Do you allow the raise to 6?

[pran]

[hv=d=n&v=n&s=saj9hakjt86d5ca83]133|100|Scoring: IMP

Pass - 1♥ - Pass - 1♠

Pass - 3♥ - Pass - ??4♥

Pass - 6♥ - AP[/hv]

 

TD was summoned when East bid 6♥ and again after the play was completed. There was no dispute about the pause before the 4♥ bid. All calls were natural.

 

He ruled that the pause before bidding 4♥ did not "demonstrably suggest an action of going towards slam" over other logical alternative actions (e.g. Pass). Partner could as well be considering for instance passing out 3♥ rather than bidding 4.

 

Table result (6♥ made) stands.

 

The case went to appeal - how would you rule?

[StevenG]

I agree with the TD.

[helene_t]

I don't think the slow 4♥ bid could, from E's pov, be based on a hand that considered passing 3♥. If E realized that 3♥ was NF he would hardly bid on after the sign off.

 

So I would adjust to 4♥+2.

[VixTD]

If E realized that 3♥ was NF he would hardly bid on after the sign off.

I don't understand this.

 

East could easily have a clear pass of the (non-forcing) 3♥, or a clear raise to 4♥, or a clear cue-bid or Blackwood bid, or a clear 3NT bid, or a clear anything else.

On the other hand, he could easily have a hand that is not clearly any of these, but rather one which only after much consideration is resolved by a 4♥ bid. Surely the unauthorized information tells partner it is in this last category rather than the second?

[Codo]

I would rule 4 ♥ + 2 too.

 

The passing of the opps make it more likely that partner has a descission between slam and game and not a descission between game and part score. I am not in a position to rule how much more likely it is that partner has the stronger hand, but I guess it is enough to justify a correction.

 

My guess would be around 70/30, so I would give a weighted score with these numbers if I have to.

[Trinidad]

My guess would be around 70/30, so I would give a weighted score with these numbers if I have to.

You cannot give a weighted score in a case like this:

 

o Either 6♥ is an infraction and you give an AS of 4♥+2. (Pass is ruled as an LA and 6♥ is forbidden.)

o Or 6♥ is no infraction and you do nothing.

 

Rik

[shyams]

Can we see all 4 hands? Or at least both E/W hands?

 

e.g. ♠Kxxxx ♥Qx ♦xxx ♣xxx with West where he/she was thinking of passing. This time ♠Q was onside and spades were 3-2, so E/W made 12 tricks.

[peachy]

This BIT suggests that responder has extras, sometimes it is not easy to determine what the BIT suggests but in this case, I think it is clear. Pass by opener is a LA so if in AC, I would overturn TD ruling. Even if the BIT "did not demonstrably suggest going to slam", the threshold for ruling is lower: "it could have demonstrably suggested"

[gwnn]

I think bad hands will pass quickly in this position. In my experience it very rarely happens that someone thinks very long about a borderline game decision. People tend to just bid game whenever it is possible to make. With slam tries it's more complicated, especially as you need to know what agrees trumps/what shows what/etc, it takes up more time to decide whether to try for slam and all. I would say 90+% of players can tell if their partners were thinking of slam or thinking of passing in situations like this, consciously or otherwise.

[hotShot]

I think it's more likely that partner was unsure if 4♥ is enough than that 4♥ is a stretch.

But I'm not sure it's demonstrably.

[iviehoff]

It's one of those terrible "how ethical do you have to be" cases. Clearly the least ethical thing to do is invite slam and see if there really is enthusiasm. Arguably, that is the action most strongly suggested by the UI. Blasting 6H is a bit more ethical, but is it ethical enough?

[Phil]

This is a strange one.

 

Normally I would say, East has no idea what is going through partner's mind, but as Josh might say the auction alone suggests some monkey business.

 

All we know is that East knows that West has 'something else in mind' when 4♥ is bid. It might be a slam try, or it might be a pass or 3N. I don't know the hesitation suggests bidding, but it certainly suggests something.

[StevenG]

In my partnerships, I would expect the pause to mean either:-

1) I wouldn't normally bid this but this is IMPs not MPs so I'll stretch for a game contract, or

2) I've got game values but my heart void is a problem. Don't much fancy 3NT either. What on earth do I do?

 

Neither suggests bidding on. I can't imagine it showing extra values. It's not as though a slam try wouldn't rule out stopping in 5♥.

 

Clearly others have different expectations. Since 6♥ does make, I'd like to know what East had, and why West thought 6♥ was a realistic bid.

[kenrexford]

This seems rather simple. East made a call that was non-forcing. Partner accepted game. Then, East magically finds a 6♥ call. Nothing about the hand suggests that this is a 3-or-6 deal. So, East is either a lunatic or he picked up on something about his partner's hesitation, probably from experience. This, therefore, seems like clear UA to me.

[jdonn]

Normally I would say, East has no idea what is going through partner's mind, but as Josh might say the auction alone suggests some monkey business.

Bingo. If there was no UI suggesting bidding on then where did west find this "impossible" auction?

 

I do not agree with the TDs reasoning even though it sounds logical. This is just one of those cases where in the abstract the UI could suggest either weakness or strength but where a partnership will be much better at interpreting its own 'black magic' than any director arguing in theory could.

[pran]

Can we see all 4 hands? Or at least both E/W hands?

 

e.g. ♠Kxxxx ♥Qx ♦xxx ♣xxx with West where he/she was thinking of passing. This time ♠Q was onside and spades were 3-2, so E/W made 12 tricks.

Sure.

 

I shall eventually post all four hands, but for a ruling only East's hand is relevant.

[bluejak]

Normally I would say, East has no idea what is going through partner's mind, but as Josh might say the auction alone suggests some monkey business.

Bingo. If there was no UI suggesting bidding on then where did west find this "impossible" auction?

I have just played a four day teams in South Africa. The number of "impossible" auctions perpetrated at my table in this time cannot be counted on my fingers. Players often make "impossible" calls without any UI, so the fact that a call is "impossible" might suggest the possibility of UI, but is nowhere near compelling evidence that there was UI.

 

;)

 

This BIT suggests that responder has extras, sometimes it is not easy to determine what the BIT suggests but in this case, I think it is clear.  Pass by opener is a LA so if in AC, I would overturn TD ruling.  Even if the BIT "did not demonstrably suggest going to slam", the threshold for ruling is lower: "it could have demonstrably suggested"

I do not agree. This is a case where the BIT suggests either that he has extras or he has a borderline accept. I do agree that extras is more likely than a borderline pass but that does not mean that the UI suggests going on: you could also argue it suggests not going on.

 

I agree with the original ruling.

 

:ph34r:

 

I think bad hands will pass quickly in this position. In my experience it very rarely happens that someone thinks very long about a borderline game decision. People tend to just bid game whenever it is possible to make.

I just do not think this is true. Over the last four days there have been several pauses for thought over an encouraging 3♥ or 3♠ bid by partner, followed by pass, or a game with no thought of slam.

 

:ph34r:

 

So, East is either a lunatic or he picked up on something about his partner's hesitation, probably from experience.

 

This is just one of those cases where in the abstract the UI could suggest either weakness or strength but where a partnership will be much better at interpreting its own 'black magic' than any director arguing in theory could.

These are strong arguments, but not really ones that a TD can use for ruling. While my experience of opponents is that this is not a case where the BIT suggests going on, in a specific partnership their experience may suggest it.

[jdonn]

Normally I would say, East has no idea what is going through partner's mind, but as Josh might say the auction alone suggests some monkey business.

Bingo. If there was no UI suggesting bidding on then where did west find this "impossible" auction?

I have just played a four day teams in South Africa. The number of "impossible" auctions perpetrated at my table in this time cannot be counted on my fingers. Players often make "impossible" calls without any UI, so the fact that a call is "impossible" might suggest the possibility of UI, but is nowhere near compelling evidence that there was UI.

 

:)

I agree, an "impossible" auction is not compelling evidence of UI. However I believe the combination of

- a break in tempo, followed by

- an "impossible" auction, then dummy comes showing

- the hand that broke tempo having exactly what makes the "impossible" auction work

is pretty compelling evidence that the break in tempo passed along the type of UI that the hand would suggest. Did that sort of thing happen to you many times over the weekend?

 

This is just one of those cases where in the abstract the UI could suggest either weakness or strength but where a partnership will be much better at interpreting its own 'black magic' than any director arguing in theory could.

These are strong arguments, but not really ones that a TD can use for ruling. While my experience of opponents is that this is not a case where the BIT suggests going on, in a specific partnership their experience may suggest it.

So why can't the director use that argument for ruling? I thought he could use anything he wants, it's his judgment.

[pran]

[hv=d=n&v=n&n=sk9hq432dqt4ckt76&w=sq754h97dak63cqj4&e=saj3hakjt86d5ca83&s=st862h5dj9872c952]399|300|Scoring: IMP

--- Pass 1♥ Pass

1♠ Pass 3♥ Pass

??4♥ Pass 6♥ AP[/hv]

 

OK, here are all four hands, and for convenience I repeat:

 

TD was summoned when East bid 6♥ and again after the play was completed. There was no dispute about the pause before the 4♥ bid. All calls were natural.

 

He ruled that the pause before bidding 4♥ did not "demonstrably suggest an action of going towards slam" over other logical alternative actions (e.g. Pass). Partner could as well be considering for instance passing out 3♥ rather than bidding 4.

 

Table result (6♥ made) stands.

 

On the AC we were initially split, but after a short discussion on the wording "demonstrably suggested" we unanimously agreed that the BIT did not demonstrably suggest any particular action over another alternative action.

 

We let the Director's ruling stand.

[jdonn]

This is a common mistake committees make (I'm not saying it was a mistake here, just that it might have been.) Even if the tank is a stretch to game sometimes and a slam try sometimes it can demonstrably suggest going toward slam because the gain when partner has extras and slam makes is so much bigger than the loss when partner stretched and game goes down. Many don't realize that even if the tank can be either of two opposite types of hands, it can demonstrably suggest assuming one of them due to the scoring table and imp scale.

 

To me that's moot in this case. They got off (and maybe even correctly by the committee) due to a legal technicality when anyone who is reasonable knows that in reality they probably took advantage. Would west not have bid 4♥ quickly with less? Does anyone think east would have bid on if west bid 4♥ quickly? I will never be able to get past directors and committees arguing that UI didn't show the type of hand that one player had AND his partner (impossibly!) played him for. Sometimes it really is that easy.

[mikeh]

I came in late, but I disagree with josh enough to justify (to me, anyway) adding my 2 cents worth.

 

I don't think that any committee (or director) should invoke a presumption that there has been UI because the BIT hand ended up with the holding that made the dubious call effective.

 

This is the kind of reasoning that critics of committees often make (altho josh makes an interesting additional point about the imp table, which I had not seen advanced before).

 

The problem is that we only see, at committee, those cases in which the dubious action worked out. Imagine swapping the N-S hands: 6♥ is hopeless, and EW would get a bad score.

 

So the committee process self-selects for bad bids that work out. If we then tell committees that they should assume that bad bids that work out are caused by UI, we are being very unfair...bad players always lose when their bad bids don't work and now we are saying that their bad bids must always lose out if there was any BIT, because we are going to assume that the BIT suggested the winning action, even when, logically, it doesn't. And bad players tend to BIT more than experienced players.

 

Those who argue that weak hands pass quickly, so that any BIT shows extras, are talking nonsense, if they mean that as a general proposition.

 

There are always going to be hands that hit the seam in any player's view of whether the hand should pass or raise or bid 3N. I don't care where you draw the lines: some hands are always going to land on or near them. And most players will tend to break tempo whenever a hand lands on or near such a dividing line.

 

So any normal player, confronted with the auction to 3♥, will sometimes have a hand that requires him or her to think. And that includes thinking about passing/raising or raising/3N or raising/cuebidding and so on.

 

The fact that the imp scale might make assuming the BIT showed extras more attractive than assuming that it showed weakness isn't very persuasive to me.

 

For one thing, not mentioned by Josh: if the tank was due to weakness, then the odds are very, very high that slam is hopeless: partner was thinking that game was borderline, and our hand will rarely be more than 1/2 trick better than a 3♥ call, else we would not have bid 3♥! So our slam rates to fail, and often by several tricks. Being -500 in 6♥ doubled while our opps made game is not my idea of being favoured by the imp scale.

 

And on frequency, when we hold 17 hcp, the average holding around the table is about 8 hcp. Partner will more often hold a 6-7 count thinking about passing than he will a 12 count thinking about slamming. So on a frequency basis, he will have the weak BIT more often than the strong.

 

Having said all that, I think that a committee is entitled to ask about the partnership's experience with BITs in invitational sequences. Does this partnership usually resolve pass or raise decisions very quickly in favour of raising?

 

If so, then the BIT would appear to suggest extra values and I'd disallow the slam.

 

I appreciate that this approach fails when the EW pair is prepared to mislead, but that's an entirely different problem.

[jdonn]

So the committee process self-selects for bad bids that work out. If we then tell committees that they should assume that bad bids that work out are caused by UI, we are being very unfair...bad players always lose when their bad bids don't work and now we are saying that their bad bids must always lose out if there was any BIT, because we are going to assume that the BIT suggested the winning action, even when, logically, it doesn't. And bad players tend to BIT more than experienced players.

That was very unfair to my point of view for two reasons.

 

First is that it's not bad bids that work out. It's bad (in this case impossible, don't forget) bids that work out because partner had what you are considering the BIT suggested. So if 6♥ made in this example opposite Kxxxx Qx xxx xxx then I wouldn't punish the player simply due to his 6♥ bid working out, as we would have clear evidence the BIT doesn't suggest extras for this pair.

 

Second is that I didn't say to assume a BIT suggests something when logically it doesn't. I'm referring specifically to cases where it's not clear in the abstract what the BIT suggests. Clearly if it obviously suggests something then it obviously suggests something. What I am talking about is evidence to consider, not an override to clear logic of the given situation.

[kenrexford]

Here's my take, one that I consider to be consistent.

 

If this hand in this sequence makes a NF 3♥ call and then blasts 6♥ after a hesitation, and the contract makes, I adjust and possibly add a procedural penalty.

 

If this hand in this sequence makes a NF 3♥ call and then blasts 6♥ after a hesitation, and the contract fails, I give a procedural penalty.

 

If in either situation there is an appeal, it is without merit UNLESS the offending side can prove to me that the person bidding 6♥ is actually a complete moron with no idea what he is doing. The main evidence against this is the fact that he opted to bid hearts repeatedly, and not leap to 6 of some other random contract, as this illustrates a level of cognition high enough to adjust and give a procedural penalty.

 

The nonsense about the hesitation suggesting any number of things is lunacy. This is because the main premise to Mike's argument is flawed. This is not a "dubious call." There is no doubt. This is not questionable. This is not a low-percentage but plausible option. This is complete read-based, not hand-based. Please.

 

If the situation was "dubious," then sure. This is not.

 

This is not even a bad bid.

 

Some calls are impossible without reads. 1NT-3NT-6NT is not dubious, it is a read. 2H-3H-6H is not dubious, it is a read.

[mikeh]

I think the main difference between me otoh and josh/ken oto is our view of the jump to 6♥.

 

As I understand their arguments, they say, in essence:

 

6♥ is impossible. No bridge player would ever jump to 6♥ unless they had UI.

 

The BIT, being the only odd thing about the auction, must therefore have conveyed UI

 

Since 6♥ had play (bearing in mind that it was still a bad contract, as can be seen by reversing the NS hands, and holding the contract to 4), the UI MUST be deemed to have suggested a good hand.

 

 

But:

 

1. One man's impossible bid is another's ignorance or lack of skill. I accept that to any decent player 6♥ is either impossible or a silly gamble...the two are not the same. Some people love the thrill of a gamble that to others seems stupid. Some people simply have no clue.

 

I invite anyone with doubt on this to play a few boards in the MBC on BBO...wait til the boards have been player 10 times then carefully review the other table bidding, play and results. I am morally certain that on most hands a skilled, knowledgable player would see several calls and plays, over the 10 tables, that appear to be 'impossible' in the same sense as the 6♥ call was here. Some of them will work: most of them will be costly.

 

So I cannot accept that it is 'impossible' for 'any' player to jump to 6♥. Stupid, yes. Silly, yes. But a lot of players are one or both of those. And some are simply erratic and enjoy stories...to the point that they make a lot of impossible bids because the ones that work generate a thrill that makes the failures worth while.

 

Anyone who knows inveterate gamblers knows the type of people I am speaking about: the perpetual losers who rarely speak of their bad days but are gleeful when they have a winning day.

 

2. The BIT, as I stressed earlier, is value neutral unless this particular pair has the idiosyncratic habit of never thinking on pass/raise borderline decisions.

 

3. The problem with this branch of their reasoning is easy to demonstrate. Assume that similar auction, with similar BITs, occurs on twenty different hands. On ten, the EW pair get way too high and go -500. On the others, 6♥ makes.

 

The committee only hears about the successful ones. They hear that 10 times out of 10, there was a BIT and partner lept to an impossible 6♥ and made it! Therefore, they reason, this BIT HAD to suggest extras. After all, 10 out of 10 times, that is what the BIT player held.

 

In reality, half the time the BIT was based on weakness and half the time on strength. It only appeared to point in one direction because of the self-selection I wrote about earlier.

 

Another example might help. What if the EW pair could show that they had had this situation, with BIT, a dozen times that session and that they had swung high every time, and got 8 bad boards and 4 good ones? Do we still assume that the BIT showed extras? it turns out that it had, 5 times (4 earlier and this one time) but had been on weakness 8 times. Surely the correct view is that the BIT suggested pass!

 

All of this is by way of stressing that without info not contained in the OP, it seems unfair to assume that these players see the world the same way as a real expert would.

[jdonn]

Since 6♥ had play (bearing in mind that it was still a bad contract, as can be seen by reversing the NS hands, and holding the contract to 4), the UI MUST be deemed to have suggested a good hand.

Not since 6♥ had play. Since the person who broke tempo had extras. Just clarifying (I thought I clarified the same thing from you in your prior post?)

 

You know better than to use your example about "what if 8 times out of 12 he really did not have extras!" Obviously if we knew that was the case it would be different but we don't know that's the case. That's why this is evidence, not proof.

 

It would be like a jury convicted a defendant on the basis of eye witness testimony and the defendant's lawyer says "but what if 8 times out of every 12 that the witness believes he saw something he was wrong?" Well that's a silly thing of the lawyer to say, isn't it? Obviously IF that were the case things would be different, but if he can't show that it IS the case then the jury can attach as much credibility to his testimony as they feel is right.

 

In other words, when I use something as evidence I know I will be right less than 100% of the time. I hope and believe I'm right most of the time but admit it's not 100%. So what is the point of saying "what if this is the greater than 0% of the time that you are wrong?" Well, what if it is? If you can show it is then I admit I was wrong. If you can't then I don't know why you pointed out what I already admitted.