Decison in a Teams Match

[dburn]

If a call is unintended it may be changed per Law 25A if it is within the time limits in that Law. This applies even if the realisation is because of partner's alert. This is a matter of Law, so is true in any jurisdiction, EBU, ACBL, or wherever.

Indeed it may. Two scenarios, in both of which you have a Yarborough with six hearts:

 

[1] Partner opens 1NT; you bid 2♥ remembering that you play transfers but removing the 2♥ card rather than the 2♦ card from the box by accident; partner announces "spades"; you may change your call.

 

[2] Partner opens 1NT; you bid 2♥ forgetting that you play transfers; partner announces "spades"; you may not change your call.

 

Of course, it is not always possible for the Director to tell which of [1] and [2] is the actual case in any given situation. Players are well advised always to claim that [1] is the case, even if this involves lying.

[blackshoe]

"Well advised"? No. Such advice is ill, not well, because it is advice to cheat. See Law 72, at least.

[Bbradley62]

... so who knows.

Certainly WE do not know, because (if OP gave a complete account of events) the director did not ask any of the relevant questions. When initially called to the table, he could have taken each player aside to ask what each bid meant (including whether 2NT was the wrong card pulled) to at least get an impression as to whether anyone made use of UI.

[peachy]

"Well advised"? No. Such advice is ill, not well, because it is advice to cheat. See Law 72, at least.

I completely agree that such advice is ill.

However, as long as the laws are such that an honest player who tells the truth is subject to consequences or penalty while a dishonest player who lies is not, the game will have liars. Very sad.

[Trinidad]

"Well advised"? No. Such advice is ill, not well, because it is advice to cheat. See Law 72, at least.

I completely agree that such advice is ill.

However, as long as the laws are such that an honest player who tells the truth is subject to consequences or penalty while a dishonest player who lies is not, the game will have liars. Very sad.

I agree that the game will have liars. But it is a very poor strategy.

 

As a TD you remember the people who honestly tell you that they forgot that they play transfers. Those are the people that you will believe the next time.

 

Just last week I had a case where a player was quite obviously lying about the time that a particular question was asked. His opponents claimed MI during the auction. He claimed questions were asked after the opening lead... But then the one asking the questions would have been... dummy. Guess who I will believe the next time. And the next time.. and the next...

 

Obviously each case needs to be judged on its merits, but when facts are in dispute, credibility is important.

 

Rik

[relpar]

"Certainly WE do not know, because (if OP gave a complete account of events) the director did not ask any of the relevant questions. When initially called to the table, he could have taken each player aside to ask what each bid meant (including whether 2NT was the wrong card pulled) to at least get an impression as whether anyone made use of UI." [bbradley62]

 

Yes YOU do know. When I made the original posting I pointed out that the TD was not called until the bidding had finished. In a second posting I pointed out that at no stage did the 2NT bidder indicate that she had pulled the incorrect card. At the time the TD was called I think it is a harsh judgment to conclude that "the director did not ask any of the relevant questions". Given the information that was provided in the original posting I wonder how it is possible not to conclude that somebody made use of UI. North made a Jacoby 2NT bid and then made it clear that she had misbid! Now when North re-bid 3NT South passed with her 4522 hand DESPITE the fact that they had a "known" 9 card fit. Surely a Pass is not a Logical Alternative in this sequence.

 

Probably little else needs to be explored in this topic.(??) I believe an adjusted score for 4♥ down 1 or 2 would have been appropriate. I suspect a number of other posters have s similar view.

[bluejak]

Players are well advised always to claim that [1] is the case, even if this involves lying.

 

"Well advised"? No. Such advice is ill, not well, because it is advice to cheat. See Law 72, at least.

It is completely shocking when a member of the EBU Laws & Ethics Committee says that it is "well advised" for people to cheat.

[jdonn]

What he is obviously saying is the laws as written give players a strong incentive to cheat in this way because they have nothing to lose and something to gain.

[blackshoe]

Maybe it's just me, but I'd have something to lose if I did that. It's called self-respect.

[dburn]

Maybe it's just me, but I'd have something to lose if I did that. It's called self-respect.

Oh, I do not say that I personally would follow the given advice. I say only, as jdonn correctly presumes, that the Laws are not terribly effective in this area.

 

You see, unless Directors are of the very high quality of those who post here (bluejak, blackshoe, gordontd and others too numerous to mention), there is scope for people "getting away with" errors even if they do not consciously intend to do so.

 

For example, a player who bids 2♥ with hearts in the given scenario may (I have seen it myself) quite honestly tell the Director "I didn't mean to bid 2♥". What he intends by this is "I made a mistake - I forgot I was playing transfers" and not "I made a mistake - I pulled the 2♥ card while intending to pull the 2♦ card." The Director, unless he is very experienced, will simply not know how to distinguish among the two cases; moreover, if the player is one whom the Director is reluctant to offend (a world champion, or a valued customer at the club), then even an experienced Director might not explore as thoroughly as he should.

 

Now, although the Directors here are perfectly capable of rising above such things, very many Directors are not. The trouble with the Laws and the Regulations and the Minutes of this, that and the other Commission is that by attempting to ensure that "equity prevails", and that "bridge is a mental, not a physical, sport" and other such lofty but hopelessly misguided sentiments, they provide tolerably well for the game at international level, but very badly indeed for the game among the lower echelons, where what is needed are simple Laws more or less mechanically applied.

 

Such Laws would not hurt the game at international level either. I venture to suggest that nobody, from Jeff Meckstroth to Mrs Guggenheim, enjoys the pandemonium that ensues when a bevy of officials, players, and lawyers is involved in having to determine whether someone made a mistake through clumsiness or through absent-mindedness. At the Bermuda Bowl, at least whatever decision is made will be made by impartial experts acting after thorough investigation and with full knowledge of the legal nuances. At the Much-Festering-under-Lyme Bridge Club, it won't. But in either case, the decision may be completely wrong.

 

Wherefore I propose for 2018, with apologies for the numerical discontinuity, Burn's 25th Law, which reads:

 

Law 25

 

A legal call once made may not be changed.

 

Law 26...

[jdonn]

Maybe it's just me, but I'd have something to lose if I did that. It's called self-respect.

All well and good but it misses the point entirely. That isn't nearly a good enough incentive for most people, even if they each think it is for them.

 

But perhaps I should rephrase. What he is obviously saying is the laws as written give players a strong incentive to cheat in this way because their bridge scores have nothing to lose and something to gain.

[blackshoe]

Heh. You don't think much of people, do you Josh?

[nige1]

Law 25

A legal call once made may not be changed.

Excellent suggestion

[axman]

 

Wherefore I propose for 2018, with apologies for the numerical discontinuity, Burn's 25th Law, which reads:

 

Law 25

 

A legal call once made may not be changed.

 

Law 26...

Three things occur to me-

1. Would Burn desire to partake of such proceedings?

2. When he did partake, how long would his sanity survive?

3. I sense an emptiness not knowing the consequences of a call not legally made.

 

Actually, a whole lot more than three things.

[dburn]

 

Wherefore I propose for 2018, with apologies for the numerical discontinuity, Burn's 25th Law, which reads:

 

Law 25

 

A legal call once made may not be changed.

 

Law 26...

Three things occur to me-

1. Would Burn desire to partake of such proceedings?

2. When he did partake, how long would his sanity survive?

3. I sense an emptiness not knowing the consequences of a call not legally made.

 

Actually, a whole lot more than three things.

If you mean "would I rather play in a tournament where once you'd made a legal call, you could not change it", of course I would. I am as prone to "mechanical errors" as the next man, but unlike some of the next men I believe that whatever the penalty may be for those errors, I should pay it rather than moan about it and attempt to have it rescinded.

 

Probably, there should be some provision for changing illegal calls. The current provisions for calls out of rotation are more or less all right; the current provisions for changing insufficient bids are more or less all wrong.

 

The consequences of a call not legally made are that if it works, the one-handed people in the audience will clap vigorously.

 

Numbers greater than three may exist, but don't count on it.

[jdonn]

Heh. You don't think much of people, do you Josh?

I just live in reality. I mean why do we even have punishments for breaking laws if we depend on everyone's self respect to stop them when they could get away with it?

 

I can't remember where I read it, but I recall reading that 93% of people would steal if they knew they could get away with it and didn't feel like they were badly cheating a specific person (ie they would steal cable but not pickpocket someone). And even if that were wrong, wouldn't we want to stop them if it was 90%? 80%? 10%?

[Lanor Fow]

If Burn's 25th law were implemented, IMO we should also change the EBU bidding box regluations on when a bid is made to be more like the ABCL ones.

[Vampyr]

the current provisions for changing insufficient bids are more or less all wrong.

Was it you, David, who once suggested that Law27 should read, in its entirety, "When a player makes an insufficient bid, the offender's partner is silenced for the rest of the auction"?

 

This, like your proposed L25, would be simple to understand and uniformly applied. I am very much in favour of both changes, but I do think that there should be some laxity when bidding cards have stuck together. Perhaps, as suggested by the previous poster, change the bidding box regulations.

[axman]

 

Wherefore I propose for 2018, with apologies for the numerical discontinuity, Burn's 25th Law, which reads:

 

Law 25

 

A legal call once made may not be changed.

 

Law 26...

Three things occur to me-

1. Would Burn desire to partake of such proceedings?

2. When he did partake, how long would his sanity survive?

3. I sense an emptiness not knowing the consequences of a call not legally made.

 

Actually, a whole lot more than three things.

If you mean "would I rather play in a tournament where once you'd made a legal call, you could not change it", of course I would. I am as prone to "mechanical errors" as the next man, but unlike some of the next men I believe that whatever the penalty may be for those errors, I should pay it rather than moan about it and attempt to have it rescinded.

 

Probably, there should be some provision for changing illegal calls. The current provisions for calls out of rotation are more or less all right; the current provisions for changing insufficient bids are more or less all wrong.

 

The consequences of a call not legally made are that if it works, the one-handed people in the audience will clap vigorously.

 

Numbers greater than three may exist, but don't count on it.

I had been thinking about Burn25’s effect upon the behavior of players, opponents, and TDs- in addition to the effect upon the mental health of burn:

 

There are a modest number [of players] that appear to have inescapable difficulties in extracting the desired bidding card- they hunt around for quite some time first grabbing one and then another and another, taking upwards of a minute and even considerably longer. It should be expected that Burn25 would have such an effect on a dramatically considerable number- thereby nullifying the perceived advantages of BBs while making the low tech method of voice bidding resoundingly attractive.

 

It is quite probable that such theatrics are not lost upon the partner- and how they might imagine that some large portion of this time is actually being used to think about how best to communicate the desired messages.

 

There also are the occasions when a player is misinformed by an opponent and takes an action different from what he would have- had he not been misinformed. Such occurrences would necessarily cause L12 to see the light of day.

 

A couple of years ago I would have been confident that if burn were to get even three or four adjusted scores in a session it would drive him nuts [and it wouldn’t be because his side offended]- err, I mean drive him to sobriety. But I’m not so sure now.

[jeremy69]

Perhaps, as suggested by the previous poster, change the bidding box regulations.

 

Or perhaps the bidding box cards once they have had 5 pints of beer/wine/pepsi thrown over them (in one club I play in that means about once per week).