The Law's the Law?

[Rossoneri]

Instead of arguing now, should we first find out what exactly happened before pointing fingers and accusing anyone of unsportsmanlike behaviour?

 

I personally find some of the comments directed towards Meckwell overboard, when most of us do not even know what exactly happened!

[jjbrr]

Instead of arguing now, should we first find out what exactly happened before pointing fingers and accusing anyone of unsportsmanlike behaviour?

 

I personally find some of the comments directed towards Meckwell overboard, when most of us do not even know what exactly happened!

Ding ding ding!

[ArtK78]

Instead of arguing now, should we first find out what exactly happened before pointing fingers and accusing anyone of unsportsmanlike behaviour?

 

I personally find some of the comments directed towards Meckwell overboard, when most of us do not even know what exactly happened!

Ding ding ding!

It is much more fun to cast aspersions without knowing the facts. The facts often ruin a perfectly good rant.

[hanp]

The other week I was south in this position like this:

 

[hv=n=sxxhxdc&w=sahxdca&e=sxhxxdc&s=shakdcx]399|300|[/hv]

 

The contract was 3NT, LHO was on play, I needed two more tricks. Obviously I was going down.

 

The play was quick. LHO led the spade ace, but RHO was expecting LHO to play the club ace first and discarded a heart. He then noticed the spade was played and took back his heart and played a spade. I went down 1.

 

After the hand my partner pointed out that I should have called the director. Maybe I can make LHO play a heart, and I make the contract. Perhaps not, but that's the director's decision not mine. It did not occur to me at the table but I think my partner was right.

 

It is not relevant but had my opponents been in this situation, they would definitely have called the director.

[jjbrr]

hanp is leveling us

 

"they would definitely have called the director. " lol

[Cyberyeti]

Played against Rubin/Granovetter a while ago in the UK, they used a bid that I suspect was not alertable in the US but was over here, and that changed my action. No idea whether we were damaged, the issue did not arise as neither of us did any more than point out it should have been alerted.

I think that's very different, because in that situation you might have been damaged, whereas in the present case it appears that Mecstroth and Rodwell were not at all damaged.

 

Playing against overseas visitors, I think you should make extra effort to avoid this sort of problem, by examining their convention card and asking questions that wouldn't be necessary if you were sure that they were following the alerting rules. Ultimately, though, if their unwitting failure to follow the rules damaged me, I'd seek an adjusted score.

This is exactly the point I was making, we made no fuss, other than to say to our American guests that they really should be alerting the bid over here, even though there might have been a little damage.

 

I tend to behave to opponents in most cases as I'd expect them to behave to me. If I think they'd have let something slide, I do the same, if I know they'd try to shaft me for every last advantage I do the same.

 

There are also situations which are so crass where you half expect opponents not to know what to do, example (EBU rules)

 

1N-P-2♦(announced, hearts)-P-2♥(not announced or alerted by law, completing the transfer)

 

Although the bid is not alerted, it is clearly not completely natural (you might be in a 5-1 fit if your 1N is allowed to have a stiff in it). So do you alert takeout or penalty doubles of this ?

 

I think you have to be reasonable in situations where opponents may well not know the rules that apply, whether it's because the rules are just odd, or are likely to be different where the opponents come from.

[hanp]

hanp is leveling us

If you were playing me in the Vanderbilt, found out I was playing multi but didn't bring the required defense, would you call the director?

[jjbrr]

hanp is leveling us

 

If you were playing me in the Vanderbilt, found out I was playing multi but didn't bring the required defense, would you call the director?

 

I know that's rhetorical, but...

 

I don't really see how this or the other story are relevant to this discussion. I am neither as good as Meckwell nor am I making my living as a bridge player due to my success in big events. You don't play multi.

 

Your hypothetical is a very big "if," though we both know that if you and I sat down at a table right now, I wouldn't call the director. They frequently allow the players at juniors championships to have a written defense at the table, and I never brought it with me, though I can't recall having a competitive multi auction where the bids were anything other than natural or stayman after a double or whatever. But like I said, Meckwell have much more interest invested in playing as perfectly as they can, which I simply cannot relate to.

 

If defending multi correctly was a contributing factor to me making a very substantial amount of money, as Jdonn said earlier, I would definitely call the director on you, since I haven't memorized all the defenses. Perhaps with one partner I might play one defense against a weak-only multi and a different defense against multi with a strong possibility. I would certainly be disadvantaged.

 

I would definitely not call the director for the purpose of making sure you can't play the convention. I might ask if it's possible that the director could go to the director station and quickly print one off the database; I suspect no one at the table would mind waiting. I might ask if partner and I can discuss our defense to multi in a live auction the first time if you sprang it on us without us realizing what you were playing. I assume you trust that I would do this as ethically as I could, and I can tell you I'd discuss option 2 as best I could with my partner, because that's my preference. Against people who aren't you, I might well call the director and not be so lenient towards the director or anyone else helping them out. Against you I would consider it more a fun match against friends, since there are very few consequences of me losing the first or second day of the Vandy. Against someone else I think it's fair game to enforce the rules.

 

But again, this point is moot. You wouldn't show up without the defense, and if you did I know you'd have a copy in your hotel room or something and would offer to fetch it quickly.

 

If you sat down at the table and alerted your partner's opening pass as an opening hand or better, do you think I'm not supposed to call the director or something? Would you not expect Meckwell to? You can't really argue that they're disadvantaged, because they're both great at bidding theory so I think most would agree they'd be just fine. How is this different? Maybe they're disadvantaged and maybe they're not. I don't think it's fair to automatically assume that they're not disadvantaged or at least inconvenienced by the lack of a written defense. They wouldn't be disadvantaged if the Singapore guys hadn't brought convention cards to the table at all, because they could ask what the bids mean. Would everyone feel the same way about Meckwell if they called the director for that infraction?

 

Edit: I was careless and failed to realize that Han does play multi. I apologize to him for my assumptions.

[vuroth]

Instead of arguing now, should we first find out what exactly happened before pointing fingers and accusing anyone of unsportsmanlike behaviour?

 

I personally find some of the comments directed towards Meckwell overboard, when most of us do not even know what exactly happened!

Ding ding ding!

Agree.

 

Forgive my vast and overreaching ignorance, but...

 

Meckwell are not disadvantaged if the opps play Multi.

 

Meckwell may well have felt that, if they did not call the director, the second round opponents would have, and fundamentally Meckwell would have faced a slightly different opponent (one allowed to use Multi) than the rest of the field would have (an opponent barred from using Multi). Ergo, since this was the first round, the more ethical move may have been to call the director immediately, to keep the playing field level.

 

All that said, I really don't have a horse in this race.

[jjbrr]

As an aside, I had an experience slightly similar to the one you presented. I was declaring a doubled contract and my lefty cashed a winner at trick 10 or 11, on which my RHO discarded another winner. When I claimed the rest of the tricks, RHO claimed that he hadn't pitched the winner and that he had instead pitched a loser. LHO agreed with me, until the director came and his story suddenly changed to "I didn't see what happened."

 

Since pitching a winner there was ridiculous, the director agreed that he hadn't pitched it and had in fact pitched something else.

 

Draw whatever conclusions you want as it relates to your story.

[hotShot]

Perhaps I we are looking at this the wrong way.

 

It says 3rd quarter, just 2 IMPs up.

 

Obviously the former junior national team was a real threat, so the Nickell team needed any edge they could get.

 

They should feel honored that their opponents needed to use all tricks from the (law) book to win (if they won...).

[jjbrr]

Perhaps I we are looking at this the wrong way.

 

It says 3rd quarter, just 2 IMPs up.

 

Obviously the former junior national team was a real threat, so the Nickell team needed any edge they could get.

 

They should feel honored that their opponents needed to use all tricks from the (law) book to win (if they won...).

Please confirm that Meckwell had played against this pair in one of the first two quarters.

[peachy]

Instead of arguing now, should we first find out what exactly happened before pointing fingers and accusing anyone of unsportsmanlike behaviour?

 

I personally find some of the comments directed towards Meckwell overboard, when most of us do not even know what exactly happened!

EXACTLY.

 

*If* things happened the way OP described, the Singapore team was in violation of the Conditions of Contest because they came to play unprepared (didn't bother to read the rules, or if they did read them, didn't think the rules would apply to them?). The Singapore team was not disadvantaged because the same rules apply to everyone.

 

My bet is *if* things happened as OP described, Meckwell was not disadvantaged and my other bet is they never claimed they were disadvantaged. Respect the game, respect the rules.

 

And completely agree that none of us posters are in a position to know what happened.

 

Edit: Unless you were there kibitzing and saw and heard it.

[awm]

My impression was that Meckstroth was the one who put "defense two" to Multi into the defense database. Certainly he served on the committee which approved defenses to methods for quite some time. Whether this has any bearing on the matter is unclear.

 

I will say that in my experience, Meckstroth and Rodwell tend to do whatever they can "get away with" under the laws to help themselves win. In some cases this includes poor disclosure (for example, they play major suit jump raises as "mixed" but it's marked on their card as weak; of course the regulation ACBL card has no checkbox for "mixed"), claiming certain calls are "tactical bids" when they are frequent within the partnership and protected by methods (for example they frequently respond to 1♦ on three-card majors and do not alert this), and using director calls very freely whenever anything untoward occurs (I've seen them try to get opening leads rolled back in committee when one opponent psyched and the other didn't lead the psych suit).

 

With this said, none of those things are illegal per se; they are all "by the book" according to laws. The problem in my view is that ACBL's laws are very poorly written and very erratically enforced. Meckstroth and Rodwell tend to get much more favorable treatment by directors (and committees) than a lot of other players who lack their reputation and their level of involvement on the laws committees. Thus it sometimes seems like they are railroading other players when they get a board canceled and their opponents ordered to stop playing multi in a situation like this, whereas when I encountered the exact same situation in a national event a few years ago we were told to "play on as best we could" and then forced to keep our losing table result even though it was clearly impacted by our lack of defense to the multi. Similarly, I have no doubt that if Meckstroth himself were to be playing multi without a defense, the director would kindly print out copies of the defense for him, or ask around and find another player with a defense, or give him time to go print out a defense (or have his sitting-out teammates do it).

[karlson]

I find it hard to disagree with anything gnasher says in this thread (well, ok, that's true for most threads).

 

If Meckwell wanted the defense because they want to actually use it, then I don't see how there could possibly be a problem with the director call. Everything in this thread is based on the premise that this is implausbile, which is probably true, but I've been surprised before.

 

If I were a director called to the table in this situation and I found out the calling pair had absolutely no intention of using the written defense, I would tell them to stop wasting my time.

[Cascade]

Actually you might be surprised. When I finally met Cascade in person I liked him quite a lot and now we get along well.

 

While I'm on the topic, Cascade I don't understand your post at all, I assume it's some kind of analogy to what actually happened but I don't get your point... ?

Maybe it is not relevant but maybe it is (at least to me).

 

I can't be sure of Meckwell's method. The only ACBL card that I can find of theirs from the 2009 trials has 2♦ marked as "3 suited" although their system summary and WBF card both include the possibility of (43) in the majors.

 

To me 3415 and 4315 are not three-suited therefore it seems of dubious legality when GCC only permits "a three-suiter ..." . As far as I can tell this method is not allowed on the mid-chart and on the super-chart a prealert and conventional defense would be required "Pre-Alerts are required for all conventional methods not permitted on the ACBL General Convention Chart."

 

Basically if my opponents are going to be pedantic about the regulations then their methods would come under the same sort of pedantic scutiny.

 

However it doesn't seem right that the remedy when someone does not have a defense is that they are not allowed to play the method. The application of bridge law and I would have thought by extention bridge regulation is based on damage. If there is no damage then there is no remedy required. Therefore if a defense was readily available or if Meckwell were not going to use the defense etc then there would be no damage and play could continue normally. And if not at least some effort to find a standard defense could be made. And finally even if a defense could not be found instantly the board could be played (especially given Meckwell's experience) and then if necessary damage accessed. Of course repeat offenses of not turning up with a proper defense could be treated more harshly.

 

I can't be sure but I think that the directing staff at a Nationals might have available defenses to things like multi. In San Diego I was proactive and talked to the directors before we played even one session about possible problems in our system. One of the directors that I talked to started saying something about "our multi" in a helpful sort of way. I can't remember the details as it happens that we don't actually play a multi so I pretty much ignored what he was saying but I got the impression that he was making sure we knew to prealert and had the appropriate defenses.

[awm]

To me 3415 and 4315 are not three-suited therefore it seems of dubious legality when GCC only permits "a three-suiter ..." . As far as I can tell this method is not allowed on the mid-chart and on the super-chart a prealert and conventional defense would be required...

Funny story about this. At some point a couple friends of mine were playing precision in a regional with the same agreement to open 2♦ with (43)15 hands and the director was called over. He agreed with Cascade that this was not a three-suited pattern and therefore not a legal method. My friends explained that "Meckstroth and Rodwell play it this way, Greco and Hampson play it this way, Cohen and Berkowitz play it this way" and the director then changed his mind and said their 2♦ opening was fine.

 

In effect the rules on the ground seem to be: if a strong, famous American pair uses the method, then it is general chart legal. Otherwise it is not.

[dicklont]

We've had elections in Holland on march 3.

New this time: you must be able to identify yourself, with a passport, driving license or similar official document.

This is a new rule and there is some solid reasoning to back it up.

 

When I arrive in the election room the man behind the desk greets me friendly, we know each other for years.

He did not ask for my identification and I found that a natural thing.

From many other places I saw reports of people who had to identify themselves, even to their own relatives were behind the desk.

What is the point?

[hanp]

As an aside, I had an experience slightly similar to the one you presented. I was declaring a doubled contract and my lefty cashed a winner at trick 10 or 11, on which my RHO discarded another winner. When I claimed the rest of the tricks, RHO claimed that he hadn't pitched the winner and that he had instead pitched a loser. LHO agreed with me, until the director came and his story suddenly changed to "I didn't see what happened."

 

Since pitching a winner there was ridiculous, the director agreed that he hadn't pitched it and had in fact pitched something else.

 

Draw whatever conclusions you want as it relates to your story.

I'd say the conclusion is that you call the director and let the director makes the ruling.

[ochinko]

Instead of arguing now, should we first find out what exactly happened before pointing fingers and accusing anyone of unsportsmanlike behaviour?

 

I personally find some of the comments directed towards Meckwell overboard, when most of us do not even know what exactly happened!

Ding ding ding!

It is much more fun to cast aspersions without knowing the facts. The facts often ruin a perfectly good rant.

You are missing the fact that the thread is interesting per se, even if we can only speculate what actually happened at the table.

 

Basically, there is the camp that says that you can harass opponents over every technicality that fits the purpose (and some even go as far as to say that you *should*). The other camp is on the opinion that the rules are not there to help you intimidate your opps, and break their concentration, and even if your income depends on winning you should consider first what is morally right before you consider what is legally right.

[blackshoe]

To me 3415 and 4315 are not three-suited therefore it seems of dubious legality when GCC only permits "a three-suiter ..." .

AFAIK, the purpose of the regulation is to allow at the GCC level the very common, even "standard", Precision 2♦ opening which does indeed show 4=4=1-4, 4=4=0=5, 4=3=1=5, or 3=4=1=5 distribution. So I would be very surprised if anyone in authority in the ACBL suggested that opening 2♦ on one of the last two distributions is not permitted.

[Hanoi5]

Basically, there is the camp that says that you can harass opponents over every technicality that fits the purpose (and some even go as far as to say that you *should*). The other camp is on the opinion that the rules are not there to help you intimidate your opps, and break their concentration, and even if your income depends on winning you should consider first what is morally right before you consider what is legally right.

 

This is only black or white. There are some shades of gray in-between. Some people have argued about the professional side, the importance of winning, gamesmanship, etc.

 

I think a pair of this status looks really bad in the eye of the public when they do a thing like this but I'm almost sure the sponsors will feel happier when they win 'by the rules'. Besides there are other aspects that should be taken into account, some people tend to hold grudges against others for things that happened in the past, what if this is the case here?

 

Also, ethics and morals and all that jazz are VERY subjective, and opinions are like, well you know the rest.

[Mud Reelo]

In Denmark a commonly used defence against Multi is called 'Meckwell'. How's that for irony?

[Trinidad]

In Denmark a commonly used defence against Multi is called 'Meckwell'. How's that for irony?

I think that is the defense 2 from the original "yellow booklet". the one that is now in the ACBL defense database.

 

Who do you think invented it? (What does that say about Meckwell if they were complaining that no defense was provided?)

 

Rik

[655321]

Instead of arguing now, should we first find out what exactly happened before pointing fingers and accusing anyone of unsportsmanlike behaviour?

 

I personally find some of the comments directed towards Meckwell overboard, when most of us do not even know what exactly happened!

Haha, yes, but facts are rarely the point of these threads.

 

Isn't the point to give all the 'Disgusted, of Tunbridge Wells' in our midst an opportunity to display their moral superiority, at no cost to themselves or anyone else, while providing free entertainment to the masses (those of the masses reading the thread, anyway)

 

Where would be the fun in that if you had to know what happened first?