iviehoff

But that is not what I was talking about. The problem here is that it was unclear what the laws meant in this situation, and we were selecting among the possible interpretations of the law in the complex situation, which the written law hadn't anticipated. It is for that purpose only that I suggested that an interpretation of the law that offended against equity made it a particularly unattractive choice, since equity is a far more basic criterion for selecting which interpretation we might prefer, than the alternative line of reasoning proposed.

Sometimes a player instructs dummy to play a card with the unorthodox instruction "win it". That phrasing also contains the implication that declarer expects to win a certain number of tricks, precisely one, being the present trick. But surely no one would suggest that declarer is, in his mind, doing anything like making a claim. Or indeed that it is desirable to interpret it as a claim. Of course the instruction "win it" can be some kind of an abuse, especially if it looks like declarer is making use of dummy's judgment, but there are other ways of addressing that than treating it as a claim. Even the entirely legal instruction "play the Ace of trumps" could even be construed as containing the implication that declarer expects to win the trick. I think that to be a claim, you need to be rather more explicitly saying something about the whole of the rest of the hand, rather than merely implying through your phraseology that you think that certain cards are winners (and it isn't even 100% clear that "run teh suit" implies that because we all know sometimes suits don't run). Most of the time, when a player claims, we know it because he is plainly intending to claim. The only reason for extending the definition of claim to some occasions where a player wasn't really intending to claim, or at least not claim properly, is becaues the player is abusing the situation. This is usually a situation where declarer is tempting the opponents to concede by implying that there isn't much to the remaining play, but hoping to avoid the responsibilities that come with a proper claim. But I think stretching claims to situations which are nothing like claims is bridge-lawyering beyond the call.

Actually, that's maybe not quite the right question. I'll take the ruling of Misinformation as given. The "subsequent vs consequent" argument is complicated, because there are different criteria in different parts of the law, and, confusingly, MI turns out to be (possibly) different from other situations. On the one hand, we have the definition of damage at 12B1, which seems clear: "The objective of score adjustment is to redress damage to a nonoffending side and to take away any advantage gained by an offending side through its infraction. Damage exists when, because of an infraction, an innocent side obtains a table result less favourable than would have been the expectation had the infraction not occurred but see C1(b)." Thus to assess damage, the relevant comparison, absent any "serious errors", is the table score vs the expectation without the infraction. Clearly, under 12B1b there is no such thing as "subsequent damage", if there are no "serious errors", etc. And indeed when adjusting for an Unauthorised Information infraction, unless we see one of these "serious errors", there is no discussion of subsequent and consequent. However when there is MI, we do not get as far as applying L12, until we have first applied a (possibly) different test. L 21B3 tells us, in a MI situation: "When it is too late to change a call and the Director judges that the offending side gained an advantage from the irregularity he awards an adjusted score". This definition has the different, undefined, word, "advantage", rather than the defined word "damage". One might argue that the presence of the word "advantage" in 12C1(b) implies that "advantage" is precisely the converse of "damage", but this is not clear. Thus with the undefined word "advantage", the possibility arises of reading 21B3 to suggest that what matters is the situation immediately after the infraction, and thus there is no "advantage" if the losses came from failing to take advantage of the advantageous situation that existed for the NOS immediately after the infraction. It would appear the director has ruled using this (contested, but common) interpreation of 21B3, rather than 12C1(b), while using language misleadingly to suggest he was using the latter. Of course, then there is the matter of whether it is indeed the case that the NOS expectation of playing in 2S is better than 2N. One should, of course, not judge that based on what happened at other tables, maybe they were different circumstances there. However pointing to double dummy outcomes is also plainly wrong. I'm not a play expert, but prima facie it does look like the practical expectation of the outcome playing in 2S was worse than playing in 2N. I shall mention in passing that if the director really did mean 12C1(b), then he made a quite illiterate and wrong ruling under that law. Many directors have not taken on board the major change in this law that came in with the 2007 edition of the laws: 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 offending side should be awarded the score that it would have been allotted as the consequence of its infraction only. First, it is clear that by "serious error" it means a very serious error, a rare things, not just playing rather badly. Second, the director has certainly not made any attempt to acknowledge or implement the second sentence of that law.

Nevertheless, in such a situation they are entitled to ask for an adjustment if the UI demonstrably suggested 5C over a bid leading to 6C, because damage is assessed in relation to the actual outcome. I think the only way to find out if there are LAs to 5C that will lead to different contract is do a survey.

I presume you are referring only to the situation that there is UI that partner has forgotten. If there is no UI, you can do what you like. Though if you appear to be uncannily accurate in predicting that your partner makes calls with different meanings from those you have disclosed, without some circumstance to explain it, you are at risk of being found to have made wrongful disclosure.

Alerts are for the assistance of the opponents alone. You must do more than be deaf to whether your partner alerts or not, you must carefully avoid taking any advantage of the fact that actually you heard. In this case it is easy. You give 4C the meaning that it should have, and respond appropriately.

Rulings on claims are judgment rulings, so different directors can come to different conclusions. The ruling strays into several difficult areas of claim ruling: how to judge claims with the following features- (1) when declarer has claimed with some misperception of the situation, and in particular where we are not quite sure what that misperception is (2) when declarer is going to have a surprise if he tries to follow the line of play in his (plainly faulty) claim statement - what will he do in response to that surprise I can imagine that some directors would rule differently from you, but I'm guessing most would follow you. Yours is certainly well within the bounds of reasonable judgment, and that's what matters. Personally I think I prefer the ruling you actually made to the alternative. Did declarer suddenly think that spades are trumps as Gordon suggests? I doubt it, it is inconsistent with what he said. Did declarer get ahead of himself and play the card he intended to play to the next trick (I've done that a few times)? Or did he mispull the card from his hand and turn it over before he noticed what it was? Could be one of those. So what's going to happen when the other side asserts they are on lead? Nost likely he'll look at his hand, notice he still has the trump he was going to play, realise what happened, trump the club lead, and his hand is high. Those who wish to argue otherwise will probably say that according to his claim statement he is going to play spades to the next two tricks (disregarding the fact that his was to cash a spade, not follow with a spade to a club lead), therefore he will lose them. Unfortunately the amusing scenario of the defence letting declarer think he is on lead and accepting his lead out of turn does not assist the defence, so doesn't affect the ruling. In general the precise wording of a claim statement can make a difference, as it can be a window into what declarer was thinking. Pedantically following the precise wording of declarer's claim statement is something some directors do, but more would have in mind what he was actually saying.

The purpose of having screens was to make sure that players were not reading tells from their partners, who are probably a lot easier to read than opponents. Certain players seemed to be substantially reduced in their abilities following the introduction of screens. However screens, as designed, screens also removed one of the opponents from direct view and I have sometimes wondered whether that was offensive to one's right to use one's opponents' mannerisms. I have also sometimes wondered whether there is systematic advantage in being NS or EW with screens, in terms of observing ones opponents - NS can see a player who immediately follows them, whereas EW can see a player who immediately precedes them, in the order of play.

When the TD became convinced that that E/W did not have an agreement, was he referring only to an explicit agreement? But implicit agreements are also alertable. (Further, whilst the Orange Book does refer to agreements in the context of alerting, the law refers only to understandings. I like the word "understanding" because it implies that if you do something and I understand it, then we have an understanding.) OB 5B9 says "..,A call with an alertable meaning arising from an implicit agreement (see section 3 A 2) must be alerted." and OB 5B10 says "A player who is not sure whether a call made is alertable, but who is going to act as though it is, should alert the call, as the partnership is likely to be considered to have an agreement, especially if the player’s partner’s actions are also consistent with that agreement." I think that, even playing with a first time partner, if you have sufficient confidence to make an undiscussed bid with an alertable meaning, and it is reliably understood, it should be alerted, as there is clearly understanding. Certainly the second time it happens it is alertable, and why should the first pair you play against not have the benefit of the alert? The criterion of 5B10 suggests that you will usually be considered to have an agreement (of some kind) if you can make a call of alertable meaning and have it understood, consistent with the what I have said about "understanding".

What VixTD originally said was: "West reached uncertainly for the bidding box, wondering if we were all taking South's pass as read." So I don't think you can assert that West now considers it his turn to call, rather he is demonstrating active uncertainty on the point. But thanks for the confidence in the rest of my reasoning.

I hadn't considered this level of detail of your proposed ruling. It gets more flaky by the minute. You really had to stretch to get to this ruling. In general a call out of turn at LHO's turn to call is considered a change of one's call, unless it is an opening call out of turn. Unsurprisingly, the law does not make provision for opening calls out of turn in the situation when another player has already bid. It is clearly South's turn to call. Although Law 28A provides for no rectification when a player calls at his RHO's turn when RHO must pass, the wording of that law makes it clear that it is nevertheless South's turn to call, not West's. We cannot tell West he must not wait for South to make his required pass. If I was forced to accept that it is Law 30B that applies, I would choose 30B1 - that at least is a law applying to calling when it is an opponent's turn to call, which is a more natural stretch than saying it is partner's turn to call. It has the additional merit of being the same ruling as Law 30A. You may be right as to why 30A says what it says. And you are certainly right that that "why" doesn't apply in this more complicated situation, whether or not it was the real "why". However the stretch required to justify using a different law solely because that "why" logic has fallen apart in this rare situation is too much of a stretch, as well as being inequitable. The "why's" often don't apply do specific situations arising, even if we are sure what they are, and that is not a reason to rule differently. That realisation makes be realise why in broader generality I don't like your concept of deferring overly to the "logic" of the law in complex situations. Clearly laws are devised for particular reasons, whether those reasons are good or bad. But from time to time those reasons do not apply to the particular instance of an irregularity that arises. This is not a good reason to depart from a law as written. Nor, when some interpretation is required, or to stretch to a more difficult interpretation stretch when a simpler and more natural piece of interpretation is available. In this case "an irregular bid cancelled shall be deemed not to have been 'made'" seems the simpler and more natural piece of interpretation to make the situation fit the laws.

You say that because you have fallen in love with your own pretty "logic", and fail to see that what results does not do equity. Remember, you decided to rule under law 30B rather than under Law 30A, because you decided that a bid out of turn now cancelled, was nevertheless a bid which had been made, and thus law 30B applies. If the bid out of turn had never happened, you would have clearly rule under Law 30A. Therefore you have changed the ruling, (which happens to make the ruling more severe), only because of a prior irregular action by the other side now cancelled. A player should not be disadvantaged by the other side's irregularity, absent his own unilateral action, and you have disadvantaged that player only because of that prior irregularity, now cancelled. Thus 30B is not a ruling on its own merits, it is a ruling infected by a prior irregularity by the other side, now cancelled.

It is called Equity. It is nothing other than the principle that a player should not be disadvantaged by the other side's transgressions. Do you really not know that one? Pran's interpretation disadvantages a player because of the other side's transgression, and therefore offends basic equity. A player has committed his own transgression, but that does not leave him without rights. Pran is now saying that the scale of penalties for this transgression is now higher than it otherwise would have been, only because of the other side's prior transgression. Now that would be unexpected if this second transgression had been a unilateral act before rectification of the prior transgression; but it is not: the prior transgression has been rectified.

Not at all. I was saying that they should get precisely the same penalty as if the prior irregularity by the other side had not occurred. Ie, they "shall get what {they} deserve, no less, and certainly no more." (Mr Crocker Harris, in Rattigan's The Browning Version. He was referring to the number of strokes of the cane the boy Taplow should receive.)

I do follow your logic, but I think you overlooked a more important principle that leads the other way. That principle is that when one side commits an irregular action, and that action is then immediately cancelled, the other side should be "untouched" by that occurrence - they should be able to proceed as if the irregularity never happened. But your ruling does not leave them untouched. You are going to apply a more severe penalty to EW for their own irregularity than if NS had not first committed their illegal action now cancelled. Surely we cannot apply a more severe, or indeed a different, penalty to EW because of that history of an irregularity then cancelled, unless there is some overriding reason why the usual penalty is no longer applicable. You argue that EW have some information from the withdrawn bid, but that information arose from an irregularity, not a proper action, and is therefore extraneous information that they use at their own risk. I think VixTD was quite right to apply 30A.

That seems to be just what L70D2 currently says. "The Director does not accept any part of a defender’s claim that depends on his partner’s selecting a particular play from among alternative normal plays." I don't think banning claims at particular moments is an answer to anything, because claims will nevertheless be made at such a moment, and we need to deal with them. You can make a clear cut claim at any moment; you can make a dodgy claim at any moment. We need laws on the adjudication of claims to deal with the dodgy ones, whenever they are made, because they will, from time to time, be made. Adjudicating claims has always produced a number of difficult cases, and defensive claims where choices by the defender's partner matter are no exception.

Having had the experience myself of having a trick awarded to the opposition, when I had all the remaining tricks in obvious high cards, without entry problems, I have learned the hard way that only the only way to avoid the risk of being directored out of a trick is to make a good claim statement. Which in fact is nothing more than complying with the law. When everyone is a consenting, short-cuts can and will be taken. In the present case, there were a couple of people who weren't consenting: a novice opponent who just didn't understand, and a director with an attitude. Short cuts now present a risk. It isn't generally true that just because a claimer has a high card for every remaining trick, and a straightforward entry situation, they shall always be awarded all the tricks in a claim regardless of what they say. It can sometimes be doubtful whether they in fact recognise that all of their cards are high. Or they may be suffering from an illusion that some alternative cards are high when they are not, and thus conspire to throw tricks away by trying to cash those instead. If the director has reason to suspect declarer is suffering from such illusions, it is not illegal or wrong for the director to award tricks to the opposition, though his decision would be the clearer if he had evidence of such illusions. In the complete absence of a claim statement, a director has the possibility of suspecting such illusions even when they don't exist. Therefore whilst the director's decision in this case is extreme, we cannot say beyond shadow of a doubt that it is illegal. The very minimal claim statement I suggested would at least have dispersed any such imagined problems. If one's hand is indeed high, ie there is nothing to the play at all, regardless of the order of the cards, then nothing can prevent you obtaining all the tricks and you can get away with saying nothing regardless of the quality of the directing. But with winning cards split between the hands, then there is usually some possibilty of being directored out of one's tricks, so the need to be explicit in the claim statement rises. Law 70 refers to the possibility that the claimer may say things other than his original statement of claim or repetition of it, but gives the director explicit instruction to ignore anything helpful to the player that was not encompassed in the original statement of claim. A director who refuses to listen to a claimer beyond his original statement might be guilty of poor people skills, but he is not depriving the claimer of any rights he had. It appears that OP here is well aware of his Director's propensities, and therefore it would make sense for him carefully to keep to the proprieties of claims to avoid being directored out of his deserved result, especially when he doesn't know his opponents. It can be achieved lightly and pleasantly.

OP should recognise that declarer did depart from correct procedure in making this claim. It is correct procedure in making a claim to give a clarification statement, it is not optional. So declarer did open to the opposition the opportunity to call the director, and thus risk suffering a poor decision, and poor decisions are not uncommon some places. Indeed, some opponents will routinely call the director if there is any problem with a clarification statement and any faint opportunity of being awarded a trick. But if it is correct that declarer had 10 obvious top tricks, then it looks like a poor judgement by the TD. But we would need to see the cards to be sure of this. A lot of people say their claims are obvious when in fact they aren't. So declarer should have given a statement. Even a statement of as limited a nature "I now have 10 top tricks, making the obvious precautions as to entries" would have helped here: it is clear from such a statement that declarer has counted his 10 top winners, that no finesse is being taken, and there are no doubtful long cards to be set up, and declarer has noticed that it matters to play the cards in a sensible order. Incidentally, some details of the incident that OP criticised are in fact OK. The TD is required to ask declarer to repeat his statement of clarification. Since declarer made no statement in the first place, there is nothing to repeat, so TD was correct in not permitting declarer to make a new statement at this point. Further, the opposition have no duty to ask declarer to state a line of play: the opposition would only be acting abusively if they had cramped him or interrupted him so that he was impeded from giving one or completing it. It would be active ethics of the opposition to check that declarer had said all he intended to say before calling the director - it is something I always do - but it is not required. And declarer himself was clearly not into active ethics if he makes claims without statements. Lesson: make a statement when making a claim, even if you think it is pretty darned obvious. Getting in a frame of mind where you routinely do such things will avoid problems.

Indeed if in fact partner did have a psyche and I correctly diagnosed that from his unexpected bid when there are other plausible explanations, I think that would be illegal too. There is another possibility, which is different from a misunderstanding or a psyche, which is that partner made a mistake. I say that this is different from a misunderstanding, because mistakes include miscalculations from correct understandings, and things like inadvertently making the wrong bid and not being in time to correct it. If partner passes my 2D unlimited transfer to hearts, it is a much more likely explanation that partner made some kind of error than that he actually holds diamonds. Fielding misbids can also be a CPU problematic. But it has to be either a mistake or a psyche, since there really is no sane reason for passing an unbounded weak-to-very-strong transfer if you have even a deviant 1N opening bid. I think misbid is the more ethical diagnosis, especially in fact if partner is known to psyche from time to time, so I really can't field his psyches unless they are completely exposed to view. If in fact it is me who made the mistake, and I can know this from UI, then the UI bars me from waking up to that error. So, unless I really am behind screens, I feel ethically bound to act on the assumption that partner made the mistake, not me. That is the advantage of screens - you don't have the UI and are not constrained from making the "balance of probability" diagnosis. But if you don't have the screens, you have the UI and are constrained, and cannot necessarily take the same action you could behind screens. With screens, I am allowed to wake up to my error, or decide my error is the most likely explanation.

Antrax, your last comment has woken me up to a problem with the analysis. I now realise that this is one of those occasions where Mrs Guggenheim is wrong, and I succeeded in giving Mrs Guggenheim's fallacious argument. Vampyr, I think that the 5/2 club break is a valid constraint for probability purposes, so we should model W with 11 vacant spaces and E with 8 vacant spaces. I realise that we should in general ignore "volunteered information", but in this case it is more than "volunteered information" in the sense that means (read Pavlicek's essay). The fact that one requires the K to be E to make, means that it is wrong to be thinking of ratios 3/2 breaks in general according to the vacant spaces, because they do not evenly divide between those where E has the K and those where he doesn't. In breaks where W has 3 cards, the fact that one specifies that one of E's two spades is the K, these are less common than other breaks where E has 2 spades. So this is a factor that operates in the opposite direction to the vacant spaces argument, and in fact is sufficient entirely to wipe it out. Using Richard Pavlicek's card combination analyser http://www.rpbridge.net/cgi-bin/xcc1.pl with 11/8 vacant spaces, I find these probabilities for W/E xx/KJx 7.95% Jx/Kxx 7.95% total 15.90% xxx/KJ 3.97% Jxx/Kx 11.92% total 15.89% So actually when one requires the K to be with E, that fully cancels out the 11/8 vacant spaces effect, and it now becomes 50/50 to all intents and purposes, and at the 4th sig fig it is actually E who is favourite to have 2 cards accompanying rather than 1 card accompanying. But actually we have some more information, that E made a simple overcall at the 2-level with a not-too-special 5-cd suit, and there are only 16 points between W/E. Surely E is favourite to have most of those HCPs. If I constrain the points division between the hands to 4/12, as an example, (so as not totally to exclude W having KJ), E now becomes much more of a favourite to have KJx/Kxx, as apposed to Kx/KJ (25.6% vs 21.1%). And, Antrax, you are also right that with perfect defence, (assuming Frank's preferred line and 3 trumps with W) the contract goes off if LHO refuses to ruff and E has the HA, and assuming S won't have a master club on the 4th round. Declarer now can't draw trumps before attacking hearts, because if he did E would have a club to cash when he got in with the HA. If declarer refuses to draw trumps, or draws only one round, and then attacks hearts, E wins and plays another round of clubs. If declarer did draw one round of trumps, W can now ruff. If declarer drew no trumps, then W holds off again, N has to ruff with the A, and W comes to another trump later. There are also some other defence possibilities if they don't get that perfectly right, because declarer has communication problems. So, actually, frank, you will be delighted to know you took the best line, but were just unlucky the cards were unhelpful.

Doesn't even Mrs Guggenheim know that W is more likely to have one doubleton than two? Hardly need to have a deep understanding of empty space theory to realise that. Antrax: frank's play analysis is correct - when W has 3 spades and you over-ruff a club with the A, you still have the SQ to take care of the two remaining evenly divided trumps.

You misquote Ton in a significant way. In Ton's example, declarer actually thought for a while and then said "I don't know, play one". I think it is that very specific context that allows Ton to conclude declarer incontrovertibly meant "one of the two honours". If instead declarer had just quickly said "any", I don't think that incontrovertible conclusion remains available, rather alternative explanations are available. He may have come to the erroneous conclusion that AQ is likely lying over the KJ, and thus it really doesn't matter. Or he may have miscounted his tricks and think that two down is unlikely much different from one down, so it doesn't much matter for that reason. When declarer says "any" meaning "any", and in fact it makes a difference, declarer has either made a mistake, or else lost interest. In such cases, rare as they are, I have no scruple in requesting the losing play, as some others have said above.

It depends what you mean by "stupid". Declarer is given the benefit of the doubt to the limited degree that only "normal" plays are taken into account. But "normal" plays are explicitly defined to include "careless" and "inferior" plays. If you are using the word "stupid" to mean "worse than careless or inferior", then the local TDs are right. Otherwise they are wrong, whether there is a trump outstanding or not, because defenders must be given any tricks they could win in a "normal" play, including careless or inferior. The law does have some explicit wording on trumps outstanding, but they are essentially irrelevant, because whether there is a trump outstanding or not, the law provides that the non-offenders win any tricks they could win by any "normal" play.

The EBU's regulations (and these hands happened in England) clearly say that if you are going to act as if your partner's bid had an alertable meaning, you must alert it. The laws refer to "understanding", not "agreement". If your partner makes a bid with an alertable meaning, and you understand it with that meaning, then I would say you have a partnership understanding, even in the absence of an agreement.

This is truly excellent, and I find Jeffrey Allerton's Ex nihilo argument that Burns reports very interesting. Whilst I agree with the general principle, I am not as convinced as Jeffrey that there has been no infraction. In both the present case, and Burns' case, a player has made a bid, in the absence of a clear agreement, in the hope that partner will get the gist; and if he does understand it as intended, then it is clearly alertable. However the partner has neither understood it that way nor alerted it. What Jeffrey is saying in effect is, if one does get through to partner in an undiscussed situation, then there is an understanding; but if one doesn't get through, then there isn't an understanding, and the bid was in effect a misbid in its intended but not understood meaning. There is some pleasing logic to that argument, but I fail to be convinced, or at least not in general. The difficulty with it has its origin in the thought "who is being more stupid - me for thinking you'd understand my bid that way, or you for failing to understand my bid that way". Perhaps partner was being really rather dense today in failing to understand it, and on a better day he would have done. Can we really decide whether something is an infraction depending upon how well a player is playing today? I think the director can't simply say "it wasn't agreed, he didn't understand it or alert it, therefore it was a misbid". He does have to take a position on who was being more stupid, and remember the injunction to lean in the direction of saying MI rather than misbid.