The Law's the Law?

[kfay]

In the 1st round Vanderbilt match between the #1 seed Nickell and the former Singapore Junior National team (Ng) the following situation arose:

 

3rd quarter, Nickell had been up 2 IMPs.

 

A player from the Ng squad opened a multi 2D and Meckwell called the director because they weren't provided a written defense. The players were then banned from playing multi.

 

Thoughts?

[jjbrr]

Are the rules of the event not in effect or something? Seems like there isn't much to dispute here. If they didn't have a written defense, they can't play the convention.

[aguahombre]

That would fall under using the rules --and good, appropriate, gamesmanship (even sportsmanship). WTP. If it had come up earlier, oh well. There is no requirement that I know of which would force the Nickel team members to do this in advance.

[the hog]

Even though according to the letter of the law jjbr may well be correct, it seems that there was a bit of gamesmanship going on here. I doubt that Meckwell did not have a defence to such an innocuous bid as a multi in their arsenal. They have been guilty of these shenanigans before and it is a shame that a pair as good as this feel they have to resort to these tactics.

[aguahombre]

Even though according to the letter of the law jjbr may well be correct, it seems that there was a bit of gamesmanship going on here. I doubt that Meckwell did not have a defence to such an innocuous bid as a multi in their arsenal. They have been guilty of these shenanigans before and it is a shame that a pair as good as this feel they have to resort to these tactics.

all true---as most of your posts, with which i agree. And? Those happen to be the rules. Should they have acted against their interests by handling it differently?

[655321]

The ACBL attitude toward systems is well known, as seen in many posts on these forums for example. Therefore it is surprising to me that a Singapore team would travel to the US to play in their nationals without first informing themselves of the rules that applied to their system.

[the hog]

Even though according to the letter of the law jjbr may well be correct, it seems that there was a bit of gamesmanship going on here. I doubt that Meckwell did not have a defence to such an innocuous bid as a multi in their arsenal. They have been guilty of these shenanigans before and it is a shame that a pair as good as this feel they have to resort to these tactics.

all true---as most of your posts, with which i agree. And? Those happen to be the rules. Should they have acted against their interests by handling it differently?

Let me ask you this: if you had been playing a team of lols who used the multi, (a hypothetical in the US, I know), would you have called the director if you already knew how to defend against this perfidious convention? Of course you wouldn't. A bit of graciousness directed to those who are clearly your inferiors never hurt.

[aguahombre]

Even though according to the letter of the law jjbr may well be correct, it seems that there was a bit of gamesmanship going on here. I doubt that Meckwell did not have a defence to such an innocuous bid as a multi in their arsenal. They have been guilty of these shenanigans before and it is a shame that a pair as good as this feel they have to resort to these tactics.

all true---as most of your posts, with which i agree. And? Those happen to be the rules. Should they have acted against their interests by handling it differently?

Let me ask you this: if you had been playing a team of lols who used the multi, (a hypothetical in the US, I know), would you have called the director if you already knew how to defend against this perfidious convention? Of course you wouldn't. A bit of graciousness directed to those who are clearly your inferiors never hurt.

Profound expression of the obvious. But that was not the situation, was it? I am not in their class and would have warned the LOL's who stumbled into a Vanderbilt long before, that their methods require a recommended defense.

 

I cannot know the history behind what occurred, nor would I presume to denegrate anyone who chose to use the rules to their advantage.

[the hog]

"Profound expression of the obvious. But that was not the situation, was it? I am not in their class and would have warned the LOL's who stumbled into a Vanderbilt long before, that their methods require a recommended defense."

 

Well, I don't know AqH; it certainly seems a similar situation to me. Regarding your last point, presumably Meckwell looked at the opps system card before pulling a card against this pair. If they saw Multi written there, why did they not as \k for a defence there and then. (Ok, maybe it wasn't on the system card - different story).

Anyway, what's the bet they wouldn't have used the written defence anyway, but used their own?

[aguahombre]

dupe

[the hog]

Depends what you mean by "bad". It was clearly legal, whether it was the "right" thing to do or not is perhaps a better way of phrasing things. I also have on the odd occasion been a stickler for the law when playing against someone I can't stand. I have nearly always felt bad about this afterwards. Meckwell seem to make a habit of behaving like this. Yes, I know they are professionals, but other professionals have acted more graciously.

[CSGibson]

Meckwell is a professional team. They aren't paid to promote bridge among Singapore Youth players, they are paid to win. If the Ng squad failed to know the rules, and Meckwell was able to inconvenience them as a result, good for Meckwell.

 

I count this as a similar situation to a basketball game of a few weeks ago, where Jason Kidd of the Dallas Mavericks saw the opposing team's coach on the floor during the play, shouting defensive signals, and deliberately ran into him so that the coach got called for a foul. It would be unsportsmanlike to do so in a rec league, where nothing is on the line, but as a professional athlete paid to win, it was a move that was lauded for its intelligence.

 

The Ng team was playing in one of the top bridge competitions in the world, they shouldn't expect to be treated the same was as they would be if they sat in a club duplicate game.

[WellSpyder]

Personally, I cannot conceive of trying to win in the way attributed to Meckwell here - maybe that's why I am not a professional?

[Codo]

Well it is within the laws and professionals are paid to win. So Meckwell did the right thing from his perspective.

 

But Ron and me are allowed to dislike this behaviour.

 

It was the first round. Good sports had looked at the CC before they start and announced it to the foreigners if they had made a mistake.

 

So he was a good professional, but no gentleman in this incident. (If it had happened as we think it has- maybe the multi was mot marked, maybe they did overlook it while studying the card...many ifs).

[peachy]

So he was a good professional, but no gentleman in this incident.

There is absolutely nothing ungentlemanly in playing a game by the rules of the game. I am appalled at the shots folks have aimed at Meckwell in this thread. Meckwell did the right thing from any perspective. Any comparison of Vanderbilt environment to playing against lol's at the club is utterly ridiculous.

[Codo]

So he was a good professional, but no gentleman in this incident.

There is absolutely nothing ungentlemanly in playing a game by the rules of the game. I am appalled at the shots folks have aimed at Meckwell in this thread. Meckwell did the right thing from any perspective. Any comparison of Vanderbilt environment to playing against lol's at the club is utterly ridiculous.

Okay, maybe Americans have a different view of what a Gentleman should do.

 

F.E. Here in soccer, if a player of the opponents is injured, you kick the ball out to give them time to look after him. This is done till the very last minutes and even in a heated atmosphere.

 

There is no rule that you have to do this. If you continue to play, you follow the rules. But the whole stadium- including your supportes- will hate you.

 

So following the rules is not at all everything and may be not gentlemanlike.

[helene_t]

I have no qualified opinion about Meckwell's behaviour in other events but as for this incident, I think it's outrageous.

 

It would be prudent to tell the Ng team that they have to print out a recommended defense for the next match, of course. They might run into someone who are not used to defending multi. Oh well, they would probably not reach the next round.

[gwnn]

I have seen it many times that the players from a smaller team are deliberately falling down and after a while the bigger team gets tired it and continues playing. In these cases their fans will cheer them and boo the guy on the ground.

 

Anyway, I agree that it was not very smart from the Singapore team to want to play Multi without the necessary "precautions". So where do we draw the line? Do we need to divide the frequency of a convention with the seeding/WBF ranking of Meckwell, maybe multiplying it with the WBF ranking of the Singapore dudes and if the final result is smaller than 6.7 they are allowed to call the director? How about just respecting the rules????

It would be prudent to tell the Ng team that they have to print out a recommended defense for the next match, of course.

Huh? This is the worst possible attitude to have, it sounds very patronizing and passive aggressive to me "just so you know, I could have called the Director on you but I didn't because I am awesome."

[gnasher]

To turn up to play in a major event without making sure you know what the rules are and then complying with them is foolish. It may also show contempt for the organisers of the event and the opponents.

 

To enforce this rule when you haven't been at all disadvantaged shows contempt for the game.

[Rossoneri]

I'm not going to argue - the Singapore team should have known better. Knowing them personally, I'm quite surprised they actually allowed this to happen!

[helene_t]

Yeah of course the Singapore team were foolish and of course the TD has to enforce the law, once called.

 

That isn't really my point. It's about Meckwell's lack of sportmanship. And it's not because Meckwell is high seeded than Ng. If it were Meckwell who forgot to bring the written defense to one of their conventions, I would expect the Ng team not to bother about it either, unless it was a convention they really needed a suggested defense against.

[Fluffy]

In Spain we often "relax" the rules, it is so very common (to the point people look badly at me if I don't allow a penalty card to be just grabbed and go unpenalised after a revoke), so from the bridge I am used to play I find this outrageous.

 

 

The other reason why I wouldn't do so here is because then RHO would open 3M or 2NT, and there is no way I can demostrate there is an UI towards LHO's decision (at least with the directors around here)

[Mbodell]

I think it was probably appropriate, but more context may be required. We had one of our opponents in the first round loser match have only one convention card because the other one had been misplaced. These were personalized, laminated convention cards. The directors were there and were requiring them to fill out a second card using a standard acbl card and seemed to imply that we could get them in time trouble and/or force them to play sayc if they didn't get an identical second card filled out.

 

This seemed obviously silly so we just played on with the one card and 10 minutes later the directors had found the second card and brought it over.

 

So if the Singapore pair had the written defenses earlier in the match but had given them to their opponents in the 2nd quarter and not gotten them back or left them elsewhere, then it would seem kind of unsporting to make a big stink. But if they never had them in the first place then it is sort of a problem.

 

In the DC nationals I was playing muti in the last day A/X swiss and I hadn't realized it but while I had a copy of the defense my partner didn't. We were playing against a team from our local area which included our districts board member who was quick to not let us play multi with only the one copy of the defenses. After this match I had to run up to kinkos to print a second copy of the defenses for partner so we could play it in future matches. Definitely within the rules, but a little annoying at the same time.

[hotShot]

As far as I understand, it is legal to play multi in this event, if you supply a written defense.

 

I guess the team from Singapore checked if it's allowed to play multi and did not notice that they need to supply a defense.

 

The lawful and gentleman-like way would be, to call the TD, let him ban the multi for the next boards and offer to use your own defense at this board, if necessary to avoid an artificial adjusted score.

[NickRW]

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