Providing evidence of agreements

[mr1303]

There have been a number of recent posts about directors not believing a player's description of their agreements without documented evidence to back this information up.

 

I play 2 nights a week. With both my partners our discussion about system is limited to what we discuss as we play, and it is never written down (mostly because I made a conscious decision a few years ago to escape from "serious" bridge).

 

Admittedly some of it is a bit non-mainstream, but it is still our partnership agreement.

 

I don't see why this should be an issue. I'm not a bridge professional, and have a job, a social life outside of bridge and other interests outside of bridge. Why should I be penalised for this?

[jdonn]

Why should an opponent be penalized because you (generic you, not you in particular) lie to the director and he takes your word for it?

 

Unfortunately you can't have it both ways. It's the same with hesitations. Breaking tempo is not illegal, but it may make an action I want to take illegal even if I know it's what I would always have done.

 

For better or for worse, the laws of bridge are very far from innocent unless proven guilty. In some cases they are in fact much closer to guilty unless proven innocent.

[bluejak]

It is very normal for a TD to accept a player's word as to what he plays. It depends on the circumstances and other things. It is just a judgement decision, like so many others: given evidence of a particular agreement, is the evidence adequate?

 

The time a TD is least likely to accept it without written evidence is when two partners disagree.

[jeremy69]

It is very normal for a TD to accept a player's word as to what he plays. It depends on the circumstances and other things. It is just a judgement decision, like so many others: given evidence of a particular agreement, is the evidence adequate?

 

I think this depends on the circumstance. In the sort of case we started by talking about which related to a possible forcing pass it will clearly be self serving to say "of course it is forcing" and "yes I agree with my partner" I would not expect a TD to accept this on its own. In the event that the pair do not have an adequate convention card I would also expect the TD to be predisposed to rule against the pair claiming an agreement. So, yes it is judgement but I don't think it is as clear as Bluejak does for the TD to find in favour of the person who says that is what he does. I think he ought to have to be persuaded.

[helene_t]

Don't the laws say that unless there is evidence to the contrary, the TD must assume misinformation rather than misbid? Or is it a local (Dutch) regulation?

 

Anyway, there is evidence and there is Evidence. Even in the face of evidence it may be common sense not to believe it - Fred once posted this story about a pair that had a system screwup in a basic situation (1♦-(x)-2NT, what does that mean?) and then said "look at page 154, the explanation was correct!". I don't think you can make bullet-proof rules for this. It will have to be a judgment decision. I wouldn't like it as a TD, I think I would be cowardish enough to just "believe" anything in order to evade the dirty job of accusing someone of lying.

 

In the Netherlands they have this silly rule that the TD must assume misinformation if the partnership hasn't played the convention for more than X months, regardless of what the CC says and regardless of how seriously they have been working on their system for the few weeks they have been playing.

 

Ideally, I would say that at serious events, everyone must file a complete system book beforehand, and then that SB is the truth (except for obvious typos). At the club evening, players should be educated to give correct disclosure (i.e. not saying what they think a call ought to mean but saying what their specific partnership understanding is), and if someone is a notorious lier then social pressure will take care of it.

 

Of course there is a large grey zone between the club evening and serious events (and some like to consider the club evening "serious" so that club players get prepared for external competition).

 

I think there is no easy solution to this.

[paulg]

It is very normal for a TD to accept a player's word as to what he plays. It depends on the circumstances and other things. It is just a judgement decision, like so many others: given evidence of a particular agreement, is the evidence adequate?

 

I think this depends on the circumstance. In the sort of case we started by talking about which related to a possible forcing pass it will clearly be self serving to say "of course it is forcing" and "yes I agree with my partner" I would not expect a TD to accept this on its own. In the event that the pair do not have an adequate convention card I would also expect the TD to be predisposed to rule against the pair claiming an agreement. So, yes it is judgement but I don't think it is as clear as Bluejak does for the TD to find in favour of the person who says that is what he does. I think he ought to have to be persuaded.

Forcing passes are a particular problem as they are rarely included on even the most complete convention card.

[dan_ehh]

The reason, in my opinion, that people's statements cannot be trusted, is Cognitive Bias and Heuristics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic

 

Often the person giving the answer will be convinced that he/she is speaking the truth, and will be very offended when the director does not take it face value. That is a shame, but it can't be helped, except by explaining the idea of cognitive bias to them, which will usually take a very long time, and often will also lead to having some cards and/or boards thrown at you.

(Not very practical during a Bridge tournament, I believe)

 

 

Written evidence is an indication that you have actually sat down and discussed this issue with your partner, and formed an agreement (Fred's 1D-(X)-2NT example is a very unfortunate one, and I would rather not go into it here). Your word is only evidence that you seem to remember that you had such an agreement. Your memory may be working just fine, but it might also be an effect of cognitive bias. How can we know for sure?

[kenrexford]

In Boston and the NABC, I was playing with a partnership desk (online) partner, who was incredibly talented at understanding and using system notes. Whereas my usual partner would occasionally forget something, or I would occasionally forget something, this partner read through the notes and then never forgot anything, even extremely obscure instances.

 

So, the TD ended up called at one point on an issue like this.

 

It was nice to have the ability to cite a website address as the location where I saved the system notes. In today's world of ready availability of online sites for free, it seems like this would be a good way to save system notes, rather than carrying the papers around with you all the time.

 

Of course, there ended up being two problems.

 

First, the TD did not have internet access, apparently.

 

Second, no one had any internet access in the room because people are barred from having electronic devices in the room now.

 

Damn!

 

I think the ACBL should consider that this option makes a lot of sense and facilitate it through having internet access at tournaments.

[blackshoe]

I think the ACBL should consider that this option makes a lot of sense and facilitate it through having internet access at tournaments.

That's a good idea, Ken! Now ask your BoD rep to present it to the board. :)

 

the existing regulation does not, afaics, preclude tournament officials from having electronic devices in the playing area, only players. Give 'em all an iPod. :)

[blackshoe]

Don't the laws say that unless there is evidence to the contrary, the TD must assume misinformation rather than misbid? Or is it a local (Dutch) regulation?

the director is to presume mistaken explanation rather than mistaken call in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

The problem with this is that there is almost always some evidence to the contrary (i.e., that it was not a mistaken explanation). Even a self-serving statement {"we play this pass as forcing") is evidence.

Anyway, there is evidence and there is Evidence. Even in the face of evidence it may be common sense not to believe it - Fred once posted this story about a pair that had a system screwup in a basic situation (1♦-(x)-2NT, what does that mean?) and then said "look at page 154, the explanation was correct!". I don't think you can make bullet-proof rules for this. It will have to be a judgment decision. I wouldn't like it as a TD, I think I would be cowardish enough to just "believe" anything in order to evade the dirty job of accusing someone of lying.

The law requires the TD to base his decision on the preponderance of the evidence, that how, on how much, and how credible, the evidence is for each side of the question. There is neither a necessity nor an implication that the TD's decision that the preponderance of the evidence does not support a player's verbal assertion is an accusation of lying. It is not, however the player might feel about it.

In the Netherlands they have this silly rule that the TD must assume misinformation if the partnership hasn't played the convention for more than X months, regardless of what the CC says and regardless of how seriously they have been working on their system for the few weeks they have been playing.

That does indeed seem silly. For one thing, it replaces the TD's judgment with a hard and fast rule, and that's always dangerous, imo.

I think there is no easy solution to this.

Certainly not a "one size fits all" for all levels of play.

[bluejak]

Hmmm! Yet again, Ed has managed to pre-empt me about evidence and has said just what I was going to say. However, I might just point out that while I think the Dutch rule poor, it is legal under the Laws covering agreements.

[jdonn]

Story time which this thread reminds me of. I just got back from San Diego. The first round of a swiss team RHO opened 2♣, LHO bid 2♦ waiting, and RHO bid 2♥. LHO raised to 4♥ all pass. Before the lead RHO informed us that apparently his partner forgot 2♥ was kokish, either hearts or a game forcing balanced hand. He actually had a balanced 26 and they were in a silly 3-3 fit and went down.

 

The second hand was uneventful.

 

The third hand LHO opened 2♣, RHO bid 2♦, and LHO bid 2♥. RHO now bid 4♣, obviously forgetting kokish but this time with the opposite players remembering/forgetting. I passed and everyone but RHO was trying to keep a straight face. Finally before LHO bid, RHO announced oops I was supposed to alert 2♥ (I think he realized on his own, not from our poor straight faces). The opponents continued with 3 or 4 more rounds of a confused auction up to 6NT when it turned out LHO also had the big balanced hand this time! So they ended in 6NT with 24 opposite 6 and made by dropping our singleton king offside due to lack of entries. Annoyingly enough they actually had a 3-5 heart fit which goes down in slam due to having more entries from ruffs.

 

After that hand the opponents agreed to not play kokish. They both leaned over to cross it off their computer-typed cards, and it wasn't on either one. RHO went to the second card in his convention card holder which was an identical looking computer-typed card with the same partner, and it had kokish but written in pencil.

 

This thread makes me wonder, if it came down to a director having to decide, what was their agreement? :)

[dan_ehh]

Don't the laws say that unless there is evidence to the contrary, the TD must assume misinformation rather than misbid? Or is it a local (Dutch) regulation?

the director is to presume mistaken explanation rather than mistaken call in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

The problem with this is that there is almost always some evidence to the contrary (i.e., that it was not a mistaken explanation). Even a self-serving statement {"we play this pass as forcing") is evidence.

 

I do not think the lawmaker intended to include verbal statements by the players as evidence for the purposes of this law.

[blackshoe]

I do not think the lawmaker intended to include verbal statements by the players as evidence for the purposes of this law.

Okay. I disagree. Now what?

[barmar]

In cases where the TD has to decide misbid vs. misinformation, the bid itself is just as valid evidence that contradicts the verbal statement by his partner. These typically cancel each other out, so the TD needs to refer to a separate form of evidence to decide between them.

 

However, if the bidder realizes his mistake and concurs with his partner (he might say something like "I play X with most partners, I forgot that we play Y"), the combined verbal statements are most likely sufficient evidence of a misbid.

[Trinidad]

In the Netherlands they have this silly rule that the TD must assume misinformation if the partnership hasn't played the convention for more than X months, regardless of what the CC says and regardless of how seriously they have been working on their system for the few weeks they have been playing.

That does indeed seem silly. For one thing, it replaces the TD's judgment with a hard and fast rule, and that's always dangerous, imo.

I think there is no easy solution to this.

Certainly not a "one size fits all" for all levels of play.

Very true. This particular rule came from the apparent need for a one size fits all solution.

 

To put this in perspective, the following happened in The Netherlands. There were two committees:

- a committee for the organization of the league's tournaments and the education of TD's (WEKO)

- a national appeals committee (AC)

 

And there was the misinformation vs misbid problem combined with the popular but very dangerous Ghestem convention. (In Ghestem a jump overcall of 3♣ shows the highest two unbid suits, but it can easily be mistaken for a natural WJO.) The WEKO instructed the directors to look for evidence in accordance with law 75. If a TD was convinced that a pair had an agreement, e.g. because their convention card said that they played Ghestem, then they were deemed to play Ghestem.

 

Some of these rulings were appealed. The national AC made it a point to turn all these Ghestem errors into misinformation. The reasoning was that if you go wrong once, you will go wrong more often and that means that your agreement is not very firm. For Ghestem errors one could say that maybe 90% of them were made by pairs who didn't know what they were doing. In that case ruling MI is not far off.

 

The problem came when the AC thought that it needed to be consistent. Since misbids were automatically ruled MI for Ghestem errors, now every misbid was ruled as MI no matter what the CC, systembook or 7 witnesses said. I believe that at some point there was even a case where a player pulled the wrong card from the bidding box, but discovered it too late. Unfortunately, he was lucky enough to get a good result. Naturally, the TD let the lucky table result stand. But the national AC ruled this as MI. After a while, Dutch tournament players knew exactly what was going on. Whenever an opponent misbid, they could already start filling out the appeal form and they knew that, in the end, the appeal would be in their favor.

 

The situation was getting out of hand. The WEKO and the AC couldn't work together anymore. The TDs were threatening with a strike. A typical Dutch solution was sought: The Compromise. A committee, incidentally chaired by my partner, had to get the parties together again. This resulted in the "beklijfdheidsregel", which can be losely translated into the "sticking rule": An agreement is only an agreement if it "sticks". The main criterion for a sticking agreement was that the agreement needs to be in place for more than a year.

 

Don't ask me how this is supposed to be enforced, but somehow things seemed to work with the two committees until a few months ago the leagues dismissed both committees and started a new structure for the organization of its competitions and appeals.

 

Rik

[dan_ehh]

I do not think the lawmaker intended to include verbal statements by the players as evidence for the purposes of this law.

Okay. I disagree. Now what?

It is a well known rule of interpretation that if one interpretation makes the law completely meaningless, and the other one makes it have an effect, you should choose the latter.

The lawmaker is presumed not to make useless laws. He is not wasting his breathe (ink, if you like) for no reason.

[blackshoe]

In what way does considering a player's verbal statement as evidence make the law completely meaningless? Or useless?

[jdonn]

In what way does considering a player's verbal statement as evidence make the law completely meaningless? Or useless?

It would make the statement "in the absence of evidence to the contrary" (to the contrary of mistaken explanation rather than mistaken call) meaningless since there would always be evidence to the contrary.

[nige1]

In the Netherlands they have this silly rule that the TD must assume misinformation if the partnership hasn't played the convention for more than X months, regardless of what the CC says and regardless of how seriously they have been working on their system for the few weeks they have been playing.

That rule isn't silly but it does seem needlessly complex. When misinformation is alleged, the director should simply require some kind of objective evidence from the putative offenders. Ken's system notes would be fine. Or auctions on previous boards. Rulings shouldn't be based purely on self-serving statements for the reasons elucidated by dan_ehh. Many players believe that rules should rely as little as possible on director judgement in an attempt to achieve some consistency and the appearance of fairness.

[JanM]

I think the ACBL should consider that this option makes a lot of sense and facilitate it through having internet access at tournaments.

That's a good idea, Ken! Now ask your BoD rep to present it to the board. B)

 

the existing regulation does not, afaics, preclude tournament officials from having electronic devices in the playing area, only players. Give 'em all an iPod. :D

An iPod wouldn't be good enough, since there's rarely internet access in playing rooms (if you think what hotels charge for in-room wireless access is expensive, you should see what they charge for meeting room access, it's usually about $400 a day). But an iPhone...

 

Seriously, the TDs mostly have radio intercoms and the press room has internet access.

[blackshoe]

Rulings shouldn't be based purely on self-serving statements for the reasons elucidated by dan_ehh.

Rulings should be based on the available evidence. In the unlikely event that a self-serving statement is all you have, that's what you use. In the much more like event that you have more evidence, you weigh it all and make a judgment call.

 

Many players believe that rules should rely as little as possible on director judgement in an attempt to achieve some consistency and the appearance of fairness.

 

Why do I suspect that these many players are all named Nigel? B)

[bluejak]

Don't the laws say that unless there is evidence to the contrary, the TD must assume misinformation rather than misbid? Or is it a local (Dutch) regulation?

the director is to presume mistaken explanation rather than mistaken call in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

The problem with this is that there is almost always some evidence to the contrary (i.e., that it was not a mistaken explanation). Even a self-serving statement {"we play this pass as forcing") is evidence.

I do not think the lawmaker intended to include verbal statements by the players as evidence for the purposes of this law.

Why not? It is evidence.

 

Anyway, the rulings of TDs around the world show they do not agree with you, and the WBFLC has not said so either.

[dan_ehh]

Don't the laws say that unless there is evidence to the contrary, the TD must assume misinformation rather than misbid? Or is it a local (Dutch) regulation?

the director is to presume mistaken explanation rather than mistaken call in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

The problem with this is that there is almost always some evidence to the contrary (i.e., that it was not a mistaken explanation). Even a self-serving statement {"we play this pass as forcing") is evidence.

I do not think the lawmaker intended to include verbal statements by the players as evidence for the purposes of this law.

Why not? It is evidence.

 

Anyway, the rulings of TDs around the world show they do not agree with you, and the WBFLC has not said so either.

The answer to "why not" has already been illustrated by me. Thank you Josh for taking the words out of my mouth (keyboard?).

[bluejak]

It is a well known rule of interpretation that if one interpretation makes the law completely meaningless, and the other one makes it have an effect, you should choose the latter.

The lawmaker is presumed not to make useless laws. He is not wasting his breathe (ink, if you like) for no reason.

That is an interesting statement, with no apparent connection with the problem stated. The Law works perfectly well with non-written evidence.

 

In what way does considering a player's verbal statement as evidence make the law completely meaningless? Or useless?

It would make the statement "in the absence of evidence to the contrary" (to the contrary of mistaken explanation rather than mistaken call) meaningless since there would always be evidence to the contrary.

That may be true in one way. But since this Law is always assumed to mean "adequate evidence" or "compelling evidence" then it makes perfect sense and is a usable Law.

 

Perhaps this is the problem. We have a simple, workable Law. There seems an effort in this thread to change it into an unworkable Law and then say we should not rule the way people do. It seems an unnecessary and unhelpful approach.