[blackshoe]

The accepted procedure is to poll the player's peers, not for explanations as to why they would bid 7NT, but for a statement as to what they would bid. So if the poll of the expert's peers results in everybody bidding 7NT and nobody bidding anything else, and the poll of the non-expert's peers gives the same result, they both get the same ruling. Other things being equal — the poll is not the only determinant of the ruling.

[barmar]

NickRW, on 2012-November-16, 07:44, said:

Your logic is impeccable except for one point. I just told you I find it alienating - and you tell me I am not????

I think he's suggesting that you shouldn't -- you're taking the ruling too personally.

[gnasher]

lalldonn, on 2012-November-16, 10:51, said:

That doesn't happen. The director properly gives little weight to the self-serving testimony, he doesn't just believe the expert as to why he bid 7NT.

That may be true in the ACBL, but it's not generally true. In most jurisdictions, it's considered proper for the director to use his judgement.

[lalldonn]

gnasher, on 2012-November-16, 12:08, said:

That may be true in the ACBL, but it's not generally true. In most jurisdictions, it's considered proper for the director to use his judgement.

As in the ACBL. I think of that guideline simply as a reminder to directors that it is generally poor judgment to believe the player's defense of his bid unless it's quite clear, as it's both natural and very easy to come up with such a defense of almost any bid you have made (whether made on the basis of UI or not).

[bluejak]

PeterAlan, on 2012-November-15, 08:23, said:

I don't see that he would have to deem that the partnership plays it when they don't, whatever the deemed state of their knowledge. Your view appears to be that for ruling purposes all pairs would be deemed to be playing the same "average" system, which is going a long way further than the original suggestion as I understand it, and in an unnecessary direction.

It was merely an example, and no doubt there are others. Poorer players do not always understand matters that medium players think are completely automatic. Ok, think of three-card raises: in certain situations I have little doubt that an average field thinks they are routine, but an individual player does not. But the suggestion means that the individual player is being held to the standard of the average player who does.

Vampyr, on 2012-November-15, 09:50, said:

I think that you probably are alone, but perhaps you misunderstand. It is inconceivable that Rubens (or Compton) was suggesting that players should never get a favourable score after committing an infraction; what was being said was that a player should not receive a score that was more favourable than it would have been had he not committed the infraction.

I would be astonished to find a player who did not agree with the above.

Me, for one. I know of several occasions where a player is silenced, his partner guesses to bid 3NT, and he gains. It is perfectly normal to gain from an infraction.

Another example: a player leads out of turn. His opponents, not being able to see their partner's hands, accept it and get a bad score because that was the wrong thing to do.

Unlike you, I would be astonished to find an experienced player who did agree with the above.

Zelandakh, on 2012-November-16, 06:20, said:

Until someone has a better idea it seems pointless to have a thread in CL&R.

How on earth do you expect to improve Laws and Regulations if you only discuss ones where the solution is known?

lalldonn, on 2012-November-16, 10:51, said:

That doesn't happen. The director properly gives little weight to the self-serving testimony, he doesn't just believe the expert as to why he bid 7NT.

Ignoring the specific case, good TDs do not give little weight to self-serving testimony. More importantly, they do not follow the idea, not uncommon on RGB, that you ignore self-serving testimony from offenders while treating it as gospel from non-offenders.

If you want to know whether there was a hesitation, a good TD asks all four players. All four answers are self-serving. A good TD now judges, ignoring mantras [is that the word?] like ignore or give little weight to self-serving testimony. When judging he takes note of how much of the testimony is self-serving, and allows a reduced weight to it, but judges the weight in any specific case.

[WellSpyder]

bluejak, on 2012-November-20, 08:39, said:

If you want to know whether there was a hesitation, a good TD asks all four players. All four answers are self-serving. A good TD now judges, ignoring mantras [is that the word?] like ignore or give little weight to self-serving testimony. When judging he takes note of how much of the testimony is self-serving, and allows a reduced weight to it, but judges the weight in any specific case.

I must admit I was rather surprised at the EBU's premier inter-county competition at the weekend not to be asked by the TD about how long a bid took in a possible hesitation situation.
1♣ (3♦) P* P
x P P P
Declarer tried to get agreement (before the play, I think) that the pass over 3♦ was out of tempo. The stop card had been used, and left on the table for a while, and responder thought for a bit longer once the stop card was removed. Oppo were slightly ambivalent, so the TD was called. He established that the opening bidder was willing to accept that the overall time taken between the 3♦ bid and the pass was probably in the range 10-15 seconds. Responder estimated that the stop card was left out for perhaps 7 seconds, and his pass took a further 5 seconds. The TD left his investigations at that, without asking the overcalling side at all what there views were. As it happens, as dummy I had been thinking during the earlier testimony what my best estimate of the timing was, and felt that the stop card had been out for perhaps 7 seconds (which is less than the recommended 10 seconds, but at least as long as most people leave the card out in practice) and the pass had taken a further 5 or 6 seconds, so on hearing responder giving almost exactly the same estimates I thought it might be helpful to ask the TD if he would like to hear my views as well! At least he indicated he was willing to hear this (though he still didn't ask for declarer's view), so the facts did not seem in dispute. (I was bit surprised later when he came back to give his ruling that he had decided there wasn't a break in tempo, but obviously that is a judgment call.)

[barmar]

WellSpyder, on 2012-November-20, 09:09, said:

The TD left his investigations at that, without asking the overcalling side at all what there views were.

Maybe he assumed that one of you would have spoken up if you disagreed, without having to be asked. Usually players are not silent if they think they're being damaged by the opponents' testimony.

[gnasher]

barmar, on 2012-November-20, 11:03, said:

Maybe he assumed that one of you would have spoken up if you disagreed, without having to be asked. Usually players are not silent if they think they're being damaged by the opponents' testimony.

I hope he didn't assume that. If somebody is talking and nobody interrupts, that's evidence of good manners, not of agreement.

[gordontd]

WellSpyder, on 2012-November-20, 09:09, said:

I must admit I was rather surprised at the EBU's premier inter-county competition at the weekend not to be asked by the TD about how long a bid took in a possible hesitation situation.
1♣ (3♦) P* P
x P P P
Declarer tried to get agreement (before the play, I think) that the pass over 3♦ was out of tempo. The stop card had been used, and left on the table for a while, and responder thought for a bit longer once the stop card was removed. Oppo were slightly ambivalent, so the TD was called. He established that the opening bidder was willing to accept that the overall time taken between the 3♦ bid and the pass was probably in the range 10-15 seconds. Responder estimated that the stop card was left out for perhaps 7 seconds, and his pass took a further 5 seconds. The TD left his investigations at that,

Well, he was called (presumably at the instigation of the overcalling side) to establish whether there had been a break in tempo, and he seems to have done just that. Is he now to say to the side who called him "do you really think there was a break in tempo, as just agreed by your opponents?"

WellSpyder, on 2012-November-20, 09:09, said:

(I was bit surprised later when he came back to give his ruling that he had decided there wasn't a break in tempo, but obviously that is a judgment call.)

As the director in charge, I'm surprised to hear this too since, if this is the case I remember, we agreed that Pass was not a logical alternative. I understood during the discussion amongst the TDs that the break in tempo had been established at the table.

[WellSpyder]

gordontd, on 2012-November-21, 03:47, said:

Well, he was called (presumably at the instigation of the overcalling side) to establish whether there had been a break in tempo, and he seems to have done just that. Is he now to say to the side who called him "do you really think there was a break in tempo, as just agreed by your opponents?"

Fair point - assuming that it is indeed clear that the BIT has been established.

Quote

As the director in charge, I'm surprised to hear this too since, if this is the case I remember, we agreed that Pass was not a logical alternative. I understood during the discussion amongst the TDs that the break in tempo had been established at the table.

I think we are talking about the same case - certainly the ruling was that pass was not a logical alternative. However, I did try to clarify with the TD whether the ruling was based on the existence of a BIT or not, since this wasn't made clear either when the TD first came to the table or when the ruling was given, and I thought it would be helpful to be clear on this point if an appeal was being considered. I even explicitly said something like "or did you decide you didn't need to rule on this point because you decided pass wasn't an LA?". The response was that he did not consider the time taken to be a break in tempo in dealing with a preemptive bid. (Given this, we did not consider whether it was worth appealing the other part of the ruling.)

[jallerton]

blackshoe, on 2012-November-16, 10:57, said:

The accepted procedure is to poll the player's peers, not for explanations as to why they would bid 7NT, but for a statement as to what they would bid.

In that case, the "accepted procedure" needs to be reviewed. The 2007 Laws require a TD to determine "logical alternatives" and to establish those the TD needs to know which calls would be seriously considered by a player's peers, and whether it is reasonable to assume that "some" people might actually select these calls in practice. If the TD can hear the pollees' thought processes, he is far better placed to judge what the logical alternatives might be.

[blackshoe]

<sigh> Jefffrey, did you read the context in which my post was made?

[jallerton]

Yes, what did I miss? Perhaps you were trying to make a different point, but I don't agree with your statement as written.

[blackshoe]

In the interests of brevity, I left some things out. Try this:

Quote

The accepted procedure in determining what calls are "logical alternatives" is to poll the player's peers, asking them what calls they would consider, and of those calls, which one they would make. Analysis from those polled of their reasoning may or may not be helpful, but in any case is not usually required.

Better?

[billw55]

lalldonn, on 2012-November-10, 15:57, said:

You have two players, a novice and an expert. They both have the same auction where their respective partners have bid 6NT but also transmitted UI that suggests raising to 7NT. Based on some sort of bridge logic, it can be demonstrated that raising to 7NT is the correct action. The expert would always have applied this logic. The novice would never have applied this logic. If you are forced to give both players the same ruling, one of these two situations will occur.
- The expert receives the score for 6NT, even though he would always have bid 7NT.
- The novice receives the score for 7NT, even though he would never have bid 7NT.
It escapes me how either of those outcomes could be considered "fair", especially if we consider the main purpose of the laws to be restoring equity.

Ah, this is fascinating. Let's imagine a knockout match between a team of C players and a team of champions (yours for example). And let's imagine that the same UI situation occurs at both tables. Director rules that your team gets 7NT=, but the C players get 6NT+1. Would you be satisfied with this ruling?

[bluejak]

billw55, on 2012-December-17, 11:32, said:

Ah, this is fascinating. Let's imagine a knockout match between a team of C players and a team of champions (yours for example). And let's imagine that the same UI situation occurs at both tables. Director rules that your team gets 7NT=, but the C players get 6NT+1. Would you be satisfied with this ruling?

Probably not! And similarly if the TD allows the C pair to bid 7NT, but not the champions.

But just because someone does not like a ruling neither means the ruling is wrong nor that the Law is wrong.

The trouble is that to have a fair game with codified messages we need to stop the effects of other communication. But too many people are more worried about the artificial approach to how we rule. If we go back to basics we are trying to stop the use of UI, and that is different for different levels of player. Therefore it is fair that rulings should be.

[Cascade]

billw55, on 2012-December-17, 11:32, said:

Ah, this is fascinating. Let's imagine a knockout match between a team of C players and a team of champions (yours for example). And let's imagine that the same UI situation occurs at both tables. Director rules that your team gets 7NT=, but the C players get 6NT+1. Would you be satisfied with this ruling?

I think this sort of thing can happen.

I cannot recall the specific ruling and it wasn't a teams match but a pairs session and didn't involve UI, however, I was once called at two tables because of a failure to announce a short club opening and had to rule on possible damage. I talked to both potentially damaged sides about their subsequent actions, which no doubt depend on the class of player involved and came to the conclusion that in my judgement it was very likely that at one table the opponents would take the winning action and were damaged and very unlikely that the opponents would have found the winning action. This resulted in one adjusted score in favour of the non-offenders and one table result stands.

In an UI situation if one player would likely get the hand correct without the UI and another would not why should there not be different rulings at the two tables.

[bluejak]

This reminds me of a sequence from an EBU event in London:

---

This happened at two tables, and the TDs disallowed 4♦ in both cases. Both E/Ws appealed, and with two ACs running simultaneously we waited with interest to see if one and only one Committee over-ruled us! But we were upheld in both cases!

[nige1]

billw55, on 2012-December-17, 11:32, said:

Ah, this is fascinating. Let's imagine a knockout match between a team of C players and a team of champions (yours for example). And let's imagine that the same UI situation occurs at both tables. Director rules that your team gets 7NT=, but the C players get 6NT+1. Would you be satisfied with this ruling?

I've taught and learnt from beginners, on and off, for half a century. In our experience, Bridge rules favour experts. It's wishful thinking that justice "evens out" in some bizarre way. For example,

• SEWOG regulations favour experts, almost by definition -- and they deter poorer players from reporting infractions by their betters.
• Claim law and many other laws that take into account the "class of player" seem to favour better players, in practice.

Bridge is a game of skill. It is natural and right that better players have an edge over poorer players, both in the bidding and in the play. When rules are broken, however, I agree with billw55 that there should be a level playing field. In the application of basic rules, the director should consider not individual skill level but the average skill level of those in the competition. How otherwise can the director cope with locals and friends, strangers and enemies, in a way that is both fair and seen to be fair? One problem is that administrators, directors and top experts often know each other and become friends.

Notwithstanding, when considering procedural and disciplinary penalties, the director might take individual experience and skill level into account. (Although, even here, in practice, directors hardly ever impose such penalties on top-players).

[nige1]

lalldonn, on 2012-November-16, 10:51, said:

That doesn't happen. The director properly gives little weight to the self-serving testimony, he doesn't just believe the expert as to why he bid 7NT.

I agree with Bluejak (below), under current law, the director should allocate considerable weight to the expert's justification for his action. Few directors possess sufficient bridge-skill or in-depth system-knowledge to reconstruct expert reasoning, in real-time.

bluejak, on 2012-November-20, 08:39, said:

Ignoring the specific case, good TDs do not give little weight to self-serving testimony. More importantly, they do not follow the idea, not uncommon on RGB, that you ignore self-serving testimony from offenders while treating it as gospel from non-offenders.

IMO, In practice, directors seem to swallow top-payers' arguments, hook, line and sinker. This is undertandable, given that many top-players are experienced secretary birds, who know exactly what to say (and not to say) to a director.