Walk - Don't Walk

[dburn]

In a recent match, declarer played a club (a side suit) towards dummy in this position:

 

[hv=n=skj962&w=sq107&e=sa84&s=s53]399|300|[/hv]

 

West played a slow seven and South (who needed only to make one trick and avoid two losers) called for the king.

 

I, East, considered ducking (the position regarding the suit and the success or failure of the contract were apparent to at least South and East). Should I in fact have done so?

[gnasher]

No. We pay directors to adjust the score so that we don't have to do it ourselves. If declarer was misled he can ask for a ruling.

 

Anyway, what would you say when your partner asked you why you'd ducked?

[jdonn]

Anyway, what would you say when your partner asked you why you'd ducked?

His unjustified hesitation fooled you into thinking he had the ace instead of you?

 

Ok enough of that. Of course don't duck.

[lamford]

No.  We pay directors to adjust the score so that we don't have to do it ourselves.  If declarer was misled he can ask for a ruling.

 

Anyway, what would you say when your partner asked you why you'd ducked?

I quite like the idea of ducking, although it might breach the Law about trying to do the best one can (I cannot be bothered to look up which one it is).

 

Alan Hiron, sadly no longer with us, related playing with a client when declarer had KJ10xx opposite Axxx in trumps in dummy. Declarer led the jack and the client, with xx in the suit, ducked slowly, as did Alan with Qx over dummy, when the declarer ran it based on the BIT. The declarer claimed, and the client asked who had the queen of trumps. Alan owned up to having it, but stated, "I am terribly sorry, partner, but you thought for so long that I thought you had it."

 

But, as gnasher says, I don't think we are there to do the TD's job for him, but I would appeal if the TD makes a dog's dinner of it and fails to award a trick to the opponents; my personal ethics, and I know for sure gnasher's, indicates that is the right thing to do.

[mjj29]

Alan Hiron, sadly no longer with us, related playing with a client when declarer had KJ10xx opposite Axxx in trumps in dummy. Declarer led the jack and the client, with xx in the suit, ducked slowly, as did Alan with Qx over dummy, when the declarer ran it based on the BIT. The declarer claimed, and the client asked who had the queen of trumps. Alan owned up to having it, but stated, "I am terribly sorry, partner, but you thought for so long that I thought you had it."

Although this is significantly different IMO. I think LHO _does_ have something to think about there (or, at least, a weak player would do). After all, he has the queen and ten, he's not tanking to play from three small. Of course everyone _should_ duck smoothly there for a number of reasons, but I don't think it's as clear cut that there was a hesitation without a demonstratable bridge reason.

[bixby]

I would say no. Your are obligated to avoid choosing from among logical alternatives based on your partner's hesitation (Law 16), and to avoid taking any advantage of unauthorized information (Law 73). But neither seems to be involved here -- ducking was apparently not a logical alternative and playing the Ace was not suggested to you by unauthorized information.

 

If you really think that your partner violated the proprieties by attempting to mislead declarer by hesitating (Law 73D2), then the proper remedy would be to call the Director after play had concluded and seek a ruling.

[jallerton]

No.  We pay directors to adjust the score so that we don't have to do it ourselves.  If declarer was misled he can ask for a ruling.

 

Anyway, what would you say when your partner asked you why you'd ducked?

I quite like the idea of ducking, although it might breach the Law about trying to do the best one can (I cannot be bothered to look up which one it is).

 

But, as gnasher says, I don't think we are there to do the TD's job for him, but I would appeal if the TD makes a dog's dinner of it and fails to award a trick to the opponents; my personal ethics, and I know for sure gnasher's, indicates that is the right thing to do.

Are you referring to Law 72A?

 

A. Observance of Laws

Duplicate bridge tournaments should be played in strict accordance with the Laws. The chief object is to obtain a higher score than other contestants whilst complying with the lawful procedures and ethical standards set out in these laws.

 

Note that obtaining a higher score is the "chief object" and then only as qualified in the rest of that Law.

 

If you feel so strongly enough of the opponents' entitlement to a trick that you are prepared to appeal, surely it saves a lot of hassle to let ♣K win and get on the next deal. Unless, perish the thought, you positively enjoy calling the tournament director and initiating appeals!

[Trinidad]

No.  We pay directors to adjust the score so that we don't have to do it ourselves.  If declarer was misled he can ask for a ruling.

 

Anyway, what would you say when your partner asked you why you'd ducked?

I quite like the idea of ducking, although it might breach the Law about trying to do the best one can (I cannot be bothered to look up which one it is).

 

But, as gnasher says, I don't think we are there to do the TD's job for him, but I would appeal if the TD makes a dog's dinner of it and fails to award a trick to the opponents; my personal ethics, and I know for sure gnasher's, indicates that is the right thing to do.

Are you referring to Law 72A?

 

A. Observance of Laws

Duplicate bridge tournaments should be played in strict accordance with the Laws. The chief object is to obtain a higher score than other contestants whilst complying with the lawful procedures and ethical standards set out in these laws.

 

Note that obtaining a higher score is the "chief object" and then only as qualified in the rest of that Law.

 

If you feel so strongly enough of the opponents' entitlement to a trick that you are prepared to appeal, surely it saves a lot of hassle to let ♣K win and get on the next deal. Unless, perish the thought, you positively enjoy calling the tournament director and initiating appeals!

Your implicit assumption is that the TD will make a dog's dinner out of this.

 

That is certainly possible (in which case you can still state your opinion), but it is much more probable (I hope) that the TD will make the correct ruling and award the opponents the trick.

 

In other words: I would not expect that an appeal will be necessary. Even if the TD is on his way to decide that the opponents don't get the trick, I may suggest to him to give them the trick. Do you really think that that wouldn't work?

 

But if that still doesn't work, then there is always the option to appeal. But in that case the TD is not making a dog's dinner anymore. It's more like a fly's dinner.

 

Rik

[lamford]

If you feel so strongly enough of the opponents' entitlement to a trick that you are prepared to appeal, surely it saves a lot of hassle to let ♣K win and get on the next deal.  Unless, perish the thought, you positively enjoy calling the tournament director and initiating appeals!

The appeal will draw attention to an incompetent official, and that would be the only benefit. The improvement of officiating in sport is desirable; if the activity is worth pursuing it is worth being regulated well. I would not bother contributing to this forum if it did not matter to me.

 

In addition, if my partner merited a PP for his or her BIT, then surely only the TD can award this, so he or she would need to be called. It is true that I might run out of partners, but none of my regular partners would break tempo anyway in this sensitive situation.

[Finch]

A few people seem to suggest that they would take it, then call the TD themselves, and if the TD ruled in their favour, they would appeal. I agree with jallerton that is really a complete waste of time; if you are going to do that you might as well duck because it will speed everything up and not bore an appeals committee or waste a phone call to a TD (if it's a private match).

 

Clearly you are under no legal obligation to duck. It's more a balance of which approach is going to waste more time, and that depends on partner and declarer.

 

To answer the original question, I would say "it depends"

 

If declarer doesn't ask for a ruling and I win the match by less than this hand, am I going to feel guilty about it?

 

If I thought that partner may have hesitated deliberately to try and mislead declarer then certainly I would duck, and hope it cost more than just that trick. I once saw Tony Forrester deliberately let through a vulnerable game in a broadly similar situation. (Of course if I thought that of my partner they would also be in for some education later.)

 

If I were a member of the national Laws & Ethics committee and think/know that declarer is inexperienced, inexpert, overawed by my general eminence or might otherwise not be prepared to call the TD I might well do so.

 

Otherwise, assuming that my partner was merely woolgathering at an unfortunate moment and that declarer is more than capable of looking after themselves I don't think I would do so. In particular, if {declarer getting the suit right by putting in the jack} is the contract making, but {declarer winning this trick} enables an overtrick, because there's another winner in dummy with no entry, then ducking hasn't just restored equity, it's given declarer a trick which - you never know - may determine the match. Also, if declarer had a genuine guess then presumably they would have got it wrong at least some of the time, and a correct ruling may only be e.g. 70% of getting it right.

[Pict]

Sitting with the Ace and what you know, nothing partner does can possibly affect you taking the trick.

 

All the rest of this thread (IMO) is fantasy, masochism, hostility.

[lamford]

A few people seem to suggest that they would take it, then call the TD themselves, and if the TD ruled in their favour, they would appeal.  I agree with jallerton that is really a complete waste of time; if you are going to do that you might as well duck because it will speed everything up and not bore an appeals committee or waste a phone call to a TD (if it's a private match).

 

Clearly you are under no legal obligation to duck.  It's more a balance of which approach is going to waste more time, and that depends on partner and declarer.

 

To answer the original question, I would say "it depends"

 

If declarer doesn't ask for a ruling and I win the match by less than this hand, am I going to feel guilty about it?

 

If I thought that partner may have hesitated deliberately to try and mislead declarer then certainly I would duck, and hope it cost more than just that trick. I once saw Tony Forrester deliberately let through a vulnerable game in a broadly similar situation.  (Of course if I thought that of my partner they would also be in for some education later.)

 

If I were a member of the national Laws & Ethics committee and think/know that  declarer is inexperienced, inexpert, overawed by my general eminence or might otherwise not be prepared to call the TD I might well do so.

 

Otherwise, assuming that my partner was merely woolgathering at an unfortunate moment and that declarer is more than capable of looking after themselves I don't think I would do so.  In particular, if {declarer getting the suit right by putting in the jack} is the contract making, but {declarer winning this trick} enables an overtrick, because there's another winner in dummy with no entry, then ducking hasn't just restored equity, it's given declarer a trick which - you never know - may determine the match.  Also, if declarer had a genuine guess then presumably they would have got it wrong at least some of the time, and a correct ruling may only be e.g. 70% of getting it right.

A very good summary, but I don't see how you can tell whether partner was wool-gathering (I know that is not a dig at the Welsh!). If you do leave it to the TD, then whatever percentage of a trick he or she thinks you are entitled to will be awarded.

 

Indeed, as I find from jallerton, it could be a breach of 72A to duck when partner's BIT was inadvertent, and the TD would have awarded an artificial adjusted score better than that we obtained by ducking.

[bluejak]

Sitting with the Ace and what you know, nothing partner does can possibly affect you taking the trick.

Of course not. It affects whether partner can take a later trick with the queen. People in this thread are merely considering restoring equity.

[Pict]

Sitting with the Ace and what you know, nothing partner does can possibly affect you taking the trick.

Of course not. It affects whether partner can take a later trick with the queen. People in this thread are merely considering restoring equity.

What you say is evidently factually incorrect from the OP and OP comments (IMO of course) - unless I misread or something has been deleted. The OP appeared to consider not taking the Ace as did at least one other poster.

 

If this was all a pointless 'amuse'.. I apologise for expressing an opinion.

 

I suspect, though, that dburn is posing the problem of the rules for a more or less self-regulating game played by ethical players. If that is it, I strongly sympathise with that project. I hope he isn't just whinging about poor English in the rules.

[Fluffy]

I know several directors who would say: declarer is responsible of any decisions he makes based on oppoennt's thoughts, and let it go, maybe with a "lecture"

 

I remember when my partner guessed

 

[hv=n=skxx&w=sax&e=sj109xx&s=sqxx]399|300|[/hv]

 

in 4♠ doubled, but a current world champion at that time hesitated 10 seconds before playing low from ♥J1098x under the king, partner of course went 1 off due to that, and director said result stood because playing the queen the next trick was "insulting the opponent". There were no appeals comitee O_o so the world champion left with just a speech from director.

 

 

The combo presented here by dburn has a more complicated brother:

 

 

[hv=n=skxx&w=sax&e=sj109xx&s=sqxx]399|300|[/hv]

 

Playing MPs, west hesitates on purpose before playing low, south raises with the king to assure its contract and misses the overtrick, it is hard to demostrate that west had no bridge reason to hesitate, but the true fact is that he most of the time does so to fool south into playing the king.

[bluejak]

Sitting with the Ace and what you know, nothing partner does can possibly affect you taking the trick.

Of course not. It affects whether partner can take a later trick with the queen. People in this thread are merely considering restoring equity.

What you say is evidently factually incorrect from the OP and OP comments (IMO of course) - unless I misread or something has been deleted.

You seem to have misunderstood th OP. If partner had not hesitated he would be less likely to take a trick with his queen. Therefore his action of hesitating affected whether he could take a trick with his queen. The reason I say "later trick" is he obviously cannot take this trick.

 

I know several directors who would say: declarer is responsible of any decisions he makes based on oppoennt's thoughts, and let it go, maybe with a "lecture"

 

I remember when my partner guessed

 

Kxx Ax J109xx Qxx

 

in 4♠ doubled, but a current world champion at that time hesitated 10 seconds before playing low from ♥J1098x under the king, partner of course went 1 off due to that, and director said result stood because playing the queen the next trick was "insulting the opponent". There were no appeals comitee O_o so the world champion left with just a speech from director.

In that case the play of the king is ill-judged because no-one ducks with the ace when you play to the queen. So the fact that a correct ruling was given in that case does not lead to the conclusion that in other cases TDs will automatically rule in favour of players who hesitate inappropriately.

[jallerton]

Did you misinterpret Fluffy's explanation of the play? Declarer led low from the South hand, West played low in tempo, North played the king and East hesitated before playing low from J1098x.

 

Law73F. Violation of Proprieties

When a violation of the Proprieties described in this law results in damage to an innocent opponent, if the Director determines that an innocent player has drawn a false inference from a remark, manner, tempo, or the like, of an opponent who has no demonstrable bridge reason for the action, and who could have known, at the time of the action, that the action could work to his benefit, the Director shall award an adjusted score (see Law 12C).

 

Presumably there was no scope for extra tricks from any of the other suits (or from an endplay), and had East played low in tempo, declarer would surely have ducked the next round completely for the bridge reasons stated by Bluejak.

 

Therefore North was damaged by the pause; it doesn't matter if the TD thinks he ought to have got it right anyway.

 

I suppose it may be different where Fluffy plays, but in England at least, deciding how to signal is not considered to be a demonstrable bridge reason for hesitating if it might mislead declarer into thinking that you have an honour (EBU White Book, Paragraph 73.1).

 

So assuming that the TD decides that there was no demonstrable bridge reason for the pause, I think he should adjust the score.

[Vampyr]

I think LHO _does_ have something to think about there (or, at least, a weak player would do). After all, he has the queen and ten, he's not tanking to play from three small. Of course everyone _should_ duck smoothly there for a number of reasons, but I don't think it's as clear cut that there was a hesitation without a demonstratable bridge reason.

and from J. Allerton:

 

in England at least, deciding how to signal is not considered to be a demonstrable bridge reason for hesitating if it might mislead declarer into thinking that you have an honour (EBU White Book, Paragraph 73.1).

 

The same goes for deciding whether, and with which card, to falsecard, if that was what West was thinking about.

 

I think that having a director decide is ideal, but in a private match I go with Frances, and say just duck the trick and get it over with.

[bluejak]

Did you misinterpret Fluffy's explanation of the play?  Declarer led low from the South hand, West played low in tempo, North played the king and East hesitated before playing low from J1098x.

 

Law73F. Violation of Proprieties

When a violation of the Proprieties described in this law results in damage to an innocent opponent, if the Director determines that an innocent player has drawn a false inference from a remark, manner, tempo, or the like, of an opponent who has no demonstrable bridge reason for the action, and who could have known, at the time of the action, that the action could work to his benefit, the Director shall award an adjusted score (see Law 12C).

 

Presumably there was no scope for extra tricks from any of the other suits (or from an endplay), and had East played low in tempo, declarer would surely have ducked the next round completely for the bridge reasons stated by Bluejak.

 

Therefore North was damaged by the pause; it doesn't matter if the TD thinks he ought to have got it right anyway.

 

I suppose it may be different where Fluffy plays, but in England at least, deciding how to signal is not considered to be a demonstrable bridge reason for hesitating if it might mislead declarer into thinking that you have an honour (EBU White Book, Paragraph 73.1).

 

So assuming that the TD decides that there was no demonstrable bridge reason for the pause, I think he should adjust the score.

A touch of pedantry has crept into several threads in IBLF, which I think is not helpful. But in this case perhaps I shall have to give the pedantic answer.

 

Declarer was not damaged by the hesitation, but by declarer's own misapprehension. If we followed the logic here we should have to adjust for any play however ridiculous after the opponents have done some breach of this Law.

 

Pedantically, yes, this is correct, and we have to go to Law 12C to adjust. Fortunately Law 12C does not tell us to change the score when there is no damage, so the adjustment is to table score.

 

Ok, let's forget the pedantry. In practical terms, Law 73F does not apply where a player damages himself, and is not damaged by an opponent.

[jallerton]

Well, this case strikes me as being very similar to appeal number 7 in the 2007 EBU Appeals Booklet and the majority of commenators did not share your view.

 

Richard Hills summed up that case very well:

 

The Director confused "a priori" with "a posteriori". "A priori" it was unlikely that East held the ace of hearts.

"A posteriori", after East's lengthy pause, it was guaranteed that East held the ace of hearts.

[bluejak]

I think that a singularly unfortunate comment, since people who do not check it will think that a majority of commentators suggested otherwise, which demonstrably they did not. Perhaps you would like to re-read the case then adjust your comment.

[Vampyr]

In practical terms, Law 73F does not apply where a player damages himself, and is not damaged by an opponent.

I believe, as do many others here, that the player was in fact damaged by an opponent.

[bluejak]

That's fine: that is a difference in judgement. But if he was not then I do not believe we should adjust, and the majority of commentators in the appeal cited did not say we should in such circumstances.

[Vampyr]

and the majority of commentators in the appeal cited did not say we should in such circumstances.

Can we not discuss "the appeal cited", unless someone wants to post it in full, preferably in another thread?

[dburn]

Declarer was not damaged by the hesitation, but by declarer's own misapprehension.

Well, declarer confronted (as far as I can tell) this position:

 

[hv=n=sk32&w=s&e=s&s=sq54]399|300|[/hv]

 

Requiring two tricks, he or she - oh, let's just use D - led low to the king. East (a world champion) played low after some thought, whereupon D led low to the queen, losing to the doubleton ace.

 

Now, when you lead low to the king you expect one of two things to happen in short order. Either the king will lose to the ace and you will later lose another trick in the suit, or it will not. If it does not, you will duck the next round and hope for the best.

 

But when East plays slowly on the king, why might he be doing this? If you are a player above a certain level of competence, you will surmise that East is considering only with which card to signal; it will not occur to you that he might be considering ducking the ace, because no one (particularly a world champion) would do that.

 

If on the other hand you are a player below a certain level of competence, there will in your mind be only one reason why a man (particularly a world champion) might give some thought when you play the king: he is wondering whether or not to play the ace. Therefore he has the ace, and therefore (when he does not play the ace) you can secure a second trick in the suit by leading to the queen.

 

The point is this: declarer's "own misapprehension" occurred because of, and only because of, the hesitation. True, it ought not to have occurred in the mind of anyone above a certain (not very high) level of competence. But it is not open to officials to say that a player should have sufficient nous not to have been misled, only to say whether or not the player could in fact have been misled given the nous that the player possessed. Even if only an idiot could have been misled by what you did, this does not mean that the Laws allow you to go around misleading idiots with impunity.

 

In passing, I should say that if a world champion (who presumably knew the position) did in fact give any thought at all to which card he should play under the king, and particularly if he did so against an opponent without much in the way of nous, I would... well, I would not be able to strip him of his titles, but if I had the power to order his summary execution, I would certainly do so.