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV>, Jeff Goldsmith writes > >A. L. Edwards wrote: (and so did a lot of others) and then Jeff Goldsmith:- >The committee's ruling is disturbing. Their reasoning >should begin with, "North took unfair advantage of the >Alert system. He is not permitted to profit from that," >and then continue on to how to apply the laws. Isn't >that just common sense? Labeo:- It seems to me that when a player selects a call/play the chosen action is by definition for that player a logical possibility. If alternative action(s) would be seriously considered by a substantial number of his peers then such actions and the chosen action are logical alternatives one with another. It is not relevant for the purpose whether any or all of the AC members would think the player's choice a logical action for themselves or for any other players; the laws require that we judge alternative possibilities by the standards of the player's peers, but the action he chose at the table he has asserted by his choice to be a logical one for him and the AC misdirects itself if it fails to accept the player's own standards in that regard. -- Labeo " Cats and monkeys, monkeys and cats - All human life is there. " (Hy. James) From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 18 11:43:45 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA05272 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 11:43:45 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA05267 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 11:43:38 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2003421; 18 Jan 98 0:41 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 22:37:01 +0000 To: Bruce.Small@xtra.co.nz Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: re Appeal to insanity In-Reply-To: <34C22FEF.4DCC@xtra.co.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <34C22FEF.4DCC@xtra.co.nz>, B A Small writes Extracts: >Sergei Litvak wrote: >> >> > The committee' s ruling is correct one! N takes advantage from Alert system >> but he was lucky and may be wouldn't be lucky next time >> > B.A.Small commented: >I agree with Sergei here. North has guessed and the UI that his partner >believes he is weak is irrelevant. Labeo: Should we perhaps stay with the actual laws? - not invent some to fit our mood? We need to decide: does North have UI ? If 'yes', does North have logical alternative choice(s) of call to the one he selected? If 'yes', is there such an alternative that is less suggested by the UI than the one he adopted ? Affirmative answers and we adjust the score. If we agree North 'takes advantage of the alert system' then he certainly has UI; there is little doubt about the existence of logical alternative calls; so it comes down on this premise to whether the bid actually made is the least suggested by what he learnt from the alert. Let us ask ourselves what North thought he was doing. Did he think nothing could be less suggested than the slam here? Did he think the bid was the obvious one to make if the sequence had not been troubled with any UI ? Did he perhaps think the slam was a proposition that might come off and that it was worth a shot since he knew partner would never get him there? That he was guessing is irrelevant; was he basing his 'guess' on what he gathered from the alert? - that is the question. This week-end the choice seems to be cats or insanity.... Here, puss, puss, puss ........ -- Labeo "The voice of the throng is not to be taken for the Voice of God, for the turmoil of the common herd is always close to insanity". (freely translated from Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus) From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 18 11:48:55 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA05292 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 11:48:55 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA05287 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 11:48:45 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab1015783; 18 Jan 98 0:41 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 00:27:01 +0000 To: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <199801171544.KAA11698@freenet3.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801171544.KAA11698@freenet3.carleton.ca.carleton.ca>, "A. L. Edwards" writes >>In-Reply-To: <199801161602.LAA01590@freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> >> >>Tony (aka ac432) wrote: >>> Brd 36 > etc. Why are so many people keen to demonstrate that they have the hand down correctly ? Have we seen it enough now ? -- Labeo From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 18 17:23:03 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA05934 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 17:23:03 +1100 Received: from primus.ac.net (primus.ac.net [205.138.54.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA05929 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 17:22:57 +1100 Received: from linda (ptp143.ac.net [205.138.55.52]) by primus.ac.net (8.8.7/8.8.6) with SMTP id BAA01090 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 01:22:50 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801180622.BAA01090@primus.ac.net> Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 00:25:40 -0500 From: Linda Weinstein <"lobo@ac.net"@ac.net> Reply-To: "lobo@ac.net"@ac.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This seems like a discipline problem rather than a score adjustment problem that should be handled with a procedural penalty to N/S and no score adjustment. What if 6S had been down a couple? Would the Director have been called to get the E/W score changed from -200 to -680? Isn't this like the case where a player is mad at his partner and bids 7NT "just to show that so-and-so". The poor opponents would be stuck with the score, but I expect the procedural penalty would be quite large.. From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 18 18:39:05 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA06126 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 18:39:05 +1100 Received: from smtp1.erols.com (smtp1.erols.com [205.252.116.101]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA06121 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 18:39:00 +1100 Received: from hdavis (spg-tnt19s233.erols.com [207.172.119.233]) by smtp1.erols.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id CAA19718 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 02:42:41 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980118023955.007fc100@pop.erols.com> X-Sender: hdavis@pop.erols.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 02:39:55 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Hirsch Davis Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <199801180622.BAA01090@primus.ac.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 12:25 AM 1/18/98 -0500, Linda Weinstein wrote: >This seems like a discipline problem rather than a score adjustment >problem that should be handled with a procedural penalty to N/S and no >score adjustment. What if 6S had been down a couple? Would the >Director have been called to get the E/W score changed from -200 to >-680? > >Isn't this like the case where a player is mad at his partner and bids >7NT "just to show that so-and-so". The poor opponents would be stuck >with the score, but I expect the procedural penalty would be quite >large.. > > No, this case is far different from that. In your example, the player is acting out of anger, but not UI. A discliplinary penalty is appropriate there, but there is no basis in law to adjust the score. In the example we have been considering, the player has information from his partner that he has utilized the incorrect notrump range. Finding no way to have a comprehensible auction after that, he has taken a wild shot. However, utilizing information from the alert process in this manner is in fact making use of UI. Both a score adjustment and a disciplinary action may be appropriate. I have come to agree with those who have written that the action taken at the table must be considered a logical alternative, by virtue of the fact that is was in fact the alternative selected. Thus, the insanity defence, that an action may be so wild as to not be considered a logical alternative, cannot be used. If the UI suggests that an alternative action will be less successful (and in this case, the UI suggests that the systemic 2S is headed toward disaster) then that alternative must be taken, and the score adjusted appropriately. I find it interesting that N chose 6S rather than 4S for his wild action. Of the possible bids, the sysytemic 2S will lead to S underestimating the power of N's hand drastically. 3S is non-systemic, as far as we can tell, but even if played as a superaccept, N is still too heavy for the bid. 5S will be totally incomprehensible to partner. But why not 4S? Perhaps N realized that use of UI that flagrant would have to result in an adjustment. The missing 4S bid, as it were, convinces me that N did in fact know that partner's explanation was UI, and that the 6S call was a conscious and deliberate attempt to get around Law 16 by choosing an "illogical" alternative. Consequently, the procedural penalty that I would administer would be harsh. Best wishes, Hirsch From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 18 23:36:43 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA06773 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 23:36:43 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id XAA06768 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 23:36:36 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1004172; 18 Jan 98 12:35 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 10:09:21 +0000 To: Bruce.Small@xtra.co.nz Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: re Appeal to insanity In-Reply-To: <34C22FEF.4DCC@xtra.co.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <34C22FEF.4DCC@xtra.co.nz>, B A Small writes >Sergei Litvak wrote: >> > scratched out < > >> >> The committee' s ruling is correct one! N takes advantage from Alert system >> but he was lucky and may be wouldn't be lucky next time Labeo: in my recent comment I used the phrase 'based on' the UI; maybe it is clearer and more exact if I change this to 'influenced by the UI'. -- Labeo From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 18 23:49:15 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA06794 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 23:49:15 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id XAA06789 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 23:49:10 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1005067; 18 Jan 98 12:43 GMT Message-ID: <3HL2EAA5hfw0Ew+L@coruncanius.demon.co.uk> Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 12:41:29 +0000 To: "lobo@ac.net"@ac.net Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <199801180622.BAA01090@primus.ac.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801180622.BAA01090@primus.ac.net>, Linda Weinstein <"lobo@ac.net"@ac.net> writes >. What if 6S had been down a couple? Would the >Director have been called to get the E/W score changed from -200 to >-680? > No, sorry, that is *not* a valid point; in those circumstances there would be no damage to opponents. -- Labeo From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 19 12:03:36 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA11668 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 12:03:36 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA11657 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 12:03:29 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2010236; 19 Jan 98 1:00 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:16:50 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <199801171544.KAA11698@freenet3.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk A. L. Edwards wrote: >One of the reasons I thought A+/A- was lazy >was because it occured to me that -3 imps might be too *little* >to award the other team; they might deserve 10 imps if +230 was >a posibility. Exactly. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 19 12:03:33 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA11666 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 12:03:33 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA11656 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 12:03:26 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1015430; 19 Jan 98 1:00 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 00:59:39 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk A few interesting rulings occurred in this EBU competition. I thought we had sorted out all the problems attendant on Insufficient Bids corrected before the TD arrives, when Jim Proctor [one of the EBU's leading TDs] got a new wrinkle! 1NT Pass Pass 1C! You can't, says someone! Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. Pass from the 1NT opener. **Now** they call the TD !!!!! I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 19 13:17:40 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA11874 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 13:17:40 +1100 Received: from minerva.pinehurst.net (root@minerva.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA11869 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 13:17:34 +1100 Received: from pinehurst.net (pm1-27.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.155]) by minerva.pinehurst.net (8.8.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA17989 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 21:17:25 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <34C2B917.497A37A3@pinehurst.net> Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 21:23:19 -0500 From: "Nancy T.Dressing" Reply-To: nancy@pinehurst.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge laws Subject: Alan LeBendig Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi... I need Alan's email ad... Can anyone help me out? Thanks, Nancy From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 19 13:20:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA11892 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 13:20:08 +1100 Received: from minerva.pinehurst.net (root@minerva.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA11887 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 13:20:01 +1100 Received: from pinehurst.net (pm1-27.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.155]) by minerva.pinehurst.net (8.8.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA18205; Sun, 18 Jan 1998 21:19:41 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <34C2B99F.F45E7227@pinehurst.net> Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 21:25:36 -0500 From: "Nancy T.Dressing" Reply-To: nancy@pinehurst.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: David Stevenson CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > A few interesting rulings occurred in this EBU competition. I thought > we had sorted out all the problems attendant on Insufficient Bids > corrected before the TD arrives, when Jim Proctor [one of the EBU's > leading TDs] got a new wrinkle! > > 1NT Pass Pass 1C! > > You can't, says someone! > > Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. > > Pass from the 1NT opener. > > **Now** they call the TD !!!!! > > I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! > > -- > David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ > Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ > bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= > Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ Too late the bid is condoned Nancy From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 19 20:41:49 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA12804 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 20:41:49 +1100 Received: from coconut.tc.pw.com (coconut-ext.tc.pw.com [131.209.1.104]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA12799 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 20:41:36 +1100 From: Stephen_Barnfield@europe.notes.pw.com Received: by coconut.tc.pw.com; id BAA02091; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 01:39:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from unknown(10.9.16.60) by coconut.tc.pw.com via smap (3.2) id xma002085; Mon, 19 Jan 98 01:38:49 -0800 Received: by fern.us.pw.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id EAA26659; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 04:40:12 -0500 Message-Id: <199801190940.EAA26659@fern.us.pw.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Mon, 19 Jan 98 09:32:54 GMT Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I hope we all know the hand. I don't think L16A applies in this case, since, to me, 6S is not a LA. That does mean I think the score should not be adjusted, however. L16A deals with people who choose, for whatever reason, an action which is an LA but which could be suggested by the UI. L16A does not set out the only penalty which can apply to someone who is judged to deliberately use UI in the way it appears N did in the instant case. I think N breached L16 (first four lines), and also L73A1 (proper communications between partners - how effected), but that L16A does not apply. Thus, I argue, and it certainly is debatable, that L84B (case clearly covered by Law that specifies a penalty) does not apply and L84E (discretionary penalty if no penalty provided by Law) does apply, so that the TD can award an adjusted score if he or she thinks "there is even a reasonable possibility that the non-offending side was damaged". I think the AC should have ruled on that basis: indeed if N thinks this is a 15-18 NT and is not playing transfer breaks, then the AC and TD might well have given some serious thought to 2S+4 (since, objectively, I would argue it is not clear that S would proceed over 2S, given that he or she thinks they are playing an 11-14 NT). FWITW I would also report the hand to the SO. N's action may have been innocent: after all we all do strange things in the heat of the moment when something unexpected happens. Nevertheless the SO may want to question N further about his choice of call. Steve Barnfield Tunbridge Wells, England From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 19 21:59:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA12976 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 21:59:10 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA12971 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 21:59:04 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-9-126.uunet.be [194.7.9.126]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA23801 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 11:58:56 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34C32DB5.9572E503@innet.be> Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 11:40:53 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > > A few interesting rulings occurred in this EBU competition. I thought > we had sorted out all the problems attendant on Insufficient Bids > corrected before the TD arrives, when Jim Proctor [one of the EBU's > leading TDs] got a new wrinkle! > > 1NT Pass Pass 1C! > > You can't, says someone! > > Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. > > Pass from the 1NT opener. > > **Now** they call the TD !!!!! > > I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! > Since both pairs are exually in breach of L9B2 I give them a choice : - play on; or : - accept a 10% penalty each, plus a beer to me, each, plus wait for half a week until I have consulted with blml to get a definite ruling. I know this is not legalistic, but it will be accepted at the table. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 03:43:18 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA16721 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 03:43:18 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA16716 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 03:43:11 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA04376 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 11:43:10 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA07895; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 11:43:06 -0500 Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 11:43:06 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801191643.LAA07895@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk What a minute here, folks! The AC decided that UI was in fact used. We can see that this use resulted in damage. These two facts mandate an adjustment under L73C (via 84E) if nothing else. Note use of "must" in L73C. (I think David Burn said the same thing in different words.) Reasonable matters for debate include (IMHO): 1. What lesser finding from the AC would mandate an adjustment? (As we all know, we don't need to find that UI was used in order to adjust.) 2. What evidence might the AC consider in reaching its conclusion? Is the conclusion justified? 3. Should the 6S bid be considered a LA for purposes of L16A? (In the ACBL, it seems clear, but what about in countries that follow a 25% or similar rule?) 4. What should the adjustment be (230, 680, split +230/-680, other)? 5. Should there be a PP? How big? What does it depend on? 6. Is the first paragraph above a matter of law for purposes of L93B? (I vote for "yes.") There may be others. > From: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca (A. L. Edwards) > This was a club championship Swiss Team of 4 (22 teams), therefore imps. > NS had a filled out convention card and were playing 1NT=11-14. > I thought that the South hand was worth a game try, especially at > imps, vulnerable. On balance, I tend to agree that South is worth a game try, but _only_ at IMPs, vulnerable. This is a perfect topic for AC judgment, though; I would not presume to second guess a committee on this question. I'm still wondering what North was thinking when he opened 1NT. The fact that NS were not playing a variable range makes it less likely that North simply forgot his range, although of course it is possible. If North could convince me that (for example) the AQ of clubs were hidden when he opened 1NT and showed up later, I'd be prepared to rule that the UI didn't suggest one LA over another. I'm not quite sure what evidence I'd find convincing, but I'd want to ask. Evidently the AC rejected this possibility. Again I would not second guess their judgment on this question, but it's reasonable to discuss how such a decision might be reached. From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 04:48:47 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA16982 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 04:48:47 +1100 Received: from minerva.pinehurst.net (root@minerva.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA16977 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 04:48:41 +1100 Received: from pinehurst.net (pm3-13.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.203]) by minerva.pinehurst.net (8.8.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id MAA10281 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 12:48:30 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <34C3934F.172ACDA6@pinehurst.net> Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 12:54:23 -0500 From: "Nancy T.Dressing" Reply-To: nancy@pinehurst.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge laws Subject: Alan's ad Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Thanks to all who sent me Alan's email ad. Including Alan himself. It has helped. Nancy From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 05:13:00 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA17097 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 05:13:00 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA17090 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 05:12:53 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA21872 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 10:12:48 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id KAA02384; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 10:15:20 -0800 Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 10:15:20 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801191815.KAA02384@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve Willner wrote: |What a minute here, folks! The AC decided that UI was in fact used. |We can see that this use resulted in damage. These two facts mandate |an adjustment under L73C (via 84E) if nothing else. Note use of "must" |in L73C. (I think David Burn said the same thing in different words.) Right. It's clearcut. An adjustment is in order. We can argue that UI was not used, that North did something insane for reasons of his own, but I, personally, won't buy that the reasons had nothing to do with UI. I belive that North was deliberately trying to take advantage of UI. Perhaps heavy-handedly and insanely, but he was *trying* to take advantage. That's just not allowed. |Reasonable matters for debate include (IMHO): My opinions: |1. What lesser finding from the AC would mandate an adjustment? (As we |all know, we don't need to find that UI was used in order to adjust.) This is a very general question. L73 says simply that when a player has UI, he must avoid taking advantage of it. L16 says that one may not base action on UI. I think that's the bottom line: if you base your action or take advantage of UI in any way, your opponents get redress if they are damaged by it. L16 further adds the logical alternative stuff---in many cases that is a harsher standard than above, I think, but we all are famililar with that. |2. What evidence might the AC consider in reaching its conclusion? Is |the conclusion justified? Any evidence at all with the exception that I think ACs shouldn't try to entrap players, particularly with confusing lines of questioning. ACs are fully allowed to believe (and rule on the basis of) someone's lying. I have seen an AC entrap a player. He was confused and may have ended up damning himself when he was not guilty, simply by not understanding the question. ACs should be careful to ensure that this does not happen; it's common that players answer questions other than those asked, although usually because they want to say something else, not because they are confused. On the other hand, a good actor can sometimes convince an AC of something implausible. ACs need to step back and reflect on whether they are being had as well. I've seen this happen, too. In any case, if an AC rules on the basis of some extraneous factor that makes their decision seem strange, I think it is very very important that they include that reason in their write-up. I have, for example, reported for an AC that appeared on first glance to have blundered badly. But I noted that when we asked the offender what he was thinking, he calmly stated (in his own words) that he was trying to take advantage of UI. |3. Should the 6S bid be considered a LA for purposes of L16A? (In the |ACBL, it seems clear, but what about in countries that follow a 25% |or similar rule?) I think it should not; it's only "logical" within the context of a player's possessing UI. By the ACBL guidelines, of course, it is. But so is psyching wildly, taking nullo defensive lines, and other aberrations. I don't think it matters, however, because any action that tries to take advantage of UI is illegal, regardless of whether or not it is a logical alternative. If it damages the NOS, they get redress. For what it's worth, I asked another player, "the auction went blah, blah, blah, ... , what is going on?" He said, "the opener has four spades, 18 HCP, and is cheating. And 6S was insane anyway." He had not heard of the hand. |4. What should the adjustment be (230, 680, split +230/-680, other)? 680. In the US, at any form of scoring, I think the South hand is worth a game try, even white at matchpoints. The reason is that the field is going to make a game try on a possibly different auction; indeed, the field might be bidding game on its own (if the auction goes 1C-1S; 2S, South will bid 4S). Red at IMPs, passing 2S is silly. In places where weak NTs are common, where South's passing 2S might get him only a mildly below-average result when he's wrong, then it might be sensible to pass. In the US, if game is making, N/S is getting a zero, because very few play weak NTs. So, it's worth a small risk (of going down in 2NT) to get back to even with the field. Does the half of the partnership who is used to playing weak NTs know this? Probably. Is passing 2S a LA? Not red at IMPs. For an inexperienced player, at other conditions, yes. With Flight B players involved, my reasoning is that South is going to think, "I have 12 points (10 HCP plus two for shortness) so I have to make a game try." To believe he won't means that one has to believe that he's very conservative for a Flight B player. Frankly, I doubt many Flight B players would even consider passing 2S, and very very few, if any, would seriously consider it. Some Flight A players would, but not Flight B players. This is moot, however, because 2S is not a logical alternative. The systemic restriction not to superaccept is on weak NTers, not on strong ones. Since North wasn't playing weak NTs, he is not compelled to consider failing to superaccept, which would be ludicrous. Yes, there might be some Flight B players who would consider bidding 2S only, but can they be seriously considering their cards? I, personally, would bid 4S (assuming no UI) with those cards. Would I adjust the score if North bid 4S? While 4S is the right bid, 3S is a logical alternative and 4S is suggested over 3S by the UI, so he can't make it. South would bid game over 3S, though, so the result would be 4S making six. All in all, it seems really unlikely that N/S are going to miss a 27 HCP game on these cards, even given the initial error. It'd take two at-least-fairly unlikely actions. After all, they claimed six; since they were only underbidding by an ace or so systemically, it seems unlikely that they'd miss game when with the cards they purported to have, they'd probably make five. |5. Should there be a PP? How big? What does it depend on? Maybe. Standard size around here (California) is 1/4 board for normal cases, more if outrageous and the committee/director thinks the offender needs to be taught a lesson, and much more if the AC feels that the offender knew he was flouting the laws. In one case, we argued about a 52-board PP. It was fully-deserved, in my opinion: the offender calmly told his partner to lead a club while partner was tanking. When the director gave him average minus, he appealled. Such gall should not go unpunished. We ended up giving him much less than that, sadly. In general, however, in Flight B events or lower, we don't give PPs because the players are assumed not to be experienced enough to know better. In the most flagrant of cases, where the offender had to know he was doing something wrong, we might do it. In the case in question, the offender was quite likely one of the best players in the room. (It was a club championship swiss, and the player was a "high Flight B player," which, at least around here, means that he'd be among the top players there.) In that case, I'd be tempted to award a small PP to educate the whole room, since no one else there would get one. |6. Is the first paragraph above a matter of law for purposes of L93B? |(I vote for "yes.") I think it generally doesn't make sense to call any UI case a matter of law because judgment has to be set first---was the action based on UI? What are the logical alternatives, etc.? Since the nuts and bolts of the decision will be judgments, not laws, an AC should be called. |I'm still wondering what North was thinking when he opened 1NT. The |fact that NS were not playing a variable range makes it less likely |that North simply forgot his range, although of course it is possible. Seems pretty obvious that he just forgot. Anyone who'd deliberately psych 1NT with this hand needs his head examined or has UI of other sorts that he's misanalyzed. (If an expert of my acquaintance bid this way without the UI we know about, I'd assume he overheard, "the slam only makes from the North side.") That didn't happen here, surely. |If North could convince me that (for example) the AQ of clubs were |hidden when he opened 1NT and showed up later, I'd be prepared to rule |that the UI didn't suggest one LA over another. I'm not quite sure |what evidence I'd find convincing, but I'd want to ask. That argument would need some serious convincing to float. "So you opened an 11-card hand?" "I was distracted; I was being paged to the phone at the time," might do, but it'd take something like that. |Evidently the AC rejected this possibility. Again I would not second |guess their judgment on this question, but it's reasonable to discuss |how such a decision might be reached. Right. Moreover, the director is the one who did the fact-finding at the table, and if he didn't mention the possibility of extenuating circumstances, they should not be assumed. --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 05:18:58 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA17130 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 05:18:58 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA17124 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 05:18:53 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA22358 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 10:18:48 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id KAA02396; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 10:21:15 -0800 Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 10:21:15 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801191821.KAA02396@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman wrote: > But I suspect that this North has some bridge-laws knowledge (or so he > thinks) and that he's trying to fool the TD into letting him have this > wild shot. And he succeeded ! I doubt it. Seems much more likely that he just panicked. The AC would know, though; if he tried to convince me that 6S was just a random insanity and thus didn't fit the LA rules, I'd slap him with a massive PP and a very stern lecture about trying to abuse the laws. I'd start by reading him the part about "must carefully avoid taking any advantage...." --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 06:38:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA17400 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 06:38:09 +1100 Received: from imo11.mx.aol.com (imo11.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.165]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA17394 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 06:38:02 +1100 From: AlLeBendig Message-ID: Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 12:14:20 EST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In a message dated 98-01-16 13:07:23 EST, Jeff writes: > By the ACBL's definition, 6S is a logical alternative. > Their definition of LA is "an action that some [of the > player's peers] would seriously consider." Given that > the action was taken by one of the player's peers (him), > we have prima facie evidence that it would be seriously > considered. Our Laws Commission gave us the following definition of a logical alternative: An action which some number of a player's peers would seriously consider in a vacuum. I know it can be argued that 1 player represents "some number". By definition, zero qualifies as "some number". However, the intent was that "some number" represent more than one and less than a lot. They intentionally did not want to quantify this concept. They were unhappy that ACs were trying to judge LAs by the old 25% guideline and were permitting many more actions than they thought should be allowed. ACs seemed to have gotten in a mode whereby they would look at an issue and, since the "winning" action was now obvious, four of five would believe that they would have come up with the winning bid which meant that the losing action was not a LA. I disagree with Jeff (rare) that just because this player made this 6S bid it is a LA. Suppose he had leaped to 7S and it had scored. Would Jeff still want to identify it as a LA? And what's more, the UI clearly suggests that bidding 2S may be a serious error but it does NOT demonstrably suggest that 6S is the winning action! Therefore, I see no way to adjust this score by using L16A. For the 6S bidder, I would want to issue a procedural penalty for violating Law 73C. The size of the PP would depend on whether or not 6S made. In the given case, I would have no trouble accepting anywhere from 1/2 to a full board PP. Even if partner tabled some random 7 count and 6S went -3, I would still want to issue a PP on top of their zero (1/4 board). The fact that these players are rated as "high Flight B" is good enough for me to feel that they should know better. And if they aren't aware of their error in judgement, I'll bet they won't make the same mistake again. Not in the near future. As to a score adjustment, I agree with Steven Barnfield that the only way to accomplish this end is to use L84E. I feel that there is no other way to approach "equity" for the NO. In attempting to determine an adjustment, I would have to believe that if a player chose to open this hand a strong NT and heard his partner transfer to spades, he would not ever consider bidding 2S. We're told they're not playing "super accepts" (doesn't a jump here speak for itself?), in which case I would accept that a player would leap to 4S. Even if I accepted a 3S bid, it would be raised to game. Therefore, if I were to adjust, I would adjust to 4S+6. I think that 2S+6 is not a realistic adjustment. I'm still not positive I would make any adjustment beyond the PP. In bridge, we know that players often take long shots. When they stick, TOUGH. That's how I classify this result. Alan LeBendig From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 06:43:07 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA17432 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 06:43:07 +1100 Received: from u1.farm.idt.net (lighton@u1.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.10]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA17427 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 06:43:02 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u1.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA07809 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 1998 14:42:53 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 14:42:52 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u1.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <199801191815.KAA02384@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Mon, 19 Jan 1998, Jeff Goldsmith wrote: [snip] > > In general, however, in Flight B events or lower, we don't > give PPs because the players are assumed not to be experienced > enough to know better. > I keep seeing the argument, both here, on RGB, and in Appeals Committee Books. I believe it is badly wrong. In the ACBL, a flight B player is at least a Life Master. Even with the ACBL's generous handouts of master points, it takes time to get to be a life master. I doubt if many players have done it in less than a year starting from scratch (foreign imports don't count), and if they have they have either played a LOT of bridge or have played with a very good partner, who should have taught better. Anyone who has played that much in a short space of time has probably read enough to know better. We aren't talking about not knowing some obscure part of the Alert Chart or Convention Charts here. We are talking about the Laws. A "high flight B" player has 450+ masterpoints in almost any competition in ACBLand, and might be 1400+ in some competitions. Anyone with this many masterpoints IS experienced. They may not be any good, but that is not relevant--and the worse they are, the more experience they have had. Leniency on these matters for someone with more than 200 masterpoints needs extenuating circumstances. If they had acquired them all in clubs, I might agree that they had been badly educated, but that's about the only excuse. Bobby Goldman has proposed an ethics exam for promotion to Life Master. That would leave Appeals Committees with no excuse for thinking someone with 1000 masterpoints was "too inexperienced" to know better. -- Richard Lighton | 950 masterpoints Wood-Ridge NJ | Lots of experience USA | Questionable ability From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 08:11:24 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA18093 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 08:11:24 +1100 Received: from imo18.mx.aol.com (imo18.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.175]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA18088 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 08:11:18 +1100 From: KRAllison Message-ID: <80ceb83a.34c3bfdf@aol.com> Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 16:04:29 EST To: bnewsr@blakjak.demon.co.uk, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David, How nice of you to share this encouraging email from Shelagh Paulsson. I had the word that Selassie was doing well when I played at the January sectional in Toronto, but this is icing on the cake!! Karen From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 08:33:54 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA18196 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 08:33:54 +1100 Received: from imo19.mx.aol.com (imo19.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.176]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA18191 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 08:33:49 +1100 From: KRAllison Message-ID: <77075c41.34c3c2eb@aol.com> Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 16:17:29 EST To: hermandw@innet.be, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman, << On the painting behind my computer (a reproduction of a Breughel) there are 5 dogs and 6 pigs but no cats. >> It is possible to leave the painting :-) or add to it one with the appropriate animal in it. Karen From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 11:18:54 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA18828 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 11:18:54 +1100 Received: from sand.global.net.uk (root@sand.global.net.uk [194.126.82.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA18823 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 11:18:47 +1100 Received: from vnmvhhid (client278b.globalnet.co.uk [195.147.27.139]) by sand.global.net.uk (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id AAA14941 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 00:18:36 GMT From: "Anne Jones" To: Subject: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 00:14:30 -0000 Message-ID: <01bd2538$60bf7bc0$LocalHost@vnmvhhid> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0006_01BD2538.60BF7BC0" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0006_01BD2538.60BF7BC0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Trusting that if Jim thought there was more to this, then there probably = was, I decided to give it some thought . =20 If 1NT -P-P-2C shows the majors, then the only way to play in 2C is to = make an insufficient bid, which when corrected to a conventional bid, = silences partner. Law 27(2) =20 I would be looking at Law 23 and if necessary awarding an adjusted score = in accordance with Law 72.B.1 =20 Anne =20 ------=_NextPart_000_0006_01BD2538.60BF7BC0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Trusting that if Jim thought there = was more to=20 this, then there probably was, I decided to give it some thought = .
 
If 1NT -P-P-2C shows the majors, = then the only=20 way to play in 2C is to make an insufficient bid, which when corrected = to a=20 conventional bid, silences partner. Law  27(2)
 
I would be looking at Law 23 and if necessary = awarding an=20 adjusted score in accordance with Law 72.B.1
 
Anne
 
------=_NextPart_000_0006_01BD2538.60BF7BC0-- From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 11:29:06 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA18861 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 11:29:06 +1100 Received: from sand.global.net.uk (root@sand.global.net.uk [194.126.82.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA18856 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 11:28:57 +1100 Received: from default (client8388.globalnet.co.uk [194.126.83.136]) by sand.global.net.uk (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id AAA15627; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 00:28:42 GMT From: "Grattan Endicott" To: "AlLeBendig" , Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 00:28:48 -0000 Message-ID: <01bd253a$5fe4c140$LocalHost@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk gester@globalnet.co.uk Grattan Endicott Liverpool L18 8DJ : -----Original Message----- From: AlLeBendig To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: 19 January 1998 21:16 Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity >In a message dated 98-01-16 13:07:23 EST, Jeff writes: > >> By the ACBL's definition, 6S is a logical alternative. >> Alan Le B remarked:. > >Our Laws Commission gave us the following definition of a logical alternative: > An action which some number of a player's peers would seriously >consider in a vacuum. { \x/ \x/ I have cat-strated much \x/ \x/ } #### Curiouser and curiouser. Do you not think that when we say 'from among logical alternative actions' in Law 16 we are talking about logical alternative actions to the action chosen? I base a view that such is the case upon the precise wording adopted in Law 16A2 : "When a player has substantial reason to believe that an opponent who had a logical alternative has chosen an action that could have been suggested by....etc." It will be noted that there is no suggestion in this wording that the action chosen has to be logical, the question being whether there is at least one logical alternative to it. In pursuance of 16A2 a Director who judges that a player has made use of UI has only then to find a breach of Law 73C in order to award an adjusted score. ####Grattan#### From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 13:17:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA19100 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:17:09 +1100 Received: from imo18.mx.aol.com (imo18.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.175]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA19095 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:17:04 +1100 From: AlLeBendig Message-ID: Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 21:04:40 EST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In a message dated 98-01-19 19:59:07 EST, Grattan writes: > >In a message dated 98-01-16 13:07:23 EST, Jeff writes: > > > >> By the ACBL's definition, 6S is a logical alternative. > >> > Alan Le B remarked:. > > > >Our Laws Commission gave us the following definition of a logical > alternative: > > > An action which some number of a player's peers would seriously > >consider in a vacuum. > > > { \x/ \x/ I have cat-strated much \x/ \x/ } > > #### Curiouser and curiouser. Do you not think that when we say > 'from among logical alternative actions' in Law 16 we are talking about > logical alternative actions to the action chosen? Of course we are including hte realm of choices. > I base a view that such is the case upon the precise wording adopted > in Law 16A2 : "When a player has substantial reason to believe that an > opponent who had a logical alternative has chosen an action that could have > been suggested by....etc." It will be noted that there is no suggestion > in > this wording that the action chosen has to be logical, the question being > whether there is at least one logical alternative to it. I respectfully disagree, Grattan. That is not the way I read L16. I agree that there is no suggestion that the action chosen has to be logical. I don't believe I that in any way. However, with every reference in this Law to the choices a player may or may not make, it is clear that the UI must have in some way suggested an action before we disallow that action. I am maintaining that the UI in this case in no way suggests that 6S is going to be the winning action. It is clear that the UI demonstrably suggests that bidding 2S is a mistake. But the hand makes it crystal clear that bidding 2S is a mistake. > In pursuance of 16A2 a Director who judges that a player has made > use of UI has only then to find a breach of Law 73C in order to award an > adjusted score. ####Grattan#### Even the wording in L16A2 (...that an opponent who had a logical alternative has chosen an action THAT COULD HAVE BEEN SUGGESTED BY SUCH INFORMATION [obviously my emphasis]...) makes it clear to me that adjusting this result based on this Law would be an error. I did not say I disagreed with an adjustment. I was not sure I would make one although every bone in my body wants to do so. A violation of L73C does not address an adjustment. Violating this Law does (IMO) clearly allow me to issue a PP against the player who made the bid. However, I could clearly make any reasonable adjustment I wanted to based on L84E. I have seen many cases where the UI suggests that some bid is right. If a player chooses some successful action and pass is a LA, we impose the pass without dealing with whether or not the specific bid chosen was demonstrably suggested by the UI. I feel this is much different as I see no possibility that the UI even remotely (let alone demonstrably) suggests 6S will be right. Without such a suggestion, I cannot condone an adjustment based on L16. Alan LeBendig From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 13:54:35 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA19241 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:54:35 +1100 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 NAA19236 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:54:29 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa22498; 19 Jan 98 18:53 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 19 Jan 1998 21:04:40 PST." Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 18:53:33 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801191853.aa22498@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > I have seen many cases where the UI suggests that some bid is right. If a > player chooses some successful action and pass is a LA, we impose the pass > without dealing with whether or not the specific bid chosen was demonstrably > suggested by the UI. But I think the same logic can be applied in this case. The UI suggests that some abnormal, non-systemic rebid is right (i.e. any bid other than 2S or a super-accept). So I think we can impose a normal systemic bid without dealing with whether or not the specific abnormal bid (in this case 6S) was demonstrably suggested by the UI. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 13:55:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA19248 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:55:09 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA19243 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:55:02 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1012654; 20 Jan 98 2:53 GMT Message-ID: <5cOFDUAa9Ax0EwGZ@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 02:43:38 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias In-Reply-To: <34C09245.64C2C2DE@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: [k] >David, please read the original case again. >Suppose (as AC) you decide TD has got it wrong. The bid was not 'as >fast as Quango' and the alert 'somewhat late'. >Now award your score given all these facts. >Please explain how you will awards an AS. >Remember that both sides ought to be considered as non-offending. I really think, Herman, that this article of yours has ceased to come under the notion of "fair debate". I have said what I have said about the desirability of giving illegal rulings. In reply you asked me "how I would assign a score to each side". I did the only thing possible and made up a set of circumstances. You tell me those circumstances are wrong. How you know when the hand was not originally yours, I do not understand, but I bow to your greater knowledge. OK. I shall be happy to show you how to give an accurate assigned score on the actual hand. Kindly publish the full hand and I shall do so. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 14:02:51 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA19308 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 14:02:51 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA19303 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 14:02:43 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1012653; 20 Jan 98 2:53 GMT Message-ID: Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 02:29:04 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk AlLeBendig wrote: [k] >In bridge, >we know that players often take long shots. When they stick, TOUGH. That's >how I classify this result. You just think it TOUGH when the chance of a longshot improving your score is made greater by UI? -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 14:07:52 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA19347 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 14:07:52 +1100 Received: from acsys.anu.edu.au (acsys [150.203.20.41]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA19342 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 14:07:47 +1100 Received: from acrobat (acrobat.anu.edu.au [150.203.20.55]) by acsys.anu.edu.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA13473 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 14:07:46 +1100 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19980120140722.0093e100@acsys.anu.edu.au> X-Sender: markus@acsys.anu.edu.au X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 14:07:22 +1100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: owner-bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au (by way of Markus Buchhorn ) Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk [Yet another example of majordomo being too damn smart - a line beginning with the word 'which' (ignoring whitespace) is a majordomo command.... -Markus] Nancy T.Dressing wrote: > Too late the bid is condoned Nancy - Which Law? --------- Anne Jones wrote: >Trusting that if Jim thought there was more to this, then there probably was, I >decided to give it some thought . > >If 1NT -P-P-2C shows the majors, then the only way to play in 2C is to make an >insufficient bid, which when corrected to a conventional bid, silences partner. >Law 27(2) > >I would be looking at Law 23 and if necessary awarding an adjusted score in >accordance with Law 72.B.1 This is always a possible use of an insufficeint bid, as in 4NT signoff: if you bid an insufficient 3D before your 4NT partner will not progress! However, there was nothing of this sort here. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 16:18:20 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id QAA19663 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 16:18:20 +1100 Received: from camel8.mindspring.com (camel8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.58]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA19658 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 16:18:05 +1100 Received: from mike (ip223.baltimore7.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.12.183.223]) by camel8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA16119 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 00:17:55 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980120001753.006c600c@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 00:17:53 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 09:04 PM 1/19/98 EST, Alan wrote: >In a message dated 98-01-19 19:59:07 EST, Grattan writes: > >> #### Curiouser and curiouser. Do you not think that when we say >> 'from among logical alternative actions' in Law 16 we are talking about >> logical alternative actions to the action chosen? > >Of course we are including hte realm of choices. > >> I base a view that such is the case upon the precise wording adopted >> in Law 16A2 : "When a player has substantial reason to believe that an >> opponent who had a logical alternative has chosen an action that could have >> been suggested by....etc." It will be noted that there is no suggestion >> in >> this wording that the action chosen has to be logical, the question being >> whether there is at least one logical alternative to it. > >I respectfully disagree, Grattan. That is not the way I read L16. I agree >that there is no suggestion that the action chosen has to be logical. I don't >believe I that in any way. However, with every reference in this Law to the >choices a player may or may not make, it is clear that the UI must have in >some way suggested an action before we disallow that action. I am >maintaining that the UI in this case in no way suggests that 6S is going to be >the winning action. It is clear that the UI demonstrably suggests that >bidding 2S is a mistake. But the hand makes it crystal clear that bidding 2S >is a mistake. > >> In pursuance of 16A2 a Director who judges that a player has made >> use of UI has only then to find a breach of Law 73C in order to award an >> adjusted score. ####Grattan#### > >Even the wording in L16A2 (...that an opponent who had a logical alternative >has chosen an action THAT COULD HAVE BEEN SUGGESTED BY SUCH INFORMATION >[obviously my emphasis]...) makes it clear to me that adjusting this result >based on this Law would be an error. I did not say I disagreed with an >adjustment. I was not sure I would make one although every bone in my body >wants to do so. A violation of L73C does not address an adjustment. >Violating this Law does (IMO) clearly allow me to issue a PP against the >player who made the bid. However, I could clearly make any reasonable >adjustment I wanted to based on L84E. > >I have seen many cases where the UI suggests that some bid is right. If a >player chooses some successful action and pass is a LA, we impose the pass >without dealing with whether or not the specific bid chosen was demonstrably >suggested by the UI. I feel this is much different as I see no possibility >that the UI even remotely (let alone demonstrably) suggests 6S will be right. >Without such a suggestion, I cannot condone an adjustment based on L16. > >Alan LeBendig > I am glad to see two such eminent authorities in agreement over what really should be a non-issue, i.e., whether the actual action chosen need be a LA for the application of L16. The wording is less clear than it might be on this point, but certainly the intent must be to disallow any potential advantage from the use of UI, even when an illogical alternative happens to pay off. However, I must respectfully take issue with their eventual conclusions. Both conclude that 2S is such a clearly awful bid that it cannot be considered as an LA. But the fact is that 2S is the ONLY DEFINED ALTERNATIVE in this partnership style. It is automatic. It is systemic. It also happens to be completely wrong, but that should not be considered a barrier for this particular player. Not only did he forget his partnership methods here, apparently treating this as a 15-17 NT, but in choosing 1NT he badly mis-evaluated the hand. Playing 15-17, 1NT would only be bid by a player of very poor judgement. In the class of all such players (not necessarily a trivially small grooup), would not some of these make the "automatic" systemic response of 2S? Of course! Then 2S is a LA, certainly by the ACBL's broad definition and maybe even applying the quantitative measures in use elsewhere. Once we define 2S as a LA, then the case for adjusting to +230 becomes fairly clear-cut. It is true that even with the UI, 6S is hardly a favorite. But, based on the UI, North realizes that he can never hope to get partner's useful collaboration. Partner will pass 2S or even 3S with many hands on which game is cold, and with a somewhat better hand (e.g., the actual hand), slam could easily be missed after "only" a 4S bid. In other words, the UI tells North that a) 2S is very likely wrong and b) any success will be the result of a wild guess by North. Thus the UI suggests that any number of spades greater than 2 is more likely to succeed. Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 17:11:43 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA19782 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 17:11:43 +1100 Received: from pent.sci-nnov.ru (pent.sci-nnov.ru [193.125.71.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA19774 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 17:10:09 +1100 Received: from nip.sci-nnov.ru (nip.sci-nnov.ru [193.125.70.58]) by pent.sci-nnov.ru (8.8.5/Dmiter-4.1) with ESMTP id JAA10444 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 09:09:39 +0300 (MSK) Message-Id: <199801200609.JAA10444@pent.sci-nnov.ru> From: "Sergei Litvak" To: Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 09:09:14 +0300 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=KOI8-R Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jeff Goldsmith wrote: > Steve Willner wrote: > > |What a minute here, folks! The AC decided that UI was in fact used. > |We can see that this use resulted in damage. These two facts mandate > |an adjustment under L73C (via 84E) if nothing else. Note use of "must" > |in L73C. (I think David Burn said the same thing in different words.) > > Right. It's clearcut. An adjustment is in order. > We can argue that UI was not used, that North > did something insane for reasons of his own, but > I, personally, won't buy that the reasons had nothing > to do with UI. I belive that North > was deliberately trying to take advantage of UI. > Perhaps heavy-handedly and insanely, but he was > *trying* to take advantage. That's just not allowed. > I would like to know first about the reasons. If N forgot NT range may be you are right in adjusting. But 4225 shape with 17 points instead of 11-14 give me another oppperunity. If he tried to psych in this way than no adjustment should be given. \\snip rest // > --Jeff > # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of > # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? > # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. > # --Watterson > # --- > # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff Sergei Litvak, Chief TD of RBL. From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 21:04:53 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA20421 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 21:04:53 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA20416 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 21:04:40 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2025304; 20 Jan 98 9:58 GMT Message-ID: Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 09:54:18 +0000 To: Stephen_Barnfield@europe.notes.pw.com Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <199801190940.EAA26659@fern.us.pw.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801190940.EAA26659@fern.us.pw.com>, Stephen_Barnfield@eur ope.notes.pw.com writes >I hope we all know the hand. > >I don't think L16A applies in this case, since, to me, 6S is not a LA. > Labeo: Question, please? If my aunt Evelyn were to put out for Jemima the cat four dishes of logical milk and one dish of illogical (but tasty) cream, and Jemima lapped up the cream, would Jemima have chosen 'from among logical alternative' dishes of milk the illogical (but tasty) cream? Anti-cat Philistines may use a monkey, a banana, and four turnips. Is the grammatickle construction of Law 16A not satisfied by Jemima's action? -- Labeo From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 21:55:11 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA20555 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 21:55:11 +1100 Received: from mh1.omnitel.net (mail@mh1.omnitel.net [205.244.196.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA20549 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 21:54:59 +1100 Received: from (perkunas.omnitel.net) [205.244.196.2] (root) by mh1.omnitel.net with esmtp; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 12:57:14 +0200 Received: from VytautasRekus.omnitel.net (din12.omnitel.net [205.244.196.161]) by perkunas.omnitel.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA45760 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 12:54:59 +0200 Received: by VytautasRekus.omnitel.net with Microsoft Mail id <01BD25A2.CAE9EDE0@VytautasRekus.omnitel.net>; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 12:56:15 +-200 Message-ID: <01BD25A2.CAE9EDE0@VytautasRekus.omnitel.net> From: Vytautas Rekus To: "'bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au'" Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 12:55:19 +-200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk A. L. Edwards wrote: |Brd 36 S AT96 |Both vul H A7 W N S E |Dlr: W D 53 P 1NT(1) P 2H(2) | C AKQ43 P 6S P P | P |S J82 S 3 |H T432 H KQJ96 (1) announced as 11-14hcp |D AT2 D J876 (2) announced as transfer to spades |C J62 C 975 | | S KQ754 | H 85 result: 6S making, +1430 NS | D KQ94 ruling: 4S+2, +680 NS | C T8 | | The table consisted of high flight B players. | I was called to the table by West. He suggested that | North might have bid 6S because he was supposed | to have only 11-14hcp. | | He now knew by his partner's explanation that he had considerably more. | Surely? Does somebody can proof (except N by himself), that he did not know that before he opened 1NT? If not, I'm too blind to see any crime. I'd read L75B for EW and leave ANY result to stand. "Sorry, guys, you're just fixed..." ...but I'd like to meet more such opponents at the table. Kind regards, Vytautas Rekus IBM_LIT_TC@post.omnitel.net Vilnius, Lithuania From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 22:00:41 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA20599 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 22:00:41 +1100 Received: from mh1.omnitel.net (mail@mh1.omnitel.net [205.244.196.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id WAA20593 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 22:00:31 +1100 Received: from (perkunas.omnitel.net) [205.244.196.2] (root) by mh1.omnitel.net with esmtp; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:02:47 +0200 Received: from VytautasRekus.omnitel.net (din12.omnitel.net [205.244.196.161]) by perkunas.omnitel.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA32502 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:00:27 +0200 Received: by VytautasRekus.omnitel.net with Microsoft Mail id <01BD25A3.8ACB05E0@VytautasRekus.omnitel.net>; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:01:37 +-200 Message-ID: <01BD25A3.8ACB05E0@VytautasRekus.omnitel.net> From: Vytautas Rekus To: "'bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au'" Subject: Strange 7 Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:01:36 +-200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Some time ago, when I was young and beautiful (now I'm only beautiful = :-) ), the story happened: KJ10xxxx KQx - KQx x x Jxxx xxx AKxxx Jxxxxx xxx Jxx AQxx Axx Qx Axxx Dealer S, Vul: NS S N 1NT 2H 2S 4NT 6C 6S 7S pass EW passed everytime. 1NT =3D 13-15; 2H =3D transfer; 2S =3D I haven't = superaccept (could be 3S showing 4 trumps or 2NT showing 2 high cards in = spades and maximum); 4NT =3D RKCB; 6C =3D 3 of 5 Aces and Q of spades; = 6S =3D to play; 7S =3D after some thought W leads DA, dummy spreads, you are called. You listen to the facts, let = the play to continue, but there's nothing to play. S opens his cards = explaining - "I ruff high, draw both trumps and take everything". EW agree that there were no breaks in tempo during the bidding, except = the pause before 7S bid, but bidding looks strange. You ask NS for comments: N - "Well, I looked quickly to my cards, I saw a lot of spades and bid = the transfer, delaying the final decision" (There was the last deal of = the Swiss team competition and there were about only 3 minutes left for = the deal). "When I looked more closely, I found myself in the bag - we = have no slam bidding discussed in such sequence, my previous bid must be = game forcing 3S. So I bid 4NT and later decided not to risk the grand, = because I don't know, which Ace is missing" S - "Well, I counted my hand as bad 16 HCP and decided not to open 1C = (Precision, 16+). I did not show superaccept, because both 3S and 2NT = are too high against partner's 0 HCP. To have the game for our side, = partner must have game try - in that case I'd bid the game. Before the = 4NT partner can not expect me having more than Qx,Jxx,KQxx,AJxx or = something like that. If he's ready to win 5S with the such kind of my = hand, I can not imagine, how we can lose 7S with the hand, I actually = have. That's the reason, I bid 7." You decision? Kind regards, Vytautas Rekus IBM_LIT_TC@post.omnitel.net Vilnius, Lithuania From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 20 23:50:22 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA20987 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 23:50:22 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA20982 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 23:50:15 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-210.uunet.be [194.7.13.210]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA05263 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:50:09 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34C49660.F5E0AB44@innet.be> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:19:44 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Multiple dilemias X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <5cOFDUAa9Ax0EwGZ@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > > > OK. I shall be happy to show you how to give an accurate assigned > score on the actual hand. Kindly publish the full hand and I shall do > so. > Could Bruce please provide us with a more complete hand record, including the actual auction he chose, and the result on the deal ? -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 00:19:45 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA23387 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 00:19:45 +1100 Received: from coconut.tc.pw.com (coconut-ext.tc.pw.com [131.209.1.104]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA23382 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 00:19:40 +1100 From: Stephen_Barnfield@europe.notes.pw.com Received: by coconut.tc.pw.com; id FAA26762; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 05:17:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from unknown(10.9.16.60) by coconut.tc.pw.com via smap (3.2) id xma026751; Tue, 20 Jan 98 05:16:46 -0800 Received: by fern.us.pw.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id IAA07383; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 08:18:17 -0500 Message-Id: <199801201318.IAA07383@fern.us.pw.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Tue, 20 Jan 98 13:11:28 GMT Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Labeo wrote: >In message <199801190940.EAA26659@fern.us.pw.com>, Stephen_Barnfield@eur >ope.notes.pw.com writes >>I hope we all know the hand. >> >>I don't think L16A applies in this case, since, to me, 6S is not a LA. >> >Labeo: Question, please? > > If my aunt Evelyn were to put out for Jemima the cat > four dishes of logical milk and one dish of illogical > (but tasty) cream, and Jemima lapped up the cream, > would Jemima have chosen 'from among logical alternative' > dishes of milk the illogical (but tasty) cream? > > Anti-cat Philistines may use a monkey, a banana, and > four turnips. > > Is the grammatickle construction of Law 16A not satisfied > by Jemima's action? I'm afraid I don't think so. From recollection I used to argue otherwise, but have changed my mind over a period of years, mainly following (a long time after) debates with David Burn. At present I am comfortable with this conclusion, since I think L84E requires an adjusted score to be awarded "it there is even a reasonable possibility that the non-offending side was damaged". I have not yet noted any views contrary to this: if I were convinced by such contrary expressions, then I would be less comfortable. Steve Barnfield Tunbridge Wells, England From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 00:30:05 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA23429 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 00:30:05 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA23424 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 00:29:59 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab1024120; 20 Jan 98 13:18 GMT Message-ID: <+1AMJCAL6Jx0Ew0R@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 12:54:35 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Strange 7 In-Reply-To: <01BD25A3.8ACB05E0@VytautasRekus.omnitel.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Vytautas Rekus wrote: >You decision? It is not impossible that two people take strange action on the same hand. Anyway, it is difficult to find an infraction. If there is one, I suppose it is: [a] UI from partner that opponents did not see But what? It is difficult to think of anything that suggests bidding a Grand, for example. [b] Pure cheating A signal to show the diamond void. [c] UI from elsewhere The player has overheard a comment about a Grand from the other table but has not reported it. [c] seems the only likely possibility. However, the hands are not strong enough evidence that this is what happened. Furthermore even this is unlikely if the hands are not copied around the room, and the only other people to play it are his team-mates some distance away. I would rule that there is no infraction so no adjustment. I would tell the pair that a record is being kept of the hand. My best guess? Totally innocent. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 00:32:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA23447 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 00:32:08 +1100 Received: from coconut.tc.pw.com (coconut-ext.tc.pw.com [131.209.1.104]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA23442 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 00:32:01 +1100 From: Stephen_Barnfield@europe.notes.pw.com Received: by coconut.tc.pw.com; id FAA27876; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 05:29:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from unknown(10.9.16.60) by coconut.tc.pw.com via smap (3.2) id xma027849; Tue, 20 Jan 98 05:29:26 -0800 Received: by fern.us.pw.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id IAA10081; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 08:30:55 -0500 Message-Id: <199801201330.IAA10081@fern.us.pw.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Tue, 20 Jan 98 13:24:13 GMT Subject: Re: Strange 7 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk IBM_LIT_TC@post.omnitel.net wrote: >Some time ago, when I was young and beautiful (now I'm only beautiful :-) ), the story happened: hand omitted. I can see no reason to adjust the score: what was the infraction? On the face of it NS were lucky. There is no adjustment for being lucky, unless there is an infraction, thank goodness. As TD, if I were worried I'd record the hand. Steve Barnfield Tunbridge Wells, England From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 02:55:01 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA24026 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 02:55:01 +1100 Received: from freenet1.carleton.ca (root@freenet1.carleton.ca [134.117.136.20]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA24021 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 02:54:50 +1100 Received: from freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (ac342@freenet6.carleton.ca [134.117.136.26]) by freenet1.carleton.ca (8.8.8/8.8.8/NCF_f1_v2.02) with ESMTP id KAA05359 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 10:54:25 -0500 (EST) Received: (ac342@localhost) by freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (8.8.5/NCF-Sun-Client) id KAA29989; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 10:55:20 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 10:55:20 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801201555.KAA29989@freenet6.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> From: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca (A. L. Edwards) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Strange 7 Reply-To: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Let me get this straight: the result looks strange, but not that strange,and there is no apparent UI and no MI? Since I can't see any legal (or, really, any moral) reason to adjust, I consider giving the opps who complain a DP for being such poor sports and wasting my time. Of course, if instead the opps come to me later to fill in a report sheet, I'll gladly help them out... Tony (aka ac342) From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 03:48:32 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA24355 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 03:48:32 +1100 Received: from Amnesix.UQSS.UQuebec.ca (Amnesix.UQSS.UQuebec.CA [192.77.51.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA24348 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 03:48:26 +1100 Received: from ldubreui.uqss.uquebec.ca by Amnesix.UQSS.UQuebec.ca with SMTP (1.37.109.24/15.6) id AA048354784; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 11:46:24 -0500 Message-Id: <34C4D676.D86@UQSS.UQuebec.CA> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 11:53:10 -0500 From: Laval Dubreuil X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold [fr] (Win95; I) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: Laval_DuBreuil@UQSS.UQuebec.CA Subject: Becoming a director in the ACBL Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I was suprised to read the message of Grant Sterling saying that ACBL Club Director's exam is easy and that two the hour time limit is more than adequate. Despite the fact that I was strongly prepared (having published a book illustrating laws) I found that it was a good exam and took 2.5 hours to fill it. May be I am not as clever than I thought... May be not... I understand now that I was one of lucky club directors, 3 or 4 years ago, that complete an other sort of exam. Most questions explained something happenning at the table (Insufficent bid, bid out of turn, X of pd, etc...) and we had to give our ruling (in full english). An important part of the exam was on counting boards (averages, foul board, etc..) (done by computers now). I can imagine why ACBL returned to the old form of exam (too difficult for some poeple, lack of club directors, too long to correct, etc..) but I am not sure it is a good decision for future club directors and for bridge developpement. To filled correctly the former exam, in the time limit prescribed, you had to know laws (no time to search for each answer and complete questions concerning boards). If the club director exam is as easy as it was 10 years ago, we will continue to see some directors not able to apply basics laws, and players realy confused when we try to do our job correctly. Laws are essential to maintain pleasant bridge, even at the club level. I hope (but I doubt) ACBL will returned the kind of exam my wife and I had to filled (on the supervision of a tournament director), and think club directors should need additionnal training to deal with questions like alerting, UI, artificial scores, etc... Laval Club director Quebec City From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 05:15:19 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA24704 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 05:15:19 +1100 Received: from dfw-ix2.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix2.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.2]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA24699 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 05:15:13 +1100 Received: (from smap@localhost) by dfw-ix2.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id MAA03658; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 12:14:35 -0600 (CST) Received: from 32.harrisburg-01.pa.dial-access.att.net(12.68.179.32) by dfw-ix2.ix.netcom.com via smap (V1.3) id rma003599; Tue Jan 20 12:14:04 1998 Received: by 32.harrisburg-01.pa.dial-access.ATT.NET with Microsoft Mail id <01BD25A4.E6CCFD20@32.harrisburg-01.pa.dial-access.ATT.NET>; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:11:21 -0500 Message-ID: <01BD25A4.E6CCFD20@32.harrisburg-01.pa.dial-access.ATT.NET> From: Craig Senior To: Bridge Laws Mailing List , "'Richard Lighton'" Subject: RE: An Appeal to Insanity Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:11:19 -0500 Encoding: 65 TEXT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk While agreeing almost entirely with your post, I must take exception to the belief that a Flight B player must be a life master. There are many players of decent quality without the opportunity to travel who lack gold (or even silver--ugh) points, but whose quality of play and desire for competition make them Flight B (and in many cases even strat B on a 300/1000/unl). This does not excuse them from learning the rules and demonstrating good ethics. This North was trying to get away with something in all likelihood, and a PP would be justified, if for no other reason than to educate him. (Taking him out to be shot is far too harsh, however. If it were a money game and he tried that degree of sharpness he might be in a bit more danger.) I think 6S is an LA is our venue, so could adjust on that basis. But restoring equity under the other laws would be equally acceptable. 4S+2 (i.e. making 6) seems automatic red at imps. ---------- From: Richard Lighton[SMTP:lighton@idt.net] Sent: Monday, January 19, 1998 9:42 AM To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity On Mon, 19 Jan 1998, Jeff Goldsmith wrote: [snip] > > In general, however, in Flight B events or lower, we don't > give PPs because the players are assumed not to be experienced > enough to know better. > I keep seeing the argument, both here, on RGB, and in Appeals Committee Books. I believe it is badly wrong. In the ACBL, a flight B player is at least a Life Master. Even with the ACBL's generous handouts of master points, it takes time to get to be a life master. I doubt if many players have done it in less than a year starting from scratch (foreign imports don't count), and if they have they have either played a LOT of bridge or have played with a very good partner, who should have taught better. Anyone who has played that much in a short space of time has probably read enough to know better. We aren't talking about not knowing some obscure part of the Alert Chart or Convention Charts here. We are talking about the Laws. A "high flight B" player has 450+ masterpoints in almost any competition in ACBLand, and might be 1400+ in some competitions. Anyone with this many masterpoints IS experienced. They may not be any good, but that is not relevant--and the worse they are, the more experience they have had. Leniency on these matters for someone with more than 200 masterpoints needs extenuating circumstances. If they had acquired them all in clubs, I might agree that they had been badly educated, but that's about the only excuse. Bobby Goldman has proposed an ethics exam for promotion to Life Master. That would leave Appeals Committees with no excuse for thinking someone with 1000 masterpoints was "too inexperienced" to know better. -- Richard Lighton | 950 masterpoints Wood-Ridge NJ | Lots of experience USA | Questionable ability From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 05:47:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA24821 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 05:47:09 +1100 Received: from smtp5.nwnexus.com (smtp5.nwnexus.com [206.63.63.43]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA24816 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 05:46:59 +1100 Received: from chinook.halcyon.com (bbo@chinook.halcyon.com [198.137.231.20]) by smtp5.nwnexus.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id KAA07677; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 10:46:42 -0800 Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 10:46:45 -0800 (PST) From: Barbara and Richard Odlin Reply-To: Barbara and Richard Odlin cc: "Kaye M. Krebs" , bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <34c329d3.2807161@news.fiber-net.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I don't have the exact hands left on this, we are supposed to know them by now. :) But all the time this has been going on, I have been tempted to ask, "What if....?" What if the NT opener missed a high spade in his initial count of the hand, and thought he was a 13-point 4-2-2-4! Well, we have all done it a time or two. Then when partner's announcement and transfer come back to him, it cannot be said that the announcement woke him up at all! He made his original bid on what he mistakenly saw. He woke up when he fanned the hand again and the AS came into view. Now wouldn't he be allowed to take any action he wanted without being accused of ch...ing and denounced as a user of "UI"? I didn't write these thoughts to the group, here, being lazy this month. However, a post in another forum brings up practically the same problem, and perhaps needs airing here as well as on OKB-discuss. Here it is! ---------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 12:43:43 -0500 From: "Kaye M. Krebs" To: discuss@OKbridge.Com Subject: Win or Lose? Playing in the top bracket of the knockouts at the Richmond Regional on Friday, I held the following hand: AQx/Kx/AQxxxx/Jx It reminded me of a hand I'd held the previous day where I had a six card minor, 15 highs, but was wide open in both majors so opened it 1D. The opponents opened it 1NT and settled in 3NT; we lost imps by playing in a part score after a competitive auction. "Not this time, I thought", and placed the 1NT card on the table. Then, to my horror, I looked at the vulnerability and saw that we were white. We're playing 10-12 NT's in the first three seats at this vul. Partner announced "10-12" and, after some hesitation, bid 3NT. To bid 3NT opposite a 10-12 NT, partner has to have a strong NT herself. Obviously, I can't make a quantitative raise on this auction, so I bid 6NT. With three pairs of raised eyebrows, LHO led a club and partner tabled : xx/xx/x/AKQ10xxxx On the club A, RHO discarded the 2 of hearts (UPCA). It looks like the heart A is right, so I just have to decide which K to finesse at trick 2 to make the slam. I picked the wrong one and we lost the match. Our opponents said they would have protested my 6NT bid if I'd made the slam. The opponents seemed confident we would have lost in a committee. What do you think? From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 05:55:21 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA24879 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 05:55:21 +1100 Received: from minerva.pinehurst.net (root@minerva.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA24874; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 05:55:10 +1100 Received: from pinehurst.net (pm4-09.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.230]) by minerva.pinehurst.net (8.8.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id NAA19603; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:55:02 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <34C4F465.C4BD247D@pinehurst.net> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 14:00:53 -0500 From: "Nancy T.Dressing" Reply-To: nancy@pinehurst.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "by way of Markus Buchhorn " CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress References: <3.0.32.19980120140722.0093e100@acsys.anu.edu.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk by way of Markus Buchhorn wrote: > [Yet another example of majordomo being too damn smart - a line beginning with > the word 'which' (ignoring whitespace) is a majordomo command.... -Markus] > > Nancy T.Dressing wrote: > > > Too late the bid is condoned Nancy > > - Which Law? > > Law 27 A --------- > > >snip> > > > > >I would be looking at Law 23 and if necessary awarding an adjusted score in > >accordance with Law 72.B.1 > > This is always a possible use of an insufficeint bid, as in 4NT > signoff: if you bid an insufficient 3D before your 4NT partner will not > progress! However, there was nothing of this sort here. > > -- > David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ > Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ > bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= > Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 06:30:54 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA24975 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 06:30:54 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA24969 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 06:30:48 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA24135; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 14:30:50 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id OAA08713; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 14:30:49 -0500 Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 14:30:49 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801201930.OAA08713@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Cc: kayeva@erols.com X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Barbara and Richard Odlin > What if the NT opener missed a high spade in his initial count...? The AC should have heard evidence on this question. If they did accept this view, their assessment of LA and "suggested over another" might be different. In fact, their conclusion was that UI was used. We were not given enough information to decide for ourselves. > From: "Kaye M. Krebs" >... placed the 1NT card on the table. Then, to my horror, I > looked at the vulnerability and saw that we were white. >From the point of view of the TD (and AC), there is no way to tell whether you "woke up" before partner's announcement or because of it. Your legal position is the same either way. You have UI (the announcement, not to mention partner's hesitation) and are not allowed to take any action it suggests if there is any LA that was not suggested. (The rules, incidentally, were different before 1987. I'm not sure whether the ruling here would differ or not, but the standard of judgment would be different. This is not really relevant except that a few of us would like to go back to the old rules.) On the facts presented, the UI seems to suggest bidding, and passing 3NT seems to be a LA (absent the UI), so I think ruling the score back had slam made would be automatic. If you were experienced enough to be expected to know better, I'd also expect a PP, which should have been imposed even when the slam didn't make. This may seem harsh, but you have to realize that your legal position is based on the cards and events at the table, not on what you were actually thinking. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 07:22:49 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA25245 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 07:22:49 +1100 Received: from cshore.com (cshore.com [206.165.153.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA25240 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 07:22:44 +1100 Received: from [130.132.145.68] ([130.132.145.68]) by cshore.com with SMTP (IPAD 2.03/64) id 4957000 ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 15:23:51 EST Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 15:21:32 -0500 To: David Stevenson From: bills@cshore.com (Bill Segraves) Subject: Re: Strange 7 Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Message-Id: <199801202023.4957000@cshore.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David S. wrote: [snip] >[c] UI from elsewhere > The player has overheard a comment about a Grand from the other table >but has not reported it. > > [c] seems the only likely possibility. However, the hands are not >strong enough evidence that this is what happened. Furthermore even >this is unlikely if the hands are not copied around the room, and the >only other people to play it are his team-mates some distance away. I had a similar reaction. Would you look at the case any differently if this were a pairs event? Bill Segraves From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 08:19:03 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA25665 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 08:19:03 +1100 Received: from camel14.mindspring.com (camel14.mindspring.com [207.69.200.64]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA25660 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 08:18:57 +1100 Received: from mike (ip166.baltimore6.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.12.182.166]) by camel14.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA17474 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 16:18:51 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980120161853.006c671c@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 16:18:53 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: References: <34c329d3.2807161@news.fiber-net.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 10:46 AM 1/20/98 -0800, you wrote: > >I don't have the exact hands left on this, we are supposed to know them >by now. :) But all the time this has been going on, I have been tempted >to ask, "What if....?" > >What if the NT opener missed a high spade in his initial count of the >hand, and thought he was a 13-point 4-2-2-4! Well, we have all done it >a time or two. Then when partner's announcement and transfer come back >to him, it cannot be said that the announcement woke him up at all! He >made his original bid on what he mistakenly saw. He woke up when he >fanned the hand again and the AS came into view. Now wouldn't he be >allowed to take any action he wanted without being accused of ch...ing >and denounced as a user of "UI"? > Too bad! I am not inclined to call anyone a cheater, or denounce their actions. But the fact is that this particular player did have UI, to the effect that his partner was expecting a hand about an A weaker. He also had a LA (2S) and the UI had the effect of making 6S more attractive, relative to 2S, than it would be without the UI. Law 16 applies, and the appropriate redress is to adjust the score to NS +230. Is your scenario possible? Of course! Quite possibly this player recognized his error the moment the 1 nt card hit the table, without the benefit of partner's comment. It's also possible he would have remembered on his own. It is even possible, if quite far-fetched, that this player was psyching a weak nt with these cards. But it is also quite possible, perhaps even more likely, that he was alerted to his mistake by partner's explanation about the range. It is against this latter possibility that the Laws seek to indemnify the non-offenders. The tone of your comments (and others in the same vein) seems to be that we should ask North about what he was thinking when he bid 1NT and at what point he became aware of the discrepancy between his hand and his bid. Presumably, if North presents a sufficiently plausible innocent explanation, similar to the one you've developed, then we should let him off the hook. In a world where all players were honest (with themselves, firstly), this would be preferable to the formulaic approach provided for in the Laws. But then in such a world many of the laws, and particularly those related to UI, would be superfluous. There are several problems with relying on players' accounts of their own motivations in evaluating such situations. The first is that it creates a perverse incentive structure. Players who can concoct a good story are rewarded for lying, while those who are honest will be punished for it. TD's and AC's aren't necessarily adept at sorting out who is telling the truth, especially as regards internal thought processes, so there is no reason to suppose that an honor system would lead to greater equity. But the biggest reason to eschew considerations of self-reported motivations in favor of a more objective approach (ala L16) is that it makes it much easier to enforce the Laws effectively. Take the present example. If we ask North for his reasoning, or even evince any interest in the matter, and then later rule against him in spite of some lame-sounding story about why he bid the way he did, we are as much as declaring him a liar and a cheat. This is very hard to do! It is quite possibly very unfair to North, who may after all have been innocent of anything worse than very poor bidding. But the very severity of such a finding also means it will be much more difficult to rule against North if he provides any defense at all. Much better is the objective analysis prescribed in the Laws. When North protests (perhaps truthfully) that he NEVER took advantage of UI, that he (whatever)... , we are well-positioned to respond, "We understand. But given the facts of this case and the relevant law, we have no choice but to adjust the score. It is an automatic sort of thing, exactly like the penalty for a revoke." North's honor remains unimpeached, and the integrity of the game is protected (to the extent possible) against those who would play unethically. >I didn't write these thoughts to the group, here, being lazy this month. >However, a post in another forum brings up practically the same problem, >and perhaps needs airing here as well as on OKB-discuss. Here it is! > >---------------------------------------- > >Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 12:43:43 -0500 >From: "Kaye M. Krebs" >To: discuss@OKbridge.Com >Subject: Win or Lose? > >Playing in the top bracket of the knockouts at the Richmond Regional on >Friday, I held the following hand: > >AQx/Kx/AQxxxx/Jx > >It reminded me of a hand I'd held the previous day where I had a six >card minor, 15 highs, but was wide open in both majors so opened it 1D. >The opponents opened it 1NT and settled in 3NT; we lost imps by playing >in a part score after a competitive auction. "Not this time, I >thought", and placed the 1NT card on the table. Then, to my horror, I >looked at the vulnerability and saw that we were white. We're playing >10-12 NT's in the first three seats at this vul. Partner announced >"10-12" and, after some hesitation, bid 3NT. To bid 3NT opposite a >10-12 NT, partner has to have a strong NT herself. Obviously, I can't >make a quantitative raise on this auction, so I bid 6NT. With three >pairs of raised eyebrows, LHO led a club and partner tabled : > >xx/xx/x/AKQ10xxxx > >On the club A, RHO discarded the 2 of hearts (UPCA). It looks like the >heart A is right, so I just have to decide which K to finesse at trick 2 >to make the slam. I picked the wrong one and we lost the match. Our >opponents said they would have protested my 6NT bid if I'd made the >slam. The opponents seemed confident we would have lost in a committee. >What do you think? > I believe you 100%, but if I were on a committee hearing your appeal, you would not get my vote. See the arguments above. Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 09:59:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA25958 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 09:59:29 +1100 Received: from mail.inter.net.il (root@parker.inter.net.il [205.164.141.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA25952 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 09:59:20 +1100 Received: from internet-zahav.net (Hertzelia-198-83.access.net.il [192.116.198.83]) by mail.inter.net.il (8.8.6/8.8.6/PA) with ESMTP id WAA26935; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 22:20:46 +0200 (IST) Message-ID: <34C508A0.1374AC70@internet-zahav.net> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 22:27:12 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: "lobo@ac.net"@ac.net Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity - My real problem References: <3HL2EAA5hfw0Ew+L@coruncanius.demon.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=x-user-defined Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk During the last year I met the case bellow , as a TD and player at many Barometer tournaments : At last round , people at table 2/3/4 bid advertent crazy bids in order to try to get better results and win the first place . Examples : they redouble when no reasonable reason , bid 6 or 7 contract , "out of the blue" etc...... In 90% of events the opponents get an outstanding result which "balistrate" them to the first place ; the natural winners , who played seriously and normally the last boards loose their first place. I don't think it is a law question ??( maybe yes ??) but I feel we have here a real problem/trouble . I will be thankfully to get the forum's advices and suggestions. Dany N.B. - Even Rosario couldn't help me Labeo wrote: > > In message <199801180622.BAA01090@primus.ac.net>, Linda Weinstein > <"lobo@ac.net"@ac.net> writes > >. What if 6S had been down a couple? Would the > >Director have been called to get the E/W score changed from -200 to > >-680? > > > No, sorry, that is *not* a valid point; in those circumstances there > would be no damage to opponents. > -- > Labeo From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 10:18:14 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA26072 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:18:14 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA26067 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:18:03 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA04837 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 15:17:55 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id PAA04069; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 15:20:31 -0800 Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 15:20:31 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801202320.PAA04069@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity - My real problem Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity - My real problem Dany wrote: |During the last year I met the case bellow , as a TD |and player at many Barometer tournaments : |At last round , people at table 2/3/4 make crazy bids |in order to try to get better results and win the first place . |[and it often works.] That's not a problem; it is a feature. Barometer events are fun because you know how you are doing and can try something crazy to get to first place. --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 10:48:44 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA26162 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:48:44 +1100 Received: from mineshaft.odi.com (mineshaft.odi.com [198.3.16.17]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA26157 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:48:38 +1100 Received: from mastermind.odi.com by mineshaft.odi.com (5.65c/SMI-4.0/ODI-5) id AA13895; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 18:48:03 -0500 Received: from heinz.odi.com (heinz.odi.com [198.3.19.59]) by mastermind.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI2.2) with ESMTP id SAA06087 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 18:48:01 -0500 (EST) Received: from heinz (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by heinz.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI1.1) with SMTP id SAA08834 for ; Tue, 20 Jan 1998 18:47:58 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <34C537AD.552B@odi.com> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 18:47:57 -0500 From: "QQSV (Dick Wagman)" Organization: Object Design, Inc. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4c) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity References: <9801191853.aa22498@flash.irvine.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk A. L. Edwards wrote: > Brd 36 S AT96 > Both vul H A7 W N S E > Dlr: W D 53 P 1NT(1) P 2H(2) > C AKQ43 P 6S P P > P > S J82 S 3 > H T432 H KQJ96 (1) announced as 11-14hcp > D AT2 D J876 (2) announced as transfer to spades > C J62 C 975 > > S KQ754 > H 85 result: 6S making, +1430 NS > D KQ94 ruling: 4S+2, +680 NS > C T8 > > The table consisted of high flight B players. (snip) > The committee agreed that there was UI. They agreed > that UI was used. They decided, however, that the 6S call > was in no way a logical alternative suggested by the UI > (the appeal chairman called it "insane") and therefore > permissible. They ruled 6S making, +1430 NS. > What do you think of the a) director's ruling > b) committee's ruling I posted my rather long reply to Tony's post last week, in which I argued that the score should stand because (greatly summarized and much detail omitted) nothing about the action so far gave North any special knowledge about South's hand (in particular, that 6S was likely to be the correct contract) and that North's hand (the super strong, control rich, offshape notrump) gave North the same information that the unauthorized info did, namely that North should try to place the contract immediately rather than solicit cooperation. I have a couple of comments about some of the subsequent postings, and one additional thought about what North might have actually been doing that (to date) has not yet been suggested elsewhere. Since I posted, many others have written arguing for various sorts of adjustments. One posting (that I've quoted in part) by Adam Beneschan is typical of these posts: > The UI suggests that some abnormal, non-systemic rebid is right (i.e. > any bid other than 2S or a super-accept). So I think we can impose a > normal systemic bid without dealing with whether or not the specific > abnormal bid (in this case 6S) was demonstrably suggested by the UI. I am dismayed that Adam and others have not addressed a question which seems to me to very important in this situation: What did North's hand say? If North's hand says that "some abnormal, non-systemic rebid is right", then the fact that the unauthorized info also says the same thing should be irrelevant. North should be allowed to bid what his hand says. I see no justification in the laws for forcing North to ignore what his own hand is shrieking to him; that, after all, is totally authorized info. Another, by David Stevenson (responding to Alan LeBendig), expresses an attitude which seems to be widely shared: > > In bridge, we know that players often take long shots. When they > > stick, TOUGH. That's how I classify this result. > > You just think it TOUGH when the chance of a longshot improving your > score is made greater by UI? David (and others similarly) have not, in my opinion, demonstrated that the unauthorized info improved the chance of success of the long shot. Absent the unauthorized info, the long shot was wild; in the presence of the unauthorized info, it's still wild. The unauthorized info does say that a cooperative auction will be impossible, but so does his hand. Net result: the unauthorized info just confirms what North already knows, namely, that he'll have to place the contract and hope for the best. So I agree with Alan on this. I see nothing in the laws that allow East-West to avoid being unlucky (if that's all it was.) Although I agree with the committee's ultimate result, there is surely one thing about their result that seems totally bogus. That is the finding that unauthorized info was used, in conjunction with the decision to let the score stand. That seems quite wrong. Either there was no use of unauthorized info (score stands), or there was such use (adjust the score.) Their actual combination seems misguided. As for Tony's initial ruling as director, I'd say he got it right, particularly given the discussion that we've seen here. (Perhaps, though, he should have clarified the law about use of unauthorized info to the committee.) Finally, a few people have wondered what North might have been thinking. Steve Willner, for instance: > I'm still wondering what North was thinking when he opened 1NT. The > fact that NS were not playing a variable range makes it less likely > that North simply forgot his range, although of course it is possible. There is one scenario that actually could explain this: had North been playing the Romex system recently? If so, the North hand looks to me like a very fine Dynamic Notrump: five losers and rich in controls. Tony didn't mention this possibility in his original posting, and it would be somewhat unusual for flight B players to be doing this. But if there was evidence that North had that in mind, that would change everything. Now 2H is a perfectly normal response to 1NT (and in most styles it shows something other than spades.) I would completely swing my vote around in that case: adjust the score (I'm not sure what to; it's quite possible that North would have to make some artificial bid that South would pass, so it could be much worse than +230) and seriously consider a procedural penalty. Under these circumstances, North's hand no longer says that anything unilateral is justified. --Q From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 12:10:23 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA26378 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:10:23 +1100 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 MAA26373 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:10:04 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa28373; 20 Jan 98 17:09 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 20 Jan 1998 18:47:57 PST." <34C537AD.552B@odi.com> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 17:09:13 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801201709.aa28373@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > A. L. Edwards wrote: > > > Brd 36 S AT96 > > Both vul H A7 W N E S > > Dlr: W D 53 P 1NT(1) P 2H(2) > > C AKQ43 P 6S P P > > P > > S J82 S 3 > > H T432 H KQJ96 (1) announced as 11-14hcp > > D AT2 D J876 (2) announced as transfer to spades > > C J62 C 975 > > > > S KQ754 > > H 85 result: 6S making, +1430 NS > > D KQ94 ruling: 4S+2, +680 NS > > C T8 > > > > The table consisted of high flight B players. It's occurred to me that Tony never clarified what he meant by "high". There's at least one meaning of the term that would possibly explain North's notrump opening and subsequent rebid. :) > I posted my rather long reply to Tony's post last week, in which I > argued that the score should stand because (greatly summarized and > much detail omitted) nothing about the action so far gave North any > special knowledge about South's hand (in particular, that 6S was > likely to be the correct contract) and that North's hand (the super > strong, control rich, offshape notrump) gave North the same information > that the unauthorized info did, namely that North should try to place > the contract immediately rather than solicit cooperation. The sad news is, I have partners that think this way, i.e. they'd rather place the contract themselves rather than solicit cooperation. In fact, I'm still mad at one who blasted 3NT with a void in a suit I never showed anything in, when there was a much better bid available. Anyway, since it's possible for South to have a Yarborough, I don't see a good reason for North to violate system. Then again, I can't imagine ever opening this hand 1NT regardless of my notrump range, so maybe it's too hard for me to come up with a notrump opener that would *ever* violate the system at its rebid. Notrump openers are supposed to be limited, and they're generally not supposed to be this suit-oriented IMHO, so within those parameters, it's hard to imagine ever needing to take unilateral action after opening 1NT. . . . > Since I posted, many others have written arguing for various sorts > of adjustments. One posting (that I've quoted in part) by Adam Beneschan > is typical of these posts: > > > The UI suggests that some abnormal, non-systemic rebid is right (i.e. > > any bid other than 2S or a super-accept). So I think we can impose a > > normal systemic bid without dealing with whether or not the specific > > abnormal bid (in this case 6S) was demonstrably suggested by the UI. > > I am dismayed that Adam and others have not addressed a question which > seems to me to very important in this situation: What did North's > hand say? If North's hand says that "some abnormal, non-systemic rebid > is right", then the fact that the unauthorized info also says the same > thing should be irrelevant. North should be allowed to bid what his > hand says. Perhaps, but there's no way that North's hand says 6S. I think you're making a case for allowing a 4S bid by North (although I still wouldn't agree). But certainly not 6S. > I see no justification in the laws for forcing North to > ignore what his own hand is shrieking to him; that, after all, is > totally authorized info. The Laws don't agree with you. If a certain number of your peers (the number depends on what continent you're on) believe that your hand is just whispering, instead of shrieking, then other bids become Logical Alternatives and you're constrained by Law 16A. > Another, by David Stevenson (responding to Alan LeBendig), expresses an > attitude which seems to be widely shared: > > > > In bridge, we know that players often take long shots. When they > > > stick, TOUGH. That's how I classify this result. > > > > You just think it TOUGH when the chance of a longshot improving your > > score is made greater by UI? > > David (and others similarly) have not, in my opinion, demonstrated that > the unauthorized info improved the chance of success of the long shot. But there's nowhere in the Laws that says that an action actually has to improve your chances. If your action is suggested by UI, it's illegal, even if it's stupid. Here, although 6S is a long shot, North can tell from the unauthorized information that there's a very good chance that a normal action would (because of the misunderstanding) lead to a contract that is below where it should be. I think North was looking at a significant loss (either 170 vs 620 or 680 vs 1430), and was trying to get it back. It seems perfectly reasonable to me to think that North thought he had more to gain than to lose with the long shot. > Absent the unauthorized info, the long shot was wild; in the presence > of the unauthorized info, it's still wild. The unauthorized info does > say that a cooperative auction will be impossible, but so does his hand. If you believe that any hand (without an eight-card suit or freak distribution) says that a cooperative auction is "impossible", please don't try playing with me. To me, there's almost no such thing, especially with a relatively commonplace distribution like 5-4-2-2. > Net result: the unauthorized info just confirms what North already knows, > namely, that he'll have to place the contract and hope for the best. I doubt you'd ever find an AC of experts to agree that North's only choice, assuming they were actually playing 15-17 or 16-18, would be to place the contract. To me, the *only* reason North has for thinking that he "[has] to place the contract and hope for the best" is that North knows there's a system misunderstanding. === Side note: Regarding the partner I mentioned above, he recently told me that when he was a baby, his parents played social bridge, and their rule was that whoever was the dummy got to hold him. It just occurred to me that nobody would be holding him during the auction, so perhaps that's why he has such a strong urge to get the auction over with quickly??? :) -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 15:03:30 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA26742 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:03:30 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA26737 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:03:07 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1018772; 21 Jan 98 3:58 GMT Message-ID: <$6d8aZA+9Wx0Ewk0@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 03:46:06 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <199801201930.OAA08713@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve Willner wrote: >The AC should have heard evidence on this question. If they did accept >this view, their assessment of LA and "suggested over another" might be >different. In fact, their conclusion was that UI was used. Was it? It is time this term was put to bed. When UI becomes available from partner then certain actions become illegal, and a player who takes such an illegal action should expect an assigned adjustment in favour of the opponents if they are damaged. But that does not suggest that such a player *used* the UI. He may have been unaware of it [he certainly claims to be enough of the time!]: he may have been aware of it but not understand the Law: he may have been aware but considered there was no LA to his call: he may .... We adjust when a call is illegal because UI was present: but we do not care nor decide whether the UI was *used*. There is an exception to this principle. If a TD/AC consider that a player who should know better blatantly *used* UI then they might issue a PP. That is the one time that the use of UI should be considered. But the *use* or otherwise should never be considered for adjusting scores. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 15:05:30 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA26756 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:05:30 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA26751 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:05:10 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2029781; 21 Jan 98 3:58 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 03:56:09 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Strange 7 In-Reply-To: <199801202023.4957000@cshore.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Bill Segraves wrote: >> [c] seems the only likely possibility. However, the hands are not >>strong enough evidence that this is what happened. Furthermore even >>this is unlikely if the hands are not copied around the room, and the >>only other people to play it are his team-mates some distance away. [k] >I had a similar reaction. Would you look at the case any differently if >this were a pairs event? *I* don't usually: I trust people, possibly too much. Certainly the hand from the Year End Congress in London that I thought funniest was this one: Kx KQ109xxxx x QJ 1H by LHO, 2D by CHO, Sputnik X by RHO. What do you bid? The player passed, to see what would happen. What happened was that partner went off in 2Dx with 5H making! I just thought it was the best timed psyche for a long time: my colleagues started wondering if anything had been overheard. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 15:06:45 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA26772 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:06:45 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA26767 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:06:37 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1018776; 21 Jan 98 3:58 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 03:50:55 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > > A few interesting rulings occurred in this EBU competition. I thought >we had sorted out all the problems attendant on Insufficient Bids >corrected before the TD arrives, when Jim Proctor [one of the EBU's >leading TDs] got a new wrinkle! > > 1NT Pass Pass 1C! > > You can't, says someone! > > Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. > > Pass from the 1NT opener. > > **Now** they call the TD !!!!! > > I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! > I wonder if I could just possibly get a little interest in this problem? Do you all consider it so routine that it is not worth commenting? Herman has produced a facetious reply, no help there. Anne has produced a sinister reply, but her fears are groundless. Nancy has tried to produce a sensible reply, but I am not quite sure that she has realised the problem. If you are really not interested, fine. But if you have not answered because it is so obvious, perhaps you would just like to tell BLML the answer? -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 17:45:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA27156 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 17:45:08 +1100 Received: from freenet1.carleton.ca (root@freenet1.carleton.ca [134.117.136.20]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA27151 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 17:44:58 +1100 Received: from freenet5.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (ac342@freenet5.carleton.ca [134.117.136.25]) by freenet1.carleton.ca (8.8.8/8.8.8/NCF_f1_v2.02) with ESMTP id BAA26558 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 01:44:44 -0500 (EST) Received: (ac342@localhost) by freenet5.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (8.8.5/NCF-Sun-Client) id BAA25984; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 01:44:44 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 01:44:44 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801210644.BAA25984@freenet5.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> From: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca (A. L. Edwards) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity Reply-To: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk One of the principles in this case, a member of the NOS, sent the problem/complaint to Gary Blaiss, head of the ACBL directors. He relayed to me the reply: > >-----Original Message----- >From: Gary Blaiss >To: murraygw@compmore.net >Date: January 20, 1998 12:06 PM >Subject: Appeal of Commiittee Decision and Complaint -Reply > > >>I agree with the director's decision. >>There was unauthorized information (the announcement of range is >>unauthorized to partner). >> >>Per Law 16"... the partner may not choose from among logical alternative >>actions one that could demonstrably have been suggested over another >>by the extraneous information." >> >>In my bridge judgment, the bid of 6S was not remotely suggested by the >>auction. >> >>While a player's claim to redress may be looked upon with greater >>scrutiny in cases when the director is not called at the time of the >>irregularity, I would not as a director or committee member determine that >>no redress is available because there was no call at the time of the >>irregularity. Should this be applied (mistakenly in my view), I would still >>adjust the N/S score or issue a procedural penalty to N/S. >> >>The committee, in making a decision that involves bridge jjudgment, >>certainly has the right to judge that the unauthorized information did not >>demonstrably suggest the 6S call and thus reinstate it. When it comes to >>bridge judgment, the committee's decision is inviolate. Even though it may >>be ill-advised or completely wrong. >> >> Oddly enough, I have another problem, for which I need a rather quick answer (the game is Wed. evening!). It has been brought to my attention that the members of the committee, *without any prompting by me, I might add*, have rethought their descision and now want to return the result to 4S+2, +680 NS. Law 92 states that the right to appeal expires 30 minutes after the official score has been posted; it says nothing about how long a committee can take to come to a descision, or whether it can change its mind (a week later!). :-) Has anyone else ever been in this position? All timely advice would be appreciated. Tony (aka ac342) ps. Just a random, playful thought: I wonder where the Rule of Coincidence fits in all this? :-) pps. and why doesn't playful end in 2 ll? :-) :-) From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 18:17:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA27207 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 18:17:29 +1100 Received: from chong.ihug.co.nz (root@chong.ihug.co.nz [203.29.160.10]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA27202 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 18:17:23 +1100 Received: from jatkinsn.ihug.co.nz (p9-max16.auck.ihug.co.nz [202.49.240.9]) by chong.ihug.co.nz (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id UAA23135 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 20:18:27 +1300 Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19980121201128.00684fb0@pop.ihug.co.nz> X-Sender: jatkinsn@pop.ihug.co.nz X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.3 (32) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 20:11:28 +1300 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "J.Atkinson" Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress In-Reply-To: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >> >> 1NT Pass Pass 1C! >> >> You can't, says someone! >> >> Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. >> >> Pass from the 1NT opener. >> >> **Now** they call the TD !!!!! >> >> I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! >> >1. The insufficient bid was pointed out and noone called the TD. 2. Both sides failed in their duty to call TD. 3. The bid was corrected and this was accepted by LHO. 4. At this point presumably someone is upset by the auction and belatedly calls. ( either offenders partner or RHO from the look of it.) 1. Law 9C, the offender is now subject to a further penalty. 2. Law 10B, I can allow or disallow the situation at the table. 3. Law 11A, The right to penalise by NOs maybe forfeited. 4. Law 12B, I could consider an adjusted score if the situation has got to complex for normal play of the board. 5. Law 25B1 refers us directly to Law 27. Under 25B1 presumably I start at the beginning. Give the players all the options and cancel the pass and correction. Irrespective of what the offender bids, his/her partner is going to be barred from the auction. Therefore if the 1C bidder buys the hand I would let any result stand, if the offenders defend, then I would need to assess whether normal play of the board was now possible or not. My normal procedure in these situations is not to penalise for failure to call but to issue a warning in case it occurs again. The other factor I would have to take into account is whether there has been any UI in the process of calling the TD. i.e was somebody happy until the correction was alerted? or was it simply because they became aware of the possible penalties? Julie From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 19:05:03 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA27326 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 19:05:03 +1100 Received: from mail.inter.net.il (root@parker.inter.net.il [205.164.141.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA27321 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 19:04:57 +1100 Received: from internet-zahav.net (Hertzelia-204-111.access.net.il [192.116.204.111]) by mail.inter.net.il (8.8.6/8.8.6/PA) with ESMTP id KAA26831; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:00:07 +0200 (IST) Message-ID: <34C5AC88.B1D81C7A@internet-zahav.net> Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:06:33 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Labeo , "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=x-user-defined Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Dear friends Until now I had one reason to discuss this subject - some adverting crazy bids which totally change the results of a tournament , without any UI .(see my next message) But the moment Labeo tried to compare the clever cats with the "......" bridge players , I couldn't stand anymore. My remarks: 1) The North bid is ,IMHO , a problem for psychiatrist , but no reason to adjust the score. 2) I understood that there was no doubt about the use of an UI by North - it should be penalized , again IMHO ,in such a way that North can't have any advantage from his usage of the UI. I asked Shobo's opinion and he said :".hhhhrrrrrrrr.......". (He doesn't like these behaviors too) Dany Labeo wrote: > > In message <199801190940.EAA26659@fern.us.pw.com>, Stephen_Barnfield@eur > ope.notes.pw.com writes > >I hope we all know the hand. > > > >I don't think L16A applies in this case, since, to me, 6S is not a LA. > > > Labeo: Question, please? > > If my aunt Evelyn were to put out for Jemima the cat > four dishes of logical milk and one dish of illogical > (but tasty) cream, and Jemima lapped up the cream, > would Jemima have chosen 'from among logical alternative' > dishes of milk the illogical (but tasty) cream? > > Anti-cat Philistines may use a monkey, a banana, and > four turnips. > > Is the grammatickle construction of Law 16A not satisfied Is any connection here .... "..tickle" ... to make all of us laugh ??? > by Jemima's action? > > -- > Labeo From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 19:18:55 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA27374 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 19:18:55 +1100 Received: from imo14.mx.aol.com (imo14.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.169]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA27369 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 19:18:49 +1100 From: Mlfrench Message-ID: <7c4f32fe.34c5af5b@aol.com> Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 03:18:33 EST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Zero Tolerance (ZT) Reprised (At Length) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This is ACBL stuff, but all you bridge lawyers outside N. A. might be interested anyway. Besides, some of you do attend NABCs. The ACBL BoD passed the following regulation in November 1986, which is still posted on the ACBL web site under ACBL Conduct Regulations: --Private conversations (which do not include accusations of third party unethical conduct) are not within the ACBL's jurisdiction even if they take place at a tournament site. The way I read this, you can say anything you want to another person as long as it is private and does not impugn the ethics of a third person. I interpret "private" as meaning a one-on-one conversation that nobody else can hear. So, I can quietly say to someone, "I think you're a lousy player and a damn cheat," and it's okay. That's what the regulation says. The introduction of ZT will obviously negate this regulation, which recognized that it is extremely difficult to control private conversations. I suspect that some such difficulty led to the creation of the regulation, which seems rather permissive. ZT seeks to control such conversations "within the playing area before and after each session," so I assume anything still goes in the hallway or outside the building. The ACBL ZT policy, approved in St. Louis for implementation at the Reno NABC, and published on the ACBL web site, states that ZT is in accordance with Laws 74, 80F, 81C4, 90A, 91, and 92A. It defines unacceptable behavior in greater detail than L74: badgering, rudeness, insinuations, intimidation, profanity, threats, violence, negative comments about another's play or bidding, gloating, constant and gratuitous lessons and analyses at the table, or loud and disruptive arguing with a director's ruling. The penalty for such behavior is semi-automatic, 1/3 of a board or 3 IMPs, usually no warning given. What does gratuitous mean here? The word has several meanings, one of which is "unsolicited," which looks like the intent. I presume that this applies to comments aimed at opponents. Surely polite talk with partner that doesn't demean anyone (except, maybe, oneself) is okay. Note the adjective "constant," which implies that an occasional lesson or analysis is okay. The applicable passages in L74 are A1, A2, B2, and B5: A1 - A player should maintain a courteous attitude at all times. A2 - A player should carefully avoid any remark or action that might cause annoyance or embarassment to another player or might interfere with the enjoyment of the game. B Etiquette - As a matter of courtesy, a player should refrain from: B2 - making gratuitous comments during the auction and play. B5 - summoning and adddressing the Director in a manner discourteous to him or to other contestants. L80F permits the ACBL "to publish or announce regulations supplementary to, but not in conflict with, these Laws." L81C4 gives a TD the power to "maintain discipline." L90A, authorizing the TD to assess procedural penalties, really has no connection with the subject of ZT, which concerns conduct, not procedure, but no harm done. L91A gives a TD the power to "assess disciplinary penalties in points or to suspend a contestant for the current session or any part thereof (the Director's decision under this clause is final)." L91B gives a TD the power to "disqualify a contestant for cause, subject to approval by the Tournament Committee or sponsoring organization." The meaning of the word "should," used in L74, is explained in the Preface to the Laws: -- When a player "should" do something..., his failure to do it is an infraction of law, which will jeopardize his rights, but which will incur a procedural penalty only seldom." Since failure to comply with L74 is not one of the offenses listed in L90, Procedural Penalties, the word "procedural" should probably have been omitted in the explanation of "should." L91 seems to be the applicable law for penalizing violations of L74. There have been some arguments posted on RGB concerning this side issue, but I gave up trying to follow them. The Preface goes on to say that violation of a Law that uses the word "shall" in its wording "will be penalized more often than not." Note that even "shall" does not mean penalties are nearly automatic, which would seem to call for "must," which the Preface calls "the strongest word," and "indicates that violation is regarded as serious indeed." When the ACBL says that ZT penalties will be nearly automatic, it is saying in effect that L74 is wrongly worded, that the word "should" ought to have been "must." It appears to me that ZT puts the ACBL in violation of L80F, since ZT's interpretation of "should" conflicts with the Preface's explanation of that word. Since ZT identifies no new offenses, only amplifying the language of L74 in somewhat reasonable fashion, I would like to see ZT policy redefined as being merely (1) the stricter enforcement of existing Laws and (2) a modification of the regulation concerning private discussions. Players should be instructed to call the TD when someone violates L74, with TDs required to be strict and impartial in its enforcement. A strong warning, including a threat to apply L91 in case of a repeated violation, should ensure that penalties will be incurred "only seldom." Those penalties should be up to the judgment of TDs, based on the seriousness of the offenses. That's part of their job. Marv (Marvin L. French, permanent E-mail address mlfrench@writeme.com) From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 21:22:14 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA27733 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 21:22:14 +1100 Received: from coconut.tc.pw.com (coconut-ext.tc.pw.com [131.209.1.104]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA27728 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 21:22:09 +1100 From: Stephen_Barnfield@europe.notes.pw.com Received: by coconut.tc.pw.com; id CAA00504; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 02:19:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from unknown(10.9.16.60) by coconut.tc.pw.com via smap (3.2) id xma000474; Wed, 21 Jan 98 02:19:32 -0800 Received: by fern.us.pw.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id FAA07918; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 05:21:08 -0500 Message-Id: <199801211021.FAA07918@fern.us.pw.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Wed, 21 Jan 98 09:35:41 GMT Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: >David Stevenson wrote: >> >> A few interesting rulings occurred in this EBU competition. I thought >>we had sorted out all the problems attendant on Insufficient Bids >>corrected before the TD arrives, when Jim Proctor [one of the EBU's >>leading TDs] got a new wrinkle! >> >> 1NT Pass Pass 1C! >> >> You can't, says someone! >> >> Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. >> >> Pass from the 1NT opener. >> >> **Now** they call the TD !!!!! >> >> I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! >> > I wonder if I could just possibly get a little interest in this >problem? Do you all consider it so routine that it is not worth >commenting? Herman has produced a facetious reply, no help there. Anne >has produced a sinister reply, but her fears are groundless. Nancy has >tried to produce a sensible reply, but I am not quite sure that she has >realised the problem. > > If you are really not interested, fine. But if you have not answered >because it is so obvious, perhaps you would just like to tell BLML the >answer? I suspect David is looking for a target to shoot at , so here I am. I seem to have discussed L27 a lot in the last few months. From what I remember, the view taken was that, if the TD had been called *before* the 1NT opener's pass then the words "apply L10C1" in L27B2 mean the offender gets a chance to replace his 2C bid after the TD has read L10C1, i.e. after all the options have been explained. Well the TD wasn't called, so what happens now. As ever, the TD not being called straightaway is the source of the best problems. Unless I were satisfied that the 1NT opener were inexperienced (i.e. did not, and should not have, known better) I'd apply L11A (action by non-offending side forfeits right to penalise). Thus no penalty for the insufficient bid. Whilst I don't act much as a TD now, I do sit on appeals from time to time. Any experienced player who came to an appeal as the 1NT opener and asked for an adjustment when they hadn't called the TD straightaway would get very short shrift from me. I know the 1C/2C bidder should have called the TD too, and I might award a PP against him or her, if they were experienced. Overall, however, I do think, as a matter of principle, that the TD should be called straightaway after an infraction, and if the NOs don't do this, then, unless there was good reason for the decision not to do so, L11A should be applied. So that's it: all guns firing. Steve Barnfield Tunbridge Wells, England From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 21 21:46:26 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA27794 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 21:46:26 +1100 Received: from waffle.cise.npl.co.uk (waffle.cise.npl.co.uk [139.143.18.92]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA27782 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 21:45:54 +1100 Received: from tempest.cise.npl.co.uk by waffle.cise.npl.co.uk; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:45:01 GMT Date: Wed, 21 Jan 98 10:45:00 GMT Message-Id: <25006.9801211045@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> From: Robin Barker To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au, bnewsr@blakjak.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David asked for replies to this: > > 1NT Pass Pass 1C! > > You can't, says someone! > > Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. > > Pass from the 1NT opener. > > **Now** they call the TD !!!!! > > I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! I think this should be ruled as a delayed/purposeful change of call. We immediately hit footnote{6} in L25B1 and go to L27. L27B2 applies and we hit the issue of "apply 10C1". The EBU position (David will correct me if I get this wrong) is that "apply 10C1" (when offender's LHO has not called) means cancel any attempted call and read offender his options (as per 10C1) and then allow offender to chose his correcting call. [ I don't read L27B2 this way, but I can follow instructions. :-) RMB ] In this case, when offender's LHO has called before offender has heard his options, we do have a new wrinkle. I would read offender his options and allow him to change his "correction". If he changed his call, I would then allow LHO to change his pass (under L21B1). Then I will apply L16C, to decide what calls are authorised to whom, treating one one side (the side which made the insufficient bid) as offending. Was that easy? Robin Robin Barker, \ Email: Robin.Barker@npl.co.uk Information Systems Engineering, \ Tel: +44 (0) 181 943 7090 B10, National Physical Laboratory, \ Fax: +44 (0) 181 977 7091 Teddington, Middlesex, UK. TW11 0LW \ WWW: http://www.npl.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 01:16:50 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA01105 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 01:16:50 +1100 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 BAA01099 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 01:16:42 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa22004; 21 Jan 98 6:16 PST To: "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: An Appeal to Sanity (!) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 06:16:04 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801210616.aa22004@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk A lot of the discussion about this hand has assumed that 6S is an insane bid that isn't really a "logical alternative". Some have argued that Law 16A therefore doesn't apply, no adjustment should take place, and the opponents have to chalk it up to bad luck. Others have cited other laws, or general principles that one mustn't use UI, to justify adjusting the score. There have been arguments that the spirit of L16A should be followed and not the (badly worded) letter, and there have been arguments that the bid should be considered a LA because one of North's peers (namely, himself) would have considered it. After doing some rethinking, I now believe all the above is unnecessary---because 6S is a demonstrably logical bid, given the UI. Therefore Law 16A does apply. North knows that there's a disagreement about the notrump range; he can therefore conclude that if conducts a normal auction, their side is likely to end up too low, i.e. in a part-score where they belong in game or in game where they belong in slam. I don't know what the probability of this actually is, so I'm going to guess there's an 80% chance of ending too low. This figure is probably high, but I wouldn't know how to compute it, and neither would North, at the table. (North's wild action appears to indicate that he intuitively thought the probability was very good.) So supposing the contract belongs in 4S, and they will get there at the other table. If North takes a normal action, there's an 80% chance they will end in a part-score, for a 10-imp loss. (I didn't factor in the chance that a normal 4S would go down.) So the net imp gain from normal actions is -10*0.8 = -8 imps. With North's wild action, I'm guessing a 10% chance that 6S will make despite the fact that they wouldn't get there at the other table. So 10% of the time, North's action will result in a 13-imp gain, and 90% of the time, a 13-imp loss. (+13)*0.1 + (-13)*0.9 = -10.4. Now suppose the contract belongs in 6S. Here, I'll assume that a normal 6S will go down 10% of the time. So if North takes a normal action, 72% of the time (90% of 80%) there will be a 13-imp loss, 8% of the time (10% of 80%) there will be a 13-imp gain. (-13)*.72+(+13)*.08 = -8.32. On the other hand, North's wild 6S bid would result in a pushed board. So on average, North's wild action costs 2.4 imps (compared to a normal action) when the other table won't be in slam, and gains 8.3 imps when they will. Although this may still be a net loss on average (if game is 4 or more times as likely as slam), the numbers won't too far off. North probably wasn't doing the math anyway, but his intuition could have told him basically the same thing---that a 6S bid has more to gain than it does to lose. So based on this, I don't think 6S should be considered an illogical alternative. It would be illogical if North had no UI; but the UI makes 6S a logical bid, and therefore 6S is clearly illegal and must be disallowed. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 01:41:35 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA01217 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 01:41:35 +1100 Received: from mail.inter.net.il (root@parker.inter.net.il [205.164.141.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA01211 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 01:41:27 +1100 Received: from internet-zahav.net (Hertzelia-204-125.access.net.il [192.116.204.125]) by mail.inter.net.il (8.8.6/8.8.6/PA) with ESMTP id QAA16099 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 16:36:34 +0200 (IST) Message-ID: <34C6096A.DE3B3136@internet-zahav.net> Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 16:42:50 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" Subject: Law 23 - a major change ?? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=x-user-defined Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I read again the 1997 Law book , when someone who tries to translate it asked me a question...... In 1997 release the law 23b vanished ! As much as I understand , if the offender "....could have known....." that his irregularity , dragging a "pass" from his partner , will damage the NOS , then the score can be adjusted . The deleting of paragraph b means that if he couldn't know -> the score STAANDS......(in any case can't be adjusted accordingly to Law 23 !!!). I didn't see any special explanation about this change , neither in Gary Bliss' article either in any other place ..... Was it the lawmakers intention , or I missed a new "improvement" . I don't believe,IMHO, that someone who committed an irregularity , even in an inadvertent way , should get any advantage .... The forum's remarks please . SHOBO .. (who couldn't find another meaning for his master Dany) From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 02:05:23 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA01457 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:05:23 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA01451 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:05:17 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1000067; 21 Jan 98 14:52 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:43:35 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Zero Tolerance (ZT) Reprised (At Length) In-Reply-To: <7c4f32fe.34c5af5b@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Mlfrench wrote: >This is ACBL stuff, but all you bridge lawyers outside N. A. might be >interested anyway. Besides, some of you do attend NABCs. We are *not* Bridge Lawyers in the accepted meaning of the term. >The ACBL BoD passed the following regulation in November 1986, which is still >posted on the ACBL web site under ACBL Conduct Regulations: > >--Private conversations (which do not include accusations of third party >unethical conduct) are not within the ACBL's jurisdiction even if they take >place at a tournament site. This is somewhat illegal, and should therefore be interpreted with commonsense. No regulation can give a player the right to upset another because that is contrary to the Law. [k] >Since failure to comply with L74 is not one of the offenses listed in L90, >Procedural Penalties, the word "procedural" should probably have been omitted >in the explanation of "should." Agreed. > L91 seems to be the applicable law for >penalizing violations of L74. Agreed. [k] >When the ACBL says that ZT penalties will be nearly automatic, it is saying in >effect that L74 is wrongly worded, that the word "should" ought to have been >"must." It appears to me that ZT puts the ACBL in violation of L80F, since >ZT's interpretation of "should" conflicts with the Preface's explanation of >that word. This really does not matter. Because the ACBL has a specific problem they have put the solution stronger than might be technically correct. It is unlikely to harm anyone, and will do good. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 02:11:26 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA01483 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:11:26 +1100 Received: from pimaia4w.prodigy.com (pimaia4w.prodigy.com [198.83.18.139]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA01478 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:11:21 +1100 Received: from mime2.prodigy.com (mime2.prodigy.com [192.168.253.26]) by pimaia4w.prodigy.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA83888 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:11:16 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by mime2.prodigy.com (8.6.10/8.6.9) id KAA18468 for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:10:28 -0500 Message-Id: <199801211510.KAA18468@mime2.prodigy.com> X-Mailer: Prodigy Internet GW(v0.9beta) - ae01dm04sc03 From: DMFV47B@prodigy.com ( CHYAH E BURGHARD) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:10:28, -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: rgbl.cats.humor Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk It is reported that the following addition to the Book of Genesis was discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls. If authentic, it would shed light on the question, "Where do pets come from?" And Adam said, "Lord, when I was in the garden, you walked with me everyday. Now I do not see you anymore. I am lonesome here and it is difficult for me to remember how much you love me." And God said, "No problem! I will create a companion for you that will be with you forever and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will know I love you, even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish and childish and unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourself." And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam. And it was a good animal. And God was pleased. And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and he wagged his tail. And Adam said, "But Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and all the good names are taken and I cannot think of a name for this new animal." And God said, "No problem! Because I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG." And Dog lived with Adam and was a companion to him and loved him. And Adam was comforted. And God was pleased. And Dog was content and wagged his tail. After a while, it came to pass that Adam's guardian angel came to the Lord and said, "Lord, Adam has become filled with pride. He struts and preens like a peacock and he believes he is worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught him that he is loved, but no one has taught him humility." And the Lord said, "No problem! I will create for him a companion who will be with him forever and who will see him as he is. The companion will remind him of his limitations, so he will know that he is not worthy of adoration." And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam. And Cat would not obey Adam. And when Adam gazed into Cat's eyes, he was reminded that he was not the supreme being. And Adam learned humility. And God was pleased. And Adam was greatly improved. And Cat did not care one way or the other. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 02:33:37 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA01584 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:33:37 +1100 Received: from mail.inter.net.il (root@parker.inter.net.il [205.164.141.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA01577 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:33:28 +1100 Received: from internet-zahav.net (Hertzelia-204-125.access.net.il [192.116.204.125]) by mail.inter.net.il (8.8.6/8.8.6/PA) with ESMTP id QAA18657; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 16:47:12 +0200 (IST) Message-ID: <34C60BF3.105BEF60@internet-zahav.net> Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 16:53:39 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity References: <199801210644.BAA25984@freenet5.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=x-user-defined Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Dear Tony The committee doesn't exist anymore , the second he published his verdict. Only a higher order committee , or National law committee , as regulated by the SO or the national federation , can change it. Dany A. L. Edwards wrote: > > One of the principles in this case, a member of the NOS, sent > the problem/complaint to Gary Blaiss, head of the ACBL > directors. He relayed to me the reply: > > > >-----Original Message----- > >From: Gary Blaiss > >To: murraygw@compmore.net > >Date: January 20, 1998 12:06 PM > >Subject: Appeal of Commiittee Decision and Complaint -Reply > > > > > >>I agree with the director's decision. > >>There was unauthorized information (the announcement of range is > >>unauthorized to partner). > >> > >>Per Law 16"... the partner may not choose from among logical alternative > >>actions one that could demonstrably have been suggested over another > >>by the extraneous information." > >> > >>In my bridge judgment, the bid of 6S was not remotely suggested by the > >>auction. > >> > >>While a player's claim to redress may be looked upon with greater > >>scrutiny in cases when the director is not called at the time of the > >>irregularity, I would not as a director or committee member determine that > >>no redress is available because there was no call at the time of the > >>irregularity. Should this be applied (mistakenly in my view), I would still > >>adjust the N/S score or issue a procedural penalty to N/S. > >> > >>The committee, in making a decision that involves bridge jjudgment, > >>certainly has the right to judge that the unauthorized information did not > >>demonstrably suggest the 6S call and thus reinstate it. When it comes to > >>bridge judgment, the committee's decision is inviolate. Even though it may > >>be ill-advised or completely wrong. > >> > >> > Oddly enough, I have another problem, for which I need a rather > quick answer (the game is Wed. evening!). It has been brought > to my attention that the members of the committee, *without > any prompting by me, I might add*, have rethought their > descision and now want to return the result to 4S+2, +680 NS. > Law 92 states that the right to appeal expires 30 minutes after > the official score has been posted; it says nothing about > how long a committee can take to come to a descision, or > whether it can change its mind (a week later!). :-) > Has anyone else ever been in this position? All timely > advice would be appreciated. > Tony (aka ac342) > > ps. Just a random, playful thought: I wonder where the > Rule of Coincidence fits in all this? :-) > pps. and why doesn't playful end in 2 ll? :-) :-) From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 02:41:36 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA01602 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:41:36 +1100 Received: from hqinbh2.ms.com (firewall-user@hqinbh2.ms.com [144.14.128.34]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA01597 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:41:30 +1100 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by hqinbh2.ms.com (8.8.6/fw v1.22) id KAA16384 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:41:18 -0500 (EST) Received: from unknown(140.14.69.95) by hqinbh2.ms.com via smap (3.2) id xma016315; Wed, 21 Jan 98 10:41:08 -0500 Received: from lnsun39.morgan.com (lnsun39.morgan.com [140.14.98.39]) by cwmail1.morgan.com (8.8.5/hub v1.75) with ESMTP id PAA04068 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:41:05 GMT From: Edward Sheldon Received: (sheldone@localhost) by lnsun39.morgan.com (8.8.5/sendmail.cf.client v1.05) id PAA02152 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:41:04 GMT Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:41:04 GMT Message-Id: <9801211541.ZM2150@ms.com> In-Reply-To: Adam Beneschan "Re: An Appeal to Sanity (!)" (Jan 21, 3:34pm) References: <9801210616.aa22004@flash.irvine.com> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.1 10oct95) To: "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" Subject: Re: An Appeal to Sanity (!) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Jan 21, 3:34pm, Adam Beneschan wrote: > Subject: Re: An Appeal to Sanity (!) > > A lot of the discussion about this hand has assumed that 6S is an > insane bid that isn't really a "logical alternative". Some have > argued that Law 16A therefore doesn't apply, no adjustment should take > place, and the opponents have to chalk it up to bad luck. Others have > cited other laws, or general principles that one mustn't use UI, to > justify adjusting the score. There have been arguments that the > spirit of L16A should be followed and not the (badly worded) letter, > and there have been arguments that the bid should be considered a LA > because one of North's peers (namely, himself) would have considered > it. > > After doing some rethinking, I now believe all the above is > unnecessary---because 6S is a demonstrably logical bid, given the UI. > Therefore Law 16A does apply. [snip demonstration that, given the UI, 6S is logical] I think the term "logical alternative" must be interpreted as "logical, given the authorised information available to the player". If the definition is "logical, given the information (both authorised and unauthorised) available to the player", then things which we want to be LA's (e.g. 2S in this case - not the best example) would not be. Cheers, Ed From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 03:06:18 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA01714 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 03:06:18 +1100 Received: from camel8.mindspring.com (camel8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.58]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA01708 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 03:06:12 +1100 Received: from mike (ip173.baltimore10.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.30.22.173]) by camel8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA15847 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 11:06:08 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980121110611.006cb8b4@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 11:06:11 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <199801210644.BAA25984@freenet5.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 01:44 AM 1/21/98 -0500, Tony wrote: >ps. Just a random, playful thought: I wonder where the > Rule of Coincidence fits in all this? :-) No such rule, but if there were, it would not apply. The so-called ROC is only alleged to apply when BOTH partners take bizarre and unlikely actions that together happen to work. South's actions here are completely unexceptionable. >pps. and why doesn't playful end in 2 ll? :-) :-) > I would have had a wonderful time replying to this delightful question, but a handful of distractions have made an awful muddle of my spare time. Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 03:16:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA01819 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 03:16:04 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA01811 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 03:15:56 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-151.uunet.be [194.7.13.151]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA07385 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 17:15:50 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34C6089F.A2C3A15F@innet.be> Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:39:28 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <199801201930.OAA08713@cfa183.harvard.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I'm answering this thread starting from Steve's answer because I want to react both to itself and to Steve's comment. Steve Willner wrote: > > > From: Barbara and Richard Odlin > > What if the NT opener missed a high spade in his initial count...? > Occam's razor : don't look for difficult assumptions when there are easy ones. If he had missed a high spade he would have told TD, and we would have been told this. > > > From: "Kaye M. Krebs" > >... placed the 1NT card on the table. Then, to my horror, I > > looked at the vulnerability and saw that we were white. > If you can make this believable to the TD and AC, you should not get an AS. There is a case here for actually saying 'oops' at the table ! Steve's comment : > >From the point of view of the TD (and AC), there is no way to tell > whether you "woke up" before partner's announcement or because of it. - apart from saying 'oops' at the exact time you notice this. > Your legal position is the same either way. You have UI (the > announcement, not to mention partner's hesitation) No he doesn't have any UI : (If he can be believed) he noticed himself that he was white, so that his bid meant something he did not have. It is not UI to know the systemic meaning of your own bidding, or to assume that partner has the same knowledge ! > and are not allowed > to take any action it suggests if there is any LA that was not > suggested. The knowledge that you have something else than is suggested by your own bidding is AI. > > This may seem harsh, but you have to realize that your legal position > is based on the cards and events at the table, not on what you were > actually thinking. Wrong again Steve, what you are actually thinking DOES determine your legal position. Only sometimes it can be difficult to PROVE this, since we do not have mind readers present at all tournaments. In an AC, I would certainly not vote for a PP for a player who tells me this story, even if I might award an AS because I cannot accept his statements without additional proof ! -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 03:55:36 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA02074 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 03:55:36 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA02069 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 03:55:29 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA14736 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 11:54:58 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA09310; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 11:55:01 -0500 Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 11:55:01 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801211655.LAA09310@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > >The AC ... In fact, their conclusion was that UI was used. > From: David Stevenson > Was it? It is time this term was put to bed. When UI becomes > available from partner then certain actions become illegal, and a player > who takes such an illegal action should expect an assigned adjustment in > favour of the opponents if they are damaged. > > But that does not suggest that such a player *used* the UI. I agree completely, but "UI was used" was the AC's stated conclusion! Yes, the AC could have adjusted the score even without reaching this conclusion. Having the stated conclusion in front of us, though, I cannot understand how anyone could argue against a score adjustment. > We adjust when a call is illegal because UI was present: but we do not > care nor decide whether the UI was *used*. No doubt the AC should have been given better instructions. > There is an exception to this principle. If a TD/AC consider that a > player who should know better blatantly *used* UI then they might issue > a PP. That is the one time that the use of UI should be considered. I thought the PP depended on whether the player ought to have known better than to take the action he did. Again _use_ of UI would not be an issue. Rather, the issues would be whether the player _ought to have recognized_ that UI was available and _ought to have realized_ his chosen action was illegal. There need be no suggestion that he _did in fact_ have either piece of knowledge. If you believe a player _did in fact use_ UI and _should have known better_, wouldn't it be a matter for C&E, not a mere PP? Or would you require _actually did know better_? From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 04:11:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA02151 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:11:09 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA02146 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:11:01 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA15481 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:10:58 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA09332; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:11:01 -0500 Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:11:01 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801211711.MAA09332@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 23 - a major change ?? X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Dany Haimovici > In 1997 release the law 23b vanished ! As much as I understand , > if the offender "....could have known....." that his irregularity , > dragging a "pass" from his partner , will damage the NOS , then > the score can be adjusted . The deleting of paragraph b means that > if he couldn't know -> the score STAANDS......(in any case can't be > adjusted accordingly to Law 23 !!!). The change is relatively narrow. The former L23B applied only to a damaging pass at partner's turn turn to call. Let's see, how could it matter? Let's say the pass prevents partner from making a normal double (L30B2b), and the double would have worked out badly for the offending side. Under the old laws, you would adjust the score. Under the new ones, you adjust if and only if the out-of-turn passer "could have known." I would like to see more commentary, but I suspect the change was intended. The result seems consistent with the principle of L72A5. You are allowed to get lucky, even after an infraction. But it must be true luck, not an event anyone could have anticipated. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 04:20:40 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA02244 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:20:40 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA02239 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:20:34 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA15903 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:20:36 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA09356; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:20:39 -0500 Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:20:39 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801211720.MAA09356@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I wrote: > > This may seem harsh, but you have to realize that your legal position > > is based on the cards and events at the table, not on what you were > > actually thinking. > From: Herman De Wael > Wrong again Steve, what you are actually thinking DOES determine your > legal position. > Only sometimes it can be difficult to PROVE this, since we do not have > mind readers present at all tournaments. I wonder whether the difference is more semantic than practical. Let me just refer to Mike Dennis' and David Stevenson's articles, which seem to me to have addressed this issue quite well. If there is a perceived difference between my views and theirs on the overall legal question, it is probably bad writing on my part. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 04:29:42 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA02271 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:29:42 +1100 Received: from chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (root@[141.211.60.224]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA02266 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:29:32 +1100 Received: from mush.math.lsa.umich.edu (grabiner@mush.math.lsa.umich.edu [141.211.64.210]) by chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA17853; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:22:32 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:28:00 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801211728.MAA01861@mush.math.lsa.umich.edu> From: David Grabiner To: dhh@internet-zahav.net CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-reply-to: <34C6096A.DE3B3136@internet-zahav.net> (message from Dany Haimovici on Wed, 21 Jan 1998 16:42:50 +0200) Subject: Re: Law 23 - a major change ?? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk You write: > I read again the 1997 Law book , when someone who tries to > translate it asked me a question...... > In 1997 release the law 23b vanished ! As much as I understand , > if the offender "....could have known....." that his irregularity , > dragging a "pass" from his partner , will damage the NOS , then > the score can be adjusted . The deleting of paragraph b means that > if he couldn't know -> the score STAANDS......(in any case can't be > adjusted accordingly to Law 23 !!!). Law 23B was a different case, a pass out of turn at partner's turn to call. Its provisions haven't disappeared; Law 30B(2) deals with a pass out of turn at partner's turn to call, and it now referes to Law 72B1, which states that the director may award an adjusted score in any case in which the offender could have known that the irregularity would work to his advantage. > Was it the lawmakers intention , or I missed a new "improvement" . > I don't believe,IMHO, that someone who committed an irregularity , > even in an inadvertent way , should get any advantage .... This seems to be a different point. Suppose that South opens 1NT out of turn, barring his partner. When his turn comes around, he chooses to bid 3NT. The general consensus is that he made his opwn decision, and he should get the result; if 3NT is a bottom because the field makes one more trick in 4H, or a top because the field is in 4H going down on a bad break, the 3NT bidder gets his score. -- David Grabiner, grabiner@math.lsa.umich.edu http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~grabiner 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 Thu Jan 22 04:32:59 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA02309 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:32:59 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id EAA02304 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:32:53 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2007459; 21 Jan 98 17:18 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 14:57:44 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 23 - a major change ?? In-Reply-To: <34C6096A.DE3B3136@internet-zahav.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Dany Haimovici wrote: >In 1997 release the law 23b vanished ! As much as I understand , >if the offender "....could have known....." that his irregularity , >dragging a "pass" from his partner , will damage the NOS , then >the score can be adjusted . The deleting of paragraph b means that >if he couldn't know -> the score STAANDS......(in any case can't be >adjusted accordingly to Law 23 !!!). >Was it the lawmakers intention , or I missed a new "improvement" . It is replaced by the new L72B1. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 04:39:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA02345 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:39:10 +1100 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 EAA02340 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:39:04 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa04968; 21 Jan 98 9:38 PST To: "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: An Appeal to Sanity (!) In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:41:04 PST." <9801211541.ZM2150@ms.com> Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 09:38:22 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801210938.aa04968@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Ed Sheldon wrote: > I think the term "logical alternative" must be interpreted as "logical, > given the authorised information available to the player". If the > definition is "logical, given the information (both authorised and > unauthorised) available to the player", then things which we want to > be LA's (e.g. 2S in this case - not the best example) would not be. Good point. It certainly wasn't my intent to turn 2S into an illogical alternative. But I think it has to work both ways. If a call is logical, but becomes illogical because of the UI, clearly it should still be considered a LA for the purposes of L16A; but IMHO, if a call is illogical but becomes logical because of the UI, it should still be considered an LA. I mean, players do make calls that would ordinarily be considered "illogical", but become "logical" after their partners show values by hesitating and passing; are we supposed to say L16A doesn't apply because the call is illogical when just the authorized information is considered? All things considered, my preference would be to have L16A reworded to make it clear that the call actually chosen doesn't have to be considered a "logical alternative"---it should be illegal if it was suggested by UI over other calls that are logical. But part of my point was to try to get people to think of the 6S call not as a wild, insane shot, but rather as a logical and reasonable (but illegal) bid. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 04:53:48 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA02423 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:53:48 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA02416 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:53:41 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA13850 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 09:53:35 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id JAA04907; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 09:56:13 -0800 Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 09:56:13 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801211756.JAA04907@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Tony Edwards wrote: |One of the [principals] in this case, a member of the NOS, sent |the problem/complaint to Gary Blaiss, head of the ACBL |directors. He relayed to me the reply: |>>While a player's claim to redress may be looked upon with greater |>>scrutiny in cases when the director is not called at the time of the |>>irregularity, I would not as a director or committee member determine that |>>no redress is available because there was no call at the time of the |>>irregularity. Should this be applied (mistakenly in my view), I would still |>>adjust the N/S score or issue a procedural penalty to N/S. This statement is true but has no bearing on the case. It'd take a clever NOS to realize that there was a UI problem before the claim. Yes, as I have demonstrated, some very good players knew from the auction what had happened, but to reduce the rights of a pair because they didn't figure it out until after they got to see the concealed hand is absurd. I suppose that means Gary's statement is a little inaccurate: "...no call when the irregularity was discovered," is better. |Oddly enough, I have another problem, for which I need a rather |quick answer (the game is Wed. evening!). It has been brought |to my attention that the members of the committee, *without |any prompting by me, I might add*, have rethought their |descision and now want to return the result to 4S+2, +680 NS. |Law 92 states that the right to appeal expires 30 minutes after |the official score has been posted; it says nothing about |how long a committee can take to come to a descision, or |whether it can change its mind (a week later!). :-) |Has anyone else ever been in this position? All timely |advice would be appreciated. I think it's too late officially, but if everyone agrees, one can change the results of a club game. If the offending side says, "no," however, then it is over. The committee, however, should offer the NOS an apology. |ps. Just a random, playful thought: I wonder where the | Rule of Coincidence fits in all this? :-) It doesn't. ...but maybe it's no coincidence that the AC changed their mind...perhaps one of them reads this group! :) --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 06:24:57 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA02744 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 06:24:57 +1100 Received: from elara.glo.be (root@elara.glo.be [206.48.176.15]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA02739 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 06:24:49 +1100 Received: from cd01811 (p2-04.z03.glo.be [206.48.186.36]) by elara.glo.be (8.8.6/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA11184 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 20:25:08 +0100 From: "Jan Boets" To: Subject: Change of address Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 20:26:10 +0100 Message-ID: <01bd26a2$6e21aca0$LocalHost@cd01811> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_000A_01BD26AA.CFE614A0" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Dit is een meerdelig bericht in MIME-indeling. ------=_NextPart_000_000A_01BD26AA.CFE614A0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Change of address: Jan.Boets@glo.be becomes Jan.Boets@village.uunet.be =20 ------=_NextPart_000_000A_01BD26AA.CFE614A0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Change of = address:
Jan.Boets@glo.be becomes Jan.Boets@village.uunet.be=
 
------=_NextPart_000_000A_01BD26AA.CFE614A0-- From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 06:51:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA02826 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 06:51:04 +1100 Received: from dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.6]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA02821 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 06:50:59 +1100 Received: (from smap@localhost) by dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id NAA25989; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 13:50:20 -0600 (CST) Received: from sbo-ca1-15.ix.netcom.com(205.184.185.47) by dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com via smap (V1.3) id rma025976; Wed Jan 21 13:49:57 1998 Message-ID: <34C650A6.77B7@popd.ix.netcom.com> Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 11:46:47 -0800 From: B&S <#jonbriss@ix19.ix.netcom.com> Reply-To: #jonbriss@ix19.ix.netcom.com Organization: BRISSMAN & SCHLUETER X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mlfrench CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Zero Tolerance References: <7c4f32fe.34c5af5b@aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Mlfrench wrote: > > This is ACBL stuff, but all you bridge lawyers outside N. A. might be > interested anyway. Besides, some of you do attend NABCs. > > The ACBL BoD passed the following regulation in November 1986, which is still > posted on the ACBL web site under ACBL Conduct Regulations: > > --Private conversations (which do not include accusations of third party > unethical conduct) are not within the ACBL's jurisdiction even if they take > place at a tournament site. > > The way I read this, you can say anything you want to another person as long > as it is private and does not impugn the ethics of a third person. I interpret > "private" as meaning a one-on-one conversation that nobody else can hear. So, > I can quietly say to someone, "I think you're a lousy player and a damn > cheat," and it's okay. That's what the regulation says. The introduction of ZT > will obviously negate this regulation, which recognized that it is extremely > difficult to control private conversations. I suspect that some such > difficulty led to the creation of the regulation, which seems rather > permissive. ZT seeks to control such conversations "within the playing area > before and after each session," so I assume anything still goes in the hallway > or outside the building. (snip) Zero Tolerance will not affect private conversations between two individuals, the subject of which does not defame a third party. The conversation is no one's business other than the conversants. The policy in the ACBL Code of Disciplinary Regulations is consistent with civil law and the concept of free speech, and ZT does not negate those protections. Jon Brissman From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 08:16:19 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA03399 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 08:16:19 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA03394 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 08:16:13 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA21477 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 16:16:16 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id QAA09519; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 16:16:19 -0500 Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 16:16:19 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801212116.QAA09519@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk From: David Stevenson > 1NT Pass Pass 1C! > You can't, says someone! > Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. > Pass from the 1NT opener. For reference, let's call the 1NT opener West and the 1C bidder South. The problem is interesting, but the answer is far from clear! I think that's why no one has responded. I'm sure I wouldn't get this one right as the floor TD. However.... Everyone is in violation of L9B1a and L9B2. Procedural penalty of one beer from each side. (One whisky from each if David is the TD. If the TD is very thirsty, fine separately for the 9B1a and 9B2 violations.) Under L11A, the penalty for the 1C bid is cancelled. (The 2C bid may have been made in ignorance of the penalty, so cancelling the penalty is mandatory. I suppose if South is David, we might think about not applying this rule, but not if South is anyone else.) Under L27A, the insufficient bid is accepted. (L27A does not say anything about attempted corrections. When West called, he accepted the insufficient bid, NOT the attempted correction, even though he probably meant to accept the attempted 2C.) The auction has now gone 1NT P P 1C. I would now allow West to withdraw his pass under L21B1. I would not expect everyone to agree with this portion of the ruling. The withdrawn 2C bid is AI to EW, UI to NS under L16C. Similarly, the withdrawn pass over 2C is AI to NS, UI to EW. This may also be controversial; possibly both sides should be treated as offending. If so, 2C and the following pass would be UI to both sides. The more I think about it, the more I like the second interpretation. As someone else wisely suggested, investigate whether there is other UI and warn the appropriate players. Play on. (The UI situation should be explained _before_ West chooses his replacement call.) Just for laughs, here's an amusing wrong answer. My first thought was that West's pass was out of turn, since South had not made a proper call at his turn. However, on reading L27A, I don't believe this any more. So, David, what's the real answer? :-) From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 12:17:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA04373 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:17:08 +1100 Received: from mail.inter.net.il (root@parker.inter.net.il [205.164.141.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA04368 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:17:00 +1100 Received: from internet-zahav.net (Hertzelia-198-226.access.net.il [192.116.198.226]) by mail.inter.net.il (8.8.6/8.8.6/PA) with ESMTP id DAA12632 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 03:12:14 +0200 (IST) Message-ID: <34C69E70.853BC963@internet-zahav.net> Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 03:18:40 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" Subject: Law 23 = a major change ? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=x-user-defined Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Sorry , please rectify Case 2 in my former message : ... North dealer .... South passes ... Dany From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 12:24:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA04419 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:24:08 +1100 Received: from mail.inter.net.il (root@parker.inter.net.il [205.164.141.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA04411 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:24:02 +1100 Received: from internet-zahav.net (Hertzelia-198-123.access.net.il [192.116.198.123]) by mail.inter.net.il (8.8.6/8.8.6/PA) with ESMTP id CAA04315; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:55:35 +0200 (IST) Message-ID: <34C69A7C.A2830DBE@internet-zahav.net> Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 03:01:48 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: David Grabiner CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 23 - a major change ?? References: <199801211728.MAA01861@mush.math.lsa.umich.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=x-user-defined Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David & David & Quango Sorry I Insist but I read again the 1997 booklet and the web site .... Law 72b1 includes as a "MUST" ..." .. could have known...." IMHO it doesn't cover the case I met : Case 1 North dealer. East opens 1X and south doesn't accept . North opens 1 Sp and East bids now either 2X ( for Law 31 A2a ) or 2Y ( for 31 A2b..) . Both cases , his partner passes now (for next turn or for ever...) and the auction finishes.. By new L23 only the "...could have known ..." applies otherwise no provisions in 23 ; I understand the score stands. Case 2 North dealer . South bids 1X and west doesn't agree. This was the very accurate problem for former 23b. No south "go home" until the end of the board and as Grabiner pointed out : ---if his partner bids -the luck will be the "scorer" ,nothing changed see law 30B2b --- if his partner didn't bid and his enforced pass produce a damage to opponents , law 30B2a sends ud to 72B1 ; again ".. if could have known" . but if not - the damage stands , because 23b vanished... Where I am wrong ???? Thanx Dany David Grabiner wrote: > > You write: > > > I read again the 1997 Law book , when someone who tries to > > translate it asked me a question...... > > > In 1997 release the law 23b vanished ! As much as I understand , > > if the offender "....could have known....." that his irregularity , > > dragging a "pass" from his partner , will damage the NOS , then > > the score can be adjusted . The deleting of paragraph b means that > > if he couldn't know -> the score STAANDS......(in any case can't be > > adjusted accordingly to Law 23 !!!). > > Law 23B was a different case, a pass out of turn at partner's turn to > call. > > Its provisions haven't disappeared; Law 30B(2) deals with a pass out of > turn at partner's turn to call, and it now referes to Law 72B1, which > states that the director may award an adjusted score in any case in > which the offender could have known that the irregularity would work to > his advantage. > > > Was it the lawmakers intention , or I missed a new "improvement" . > > I don't believe,IMHO, that someone who committed an irregularity , > > even in an inadvertent way , should get any advantage .... > > This seems to be a different point. Suppose that South opens 1NT out of > turn, barring his partner. When his turn comes around, he chooses to > bid 3NT. The general consensus is that he made his opwn decision, and > he should get the result; if 3NT is a bottom because the field makes one > more trick in 4H, or a top because the field is in 4H going down on a > bad break, the 3NT bidder gets his score. > > -- > David Grabiner, grabiner@math.lsa.umich.edu > http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~grabiner > 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 Thu Jan 22 12:48:14 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA04500 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:48:14 +1100 Received: from camel8.mindspring.com (camel8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.58]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA04495 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:48:09 +1100 Received: from mike (ip242.baltimore10.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.30.22.242]) by camel8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA29874 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 20:48:04 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980121204808.006d23bc@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 20:48:08 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: An Appeal to Sanity (!) In-Reply-To: <9801210938.aa04968@flash.irvine.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 09:38 AM 1/21/98 PST, Adam wrote: > >Ed Sheldon wrote: > >> I think the term "logical alternative" must be interpreted as "logical, >> given the authorised information available to the player". If the >> definition is "logical, given the information (both authorised and >> unauthorised) available to the player", then things which we want to >> be LA's (e.g. 2S in this case - not the best example) would not be. > >Good point. It certainly wasn't my intent to turn 2S into an >illogical alternative. > >But I think it has to work both ways. If a call is logical, but >becomes illogical because of the UI, clearly it should still be >considered a LA for the purposes of L16A; but IMHO, if a call is >illogical but becomes logical because of the UI, it should still be >considered an LA. I mean, players do make calls that would ordinarily >be considered "illogical", but become "logical" after their partners >show values by hesitating and passing; are we supposed to say L16A >doesn't apply because the call is illogical when just the authorized >information is considered? > >All things considered, my preference would be to have L16A reworded to >make it clear that the call actually chosen doesn't have to be >considered a "logical alternative"---it should be illegal if it was >suggested by UI over other calls that are logical. But part of my >point was to try to get people to think of the 6S call not as a wild, >insane shot, but rather as a logical and reasonable (but illegal) bid. > In this vein, I faced the following auction in a club game: N (me) E S W 1C 1D 1S 2D P 2H P 2nt 3C 3H P 4H* P 5D P P P *Very timidly, after considerable pause for thought. I was prepared to let this go, except that as partner tabled her lead, declarer remarked "you just seemed so uncertain about the 4H bid that I thought 5D might be better". Predictably, dummy faced with two hearts. Turned out there was no damage as both 4H and 5D were pretty easily made on a helpful lie of the NS hands. But the potential issue remains. On this auction, 5D is an illogical choice, one which would only arise in the context of the UI. If 5D rolls while 4H fails, are we bound by the language of L16 to let the result stand, since East didn't "choose from among logical alternatives"? This is clearly not the intent of the law, and although the wording could be clearer, as others have pointed out, we don't have to wait for the next revision to interpret L16 as follows: the adjective "logical" need only apply to alternatives not taken but which might have been considered, absent the UI. Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 13:38:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA04624 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:38:29 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA04619 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:38:18 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1023840; 22 Jan 98 2:36 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:17:51 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <199801210644.BAA25984@freenet5.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk A. L. Edwards wrote: >Oddly enough, I have another problem, for which I need a rather >quick answer (the game is Wed. evening!). It has been brought >to my attention that the members of the committee, *without >any prompting by me, I might add*, have rethought their >descision and now want to return the result to 4S+2, +680 NS. >Law 92 states that the right to appeal expires 30 minutes after >the official score has been posted; it says nothing about >how long a committee can take to come to a descision, or >whether it can change its mind (a week later!). :-) >Has anyone else ever been in this position? All timely >advice would be appreciated. Nothing in the Laws answers this. If there are laid down provisions for ACs perhaps this should be included. After all, a TD changing his mind is in the Laws [in effect]. I do not believe such a change should be allowed. I believe that that part of the appeal process has been exhausted on promulgation of the result of the appeal. This is a personal view. >pps. and why doesn't playful end in 2 ll? :-) :-) Because Quango says it doesn't! -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 13:40:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA04644 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:40:29 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA04639 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:40:20 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1023842; 22 Jan 98 2:36 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:13:09 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 23 - a major change ?? In-Reply-To: <34C69A7C.A2830DBE@internet-zahav.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Dany Haimovici wrote: >David & David & Quango > >Sorry I Insist but I read again the 1997 booklet and the web site .... > >Law 72b1 includes as a "MUST" ..." .. could have known...." > >IMHO it doesn't cover the case I met : >Case 1 >North dealer. East opens 1X and south doesn't accept . >North opens 1 Sp and East bids now either 2X ( for Law 31 A2a ) >or 2Y ( for 31 A2b..) . Both cases , his partner passes now >(for next turn or for ever...) and the auction finishes.. >By new L23 only the "...could have known ..." applies otherwise >no provisions in 23 ; I understand the score stands. > >Case 2 >North dealer . South bids 1X and west doesn't agree. >This was the very accurate problem for former 23b. >No south "go home" until the end of the board and as Grabiner >pointed out : >---if his partner bids -the luck will be the "scorer" ,nothing changed >see law 30B2b >--- if his partner didn't bid and his enforced pass produce a damage >to opponents , law 30B2a sends ud to 72B1 ; again ".. if could have >known" . but if not - the damage stands , because 23b vanished... > >Where I am wrong ???? I am confused. Your examples are not L23B [1987] cases anyway. I accept that where a player passes OOT at partner's turn to call, and the oppos are damaged thereby, that in 1987 the oppos could expect an adjustment, and in 1997 only if the player could have known. A very reasonable and sensible change. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 13:43:25 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA04665 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:43:25 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA04660 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:43:16 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1023836; 22 Jan 98 2:36 GMT Message-ID: <9WEkhSAw4qx0EwGj@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:25:52 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: rgbl.cats.humor In-Reply-To: <199801211510.KAA18468@mime2.prodigy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk CHYAH E BURGHARD wrote: [k] >And God was pleased. And Adam was greatly improved. > >And Cat did not care one way or the other. A woman lets a dog into her home, and feeds him, and looks after him, and the dog thinks "Why does she look after me so well: she must be a god!" A woman lets a cat into her home, and feeds him, and looks after him, and the cat thinks "Why does she look after me so well: *I* must be a god!" -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 13:46:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA04684 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:46:09 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA04677 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:46:00 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2021738; 22 Jan 98 2:36 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:05:42 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <34C6089F.A2C3A15F@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: >Steve Willner wrote: [k] >> Your legal position is the same either way. You have UI (the >> announcement, not to mention partner's hesitation) >No he doesn't have any UI : (If he can be believed) he noticed himself >that he was white, so that his bid meant something he did not have. >It is not UI to know the systemic meaning of your own bidding, or to >assume that partner has the same knowledge ! No action of yours can *ever* determine whether UI is available from partner. Either he has made information available, or he hasn't. If he has made information available then it is either AI or UI. Your actions don't affect these. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 16:00:01 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id QAA05010 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 16:00:01 +1100 Received: from minerva.pinehurst.net (root@minerva.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA05005 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 15:59:55 +1100 Received: from pinehurst.net (pm4-18.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.239]) by minerva.pinehurst.net (8.8.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA29044; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 23:59:43 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <34C6D3AF.98D1CBAA@pinehurst.net> Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 00:05:51 -0500 From: "Nancy T.Dressing" Reply-To: nancy@pinehurst.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: David Stevenson CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > David Stevenson wrote: > > > > A few interesting rulings occurred in this EBU competition. I thought > >we had sorted out all the problems attendant on Insufficient Bids > >corrected before the TD arrives, when Jim Proctor [one of the EBU's > >leading TDs] got a new wrinkle! > > > > 1NT Pass Pass 1C! > > > > You can't, says someone! > > > > Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. > > > > Pass from the 1NT opener. > > > > **Now** they call the TD !!!!! > > > > I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! > > > I wonder if I could just possibly get a little interest in this > problem? Do you all consider it so routine that it is not worth > commenting? Herman has produced a facetious reply, no help there. Anne > has produced a sinister reply, but her fears are groundless. Nancy has > tried to produce a sensible reply, but I am not quite sure that she has > realised the problem. > > If you are really not interested, fine. But if you have not answered > because it is so obvious, perhaps you would just like to tell BLML the > answer? > > -- > David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ > Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ > bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= > Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ Perhaps I have not grasped the problem but it still appears to me that the players at the table allowed the correction to 2C (although it is conventional and assuming it was alerted immediately) and when the 1NT bidder chose to pass before he called the director, he condoned the corrected insufficient bid and according to Law 27 A the bid is accepted and according to Law 11B (the 1 NT bidder) forfeited the right to penalize the irregularity. Nancy From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 16:48:22 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id QAA05134 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 16:48:22 +1100 Received: from chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (root@[141.211.60.224]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA05129 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 16:48:12 +1100 Received: from atreides.math.lsa.umich.edu (grabiner@atreides.math.lsa.umich.edu [141.211.60.12]) by chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id AAA28201; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 00:41:04 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 00:44:35 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801220544.AAA24336@atreides.math.lsa.umich.edu> From: David Grabiner To: dhh@internet-zahav.net CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-reply-to: <34C69A7C.A2830DBE@internet-zahav.net> (message from Dany Haimovici on Thu, 22 Jan 1998 03:01:48 +0200) Subject: Re: Law 23 - a major change ?? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk You write: > Case 2 > North dealer . South bids 1X and west doesn't agree. > This was the very accurate problem for former 23b. This wasn't a former 23B problem; 23B dealt with a pass at partner's turn to call. > No south "go home" until the end of the board and as Grabiner > pointed out : > ---if his partner bids -the luck will be the "scorer" ,nothing changed > see law 30B2b > --- if his partner didn't bid and his enforced pass produce a damage > to opponents , law 30B2a sends ud to 72B1 ; again ".. if could have > known" . but if not - the damage stands , because 23b vanished... The difference is that the old 23B didn't require any possible knowledge. This was probably wrong, since it's inconsistent with the other principles. I had one auction on which partner bid out of turn, barring me from bidding further on a misfit. The pass worked to our advantage because we stopped in a making contract while everyone else was going down, but partner couldn't have known about the misfit. The director was called and asked to rule on Law 23A, and he concluded that the score should stand; partner could just as easily have prevented me from bidding a making 3NT or raising his second suit. The old 23B would create a different situation. Say that E-W have bid 1S-2S-3D-4S, and North has a normal penalty double based on QJTx AKxx xxx xx. However, before he can do anything, South passes out of turn with x QJxxx Axx xxxx, barring North from doubling. East is void in hearts, and 4S makes. Since the pass out of turn damaged E-W by preventing North from doubling a making contract, Law 23B seems to dictate an adjustment even though South had no idea that he would gain anything by barring partner. -- David Grabiner, grabiner@math.lsa.umich.edu http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~grabiner 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 Thu Jan 22 19:16:03 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA05587 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 19:16:03 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA05580 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 19:15:57 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-221.uunet.be [194.7.13.221]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA11885 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 09:15:44 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34C6322A.A7A0B55F@innet.be> Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 18:36:42 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: An Appeal to Sanity (!) X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <9801210616.aa22004@flash.irvine.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote: > > A lot of the discussion about this hand has assumed that 6S is an > insane bid that isn't really a "logical alternative". Some have > argued that Law 16A therefore doesn't apply, no adjustment should take > place, and the opponents have to chalk it up to bad luck. Others have > cited other laws, or general principles that one mustn't use UI, to > justify adjusting the score. There have been arguments that the > spirit of L16A should be followed and not the (badly worded) letter, > and there have been arguments that the bid should be considered a LA > because one of North's peers (namely, himself) would have considered > it. > [after which Adam goes to great lengths to prove that 6S is a LA] This whole approach is (IMHO) incorrect. In order to apply L16 one should : 1) select the LA's 2) define which is the suggested one 3) disallow this action, if there are any other LA's Now there seems to be a new problem concerning the definition of a LA. Is an action, which, by the definition used, would not be considered a LA, but which is actually chosen by offender, a LA or not ? A definition of LA will always include something like : "an action considered by a peer of offender", but this never includes a phrase, "given the information present". This omission is important, because we should then ask : what information AI or UI ? Of course this should be only AI. (discussions welcome but let's now go on) Now it is clear that given that the list of LA's should only include those Alternatives only possible using AI, then it is very common for an offender to actually bid something which is NOT a LA. So those people that want to allow 6S in this case because 6S is not a LA would also allow something like : 1NT 2H (alert, ooops, we were not playing transfers) 4H No way 4H can be a LA, but we would not allow the bid anyway. That is why we cannot allow the 6S bid here, not because it would be a LA (it isn't, IMO, anyway). -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 19:16:25 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA05594 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 19:16:25 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA05589 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 19:16:20 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-221.uunet.be [194.7.13.221]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA11973 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 09:16:03 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34C632D1.A44533ED@innet.be> Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 18:39:29 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Law 23 - a major change ?? X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <34C6096A.DE3B3136@internet-zahav.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Dany Haimovici wrote: > > I read again the 1997 Law book , when someone who tries to > translate it asked me a question...... > > In 1997 release the law 23b vanished ! As much as I understand , It was no longer needed since this is covered in the now more general L72B1. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 22:00:16 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA06047 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 22:00:16 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA06041 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 22:00:07 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-154.uunet.be [194.7.13.154]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA01807 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 11:59:59 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34C70408.2E4D19E6@innet.be> Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 09:32:08 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > > Herman De Wael wrote: > > >No he doesn't have any UI : (If he can be believed) he noticed himself > >that he was white, so that his bid meant something he did not have. > >It is not UI to know the systemic meaning of your own bidding, or to > >assume that partner has the same knowledge ! > > No action of yours can *ever* determine whether UI is available from > partner. Either he has made information available, or he hasn't. If he > has made information available then it is either AI or UI. Your actions > don't affect these. > Of course they don't, but you can have AI from other sources + UI from partner that tells you the same thing. Then you are not barred from doing what you want. Of course, it can be difficult to prove that you also have the info as AI, but that is beside the point I want to make. If you wake up to your incorrect call before (or rather without) the use of your partner's UI, then that is AI and you should be allowed to bid your bid. But of course, the pudding is in the proof. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 22 22:16:37 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA06138 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 22:16:37 +1100 Received: from hera.frw.uva.nl (HERA.frw.uva.nl [145.18.122.36]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA06133 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 22:16:24 +1100 Received: from 145.18.125.142 (JPPals.frw.uva.nl [145.18.125.142]) by hera.frw.uva.nl (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA21460 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:16:09 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199801221116.MAA21460@hera.frw.uva.nl> X-Organisation: Faculty of Environmental Sciences University of Amsterdam Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130 NL-1018 VZ Amsterdam X-Phone: +31 20 525 5820 X-Fax: +31 20 525 5822 From: J.P.Pals@frw.uva.nl To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:20:07 Subject: Choice? Reply-to: Jan Peter Pals X-Confirm-Reading-To: Jan Peter Pals X-pmrqc: 1 Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk East asks 'My turn to lead?' and places a card face down on the table, North (the dummy-to-be) tells him that it is his turn to lead, and East faces his card. South calls the TD, who informs him that East may retract his card without penalty (L47E). LAW 47 - RETRACTION OF CARD PLAYED E. Change of Play Based on Misinformation 1. Lead out of Turn A lead out of turn MAY [emphasis mine] be retracted without penalty if the leader was mistakenly informed by an opponent that it was his turn to lead (LHO should not accept the lead). What intrigues me is the word 'may'. Does East have a choice to maintain his opening lead? Does the addition 'LHO should not accept the lead' exclude the possibility that East insists on leading his card? A similar case is L24 LAW 24 - CARD EXPOSED OR LED DURING AUCTION When the Director determines, during the auction, that because of a player's action one or more cards of that player's hand were in position for the face to be seen by his partner, the Director shall require that every such card be left face up on the table until the auction closes; and (penalty) if the offender subsequently becomes a defender, declarer MAY [emphasis mine] treat every such card as a penalty card (Law 50). Does declarer have the choice NOT to treat any such card as a penalty card? Opinions, please.... Thanks in advance, JP From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 00:08:27 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA06746 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 00:08:27 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA06741 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 00:08:21 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1013658; 22 Jan 98 12:57 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 11:39:51 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <34C70408.2E4D19E6@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: >David Stevenson wrote: >> No action of yours can *ever* determine whether UI is available from >> partner. Either he has made information available, or he hasn't. If he >> has made information available then it is either AI or UI. Your actions >> don't affect these. >Of course they don't, but you can have AI from other sources + UI from >partner that tells you the same thing. Then you are not barred from >doing what you want. Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does *not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. >If you wake up to your incorrect call before (or rather without) the use >of your partner's UI, then that is AI and you should be allowed to bid >your bid. >But of course, the pudding is in the proof. No, the pudding is in reading the Law book. :))) -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 00:28:47 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA09096 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 00:28:47 +1100 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 AAA09086 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 00:28:38 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa10268; 22 Jan 98 5:28 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: rgbl.cats.humor In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:25:52 PST." <9WEkhSAw4qx0EwGj@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 05:28:03 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801220528.aa10268@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > A woman lets a dog into her home, and feeds him, and looks after him, > and the dog thinks "Why does she look after me so well: she must be a > god!" > > A woman lets a cat into her home, and feeds him, and looks after him, > and the cat thinks "Why does she look after me so well: *I* must be a > god!" Someone used to have a .sig on rec.pets.cats (maybe still does) saying something like "In Egypt, they used to worship cats as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 00:59:47 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA09267 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 00:59:47 +1100 Received: from coconut.tc.pw.com (coconut-ext.tc.pw.com [131.209.1.104]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA09262 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 00:59:42 +1100 From: Stephen_Barnfield@europe.notes.pw.com Received: by coconut.tc.pw.com; id FAA02353; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 05:56:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from unknown(10.9.16.60) by coconut.tc.pw.com via smap (3.2) id xma002266; Thu, 22 Jan 98 05:56:36 -0800 Received: by fern.us.pw.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id IAA05192; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 08:58:18 -0500 Message-Id: <199801221358.IAA05192@fern.us.pw.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Thu, 22 Jan 98 13:49:29 GMT Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: >Herman De Wael wrote: >>David Stevenson wrote: > >>> No action of yours can *ever* determine whether UI is available from >>> partner. Either he has made information available, or he hasn't. If he >>> has made information available then it is either AI or UI. Your actions >>> don't affect these. > >>Of course they don't, but you can have AI from other sources + UI from >>partner that tells you the same thing. Then you are not barred from >>doing what you want. > > Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player >may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does >*not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. But, in principle, might not AI affect the alternatives which are logical? Putting it another way, AI might make certain calls, which would otherwise have been LAs, illogical. Steve Barnfield Tunbridge Wells, England From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 01:58:05 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA09591 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 01:58:05 +1100 Received: from ligarius-fe0.ultra.net (ligarius-fe0.ultra.net [146.115.8.189]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA09586 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 01:57:59 +1100 Received: from azure-tech.com (mail.azure-tech.com [204.249.180.200]) by ligarius-fe0.ultra.net (8.8.5/ult.n14767) with SMTP id JAA08180 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 09:57:55 -0500 (EST) Received: from Microsoft Mail (PU Serial #1189) by azure-tech.com (PostalUnion/SMTP(tm) v2.1.6 for Windows NT(tm)) id AA-1998Jan22.214600.1189.170447; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 09:52:23 -0500 From: REW@azure-tech.com (Richard Willey) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au ('bridge-laws') Message-ID: <1998Jan22.214600.1189.170447@azure-tech.com> X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail via PostalUnion/SMTP for Windows NT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Organization: Azure Technologies, Inc. Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 09:52:23 -0500 Subject: When does a treatment become a conventio Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk A couple months ago, I posted a question to this mailing list about the definition of a convention. While I received a number of good answers, I must admit to still having some degree of confusion about where the precise dividing line exists between the definition of a treatment between partners and certain types of conventional bids. Specifically, the difference between a convention and a natural bid would appear to be that a convention imparts information about something other than the suit being bid. As a classic example, a Jacoby transfer bid of 2H is a convention because it is indicates length in spades. However, while this concept would appear to be the core of the definition of convention, there must be some other elements which govern how this definition is applied. For example, consider the following. Many pairs play a "disciplined" style of bridge. As many pairs use them, a disciplined weak two bid denies a side 4 card major or a void. My guess is that that a disciplined weak 2 bid is not meant to fall under the definition of a convention. As a secondary question, can a bid ever be natural and conventional at the same time. Richard From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 02:01:40 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA09796 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 02:01:40 +1100 Received: from camel8.mindspring.com (camel8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.58]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA09791 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 02:01:32 +1100 Received: from mike (ip17.baltimore10.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.30.22.17]) by camel8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA31823 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 10:01:27 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980122100131.006c9404@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 10:01:31 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: An Appeal to Sanity (!) In-Reply-To: <34C6322A.A7A0B55F@innet.be> References: <9801210616.aa22004@flash.irvine.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 06:36 PM 1/21/98 +0100, Herman wrote: >In order to apply L16 one should : > >1) select the LA's >2) define which is the suggested one >3) disallow this action, if there are any other LA's > >Now there seems to be a new problem concerning the definition of a LA. >Is an action, which, by the definition used, would not be considered a >LA, but which is actually chosen by offender, a LA or not ? > >A definition of LA will always include something like : "an action >considered by a peer of offender", but this never includes a phrase, >"given the information present". >This omission is important, because we should then ask : what >information AI or UI ? > >Of course this should be only AI. (discussions welcome but let's now go >on) > >Now it is clear that given that the list of LA's should only include >those Alternatives only possible using AI, then it is very common for an >offender to actually bid something which is NOT a LA. > >So those people that want to allow 6S in this case because 6S is not a >LA would also allow something like : > > 1NT 2H (alert, ooops, we were not playing transfers) > 4H > >No way 4H can be a LA, but we would not allow the bid anyway. But Herman, if we apply your recommended L16 methodology, we have no legal basis for disallowing the 4H bid. If it is not a LA, then there is no room in your 3-Step program for considering it as a suggested action which can be disallowed. Moreover, your method stipulates that only one action from the LA list could be the "suggested" action, while we have numerous cases where a number of actions are potentially suggested. Allow me to suggest the following amendment to your procedure: 1) Based on the standards of the appropriate SO and the bridge facts, develop a list of LA's, i.e. actions which might be logical in the absence of the UI. Often there will be only one or two, possibly (but not necessarily) including the actual action. 2) Campare the action taken (which may or may not be logical, either with or without the UI) to these LA's to see if the UI has made the actual action more attractive than it would be without the UI. 3) If we find that the UI has improved the odds of the actual action in comparison to any of the LA's, then we disallow the actual action and proceed to the score adjustment phase. The foregoing presumes we have already done the homework of identifying the UI, determining that damage did directly result, etc. Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 02:42:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA09919 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 02:42:10 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA09914 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 02:42:02 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2019933; 22 Jan 98 15:25 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 15:23:53 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <199801221358.IAA05192@fern.us.pw.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Stphen Barnfield wrote: >David Stevenson wrote: >>Herman De Wael wrote: >>>Of course they don't, but you can have AI from other sources + UI from >>>partner that tells you the same thing. Then you are not barred from >>>doing what you want. >> >> Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player >>may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does >>*not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. > >But, in principle, might not AI affect the alternatives which are logical? >Putting it another way, AI might make certain calls, which would otherwise have >been LAs, illogical. Quite possible. I have refrained from any comment on LAs in this particular case since I feel I have nothing to add. But we should not be mixing up the concepts of availability of UI and choice amongst LAs. Cheers -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 02:44:46 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA09936 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 02:44:46 +1100 Received: from waffle.cise.npl.co.uk (waffle.cise.npl.co.uk [139.143.18.92]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA09930 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 02:43:53 +1100 Received: from tempest.cise.npl.co.uk by waffle.cise.npl.co.uk; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 14:46:38 GMT Date: Thu, 22 Jan 98 14:46:35 GMT Message-Id: <25355.9801221446@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> From: Robin Barker To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > Herman De Wael wrote: [snip] > > >Of course they don't, but you can have AI from other sources + UI from > >partner that tells you the same thing. Then you are not barred from > >doing what you want. > > Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player > may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does > *not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. > But the AI determines which are the LAs. So if the AI does not leave any alternatives to the bid made (and suggested by the UI) then the bid can stand. Of course, AI such as "I remember the system before partner's announcement" can not be used in determining the LAs. Robin Robin Barker, \ Email: Robin.Barker@npl.co.uk Information Systems Engineering, \ Tel: +44 (0) 181 943 7090 B10, National Physical Laboratory, \ Fax: +44 (0) 181 977 7091 Teddington, Middlesex, UK. TW11 0LW \ WWW: http://www.npl.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 03:18:31 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA10090 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 03:18:31 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA10085 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 03:18:24 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA01486 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 11:18:27 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA10005; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 11:18:32 -0500 Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 11:18:32 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801221618.LAA10005@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: REW@azure-tech.com (Richard Willey) > I must admit to still having > some degree of confusion about where the precise dividing line exists You and everyone else! The Laws are imprecise, leaving considerable discretion to SO's. My belief is that this is intentional, but others on this list are far more qualified to comment than I am. > As a secondary question, can a bid ever be natural and conventional at > the same time. The word "natural" is not used in the Laws, so it can have any meaning assigned by an SO or anyone else. Under the ACBL's definition of "natural," it appears to me that a Flannery 2H bid (showing, say, 5+ hearts and 4 spades) is both natural and conventional. (I refrain from commenting on the usefulness of their definition.) The point, I suppose, is that "natural" should not be assumed to be a synonym for "not conventional." From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 03:28:52 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA10150 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 03:28:52 +1100 Received: from chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (root@[141.211.60.224]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA10145 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 03:28:40 +1100 Received: from mush.math.lsa.umich.edu (grabiner@mush.math.lsa.umich.edu [141.211.64.210]) by chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA03366; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 11:21:32 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 11:27:00 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801221627.LAA09785@mush.math.lsa.umich.edu> From: David Grabiner To: Stephen_Barnfield@europe.notes.pw.com CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-reply-to: <199801221358.IAA05192@fern.us.pw.com> (Stephen_Barnfield@europe.notes.pw.com) Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk You write: > David Stevenson wrote: >> Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player >> may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does >> *not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. > But, in principle, might not AI affect the alternatives which are logical? > Putting it another way, AI might make certain calls, which would otherwise have > been LAs, illogical. Yes, and here's an exaample from Kaplan's Bridge World articles which illustrates the point. Against 4H, you lead the 7 of clubs from 72 doubleton. Dummy hits with KQJ, and plays the jack. Partner hesitates (UI), then plays the nine of clubs (AI, standard signals). When you get in again, you may lead another club because tha AI tells you that parter has the ace, and thus shifting suits is probably not logical. -- David Grabiner, grabiner@math.lsa.umich.edu http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~grabiner 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 Jan 23 03:33:58 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA10176 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 03:33:58 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA10171 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 03:33:53 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA05574 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 11:33:56 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA10028; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 11:34:01 -0500 Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 11:34:01 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801221634.LAA10028@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: An Appeal to Sanity (!) X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Herman De Wael > In order to apply L16 one should : > 1) select the LA's > 2) define which is the suggested one > 3) disallow this action, if there are any other LA's I think we all agree except that items 2 and 3 should be plural. (There may be more than one disallowed LA.) > A definition of LA will always include something like : "an action > considered by a peer of offender", but this never includes a phrase, > "given the information present". > This omission is important, because we should then ask : what > information AI or UI ? > > Of course this should be only AI. (discussions welcome but let's now go > on) The laws don't seem to specify this, presumably making it a fit subject for regulation by SO's. I agree that your conclusion is a sensible approach in the absence of guidance. > then it is very common for an > offender to actually bid something which is NOT a LA. "Very common" may be an overbid, but it certainly happens. The point is that L16 is not the only law dealing with UI. There is also L73. If partner makes a signoff bid and then says, "Oops, I thought that was forcing!" and I now bid game, is there anyone who will not adjust the score? Surely not! Yet there is no way the game bid would have been an LA. We know what we want: don't take advantage of UI. If L16 doesn't permit us to adjust the score, find another law! It is not difficult. Why is this so controversial? From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 05:17:46 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA10856 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 05:17:46 +1100 Received: from strato-fe0.ultra.net (strato-fe0.ultra.net [146.115.8.190]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA10851 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 05:17:40 +1100 Received: from azure-tech.com (mail.azure-tech.com [204.249.180.200]) by strato-fe0.ultra.net (8.8.5/ult.n14767) with SMTP id NAA02743 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:17:36 -0500 (EST) Received: from Microsoft Mail (PU Serial #1189) by azure-tech.com (PostalUnion/SMTP(tm) v2.1.6 for Windows NT(tm)) id AA-1998Jan23.010500.1189.170552; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:12:05 -0500 From: REW@azure-tech.com (Richard Willey) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au (bridge-laws) Message-ID: <1998Jan23.010500.1189.170552@azure-tech.com> X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail via PostalUnion/SMTP for Windows NT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Organization: Azure Technologies, Inc. Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 13:12:05 -0500 Subject: RE: When does a treatment become a conv Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Richard Willey said >> As a secondary question, can a bid ever be natural and conventional at >> the same time. Steve Willner replied >The word "natural" is not used in the Laws, so it can have any meaning >assigned by an SO or anyone else. Under the ACBL's definition of >"natural," it appears to me that a Flannery 2H bid (showing, say, 5+ >hearts and 4 spades) is both natural and conventional. (I refrain from >commenting on the usefulness of their definition.) The point, I >suppose, is that "natural" should not be assumed to be a synonym for >"not conventional." So what is the relationship between conventional bids and "natural" (as defined by the ACBL)? There are a limited number of options. Any bid which is "natural" is allowed regardless of whether it is also conventional. Any bid which is "conventional" must be explicitly licensed regardless of whether is natural. There is no way of telling aside from the personal whim of the director. My guess is that the third option is actually what is used. For example, consider the following two conventional bids. A disciplined weak 2 hearts bid which denies a side suit void or 4 card major. An opening 2H bid which promised at least 4-4 shape in the majors and 3-9 HCP. Both are conventional. Both under the ACBL's own definition are "natural". Anyone want to hazzard what the reaction of the average director would be if asked whether either of these two conventions are legal under the GCC Richard From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 05:23:20 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA10938 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 05:23:20 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA10929 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 05:23:13 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA29725 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 10:23:06 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id KAA06320; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 10:25:40 -0800 Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 10:25:40 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801221825.KAA06320@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! David Stevenson wrote: > Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player > may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does > *not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. Information is a funny thing. One cannot have two pieces of information that are the same; they are then one piece of information. For example, if you have unauthorized information that partner has the SA (he led it out of turn, say), but you also have authorized information that he has the SA (declarer showed out), then you do not have both UI and AI, but simply the information that partner has the SA. Is that information authorized or unauthorized? It cannot be both. The laws specify what information is authorized. If information is defined as authorized, it cannot be unauthorized as well, so any UI that is also known by AI is AI. In reality, however, things are often not quite so clear. If the AI was that partner opened 1S and would only have 11 HCP in a flat hand without the SA---that's how you know partner has the SA...is his having the SA AI or UI? Because information is often not 100% sure, when does unsure AI make UI authorized? The law book, of course, does not delve this deeply into the matter, but as a matter of practice, "beyond a reasonable doubt," probably works. "Total certainty" is probably not necessary. In the example above, if partner has 9 HCP outside of spades and there's no reason to believe he psyched, it's AI that he has the SA. If he has 12, but you know he normally doesn't open flat 12-counts...that's not good enough---the information is still UI. --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 07:14:41 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA11897 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 07:14:41 +1100 Received: from u2.farm.idt.net (lighton@u2.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.11]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA11892 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 07:14:34 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u2.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA21383 for ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 15:14:29 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 15:14:29 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u2.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: RE: When does a treatment become a conv In-Reply-To: <1998Jan23.010500.1189.170552@azure-tech.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Thu, 22 Jan 1998, Richard Willey wrote: > > Richard Willey said > >> As a secondary question, can a bid ever be natural and conventional at > >> the same time. > > Steve Willner replied > > >The word "natural" is not used in the Laws, so it can have any meaning > >assigned by an SO or anyone else. Under the ACBL's definition of > >"natural," it appears to me that a Flannery 2H bid (showing, say, 5+ > >hearts and 4 spades) is both natural and conventional. (I refrain from > >commenting on the usefulness of their definition.) The point, I > >suppose, is that "natural" should not be assumed to be a synonym for > >"not conventional." Without being able to put my finger on exactly what is wrong with the above, I think most of us would say that a bid is one or the other, including the ACBL rule makers. Except in our more pedantic moments, I believe we would (almost) all say a Flannery 2H is conventional *and not natural* because it says something very definite about spades. > > So what is the relationship between conventional bids and "natural" (as > defined by the ACBL)? > There are a limited number of options. > > Any bid which is "natural" is allowed regardless of whether it is also > conventional. > Any bid which is "conventional" must be explicitly licensed regardless of > whether is natural. > There is no way of telling aside from the personal whim of the director. > No. There is the option that the ACBL regulations state what is allowed and what is not. I have never had a problem with this once I have persuaded a director to RTFGCC. I am involved in far more than my share of rulings on the allowable. The GCC allows or disallows things by type, not by convention. This includes a number of clearly natural bids that are "controlled" by not allowing conventional responses to them. Let's not get into this one again! > My guess is that the third option is actually what is used. No. Conventions as defined by the laws are regulated by the four convention charts. > > For example, consider the following two conventional bids. > > A disciplined weak 2 hearts bid which denies a side suit void or 4 card > major. I assert that this 2H bid is a treatment, not a convention. Nothing is positively stated about other suits. If you claim that this is a convention because it denies a 4-card major, then I assume you would assert that a 1S opener is conventional because it denies a 7-card minor. > > An opening 2H bid which promised at least 4-4 shape in the majors and 3-9 > HCP. > This is clearly conventional because it says something positive about spades, a suit not mentioned. > Both are conventional. > Both under the ACBL's own definition are "natural". The second is defined as conventional because the *Laws* say so. > > Anyone want to hazzard what the reaction of the average director would be > if asked whether either of these two conventions are legal under the GCC > See above. We will never get complete agreement that the ACBL convention charts are anything but capricious, because some of us will always want to play something else that is "obviously" sane and non-destructive. Some of the wording in the charts is less than perfect. I have my own list of things that are "insane" about it. The worst part of the wording in my view is the definition of "natural." How about a statement that the bid of a suit for the first time is natural if it promises at least 4 cards in the suit bid and does not promise four card length in some other suit? Yes, I know that this makes a standard American club artificial, but it is anyway and there is no problem with making it allowable. -- Richard Lighton Wood-Ridge NJ USA From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 08:17:42 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA12178 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 08:17:42 +1100 Received: from ligarius-fe0.ultra.net (ligarius-fe0.ultra.net [146.115.8.189]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA12173 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 08:17:37 +1100 Received: from azure-tech.com (mail.azure-tech.com [204.249.180.200]) by ligarius-fe0.ultra.net (8.8.5/ult.n14767) with SMTP id QAA10579; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 16:17:31 -0500 (EST) Received: from Microsoft Mail (PU Serial #1189) by azure-tech.com (PostalUnion/SMTP(tm) v2.1.6 for Windows NT(tm)) id AA-1998Jan23.040700.1189.170659; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 16:11:41 -0500 From: REW@azure-tech.com (Richard Willey) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au (Bridge Laws Mailing List), lighton@idt.net (Richard Lighton) Message-ID: <1998Jan23.040700.1189.170659@azure-tech.com> X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail via PostalUnion/SMTP for Windows NT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Organization: Azure Technologies, Inc. Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 16:11:41 -0500 Subject: RE: When does a treatment become a conv Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk ---------- From: Richard Lighton[SMTP:lighton@idt.net] Sent: Thursday, January 22, 1998 3:38 PM To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: RE: When does a treatment become a conv Richard Willey >> For example, consider the following two conventional bids. >> >> A disciplined weak 2 hearts bid which denies a side suit void or 4 card >> major. In a very nice response Richard Lighton replied >I assert that this 2H bid is a treatment, not a convention. Nothing >is positively stated about other suits. If you claim that this is >a convention because it denies a 4-card major, then I assume you would >assert that a 1S opener is conventional because it denies a 7-card minor. I think that the two cases are not analogous. Any bid which is made can not help but provide negative inferences about that hand. Consider the following. I'm playing strict five card majors, and would never bid a four card major. If I open 1S, then partner knows that at least 5 of the cards in my hands are spades. Partner is able to draw certain inferences from my bid. Specifically, I can not hold more than eight cards divided between clubs, diamonds, and hearts. Playing a non canape system I most likely do not have another suit 6 cards in length or longer. Notice that a shape such as 5-5-3-0 would clearly be considered a "normal" 1S opener. Compare this with the disciplined weak two bid. My weak two bids in spades promise 6+ cards in the suit bid, with no side suit singleton, and no side 4 card major. Partner can once again draw certain inferences from my bid. Specifically, I can't hold more than seven cards divided between clubs, diamonds, and hearts. However, partner is able to draw a number of other conclusions about how those remaining seven cards can or can not be divided. Specifically, I can not hold 6-0-4-3 shape. This restriction has nothing to do with the number of spades which I hold in my hand, but rather is an artificial constraint introduced because I don't think its good practice to preempt with a void. The two cases do not seem analogous. The bidding cores are being refined by different means. Richard From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 09:55:40 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA12842 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:55:40 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA12836 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:55:33 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab1025473; 22 Jan 98 22:53 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 21:13:29 +0000 To: Jeff Goldsmith Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <199801211756.JAA04907@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801211756.JAA04907@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV>, Jeff Goldsmith writes >Tony Edwards wrote: > >|One of the [principals] in this case, a member of the NOS, sent >|the problem/complaint to Gary Blaiss, (cut) >|Oddly enough, I have another problem, for which I need a rather >|quick answer (the game is Wed. evening!). It has been brought >|to my attention that the members of the committee, *without >|any prompting by me, I might add*, have rethought their >|descision and now want to return the result to 4S+2, . > (cut) Jeff Goldsmith: >It doesn't. ...but maybe it's no coincidence that >the AC changed their mind...perhaps one of them reads >this group! :) > Trial by media ? -- Labeo We will hang you, never fear, Most politely, most politely..... ( 'Princess Ida' ) From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 09:59:58 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA12870 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:59:58 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA12863 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:59:52 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2019531; 22 Jan 98 22:53 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 22:50:55 +0000 To: Adam Beneschan Cc: "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" From: Labeo Subject: Re: An Appeal to Sanity (!) In-Reply-To: <9801210938.aa04968@flash.irvine.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <9801210938.aa04968@flash.irvine.com>, Adam Beneschan writes > >Ed Sheldon wrote: > >> I think the term "logical alternative" must be interpreted as "logical, >> given the authorised information available to the player". ............some excision........... > >All things considered, my preference would be to have L16A reworded to >make it clear that the call actually chosen doesn't have to be >considered a "logical alternative" Labeo: I agree the law could be made more exact. However as a matter of English grammar there is no necessity in the way the law is worded that the chosen action shall itself be logical. Some authority (?) has decided that 'one' refers to 'logical alternative actions' rather than just to 'actions'. It can perfectly well be read to say that the player with UI shall not choose one (an action) from among logical alternative actions. Nor does the word 'among' require that the chosen action shall be one of logical alternatives - 'among' does not signify that all the group must be of a single type - you can have a cat among pigeons, or one dictionary cites "he lived among the Indians" and O.E.D. quotes Longfellow: 'He saw once more his dark-eyed Queen Among her children stand.' Thus the dictionaries are with this and it is clear that, later in Law 16, the wording avoids any suggestion that the chosen action must be logical itself ; 16A2 does not say "has chosen one of logical alternative actions that could have been suggested over another by such information", nor does it extend the earlier ambiguity by using a term like "such action" to refer back to the earlier wording: instead it refers to an action, any action, that could have been suggested over a logical alternative action by the information. I urge not only that this English meaning is an undeniably valid reading of the text (though not the only valid reading of the first statement), but also that common sense demands that we read the law this way and that we do not taint 16A2 with a sense that is not inherent in its wording. -- Labeo From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 13:12:39 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA13761 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:12:39 +1100 Received: from cshore.com (cshore.com [206.165.153.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA13754 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:12:32 +1100 Received: from [130.132.145.68] ([130.132.145.68]) by cshore.com with SMTP (IPAD 2.03/64) id 5758400 ; Thu, 22 Jan 1998 21:14:45 EST Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 21:11:43 -0500 To: REW@azure-tech.com (Richard Willey) From: bills@cshore.com (Bill Segraves) Subject: RE: When does a treatment become a conv Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Message-Id: <199801230214.5758400@cshore.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >For example, consider the following two conventional bids. > >A disciplined weak 2 hearts bid which denies a side suit void or 4 card >major. > >An opening 2H bid which promised at least 4-4 shape in the majors and 3-9 >HCP. > >Both are conventional. FWIW, the ACBL encyclopedia uses various forms of limit raises as an example for illustrating the sometimes subtle difference between a convention and a treatment. A vanilla limit raise is a treatment. A limit raise showing a side singleton is a convention. [Standard disclaimers about knowing that this is not the ACBL etc., etc., etc.] It's quite an interesting question to ask whether the "disciplined" weak 2 conveys comparable information concerning other denominations, and whether that information is adequate to justify calling it a convention. I'm not inclined to accept, without some discussion, that it is conventional simply because there is *any* non-trivial information concerning other denominations, though I may ultimately be convinced. Particularly within the contexts of complete systems, many bids *deny* a host of holdings which would have been dealt with by other bids, but this does not automatically make them conventional. I see this as being quite different from the 2H bid showing both majors. Here, there is undeniably an affirmative statement about a holding in another denomination. If we call them both conventional, perhaps that suggests we need yet another category of terms, not that they are in any meaningful way comparable. Just my opinion. I could be wrong. Cheers, Bill S. From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 13:14:06 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA13787 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:14:06 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA13782 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:13:54 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2020641; 23 Jan 98 2:05 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 23:31:31 +0000 To: David Stevenson Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message , David Stevenson writes >Stphen Barnfield wrote: >>David Stevenson wrote: >>>Herman De Wael wrote: ....(taken).... >> >>But, in principle, might not AI affect the alternatives which are logical? >>Putting it another way, AI might make certain calls, which would otherwise have >>been LAs, illogical. > > Quite possible. I have refrained from any comment on LAs in this >particular case since I feel I have nothing to add. But we should not >be mixing up the concepts of availability of UI and choice amongst LAs. > Labeo: AI may remove the factor of one LA being suggested over another by the UI since it may be that only actions suggested by the AI are logical, and equally so if two or more. -- Labeo We will hang you, never fear, Most politely, most politely..... ( 'Princess Ida' ) From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 13:19:00 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA13832 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:19:00 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA13826 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:18:50 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1026009; 23 Jan 98 2:05 GMT Message-ID: <3lMW8FAhg9x0Ew0v@coruncanius.demon.co.uk> Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 23:37:05 +0000 To: Richard Willey Cc: bridge-laws From: Labeo Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conv In-Reply-To: <1998Jan23.010500.1189.170552@azure-tech.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <1998Jan23.010500.1189.170552@azure-tech.com>, Richard Willey writes > >Richard Willey said >>> As a secondary question, can a bid ever be natural and conventional at > > >>> the same time. > >Steve Willner replied > >>The word "natural" is not used in the Laws, > >Any bid which is "natural" is allowed regardless of whether it is also >conventional. >Any bid which is "conventional" must be explicitly licensed regardless of >whether is natural. >There is no way of telling aside from the personal whim of the director. > Labeo: Of course, any call - whether also 'natural' or not - may be regulated if it is conventional. Since regulation is optional it would be a wholly normal situation if some such calls were the subject of regulation and some not. -- Labeo We will hang you, never fear, Most politely, most politely..... ( 'Princess Ida' ) From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 14:19:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA14155 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 14:19:04 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA14149 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 14:18:52 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1004526; 23 Jan 98 3:16 GMT Message-ID: <+IYE3QA8sAy0Ew$X@coruncanius.demon.co.uk> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 03:15:08 +0000 To: Steve Willner Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: An Appeal to Sanity (!) In-Reply-To: <199801221634.LAA10028@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801221634.LAA10028@cfa183.harvard.edu>, Steve Willner writes >> From: Herman De Wael >> In order to apply L16 one should : >> 1) select the LA's >> 2) define which is the suggested one >> 3) disallow this action, if there are any other LA's > >I think we all agree except that items 2 and 3 should be plural. (There >may be more than one disallowed LA.) Labeo: More than one action may also be allowable From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 14:19:35 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA14173 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 14:19:35 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA14161 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 14:19:22 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2028305; 23 Jan 98 3:16 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 02:38:49 +0000 To: Herman De Wael , Bridge Laws From: Labeo Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <34C6089F.A2C3A15F@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <34C6089F.A2C3A15F@innet.be>, Herman De Wael writes >I'm answering this thread starting from Steve's answer because I want to >react both to itself and to Steve's comment. > >Steve Willner wrote: and Herman: >> >Wrong again Steve, what you are actually thinking DOES determine your >legal position. >Only sometimes it can be difficult to PROVE this, since we do not have >mind readers present at all tournaments. Labeo: Sorry Herman, that's altogether too naive. The TD's duty is to be sceptical and to give the margin of any doubt to NOs. When a player tells you what he thought there is doubt unless there is compelling logic or 'external' evidence to corroborate his statement. -- Labeo We will hang you, never fear, Most politely, most politely..... ( 'Princess Ida' ) From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 14:20:30 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA14190 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 14:20:30 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA14184 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 14:19:59 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2028300; 23 Jan 98 3:16 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 02:47:59 +0000 To: Herman De Wael Cc: Bridge Laws From: Labeo Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <34C70408.2E4D19E6@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <34C70408.2E4D19E6@innet.be>, Herman De Wael writes >David Stevenson wrote: >> >> Herman De Wael wrote: >> > >If you wake up to your incorrect call before (or rather without) the use >of your partner's UI, then that is AI and you should be allowed to bid >your bid. Labeo: Where did you find a statement in the laws that Law 16A is conditional on whether you have AI ? - or conditional on anything other than the simple question whether you have UI from partner? -- Labeo We will hang you, never fear, Most politely, most politely..... ( 'Princess Ida' ) From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 20:03:45 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA15050 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 20:03:45 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA15040 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 20:03:38 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-87.uunet.be [194.7.13.87]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA22349 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:03:32 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34C85958.F59F8E6F@innet.be> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:48:24 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > > >Of course they don't, but you can have AI from other sources + UI from > >partner that tells you the same thing. Then you are not barred from > >doing what you want. > > Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player > may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does > *not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. > Will you always apply that ? Bidding goes : 1NT - 2H I alert, and when asked, partner jumps in and starts explaining transfers to opponents. If as director you believe me when I say that I do know that we are playing transfers. I now have AI and UI to the same information. Am I barred from bidding 2S ? Surely not ! Besides, just to be legalistic : let's RTFLB. L16 : to base a call or play on (UI) may be an infraction L16A : after a player makes available to his partner 'extraneous' information ... If the information is there to begin with (as AI), it is not 'extraneous'. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 20:03:46 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA15051 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 20:03:46 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA15042 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 20:03:40 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-87.uunet.be [194.7.13.87]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA22365 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:03:34 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34C85A35.64A7FA3E@innet.be> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:52:05 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <199801221358.IAA05192@fern.us.pw.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Stephen_Barnfield@europe.notes.pw.com wrote: > > > > > Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player > >may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does > >*not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. > > But, in principle, might not AI affect the alternatives which are logical? > Putting it another way, AI might make certain calls, which would otherwise have > been LAs, illogical. > Not necessarily. Sometimes more than one action is a LA, and when based on AI, a player can choose between them. But when UI is available to aid him, he can no longer choose the suggested alternative. So it is important that we try agree on this : "when UI and AI say the same thing, the player remains free to choose." I say this is true, David doesn't agree. Comments ? -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 22:08:20 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA15410 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 22:08:20 +1100 Received: from MajorD.xtra.co.nz (terminator.xtra.co.nz [202.27.184.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA15405 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 22:08:10 +1100 Received: from LOCALNAME (p37-m4-ch7.dialup.xtra.co.nz [202.27.179.229]) by MajorD.xtra.co.nz (8.8.8/8.8.6) with SMTP id AAA02968 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 00:07:34 +1300 (NZDT) Message-ID: <34C9A2A8.BCB@xtra.co.nz> Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 00:13:28 -0800 From: B A Small Reply-To: Bruce.Small@xtra.co.nz X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0C-XTRA (Win95; I; 16bit) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: OBOOT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hi all, Am uneasy about decision I made at local club game this week. Was playing director and called to table Bd 14 Dealer E nil vul AK5 NS above average pair. EW learners Q72 North opens 1D before any other bid. K865 Option to bid is declined by east (29A) so K93 bid is cancelled and biddding reverts to E. QJ42 8763 South is told to pass whenever it is her turn. AJ9 T6 Bidding now goes P-P-P-1NT-P-P-P. I asked to Q92 AJ43 see sheet at end of play. 1NT made. NS playing 762 AQ5 Acol with weak (12-14) NT and transfers. T9 Mainly played in 1D or 2H for making one or K8543 one off. 1NT making was bottom board. Law 72A5 T7 allows offenders to make any call advantagous JT84 to their side. I felt North had used information of enforced pass to place contract but reading law 23 seems to imply that offender must know that enforced pass at time of irregularity (i.e OBOOT) would damage. How do you as director know that offender knows?? I wanted to change score to 1D making for average board but couldn't find appropriate law. Is there one? or has north used law 72A5 to advantage? In the end I left it as was and ensured EW knew they had right of appeal. As it was a holiday session and they hadn't played well and weren't keen on an appeal they didn't. Comments please. Bruce PS I was teaching new partner precision with 13-15NT and transfers. Bidding went P-P-P-1NT-P-2D-P-3NT-all P. 2 off for absolute bottom. She misunderstood 2D until the dummy hit the table. C'est la vie. From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 22:15:02 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA15449 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 22:15:02 +1100 Received: from mail.compulink.co.uk (mail.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.20]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA15444 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 22:14:55 +1100 Received: (from root@localhost) by mail.compulink.co.uk (8.8.7/8.8.6) id LAA26830 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 11:14:28 GMT Date: Fri, 23 Jan 98 11:13 GMT0 From: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tim West-meads) Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Reply-To: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Message-Id: Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In-Reply-To: <199801221825.KAA06320@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> > Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! > > David Stevenson wrote: > > > Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player > > may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does > > *not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. > > Information is a funny thing. One cannot have two pieces > of information that are the same; they are then one piece > of information. I quite like this approach but feel it uses an "unusual" definition of information (my windows taskbar and the clock on the wall show the same time and it "looks" like two pieces of information!). I prefer to take an approach that if all the UI that has been made available is a subset of the AI available it is impossible for the UI to demonstrably suggest the relative merits of anything. The original case made no mention of the 6S bidder having miscounted his hand and strongly implied that he had thought he was playing a strong NT so I felt an adjustment was in order [semantic analysis of L16 has not changed my mind since I believe the most blatant abuses of UI are when a player finds a bid that would not otherwise be considered]. Had I been able to establish that he knew the NT range at the time of his bid then I would not adjust. However, in order to use this "subset" theory one must be prepared to let a result stand even if, as in the case of the clocks, the UI confirms the accuracy of the AI. Example: 1NT-(Slow P)-2H*-(p) *(announced/described as transfer, UI) CC agrees 3H -(P) -? Playing behind screens in an unfamiliar partnership and holding a weakish 5422 hand I would seriously consider the possibility of passing on the grounds that pard might have forgotten that we play transfers and made a defensive raise in hearts partly based on his LHO's hesitation (I wouldn't actually pass since it would be a breach of partnership trust). Pass is then an LA by some ACBL interpretations. I'd be very unhappy to have my 3S/4S bid ruled back to 3H if playing without screens. Tim West-Meads From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 22:19:00 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA15474 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 22:19:00 +1100 Received: from u2.farm.idt.net (lighton@u2.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.11]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA15469 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 22:18:54 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u2.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id GAA10388 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 06:18:50 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 06:18:49 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u2.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conv In-Reply-To: <34C7BBE4.7D333420@idt.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Thu, 22 Jan 1998, Irwin J Kostal wrote: > how about 1S-3S as a forcing raise? > Clearly natural. It says nothing about any other suit, except possibly by negative inference if you have more than one way to raise. -- Richard Lighton | May all your troubles last as long (lighton@idt.net) | as your New Year's resolutions. Wood-Ridge NJ | --Joey Adams USA | From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 22:34:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA15523 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 22:34:09 +1100 Received: from u2.farm.idt.net (lighton@u2.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.11]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA15517 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 22:34:03 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u2.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id GAA12110 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 06:33:58 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 06:33:57 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u2.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: RE: When does a treatment become a conv In-Reply-To: <1998Jan23.040700.1189.170659@azure-tech.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > Richard Lighton replied > > >I assert that this 2H bid is a treatment, not a convention. Nothing > >is positively stated about other suits. If you claim that this is > >a convention because it denies a 4-card major, then I assume you would > >assert that a 1S opener is conventional because it denies a 7-card > minor. > > I think that the two cases are not analogous. > Any bid which is made can not help but provide negative inferences about > that hand. > > Consider the following. > > I'm playing strict five card majors, and would never bid a four card > major. > If I open 1S, then partner knows that at least 5 of the cards in my hands > are spades. > Partner is able to draw certain inferences from my bid. > Specifically, I can not hold more than eight cards divided between clubs, > diamonds, and hearts. > Playing a non canape system I most likely do not have another suit 6 > cards in length or longer. > Notice that a shape such as 5-5-3-0 would clearly be considered a > "normal" 1S opener. > > > Compare this with the disciplined weak two bid. > My weak two bids in spades promise 6+ cards in the suit bid, with no side > suit singleton, and no side 4 card major. > Partner can once again draw certain inferences from my bid. > Specifically, I can't hold more than seven cards divided between clubs, > diamonds, and hearts. > However, partner is able to draw a number of other conclusions about how > those remaining seven cards can or can not be divided. Specifically, I > can not hold 6-0-4-3 shape. This restriction has nothing to do with the > number of spades which I hold in my hand, but rather is an artificial > constraint introduced because I don't think its good practice to preempt > with a void. > At some point soon this might become a religious dispute! I claim that the 2H opener promising (exactly?) 6 hearts and no side suit or void makes no real assertion about any side suit, probably because knowing that partner is either 331 or 322 in them isn't very useful information almost all of the time, and is an inference. I know Richard is not going to convince me otherwise, and I'm unlikely to convince him. Would anyone else like a try? :-) -- Richard Lighton | May all your troubles last as long (lighton@idt.net) | as your New Year's resolutions. Wood-Ridge NJ | --Joey Adams USA | From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 23 23:10:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA15675 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 23:10:29 +1100 Received: from hqinbh2.ms.com (firewall-user@hqinbh2.ms.com [144.14.128.34]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA15669 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 23:10:22 +1100 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by hqinbh2.ms.com (8.8.6/fw v1.22) id HAA04758; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 07:06:44 -0500 (EST) Received: from unknown(140.14.69.95) by hqinbh2.ms.com via smap (3.2) id xma004730; Fri, 23 Jan 98 07:06:16 -0500 Received: from lnsun39.morgan.com (lnsun39.morgan.com [140.14.98.39]) by cwmail1.morgan.com (8.8.5/hub v1.75) with ESMTP id MAA24994; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 12:06:13 GMT From: Edward Sheldon Received: (sheldone@localhost) by lnsun39.morgan.com (8.8.5/sendmail.cf.client v1.05) id MAA06442; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 12:06:13 GMT Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 12:06:13 GMT Message-Id: <9801231206.ZM6440@ms.com> In-Reply-To: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tim West-meads) "Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider!" (Jan 23, 12:00pm) References: X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.1 10oct95) To: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Jan 23, 12:00pm, Tim West-meads wrote: [snip] > 1NT-(Slow P)-2H*-(p) *(announced/described as transfer, UI) CC agrees > 3H -(P) -? > > Playing behind screens in an unfamiliar partnership and holding a weakish > 5422 hand I would seriously consider the possibility of passing on the > grounds that pard might have forgotten that we play transfers and made a > defensive raise in hearts partly based on his LHO's hesitation [snip] If you were playing with screens, you wouldn't know how partner had explained the 2H bid. Also, one member of your partnership would not be able to tell that the pass (rather than partner's bid) was slow. Cheers, Ed From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 02:07:55 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA18858 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:07:55 +1100 Received: from camel8.mindspring.com (camel8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.58]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA18853 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:07:49 +1100 Received: from mike (ip122.baltimore10.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.30.22.122]) by camel8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA08601 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:07:44 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980123100748.006cbab8@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:07:48 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: OBOOT In-Reply-To: <34C9A2A8.BCB@xtra.co.nz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 12:13 AM 1/24/98 -0800, Bruce wrote: >Hi all, > >Am uneasy about decision I made at local club game this week. Was >playing director and called to table >Bd 14 Dealer E >nil vul AK5 NS above average pair. EW learners > Q72 North opens 1D before any other bid. > K865 Option to bid is declined by east (29A) so > K93 bid is cancelled and biddding reverts to E. >QJ42 8763 South is told to pass whenever it is her turn. >AJ9 T6 Bidding now goes P-P-P-1NT-P-P-P. I asked to >Q92 AJ43 see sheet at end of play. 1NT made. NS playing >762 AQ5 Acol with weak (12-14) NT and transfers. > T9 Mainly played in 1D or 2H for making one or > K8543 one off. 1NT making was bottom board. Law 72A5 > T7 allows offenders to make any call advantagous > JT84 to their side. I felt North had used >information of enforced pass to place contract but reading law 23 seems >to imply that offender must know that enforced pass at time of >irregularity (i.e OBOOT) would damage. How do you as director know that >offender knows?? I wanted to change score to 1D making for average board >but couldn't find appropriate law. Is there one? or has north used law >72A5 to advantage? In the end I left it as was and ensured EW knew they >had right of appeal. As it was a holiday session and they hadn't played >well and weren't keen on an appeal they didn't. Comments please. > You decided correctly. Law 72 makes clear that North has every right to guess well in this situation, and he did. As to the standard for applying L23, "could have known" means could have known as a matter of bridge logic. Barring extraneous information (comments overheard, signals from partner) North has no information at all about South's hand at the time of the BOOT. As a matter of bridge logic, therefore, North could not possibly have known that it would be to his advantage to enforce a pass from partner. Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 02:10:35 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA18873 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:10:35 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA18868 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:10:29 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic5.cais.com [207.226.56.5]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id JAA01861 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:57:11 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980123094100.006988a0@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:41:00 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <199801201930.OAA08713@cfa183.harvard.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 02:30 PM 1/20/98 -0500, Steve wrote: >> From: "Kaye M. Krebs" >>... placed the 1NT card on the table. Then, to my horror, I >> looked at the vulnerability and saw that we were white. > >>From the point of view of the TD (and AC), there is no way to tell >whether you "woke up" before partner's announcement or because of it. >Your legal position is the same either way. You have UI (the >announcement, not to mention partner's hesitation) and are not allowed >to take any action it suggests if there is any LA that was not >suggested. (The rules, incidentally, were different before 1987. I'm >not sure whether the ruling here would differ or not, but the standard >of judgment would be different. This is not really relevant except >that a few of us would like to go back to the old rules.) > >On the facts presented, the UI seems to suggest bidding, and passing >3NT seems to be a LA (absent the UI), so I think ruling the score back >had slam made would be automatic. If you were experienced enough to be >expected to know better, I'd also expect a PP, which should have been >imposed even when the slam didn't make. > >This may seem harsh, but you have to realize that your legal position >is based on the cards and events at the table, not on what you were >actually thinking. What Steve says here may well be correct, but I find it troubling. Had Kaye's partner failed to announce the 10-12 NT -- an MI infraction -- it would not have affected the result (barring unethical bridge-lawyering by her opponents, who would have to claim that they would have bid over a 10-12 NT, when in fact they didn't). But then there would have been no potential UI, and no case for an adjustment. Should one be able to avoid an unfavorable adjustment by committing an obvious infraction of the rules? We, who are sitting at home reading e-mail, have "no way to tell whether [Kaye] 'woke up' before partner's announcement or because of it" (other than her own reporting), but that is an issue of fact, which is what committees on the spot are supposed to resolve. Should the AC really find that "ruling the score back... would be automatic", or are they properly required to hear the testimony and base their decision on their judgment of the alleged offender's credibility? This does, of course, raise the possibility that a "real" offender in cases like this can avoid an unfavorable adjustment by doing a good job of lying to the AC. But deliberately lying to an AC is obvious cheating, and, as we've said many times, the UI rules are designed to restore equity, not to ferret out and punish outright cheaters. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 02:38:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA18935 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:38:08 +1100 Received: from chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (root@[141.211.60.224]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA18929 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:38:02 +1100 Received: from mush.math.lsa.umich.edu (grabiner@mush.math.lsa.umich.edu [141.211.64.210]) by chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA19459; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:30:34 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:36:02 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801231536.KAA17413@mush.math.lsa.umich.edu> From: David Grabiner To: Bruce.Small@xtra.co.nz CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-reply-to: <34C9A2A8.BCB@xtra.co.nz> (message from B A Small on Sat, 24 Jan 1998 00:13:28 -0800) Subject: Re: OBOOT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk You write: > Hi all, > Am uneasy about decision I made at local club game this week. Was > playing director and called to table > Bd 14 Dealer E > nil vul AK5 > Q72 > K865 > K93 > QJ42 8763 > AJ9 T6 > Q92 AJ43 > 762 AQ5 > T9 > K8543 > T7 > JT84 > NS above average pair. EW learners North opens 1D before any other > bid. Option to bid is declined by east (29A) so bid is cancelled and > biddding reverts to E. South is told to pass whenever it is her turn. > Bidding now goes P-P-P-1NT-P-P-P. I asked to see sheet at end of > play. 1NT made. NS playing Acol with weak (12-14) NT and transfers. > Mainly played in 1D or 2H for making one or one off. 1NT making was > bottom board. Law 72A5 allows offenders to make any call advantagous > to their side. I felt North had used information of enforced pass to > place contract but reading law 23 seems to imply that offender must > know that enforced pass at time of irregularity (i.e OBOOT) would > damage. How do you as director know that offender knows?? The law doesn't say "knows"; it says "could have known". On this hand, North couldn't have known that he wanted to play precisely 1NT unless he looked at partner's hand; he opened 1D with the intention of leaving various contracts open, including 1NT. The "could have known" rule applies when a player could reasonably see that he could get a better result by making a bid and forcing partner to pass than by making any normal bid. Example: W E 2C 2H 3H 4NT (RKC) 5S 5H corrected to 5NT East managed to play 5NT when there was no way to get there within his system, and he could have known when he tried to sign off in 5H over 5S that this would be possible. Therefore, you should adjust to 6H or 6NT if either slam goes down. > I wanted to > change score to 1D making for average board but couldn't find > appropriate law. You don't have a Law allowing this. In the 1987 Laws, Law 23B alone allowed you to make an adjustment in this case. A pass at partner's turn to call was subject to adjustment if it worked to the offenders' advantage at any time; other enforced passes were subject to adjustment only if the offender could have known. -- David Grabiner, grabiner@math.lsa.umich.edu http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~grabiner 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 Sat Jan 24 02:46:28 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA18980 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:46:28 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA18975 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:46:22 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id KAA32545 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:46:25 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA00737; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:46:33 -0500 Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:46:33 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801231546.KAA00737@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: OBOOT X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Mike Dennis has addressed this case well, but there may be a few more points worth emphasizing. > From: B A Small > I felt North had used information of enforced pass to place contract This is legal. The penalty should have been spelled out, and it is AI. It is common to guess 1NT or 3NT when partner is barred. Those are often good contracts to be in. > but reading law 23 seems > to imply that offender must know that enforced pass at time of > irregularity (i.e OBOOT) would damage. The phrase is "could damage." That is, offender must have a bridge reason to expect an advantage from the infraction at the time the infraction occurred. Here, even the sharpest, most dishonest North would want partner to be able to bid. North has no other way to know which strain to play in or how high. (At least this is my bridge judgment; you and perhaps an AC would have to form your own opinions.) > How do you as director know that offender knows?? It is not a question of whether offender knows and _certainly_ not a question of whether a particular offender is dishonest. It is whether the offender "could have known." All this does is give score adjustment "teeth" to the longstanding rule (L72B2 now, was 72B1 in 1987) that one should not deliberately infringe a law. In order to adjust, you don't need to determine that the infraction _was in fact_ deliberate but only that the infraction _could have been expected_ to create an advantage. If EW want a good score on this hand, all they have to do is defend 1NT a little better. The infraction perhaps makes it more likely that they will get a good score, but it does not guarantee them one. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 02:50:02 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA19013 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:50:02 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA19006 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:49:56 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic5.cais.com [207.226.56.5]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id KAA09479 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:36:39 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980123105142.00699b64@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:51:42 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <199801211720.MAA09356@cfa183.harvard.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 12:20 PM 1/21/98 -0500, Steve wrote: >I wrote: >> > This may seem harsh, but you have to realize that your legal position >> > is based on the cards and events at the table, not on what you were >> > actually thinking. > >> From: Herman De Wael >> Wrong again Steve, what you are actually thinking DOES determine your >> legal position. >> Only sometimes it can be difficult to PROVE this, since we do not have >> mind readers present at all tournaments. > >I wonder whether the difference is more semantic than practical. Let >me just refer to Mike Dennis' and David Stevenson's articles, which >seem to me to have addressed this issue quite well. If there is a >perceived difference between my views and theirs on the overall legal >question, it is probably bad writing on my part. Steve is probably right that there's no "practical" difference, but the difference is surely not semantic, but quite fundamental. Granted: - as in any judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding, self-serving testimony by an alleged offender should be, and is, heavily discounted, and - in bridge, we have the further accepted principle that doubtful situations are to be resolved in favor of the "non-offending" side. So it may be difficult or impossible for the "offender" in a case like this to talk an AC out of making an adjustment. But that's a far cry from saying that the ruling is automatic. IMO the laws give the offender the absolute right to make his case to the AC, and give the AC the right to accept his testimony as credible and find in his favor -- even if we're hard-pressed to imagine their ever doing so. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 03:28:48 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA19327 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 03:28:48 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA19313 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 03:28:33 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic5.cais.com [207.226.56.5]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id LAA15610 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 11:15:15 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980123113019.006e3f04@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 11:30:19 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: References: <34C70408.2E4D19E6@innet.be> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 11:39 AM 1/22/98 +0000, David wrote: >Herman De Wael wrote: > >>Of course they don't, but you can have AI from other sources + UI from >>partner that tells you the same thing. Then you are not barred from >>doing what you want. > > Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player >may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does >*not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. That's an interpretation, but it's not that clear-cut. The FLB says "Players are authorized to base their calls and plays on information from legal calls and plays [AI]... To base a call or play on other extraneous information [UI] may be an infraction... the partner may not choose... [an action] that could demonstrably have been suggested... by the extraneous information." One can easily read this as saying that when a player has obtained the same information by two routes, one authorized and one not, he is free to base his action on the AI, that subsequent UI is redundant, and that L16 does not apply when the UI merely confirms what the player already knows based on AI; i.e. that the UI, by being redundant, hasn't "suggested" anything. "Could have been suggested" can be taken to mean "might have been suggested under the circumstances" rather than "might have been suggested under other circumstances." Or to mean "could have been suggested to the player who took the action in question" rather than "could have been suggested to a random person in vacuo". Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 03:42:03 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA19461 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 03:42:03 +1100 Received: from ns2.tudelft.nl (ns2.tudelft.nl [130.161.180.65]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA19455 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 03:41:56 +1100 Received: from duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl by mailhost1.tudelft.nl (PMDF V5.1-10 #27995) with SMTP id <0EN800CKCX1N20@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 17:41:47 +0100 (MET) Received: by duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl (16.6/15.6) id AA29582; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 17:40:46 +0100 Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 17:40:45 +0100 (MET) From: "E.Angad-Gaur" Subject: Re: Choice? In-reply-to: from <"J.P.Pals@frw.uva.nl"@Jan> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Message-id: <0EN800CKDX1N20@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> Mailer: Elm [revision: 66.25] Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > East asks 'My turn to lead?' and places a card face down on the > table, North (the dummy-to-be) tells him that it is his turn to > lead, and East faces his card. South calls the TD, who informs him > that East may retract his card without penalty (L47E). > > LAW 47 - RETRACTION OF CARD PLAYED > E. Change of Play Based on Misinformation > 1. Lead out of Turn > A lead out of turn MAY [emphasis mine] be retracted without > penalty if the leader was mistakenly informed by an opponent > that it was his turn to lead (LHO should not accept the lead). > > What intrigues me is the word 'may'. Does East have a choice to > maintain his opening lead? Does the addition 'LHO should not accept > the lead' exclude the possibility that East insists on leading his > card? --------------------------------------------------------------------- In my opinion he has a choice, but not a really one. If he wants to lead out of turn then he has the right to get the regular penalty's. For the rest he must take his card back and rule 16 etc. must be taken in account. If East had really the possibility to play out of turn then we get absurd situation like the following. East is the leader to be and then he gets the opening lead and also becomes the leader. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > A similar case is L24 > > LAW 24 - CARD EXPOSED OR LED DURING AUCTION > > When the Director determines, during the auction, that because of a > player's action one or more cards of that player's hand were in > position for the face to be seen by his partner, the Director shall > require that every such card be left face up on the table until the > auction closes; and (penalty) if the offender subsequently becomes a > defender, declarer MAY [emphasis mine] treat every such card as a > penalty card (Law 50). > > Does declarer have the choice NOT to treat any such card as a penalty > card? > -------------------------------------------------------------- The declarer can ask the TD to treat the card as NOT a penalty card. And normally (allmost every time ) the TD will not do it (rule 81C8). Evert. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- S.E. Angad-Gaur | email :evert_np@duttncb.tn.tudelft.nl Technische Universiteit Delft | tel. : 015-2786150 Faculteit der Technische Natuurkunde | fax : 015-2783251 Lorentzweg 1 | 2628 CJ Delft | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 03:55:03 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA19591 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 03:55:03 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA19585 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 03:54:55 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic5.cais.com [207.226.56.5]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id LAA19956 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 11:41:38 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980123115643.006e400c@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 11:56:43 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio In-Reply-To: <1998Jan22.214600.1189.170447@azure-tech.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 09:52 AM 1/22/98 -0500, Richard wrote: >A couple months ago, I posted a question to this mailing list about the >definition of a convention. >While I received a number of good answers, I must admit to still having >some degree of confusion about where the precise dividing line exists >between the definition of a treatment between partners and certain types >of conventional bids. > >Specifically, the difference between a convention and a natural bid would >appear to be that a convention imparts information about something other >than the suit being bid. As a classic example, a Jacoby transfer bid of >2H is a convention because it is indicates length in spades. However, >while this concept would appear to be the core of the definition of >convention, there must be some other elements which govern how this >definition is applied. > >For example, consider the following. >Many pairs play a "disciplined" style of bridge. >As many pairs use them, a disciplined weak two bid denies a side 4 card >major or a void. > >My guess is that that a disciplined weak 2 bid is not meant to fall under >the definition of a convention. I agree. For a bid to be conventional, the "information about something other than the suit bid" must be "imparted" explicitly, not merely inferentially (i.e. the information must come from the particular action that was taken, not from the fact that some other action was not taken in preference to it). Otherwise, a normal 1H opening that explicitly shows five hearts and a hand worth opening would be conventional, since, by inference, it also absolutely denies holding seven spades. (A weak two-bid that promised a side four-card major, or promised a void, would be a convention; that's explicit information.) >As a secondary question, can a bid ever be natural and conventional at >the same time. My personal opinion is that it cannot, but I could make a contrary case for certain agreements, such as "mandatory cue-bidding" (a common agreement that, in certain auctions, bidding game in an agreed suit denies any side first-round controls). I'd call that natural (EK would call it a "treatment", but his very useful distinction between "natural bids" and "treatments" is his own, unrelated to the laws, which deal solely in natural bids and conventional bids), but others would argue that it's a convention. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 05:11:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA20485 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 05:11:29 +1100 Received: from hqinbh2.ms.com (firewall-user@hqinbh2.ms.com [144.14.128.34]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA20480 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 05:11:21 +1100 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by hqinbh2.ms.com (8.8.6/fw v1.22) id NAA04732; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:11:12 -0500 (EST) Received: from unknown(140.14.69.95) by hqinbh2.ms.com via smap (3.2) id xma004657; Fri, 23 Jan 98 13:11:01 -0500 Received: from lnsun39.morgan.com (lnsun39.morgan.com [140.14.98.39]) by cwmail1.morgan.com (8.8.5/hub v1.75) with ESMTP id SAA05712; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 18:10:58 GMT From: Edward Sheldon Received: (sheldone@localhost) by lnsun39.morgan.com (8.8.5/sendmail.cf.client v1.05) id SAA06637; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 18:10:57 GMT Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 18:10:57 GMT Message-Id: <9801231810.ZM6635@ms.com> In-Reply-To: Eric Landau "Re: When does a treatment become a conventio" (Jan 23, 6:04pm) References: <3.0.1.32.19980123115643.006e400c@pop.cais.com> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.1 10oct95) To: Eric Landau , Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Jan 23, 6:04pm, Eric Landau wrote: > Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio [snip] > For a bid to be conventional, the "information about something > other than the suit bid" must be "imparted" explicitly, not merely > inferentially (i.e. the information must come from the particular action > that was taken, not from the fact that some other action was not taken in > preference to it). [snip] I have seen people make this explicit/implicit distinction before, and it seems entirely specious to me. Two pairs could be playing exactly the same system, but writing it up differently in their system notes, such that you deem one to be playing a convention, and the other not. For example, I have agreed with many of my partners that 1D-1NT denies a good four card major. Other pairs may have the agreement that they bid 1M on all hands worth a response which include a four card major, specifying their 1D-1NT sequence as 5-9 balanced. Is my 1NT bid a convention and theirs not? Cheers, Ed From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 05:35:44 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA20804 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 05:35:44 +1100 Received: from strato-fe0.ultra.net (strato-fe0.ultra.net [146.115.8.190]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA20798 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 05:35:39 +1100 Received: from azure-tech.com (mail.azure-tech.com [204.249.180.200]) by strato-fe0.ultra.net (8.8.5/ult.n14767) with SMTP id NAA31681; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:35:34 -0500 (EST) Received: from Microsoft Mail (PU Serial #1189) by azure-tech.com (PostalUnion/SMTP(tm) v2.1.6 for Windows NT(tm)) id AA-1998Jan24.012300.1189.170930; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:29:45 -0500 From: REW@azure-tech.com (Richard Willey) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au ('bridge-laws'), elandau@cais.com ('elandau@cais.com') Message-ID: <1998Jan24.012300.1189.170930@azure-tech.com> X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail via PostalUnion/SMTP for Windows NT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Organization: Azure Technologies, Inc. Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:29:45 -0500 Subject: re: When does a treatment become a conv Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk ---------- From: Eric Landau[SMTP:elandau@cais.com] Sent: Friday, January 23, 1998 12:32 PM To: Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conv >For a bid to be conventional, the "information about something >other than the suit bid" must be "imparted" explicitly, not merely >inferentially (i.e. the information must come from the particular action >that was taken, not from the fact that some other action was not taken in >preference to it). Otherwise, a normal 1H opening that explicitly shows >five hearts and a hand worth opening would be conventional, since, by >inference, it also absolutely denies holding seven spades. (A weak two-bid >that promised a side four-card major, or promised a void, would be a >convention; that's explicit information.) I guess I'm going to remain a minority of one on this topic I guess. >From what I can tell, I have a very different view about what information is imparted explicitly as opposed to inferentially. If I open 1 Spade, the fact that I have at most eight cards divided between the other 3 suits clearly seems inferential. The fact that I probably don't have another suit which is longer than my spade suit is also seems inferential, since this information is a conclusion drawn from the fact that I failed to open with another bid. However, to me it doesn't seem to matter whether the weak two bid promises or denies a side void. Both would seem to be explicit. Suppose a weak two bid promises a side suit void. In this case, we have refined the set of all hands which contain 6 hearts and 6-12 HCP by explicitly excluding a sub-set. Suppose a weak two bid denies a side suit void. Once again, we have refined this same set of hands by explicitly excluding a sub-set. In either case, the refinement of the bidding core is a direct consequence of a specific partnership understanding unrelated to the fact that the bidder must hold 6 hearts. Richard From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 06:35:05 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA21592 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 06:35:05 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA21579 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 06:34:54 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id ac2002240; 23 Jan 98 19:30 GMT Message-ID: <4xnN4TAb4Ny0Ewt9@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 18:14:51 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <34C85958.F59F8E6F@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: >David Stevenson wrote: >> >Of course they don't, but you can have AI from other sources + UI from >> >partner that tells you the same thing. Then you are not barred from >> >doing what you want. >> >> Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player >> may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does >> *not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. >Will you always apply that ? > >Bidding goes : 1NT - 2H I alert, and when asked, partner jumps in and >starts explaining transfers to opponents. If as director you believe me >when I say that I do know that we are playing transfers. >I now have AI and UI to the same information. Am I barred from bidding >2S ? >Surely not ! Of course not: Pass is not an LA. >Besides, just to be legalistic : let's RTFLB. > >L16 : to base a call or play on (UI) may be an infraction >L16A : after a player makes available to his partner 'extraneous' >information ... > >If the information is there to begin with (as AI), it is not >'extraneous'. Why not? -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@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 Jan 24 06:40:00 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA21676 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 06:40:00 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA21670 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 06:39:48 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1015443; 23 Jan 98 19:30 GMT Message-ID: <5R8NAVA14Ny0Ewvr@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 18:15:17 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <199801221825.KAA06320@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jeff Goldsmith wrote: >David Stevenson wrote: >> Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player >> may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does >> *not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. >Information is a funny thing. One cannot have two pieces >of information that are the same; they are then one piece >of information. For example, if you have unauthorized >information that partner has the SA (he led it out of turn, >say), but you also have authorized information that he has >the SA (declarer showed out), then you do not have both >UI and AI, but simply the information that partner has >the SA. Is that information authorized or unauthorized? >It cannot be both. The laws specify what information is >authorized. If information is defined as authorized, it >cannot be unauthorized as well, so any UI that is also >known by AI is AI. Whether true or not, this statement is irrelevant. LAW 16 - UNAUTHORISED INFORMATION Players are authorised to base their calls and plays on information from legal calls and plays and from mannerisms of opponents. To base a call or play on other extraneous information may be an infraction of law. A. Extraneous Information from Partner After a player makes available to his partner extraneous information that may suggest a call or play, as by means of a remark, a question, a reply to a question, or by unmistakable hesitation, unwonted speed, special emphasis, tone, gesture, movement, mannerism or the like, the partner may not choose from among logical alternative actions one that could demonstrably have been suggested over another by the extraneous information. " ... The partner may not choose ... " Neither you, Eric nor Herman has produced *any* convincing argument why we should not folow this Law. There is nothing in this Law that says anything about not following it if the information comes any other way. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@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 Jan 24 06:44:24 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA21738 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 06:44:24 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA21730 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 06:44:13 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id ac2002239; 23 Jan 98 19:30 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 19:10:35 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > A few interesting rulings occurred in this EBU competition. I thought >we had sorted out all the problems attendant on Insufficient Bids >corrected before the TD arrives, when Jim Proctor [one of the EBU's >leading TDs] got a new wrinkle! > > 1NT Pass Pass 1C! > > You can't, says someone! > > Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. > > Pass from the 1NT opener. > > **Now** they call the TD !!!!! > > I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! LAW 27 - INSUFFICIENT BID A. Insufficient Bid Accepted Any insufficient bid may be accepted (treated as legal) at the option of offender's LHO. It is accepted if that player calls. Well, that player called, so the 1C bid is accepted. I said it was easy! One thing it does show is the danger of the "it was condoned" approach: Nancy T.Dressing wrote: > Too late the bid is condoned ... you still need to [a] find the Law and [b] say *which* bid is condoned. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@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 Jan 24 06:48:00 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA21801 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 06:48:00 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA21792 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 06:47:54 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA06044 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 14:47:58 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id OAA00938; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 14:48:06 -0500 Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 14:48:06 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801231948.OAA00938@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Edward Sheldon > Two pairs could be playing exactly > the same system, but writing it up differently in their system notes, > such that you deem one to be playing a convention, and the other not. I don't think the above is a problem. Surely we can agree that the distinction depends on the set of hands shown, not on how the notes are written. BLML had quite a long discussion of the definition of convention back in the summer of 1996. (It was based on the 1987 Laws of course.) At the time, I asked: Consider the following agreements about 2H (each to include some specified strength that we can ignore here): 1. Always shows exactly six hearts. 2. Always shows six hearts and no other four card suit. 3. Always shows six hearts and exactly 6331 shape. 4. Always shows six hearts, 6421 shape, and not four spades. 5. Always shows exactly five hearts. 6. Always shows exactly five hearts and not 5332 shape. 7a. Always shows exactly five hearts and a singleton and not four spades. 7b. Always shows exactly five hearts, a singleton, and a four card minor. 8. Always shows exactly five hearts and exactly four spades. Different people drew the line between convention and treatment in different places (usually below 2 and above 7 IIRC with 5 usually considered non-conventional), but I don't remember anybody dividing 7a from 7b. (Of course the same set of hands is identified by either definition.) Where I think there is a problem is: From: Eric Landau > For a bid to be conventional, the "information about something > other than the suit bid" must be "imparted" explicitly, not merely > inferentially (i.e. the information must come from the particular action > that was taken, not from the fact that some other action was not taken in > preference to it). This seems not to be logically helpful. Number 5 above presumably excludes hands with six spades (and the requisite five hearts) because something else would have been opened on those. But likewise, number 8 excludes hands with zero through three spades because something else would have been opened on those! Yet most of us will think 8 is conventional and 5 not. If there is a real distinction here, it has to do with the numbers of hands included and excluded, not just the fact that some are and some are not. In other words, 5 is "all the hands with five hearts, with a very few exceptions," while 8 is "all the hands with five hearts with a whole bunch of exceptions (probably more exceptions than hands included, in fact)." As I've said before, I think the Laws definition is ambiguous, and we simply have to accept that. If certainty is needed (and we want the definition to conform to the usual opinions), it will take a much more complex definition. Alternatively, we can (as we now do) just say "I know one when I see one." If the latter is our policy, I suppose it would be useful to know who decides ambiguous cases. I'd presume it to be the SO, delegated to the TD and AC unless other arrangements have been established. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 07:15:53 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA22270 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 07:15:53 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA22264 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 07:15:47 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA06782 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 15:15:50 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA00993; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 15:15:59 -0500 Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 15:15:59 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801232015.PAA00993@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Well, after the insufficient bid debacle :-), I'm quite glad to be back to my usual habit of disagreeing with David. :-) > From: David Stevenson > LAW 16 - UNAUTHORISED INFORMATION > There is nothing in this Law that says anything about not following it > if the information comes any other way. Oh, come on, David. Read again: > Players are authorised to base their calls and plays on information from > legal calls and plays and from mannerisms of opponents. If we have AI, we are explicitly allowed to base actions on it. We are explicitly disallowed to base actions on UI. What if the _same_ information comes to us in both ways? The Laws, taken literally, both permit and forbid us to use the information. This is a problem in logic, although I agree that it is seldom a problem in practice. The practical solution is to judge LA's and "suggested over another" based on the AI. This almost always works but on rare occasions fails to solve the problem. At least some of those occasions are when a player has violated system before the questionable action. Example: I open 1NT, by agreement 12-14. Partner, in the ACBL, announces "12 to 14" as required. This is UI to me, of course. Does it restrict my actions? From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 08:39:19 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA22958 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 08:39:19 +1100 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 IAA22950 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 08:39:12 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa08875; 23 Jan 98 13:38 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 23 Jan 1998 18:14:51 PST." <4xnN4TAb4Ny0Ewt9@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:38:26 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801231338.aa08875@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Regarding the issue of both AI and UI being present: We've seen lots of opinions on how we would rule in the original situation Tony presented, and what Law(s) we would apply and how. Suppose I change the story a bit: North, forgetting both the N-S agreement and what a notrump hand is supposed to look like, opens 1NT. Their agreement is 11-14, but South has momentarily forgotten that this requires an announcement, mainly because the ACBL keeps changing the rules about announcements and South's confused about what the current rules are. East glances at the convention card, but being a person who'd rather play bridge than worry about protecting her rights to get a good score via lawyering, she then turns to South and asks "That's 11-14, I take it?" South grins sheepishly and says, "Oh yeah, I forgot to announce," and then in an exaggerated version of his official "announcement" tone, South says "11-14." The auction continues as before---2H-6S, making. West calls the director. North had both AI and UI here about the actual agreement. Do you adjust? What laws apply, and how are they applied? Is this any different from this situation: North opens 1NT, South opens 11-14, East remarks something like "You guys still using that dreadful 11-14 range?" -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 12:24:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA24229 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 12:24:04 +1100 Received: from mail.inter.net.il (root@parker.inter.net.il [205.164.141.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA24224 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 12:23:57 +1100 Received: from internet-zahav.net (Hertzelia-198-152.access.net.il [192.116.198.152]) by mail.inter.net.il (8.8.6/8.8.6/PA) with ESMTP id WAA23062; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 22:36:08 +0200 (IST) Message-ID: <34C900C4.79F85256@internet-zahav.net> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 22:42:44 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: David Stevenson CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 23 - a major change - STUBORN ?? References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=x-user-defined Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Your answer below is the right Law answer IMHO. The 1997 Laws say that if someone passes OOT at his partner's turn , then the score will be adjusted only if ".. he could have known...." as appears in law 72b1. Until 1997 the damage produced by this kind of irregularity - if there was damage - HAD TO be adjusted by "late" Law 23b even if the "criminal" couldn't have known he gets advantage. THE IMPORTANT question IMO is still : Does the new law 72B1 suggests that TD WILL NOT USE his discretionary powers when the offender doesn't know that his violation of laws will give him an advantage ????? , because : 1. By law 12A1 , the director can adjust the score when he judges that the Laws don't provide indemnity to the NOS for a particular irregularity/violation , which damaged them. 2. By law 72B1 , the director will adjust score if he deems/judges/thinks the offender "....COULD have known ..." he"ll get an advantage from his own violation of law. I apologize that my former examples , written at 2.30 a.m. !!!, were not accurate enough , but I hope the present question is very important to guide our decisions . Dany David Stevenson wrote: > > > I accept that where a player passes OOT at partner's turn to call, and > the oppos are damaged thereby, that in 1987 the oppos could expect an > adjustment, and in 1997 only if the player could have known. A very > reasonable and sensible change. > > -- > David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ > Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ > bridge@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 Jan 24 12:26:54 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA24247 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 12:26:54 +1100 Received: from aurora.alaska.edu (fsgrb@aurora.alaska.edu [137.229.18.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA24242 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 12:26:47 +1100 Received: from localhost by aurora.alaska.edu; (5.65v3.2/1.1.8.2/22Mar97-0141PM) id AA09997; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 16:26:40 -0900 Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 16:26:40 -0900 (AKST) From: "G. R. Bower" To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Choice? In-Reply-To: <0EN800CKDX1N20@mailhost1.tudelft.nl> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > East asks 'My turn to lead?' and places a card face down on the > > table, North (the dummy-to-be) tells him that it is his turn to > > lead, and East faces his card. South calls the TD, who informs him > > that East may retract his card without penalty (L47E). > > > > LAW 47 - RETRACTION OF CARD PLAYED > > E. Change of Play Based on Misinformation > > 1. Lead out of Turn > > A lead out of turn MAY [emphasis mine] be retracted without > > penalty if the leader was mistakenly informed by an opponent > > that it was his turn to lead (LHO should not accept the lead). > > > > What intrigues me is the word 'may'. Does East have a choice to > > maintain his opening lead? Does the addition 'LHO should not accept > > the lead' exclude the possibility that East insists on leading his > > card? The way I read this passage is "normally, following a LOOT, LHO is given the option to accept the lead, and, if LHO refuses the lead we proceed to apply other laws as needed. In this case only, the leader's right to retract a lead based on misinformation takes priority over LHO's right to accept the illegal lead." That is, I interpret "may" and "should not" as simply establishing the leader's right to retract the lead without having to worry about LHO trying a "It's your lead - no it isn't but I'll accept it anyway" ploy. Gordon Bower From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 13:40:46 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA24524 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 13:40:46 +1100 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 NAA24519 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 13:40:37 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa03780; 23 Jan 98 18:40 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 23 Jan 1998 18:15:17 PST." <5R8NAVA14Ny0Ewvr@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 18:39:59 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801231840.aa03780@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > Jeff Goldsmith wrote: > >David Stevenson wrote: > > >> Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player > >> may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does > >> *not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. > > >Information is a funny thing. One cannot have two pieces > >of information that are the same; they are then one piece > >of information. For example, if you have unauthorized > >information that partner has the SA (he led it out of turn, > >say), but you also have authorized information that he has > >the SA (declarer showed out), then you do not have both > >UI and AI, but simply the information that partner has > >the SA. Is that information authorized or unauthorized? > >It cannot be both. The laws specify what information is > >authorized. If information is defined as authorized, it > >cannot be unauthorized as well, so any UI that is also > >known by AI is AI. > > Whether true or not, this statement is irrelevant. > > LAW 16 - UNAUTHORISED INFORMATION > > Players are authorised to base their calls and plays on information from > legal calls and plays and from mannerisms of opponents. To base a call > or play on other extraneous information may be an infraction of law. > > A. Extraneous Information from Partner > After a player makes available to his partner extraneous > information that may suggest a call or play, as by means of a > remark, a question, a reply to a question, or by unmistakable > hesitation, unwonted speed, special emphasis, tone, gesture, > movement, mannerism or the like, the partner may not choose > from among logical alternative actions one that could > demonstrably have been suggested over another by the extraneous > information. > > " ... The partner may not choose ... " > > Neither you, Eric nor Herman has produced *any* convincing argument > why we should not folow this Law. > > There is nothing in this Law that says anything about not following it > if the information comes any other way. I think David and Jeff are both right. Of course, the Laws should be followed; I don't believe anyone thinks otherwise. Law 16 seems pretty clear with regard to unauthorized information; it doesn't appear to make an exception for UI that's also available from another, authorized, source. However, the Law also says UI prevents you only from making those choices that "demonstrably could have been suggested over another by the extraneous information". And I believe Jeff's point is entirely consistent with this clause. Take his example where (on defense) you have the UI that partner has the spade ace, but declarer later shows out of spades. Now, Jeff says that the info about the spade ace is authorized. Maybe the Laws don't say this, explicity. But can your actions be restricted by this UI? I don't think so. Suppose you adopt a certain defense D1 based on the knowledge that partner has the spade ace; Law 16 makes this illegal only if D1 could have been suggested over other logical defenses, D2, D3, etc., by the extraneous information. However, since it can be assumed that you'd know about the spade ace in any case, any other logical alternative defenses D2, D3, etc., would also take into account the knowledge (strictly from AI) of partner's ace. So I don't think it's possible that the defense D1 "could have been suggested over the logical alternatives *by* *the* *extraneous* *information*". Clearly, the intent of this clause is to apply only in cases where the extraneous information used to make the actual choice, would have been unavailable when determining the logical alternatives---or would have been available but could have been missed or forgotten (as when North forgot his system in the original hand). This criteria doesn't apply in the case declarer shows out, so the information about the spade ace, while still UI, can be treated for all practical purposes as if it were AI. My comment about "missed or forgotten" was intended to cover the situation where someone forgets there system, and also cases like this: you have UI that partner has the ace of spades, declarer doesn't show out of spades, but your only defense to beat the contract (assume IMPs) is to assume partner has the ace of spades. Now, IMHO, it gets trickier. You might have worked out that partner needs the spade ace and played accordingly; the problem, of course, is that partner's showing you the spade ace has (if you're unethical) eliminated the need for you to do all the work of working this out. So if you claim before the TD or AC that your only logical defense was to assume partner had the spade ace, then even if you're demonstrably right, the TD or AC needs to determine whether you would have certainly worked this out at the table. This would depend on your level of play. Jeff's second example is similar, in which you have to determine by inference from the HCP information that partner has the spade ace; whether the criterion is met depends on how certain it is, from the available information, and whether you're a good enough player to figure it out. If it's certain "beyond a reasonable doubt", and if you're a good enough player that the TD or AC could be reasonably certain you wouldn't have missed it, then the UI that partner has the spade ace doesn't suggest any defense over any other logical alternatives, and Law 16 doesn't apply. So, while David's statement is accurate, I think Jeff's biggest error is being terminologically wrong. He calls certain information AI, while under the Laws it technically isn't. However, what he calls AI seems to me to be UI that has the exact same effect as AI, in that it doesn't meet the L16 criteria for adjusting the score; so for all *practical* purposes, it doesn't matter much whether one calls it AI or UI. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 18:21:06 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA25215 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 18:21:06 +1100 Received: from smtp1.erols.com (smtp1.erols.com [205.252.116.101]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA25210 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 18:21:00 +1100 Received: from hdavis (spg-tnt21s165.erols.com [207.172.53.165]) by smtp1.erols.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id CAA11519 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:21:44 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980124022054.007f1100@pop.erols.com> X-Sender: hdavis@pop.erols.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:20:54 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Hirsch Davis Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <9801231840.aa03780@flash.irvine.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 06:39 PM 1/23/98 PST, Adam Beneschan wrote: > >David Stevenson wrote: > >> Jeff Goldsmith wrote: >> >David Stevenson wrote: >> >> >> Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player >> >> may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does >> >> *not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. >> I have to agree with David Stevenson that Law 16 does not make any allowances for AI being redundant with UI. But I think we are getting caught up in semantics, and missing a critical distinction. In Law 16, the role of UI is to eliminate logical alternatives if they are suggested by the UI. However, IMO, the role of AI is to determine exactly what are the logical alternatives. If the AI eliminates all logical alternatives that are not suggested by the UI, then we are free to take the option suggested by the UI. It is not sufficient that the UI be redundant with AI, that is irrelevant. All alternatives not suggested by UI must be eliminated by AI before we are free to select an option suggested by UI. Too many levels of quotes, this is from Adam: [snip] >However, the Law also says UI prevents you only from making those >choices that "demonstrably could have been suggested over another by >the extraneous information". And I believe Jeff's point is entirely >consistent with this clause. Take his example where (on defense) you >have the UI that partner has the spade ace, but declarer later shows >out of spades. Now, Jeff says that the info about the spade ace is >authorized. Maybe the Laws don't say this, explicity. [snip] No, the info about the spade ace is still UI, however, AI has eliminated the logical alternative of playing declarer for the SA. So, we are free to play partner for the ace. The AI has not cancelled out the UI in any way, it just eliminates LAs. [snip] >You might have worked out that partner needs the spade ace >and played accordingly; the problem, of course, is that partner's >showing you the spade ace has (if you're unethical) eliminated the >need for you to do all the work of working this out. So if you claim >before the TD or AC that your only logical defense was to assume >partner had the spade ace, then even if you're demonstrably right, the >TD or AC needs to determine whether you would have certainly worked >this out at the table. This would depend on your level of play. [snip] Again, if playing pard for SA is the only way to get a good defensive score, you are free to do it regardless of UI: it is the only logical alternative. Always assuming you can convince a committee of that :) Best wishes, Hirsch From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 24 19:53:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA25384 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 19:53:08 +1100 Received: from mail.inter.net.il (root@parker.inter.net.il [205.164.141.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA25379 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 19:52:58 +1100 Received: from internet-zahav.net (Hertzelia-198-138.access.net.il [192.116.198.138]) by mail.inter.net.il (8.8.6/8.8.6/PA) with ESMTP id KAA05642; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 10:47:50 +0200 (IST) Message-ID: <34C9AC47.F46840E@internet-zahav.net> Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 10:54:31 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: David Stevenson CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=x-user-defined Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David I believe you meant the 1(one)club is accepted , because as you told bellow , the person changed to 2 Cl after the remark , and then the opener passed , which means he bid as pointed in law 27A .. "....It is accepted if that player calls " I think in this case you can't apply ONLY law 27A , as a direct consequence of the footnote of law 25B1 , but use law 9C ALSO , and explain all the players that the fact they correct premature the irregularity may subject them to further penalty ( leads by law 26 , if the 1NT pair will play the contract ...). Or , do you think that the first part of Law 27A ,...."may be accepted (treated as legal)....." cancell the use of law 9C ???? IMHO , I use the "Herman's normality restoring principle " and still apply - optionaly of course - the law 9C. WHAT DO THE MEMBERS OF WBF LAW COMISSION THINK ??? Dany David Stevenson wrote: > > David Stevenson wrote: > > > A few interesting rulings occurred in this EBU competition. I thought > >we had sorted out all the problems attendant on Insufficient Bids > >corrected before the TD arrives, when Jim Proctor [one of the EBU's > >leading TDs] got a new wrinkle! > > > > 1NT Pass Pass 1C! > > > > You can't, says someone! > > > > Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. > > > > Pass from the 1NT opener. > > > > **Now** they call the TD !!!!! > > > > I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! > > LAW 27 - INSUFFICIENT BID > A. Insufficient Bid Accepted > Any insufficient bid may be accepted (treated as legal) at the > option of offender's LHO. It is accepted if that player calls. > > Well, that player called, so the 1C bid is accepted. I said it was > easy! > > One thing it does show is the danger of the "it was condoned" > approach: > > Nancy T.Dressing wrote: > > Too late the bid is condoned > > ... you still need to [a] find the Law and [b] say *which* bid is > condoned. > > -- > David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ > Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ > bridge@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 Jan 24 21:47:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA25509 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 21:47:04 +1100 Received: from mail.inter.net.il (root@parker.inter.net.il [205.164.141.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA25504 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 21:46:52 +1100 Received: from internet-zahav.net (Hertzelia-204-111.access.net.il [192.116.204.111]) by mail.inter.net.il (8.8.6/8.8.6/PA) with ESMTP id MAA26982; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 12:41:10 +0200 (IST) Message-ID: <34C9C6D5.9FCF58DD@internet-zahav.net> Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 12:47:49 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: David Stevenson CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! References: <4xnN4TAb4Ny0Ewt9@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=x-user-defined Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I learnt once from Grattan ( appologize if quotation not accurate): "... the test/evaluation if there is or not a "bad" UI should be if that information was availble without the violation/irregularity.." and I apply this successfully ....... as much as I feel players reactions....... I don't think the "extraneous" can be treated better...... friendly Dany David Stevenson wrote: > > Herman De Wael wrote: > >David Stevenson wrote: > > >Besides, just to be legalistic : let's RTFLB. > > > >L16 : to base a call or play on (UI) may be an infraction > >L16A : after a player makes available to his partner 'extraneous' > >information ... > > > >If the information is there to begin with (as AI), it is not > >'extraneous'. > > Why not? > > -- > David Stevenson Cats --------------------------- From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 25 02:10:12 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA28579 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 02:10:12 +1100 Received: from freenet1.carleton.ca (root@freenet1.carleton.ca [134.117.136.20]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA28574 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 02:10:05 +1100 Received: from freenet5.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (ac342@freenet5.carleton.ca [134.117.136.25]) by freenet1.carleton.ca (8.8.8/8.8.8/NCF_f1_v2.02) with ESMTP id KAA11606 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 10:09:59 -0500 (EST) Received: (ac342@localhost) by freenet5.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (8.8.5/NCF-Sun-Client) id KAA13870; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 10:10:00 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 10:10:00 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801241510.KAA13870@freenet5.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> From: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca (A. L. Edwards) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Reply-To: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > >Regarding the issue of both AI and UI being present: > >We've seen lots of opinions on how we would rule in the original >situation Tony presented, and what Law(s) we would apply and how. >Suppose I change the story a bit: > >North, forgetting both the N-S agreement and what a notrump hand is >supposed to look like, opens 1NT. Their agreement is 11-14, but South >has momentarily forgotten that this requires an announcement, mainly >because the ACBL keeps changing the rules about announcements and >South's confused about what the current rules are. East glances at >the convention card, but being a person who'd rather play bridge than >worry about protecting her rights to get a good score via lawyering, >she then turns to South and asks "That's 11-14, I take it?" South >grins sheepishly and says, "Oh yeah, I forgot to announce," and then >in an exaggerated version of his official "announcement" tone, South >says "11-14." > >The auction continues as before---2H-6S, making. West calls the >director. North had both AI and UI here about the actual agreement. >Do you adjust? What laws apply, and how are they applied? > >Is this any different from this situation: North opens 1NT, South >opens 11-14, East remarks something like "You guys still using that >dreadful 11-14 range?" > > -- Adam > > My understanding was that a player is not allowed to overhear a question posed to his partner concerning their playing methods. Therefore, the fact that the opponent asked "That's 11-14, I take it?" rather than the (more) correct "Please explain 1NT" is IMHO UI to the 1NT opener [sidebar--I also think this question is UI both to the player who failed to alert *and* to the partner of the player who asked the question, but this may be beyond the scope of the present problem]. This means of course that I don't think the 1NT opener has AI, and therefore is still unable to legally make the 6S call. The second is only a little bit trickier. East is supposed to ask his questions of the partner of the 1NT bidder; therefore, the fact that he has asked both players at the same time is illegal. My arguement would be, since only the partner of the 1NT call is supposed to be be asked, that player is the only one allowed to "hear" any question, inapropriate though the question might be (this does not absolve East of any procedural penalties you might wish to impose on him). Again I don't think the 1NT opener has AI. Now, if the East player looked at the convention card, and then stated to his partner "Pard, they are playing 1NT 11-14.", completely taking the opponents out of the information loop, and acting illegally to boot, then I don't see any problems a handful of aspirins won't cure... :-) Tony (aka ac342) ps. of course, the foregoing is merely my opinion, and I should know better than to interrupt my betters... From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 25 07:47:00 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA29866 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 07:47:00 +1100 Received: from mail.inter.net.il (root@parker.inter.net.il [205.164.141.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA29855 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 07:46:46 +1100 Received: from internet-zahav.net (Hertzelia-204-81.access.net.il [192.116.204.81]) by mail.inter.net.il (8.8.6/8.8.6/PA) with ESMTP id VAA27905; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 21:36:15 +0200 (IST) Message-ID: <34CA4435.D111ECD8@internet-zahav.net> Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 21:42:45 +0200 From: Dany Haimovici X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bruce.Small@xtra.co.nz CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: OBOOT References: <34C9A2A8.BCB@xtra.co.nz> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=x-user-defined Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Your example would belong to Law 23b,only if North would PASS at his partner's turn (someone pointed WRONGLY it belonged to Law 23b until 1997 Laws ). 3 days ago , I pointed this change in my article "Law 23 - a major change ? " ( In spite of the fact it was written at 2.30 a.m. and I corrected it 100 times for the right example ). Today you can't change score according to Law 31B which refers you to Law 23 , because it CAN be changed only if you are sure the offender "...could have known..." that his bid damage his opponents. I asked the forum here if the Law 12A1 can be used , stronger than 23 or 72b1 ..... didn't get yet answers. The most important question ,if we are allowed to use it ,is the meaning of ^indemnity^ related to this irregularity , which seems to be conditional:- law 23 says there is an "indemnity"='adjusting score' IF the offender "could have known" that his action damages opps...... I should like to get the opinion of WBF members in this forum if this conditional sentence in Law 23 is an "indemnity" or not . If it is 100% an "indemnity" - then we can't use Law 12A1. By the way - the right definition of the irregularity is OBOOR= Opening Bid Out Of Rotation. Dany B A Small wrote: > > Hi all, > > Am uneasy about decision I made at local club game this week. Was > playing director and called to table From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 25 10:42:11 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA00574 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 10:42:11 +1100 Received: from oznet07.ozemail.com.au (oznet07.ozemail.com.au [203.2.192.122]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA00569 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 10:42:07 +1100 Received: from rbusch.ozemail.com.au (slbri1p29.ozemail.com.au [203.108.199.109]) by oznet07.ozemail.com.au (8.8.4/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA19982 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 10:42:03 +1100 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980125093657.00695788@ozemail.com.au> X-Sender: rbusch@ozemail.com.au X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 09:36:57 +1100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Reg Busch Subject: Computer generated hands Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This is probably not really BLML material, but may be of interest to BLMLers, and some may be able to offer some useful comment. I don't have the full details yet, but Australia's largest event (and I think sixth largest in the world in terms of table/sessions) has just struck a major disaster. Hands computer generated for the Swiss Teams final in the Summer Festival of Bridge were identical to the hands generated for another ABF event some 10 months earlier! It took a litle while for this to be realised. The ABF assures us that the program they use was written by an expert, and vetted by other experts. In fact, it is the only program the ABF approves for hand generation for events under its aegis. It has even refused to approve the WBF hand generation program. It may be significant that the ABF purchased a new computer for hand generation purposes a few months ago. As a Director, this is one of my nightmares. What do you do in the middle of a barometer scored pairs event when someone says 'I've played these hands before'? One has heard stories such as a congress in Spain producing the same hands as played a few weeks earlier in France. Is there any prgrammer who is prepared to lay out a large sum of money with the guarantee that every set of hands is unique? I know little about the process of hand generation. To me, a computer is a machine, and no machine can produce random actions. So as I see it, one enters a unique seed number into the program to produce a unique set of hands. Different programmers use different methods of arriving at a unique seed. But I understand that, if you enter the same seed number, you get the same set of hands. We had a rather amazing experience in 1988, when we were just starting to produce computer generated hands. We weren't doing many sets, so we entered our own seed, keeping a list of seeds previously used to ensure uniqueness of the seed number. We discovered that, if we entered a seed number exactly 16 more or less than another, it produced the same hands but with the suits shifted in one direction! That is, diamonds became hearts etc. This may have been poor programming, but, if we weren't producing bridge hands, this may have gone unnoticed for years. Can anyone explain how this could be? In Brisbane and nearby coastal areas, we now have eight dealing machines (two different brands), each with their own generation program. What are the odds that before long we'll find identical sets of hands being produced? Reg Busch. From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 25 17:26:11 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA03018 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 17:26:11 +1100 Received: from chong.ihug.co.nz (root@chong.ihug.co.nz [203.29.160.10]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA03008 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 17:26:03 +1100 Received: from xoigoynt (p44-max27.auck.ihug.co.nz [207.212.238.235]) by chong.ihug.co.nz (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id TAA12548 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 19:26:46 +1300 Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19980125192449.0069d474@pop.ihug.co.nz> X-Sender: tripack@pop.ihug.co.nz X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.3 (32) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 19:24:49 +1300 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Patrick Subject: computer generated hands Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk The problem that occurred at Canberra is one that really must be avoided. I have heard of similar problems elsewhere, so this is certainly not a one off. I suspect that the problem arises from the fact that most programs deal the cards in a specific order. E.g. a possible algorithm would be to deal the cards in order from Ace of Spades, King of Spades etc, right down to the 2C. In this method the computer would give this a 25% chance of being dealt to each hand. Let us say, for instance that Ace of Spades is dealt to the North hand. Now the King of Spades is about to be dealt, but there are only 12 vacant spaces in the North hand, so the formula applied to the random number now selected for the KS would mean that there would be 12 chances in 51 of it also being dealt to the North hand and 13 chances in 51 for each other hand. Let us say the KS happens to go to South. Now another random munber is generated for the QS and the formula again applied to leave 12 chances out of 50 that it will be dealt to the North hand, and 12/50 that it will be dealt to the South hand. There would be 13 chances in 50 of it being dealt to the West hand and, likewise,13/50 for the East hand. This is all OK, and if the random numbers really are random, there is no problem whatsoever. If however the random numbers are chosen in a particular sequence that at some stage will repeat, then if you start in the same place in that sequence you will deal the same hands. If there is even a minute risk of this happening it is too much. The solution to this is to create a file of each hand and deal the cards for the next hand from that file, so they are never dealt again after the first time in that AS KS QS JS 10S etc sequence. To illustrate, let us say that the following is the first hand ever dealt by a particular computer: S QJ H A985 D A872 C Q103 S K7643 S A982 H KJ10 H Q732 D J9 D 104 C KJ5 C 762 S 105 H 64 D KQ653 C A984 Having dealt this hand the computer uses these files to determine the order in which cards will be dealt for the next hand. Using the North East South West hands in that sequence the order the computer would assign cards for the next hand would not be AS KS QS etc, but would now be: QS JS AH 9H 8H 5H AD 8D 7D 2D QC 10C 3C AS 9S 8S 2S QH 7H 3H 2H 10D 4D 7C 6C 2C 10S 5S 6H 4H KD QD 6D 5D 3D AC 9C 8C 4C KS 7S 6S 4S 3S KH JH 10H JD 9D KC JC 5C Even if the same random number sequence happened to be chosen for the 2nd hand (and this would still not be recommended) you would still get a completely different hand from the first one. When the computer has finished dealing the required number of hands for this session, it retains in memory the last hand dealt so that can be used to deal the first hand whenever the computer is asked to deal some more hands. The computer never again deals the hand in the same order as that original sequence (unless the previous hand consisted of 4 13 card suits!!) so it is hard to see how there could be any danger of unintentionally duplicated sessions. The only minor thing involved here is a little bit of card sorting by the computer before it prints each hand, because it has not entered the cards into each hand file in the sequence in which bridge players would want to read them. Sorting hands before printing them is only a very minor software problem however, and well worth the effort to get a dealing program that is as close to random as it can possibly be. Patrick Carter Director, Auckland Bridge Club Chairman, NZCBA LAWS & Ethics From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 25 19:42:57 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA03641 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 19:42:57 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA03636 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 19:42:52 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1018123; 25 Jan 98 8:41 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 03:48:13 +0000 To: Eric Landau Cc: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Labeo Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980123105142.00699b64@pop.cais.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <3.0.1.32.19980123105142.00699b64@pop.cais.com>, Eric Landau writes >At 12:20 PM 1/21/98 -0500, Steve wrote: > >>> From: Herman De Wael Eric L. > >So it may be difficult or impossible for the "offender" in a case like this >to talk an AC out of making an adjustment. But that's a far cry from >saying that the ruling is automatic. IMO the laws give the offender the >absolute right to make his case to the AC, and give the AC the right to >accept his testimony as credible and find in his favor -- even if we're >hard-pressed to imagine their ever doing so. > I go along with this; one of the rights of a defendant..... But the AC must remain alert and sceptical..... players, they say, do try to con and some kind of reasonable corroboration of 'just believe me' statements is pretty essential for the protection of innocent opponents (who themselves are perhaps fewer in number than the statistics record!). -- Labeo We will hang you, never fear, Most politely, most politely..... ( 'Princess Ida' ) From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 25 19:43:25 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA03655 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 19:43:25 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA03650 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 19:43:20 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2019452; 25 Jan 98 8:41 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 12:47:12 +0000 To: Herman De Wael Cc: Bridge Laws From: Labeo Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <34C85A35.64A7FA3E@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <34C85A35.64A7FA3E@innet.be>, Herman De Wael writes >Stephen_Barnfield@europe.notes.pw.com wrote: >> Herman De Wael has commented: > > >So it is important that we try agree on this : >"when UI and AI say the same thing, the player remains free to choose." >I say this is true, David doesn't agree. >Comments ? > Labeo believes that you are not quite in tune with what David S has said because you are not understanding him precisely. The position is, and I do not think David S contradicts, that when a player has UI he/she may not choose an action that is suggested over a logical alternative by the UI but the AI may take away the possibility of choice by establishing what it is logical to do. When a player can show that he has acted in the only way that makes bridge sense on the basis of the AI he has not made a choice of one action amongst others that are logical alternatives. But so long as the AI leaves open a number of logical alternative possibilities then choice may not be influenced among them by the UI. -- Labeo We will hang you, never fear, labeo@coruncanius.demon.co.uk Most politely, most politely..... ( 'Princess Ida' ) From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 25 21:27:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA03929 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 21:27:08 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA03923 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 21:27:02 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-213.uunet.be [194.7.13.213]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA16082 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 11:26:53 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34CB0E63.F6CED7D7@innet.be> Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 11:05:23 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Computer generated hands X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <3.0.1.32.19980125093657.00695788@ozemail.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk The problem of computer dealt hands stands and falls with the first seed selected. Although Patrick provides a good example of how hands might be dealt by computer, so that the next hand cannot be equal to the first, if he chooses the same seed to begin with, all hands will be the same as in the first set. The second version of the program I wrote used a random seed that was large enough to encompass all possible bridge hands (you need about four - separate - random looks at the system clock for that !). I believe the WBF program (that's the one from Sweden isn't it ?) also meets that criterion. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Sun Jan 25 21:26:59 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA03922 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 21:26:59 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA03916 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 21:26:53 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-213.uunet.be [194.7.13.213]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA16063 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 11:26:43 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34CB0CD7.60B6372E@innet.be> Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 10:58:47 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Labeo wrote: > > > > Labeo believes that you are not quite in tune with what David S has > said because you are not understanding him precisely. The position is, > and I do not think David S contradicts, that when a player has UI > he/she may not choose an action that is suggested over a logical > alternative by the UI but the AI may take away the possibility of > choice by establishing what it is logical to do. When a player can > show that he has acted in the only way that makes bridge sense on the > basis of the AI he has not made a choice of one action amongst > others that are logical alternatives. But so long as the AI leaves > open a number of logical alternative possibilities then choice may > not be influenced among them by the UI. > -- I do think I understand David, and I don't agree with it. Let's take the example of clocks again. I look at the bottom of my screen and it tells me it's 10:51. I have promised to be in my bridge club before twelve. I can do two things : I can continue to read blml, and risk being late, or I can leave now (and deprive you all of this fascinating discussion). Both are logical alternatives, and as my computer screen contains only AI, I am free to choose. If however I turn around and look at the clock on the wall, this tells me it's 7 to 11 (this paragraph did take me two minutes to write). Now if we consider the clock to give me UI, according to David I should now not be allowed to take the action (leave) which would be suggested by the UI. I believe that since I have no 'extraneous' information, I should not be barred from acting on the information that I do have. I realize that this example is not necessarily easily transposable to the bridge table, and that 'degree of certainty' is of course also an issue. But the simplest example at the bridge table is that of you hearing partner explain your bid correctly (a correct bid that is). Although it is in fact UI, no TD will now rule that you are restricted in your next bidding. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 01:08:12 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA06702 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 01:08:12 +1100 Received: from mail.compulink.co.uk (mail.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.20]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA06697 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 01:07:59 +1100 Received: (from root@localhost) by mail.compulink.co.uk (8.8.7/8.8.6) id OAA08329 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 14:07:34 GMT Date: Sun, 25 Jan 98 14:07 GMT0 From: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tim West-meads) Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Reply-To: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Message-Id: Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In-Reply-To: <199801231948.OAA00938@cfa183.harvard.edu> > As I've said before, I think the Laws definition is ambiguous, and we > simply have to accept that. If certainty is needed (and we want the > definition to conform to the usual opinions), it will take a much more > complex definition. Alternatively, we can (as we now do) just say "I > know one when I see one." If the latter is our policy, I suppose it > would be useful to know who decides ambiguous cases. I'd presume it to > be the SO, delegated to the TD and AC unless other arrangements have > been established. It seems wrong to give this power to the SO. One key need for a meaning of "convention" is L40D which limits the authority of the SO to regulating conventions, implicitly barring it from regulating natural bidding. If the SO then decides what are conventions this limitation becomes meaningless. Tim West-Meads From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 02:51:11 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA07141 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 02:51:11 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA07136 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 02:51:06 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1023020; 25 Jan 98 15:48 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 09:43:48 +0000 To: Patrick Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: computer generated hands In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980125192449.0069d474@pop.ihug.co.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <3.0.3.32.19980125192449.0069d474@pop.ihug.co.nz>, Patrick writes >The problem that occurred at Canberra is one that really must be avoided. I >have heard of similar problems elsewhere, so this is certainly not a one off. > >I suspect that the problem arises from the fact that most programs deal the >cards in a specific order. >The solution to this is to create a file of each hand and deal the cards >for the next hand from that file, so they are never dealt again after the >first time in that AS KS QS JS 10S etc sequence. > > > >Having dealt this hand the computer uses these files to determine the order >in which cards will be dealt for the next hand. > > >When the computer has finished dealing the required number of hands for >this session, it retains in memory the last hand dealt so that can be used >to deal the first hand whenever the computer is asked to deal some more >hands. This leads me to the thought that, either initially or when starting a fresh set of deals for a later event, it would surely be feasible to feed a hand (or just a sequence of 52 cards) manually into the computer before the random number generation is run. You would never begin with a deck sorted to suits. -- Labeo labeo@coruncanius.demon.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 02:52:13 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA07160 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 02:52:13 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA07155 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 02:52:08 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1023014; 25 Jan 98 15:48 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 09:29:13 +0000 To: Steve Willner Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress In-Reply-To: <199801212116.QAA09519@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801212116.QAA09519@cfa183.harvard.edu>, Steve Willner writes >From: David Stevenson >> 1NT Pass Pass 1C! >> You can't, says someone! >> Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. >> Pass from the 1NT opener. > > >Everyone is in violation of L9B1a and L9B2. Procedural penalty of one >beer from each side. (One whisky from each if David is the TD. If the >TD is very thirsty, fine separately for the 9B1a and 9B2 violations.) > >Under L11A, the penalty for the 1C bid is cancelled. (The 2C bid may >have been made in ignorance of the penalty, so cancelling the penalty >is mandatory. I suppose if South is David, we might think about not >applying this rule, but not if South is anyone else.) > >Under L27A, the insufficient bid is accepted. (L27A does not say >anything about attempted corrections. When West called, he accepted >the insufficient bid, NOT the attempted correction, even though he >probably meant to accept the attempted 2C.) > Labeo: So, is this right? - you are saying that the attempted correction is not an infraction, so LHO does not have his Law 16C rights if he intended his call over 2C ? Mmmmm!? -- Labeo labeo@coruncanius.demon.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 02:56:46 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA07195 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 02:56:46 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA07189 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 02:56:40 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2022053; 25 Jan 98 15:48 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 09:11:08 +0000 To: Steve Willner Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <199801211655.LAA09310@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801211655.LAA09310@cfa183.harvard.edu>, Steve Willner writes >> >The AC ... In fact, their conclusion was that UI was used. > >> From: David Stevenson >> Was it? It is time this term was put to bed. > > > >I thought the PP depended on whether the player ought to have known >better than to take the action he did. Again _use_ of UI would not be >an issue. Rather, the issues would be whether the player _ought to >have recognized_ that UI was available and _ought to have realized_ his >chosen action was illegal. There need be no suggestion that he _did >in fact_ have either piece of knowledge. > ...(various words removed)... Labeo: The question of a PP may perhaps depend whether the TD has just been arguing with her husband? As I read the laws the question is entirely within the discretion of the TD and later perhaps the AC. I do not see any directions in the laws on the 'when to apply' decisions that you are discussing and I am not understanding the basis for the norms which you suggest to exist.[Law90: "..in addition to enforcing the penalty provisions of these Laws, *may* also assess.."] -- Labeo We will hang you, never fear, labeo@coruncanius.demon.co.uk Most politely, most politely..... ( 'Princess Ida' ) From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 02:57:59 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA07212 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 02:57:59 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA07207 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 02:57:54 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2022055; 25 Jan 98 15:47 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 11:32:27 +0000 To: Steve Willner Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio In-Reply-To: <199801231948.OAA00938@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801231948.OAA00938@cfa183.harvard.edu>, Steve Willner writes >> From: Edward Sheldon >> Two pairs could be playing exactly >> the same system, but writing it up differently in their system notes, >> such that you deem one to be playing a convention, and the other not. > >I don't think the above is a problem. Surely we can agree that the >distinction depends on the set of hands shown, not on how the notes are >written The laws do not recognise a 'treatment'; calls are conventional or not conventional; the definition of 'convention' (1997) tells us what is not conventional and defines as 'conventional' everything else. If there is any slight ambiguity there it concerns the phrase 'high card strength' but I doubt there is any real confusion even in this. -- Labeo Yes, I have a conventional mind Which my partners all tell me they find Unfulfilling, obscure, Or ridiculous, pure, Altogether too much of a bind. From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 02:59:47 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA07227 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 02:59:47 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA07222 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 02:59:42 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1023019; 25 Jan 98 15:47 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 11:38:34 +0000 To: Richard Willey Cc: "'bridge-laws'" , "'elandau@cais.com'" From: Labeo Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conv In-Reply-To: <1998Jan24.012300.1189.170930@azure-tech.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <1998Jan24.012300.1189.170930@azure-tech.com>, Richard Willey writes > > > > ---------- >From: Eric Landau[SMTP:elandau@cais.com] >Sent: Friday, January 23, 1998 12:32 PM >To: Bridge Laws Discussion List >Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conv > >>For a bid to be conventional, the "information about something >>other than the suit bid" must be "imparted" explicitly, >>that promised a side four-card major, or promised a void, would be a >>convention; that's explicit information.) > >However, to me it doesn't seem to matter whether the weak two bid >promises or denies a side void. >Both would seem to be explicit. > Well so they are, and the special partnership agreements establish these arrangements quite explicitly as conventional. The added meanings are "other than" those listed in the definition of convention; there can be no doubt that regulation of them is authorised by the laws. The fact is that "treatments" are conventional in nearly every case; the main point about the description "treatment" is that it is a generic description given to a category of conventional actions that the authority does not wish to regulate (or wishes to regulate differently from its main scheme for control of conventions). The authority should ensure that what the term covers is adequately defined. Revolutionaries should not imagine they can escape control by calling something a 'treatment' - not unless the regulating body agrees it to be so. -- Labeo Yes, I have a conventional mind Which my partners all tell me they find Unfulfilling, obscure, Or ridiculous, pure, Altogether too much of a bind. From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 04:48:36 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA07683 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 04:48:36 +1100 Received: from sand.global.net.uk (root@sand.global.net.uk [194.126.82.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA07674 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 04:48:28 +1100 Received: from default (client86b9.globalnet.co.uk [194.126.86.185]) by sand.global.net.uk (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id RAA12827; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 17:48:17 GMT From: "Grattan Endicott" To: , Cc: Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 17:48:33 -0000 Message-ID: <01bd29b9$747ed680$LocalHost@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk gester@globalnet.co.uk Grattan Endicott Liverpool L18 8DJ : -----Original Message----- From: Tim West-meads To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Date: 25 January 1998 14:55 Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio >In-Reply-To: <199801231948.OAA00938@cfa183.harvard.edu> Tim Westmead said: >> As I've said before, I think the Laws definition is ambiguous, and we >> simply have to accept that. If certainty is needed (and we want the >> definition to conform to the usual opinions), it will take a much more >> complex definition. > \X/ \X/ \X/ \X/ \X/ \X/ \X/ #### I find it puzzling that you think the definition ambiguous. I have to accept much of the responsibility because after Edgar had circulated several successive drafts reshaping the definition of 'convention', all leaving some kind of gap, it was I who wrote to him and proposed that in respect of the auction we define what was not conventional and then say that everything not covered in this definition is to be considered conventional. That suggestion was adopted and Edgar produced, no doubt with assistance of his N.American colleagues, the definition of the non-conventional calls which now appears in the law book. So the test to be made is to compare the agreed meaning of a call with the non-conventional possibilities: 1. that it shows willingness to play in the denomination named (or in the last denomination named*); 2. that it names where there is high card strength; 3. that it names where there is suit length (3+ cards). [* 'the last denomination named' was the subject of a ruling by the WBF Laws Committee in Hammamet recently.] If the call in question does not match to at least one of these definitions, or if it has an additional qualification to its meaning which does not do so, then it is held to be conventional. In other words, if the total meaning of the call goes outside of the defined areas of what is not conventional, wholly or in part, it is conventional. The laws recognise only the two positions - either a call is conventional or it is not. A treatment is a concept introduced by SOs or regulating bodies and it must be defined by them, could be differently from location to location; furthermore it is for them to say why they have introduced the term and what its effect is in relation to their system regulations. Whilst, therefore, it is not intended to leave the question whether a call is a convention or not open to variable interpretation by SOs etc., 'treatment' is wholly their baby and entirely in their hands to interpret. [That said, I think it would be beneficial if they could arrive at a common understanding.] So I come full circle to my failure to understand what your problem is with the definition of 'convention'; clearly you are saying that you are unable to recognize whether calls lie wholly within the defined territory of WHAT IS NOT CONVENTIONAL (since this is what is required for your purpose) and I am wondering what you lack for the task. #### Grattan Endicott, Secretary, WBF Laws Committee = gester@globalnet.co.uk>#### WBFLC/X/0003. From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 07:26:48 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA08475 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 07:26:48 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id HAA08469 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 07:26:37 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2004867; 25 Jan 98 20:19 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 22:56:12 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <199801232015.PAA00993@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve Willner wrote: >Well, after the insufficient bid debacle :-), I'm quite glad to be back >to my usual habit of disagreeing with David. :-) We actually disagree about what happened in the Insufficient Bid debacle! :))))))))) >> From: David Stevenson >> LAW 16 - UNAUTHORISED INFORMATION >> There is nothing in this Law that says anything about not following it >> if the information comes any other way. >Oh, come on, David. Read again: Well, I did say in "this" Law. >> Players are authorised to base their calls and plays on information from >> legal calls and plays and from mannerisms of opponents. >If we have AI, we are explicitly allowed to base actions on it. We are >explicitly disallowed to base actions on UI. What if the _same_ >information comes to us in both ways? The Laws, taken literally, both >permit and forbid us to use the information. This is a problem in >logic, although I agree that it is seldom a problem in practice. However, this is the first argument I have seen that has merit. OK. Now, does this matter? >The practical solution is to judge LA's and "suggested over another" >based on the AI. This almost always works but on rare occasions fails >to solve the problem. At least some of those occasions are when a >player has violated system before the questionable action. > >Example: I open 1NT, by agreement 12-14. Partner, in the ACBL, >announces "12 to 14" as required. This is UI to me, of course. Does >it restrict my actions? No, I do not believe it does. While Steve may have managed to convince me that in the trivial case my statement was wrong, let us return to the Herman/Eric/Jeff approach. I open 1NT, forgetting that it should be 12-14, on a 16 count. Partner announces 12-14, which is UI, and I may not take any action based on it, as it is UI. Now LHO says "You are playing that stupid weak no-trump again!". Since it is a comment by opponents it is AI. Do you think that now I am released from the restraints imposed by L16, and can treat knowledge of a weak NT as AI? -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 07:36:31 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA08507 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 07:36:31 +1100 Received: from hal-pc.org (hal-pc.org [204.52.135.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA08502 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 07:36:25 +1100 Received: from ramrod.hal-pc.org (max0-119.hal-pc.org [209.113.48.119]) by hal-pc.org (8.8.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id OAA15650; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 14:36:16 -0559 (CST) Message-ID: <34CBA37F.6C8D@hal-pc.org> Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 14:41:35 -0600 From: Georgiana Gates X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Reg Busch CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Computer generated hands References: <3.0.1.32.19980125093657.00695788@ozemail.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Reg Busch wrote: > > This is probably not really BLML material, but may be of interest to > BLMLers, and some may be able to offer some useful comment. > > I don't have the full details yet, but Australia's largest event (and I > think sixth largest in the world in terms of table/sessions) has just > struck a major disaster. Hands computer generated for the Swiss Teams final > in the Summer Festival of Bridge were identical to the hands generated for > another ABF event some 10 months earlier! It took a litle while for this to > be realised. The ABF assures us that the program they use was written by an > expert, and vetted by other experts. In fact, it is the only program the > ABF approves for hand generation for events under its aegis. It has even > refused to approve the WBF hand generation program. > > It may be significant that the ABF purchased a new computer for hand > generation purposes a few months ago. > This happened to me in 1994. The same hands played in the ACBL Summer Nationals Womens KO semifinals were used in the ACBL Fall Nationals Board-A-Match. Although my team was one of the 4 teams in the first event, we scored below average in the session when we repeated the hands! From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 09:16:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA08723 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:16:04 +1100 Received: from cheech.ihug.co.nz (cheech.ihug.co.nz [203.29.160.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA08714 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:15:58 +1100 Received: from xoigoynt (p58-max3.auck.ihug.co.nz [202.49.255.186]) by cheech.ihug.co.nz (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id LAA17566; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:15:51 +1300 Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19980126111359.006b7e78@pop.ihug.co.nz> X-Sender: tripack@pop.ihug.co.nz X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.3 (32) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:13:59 +1300 To: Herman De Wael From: Patrick Subject: Re: Computer generated hands Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-Reply-To: <34CB0E63.F6CED7D7@innet.be> References: <3.0.1.32.19980125093657.00695788@ozemail.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 11:05 25/01/98 +0100, you wrote: >The problem of computer dealt hands stands and falls with the first seed >selected. > >Although Patrick provides a good example of how hands might be dealt by >computer, so that the next hand cannot be equal to the first, if he >chooses the same seed to begin with, all hands will be the same as in >the first set. > >The second version of the program I wrote used a random seed that was >large enough to encompass all possible bridge hands (you need about >four - separate - random looks at the system clock for that !). > >I believe the WBF program (that's the one from Sweden isn't it ?) also >meets that criterion. > >-- >Herman DE WAEL >Antwerpen Belgium >http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm > > > The comment in the first paragraph is true, but when a club or organisation first receives a dealing program you would expect that the first thing they would do would be to run off a test batch to ensure they understood the way the program worked. It would seem highly unlikely that you would receive such a program and that the first thing you did would be to print off some hands for an important event (if for something such as an intermediate club session then what chance the players would recognise the hands when this program hasn't been used in your club before) From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 09:19:30 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA08762 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:19:30 +1100 Received: from isa.dknet.dk (root@isa.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA08751 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:19:19 +1100 Received: from default (cph36.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.36]) by isa.dknet.dk (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA29718 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:18:55 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199801252218.XAA29718@isa.dknet.dk> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Jens & Bodil" Organization: Alesia Software To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:18:28 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: computer generated hands Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42a) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Labeo wrote: > In message <3.0.3.32.19980125192449.0069d474@pop.ihug.co.nz>, Patrick > writes > >The problem that occurred at Canberra is one that really must be avoided. I > >have heard of similar problems elsewhere, so this is certainly not a one off. > > > >I suspect that the problem arises from the fact that most programs deal the > >cards in a specific order. > >The solution to this is to create a file of each hand and deal the cards > >for the next hand from that file, so they are never dealt again after the > >first time in that AS KS QS JS 10S etc sequence. > > > >Having dealt this hand the computer uses these files to determine the order > >in which cards will be dealt for the next hand. > > > >When the computer has finished dealing the required number of hands for > >this session, it retains in memory the last hand dealt so that can be used > >to deal the first hand whenever the computer is asked to deal some more > >hands. This is a good initiative, but it puts too much trust in computers' long-term memory. The actual record will be on a file somewhere, and that file will be backed up and later restored after some crash, and all of a sudden we are back to where we were a few months ago ... > This leads me to the thought that, either initially or when starting a > fresh set of deals for a later event, it would surely be feasible to > feed a hand (or just a sequence of 52 cards) manually into the computer > before the random number generation is run. You would never begin with > a deck sorted to suits. Labeo has a very good solution here. I refrained from implementing this because it is too cumbersome for the user. Yes, really! The lazy user will find ways of circumventing this approach. After all, it takes about a second to generate hands for a whole weekend of play, and who wants to shuffle a deck of cards and enter the resulting sequence first? However, with bar-coded cards becoming the norm, it might be time to reconsider. -- Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 09:19:26 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA08756 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:19:26 +1100 Received: from isa.dknet.dk (root@isa.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA08745 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:19:13 +1100 Received: from default (cph36.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.36]) by isa.dknet.dk (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA29728 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:19:01 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199801252219.XAA29728@isa.dknet.dk> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Jens & Bodil" Organization: Alesia Software To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:18:28 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Computer generated hands Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42a) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Reg Busch wrote: > This is probably not really BLML material, but may be of interest to > BLMLers, and some may be able to offer some useful comment. > > I don't have the full details yet, but Australia's largest event (and I > think sixth largest in the world in terms of table/sessions) has just > struck a major disaster. Hands computer generated for the Swiss Teams final > in the Summer Festival of Bridge were identical to the hands generated for > another ABF event some 10 months earlier! It took a litle while for this to > be realised. The ABF assures us that the program they use was written by an > expert, and vetted by other experts. In fact, it is the only program the > ABF approves for hand generation for events under its aegis. It has even > refused to approve the WBF hand generation program. > > It may be significant that the ABF purchased a new computer for hand > generation purposes a few months ago. > > As a Director, this is one of my nightmares. What do you do in the middle > of a barometer scored pairs event when someone says 'I've played these > hands before'? For the specific board, I guess you hear the evidence, and if you are convinced that the story is true, you use L6D2 to cancel that result for any pair that seems to have played the board before. A+/A+ is in order. Then for the rest of the session, break out the cards needed for the following session (if there is one), and get someone to produce some new boards, somewhere, fast. But this is no real solution. Nightmare is the right word. > One has heard stories such as a congress in Spain producing > the same hands as played a few weeks earlier in France. Is there any > prgrammer who is prepared to lay out a large sum of money with the > guarantee that every set of hands is unique? > > I know little about the process of hand generation. To me, a computer is a > machine, and no machine can produce random actions. So as I see it, one > enters a unique seed number into the program to produce a unique set of > hands. Different programmers use different methods of arriving at a unique > seed. But I understand that, if you enter the same seed number, you get the > same set of hands. I wrote the software we use in Denmark. Your description of the process is right, especially the part about the same seed yielding the same cards. My software uses a 48-bit seed. Think of this as a sequence of 12 "digits", where 0, 1, ..., 9 have been supplemented with A, B, C, D, E, and F. ( of the digits (32 of the bits) are determined by the user, i.e. the person running the dealing service. The user has ways of ensuring that his portion of the seed (the user seed)is unique. Usually he does this by encoding the playing date and a serial number into the seed. An event to be played to day in three sessions might have the seeds 98012501, 98012502, and 98012503. The program then provides another 4 digits (16 bits), called the automatic seed, by querying the system clock; these patterns are reused once an hour. The program is written in such a way that two different seeds will generate two different sequences of hands. I am not willing to bet a large sum of money that it is foolproof in this respect, but it has been inspected throughly for this property. The automatic part of the seed is there to protect the programmer (myself) against accusations of being able to predict the cards that I get to play, once I know the user's scheme. > We had a rather amazing experience in 1988, when we were just starting to > produce computer generated hands. We weren't doing many sets, so we entered > our own seed, keeping a list of seeds previously used to ensure uniqueness > of the seed number. We discovered that, if we entered a seed number exactly > 16 more or less than another, it produced the same hands but with the suits > shifted in one direction! That is, diamonds became hearts etc. This may > have been poor programming, Well, it shows lack of foresight by the programmer, but this type of bug can be difficult to prevent. However, I did happen to think of it back in 1989 when I wrote my software, and I have explicitly prevented it. > but, if we weren't producing bridge hands, this > may have gone unnoticed for years. Can anyone explain how this could be? Sure. In effect the program is drawing lots to determine who gets each card. It draws lots by obtaining a pseudo-random number from what is in reality a fixed series of numbers. If you enter the sequence 13 numbers from where you entered it earlier, you get a result much like what you describe. > In Brisbane and nearby coastal areas, we now have eight dealing machines > (two different brands), each with their own generation program. What are > the odds that before long we'll find identical sets of hands being produced? Well, if you are using copies of the same generation program in the all the sites, and you have no systematical site identification included in the way the random numbers are generated, you are at least inviting that bug inside. As soon as the same seed is used again, the same hands will occur. My software incorporates such a site-dependent contribution to the seed (not described above). I try to convince my users that it is intheir interest not to give others a copy of their program, complete with site-id, because they run exactly this risk. This is not a sneaky way of preventing unauthorized copies, since my efforts are not commercial. Rather, it is a way of protecting my users against undesirable repeated hands. If I can get around to it, and there is any interest in BLML, I will translate my old requirements specification into English and publish it on the web somewhere in a month or so. BLML will be the first to know when it is there. -- Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 09:19:17 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA08750 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:19:17 +1100 Received: from isa.dknet.dk (root@isa.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA08743 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:19:09 +1100 Received: from default (cph36.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.36]) by isa.dknet.dk (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA29724 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:18:58 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199801252218.XAA29724@isa.dknet.dk> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Jens & Bodil" Organization: Alesia Software To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:18:28 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42a) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 19:10:35 +0000 > To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au > From: David Stevenson > Reply-to: David Stevenson > Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress > David Stevenson wrote: > > > A few interesting rulings occurred in this EBU competition. I thought > >we had sorted out all the problems attendant on Insufficient Bids > >corrected before the TD arrives, when Jim Proctor [one of the EBU's > >leading TDs] got a new wrinkle! > > > > 1NT Pass Pass 1C! > > > > You can't, says someone! > > > > Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. > > > > Pass from the 1NT opener. > > > > **Now** they call the TD !!!!! > > > > I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! > > > LAW 27 - INSUFFICIENT BID > A. Insufficient Bid Accepted > Any insufficient bid may be accepted (treated as legal) at the > option of offender's LHO. It is accepted if that player calls. > > > Well, that player called, so the 1C bid is accepted. I said it was > easy! Let me try this on for size, changing the story slightly in order to make my point more clear: W N E S 4H 1S ahem -- intermission -- 4S X all pass At the ahem, everyone agrees that the bid is insufficient, and it is quite clear to everyone that N had not seen the opening because he was busy getting his coffee cup refilled just then. Everyone agress to call the director, who happens to be tied up in a difficult ruling at another table and says, "One moment, please, I'll be right with you". Well, the players at the other table take the director's time for another four minutes, and East volunteers: "Let us not wait for that; you bid what you want, I'll accept that, and we can play on." Everyone agrees, and so the intermission ends. Three tricks into the play, the director arrives, apologizes for the delay, and asks how he can be of help. The players explain what has happened; the director looks up L27A and announces: "Ladies and gentlemen, the contract is one spade, doubled." Well, this ruling is not going to be accepted altogether quietly, and it will be appealed. Once it gets to the Danish Laws Commission, I am going to vote that it be changed to the following: The players are in violation of L10A, but they have, possibly somewhat serendipitously, arrived at a correct ruling according to L27B1a. The director should allow the waiver of penalties offered by East under L10B. The contract is four spades, doubled, just as it would have been if the director had been able to get there sooner. Under the circumstances, it would be folly to fine the players for breaking L10A. I hope almost all of you agree with this position (if not, I think the Laws are in deep trouble). Back to the original situation. The director applies L10B, allowing or canceling penalties and waivers until he gets to a useful state of affairs. It is certainly debatable just what he should do to get things back on track, but I hope to have illustrated that leaving the auction at 1C is silly, no matter what L27A says. -- Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 09:26:14 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA08797 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:26:14 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA08792 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:26:08 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2023790; 25 Jan 98 22:14 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 20:40:34 +0000 To: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message , Tim West-meads writes >In-Reply-To: <199801231948.OAA00938@cfa183.harvard.edu> .....(cut)..... >It seems wrong to give this power to the SO. One key need for a meaning >of "convention" is L40D which limits the authority of the SO to >regulating conventions, implicitly barring it from regulating natural >bidding. If the SO then decides what are conventions this limitation >becomes meaningless. > Yes, indeed, quite scandalous; we elect these people to run the game and in no time they are telling us how it is going to be played. -- Labeo From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 09:39:28 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA08834 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:39:28 +1100 Received: from sand.global.net.uk (root@sand.global.net.uk [194.126.82.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA08829 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:39:15 +1100 Received: from vnmvhhid (client25f2.globalnet.co.uk [195.147.25.242]) by sand.global.net.uk (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id WAA02549 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 22:39:09 GMT From: "Anne Jones" To: Subject: Fw: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 20:30:20 -0000 Message-ID: <01bd29d0$0e579880$2d1a93c3@vnmvhhid> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk -----Original Message----- From: Anne Jones To: David Stevenson Date: Saturday, January 24, 1998 10:47 PM Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress >David, I cannot believe you really mean this. You cannot be >serious. IMVVHU the players have made a table ruling and rightly >or wrongly the insufficient bid has been changed. >You quoted Law 23a but did not quote law 23b. The insufficient >bid was not accepted and has been changed. The substituted 2C >call has been accepted. >Law 10 and Law 11 now come into use and the T.D. may decide that >the right to penalise the 1C has been forfeit. So the 1C may end >up being accepted but for a different reason!:-( >Anne >-----Original Message----- >From: David Stevenson >To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au > >Date: Friday, January 23, 1998 8:54 PM >Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress > > >>David Stevenson wrote: >> >>> A few interesting rulings occurred in this EBU competition. >I thought >>>we had sorted out all the problems attendant on Insufficient >Bids >>>corrected before the TD arrives, when Jim Proctor [one of the >EBU's >>>leading TDs] got a new wrinkle! >>> >>> 1NT Pass Pass 1C! >>> >>> You can't, says someone! >>> >>> Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the >majors]. >>> >>> Pass from the 1NT opener. >>> >>> **Now** they call the TD !!!!! >>> >>> I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! >> >> >>LAW 27 - INSUFFICIENT BID >>A. Insufficient Bid Accepted >> Any insufficient bid may be accepted (treated as legal) at >the >> option of offender's LHO. It is accepted if that player >calls. >> >> >> Well, that player called, so the 1C bid is accepted. I said >it was >>easy! >> >> One thing it does show is the danger of the "it was condoned" >>approach: >> >>Nancy T.Dressing wrote: >>> Too late the bid is condoned >> >>... you still need to [a] find the Law and [b] say *which* bid >is >>condoned. >> >>-- >>David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic >/\ /\ >>Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk >@ @ >>bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB >=( + )= >>Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB >~ >> > From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 10:18:24 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA08966 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:18:24 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA08961 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:18:19 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab1007490; 25 Jan 98 23:08 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:06:10 +0000 To: Jens & Bodil Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: computer generated hands In-Reply-To: <199801252218.XAA29718@isa.dknet.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801252218.XAA29718@isa.dknet.dk>, Jens & Bodil writes >Labeo wrote: >> In message <3.0.3.32.19980125192449.0069d474@pop.ihug.co.nz>, Patrick >> writes >> .....cut..... > > >Labeo has a very good solution here. I refrained from implementing >this because it is too cumbersome for the user. Yes, really! The >lazy user will find ways of circumventing this approach. After all, >it takes about a second to generate hands for a whole weekend of >play, and who wants to shuffle a deck of cards and enter the >resulting sequence first? However, with bar-coded cards becoming the >norm, it might be time to reconsider. Flatterer. But, dear Heaven, why wait for bar codes? have you not got a donkey or a wife? -- Labeo Going for cover.......>>>> From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 10:30:56 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA08987 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:30:56 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA08982 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:30:51 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1013643; 25 Jan 98 23:28 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 22:06:58 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio In-Reply-To: <01bd29b9$747ed680$LocalHost@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Grattan Endicott wrote: >Whilst, therefore, it is not intended to >leave the question whether a call is a convention or not open to >variable interpretation by SOs etc., 'treatment' is wholly their baby >and entirely in their hands to interpret. [That said, I think it would be >beneficial if they could arrive at a common understanding.] Maybe, but I think we might note that the EBU definition of a treatment is quite different from the ACBL's - but so is their use of the term, so we are a long way from either agreement or IMO need for agreement. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 10:34:37 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA09015 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:34:37 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA09009 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:34:31 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2009003; 25 Jan 98 23:28 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:26:31 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Abbreviations MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk ABF Australian Bridge Federation AC Appeals committee ACBL American Contract Bridge League AI Authorised information ArtAS Artificial adjusted score AssAS Assigned adjusted score BBL British Bridge League BLML Bridge-laws mailing list BoD Board of directors [ACBL] BoG Board of governors [ACBL] BOOT Bid-Out-Of-Turn BTW By the way C&E Conduct and ethics [often hearings] CC Convention card COOT Call-Out-Of-Turn CPU Concealed partnership understanding CTD Chief Tournament director DBF Danish Bridge Federation DIC Director in charge DP Disciplinary penalty EBL European Bridge League EBU English Bridge Union IMHO In my humble opinion [included under protest] IMO In my opinion LA Logical alternative L&EC Laws & Ethics Committee [English, Welsh or Scottish] Lnn Law number nn LOL Little old lady [may be of either sex] LOOT Lead-Out-Of-Turn MI Misinformation MPC Major penalty card mPC Minor penalty card MSC Master Solvers' Club [The Bridge World] NABC ACBL North American Bridge Championships NBB Nederlandse Bridge Bond [Dutch Bridge League] NBO National Bridge organisation NCBO National Contract Bridge organisation NG Newsgroup NIBU Northern Ireland Bridge Union NO Non-offender NP No problem OBOOT Opening-Bid-Out-Of-Turn OKB OKBridge OKBD OKBridge discussion group OOT Out-Of-Turn PP Procedural penalty RGB rec.games.bridge [newsgroup] r.g.b. rec.games.bridge [newsgroup] RGBO rec.games.bridge.okbridge [newsgroup] rgbo rec.games.bridge.okbridge [newsgroup] RLB Real Life Bridge [to distinguish from OKBridge] RoC Rule of coincidence RoW Rest of World [apart from North America] RTFLB Read the [fabulous] Law book! SBU Scottish Bridge Union SO Sponsoring organisation TBW The Bridge World [magazine] TD Tournament director TDic Tournament director in charge UI Unauthorised information WBF World Bridge Federation WBU Welsh Bridge Union ZT Zero Tolerance [for Unacceptable Behaviour] Emails only: FFTQFTE Feel free to quote from this email [Posted by request] -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 12:19:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA09250 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 12:19:08 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA09245 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 12:19:02 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1029573; 26 Jan 98 1:14 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 01:05:22 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress In-Reply-To: <199801252218.XAA29724@isa.dknet.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jens & Bodil wrote: [k] > The players are in violation of L10A, but they have, possibly > somewhat serendipitously, arrived at a correct ruling according > to L27B1a. The director should allow the waiver of penalties > offered by East under L10B. The contract is four spades, > doubled, just as it would have been if the director had been > able to get there sooner. Under the circumstances, it would be > folly to fine the players for breaking L10A. > >I hope almost all of you agree with this position (if not, I think >the Laws are in deep trouble). OK. >Back to the original situation. The director applies L10B, allowing >or canceling penalties and waivers until he gets to a useful state >of affairs. It is certainly debatable just what he should do to get >things back on track, but I hope to have illustrated that leaving >the auction at 1C is silly, no matter what L27A says. Now you have a totally different situation, so why should you reach the same result? No, you haven't convinced me it is silly by giving a situation that has few comparable features. Yours is a L10B case: mine isn't. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 15:25:42 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA09655 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 15:25:42 +1100 Received: from camel8.mindspring.com (camel8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.58]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA09650 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 15:25:36 +1100 Received: from mike (ip98.baltimore10.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.30.22.98]) by camel8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA01306 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:25:31 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980125232533.006b118c@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:25:33 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <34CB0CD7.60B6372E@innet.be> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 10:58 AM 1/25/98 +0100, Herman wrote: >I do think I understand David, and I don't agree with it. > >Let's take the example of clocks again. > >I look at the bottom of my screen and it tells me it's 10:51. >I have promised to be in my bridge club before twelve. >I can do two things : I can continue to read blml, and risk being late, >or I can leave now (and deprive you all of this fascinating discussion). >Both are logical alternatives, and as my computer screen contains only >AI, I am free to choose. >If however I turn around and look at the clock on the wall, this tells >me it's 7 to 11 (this paragraph did take me two minutes to write). >Now if we consider the clock to give me UI, according to David I should >now not be allowed to take the action (leave) which would be suggested >by the UI. I believe that since I have no 'extraneous' information, I >should not be barred from acting on the information that I do have. > >I realize that this example is not necessarily easily transposable to >the bridge table, and that 'degree of certainty' is of course also an >issue. > Although I think Herman's analogy with clocks is a bit abstruse, he nonetheless manages to raise an important issue which has not been frontally addressed by Labeo, David S, and others (including myself) who have argued for a fairly restrictive application of the laws to the present case. The fact is, you are not merely authorized but expected (under the proprieties) to be conversant with your own methods. Thus true and correct information about your partnership methods cannot, in general and as a legal matter, be construed as UI. If you decide to psych 1nt holding a balanced 4-count, partner's correct response to the opponents' query in re your notrump range cannot be considered UI to you. As a practical matter, we have tended to identify such information as unauthorized when the bridge facts seem to suggest that this information might be "new" to the recipient, in the sense that his previous actions are consistent with having forgotten the methods (rather than having deliberately transgressed them, as in the above example). Although this approach seems entirely within the spirit of the Laws, I don't know where to go in the letter of the Laws to justify this approach. In the example which started this thread, it seemed quite plausible that North had forgotten he was playing weak no-trumps, since psyching a weak nt with a (very strong) 17-count seems extremely improbable. Thus the South response of "11-14" (possibly, probably, almost certainly?) provides North with unauthorized information to which he might not otherwise have had ready access. But if North knew, at the time of his 1nt bid (or recalled at any time before his partner's comment) that 11-14 nt was in effect, then that information was not unauthorized. Unfortunately, this takes into an area which the Laws are generally at some pains to avoid-- the evaluation of players' motivations and thought processes. To illustrate the problem, consider the following example: Partnership agreement is strong nt (15-17) vul, weak (12-14) non-vul. In third seat, vulnerable, looking at AJT7- QT98 - K6 - KJ9 , you decide the strong spot cards make this worth a 1nt opening, despite being a point shy. When asked, partner explains: Case 1) Correctly, your bid shows 15-17 Case 2) Incorrectly, your bid shows 12-14. Partner then proceeds with an invitational 2nt response. In Case 2, you can infer that partner has 11 or 12, but this is clearly UI and you may not profit from it by bidding 3nt. But in case 1, are your options limited? After all, if you had forgotten the method (until having been reminded by partner's remark of the actual methods) 3nt would certainly have been a LA and if we treat this as a UI case, then it is the only legal option. But you didn't forget the method! You made a judgement (rightly or wrongly) that this hand merited treating as a strong nt. Partner has not told you anything you didn't already know. If you pass here, successfully, and a TD and/or AC rule against you, will you feel mis-treated? Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 18:57:17 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA10531 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 18:57:17 +1100 Received: from mserv1a.u-net.net (mserv1a.u-net.net [195.102.240.34]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA10526 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 18:57:10 +1100 Received: from foxhole.u-net.com [195.102.195.99] by mserv1a.u-net.net with smtp (Exim 1.73 #4) id 0xwjG7-0004ST-00; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 07:47:07 +0000 From: "Ken Richardson" To: "BLML" Subject: insufficient bid or not Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 07:43:39 -0000 Message-ID: <01bd23e4$e63b3f00$63c366c3@foxhole.u-net.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_000E_01BD23E4.E63B3F00" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_000E_01BD23E4.E63B3F00 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable West deals and opens 2H (alerted as Lucas, weak two-suiter at least 5-4 and 6-10 points) North asks and passes, East passes. South bids 2C! Your first call to the table results in South 'making the bid good' by bidding 3C. You are called back after the hand, E/W are not happy ...... dealer West, all non-vul A J 6 2 A K 6 4 A T 9 6 6 Q T 9 4 K 8 7 Q J 9 8 5 T 7 K 5 7 4 2 T 5 K Q 9 8 4 5 3 3 2 Q J 8 3 A J 7 3 2 North played in 3NT and made 9 tricks (62%) E/W do not think S has the values to bid 3C, after N questions 2H and passes a logical alternative bid for S would be to pass. ------=_NextPart_000_000E_01BD23E4.E63B3F00 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
West deals and = opens 2H=20 (alerted as Lucas, weak two-suiter
at least 5-4 and = 6-10 points)=20 North = asks and passes,=20 East
passes. South = bids=20 2C! 
 
Your first call = to the table=20 results in South 'making the bid
good' by bidding=20 3C. 
 
You are called = back after the=20 hand, E/W are not happy ...... 
dealer West, all non-vul
 
A J 6 = 2 
A K 6 = 4 
A T 9 = 6 
6 
 
Q T 9=20 4      K 8 7 
Q J 9 8 = 5    T=20 7 
K=20 5            = 7 4=20 2 
T=20 5            = K Q 9=20 8 4 
 
5 = 3 
3 2
Q J 8 3 
A J 7 3 2 
 
North played in = 3NT and made 9=20 tricks (62%) 
 
E/W do not think = S has the=20 values to bid 3C, after N questions 
2H = and passes a logical = alternative bid for S=20 would be to pass.
------=_NextPart_000_000E_01BD23E4.E63B3F00-- From owner-bridge-laws Mon Jan 26 22:02:18 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA11558 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 22:02:18 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA11549 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 22:02:11 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-9-82.uunet.be [194.7.9.82]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA24512 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 12:02:05 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34CC67DC.1FF66731@innet.be> Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:39:24 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > > > >Example: I open 1NT, by agreement 12-14. Partner, in the ACBL, > >announces "12 to 14" as required. This is UI to me, of course. Does > >it restrict my actions? > > No, I do not believe it does. While Steve may have managed to > convince me that in the trivial case my statement was wrong, let us > return to the Herman/Eric/Jeff approach. > > I open 1NT, forgetting that it should be 12-14, on a 16 count. > Partner announces 12-14, which is UI, and I may not take any action > based on it, as it is UI. > > Now LHO says "You are playing that stupid weak no-trump again!". > Since it is a comment by opponents it is AI. Do you think that now I am > released from the restraints imposed by L16, and can treat knowledge of > a weak NT as AI? > No David, not a good example at all ! This player has both a piece of AI (opp thinks we're playing weak NT) and UI (partner thinks I have 11-14), but he also has a third piece of AI (I think we are playing 15-17). This player (if overly ethical) should be saying to himself "what is that lunatic talking of? - of course we are no longer playing the stupid weak no-trump any more". The decision as to which of the AI to trust (his own ideas or opponent's statement) is an "action". In this action the player should not take into account the UI of partner's explanation. You see, I did manage to wriggle myself out of this one ! -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 00:39:37 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA14814 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 00:39:37 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA14809 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 00:39:31 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic215.cais.com [207.226.56.215]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id IAA17365 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 08:25:49 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980126084022.006968b8@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 08:40:22 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: OBOOT In-Reply-To: <34C9A2A8.BCB@xtra.co.nz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 12:13 AM 1/24/98 -0800, Bruce wrote: >Am uneasy about decision I made at local club game this week. Was >playing director and called to table >Bd 14 Dealer E >nil vul AK5 NS above average pair. EW learners > Q72 North opens 1D before any other bid. > K865 Option to bid is declined by east (29A) so > K93 bid is cancelled and biddding reverts to E. >QJ42 8763 South is told to pass whenever it is her turn. >AJ9 T6 Bidding now goes P-P-P-1NT-P-P-P. I asked to >Q92 AJ43 see sheet at end of play. 1NT made. NS playing >762 AQ5 Acol with weak (12-14) NT and transfers. > T9 Mainly played in 1D or 2H for making one or > K8543 one off. 1NT making was bottom board. Law 72A5 > T7 allows offenders to make any call advantagous > JT84 to their side. I felt North had used >information of enforced pass to place contract but reading law 23 seems >to imply that offender must know that enforced pass at time of >irregularity (i.e OBOOT) would damage. How do you as director know that >offender knows?? I wanted to change score to 1D making for average board >but couldn't find appropriate law. Is there one? or has north used law >72A5 to advantage? In the end I left it as was and ensured EW knew they >had right of appeal. As it was a holiday session and they hadn't played >well and weren't keen on an appeal they didn't. Comments please. Your ruling was correct. There is no justification for adjusting the table result. The proper penalty for N's BOOT put him in a position where he had to try to guess the right contract for his side. He paid the penalty, and got lucky. L72A5 is quite clear -- infractions can (despite what some ACBL ACs seem to believe) result in a better score for the offending side than what they would have achieved absent the infraction. There is no reason to believe that N could possibly have known, when he opened OOT, that barring S from the auction was likely to work to his advantage, so L23 doesn't apply. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 01:02:52 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA14908 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:02:52 +1100 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 BAA14903 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:02:22 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa11312; 26 Jan 98 6:01 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:20:54 PST." <3.0.5.32.19980124022054.007f1100@pop.erols.com> Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 06:01:35 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801260601.aa11312@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hirsch Davis wrote: > Again, if playing pard for SA is the only way to get a good defensive > score, you are free to do it regardless of UI: it is the only logical > alternative. Always assuming you can convince a committee of that :) This is basically right. The problem, as I see it, is that sometimes it's easier to see that a certain defense is the only correct line when you can see some of the cards you're not supposed to. For example, when I'm declarer, it's often easier for me to see the best or safest single-dummy line when I can see all four hands, and to prove logically that it's clearly the best line. Without the hints given to me by seeing that information, I might easily miss it at the table. So say I'm declarer and LHO tells the table, "I've got the spade ace." RHO duly plays him for the spade ace and defeats me. It's certainly possible that playing LHO for the spade ace was clearly the best defense, or the only reasonable defense, and if I take them to committee, RHO could come up with after-the-fact logic to demonstrate that other defenses weren't logical alternatives. It's easier, of course, to come up with such logic after the hand is over. But this wouldn't necessarily make me feel justice was done if the committee let the score stand. To me, it's not enough to say "There was no logical alternative" to the actual defense, but it must also be determined that "The player would have, with some level of certainty, been able to determine at the table without the UI that there was no logical alternative." It's hard to figure out whether this is the case, but I think it's clear that the benefit of the doubt should go to the declarer in this case since LHO clearly caused the problem. Just my opinion... -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 01:06:54 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA14930 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:06:54 +1100 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 BAA14925 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:06:46 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa11583; 26 Jan 98 6:06 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:25:33 PST." <3.0.1.32.19980125232533.006b118c@pop.mindspring.com> Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 06:06:06 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801260606.aa11583@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Michael Dennis wrote: > Partnership agreement is strong nt (15-17) vul, weak (12-14) non-vul. In > third seat, vulnerable, looking at AJT7- QT98 - K6 - KJ9 , you decide the > strong spot cards make this worth a 1nt opening, despite being a point shy. > When asked, partner explains: > Case 1) Correctly, your bid shows 15-17 > Case 2) Incorrectly, your bid shows 12-14. > > Partner then proceeds with an invitational 2nt response. In Case 2, you can > infer that partner has 11 or 12, but this is clearly UI and you may not > profit from it by bidding 3nt. But in case 1, are your options limited? The rules say you have to bid 3NT. Not the Laws of the game, this time, but rather Jeff's Imperious Rules of Bridge. Rule 40: "If you open a strong notrump with 14 HCP, it's probably good enough to accept a game invitation." Of course, this has nothing to do with BLML...maybe I should have saved it for JIRML... :) -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 01:16:30 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA14969 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:16:30 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA14964 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:16:25 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic215.cais.com [207.226.56.215]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id JAA22734 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:02:44 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980126091718.0069543c@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:17:18 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio In-Reply-To: <9801231810.ZM6635@ms.com> References: <3.0.1.32.19980123115643.006e400c@pop.cais.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 06:10 PM 1/23/98 GMT, Edward wrote: >On Jan 23, 6:04pm, Eric Landau wrote: > >> For a bid to be conventional, the "information about something >> other than the suit bid" must be "imparted" explicitly, not merely >> inferentially (i.e. the information must come from the particular action >> that was taken, not from the fact that some other action was not taken in >> preference to it). > >[snip] > >I have seen people make this explicit/implicit distinction before, and >it seems entirely specious to me. Two pairs could be playing exactly >the same system, but writing it up differently in their system notes, >such that you deem one to be playing a convention, and the other not. I don't think so. An agreement is conventional or not depending on its substance, not on how it's written up. I'd like to see a purported example. In the example which follows, Ed contrasts two different agreements, not two different ways of writing up the same agreement. >For example, I have agreed with many of my partners that 1D-1NT denies >a good four card major. Other pairs may have the agreement that they >bid 1M on all hands worth a response which include a four card major, >specifying their 1D-1NT sequence as 5-9 balanced. Is my 1NT bid a >convention and theirs not? Moreover, I don't understand this. I think perhaps Ed means to suggest the opposite of what he writes -- i.e. that the others' 1NT, which absolutely denies a four-card major, is conventional, whereas his, which doesn't, isn't. In any case, IMO neither of these treatments is conventional. I do not believe, for example, that if a partnership has an (implicit or explicit) agreement that they always bid Stayman over a 1NT opening when they hold a four-card major, that makes a response of 3NT a convention. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 01:20:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA14985 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:20:29 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA14980 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:20:23 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2010257; 26 Jan 98 13:57 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:58:06 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <34CC67DC.1FF66731@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: >David Stevenson wrote: >> >Example: I open 1NT, by agreement 12-14. Partner, in the ACBL, >> >announces "12 to 14" as required. This is UI to me, of course. Does >> >it restrict my actions? >> >> No, I do not believe it does. While Steve may have managed to >> convince me that in the trivial case my statement was wrong, let us >> return to the Herman/Eric/Jeff approach. >> >> I open 1NT, forgetting that it should be 12-14, on a 16 count. >> Partner announces 12-14, which is UI, and I may not take any action >> based on it, as it is UI. >> >> Now LHO says "You are playing that stupid weak no-trump again!". >> Since it is a comment by opponents it is AI. Do you think that now I am >> released from the restraints imposed by L16, and can treat knowledge of >> a weak NT as AI? >No David, not a good example at all ! Is it not? >This player has both a piece of AI (opp thinks we're playing weak NT) >and UI (partner thinks I have 11-14), but he also has a third piece of >AI (I think we are playing 15-17). > >This player (if overly ethical) should be saying to himself "what is >that lunatic talking of? - of course we are no longer playing the stupid >weak no-trump any more". > >The decision as to which of the AI to trust (his own ideas or opponent's >statement) is an "action". In this action the player should not take >into account the UI of partner's explanation. > >You see, I did manage to wriggle myself out of this one ! I do not understand. I agree with you, but this does not seem to agree with what you said earlier. You said that if you have AI and UI both coming to the same answer then you may treat that info as AI. Here you have AI that you are playing 12-14 [opponent's comment] and UI [the announcement]. Therefore by your earlier rule the knowledge that you are playing 12-14 should be AI: by my understanding it should be UI. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 01:40:30 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA15075 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:40:30 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA15070 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:40:21 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic215.cais.com [207.226.56.215]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id JAA26393 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:26:32 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980126094106.006975d8@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:41:06 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: re: When does a treatment become a conv In-Reply-To: <1998Jan24.012300.1189.170930@azure-tech.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 01:29 PM 1/23/98 -0500, Richard wrote: >I guess I'm going to remain a minority of one on this topic I guess. >>From what I can tell, I have a very different view about what information >is imparted explicitly as opposed to inferentially. > >If I open 1 Spade, the fact that I have at most eight cards divided >between the other 3 suits clearly seems inferential. >The fact that I probably don't have another suit which is longer than my >spade suit is also seems inferential, since this information is a >conclusion drawn from the fact that I failed to open with another bid. > >However, to me it doesn't seem to matter whether the weak two bid >promises or denies a side void. >Both would seem to be explicit. > >Suppose a weak two bid promises a side suit void. >In this case, we have refined the set of all hands which contain 6 hearts >and 6-12 HCP by explicitly excluding a sub-set. > >Suppose a weak two bid denies a side suit void. >Once again, we have refined this same set of hands by explicitly >excluding a sub-set. > >In either case, the refinement of the bidding core is a direct >consequence of a specific partnership understanding unrelated to the fact >that the bidder must hold 6 hearts. Richard makes a very good argument, one that proves that we are not talking about an easy distinction here. Nevertheless, I do think that there is a distinction, and that it needs to be made. An agreement (implicit or explicit) not to make a weak two-bid with a side five-card suit refines the set of all hands with 6-12 HCP and six cards in the bid suit by explicitly excluding a subset. An agreement that an opening two-bid shows 6-12 HCP and 6-5 distribution, with the six in the bid suit, similary refines the set of all hands with 6-12 HCP and six cards in the bid suit by explicitly excluding a subset. Nevertheless, I would call the latter a convention, the former not. Whether or not one agrees with me about that particular case, I think all would agree that there has to be a line that can be drawn somewhere. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 01:48:24 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA15129 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:48:24 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA15124 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 01:48:18 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1024775; 26 Jan 98 13:57 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 13:40:43 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Multiple Dilemmas MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >> BD 23 >> Dealer S N E S W >> All J72 P P >> K 1D* 2D P 2H >> AJ63 P 4H P P >> QT976 P >> Q8 AKT54 * initially not alerted until >> J9852 A76 after E bid (not of tempo) >> T9 K Director allowed bidding to >> J854 AK32 continue. E's 2D has now changed >> 963 from Cue bid to natural in >> QT43 meaning.Result 2 down. Most EW in >> Q87542 spades at low leval or NS in 3D East would presumably withdraw the 2D and substitute some means of showing a fairly strong hand. Game may or may not be reached with 25 HCP including a singleton king, and a heart game might be doubled since South has QTxx and his partner has opened the bidding. Mind you, with 6card D support, a double of 4H seems optimistic, and might not be considered likely. Obviously, North-South might progress in diamonds. Reasonable contracts that might be reached: E/W: 2H, 3H, 4H, 2S, 3S, 4H*. N/S: 3D, 4D, 5D, 5D*. D, H, S all probably makes 8/9 tricks. So we give N/S +500 for 4H*-2, E/W +800 for 5D*-3. If you gave me A+ I would certainly appeal since a correct ruling seems to give me over 90%! I would also complain in writing to the sponsoring organisation about such a Director. There is some case for thinking these contracts are overly ambitious, and possibly lesser ones are. However, even the lesser ones seem to be over 60% scores, so giving ArtASs on these hands is not only a lazy approach, but one that will disadvantage the players just to save a Director work, one whose failure to bother to open the Law book in the first place has caused this. Having not bothered initially to do his job, now he cannot be bothered to do it after realising he has made a pig's ear of it. Any Director who gives A+/A+ now is clearly so little interested in the welfare of the players in his charge as to seriously raise doubts as to his fitness to direct a game of duplicate bridge **at any level whatever**. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 02:05:24 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA15435 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 02:05:24 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA15430 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 02:05:19 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic215.cais.com [207.226.56.215]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id JAA01219 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:51:36 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980126100611.006b5404@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:06:11 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <4xnN4TAb4Ny0Ewt9@blakjak.demon.co.uk> References: <34C85958.F59F8E6F@innet.be> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 06:14 PM 1/23/98 +0000, David wrote: >Herman De Wael wrote: > >>L16 : to base a call or play on (UI) may be an infraction >>L16A : after a player makes available to his partner 'extraneous' >>information ... >> >>If the information is there to begin with (as AI), it is not >>'extraneous'. > > Why not? The debate here has centered around the words of L16A, "a player makes available to his partner extraneous information". But we seem to be debating this wording out of context, whereas the appropriate context is clearly provided by the first paragraph of L16, which contains a small but critical word that we seem to be overlooking: "Players are authorized to base their calls and plays on [AI]. To base a call or play on *other* extraneous information may be an infraction of law." When a player has AI which has been subsequently confirmed by UI, nothing in L16 suggests that that first sentence no longer applies; the player remains "authorized" by the AI. Whether the additional (unauthorized) information is "extraneous" or not is moot, as it is clearly not "other". I resolve the apparent discrepancy between the "other extraneous information" of the first paragraph and the unqualified "extraneous information" of A by interpreting A to mean that UI which is not "other information" cannot, in the sense of L16, "suggest" anything. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 02:16:46 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA15496 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 02:16:46 +1100 Received: from mail.compulink.co.uk (mail.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.20]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA15491 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 02:16:36 +1100 Received: (from root@localhost) by mail.compulink.co.uk (8.8.7/8.8.6) id PAA02337 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 15:16:14 GMT Date: Mon, 26 Jan 98 15:15 GMT0 From: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tim West-meads) Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Reply-To: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Message-Id: Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In-Reply-To: Labeo wrote: > In message , Tim West-meads > writes > >In-Reply-To: <199801231948.OAA00938@cfa183.harvard.edu> > > .....(cut)..... > > >It seems wrong to give this power to the SO. One key need for a > meaning >of "convention" is L40D which limits the authority of the SO > to >regulating conventions, implicitly barring it from regulating > natural >bidding. If the SO then decides what are conventions this > limitation >becomes meaningless. > > > Yes, indeed, quite scandalous; we elect these people to run the game > and in no time they are telling us how it is going to be played. Just as scandalous as allowing the European Court of Human Rights to overrule the elected governments of European countries, or having the supreme court overrule the federal government. If L40D was changed then it would be appropriate for SOs to make the determination, as it is written they are answerable to a higher authority in this area. Tim West-Meads From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 02:54:06 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA15670 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 02:54:06 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA15665 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 02:53:57 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic215.cais.com [207.226.56.215]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id KAA09740 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:40:13 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980126105447.006bc23c@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:54:47 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a convention In-Reply-To: <86bce56e.34ca2cef@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 01:03 PM 1/24/98 EST, Mlfrench wrote: >Eric, in answer to: > >> >As a secondary question, can a bid ever be natural and conventional at >> >the same time. > >you wrote: > >> My personal opinion is that it cannot, but I could make a contrary case for >> certain agreements, such as "mandatory cue-bidding" (a common agreement >> that, in certain auctions, bidding game in an agreed suit denies any side >> first-round controls). I'd call that natural (EK would call it a >> "treatment", but his very useful distinction between "natural bids" and >> "treatments" is his own, unrelated to the laws, which deal solely in >> natural bids and conventional bids), but others would argue that it's a >> convention. >> >The word "natural" should have no place in these discussions. A bid is either >a convention or it is not. The Laws do not deal with "natural bids," which are >neither defined nor referred to in any law. The term is used only in a >footnote to L75D2, written by someone writing informally. A so-called "natural >bid" can be a convention (Flannery 2H), while some "unnatural" bids are not >conventions (cue bid showing an ace). I stand chastised for my imprecise use of the term. I meant "natural" in its (IMO generally accepted) meaning of "not conventional", not in the sense that EK used it when he made his original (but rather technical) three-way distinction between "natural bids", "conventions" and "treatments". In either of those senses, however, "natural" and "conventional" bids constitute mutually exclusive sets. I would not, nor do I think many others would, use "natural bid" in a sense that would include Flannery 2H. My own view is that an ace-showing cue-bid is indeed a "convention", as it does not show length or suggest play in the suit bid, that being a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for a bid to be deemed "natural" as I use the term. >My definition of "treatment" is an Alertable call that is not a convention. My >opening three-bids in first or second seat deny an ace. That is a treatment, >not a convention, and Alertable. I don't see how any useful distinction between conventional and non-conventional bids can be based on the ACBL's complex and elephantine rules about what constitute alertable vs. non-alertable bids. However we choose to make this distinction -- whether or not we include "treatments" as a separate class from "conventions" and "natural bids" -- must depend on the agreement the partnership has about the bid, not on the jurisdiction in which they choose to make it. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 03:05:50 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA15733 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 03:05:50 +1100 Received: from pimaia2y.prodigy.com (pimaia2y.prodigy.com [198.83.18.95]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA15727 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 03:05:43 +1100 Received: from mime2.prodigy.com (mime2.prodigy.com [192.168.253.26]) by pimaia2y.prodigy.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA64816 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:05:36 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by mime2.prodigy.com (8.6.10/8.6.9) id LAA26264 for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:03:59 -0500 Message-Id: <199801261603.LAA26264@mime2.prodigy.com> X-Mailer: Prodigy Internet GW(v0.9beta) - ae01dm04sc03 From: DMFV47B@prodigy.com ( CHYAH E BURGHARD) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:03:59, -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: ACBL Hand Generation Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This happened to me in 1994. The same hands played in the ACBL Summer Nationals Women's KO semifinals were used in the ACBL Fall Nationals Board-A-Match. ======================================== I spent some time on the phone today, asking what the ACBL has done to prevent something like this from happening again. The incident referred to above was attributed to user error. The person did not reinitialize the program that creates the hands. The ACBL is now using a new dealing program. There was an article about this in the October ACBL Monthly bulletin. I have requested that this article be sent to me so that I can put it up on the ACBL home page. The ACBL uses a sequence of two programs to accomplish the dealing of hands. A program to create hands and hand records and the program that actually deals the cards. A double seed method is used. The program checks if it is a new month and if it is, it forces the person to deal a new hand manually and feed it into the machine. The permutations of the cards are then generated from this new hand and the milliseconds on the clock. The final output are files in a form called Duplimate. UPC (bar codes) are used and you do not have to sort the cards into suits, the machine solely deals based on the UPC code and the Duplimate file. I was told that only the ACBL is in possession of the program that creates the hands to be dealt. No one had any idea if the ACBL would sell this program because no one has ever asked. I will put the October article up on the website when it is sent to me. -Chyah Burghard, ACBL Web Administrator From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 03:19:35 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA15829 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 03:19:35 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA15824 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 03:19:25 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic215.cais.com [207.226.56.215]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id LAA13795 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:05:41 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980126112016.006bd444@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:20:16 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Computer generated hands In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980125093657.00695788@ozemail.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 09:36 AM 1/25/98 +1100, Reg wrote: >As a Director, this is one of my nightmares. What do you do in the middle >of a barometer scored pairs event when someone says 'I've played these >hands before'? One has heard stories such as a congress in Spain producing >the same hands as played a few weeks earlier in France. Is there any >prgrammer who is prepared to lay out a large sum of money with the >guarantee that every set of hands is unique? There is no absolute guarantee, since even a perfectly programmed hand generator would give an effectively infinitisemal but theoretically finite chance of duplication -- the same chance that would exist if the dealing was done by hand! As a professional programmer, I can say with confidence, however, that the probability of a hand generator (or anything else) being "perfectly programmed" in a theoretical sense isn't much larger! >I know little about the process of hand generation. To me, a computer is a >machine, and no machine can produce random actions. So as I see it, one >enters a unique seed number into the program to produce a unique set of >hands. Different programmers use different methods of arriving at a unique >seed. But I understand that, if you enter the same seed number, you get the >same set of hands. I would not accept or use a hand generator that required its user to enter the seed for the random number generator. The hand generator program should seed whatever random number generator it uses internally; the techniques for insuring the uniqueness of the seed are well-known. A computer cannot produce theoretically random actions, but a well-programmed random number generator (for which the correct technical term is "pseudo-random number generator") should (essentially by definition) produce numbers that cannot be distinguished from random numbers at a very high level of statistical confidence. >We had a rather amazing experience in 1988, when we were just starting to >produce computer generated hands. We weren't doing many sets, so we entered >our own seed, keeping a list of seeds previously used to ensure uniqueness >of the seed number. We discovered that, if we entered a seed number exactly >16 more or less than another, it produced the same hands but with the suits >shifted in one direction! That is, diamonds became hearts etc. This may >have been poor programming, but, if we weren't producing bridge hands, this >may have gone unnoticed for years. Can anyone explain how this could be? That suggests a very badly programmed random number generator indeed, one which would not meet anyone's criterion for generating acceptable pseudo-random numbers. and one which should not be used by anyone writing a hand-generation program, or, for that matter, by anyone else. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 03:23:32 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA15869 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 03:23:32 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA15864 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 03:23:25 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA22280 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:23:30 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA02693; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:23:26 -0500 Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:23:26 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801261623.LAA02693@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Computer generated hands X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Reg Busch > But I understand that, if you enter the same seed number, you get the > same set of hands. More precisely, if you use the same seed, the same algorithm, and the machine starts in the same internal state, you will get the same hands. > We discovered that, if we entered a seed number exactly > 16 more or less than another, it produced the same hands but with the suits > shifted in one direction! This was probably a very bad "random number generator." Of course RNG's do not really generate random numbers, but their results should "look like" random numbers in the sense (among others!) that sequential numbers don't have an obvious relation to each other. That RNG most likely failed this elementary test. Very good RNG's are available because they are commercially and scientifically important. Jesper's comment was a good one. It is fundamentally up to the user to insure that the seed is unique. If you are the only one running your program, you can simply use sequential numbers (0, 1, 2 ...) as part of the seed (or prefixed by a date, as Jesper suggested). Coordinating multiple sites is harder but possible. Hmmm... what about using the date the deals _are generated_ (not the date they are to be played, which may be unknown), the CPU serial number, and a sequential number of deals generated that day? Or replace the sequential number with the time in milliseconds. I think that should be unique, at least until the machine starts generating more than one deal per millisecond. Is there a way to read the CPU serial number on most machines? Of course if the system clock/calendar gets set wrong.... From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 03:56:32 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA16009 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 03:56:32 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA16004 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 03:56:26 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic215.cais.com [207.226.56.215]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id LAA20012 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:42:44 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980126115720.006bd1e4@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:57:20 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: computer generated hands In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980125192449.0069d474@pop.ihug.co.nz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 07:24 PM 1/25/98 +1300, Patrick wrote: >I suspect that the problem arises from the fact that most programs deal the >cards in a specific order. E.g. a possible algorithm would be to deal the >cards in order from Ace of Spades, King of Spades etc, right down to the >2C. In this method the computer would give this a 25% chance of being dealt >to each hand. Let us say, for instance that Ace of Spades is dealt to the >North hand. Now the King of Spades is about to be dealt, but there are only >12 vacant spaces in the North hand, so the formula applied to the random >number now selected for the KS would mean that there would be 12 chances in >51 of it also being dealt to the North hand and 13 chances in 51 for each >other hand. [snip] Just for the record, neither the hand generators that I've written nor any others whose programming I've looked at work this way. Rather, they do what we do when we deal by hand: shuffle the deck, then distribute the cards. It works like this: Start with an ordered deck, say SA,SK,SQ,...C2. Generate a random integer index to the ordered deck, select the designated card, move it to the shuffled deck, and repeat the process. So, for instance, you first generate a random number in the range 1-52, and get a 3. The shuffled deck is now SQ (1 card), and the ordered deck is SA,SK,SJ,...C2 (51 cards). Now you generate a random number in the range 1-51 and get a 14. The 14th card in the ordered deck is now the HK (on the previous iteration it was the HA, but that's irrelevant), so the shuffled deck is now SQ,HK, and the ordered deck is down to 50 cards, so now you generate a random number in the range 1-50, etc. When you've got a shuffled deck with 52 cards, you give the cards out in a predetermined order, just as you would by hand. Not that this has anything to do with the problem at hand. Regardless of what algorithm you use to deal the cards, if your pseudo-random number generator repeats sequences of generated numbers, then your hand generator will repeat hands. A well-written pseudo-random number generator, assuming it is seeded uniquely each time it is invoked (which can be assured trivially), will have a probability of repeating a sequence of numbers of any length which is not significantly greater (at some very high level of statistical confidence) than it would be if the sequence were genuinely (theoretically) random. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 04:31:06 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA16171 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 04:31:06 +1100 Received: from zrvsun.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (zrvsun.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de [134.2.2.35]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA16164 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 04:30:58 +1100 Received: from compserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (compserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de [134.2.2.1]) by zrvsun.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA15951 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 18:30:53 +0100 (MET) Received: (from caakr01@localhost) by compserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA25085 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 18:30:52 +0100 Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 18:30:52 +0100 From: Martin Kretschmar Message-Id: <199801261730.SAA25085@compserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Hardware based random number generators Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Concerning seeds for random number generators: In the german computer magazin "c't 14/97" (P. 220) an article appeared: "Kryptologie: sichere Zufallszahlen" which roughly translates to: "Cryptographic safe random number generators" Included are references for hardware based random number generators. These could be used either for a (large) initial seed value, or even for the whole process of shuffling: Tundra RGB 1210: $105 http://www.tundra.com/Tundra/Products/Encryption/RGB1210.html Protego SG-100, $120 http://www.protego.sw/ ComScire QMG, $295 http://shell.rmi.net/~comscire/ Orion $588 http://valley.interact.nl/av/com/orion/home.html Random Master, $920 Email: vogtsr@uni-freiburg.de Also of importance is a correct shuffle algorithm, as given e.g. in the books of D. E. Knuth. A new edition has just made it into the bookshops. The single most important feature of a shuffle algorithm is the equal probable selection of one of the N! permutations. E.g. exchanging every card with another random card will give N^N possible results. With N=3 we have 3!=6 combinations but 3^3=27 possible exchange results. Thus they never can be divided without a remainder. But even improper shuffling can be well hidden, if the cards are shuffled several times. With the speed of the currently available micro-processers, this is a very simple task. Martin Kretschmar From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 04:39:47 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA16228 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 04:39:47 +1100 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 EAA16223 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 04:39:40 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa23429; 26 Jan 98 9:39 PST To: Bridge Laws Discussion List CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: computer generated hands In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:57:20 PST." <3.0.1.32.19980126115720.006bd1e4@pop.cais.com> Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:39:00 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801260939.aa23429@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > At 07:24 PM 1/25/98 +1300, Patrick wrote: > > >I suspect that the problem arises from the fact that most programs deal the > >cards in a specific order. E.g. a possible algorithm would be to deal the > >cards in order from Ace of Spades, King of Spades etc, right down to the > >2C. In this method the computer would give this a 25% chance of being dealt > >to each hand. Let us say, for instance that Ace of Spades is dealt to the > >North hand. Now the King of Spades is about to be dealt, but there are only > >12 vacant spaces in the North hand, so the formula applied to the random > >number now selected for the KS would mean that there would be 12 chances in > >51 of it also being dealt to the North hand and 13 chances in 51 for each > >other hand. > > [snip] > > Just for the record, neither the hand generators that I've written nor any > others whose programming I've looked at work this way. Actually, I have used the method Patrick described. I prefer it over the "usual" methods, since after all the cards are distributed, they're already sorted in the order you want them in. It's quite a simple algorithm to program. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 05:40:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA16546 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 05:40:10 +1100 Received: from malady.cais.net (malady.cais.net [199.0.216.100]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA16541 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 05:40:05 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic166.cais.com [207.226.56.166]) by malady.cais.net (8.8.7/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id NAA06970 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 13:43:34 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980126134059.00692dbc@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 13:40:59 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio In-Reply-To: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 08:40 PM 1/25/98 +0000, Labeo wrote: >Yes, indeed, quite scandalous; we elect these people to run the game >and in no time they are telling us how it is going to be played. We elect these people to run the game according to its laws, not to make up their own laws and run the game according to those. We do the same with our elected political office-holders. If the people we elect don't understand the distinction, they are malfeasant, and are not doing the job we elected them to do. Anyone who doesn't understand this should ask Richard Nixon. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 06:33:34 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA16788 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 06:33:34 +1100 Received: from adm.sci-nnov.ru (adm.sci-nnov.ru [193.125.71.2]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA16783 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 06:33:25 +1100 Received: from s_foxy.p2p.sci-nnov.ru (foxy.p2p [194.190.176.114]) by adm.sci-nnov.ru (8.8.5/Dmiter-4.1) with ESMTP id WAA02208; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 22:32:10 +0300 (MSK) Message-Id: <199801261932.WAA02208@adm.sci-nnov.ru> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit From: "Sergei Litvak" To: "Herman De Wael" , "Bridge Laws" Subject: Re: Computer generated hands Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 19:58:54 +0300 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: \\snip// > The second version of the program I wrote used a random seed that was > large enough to encompass all possible bridge hands (you need about > four - separate - random looks at the system clock for that !). > > I believe the WBF program (that's the one from Sweden isn't it ?) also > meets that criterion. We caught WBF program about a year ago. There were 2 events in the same time. Junior Teams in Cardiff and Russian National Individulal in Bryansk. When we compared boards from this 2 events we find out that 3-rd session of Individual are equal to boards from one of Cardiff rounds!! Even more. This summer during the Junior Teams World championship set of boards for the Semifinal segment was equal to boards played in Cardiff! So WBF program also have this problem! > -- > Herman DE WAEL > Antwerpen Belgium > http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm > Sergei Litvak Chief TD of RBL. From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 08:41:27 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA17393 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 08:41:27 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA17388 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 08:41:21 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab1017533; 26 Jan 98 20:31 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 01:52:20 +0000 To: Anne Jones Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Labeo Subject: Re: Fw: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress In-Reply-To: <01bd29d0$0e579880$2d1a93c3@vnmvhhid> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <01bd29d0$0e579880$2d1a93c3@vnmvhhid>, Anne Jones writes > >-----Original Message----- >From: Anne Jones >To: David Stevenson >Date: Saturday, January 24, 1998 10:47 PM >Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress > > >>David, I cannot believe you really mean this. You cannot be >>serious. IMVVHU the players have made a table ruling and rightly >>or wrongly the insufficient bid has been changed. .....and so on..... Do you think, Anne, the Director might decide that the Pass after the 2C is a breach of 11A? If so, do you think the Director may never reach Law 25 on this one (much less L27)? -- Labeo The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason. From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 09:17:33 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA17688 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:17:33 +1100 Received: from camel8.mindspring.com (camel8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.58]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA17683 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:17:28 +1100 Received: from mike (ip101.baltimore10.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.30.22.101]) by camel8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA12852 for ; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 17:17:22 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980126171723.006d33f8@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 17:17:23 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980123094100.006988a0@pop.cais.com> References: <199801201930.OAA08713@cfa183.harvard.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 09:41 AM 1/23/98 -0500, Eric wrote: >This does, of course, raise the possibility that a "real" offender in cases >like this can avoid an unfavorable adjustment by doing a good job of lying >to the AC. But deliberately lying to an AC is obvious cheating, and, as >we've said many times, the UI rules are designed to restore equity, not to >ferret out and punish outright cheaters. > This is something I have mused upon myself. Nowhere in the laws is it suggested that a player has an obligation to be truthful in making a case to either a TD or AC. Perhaps it is self-evident that lying about your motives or thought processes to improve the odds on a favorable decision is cheating. Certainly I don't consider myself to be someone who would stoop to such shenanigans. On the other hand, if I were convinced in a certain instance of the underlying justice of my own case, but a TD or AC seemed to need a convincing (but IMO, irrelevant) story to come to the right judgement.... The fact is that if you set up a system in which players' self-reported thoughts and intentions play any significant role in the outcome of adjudication, that system will reward players who are either able to delude themselves or simply con the jurists. This may be cheating, but it is completely safe, because it can never be proved. You don't know, can't know, what was going through my mind at the time I made a particular bid or play. Indeed, the player himself is a fairly unreliable reporter of such information, even when attempting to report honestly. Fortunately, the lawmakers have relieved us of this burden in nearly all cases. The general issue in the current thread, i.e., UI in the form of correct alerts or explanations from partner that might have reminded a player of his forgotten methods, is an exception. I am still in a muddle about how such situations should be handled. Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 09:36:22 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA17884 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:36:22 +1100 Received: from malady.cais.net (malady.cais.net [199.0.216.100]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA17879 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:36:15 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic156.cais.com [207.226.56.156]) by malady.cais.net (8.8.7/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id RAA03132; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 17:39:39 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980126173704.006909f4@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 17:37:04 -0500 To: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Computer generated hands Cc: Bridge Laws Discussion List In-Reply-To: <199801262046.PAA02836@cfa183.harvard.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 03:46 PM 1/26/98 -0500, you wrote: >> the >> techniques for insuring the uniqueness of the seed are well-known. > >Could you expand on this a bit? I suspect the list might be quite >interested. I know I am. These techniques are not known to me >and apparently not to a lot of hand-generator programmers. The easiest way is to encode a unique identifier of the environment in which the program operates with the value of the current date/time, and set the RNG seed to the resulting value. Most commercial programs are serialized, and would typically use their own serial number as the unique environment identifier; if available, this is easiest and safest. If the program isn't serialized, the OS or (as for me, since I program in APL) interpreter you're writing for will be, and the API (for an OS) or language itself (for an interpreter) will normally provide a way to get at that number. In the worst case, you can always get at the serial number of the computer itself (manufacturers provide this in the native instruction set for the benefit of software vendors who sell machine-specific licenses) -- not guaranteed to be unique, but close enough. The timestamp should have a sufficient resolution (millisecond, or even microsecond) to insure that the program can't be run twice within the resolution, but, to be theoretically certain, you can always delay for the length of the resolution before querying the timestamp. So your hand generator seeds its RNG with a value that looks like, say, 1234567819980126170523681 (system number 12345678 on 1/26/98 at 23.681 seconds after 5:05 PM). To duplicate this seed would require two people to run your program at the same millisecond on two different systems with the same serial number (or, since I use only four digits for the year, on the same system some multiple of 10,000 years apart to the millisecond!) -- perhaps not 100% foolproof in theory, but certainly good enough. Of course, someone could "beat" this system by writing a program that reset their system clock to a specific value and then immediately invoked the hand generator, which would give a significant (although probably still rather small) chance of producing duplicated results. But if someone WANTS to get dupicate hands into two different events, there are far easier and surer ways that don't involve programming. Ideally, a hand generator should have the property that if the RNG were perfect, then all possible deals would be generated with equal probability. This technique doesn't accomplish that, but that's way beyond what we're discussing, which is merely getting the program to supply its RNG with a unique seed each time it runs. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 09:56:37 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA18016 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:56:37 +1100 Received: from acsys.anu.edu.au (acsys [150.203.20.41]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA18011 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:56:33 +1100 Received: from acrobat (acrobat.anu.edu.au [150.203.20.55]) by acsys.anu.edu.au (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id JAA04091 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:56:32 +1100 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19980127095617.009245e0@acsys.anu.edu.au> X-Sender: markus@acsys.anu.edu.au X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:56:17 +1100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Markus Buchhorn Subject: Re: Computer generated hands Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Just watching this discussion on RNG's reminds me to point out one thing: you can generate a seed as efficiently or as inefficiently as you're prepared to program, but it ain't worth the electrons it's stored on if your RNG algorithm doesn't use the full width of the seed - some cheaper RNG's only use 16-32 bits internally :-( You need to be sure that your algorithm is *able* to generate a unique identifier with as many bits as required for a unique bridge hand (around 92 bits if I recall correctly), and *then* feed it a seed that is appropriately sized (and as unique as possible too). That raises another thought from a discussion on RGB about a year ago - somebody (Henk ? Hans ?) used a procedure to index all possible bridge hands along with their layouts into a unique number, and then all a good RNG had to do was generate that number. Ignore all shuffling/dealing techniques entirely. This could possibly be "easier" to mathematically prove as "perfect" (allowing for the lifetime of the Universe to be unbounded, of course :-) ). A nice follow-on to that previous point was that all auctions and all plays could also be uniquely identified by single (looooong) number, leading to a conversation along the lines of 'I had a 67898753498789762897456 hand last night; we ended up bidding it as 19834783478563987654','Did you play it 089178289762978617865 ?',' No - it was 0981098349789873487','Oh - tough luck, when they find that triple-reverse-somersault-fosbury-flip finesse there's not much you can do' :-) Cheers, Markus Markus Buchhorn, Advanced Computational Systems CRC | Ph: +61 2 62798810 email: markus@acsys.anu.edu.au, snail: ACSys, RSISE Bldg,|Fax: +61 2 62798602 Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia |Mobile: 0417 281429 From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 10:08:25 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA18125 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:08:25 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA18120 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:08:19 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id af2022677; 26 Jan 98 21:46 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 21:30:44 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <9801260601.aa11312@flash.irvine.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote: [k] >It's easier, of >course, to come up with such logic after the hand is over. But this >wouldn't necessarily make me feel justice was done if the committee >let the score stand. To me, it's not enough to say "There was no >logical alternative" to the actual defense, but it must also be >determined that "The player would have, with some level of certainty, >been able to determine at the table without the UI that there was no >logical alternative." This all reminds me of Hesitation Blackwood. We have had three cases recently where a player can prove that his continuation after a slow signoff was reasonable, ie pass was not an LA. I am sceptical: I bet in each case the player would have passed without thought if his partner had signed off quickly. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 14:13:33 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA19021 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:13:33 +1100 Received: from centurion.flash.net (centurion.flash.net [209.30.0.22]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA19016 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:13:26 +1100 Received: from john-strauch (sdsh7-59.flash.net [209.30.94.59]) by centurion.flash.net (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA03623; Mon, 26 Jan 1998 21:13:16 -0600 (CST) Message-Id: <199801270313.VAA03623@centurion.flash.net> From: "John Strauch" To: "David Stevenson" , Subject: Re: Multiple Dilemmas Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 19:15:46 -0800 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1161 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This case has been bugging me. Why has E's 2D now changed from Cue Bid to natural? Since there was no alert, it should be interpreted as a Cue Bid and that should be AI, at least to my way of thinking. And it seems reasonable to let the auction continue from there. Both sides are somewhat at fault here. When playing 2 systems over 1D, seems like defender should check, or at least offer a pregnant pause, before bidding; and the responder should have alerted promptly. A-/A- would be better, but I would just let it go. In theory, it should work to overcaller's advantage, which is probably OK. Of course, the laws may say something else about this, but it seems to me like a reasonable way to handle it. Perhaps the director should allow the 2D bidder to affirm that he was cue bidding. ---------- > From: David Stevenson > To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au > Subject: Multiple Dilemmas > Date: Monday, January 26, 1998 5:40 AM > > > >> BD 23 > >> Dealer S N E S W > >> All J72 P P > >> K 1D* 2D P 2H > >> AJ63 P 4H P P > >> QT976 P > >> Q8 AKT54 * initially not alerted until > >> J9852 A76 after E bid (not of tempo) > >> T9 K Director allowed bidding to > >> J854 AK32 continue. E's 2D has now changed > >> 963 from Cue bid to natural in > >> QT43 meaning.Result 2 down. Most EW in > >> Q87542 spades at low leval or NS in 3D > > East would presumably withdraw the 2D and substitute some means of > showing a fairly strong hand. Game may or may not be reached with 25 > HCP including a singleton king, and a heart game might be doubled since > South has QTxx and his partner has opened the bidding. Mind you, with > 6card D support, a double of 4H seems optimistic, and might not be > considered likely. Obviously, North-South might progress in diamonds. > > Reasonable contracts that might be reached: > > E/W: 2H, 3H, 4H, 2S, 3S, 4H*. > N/S: 3D, 4D, 5D, 5D*. > > D, H, S all probably makes 8/9 tricks. > > So we give N/S +500 for 4H*-2, E/W +800 for 5D*-3. > > If you gave me A+ I would certainly appeal since a correct ruling > seems to give me over 90%! I would also complain in writing to the > sponsoring organisation about such a Director. > > There is some case for thinking these contracts are overly ambitious, > and possibly lesser ones are. However, even the lesser ones seem to be > over 60% scores, so giving ArtASs on these hands is not only a lazy > approach, but one that will disadvantage the players just to save a > Director work, one whose failure to bother to open the Law book in the > first place has caused this. > > Having not bothered initially to do his job, now he cannot be > bothered to do it after realising he has made a pig's ear of it. Any > Director who gives A+/A+ now is clearly so little interested in the > welfare of the players in his charge as to seriously raise doubts as to > his fitness to direct a game of duplicate bridge **at any level > whatever**. > > -- > David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ > Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ > bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= > Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 21:59:11 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA20320 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 21:59:11 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA20313 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 21:59:03 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-101.uunet.be [194.7.13.101]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA07490 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:58:57 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34CDB86B.9D228686@innet.be> Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:35:23 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > > > > >You see, I did manage to wriggle myself out of this one ! > > I do not understand. I agree with you, but this does not seem to > agree with what you said earlier. You said that if you have AI and UI > both coming to the same answer then you may treat that info as AI. Here > you have AI that you are playing 12-14 [opponent's comment] and UI [the > announcement]. Therefore by your earlier rule the knowledge that you > are playing 12-14 should be AI: by my understanding it should be UI. > I thought it was clear. In my first case, there is AI (I'm playing 15-17) and UI (partner says we're playing 15-17) that tell the same thing. There is no extraneous information and I can do what I want. In your case, there is AI (I'm playing 15-17) and AI (opponents says we're playing 12-14) that contradict one another. Now I have an action to take, namely deciding which of these conflicting AI's to trust. Now I might use the UI (partner says we're playing 12-14) to help me decide. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Tue Jan 27 22:31:58 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA20508 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 22:31:58 +1100 Received: from waffle.cise.npl.co.uk (waffle.cise.npl.co.uk [139.143.18.92]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA20503 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 22:31:47 +1100 Received: from tempest.cise.npl.co.uk by waffle.cise.npl.co.uk; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:31:19 GMT Date: Tue, 27 Jan 98 11:31:17 GMT Message-Id: <26871.9801271131@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> From: Robin Barker To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I think I now understand what is different about this case, compared with the case of the players making a table ruling. After an insufficient bid and "correction", a bid by LHO accepts offender's insufficient bid unless - it is made clear (perhaps by LHO) that LHO has the option to accept the insufficient bid, and - and LHO has rejected that option. This still leaves the case: N: 1NT E: 1C S: I have the option to accept 1C, but I don't wish to accept it. E: 2C (where 1NT-2C = majors) S: Pass W: Director! How do you rule? Robin Robin Barker, \ Email: Robin.Barker@npl.co.uk Information Systems Engineering, \ Tel: +44 (0) 181 943 7090 B10, National Physical Laboratory, \ Fax: +44 (0) 181 977 7091 Teddington, Middlesex, UK. TW11 0LW \ WWW: http://www.npl.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 01:38:27 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA23390 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 01:38:27 +1100 Received: from malady.cais.net (malady.cais.net [199.0.216.100]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA23385 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 01:38:18 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic37.cais.com [207.226.56.37]) by malady.cais.net (8.8.7/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id JAA17257 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:41:48 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980127093917.00692c60@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:39:17 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980126171723.006d33f8@pop.mindspring.com> References: <3.0.1.32.19980123094100.006988a0@pop.cais.com> <199801201930.OAA08713@cfa183.harvard.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 05:17 PM 1/26/98 -0500, Michael wrote: >The fact is that if you set up a system in which players' self-reported >thoughts and intentions play any significant role in the outcome of >adjudication, that system will reward players who are either able to delude >themselves or simply con the jurists. This may be cheating, but it is >completely safe, because it can never be proved. You don't know, can't >know, what was going through my mind at the time I made a particular bid or >play. Indeed, the player himself is a fairly unreliable reporter of such >information, even when attempting to report honestly. This is all quite true, and our appeals system depends on the assumption that AC members are aware of it. Therefore we have a firmly established principle that ACs are to heavily discount testimony when it is clearly self-serving. In cases like this, as I said in the message Michael quoted from, it may (and usually is) difficult or impossible to convince a committee to allow the questionable action to stand regardless of what the player was actually thinking at the time. In the original case, for example, the player might claim that he knew all along he was playing 1NT 12-14, but failed to see an ace and thought he had a 13-count until he took a second look. But the player has the right to try to convince the committee that an adjustment is not warranted, and the laws give the committee the right to decide to believe him if they choose to do so. Suppose, for example, that the player was known to be severely dyslexic, and could show the AC several other hands from the same session where he bid in a manner best explained by his having miscounted his points, where the TD wasn't called because there was no question of damage. The AC might see this as the "additional evidence" needed to accept his story, and rule that there was no additional information provided by the presumptive UI. My original point was simply that an adjustment, at least in theory, depends on the AC's interpretation of the testimony of the players involved, and is not automatic. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 02:26:07 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA23691 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 02:26:07 +1100 Received: from smtp1.erols.com (smtp1.erols.com [207.172.3.234]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA23686 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 02:26:01 +1100 Received: from hirsch.usuf2.usuhs.mil ([131.158.13.27]) by smtp1.erols.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA00881 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:26:53 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980127102552.007b94b0@pop.erols.com> X-Sender: hdavis@pop.erols.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:25:52 -0500 To: Bridge Laws From: Hirsch Davis Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <34CDB86B.9D228686@innet.be> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 11:35 AM 1/27/98 +0100, Herman De Wael wrote: [snip] >In my first case, there is AI (I'm playing 15-17) and UI (partner says >we're playing 15-17) that tell the same thing. There is no extraneous >information and I can do what I want. > >In your case, there is AI (I'm playing 15-17) and AI (opponents says >we're playing 12-14) that contradict one another. Now I have an action >to take, namely deciding which of these conflicting AI's to trust. Now I >might use the UI (partner says we're playing 12-14) to help me decide. > >-- >Herman DE WAEL >Antwerpen Belgium >http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm > > > I have to disagree with your second case. If in fact you have conflicting AI, you have to make up your own mind *without UI*. My reading is that Law 16 in unequivocable: you can never use UI to suggest one LA over another. So, once there is UI present, you must continue to play as though partner thinks you have 15-17, as long as that was an LA at the time partner answered the opponent's question/comment. Using the UI to decide which AI is correct is, IMO, very much against both the letter and spirit of Law 16. Hirsch From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 02:46:58 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA23743 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 02:46:58 +1100 Received: from freenet1.carleton.ca (root@freenet1.carleton.ca [134.117.136.20]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA23735 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 02:46:51 +1100 Received: from freenet3.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (ac342@freenet3.carleton.ca [134.117.136.23]) by freenet1.carleton.ca (8.8.8/8.8.8/NCF_f1_v2.02) with ESMTP id KAA05046 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:46:37 -0500 (EST) Received: (ac342@localhost) by freenet3.carleton.ca.carleton.ca (8.8.5/NCF-Sun-Client) id KAA12769; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:46:37 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:46:37 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801271546.KAA12769@freenet3.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> From: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca (A. L. Edwards) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Reply-To: ac342@freenet.carleton.ca Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > >David Stevenson wrote: >> >> > >> >You see, I did manage to wriggle myself out of this one ! >> >> I do not understand. I agree with you, but this does not seem to >> agree with what you said earlier. You said that if you have AI and UI >> both coming to the same answer then you may treat that info as AI. Here >> you have AI that you are playing 12-14 [opponent's comment] and UI [the >> announcement]. Therefore by your earlier rule the knowledge that you >> are playing 12-14 should be AI: by my understanding it should be UI. >> > >I thought it was clear. > >In my first case, there is AI (I'm playing 15-17) and UI (partner says >we're playing 15-17) that tell the same thing. There is no extraneous >information and I can do what I want. > >In your case, there is AI (I'm playing 15-17) and AI (opponents says >we're playing 12-14) that contradict one another. Now I have an action >to take, namely deciding which of these conflicting AI's to trust. Now I >might use the UI (partner says we're playing 12-14) to help me decide. > Sorry, I can't buy this. Yes, I think you can decide which of these conflicting AIs to trust; no, I don't think you can ever use the UI partner has provided to make this descision.Since you are not allowed to "hear" partner's response a la screen test, how can you possibly let it influence your descision, except negatively (if you have a choice of LAs ect. ect.)? Tony (aka ac342) From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 02:57:46 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA23762 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 02:57:46 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA23757 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 02:57:40 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id KAA19827 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:57:44 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA03335; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:57:42 -0500 Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:57:42 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801271557.KAA03335@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I agree with Michael's eloquent comments and would just add a couple of thoughts. > From: "Michael S. Dennis" > The fact is that if you set up a system in which players' self-reported > thoughts and intentions play any significant role in the outcome of > adjudication, that system will reward players who are either able to delude > themselves or simply con the jurists. And the result will be to have different rules for different players. > The general issue in the current thread, i.e., UI in the form of > correct alerts or explanations from partner that might have reminded a > player of his forgotten methods, is an exception. I am still in a muddle > about how such situations should be handled. The 1975 Laws made a distinction between two kinds of UI, normal like the above, and invidious like hesitations and such. Kaplan confirmed that this distinction was removed in 1987. All UI is considered of the invidious kind, but partner's correct explanation of system will not _normally_ suggest one LA over another. The problem comes when system might have been forgotten. If we want to avoid inquiring into a player's mental processes -- and I am quite convinced we do -- we need objective standards. Perhaps they are to be found in L73C rather than L16. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 03:28:51 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA23930 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 03:28:51 +1100 Received: from gw-nl1.philips.com (gw-nl1.philips.com [192.68.44.33]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA23925 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 03:28:40 +1100 Received: (from nobody@localhost) by gw-nl1.philips.com (8.6.10/8.6.10-0.994n-08Nov95) id RAA20307 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:28:34 +0100 Received: from smtprelay.nl.cis.philips.com(130.139.36.3) by gw-nl1.philips.com via smap (V1.3+ESMTP) with ESMTP id sma020097; Tue Jan 27 17:28:04 1998 Received: from nlsce1.ehv.sc.philips.com (nlsce1.ehv.sc.philips.com [130.144.63.106]) by smtprelay.nl.cis.philips.com (8.6.10/8.6.10-1.2.1m-970402) with ESMTP id RAA07358 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:28:03 +0100 Received: from malibu.ehv.sc.philips.com (malibu [130.144.63.227]) by nlsce1.ehv.sc.philips.com (8.6.10/8.6.10-1.001a-11Jun96) with SMTP id RAA10469 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:28:04 +0100 From: Con Holzscherer Received: (from holzsche@nlsce1.ehv.sc.philips.com) by malibu.ehv.sc.philips.com (8.6.10/) id LAA22090 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:28:02 -0500 Message-Id: <199801271628.LAA22090@malibu.ehv.sc.philips.com> Subject: Re: OBOOT To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:28:01 MET X-Mailer: Elm [revision: 212.4] Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: B A Small > Bd 14 Dealer E > nil vul AK5 NS above average pair. EW learners > Q72 North opens 1D before any other bid. > K865 Option to bid is declined by east (29A) so > K93 bid is cancelled and biddding reverts to E. > QJ42 8763 South is told to pass whenever it is her turn. > AJ9 T6 Bidding now goes P-P-P-1NT-P-P-P. I asked to > Q92 AJ43 see sheet at end of play. 1NT made. > 762 AQ5 > T9 > K8543 > T7 > JT84 What?? 1 NT made?? This is completely ridiculous. Normally, declarer should make about 4 tricks in 1 NT. With a little help (like a Heart lead), 5 is not out of the question, but 7 tricks is. Please tell us how on earth this could happen. 2H will in general yield about 7 tricks, so the 'forced pass' was NOT advantageous to NS. With the same quality of defense that EW demonstrated against 1 NT, the result would have been 9 or 10 tricks in 2H! > I wanted to change score to 1D making Making 1 D? How would that be possible. I do not see a way for EW to let declarer make 1D. -- Con Holzscherer Philips Semiconductors B.V. Systems Laboratory Eindhoven Phone: +31-40-27 22150 E-mail: holzsche@ehv.sc.philips.com From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 04:08:42 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA24093 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 04:08:42 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id EAA24085 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 04:08:32 +1100 Received: from casewise.demon.co.uk ([158.152.187.206]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2018605; 27 Jan 98 16:35 GMT Received: by bridge.casewise.demon.co.uk with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63) id <01BD2B40.FBF4D5F0@bridge.casewise.demon.co.uk>; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:31:14 -0000 Message-ID: From: David Martin To: "'bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au'" Subject: RE: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:31:11 -0000 X-Mailer: Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63 Encoding: 16 TEXT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk [David Martin] Labeo writes: > > >Labeo: The question of a PP may perhaps depend whether the TD has >just been arguing with her husband? As I read the laws the question >is entirely within the discretion of the TD and later perhaps the >AC. I do not see any directions in the laws on the 'when to apply' >decisions that you are discussing and I am not understanding the >basis for the norms which you suggest to exist.[Law90: "..in >addition to enforcing the penalty provisions of these Laws, *may* >also assess.."] > >[David Martin] Doesn't the introduction to the Laws indicate whether things >should generally be penalised or not when it talks about the use of 'may', >'should', 'shall', 'must', 'should not', 'shall not', 'may not' and 'must >not'? From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 05:14:51 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA24406 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 05:14:51 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id FAA24401 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 05:14:43 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1011570; 27 Jan 98 17:32 GMT Message-ID: Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:46:01 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress In-Reply-To: <26871.9801271131@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Robin Barker wrote: >I think I now understand what is different about this case, >compared with the case of the players making a table ruling. > >After an insufficient bid and "correction", >a bid by LHO accepts offender's insufficient bid unless > - it is made clear (perhaps by LHO) that LHO has the option to accept the > insufficient bid, and > - and LHO has rejected that option. Robin has put it better than me. I have been discussing this by email, and the person I have discussed with is happy I should transfer some of it back to BLML. The argument being put by this person is similar to Jens's argument. The players have made a ruling amongst themselves and continued. Furthermore he said that when someone said "You can't" that was clearly the case. What happens if nothing goes wrong after the infraction? Someone draws attention to the infraction ["You can't"] and someone calls the TD [not necessarily the same someone]. The TD explains the options [1C may be acceppted: otherwise partner is silenced and infractor may make any call]. Either the next player accepts the 1C or the infractor chooses another call - while it may be 2C, now he knows that his partner will be forced to pass, it quite likely won't be. ***NOTE:*** Despite the statement "You can't" it is perfectly permissible for the next player to accept the 1C, but he is not allowed to accept the correction to 2C. I believe that the statement "You can't" is *not* a ruling: it is drawing attention to an irregularity. Consider another case. Declarer leads from the wrong hand. "You can't" says a Defender: you are called. Do you offer the defence the right to accept LOOT? Of course you do: "You can't" was not a ruling: it was drawing attention to an irregularity. So my view stands. If someone said "You can't" that drew attention to the irregularity. If the next player passes despit the mistaken attempt to correct to 2C that accepts the 1C bid. After all, the next player is not permitted to accept the 2C bid, so how can that pass accept the 2C bid? >This still leaves the case: > >N: 1NT >E: 1C >S: I have the option to accept 1C, but I don't wish to accept it. >E: 2C (where 1NT-2C = majors) >S: Pass >W: Director! > >How do you rule? Now that is different. That is what L11A is for: where the next player is trying to gain an unfair advantage. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 05:34:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA24463 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 05:34:04 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id FAA24458 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 05:33:58 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2005784; 27 Jan 98 17:32 GMT Message-ID: Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:08:19 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <34CDB86B.9D228686@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: >David Stevenson wrote: >> >> > >> >You see, I did manage to wriggle myself out of this one ! >> >> I do not understand. I agree with you, but this does not seem to >> agree with what you said earlier. You said that if you have AI and UI >> both coming to the same answer then you may treat that info as AI. Here >> you have AI that you are playing 12-14 [opponent's comment] and UI [the >> announcement]. Therefore by your earlier rule the knowledge that you >> are playing 12-14 should be AI: by my understanding it should be UI. >> > >I thought it was clear. > >In my first case, there is AI (I'm playing 15-17) and UI (partner says >we're playing 15-17) that tell the same thing. There is no extraneous >information and I can do what I want. > >In your case, there is AI (I'm playing 15-17) and AI (opponents says >we're playing 12-14) that contradict one another. Now I have an action >to take, namely deciding which of these conflicting AI's to trust. Now I >might use the UI (partner says we're playing 12-14) to help me decide. > That's fair. It seems that the timing of the UI and AI is relevant. Furthermore, in these complex cases where there is UI and AI it seems that the idea of whether the decision made could reasonably [demonstrably?] be affected by the UI is relevant. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 06:15:40 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA24678 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:15:40 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA24673 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:15:34 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA18109 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:15:21 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id LAA01753; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:17:58 -0800 Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:17:58 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801271917.LAA01753@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman DE WAEL wrote: > If the information is there to begin with (as AI), it is not 'extraneous'. It can be. "Extraneous" just means that the UI was available via some outside event. --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 06:57:52 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA24942 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:57:52 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA24937 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:57:47 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA22817 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:57:43 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id MAA01815; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 12:00:16 -0800 Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 12:00:16 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801272000.MAA01815@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: |Jeff Goldsmith wrote: |>David Stevenson wrote: | |>> Indeed? That is not what the Law Book says. It says that a player |>> may not choose ... when his partner has made UI available. It does |>> *not* say anything about it being allowed if AI is available as well. | |>Information is a funny thing. One cannot have two pieces |>of information that are the same; they are then one piece |>of information. For example, if you have unauthorized |>information that partner has the SA (he led it out of turn, |>say), but you also have authorized information that he has |>the SA (declarer showed out), then you do not have both |>UI and AI, but simply the information that partner has |>the SA. Is that information authorized or unauthorized? |>It cannot be both. The laws specify what information is |>authorized. If information is defined as authorized, it |>cannot be unauthorized as well, so any UI that is also |>known by AI is AI. | | Whether true or not, this statement is irrelevant. Let's see... |LAW 16 - UNAUTHORISED INFORMATION | |Players are authorised to base their calls and plays on information from |legal calls and plays and from mannerisms of opponents. Point 1: "players are authorized to base [actions] on [authorized] information." |To base a call |or play on other extraneous information may be an infraction of law. | |A. Extraneous Information from Partner | After a player makes available to his partner extraneous | information that may suggest a call or play, as by means of a | remark, a question, a reply to a question, or by unmistakable | hesitation, unwonted speed, special emphasis, tone, gesture, | movement, mannerism or the like, the partner may not choose | from among logical alternative actions one that could | demonstrably have been suggested over another by the extraneous | information. | | " ... The partner may not choose ... " Point 2: players are not to base actions on unauthorized information. (Forget the direct quote.) | There is nothing in this Law that says anything about not following it |if the information comes any other way. Yes, there is. If there exists any information that is both authorized and unauthorized, then the laws are contradictory. >From Points 1 and 2, I infer, therefore, that the laws consider all information to be either authorized or unauthorized, but never both. I corroborate this by the definition of authorized information; it seems to me that the header to L16 defines AI. UI is never defined expressly, although examples are given. I deem therefore, that the laws intend that information is to be divided by removing a subset and calling it AI. All that remains is UI. Anyway, one must, as a result, find a way to reconcile information that seems to be both UI and AI. Fortunately, that's generally not very hard to do, but a few results are needed. I suggest using standard logical and information theoretic approaches, and adding the rule that information that is wholly AI and is also UI, is AI. This doesn't leave the loopholes that one might imagine at first. My examples were pretty standard ones cast into bridge terms; information can be partially known, or it can be known to different levels (for example, you might know that partner has the SA, but he might not know that you know it; if you can work out that he has it through AI and looking at your hand, and he's previously faced the card, then his knowledge that you know that he has it is still UI, since you had to use your hand to figure it out. The highest level of knowing something, by the way, is "common knowledge," which means that everyone knows it, knows everyone knows it, knows that everyone knows that everyone knows it, and so on infinitely). That means that a committee/director will have to judge that partner's failure to open denying 13 HCP is pretty easy to call AI, but partner's failure to open denying 11 HCP leaves the information at maybe 80% UI. What do we do with fuzzy knowledge (that is, known 100% by UI and less surely by AI)? Not so easy---a standard is needed in some sense. In another, nearly all cases are not going to need this definition, but for theoretical considerations, I'd put the standard at "beyond a reasonable doubt." Yes, partner might have psyched a pass with 13 HCP and a good 5-card suit, but that's grossly unlikely. He might have opened a 12-count with 4333 shape, but then again, he might not. In the former case, the information so generated is AI; in the latter, UI. All in all, this approach seems to work, is consistent with normal logic, has some theory that can be used in thorny situations, and doesn't appear to have any strange side effects. I see one area in which this approach doesn't work: novice games. Let's imagine that I'm playing with a terrible novice. I say, "that's 12 spades," after the third full round is drawn. The fact that 12 spades are gone is supposed to be common knowledge, but in my partner's case, it might not be; he might have forgotten the 2nd to last trick. Have I given him UI? To some extent, yes, but I think I'd assume that all the players are awake enough to have realized this, even in a midnight swiss, but if I were appearing to gain from my comment, I'd ding me with a DP. If I kept it up, I'd have me suspended rather than worry about UI that shouldn't be UI. I guess there's an extension to this; let's say I am dummy playing with an expert. We are all playing double- dummy, and partner is thinking. I try to curtail play by saying, "everyone sees the obvious double squeeze, right?" What do we do? My statement is UI. But partner should know via AI methods this information anyway. But clearly he doesn't or he'd've claimed, or at least played some cards. Therefore, he doesn't *yet* have the information I've given him by UI as AI. He would, presumably, if I'd've been patient, but I blew it by being hasty. Is claiming down one a "logical alternative," now to the UI? Yes, I think so; it's an action that some number of my partner's peers would have seriously considered, so I lose. This result adds a layer of complexity: information's state as to authorizedness can be time-dependent, even though no cards are played in the interval given; people take time to process information and create new information. Novice games could still be a problem, but shouldn't be a big one, since we don't really have to worry about perfect rulings there, particularly if totally clueless players are involved. We just soothe tempers, tell the offender he can't do that sort of stuff, and carry on. --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 06:59:16 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA24957 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:59:16 +1100 Received: from dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.6]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA24952 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:59:09 +1100 Received: (from smap@localhost) by dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id NAA29748; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 13:58:23 -0600 (CST) Received: from 32.middletown-05.va.dial-access.att.net(12.68.17.32) by dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com via smap (V1.3) id rma029523; Tue Jan 27 13:56:54 1998 Received: by 32.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET with Microsoft Mail id <01BD2B33.7394CCE0@32.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET>; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:54:21 -0500 Message-ID: <01BD2B33.7394CCE0@32.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> From: Craig Senior To: Bridge Laws Discussion List , "'Eric Landau'" Subject: RE: When does a treatment become a conventio Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:54:19 -0500 Encoding: 28 TEXT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Or William Jefferson Clinton? ---------- From: Eric Landau[SMTP:elandau@cais.com] Sent: Monday, January 26, 1998 1:40 PM To: Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio At 08:40 PM 1/25/98 +0000, Labeo wrote: >Yes, indeed, quite scandalous; we elect these people to run the game >and in no time they are telling us how it is going to be played. We elect these people to run the game according to its laws, not to make up their own laws and run the game according to those. We do the same with our elected political office-holders. If the people we elect don't understand the distinction, they are malfeasant, and are not doing the job we elected them to do. Anyone who doesn't understand this should ask Richard Nixon. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 07:27:35 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA25098 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 07:27:35 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA25091 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 07:27:29 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA02270 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:27:35 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA03629; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:27:33 -0500 Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:27:33 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801272027.PAA03629@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) > nearly all cases are not going to need this definition, but > for theoretical considerations, I'd put the standard at > "beyond a reasonable doubt." While I don't disagree with much Jeff has written, the standard of proof for a score adjustment case is "preponderance of the evidence." If there are several propositions, and we have to believe several of them, the standard of evidence will be higher for each one individually. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 09:08:11 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA25333 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:08:11 +1100 Received: from terminator2.xtra.co.nz (terminator2.xtra.co.nz [202.27.184.2]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA25328 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:08:05 +1100 Received: from notebook (p45-m11-wn4.dialup.xtra.co.nz [203.96.101.173]) by terminator2.xtra.co.nz (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA21348; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:05:09 +1300 (NZDT) Message-ID: <259FAEA1.10FD6D94@xtra.co.nz> Date: Tue, 02 Jan 1990 08:25:21 +1300 From: Wayne Burrows Reply-To: wayne.burrows@xtra.co.nz X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en]C-XTRA (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Grattan Endicott CC: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <01bd29b9$747ed680$LocalHost@default> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Grattan Endicott wrote: > > Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio > > >In-Reply-To: <199801231948.OAA00938@cfa183.harvard.edu> > Tim Westmead said: > >> As I've said before, I think the Laws definition is ambiguous, and > we > >> simply have to accept that. If certainty is needed (and we want > the > >> definition to conform to the usual opinions), it will take a much > more > >> complex definition. > > \X/ \X/ \X/ \X/ \X/ \X/ \X/ > > #### I find it puzzling that you think the definition ambiguous. ... much snipped > ...So the > test to be made is to compare the agreed meaning of a call with > the non-conventional possibilities: > 1. that it shows willingness to play in the > denomination > named (or in the last denomination named*); > 2. that it names where there is high card strength; > 3. that it names where there is suit length (3+ > cards). > [* 'the last denomination named' was the subject of a ruling by the > WBF Laws Committee in Hammamet recently.] > If the call in question does not match to at least one of these > definitions, or if it has an additional qualification to its meaning > which does not do so, then it is held to be conventional. Perhaps my logic is flawed but I reason as follows: The bidding procedes: Opp Me 1S P The last named denomination is Spades: 1. Pass does not necessarily show a willingness to play in spades. It just shows an unwillingness to act - partner should not pass out 1S because I passed showing willingness to play here. 2. Pass neither shows nor denies high card strength - I may have a yarbourgh or a strong hand with spades. 3. Pass does not show 3+ cards (presumably in spades) Therefore according to the definition a call of pass, as played by most bridge players, in this auction is a convention because it does not fulfil the criteria to be not a convention. -- Wayne Burrows mailto:wayne.burrows@xtra.co.nz World Juggling Day 20 June 1998 http://www.juggle.org/wjd From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 09:08:54 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA25347 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:08:54 +1100 Received: from malady.cais.net (aed.aed.org [199.0.216.100]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA25342 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:08:49 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic14.cais.com [207.226.56.14]) by malady.cais.net (8.8.7/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id RAA06422 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:12:22 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980127170952.006b790c@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:09:52 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <199801271557.KAA03335@cfa183.harvard.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 10:57 AM 1/27/98 -0500, Steve wrote: >The 1975 Laws made a distinction between two kinds of UI, normal like >the above, and invidious like hesitations and such. Kaplan confirmed >that this distinction was removed in 1987. All UI is considered of the >invidious kind, but partner's correct explanation of system will not >_normally_ suggest one LA over another. The problem comes when system >might have been forgotten. > >If we want to avoid inquiring into a player's mental processes -- and >I am quite convinced we do -- we need objective standards. Perhaps they >are to be found in L73C rather than L16. This gets to the problem we've been discussing from more or less the opposite side of the coin. If all UI is considered invidious, and if we apply objective standards that don't take a player's mental processes into account, we create a situation where any deviation from one's system becomes a potential offense -- after all, any time you deviate from your system, it *might* be because you forgot it. You're playing 1NT 12-14. You pick up some filthy 15-count and decide that the best way to handle it is to open 1NT. Partner announces (ACBL), or replies to an opponent's inquiry (elsewhere), "12-14", then bids 2NT. You bid 3NT. Then the AC applies the "objective standard" Steve seems to be suggesting... - You have UI from partner's announcement that your 1NT range is 12-14. - You *might* have forgotten your range, and thought you were playing some higher range. - Your 3NT bid is now a redressable infraction, and your score is rolled back to 2NT with overtricks. I'm as much in favor of objective standards as the next guy, but I don't think we want this one. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 09:22:52 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA25402 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:22:52 +1100 Received: from malady.cais.net (aed.aed.org [199.0.216.100]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA25397 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:22:47 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (dynamic14.cais.com [207.226.56.14]) by malady.cais.net (8.8.7/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id RAA07940 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:26:14 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980127172345.006b991c@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:23:45 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: RE: When does a treatment become a conventio In-Reply-To: <01BD2B33.7394CCE0@32.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 02:54 PM 1/27/98 -0500, Craig wrote: >Or William Jefferson Clinton? > >---------- >From: Eric Landau[SMTP:elandau@cais.com] >We elect these people to run the game according to its laws, not to make up >their own laws and run the game according to those. We do the same with >our elected political office-holders. If the people we elect don't >understand the distinction, they are malfeasant, and are not doing the job >we elected them to do. Anyone who doesn't understand this should ask >Richard Nixon. Nah. Clinton doesn't make up his own laws. Of course, whether he follows the ones that already exist is another question entirely. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 09:47:01 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA25488 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:47:01 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA25482 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:46:54 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id RAA06225 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:46:59 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id RAA03735; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:46:58 -0500 Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:46:58 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801272246.RAA03735@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Eric Landau > - You have UI from partner's announcement that your 1NT range is 12-14. > - You *might* have forgotten your range, and thought you were playing some > higher range. > - Your 3NT bid is now a redressable infraction, and your score is rolled > back to 2NT with overtricks. You won't get an argument from me about this being a problem. (_My_ solution is to go back to the 1975 Laws about two classes of UI, but nobody else likes that idea.) Under current Laws, I believe the TD (and no doubt AC) must determine whether, by a preponderance of the evidence, an infraction has occurred. Since L16 doesn't help us (if you are playing 12-14 and you have 15, pass probably isn't a LA), the decision has to be based on L73C. The only good news is that there is some other evidence. There is the hand itself. (Was it really ugly? And is the player good enough to know?) There is also whether the pair were playing a variable range or not. (That makes it more likely to forget.) Finally, we can ask (and often check) whether the player has played a different range in the recent past. While none of these is perfect, they are indications. Ultimately, somebody has to make the best decision consistent with the evidence. I don't think asking the player about his thought process is likely to add much -- except that a few players will admit they forgot! As a procedural matter, a player certainly has the right to make whatever argument he wants to the AC. I'm just saying than an argument based on "I remembered before the UI" should be ignored. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 10:11:46 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA25561 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:11:46 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA25556 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:11:38 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA12751 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:11:32 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id PAA02187; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:14:06 -0800 Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:14:06 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801272314.PAA02187@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve Willner wrote: |You won't get an argument from me about this being a problem. (_My_ |solution is to go back to the 1975 Laws about two classes of UI, but |nobody else likes that idea.) You'll get an argument from me. I think the solution is that UI that repeats AI is AI, but we already knew that. In any case, if I'm playing 12-14 NTs, think I'm playing 15-17, open a random 14-count 1NT, then wake up from partner's announcement, then accept an invitation based on UI, I get to keep my result. Why? Because no one will ever know there's been an infraction unless I rat on myself. Since trying to punish such infractions is impossible practically, I think we ought to let the poor lucky slob get away with that one. Next time, he'll be behind screens or on OKBridge and he'll miss a game. If I ever hear someone call the director saying, "from his body language, I know he forgot his range, but it randomly turns out that he had it anyway, and now he's trying to take advantage of it," I'll roll on the floor laughing (unless it's someone here, in which case, I'll throw a lawbook at him :)). If I ever hear of a case in which someone decided to be totally honest in such a case and passed an invitation (or whatever) with a max, I'll marvel at both his honesty and stupidity. |As a procedural matter, a player certainly has the right to make |whatever argument he wants to the AC. I'm just saying than an argument |based on "I remembered before the UI" should be ignored. Sometimes. When the player makes it clear that he remembered (perhaps he says, "excuse me," leaves the table with his hand, finds a director, tells him the story, goes to the bathroom, then comes back, hears the UI, smiles to himself, then calls the director when the problem surfaces) then we can use it. While I agree with what I think you mean, I'll note that testimony should not be ignored, but committees are instructed to reject testimony as self-serving when a dishonest player could easily choose such an argument effectively should the argument not be rejected without further evidence. To reject as self-serving is not to ignore, that's all. --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 10:52:46 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA25746 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:52:46 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA25741 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:52:39 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id SAA07686 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 18:52:45 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id SAA03810; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 18:52:45 -0500 Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 18:52:45 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801272352.SAA03810@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: "Grattan Endicott" [rearranged for convenience] > The laws recognise only the two positions - either a call is > conventional or it is not. A treatment is a concept introduced by > SOs or regulating bodies and it must be defined by them, I think we all (heh!) agree with this. This is a good lesson to be careful with our language, though. > test to be made is to compare the agreed meaning of a call with > the non-conventional possibilities: > 1. that it shows willingness to play in the denomination > named (or in the last denomination named*); > 2. that it names where there is high card strength; > 3. that it names where there is suit length (3+ cards). > [* 'the last denomination named' was the subject of a ruling by the > WBF Laws Committee in Hammamet recently.] > If the call in question does not match to at least one of these > definitions, or if it has an additional qualification to its meaning > which does not do so, then it is held to be conventional. In other > words, if the total meaning of the call goes outside of the > defined areas of what is not conventional, wholly or in part, it > is conventional. > clearly you are saying > that you are unable to recognize whether calls lie wholly within the > defined territory of WHAT IS NOT CONVENTIONAL (since this is what > is required for your purpose) and I am wondering what you lack for > the task. Thanks very much for the message. I confess I had not considered the possibility that the definition was meant to be unambiguous. Why not? Because all unambiguous interpretations I can find conflict with popular belief about what is a convention. So let us discard all popular belief and preconceptions and see where the text takes us. For simplicity, let's consider only bids. Fortunately we need not worry about strength range. Assume the example below has a defined strength range. I'll use C for conventional, NC for not-C. With the qualifiers above, the relevant language is that C "conveys a meaning other than willingness to play in the denomination named or high-card strength or length (three cards or more) there." According to Grattan's message (I hope I may take the liberty of using first names in this forum, although to my regret I have never met the distinguished Mr. Endicott.), NC requires any one of the relevant conditions, not all three, but no meaning that falls outside one of these three. I have no problem reading the text that way. Consider a heart bid (e.g. 2H) that promises exactly six hearts. Clearly it is NC _as long as there are no other conditions_. But in real life most bids have some conditions; specific subsets of hands with six hearts are excluded. (Whether excluded by explicit agreement or by the fact that the excluded hands would have bid something else is irrelevant. We surely must agree that C or NC depends on the set of hands shown by the bid, not on how agreements are phrased!) Some exclusions might be: 1. Hands with six or more spades. (Realistic: few would open these 2H!) 2. Hands with any outside void. 3. Hands with zero to three spades. (The H bid promises four or more.) 4. Hands with four or more spades. These are all messages unrelated to hearts, and they would all appear to make our heart bid C under the definition. In fact, it's hard to find any realistic agreement, at least for opening bids, that creates an NC bid. (Possibly NT if opened on _all_ balanced hands within the range. But don't exclude hands with a five card major!) Also the exclusion: 5. Hands with the heart ace. (This _denies_ honor strength, which is a meaning other than _showing_ honor strength, which I take to be the intent of the definition.) On consideration, perhaps the definition is unambiguous after all. I guess it is the departure from preconceived notions that I am dubious about: in particular, the apparent result that nearly everything is C. Another concern is that in practice, the definition may be difficult to apply without a full understanding of the bidding system in use. So have I simply misunderstood? Or is nearly every bid having distributional requirements a convention? From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 10:59:55 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA25790 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:59:55 +1100 Received: from u3.farm.idt.net (lighton@u3.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.12]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA25784 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:59:48 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u3.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA23258 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 18:59:36 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 18:59:35 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u3.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio In-Reply-To: <259FAEA1.10FD6D94@xtra.co.nz> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Tue, 2 Jan 1990, Wayne Burrows wrote: > Grattan Endicott wrote: > > > > ...So the > > test to be made is to compare the agreed meaning of a call with > > the non-conventional possibilities: > > 1. that it shows willingness to play in the > > denomination > > named (or in the last denomination named*); > > 2. that it names where there is high card strength; > > 3. that it names where there is suit length (3+ > > cards). > > [* 'the last denomination named' was the subject of a ruling by the > > WBF Laws Committee in Hammamet recently.] > > If the call in question does not match to at least one of these > > definitions, or if it has an additional qualification to its meaning > > which does not do so, then it is held to be conventional. > > Perhaps my logic is flawed but I reason as follows: > > The bidding procedes: > > Opp Me > > 1S P > > The last named denomination is Spades: > > 1. Pass does not necessarily show a willingness to play in spades. It > just shows an unwillingness to act - partner should not pass out 1S > because I passed showing willingness to play here. > > 2. Pass neither shows nor denies high card strength - I may have a > yarbourgh or a strong hand with spades. > > 3. Pass does not show 3+ cards (presumably in spades) > > Therefore according to the definition a call of pass, as played by most > bridge players, in this auction is a convention because it does not > fulfil the criteria to be not a convention. > I try not to get angry at post, especially not on mailing lists such as this, where we are often discussing angles and the heads of pins. This one is ridiculous. If you pass one spade you have said that you are content if the auction now proceeds pass-pass. -- Richard Lighton | There are two rules for ultimate (lighton@idt.net) | success in life: Wood-Ridge NJ | USA | 1. Never tell everything you know. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 11:03:42 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA25818 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:03:42 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA25813 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:03:35 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2007593; 27 Jan 98 22:47 GMT Message-ID: Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 22:19:59 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980127170952.006b790c@pop.cais.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Eric Landau wrote: >I'm as much in favor of objective standards as the next guy, but I don't >think we want this one. I'm the next guy, and I am not in favour of them in many situations! -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 12:55:22 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA26180 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 12:55:22 +1100 Received: from minerva.pinehurst.net (root@minerva.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA26175 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 12:55:16 +1100 Received: from pinehurst.net (pm6-28.pinehurst.net [207.211.71.74]) by minerva.pinehurst.net (8.8.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA29406; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 20:54:58 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <34CE9179.F8B8BCD@pinehurst.net> Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 21:01:30 -0500 From: "Nancy T.Dressing" Reply-To: nancy@pinehurst.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Robin Barker CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress References: <26871.9801271131@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Robin Barker wrote: > I think I now understand what is different about this case, > compared with the case of the players making a table ruling. > > After an insufficient bid and "correction", > a bid by LHO accepts offender's insufficient bid unless > - it is made clear (perhaps by LHO) that LHO has the option to accept the > insufficient bid, and > - and LHO has rejected that option. > > This still leaves the case: > > N: 1NT > E: 1C > S: I have the option to accept 1C, but I don't wish to accept it. > E: 2C (where 1NT-2C = majors) > S: Pass > W: Director! > > How do you rule? > > Robin > > Robin Barker, \ Email: Robin.Barker@npl.co.uk > Information Systems Engineering, \ Tel: +44 (0) 181 943 7090 > B10, National Physical Laboratory, \ Fax: +44 (0) 181 977 7091 > Teddington, Middlesex, UK. TW11 0LW \ WWW: http://www.npl.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 13:28:24 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA26283 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:28:24 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA26277 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:28:14 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id ad1011960; 28 Jan 98 2:24 GMT Message-ID: <+SNm2EBFuoz0Ew2$@probst.demon.co.uk> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 01:36:05 +0000 To: Labeo Cc: Patrick , bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: computer generated hands In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message , Labeo writes >In message <3.0.3.32.19980125192449.0069d474@pop.ihug.co.nz>, Patrick > writes >>The problem that occurred at Canberra is one that really must be avoided. I >>have heard of similar problems elsewhere, so this is certainly not a one off. >> >>I suspect that the problem arises from the fact that most programs deal the >>cards in a specific order. >>The solution to this is to create a file of each hand and deal the cards >>for the next hand from that file, so they are never dealt again after the >>first time in that AS KS QS JS 10S etc sequence. >> >> >> >>Having dealt this hand the computer uses these files to determine the order >>in which cards will be dealt for the next hand. >> >> >>When the computer has finished dealing the required number of hands for >>this session, it retains in memory the last hand dealt so that can be used >>to deal the first hand whenever the computer is asked to deal some more >>hands. > >This leads me to the thought that, either initially or when starting a >fresh set of deals for a later event, it would surely be feasible to >feed a hand (or just a sequence of 52 cards) manually into the computer >before the random number generation is run. You would never begin with >a deck sorted to suits. I think that this approach is the only feasible one, however most randon number sequences are cyclic, and if the cycle is shorter than the number of possible hands then you will gets "sets" of hands which will map to the next successor. There is some math in the area of encryption which may be of assistance here. Perhaps a Prof of maths in Oxford would like to assist. -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 13:51:12 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA26327 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:51:12 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA26322 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:51:04 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2002109; 28 Jan 98 2:24 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 00:49:47 +0000 To: David Stevenson Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: Leeds Swiss Teams Congress In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message , David Stevenson writes > > A few interesting rulings occurred in this EBU competition. I thought >we had sorted out all the problems attendant on Insufficient Bids >corrected before the TD arrives, when Jim Proctor [one of the EBU's >leading TDs] got a new wrinkle! > > 1NT Pass Pass 1C! > > You can't, says someone! > > Oh dear, says he, and changes it to 2C [1NT P P 2C shows the majors]. > > Pass from the 1NT opener. > > **Now** they call the TD !!!!! > > I said it was easy, but Jim was not happy! > Why did they call the TD? They seemed to have made their own arrangements. Cheers John -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 13:52:32 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA26344 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:52:32 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA26339 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:52:23 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1011960; 28 Jan 98 2:24 GMT Message-ID: <$tZW5NAW9nz0Ewl4@probst.demon.co.uk> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 00:44:06 +0000 To: David Burn Cc: Bridge Laws From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: An Appeal to Insanity In-Reply-To: <000801bd2319$b4a7eae0$983363c3@D457300btinternet.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <000801bd2319$b4a7eae0$983363c3@D457300btinternet.com>, David Burn writes >[Original snipped, because we know what it says by now] > >The question of "selection from among illogical alternatives" is a >deep and tortuous one. I was wondering when it was going to surface in >this group, but this case is - sadly - trivial. North would never have >bid 6S if he had known that his partner was expecting a strong no >trump. His actual selection was clearly predicated on UI, and should >equally clearly be disallowed. Personally, I would have had him taken >out and shot - 6S is cheating with a capital C, and it worries me that >there are people capable of doing such a thing. But the general >question is complex and profound, and I will listen to the continuing >debate with great interest. > > I think its only cheating if they had a prior agreement. This seems to me to be not the case. Its just UI. -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 14:03:26 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA26397 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:03:26 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA26392 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:03:20 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2003169; 28 Jan 98 2:44 GMT Message-ID: <$Lg0mPBptnz0Ewm9@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 00:27:21 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Abbreviations In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > >ABF Australian Bridge Federation [k] I have put this list on my web site, with the addition of IIRC If I remember correctly NOS Non-offending side OS Offending side -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 14:07:56 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA26420 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:07:56 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA26414 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:07:50 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1013150; 28 Jan 98 2:44 GMT Message-ID: <4rT1eLBnrnz0EwlQ@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 00:25:11 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <199801272314.PAA02187@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jeff Goldsmith wrote: [k] >If I ever hear of a case in >which someone decided to be totally honest in such a case >and passed an invitation (or whatever) with a max, I'll >marvel at both his honesty and stupidity. Very occasionally I reach a position where I know [a] the ethical bid/play would be to my disadvantage [b] no-one but me knows this, nor ever will I like to play an ethical game, so I will take the disadvantageous route. It does not matter whether other people know that I have been ethical: it is that I know it. Thankyou for marvelling at my stupidity. I am certainly not alone in this approach. [k] >While I agree with what I think you mean, I'll note that >testimony should not be ignored, but committees are instructed >to reject testimony as self-serving when a dishonest player >could easily choose such an argument effectively should the >argument not be rejected without further evidence. To reject >as self-serving is not to ignore, that's all. I do not think that ACs over this side are instructed this way. Perhaps they are more credulous: perhaps they each decide their own position. I do not think we have reached a situation where we need to discount self-serving testimony to the same extent as in NAmerica, but I agree it should be viewed with some scepticism. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 14:30:37 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA26525 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:30:37 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA26520 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:30:23 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2003171; 28 Jan 98 2:44 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 00:13:19 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980127172345.006b991c@pop.cais.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Eric Landau wrote: >Nah. Clinton doesn't make up his own laws. Of course, whether he follows >the ones that already exist is another question entirely. Like the Laws of public opinion? Sleeping around is OK for me, but not for you? I can do what I want, but God help you if you do? It sounds very familiar to several of the arguments on BLML, or more precisely, several of the arguments reported to BLML. Perhaps we should just slap Clinton with a 3imp DP on ZT grounds. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 15:12:34 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA26701 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 15:12:34 +1100 Received: from cuda.jcu.edu.au (cuda.jcu.edu.au [137.219.16.28]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA26696 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 15:12:30 +1100 Received: from lionfish.jcu.edu.au (lionfish.jcu.edu.au [137.219.16.119]) by cuda.jcu.edu.au (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA17208; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:12:27 +1000 (EST) Received: from localhost (sci-lsk@localhost) by lionfish.jcu.edu.au (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id OAA31261; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:12:26 +1000 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: lionfish.jcu.edu.au: sci-lsk owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:12:25 +1000 (EST) From: Laurence Kelso1 To: Patrick cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: computer generated hands In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980125192449.0069d474@pop.ihug.co.nz> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Sun, 25 Jan 1998, Patrick wrote: > The problem that occurred at Canberra is one that really must be avoided. I > have heard of similar problems elsewhere, so this is certainly not a one off. Much snipped > The solution to this is to create a file of each hand and deal the cards > for the next hand from that file, so they are never dealt again after the > first time in that AS KS QS JS 10S etc sequence. To illustrate, let us say > that the following is the first hand ever dealt by a particular computer: > > S QJ > H A985 > D A872 > C Q103 > S K7643 S A982 > H KJ10 H Q732 > D J9 D 104 > C KJ5 C 762 > S 105 > H 64 > D KQ653 > C A984 > > Having dealt this hand the computer uses these files to determine the order > in which cards will be dealt for the next hand. Using the North East South > West hands in that sequence the order the computer would assign cards for > the next hand would not be AS KS QS etc, but would now be: > > QS JS AH 9H 8H 5H AD 8D 7D 2D QC 10C 3C AS 9S 8S 2S QH 7H 3H 2H 10D 4D 7C > 6C 2C 10S 5S 6H 4H KD QD 6D 5D 3D AC 9C 8C 4C KS 7S 6S 4S 3S KH JH 10H JD > 9D KC JC 5C > > Even if the same random number sequence happened to be chosen for the 2nd > hand (and this would still not be recommended) you would still get a > completely different hand from the first one. > > When the computer has finished dealing the required number of hands for > this session, it retains in memory the last hand dealt so that can be used > to deal the first hand whenever the computer is asked to deal some more > hands. The computer never again deals the hand in the same order as that > original sequence (unless the previous hand consisted of 4 13 card > suits!!) so it is hard to see how there could be any danger of > unintentionally duplicated sessions. More snipped > Patrick Carter > Director, Auckland Bridge Club > Chairman, NZCBA LAWS & Ethics > Since I was one of the directors on the floor in Canberra when the problems with the ABF generated hands surfaced, I might be able to try to explain how it all arose. The ABF program works in a similar manner to what Patrick espoused above. The trouble occurred because the unit that is dedicated to just hand generation was upgraded a few months ago. Instead of just transfering all the files to the new hard disk, the were installed form a previous backup by someone who did not understand the ramifications. The file which keeps track of the last deal generated on the backup copy was (of course) a few months/weeks out of date. In effect the pointer was turned back to a previous time and hence sets of hands generated in the past began to be re-outputted. The ramifications of all this are far reaching. Not only were a number of major National Australian title events affected, but thousands of hands prepared for events in the near future have had to be discarded. We still don't know what other events played in the last few months may have involved repeated deals. Laurie Kelso From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 15:32:38 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA26793 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 15:32:38 +1100 Received: from brickbat8.mindspring.com (brickbat8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.11]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA26788 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 15:32:25 +1100 Received: from mike ([38.30.134.214]) by brickbat8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA06085 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 23:32:19 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980127233221.006bcae8@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 23:32:21 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980127170952.006b790c@pop.cais.com> References: <199801271557.KAA03335@cfa183.harvard.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 05:09 PM 1/27/98 -0500, Eric wrote: >At 10:57 AM 1/27/98 -0500, Steve wrote: > >>The 1975 Laws made a distinction between two kinds of UI, normal like >>the above, and invidious like hesitations and such. Kaplan confirmed >>that this distinction was removed in 1987. All UI is considered of the >>invidious kind, but partner's correct explanation of system will not >>_normally_ suggest one LA over another. The problem comes when system >>might have been forgotten. >> >>If we want to avoid inquiring into a player's mental processes -- and >>I am quite convinced we do -- we need objective standards. Perhaps they >>are to be found in L73C rather than L16. > >This gets to the problem we've been discussing from more or less the >opposite side of the coin. If all UI is considered invidious, and if we >apply objective standards that don't take a player's mental processes into >account, we create a situation where any deviation from one's system >becomes a potential offense -- after all, any time you deviate from your >system, it *might* be because you forgot it. > >You're playing 1NT 12-14. You pick up some filthy 15-count and decide that >the best way to handle it is to open 1NT. Partner announces (ACBL), or >replies to an opponent's inquiry (elsewhere), "12-14", then bids 2NT. You >bid 3NT. Then the AC applies the "objective standard" Steve seems to be >suggesting... > >- You have UI from partner's announcement that your 1NT range is 12-14. >- You *might* have forgotten your range, and thought you were playing some >higher range. >- Your 3NT bid is now a redressable infraction, and your score is rolled >back to 2NT with overtricks. > >I'm as much in favor of objective standards as the next guy, but I don't >think we want this one. > This problem is nearly identical to one I posted along the same lines. If you're on an AC, will you accept the 1nt bidder's explanation for his action? Apparently so. OK, then, suppose it's not a filthy 15 but a reasonable 16. Are you more suspicious? At what point do you make the presumption, effectively unchallengeable, that the 1nt bidder simply forgot his method, and more to the point, what is the basis in the Laws which you can rely upon for guidance in this respect? This is simply not clear. your only choices here are to accept a player's assertion that he had not forgotten his methods as a matter of course, or to enter into the netherworld of guessing at intentions and motivations, neither of which is satisfactory. For me, one reasonable solution is to agree to the following (undoubtedly controversial) proposition: Partner's correct and appropriate explanation as to partnership methods is never regarded as UI. Does this mean that the system of alerts/questions/announcements will occsionally wake up one partner who has forgotten his methods? Yes, but I think I can live with that. Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 15:36:42 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA26813 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 15:36:42 +1100 Received: from brickbat8.mindspring.com (brickbat8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.11]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA26808 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 15:36:33 +1100 Received: from mike ([38.30.134.214]) by brickbat8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA07086 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 23:36:29 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980127233631.006de8c4@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 23:36:31 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <4rT1eLBnrnz0EwlQ@blakjak.demon.co.uk> References: <199801272314.PAA02187@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 12:25 AM 1/28/98 +0000, David S. wrote: >Jeff Goldsmith wrote: > > [k] > >>If I ever hear of a case in >>which someone decided to be totally honest in such a case >>and passed an invitation (or whatever) with a max, I'll >>marvel at both his honesty and stupidity. > > Very occasionally I reach a position where I know >[a] the ethical bid/play would be to my disadvantage >[b] no-one but me knows this, nor ever will > > I like to play an ethical game, so I will take the disadvantageous >route. It does not matter whether other people know that I have been >ethical: it is that I know it. > > Thankyou for marvelling at my stupidity. I am certainly not alone in >this approach. > Hear, hear! Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 19:38:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA27573 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 19:38:10 +1100 Received: from m3.sprynet.com (m3.sprynet.com [165.121.1.55]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA27568 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 19:38:04 +1100 Received: from default (hdn96-010.hil.compuserve.com [206.175.102.10]) by m3.sprynet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA09311 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 00:44:18 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <2.2.32.19980128083710.00715118@m3.sprynet.com> X-Sender: baresch@m3.sprynet.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.2 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 02:37:10 -0600 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Brian Baresch Subject: Strong club: Alert everything? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk One of the directors at the local club (ACBL-land) said something that I found odd today, and I'd like to hear the opinions of the list's distinguished Laws experts. My partner and I play a slightly modified Big Club system, basically 2/1 5cM with a strong (15-17) NT and 1C showing about 17 or more. On the hand that started the discussion, my partner opened 1C (alerted), I responded 1D (negative), and she rebid 2NT, which by agreement shows 22-23 balanced. (A 1NT rebid would show 18-19; 20-21 hands are opened 2NT.) The opps suggested that my partner's 2NT should be alerted because it showed a specific point range, and the director agreed. Later I asked the director whether our natural 1H and 1S opening bids should be alerted too, because they indicate a hand not strong enough to open 1C. He said that they should be (and that he'd checked with another director who agreed with him) because they impart information that is not "standard". The ACBL's alert procedure states: "Players are expected to be prepared for the vast majority of systems that they may encounter at the bridge table. Common methods include either strong or weak no trumps with or without five-card majors. The forcing opening bid will most often be either a natural, strong two bid or an artificial forcing opening of 1C or 2C." It seems to me that since our system is basically what one would expect from a fairly simple strong-club with minimal gadgets, that most of the bids and rebids above (1C itself excepted) don't require alerts. I can't remember ever hearing a Precision player, for instance, alert a 1H or 1S opening bid. What do you think? Thanks in advance and best regards, Brian Baresch, baresch@sprynet.com Lawrence, Kansas Editing, writing, proofreading From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 20:40:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA27704 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 20:40:09 +1100 Received: from imo24.mail.aol.com (imo24.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.152]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA27699 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 20:40:04 +1100 From: Mlfrench Message-ID: Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 04:39:17 EST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Virtual Screen Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk With all the AC activity related to UI, and all the endless discussion of same on BLML, I think it's time that players do something to protect themselves from the "assumed guilty until proven innocent" attitude of TDs/ACs. What I propose is a "virtual screen" when bidding boxes are in use. I'll put the screen into place whenever LHO makes a call other than a pass. All I do is close my eyes tight and wait until Alice says "Okay," which she will do after my RHO has called. If Alice and my RHO call quickly, Alice is not to say "Okay" until a reasonable time has elapsed. If there is any break in tempo, I won't know about it. I could put the screen up for every round of bidding, even when LHO passes, but that would be overdoing it, I think. The screen will also be used when Alice is asked about a call I make. In addition to closing my eyes (no lip reading), I'll put a finger in each ear so that I won't hear the answer. Alice can kick me under the table when she is through replying. She likes to do that anyway, during my unsolicited post- mortems. This is all going to look pretty silly, but what do I care? I'm eliminating most of the potential UI situations. My only problem is that an AC will not believe that I closed my eyes or stopped my ears, because our saying so would be "self-serving." Maybe I could set up a video camera on a tripod opposite me, and have Alice turn it on at the beginning of every auction. Could I ask that ACs provide a TV for me to use during an appeal hearing? Marv (Marvin L. French, permanent E-mail address mlfrench@writeme.com) From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 21:32:45 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA27880 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 21:32:45 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA27870 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 21:32:39 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-93.uunet.be [194.7.13.93]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA12180 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:32:33 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34CEFFC2.6BED5FFF@innet.be> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:52:02 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <199801271546.KAA12769@freenet3.carleton.ca.carleton.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk A. L. Edwards wrote: > > > > >David Stevenson wrote: > >> > >> > > >> >You see, I did manage to wriggle myself out of this one ! > >> > >> I do not understand. I agree with you, but this does not seem to > >> agree with what you said earlier. You said that if you have AI and UI > >> both coming to the same answer then you may treat that info as AI. Here > >> you have AI that you are playing 12-14 [opponent's comment] and UI [the > >> announcement]. Therefore by your earlier rule the knowledge that you > >> are playing 12-14 should be AI: by my understanding it should be UI. > >> > > > >I thought it was clear. > > > >In my first case, there is AI (I'm playing 15-17) and UI (partner says > >we're playing 15-17) that tell the same thing. There is no extraneous > >information and I can do what I want. > > > >In your case, there is AI (I'm playing 15-17) and AI (opponents says > >we're playing 12-14) that contradict one another. Now I have an action > >to take, namely deciding which of these conflicting AI's to trust. Now I > >might use the UI (partner says we're playing 12-14) to help me decide. > > > Sorry, I can't buy this. Yes, I think you can decide which of these > conflicting AIs to trust; no, I don't think you can ever use the UI > partner has provided to make this descision.Since you are not > allowed to "hear" partner's response a la screen test, how can you > possibly let it influence your descision, except negatively (if you > have a choice of LAs ect. ect.)? > Tony (aka ac342) I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave before ! Sorry to be so unclear. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 21:32:44 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA27879 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 21:32:44 +1100 Received: from hydrogen.inbe.net (root@hydrogen.inbe.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA27869 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 21:32:37 +1100 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-194-7-13-93.uunet.be [194.7.13.93]) by hydrogen.inbe.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA12155 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:32:31 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <34CEFF91.98ADD9F@innet.be> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:51:13 +0100 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bridge Laws Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <3.0.5.32.19980127102552.007b94b0@pop.erols.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Hirsch Davis wrote: > > At 11:35 AM 1/27/98 +0100, Herman De Wael wrote: > > [snip] > > >In my first case, there is AI (I'm playing 15-17) and UI (partner says > >we're playing 15-17) that tell the same thing. There is no extraneous > >information and I can do what I want. > > > >In your case, there is AI (I'm playing 15-17) and AI (opponents says > >we're playing 12-14) that contradict one another. Now I have an action > >to take, namely deciding which of these conflicting AI's to trust. Now I > >might use the UI (partner says we're playing 12-14) to help me decide. > > > >-- > >Herman DE WAEL > >Antwerpen Belgium > >http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm > > > > > > > > I have to disagree with your second case. If in fact you have conflicting > AI, you have to make up your own mind *without UI*. My reading is that Law > 16 in unequivocable: you can never use UI to suggest one LA over another. > So, once there is UI present, you must continue to play as though partner > thinks you have 15-17, as long as that was an LA at the time partner > answered the opponent's question/comment. Using the UI to decide which AI > is correct is, IMO, very much against both the letter and spirit of Law 16. > > Hirsch My god, has my english gone so bad now that I seem to say things like that ? When I say that I might use the UI, I also mean that I will expect to be taken out of the room and be shot for that. Sorry if that was unclear ! -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Wed Jan 28 23:07:13 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA28197 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 23:07:13 +1100 Received: from u1.farm.idt.net (lighton@u1.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.10]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA28192 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 23:07:08 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u1.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA18632 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 07:07:03 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 07:07:03 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u1.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? (fwd) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Wed, 28 Jan 1998, Brian Baresch wrote: > > My partner and I play a slightly modified Big Club system, basically 2/1 5cM > with a strong (15-17) NT and 1C showing about 17 or more. On the hand that > started the discussion, my partner opened 1C (alerted), I responded 1D > (negative), and she rebid 2NT, which by agreement shows 22-23 balanced. (A > 1NT rebid would show 18-19; 20-21 hands are opened 2NT.) > > The opps suggested that my partner's 2NT should be alerted because it showed > a specific point range, and the director agreed. Later I asked the director > whether our natural 1H and 1S opening bids should be alerted too, because > they indicate a hand not strong enough to open 1C. He said that they should > be (and that he'd checked with another director who agreed with him) because > they impart information that is not "standard". > > The ACBL's alert procedure states: "Players are expected to be prepared for > the vast majority of systems that they may encounter at the bridge table. > Common methods include either strong or weak no trumps with or without > five-card majors. The forcing opening bid will most often be either a > natural, strong two bid or an artificial forcing opening of 1C or 2C." > > It seems to me that since our system is basically what one would expect from > a fairly simple strong-club with minimal gadgets, that most of the bids and > rebids above (1C itself excepted) don't require alerts. I can't remember > ever hearing a Precision player, for instance, alert a 1H or 1S opening bid. > Once upon a time, the ACBL said that you should pre-alert basic non-standard stuff (weak notrump, strong club, Acol etc). Some time later, this got modified to pre-alerting weird stuff that your opponents might want to think seriously about (extremely light openings, Canape styles, etc) and by implication let strong club and 4-card major styles take care of themselves. Notrump ranges got taken care of by the "announce" procedure. This paragraph is all based on my memory, so treat it with appropriate levels of scorn. I have met pair(s) who alert their 1M bids in Precision. I always thought they were probably technically correct, but the ACBL has never made a pronouncement as far as I know, and so by case law I would claim that there is no need to alert such. I would be in favor of a return to pre-announcing anything that was not "Standard American," or even better a statement that said "look at the basic system box on the card," but we in ACBLand are not expected to be able to read (except for opening leads and signals). Many local pairs do pre-alert strong club systems. The super-strong 2NT rebid after a strong club opening is probably something that falls under case law, too, since you have already told them that you are playing a strong club, and now you are using something Precisionish in that context, and now is not the time opponents want to step in! We don't alert our 2NT opening (23-24 balanced)--not that it ever turns up--even though standard locally seems to be 20-21, because we don't think anyone really cares. As an aside, ACBL players in general _won't_ read. In my most regular partnership we play pre-alertable weird stuff, and our opening bids are listed on a 3x5 inch card. Far too often, opponents glance at this and toss it aside, and ask when we alert (rather than reading), or worse, pick up the card and read it when we alert an opening bid, and _then_ ask for an explanation. They get a response that is close to identical to what is written, and they then nod and pass. Once or twice I have heard "Now that's clear." -- Richard Lighton | There are two rules for ultimate (lighton@idt.net) | success in life: Wood-Ridge NJ | USA | 1. Never tell everything you know. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 00:05:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA28423 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 00:05:09 +1100 Received: from gw-nl1.philips.com (gw-nl1.philips.com [192.68.44.33]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA28418 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 00:05:03 +1100 Received: (from nobody@localhost) by gw-nl1.philips.com (8.6.10/8.6.10-0.994n-08Nov95) id OAA12270; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:04:57 +0100 Received: from smtprelay.nl.cis.philips.com(130.139.36.3) by gw-nl1.philips.com via smap (V1.3+ESMTP) with ESMTP id sma011675; Wed Jan 28 14:03:14 1998 Received: from nlsce1.ehv.sc.philips.com (nlsce1.ehv.sc.philips.com [130.144.63.106]) by smtprelay.nl.cis.philips.com (8.6.10/8.6.10-1.2.1m-970402) with ESMTP id OAA24977; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:03:12 +0100 Received: from darwin.ehv.sc.philips.com (darwin [130.144.63.231]) by nlsce1.ehv.sc.philips.com (8.6.10/8.6.10-1.001a-11Jun96) with SMTP id OAA00954; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:03:12 +0100 From: Con Holzscherer Received: (from holzsche@nlsce1.ehv.sc.philips.com) by darwin.ehv.sc.philips.com (8.6.10/) id IAA10638; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 08:03:10 -0500 Message-Id: <199801281303.IAA10638@darwin.ehv.sc.philips.com> Subject: Re: computer generated hands To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:03:10 MET Cc: adam@flash.irvine.com X-Mailer: Elm [revision: 212.4] Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:39:00 PST > From: Adam Beneschan > At 07:24 PM 1/25/98 +1300, Patrick wrote: > > >I suspect that the problem arises from the fact that most programs deal the > >cards in a specific order. E.g. a possible algorithm would be to deal the > >cards in order from Ace of Spades, King of Spades etc, right down to the > >2C. In this method the computer would give this a 25% chance of being dealt > >to each hand. Let us say, for instance that Ace of Spades is dealt to the > >North hand. Now the King of Spades is about to be dealt, but there are only > >12 vacant spaces in the North hand, so the formula applied to the random > >number now selected for the KS would mean that there would be 12 chances in > >51 of it also being dealt to the North hand and 13 chances in 51 for each > >other hand. > Actually, I have used the method Patrick described. I prefer it over > the "usual" methods, since after all the cards are distributed, they're < already sorted in the order you want them in. It's quite a simple > algorithm to program. The algorithm is complicated by the fact, that you have to modify the probabilities for each card and hand (like the 12/51 for the Spade King for North in the above example). I have seen a program in the Netherlands that did not do this modification and as a result did not yield random hands. [For the mathematically inclined among the readers: The most striking symptom is of course the high frequency of the C2 and C3 being in the same hand.] Regards, Con Holzscherer Philips Semiconductors B.V. Systems Laboratory Eindhoven Phone: +31-40-27 22150 E-mail: holzsche@ehv.sc.philips.com From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 01:07:05 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA01015 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 01:07:05 +1100 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 BAA01010 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 01:06:55 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa21893; 28 Jan 98 6:06 PST To: Con Holzscherer cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au, adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: computer generated hands In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:03:10 PST." <199801281303.IAA10638@darwin.ehv.sc.philips.com> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:05:55 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801280606.aa21893@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Con Holzscherer wrote: > > From: Adam Beneschan > > > At 07:24 PM 1/25/98 +1300, Patrick wrote: > > I suspect that the problem arises from the fact that most programs > > >deal the cards in a specific order. E.g. a possible algorithm > > >would be to deal the cards in order from Ace of Spades, King of > > >Spades etc, right down to the 2C. In this method the computer > > >would give this a 25% chance of being dealt to each hand. Let us > > >say, for instance that Ace of Spades is dealt to the North hand. > > >Now the King of Spades is about to be dealt, but there are only > > >12 vacant spaces in the North hand, so the formula applied to the > > >random number now selected for the KS would mean that there would > > >be 12 chances in 51 of it also being dealt to the North hand and > > >13 chances in 51 for each other hand. > > > Actually, I have used the method Patrick described. I prefer it over > > the "usual" methods, since after all the cards are distributed, they're > < already sorted in the order you want them in. It's quite a simple > > algorithm to program. > > The algorithm is complicated by the fact, that you have to modify the > probabilities for each card and hand (like the 12/51 for the Spade King > for North in the above example). Right. But that's only a small complication. Assuming you store the cards in a two-dimensional 4x13 array, you'll need to keep four indexes anyway to indicate the next position in each hand where you're going to store the next card. Keeping this index also makes it easy to figure out how many vacant spaces are in each hand. So your first random number gets converted to an integer in the range 1..52, the second to 1..51, the third to 1..50, etc.---it's now easy to look at the vacant spaces in each hand and figure out which hand the card goes in with the correct probability. Actually, a friend of mine came up with this method for dealing a bridge hand, but his program didn't get the probabilities right. It just generated a random integer from 1..4 to select a hand, and if the hand already had 13 cards, it threw out the random number and tried again. However, he couldn't figure out why there were two hands with club voids on almost every deal. Eventually I figured out the problem. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 01:09:57 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA01042 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 01:09:57 +1100 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 BAA01037 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 01:09:52 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa22063; 28 Jan 98 6:09 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 28 Jan 1998 00:25:11 PST." <4rT1eLBnrnz0EwlQ@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:09:10 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801280609.aa22063@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > Jeff Goldsmith wrote: > > [k] > > >If I ever hear of a case in > >which someone decided to be totally honest in such a case > >and passed an invitation (or whatever) with a max, I'll > >marvel at both his honesty and stupidity. > Thankyou for marvelling at my stupidity. I am certainly not alone in > this approach. No, you're not--I'd do the same thing. I assume Jeff was being ironic. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 02:07:22 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA01387 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 02:07:22 +1100 Received: from camel8.mindspring.com (camel8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.58]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA01382 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 02:07:15 +1100 Received: from mike (ip187.baltimore10.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.30.22.187]) by camel8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA11354 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:07:09 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980128100710.006daeec@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:07:10 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980128083710.00715118@m3.sprynet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 02:37 AM 1/28/98 -0600, Brian wrote: >One of the directors at the local club (ACBL-land) said something that I >found odd today, and I'd like to hear the opinions of the list's >distinguished Laws experts. > >My partner and I play a slightly modified Big Club system, basically 2/1 5cM >with a strong (15-17) NT and 1C showing about 17 or more. On the hand that >started the discussion, my partner opened 1C (alerted), I responded 1D >(negative), and she rebid 2NT, which by agreement shows 22-23 balanced. (A >1NT rebid would show 18-19; 20-21 hands are opened 2NT.) > >The opps suggested that my partner's 2NT should be alerted because it showed >a specific point range, and the director agreed. Later I asked the director >whether our natural 1H and 1S opening bids should be alerted too, because >they indicate a hand not strong enough to open 1C. He said that they should >be (and that he'd checked with another director who agreed with him) because >they impart information that is not "standard". > >The ACBL's alert procedure states: "Players are expected to be prepared for >the vast majority of systems that they may encounter at the bridge table. >Common methods include either strong or weak no trumps with or without >five-card majors. The forcing opening bid will most often be either a >natural, strong two bid or an artificial forcing opening of 1C or 2C." > >It seems to me that since our system is basically what one would expect from >a fairly simple strong-club with minimal gadgets, that most of the bids and >rebids above (1C itself excepted) don't require alerts. I can't remember >ever hearing a Precision player, for instance, alert a 1H or 1S opening bid. > >What do you think? > I think this is a good example of the alert system gone berserk. If someone needs to know your point range for the 2nt rebid (for defensive purposes, presumably) they are free to ask. Anybody who is sophisticated enough to appreciate the need for such information is surely aware that the 2nt rebid might be "non-standard". As for alerting your 1H and 1S openings because they are limited to 15 or so HCP, that is completely ridiculous. It suggests that any derivative information from methods not directly related to the present bid may drive the requirement for an alert. My favorite partner and I open a weak 1NT with 5-card majors and appropriate hcp. Do we need to alert a 1S opening because it "probably does not include 5-5-3-2 shape with 12-14 HCP"? Absurd. There are those who will argue that it never hurts to alert, in the spirit of full disclosure an all that baloney. But this misses several potential drawbacks. The first is that excessive alerting diminishes the value of the alert procedure in general. If every bid you make is alertable, because of some indirect inference available from your strong club system, then opponents will quickly learn not to ask, and may miss some important information. Rather than serving the objective of full disclosure, this creates a Purloined Letter effect that conceals potentially important information. The ACBL has moved wisely in recent years to limit the need for alerts for esssentially routine actions (e.g., negative doubles, 2/1 GF, etc.), and I believe this has strengthened the alert procedure. Presumably you pre-alert your strong club methods when you sit down. Anyone who could benefit from the alert of your 1H or 1S openings is surely aware of the implications based on your forcing club methods. OTOH, there is no down-side that I can see, for you, in making these alerts. Especially as some misguided directors in your games have stated that you should do so, these alerts may be necessary to afford you some protection against certain classes of bridge lawyers. Sad, but what can you do? Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 02:28:11 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA01441 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 02:28:11 +1100 Received: from Amnesix.UQSS.UQuebec.ca (Amnesix.UQSS.UQuebec.CA [192.77.51.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA01436 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 02:28:04 +1100 Received: from ldubreui.uqss.uquebec.ca by Amnesix.UQSS.UQuebec.ca with SMTP (1.37.109.24/15.6) id AA112821150; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:25:50 -0500 Message-Id: <34CF4FAB.4C12@UQSS.UQuebec.CA> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:32:59 -0500 From: Laval Dubreuil X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold [fr] (Win95; I) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Strong club: Alert everything? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Baresch wrote: "Later I asked the director whether our natural 1H and 1S opening bids should be alerted too, because they indicate a hand not strong enough to open 1C. He said that they should be (and that he'd checked with another director who agreed with him) because they impart information that is not " standard "." Some years ago I played a modified 2/1 system, using a Polish 1C opening for hands having 5 cars+ in a major and 18-22 HPC... So opening 1M showed less than 18. I used to prealert saying we play a forcing but not necessarily strong Club. I alerted 1C explaining that it could be a standard C opening or a one suited major 18+ (not strong enough for 2C). I had a problem in a regional with a 1S opening not alerted (followed by 3 P). The oppns argued that they should reopen if they had knew that the opener had less than 18 and that I Passed as responder using this information (I think they were wright...). I have been told by the chief TD that an alert is mandatory in my system on 1C, 1S and 1H openings... but I changed my system just after... Laval Du Breuil Quebec City From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 03:04:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA01565 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 03:04:29 +1100 Received: from mineshaft.odi.com (mineshaft.odi.com [198.3.16.17]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA01559 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 03:04:17 +1100 Received: from mastermind.odi.com by mineshaft.odi.com (5.65c/SMI-4.0/ODI-5) id AA21027; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:03:21 -0500 Received: from heinz.odi.com (heinz.odi.com [198.3.19.59]) by mastermind.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI2.2) with ESMTP id LAA20506 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:03:19 -0500 (EST) Received: from heinz (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by heinz.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI1.1) with SMTP id LAA11150 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:03:17 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <34CF56C4.13A6@odi.com> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:03:16 -0500 From: "QQSV (Dick Wagman)" Organization: Object Design, Inc. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4c) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Abbreviations References: <$Lg0mPBptnz0Ewm9@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > I have put this list on my web site, with the addition of > > IIRC If I remember correctly > NOS Non-offending side > OS Offending side As someone in another thread pointed out, shouldn't you also add WTP What's the problem? to the list? --Q From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 03:07:01 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA01609 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 03:07:01 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA01603 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 03:06:55 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA19266 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:06:58 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA04271; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:07:00 -0500 Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:07:00 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801281607.LAA04271@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: "Michael S. Dennis" > For me, one reasonable solution is to > agree to the following (undoubtedly controversial) proposition: Partner's > correct and appropriate explanation as to partnership methods is never > regarded as UI. While I don't necessarily oppose this solution, it's worth pointing out that it is more permissive than the 1975 laws were. It is also simpler as it calls for no judgment in this sort of case. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 04:31:13 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA02147 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 04:31:13 +1100 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 EAA02138 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 04:30:59 +1100 Received: (from smap@localhost) by dfw-ix1.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id LAA18835; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:29:04 -0600 (CST) Received: from sbo-ca4-03.ix.netcom.com(205.184.185.131) by dfw-ix1.ix.netcom.com via smap (V1.3) id rma018805; Wed Jan 28 11:28:31 1998 Message-ID: <34CF69F1.26D2@popd.ix.netcom.com> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:25:05 -0800 From: B&S <#jonbriss@ix17.ix.netcom.com> Reply-To: #jonbriss@ix17.ix.netcom.com Organization: BRISSMAN & SCHLUETER X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Brian Baresch CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? References: <2.2.32.19980128083710.00715118@m3.sprynet.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Brian Baresch wrote: > > One of the directors at the local club (ACBL-land) said something that I > found odd today, and I'd like to hear the opinions of the list's > distinguished Laws experts. > > My partner and I play a slightly modified Big Club system, basically 2/1 5cM > with a strong (15-17) NT and 1C showing about 17 or more. On the hand that > started the discussion, my partner opened 1C (alerted), I responded 1D > (negative), and she rebid 2NT, which by agreement shows 22-23 balanced. (A > 1NT rebid would show 18-19; 20-21 hands are opened 2NT.) > > The opps suggested that my partner's 2NT should be alerted because it showed > a specific point range, and the director agreed. Later I asked the director > whether our natural 1H and 1S opening bids should be alerted too, because > they indicate a hand not strong enough to open 1C. He said that they should > be (and that he'd checked with another director who agreed with him) because > they impart information that is not "standard". > > The ACBL's alert procedure states: "Players are expected to be prepared for > the vast majority of systems that they may encounter at the bridge table. > Common methods include either strong or weak no trumps with or without > five-card majors. The forcing opening bid will most often be either a > natural, strong two bid or an artificial forcing opening of 1C or 2C." > > It seems to me that since our system is basically what one would expect from > a fairly simple strong-club with minimal gadgets, that most of the bids and > rebids above (1C itself excepted) don't require alerts. I can't remember > ever hearing a Precision player, for instance, alert a 1H or 1S opening bid. > Yes - Alert everything. You're right that very few strong clubbers do Alert their non-club openings, but that's not justification for your omitting the Alert. The principles of full disclosure and Active Ethics, in addition to the regulations on the Alert procedure, all require the notification. I have not seen a case in which opponents have claimed damage from the failure to Alert a major suit opening by a strong clubber, and I can't construct a scenario where it might occur. Nonetheless, the Alert is harmless. I believe that after a player accepts a transfer bid, his partner should Alert and explain, if asked, that the call was semi-forced and promises no particular length in the suit named. If the pair is playing super-accepts, there is a negative inference given when not selected. Perhaps one in a thousand pairs Alert a transfer acceptance. Again, the Alert is harmless and in the spirit of the structure; why not give it? Jon Brissman From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 04:40:14 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA02202 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 04:40:14 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA02197 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 04:40:09 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA24180 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:40:05 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id JAA02834; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:42:41 -0800 Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:42:41 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801281742.JAA02834@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: |Jeff Goldsmith wrote: | |>If I ever hear of a case in |>which someone decided to be totally honest in such a case |>and passed an invitation (or whatever) with a max, I'll |>marvel at both his honesty and stupidity. | | Very occasionally I reach a position where I know |[a] the ethical bid/play would be to my disadvantage |[b] no-one but me knows this, nor ever will | | I like to play an ethical game, so I will take the disadvantageous |route. It does not matter whether other people know that I have been |ethical: it is that I know it. Why would no one else know? Surely not because you'd make a unlikely system forget combined with a stretch in the right direction? And if so, how did you explain it to your partner? "Sorry, partner, when I opened 1NT, I thought we were playing 15-17." "But you had a crummy 14." "Yeah, I stretched it a little." "A little? You're full of it. Are you really trying to tell me that you forgot system, misbid, then decided to misbid again to be honest? C'mon, tell the truth---you just pulled the wrong card out of the bidding box when a pretty woman walked by or something, right?" If you ever got someone to believe you, I'd salute that, too. If no one would know because the level of the opposition was too low, that doesn't count. Only if you have managed to make offsetting errors. Yeah, sure. It might happen someday. | Thankyou for marvelling at my stupidity. I am certainly not alone in |this approach. When was the last time you made two errors on a board and at the same time were in an ethical dilemma? I feel that I'm pretty ethical, and if I happened to screw up system, but ended up doing the right thing for reasons I couldn't understand myself, I'd assume that I really knew what I was doing and that my thought processes were up a tree :) I'd probably laugh at myself, too. In reality, however, should this situation ever appear to occur, my guess is that partner's explanation would be wrong, and I'd really not have that option. Which reminds me of a story...once I was playing in a new partnership; we had agreed to play Drury Doubles for the first time. Well into the session, the auction went Partner LHO Me RHO Pass Pass 1S 2C Dbl Pass 2H All Pass Just as the auction concludes, I said, "oh, no! I forgot. We are playing Drury Doubles. Partner has spades, might not have hearts." Partner said, "no problem. I forgot, too. I have hearts, not spades!" |>While I agree with what I think you mean, I'll note that |>testimony should not be ignored, but committees are instructed |>to reject testimony as self-serving when a dishonest player |>could easily choose such an argument effectively should the |>argument not be rejected without further evidence. To reject |>as self-serving is not to ignore, that's all. | | I do not think that ACs over this side are instructed this way. |Perhaps they are more credulous: perhaps they each decide their own |position. I do not think we have reached a situation where we need to |discount self-serving testimony to the same extent as in NAmerica, but I |agree it should be viewed with some scepticism. Perhaps your bridge players haven't found that it's fairly easy to manipulate a committee if one tries. Or perhaps they consider it unsporting or unethical or some such. Our guys treat it as part of the competition. Perhaps that attitude was created by committees' not having any clue how to rule; they'd rule in favor of the more convincing argument for years and years. Thanks to Edgar Kaplan, that's not quite so true anymore. But we still have guys who try to intimidate committees. I've seen it work many a time. Or maybe Americans are more suspicious than Englishmen. Or more prone to lie to get their way. Or more likely to be suspicious that another would lie to get his way, or ... :) Anyway, the point is that no testimony should be rejected out of hand. Self-serving unverifiable testimony, however, should be considered less strongly than testimony that can be shown to be true, simply because dishonest people could take unfair advantage otherwise. Perhaps your committees are not expressly instructed to do this, but I'd be surprised that they didn't do it anyway. Common sense suggests that someone is more likely to lie or delude himself if it is in his best interest than if not. --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 05:36:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA02784 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 05:36:29 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA02778 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 05:36:23 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA00732 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:36:11 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id KAA02916; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:38:41 -0800 Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:38:41 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801281838.KAA02916@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jon Brissman wrote: |Yes - Alert everything. Too many alerts is just as bad as not enough. I could argue from an information transmission point of view, but that argument isn't practical. The practical reason not to alert bids that are almost identical to standard bids is that it'll create a "boy who cried wolf" scenario that may well damage the opponents later in the match. They'll ask about the first dozen or so alerts, find out that they were of very little importance, and then stop asking. When something that they really ought to know about comes up later, they won't think the alert is meaningful, and they might well be damaged. |You're right that very few strong clubbers do |Alert their non-club openings, but that's not justification for your |omitting the Alert. I disagree here, too. The alert system assumes players' familiarity with it. You might note that it has evolved to follow standard practice. Yes, full disclosure suggests that limited opening bids should be alerted, but the opponents are also expected to know approximately what kind of system you are playing. |I believe that after a player accepts a transfer bid, his partner should |Alert and explain, if asked, that the call was semi-forced and promises |no particular length in the suit named. If the pair is playing I don't. Why bother? The information is already there from the previous alert, just as the information about limited major suit openings is there from the "General Approach" box in the convention card. |super-accepts, there is a negative inference given when not selected. If the pair is playing mandatory superaccepts, sure. That is, if 2H denies four hearts, that should be alerted, but if a superaccept happens about one hand in 30, (a) the inference in question isn't there, and (b) players at some level ought to know of superaccepts and can ask if they care. |Perhaps one in a thousand pairs Alert a transfer acceptance. Again, the |Alert is harmless and in the spirit of the structure; why not give it? Because it's a waste of time. Because the opponents will ask and argue with you. Because they might get tired of all those marginal alerts and forget to ask about a real one and damage themselves. If I were on a committee and someone told me that their opponents were alerting just about every bid, then zapped them with something bizarre that sounded like a normal spurious alert, and the failure to ask damaged them, I'd rule in their favor. Wouldn't you? Yet another reason not to alert just about everything is that an unscrupulous pair could design a system to create scenarios like the above. That is, where most bids were just a little different, usually in a meaningless way, but could justify an alert, but a few bids were really off-the-wall, but sounded normal, thus never got asked about. I wouldn't do that, but in the world you suggest, I know a few people who would, just to try to change matters. If we alert transfer acceptances and Precision major-suit openings, where do we stop? If I open 1H and play that it denies five spades except with six hearts and extra values, do I need to alert? What if I'm willing to reverse with just about any 6-5? Do I need to alert 1H as maybe having a normal weak 5-6? No, of course not, that'd be silly. How about if I play equal-level conversion? Then over a 1S opening, when I overcall 2D, does partner have to alert and tell them that I probably don't have four hearts? Maybe. That's a close one. Perhaps the negative inferences line should be drawn on this side of big club negative inferences, perhaps on the other, but there has to be a line past which trivial negative inferences do not need to be alerted, particularly if they are already known from information that should be possessed by the opponents. --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 05:50:50 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA02876 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 05:50:50 +1100 Received: from u3.farm.idt.net (lighton@u3.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.12]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA02871 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 05:50:44 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u3.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA09179 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:50:37 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:50:37 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u3.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? In-Reply-To: <34CF69F1.26D2@popd.ix.netcom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Wed, 28 Jan 1998, B&S wrote: > Brian Baresch wrote: > > > > The ACBL's alert procedure states: "Players are expected to be prepared for > > the vast majority of systems that they may encounter at the bridge table. > > Common methods include either strong or weak no trumps with or without > > five-card majors. The forcing opening bid will most often be either a > > natural, strong two bid or an artificial forcing opening of 1C or 2C." > > > > It seems to me that since our system is basically what one would expect from > > a fairly simple strong-club with minimal gadgets, that most of the bids and > > rebids above (1C itself excepted) don't require alerts. I can't remember > > ever hearing a Precision player, for instance, alert a 1H or 1S opening bid. > > > Yes - Alert everything. You're right that very few strong clubbers do > Alert their non-club openings, but that's not justification for your > omitting the Alert. The principles of full disclosure and Active > Ethics, in addition to the regulations on the Alert procedure, all > require the notification. I have it on reliable authority (now) that the 1M openers in Precision style systems are not alertable in ACBLand. I really think that is as it should be. What are the rules in other jurisdictions? A while back a Precision playing friend told me that some opponent had claimed she should be alerting a 1M response to 1C, because it promises 5 cards. I asserted this was ridiculous, as the system has already been "exposed" by the alert of 1C, and some people use exotic responses (control showing and transfers being among them), and an alert at this point is actually confusing if it is not for something "real." Again, what are the rules in other parts of the world? > > I have not seen a case in which opponents have claimed damage from the > failure to Alert a major suit opening by a strong clubber, and I can't > construct a scenario where it might occur. Nonetheless, the Alert is > harmless. I don't agree. See above. > > I believe that after a player accepts a transfer bid, his partner should > Alert and explain, if asked, that the call was semi-forced and promises > no particular length in the suit named. If the pair is playing > super-accepts, there is a negative inference given when not selected. > Perhaps one in a thousand pairs Alert a transfer acceptance. Again, the > Alert is harmless and in the spirit of the structure; why not give it? > Argh! I know in EBUland the rule is to alert the transfer acceptance, but that is because the EBU has a simple alert rule. If it's conventional, alert it. (By the way, are there any exceptions, other than takeout doubles and Blackwood?) The ACBL has spent considerable effort in setting up Alert rules that are somewhat more informative to opponents. I don't agree with all of them, or rather if I had written them they would have looked somewhat different. Nobody is ever going to agree with whatever set of such rules exist, but the ACBL rules are more or less reasonable, and they have promised not to change them for a while. Among other technically conventional bids, the acceptance of a transfer over 1NT is not alertable unless there is a specific agreement that is unusual. Max + length is not unusual. Please, Jon, don't say it's harmless to alert these things. Alerts _are_ distracting to many people. Please try to use them only where the rules say they should be used! General question to the group. Is this sort of discussion outside the scope of blml? I feel it might be. Opinions? -- Richard Lighton (lighton@idt.net) Wood-Ridge NJ USA From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 06:02:42 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA02964 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 06:02:42 +1100 Received: from mineshaft.odi.com (mineshaft.odi.com [198.3.16.17]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA02958 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 06:02:34 +1100 Received: from mastermind.odi.com by mineshaft.odi.com (5.65c/SMI-4.0/ODI-5) id AA24874; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:01:51 -0500 Received: from heinz.odi.com (heinz.odi.com [198.3.19.59]) by mastermind.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI2.2) with ESMTP id OAA14941 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:01:39 -0500 (EST) Received: from heinz (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by heinz.odi.com (8.8.5/ODI1.1) with SMTP id OAA11497 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:00:16 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <34CF803F.68D7@odi.com> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:00:15 -0500 From: "QQSV (Dick Wagman)" Organization: Object Design, Inc. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4c) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: computer generated hands References: <9801280606.aa21893@flash.irvine.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Re: failing methods of dealing random hands Maybe I'm just dense, but I'd thought seriously about this problem a few years ago. I think the following method is a lot easier than what others are proposing, and ought to generate hands with good randomness properties. Can anyone show a flaw? (Sorry for the math, for those not so inclined.) 1. Start with a representation of the cards that assigns each card a number from 0 to 51. The cards can be sorted if you wish. 2. Generate a random, uniformly-distributed number in the range 0 <= x < 1. (This is presumably a high precision floating point number.) 3. Multiply this number by the number of cards remaining (initially, by 52). Chop off the fractional part to get an integer in the range 0 <= n < number remaining. 4. Use that as an index into the remaining cards. Pick that card to be dealt to the first slot. (In theory, you could deal around the table as humans do, you could give the first 13 cards to one player and then cycle, or you could do anything else that's convenient.) 5. Take the last card in the list, and reassign it to be the number that was just dealt (unless that number happened to be the highest number then available.) This reduces the maximum index of cards by 1. 6. Step to the next card slot to be dealt, and repeat steps (2) through (5) until there are no cards remaining. It looks to me like this requires an excellent random number generator that is capable of generating uniformly distributed numbers within a range (any range; it's then easy to reduce it to the range between 0 and 1) for this to work well. Is this too difficult a requirement to be practical? Are such excellent random number generators not available these days? Or is there some other statistical flaw with this approach? It certainly can be coded to run rather fast, and it seems easy to implement. --Q (Dick Wagman) From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 06:37:13 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA03137 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 06:37:13 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA03132 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 06:37:06 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA27340 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:37:12 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id OAA04494; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:37:15 -0500 Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:37:15 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801281937.OAA04494@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Richard Lighton > I know in EBUland the rule is to alert the transfer acceptance, > but that is because the EBU has a simple alert rule. If it's conventional, > alert it. Is this going to change, now that the definition of convention has changed? If the transfer acceptance shows "willingness to play" and nothing else special, it is clearly not conventional under the 1997 Laws. (The EBU is not the only organization that may have failed to note the import of the change.) From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 07:48:15 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA03359 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 07:48:15 +1100 Received: from camel7.mindspring.com (camel7.mindspring.com [207.69.200.57]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA03353 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 07:48:07 +1100 Received: from mike (ip51.baltimore10.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.30.22.51]) by camel7.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA14861 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 15:47:52 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980128154755.006dea60@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 15:47:55 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: <199801281607.LAA04271@cfa183.harvard.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 11:07 AM 1/28/98 -0500, Steve wrote: >> From: "Michael S. Dennis" >> For me, one reasonable solution is to >> agree to the following (undoubtedly controversial) proposition: Partner's >> correct and appropriate explanation as to partnership methods is never >> regarded as UI. > >While I don't necessarily oppose this solution, it's worth pointing out >that it is more permissive than the 1975 laws were. It is also simpler >as it calls for no judgment in this sort of case. > I agree that the pre-1987 Laws were superior to the present ones in this respect. Kaplan made the point quite cogently in his BW Appeals series. But it is worth pointing out that although that might well reduce the impact of this type of problem, by allowing a more lenient view of the alternatives, the problem is not actually avoided. Take Eric's hand-- a poor 15-count that opener chooses to treat as a weak nt. His partner announces "12-14", and makes an invitational raise to 2nt. Now with a maximum weak nt, he has a perfectly reasonable 3nt bid, but at the end of the hand, the opponents call the cops, alleging that opener evidently forgot he was playing weak no-trumps until reminded by the announcement. If you accept opener's statement about what he knew and why he bid as he did, then there is no problem regardless of which legal standard we apply, since given that opener knew he was playing weak no-trumps, he has no LA to 3nt. But if you seriously doubt his story, then passing is not merely an LA, but the only possible alternative (presuming that < 25% of strong-notrumpers would accept an invitation to game with a weak 15-count). Neither the pre-1987 Laws nor the current edition provide any guidance for evaluating opener's credibility in re his intentions. I for one would just as soon not be expected to make such an evaluation. Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 08:09:41 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA03421 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 08:09:41 +1100 Received: from dfw-ix9.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix9.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA03416 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 08:09:34 +1100 Received: (from smap@localhost) by dfw-ix9.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id PAA18937 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 15:08:46 -0600 (CST) Received: from 40.middletown-05.va.dial-access.att.net(12.68.17.40) by dfw-ix9.ix.netcom.com via smap (V1.3) id rma018911; Wed Jan 28 15:08:22 1998 Received: by 40.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET with Microsoft Mail id <01BD2C06.94EB0CA0@40.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET>; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 16:05:41 -0500 Message-ID: <01BD2C06.94EB0CA0@40.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> From: Craig Senior To: "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" Subject: RE: When does a treatment become a conventio Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 16:05:38 -0500 Encoding: 33 TEXT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk A disqualification seems more appropriate...this is at least a second offence. Action by Conduct & Ethics might also be appropriate. (Ah well, at least he hasn't tried to ban running to the hounds...even though his presidency is going to the dogs.) Craig Senior ---------- From: David Stevenson[SMTP:bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk] Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 1998 7:13 PM To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio Eric Landau wrote: >Nah. Clinton doesn't make up his own laws. Of course, whether he follows >the ones that already exist is another question entirely. Like the Laws of public opinion? Sleeping around is OK for me, but not for you? I can do what I want, but God help you if you do? It sounds very familiar to several of the arguments on BLML, or more precisely, several of the arguments reported to BLML. Perhaps we should just slap Clinton with a 3imp DP on ZT grounds. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 08:40:40 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA03513 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 08:40:40 +1100 Received: from dfw-ix15.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix15.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.15]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA03508 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 08:40:25 +1100 Received: (from smap@localhost) by dfw-ix15.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id PAA07298; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 15:39:45 -0600 (CST) Received: from 40.middletown-05.va.dial-access.att.net(12.68.17.40) by dfw-ix15.ix.netcom.com via smap (V1.3) id rma007242; Wed Jan 28 15:39:06 1998 Received: by 40.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET with Microsoft Mail id <01BD2C0A.E61876E0@40.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET>; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 16:36:35 -0500 Message-ID: <01BD2C0A.E61876E0@40.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> From: Craig Senior To: "bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au" , "'Michael S. Dennis'" Subject: RE: Strong club: Alert everything? Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 16:36:34 -0500 Encoding: 109 TEXT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I think you must take into account the level of play. In a stratified game vs. C flight players such an alert might be the only proper and ethical action against players who would not be able to draw such negative inferences in a non-familiar system. If one has decided to play a non-standard system that looks like but differs from most big club systems, it is only fair to share with opponents the meaning of the bidding within that system. If at your table only you and partner know what the bid means, and players of typical quality in the contest might reasonably be expected not to have this knowledge, you would be taking unfair advantage by concealing this. Locus determines alertability to some extent for similar reasons. You would have less need to alert Multi 2D or Muidenberg in Amsterdam than in Miami because the others at the table would be most likely to be familiar with the ramifications. Flannery or Cappaletti (though still alertable) need very little explanation in ACBL Districts 4-5-6-7 but might be baffling in Manchester to many. Developing players in particular are frequently ill equipped to comprehend the nuances of the various big club systems while they are trying to master SA or 2/1 or Acol. So it is NOT absurd even to alert 1M in such a system in a very weak game...whether it should be required it another matter. I do agree that it would be absurd to alert a bid that denies 5-5-3-2 distribution though. :-) Craig Senior ---------- From: Michael S. Dennis[SMTP:msd@mindspring.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 1998 10:07 AM To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? At 02:37 AM 1/28/98 -0600, Brian wrote: >One of the directors at the local club (ACBL-land) said something that I >found odd today, and I'd like to hear the opinions of the list's >distinguished Laws experts. > >My partner and I play a slightly modified Big Club system, basically 2/1 5cM >with a strong (15-17) NT and 1C showing about 17 or more. On the hand that >started the discussion, my partner opened 1C (alerted), I responded 1D >(negative), and she rebid 2NT, which by agreement shows 22-23 balanced. (A >1NT rebid would show 18-19; 20-21 hands are opened 2NT.) > >The opps suggested that my partner's 2NT should be alerted because it showed >a specific point range, and the director agreed. Later I asked the director >whether our natural 1H and 1S opening bids should be alerted too, because >they indicate a hand not strong enough to open 1C. He said that they should >be (and that he'd checked with another director who agreed with him) because >they impart information that is not "standard". > >The ACBL's alert procedure states: "Players are expected to be prepared for >the vast majority of systems that they may encounter at the bridge table. >Common methods include either strong or weak no trumps with or without >five-card majors. The forcing opening bid will most often be either a >natural, strong two bid or an artificial forcing opening of 1C or 2C." > >It seems to me that since our system is basically what one would expect from >a fairly simple strong-club with minimal gadgets, that most of the bids and >rebids above (1C itself excepted) don't require alerts. I can't remember >ever hearing a Precision player, for instance, alert a 1H or 1S opening bid. > >What do you think? > I think this is a good example of the alert system gone berserk. If someone needs to know your point range for the 2nt rebid (for defensive purposes, presumably) they are free to ask. Anybody who is sophisticated enough to appreciate the need for such information is surely aware that the 2nt rebid might be "non-standard". As for alerting your 1H and 1S openings because they are limited to 15 or so HCP, that is completely ridiculous. It suggests that any derivative information from methods not directly related to the present bid may drive the requirement for an alert. My favorite partner and I open a weak 1NT with 5-card majors and appropriate hcp. Do we need to alert a 1S opening because it "probably does not include 5-5-3-2 shape with 12-14 HCP"? Absurd. There are those who will argue that it never hurts to alert, in the spirit of full disclosure an all that baloney. But this misses several potential drawbacks. The first is that excessive alerting diminishes the value of the alert procedure in general. If every bid you make is alertable, because of some indirect inference available from your strong club system, then opponents will quickly learn not to ask, and may miss some important information. Rather than serving the objective of full disclosure, this creates a Purloined Letter effect that conceals potentially important information. The ACBL has moved wisely in recent years to limit the need for alerts for esssentially routine actions (e.g., negative doubles, 2/1 GF, etc.), and I believe this has strengthened the alert procedure. Presumably you pre-alert your strong club methods when you sit down. Anyone who could benefit from the alert of your 1H or 1S openings is surely aware of the implications based on your forcing club methods. OTOH, there is no down-side that I can see, for you, in making these alerts. Especially as some misguided directors in your games have stated that you should do so, these alerts may be necessary to afford you some protection against certain classes of bridge lawyers. Sad, but what can you do? Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 08:45:47 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA03530 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 08:45:47 +1100 Received: from dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA03525 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 08:45:42 +1100 Received: (from smap@localhost) by dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) id PAA09750; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 15:45:06 -0600 (CST) Received: from 40.middletown-05.va.dial-access.att.net(12.68.17.40) by dfw-ix8.ix.netcom.com via smap (V1.3) id rma009728; Wed Jan 28 15:44:55 1998 Received: by 40.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET with Microsoft Mail id <01BD2C0B.B55438E0@40.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET>; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 16:42:23 -0500 Message-ID: <01BD2C0B.B55438E0@40.middletown-05.va.dial-access.ATT.NET> From: Craig Senior To: Bridge Laws Mailing List , "'Richard Lighton'" Subject: RE: When does a treatment become a conventio Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 16:42:22 -0500 Encoding: 73 TEXT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Surely I misread you? 1S-p means I am content to let them play there? I would surely expect reasonable judgement as to balancing from partner if 1S-p-p reached him. I am very much NOT content if the auction goes 1S-P-P-P holding something on the order of KQT9x A QTxx QJx. Are you saying my pass is a convention? Craig Senior ---------- From: Richard Lighton[SMTP:lighton@idt.net] Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 1998 1:59 PM To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio On Tue, 2 Jan 1990, Wayne Burrows wrote: > Grattan Endicott wrote: > > > > ...So the > > test to be made is to compare the agreed meaning of a call with > > the non-conventional possibilities: > > 1. that it shows willingness to play in the > > denomination > > named (or in the last denomination named*); > > 2. that it names where there is high card strength; > > 3. that it names where there is suit length (3+ > > cards). > > [* 'the last denomination named' was the subject of a ruling by the > > WBF Laws Committee in Hammamet recently.] > > If the call in question does not match to at least one of these > > definitions, or if it has an additional qualification to its meaning > > which does not do so, then it is held to be conventional. > > Perhaps my logic is flawed but I reason as follows: > > The bidding procedes: > > Opp Me > > 1S P > > The last named denomination is Spades: > > 1. Pass does not necessarily show a willingness to play in spades. It > just shows an unwillingness to act - partner should not pass out 1S > because I passed showing willingness to play here. > > 2. Pass neither shows nor denies high card strength - I may have a > yarbourgh or a strong hand with spades. > > 3. Pass does not show 3+ cards (presumably in spades) > > Therefore according to the definition a call of pass, as played by most > bridge players, in this auction is a convention because it does not > fulfil the criteria to be not a convention. > I try not to get angry at post, especially not on mailing lists such as this, where we are often discussing angles and the heads of pins. This one is ridiculous. If you pass one spade you have said that you are content if the auction now proceeds pass-pass. -- Richard Lighton | There are two rules for ultimate (lighton@idt.net) | success in life: Wood-Ridge NJ | USA | 1. Never tell everything you know. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 08:57:49 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA03559 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 08:57:49 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA03554 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 08:57:44 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1017372; 28 Jan 98 21:46 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 21:45:19 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Abbreviations In-Reply-To: <34CF56C4.13A6@odi.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk QQSV (Dick Wagman) wrote: >David Stevenson wrote: > >> I have put this list on my web site, with the addition of >> >> IIRC If I remember correctly >> NOS Non-offending side >> OS Offending side > >As someone in another thread pointed out, shouldn't you also add > >WTP What's the problem? > >to the list? The question really is how far one should add Standard Usenet abbreviations to the Bridge list. After all, I have a list of 134 that I will send anyone who asks. I think that WTP is common on BLML [more common than IIRC, for example] so I shall add it. But I do not want to add all the Usenet abbreviations. Perhaps the answer is to post the Standard ones to my website as well. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 10:44:37 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA03763 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:44:37 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA03758 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:44:31 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2019437; 28 Jan 98 23:13 GMT Message-ID: Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 23:12:12 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Richard Lighton wrote: >I have it on reliable authority (now) that the 1M openers in Precision >style systems are not alertable in ACBLand. I really think that is as >it should be. What are the rules in other jurisdictions? You do not alert Precision 1M openers in EBU/WBU despite the strange idea of showing a 5cM! >A while back a Precision playing friend told me that some opponent >had claimed she should be alerting a 1M response to 1C, because it >promises 5 cards. I asserted this was ridiculous, as the system has >already been "exposed" by the alert of 1C, and some people use exotic >responses (control showing and transfers being among them), and an alert >at this point is actually confusing if it is not for something "real." >Again, what are the rules in other parts of the world? Not alertable in EBU/WBU. >Argh! I know in EBUland the rule is to alert the transfer acceptance, >but that is because the EBU has a simple alert rule. If it's conventional, >alert it. (By the way, are there any exceptions, other than takeout >doubles and Blackwood?) There are no exceptions, including takeout doubles and Blackwood, but we use our own definition of natural, and alert everything that is not natural. Blackwood is alertable, takeout doubles are not. Steve Willner wrote: >> From: Richard Lighton >> I know in EBUland the rule is to alert the transfer acceptance, >> but that is because the EBU has a simple alert rule. If it's conventional, >> alert it. >Is this going to change, now that the definition of convention has >changed? If the transfer acceptance shows "willingness to play" and >nothing else special, it is clearly not conventional under the 1997 >Laws. > >(The EBU is not the only organization that may have failed to note the >import of the change.) There again, the EBU may have noticed the change. There is one change in our alerting regulations that might interest you. In future we alert anything that is not natural, and use our own definition of natural. We have taken the word "conventional" out of the alerting regulations, so the change you mention does not affect us. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 10:46:18 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA03786 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:46:18 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA03781 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:46:13 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2021785; 28 Jan 98 23:26 GMT Message-ID: <8HX0VSA057z0Ewnj@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 23:25:40 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? In-Reply-To: <34CF69F1.26D2@popd.ix.netcom.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk B&S wrote: >Yes - Alert everything. You're right that very few strong clubbers do >Alert their non-club openings, but that's not justification for your >omitting the Alert. The principles of full disclosure and Active >Ethics, in addition to the regulations on the Alert procedure, all >require the notification. This is just not true. The purpose of alerting is to provide a **helpful** framework to assist in full disclosure. The EBU has gone for simplicity in alerting, the ACBL have gone for accuracy. Or have they? It seems that 1C - 1D - 2NT in a simple Strong Club system is alertable unless played in a very strange way alien to the system. If that is so then the ACBL can hardly claim that their alerting system is accurate. If a pair fails to alert a 2NT rebid when played as 22-23 after a strong Club and negative response then they are being as helpful as they can be to their opponents in defiance of the Alert regulations. Presumably all this comes from the ACBL's strange attitude to Strong Club systems [I have friends who have moved to the USA, and they are wondering whether to continue playing Precision in view of the frequent accusations of "cheating by playing that system"]. Anyway, now I have discovered this I shall be **considerably** more sceptical about any NAmerican who makes any claims about EBU alerting! If people who play Precision alert sensibly then they are not following the alerting regulations, that is true. *But* they are doing their best for their opponents to keep them informed, so you are wrong to say that: >The principles of full disclosure and Active >Ethics, in addition to the regulations on the Alert procedure, all >require the notification. They are following Active Ethics and the principle of full disclosure. Alert everything is a principle espoused by people who wish to make the Alert method unworkable: for goodness' sake, don't alert everything! -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 11:28:12 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA04123 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:28:12 +1100 Received: from u2.farm.idt.net (lighton@u2.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.11]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA04117 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:28:03 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u2.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA01540 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 19:27:49 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 19:27:49 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u2.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Abbreviations In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Wed, 28 Jan 1998, David Stevenson wrote: > QQSV (Dick Wagman) wrote: > >David Stevenson wrote: > > > >> I have put this list on my web site, with the addition of > >> > >> IIRC If I remember correctly > >> NOS Non-offending side > >> OS Offending side > > > >As someone in another thread pointed out, shouldn't you also add > > > >WTP What's the problem? > > > >to the list? > > The question really is how far one should add Standard Usenet > abbreviations to the Bridge list. After all, I have a list of 134 that > I will send anyone who asks. > > I think that WTP is common on BLML [more common than IIRC, for > example] so I shall add it. But I do not want to add all the Usenet > abbreviations. I think WTP originated in RGB in its early days, from one Bob Silverman. If it has strayed to general Usenet use, I'm sure Bob would be proud. Way back, I complained about the use of abreviations on this mailing list. Possibly as a result, David started compiling his very useful list. However, I still think that applying the convention of technical writing would be useful. (The first time you want to use an abbreviation, you spell it out and put it in parentheses.) I still read LA as "Los Angeles" and OS as "Ordnance Survey." I think I am fighting a lost battle. :-) -- Richard Lighton | There are two rules for ultimate (lighton@idt.net) | success in life: Wood-Ridge NJ | USA | 1. Never tell everything you know. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 11:40:59 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA04184 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:40:59 +1100 Received: from u2.farm.idt.net (lighton@u2.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.11]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA04179 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:40:53 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u2.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA06587 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 19:40:43 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 19:40:43 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u2.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? In-Reply-To: <8HX0VSA057z0Ewnj@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Wed, 28 Jan 1998, David Stevenson wrote: > B&S wrote: > > >Yes - Alert everything. You're right that very few strong clubbers do > >Alert their non-club openings, but that's not justification for your > >omitting the Alert. The principles of full disclosure and Active > >Ethics, in addition to the regulations on the Alert procedure, all > >require the notification. > > This is just not true. The purpose of alerting is to provide a > **helpful** framework to assist in full disclosure. The EBU has gone > for simplicity in alerting, the ACBL have gone for accuracy. Or have > they? I think they have. I think Bob is wrong on the ACBL requirements here. > > It seems that 1C - 1D - 2NT in a simple Strong Club system is > alertable unless played in a very strange way alien to the system. If > that is so then the ACBL can hardly claim that their alerting system is > accurate. > Chyah Burghard is investigating the truth here. I believe she will come up with the statement that 2NT as 23ish is not alertable. News at some near future date. > > Presumably all this comes from the ACBL's strange attitude to Strong > Club systems [I have friends who have moved to the USA, and they are > wondering whether to continue playing Precision in view of the frequent > accusations of "cheating by playing that system"]. Anyway, now I have > discovered this I shall be **considerably** more sceptical about any > NAmerican who makes any claims about EBU alerting! I think accusations of "cheating by playing the system" do not conform to ACBL alerting policy. Call in the ZTFUB cops! :-) (That's two undefined acronyms according to my last post. Sorry!) ACBL = American Contract Bridge League ZTFUB = Zero Tolerance for unacceptable behavior. > > If people who play Precision alert sensibly then they are not > following the alerting regulations, that is true I think they *are* following ACBL regulations >. *But* they are doing > their best for their opponents to keep them informed, so you are wrong > to say that: > > >The principles of full disclosure and Active > >Ethics, in addition to the regulations on the Alert procedure, all > >require the notification. > > They are following Active Ethics and the principle of full disclosure. > > Alert everything is a principle espoused by people who wish to make > the Alert method unworkable: for goodness' sake, don't alert everything! > Agreed, with considerable emphasis!! > -- > David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ > Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ > bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= > Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ > -- Richard Lighton | There are two rules for ultimate (lighton@idt.net) | success in life: Wood-Ridge NJ | USA | 1. Never tell everything you know. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 12:08:49 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA04289 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:08:49 +1100 Received: from aurora.alaska.edu (fsgrb@aurora.alaska.edu [137.229.18.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA04284 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:08:39 +1100 Received: from localhost by aurora.alaska.edu; (5.65v3.2/1.1.8.2/22Mar97-0141PM) id AA24799; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 16:07:28 -0900 Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:09:41 -0900 (AKST) From: "G. R. Bower" Reply-To: "G. R. Bower" To: bridge-laws@octavia.rgb.anu.edu Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Resent-Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 16:07:19 -0900 (AKST) Resent-From: "G. R. Bower" Resent-To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Resent-Message-Id: Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Just a few stray comments about my experience with the alerting of weird systems. As others have noted, the 1H/S openings in Precision are currently not A(CB)Lertable. I have had a few interesting run-ins with the alert procedure in my time, thanks to the system I play, which is a Polish-type club (1C=balanced 11-13, 17-20, 24+; clubs 14-18; or unbalanced 19+) with weak twos in all 4 suits. Because our other openings are now 11-18, a 1-over-1 (except 1C-P-1D) now promises 8+ points and 4+ cards. In May 1996 -- in the last match of the Sunday swiss at a thoroughly enjoyable regional -- I had an acrimonious dispute with opponents (the tournament chairman, in fact!) who insisted that 1D-P-1H was often on only 3 HCP in Standard and hence my 8+ bid ought to be alertable. As it turned out, there was no damage and no adjustment at the time. And the next month, the ACBL bulletin published a statement specifically stating that 1minor-pass-1major promising 4+ cards and forcing one round was not alertable, but that the Precision 1C-P-1H _was_ alertable because it promised 5+. So far as I know this policy has not changed. On the next board, RHO opened 1S (11-15) and LHO made a "preemptive" raise to 4S holding 12 HCP and a singleton. RHO indicated this was a normal holding for this call in their system. Both RHO and the director laughed at me when I protested the failure to alert (which nearly induced me to double, expecting a much weaker dummy). I have seen in print -- I forget where, though -- that 1M-P-4M in Acol and Precision are both alertable in ACBLand because they can be so much stronger in high cards than standard. As for pre-alerts and alerts and so forth... at one time I agreed with the principle of "playing it safe" but I have since become converted by bitter experience to a policy of doing so only when required to do so. Most people ignore the pre-alert about my 1C opening anyway. Against the ones who DON'T ignore it, I invariable have this sort of an auction: Me: 1H ("What is that?" "5+ hearts, 11-18 points.") LHO: Long hesitation, then pass. pard: 1S ("What is that?" "4+ spades, 8+ points.") RHO: Long hesitation, then pass. me: 2C ("What is that?" "4+ clubs, 5, maybe 6 hearts, 11-16 points.") LHO: Long hesitation, then pass. pard: 2S ("What is that?" "8-10 points, usually 6 spades.") RHO: Long hesitation, then pass. Me: Pass ("What is that?" "he's gonna let me play 2S.") LHO: Long hesitation, then pass. Eventually I decided I was doing more harm than good, since 90% of the time my auctions were exactly the same as the SA auctions, but my opponents were completely convinced I played the most bizarre system known to mankind. I find I am better off not alerting anything in an auction where every bid is SA except for slight differences in the point ranges and negative inferences. Of course if the opponents ask or if anything unusual develops, we alert. I have faced a couple dilemmas in my time. Here are two of the principal ones. My 1D opening promises either 5+ diamonds, or a 4441/4144/1444. No one has had a good answer for me whether this is alertable or not -- it seems to fall into a grey area like some of the 2-level treatments we've been discussion on the list recently. Though my conscience plagues me about it, I have for the moment contented myself with checking the "4+" box on my CC, putting a pencilled note beside the box, and not alerting, knowing that alerting my 1D openings will give me a lot more headaches than quietly letting it slide. Likewise, I have gotten both confident "no"s and hesitant "yes"es when asking if I should alert my weak two in diamonds which is 7-13 instead of 5-11 or 6-12. In my opinion this is a slight modification of the normal point range but still essentially a weak two-bid, so I generally don't alert it. Gordon Bower From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 12:37:06 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA04361 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:37:06 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA04356 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:37:00 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2006447; 29 Jan 98 1:33 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 00:47:36 +0000 To: "QQSV (Dick Wagman)" Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: computer generated hands In-Reply-To: <34CF803F.68D7@odi.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <34CF803F.68D7@odi.com>, "QQSV (Dick Wagman)" writes >Re: failing methods of dealing random hands > >Maybe I'm just dense, but I'd thought seriously about this problem a few >years ago. I think the following method is a lot easier than what others >are proposing, and ought to generate hands with good randomness properties. >Can anyone show a flaw? (Sorry for the math, for those not so inclined.) > >1. Start with a representation of the cards that assigns each card a >number from 0 to 51. The cards can be sorted if you wish. > >2. Generate a random, uniformly-distributed number in the range >0 <= x < 1. (This is presumably a high precision floating point number.) > >3. Multiply this number by the number of cards remaining (initially, >by 52). Chop off the fractional part to get an integer in the range >0 <= n < number remaining. > >4. Use that as an index into the remaining cards. Pick that card to be >dealt to the first slot. (In theory, you could deal around the table as >humans do, you could give the first 13 cards to one player and then cycle, >or you could do anything else that's convenient.) > >5. Take the last card in the list, and reassign it to be the number that >was just dealt (unless that number happened to be the highest number then >available.) This reduces the maximum index of cards by 1. > >6. Step to the next card slot to be dealt, and repeat steps (2) through >(5) until there are no cards remaining. > >It looks to me like this requires an excellent random number generator >that is capable of generating uniformly distributed numbers within a >range (any range; it's then easy to reduce it to the range between 0 >and 1) for this to work well. Is this too difficult a requirement to >be practical? Are such excellent random number generators not available >these days? Or is there some other statistical flaw with this approach? > >It certainly can be coded to run rather fast, and it seems easy to implement. > > --Q (Dick Wagman) My algorithm puts all the cards in the North hand and then selects one card to be dealt to the East hand. It then reselects from 52 cards (ignoring the cases where the card has already been transferred) and transfers a second, third until 13 cards have been transferred. It then repeats the process (as ever ignoring cards that are already transferred) for South and West. In computing terms I initialise a 52x2-bit array to 0 and then the algorith keeps selecting random numbers from 0-51 and inserts for the first thirteen selected a 01 (value 1), the second thirteen selected 10 (value 2) and the third thirteen 11 (value 3) into the array. One requires a degree of confidence in the laws of probability that it won't spend for ever selecting 2-bit elements containing a non-zero which it ignores. I now have an array which states which hand each card belongs to of length 104 bits (13 bytes) and that's how I store it. The decoding is trivial. -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 12:41:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA04411 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:41:10 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA04406 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:41:00 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2006442; 29 Jan 98 1:33 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 00:56:11 +0000 To: David Stevenson Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: Abbreviations In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message , David Stevenson writes >QQSV (Dick Wagman) wrote: >>David Stevenson wrote: >> >>> I have put this list on my web site, with the addition of >>> >>> IIRC If I remember correctly >>> NOS Non-offending side >>> OS Offending side >> >>As someone in another thread pointed out, shouldn't you also add >> >>WTP What's the problem? >> >>to the list? > > The question really is how far one should add Standard Usenet >abbreviations to the Bridge list. After all, I have a list of 134 that >I will send anyone who asks. > > I think that WTP is common on BLML [more common than IIRC, for >example] so I shall add it. But I do not want to add all the Usenet >abbreviations. > > Perhaps the answer is to post the Standard ones to my website as well. > Possibly two lists with cross references between the two, a subsidiary table on A4 sheets loosely attached to the notes, a crease right down the middle which loses about half of the content, all in 8pt Script and a red spot to indicate non standard ones such as IFO (Its fantastically obvious) :) -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 12:52:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA04507 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:52:10 +1100 Received: from rsc.anu.edu.au (rsc [150.203.35.129]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA04502 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:52:06 +1100 Received: from [150.203.96.38] (rsclt1-38.anu.edu.au [150.203.96.38]) by rsc.anu.edu.au (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id MAA24488 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:52:27 +1100 (EST) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:52:27 +1100 (EST) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: mabraham@postoffice.utas.edu.au (Mark Abraham) Subject: Re: computer generated hands Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >Re: failing methods of dealing random hands > >Maybe I'm just dense, but I'd thought seriously about this problem a few >years ago. I think the following method is a lot easier than what others >are proposing, and ought to generate hands with good randomness properties. >Can anyone show a flaw? (Sorry for the math, for those not so inclined.) > >1. Start with a representation of the cards that assigns each card a >number from 0 to 51. The cards can be sorted if you wish. > >2. Generate a random, uniformly-distributed number in the range >0 <= x < 1. (This is presumably a high precision floating point number.) > >3. Multiply this number by the number of cards remaining (initially, >by 52). Chop off the fractional part to get an integer in the range >0 <= n < number remaining. > >4. Use that as an index into the remaining cards. Pick that card to be >dealt to the first slot. (In theory, you could deal around the table as >humans do, you could give the first 13 cards to one player and then cycle, >or you could do anything else that's convenient.) > >5. Take the last card in the list, and reassign it to be the number that >was just dealt (unless that number happened to be the highest number then >available.) This reduces the maximum index of cards by 1. > >6. Step to the next card slot to be dealt, and repeat steps (2) through >(5) until there are no cards remaining. > >It looks to me like this requires an excellent random number generator >that is capable of generating uniformly distributed numbers within a >range (any range; it's then easy to reduce it to the range between 0 >and 1) for this to work well. Is this too difficult a requirement to >be practical? Are such excellent random number generators not available >these days? Or is there some other statistical flaw with this approach? > >It certainly can be coded to run rather fast, and it seems easy to implement. Granted :-) A) To be pedantic, any range is not sufficient - there would need to be at least 52 distinct possible values that the random number generator could generate in order to permit the first card dealt to be random. B) [In reference to some other postings, not this one] Any dealing method that makes any use of the fact that four distinct suits exist, or that 13 distinct ranks exist runs a risk of introducing non-randomnesses, such as our club void example or our 2 & 3 of clubs example. Doubtless (complex) schemes could be contrived to ensure no such non-randomnesses, but these are a waste of effort compared to the simplicity of assigning an index from 0 to 51 C) NOTE - technical discussion follows, probably of no interest to non-developers or SO officals!! Proceed at own risk. There is a real problem with this strategy. A (pseudo- for the pedantic) random number generator will generate a series of random bits. What value these bits represent is open to interpretation - they could be interpreted as an integer, as text, as a floating point decimal number, etc. If the bits were interpreted as an integer, then there is a specific range of values that could be taken. An 8 bit sequence could take on 2^8=256 possible values. I shall take these values to be 0 through 255 for simplicity, though any choice is possible. [Interpretation as a floating-point decimal number is subject to the same limitations discussed below, because infinite precision is impossible in a finite series of bits - they can be ordered, but in a non-linear fashion] Steps 2 and 3 above, in effect, scale this range from 0-255 to 0-51 (for the first card) via the decimalised range 0-1. This step introduces a systematic non-randomness that stems from the requirement to round to an integer. Allow me to illustrate with some more convenient numbers. Suppose we wished to scale a range from 0-3 to 0-2 (these numbers are inclusive). Our random number generator could generate the integer values 0,1,2,3. After scaling by a factor of 0.75, the possible values are 0,0.75,1.5,2. Any method of rounding (either ignoring fractional parts, or rounding to nearest integer) will result in the possible values 0,0,1,2 or 0,1,1,2 or 0,1,2,2. So one of these values in the 0-2 range will be statistically more likely than the other two. This problem is independent of the size of the two ranges (unless their widths are integral multiples of eachother) and applies in our above example of the 0-255 to 0-51 case. Thus some card(s) are more likely to be dealt at any given stage than some others. This is unacceptable. Generating a random number in a huge range does not remove the problem introduced by such a scaling, but could render it negligible. Generating random numbers within a range of width a multiple of 52 seems a reasonable solution, but this is not possible on a binary computer without some kind of scaling as discussed above, or "test-and-discard" system suggested below... A better approach follows (assuming a uniquely-seeded pseudo random number generator which generates an excellent approximation to a series of true random numbers) 1. Start with a representation of the cards that assigns each card a number from 0 to 51. The cards can be sorted if you wish. 2. When dealing the n-th card, generate a 6-bit number, call it x. This can be interpreted as an integer in the range 0-63. [A larger number of bits can be used, but is irrelevant given the assumption above] 3. If x is greater than n-1, discard it and repeat Step 2. 4. Now that x is in the range 0 <= x <= n-1, use it as an index into the array of remaining cards, and deal it, as above in step 4. 4. Use that as an index into the remaining cards. Pick that card to be dealt to the first slot. (In theory, you could deal around the table as humans do, you could give the first 13 cards to one player and then cycle, or you could do anything else that's convenient.) 5. Take the last card in the list, and reassign it to be the number that was just dealt (unless that number happened to be the highest number then available.) This reduces the maximum index of cards by 1. 6. Step to the next card slot to be dealt, and repeat steps (2) through (5) until there are no cards remaining. (with acknowledgements to Dick Wagman for the wording of 4 of these steps) Clearly a pseudo-random number generator that is subject to cycling in the last 6 bits will introduce systematic efffects here. One whose last 6 bits are unaffected by seed value changes will also introduce systematic effects. Both of these of course fail the assumption that the numbers generated are "an excellent approximation to a series of true random numbers". Mark Abraham From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 14:16:18 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA04728 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:16:18 +1100 Received: from imo26.mail.aol.com (imo26.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA04723 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:16:07 +1100 From: KRAllison Message-ID: Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 22:12:12 EST To: bnewsr@blakjak.demon.co.uk, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) X-Mailer: Inet_Mail_Out (IMOv11) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson writes of Precision players facing: << frequent accusations of "cheating by playing that system" >> and as someone who plays fairly regularly in ACBL events (and serves on committees late into the night at NABC's) I must say that is the first time I've ever heard such a statement. And if such a statement is made publicly, then the offenders should, naturally, be called before a committee so this sort of outrageous accusation can be properly dealt with. Karen From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 14:40:46 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA04817 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:40:46 +1100 Received: from rsc.anu.edu.au (rsc [150.203.35.129]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA04812 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:40:42 +1100 Received: from [150.203.96.38] (rsclt1-38.anu.edu.au [150.203.96.38]) by rsc.anu.edu.au (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id OAA27754 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:41:04 +1100 (EST) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:41:04 +1100 (EST) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: mabraham@postoffice.utas.edu.au (Mark Abraham) Subject: Re: computer generated hands Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >Re: failing methods of dealing random hands > >Maybe I'm just dense, but I'd thought seriously about this problem a few >years ago. I think the following method is a lot easier than what others >are proposing, and ought to generate hands with good randomness properties. >Can anyone show a flaw? (Sorry for the math, for those not so inclined.) > >1. Start with a representation of the cards that assigns each card a >number from 0 to 51. The cards can be sorted if you wish. > >2. Generate a random, uniformly-distributed number in the range >0 <= x < 1. (This is presumably a high precision floating point number.) > >3. Multiply this number by the number of cards remaining (initially, >by 52). Chop off the fractional part to get an integer in the range >0 <= n < number remaining. > >4. Use that as an index into the remaining cards. Pick that card to be >dealt to the first slot. (In theory, you could deal around the table as >humans do, you could give the first 13 cards to one player and then cycle, >or you could do anything else that's convenient.) > >5. Take the last card in the list, and reassign it to be the number that >was just dealt (unless that number happened to be the highest number then >available.) This reduces the maximum index of cards by 1. > >6. Step to the next card slot to be dealt, and repeat steps (2) through >(5) until there are no cards remaining. > >It looks to me like this requires an excellent random number generator >that is capable of generating uniformly distributed numbers within a >range (any range; it's then easy to reduce it to the range between 0 >and 1) for this to work well. Is this too difficult a requirement to >be practical? Are such excellent random number generators not available >these days? Or is there some other statistical flaw with this approach? > >It certainly can be coded to run rather fast, and it seems easy to implement. Granted :-) A) To be pedantic, any range is not sufficient - there would need to be at least 52 distinct possible values that the random number generator could generate in order to permit the first card dealt to be random. B) [In reference to some other postings, not this one] Any dealing method that makes any use of the fact that four distinct suits exist, or that 13 distinct ranks exist runs a risk of introducing non-randomnesses, such as our club void example or our 2 & 3 of clubs example. Doubtless (complex) schemes could be contrived to ensure no such non-randomnesses, but these are a waste of effort compared to the simplicity of assigning an index from 0 to 51 C) NOTE - technical discussion follows, probably of no interest to non-developers or SO officals!! Proceed at own risk. There is a real problem with this strategy. A (pseudo- for the pedantic) random number generator will generate a series of random bits. What value these bits represent is open to interpretation - they could be interpreted as an integer, as text, as a floating point decimal number, etc. If the bits were interpreted as an integer, then there is a specific range of values that could be taken. An 8 bit sequence could take on 2^8=256 possible values. I shall take these values to be 0 through 255 for simplicity, though any choice is possible. [Interpretation as a floating-point decimal number is subject to the same limitations discussed below, because infinite precision is impossible in a finite series of bits - they can be ordered, but in a non-linear fashion] Steps 2 and 3 above, in effect, scale this range from 0-255 to 0-51 (for the first card) via the decimalised range 0-1. This step introduces a systematic non-randomness that stems from the requirement to round to an integer. Allow me to illustrate with some more convenient numbers. Suppose we wished to scale a range from 0-3 to 0-2 (these numbers are inclusive). Our random number generator could generate the integer values 0,1,2,3. After scaling by a factor of 0.75, the possible values are 0,0.75,1.5,2. Any method of rounding (either ignoring fractional parts, or rounding to nearest integer) will result in the possible values 0,0,1,2 or 0,1,1,2 or 0,1,2,2. So one of these values in the 0-2 range will be statistically more likely than the other two. This problem is independent of the size of the two ranges (unless their widths are integral multiples of eachother) and applies in our above example of the 0-255 to 0-51 case. Thus some card(s) are more likely to be dealt at any given stage than some others. This is unacceptable. Generating a random number in a huge range does not remove the problem introduced by such a scaling, but could render it negligible. Generating random numbers within a range of width a multiple of 52 seems a reasonable solution, but this is not possible on a binary computer without some kind of scaling as discussed above, or "test-and-discard" system suggested below... A better approach follows (assuming a uniquely-seeded pseudo random number generator which generates an excellent approximation to a series of true random numbers) 1. Start with a representation of the cards that assigns each card a number from 0 to 51. The cards can be sorted if you wish. 2. When dealing the n-th card, generate a 6-bit number, call it x. This can be interpreted as an integer in the range 0-63. [A larger number of bits can be used, but is irrelevant given the assumption above] 3. If x is greater than n-1, discard it and repeat Step 2. 4. Now that x is in the range 0 <= x <= n-1, use it as an index into the array of remaining cards, and deal it, as above in step 4. 4. Use that as an index into the remaining cards. Pick that card to be dealt to the first slot. (In theory, you could deal around the table as humans do, you could give the first 13 cards to one player and then cycle, or you could do anything else that's convenient.) 5. Take the last card in the list, and reassign it to be the number that was just dealt (unless that number happened to be the highest number then available.) This reduces the maximum index of cards by 1. 6. Step to the next card slot to be dealt, and repeat steps (2) through (5) until there are no cards remaining. (with acknowledgements to Dick Wagman for the wording of 4 of these steps) Clearly a pseudo-random number generator that is subject to cycling in the last 6 bits will introduce systematic efffects here. One whose last 6 bits are unaffected by seed value changes will also introduce systematic effects. Both of these of course fail the assumption that the numbers generated are "an excellent approximation to a series of true random numbers". Mark Abraham From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 15:28:29 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA04967 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:28:29 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA04962 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:28:15 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2016351; 29 Jan 98 4:02 GMT Message-ID: <7Dl10uB8h$z0EwmM@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 03:33:16 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk KRAllison wrote: >David Stevenson writes of Precision players facing: > ><< frequent accusations of "cheating by playing that system" >> > > and as someone who plays fairly regularly in ACBL events (and serves on >committees late into the night at NABC's) I must say that is the first time >I've ever heard such a statement. And if such a statement is made publicly, >then the offenders should, naturally, be called before a committee so this >sort of outrageous accusation can be properly dealt with. Sorry, perhaps I should make clear they were talking about Club bridge. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 15:45:19 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA05006 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:45:19 +1100 Received: from imo11.mx.aol.com (imo11.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.165]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA05001 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:45:13 +1100 From: KRAllison@aol.com Received: from KRAllison@aol.com by imo11.mx.aol.com (IMOv12/Dec1997) id PEDQa17896; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 23:44:56 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <416db22d.34d0094a@aol.com> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 23:44:56 EST To: bnewsr@blakjak.demon.co.uk, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 for Windows 95 sub 64 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David continues, << Sorry, perhaps I should make clear they were talking about Club bridge.<< Actually, the Laws apply to club bridge also and, when I was Unit Chairman of Conduct and Ethics, I would cheerfully have assembled a committee to deal with public accusations of cheating whether at a club or a tournament. It is reprehensable behavior and is not accepted at any level in ACBL (or anywhere the Law book obtains, hopefully). If the club owner won't make it his or her business to quash such behavior directly, then your friends certainly can proceed with a complaint to the Unit Board of Directors. This is a very serious matter, as we all know, and such flagrant abusive behavior chases many newer players whom we'd like to keep around. Karen From owner-bridge-laws Thu Jan 29 20:22:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA05891 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 20:22:04 +1100 Received: from mhaaf.inhouse.compuserve.com (mhaaf.inhouse.compuserve.com [149.174.64.79]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA05886 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 20:21:57 +1100 Received: from notes2.compuserve.com (cserve-91.inhouse.compuserve.com [149.174.64.210]) by mhaaf.inhouse.compuserve.com (8.6.9/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA15580.; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 06:54:29 -0500 Received: by notes2.compuserve.com (IBM OS/2 SENDMAIL VERSION 1.3.17/2.0) id AA2536; Thu, 29 Jan 98 04:21:21 -0500 Message-Id: <9801290921.AA2536@notes2.compuserve.com> Received: by External Gateway (Lotus Notes Mail Gateway for SMTP V1.1) id 005027340012F89CC125659B002D35E0; Thu, 29 Jan 98 04:21:21 To: bridge-laws From: "christian.farwig" Date: 29 Jan 98 9:17:30 Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >> Too many alerts is just as bad as not enough. I could argue from an information transmission point of view, but that argument isn't practical. The practical reason not to alert bids that are almost identical to standard bids is that it'll create a "boy who cried wolf" scenario that may well damage the opponents later in the match. They'll ask about the first dozen or so alerts, find out that they were of very little importance, and then stop asking. When something that they really ought to know about comes up later, they won't think the alert is meaningful, and they might well be damaged. << If I remember correctly, Kaplan humorously suggested to use an "alert-alert" for really unusual bids. Christian From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 00:24:41 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA09060 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 00:24:41 +1100 Received: from zrvsun.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (zrvsun.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de [134.2.2.35]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA09052 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 00:24:29 +1100 Received: from compserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (compserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de [134.2.2.1]) by zrvsun.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA22305 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:24:24 +0100 (MET) Received: (from caakr01@localhost) by compserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA06763 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:24:19 +0100 Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:24:19 +0100 From: Martin Kretschmar Message-Id: <199801291324.OAA06763@compserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Sensible Random Number Generators Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk bc - An arbitrary precision calculator language - gives: 52! = 80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000 (68 digits) 13! = 6227020800 (10 digits) 52! / ( 13! * 13! * 13! *13! ) = 53644737765488792839237440000 (28 digits) Markus Buchhorn wrote: > Just watching this discussion on RNG's reminds me to point out one thing: you > can generate a seed as efficiently or as inefficiently as you're prepared > to program, but it ain't worth the electrons it's stored on if your RNG > algorithm doesn't use the full width of the seed - some cheaper RNG's only > use 16-32 bits internally :-( You need to be sure that your algorithm is > *able* to generate a unique identifier with as many bits as required for a > unique bridge hand (around 92 bits if I recall correctly), and *then* feed > it a seed that is appropriately sized (and as unique as possible too). > > That raises another thought from a discussion on RGB about a year ago - > somebody (Henk ? Hans ?) used a procedure to index all possible bridge > hands along with their layouts into a unique number, and then all a good > RNG had to do was generate that number. Ignore all shuffling/dealing > techniques entirely. This could possibly be "easier" to mathematically > prove as "perfect" (allowing for the lifetime of the Universe to be > unbounded, of course :-) ). A "sensible" RNG should have AT LEAST roughly the equivalent of 68 decimal digits in bits, which calculates to: 68 * ( ln 10 / ln 2 ) = 68 * ( log 10 / log 2 ) = 68 * 3.32 = 226 Bits Rounding this to the next power of 2 suggests to work with a 256 bit RNG. Martin Kretschmar From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 01:47:14 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA09308 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 01:47:14 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA09303 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 01:47:06 +1100 Received: from casewise.demon.co.uk ([158.152.187.206]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab2028015; 29 Jan 98 13:40 GMT Received: by bridge.casewise.demon.co.uk with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63) id <01BD2CA0.DB77C150@bridge.casewise.demon.co.uk>; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:30:02 -0000 Message-ID: From: David Martin To: "'bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au'" Subject: RE: Strong club: Alert everything? Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:30:01 -0000 X-Mailer: Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63 Encoding: 12 TEXT Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Richard writes: [David Martin] Big SNIP > > >Argh! I know in EBUland the rule is to alert the transfer acceptance, >but that is because the EBU has a simple alert rule. If it's conventional, >alert it. (By the way, are there any exceptions, other than takeout >doubles and Blackwood?) > >[David Martin] In EBUland we do alert Blackwood and even Stayman but not >take out doubles upto 3S when partner has not had the chance to call or has >only passed without showing values. From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 02:20:55 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA09526 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 02:20:55 +1100 Received: from UKCC.uky.edu (ukcc.uky.edu [128.163.1.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA09520 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 02:20:48 +1100 Received: from t2.mscf.uky.edu (128.163.132.102) by UKCC.uky.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with TCP; Thu, 29 Jan 98 10:20:26 EST Received: from t4.mscf.uky.edu by t2.ms.uky.edu id aa23772; 29 Jan 98 10:20 EST Received: (from kuch@localhost) by t4.mscf.uky.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA20563 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:20:16 -0500 (EST) From: John A Kuchenbrod Message-Id: <199801291520.KAA20563@t4.mscf.uky.edu> Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:20:16 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: from "Richard Lighton" at Jan 28, 98 07:40:43 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > I think accusations of "cheating by playing the system" do not conform > to ACBL alerting policy. Call in the ZTFUB cops! :-) > > (That's two undefined acronyms according to my last post. Sorry!) > ACBL = American Contract Bridge League > ZTFUB = Zero Tolerance for unacceptable behavior. Thanks for putting in the explanation. Given the "hidden" meaning of acronyms such as RTFLB and the opinion some people have of Zero Tolerance, I was coming up with some quite creative meanings for ZTFUB.... (OK, this should have been placed on the thread of abbreviation, my apologies) John -- | John A. Kuchenbrod | kuch@ms.uky.edu | http://www.ms.uky.edu/~kuch | | finger kuch@wagner.ms.uky.edu to see when I last checked my mail | From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 02:41:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA09621 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 02:41:08 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA09616 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 02:41:01 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id KAA15066 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:41:07 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id KAA05049; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:41:12 -0500 Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:41:12 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801291541.KAA05049@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Sensible Random Number Generators X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Martin Kretschmar > A "sensible" RNG should have AT LEAST roughly the equivalent of 68 decimal > digits in bits, which calculates to: [226] As others have pointed out, 96 bits are sufficient to represent all possible bridge hands. Moreover, not all 96 bits have to be generated in a single iteration of the (pseudo)-RNG. The key points are: 1. Make sure your seed is unique, or use a hardware true RNG. 2. Make sure, given a proper seed, your algorithm generates all possible hands with equal probability. (In practice, it may be adequate to generate only a fraction of possible hands, but why settle for that?) These are simple principles, and it is straightforward software engineering (requiring skill, of course, but nothing extraordinary) to apply them in practice. Why have so many organizations failed to apply them? Did they simply underestimate the skill required? From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 02:53:28 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA09679 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 02:53:28 +1100 Received: from Amnesix.UQSS.UQuebec.ca (Amnesix.UQSS.UQuebec.CA [192.77.51.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA09674 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 02:53:23 +1100 Received: from ldubreui.uqss.uquebec.ca by Amnesix.UQSS.UQuebec.ca with SMTP (1.37.109.24/15.6) id AA221218962; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:49:22 -0500 Message-Id: <34D0A6B2.3560@UQSS.UQuebec.CA> Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:56:34 -0500 From: Laval Dubreuil X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold [fr] (Win95; I) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Strong club. Alert every thing? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk "David Stevenson writes of Precision players facing: "<< frequent accusations of " cheating by playing that system " >> As I wrote in a previous message I played a Polish forcing but not necessarily strong 1C opening in the ACBL land (clubs and tournaments). Despite the fact that I prealerted and alerted almost every thing (even 1M as 12-17) I always got a bad feeling from many oppns (a kind of suspicion of cheating). In tournaments, the director was called frequently at my table. I had to explain a lot of things and argue that my system was legal (sometimes I had to use a letter from ACBL I always kept in my pocket...). Most players using this system in Quebec city (5 or 6) have moved to "standard" because of this. Laval Du Breuil Quebec city From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 03:25:07 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA09886 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 03:25:07 +1100 Received: from Amnesix.UQSS.UQuebec.ca (Amnesix.UQSS.UQuebec.CA [192.77.51.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA09880 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 03:24:58 +1100 Received: from ldubreui.uqss.uquebec.ca by Amnesix.UQSS.UQuebec.ca with SMTP (1.37.109.24/15.6) id AA237230968; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:22:48 -0500 Message-Id: <34D0AE8A.2665@UQSS.UQuebec.CA> Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:30:02 -0500 From: Laval Dubreuil X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold [fr] (Win95; I) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Law 27-B2: conventionnal insufficiant bid Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk New formulation of Law 27-B2 is clear: If either the insufficient bid or the lowest sufficient bid in the same denomination may have been conventional the offender's partner must pass whenever it is his turn to call. My question is about equity of this law. The biddind was: 2N - P - 2H! (good players playing transfers) The director was called and ruled correctly that this conventional bid may be corrected by any legal call (after RHO did not accepted the bid), and the opener must pass for the rest of the auction. With only five weakish cards in S, the offender had to choose between 3N and 4S and made the bad choice (3N), opener having 3 cards in S. I do not see how this rule restore equity. It is evident that the responder wished to make a transfer to 3S when biddind 2H. What should be the advantage of "trying" an insufficient bid? As the insufficient 2H and the correct 3H have the same "meaning" and give no UI to opener, why obliging opener to pass for the rest of the auction? This lapsus gave a free top to oppns. Laval Du Breuil Quebec City From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 04:01:50 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA09996 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 04:01:50 +1100 Received: from u1.farm.idt.net (lighton@u1.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.10]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA09991 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 04:01:43 +1100 Received: from localhost (lighton@localhost) by u1.farm.idt.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA29828 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:01:37 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:01:37 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Lighton X-Sender: lighton@u1.farm.idt.net To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Subject: Re: Strong club. Alert every thing? In-Reply-To: <34D0A6B2.3560@UQSS.UQuebec.CA> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Thu, 29 Jan 1998, Laval Dubreuil wrote: > "David Stevenson writes of Precision players facing: > "<< frequent accusations of " cheating by playing that system " >> > > As I wrote in a previous message I played a Polish forcing but not > necessarily strong 1C opening in the ACBL land (clubs and tournaments). > Despite the fact that I prealerted and alerted almost every thing (even > 1M as 12-17) I always got a bad feeling from many oppns (a kind of > suspicion of cheating). As another user of weird stuff, I have not quite found that. Occasionally, I run into "Of course, you only play that because opponents don't understand it." (I once had an opponent object in that way because we had a long sequence with multiple alerts, everything explained as we went. Opponents then had four bidding misunderstandings in "Standard" American on the next four boards.) > In tournaments, the director was called > frequently at my table. I had to explain a lot of things and argue that > my system was legal (sometimes I had to use a letter from ACBL I always > kept in my pocket...). I expect a director call "Is this legal?" about once per weekend tournament. Most of the local directors know us well enough by now and can say "Yes" without seriously looking at the convention card. I would say 25% of such calls border on the uncivil. Most are genuinely concerned that we don't know the General Convention Chart. > Most players using this system in Quebec city (5 > or 6) have moved to "standard" because of this. A pity. I have found that the more we play our system, the more it is accepted. Familiarity helps. (Did I hear someone say "breeds contempt" out there?) We once had a preemptive director call in a Swiss teams. As we started our second match of the event, a director came up and asked to see our convention card, and I know it wasn't our previous or current opponents who called for the investigation. The director later refused to reveal the source of the inquiry. -- Richard Lighton (lighton@idt.net) Wood-Ridge NJ USA From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 04:27:46 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA10183 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 04:27:46 +1100 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 EAA10178 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 04:27:36 +1100 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa21576; 29 Jan 98 9:26 PST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Law 27-B2: conventionnal insufficiant bid In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:30:02 PST." <34D0AE8A.2665@UQSS.UQuebec.CA> Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 09:26:51 PST From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9801290927.aa21576@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > New formulation of Law 27-B2 is clear: > > If either the insufficient bid or the lowest sufficient bid > in the same denomination may have been conventional the > offender's partner must pass whenever it is his turn to call. > > My question is about equity of this law. > > The biddind was: 2N - P - 2H! (good players playing transfers) > > The director was called and ruled correctly that this conventional bid > may be corrected by any legal call (after RHO did not accepted the bid), > and the opener must pass for the rest of the auction. With only five > weakish cards in S, the offender had to choose between 3N and 4S and > made the bad choice (3N), opener having 3 cards in S. > > I do not see how this rule restore equity. It is evident that the > responder wished to make a transfer to 3S when biddind 2H. What should > be the advantage of "trying" an insufficient bid? As the insufficient 2H > and the correct 3H have the same "meaning" and give no UI to opener, why > obliging opener to pass for the rest of the auction? This lapsus gave a > free top to oppns. Big deal. Most of *my* lapses give free tops to the opponents. Things like forgetting to make safety plays, forgetting to completely count out the hand, forgetting to take my partner off an endplay, embarking on a line of play without making sure I have enough entries to pull it off, etc. So when someone gets a bottom because they don't follow one of the basic rules they should have learned the first week they learned the game---thou shalt raise the level of bidding and not lower it---I can't muster up any sympathy for them. Equity? You screw up, it costs you. Sounds equitable to me. Really, if you forget to pay attention to what's going on and you get a bad result because of that, you're not supposed to blame the Laws for the bad result. You're supposed to blame your partner. :) -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 04:56:45 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA10290 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 04:56:45 +1100 Received: from sand.global.net.uk (root@sand.global.net.uk [194.126.82.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA10285 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 04:56:33 +1100 Received: from default (client8715.globalnet.co.uk [194.126.87.21]) by sand.global.net.uk (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id RAA27803; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 17:56:12 GMT From: "Grattan Endicott" To: "Richard Lighton" , "Bridge Laws Mailing List" Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:30:16 -0000 Message-ID: <01bd2cca$ccb0d9c0$LocalHost@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk gester@globalnet.co.uk Grattan Endicott Liverpool L18 8DJ : -----Original Message----- From: Richard Lighton To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Date: 28 January 1998 00:53 Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio > >On Tue, 2 Jan 1990, Wayne Burrows wrote: > >> > >> >> Perhaps my logic is flawed but I reason as follows: >> >> The bidding procedes: >> >> Opp Me >> >> 1S P >> >> The last named denomination is Spades: >> >> 1. Pass does not necessarily show a willingness to play in spades. It >> just shows an unwillingness to act - partner should not pass out 1S >> because I passed showing willingness to play here. >> >> Therefore according to the definition a call of pass, as played by most >> bridge players, in this auction is a convention because it does not >> fulfil the criteria to be not a convention. >>> \X/ various excisions \X/ Richard Lighton: >If you pass one spade you have said that you are content if the >auction now proceeds pass-pass > #### Unless Pass is conventional as defined in Law 30 it must be assumed that at the time it is made the player is willing to play there if there are no further developments. The player has done nothing to get away from that contract. It shows a *willingness* to play there; of course, the player may have a *desire* to play there doubled or to hear further action by partner or opponent so do not confuse what he wants with what he is willing to do. But, Richard, be tolerant of the less informed or less technically minded who have pleasure in joining this list and hopefully gaining something from it #### Grattan #### From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 05:14:08 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA10343 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 05:14:08 +1100 Received: from ligarius-fe0.ultra.net (ligarius-fe0.ultra.net [146.115.8.189]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA10338 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 05:14:02 +1100 Received: from www.azure-tech.com (expo108.WAS.primenet.com [209.143.204.108]) by ligarius-fe0.ultra.net (8.8.5/ult.n14767) with SMTP id NAA32347; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 13:13:59 -0500 (EST) From: "richard willey" To: "Bridge Laws Discussion List" , "Eric Landau" Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conv Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 13:13:42 -0500 Message-ID: <01bd2ce1$a18d55e0$6ccc8fd1@www.azure-tech.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk -----Original Message----- From: Eric Landau To: Bridge Laws Discussion List Date: Monday, January 26, 1998 11:05 AM Subject: re: When does a treatment become a conv >>An agreement (implicit or explicit) not to make a weak two-bid with a side >five-card suit refines the set of all hands with 6-12 HCP and six cards in >the bid suit by explicitly excluding a subset. An agreement that an >opening two-bid shows 6-12 HCP and 6-5 distribution, with the six in the >bid suit, similary refines the set of all hands with 6-12 HCP and six cards >in the bid suit by explicitly excluding a subset. Nevertheless, I would >call the latter a convention, the former not. Whether or not one agrees >with me about that particular case, I think all would agree that there has >to be a line that can be drawn somewhere. I'm in complete agreement with Eric on this one. A 2H bid which denies a void should not be a convention. A 2H bid which promises a second suit at least five cards in length seems like it should be a convention. However, the definition of "conventional" does not seem adequate to distinquish between these two cases. Much like pornography, we still don't have a working definition of "convention" although we apparantly know a conventional bid when we see one. Given the checkered history of the ACBL with regards to convention restrictions, I'd prefer a less ambiguous definition. Richard From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 05:16:41 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA10362 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 05:16:41 +1100 Received: from imo14.mx.aol.com (imo14.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.169]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA10357 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 05:16:35 +1100 From: KRAllison@aol.com Received: from KRAllison@aol.com by imo14.mx.aol.com (IMOv12/Dec1997) id HMZFa24555; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 13:15:42 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <80e8d203.34d0c750@aol.com> Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 13:15:42 EST To: Laval_Dubreuil@UQSS.UQuebec.CA, bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: Law 27-B2: conventionnal insufficiant bid Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 for Windows 95 sub 64 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Laval du Breuil writes, << It is evident that the responder wished to make a transfer to 3S when biddind 2H. What should be the advantage of "trying" an insufficient bid? As the insufficient 2H and the correct 3H have the same "meaning" and give no UI to opener, why obliging opener to pass for the rest of the auction? This lapsus gave a free top to oppns. >> And suppose he had intended to open 2h and just looked up after he bid it and noticed his partner's 2nt bid? Karen From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 06:51:51 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA10746 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 06:51:51 +1100 Received: from chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (root@[141.211.60.224]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA10740 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 06:51:45 +1100 Received: from yunt.math.lsa.umich.edu (grabiner@yunt.math.lsa.umich.edu [141.211.60.210]) by chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA19608 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:42:39 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:51:34 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801291951.OAA18662@yunt.math.lsa.umich.edu> From: David Grabiner To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-reply-to: (fsgrb@aurora.alaska.edu) Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Gordon Bower writes: > On the next board, RHO opened 1S (11-15) and LHO made a "preemptive" raise > to 4S holding 12 HCP and a singleton. RHO indicated this was a normal > holding for this call in their system. Both RHO and the director laughed > at me when I protested the failure to alert (which nearly induced me to > double, expecting a much weaker dummy). I have seen in print -- I forget > where, though -- that 1M-P-4M in Acol and Precision are both alertable in > ACBLand because they can be so much stronger in high cards than standard. One problem with alerting this sequence is that weak players have no idea 1S-4S as a weak preempt is standard. Half the time that a club or Flight B player bids 1S-4S, dummy comes down with a balanced 13 count. The alert is needed, as this is a serious UI situation if you ask and then pass (because you considered competing to 5D over a preempt but expect to go for 800 against a strong balanced hand). However, it isn't given when it is needed. -- David Grabiner, grabiner@math.lsa.umich.edu http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~grabiner 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 Jan 30 06:55:21 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA10806 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 06:55:21 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA10798 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 06:55:04 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1018441; 29 Jan 98 19:02 GMT Message-ID: Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 21:16:39 +0000 To: Eric Landau Cc: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Labeo Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980126134059.00692dbc@pop.cais.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <3.0.1.32.19980126134059.00692dbc@pop.cais.com>, Eric Landau writes >At 08:40 PM 1/25/98 +0000, Labeo wrote: > >>Yes, indeed, quite scandalous; we elect these people to run the game >>and in no time they are telling us how it is going to be played. > >We elect these people to run the game according to its laws, not to make up >their own laws and run the game according to those. etc..... > And where (Law 93C) those elected people are the final arbiters of the application of the laws the solution is to change them at the following election (if enough people agree)? -- Labeo From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 07:02:38 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA10880 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 07:02:38 +1100 Received: from pimaia2w.prodigy.com (pimaia2w.prodigy.com [198.83.19.115]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA10874 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 07:02:30 +1100 Received: from mime2.prodigy.com (mime2.prodigy.com [192.168.253.26]) by pimaia2w.prodigy.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA60528 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:02:26 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by mime2.prodigy.com (8.6.10/8.6.9) id PAB23868 for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:00:55 -0500 Message-Id: <199801292000.PAB23868@mime2.prodigy.com> X-Mailer: Prodigy Internet GW(v0.9beta) - ae01dm04sc03 From: DMFV47B@prodigy.com ( CHYAH E BURGHARD) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:00:55, -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Strong club: Alert everything? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk No alert is required for the 2NT rebid after a strong 1C opening that is natural and strength showing. No alert is required for major suit openings which will have an upper HCP limit due to being played in conjunction with a strong club opening. -ACBL Tournament Department ======================================================== Gordon Bower wrote >And the next month,the ACBL bulletin published a statement specifically stating that 1minor-pass-1major promising 4+ cards and forcing one round was not alertable, but that the Precision 1C-P-1H _was_ alertable because it promised 5+. So far as I know this policy has not changed.< I checked into this too. After 1C strong, if a suit bid shows 4 or more cards, there is no alert, but if they show 5 or more cards in the suit, then there is an alert. ========================================================= -Chyah Burghard, ACBL Web Administrator From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 07:52:10 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA11072 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 07:52:10 +1100 Received: from chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (root@[141.211.60.224]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA11067 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 07:51:48 +1100 Received: from yunt.math.lsa.umich.edu (grabiner@yunt.math.lsa.umich.edu [141.211.60.210]) by chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA20872 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:42:38 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:51:33 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801292051.PAA20072@yunt.math.lsa.umich.edu> From: David Grabiner To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Adjustment based on assumption that opponent is actively ethical? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This came from a club game, but I'd be interested in the issues at a higher level. North dealer, E-W vul, matchpoints North holds Q9xx Txx KQ9x Jx W N E S P 1C P(10-second agreed hesitation) 1H P 2H P P X P 3D P P X P P P Result: 3Dx made 5, +670 to N-S. 2H by E-W would have made. (As a minor question, how would you rule on this?) The director was called at the end of the hand. He ruled that North's double was allowed to stand but that East's double could be withdrawn, adjusting the score to +150 for N-S. This seems to be the wrong compromise ruling; I could see a compromise ruling the other way, -110 for N-S, but -670 for E-W who deserved the penalty for their own double (or better, +110, minus the matchpoint difference between -150 and -670), but this wouldn't make for a pleasant ruling at the club. The director made this ruling without any discussion from the players of possible actions. There was a bit of friendly discussion at the table but neither side appealed. West said that he would have competed to 3H, but he assumed that the double opposite a hesitating partner was based on a strong hand and that 3H would go for -200. Withdrawing East's double seems to have no basis on the actual hand, since if North is expected to have a strong hand, this makes doubling 3D less attractive. I don't think West's claim is valid either on this hand (North can't have much more or he would have opened as dealer or doubled 1H), but could it be valid in general? That is, could a director rule that West was damaged by the assumption that North was being actively ethical? -- David Grabiner, grabiner@math.lsa.umich.edu http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~grabiner 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 Jan 30 10:32:28 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA11745 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 10:32:28 +1100 Received: from camel7.mindspring.com (camel7.mindspring.com [207.69.200.57]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA11739 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 10:32:20 +1100 Received: from mike ([38.30.134.187]) by camel7.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA24483 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 18:32:13 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980129183213.006d83a0@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 18:32:13 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: Adjustment based on assumption that opponent is actively ethical? In-Reply-To: <199801292051.PAA20072@yunt.math.lsa.umich.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 03:51 PM 1/29/98 -0500, David G wrote: This came from a club game, but I'd be interested in the issues at a >higher level. > If North is a weak player, then passing over 2H is a LA, at least by the ACBL's absurdly broad definition. Also, for a weak player, the hesitation reasonably suggests values in partner's hand, which presumably makes bidding a little safer than it would be otherwise. But if North is reasonable, then IMO pass is not a LA, even in the ACBL. That is, the double in this situation is virtually automatic, as the auction marks partner with at least a 10-count or so. Assuming North to be a poor player, for the sake of argument (otherwise, result stands), the result is rolled back to EW +110. The only other possibility is if I judged either the double of 3D or the defense to have been "egregiously bad", then a split score of NS -110, EW -670 might be possible. The actual ruling has no basis in law. If passing is a LA (and in general I think it is not), then I have to award the score corresponding to the most likely result at 2H, which by assumption is making. If passing is not an LA, then there is no infraction, and no basis for any score adjustment. I would also be inclined to give a stern warning to the EW players to bid and play their own hands, and not try for a double shot when there is a hesitation by opponents. The argument by West that he assumed a stronger hand by the partner of the hesitator is doubly without merit. As a matter of law, it is quite irrelevant, even if valid, and as a matter of bridge logic, it fails because the actual distribution of HCP between the opponents is not dispositive in making such a judgement. They have whatever your side is missing-- if North had been a King stronger then South would have been weaker by the same King, and there's no particular reason to assume that that difference would have made either 3H or 3D more or less likely to succeed. That is in fact the basis upon which North's double should be automatic by any but the poorest of players. Mike Dennis >North dealer, E-W vul, matchpoints >North holds Q9xx Txx KQ9x Jx > >W N E S > P 1C P(10-second agreed hesitation) >1H P 2H P >P X P 3D >P P X P >P P > >Result: 3Dx made 5, +670 to N-S. 2H by E-W would have made. > >(As a minor question, how would you rule on this?) > >The director was called at the end of the hand. He ruled that North's >double was allowed to stand but that East's double could be withdrawn, >adjusting the score to +150 for N-S. This seems to be the wrong >compromise ruling; I could see a compromise ruling the other way, -110 >for N-S, but -670 for E-W who deserved the penalty for their own double >(or better, +110, minus the matchpoint difference between -150 and >-670), but this wouldn't make for a pleasant ruling at the club. > >The director made this ruling without any discussion from the players of >possible actions. There was a bit of friendly discussion at the table >but neither side appealed. West said that he would have competed to 3H, >but he assumed that the double opposite a hesitating partner was based >on a strong hand and that 3H would go for -200. > >Withdrawing East's double seems to have no basis on the actual hand, >since if North is expected to have a strong hand, this makes doubling 3D >less attractive. > >I don't think West's claim is valid either on this hand (North can't >have much more or he would have opened as dealer or doubled 1H), but >could it be valid in general? That is, could a director rule that West >was damaged by the assumption that North was being actively ethical? > >-- >David Grabiner, grabiner@math.lsa.umich.edu >http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~grabiner >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 Jan 30 10:40:25 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA11767 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 10:40:25 +1100 Received: from camel7.mindspring.com (camel7.mindspring.com [207.69.200.57]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA11762 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 10:40:20 +1100 Received: from mike ([38.30.134.187]) by camel7.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA27476 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 18:40:14 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980129184016.006b7be0@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 18:40:16 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: Sensible Random Number Generators In-Reply-To: <199801291541.KAA05049@cfa183.harvard.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 10:41 AM 1/29/98 -0500, you wrote: >> From: Martin Kretschmar >> A "sensible" RNG should have AT LEAST roughly the equivalent of 68 decimal >> digits in bits, which calculates to: [226] > >As others have pointed out, 96 bits are sufficient to represent all >possible bridge hands. Moreover, not all 96 bits have to be generated >in a single iteration of the (pseudo)-RNG. > >The key points are: >1. Make sure your seed is unique, or use a hardware true RNG. >2. Make sure, given a proper seed, your algorithm generates all >possible hands with equal probability. (In practice, it may be >adequate to generate only a fraction of possible hands, but why settle >for that?) > >These are simple principles, and it is straightforward software >engineering (requiring skill, of course, but nothing extraordinary) to >apply them in practice. Why have so many organizations failed to apply >them? Did they simply underestimate the skill required? > Because most bridge administrators are not mathematicians, and have no basis either to comprehend the meaning of the principles or to determine whether a particular software package implements them. Thus a hand generating program will be judged by its cost and feature set, and the users are left with the presumption (generally incorrect) that it will not present them with any of these problems. Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 11:37:27 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA12029 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 11:37:27 +1100 Received: from isa.dknet.dk (root@isa.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA12023 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 11:37:17 +1100 Received: from default (cph45.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.45]) by isa.dknet.dk (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA11435 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 01:36:47 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199801300036.BAA11435@isa.dknet.dk> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Jens & Bodil" Organization: Alesia Software To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 01:36:21 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Sensible Random Number Generators Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42a) Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve Willner wrote > > As others have pointed out, 96 bits are sufficient to represent all > possible bridge hands. Moreover, not all 96 bits have to be generated > in a single iteration of the (pseudo)-RNG. > > The key points are: > 1. Make sure your seed is unique, or use a hardware true RNG. > 2. Make sure, given a proper seed, your algorithm generates all > possible hands with equal probability. (In practice, it may be > adequate to generate only a fraction of possible hands, but why settle > for that?) > > These are simple principles, and it is straightforward software > engineering (requiring skill, of course, but nothing extraordinary) to > apply them in practice. Why have so many organizations failed to apply > them? Did they simply underestimate the skill required? The DBF (Denmark) did not fulfill Steve's requirement (2) above. I did the work, and I am both a mathematician and a software engineer, and certainly as skilled as anyone you would assign to the task. I happen to think that requirement (2) is a red herring. (This might be a good time to stop reading if you don't really care about stuff like this.) A: Software like this is in the business of generating _sequences_ of boards, say up to 40 boards per sequence. With real random dealing, each such sequence would be equally probable. The number of such sequences is fairly big - it requires around 3800 bits to represent. Like requirement (2), it could be required that all such sequences are equally probable, but that would require the capability of generating random numbers on a cycle of this size. So we settle for just a small fraction of these, namely 2**48 of them (or possibly fewer, if it turns out that our random number generator is not fully cyclical; it was challenged on r.g.b earlier this week). B: A random number generator that fulfills requirement (2) needs to be able to generate at least 2**96 distinct values. If it is a conventional linear congruential type generator, it really needs to be at least 96 bits wide; otherwise it won't generate enough separate outcomes. You don't achieve this requirement by just concatenating several numbers from a narrower generator. (A) can be taken as a hint that (2) is arbitrary, and (B) illustrates that fulfilling (2) requires some real work. Software engineers are lazy per definition... So, instead of (2), we offer: (3) The sequences of boards generated should be generated in such a way that combinatorically predictable statistics of interest to a bridge player collected from the output of the software do not deviate significantly from their theoretical values. This is accomplished by ensuring that a vast number of different sequences can be generated in a statistically osund manner. Even though we can prove that the software we use can generate only a vanishingly small fraction of all possible boards, no one is able to predict just what those boards are, and so far, whenever someone has defined a category of boards of interest to them, there has been acceptable statistical behavior with respect to those categories. In other words, if I didn't tell you about it, I think that nothing short of hard cryptanalysis would make it possible to divulge from the record of boards generated during the past 7 years that only a very small subset of all possible boards can be generated. Now, to back off from my defensive attitude, let me add that the debate here and on r.g.b. for the past week has convinced me that my users (i.e. the players), including the mathematicians among them, perceive (2) as "quality". The customer is always right. So I am going to include a "shuffle the deck independently before we go" function based on an external entropy source in my next release. David Grabiner has taught me how to use the keyboard operator as a source of entropy for this purpose. I might be able to publish my software once it gets this addition, since the users then could get ample protection that they are not generating the same hands as they are in the next town. -- Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 11:38:09 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA12046 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 11:38:09 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA12040 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 11:38:03 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2026250; 30 Jan 98 0:29 GMT Message-ID: <3s1MHxA0rR00Ew98@probst.demon.co.uk> Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 00:12:36 +0000 To: Laval Dubreuil Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: Law 27-B2: conventionnal insufficiant bid In-Reply-To: <34D0AE8A.2665@UQSS.UQuebec.CA> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <34D0AE8A.2665@UQSS.UQuebec.CA>, Laval Dubreuil writes >New formulation of Law 27-B2 is clear: > > If either the insufficient bid or the lowest sufficient bid >in the same denomination may have been conventional the >offender's partner must pass whenever it is his turn to call. > >My question is about equity of this law. > >The biddind was: 2N - P - 2H! (good players playing transfers) > >The director was called and ruled correctly that this conventional bid >may be corrected by any legal call (after RHO did not accepted the bid), >and the opener must pass for the rest of the auction. With only five >weakish cards in S, the offender had to choose between 3N and 4S and >made the bad choice (3N), opener having 3 cards in S. > >I do not see how this rule restore equity. It is evident that the >responder wished to make a transfer to 3S when biddind 2H. What should >be the advantage of "trying" an insufficient bid? As the insufficient 2H >and the correct 3H have the same "meaning" and give no UI to opener, why >obliging opener to pass for the rest of the auction? This lapsus gave a >free top to oppns. > >Laval Du Breuil >Quebec City Sometimes the law is an ass Cheers John -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 11:54:48 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA12113 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 11:54:48 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA12108 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 11:54:42 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2028951; 30 Jan 98 0:50 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 00:43:35 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Adjustment based on assumption that opponent is actively ethical? In-Reply-To: <199801292051.PAA20072@yunt.math.lsa.umich.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Grabiner wrote: > >This came from a club game, but I'd be interested in the issues at a >higher level. > >North dealer, E-W vul, matchpoints >North holds Q9xx Txx KQ9x Jx > >W N E S > P 1C P(10-second agreed hesitation) >1H P 2H P >P X P 3D >P P X P >P P > >Result: 3Dx made 5, +670 to N-S. 2H by E-W would have made. > >(As a minor question, how would you rule on this?) N/S -110, E/W +110. >The director was called at the end of the hand. He ruled that North's >double was allowed to stand but that East's double could be withdrawn, >adjusting the score to +150 for N-S. This seems to be the wrong >compromise ruling; I could see a compromise ruling the other way, -110 >for N-S, but -670 for E-W who deserved the penalty for their own double >(or better, +110, minus the matchpoint difference between -150 and >-670), but this wouldn't make for a pleasant ruling at the club. > >The director made this ruling without any discussion from the players of >possible actions. There was a bit of friendly discussion at the table >but neither side appealed. West said that he would have competed to 3H, >but he assumed that the double opposite a hesitating partner was based >on a strong hand and that 3H would go for -200. > >Withdrawing East's double seems to have no basis on the actual hand, >since if North is expected to have a strong hand, this makes doubling 3D >less attractive. > >I don't think West's claim is valid either on this hand (North can't >have much more or he would have opened as dealer or doubled 1H), but >could it be valid in general? That is, could a director rule that West >was damaged by the assumption that North was being actively ethical? It feels like a NAmerican situation. Pass by N is an LA [surely in NAmerica: some club player will consider passing with a balanced 8-count!] so the ruling is +110: WTP? I am interested in your "pleasant ruling at the club" approach: people can usually persuaded that they deserve a bad score because they hesitate, but persuading people that they deserve a bad score because their opponents hesitate! The answer to your question is clearly Yes: players have a right to assume that their opponents will act ethically, and have a right for TDs and ACs to take that into consideration. However, if you want bridge in NAmerica to be enjoyed then it is time you discouraged this type of ruling, especially in clubs, that requires NOs to prove it was not their fault. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\ /\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk @ @ bridge@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB =( + )= Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB ~ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 12:01:05 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA12141 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:01:05 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA12134 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:00:57 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA27495 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 17:00:51 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id RAA02247; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 17:03:36 -0800 Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 17:03:36 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801300103.RAA02247@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Adjustment based on assumption that opponent is actively ethical? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >From David Grabiner: |This came from a club game, but I'd be interested in the issues at a |higher level. | |North dealer, E-W vul, matchpoints |North holds Q9xx Txx KQ9x Jx | |W N E S | P 1C P(10-second agreed hesitation) |1H P 2H P |P X P 3D |P P X P |P P | |Result: 3Dx made 5, +670 to N-S. 2H by E-W would have made. | |(As a minor question, how would you rule on this?) | |The director was called at the end of the hand. He ruled that North's |double was allowed to stand but that East's double could be withdrawn, |adjusting the score to +150 for N-S. This seems to be the wrong |compromise ruling; I could see a compromise ruling the other way, -110 |for N-S, but -670 for E-W who deserved the penalty for their own double |(or better, +110, minus the matchpoint difference between -150 and |-670), but this wouldn't make for a pleasant ruling at the club. | |The director made this ruling without any discussion from the players of |possible actions. There was a bit of friendly discussion at the table |but neither side appealed. West said that he would have competed to 3H, |but he assumed that the double opposite a hesitating partner was based |on a strong hand and that 3H would go for -200. | |Withdrawing East's double seems to have no basis on the actual hand, |since if North is expected to have a strong hand, this makes doubling 3D |less attractive. | |I don't think West's claim is valid either on this hand (North can't |have much more or he would have opened as dealer or doubled 1H), but |could it be valid in general? That is, could a director rule that West |was damaged by the assumption that North was being actively ethical? I'd guess that the ruling depends strongly on the level of the players. An average club pair will sell to 2H more often then not; this hand wouldn't balance all that often. At an expert level, passing 2H isn't a logical alternative at matchpoints. I know many experts who *never* let the opponents play 2H when they are known to have a fit. One of my partners once balanced after a 1S-2S auction with 5332 (exactly) shape. No kidding. Believe it or not, we landed on our feet. This partner is one of the best players in California. I still think he was nuts :) I don't understand either East's or West's claims. The strength of the hand is mostly irrelevant in the balancing seat; anything you don't have, partner does. All that double shows is 3 or 4 spades. On the other hand, let's imagine that the doubler had a zero-count. Since partner didn't bid the first time, there's good reason to believe that the opponents are too low; partner was supposed to have 17-21 HCP, and it's really unlikely that he was silent thus far with that. In that case, the hesitation might have induced the balance, (but I think it'd still be an error. Yes, because of partner's hesitation, you have some reason to believe that they aren't missing game, but you are still outgunned). This is, however, an extreme case. Anyway, I don't see why the director ruled as he did other than having no clue. One doesn't get the option to double someone and take it back if they have committed no infraction. If they have, then the score gets rolled back to 2H. No, East was simply perpetrating the old double-shot, and he got away with it. He figured that most likely there was an infraction, in which case he wanted to get the maximum: a juicy penalty if the double was wrong, and the score rolled back to 2H if he was right. He's allowed to do this as long as the SO's rules don't allow the chain of causality between the infraction and his bad score to be broken by his action. A close matchpoint double of a partscore in a competitive auction is unlikely to qualify, even in the US. So, if he was confident that there was an infraction, the double has almost nothing to lose and could gain a lot. But if there was no infraction, he has to eat that double if they make it. Still, it probably had pretty good odds: either the first double would be disallowed or 3D was going down---two ways to win. Double was probably a good matchpoint action. Not this time. OK, onto the real question: "could a director rule that West was damaged by the assumption that North was being actively ethical?" No. You assume that someone with UI has their bid and play accordingly. If it turns out that they don't, you get an adjusted score. If it turns out that they do, if you did something abnormal, you live with it. If you assume that they will take actions that are not logical alternatives and base your actions on that, you have the option of making doubles like this---if you know your customers, you'll get pretty good odds. If you know and can intimidate the director, you'll get great odds. You will, however, get no sympathy from me, and if you try to talk your way around it, you'll probably get a nasty glare. Or maybe I'll just explain to everyone what you were trying to do. Nah...you might not come back to my club due to the embarrassment. :) --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 12:26:04 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA12207 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:26:04 +1100 Received: from pimaia2w.prodigy.com (pimaia2w.prodigy.com [198.83.19.115]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA12202 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:25:55 +1100 Received: from mime2.prodigy.com (mime2.prodigy.com [192.168.253.26]) by pimaia2w.prodigy.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA80620 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 20:25:25 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by mime2.prodigy.com (8.6.10/8.6.9) id UAA24496 for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 20:23:44 -0500 Message-Id: <199801300123.UAA24496@mime2.prodigy.com> X-Mailer: Prodigy Internet GW(v0.9beta) - ae01dm04sc03 From: DMFV47B@prodigy.com ( CHYAH E BURGHARD) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 20:23:44, -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Law 27-B2 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Subject: Law 27-B2 -Reply There is no change from the old laws in the insufficient auction you have submitted. The insufficient bid of 2H in response to a 1NT opening would have been conventional, thus the same penalty would have been applied. A pair could be employing different methods over 1 and 2 NT openings and correcting the bid in the same suit would not carry the same meaning. While the intent of the Laws is to restore equity, there are some cases where it is felt best that a proscribed penalty be assesed rather than leaving it up to the director to determine what to apply from numerous possibilities. -ACBL Tournament Department ======================================== Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:30:02 -0500 From: Laval Dubreuil To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Law 27-B2: conventionnal insufficiant bid New formulation of Law 27-B2 is clear: If either the insufficient bid or the lowest sufficient bid in the same denomination may have been conventional the offender's partner must pass whenever it is his turn to call. My question is about equity of this law. The biddind was: 2N - P - 2H! (good players playing transfers) The director was called and ruled correctly that this conventional bid may be corrected by any legal call (after RHO did not accepted the bid), and the opener must pass for the rest of the auction. With only five weakish cards in S, the offender had to choose between 3N and 4S and made the bad choice (3N), opener having 3 cards in S. I do not see how this rule restore equity. It is evident that the responder wished to make a transfer to 3S when biddind 2H. What should be the advantage of "trying" an insufficient bid? As the insufficient 2H and the correct 3H have the same "meaning" and give no UI to opener, why obliging opener to pass for the rest of the auction? This lapsus gave a free top to oppns. Laval Du Breuil Quebec City From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 12:57:14 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA12273 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:57:14 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA12268 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:57:05 +1100 Received: from coruncanius.demon.co.uk ([194.222.115.176]) by post.mail.demon.net id ab1027313; 30 Jan 98 1:33 GMT Message-ID: Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 19:23:39 +0000 To: David Martin Cc: "'bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au'" From: Labeo Subject: Re: Appeal to Insanity and Another Case to Consider! In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.04 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message , David Martin writes >[David Martin] Labeo writes: >> >> >> >>[David Martin] Doesn't the introduction to the Laws indicate whether things >>should generally be penalised or not when it talks about the use of 'may', >>'should', 'shall', 'must', 'should not', 'shall not', 'may not' and 'must >>not'? Yes, these discuss frequency of application but the boundaries in respect of specific circumstances are left to the discretion of the TD. -- Labeo From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 13:26:50 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA12380 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 13:26:50 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA12374 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 13:26:40 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa2005036; 30 Jan 98 2:12 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 01:58:01 +0000 To: Jeff Goldsmith Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: Adjustment based on assumption that opponent is actively ethical? In-Reply-To: <199801300103.RAA02247@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801300103.RAA02247@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV>, Jeff Goldsmith writes >From David Grabiner: > >|This came from a club game, but I'd be interested in the issues at a >|higher level. >| >|North dealer, E-W vul, matchpoints >|North holds Q9xx Txx KQ9x Jx >| >|W N E S >| P 1C P(10-second agreed hesitation) >|1H P 2H P >|P X P 3D >|P P X P >|P P >| >|Result: 3Dx made 5, +670 to N-S. 2H by E-W would have made. >| >|(As a minor question, how would you rule on this?) >| >|The director was called at the end of the hand. He ruled that North's >|double was allowed to stand but that East's double could be withdrawn, >|adjusting the score to +150 for N-S. This seems to be the wrong >|compromise ruling; I could see a compromise ruling the other way, -110 >|for N-S, but -670 for E-W who deserved the penalty for their own double >|(or better, +110, minus the matchpoint difference between -150 and >|-670), but this wouldn't make for a pleasant ruling at the club. >| >|The director made this ruling without any discussion from the players of >|possible actions. There was a bit of friendly discussion at the table >|but neither side appealed. West said that he would have competed to 3H, >|but he assumed that the double opposite a hesitating partner was based >|on a strong hand and that 3H would go for -200. >| >|Withdrawing East's double seems to have no basis on the actual hand, >|since if North is expected to have a strong hand, this makes doubling 3D >|less attractive. >| >|I don't think West's claim is valid either on this hand (North can't >|have much more or he would have opened as dealer or doubled 1H), but >|could it be valid in general? That is, could a director rule that West >|was damaged by the assumption that North was being actively ethical? > >I'd guess that the ruling depends strongly on the level of the >players. snip > All that double shows is 3 or 4 spades. IMO double shows 3S exactly. 2S shows 4. I would have allowed 2S by good players, but don't like the double at all. > -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 16:06:31 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id QAA13159 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 16:06:31 +1100 Received: from chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (root@[141.211.60.224]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA13154 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 16:06:20 +1100 Received: from atreides.math.lsa.umich.edu (grabiner@atreides.math.lsa.umich.edu [141.211.60.12]) by chairfacechippendale.math.lsa.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA25842 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 1998 23:57:10 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 00:01:46 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801300501.AAA20377@atreides.math.lsa.umich.edu> From: David Grabiner To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-reply-to: <199801300103.RAA02247@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> (jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV) Subject: Re: Adjustment based on assumption that opponent is actively ethical? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jeff Goldsmith writes: > David Grabiner writes: > |This came from a club game, but I'd be interested in the issues at a > |higher level. > |North dealer, E-W vul, matchpoints > |North holds Q9xx Txx KQ9x Jx > |W N E S > | P 1C P(10-second agreed hesitation) > |1H P 2H P > |P X P 3D > |P P X P > |P P > | > |Result: 3Dx made 5, +670 to N-S. 2H by E-W would have made. > |(Director's ruling: 2H stands but double is withdrawn, +150 to N-S). > I'd guess that the ruling depends strongly on the level of the > players. An average club pair will sell to 2H more often then > not; this hand wouldn't balance all that often. At an expert > level, passing 2H isn't a logical alternative at matchpoints. I was North, and that was my reasoning. I didn't need partner's hesitation to tell me that he had 10-12 HCP and short hearts opposite my Txx, and thus that 2S or 3D was likely to be -100, -50, or +110 against -110 or -140. Active Ethics is a good principle, but it doesn't force me to stop playing bridge. > I don't understand either East's or West's claims. The strength > of the hand is mostly irrelevant in the balancing seat; anything you > don't have, partner does. All that double shows is 3 or 4 spades. The director made the ruling without hearing any claim from the opponents, other than that I had made a light balancing double opposite a hesitating partner. East's claim that he wouldn't have doubled was made privately to me in some post-hand discussion. However, it doesn't make any sense. > Anyway, I don't see why the director ruled as he did other > than having no clue. One doesn't get the option to double > someone and take it back if they have committed no infraction. > If they have, then the score gets rolled back to 2H. No, East > was simply perpetrating the old double-shot, and he got away > with it. The +150 was part of the reason that he got away with this. At the club, +150 was going to be a good score because other pairs wouldn't balance, would push the opponents to 3H for +100, or would face better defense. On appeal, I could have lost the +150 trying to get back my +670. I might have appealed -110, and E-W might have appealed -670. The director was trying to split the baby, and he split it wrong. (The other part of the reason was that this was a club game, which is less formal by nature and which has less in bridge at stake and more important real-world concerns.) > [East] figured that most likely there was an infraction, > in which case he wanted to get the maximum: a juicy penalty if > the double was wrong, and the score rolled back to 2H if he > was right. He's allowed to do this as long as the SO's rules > don't allow the chain of causality between the infraction and > his bad score to be broken by his action. A close matchpoint > double of a partscore in a competitive auction is unlikely to > qualify, even in the US. I don't remember the hands, but that's a reasonable decision. > OK, onto the real question: "could a director rule that West > was damaged by the assumption that North was being actively ethical?" > No. You assume that someone with UI has their bid and play > accordingly. If it turns out that they don't, you get an > adjusted score. If it turns out that they do, if you did > something abnormal, you live with it. That's what I would have assumed. I didn't get a chance to ask the director the basis of his ruling before he left; I would say that East can only withdraw his double if he has been misinformed. -- David Grabiner, grabiner@math.lsa.umich.edu http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~grabiner 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 Jan 30 22:33:01 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA14155 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 22:33:01 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id WAA14150 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 22:32:55 +1100 Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1010342; 30 Jan 98 11:16 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 04:11:55 +0000 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Nanki Poo Reply-To: Quango Subject: Re: Rec.games.bridge.cats.bridge-laws In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Bbbrooooooooooowwwwwwwwww !!!!!!!!! Karen Allison Stella, Blanche, Stanley Louis Arnon Dorus, Edna, Evelyn Adam Beneschan Mango David Blizzard Herbie, Mittens Mike Bolster Jess Mary Buckland Neko, Four foot two Hirsch Davis Shadow, Smokey Wally Farley Andrew, Panda, Templeton, Scratcher, Joy Dany Haimovici Shobo, Rosario, Shemaya, Joseph, Hershey Paul & Pat Harrington Dopi, Depo, Bridget John Kuchenbrod Rah-Rey, Leo Irv Kostal Bill, Albert, Cleo, Sabrina Eric Landau Glory, Wesley, Shadow, Query Sue O'Donnell Casey, Yazzer-Cat John Probst Gnipper, Figaro Craig Senior Streak, Shaney, Rascal, Stubby, Precious, Smoke, Scamp, Bandit, Shadow, Smokey Grant Sterling Panther David Stevenson Quango, Nanki Poo plus, of course Selassie Miiiiiiiaaaaaoouuuuwwwwww !!!!!!!!! -- Quango /\_/\ /\ /\ quango@blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= @ @ Nanki Poo ( | | ) =( + )= nankipoo@blakjak.demon.co.uk (_~^ ^~ ~ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Jan 30 22:47:25 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA14214 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 22:47:25 +1100 Received: from sand.global.net.uk (root@sand.global.net.uk [194.126.82.9]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA14209 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 22:47:19 +1100 Received: from default (client870c.globalnet.co.uk [194.126.87.12]) by sand.global.net.uk (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id LAA16757; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 11:47:08 GMT From: "Grattan Endicott" To: "Richard Lighton" , "Bridge Laws Mailing List" Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conv Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 11:46:03 -0000 Message-ID: <01bd2d74$a4b7b100$LocalHost@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk gester@globalnet.co.uk Grattan Endicott Liverpool L18 8DJ : -----Original Message----- From: Richard Lighton To: Bridge Laws Mailing List Date: 23 January 1998 12:27 Subject: RE: When does a treatment become a conv > >> Richard Lighton replied >> >> >I assert that this 2H bid is a treatment, not a convention. \X/ \X/ removed much \X/ \X/ >I claim that the 2H opener promising (exactly?) 6 hearts and no side >suit or void makes no real assertion about any side suit, probably >because knowing that partner is either 331 or 322 in them isn't >very useful information almost all of the time, and is an inference. > >I know Richard is not going to convince me otherwise, and I'm unlikely >to convince him. Would anyone else like a try? :-) #### Obviously it is not my role to 'convince' people - I am concerned to ensure that the law is known. If as a matter of partnership agreement (partnership understanding) a bid makes a statement about denominations other than the one named, whether as the primary purpose of the bid or as a secondary matter, then the law is that such a bid is conventional. There may be players who in certain instances would prefer that the law did not make it so, but their views of what is desirable do not alter the effects of the law. Such statements can be that there is, or as it may be is not, a second suit of four cards or more; that there is/is not a void in the hand; that the hand cannot have an outside K or A (or must have one); all that kind of thing. A Weak Two, as an example, becomes conventional the moment any agreed restriction is laid upon what the remaining content of the hand may be. The chief result of the law is to define what may be regulated under Law 40D , but regulation is at the option of the regulator so that to say 'may' be regulated is not to say 'must' be regulated.[*] The effects were foreseen and intended. Some confusion is being introduced by respondents who itemise cases where the secondary condition is an automatic consequence of the primary meaning of the bid (not added as an especially agreed condition) - six card major cannot have an eight card minor with it - references that are simply mischievous and do not help. ( 'No void' with a weak two is not an automatic condition it is a partnership understanding. Partnerships are not obliged to adopt this exclusion.) [* This in itself is an illusion since there are entirely legitimate ways of restraining even non-conventional actions which the regulator considers highly undesirable, as a fairly recent furore has made plain. In truth the national authority is elected to determine the environment and the conditions in which the game is played and has the right to take whatever steps it may within the law to do this.] #### Grattan #### > From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 31 01:42:43 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA17137 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 01:42:43 +1100 Received: from cais.cais.com (root@cais.cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA17132 for ; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 01:42:36 +1100 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (ppp14.net-A.dc.net [205.252.61.14]) by cais.cais.com (8.8.5/CJKv1.99-CAIS) with SMTP id JAA26702 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 09:28:05 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980130094346.006bfd18@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 09:43:46 -0500 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conventio In-Reply-To: References: <3.0.1.32.19980126134059.00692dbc@pop.cais.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 09:16 PM 1/26/98 +0000, Labeo wrote: >And where (Law 93C) those elected people are the final arbiters >of the application of the laws the solution is to change them >at the following election (if enough people agree)? I think Labeo may be living in a dream world. He certainly isn't living in the ACBL. Here's how it works in the ACBL: (1) ACBL members can vote for members of their unit boards. Even in my unit, which is perhaps the most progressive in the ACBL, the member must show up in person on election night (at a weekly unit game, not at a tournament) to cast a ballot, and only a small minority of relative insiders do so. (In my former unit, the existence of the annual elections were well-kept secrets known only to members of the board and their trusted friends.) Terms of office are staggered, so it would take a number of years/elections (3 in my unit) to turn out a unit board. (2) Members of the unit boards vote for members of the district boards in similarly staggered elections. They invariably (and I don't mean to imply inappropriately) elect from among themselves. (3) Members of the district boards vote for members of the ACBL Board of Directors, ditto. (4) The ACBL BoD elects its own officers and officials. The result of this process is that those near the top level of this power structure are quite firmly entrenched; the ordinary voter has no leverage whatsoever. Even those in the power structure recognize this, and will admit that the only way for an "ordinary" member to help bring about change is to involve themselves directly in ACBL politics -- start by getting active in your unit, take on a lot of volunteer work, eventually run for unit office, etc. Inevitably, however, the process of rising to the elevated heights at which one can really accomplish anything is such a long and drawn-out process that even the most radical reformers who take on the challenge can make it only if they allow themselves to become totally coopted into the power structure. If 95% of the ordinary membership of the ACBL were to decide today to work together to turn out the President of the ACBL, they would find that the system is such that he would have been out of office for over a decade before they could gain sufficient collective power to accomplish their goal. Eric Landau elandau@cais.com APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@acm.org 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 31 02:03:15 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA17372 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 02:03:15 +1100 Received: from brickbat8.mindspring.com (brickbat8.mindspring.com [207.69.200.11]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA17367 for ; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 02:03:10 +1100 Received: from mike (ip73.baltimore10.md.pub-ip.psi.net [38.30.22.73]) by brickbat8.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA06982 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 10:03:04 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980130100306.006c3fcc@pop.mindspring.com> X-Sender: msd@pop.mindspring.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 10:03:06 -0500 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "Michael S. Dennis" Subject: Re: Adjustment based on assumption that opponent is actively ethical? In-Reply-To: References: <199801292051.PAA20072@yunt.math.lsa.umich.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 12:43 AM 1/30/98 +0000, David S wrote: > It feels like a NAmerican situation. Pass by N is an LA [surely in >NAmerica: some club player will consider passing with a balanced >8-count!] so the ruling is +110: WTP? Your comment raises (and implicitly answers) an interesting technical question. In determining the theoretical population of players against which possible LA's are to to be evaluated, why is the venue (in this case a club game) particularly relevant? I would have assumed that the appropriate pool was players of comparable ability, systems, and so forth. Some experts do play at clubs, and it seems absurd to suggest that a particular action would be a LA for an expert player just because the LOL at the next table might consider it. BTW, while I do agree that Pass is a LA in the given problem for a poor player, I do not think it would be seriously considered by a reasonable or good player (say, strong Flt B or better). Mike Dennis From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 31 06:17:12 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA19734 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 06:17:12 +1100 Received: from crypto2.uwaterloo.ca (mfare@crypto2.uwaterloo.ca [129.97.12.34]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA19728 for ; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 06:17:04 +1100 Received: (from mfare@localhost) by crypto2.uwaterloo.ca (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA00943 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 14:16:38 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 14:16:38 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Farebrother Message-Id: <199801301916.OAA00943@crypto2.uwaterloo.ca> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: reasonably or demonstrably? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This is a hand that confused me at the time of ruling (luckily it wasn't important in the score) and has confused me ever since. Qx AKTx Kxx AQJx, KO match, students (but they are either Junior Internationalists or will try next year), all V. RHO You LHO CHO 1NT(1) X -(2) - (1) 10-12; (2) forcing redouble, starts runout XX(3) - 2C(4) - (3) forced (4) two suit runout including clubs 2D(5) - 2S(6) -* (5) other suit? (6) spades - X AP. All numbered bids were alerted or announced. At the time marked (*), CHO asked the explanation of all alerted bids, and received them. The pass came after an acknowledged (by you and CHO, enough to work out all the bids; by opponents, appreciable - about 5-6 seconds or so) pause. At the end of the auction, the director (er, me) was called. I heard, explained, and asked them to call me back at the end of the hand if there was still a problem. Of course, 2Sx-2, +500, and there was a problem. Opponents allege that the pause implied some strength and length in spades, and that the double was influenced by the UI in the pause. I thought that the LA was "reasonably", but not "demonstrably" suggested by the UI, but I wasn't sure, and as I had a bias (I am good friends with the pausing pair, and I believe that their opponents improve their bridge skill through intimidation), I ruled it back to 2S-2 +100 to avoid a long argument, with the suggestion that if there's a problem, I would ask BLML to act as appeal committee. It didn't matter in the end, so I didn't pursue it. But as I said, I've felt uncomfortable about it ever since. How does this group feel? Michael. P.S. For Herman and others - I'm Michael Farebrother (yes, it's a misspelling, but it's my misspelling), I'm a student in Cryptography in ACBL District 2 (Ontario, Canada) and an OK bridge player (rather poor by this group's standards, though) and a learning director (definately inexperienced by this group's standards). I enjoy the laws arguing, and since I tend to agree with what others have said (different others at different times), I don't say much, just listen. Thank you for your interesting discussions though. P.P.S. For Quango and others - I don't have a cat (I'm more of a dog person - big dogs, so I don't have one, living in the city), but there are three living in my house right now - Nikita (female:-) and Sigma (daughter of Omega) who own the previous roommate, who is temporarily without cat-capable dwelling, and Shadow, who my roommates and I hope to convince to stay here once the other two leave. None of them play bridge, but Siggy likes the space between the keyboard and the edge of the table to sit (or on the monitor, with tail hanging down the screen). From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 31 06:25:05 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA19786 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 06:25:05 +1100 Received: from crypto2.uwaterloo.ca (mfare@crypto2.uwaterloo.ca [129.97.12.34]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA19781 for ; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 06:24:57 +1100 Received: (from mfare@localhost) by crypto2.uwaterloo.ca (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA01170 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 14:24:51 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 14:24:51 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Farebrother Message-Id: <199801301924.OAA01170@crypto2.uwaterloo.ca> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: computer generated hands Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk John Probst wrote ("this approach" is seeding the pack before generation): >I think that this approach is the only feasible one, however most randon >number sequences are cyclic, and if the cycle is shorter than the number >of possible hands then you will gets "sets" of hands which will map to >the next successor. There is some math in the area of encryption which >may be of assistance here. Perhaps a Prof of maths in Oxford would like >to assist. > I'm not a prof at maths, but I do know something about random numbers - check the machine name :-). I just have a couple of things to say about this...and it's a bit long. If you're not interested in niggling details, none of which are really relevant to bridge-laws, you might bail out now. 1. Remember that the number of possible hand records is (in the ACBL, anyway) 36*number of possible bridge hands, and that the program should be able to produce any of them with equal* probability (I star equal because we don't want *any* repetition - see below). That works out to an extra 5.x bits of information required in our random number. 2. If the system is truly random (and hardware TRNGs are available, as someone pointed out - I even have the schematics for an "almost" TRNG here, but you have to spend a long time working out the 0/1 dividing line yourself, which the commercial ones should have done for you), there is a 1/~100 quadrillion(US) chance of getting the same hands through sheer blind chance. Yes, I know that's a lot better than we're getting now. Also, it is irrelevant what the starting "pack" state is - in a perfect system, there's an equivalent chance of getting any hand record, and there's a hand record that is a transpositon of any specific hand record for any specific starting order of the pack. 3. We don't really need cryptographically secure RNG anyway - statistically pure PRNGs will do. That is, of course, unless you expect someone to try duplicating the hand generation to get an advantage. Although I expect someone to try that, now that I think about it - it's probably why people are so loath to sell copies of the generator :-) 4. Given PRNGs, once two generators start syncing, for whatever reason, they will continue to. That's also not particularily nice... 5. People have talked about creating unique seeds from time of day, machine numbers and so on. If you do that, it is necessary to ensure that "close" seeds ( ones that differ by 1, 2, or 3 bits) do not produce "close" hand records (hands shifted by one position, one card, suit switches, and so on - like the example brought up last week). 6. What is the chance of a messup after generation? "Most failures in security are not cryptographic failures, but protocol ones." How do we protect against peeking after generation and during transit? How do we protect against accidental (or deliberate, as in "ah no-one will be here that was in Kingston, Canada last June") reuse of records? I am very likely to believe that more than the Canberra "computer errors" was an error in applying the protocol. I think a single seed generator would be fine, provided it was a TRNG with backcheck against repetition. Client hand generators should be "publicly" available (sold?) that will only generate hand records when they call up the seed generator. Now, all we have to do is secure the connection to the seed generator :-). But I'm at least willing to trust DES transmission of the seed, with the DES key created by a two-way public key exchange at the time of connection for the day or so between transmission and play. I think we can trust the tournament committees and directors to do their usual expert job of securing the records after generation (1/2 :-). It would have to be possible to check after the fact that the hand record was in fact generated by the tournament's generator within a day or two of play (by providing the seed on the hand record,maybe? After all, I've already required storage of all seeds generated, plus identification of the program that requested each one...) Oh, and the hand generator should be proven to be a 1-1 translator between seed and the set of possible hand records :-) Though I think with a TRNG, the transition could be as simple as a "lookup function" as was discussed before. Sorry this was long-winded. Back to your regular arguments about laws (so, which law do we break by repeating hand records, anyway?). Michael. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 31 07:43:14 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA20828 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 07:43:14 +1100 Received: from eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.18.24]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA20822 for ; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 07:43:08 +1100 Received: from tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (tintin.jpl.nasa.gov [137.78.77.70]) by eis-msg-005.jpl.nasa.gov (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA18568 for <@eis-msg-005.jpl.NASA.GOV:bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au>; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:43:01 -0800 (PST) Received: by tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI.MIPS) for bridge-laws@rgb.anu.edu.au id MAA00772; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:45:01 -0800 Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:45:01 -0800 From: jeff@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV (Jeff Goldsmith) Message-Id: <199801302045.MAA00772@tintin.JPL.NASA.GOV> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: reasonably or demonstrably? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk From: Michael Farebrother |Qx AKTx Kxx AQJx, KO match, students (but they are either Junior |Internationalists or will try next year), all V. | |RHO You LHO CHO |1NT(1) X -(2) - (1) 10-12; (2) forcing redouble, starts runout |XX(3) - 2C(4) - (3) forced (4) two suit runout including clubs |2D(5) - 2S(6) -* (5) other suit? (6) spades |- X AP. | |All numbered bids were alerted or announced. At the time marked (*), CHO |asked the explanation of all alerted bids, and received them. The pass came |after an acknowledged (by you and CHO, enough to work out all the |bids; by opponents, appreciable - about 5-6 seconds or so) pause. At the |end of the auction, the director (er, me) was called. I heard, explained, |and asked them to call me back at the end of the hand if there was still a |problem. Of course, 2Sx-2, +500, and there was a problem. Tough one without knowing partnership agreements. If these are international-level players, then CHO's pass of the double sets up a force through some level. Most play either 2H or 2S, with the latter being probably a bit more common. If so, then "You" can't pass in the final position; he must double or bid. Next methods question: what does CHO's pass of 2C mean? What would a double have meant? I play that pass is forcing and nondescript and double is takeout. That means that CHO has promised some defense against 2C. What about "Your" pass to 2D? Was that meaningful? Again, I play that double is takeout of diamonds and pass shows some defense against diamonds. Next methods question: what does CHO's pass of 2S mean? My methods are that it shows some defense against spades; double would have been takeout, since neither of us have acted yet. Finally, we reach the problem position: in my methods, double is a no-brainer, because it's takeout of spades. Pass isn't a logical alternative, because we are in a force. The only possible alternative is 2NT, naturalish, which is not sensible with SQx. I'm not sure these methods are the greatest (what do I do with 3334 shape and three little spades?) but they make this problem easy. If the offending side (?) had these agreements, there never would have been a problem. If they didn't know what they were doing, so that Black Magic was needed, then I'd probably rule against them on the basis that OBM systems don't get the breaks they need, but that's a little harsh. In some sense, this sort of problem is exactly why I play the methods I do: when I don't know what to do, I make a forcing pass. What do you know: the forcing pass means that I didn't know what to do, so we have an AI/UI situation, which I believe is resolved by treating the information as authorized in general. So, my ruling is, "I can't rule without asking the OS what their methods were. If they don't know, roll it back to +200." --Jeff # Calvin: It says here that "religion is the opiate of # the masses." ...what do you suppose that means? # Television: ...it means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet. # --Watterson # --- # http://muggy.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 31 09:25:05 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA21912 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 09:25:05 +1100 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (root@cfa.harvard.edu [131.142.10.1]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA21907 for ; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 09:24:59 +1100 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id RAA25214 for ; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 17:25:05 -0500 (EST) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id RAA05987; Fri, 30 Jan 1998 17:25:14 -0500 Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 17:25:14 -0500 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199801302225.RAA05987@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: When does a treatment become a conv X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: "Grattan Endicott" > If as a matter of partnership agreement (partnership understanding) > a bid makes a statement about denominations other than the one named, > whether as the primary purpose of the bid or as a secondary matter, then > the law is that such a bid is conventional. ... > The effects were foreseen and intended. Thank you very much for the clarification. Does the last sentence include the effects with regard to L27? (If so, it will certainly simplify choosing between L27B1 and L27B2!) From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 31 13:05:36 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA23924 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 13:05:36 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA23919 for ; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 13:05:31 +1100 Received: from probst.demon.co.uk ([158.152.214.47]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1023826; 31 Jan 98 1:57 GMT Message-ID: Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 01:49:51 +0000 To: Michael Farebrother Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: "John (MadDog) Probst" Reply-To: John Probst Subject: Re: reasonably or demonstrably? In-Reply-To: <199801301916.OAA00943@crypto2.uwaterloo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03a Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801301916.OAA00943@crypto2.uwaterloo.ca>, Michael Farebrother writes > >This is a hand that confused me at the time of ruling (luckily it >wasn't important in the score) and has confused me ever since. > >Qx AKTx Kxx AQJx, KO match, students (but they are either Junior >Internationalists or will try next year), all V. > >RHO You LHO CHO >1NT(1) X -(2) - (1) 10-12; (2) forcing redouble, starts runout >XX(3) - 2C(4) - (3) forced (4) two suit runout including clubs >2D(5) - 2S(6) -* (5) other suit? (6) spades >- X AP. > >It didn't matter in the end, so I didn't pursue it. But as I said, >I've felt uncomfortable about it ever since. How does this group feel? > >Michael. > Given "you" (in EBUland anyway) have shown 16+ with you original double, the second double seems to me to be "normal" action. Inother words I think 70%+ of reasonable players would make it. Partner should *know* that they have landed in their best fit which will be either 7 or 8 cards and is still able to pull with a totally unsuitable defensive hand. Given that partner didn't run out of the original double he is already known to have about 3+ points. The hesitation is not clearly related to a spade holding; just trying to take on board the auction. So in my view while the hesitation is UI, the action taken is not influenced by it. No doubt I'll be howled down. Cheers John -- John (MadDog) Probst| /|_??? NO! _}\ |phone before fax to: 451 Mile End Road | / @\__. __/# \ |181 980 4947 London E3 4PA | /\ __) {-- \ |john@probst.demon.co.uk +44-(0)181 983 5818 | /\:\ .--' ~~\ /\ |Dealing is my best game From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 31 19:14:49 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA24710 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 19:14:49 +1100 Received: from imo25.mail.aol.com (imo25.mx.aol.com [198.81.19.153]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA24705 for ; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 19:14:43 +1100 From: Mlfrench@aol.com Received: from Mlfrench@aol.com by imo25.mx.aol.com (IMOv12/Dec1997) id 5EMSa13829 for ; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 03:13:32 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 03:13:32 EST To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Subject: When does a treatment become a convention? Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 for Windows 95 sub 49 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Grattan Endicott writes: > If as a matter of partnership agreement (partnership understanding) > a bid makes a statement about denominations other than the one named, > whether as the primary purpose of the bid or as a secondary matter, then > the law is that such a bid is conventional. There may be players who in > certain instances would prefer that the law did not make it so, but their > views of what is desirable do not alter the effects of the law. This sounds like the old definition in the Laws, not the new one, which says: "A call that, by partnership agreement, conveys a meaning other than willingness to play in the denomination named...or high card strength or length (three cards or more) there." Jeff Rubens and others interpret this as saying that a call is a convention if it conveys some information in addition to "williingness to play in the denomination." Surely the intent was that a call is a convention if it does not convey "willingness to play in the denomination named...or, etc." To repeat myself: If a woman says that she feels other than willingness toward me, I take that to mean unwillingness, not that she has additional goodies in mind. I realize that this interpretation means that a bid that shows the denomination named plus another denomination is not a convention, which may not have been intended by the person who wrote the definition, but that is a side issue. I think it was just an oversight. Marv (Marvin L. French, permanent E-mail address mlfrench@writeme.com) From owner-bridge-laws Sat Jan 31 22:37:30 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA25017 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 22:37:30 +1100 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.154]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id WAA25012 for ; Sat, 31 Jan 1998 22:37:23 +1100 Received: from rbarden.demon.co.uk ([158.152.169.19]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1018662; 31 Jan 98 11:27 GMT Message-ID: Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 02:09:32 +0000 To: Jens & Bodil Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Paul Barden Reply-To: Paul Barden Subject: Re: Sensible Random Number Generators In-Reply-To: <199801300036.BAA11435@isa.dknet.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.03 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <199801300036.BAA11435@isa.dknet.dk>, Jens & Bodil writes [cut] >B: A random number generator that fulfills requirement (2) needs to >be able to generate at least 2**96 distinct values. If it is a >conventional linear congruential type generator, it really needs to >be at least 96 bits wide; otherwise it won't generate enough separate >outcomes. You don't achieve this requirement by just concatenating >several numbers from a narrower generator. [cut] I outlined an algorithm on rgb which satisfies (2). More information on request. One requirement you don't mention; it should not be possible to predict the next deal by knowing the previous few deals. This is of only theoretical interest at present, but need not be in the future, especially if computers are allowed to play. -- Paul Barden