[pran]

bluejak, on 2012-October-05, 06:39, said:

Ok. The revoke was ruled without the TD being called, that's true, and certainly a mistake by the declarer. In effect the defender ruled her own card as a major penalty card and left it face up on the table.

Now let's consider Law 50D1A. This is a Law about the disposition of a major penalty card. It applies whether the TD is called or not. It was breached. What action are you going to take against the offending side for breaching it?

Law 50D1a is not the only law that is relevant here. We have also Law 11A which is equally important.

The Director should judge if any side, whether offending (Law 50) or non-offending (Law 11), has gained improperly from irregularities and if so adjust the score on the board so that such gain is removed.

This may very well result in a split score, and this is fully justified by Laws 12A3, 12C1a and 12C1f

But just to avoid any misunderstanding from bluejak: The adjusted scores must of course be assigned for cause and not for relationship or other irrelevant reasons.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2012-October-04, 20:57, said:

I can't recall anyone ever using SEWoG to refer to anything other than bridge decisions, not legal decisions. I admit that there's nothing in the Laws that supports this restriction, but it's just not how I think anyone has ever understood that Law to be used.

gnasher, on 2012-October-05, 02:00, said:

A revoke would be treated as a SEWoG, wouldn't it? That's an accidental failure to follow the rules which is likely to damage one's own side. It seems to me that not calling the director in this situation is a more serious error, because it's an intentional breach of the rules.

A revoke is a serious error, yes, and it will, I think, rarely be related to the original irregularity. Failing to call the director may also be viewed as a serious error, but it is certainly not unrelated to the original irregularity. So I do not think you can compare the two. Also, like Barry (if I understand him) I don't think that "SE" refers to a decision not to call the director, rather it refers to decisions about the bidding or play of the hand. To top it off, I'd say that "intentional breach of the rules" is often an overbid — rather more likely, it seems to me, is that it just didn't occur to the players concerned that they needed to call the TD, at least in the club games in which I play. Of course, the TD can and probably should, in such cases, ask each player why he didn't call at the proper time.

[blackshoe]

It might help if someone would give a ruling in this format:

1. List the facts obtained by the TD's investigation.
2. List any assumptions made in making the ruling. Call this "director's opinions" if you like.
3. List the relevant laws.
4. State the ruling.

[jallerton]

Redress is denied for wild and/or gambling actions irrespective of whether these actions are "unrelated to infraction".

[blackshoe]

jallerton, on 2012-October-05, 08:11, said:

Redress is denied for wild and/or gambling actions irrespective of whether these actions are "unrelated to infraction".

True. So?

[iviehoff]

blackshoe, on 2012-October-05, 07:56, said:

A revoke is a serious error, yes, and it will, I think, rarely be related to the original irregularity.

But a revoke comprising failing to play a penalty card is plainly of a piece with the earlier irregularity of "volunteering" a penalty card to correct an unestablished revoke without calling the director.

[blackshoe]

iviehoff, on 2012-October-05, 08:47, said:

But a revoke comprising failing to play a penalty card is plainly of a piece with the earlier irregularity of "volunteering" a penalty card to correct an unestablished revoke without calling the director.

I don't know what this means.

[iviehoff]

VixTD, on 2012-October-05, 06:57, said:

(L23) is just tells you to award an adjusted score "if the offender could have known (etc.)". It doesn't make any mention of non-balancing scores.

Indeed not, and no other law empowering an adjustment for an infraction will do so either, eg 64C, 12A. But it is a relevant empowerment to adjust the score, and before we do any adjusting we need such an empowerment. So if we find a specific law that gives us empowerment to adjust the score, we can proceed to adjust and we needn't, indeed shouldn't, use L12A. Deciding whether to give a split (ie non-balancing) adjustment is a separate issue that arises once we have found empowerment to adjust the score. There is an essay on when to split the score in the EBU White Book at para 12.1.3.

So why is 12B not empowerment to adjust? 12C tells us when and how to adjust. It starts "When after an irregularity the Director is empowered by these laws to adjust a score..." What does it mean by "empowered", a word I have been using a lot? What it means is the following: if you look around at various irregularities defined in the laws, in several places we see a specific empowerment wording that empowers adjustment to rectify that irregularity. For example, the final wording of L 13A (to find the closest case) is "...the director may award an adjusted score." They all look like that. 13A is an example of a law that empowers adjustment. This is what is absent from L12B, which is why 12B is not a law that empowers adjustment. 12B does indeed tell us what "damage" is, and tells us to adjust to "redress damage". So we will not adjust, even if empowered to do so by another law, unless there is in fact damage, as defined by 12B. So 12B sometimes stops us adjusting even when empowered elsewhere. But it is not a fundamental grounds to adjust, because it lacks that empowerment wording. Each irregularity has its own rectification, which may or may not include adjusting. If 12B was a generic empowerment to adjust for damage in any irregularity, we wouldn't need all that. Blackshoe told you just the same. Bluejak has frequently reminded us that just because law 12B tells us that the objective of adjustment is to redress damage, that we should therefore adjust according to 12B1 every time there is damage, rather we must follow the rectification in the law specific to the irregularity that has occurred. I really do not think this is controversial, but it is a common error.

[iviehoff]

blackshoe, on 2012-October-05, 08:52, said:

I don't know what this means.

Let me try again.

(1) The original irregularity was the action by the defender of correcting his unestablished revoke and placing the revoke card face up on the table as a (presumed) penalty card, irregular only because he did so without calling the director and thus in the absence of the recitations which would have said what must happen with a penalty card.
(2) The subsequent irregularity was failing to play the penalty card, which, as you correctly told me, though it took me time to get it, is a revoke.
(3) These two matters are plainly related.

You said that that a revoke will rarely be related to an original irregularity, which as a general point is perfectly fine, especially because it admits the possibility of an exception. But in this case we do in fact have a revoke (the second irregularity) that is related to the original irregularity, we do in fact have that rare exception.

[VixTD]

iviehoff, on 2012-October-05, 09:19, said:

Indeed not, and no other law empowering an adjustment for an infraction will do so either, eg 64C, 12A. But it is a relevant empowerment to adjust the score, and before we do any adjusting we need such an empowerment. So if we find a specific law that gives us empowerment to adjust the score, we can proceed to adjust and we needn't, indeed shouldn't, use L12A. Deciding whether to give a split (ie non-balancing) adjustment is a separate issue that arises once we have found empowerment to adjust the score.

Sorry, Iviehoff, I thought the question you had posed was about how to justify awarding specifically a non-balancing score, rather than how to justify adjusting the score at all.

Law 23 looks OK, except that a pedant might argue that since both sides are offending in failing to call the TD then the phrase "could have been aware
at the time of his irregularity that this could well damage the non-offending side" cannot apply, as there is no non-offending side.

[barmar]

iviehoff, on 2012-October-05, 09:29, said:

Let me try again.

(1) The original irregularity was the action by the defender of correcting his unestablished revoke and placing the revoke card face up on the table as a (presumed) penalty card, irregular only because he did so without calling the director and thus in the absence of the recitations which would have said what must happen with a penalty card.
(2) The subsequent irregularity was failing to play the penalty card, which, as you correctly told me, though it took me time to get it, is a revoke.
(3) These two matters are plainly related.

You said that that a revoke will rarely be related to an original irregularity, which as a general point is perfectly fine, especially because it admits the possibility of an exception. But in this case we do in fact have a revoke (the second irregularity) that is related to the original irregularity, we do in fact have that rare exception.

The law that mentions SEWOG (12C1b) refers to action by the NOS. Your #1 and #2 are by the same player, so 12C1b is not applicable.

[pran]

Law 12C is a general law specifying the procedures to be followed whenever the Director considers awarding an adjusted score. The only exception to this would be if a more specific law said otherwise (i.e. suspended Law 12C), but I am not aware of any such (more specific) law.

Law 12C1a said:

When after an irregularity the Director is empowered by these laws to adjust a score and is able to award an assigned adjusted score, he does so. Such a score replaces the score obtained in play.

Law 12C1f said:

The scores awarded to the two sides need not balance.

Providing the Director with all the power he may need to award split scores (for cause).

[jallerton]

iviehoff, on 2012-October-05, 02:02, said:

Jeffrey and others suggest that it might be "wild" or "gambling". "Wild" is doing things you know are mad without regard to the consequences, and I don't think it was anything like that. In fact the player was quite the opposite of wild, he was meek. "Gambling" is making a conscious decision to do something you know is against the odds in the hope that on this occasion it will prove the winning decision. It wasn't anything like that either.

Suppose that an opponent commits an irregularity to which attention is drawn. You know that calling the TD is the best way to protect your own side's interests and you probably also know that the Law requires you to do so. If you decide not to call the TD in these circumstances, that appears to me to meet your definition of "wild" quoted above very well.

I must admit that sometimes, in a club setting where there is a playing TD for example, I judge not to call the TD when technically I should do so. I am taking a gamble here: by not calling the TD I save the time and likely aggravation for all concerned (a winning decision if I wouldn't gain anything by a TD call) at the potential cost of not getting a "rectification" in my favour. So my decision not to call the TD seems to meet your definition of "gambling" as well!

Sven: Yes, Law 12C1f explains that the scores need not balance, but you need to use other Law(s) to guide you as to how to arrive at particular (potentially unbalanced) assigned scores.

[pran]

jallerton, on 2012-October-05, 11:04, said:

Suppose that an opponent commits an irregularity to which attention is drawn. You know that calling the TD is the best way to protect your own side's interests and you probably also know that the Law requires you to do so. If you decide not to call the TD in these circumstances, that appears to me to meet your definition of "wild" quoted above very well.

I must admit that sometimes, in a club setting where there is a playing TD for example, I judge not to call the TD when technically I should do so. I am taking a gamble here: by not calling the TD I save the time and likely aggravation for all concerned (a winning decision if I wouldn't gain anything by a TD call) at the potential cost of not getting a "rectification" in my favour. So my decision not to call the TD seems to meet your definition of "gambling" as well!

Sven: Yes, Law 12C1f explains that the scores need not balance, but you need to use other Law(s) to guide you as to how to arrive at particular (potentially unbalanced) assigned scores.

All the Director needs is his judgement of the case. If he finds cause for split score then he has the power.

The most common situation that comes to my mind is when a non-offending side is denied (full) compensation for damage because of some irregularity on their behalf while the offending side is denied the unjust gain from their irregularity.

[alanmet]

A point that seems to have been overlooked is that there has never been a penalty card.
Only the director can nominate a card to be a penalty card.
The director would have his work cut out on this one, one thing is clear is that both sides are at fault and should be penalised.
Also it would be unlikely that dummy would realise that the actions taken meant attention had been drawn to the irregularity.

Cheers
Alan

bluejak, on 2012-October-01, 12:59, said:

Over the weekend I played in two one-day Green Point events, first Swiss Pairs, second Swiss Teams. The following incident occurred and I should like to hear opinions.

North is playing a spade contract. She leads a heart from dummy, West follows, she ruffs, and East discards a diamond. West says "No hearts, partner?" and East finds a heart, no-one saying anything. She leaves the diamond face-up on the table as a major penalty card and plays the heart.

Two tricks later declarer leads another heart from dummy and ruffs it. Ignoring the major penalty card, the diamond, East over-ruffs to beat the contract. If East discards the contract will make.

At the end of the hand West berates East for not playing her penalty card, while South calls the TD.

The TD asks South why he did not call him earlier: South replies that he was dummy, and no-one drew attention to the revoke so he could not call the TD until the end of the hand.

So, two questions:

• Did "No hearts, partner?" draw attention to the revoke? Could South legally have called the TD when East found a heart?
  
• How do you rule now?

[pran]

alanmet, on 2012-October-08, 23:20, said:

A point that seems to have been overlooked is that there has never been a penalty card.
Only the director can nominate a card to be a penalty card.
The director would have his work cut out on this one, one thing is clear is that both sides are at fault and should be penalised.
Also it would be unlikely that dummy would realise that the actions taken meant attention had been drawn to the irregularity.

Cheers
Alan

Not so fast.

Law 50 said:

A card prematurely exposed (but not led, see Law 57) by a defender is a penalty card unless the Director designates otherwise
[...]

and from the "Commentary on the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge 1987" (Grattan Endicott and Bent Keith Hansen):

A defender's exposed card is a penalty card unless the Director says otherwise. So nothing removes the status of the exposed card as a penalty card in the absense of a Director's ruling. [...]

Where the players have agreed amongst themselves that a card is a penalty card, the Director called subsequently to the table should usually rule it to be so and proceed on that basis. [...]

The commentary next discusses exceptions to this principle, but those are not relevant here and it will take us too far away to go into that discussion.

[gnasher]

alanmet, on 2012-October-08, 23:20, said:

A point that seems to have been overlooked is that there has never been a penalty card.
Only the director can nominate a card to be a penalty card.

That's not true. Law 49 states that the card "becomes a penalty card" as soon as it is exposed. There's no requirement for the director to designate it as such. Under Law 50 it is possible for the the Director to decree that it's not a penalty card, but if he doesn't do so it remains a penalty card.

Putting aside the legalities of this situation, it would be absurd to refuse to treat this as a penalty card merely because the director wasn't called at the right time. If declarer and both defenders intended that the card be treated as a penalty card, the director should rule on the basis that it was a penalty card.

Similarly, if West already knew the rules about penalty cards, the director should further rule as though these rules had been explained to him at the time of the first penalty card, because South's infraction in failing to call the director didn't affect West's later actions.

[alanmet]

There is no penalty card. Only the director can assign a card to be a penalty card.
The director wasn't called, hence no penalty card.
Therefore there can't be a penalty for not playing it which there wouldn't be anyway because it is a faced card.
I think people are looking for a complex solution to a simple problem.
Both parties are equally to blame for this fiasco give them a 40/40 board and call it a day.
Hopefully they won't do it again.
Cheers
Alan

iviehoff, on 2012-October-03, 10:20, said:

What I do now think is that we should examine whether we can adjust under Law 23 in relation to damage from the irregularity of failure to play the penalty card - I presume we will discover it was sufficiently foreseeable that failing to play it could well damage the opposition.

In relation to take your general point, I'm not convinced that is actually the lesson that the defenders really understand. I think they would understand that it was the other sides's failure to call the TD that gave them an apparent advantage. Also given the general understanding that you aren't required to call the TD for your own irregularities, and that is sufficiently unclear to the ordinary player that what happened amounts to calling attention (you post it as a question on this forum), I would rather give them words rather than penalties for failure to call.

Let me cite a case where I benefited from my own irregularity: it hasn't given me any wrong lessons I don't think. I feel rather embarrassed because I once made a doomed contract because I inadvertently led from the wrong hand and the defender just followed, and that was that as far as I could see. With a red face, I pointed out what had happened to the defence, as soon as it happened, and they wrote it off as their own folly. Although that incident made me think that declarer's leading from the wrong hand now looked like rather costless ploy, it didn't encourage me to lead from the wrong hand as declarer when I could see an advantage. I am aware that in general defenders are looking out like hawks for leads from the wrong hand, because they think that is the only chance they have to repair it. I later realised, years later, that a director could have adjusted the score under Law 23 for my original inadvertent irregularity, though I think it would be rare to find a case where such an adjustment has occurred, and I'm not sure many ordinary club directors would realise that, or even accept it if you tried to argue it to them.

[alanmet]

Refering to law 50 the director still has to be called and deem the card as a penalty card.
If the director isn't called who is going to tell the declarer of his rights.
Players cannot carry out rectification of an infraction.
Cheers
Alan

pran, on 2012-October-09, 01:43, said:

Not so fast.

and from the "Commentary on the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge 1987" (Grattan Endicott and Bent Keith Hansen):

A defender's exposed card is a penalty card unless the Director says otherwise. So nothing removes the status of the exposed card as a penalty card in the absense of a Director's ruling. [...]

Where the players have agreed amongst themselves that a card is a penalty card, the Director called subsequently to the table should usually rule it to be so and proceed on that basis. [...]

The commentary next discusses exceptions to this principle, but those are not relevant here and it will take us too far away to go into that discussion.

[iviehoff]

alanmet, on 2012-October-09, 03:27, said:

There is no penalty card. Only the director can assign a card to be a penalty card. The director wasn't called, hence no penalty card.
...
Both parties are equally to blame for this fiasco give them a 40/40 board and call it a day.
Hopefully they won't do it again.

It is a common mistake to think that there can be no penalty card if the director is not called. For some reason you are ignoring the definitive demonstration of this point that was made above to you. The reason for this common error is that a Director may use L 11 to deny rectification to a side that took action without calling the director in certain circumstances, commonly the lead restrictions, on the grounds that the NOS may have taken advantage of the fact that the OS didn't get the recitation of them in advance. The fact that a Director sometimes does this does not mean it wasn't a penalty card.

There is absolutely no basis for an assigned adjusted score here, so 40/40 or any other assigned score would be quite illegal. You do need to read the laws and apply them as written.