McBruce

"TD then said that East should not say such things in private since everyone was entitled to read." This TD is (ah, how shall I put it diplomatically?) unqualified. East strongly suspects that South is requesting a change of call (Law 25A: "Until his partner makes a call, a player may substitute his intended call for an inadvertent call but only if he does so, or attempts to do so, without pause for thought...") after a clear pause for thought. East has good reason to suspect this since South first clicked the alert button, then possibly typed unusual, and then clicked the "2" button and then the "NT" button -- and only then claimed a misclick and requested an undo. But East doesn't want to state such a suspicion publicly. Surely this is reasonable. A blanket rule, such as this one disallowing private chat to the TD, is always a bad policy, since you will always discover a situation where your blanket rule is not going to work. The TD's public announcement that East should not talk privately to the TD makes East look bad for trying to spare the table some unpleasantries. East in this situation should be able to tell the Director privately that the sequence of events is suspicious and urge the TD to use judgment to decide whether this was a true misclick or an attempt to correct a mistake. But this TD apparently has no judgment to use. Having humliated East in public for attempting to deal with a sticky situation without causing table acrimony, she now announces to the whole tournament a SECOND blanket rule: undos must be granted. And now we have the ultimate stupidity: a TDs blanket rule that contradicts the Laws of Duplicate Bridge. South meant to bid 2NT unusual, changed his mind and tried to escape with an undo, got away with it, and (although we cannot tell for sure without seeing the whole hand) it appears that the TD decided to penalize E-W a trick they could not lose for a rule contrary to the Laws she made up on the spot. As I say, 'unqualified' is diplomatic.

Is it really necessary to set up a separate account for tournaments with fees added (like the ACBL tourneys), AND the new money bridge tournaments? I've put some money into the former and I don't see why I cannot simply use that money to play in the latter. If it has to be separate, at least set up some simple way within BBO that I can transfer funds from one account to the other. Took me some time before I decided to put some money into the BB$ account to play the odd tournament. The free mb tourneys are interesting and I might try some of the ones with entry fees, but the second I get transferred to the Paypal area again I look for ALT+F4. Money's money. Find a way around this, please. BBO will continue to grow and there will be other interesting events in the future that we can choose pay for. Don't make us open a separate account for each one.

Or, perhaps, send it once when the tourney ends and one more time when the TD adjustment period ends.

If the defenders have a possible heart ruff, they have a point here: declarer has only played one round of trumps and then gone back to the crossruff. Eventually declarer will have to play hearts. And declarer has had lots of opportunities to pull trumps, or say so in the claim statement. Don't forget, it is the TITLE of Law 70C2 that says "was probably unaware of trump." The actual wording of the Law is "it is at all likely that claimer at the time of his claim was unaware that a trump remained in an opponent's hand..." Not quite the same. When a claim is made and the defenders see all the cards, they should be able to see immediately whether they can make a trick. If hearts divide and no ruff is possible, as TD you simply say so. If there is a possible heart ruff, I think you need to give the defenders that trick. When a defender with no possible trick complains about not getting a trick in this situation is when you need to explain the rules. For some this is a simple misunderstanding--some other silly person has given them the idea that you automatically get a trick for each trump out when declarer claims. A quick reading of the Law should be sufficient to educate them. (For the uneducatable obtuse, a penalty for repeated infractions of this type after having the rules explained to them, is in order...)

Handling a 'failure to alert' situation is almost the same online as it is offline. 1. Check to see if there actually was a failure to alert. 2. If there was, hear the non-offending side's claims of damage directly caused by the failure to alert. 3. Decide whether these claims are valid. 4. If they are, adjust the score if the hand is over; or, if the failure to alert was discovered before the play begins, allow some of the auction to be re-done in accordance with Law 21B, again adjusting the score if necessary. The TD online should be able to see in the auction box whether the bid was alerted or not. The difficulty online comes in determining whether the bid SHOULD have been alerted, since we have widely-varying rules to decide what should be alerted. Most alerting regulations (including the ACBLs) say that if the non-offending side is probably aware what is going on, they cannot claim damage later. So if your tourney rules say that all conventions must be alerted, and the opponents forget to alert a 1-level negative double which is on their posted convention card, you may not get redress if you also play negative doubles and are listed as intermediate or higher. But if the TD decides that the bid should have been alerted, he may well have to go onto the next step: deciding whether there was damage that was directly caused by the failure to alert. This can get fairly technical and is a judgment call. Most TDs will make some ruling to allow play to continue and look at it in detail when they have time. In the hurly-burly of online directing, some TDs do not find the time to inform the players fully that they are going to do this, or what their final decision is when made. It thus sometimes seems that the TD has simply said "play on" and ignored the whole thing, when in fact they may have had a good look and made a decision, but simply not found the time to communicate it properly--especially when online this may require translation. On the other hand, most experienced TDs, online and offline, will tell you horror stories of players who seem to feel that there has to be a penalty for any offense, even if the offense did not have any effect on the result. There are even some online TDs who feel they must make a ruling whenever someone does something wrong. TDing is mostly about communication: if you concentrate on letting people know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what the Laws say, most will accept even the rulings that they disagree with!

When BBO TDs get the ability to assign PP to contestants (either teams, pairs, or individuals, depending on the type of event: this is what the Laws specify), this will solve most of the problems good TDs face: --A disciplinary penalty for TD abuse or misbehavior can be applied as a PP with exactly the same effect. --A non-balancing score, if not implemented, can be applied approximately by adjusting to the score obtained by the non-offenders, then applying a post-game penalty to the offenders. The only difference would be that the scores on the board of other pairs sitting the same direction as the offenders will not change slightly, as they do when you give non-balancing scores: so it would be better to find a way to do this properly. However... This new ability will be a powerful utility for TDs who love to exasperate players with bizarre and improper 'rulings.' I think it is great that BBO allows anyone to direct a tournament, but perhaps we should use these to-be-programmed new features as a reward for those who will take the time to use them properly. A TD should be licenced to use PPs and split-scores if he or she: --has been an assistant TD in a PP/SS-enabled tournament and has shown a reasonable command of the tools --promises to answer reasonable questions in this forum on decisions made (although we may have to set up some translating services) --runs a tournament once every three months to help train another TD in the PP/SS functions --does not play in his/her own tournaments (in fact, it should not be an option with PP/SS enabled) A TD can be unlicensed (but not permanently) for: --repeatedly not explaining rulings objected to reasonably on this forum --not helping others become trained as PP/SS-enabled TDs by running an occasional tournament with a trainee --complaining publicly about the process by which some TDs are allowed to use the PP/SS tools ("my friend should be allowed too, it's not fair!") I look forward to seeing these new tools implemented in the best way we can.

There seems to be a huge gap between the attention span of club/tournament players and that of mostly online players. People who have played bridge offline and have added online play to their bridge time scoff at the absurdly low number of boards that are played in online tournaments and the way many players find it difficult to play even that many. In a club or tournament a player would be a major nuisance alternating between a newspaper, a video on an iPod, long trips to the bar to check on news or scores, and the actual game itself. Online players seem to think it is acceptable to wander wherever they like when they have a minute or two, even if it is an unclocked tournament and they may be moved early at any moment. By reducing the time required from over three hours to less than two in most cases, online TDs are trying to bridge the gap. But by doing so we have created a new strategy: shoot like hell, hope to get lucky often enough over a dozen boards, and quit if you fail. It seldom works in 26 board games, but in a 12 board game it sometimes does. We cringe when we see someone winning a 12 board individual game with a score of 85% or +72 IMPs on seven doubled contracts and five redoubled ones. This is not bridge; this is ridiculous. I think TDs have bent far more than Net players in bridging the attention-span gap. It's about time that those who play predominantly online realize that tournament play is not the same as MBC play. You don't get to go at your own pace, and you are expected to play through to the end. The original post in this thread admits that sometimes he is away from the computer for the first five minutes of a round and claims that this is unintentional. I just cannot see how. You enter a tourney, you agree to the conditions. It is simple discourtesy to enter a tournament if you cannot devote enough time to complete it: discourteous to the TD and most of all to the other players (and not just those at your table). This is so self-evident that there can be no argument that it is not explicitly stated in a TDs conditions--it is part of the site rules: no quitting, no delaying, no deliberate silly actions. We're here to play bridge. If you want to play hold 'em or check stocks or watch TV or talk to your significant other on the telephone -- or ALL of those things at once, you should NOT be entering a tournament. And if you cause repeated delays by insisting on non-attentiveness; yes, you should expect to be blacklisted.

The partner of the 2D bidder told the TD he assumed 2D was Capp. This is an agreement. If both partners think that 2D is Capp, it is an agreement whether they have discussed it or not. The opponents deserve an alert.

What it all comes down to in this case is the simple question: what constitutes an agreement? A player who bids 2♦ without diamonds expects his partner to understand the meaning of his call. That's an agreement, in my opinion. I would adjust, although I might make the non-offenders eat their score.

Glad to see that it is not as simple as "bans don't count if you are paying." I suspected as much. Not sure I agree that nobody would pay a deposit. If -- maybe only for occasional special games -- you tacked on a deposit of one or two times the entry fee ($20 was maybe a bit harsh) it would be a gesture to the people who play from start to finish that we want to crack down on those who don't. The TD could always decide to refund the deposit to those for whom there was no evidence that the exit was unsportsmanlike. I usually find that quitters leave a clear trail of -800s, -950s, -790s and the like, in their last few boards. People who leave with normal looking results often message me later to apologize for losing connection. ACBL club rules usually allow clubs to run four club championships a year for extra masterpoints for each session they run. If this is allowed for online clubs, maybe that would be a good way to introduce the policy. We talked a lot about the fairness of movements when BBO first introduced tournaments. How different, really, is taking steps to ensure that each entry contains the same players at the beginning and end? It increases the luck factor when 10% of the pairs are replaced before the tournament is over, especially when there is strong evidence that many of these people are just leaving because they are losing. The connection factor of the Net means we can't ever completely solve the problem, but we should at least try to minimize it--especially when honest people are paying to play.

Gerardo: I think that [the BBO tracking of tourney non-finishers and the auto-suspensions that go with it] applies only to free tourneys, and you can play a pay T even when banned, if you pay the fee. I certainly hope that's wrong. Why on earth should a person with a reputation for leaving tourneys before they are finished be barred from free tourneys but not pay ones? By limiting the auto-suspensions to free tourneys, the policy says, in effect: We don't care about the majority of players who play to the end whatever the result. If they have to take an A+ or two, or play against a pickup pair, or watch their rivals get an A+ at random just because the pair that left is next up for them; them's the breaks. I can tell you that this does not happen in offline bridge, because TDs do not let it happen. If a player is upset or disgruntled and wishes to leave, I will chase them into the parking lot to get them back, and if diplomacy doesn't work I will threaten them with an ACBL suspension which WILL be upheld. The ACBL does not take kindly to people who leave for frivolous reasons, disrupting the game for everyone. The recommended penalty for leaving a session before it is over, from the ACBL Displinary Sanction Guidlines, is 90 days probation to 30 days suspension. That's for a first offense. Why we let it happen online, over and over and over again, is quite beyond me. When we discuss cheating allegations we have this ethic that says that online bridge is no different from offline bridge: cases must be proved conclusively and procedures must be followed. Fair enough. But why do we twist that around when it comes to misconduct: people leaving early with a bad score and no good reason for leaving? Somehow now online bridge is different suddenly and we must be lenient. Why? I see more people asking me for permission to leave in one online tourney than I do in a year's worth of weekly games at the club. (Not to mention that for everyone who asks permission, there are one or two that don't even bother.) Usually it is just a message that the player has to leave, no reason given. Sometimes the 'reasons' are given and I wish they weren't: we have a dinner date, the baby has woken up, there's a knock at the door, an important telephone call has been returned -- for goodness sake, people, why enter a tournament (especially one of mine, which are 15 boards long!) when you know you are not likely to finish? Do these people have no consideration for others? Let's think carefully about the policy before we let players with a bad rep spoil pay tourneys for innocent paying customers. If anything, I would make players pay a deposit that could be forfeited for leaving early (returning and claiming bad connection might be allowed once per tourney), misbehaving, or sabotaging by taking a bad score deliberately. Make the $1 tourneys a loss of $20 if you don't behave or leave before it ends and this problem will go away very quickly.

I don't understand the difference between watching a train stop at a train station and looking at a schedule to see when it will stop. Both seem boring to me compared to actually being on the train. Anyway, I forgot the other argument against the notion that TDs like me who bar kibitzers should be made to conform: 6) If kibitzers rights activists get their way and somehow force TDs to let them in the door, the TDs who currently bar kibitzers will simply quit--for who knows what the masses will demand next? People who do things voluntarily don't expect to be dictated to. Bottom line: if you think tourneys barring kibitzers are wrong, this is your forum: find six others who agree with you and form a group running one tourney each a week. And you know, I may even play in it! (I won't complain about the kibitzers.)

Perhaps the best response to West, when he asks for an adjustment because South did not alert his 2♣ opener, is: What was 3♦? Did you alert that? I don't see any evidence that N-S have any special agreements. South opened 2♣ for reasons known only to himself--if they were known to anyone else the result would have been different. West made a 3♦ call that defies reason. North had a penalty double and decided to make it. East sensed that the BBO Indy retrovirus was infecting the table, and by passing he would give himself 2-1 odds in favour of having one of the opponents make the Final Mistake. South decided he did not want to collect a penalty of 1700 and tried 3NT. West probably didn't start with the A-Q♥ or we wouldn't be hearing the story. I don't think there is any reason to even bother with investigating here. It is, however, my contention that a standard system imposed on all players within an indy (and automatic adjustments when a non-system call is fielded by partner for a good score) requires NO alerts at all. I have run 65 tourneys without a complaint that two players have a special partnership agreement that is completely within the system imposed on players. It might conceivably happen, but if it does the chances are that it will not have a major effect on the results.

OK, here's what's wrong with this oft-repeated thread: 1) No TD who bars kibitzers thinks that it will eliminate cheating. We think it MAY cut down on cheating, but nobody thinks it will eliminate it. Every tirade posted against barring kibitzers assumes that we who do view it as the ultimate cure. Disagree if you want, but don't assume our motives. 2) Running a free tourney is a fair bit of work to allow many people to have a bit of fun. The least we can do is let people run them how they please. Barring kibitzers is not illegal as "no psyches" or "no 1NT with stiffs" is. Quit hassling those who give their time for nothing so that you can get something free! 3) Allowing kibitzers gives people an excuse not to play. I have never understood the difference between watching a player play eight boards live and watching a player play eight boards he played an hour ago through myhands. 4) Allowing kibitzers is an invitation to the terminally-suspicious to raise hell whenever an opponent makes a good play. There are people who do this. I don't need the hassle. 5) Boycotting isn't effective. Like it or not, the vast majority of players don't care one way or the other. Of those who do, the majority would prefer no kibitzers online, just because it seems fairer. The ones who rant here are a minority--and I would guess a knowledgable enough minority to run their own tourneys and play in each other's.

[hv=d=s&v=n&n=s4h7dkj98764ct632&w=s5hkqj98632dackq4&e=saqj873hatdcaj985&s=skt962h54dqt532c7]399|300|Scoring: MP [/hv] (this hand has been posted to rgb and blml -- I invite comment) ACBL: North American Pairs Unit Final Second of two sessions: twinned Howells, following an 8-table skip Mitchell. Matchpoints. Flight B/C Stratified, all pairs under 2000 MP Both pairs in this case were Flight C pairs, under 500 MP and non-LM (at the beginning of the club stage at least, N-S now are both LMs over 500 MP but the CoCs specify masterpoint holding at the June 2005 cycle.) Auction (all bids with explanations were timely alerted and explained when asked for): South: Pass West: 1♣ (Precision, 16+, or apparently a shapely 15) North: Pass East: 1♥ (transfer to 1♠) South: Pass West: 1♠ (forced) North: 2♦ East: 3♦ South: 5♦ West: 6♥ North: Pass East: 7♠ South: Double West: Pass North: Pass East: 7NT South: Double All Pass TD (me) was called when dummy appeared. I gave a stern lecture to North before hearing the facts because he was pointing angrily at East and holding court as I was making my way to the table. Both sides agreed that there was a break in tempo by West after the double of 7♠. I told them to get a result and I would look at the deal and decide if an adjustment was warranted. 7NT was laydown and NS were calling me back before I returned to the desk. 1) Is pass a logical alternative for East? (Don't answer yes without considering what West can possibly have for his Precision opener from East's point of view.) 2) Is South's double of 7NT an egregious attempt at a double shot? 3) How do you rule? (my ruling below) My ruling: With the help of three players who were present but not kibitzing, it was determined that pass was certainly a logical alternative. I actually didn't listen much to their conversation so I don't know if they considered the "what can he have for 1♣?" argument later made by East. The call came just as I had figured out how to get ACBLScore to handle the Mitchell/twinned Howell and finally entered the scores from round one, then when I picked up the slips for round two the call came and I was distracted. I resumed entering the round two scores by picking up round one's slips again and discovered that everyone had played the wrong boards in round two. Five frantic minutes went by while I tried to work out a solution until I saw the other set of slips... ;) I decided to agree with the panel that pass was an LA, adjusted the EW score to 7♠*-3, and then turned to the second question. The panel was split on the issue of whether the double of 7NT was a double shot. I decided that the level of the players did not warrant calling this a double shot. If N-S were Flight A players or even strong Flight B players I would have made them eat -1790. Predictably, letting the players know about the decision did not go well. I began with NS, first repeating my stern warning about North's behavior, then telling them I had decided to adjust to 7♠*-3. When I informed South that the double of 7NT was very close to a double shot, he began interrupting me repeatedly and I had to say "Excuse me--this is NOT a conversation or a debate, this is an announcement and a warning and I will penalize you for further such interruptions." I don't think South has learned his lesson: "I never considered it a double-shot," he continued to insist long after I had warned him not to argue further. I expect he will have to eat a similar score in future. East-West were unhappy with the decision but were more accepting of it. I told them that I had given both North and South severe warnings for North's behavior and for South's very questionable double of 7NT. They asked if I had considered the fact that the Precision 1♣ opener allowed East to infer a strong possibility of having the A♦, and I told them that this had been considered and made it a closer decision that it would have in a standard auction. I also, of course, told them that they were free to appeal if they wished, since the ruling was a judgment ruling. Later during a break I talked to them and assured them that I did not think either of them were guilty of an ethical lapse. I think this is a widely misunderstood point, especially with intermediate players who think that an adjustment automatically means somebody deliberately did something wrong. Not that it matters, or that any sane Director would ever consider changing a ruling because of the effect it has on the score, but: In the end both pairs qualified and in fact EW finished well ahead of NS, qualifying in the B and C field. EW lost a place to the ruling, NS would still have qualified easily if forced to eat -1790, as they were the third of five C pairs in the 16-pair field. More oddities for BLML regulars to comment on: With sixteen pairs, is there a better two-session movement than the one I chose? We played a skip Mitchell in the afternoon, 28 boards, and twinned four-table Howells in the evening, scored across the field and sharing one set of boards. This meant all pairs played four boards against 14 of the 15 other pairs, missing only the pair that they skipped or skipped them during the afternoon session. I of course ensured that the C-pairs and the best of the B-pairs did not skip one another. One oddity that made things interesting was that the club had two sets of four-table Howell table markers that were slightly different. ACBLScore recognizes this and asks whether the table markers are the standard or alternate version. We actually had one player notice that the two movements were slightly different! I probably would have noticed--possibly I would have been informed by ACBLScore--but I was told by a member of my ad hoc appeals panel at the beginning of the second session that factoring would be necessary, since top in the afternoon was 6 and top in the evening was 7. One suggestion that was made might have worked a little better: set the second session up as the twinned Howells, but give one section only the first two boards of each four-board set, and the other section the second two boards of each four-board set. Play seven rounds of two boards, exchange, and play seven more two-board rounds. This would eliminate the sharing of boards (I preduplicated all of the boards as I usually do to avoid duplication errors), and would even allow for a leaderboard with 14 boards left to be posted. The drawbacks, I felt, would be the likelyhood that one side would get a round ahead of the other, making it difficult to control, and that the 3/4 time leaderboard would induce some wild actions in the final quarter. Opinions? As a TD running a two-session game for the first time, I found ACBLScore to be marvelously self-explanatory in helping with the crossovers and the factoring. I am sure that tournament TDs do this all the time and it is routine, but for me it was all new and I found all of the information I needed in the help files. Kudos to Jim Lopushinsky and others who have helped with ACBLScore.

Funniest uncontested auction I ever saw was this one: 1NT 2NT 3NT 4NT 5NT pass Down one. We didn't ask.

A local TD once provided hand records for his games by having his sister look at the deals and write out the hands on a form, which was quickly photocopied. Trouble was, the sister was not a bridge player and we got suits like KJ64A, QT654A, etc. The original poster, if in the ACBL, should have written the full deal down after the game and sent it to the Unit Recorder or a Unit official. If these players are cheating, and enough suspicious reports are received, they may face the music from an ethics committee at some point. People bid and make 18-point games and 23-point slams all the time. This is a very weak case to base a cheating allegation on, from what has been presented.

Pretty women don't have a bridge reason for being uncomfortable with men looking over their shoulder. However, in kibitzing from the other player's side of the table you should be OK if you confine your glance to their faces... :D In the same vein, I heard a story once about a famous local TD, now retired, called to a table many years before bidding boxes where a pretty young lady in revealing attire told him that her RHO had opened "two boobs." The TD thought for a moment and then replied that in his opinion there was no doubt that this bid was not insufficient. :)

I have seen a rise in sabotage recently in my tournaments, but I don't think this comes up to the standard: 1. East stayed at the table. Most saboteurs leave once they have ensured a bad result. 2. East might have redoubled, but did not. Now, that said, I would watch East for other examples of spectacularly bad play attributable to him. It may be that the goons who play tournaments to skew the results are learning that 7NTxx is too obvious. I think the best course of action is to confront the player after a result like this. "What was the 2♦ bid all about?" in private chat, might get you "I misclicked, didn't know what to do," or "misread the auction" or whatever. Silence, although it may be a language issue, is grounds for further observation. If you feel that sabotage is involved, the thing to do is to adjust to A++ for all, and remember to contact abuse afterwards. Giving the non-offending side a top is wrong unless they were on the way to a top when the sabotage took place. Here is a concern: the TD here was never called to the table, but watched the East player once subbed, because of a prior reputation in a different series of tournaments. He admits that East was not barred from the tourney he was directing, yet he certainly gave East a higher standard of observation -- and ejected him on the first suspicious result without checking for a reason for his bidding. I think if you are subbing for another TD, you follow that TDs rules. You don't substitute your own. The East player was a legal replacement in this tournament and didn't deserve the special treatment he got, whatever he did in the other tourney. That criticism made, and perhaps made a little more harshly than I should, I must commend the original poster for starting the discussion here. I'm sure he did a good job otherwise and will continue to do so.

Not a bad idea if made optional. Very multi-lingual. Many contested claims hinge on whether declarer is just counting top tricks or is going to avoid entry or blocking traps. This would probably be faster than typing a statement.

In order to ensure that my tourneys start as close to 7:30 as possible, I usually set up a clock program (nthClock, one of those cute little free programs that synchs your clock to some atomic clock somewhere) in the corner of the screen before I log in. Before I make my first promo announcement at 36 minutes to go, I check the time the minutes left figure changes and make sure the exact start time is somewhere between 7:29:31 and 7:30:30. To make sure I am in the right minute I write on my tourney worksheet* the seconds off that the BBO clock is every time I make a promo announcement. I also write the number of entries so far. Here is last time's table: 36 mins . . . 36 players . . . -34 seconds 30 mins . . . 44 players . . . -27 seconds 24 mins . . . 51 players . . . -34 seconds 18 mins . . . 53 players . . . -25 seconds 12 mins . . . 34 players . . . -34 seconds 06 mins . . . 78 players . . . -25 seconds 03 mins . . . 93 players . . . -34 seconds Why the fluctuation? It happens every time like this. (I have checked the clock program against my musician's feel for 60beats per minute rhythm and the nthClock program doesn't miss a beat.) And why, on occasions when I need to change the start time by a minute or so to get it closer to 7:30, does the clock usually skip a minute? No big problem here, just wondering... *worksheet: TDs: make a standard form worksheet to have nearby. On mine (set up for unclocked indy tourneys) I jot down the requests for adjustments, players who seem to be on slow connections, players delayed by these people, misbehaving players, which tables are currently in the slowest group, and other info. I have a check list of the things I need to do each time to make sure I don't miss any. I have a bottom strip that charts the rounds and times and reminds me to make certain announcements. It's handy and useful and keeps things running smoothly.

Nothing like science and mathematics. I'm convinced--I'll never play 2/1 again. :P

pigpenz: Seems to me that by leading off with the threatening statement that you would sent your chatlog to abuse you began a needless confrontation with the TD. I can't imagine why you would not simply make a more passive opening lead like "TD, I was away from the computer, please explain what is going on here with the cheating allegations from playerxxxx." Your first and second statements are like guys taking off their shirts when they know there is a C*O*P*S cameraman around....

Active Ethics has its place. There was a story about Al Roth defending 7NT in a high stakes rubber game with the Q♣. Declarer, Al's LHO, took some time before starting and watched all the discards carefully before coming down to a three card ending with twelve clubs left in the four hands, KJ9 in dummy, AT8 in hand. After an eternity, the declarer finally played the 8♣ toward the dummy. Al's partner looked at the ceiling and hmmmed a bit and finally played a very tentative low card. Declarer played the jack and when it won claimed his grand. Al's partner went nuts when he saw declarer's last two cards. "AL," he shrieked, "WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU WIN THE QUEEN?" "I thought you had it," said Al. :D Where Active Ethics falls down is in non-obvious situations. Every player has the right to decide what is allowed when there is UI. But whenever it is arguable whether a logical alternative exists, I don't think we should force people to invoke Active Ethics and take a potentially unnecessary bad result. Nor should we take their decision as an indication of their own personal ethics. It's hard enough to play this game without UI, and even harder when there is and it MIGHT meet the L73C standard--or might not. I wouldn't impugn Al's ethics if he chose to take his queen, but as Director I would rule making seven (Law 73F2). Al saw that coming and took the shorter (and more entertaining) route. :)

I am saddened to discover after an investigation that my Friday evening individual tournament #967 K is for KREMLIN, an Alphabet Points Club Championship, was adversely affected by some very poor behavior. Three individuals have been reported to BBO abuse and have received permanent bans from the Alphabet Points series. Six results were identified as being obviously sabotaged: all doubled or redoubled contracts, several at the seven level without anything close to the values expected. I cannot change the scores in BBO, but I can adjust the Alphabet Point rankings, and I will take the time to do so. Many players were innocent bystanders when their partners decided to go berserk and skew the results. I have decided to adjust their ranks in the rating system to give them and their opponents the Alphabet Points as though they scored A+ (60%) on these boards. You can see the revised standings on the Web Page later this afternoon.