Twisted Laws or Good Poiint

[Sancho]

I think that there is a difference between:

 

(1) What should I, as an ethical player, do after partner gives me UI?

 

(2) Under what conditions should the director adjust/not adjust the result of the board?

 

My responsibility as a player is to ignore all unauthorized information and bid as if it never happened.

Nope. As others have pointed out, it is generally accepted, and quite obvious from the wording of L16, that it is a player's duty to actively avoid choosing a suggested action if there are non-suggested, and less successful, logical alternatives after receiving UI.

 

Simply doing what you would have done in the absence of UI is not enough.

[awm]

Here's the initial wording of Law 16:

 

Players are authorized to base their calls and plays on information from legal calls and plays and from mannerisms of opponents. To base a call or play on other extraneous information may be an infraction of law.

 

Note that this in fact implies that choosing not to make a bid that one would normally make because of extraneous information may be an infraction of law -- there is no caveat that such a choice is required if the extraneous information implies it would be less successful than the normal choice in spite of what many people have suggested in this thread.

 

The passage most people are quoting reads:

 

...the partner may not choose from among logical alternative actions one that could demonstrably have been suggested over another by the extraneous information.

 

The key terms here are "demonstrably have been suggested." This indicates that if it can be clearly shown that a player made a call because of the extraneous information there is a violation of law.

 

I think the intent of these passages is pretty clear, that players should base their calls only on authorized information, and that if it becomes clear that a call was based on unauthorized information it should be rolled back.

 

The issue is that it's very hard to tell whether a call was demonstrably suggested over another by the extraneous information or what a player based his call or play on. The director needs an unbiased way to determine this information without reading the mind of the player in question.

[blackshoe]

You are, I think, overlooking

When a player has available to him unauthorised information from his partner, as from a remark, question, explanation, gesture, mannerism, special emphasis, inflection, haste or hesitation, he must carefully avoid taking any advantage that might accrue to his side.

which clearly demonstrates the correctness of the assertion

Simply doing what you would have done in the absence of UI is not enough.

 

One does not have to show that a player made a call because of UI. One merely has to show that the call he made was suggested by the UI, and that the player had a less successful LA. Perhaps he didn't consider the issue (lack of awareness of the law, which is, however, not an excuse :D), or perhaps his logic was faulty. No matter; we are concerned with what he did, not why he did it. (To concern ourselves with the latter question is to concern ourselves with whether he is a cheat, which is something that requires a lot more evidence than Law 16A2 requires).

 

Such judgment rulings may be difficult for a TD. OTOH, that's why we get the big bucks. :P