McBruce

I recall coming a trick short of sinking the other five pairs below average, while going from last place to first in the final shared-board round of a 3-table Howell...

In a Mitchell movement game of seven and a half tables, I printed the one-round-to-go leaders and discovered that the N-S leaders and the E-W leaders were meeting in the final round. The sum of their scores so far was 159.49%, the E-W pair leading with over 82%! The E-W pair took two boards out of the final three to finish at 79.76%, winning E-W by >16%, and dropping the N-S pair to 71.18%, winning N-S by >18%! Only six out of 15 pairs finished above average.

I have heard snide comments, insinuations of deliberate cheating, and vicious sarcasm delivered with perfect courtesy. Without 74A2 all these would be perfectly fine. And in many cases they are fine, among opponents who know one another well and will not take offense. But everyone is new to any group at some point, and a new player shouldn't need to be in doubt or fear as to what the underlying meaning of something said with perfect courtesy really is.

Agreed -- but the opponents are in a better position than the absent TD is to judge when the player noticed it. This player claims to have noticed his error just as partner was about to reach for the bid-box after at least a short delay. I'll take him at his word, but if the opponents doubt this and saw something indicating earlier doubt about the call, they'll tell me about it.

I recall an E-W pair arriving rather late at our table shaking their heads after repeated TD calls at the previous table. When I spoke with the North player about it later, he said that South had psyched on the first and the result was precisely the same as it would have been without the psych, a room-wide average. The first call was E-W trying to get a penalty for the psyche, unsuccessfully. The second call followed the second board. This time North had psyched a cue-bid and a slam had rolled home. "Of course I psyched," said North to the TD on the revisit. "How many opponents do you get who are gonna tell you what tactics work against them?" :)

It's true that the original policy is too rigid. Not sure how true it is that TDs are ignoring the regulation; probably it is more that players are ignoring it by not calling the TD when incidents occur. Our policy in our local Unit allows the TD to give a warning only if there is a minor violation that the offender regrets. Say what you will about bridge players and their behavior, but most of us do genuinely regret it if something we did was misinterpreted and causes someone else to be upset. The ones that are the real problem are those who feel they don't need to be concerned when this happens, that they have a right to be boorish. They don't get a warning.

Certainly. N-S misguess a queen and South goes down a trick in 3♠. With perfect courtesy, South tells East that her hesitation before raising to 3♥ caused him to misguess and go down. South continues by telling East that he could call the Director but he won't. If I hear about that or any similar insinuation tactic in one of my games, South will get a private talking to at the very least, and probably a penalty.

It may prove impossible to do so without getting criticism here, but I'm going to try... It sounds to me like the TD made a poor judgment, deciding apparently that 4♥ was a system forget, rather than a thumb slip. But if the way the OP describes the auction is similar to the information the TD was given... "4♥ was effectively Keycard in clubs (with some modifications)" -- Why "effectively"? "My 5♣ call basically showed 2 keycards and the trump queen" -- Why "basically"? "Partner's pass is in theory a relay beginning a spiral scan" -- I don't know what a spiral scan is, and I suspect some of your opponents don't either. ...I think most Directors would have some doubt in their minds about whether both players were completely down with the system after an 8-count makes a game force opposite 11-13, and the misbid is discovered after partner "counts out" a keycard response. Players who know their system usually can explain it without a qualifying or technical word in most of the sentences. And, sure, perhaps at the table the answers the TD got were entirely different from the way the OP was written. In any case, whatever my concerns that this might be a system forget, the farthest I would go would be to remind everyone that a change under 25A must be made without pause for thought, and let the opponents protest if they felt there was one. They were there from the time the 4♥ card hit the table to the time that the misbid was discovered; I wasn't.

Even if N-S have an agreement that North has forgotten, East is taking a fair gamble at these colours doubling 3♠ with such a strong offensive hand. Another pertinent question: are E-W experienced enough to suspect that South wants North to pick a minor? If so, where's the damage?

74A2 is interpreted with context and common sense in mind. None of the above are impossible or even difficult to accomplish without courtesy. A player who claims to be annoyed or embarrassed by any of them being done with reasonable courtesy is never going to get sympathy from a TD. But at the same time, all of the above can be, and sometimes are, accomplished with an astounding level of rudeness. If the TD finds that this is the case, 74A2, and in fact all of Law 74, is relevant. Bridge, especially tournament bridge, is a social game played voluntarily by many people and usually open to all. Its success depends on bringing together different people and different types of people to the table. Without Law 74 the game could be horribly unpleasant and it would be impossible to bring different groups together. However, while most TDs do warn players for behavioural lapses from time to time, it is a rare thing for a player to actually be penalized for discourtesy, even where there are Zero Tolerance or similar programs in place. The detractors almost always point out that under such a policy many events will be decided by behaviour rather than bridge skill. What Law 74 mandates is a very low level of courtesy that we all can maintain virtually always. In practice, the penalty provisions of Zero Tolerance programs have almost no effect on the results and are quickly forgotten by everyone. But it is important to keep reminding players from time to time that while we don't demand perfection or anything close to it, we do expect players to control themselves from behaviour that is clearly unacceptable (which may well depend upon the familiarity that you have with your current partner and opponents). A good TD can make an occasional pre-game announcement that reminds players of this obligation in a very positive way. It has always seemed to me that the ACBL Zero Tolerance program is misunderstood by most. The idea is not to have Zero Tolerance for any behavior that is less than perfect, which is what is feared by most detractors. The idea is to have Zero Tolerance when someone goes completely off the deep end, and call the TD at the time -- not in order to get a penalty applied (although this may happen if the incident is bad enough), but to get the behaviour back to acceptable levels. This is the most difficult part: players are quite frustrated when they approach me with a horror story that happened a few rounds/an hour/a day/a week/a month ago, and I ask "why on earth did you not call the TD at the time?" Once the incident is in the past there is no way to reconstruct it without everyone having their own spin on it. But an immediate TD call stops it right away and the offender often apologizes for the incident. But let five minutes pass and the offender will deny it was as bad as all that and the opponent was hypersensitive, the complainer will make the incident into a federal case, and nobody's version is believable.

A story one sometimes hears from the old-timers concerns the days before bid-boxes or political correctness and a North player who was notorious for playing a natural system, which he called "bidding what I see." Against an opponent who was quite obviously female, he opened the bidding with a call of "Two Boobs." The Director was called and was told what had transpired. "Well, off the top of my head," said the TD, "I can say with some confidence that the call is not insufficient."

I may be wrong, but I think it was Goldwater who, with two priests at table seven who were taking ages, took the microphone and announced "all change, next round -- our fathers, who art at seven, hurried be thy game..." :)

A few disjointed thoughts on this topic: --late plays need not always take place at the end of the game. Often both pairs involved are finished early in a round. If the Director attaches a note to the board to ensure other pairs play it first, the board will be ready as well. Another option is to make a copy of the board, by hand if necessary. --if a late play is necessary, it should not be deemed unnecessary just because both pairs are out of the running. The result may move every other pair that played the board up or down a matchpoint and may affect the final standings. --late plays are rare if the TD does his job: walking the room periodically and reminding players when a round is half-over. A visible clock will help players (those who care) avoid going overtime. Also important is that a TD let players starting a round late that they need to avoid further delays. Most late plays are the cumulative result of an unwarned pair getting later and later until there is no other choice. Few are caused by a single delay. --To get 60% on an unplayed board because the opponents did not/could not play the late play is charitable; I think an added requirement should be that the pair was not in any way at fault for the late play being necessary. A pair half a board behind me with the late play yet to come, beats me by a matchpoint because their opponents couldn't stay? Not fair if they contributed to the delay. --Perhaps it would be a good idea to start a new thread to discuss a template for club CoCs, and options within.

Perhaps if we could get defenders to sit still for a proper claim statement after declarer shows his cards, it would happen more often and sooner in the play. In practice what often happens is that a declarer knows he has the rest and begins to make a claim statement, misspeaks somehow, and the defenders pounce upon it, interrupting and calling the TD like a cat that suddenly spies a mouse. Many defenders seem to think that if they don't call the cops, the poor declarer might discover that he said "clubs" instead of "spades" and correct it. But if we have the Bulletin insist that a claim statement must accompany each claim while simultaneously saying (confirmed by rulings) that "leaving it out will rarely if ever draw a penalty," or even change the ruling if the claim is contested, what happens? Players will soon realize it is just as bunk as the "requirement" to announce a 1NT opening, which, years after its introduction in ACBL-land, still is often ignored or forgotten, and virtually impossible to get the offender into any kind of trouble. Better to write in the Bulletin, with examples, that not making a claim statement, or interrupting one, is hazardous: if the statement-less claim is contested, the question is not "what did declarer intend to do?" but more like "is there any reasonable line of play that fails?" And the same thing goes for catch-as-catch-can defenders: an interrupted claim statement changes the question from "does declarer's stated line work?" to "what did declarer probably mean to say, and does THAT work?"

I think that an vital part of a Director's job is to not do things that make people leave and never come back. If you start assuming that players with no prior "history with the police" (this player frequently plays at our tournaments, coming a fair distance to do so, and has never caused a problem) are deliberately pretending to misunderstand in order to gain an advantage, you may as well trot out the C-word whenever it might be accurate. There is an infraction here, but almost certainly not a deliberate one. We adjust the score if there is damage, and we ask the player to ensure he understands in a similar situation in future, but going further is getting into the "I don't believe you" zone, which I just don't think is appropriate here.

OK, here is the rest of the story... When I left the table to check the hand records, I talked to the other TD, but our Director-in-Charge (one of the ACBL's best) was outside making a phone call. We both felt that some penalty should be applied to East, but thought it best to wait for the DIC to return. So when called back to the table, I first asked East if he had misunderstood my instructions. The reply was "well, I had an opening hand, and my partner had shown an opening hand with clubs, so 3NT seemed like the best call." In other words, yes, he misunderstood. When we discussed this with the DIC, he said "so you explained the UI situation and were standing there as it happened?" Uh huh. "And this was in Section C?" Yup. "He'd have to be a real hardcore bridge criminal to dare try it with the TD standing right there. And all the usual suspects are in Section A. So yes, I think we can assume a genuine misunderstanding -- no need for a penalty." We didn't think 3NT by West and a spade lead was too likely, so we let the score stand for both sides. Later East told me he had assumed that partner was barred and had not really listened carefully enough. Perhaps I should have made it more clear that nobody was barred from bidding; something perhaps to add the next time this happens. But the real lesson was that we shouldn't assume somebody is trying to get away with something when the reality is much simpler.

[hv=pc=n&s=sat3ht9752dj97ct4&w=skqhaj3d8caj98653&n=sj764h864dat532ck&e=s9852hkqdkq64cq72]399|300[/hv] This was Board 1 of a recent ACBL tournament and North is the dealer, but before North made a call, West pulled the 1♣ bid-card from the box, then hastily replaced it. The other players saw clearly that it was the 1♣ bid-card, but it did not meet the requirement for a bid made under the bid-box regulations the ACBL uses. I was the TD called and I carefully instructed East that he had unauthorized information -- the knowledge that his partner was about to open 1♣ was not information he could use in choosing his own calls. The auction was short and sweet: pass from North, a gambling 3NT from East, duly alerted as such, and three passes. I was standing behind West so I did not see East's hand. When the auction ended I left quietly to look at the hand records, and not too surprisingly was called back when East claimed ten tricks (having lost the king of clubs and two aces). What now?

Is it just me or is there some axiom of this forum that says "despite appearances, the most interesting discussions will usually take place in the sub-forum called 'SIMPLE Rulings." :)

It really should be permissible and spelled out in Law 42 for dummy to ask the players not to mix their cards when the end of play is imminent. Sometimes players are so quick to get on with the net hand that by the time dummy enquires, nothing can be determined.

I had a vague feeling that this was the case, which is why I wanted to make sure I had set up the movement in ACBLScore first. Oh well. Back to the drawing board...

Bridgemates have not arrived on these shores yet, except for one local director who has such a full slate of games that he decided to make the purchase to save the wear and tear on his legs. In the few games I've played with them I find them space-consuming, distracting (I actually asked to sit E-W), and certainly no faster than the tried and true travelers plus last round pickups. But I have to admit that these are the same types of complaints people had about bid-boxes when they first arrived.

This Double Weave movement might work for my short 20-22 board Wednesday evening game, which is often 10 tables. However, I want to get the movement typed into ACBLScore first. Meanwhile... --last Wednesday, with 10 tables at gametime -- actually, 10 tables + one unpartnered and very bad player (VBP) and a second fill-in (SFI) who had had the VBP experience previously and was not inclined to take a second bite of that apple but was willing to play two rounds with VBP until I could take over -- I had one missing player who was scheduled to arrive a bit late, and one player who walked in (WI) not expecting to play who played the first board for the latecomer. I set up the fastest consecutive N-S pairs as the relay, put out 2 boards per table, and set up the byestand in the correct spot. Then a pair walked in (they'd called earlier, I forgot) with the latecomer. Solution: put latecomer with SFI at 11NS (after privately convincing SFI to stay with the upgrade), set up latecomer's partner with WI permanently, and fall upon my sword and play with VBP myself. (I now completely understand SFI's position, but that's a story--actually several stories--for another day.) Also required: stop the relay from happening (got to this just in time), add the boards from the byestand table, and get ready for questions, because boards 5 and 15 are followed by boards 6 and 16. Fun times for all. (Hey, give me some credit, VBP enjoyed himself. I managed to be polite despite the fact that our opponents had a better combined score than the winners.) --last night (the following Wednesday), I am about to be a playing director at 10NS in an IMP Pairs with another single, against club owner and partner, when it is discovered ten minutes in that one player's partner has not arrived. Club manager is unable to find a 40th player after ten minutes of trying and withdraws to avoid a sitout, but this time it's far too late to save the relay from happening and I'm not even going to try to describe my 'solution' because everyone will have a better one. Suffice it to say that "average" was about +1.5 IMPs thanks to Law 12's 'in no way at fault' clause, and had I listed myself among the 18 pairs alongside a negative score to balance the scales I would only have finished fourth-last! Such, such are the joys of 7pm starts, where sometimes the club is virtually empty at 6:40 and three dozen players arrive in the last ten minutes (two-thirds of them wanting to sit North-South). In both cases, had I set up a double weave, most of the problems would be easily solved. Any time I think I have ten tables, I'll just set up ten normal tables, and if it becomes 11 or 9 there's no need to break up a relay or add boards from a byestand at odd spots. I have no doubt in my ability to describe the movement properly to the players, assuming I can get them to listen. I do think the idea of E-W moving the boards is best, at least for our group: the instructions therefore reducing to: --If your E-W pair number is even, go down one table every round all evening. --If your E-W pair number is odd, go up one table every round all evening. --E-W should move the completed boards one table in the opposite direction as they leave. --During round five I'll let each table know individually where the boards go for round six. The one thing that concerns me is the fact that E-W pairs, instead of moving all in the same direction along a great loop, are moving against one another all night. Isn't this clashing a bit scary, especially in clubs where space is a bit tight?

Wouldn't it be a lot smarter for the ACBL to contact the qualifying pairs and find out which were planning to attend, then choose a movement that is more suitable for a national championship (even if it isn't Flight A) than one which has pairs missing more than one-third of the boards in play? With 37 tables, how difficult would it have been to switch to 12-12-13 and play 24 boards scoring across the field? Even if only two sets of boards have been preduplicated, it would not be a major delay to have players in two sections play one board (one section doing odds, the other doing evens) and make a copy for the third section.

At one time I ran SAYC-only individual tournaments on BBO. I announced to everyone at the start that only SAYC bids were allowed and I adjusted against pairs who used and fielded a non-SAYC convention. So you are either confusing me with someone else or perhaps we had a disagreement about whether a fielded non-SAYC call should be allowed because of the 'psyches must never be disallowed' mantra. But this was half a decade ago, and is irrelevant. Disagree if you wish, but it's unfair to make the false allegation you've made.

If the N-S pair have an implicit agreement that there is a possibility that 2♥ can be made on a weak hand, then they need to disclose that. But an implicit agreement is one that has not actually been agreed on and discussed by a pair, thus one that develops based on tendencies and styles may well be something that they are unaware requires an alert. If you play that the 2♥ bid shows, say, 10 or more, and over the course of several dozen sessions the requirements dip to 9, then 8, then even weaker, both members of the partnership may not realize that what was initially a forcing call has become a non-forcing call, or at least one that doesn't promise another call later. That was my initial (and quite strong) impression at the table from the comments that were made. I never thought anyone had concealed anything deliberately. I guess what I'm trying to say is that when a player says "we have no agreement" that does not necessarily preclude the possibility that they have an implicit agreement, and a TD should ask some questions and try to find out.