[axman]

bluejak, on 2011-April-05, 11:21, said:

The following query was posted on a New Zealand TD forum. I have edited it slightly since it was written originally for an earlier Law book.


Some time ago I was asked how I would rule in a (historical) case like this. I had a problem with it then and I still do. (I never had any details but have made some up which fit the circumstances described.)

---

South's double was after an agreed hesitation

5♦ went 1 down; 5♠ would have been 2 down (3 aces and a heart ruff)

North thought he was being ethical by passing when he would normally prefer to bid 5♠ with such a powerful hand but with poor defensive tricks.
East-West accuse South of hesitating deliberately with no bridge reason in order to prevent North bidding on. South said he was honestly considering pass (thinking the best achievable outcome could be defending 5♦ not doubled) or double, but then deciding the pass would probably be interpreted as being forcing.

It does appear East-West were hard done by but what can be done to rectify that?
Where is the infraction?
Looking at Law 73:
D1 says “to vary the tempo ... in which a call or play is made is not in itself an infraction”
D2 says it is wrong to deliberately mislead an opponent through hesitancy but the opponents have not been misled here.

Law 16B says the score can be adjusted if a player chose from logical alternatives one that could demonstrably have been suggested by partners tempo. But how can Norths hesitation DEMONSTRABLY suggest South should pass? (A slow double indicates that player was considering something else which would invariably favour taking the double out with a marginal hand).
Nor can I see Law 23 applying “an offender could have been aware at the time of his irregularity that this could well damage the non-offending side”. There is no “offender” here because as we have just noted (quote from Law 73D1 above) a hesitation is NOT an irregularity.

So what can the director do?
Just tell East-West they were unlucky? Or is there an explicit law North or South can be deemed to have broken?
Or should he tell North his explanation for the hesitation is unacceptable (although in my view it seems plausible)?


I have my own view which I have posted in that forum. But I would be interested to see views here.

I have a request.

Maybe Zone 2 got the idea from Zone 1 of deciding what punishment to mete out and then find a law that supports it, I don’t know; but I discovered the practice fairly early on and found it deplorable then and still today. Perhaps intimidating players is a source of pride and power but my opinion is that it taints whatever remedy comes forth.

I can offer a few comments upon the facts. For instance, if I held the south cards I readily assert that I would commit an extensive hudle to consider the downside of a X- namely partner not having the cards to back what they did next. Granted, for me an extensive huddle lasts about 1sec which in effect most people would not recognize as a BIT [my bidding tempo is about 1/4sec]. holding the N cards it is routine to pass whatever comes my way. I point this out because if there is one such player then there ought to be others.

Now, there has been the undeniable claim that .NS owe something to EW. The time to make such a claim is after examining the facts, not before. Has EW been damaged by NS via the claimed improper communication. Could be yes, could be no. there are two primary inferences from a long huddle [worried about 5DX making] and [partner taking out with the right cards]. It is notable that the number of players astute enough to contemplate the latter is rather small so if based on probability the inference the huddle probably makes it ‘more difficult’ not easier to sit for the X.

Which, fwiw, makes me perhaps wonder if EW are wasting everybody’s time making a stink. Not that I blame them for making a stink- they just might get some points in a do-over. [that’s what bluejak wants to happen, isn’t it?] When E bid 5D did he really expect to make it? And can he really blame the opponents if they indeed double? EW had a plus score coming in 4S until E made 4S disappear.

It bothers me that very few make the effort to fastidiously avoid creating extraneous inferences. They who succeed are in a position to be viewed as trying to play fair- and that ought to be a satisfactory state of affairs. But it is understandable why it isn’t. the leadership has gone to immense lengths to educate player that it is not merely ok but desirable to create UI. So players can hardly be blamed for the current state of affairs.

[aguahombre]

As North/South are concerned, whatever is ruled, this whole situation is North's fault; they should just accept an adverse ruling.

Over 3♦ he had two ways to seek partner's input if there was to be more competition:

He could bid 3♥ to invite partner's participation later, even though he knew he wanted to bid game in spades. Or he could bid 4♥, to show he had virtually no desire to defend with his big 2-suiter.

If North had bid 4♥, and partner still doubled 5♦ ---whatever the tempo ---it would be clear that South is overriding.

[blackshoe]

axman, on 2011-April-06, 20:38, said:

the leadership has gone to immense lengths to educate player that it is not merely ok but desirable to create UI.

I find this assertion bizarre, to say the least.

[axman]

blackshoe, on 2011-April-07, 11:36, said:

I find this assertion bizarre, to say the least.

Not so much an assertion but a statement of fact.

For many years in Zone 2 convention cards had an admonition like ‘ask, don’t assume’. Actually, I think that it went something closer to ‘ALWAYS ask, NEVER assume’ emphasis mine. Do I need to suggest what happens when a question is asked?

In twenty odd years I have never witnessed a TD telling anybody to make sure the answer to his question is not on the CC before he asks; nor have I seen such an admonition as bridge league advice. But…. I have been shouted down [frequently] for suggesting it is the best [only] procedure to follow.

And then for venues such as Zone 2 there is the design of the CC which is not conducive to including much at all as to what the bids actually mean. Certainly this is done so as to induce the asking of questions by those who trouble themselves to use it?

In judy wolff’s blog:
BITCHING ABOUT HITCHING
by Judy Kay-Wolff on April 2nd, 2011
Bobby WolffApril 4th, 2011 at 5:27 pm

Bobby Wolff observed [the following opinion about which he feels (I am all but certain) is wrong-headed]:

…In spite of it being said many times (way too often) that there is no bridge law against studying long and then passing (sometimes called hesitation disruption, HD) the fault only lies in partner taking advantage of that unlawful exchange of unauthorized information aka UI.

On the other hand, I also am all but certain that Grattan Endicott, the man that selected the order in which the words appear in TFLB2008, does not feel they are wrong-headed. I would believe that not a day goes by where this view fails to appear in a forum somewhere. I am not among the evangelists of that message, but there are a great number of evangelists out there that have a large following.


Every national bridge league requires every pair to use two systems of communication during a bridge hand. One is the pair’s chosen bidding system. The other is not chosen by the pair but by men who meet in dark, out of the way, rooms. Failure to employ that system accurately carries stiff consequences that are frequent and substantial. This system of course is the so-called alert procedure.

For those who believe that the leadership does not go through an immense amount of trouble to induce players to use this system of communication I, well, would rather not say.

[blackshoe]

Repeating your assertions does not make them facts.

I'm the last person who would say that ACBL system cards are not poorly designed. In fact, I've said that they are poorly designed, and frequently.

I am not, however, going to agree with your conspiracy theories.

[awm]

Here is an interesting part of an editorial in the Bridge World from April 2005:

Quote

My partner's tempo broadcast unauthorized information that suggested I bid six spades rather than pass five spades. I would have bid six without the huddle, but relative to the field I judged this to be only a "60 percent action" and the appeals committee had announced that an action must be "75 percent" to be permitted in such a situation. Assuming that I had judged these percentages correctly, if I bid six spades I would score 680 if it makes or minus 100 when it doesn't. I could maximize my score by passing five spades, but that would be taking advantage of the unauthorized information, albeit not in the way most people think of "taking advantage." What should I have done?

Bid six (it is a legal requirement to take your normal action; that is, not to be influenced by the unauthorized information) and hope that you are wrong about those percentages.

Anyway it seems I am not the only one who thinks this. The point is that the manner in which ethical players are instructed to act when in possession of UI and the approach a director should use when determining whether to adjust in a UI situation need not and perhaps should not be the same thing. Obviously Bluejak is correct that players may easily judge incorrectly what would be their action without the UI, and may take advantage of the UI to obtain a better result (intentionally or, more likely, inadvertently). No one is saying that all (or even most) players will be infallible in this regard. The problem is that by instructing players to "bend over backward" to avoid the UI, we are creating issues like the one in this thread or the one from the Bridge World editorial, where the UI has a very definite effect on the player's action (causing them to make a call they would never ordinarily make, because their usual call is made more appealing by the UI). This creates weird "inverted UI" instances (where a player takes an action he would never take without UI, that might not ordinarily even be deemed a logical alternative, so as to avoid taking advantage of the UI), and "second level UI" situations where you have to ask whether the player who created the UI now has additional information that his partner would modify his normal call so as not to take advantage of the UI, etc. It is much simpler and seemingly more sensible to instruct players to simply ignore the UI and make their normal call. This eliminates the "inverted" and "second level" UI situations, and also removes the ridiculous situation where a player is forced to determine what "the field" would do in a particular situation to gauge LAs (without the benefit of the poll which a good director would use).

Of course, the director must still determine whether a player's action might have been influenced (perhaps subconsciously) by the UI... and does this by taking a poll, judging LAs, and so forth as set out in the laws.

[AlexJonson]

awm, on 2011-April-08, 10:34, said:

Here is an interesting part of an editorial in the Bridge World from April 2005:



Anyway it seems I am not the only one who thinks this. The point is that the manner in which ethical players are instructed to act when in possession of UI and the approach a director should use when determining whether to adjust in a UI situation need not and perhaps should not be the same thing. Obviously Bluejak is correct that players may easily judge incorrectly what would be their action without the UI, and may take advantage of the UI to obtain a better result (intentionally or, more likely, inadvertently). No one is saying that all (or even most) players will be infallible in this regard. The problem is that by instructing players to "bend over backward" to avoid the UI, we are creating issues like the one in this thread or the one from the Bridge World editorial, where the UI has a very definite effect on the player's action (causing them to make a call they would never ordinarily make, because their usual call is made more appealing by the UI). This creates weird "inverted UI" instances (where a player takes an action he would never take without UI, that might not ordinarily even be deemed a logical alternative, so as to avoid taking advantage of the UI), and "second level UI" situations where you have to ask whether the player who created the UI now has additional information that his partner would modify his normal call so as not to take advantage of the UI, etc. It is much simpler and seemingly more sensible to instruct players to simply ignore the UI and make their normal call. This eliminates the "inverted" and "second level" UI situations, and also removes the ridiculous situation where a player is forced to determine what "the field" would do in a particular situation to gauge LAs (without the benefit of the poll which a good director would use).

Of course, the director must still determine whether a player's action might have been influenced (perhaps subconsciously) by the UI... and does this by taking a poll, judging LAs, and so forth as set out in the laws.

I think you have not had a reply and you should have. I'm sure you would have preferred something from a senior TD, but it is me.

There will be many, probably a large majority of situations (IMO), where your proposition that you cannot as a player
work out percentage actions and do virtual polls, will be true, and you have to do pretty much do what you always do in that situation - L73 v L16 as you say.

Unfortunately there are some common situations where you have to pay attention to L16.

The classic slow double - I pulled because pard wasn't sure.

The classic slow sign off - I bid game/slam because partner wasn't sure it was wrong.

So the legal experts will not agree that a player can ignore L16 and just bid what he intended 'under L73', because that will not always be true.

(Please note that I am not an adherent of the Lamford/dburn extremism on L73 - and that I have never seen that extreme position in an adjustment)

[awm]

In my opinion law 16 is somewhat self-contradictory.... both indicating that players should not use information derived from unauthorized sources, then later stating that when a player has unauthorized information, he must "avoid taking advantage" (in other words, avoid calls he otherwise would make).

Take the example in the bridge world... the player knows that he would normally bid on, but doesn't believe a substantial enough majority of his peers would. Consider the following situations:

(1) He chooses to bid on anyway and slam makes. The director then takes a poll, adjusts the board, etc... do we say this player is "less than ethical"? After all, he took the action suggested by the UI when there was another logical alternative. Maybe he should get a PP for violating law 16?

(2) He chooses to bid on anyway and slam makes. The director then takes a poll, but it turns out all of this players peers also bid on so the table result stands. Now I guess this player was perfectly ethical, because there was no logical alternative? Now his PP from (1) goes away? Does being ethical require that you are good at guessing what your peers will do?

(3) He chooses not to bid on, but slam makes. It turns out that all of the player's peers actually would bid on without the UI (i.e. passing was not a LA). Do we applaud this player's ethics? Or did he make a silly mistake by not bidding on when it was obvious to do so?

(4) He chooses not to bid on, and slam fails. It turns out that all of the player's peers actually would bid on without the UI. Now the player in question has a great result on the board, because he took an action he (and his peers) would never have considered without the UI! Is this a triumph of ethics, or has something fishy occurred? What if the slow signoff was actually by a partner whose hand is so bad that he has no business even considering any alternative action? Do we now need to take another poll to determine whether the BIT was legitimate or a violation of law?

[bluejak]

awm, on 2011-April-08, 10:34, said:

Anyway it seems I am not the only one who thinks this. The point is that the manner in which ethical players are instructed to act when in possession of UI and the approach a director should use when determining whether to adjust in a UI situation need not and perhaps should not be the same thing. Obviously Bluejak is correct that players may easily judge incorrectly what would be their action without the UI, and may take advantage of the UI to obtain a better result (intentionally or, more likely, inadvertently). No one is saying that all (or even most) players will be infallible in this regard. The problem is that by instructing players to "bend over backward" to avoid the UI, we are creating issues like the one in this thread or the one from the Bridge World editorial, where the UI has a very definite effect on the player's action (causing them to make a call they would never ordinarily make, because their usual call is made more appealing by the UI). This creates weird "inverted UI" instances (where a player takes an action he would never take without UI, that might not ordinarily even be deemed a logical alternative, so as to avoid taking advantage of the UI), and "second level UI" situations where you have to ask whether the player who created the UI now has additional information that his partner would modify his normal call so as not to take advantage of the UI, etc. It is much simpler and seemingly more sensible to instruct players to simply ignore the UI and make their normal call. This eliminates the "inverted" and "second level" UI situations, and also removes the ridiculous situation where a player is forced to determine what "the field" would do in a particular situation to gauge LAs (without the benefit of the poll which a good director would use).

No doubt there will always be problems whatever we do. But think of a normal situation where a player has two obvious choices, one suggested by the UI, one not. Ethical players under the current Law will choose the one not suggested, thus avoiding a myriad of UI rulings and making the game pleasanter for everyone.

Changing it as you would wish it means that the common choice will be the one suggested by the UI because people convince themselves very easily this is what they would do. Thus there will be far more use of UI leading to more rulings and more dissatisfaction. I think that this is very bad as a solution to odd uncommon problems.

[awm]

While weird cases like the one in this thread are rare, I think the following sequence of events is actually very common:

(1) Player has UI, "ethically" avoids action suggested by the UI and does something else.
(2) All his peers would take the action suggested by the UI; i.e. there is no LA. Director would never adjust.
(3) Player gets a lousy result because he was "ethical"; his normal action would get a better result.

So we are routinely saddling the "ethical" players with lousy results that they would not have gotten had they been "less ethical" and just ignored the UI. This has already happened to me multiple times and surely happens much more often to full-time players (at least the ethical ones). Each time a player realizes that this has happened to him he is more and more tempted to be "unethical" the next time around and take his chances with the director. I don't think this is really better for the game than my alternative (which does create somewhat more rulings/adjustments, as Bluejack says).

[Cascade]

awm, on 2011-April-08, 10:34, said:

Here is an interesting part of an editorial in the Bridge World from April 2005:

Quote

My partner's tempo broadcast unauthorized information that suggested I bid six spades rather than pass five spades. I would have bid six without the huddle, but relative to the field I judged this to be only a "60 percent action" and the appeals committee had announced that an action must be "75 percent" to be permitted in such a situation. Assuming that I had judged these percentages correctly, if I bid six spades I would score 680 if it makes or minus 100 when it doesn't. I could maximize my score by passing five spades, but that would be taking advantage of the unauthorized information, albeit not in the way most people think of "taking advantage." What should I have done?

Bid six (it is a legal requirement to take your normal action; that is, not to be influenced by the unauthorized information) and hope that you are wrong about those percentages.

Anyway it seems I am not the only one who thinks this. The point is that the manner in which ethical players are instructed to act when in possession of UI and the approach a director should use when determining whether to adjust in a UI situation need not and perhaps should not be the same thing. Obviously Bluejak is correct that players may easily judge incorrectly what would be their action without the UI, and may take advantage of the UI to obtain a better result (intentionally or, more likely, inadvertently). No one is saying that all (or even most) players will be infallible in this regard. The problem is that by instructing players to "bend over backward" to avoid the UI, we are creating issues like the one in this thread or the one from the Bridge World editorial, where the UI has a very definite effect on the player's action (causing them to make a call they would never ordinarily make, because their usual call is made more appealing by the UI). This creates weird "inverted UI" instances (where a player takes an action he would never take without UI, that might not ordinarily even be deemed a logical alternative, so as to avoid taking advantage of the UI), and "second level UI" situations where you have to ask whether the player who created the UI now has additional information that his partner would modify his normal call so as not to take advantage of the UI, etc. It is much simpler and seemingly more sensible to instruct players to simply ignore the UI and make their normal call. This eliminates the "inverted" and "second level" UI situations, and also removes the ridiculous situation where a player is forced to determine what "the field" would do in a particular situation to gauge LAs (without the benefit of the poll which a good director would use).

Of course, the director must still determine whether a player's action might have been influenced (perhaps subconsciously) by the UI... and does this by taking a poll, judging LAs, and so forth as set out in the laws.

I think the Bridge World Editorial is wrong.

The laws of bridge clearly imply that in some situations it is unlawful for a player to make their normal action. If there are logical alternatives and one is suggested by unauthorized information in the first instance it is completely irrelevant to consider your normal action you may not choose the logical alternative that is suggested by the unauthorized information whether or not this is your normal action.

If you make your normal action in these situations you clearly gain an advantage over a player who attempts to comply with the laws in that not every opponent will call the director and get a ruling so sometimes when you have deliberately chosen an illegal alternative you will get away with your misdemenour.

For me this is not what the laws require or how the game should be played.

[gnasher]

awm, on 2011-April-11, 14:41, said:

While weird cases like the one in this thread are rare, I think the following sequence of events is actually very common:

(1) Player has UI, "ethically" avoids action suggested by the UI and does something else.
(2) All his peers would take the action suggested by the UI; i.e. there is no LA. Director would never adjust.
(3) Player gets a lousy result because he was "ethical"; his normal action would get a better result.

So we are routinely saddling the "ethical" players with lousy results that they would not have gotten had they been "less ethical" and just ignored the UI. This has already happened to me multiple times and surely happens much more often to full-time players (at least the ethical ones). Each time a player realizes that this has happened to him he is more and more tempted to be "unethical" the next time around and take his chances with the director. I don't think this is really better for the game than my alternative (which does create somewhat more rulings/adjustments, as Bluejack says).

We're not saddling these players with lousy results. They obtain those results through their own poor judgement. Deciding what the logical alternatives are is a bridge skill.

And erring in the other direction also has disadvantages. If you choose an action that the director later decides was illegal, his adjustment will tend to assume reasonable play by the opponents, so you lose your chance to gain by their mistakes.

[awm]

gnasher, on 2011-April-11, 16:04, said:

We're not saddling these players with lousy results. They obtain those results through their own poor judgement. Deciding what the logical alternatives are is a bridge skill.

And erring in the other direction also has disadvantages. If you choose an action that the director later decides was illegal, his adjustment will tend to assume reasonable play by the opponents, so you lose your chance to gain by their mistakes.

I strongly disagree with the first statement. Often these decisions as to what is an LA are close and somewhat arbitrary even when directors have access to a poll. I don't think that guessing what other people will do in the same situation is really a bridge skill. Certainly it is not a bridge skill that comes up other than in UI type cases.

As for the second statement, this is often not true. For example, if I play in 3NT and director adjusts to 2NT, often the number of tricks I made in 3NT will be the number of tricks I am given in 2NT... unless a really strong case can be made that the hand would've been played/defended differently.

[nigel_k]

awm, on 2011-April-11, 14:41, said:

While weird cases like the one in this thread are rare, I think the following sequence of events is actually very common:

(1) Player has UI, "ethically" avoids action suggested by the UI and does something else.
(2) All his peers would take the action suggested by the UI; i.e. there is no LA. Director would never adjust.
(3) Player gets a lousy result because he was "ethical"; his normal action would get a better result.

So we are routinely saddling the "ethical" players with lousy results that they would not have gotten had they been "less ethical" and just ignored the UI.

I'm with gnasher on this. I don't accept that "ethical" in the bridge sense can sensibly be preceded by "more" or "less" at all. A player either meets their ethical obligations or they don't.

The ethical obligation is to avoid choosing an action suggested by the UI if there is a logical alternative not suggested by the UI. The laws describe, albeit somewhat vaguely, what is and is not a logical alternative. In the above example it is perfectly ethical to choose the action suggested by the UI. The idea that is is somehow "more ethical" to choose an illogical alternative is just a misunderstanding of the laws and ethics of the game, though it is a very common one.

Of course it can be difficult to work out whether an alternative is logical. But even if the result is adjusted, as long as the player chose an action suggested by UI in the honest belief that no other action was logical then they acted ethically, and should not be regarded as "less ethical" than if they did something else.

[gnasher]

awm, on 2011-April-11, 16:11, said:

I strongly disagree with the first statement. Often these decisions as to what is an LA are close and somewhat arbitrary even when directors have access to a poll.

I thought you were talking about situations where "All his peers would take the action suggested by the UI; i.e. there is no LA. Director would never adjust." That doesn't sound like a close decision, or a situation where the director's decision might be arbitrary.

Quote

I don't think that guessing what other people will do in the same situation is really a bridge skill. Certainly it is not a bridge skill that comes up other than in UI type cases.

I agree that answering the exact question "What would my peers do?" doesn't occur elsewhere, but sometimes we have to decide "What will the field do?" or "What will my counterpart at the other table do?"

[gordontd]

bluejak, on 2011-April-06, 18:34, said:

I thought this a very interesting question and find it sad that so few replies are on point. If you do not like the example, why not change it to one that suits? Personally I thought the example was fine. The question is whether if a player doubles slowly with a hand very suitable for a really solid penalty double and if partner passes because the double was slow in an apparent attempt to be ethical there is any legal basis for adjusting.

73D1 (second sentence), leading to 12A1?

[blackshoe]

gordontd, on 2011-April-13, 10:16, said:

73D1 (second sentence), leading to 12A1?

I do not see how 73D1 can apply here.

[aguahombre]

blackshoe, on 2011-April-13, 12:22, said:

I do not see how 73D1 can apply here.

I believe Gordon is suggesting that the slow double itself might be judged by the director to have violated the second sentence of 73D1. If that is so judged, it would not matter if his partner had perfect ethical intent when he passed, and the Director would be making a discretionary adjustment.

Anyway, it made sense to me.

[AlexJonson]

With the recent obsession with L12A1, there is a clear and present danger of L73 replacing
most of the law book. After which there would be little point in this forum.

[nige1]

TFLB, L73D1 said:

It is desirable, though not always required, for players to maintain steady tempo and unvarying manner. However, players should be particularly careful when variations may work to the benefit of their side. Otherwise, unintentionally to vary the tempo or manner in which a call or play is made is not in itself an infraction. Inferences from such variation may appropriately be drawn only by an opponent, and at his own risk.

awm, on 2011-April-05, 14:38, said:

I think South's explanation for why his double was slow is a bit fishy. Surely 5♦ cannot be making (he has three sure tricks in his hand). Regardless of whether pass is forcing, North is surely more likely to compete to 5♠ over South's pass than he is to do so over South's double. While I understand that figuring out if this is a forcing auction might be non-trivial, that appears to have nothing to do with South's decision at the table. Certainly South might be aware that a slow double has the effect of making it more difficult for partner to pull

gordontd, on 2011-April-13, 10:16, said:

73D1 (second sentence), leading to 12A1?

I agree with awm and gordontd that South could have known that his hesitation might inhibit North from removing his double, so the director should serioulsy consider penalizing him.