[TimG]

From a Houston appeals case: "East–West thought South’s BIT at his
second turn to call was eight to 10 seconds."

Shouldn't that really be: "East-West thought the 8-10 seconds that South took at his second turn to call constituted a BIT"?

[paulg]

Can you not just be happy that they are writing up the cases ... and quickly?

[hanp]

I think what they want to convey is that they think south took 8-10 seconds. If you want to be pedantic then probably it should be split up in two sentences, something like:

East-West thought that South took 8-10 seconds. They thought this constituted a BIT.

[barmar]

Although it's legally possible, and it's even part of the reason for the skip bid rule, it's extremely rare that complaints are made about fast tempo (fast bidders are usually consistent about it, so it's not usually a change in tempo). So for all intents and purposes, "break in tempo" means "hesitation". Thus, the writeup can be read as "South's hesitation was 8-10 seconds".

[TimG]

How about this one from Appeals Case 4? In the facts section it is reported that "North judged that the BIT was three to five seconds and South said four seconds." The director later agreed that this player (north) "had not admitted to a BIT". In the write-up, the committee wonders about the inconsistency of north's testimony. But, the inconsistency could have been that the director described the time taken (3-5 seconds) as a BIT.

I suppose 3-5 seconds could be a BIT, but expect that in a competitive auction 3-5 seconds would be absolutely normal. I also think that this north player was more adamant in committee than when the director was at the table, that is his story may have changed a bit. But, I think this was exaggerated by the use of "BIT" by the director to describe what was described as a 3-5 seconds.

[bill1157]

this seems like a bad decision (it was actually a split decision so kudos to the dissenters)
West is a world class player and so the committee wasn't going to rule against her, but I think a message is being sent out: next time you pull the BIT card, you may be ruled against.
The whole bit issue is overdone, if you make a bad bid or get a bad result, you just get the director to change it ( i'll bet -100 match points much better than -300)
It is actually a rule to protect the experts from the novice and intermediate players.

Bill

[matmat]

bill1157, on Mar 23 2009, 07:22 PM, said:

West is a world class player and so the committee wasn't going to rule against her,

I think this sums up a fairly sad state of affairs.

[barmar]

TimG, on Mar 23 2009, 04:54 PM, said:

How about this one from Appeals Case 4? In the facts section it is reported that "North judged that the BIT was three to five seconds and South said four seconds." The director later agreed that this player (north) "had not admitted to a BIT". In the write-up, the committee wonders about the inconsistency of north's testimony. But, the inconsistency could have been that the director described the time taken (3-5 seconds) as a BIT.

I suppose 3-5 seconds could be a BIT, but expect that in a competitive auction 3-5 seconds would be absolutely normal. I also think that this north player was more adamant in committee than when the director was at the table, that is his story may have changed a bit. But, I think this was exaggerated by the use of "BIT" by the director to describe what was described as a 3-5 seconds.

What bothers me about that writeup is that anyone realistically believes that people can accurately estimate times like this to that level of precision, unless they were actively timing it with a watch.

[paulg]

barmar, on Mar 25 2009, 03:54 AM, said:

TimG, on Mar 23 2009, 04:54 PM, said:

How about this one from Appeals Case 4?  In the facts section it is reported that "North judged that the BIT was three to five seconds and South said four seconds."  The director later agreed that this player (north) "had not admitted to a BIT".  In the write-up, the committee wonders about the inconsistency of north's testimony.  But, the inconsistency could have been that the director described the time taken (3-5 seconds) as a BIT.

I suppose 3-5 seconds could be a BIT, but expect that in a competitive auction 3-5 seconds would be absolutely normal.  I also think that this north player was more adamant in committee than when the director was at the table, that is his story may have changed a bit.  But, I think this was exaggerated by the use of "BIT" by the director to describe what was described as a 3-5 seconds.

What bothers me about that writeup is that anyone realistically believes that people can accurately estimate times like this to that level of precision, unless they were actively timing it with a watch.

I agree.

Although bridge players will notice tempo breaks, estimating the length of the break is something they are atrocious at.

At the last Europeans I was watching one of my pairs play. With screens delays in the tray coming back occur and 20 seconds is considered 'normal'.

On the penultimate board of a set there was a really slow auction, so on the final board I started timing the time that the tray was on the other side of the screen. It frequently disappeared for over 2 minutes. When I asked the players later they said it was all in normal tempo and were astonished when I told them it was so long.

p

[gnasher]

It puzzles me that ACBL directors in particular seem to care about the exact length of a pause. What constitutes normal tempo depends on the player, how familiar the auction is, the state of the match and even the atmosphere at the table.

If you're at the table you can tell whether something is out of tempo; given that it is, I don't see why anyone cares whether the pause was two seconds or twenty - in either case it provides the unauthorised information that partner was thinking.

[blackshoe]

So we are supposed to bid and play without thinking?

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

So we are supposed to bid and play without thinking?

You can think as long as you want! Just partner cannot use your pause to influence his borderline decision in the direction that your pause indicates is more likely to be successful.

The problem, IMO, is that most beginners/intermediates are never taught properly about the proprieties of the game, and don't understand the reasons for director calls & rulings. So they think they are doing nothing wrong & are outraged at the director being called.

[blackshoe]

Stephen Tu, on Mar 25 2009, 12:30 PM, said:

The problem, IMO, is that most beginners/intermediates are never taught properly about the proprieties of the game, and don't understand the reasons for director calls & rulings. So they think they are doing nothing wrong & are outraged at the director being called.

I agree with this. I would add that most beginners/intermediates don't pay much attention to partner's tempo. Not consciously, anyway.

We have a partnership here who (at least the male half of the partnership, certainly) consider themselves advanced players, or better. A year or so ago, they got dinged at a tournament for breach of the UI laws. This so upset them that for six months they called the TD for every perceived hesitation. It got old. I dunno why they stopped, but they finally did.