Most ridiculous ruling of the year.

[DrTodd13]

I think that the recent directing lectures were good but the problem with them is that only people interested in doing the right thing attended them. Directors interested in improving their rulings will seek out opportunities like this to improve themselves. They may consult other directors with more experience. The problem is with those who have no interest in following the laws. You join their tournament with the valid expectation that they will follow the rules of bridge and what you get are dictators rather than directors who disregard the laws and do things based on their own perceptions of "fairness." Case in point:

 

My partner and I join a tournament. There are no system restrictions listed on the tournament so we play our normal system which includes Wilkosz. Then, this hand comes up:

 

[hv=d=s&v=e&n=s64hj862dj975cq98&w=skq95hadakt43ck54&e=sajt873hk54dq6cat&s=s2hqt973d82cj7632]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

I open 2♦ and alert as 5-8, two-suiter with at least one 5 card major. West bids 3♦ and then East bids 4♠ which is passed out. After they claim 7 on the opening lead, West complains that I only have 3HCP. He calls director who then asks if I think it is "fair" to bid this way. I do have 3HCP plus a singleton which is around 5 points in my book. In any case, this is certainly not a psyche. It is just a normal aggresive action non-vul versus vul. Out of thin air the dictator decides this is "unfair" and changes the result from +12 IMPs for us to ave==. Not only have we violated no law but the opps have "failed to play bridge" by 1) not discussing a defense when this came up even though we told them they could do so, 2) not doubling 2♦ to start with, and 3) not taking any further action with a 19HCP with 4 good 4 card support plus singleton hand opposite a hand that can jump to 4♠.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

-) a Wikosz 2D shows 5-5?

As long as you dont play with 14 cards, you will

always have a single, in other words, the 2D was

on the (very) light side, even green vs. red.

... and I would consider the bid on the border to

a psych, psychs are allowed,

If you alert is as 0-8 in the given vul. all is fine.

-) Discussing a defence on the fligh against a 2D Wilkosz

opening is certainly not easy

 

I am not defending the director, but I think your critique is a

bit harsh.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[luis]

Drink a cup of tea, the ruling is egregious. But things like that happen all the time. At least you were not accused of playing a satanic system and destroying the fun of the game (accusations that I normally see).

[Echognome]

Clear deviation, rather than a psyche. Not a problem at all, but done repeatedly it should be disclosed that the actual range is more like 3-8.

 

Furthermore, you attained a result on the board. Assigning averages is just not prescribed by the law. So a horrible ruling all around. But I agree with Luis, that it is par for the course for free tournaments. Just enemy that TD and don't play in his tournaments again. I have seen many tournaments that don't even offer adjustments. You can be timed out by players getting a bad score with no repercussions. So all you can really do is decide which tournament directors you will play in or pay to play in one with good TDs (like acbl or homebase).

[hrothgar]

This is one where I am going to side with the Director:

 

You have every right to play a strong pass or a Wilkosz 2♦ or whatever you please. However, if you're going to do so, you damn better go out of your way to practice proper disclosure of your methods. In this example, you clearly failed to do so.

 

You announced a 2♦ opening that shows at least 5-5 shape and five to eight HCP. You chose to open this hand with a 3 count. In your defense, you claim this three count is equivalent to five HCP because you "I do have 3HCP plus a singleton which is around 5 points in my book". Unfortunately, when you open a 5-5 hand, you're pretty much assured of having a singleton or a void. I don't think that you can double count this way.

 

I think that you systemically practicing misleading disclosure in a situation where you should be bending over backwards to make sure that your opponents understand your agreements. You doing so your making life a lot more difficult for anyone else who plays anything out of the mainstream.

 

Lets more on to the Director's ruling. In a perfect world, the Director would be able to nail you with a proceedural penalty for your offense. However, you know as well as I do that the BBO software doesn't allow for this. You claim "You join their tournament with the valid expectation that they will follow the rules of bridge". You also join the tournament with the understanding that the Director needs to avail themselves of the tools that they have available.

 

In this case, the Director (essentially) cancelled the board by assigning averages to both sides. I'd prefer to be able fine tune the results a bit more (I'd let the opponents keep their score, while giving you and Average minus and a proceedural penalty). Sadly, I can't.

[hrothgar]

Clear deviation, rather than a psyche.  Not a problem at all, but done repeatedly it should be disclosed that the actual range is more like 3-8.

Todd's own "defense" indicates that the bid was systemic and not a deviation.

 

Hang him high...

[mikeh]

I was troubled by your post: you opened with 3 hcp, while announcing 5-8. I have no trouble with that: there is no rule that you must abide by your agreements, BUT you write that you felt that your hand was worth 5 points because of your distributional values. That suggests to me that, in your partnership, you consider it normal to count distributional points when deciding whether to open 2♦, yet your announced agreement is to the contrary: no one playing against you would take an announcement of '5-8' to mean 'counting points for shape'.

 

Thus it seems to me that you were guilty of misleading your opps by misdecribing (albeit without malicious intent) your partnership agreement.

 

That troubles me, as I said, and I believe that your partnership ought to have been assessed a procedural penalty.

 

That is NOT the same as stating that I agree with the ruling actually made.

 

My take on it is that both opponents misbid.

 

I can't comment about the 3♦ overcall, because clearly the opps were disadvantaged by your method (I don't think your methods should be allowed in a timed tournament event unless the conditions of contest pre-alert the opps to such a gadget... it is unfair to use devices in circumstances where their main benefit is through the opponents not having a defence), but surely both could and should have bid otherwise thereafter. Grand is debatable, but small slam, at least, should be reached.... your claimed possession of 5 hcp hardly warrants West passing 4♠, for example.

 

So I would have ruled that the table result stood but that you were subject to, say, loss of 1/4 of a board and cautioned to be more accurate in your announcements.

 

As to whether you were 'fair' in using the convention: personally my feeling is that it is 'unfair': but that the fault lies in the tournament organizer not the players: you were permitted to use the bid, so why shouldn't you?

 

However, I am not a director, so maybe I shouldn't have posted at all :)

[Echognome]

In England at least, we use the following definitions:

 

Deviation - A deliberate but minor mis-statement of honour strength and/or suit length (compare with definitions of Misbid and Psyche).

 

Misbid - An inadvertent mis-statement of honour strength and/or suit length (compare with definitions of Deviation and Psyche).

 

Psyche - A deliberate and gross mis-statement of honour strength and/or suit length.

 

The definition is used in the Orange Book chapter on Fielding:

 

6.26

Whilst a deviation, like a psyche, is a deliberate mis-statement of some feature of the hand, it differs in that it is minor whereas a psyche is gross. A partnership's actions following a deviation may provide evidence of an unauthorised understanding, but they are less likely to do so.

[Free]

You do a great job (pre)alerting the system and you always nicely announce that you use special point count: A=4.5, K=3, Q=1.5, J=0.75 and T=0.25. Counting these, you even have 2.5 points. Depending on how you look at it, it's nearly half the minimum requirements!

It's not really Wilkosz you're playing, since it starts with 5-4's. So I wouldn't call it Wilkosz as such, rather 'modified Wilkosz'.

 

Everyone knows that every decent player likes to deviate from standard ranges quite a lot when we have extra distribution. However, I agree with Richard that the disclosure of the strength of this opening was quite poor. NV vs V you and your partner KNOW it can be weaker than 5HCP, and HCP is not the same as HCP + distributionpoints.

 

So was there an infraction? Imo yes. This calls for a split score since EW weren't playing bridge the way they should. They should still lose their 12 imps, while your side should get penalized. I don't know what the apropriate penalty is, but ave- is probably too heavy. Then again, I'm no official TD...

[kenrexford]

As a mediator in this interesting discussion only, I'd note that DrTood used the terminology "5-8" as to the point count, without "HCP," even though he later uses "HCP" when HCP's was relevant. Thus, his "5-8" must have meant "5-8 points, including distribution."

 

That being said, most count a doubleton as one point, making this a six-count. Further, no one expects "5-8" to mean anything but 5-8 HCP.

[kenberg]

Most important to me: I don't give a hoot. I would probably get hosed playing against this convention but, assuming the convention was accepted for use, I would not complain. Interchange the 2 and Q of clubs and everything is Kosher. Well, maybe not, since the Q in a long suit could be upgraded to 3 points and then you count your short suit points and add an extra point or 2 for the hell of it and then hand is too strong. Never mind.

 

It's not really reasonable to expect online players to discuss a defense to an unfamiliar system within the time confines of a tournament. If it happens in an event I care about, I insist on a complete disclosure of system togehter with follow up bids they use, and take my time discussinig how we will handle each and every possibility. If there is no longer time to play the hands, tough. In a free online tourney, I smile and move on.

[awm]

Since 2♦ shows 5-5, you have the minimum degree of distribution necessary for the bid. You can't go counting "points for distribution" like this. By your own pre-alert, you even count queens and jacks as worth less than they are in the standard milton-work count. So I think it's clear that you're substantially under-strength for this "5-8 point" opening bid. From your other statements it seems fairly clear that this is not really a psych, and that partner may expect such a hand at favorable colors. So there's definitely a failure of disclosure here.

 

Of course, this misexplanation doesn't let the opponents off the hook -- there's no reason that an extra king or so in your hand makes their bidding logical or excuses them from failing to reach a normal contract. I agree that the right ruling is to let the table result stand, and assess a procedural penalty against your side. But since there are no PPs possible on BBO this is a toughie for the director.

 

I also think there are serious ethical issues with playing a highly nonstandard system, pre-alerting that you play nonstandard point count, and then frequently deviating from the point ranges announced for your bids. Opponents have no experience of your methods, and have in fact been told you count points a certain way, and then your hand strengths generally don't match the methods you've described. Certainly it's possible that you are psyching or making a tactical bid, or that your evaluation of tens and nines is very aggressive in some way that was never quite disclosed, but given the highly nonstandard methods you're using it is very difficult for a director to give frequent "tactical deviations" the benefit of the doubt.

[mike777]

1) I do not understand all this talk of 5-5 the bid was described as 2 suited that means 5-4 or more not 5-5 or more. That means no stiff or void is 100%. 2D does not promise 5-5 it promises 2 suited which is 5-4. However if a bid is described as a 2 suiter that does deny a one suiter or a 3 suited hand. Otherwise not a full explanation.

2) If this is a "normal...action" I would take that to mean you make this bid more than twice a year on this hand type and that means it is a partnership understanding. Please note a partnership understanding need not be a partnership agreement, I know confusing.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi Mike,

 

he said he plays Wilkosz, Wilkosz show 2-suited

hands, but the length are at least 5-5.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[mike777]

Hi Mike,

 

he said he plays Wilkosz, Wilkosz show 2-suited

hands, but the length are at least 5-5.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

That may be but is not in the full explanation as given at the table..note the term 2 suiter......not explanation of 5-5 or better ok? If the only explanation at the table was 2 suiter this again seems to be not a full and complete explanation of the partnership agreement? This does not mean there was any harm but it does mean a full and complete explanation was not given. In fact a misleading one was given.

 

" open 2d and alert as 5-8, two-suiter with at least one 5 card major."

[DJNeill]

Hi all,

 

I suggested he call the 5-4+ 2-suiters Mucas Twos or Lucasz Twos (sz is pronounced like 'sh' in English). He didn't like the former.

 

Thanks,

Dan

[DrTodd13]

We go out of our way to try to explain our agreements accurately but people are never happy. We have tried adding lots of text to the explanations and people complain there is too much detail. We remove stuff and then people complain that we didn't tell them something. We still have a right to exercise judgement even though our point count scheme differs. Experts upgrade or downgrade hands when they see fit, take more aggresive action non-vul versus vul, get more aggresive in third seat. They don't alert any of these things. It is common knowledge. We don't give up the right to exercise judgement because our point count scheme or system is different.

 

Our 2♦ only guarantess 5-4 so I don't have to have a singleton. Whatever, I admit it was light according to our methods but we don't regularly open 2♦ this light even at this vul. It was certainly a deviation but to call it a psyche would be wrong. You can't know whether we have a pdship agreement to bid like this unless you have a history of our bidding. There isn't a huge amount of history for first seat non-vul vs vul 2♦ bids but about our only agreement is that we vary aggresiveness based on vulnerability. This is another one of those common knowledge things. If everyone thinks it is the right thing to do, then we can change all of our alerts to use different point counts for every possible different vulnerability but if we do it then everybody else should have to do it as well. I personally think this is asking too much and in many cases hypocritical.

[mike777]

I do think Dr. Todd is a very ethical player. We can all agree that partnership understandings and agreements need to be disclosed. Most of us have a good feel about partnership agreements.

 

Partnership understandings is a very tricky discussion and confuses many of us, including myself. To further confuse the issue all partnership understandings in the broad term do not have to be disclosed. Some do and some do not.

 

Of course even if a partnership understanding is not disclosed there is the seperate issue of was there any harm?

 

Yes, this post comes up time and time again but I think it is one of the most important in the forum, thank you to the "Good Doctor".

[Echognome]

I still stand by my ruling of deviation. I certainly would not penalise and would simply warn the pair that if they keep deviating they need either to change their point ranges or I will rule Concealed Partnership Understanding in the future.

 

How much you should disclose online is up to your own personal ethics.

 

In f2f, we absolutely disclose our various ranges of weak 2 bids. They vary by position and vulnerability. I don't see why this is a problem though.

[jdonn]

What it sounds to me like you are arguing is that 5-8 is sort of the starting range, and then you deviate from that based on vulnerability. My recommendation is to state the range that includes all deviations, not the base range that you are deviating from. So supposing your range is about 3-7 w/r and about 6-9 r/w and 5-8 at equal vul, I would just state 3-9 so that you are always within it. Something like '3-9 depending on vul' is fine too if you want to be more explicit.

 

I don't think you stated your case well to the director, assuming you told him or her the same things as in your first post. Saying that you think this hand falls within a 5-8 range ("I do have 3HCP plus a singleton which is around 5 points in my book") just makes you sound silly. Saying that it's ok because "It is just a normal aggresive action non-vul versus vul" completely ignores the point that your alert is still inaccurate. Saying the opponents "failed to play bridge" is true, but it should only impact their score not yours.

 

As for the ruling, clearly the opponents should get to keep their score. You should also keep the table result since there was no connection between the misinformation and the result, but should be dinged with a procedural penalty for the misinformation. Just a small one since the violation was minor, 2 imps seems right to me.

 

This was a bad ruling for sure, but calling it the worst ruling of the year is a gross overstatement. As is almost always the case (I'm not picking on you, I mean for virtually everyone), people are unable to view their own situations objectively. The opponents got a free gift and you got over-dinged by a decent margin, but at least the ruling went in the right direction.

[kenberg]

Folks like myself who would like to have something on this but don't wish to spend a lot of time on it might find the following useful. No doubt there are other sites, perhaps with more sophisticated defenses but the main thing is to have some idea of what your own bids mean. Whether someone shades a point or 2 on his opening is not a big deal., but having to come up with a defense on the fly is.

 

 

 

 

http://www.swangames.com/help/Conventions/...wilkosz_2d.html

[pigpenz]

As a mediator in this interesting discussion only, I'd note that DrTood used the terminology "5-8" as to the point count, without "HCP," even though he later uses "HCP" when HCP's was relevant. Thus, his "5-8" must have meant "5-8 points, including distribution."

 

That being said, most count a doubleton as one point, making this a six-count. Further, no one expects "5-8" to mean anything but 5-8 HCP.

yes Todd would have been better served by saying 5-8 distributional points instead of 5-8 HCP.....but I feel the resulst should have stood, they were only off 2 jacks or one queen

[kenberg]

As a mediator in this interesting discussion only, I'd note that DrTood used the terminology "5-8" as to the point count, without "HCP," even though he later uses "HCP" when HCP's was relevant.  Thus, his "5-8" must have meant "5-8 points, including distribution."

 

That being said, most count a doubleton as one point, making this a six-count.  Further, no one expects "5-8" to mean anything but 5-8 HCP.

yes Todd would have been better served by saying 5-8 distributional points instead of 5-8 HCP.....but I feel the resulst should have stood, they were only off 2 jacks or one queen

Only if it is correct. If Kxxxx, x, xx, Kxxxx is not opened 2D because it is too strong (6 hcps, 3 distributional points) then 5-8 counting distribution correctly describes their approach. If the above would often be opened 2D, then that description would be incorrect.

 

For me a description such as: At least 5-4, at least one 5 card major, approx 5-8 hcps would be fine as a description of the opening bid. My main issue would be having to cope with this in a timed event, and I strongly suspect that that was what was really going on with the opponents as well, but since the convention is allowed they had to stake their claim elsewhere. It's really not enough to know what the opening bid shows. When the auction is opened 2D, you are playing against an unusual system, not an unusual bid. You need to know how the whole system works, you need time to digest it, you need time to prepare a defense to the whole system. Lacking that, you have a fine chance of getting hosed. For example: 2D-Pass-2H-X. What should that mean? You first have to know the circumstances under which third hand would bid 2H. When would third hand pass 2D? And so on. It's just crazy to think that a pair could be told "we are playing Wilkocsz, and it means at least 5-4 with 5-8 hcps" and then they would prepare an adequate defense on the fly and still have time to play the hands.

 

If you play in a tourney that allows this, and if for some reason you care about the results, then you have to be prepared in advance with a defense to this and of course to a myriad of other offbeat systems. In many of these tourneys you pick up a partner about 2 minutes before game time and this is out of the question. Undoubtedly this is a great convention for playing against casual partnerships in free tourneys.

 

Anyway, the tourney needs to choose. If they allow the system then they allow it, and they need to accept the fact that there will be some flustered opponents. They ahve to tell them tough luck. Presumably they will go elsewhere and soon the tourney can consist of a field of Wilcosz players.

[jillybean]

Not only have we violated no law but the opps have "failed to play bridge" by 1) not discussing a defense when this came up even though we told them they could do so,

Apart from the time constraints already mentioned are your opps expected to discuss their defense strategies openly at the table? Once a round has started it is not possible to talk privately with your partner.

 

jb

[helene_t]

I agree with Matt and Richard that your disclosure could have been better. Further, I would like to add this: It is not common sense that when you say 5-8 it means 3-7 at these colors and position: you give the self-alert at favorable vul so the opps reasonably assume your explanation applies to favorable vul, not to some irelevant "average" circumstances.

 

But I'm sure your discosure in general is better than that of the average BBO player. If the director is to adjust boards like this one he might as well adjust half the boards in his tourney.

 

Then again, it's a huge exageration to call this "Most ridicolous ruling of the year". Unlike most of all the rulings that have been discussed on this forum it's not even far from being a reasonable ruling.