geller

The Laws of Bridge authorize regulation of conventions, but there is no provision for requiring that pairs must use the 4-3-2-1 point count rigorously to make their evaluations. Obviously it is a matter of convenience to use 4-3-2-1 point count in stating the definition of bids, but normal flexibility in making hand evaluation should be allowed. If petty-minded clerks insist that the 4-3-2-1 point count must be rigorously followed, with harsh punishment for even minor common sense deviations, bridge as we know it will have ended. Do we really want to say that it's OK to open 2S with xxxxxx QJ Qx xxx because that hand has 5HCP, but that it's a felony to open 2S with KT98xx x xxxx xx?

Everyone knows (or should know) that the 4-3-2-1 point count is just one general and approximate scheme for evaluating the strength of a hand. There are a myriad of other factors (texture, shape, aces are really worth more than 4 and queens/jacks less than 2 and 1 respectively, concentration of honors in long/short suits, etc) that all reasonably strong players take into account. It seems silly to treat minor deviations from the stated strength on the 4321 scale as violations of partnership agreements or psyches.

Pardon my ignorance, but what does the "S&G" in the title of this thread mean?

At present the WBF uses imp quotient (imps won/imps lost) as the tiebreaker when vp scores are the same. Here in Japan we currently follow the WBF regulation for purposes of awarding trophies and prizes, etc., although masterpoint awards treat the tie as a tie. Two teams in a Swiss Team event in Tokyo were tied for first place in VPs. Their scores were as follows Team 1: IMP +291 -174 Quotient= 1.67 Net Plus= 117 Team 2: IMP +340 -212 Quotient= 1.60 Net Plus= 128 Under the current rules Team 1 was awarded the trophy, as it had the better IMP quotient. (On the other hand, if IMP difference=net plus= rather than quotient had been used as the tiebreaker, Team 2 would have been awarded the trophy.) My question is, should imp quotient or imp difference (net plus) be used as the tiebreaker? It seems that a long time ago football (soccer) used goal ratio as the tiebreaker, and bridge followed this. Many years ago FIFA switched over from goal quotient to goal difference, but bridge continues to use imp quotient rather than difference. Either is somewhat arbitrary, but which do you think is better?

In the windows client you could do a mouseover to get the user profile. I understand there are reasons why you can't do this in general on the web client, but it would be nice if you could do it for VuGraph commentators in particular, and for people who chat to you in general. -Bob

The refusal to show hands in the OP involved a Swiss Team event with shuffled boards (reshuffled after each round) with no hand records. The case of a passout is a bit different perhaps, especially when there are hand records available after the match. But in the event of a claim or concession with onl y a few tricks left, it takes only a few seconds to look at the remaining cards, so I don't see this as a major objection. In any event, as Pran has pointed out, bridge is not poker. There is nothing in the Laws that says you can refuse to show your cards, and there is L74A2 to say that you should abide by a reasonable request to show them.

If two experienced and respected tournament directors can disagree about such a simple and fundamental point, this indicates the existence of a flaw in the Laws of Bridge. Perhaps the WBFLC could resolve this point at its next meeting (in Philadelphia) and could also clarify this point in the next (2017?) edition of the Laws.

Of course you can call the director and ask for a ruling under 74A2. (But you might not be very happy with the outcome. :-) ) -Bob

Because refusing the request to show one's hand would cause annoyance on the part of the requester and would interfere with the requester's enjoyment of the game.

Never overlook Law 74A2 - that law applies also in a passout situation! I agree, but might it not be even better for the next version of the Law Book to make this explicit.

West is declarer. With 5 tricks left to play in the hand, North turns to West and says "OK, you take the rest." West says to the opponents, "OK, thanks, but please show me your remaining cards." South says, "Sorry, since the play of the hand has ended I am not obligated to show you my remaining cards, and I refuse to do so." West summons the director, and asks him to ask North and South to show him (West) their remaining cards. How should the director rule, and which specific law(s) justify his ruling? -Bob

In the case of the ACBL the ZA is also the RA, so this is a special case. In the case of Zone 6 the situation is different. The JCBL (Japan Contract Bridge League) regulations allow players to reserve their rights to call the director at the end of the hand in the event of a hesitation. I wasn't aware that the PABF regulations stated that they were denying the various national assns the right to regulate this matter, which, as correctly noted above, they do not actually have the power to do. Hopefully the apparently inappropriate PABF regulation can be corrected. but as far as I know it hasn't had any practical effect on the national assns. -Bob

Here is a link to the official PABF elections. -Bob

This is a grey area. Before the WBF existed the ACBL was the promulgator of the Laws for the western hemisphere. My understanding is that (WBF Constitution and Bylaws notwithstanding) the ACBL position is that it is the Laws promulgator for ACBL-land and that the WBF laws are merely advisory. As I might be wrong, I'd appreciate any additions/corrections regarding this matter. -Bob

Amazing: Zone 6 does not allow reserving rights "to obtain a friendlier environment" when in fact this decision will do exaclty the reverse. In England: "You thought a bit before doubling, didn't you?" "Sure" In Zone 6: "Director!" The document cited above ( http://www.scba.org.sg/files/documents/Zon...f_2007_Laws.doc ) is from the web site of the Singapore CBA, and appears to be their instructions to their delegate (on how to vote at the meeting that decided the PABF elections) rather than the official and final PABF elections. Unfortunately the official PABF website ( http://www.pabf.org/home.asp ) doesn't show the final and official PABF elections. I will drop the webmaster a note. -Bob

The best pair on the Japanese Senior team that won in Beijing was Ino-Abe. This year Ino is back on the Japan open team while Abe is not playing. Given this, the Japan seniors will do well to make the top four. On the other hand the Japan open team has a reasonable chance to make it to the KO round, and if they do that they have a chance to do well. -Bob (I've been living and playing bridge in Japan for the past 25 yrs)

The whole point of watching ViGraph is to get the thrill of real-time kibitzing. If it's delayed it's not (IMO) worth watching. If the organizers have security worries then let them monitor the event strictly, inclusing escorts to and from the toilet, etc. It should be noted that BBO (or other provider) live VuGraph is a red herring. All the same security problems exist whether or not there is live VuGraph. -Bob

One point nobody's mentioned is that in the US (almost) every top team has a sponsor. This is how the pros make a living so no one can criticize it. There may be some sponsors who are good enough to be selected (in a Denmark-type system) but maybe not. OTH, a unit of 5 pros playing with their sponsor has espirit d'corp that a selected team of 3 top pro pairs from different teams might not. Another point is that a whimsical trials system like that in the US can work OK because the talent pool is so deep. In smaller countries there aren't so many players so the top players face each other more often in league events, so there's more data (like Butler imp scores) to justify the choices made by selectors, so it's not just like the selectors are arbitrarily making it up as they go. Finally, in most of the world the (a) major sport is football (soccer). In soccer the top players from that country are selected (usually by the coach) to play for the national team in the world cup or continental championships, so that kind of system, when applied to bridge, doesn't meet so much resistance. Incidentally, here in Japan we have a US style Trials. We've had byes in the past, but not now. This system of selection is why Japan won the Senior event in Beijing last year. The heavily favored team in the Trials for the Open team lost in the finals, so one of the players (one of the top two or three players here, arguably the very top) from that team was available for the Seniors, who narrowly beat USA in the finals. Take this as you will regarding the merits of trials vs. selection.

You are correct that my analogy is imperfect. It would be more precise if the US Olympic team had been the NBA champion prior to the introduction of so many non-Americans to the NBA. Now the team would have to be a hybrid if it were to consist of a core of the NBA champ. As it is the US Olympic basketball team has always been chosen by commitee. The fact remains that in North American professional sport byes are not universally employed, and never, I think, for more than one round. Certainly not for four rounds! I am still waiting for a convincing argument as to why Bridge should be an exception. The USBA championships are a bit like the English tennis championships in that there are many prequalifying rounds open to anyone in the case of the USBA or open to almost any pro in the case of Wimbledon. There are four or five qualifying rounds (not sure exactly) before the lucky qualifiers can play in the main event. In the case of the USBF the "real" tourney starts in the round of 8 (round of 16?) so Nickell "really" gets a bye for only one or two rounds. The confusion arises because the USBA doesn't label the rounds before the round of 8 (round of 16?) as a qualifying tourney or "play in" or what have you. Actually since the conditions for getting USBA tourney byes were announced well in advance I don't really see what the problem is.... -Bob

1. Since the NBA playoffs are a revenue producing sport Kareem et al had to play from the beginning round but if their team was the top seed they were matched against the bottom team in their conference, and thus effectively got a bye. 2. IIRC there was a time when there were twelve teams in the NBA playoffs and the top four teams got a first round bye. 3. In the NFL playoffs the top four seeds get a 1st round bye. This is an enormous advantage because they get an extra week of rest, and play their first game at home.

Agree with Han. If the German concession was legal and acceptable to directors and organisers then it seems futile for outsiders to argue for sanctions. If there is some other criticism of a German player, then it is up to his partner, team-mates, captain, and nbo to take appropriate action. The organizer (WBF) AFIK made no provision regarding the admissibility of mid-session concessions. Under those circumstances the Laws of Duplicate Bridge give the Director the right and duty to handle the situation as he sees fit. He in fact allowed the concession, so there is no problem. (This is a repetition of a post I made upthread.) In the future the WBF if it sees fit can include specific provisions regulating mid-session concessions in the conditions of contest (or, for that matter, provisions for how to handle matches that run overtime in the event a meteorite impacts on the venue).

As Roland pointed out upthread the arrangements work like this. The night before a match the federation providing the foreign language commentary is told to assign commentators to the closed room, and the English language commentators are assigned to the open room. The lineups are decided by the teams only a few minutes before game time. It would be theoretically possible to switch rooms at the last minute based on the lineups, but there would inevitably be people who failed to get the word and started commenting in the wrong room (this could eventually be straightened out of course....). But the present system seems much simpler. The ultimate solution is multiple language channels, but till that time the present arrangments seem best. As far as listening to people's opinions there is a limit, as everyone will want as much commentary as possible in a language (or languages) that he understands. So just taking a majority vote would mean all commentary would be in the most popular language(s) of the site, so compromise seems inevitable here. -Bob

In the recent WMSG seniors Japan faced USA in the finals, so it worked out nicely to have English language commentary in the open room and Japanese in the closed. The Japanese language commentary got good viewership in Japan. I can assure everyone that most of the Japanese specs would not have really been able to get into the English language commentary (although most would have understood some). Incidentally, I'm not sure the English speaking readers here (unless they also are fluent in another language) realize how much effort Fred and Uday have put into supporting languages other than English on BBO. This has been a great boon for bridge everywhere. -Bob

I don't know much about snooker, but there's a difference in your "game" and "match" examples in chess. In chess, a player resigns a game, of his own volition, when he decides that to continue is pointless. If a chess player loses so many points that it is impossible to win (e.g. giving up 5 1/2 points in a "Best of 10" match), the match ends of its own accord; the player does not "concede." The problem is that in bridge you can be losing by 1199 imps with 50 boards left in the match, and theoretically it is possible to score 24 imps on each board to recover 1200 and win the match, but obviously this is practically impossible. So whether and when to concede is a matter of common sense to be left to the losing team. It's hard to imagine that any hard and fast rule could be made. Incidentally, some posters in this thread have suggested that the WBF should adopt a regulation governing mid-session concessions. I don't have a strong opinion (it's probably rare enough that no regulation is needed) but I'd like to point out that the Laws of Duplicate Bridge (below) give the director full powers to adjudicate such a concession in the absence of a specific WBF regulation (see below). The actual on-site director appears to me to have made a reasonable decision to accept the concession.

Maybe we should find rules how to conced with 8, 10 or 12 boards to go and force them to play with 4 or less boards? Maybe we should ban captains who are away when such a difficult descission has to be done? This happened the first time as far as all of us know, so get serious, we need NO new rules about this. And sorry, it was not WD Roland. He does many many good things, but this was far away from well done- a very serious apology was the very least to do. But I respect him for being man enough to do so. Enough already! Roland's been working hard and probably was a little tired (to say the least) when he said what he said, and anyway he's already apologized for it. Can't we just accept his apology and move on from here? Why can't we start a thread about something really important, like how great it is that a team from Japan has made it to the finals (Seniors) for the first time ever in a WBF event.