Strange bidding all round (EBU)
#21
Posted 2012-April-17, 07:39
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
#22
Posted 2012-April-17, 08:23
I don't blame West for taking stock after an opening bid on his left (say 13) and 9+ on his right. Add that to his 19 and his pard bid on a -1 count.
How could East possibly be hung by his hesitation? I don't know the appropriate adjustment under EBU regs but East needs a very stern lecture at the least.
What is baby oil made of?
#23
Posted 2012-April-17, 08:33
blackshoe, on 2012-April-17, 07:39, said:
EBU TDs certainly do this, but I'm struggling to find a legal or regulatory justification for it.
The part of the Orange Book that deals with fields psyches and misbids prescribes A+/A-, but I don't think that applies here. Here NS have an agreement which is illegal, but disclosed, and nobody has fielded anything.
WB 90.4.2 reads "If a contestant uses a method that is not permitted, or is adjudged to have fielded a psyche, deviation or misbid then the deal should be completed. If he attains a score of Ave or less then the score stands. Otherwise he gets Ave and his opponents get Ave+." However, I don't believe that this is a regulation - it is in the section that contains "general comments that are related to particular Laws".
That leaves us with Law 40B5, which reads "When a side is damaged by an opponents use of a special partnership understanding that does not comply with the regulations governing the tournament the score shall be adjusted. A side in breach of those regulations may be subject to a procedural penalty."
#24
Posted 2012-April-17, 09:06
gnasher, on 2012-April-17, 08:33, said:
I thought all of the White Book had the force of a regulation. If this is an "interpretation", then the justification is to apply Law 12C1d in the case of use of illegal methods. Since most of the regulation of permitted methods applies to initial actions (or at least on the first round of auction), it is not unreasonable to deem the outcomes of the hand without the illegal method to be "numerous or not obvious".
"Robin Barker is a mathematician. ... All highly skilled in their respective fields and clearly accomplished bridge players."
#25
Posted 2012-April-17, 09:19
VixTD, on 2012-April-17, 07:15, said:
What are the critria for deciding an illegal agreement? The wording of the example in WB40.1.6* suggests that it is illegal if both partners consider it to be the correct opening bid. Here it sounds more like both partners can see why opening 1H rather than PASS might be a successful action. Is this strong enough to constitute an illegal agreement?
*pertains to opening 2C with substandard hands
#26
Posted 2012-April-17, 09:41
Lanor Fow, on 2012-April-17, 05:45, said:
shown is or may be very weak."
in the orange book seems to suggest otherwise. If the agreement is not to be this weak, then we may well be in the fielded misbid/psyche area. If so, how would one rule, on the fielded misbid/psyche or the UI, or is it dependend on which would give the better score to NOS?
Can someone explain the rationale for this clause in the OB? Why don't you alert overcalls that can be significantly weaker than the opponents are likely to expect? The regulation doesn't even distinguish between 1-level and 2-level overcalls, and jumps vs non-jumps. It's hard to believe they intended to allow an agreement to make an overcall as in the OP without an alert, although that sure seems to be what it says. There doesn't seem to be anything in section 11N prohibiting this agreement, either.
#27
Posted 2012-April-17, 09:49
RMB1, on 2012-April-17, 09:06, said:
EBU White Book said:
...
Sections 131 to 173 are EBU regulations. One or two sections in the earlier part of the book are also regulations and are noted as such.
...
Chapters from two to eleven are numbered as the numbering in the former Law Books. It was decided to retain these chapters despite them being deleted from the current Law Book. Each section therein is numbered initially by Law number. The remaining chapters are the longer papers on specific subjects, and EBU regulations.
So it's only advice, not regulation, though obviously one would expect EBU TDs to follow this advice.
RMB1 said:
It seems a bit unreasonable to make a blanket assumption that all illegal methods lead us to such a position. That doesn't seem very different from the way that some TDs (mostly outside the EBU) always used to rule 60:40 in MI cases, because they were too lazy to think about a legal ruling.
This post has been edited by gnasher: 2012-April-17, 09:50
#28
Posted 2012-April-17, 18:16
VixTD, on 2012-April-17, 07:15, said:
OB 11 C 14 & 15 were introduced in 2010:
OB 11 C 14 & 15 said:
Any opening bid of 1♣ or 1♦ is permitted that shows at least four cards in a specified suit, forcing or not.
11 C 15 Openings in a major: general
An opening bid of 1♥ or 1♠ is only permitted if it shows at least four cards in the suit bid, forcing or not.
My understanding of these has been that 11 C 14 is relaxing, at Level 4, restrictions (such as those in 11 C 2) that apply at lower levels, and says that at Level 4 you may [agree to] open 1♣/♦ to show a different (specified) suit, but 11 C 15 was added at the same time to emphasise that you still can't do the same thing with a 1♥/♠ opening.
#29
Posted 2012-April-17, 19:47
VixTD, on 2012-April-17, 07:15, said:
The Orange Book could not be more confusingly arranged. It has things like:
Quote
X is not permitted.
Then sometime later:
Quote
X is OK.
It seems to me that the levels should be separated completely -- after all, the advent of the "Tangerine Book" for those who are unintersted in the details should mean that the Orange Book can be expanded in the service of greater clarity for those who do care. It is not available in print anymore, so it would not cost anything extra! I imagine that the new expanded Orange Book is in the works. Please confirm this, L&E members.
(If a decision has bizarrely been made not to separate out the levels, then the layout should be the opposite of what it is now -- list the permitted agreements for Level 4, and then for the other levels list the ones that are not permitted.)
#30
Posted 2012-April-18, 01:50
Vampyr, on 2012-April-17, 19:47, said:
Then sometime later:
It seems to me that the levels should be separated completely -- after all, the advent of the "Tangerine Book" for those who are unintersted in the details should mean that the Orange Book can be expanded in the service of greater clarity for those who do care. It is not available in print anymore, so it would not cost anything extra! I imagine that the new expanded Orange Book is in the works. Please confirm this, L&E members.
(If a decision has bizarrely been made not to separate out the levels, then the layout should be the opposite of what it is now -- list the permitted agreements for Level 4, and then for the other levels list the ones that are not permitted.)
Generally they don't print "X is not permitted" at lower levels, I expect that is either something that used to be permitted, or something which people mistakenly believe is permitted.
Normally it's of the form, "L234: 1C can mean X" then later "L34: 1C can mean Y" and then "L4: 1C can mean Z", with the effect that at L4 1C can mean X, Y or Z. Often Y and X are a subset of Z anyway.
#31
Posted 2012-April-18, 09:55
c_corgi, on 2012-April-17, 09:19, said:
I'm not quite sure. It doesn't seem right for the regulating authority to declare some methods illegal and then allow players to wriggle out of their obligations to comply with them by claiming they were deviating from their agreements. I think if both members of the partnership would routinely open this hand 1♥ then they have an implicit agreement to do so. I also think if they would "normally" open 1♥ that would count as an agreement, so I tried to satisfy myself that this opening would not be "abnormal" for the partnership. I'm not entirely happy with this as I can imagine giving a hand which many players would regard as an "obvious psyching opportunity" to two members of a partership and them both saying e..g: "I might pass, I might open 1♠". I don't think this means they have an agreement to open such hands 1♠.
WB40.1.2 says of "departure from partnership understanding":
Quote
I thought there was evidence from their replies that they are in the habit of opening such hands 1♥.
#32
Posted 2012-April-18, 10:11
#33
Posted 2012-April-18, 18:07
#34
Posted 2012-April-19, 01:06
c_corgi, on 2012-April-18, 18:07, said:
I don't think that a single previous occurrence is sufficient to create an implicit agreement, unless it was accompanied by a conversation where North implied that he would do the same thing again.
But the principle is sound: if North has done this often enough to create an implicit agreement, and that agreement is illegal, he can't do it. If there's no implict agreement, he can.
#35
Posted 2012-April-19, 15:25
#36
Posted 2012-April-19, 19:40
c_corgi, on 2012-April-19, 15:25, said:
RAs have the authority to regulate what special partnership understandings can be made in their jurisdiction. Most do. Also, most divide understandings up into "levels" (in the EBU, levels 2, 3, 4, and 5; in the ACBL the "General", "Mid" and "Super" charts) so that at some level (almost) "anything goes", while lower levels are more and more restrictive. The rationale behind this, I believe, is that the majority of players at the lower levels cannot or should not be expected to deal with certain agreements, particularly when those agreements are made by opponents, so the rules are intended to protect them from having to deal with those things.
As for doing vs. not doing, it has been a basic principle since the inception of the game that psyches are permitted, and most people of at least the intermediate/advanced level seem to think that's a good thing. Misbids, well, Bobby Wolff's "convention disruption" crusade notwithstanding, it would do a great disservice to the game, particularly at lower levels, to make misbids illegal. After all, we do want those newcomers to keep coming back. That leaves us with "fielding", which is properly defined as illegally taking an action so as to cater for the possibility that partner has psyched or misbid. "Illegally" in this context means that there is some evidence that leads the TD to believe that the fielding player had some expectation that his partner had psyched or misbid, so that the pair has a partnership understanding which has not been properly disclosed to opponents. This concealed partnership understanding is a violation of Law 40C1, while use of an illegal agreement is a violation of Law 40B2{a}. Note that a CPU may or may not be an illegal agreement (I.e. it may or may not violate Law 40B2{a} or regulations made under that law).
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
#37
Posted 2012-April-20, 05:51
#38
Posted 2012-April-20, 06:40
As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything. -- Ken Berg
I have come to realise it is futile to expect or hope a regular club game will be run in accordance with the laws. -- Jillybean
#39
Posted 2012-April-20, 10:00
#40
Posted 2012-April-20, 13:55
c_corgi, on 2012-April-20, 05:51, said:
If a player routinely opens hands like this, we judge that this creates an implicit agreement. Then, since the agreement is illegal, we may adjust the board if the opponents were disadvantaged.