Another Director Ruling

[Cascade]

[hv=d=n&v=e&n=sq643h9djt3cq9854&w=s52hakjt83d862c72&e=st8hq652daq9754ck&s=sakj97h74dkcajt63]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

West North East South

 

 -     Pass  1♦    4♠

 Dbl   Pass  Pass  Pass

 

 

HK H9 H6 H4

C7 C4 CK CA

SA S2 S3 S8

SK S5 S4 ST

CJ C2 C5 D5

CT H3 C8 D7

C6 D2 CQ H2

C9 D4 C3 H8

DJ DA DK D6

H5 H7 HT S6

 

Director's ruling Av-Av+

 

"as a director, i may adjust any board for two reasons: IF the bid was bad and would or could skew the field, i have an obligation to adjust it, OR if the bid was obtained using extraneous information - which of course, i cannot confirm or deny."

 

He sited the following laws:

 

"LAW 10 is a reference to assessments"

 

"LAW 12"

 

"LAW 16"

 

"LAW 20 and 21"

 

I was not at the table but was asked for advice by one of the players. She was playing in a pick-up partnership and had no special agreement.

 

I said "Law 40A "A player may make any call or play (including an intentionally misleading call ..."

 

which I was told did not apply.

 

He further said:

"it is awful, and if you represented <your country> in world play, then i feel sorry for your team, because if you pulled that in real life, the WBF would storm down upon your head !!"

 

Where do these directors get the idea that they can adjust the board because noone else would make the bid or in their opinion the bid is bad?

 

And if this is really the way to rule why does the person who bid 4♠ get jumped on but the person who makes an insane double with potentially no defensive tricks get rewarded?

[helene_t]

What was the entrance fee for the tourney?

 

It must have been high. I mean, if it's the directors oblifgation to adjust every board that might have been influenced by a bad bid or play, he needs a lot of assistents to get the job done.

[glen]

Really can't say anything about this until the South player explains the 4♠ bid.

[helene_t]

Really can't say anything about this until the South player explains the 4♠ bid.

Wayne said it was a pick-up partnership. So you have your explanation: no special agreement about the 4♠ bid.

[inquiry]

I don't believe the director can make this ruling (well, obviously he can, you know what I mean). The only explaination is that the director was certain or nearl certain that South was cheating.

 

The bid was, well, highly unusual, but that does not make it illegal. Second, this statement is, well, astounding... "IF the bid was bad and would or could skew the field, i have an obligation to adjust it". The really bad bid was the penaly double, and yet that bidder gets rewarded with an AVERAGE PLUS. Would WEST have felt any better if south's hand had been..

 

S-AKQJ764

H-3

D-2

C-QAJxx

 

Opposite the QT-sixth in clubs? No. But would the director had adjusted then, based on the "bad double"?

 

And I find the statement ""it is awful, and if you represented <your country> in world play, then i feel sorry for your team, because if you pulled that in real life, the WBF would storm down upon your head !!" both reprehensible and offensive. But this statement shows that the director was already biased against the player (clearly the director strongly suspects cheating by this player). Maybe there is strong reasons from other hands (and other experiences) where the director believes this player is a cheater. If so, the director shoud blacklist the player so he can not join in the future, and report the player and hand to abuse. It seems inappropriate to, at the table, become the judge, jury and executor based upon one hand, which is what this director did.

[david_c]

"as a director, i may adjust any board for two reasons:  IF the bid was bad and would or could skew the field, i have an obligation to adjust it,

That's almost true, since (for instance) Law 74C6 would enable the director to adjust the score if the bid was bad enough to be "showing an obvious lack of further interest in a deal." The usual example of this is when a player bids a grand slam without any cards.

 

But you would think it was pretty clear that the 4♠ bid in this case did not fall into that category. Sadly, some TDs seem to have got the idea that if a player makes an off-centre bid which happens to result in a very good score, then the score must be adjusted. This is nonsense of course, but it seems to be a widespread misunderstanding which is difficult to get rid of.

 

OR if the bid was obtained using extraneous information - which of course, i cannot confirm or deny."

Oh great, I "cannot confirm or deny" it, so I'll just go ahead and assume that it's happened because I want to adjust the score and this would be a good enough reason if it was true.

 

A TD should be very careful when making comments like this since players may feel that they are being accused of cheating.

 

He sited the following laws:

 

"LAW 10 is a reference to assessments"

 

"LAW 12"

 

"LAW 16"

 

"LAW 20 and 21"

The worrying thing is that if a player didn't know the Lawbook they might assume that these references were actually relevant.

[glen]

I was not at the table but was asked for advice by one of the players.  She was playing in a pick-up partnership and had no special agreement.

Said one of the players, but did not define that as a North-South player, but can see why one might assume that. If the player asking for advice was South, one of my first questions, before being able to provide advice, would be to ask why the 4♠ bid.

[david_c]

Really can't say anything about this until the South player explains the 4♠ bid.

Wayne said it was a pick-up partnership. So you have your explanation: no special agreement about the 4♠ bid.

I don't think that's what Glen means. Since the 4♠ bid is an unusual choice, the TD should ask South "why did you bid 4♠?" in an attempt to understand what was going on. Though this works better in face-to-face bridge than it does online.

[Cascade]

He sited the following laws:

 

"LAW 10 is a reference to assessments"

 

"LAW 12"

 

"LAW 16"

 

"LAW 20 and 21"

The worrying thing is that if a player didn't know the Lawbook they might assume that these references were actually relevant.

To be fair here I actually asked him for which laws ...

 

Director: as a director, i may adjust any board for two reasons: IF the bid was bad and would or could skew the field, i have an obligation to adjust it, OR if the bid was obtained using extraneous information - which of course, i cannot confirm or deny.

 

cascade1: the laws specifically allow you to make any bid you like

 

Director: um, not true.

 

Director: that is NOT true wayne.

 

Director: just the opposite. the law SPEciFICALLY gives the director the right to adjust ANYTHING that is deemed by the director as outside the norm of the game.

 

Director: in other words, he has as much right to protect the field against a horribly bad bid done on purpose, as he does against a bid made using exdtraneous info.

 

cascade1: tell me the law number please so i can look it up

 

Director: just a second please

 

Director: i will go get them

 

... then he gave me that list.

[glen]

I said "Law 40A "A player may make any call or play (including an intentionally misleading call ..."

 

which I was told did not apply.

This part is not clear - does "I" mean the poster in question, or has it become "She"="I"="South", meaning that person who quoted Law 40A was South, and it was this person who asked for advice.

 

If this is the case, I would suggest that merely quoting Law 40A to the TD was non-constructive, and likely to provoke the reaction that happened. To try the same thing in real life, try the effect of an on-the-spot legal debate with the police when they stop you for speeding.

 

From the post above, a discussion between the TD and Cascade, I'm confused as I thought Cascade was not at the table.

[Cascade]

I was not at the table but was asked for advice by one of the players.  She was playing in a pick-up partnership and had no special agreement.

Said one of the players, but did not define that as a North-South player, but can see why one might assume that. If the player asking for advice was South, one of my first questions, before being able to provide advice, would be to ask why the 4♠ bid.

It was South who asked me for advice.

[Cascade]

I said "Law 40A "A player may make any call or play (including an intentionally misleading call ..."

 

which I was told did not apply.

This part is not clear - does "I" mean the poster in question, or has it become "She"="I"="South", meaning that person who quoted Law 40A was South, and it was this person who asked for advice.

 

If this is the case, I would suggest that merely quoting Law 40A to the TD was non-constructive, and likely to provoke the reaction that happened. To try the same thing in real life, try the effect of an on-the-spot legal debate with the police when they stop you for speeding.

 

From the post above, a discussion between the TD and cascade, I'm confused as I thought Cascade was not at the table.

This was my argument when the director came up with having some responsibility to adjust results based on bad bids.

 

I was called into a chat room where South was talking with the (presumed) director and the tournament's host who I think was playing in the tournament.

 

South was dumbfounded by the ruling having her good score taken off her for unclear reasons.

 

The director quoted his laws which did not seem to me to be relevant to the case so having already said that a player was entitled to make any call I quoted what I believe to be the relevant law - Law 40.

 

So this was in the context of trying to sort out an understanding for the ruling after the fact. I am not sure of the timing but I think this may have been 20-30 minutes after the tournament had finished.

[glen]

South was dumbfounded by the ruling having her good score taken off her for unclear reasons.

Thanks for clearing up my confusion. First, I think we should note the TD did a very good thing by having a chat room discussion about this instead of leaving it hanging.

 

I'm not sure why South was "dumbfounded" if they are a good player. One would quickly get the idea that the TD believes the 4♠ was either playing randomly or cheating, and regardless of which one, the TD believes the board requires adjustment. Also the TD did not want to address whether it was playing randomly ("showing an obvious lack of further interest in a deal") or cheating ("using extraneous information"), so made no determination of which it was.

 

So South's work in the discussion was to prove that the TD had a mistaken belief. Hopefully there were no kibitzers allowed in the tourney, as otherwise it would be harder to shake the TD from the idea that perhaps there was extraneous information available. South should explain the intent of the 4♠ bid, to establish why it was not random, and why it was not based on extraneous information.

 

Debating which Laws do and do not apply was not going to change the TD's belief in the chat room discussion. However debating the Laws here, on this forum, can help in deciding what TDs can and can not do, and what they should or should not do.

[Cascade]

South was dumbfounded by the ruling having her good score taken off her for unclear reasons.

Thanks for clearing up my confusion. First, I think we should note the TD did a very good thing by having a chat room discussion about this instead of leaving it hanging.

 

I'm not sure why South was "dumbfounded" if they are a good player. One would quickly get the idea that the TD believes the 4♠ was either playing randomly or cheating, and regardless of which one, the TD believes the board requires adjustment. Also the TD did not want to address whether it was playing randomly ("showing an obvious lack of further interest in a deal") or cheating ("using extraneous information"), so made no determination of which it was.

 

So South's work in the discussion was to prove that the TD had a mistaken belief. Hopefully there were no kibitzers allowed in the tourney, as otherwise it would be harder to shake the TD from the idea that perhaps there was extraneous information available. South should explain the intent of the 4♠ bid, to establish why it was not random, and why it was not based on extraneous information.

 

Debating which Laws do and do not apply was not going to change the TD's belief in the chat room discussion. However debating the Laws here, on this forum, can help in deciding what TDs can and can not do, and what they should or should not do.

Perhaps it is my mistake but I did not put the whole discussion here.

 

The director (along with the tournament host) repeated stated that 4♠ was a bad bid ...

 

"... your bid is wrong..."

 

"It is awful..."

 

"... no one bid that"

 

"not a 4S bid"

 

"it is about an unacceptable bid"

 

"you are not allowed to make any bid by which, the field would be biased" whatever that means

 

"NOBODY else made the same bid"

 

"he is the only one making a bad bid"

 

"how come nobody else in the whole world would makethe same bid?"

 

Who cares what everyone else did or whether the bid can be found in a textbook. That is no basis for an adjustment.

 

If it was everytime a world class player makes an inspired bid that noone thinks of the police come along and take away the good score - that is nonsense.

 

Adjusting a score based on a random action - she had spades and the vulnerability was favourable and I doubt that there was any other evidence to suggest randomness - without some concrete evidence is only going to leave bitterness.

 

Similarly adjusting a score based on cheating without more evidence is skating on very thin ice.

 

Actually late in the discussion privately to me the director said he believed the player was cheating but he didn't think he could accuse her of that.

 

I will eat my hat if this player is cheating. In fact I will eat my hat if the director had any evidence other than one bid that happened to work well and he didn't like.

 

(spelling corrected some hours later)

[hotShot]

The only reason that would allow the TD to adjust this board would be if he had reason to think NS were cheating. (Law 73 but that would require some explanation).

 

Assigning an artificial score as Av+Av+ is only allowed if the TD thinks the board got unplayable (see Law 12). I don't see anything that would have made the board unplayable. The 4♠ bid did not requite any alert, so there is none missing. No hesitation is reported so there isn't any UI involved.

(So law 16 seems irrelevant.) Laws 20+21 handle misinformation the TD did not name any and no question or MI is reported).

The contract made so i don't see any reason to assume that south just wanted to destroy the result. So no case of Law 74.

 

There is no law to protect the field. Some laws even deliberately damage the field, e.g. awarding an extra trick for a revoke, that can't be won otherwise.

 

Although I don't think that 4♠ is good bridge, it is definitely not a psyche and it has some merits. South has only 6 looser and white/red even down 3 might be acceptable. So bidding 4 is pushing it to the limit. Holding 5 cards in both black suits there is a chance of 66% each to find 3 cards with partner. So a fit or even a double fit does not seam unreasonable. Bidding 4♠ shuts down all of opps communication and leaves them guessing.

Looking at the south hand opps are likely to have fits in both ♦ and ♥.

South would prefer to hear opps play 5♦ (which will not make) to 4♥ which might make due to lucky play or bad distribution.

 

So 4♠ is taking a risk (perhaps even a big risk) but it is far from being unreasonable. I don't see any indication that cheating is required to make that bit.

North did not run from 4♠X and he did not make a SOS-redbl. Since south expected to play a doubled contract (even up to -3), why run from it now?

 

So the directors ruling seems completely wrong to me.

[helene_t]

Really can't say anything about this until the South player explains the 4♠ bid.

Wayne said it was a pick-up partnership. So you have your explanation: no special agreement about the 4♠ bid.

I don't think that's what Glen means. Since the 4♠ bid is an unusual choice, the TD should ask South "why did you bid 4♠?" in an attempt to understand what was going on. Though this works better in face-to-face bridge than it does online.

In that case I disagree. Unusual choices are made all the time. There's nothing suggesting that anything was going on.

 

The only situations in which the director should ask such questions are:

- If the unusual bid in combination with partner's reaction suggests a concealed agreement (including fielded psyches). This is not the case here. North's pass is a normal action.

- If the bid looks like dumping. This is not the case here. It's just a kamikaze preempt.

[Blofeld]

Helene, what's wrong with asking?

 

I don't think that asking why a player made a bid has any implications of cheating/concealed agreement or dumping. It just helps to understand what's going on.

[helene_t]

Helene, what's wrong with asking?

 

I don't think that asking why a player made a bid has any implications of cheating/concealed agreement or dumping. It just helps to understand what's going on.

Maybe it depends on the kind of tourney. If the TD also makes a habbit of asking players what the weather is like at their place and what they had for dinner, by all means, ask them why they bid as they bid.

 

But in general, I would prefer the TD not to disturb the players with silly questions. And if the TD asks me why I bid as I bid, it makes me feel as if I'm being recorded.

[hrothgar]

There are two different issues that need to be discussed here:

 

The first is the actual ruling, which is a travesty. The Laws may permit a director to create his own petty little dictatorship, however, this incident strikes me as an abuse of authority. Enough folks have already commented on this aspect of Wayne's posting.

 

I'm more concerned about a more general problem. BBO's tournament system permits virtually anyone to create and direct tournaments. I'm a big fan of this type of market based approach. Let people do what they want. Things will sort themselves out. Unfortunately, BBO isn't allowing the type of infrastructure necessary to allow a proper market to form. In order for a competitive market to function you need a number of critical pre-conditions. One of the most important is the requirement that buyers and sellers have perfect information about price and quality. If we extend this metaphor over to BBO, players need a mechanism by which they can judge the qualifications of individual Tournament Directors. Moreover, if anyone encounters a TD who is abusing their authority, there should be a mechanism to publicly rate the performance of this director. Case in point: I very much expect that (almost) none of the participants in this thread would want to play in a tournament being run by the TD in question. However, we have no way to know who the TD is or how to avoid him in the future.

 

Fred and Uday have raised some valid points in the past about these types of rating systems. In particular, there is a very real possibility that we'd see some ugly little “political” fights break out on any such mailing list. In addition, some of the more novice Tds have commented that they don't feel comfortable getting attacked for volunteering to run tournaments. I think that the best solution to these points would be implementing a tiered TD system like the one that I proposed last month. Split the job of running a tournament into two separate pieces:

 

A Tournament Facilitator function: The TF is responsible for dealing with non-technical issues like substitutions, round announcements, and the like. Tournament Facilitators are linked to a specific tournament that they create.

 

A Tournament Director function: The TD is responsible for technical issues like adjustments, restoring equity, and the like. Tournament Directors live in “pools” that contract services with multiple tournaments.

 

I'd argue that anyone who volunteers to serve as a Tournament Director should be willing to see his rulings discussed in a public forum. There is a famous phrase in the new testament: “judge not lest ye be judged” I don't think that this applied to quite this set of circumstances, however the phrasing is too nice not to expropriate...

[glen]

Here are some selected quotes from Law 12 and Law 90:

LAW 12 DIRECTOR'S DISCRETIONARY POWERS

A. Right to Award an Adjusted Score

The Director may award an adjusted score (or scores), either on his own initiative or on the application of any player, but only when these Laws empower him to do so, or:

...

2. Normal Play of the Board is Impossible

The Director may award an artificial adjusted score if no rectification can be made that will permit normal play of the board.

 

LAW 90

PROCEDURAL PENALTIES

A. Director's Authority

The Director, in addition to enforcing the penalty provisions of these Laws, may also assess penalties for any offense that unduly delays or obstructs the game, inconveniences other contestants, violates correct procedure, or requires the award of an adjusted score at another table.

 

B. Offenses Subject to Penalty

Offenses subject to penalty include but are not limited to:

...

8. Failure to Comply

Failure to comply promptly with tournament regulations or with any instruction of the Director.

Since "any offense that unduly delays or obstructs the game, inconveniences other contestants" is not "limited to" the list in the Laws, the TD, in some views, has the ability to adjust the boards when it is determined that the game is being obstructed with, such as, perhaps, with bidding at random. In addition a tournament can establish regulations, such as no psyches, or at most one psyche, that the players must comply with.

 

Problems can easily arise in many areas here, including:

 

1) Regulations may not be published, or may be assumed in some forms by the TD and/or the players.

 

Key here is to have proper published regulations for tourneys.

 

2) Players may assume the TD needs evidence beyond just viewing the action to make a decision.

 

For example, players may assume that the TD needs evidence of extraneous information, such as an agreed long pause, before adjusting a board. Without such evidence players may assume they are free to do as they please, not having to explain their actions at some point to the TD and/or other players. However if the TD can decide that certain types of actions are obstructing the game, they can rule against these actions just by observing them, without having to determine if they were influenced by something.

 

What will be key here is for those "class of actions" to be known, and that there be general knowledge of what these are and how the TDs may act on them.

 

At this time, we appear to have some TDs that believe they are able to judge certain "classes of actions" and adjust accordingly, and others that believe that TDs do not have this right, or the right has particular restrictions in applying it.

[hotShot]

If TD's were allowed to adjust any result that they think "would or could skew the field" where should it end?

Eliminate misplayed boards, because declarer should not have made the overtrick or because declarer should have made his contract?

Eliminate misjudged bidding, overbids and underbids or bad sacrifices?

 

All of this should not be adjusted, as different results come from mistakes one side makes or does not make.

 

Just because the TD needs to handle intentional bad play and cheating does not allow hin to adjust anything that he does not like or understand.

[1eyedjack]

Here are some selected quotes from Law 12 and Law 90:

LAW 12 DIRECTOR'S DISCRETIONARY POWERS

A. Right to Award an Adjusted Score

The Director may award an adjusted score (or scores), either on his own initiative or on the application of any player, but only when these Laws empower him to do so, or:

...

2. Normal Play of the Board is Impossible

The Director may award an artificial adjusted score if no rectification can be made that will permit normal play of the board.

 

LAW 90

PROCEDURAL PENALTIES

A. Director's Authority

The Director, in addition to enforcing the penalty provisions of these Laws, may also assess penalties for any offense that unduly delays or obstructs the game, inconveniences other contestants, violates correct procedure, or requires the award of an adjusted score at another table.

 

B. Offenses Subject to Penalty

Offenses subject to penalty include but are not limited to:

...

8. Failure to Comply

Failure to comply promptly with tournament regulations or with any instruction of the Director.

Since "any offense that unduly delays or obstructs the game, inconveniences other contestants" is not "limited to" the list in the Laws, the TD, in some views, has the ability to adjust the boards when it is determined that the game is being obstructed with, such as, perhaps, with bidding at random. In addition a tournament can establish regulations, such as no psyches, or at most one psyche, that the players must comply with.

 

Problems can easily arise in many areas here, including:

 

1) Regulations may not be published, or may be assumed in some forms by the TD and/or the players.

 

Key here is to have proper published regulations for tourneys.

 

2) Players may assume the TD needs evidence beyond just viewing the action to make a decision.

 

For example, players may assume that the TD needs evidence of extraneous information, such as an agreed long pause, before adjusting a board. Without such evidence players may assume they are free to do as they please, not having to explain their actions at some point to the TD and/or other players. However if the TD can decide that certain types of actions are obstructing the game, they can rule against these actions just by observing them, without having to determine if they were influenced by something.

 

What will be key here is for those "class of actions" to be known, and that there be general knowledge of what these are and how the TDs may act on them.

 

At this time, we appear to have some TDs that believe they are able to judge certain "classes of actions" and adjust accordingly, and others that believe that TDs do not have this right, or the right has particular restrictions in applying it.

The way I read it, no procedural penalty was imposed in this case. An adjusted score is not a procedural penalty. So we do not need to concern ourselves with Law 90 or the apparently wide powers imbued by the wording "... include but are not limited to ..."

 

The law governing the discretionary powers of the TD to award an adjusted score are contained in Law 12. This law clearly limits the authority of the TD to awarding an adjusted score only in the event of an irregularity. This is clear from subsection A (only allowed to make an adjusted score when the laws empower him to do so), and subsection C (express requirement of an irregularity before awarding an adjusted score).

 

So the starting point has to be to determine the irregularity that has taken place, and this is where I have a difficulty.

 

There are regulations that require the participants to take the game seriously (Law 74B1 and Law 74C6), and this just might "catch" the 7NTXX -8 scores that float around. But where the results are skewed by so obvious a breach you would invariably find that the offender has scored an inferior result (sans adjustment). Where the player has benefited from his action that should I think be prima facie evidence that the action was performed with a view to securing a profit. In that case I think it would be a much harder burden for a director to overcome if wishing to stretch the laws to fit the desired adjustment.

[blackshoe]

This director is incompetent. He should not be allowed to direct duplicate contract bridge until he becomes competent.

 

His entire position shows an appalling ignorance of the laws and what they mean, their purpose, and the mechanics of a proper ruling.

 

It seems clear to me that he had no idea which specific laws applied to his "ruling", and so he threw out a bunch of pseudo random numbers.

 

4 spades is a bad bid. So what? She got lucky. So what? Unless there is evidence that it was more than luck (and I haven't seen any) there is no basis for penalty or score adjustment.

 

There is nothing in the laws about "protecting the field". There is nothing in the laws about adjusting scores for "bad" bids. His entire "justification" for his ruling is crap.

 

I realize that anyone can decide to run a tournament online, and call himself a director, but this is ridiculous. Tell him to RTFLB. Tell him if he has questions about a ruling to consult with another director. Tell him to see if his NBO has a director test or course he can take. Tell him to read "Duplicate Directions" and the EBU White Book (both available online, for free). And for God's sake, tell him not to run any more tournaments until he's done those things!

 

Sheesh. :blink:

[glen]

This law clearly limits the authority of the TD to awarding an adjusted score only in the event of an irregularity. This is clear from subsection A (only allowed to make an adjusted score when the laws empower him to do so), and subsection C (express requirement of an irregularity before awarding an adjusted score).

Subsection A ends with an "or", which I will highlight here:

 

The Director may award an adjusted score (or scores), either on his own initiative or on the application of any player, but only when these Laws empower him to do so, OR:

...

2. Normal Play of the Board is Impossible

[Cascade]

This law clearly limits the authority of the TD to awarding an adjusted score only in the event of an irregularity.  This is clear from subsection A (only allowed to make an adjusted score when the laws empower him to do so), and subsection C (express requirement of an irregularity before awarding an adjusted score).

Subsection A ends with an "or", which I will highlight here:

 

The Director may award an adjusted score (or scores), either on his own initiative or on the application of any player, but only when these Laws empower him to do so, OR:

...

2. Normal Play of the Board is Impossible

... and this board was played normally so an adjustment is not legal.

 

Unless you think an unusal bid makes for non-normal play but then where do you stop.

 

The director is not required to exercise bridge judgement about what is a normal bid or play which is just as well as frequently they are not of the same standard as the player unless there has been an infraction - UI and faulty claims spring to mind.

 

The director is only required to consider making adjustments when there has been an infraction not when the board has been played "normally" but the director doesn't happen to agree with the bid or play made.