Overheard at the next table

[gordontd]

Law 16C2C permits the Director to "allow completion of the play of the board standing ready to award an adjusted score if he judges that unauthorized information may have affected the result".

 

That is, Law 16C2 may apply to events that occur after calls have been made, and therefore to this situation.

Since L16C2 applies "before any call has been made", I find it hard to see why you think it "may apply to events that occur after calls have been made".

 

It would be an improvement if the limiting phrase "before any call has been made" were simply not there, since that would then allow us to exchange the positions of declarer & dummy in circumstances where declarer overhears information that might affect the play. As things are we can't do that, since whatever the director does under L16C2 has to be done "before any call has been made".

[dburn]

Law 16C2C permits the Director to "allow completion of the play of the board standing ready to award an adjusted score if he judges that unauthorized information may have affected the result".

 

That is, Law 16C2 may apply to events that occur after calls have been made, and therefore to this situation.

Since L16C2 applies "before any call has been made", I find it hard to see why you think it "may apply to events that occur after calls have been made".

Simply because one of the things the Director can do is "allow completion of the play of the board". To do this he will need to permit some calls to be made, or the board will take a while to complete. However, the calls and plays necessary to ensure completion of the board are made under the provision of the rest of the Law, which says that the Director stands "ready to award an adjusted score if he judges that unauthorized information may have affected the result", so that L16C2C applies to the events required to ensure completion of play - in particular, to all calls made after the second of the auction.

 

Come to think of it, if (as I have suggested that he should) the Director intervenes at a point where normal play has become impossible because of unauthorized information, that will constitute completion of the board, so that it may not be necessary after all for the Director to wait until play has finished before awarding an (artificial) adjusted score.

[blackshoe]

At this point, East tells the table that he thinks he overheard the last table talking about this board, and that he heard the result.

"This point" is right after North, the dealer, makes his second call on the auction. IOW, everyone has called at least once. So East must have received his UI sometime between the completion of this board at the previous table, and "this time". Unfortunately, we do not know precisely when that was. Do we need to know? Well, yes and no, I think.

When a player accidentally receives unauthorized information about a board he is playing or has yet to play … the director should be notified forthwith, preferably by the recipient of the information.

This law clearly applies whenever this kind of UI is received before the hand in question is completed by the recipient. Now, Law 16C2 tells the TD what to do if he has been called to the table before any call has been made, and 16C3 tells the TD what to do if he has been called to the table after a call has been made.

 

So no, for purposes of rectification, we don't need to know. Oh, but wait! If we read Law 16C literally, if the miscreant doesn't call the TD when he's supposed to, we can't do anything, because the law actually refers to the time the UI was received, rather than the time the TD was called. Pfui. The director's powers under Laws 81 and 82 clearly give him the power to interpret this law as applying to the time when he was called, at least if that time is before the completion of the board.

 

16C2 includes the phrase "[the TD] may, before any call has been made…" Now, a call has been made, so at first glance this law can't be applied, but Law 16C3 says

If such unauthorized information is received after the first call in the auction has been made and before completion of the play of the board, the director proceeds as in 2c above.

The TD should interpret "such information is received" as "the TD is making his ruling", and apply Law 16C2c, as this law (16C3), so interpreted, requires.

 

If you don't like this, on æsthetic grounds or otherwise, I recommend you lobby your NBO to issue a formal interpretation clarifying things for your country, and at the same time ask them to request the WBFLC to review the law and do the same.

 

We aren't done yet. If East did not call the TD "forthwith", then he is the cause of all the hullabaloo about interpretation of the Law, and he ought to be taken to task for it. So for that purpose we do need to know when he actually overheard the other table. If he then delayed calling the TD, he rates a PP at least in the form of a warning. I would be gentle — it's likely he was just trying to avoid disturbing a playing director — but players need to know, and directors need to make them aware, that calling the TD as required by law takes precedence over consideration for a director who also happens to be playing.

[Ant590]

We aren't done yet. If East did not call the TD "forthwith", then he is the cause of all the hullabaloo about interpretation of the Law, and he ought to be taken to task for it. So for that purpose we do need to know when he actually overheard the other table. If he then delayed calling the TD, he rates a PP at least in the form of a warning. I would be gentle — it's likely he was just trying to avoid disturbing a playing director — but players need to know, and directors need to make them aware, that calling the TD as required by law takes precedence over consideration for a director who also happens to be playing.

Thanks for all the replies in what has been a very interesting thread.

 

In actual fact I was east, and when I heard the "12 top tricks" comment, I wasn't sure which board it was applicable to. Was I meant to call the director then? If not, when?

 

Even when I picked up the hand I wasn't *sure* that this board was the one I'd heard the comment about (It was a 14-board cross-IMP match), and there were three on the pile at any time. If I don't have to call director as soon as I hear the comment, should I have called then? In actual fact I made my comment to the table as soon as I was sure that this was the board in question.

[blackshoe]

Call when you receive the information, and tell the director you're not sure which board it is, and let him sort it out.

[dburn]

Call when you receive the information, and tell the director you're not sure which board it is, and let him sort it out.

Awkward when there is a playing Director, or even when the Director isn't playing.

 

"Director, I know that on one of the three or four boards shortly to arrive from the next table, one side or the other has twelve top tricks."

 

How the Director is supposed to "sort it out" I have no idea, and neither does the law book. Law 16C begins:

 

When a player accidentally receives unauthorized information about a board he is playing or has yet to play

and continues with a great many specific recommendations about what should be done on a specific board about which the player has information. It contains no recommendation at all regarding this case, where a player has received information about "a board" but no one knows which board. Perhaps the authors did not envisage this case, or perhaps they chose (wisely) not to deal with it.

 

As an exercise, what should be done if five minutes after the tournament begins, North at table 1 announces in a voice loud enough to be heard round the room that "seven spades is cold"? Since it will be clear to all that this can relate only to Board 1, what should happen to Board 1? Show your working, having particular regard to the Laws of Duplicate Bridge 2007 and to the Bluejak Principle that players who have paid to play 24 boards should not play only 23.

 

Meanwhile, it appears to me that the original poster behaved, for practical purposes, in almost exemplary fashion. Unwilling to have three or four boards scrapped just in case there were twelve top tricks on any of them, he resolved to reveal the UI in his possession only when it might become relevant. Note that the former course of action would require the TD to examine each board in turn before allowing the table to play it, whence it would have been clear to all concerned that they probably should not bid a slam.

 

When, however, the OP had good reason to believe that he was playing the board about which he had UI, he should have summoned the Director and laid the facts before him, rather than consulting the opponents (and indirectly conveying UI to his partner). Then, the Director could have acted as I have indicated: allow play to continue until a point at which it became obvious that normal play was impossible, and award an artificial adjusted score.

 

This is not an ideal solution, but bridge is not an ideal game, and the Laws are not ideal Laws. I cannot help that, but I feel at the very least that blackshoe was a little hard on Ant590 when referring to him as "the cause of all the hullabaloo".

[blackshoe]

I feel at the very least that blackshoe was a little hard on Ant590 when referring to him as "the cause of all the hullabaloo".

You're right about that. The cause of all the hullabaloo was the bigmouth at the other table. Sorry about that, Ant.

 

As an exercise, what should be done if five minutes after the tournament begins, North at table 1 announces in a voice loud enough to be heard round the room that "seven spades is cold"? Since it will be clear to all that this can relate only to Board 1, what should happen to Board 1? Show your working, having particular regard to the Laws of Duplicate Bridge 2007 and to the Bluejak Principle that players who have paid to play 24 boards should not play only 23.

 

Meh. I'm tempted to suggest that the board be redealt, but that's almost certainly illegal, or you wouldn't have suggested the example. :rolleyes:

 

There are many examples where the laws are unclear or incomplete. We do the best we can. And whatever we do, someone will point out that we're "wrong". But the TD's primary job is to allow the players to play, as best can be done in the face of silly situations not covered by the laws, an evening of bridge. One might disagree with a particular's TD's judgement how to do that in a particular case, but in the end, it's his call.

[Ant590]

Thanks for the clarification.

 

I agree completely that I should have called the director instead of announcing at the table what I did. On the plus-side, everyone at the table was amicable before, during, and after the incident and ruling, which has been a bit of a rarity in these situations in my experience.

[bluejak]

He remembered something Paola once said; he no longer recalled the context.  Whenever people want to argue dishonestly, she'd said, they pull out a specific example so overwhelming as to render disagreement impossible.  But no matter how compelling specific cases were, she always insisted, law was about principle and universals. Individual cases proved themselves and nothing else.

In clubs especially, it is right to play hands where there is a certain amount of extraneous information. Quoting a really silly and clearly made-up case where this is not true proves nothing, and merely tries to deflect us from a correct resolution of the problem here. Trying to pretend that my advice is personalised rather than general is an unnecessary attempt to deflect a sensible argument as well. Repeating the dictum ad nauseam that the bridge Laws could be improved, but doing so in a humorous way, also does not help.

 

Law 16C tells the TD how to go about it. Certainly it is flawed because it assumes that players will follow Law 16C1, notably the worth 'forthwith', and you can argue that neither Law 16C2 nor Law 16C3 applies where the information is received before the first call but the TD is notified after the first call. This is true, and we have to decide how to handle such a specific case. However, the norm would be to use Law 16C2C since that is the norm in a club if Law 16C2 applies, and is required if Law 16C3 applies. Silly examples do not alter this.

 

There is a reasonable argument that if Law 16C had been followed, Law 16C2 would have applied in a case as here where the information was overheard before the first call, therefore the TD should act as though he had been called at that time, so he could apply Law 16C2D if necessary. That means he has to make a judgement as to whether it is necessary.

 

The judgement may depend in part on the details, which we were not told fully at the start, though some have come to light later. It appears that it was not known which specific board was affected. Now everyone assumes it must be the one being discussed, since the term used was

twelve top tricks

and this hand does not have twelve top tricks. It does not seem completely obvious to me.

 

Despite all the sneers and comments I have not seen any really sensible arguments as to why Law 16C2C is not used, with an assigned score being given at the end, weighted of course since that is the norm, split as well if necessary.

 

I believe that the recipient of the information should have told the TD immediately. Arguments about how difficult it would be for the TD to do anything sensible leave me cold: surely it is the TD's job to decide what to do if he has a difficult decision, not a player's to take the decision away from him by ignoring the requirements of Law 16C, especially the word 'forthwith'.

 

In general, I would ask that people do not support arguments about cases with very silly made-up extreme cases: they do not prove how we should rule generally. When general advice is given there will alway be exceptions: surely we do not need silly examples to tell us so?

[VixTD]

In general, I would ask that people do not support arguments about cases with very silly made-up extreme cases: they do not prove how we should rule generally. When general advice is given there will alway be exceptions: surely we do not need silly examples to tell us so?

Who's been doing this? We were given a problem to rule on, it doesn't seem particularly outlandish or unbelievable, and from the way it was presented I assume it actually happened. I haven't seen anyone making anything other than helpful comments, and I don't see what your objection is.

[bluejak]

As an exercise, what should be done if five minutes after the tournament begins, North at table 1 announces in a voice loud enough to be heard round the room that "seven spades is cold"? Since it will be clear to all that this can relate only to Board 1, what should happen to Board 1? Show your working, having particular regard to the Laws of Duplicate Bridge 2007 and to the Bluejak Principle that players who have paid to play 24 boards should not play only 23.

[dburn]

Quoting a really silly and clearly made-up case where this is not true proves nothing

If this is a reference to the "seven spades is cold" example, that is not silly or made up at all - it actually happened, and a moment's reflection will convince you that it is not all that unlikely to happen in some bridge event at some time. But the bluejak definition of a "silly example" or a "silly argument" is "anything that demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that bluejak is talking complete hogwash".

 

A "sensible" argument, for instance, is something like this:

 

However, the norm would be to use Law 16C2C since that is the norm in a club if Law 16C2 applies, and is required if Law 16C3 applies.

In other words, "this is the norm because it is the norm". Not only is this form of argument ridiculous, its premise is not even true - if a Director can use 16C2A or 16C2B he should most certainly do so before resorting to 16C2C, because if a board on which UI exists through no fault of a player can be played without UI, or redealt, that is greatly preferable to having a board played with UI.

 

Despite all the sneers and comments I have not seen any really sensible arguments as to why Law 16C2C is not used

Yes you have, but as usual you have paid no attention to them because you believe that anyone who disagrees with you is sneering at you. Are you seriously asserting that a player who has unauthorized reason to suppose that twelve tricks will be available on some deal or other in the course of the current round can bid and play "normally", uninfluenced by UI, a deal on which there are in fact twelve tricks available? Or, for that matter, can bid and play "normally" any other deal in the round? If so... well, that line of argument is not worth even a sneer.

 

I believe that the recipient of the information should have told the TD immediately. Arguments about how difficult it would be for the TD to do anything sensible leave me cold: surely it is the TD's job to decide what to do if he has a difficult decision

And what do you suggest that a playing Director should do about it? Indeed, what do you suggest that any Director should do if a player says "I have received information that on one of boards 7-9 there are twelve top tricks, but I don't know which board"? Show your working, quoting the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge and not "the norm" in the Much-Festering-under-Lyme Bridge Club.

 

In general, I would ask that people do not support arguments about cases with very silly made-up extreme cases

I haven't, and nor has anyone else (although now I come to think of it, the contract might have been six diamonds rather than seven spades, but this does not matter). But even if I had, one of the ways in which a Law is proven is by examining how it will work in all conceivable circumstances; if it does not work, then it should not be the Law.

[iviehoff]

twelve top tricks

and this hand does not have twelve top tricks. It does not seem completely obvious to me.

One possibility is that at that table, the defending side cashed the SA at trick one, after which...

 

Which just goes to show that things you overhear can be false or misleading without their proper context.

 

Can information which is not, at least on its own, actually correct be information that you have to carefully avoid "taking advantage" of?

 

Or let us suppose the "12 top tricks" you overheard was actually in a conversation about a completely different hand, for example one played in another session? If it is later confirmed that is what you heard, can there be any adjustment on this hand?

[greenender]

twelve top tricks

and this hand does not have twelve top tricks. It does not seem completely obvious to me.

One possibility is that at that table, the defending side cashed the SA at trick one, after which...

FWIW I guess that in many club postmortems the expressions "twelve top tricks" and "twelve tricks on any reasonable line" (here ♣ finesse, ♦ ruff or setting up a long ♠ with or without assistance) are quite likely to be used more or less interchangeably.