szgyula

So what is that double in the example? TD classified is as WoG. I think his definition is that "anything that is not perfect bridge is wild or gamling". Unfortunately, he has many students and they also think the same. Considering the number of TDs in the country (12), in Hungary, anything that is not normal play is WoG. "Normal play" is what the TD would have done, knowing all 52 cards...

Just to further educate myself: [hv=pc=n&s=sj2hq9dj752cakqjt&d=w&v=n&b=12&a=2dp2np3nppdpp4hdppp]133|200[/hv] Explanations, as received by South (Screens in place): 2D: 9-13 HCP 5+♦, if ♦ is exactly 5, there is a 4+ second suit (any). 2NT and 3NT are not alerted. There is a clear MI case. That is not the question. The question is the X of the 4♥. The TD ruled WoG of the SEWoG, i.e. not even serious error but wild or gambling. MP scoring, very good players. What do you think? Where is the line between "normal play", "logical alternative", "careless", "serious error", "wild, "gambling", etc.

If it is a "strong artificial" opening, you can play anything against it. If it is "natural", you may run into brown sticker regulations...

It is clear from the beginning that you have a fundamental issue with this discussion because you assume something about my hidden reasons, motivation, etc. You keep derailing the discussion through attacking me and my motivation. Fine. Your choice. I will offer one more argument for those who are interested: Rounding. If you work in IMPs, you sooner or later have to deal with fractional IMPs. Just the way you can not convert 15 Total Points to IMP, you can not handle fractional IMPs. The Total Points are assumed to be integer multiples of 10. The Total Point to IMP conversion needs this. The IMPs are assumed to be integers. The IMP to VP scale (new one) needs this. Thus, there is a need to round the numbers. In the past, using the 30VP scale, this problem would have lead to a disaster. If you did the weighting in VP, you ended up with fractional VPs, which you had to round. Thus, in some cases no change (rounding ate the change) in some cases outrageous change. Thus, you did the rounding in IMP to minimize the distortions. At most 0.5IMP error. This was still bad with the 30VP scale but that was life. Now we have the 20VP scale with a quanta of 0.01VP. This still needs integer IMPs. Thus, you can weight and round in IMPs or you weight in VPs and round to 0.01. Former has 0.5IMP randomness, which translates to 0.05...0.1 typical randomness in VP for a typical 32 board result. Weighting in VP has a randomness of 0.005VP. An order of magnitude less. Thus, it would be worth considering, no matter what MY motivation is, to switch to VP based weighting. I understand that tradition is very important and it was done in IMP for ages, but now, with the 20VP scale it would be worth thinking it over. That is all I wanted to say. I already said the rest: I learnt that there is no clear law. I understood that for some, this is not obvious, either. I understood that there is a traditional way to do this. I also understood that there were very good reasons to choose the IMP based method. I also understood that this was the right choice at that time.

Let me quote 12C1(b): "If, subsequent to the irregularity, the non-offending side has contributed to its own damage by a serious error (unrelated to the infraction) or by wild or gambling action it does not receive relief in the adjustment for such part of the damage as is self-inflicted." The question is the definition of "damage" in this context. You can define the damage in VP, IMP or even total score. All three are valid, well defined and easy to calculate. You still have to pick one to calculate "such part of the damage". As neither the total score-IMP nor the IMP-VP transformation is linear, the choice does matter. I claim that the choice does not follow from the Laws but there is a precedent to use IMP, i.e. it is a case law. I suggest making this a written law. It is like reading tea leaves but there is 86D: "In team play when the Director awards an adjusted score (excluding any award that ensues from application of Law 6D2), and a result has been obtained* between the same contestants at another table, the Director may assign an adjusted score in IMPs or total points (and should do so when that result appears favorable to the non-offending side)." you may argue that the MAY here means free choice between total score and IMP (i.e. excludes VP) but you can also argue that these (total score, imp) are just options. Using the "Expressio unius est exclusio alterius" and "Ejusdem generis" concepts from roman era favors the first interpretation. Ceterum censeo: Improve the laws so this is settled for all and not only for people with a PhD in law or people initiated by some Guru in the correct interpretation of a vague law. Rounding is even worse (EBL actually has statements about this in some CoC: round toward NOS).

Correct, I missed that. Indeed, you did the weighting in VP, which goes against everything people said so far. Which supports my claim: there is no clear regulation and there should be one. Of course this assumes that people can agree on something first and everybody can accept that.

Here you did the weighting in IMP. You could have done it in VP. For the discrete, 30VP scale that would be very difficult of course. For the new, 20VP scale that is trivial. You also reduce the rounding errors. If you weight in IMP, you can introduce 0.5IMP errors (the 20VP scale needs integer IMP results). If you weight in VP, you introduce errors at most 0.005VP. This is already "accepted" as there are 0.01VP corrections in the formula to make the curve behave nicely: As you move away from a tie, each IMP step must result in a non increasing VP step, even after rounding to 0.01VP. This requires small corrections... I am not saying this is better. I am not saying it should be done this way. I am just saying that this is more like case law than written law. Historically weighting is done in IMP, full stop. Rounding is also an issue that must be clearly regulated.

This question was more along the lines of "what is the order of differnt operations"? You have "split score", you have "weighting" and you have "IMP to VP". Apparently the correct order is: 1. Weighting 2. IMP to VP 3. Split score To me this appears to be a "case law", i.e. somebody started to do it this way and we stick to that lacking any compelling reason to do something different, e.g. to calculate the weighting in VP.

Actually, it is very hard. The Laws and Ethics guys in Hungary said that the ♥ lead in the post was not a serious error but it was wild. End of story. They asked 5 guys, some of them alreadz played the board. All of them would have lead ♠. Thus, ♠ is right, ♥ is wrong. I.e. ♥ is wild as "I would never have done it". Case closed.

I think we are overcomplicating this. I am just looking for some document, law, etc. in WBF territory that explains how to convert IMP to VP. "If team A wins V Victory Points, then its opponent, team B, wins (20−V) Victory Points" is from a 2013 technical paper by WBF. This is the closest I saw so far to an actual description of the calculation. It is my fault, probably but I looked hard. Someone may be able to point to the relevant WBF regulation. All I ask is a simple quote from anything that explains how to convert IMP to VP that can be applied. So far I saw "VP does not have to add up to 20". There is a huge leap from this to the actual method to be used. The purpose is to find a the definite answer and make it more visible, make it easier to find. The short term goal is to update the national regulations (CoC) on may points (unrelated ones) and put in an explicit rule as to how VP is calculated.

Yes. Split score (whatever reason). 0IMP for one side, -6IMP for the other side. What is the result in VP assuming 32 boards? 11.27-8.73 or 10-8.73? What is the reason? 11.27-8.73 is basically the IMP margin converted to VP. 10-8.73 is the two versions, 0IMP and -6IMP both converted to VP and keeping only half of those numbers. One more quote "If team A wins V Victory Points, then its opponent, team B, wins (20−V) Victory Points." The long term goal is to clarify the rules so we do not have these arguments over and over.

OK. I bought that: There is no VP in the laws, thus, everything is in IMPs. Split score and weighted score. Board result is 0IMP for OS, -6IMP for the NOS. As all other boards are 0IMP, this is the final result. Now the only remaining question: What is the definition of VP? How to calculate it? There is no country specific regulation, we simply refer to WBF. WBF has this statement: "IMP margin translates to a specific VP award" Notice "margin". It can be interpreted as "IMP margin=difference in IMP", in which case there is a split result in IMP but not in VP. Thus, I would like to see a definite statement as to how VP should be calculated. I can (extreme, I know) argue that "IMP translates to VP" would allow split VP results. The use of "margin" there explicitly forces us to calculate the IMP difference, no matter how the IMPs are calculated. Without split score, IMP and IMP margin are identical. "Margin" is there for a reason....

Not clearly enough for me (my fault probably). Let me retry to phrase my question. Hwo to calculculate the self inflicted damage and how to calculate the weighted result? Lets ignore the OS for a second (they get the adjusted score, not correction for SEWoG). Table result is what happened (-620 for NOS), adjusted is what would have happened without infraction (+100 for NOS). Other room is always -100 for NOS team. NOS calculation #1, with SEWoG, for the NOS: table result vs other room. -620-100=720. NOS calculation, without SEWoG, for the NOS: adjusted result vs. other room, +100-100=0. Now what do you weight 50%:50%? 1. 720 and 0 total points for 360 total points (SEWoG difference in total points, weighted). In this case you can actually do this without rounding issues. Result is -8IMP, end result is 8.33VP. 2. The corresponding IMPs: 12 IMP (720 total points) vs. 0IMP, resulting in -6IMP for NOS (SEWoG difference in IMP, weighted). End result is 8.73VP. 3. The corresponding VPs: 7.58VP (12IMP) vs. 10VP (0IMP), resulting in 8.79VP (SEWoG difference in VP, weighted). I do not get the 9.13VP result.

And now the 1000 dollar question: How to do weighting? In VP or IMP? The IMP-VP function is not linear, thus, it does matter...

OK but how do you calculate the "difference"? In total points? IMP? VP? What do you correct with this difference? Total points for the board? IMPs for the board? VP for the teams event? Final ranking for the whole tournament? The White Book has an example calculation for a split score (4.1.3.1) that is done in IMP for teams. There is no conclusion as to what that implies for the VP result. The WB also has examples for VP results that do not add up to 20VP but both examples given are AVE+/AVE+ cases. One is TD error that can not be rectified, the other is an unplayable board where neither side is at fault.

Dear All, I have a long argument with the national authorities and we seem to disagree fundamentally: How to calculate a split score with weighting in TEAMS? To give an example: 32 boards, teams. Boards 1-31 are all 0IMP. Board 32 is W4S in both rooms. In closed room it goes down 1 for -100. In the open room there is MI and as a result West makes for 620. The TD makes two rulings: 1. Without the MI it would be down 1. 2. There was SEWoG by the NOS, which is responsible for 50% of the damage. There are four proposals to calculate the score: 1. Do it in total points: OS gets -100 in the open room. The SEWoG was worth 720 points, 50% of that is 360, i.e. the board result is 260 for the OS, difference is 360 points, 8IMP, 11.67-8.33VP for the OS. 2. Do it in IMP: OS gets 0IMP for the board (-100 points in both rooms). The -620 vs. +100 is -720 points, -12IMP. The NOS gets half of this, -6IMP for SEWoG. Board result is 0:-6IMP, teams result is 11.27-8.73VP for the OS. 3. Do it with mixed IMP+VP: The 50% SEWoG is calculated as above, i.e. -6IMP. Now we do the split score in VPs. The OS gets 10VP (i.e. ignoring the SEWoG correction) but the NOS gets 8.73VP as above. Thus, 10-8.73VP. 4. Everything is done in VP: OS gets 10VP. The NOS, without the SEWoG would have scored 10VP. With the SEWoG, the NOS would have scored 7.68VP (-12IMP, 32 boards). Thus, the error was worth 2.42VP. Half of it is 1.21VP, thus, teams result is 10-8.79VP. Law 86D says "In team play when the Director awards an adjusted score (excluding any award that ensues from application of Law 6D2), and a result has been obtained* between the same contestants at another table, the Director may assign an adjusted score in IMPs or total points (and should do so when that result appears favourable to the non-offending side)." This unfortunately includes "may", i.e. one can interpret the two choices as suggestions that do not exclude other methods. White book 4.1.1.4 says: "This is done by converting each score to match points or IMPs and then applying the weighting." Example (b) supports this. White book 4.1.3.1 seems to cover exactly this topic and seems to support option 2. A small step is missing from the example. The example says OS gets 0IMP (in that example), NOS gets -4IMP.Does this imply that the board result is 0:-4IMP, i.e. -4IMP for the OS and the VP result will still add up to 20?

I think the issue is quite simple here: You can try to fool the opponents using legal means. E.g. You have AQxxx in hand, Jxxxx in dummy. The fact that you have 5 in you hand is common knowledge from the auction. The location of the A is not know. LHO has Kx. You play the Q. Here you clearly try to fool the opponent. If RHO has the A, it is bad to play the K. LHO may guess wrong. My partner also did something like this once: Dummy was AQJxx, declarer had 5 cards. My partner (LHO) played x from Kx. Declarer was fooled, did not believe my partner did this from Kx, played A, hoping for unprotected K at RHO. Here, this is slightly worse. Here, you try to induce a revoke. This is your clear intention. Is this legal? Is it ethical? Can you slightly change the tempo to make the mistake easier to make? I think this is a grey area. Probably unethical and I would never do this. Would I be able to prove intent? No.

With the incorrect explanation, South knows that East is 65 in minors or worse. Thus, East has at most 2 cardsa in majors. He can assume: 1. 2 spades, which would be insane after this auction 2. 1-1, which only goes down if both aces are missing 3. 2 hearts. If Ax, there is not much chance to defeat the contract In my opinion, ♠ is passive and assumes that there will be one looser in the minors. ♥ assumes that the 6♣ must be defeated in majors. Since South knows that all finesses work, minors split nicelz, the finesses are no even a challange, etc., I would seriously consider ♥. Sure, I am not sure. But there is no way knowing.

I have the appeal ruling. It is quite simple: The ♥ lead to partner's ♥A and ♥ back to ruff assumes that partner has the ♥A. South also knows where the ♠A is. Thus, South assumes that East bid 6♣ alone constuctively with 2 missing aces. This is an extremely unrealistic assumption, thus, the ♥ lead was gambling. Full stop. Now we are taking it one level up. This time, we have to entertain the notion that even the top level appeal guys will buy this argument and apply SEWoG. Therefore, we want to add a different argument, the application of the SEWoG rule. We want to also entertain the "such part of the damage as is self-inflicted" part of the SEWoG rule, 12C1(b): [hv=pc=n&s=sakqt943h4d942c32&w=sj2hqj95daq876c84&d=s&v=e&b=3&a=4spp4np5dp6cppp]266|200[/hv] Lets play the "official line" and play the ♠A, which holds. Now what do you lead? East promised 5♦. West has 5♦. South has 3♦. To me, a ♦ lead is obvious as partner is void and must have at least one trump -- West has 2♣, East can not have more than 8, South has 2. Thus, one ♣ is missing. This leads to 6♣=. Thus, the difference between "good" play and "gambling play"is 1390 vs. 1370. The other room had 4C+1 for 150. Even if there is self inflicted damage, the damage is zero. Is this a valid argument?

I got a bit further on the issue. The key item is the 5 players that were asked. Unfortunately I do not know the exact method used for all these cases. I asked for details and I was denied this information. One of the five revealed his identity and told me how he was questioned. The player asked has around 5800 Master Points. He is ranked in top 300 in the country. He is accidentally a very good friend of the TD. The player involved in the appeal has 110 MP and is ranked 1113. Now the procedure: 1. He (the player asked) got the hand and the auction, including the 5-5 meaning of the minors. 2. He was not told what the reasoning of South was, how he interpreted the bids, etc. 3. He was aware that he is asked to help in a TD decision. 4. He was also a TD, one of the dozen in the country. 5. He was asked what his lead would be. He replied ♠. 6. After this, he was asked what other leads he would consider. He strongly suspected he is expected to say ♥. He said that for him ♥ was not an option. 7. He was not asked for reasoning but he would have told that he was afraid of loosing a ♠ trick, thus, the ♥ lead is speculative and risky. I.e. he thinks that the ♥ lead was really stupid. 8. He was not told what the reasoning of the real player was and was not asked about his opinion about this reasoning. He assumes that the other 4 players responded in a similar manner. His conclusion, as a TD is the following: "If five out of five players lead ♠, not ♥, than the ♥ lead is an unjustified risky choice by the player. Thus, it is SEWoG." I think we are back to the original madness induced by the Kaplan article in the 70s: After an irregularity we no longer play bridge but we play ice skating. The TD(s) score the play of the NOS and if they do not get at least 9 out of 10 for their performance, it is SEWoG. The 70:30 is not yet known. My guess: They claim SEWoG. They examine how much this contributed to the damage. They claim this was 70%. In reality what probably happened: 3 persons, 2 of them for, 1 against the SEWoG. Thus, 2:1, which is around 70:30. The OS got 6C-1, i.e. -6IMP, as they should. Probably. I have not seen the ruling yet.

Appeal is over. Ruling: The ♥ lead was a SEWoG and the result is weighted 70%-30% (+1:-1) against the NOS, OS gets down one. Reasoning (sic): 5 simmilar players were asked and all five would have lead ♠. Thus, ♥ is a SEWoG (sic). The appeal was judged by players ranked 24, 59 and 104 in the country (lifetime master points). Since this is an unusual case, this is the actual result calculation if I am right: OS gets -100 for this board. The other room was 4C+1 for +150, thus, OS gets -100-150=-250, i.e. -6IMP. NOS gets 70% weighted -1390+150=-1240, i.e. 15IMP. NOS gets 30% weighted +100+150=+250, i.e. +6IMP. After weighting, you have 0.7*(-15)+0.3*6=-10.5+1.8=-8.7. This is rounded towards NOS, i.e. -8IMP. The difference is -2IMP for the NOS.

Finally I got the TD opinion. He ruled that the ♥ lead was wild or gambling. The reasoning was that he asked 10 players and all of them would have lead ♠. Thus, it was wild or gambling. As the appeal is coming soon: what is wild or gambling? EBU says (White book) that if there is a reasonable chance of success, it is not even serious error. So how would one argue facing this argument from the TD???

Hi, Following hand and auction, screens are in use. [hv=pc=n&s=sakqt943h4d942c32&d=s&v=e&b=3&a=4spp4np5dp6cppp]133|200[/hv] 4NT is alerted and explained as "unusual NT, both minors, min. 55" to South. No further alerts or questions. South chooses ♥, which results in 6♣+1. ♠A lead would result in 6♣-1. It turns out that 4NT was not "unusual NT" but simple asking for aces. It was explained to North as such but this information does not reach South. TD is called and the following argument is made: 1. 5♦ was interpreted by South as preference for ♦, obligatory response, i.e. could be with zero values. 2. 6♣ shows a much better ♣ than ♦. At least 65 and solid ♣. 3. East bidding 6♣ shows a very strong hand and quite likely no ♠ as East bid this alone without West showing any value (other than some ♦). 4. Among the 6♣ that can be defeated, he envisions a 6520 with Kx in ♥. 5. He is afraid that a ♠ lead is ruffed, trumps are drawn and he can not ruff the ♥, i.e. 6♣=. 6. Thus, he hopes for ♥A by partner and a ♥ back for 6♣-1. 7. Given the correct information (asking for aces) he clearly knows that East has 2+ aces. 8. He does not assume 5♦ and 6+♣ but 7+♣. 9. He would not assume the ♥A by partner as he knows where all 4 aces are (the response to 4NT, asking for aces is also 5♦, showing 1). 10. Thus, he would lead ♠ for 6♣-1. Remarks: 1. West did not correct the 6♣ to 6♦. He holds J2.QJ95.AQ876.84. I would argue that after 6♣, he must correct to 6♦ or realize that the 4NT is not unusual NT showing both minors. In the later case he should have told this to South. He did not. 2. All other tables playing in ♣ (four or five) found the ♠ lead. 3. No CC available. What to rule? 1. I would rule MI. The 2007 laws explicitly state that lacking evidence to the contrary, you must favor the NOS. Not correcting tha 6♣ to 6♦ makes the case even stronger. West likely knew. Law 21B1(b). 2. The NOS was damaged. Without the infraction (MI), the result is 6♣-1, which is more favorable to the NOS than the actual table result of 6♣+1. Thus, damage exists and the TD must redress it. 12B1. The only remaining issue is 12C1(b), SEoWG: 1. One might argue that the ♥ lead is a serious error (I do not think so). This is still not enough as it is not "unrelated to the infraction". Instead, it is a direct consequence. 2. This leaves the wild gambling. Did he deliberately to do something extraordinarily off-beat? I do not think so. One has to choose between ♠ and ♥. Both have some merit. One can argue that ♠ is the better choice, but does this reach the WG level? Is it really insane? 3. One can not really use the double barrel argument, either. The auction looks perfectly normal to South. East has a significantly better ♣ and West has a marginally better ♦. Plausible. Thus, he can not assume that there was an infraction and play the less likely option. In fact, even than and there he clearly claimed 6+♣, exactly 5♦, no ♠. What would you rule? I am strongly in favor of the ♠A lead, which gives 6♣-1, no matter what, due to the particular split of cards and the lack of decisions to be made.

No. It is clear that if asked, you disclose this. The original question was: where do you draw the line? How much do you disclose voluntarily? "Everything" is clearly nonsense. I have never seen a case where after a 1D-1H bid there is an alert with "a jump shift would have been weak and non forcing, thus, the H is not too long". What is the standard to use? There is also a different issue here: certain conventions have "dialects". Like here. It was a "forcing 1NT" but but not "the forcing 1NT". How is this handled in different countries? How is the official version of a convention is defined? Is there an official book of conventions? Lacking that you should never use a convention name as it is misleading....

I am starting to understand the issue: This particular 1NT bid is more "asking" than "promising" something. The responder pretty much takes over the auction for a while. It is similar to the 1NT opening followed by all different responses (Stayman, transfer, etc.). So far I like the "asks opener to further describe the hand, can not be passed" explanation. Sure one can speculate about the hand the 1NT bid can have but it is such a broad range of hands that it would lead to a 5 minute presentation that no opponent would be able to follow. This explanation is "correct" and does not try to hide agreements. It invites more questions but does not risk UI. It is certainly not "The Forcing 1NT" bid. In the actual case the explanation was "forcing", which was interpreted by the opponent as "The Forcing One and Only One No Trump" convention, which lead to the misunderstanding. I do not know how I would have ruled in that case...