Should I Have Sanctioned an Appeal?

[Chris L]

If the facts are as presented, the case seems clear-cut; but everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, no matter how eccentric.

 

But the claim that Frances and Jeffrey would have offered this opinion to someone who is considering appealing against their teammates is a pretty serious allegation, so I would expect that Chris L has got his facts straight before making it. But there may be some mistake somewhere.

 

Let's be clear - I am not making any allegations against Frances or Jeffery, each of whom I have known for, I would think, the best part of 20 years; they have both represented Cambs & Hunts in the past and the two teams are on very good terms. They volunteered their views in the course of a friendly discussion when we were all milling about at the end of the event and we were considering whether to appeal. Given that their experience of how appeal committees work is far greater than mine, I thought that their views were entitled to considerable weight, notwithstanding that they were members of the offending side. Their views also happened to coincide with mine on the question of the extreme improbability that the 3♠ bid was a splinter agreeing ♥. It also seemed to me that, if N was entitled to know (from a combination of his own hand and their systemic agreements about splinters) that 3♠ couldn't be a splinter then (i) it could only be a natural bid and (ii) given that W had (by implication) shown at least ♣ tolerance with his T/O double and that E had bid ♣, 3NT seemed a fairly obvious bid for N to make - and the TD, after consultation, had evidently come to the same conclusion.

[AlexJonson]

It seems to me that what is in one's own hand is always authorized information.

 

 

That's the possible versus plausible line of argument again.

 

This thread shows some of the difficulties with that distinction, when plausibility seems so debatable - from the evidence of the competition and its players of reasonable quality.

 

At a simple level, PP for NS looks correct.

[blackshoe]

That's the possible versus plausible line of argument again.

 

I don't understand what you mean.

 

All I said was that what's in your hand is always AI. That's a legal opinion on the general question "is what's in your hand UI or AI?" and nothing more.

[AlexJonson]

I don't understand what you mean.

 

All I said was that what's in your hand is always AI. That's a legal opinion on the general question "is what's in your hand UI or AI?" and nothing more.

 

I think you need to loosen up a bit. I doubt that this thread so far is about a legal judgement that AI is AI.

 

But I do slightly insist that this thread casts doubt on the notion that players really consider 'plausibility' in these UI from lack of alert auctions. EG, I've got a singleton/doubleton so I'm allowed to override UI and discount a splinter. Yes, but it seems that in the real world players don't do it.

[blackshoe]

We're writing to each other, but we're not communicating. Never mind, it's not important.

[dburn]

The fact that a 1♥ response presumably shows spades in other sequences is hugely important.

 

If Frances had told us in the other thread that 1♥ shows spades without the double, I'll bet everyone would have worked out what had happened without the benefit of any UI. You might still rule that North is not entitled to 'work this out' when he has the UI of the alert of 1♥, but at the very least it is a completely different problem to the one we faced in Frances' thread.

I don't expect that 1♦-1♥ showed spades. They were probably playing transfers only over takeout doubles of 1♦ (or at least, one of them was).

 

This is horrible. North simply cannot bid 3NT after 1♥ has been alerted as spades. Why shouldn't East have a lot of black-suit cards, and have decided to bid clubs because North has just bid spades? Why shouldn't West have a strong jump overcall in spades, and be passing 3♠ just to see what will happen (he knows that North-South are in the middle of a cock-up, but they don't). I don't know about 6NT doubled down three, although I understand the reasoning behind it and could well imagine giving part of it as a weighted score. But "result stands" is... well, it is not even wrong.

[helene_t]

North simply cannot bid 3NT after 1♥ has been alerted as spades. Why shouldn't East have a lot of black-suit cards, and have decided to bid clubs because North has just bid spades? Why shouldn't West have a strong jump overcall in spades, and be passing 3♠ just to see what will happen (he knows that North-South are in the middle of a cock-up, but they don't). I don't know about 6NT doubled down three, although I understand the reasoning behind it and could well imagine giving part of it as a weighted score. But "result stands" is... well, it is not even wrong.

I don't understand this argument.

 

If you are arguing that North might, without the alert, have thought that 3♠ was a splinter, then surely it doesn't factor in that North had shown spades. Since if he saw 3♠ as a splinter he wouldn't have been aware that he had shown spades himself.

 

It is a good case for not allowing North to bid 3NT that most people in the other thread voted that 3♠ is a splinter.

 

I just don't think it's very plausible. Also, it is quite possible that North, even without the UI, would have been woken up by the 3♠ bid itself. Since presumably he had discussed the transfers at some point. After all the were on the system card.

[lamford]

Let's be clear - I am not making any allegations against Frances or Jeffery, each of whom I have known for, I would think, the best part of 20 years; they have both represented Cambs & Hunts in the past and the two teams are on very good terms. They volunteered their views in the course of a friendly discussion when we were all milling about at the end of the event and we were considering whether to appeal. Given that their experience of how appeal committees work is far greater than mine, I thought that their views were entitled to considerable weight, notwithstanding that they were members of the offending side. Their views also happened to coincide with mine on the question of the extreme improbability that the 3♠ bid was a splinter agreeing ♥. It also seemed to me that, if N was entitled to know (from a combination of his own hand and their systemic agreements about splinters) that 3♠ couldn't be a splinter then (i) it could only be a natural bid and (ii) given that W had (by implication) shown at least ♣ tolerance with his T/O double and that E had bid ♣, 3NT seemed a fairly obvious bid for N to make - and the TD, after consultation, had evidently come to the same conclusion.

If I had been asked my opinion on a possible appeal and team-mates had been involved, I would have recused myself. As captain of a team involved in a possible appeal, I would not have put Frances or Jeffery in an awkward position of being asked to offer an opinion, and I would have sought opinion from the (presumably) several other experts on UI at the Tolly final. I disagree, primarily for the reasons that dburn gives, with the the gross misjudgement of the "extreme probability" of a splinter. But even if we accept that, and accept that the pair "rarely play splinters" and not in this position, the 3S bid is certainly not natural; the second choice would be an advance cue bid agreeing hearts, which it probably was in Terence Reese's day. I do not know anyone who plays that 3S is natural when 2S is natural and forcing, and certainly not a pair playing transfer responses after a takeout double. Even if the pair wanted to "let it go" as the TD had ruled, your role as match captain should have been to insist on an appeal whether or not 3rd place was at stake, and certainly if other members of your team wished to do so. And, what were the final scores, as I know that huge swings can have an effect on other places in the Tollemache final, so it may not have only been third place at stake?

 

Postscript: As the hands and frequencies are now in the public domain, there are couple more points I wanted to make. Readers going to the EBU website at

 

http://www.ebu.co.uk/results/2011Jan_July/TollemacheFinal10_11/Travellers3.htm

 

and the scorecards at

 

http://www.ebu.co.uk/results/2011Jan_July/TollemacheFinal10_11/ScoreCards3.htm

 

can discover the identity of the players and the other scores on the board. It is board 25 and N/S+550 was the score. I thought that the OP's statement: "NS are a fairly regular partnership and play quite a lot of "stuff" was more accurate than FrancesHinden's statement. "You are playing in a not very regular partnership with a good player.", but readers may wish to Google "A"+"B" for the two players in order to find out if they agree.

 

It is clear from the scorecards that only third place would have been at stake on an AC decision.

[dburn]

I don't expect that 1♦-1♥ showed spades. They were probably playing transfers only over takeout doubles of 1♦ (or at least, one of them was).

 

This is horrible. North simply cannot bid 3NT after 1♥ has been alerted as spades. Why shouldn't East have a lot of black-suit cards, and have decided to bid clubs because North has just bid spades? Why shouldn't West have a strong jump overcall in spades, and be passing 3♠ just to see what will happen (he knows that North-South are in the middle of a cock-up, but they don't). I don't know about 6NT doubled down three, although I understand the reasoning behind it and could well imagine giving part of it as a weighted score. But "result stands" is... well, it is not even wrong.

 

 

I don't understand this argument.

 

If you are arguing that North might, without the alert, have thought that 3♠ was a splinter, then surely it doesn't factor in that North had shown spades. Since if he saw 3♠ as a splinter he wouldn't have been aware that he had shown spades himself.

 

It is a good case for not allowing North to bid 3NT that most people in the other thread voted that 3♠ is a splinter.

 

I just don't think it's very plausible. Also, it is quite possible that North, even without the UI, would have been woken up by the 3♠ bid itself. Since presumably he had discussed the transfers at some point. After all they were on the system card.

It is certainly possible that without UI, North might have wondered where all the spades were and concluded that partner had more than one of them. But without UI North is a free agent - he can conclude what he likes and bid what he likes (although I would wonder what, among the "stuff" that North-South play, the uncontested auction 1♦-1♠-3♠-3NT might mean; there are those who do not play it as non-forcing).

 

But with UI, North knows that South is supporting North's "spades" (and may not have any heart support at all). That being so, he is simply not allowed to bid 3NT and hope that South will pass it (why in blazes did South pass it, anyway?) because there are always (or almost always) logical alternatives to the presumption that partner has forgotten the system. 3NT was basically another case of unauthorized panic - "partner thinks I have spades, so I had better bid something that suggests I don't want to play in spades". Note that this is different from "standard UP", where you bid a suit because partner doesn't think you have it even though you've shown it, but the principle is the same.

[bluejak]

I have read all the posts. Several of them do not seem on-topic. But the ones that do seem to decide for the most part that North has made an illegal bid in the presence of UI without, as far as I can see by my reading, giving any particular logic for it.

 

Someone points out that it is normal to play transfer responses only over a double [or perhaps an overcall, not relevant here] while playing natural responses otherwise. Very true, and it is quite likely this pair do. Let us assume, since I cannot ask them, that they do. If I had been the TD I would have asked then that. Where does this take us?

 

[hv=pc=n&n=s72hk9863dt3caq97&d=n&v=e&b=9&a=pp1dp1h2c3sp]133|200[/hv]

 

What does 3♠ show? What should North call?

 

Now if the answer is that 3♠ shows spades then surely North will call 3NT and there is no LA to it.

 

If this is the case, why are people assuming it is a splinter? I do not see it.

 

As to the "unauthorised panic" argument it does not hold water: occasionally the call that someone would make under unauthorised panic is also the legal call, and perhaps the only sensible call. At such times we have no idea whether he has acted ethically or otherwise but he gets the benefit of the doubt.

 

So I think there is no reason to adjust.

 

Of course if 3♠ is a splinter here it makes all the difference.

[Vampyr]

What does 3♠ show?

From North's point of view, 2♠ would have been natural and forcing. So what is 3♠? More natural? More forcing?

[bluejak]

From North's point of view, 2♠ would have been natural and forcing. So what is 3♠? More natural? More forcing?

How do you know it is natural and forcing?

 

The OP says:

 

I think N said that 2♠ by S over 2♣ by E would have been NF so that, a natural, forcing, 3♠ bid (putting the UI to one side) was a logical alternative.

 

That suggests not forcing to me.

 

Furthermore, I do know some people who play a shift as forcing and a jump shift as stronger and distributional.

 

It does not matter how you or I play it, Steph, nor what we think sensible: how does this pair play 3♠?

[lamford]

What does 3♠ show? What should North call?

 

Now if the answer is that 3♠ shows spades then surely North will call 3NT and there is no LA to it.

I think you are missing the point. You have to pretend that you did not see or hear the alert. With the alert, 3S is just raising spades, obviously. Without the alert it is undiscussed, let us say - but the vast majority would not play it as natural. There are therefore many LAs, as the parallel thread shows. As dburn states, bidding 3NT is truly horrible. The TD decision is truly horrible, and those that he consulted (if the facts are as stated) have offered a truly horrible opinion.

[bluejak]

I think you are missing the point. He bid 1♥ natural, and has heard a 3♠ bid which without the double would be ?? We do not know for sure, but let us suppose natural. Then 3NT is not horrible, it is the only conceivable call without the UI so is legal.

[lamford]

It does not matter how you or I play it, Steph, nor what we think sensible: how does this pair play 3♠?

The pair in question, whose names you can obtain from the EBU site, have won national titles. I would be reluctant to accept any argument that 2S was non-forcing. There can be no agreement on how they play 3S here other than natural - because 1H showed spades. What we are trying to guess at is how they would play a hypothetical sequence where 1H was not a transfer to spades. And here we just have to go with how their peers would treat it. And, as the parallel poll shows, that is something like: 70% splinter, 20% cuebid and 10% other. Therefore 3NT is demonstrably suggested, illegal, and should attract a PP.

[Vampyr]

I think N said that 2♠ by S over 2♣ by E would have been NF so that, a natural, forcing, 3♠ bid (putting the UI to one side) was a logical alternative.

That suggests not forcing to me.

This agreement presumes that the heart bid showed spades. From North's point of view it doesn't, so 2♠ would be a reverse. We do not know how this pair play 1♦-(P)-1♥-(2♣)-2♠. This information is highly relevant, and...

 

 

Furthermore, I do know some people who play a shift as forcing and a jump shift as stronger and distributional.

It is also very relevant how this pair play jump reverses. Somehow, I doubt they play them like this.

 

I realise that people here are assuming that the pair play reverses as natural and forcing and jump reverses as something artificial. I do not think these are unreasonable assumptions.

[lamford]

I think you are missing the point. He bid 1♥ natural, and has heard a 3♠ bid which without the double would be ?? We do not know for sure, but let us suppose natural. Then 3NT is not horrible, it is the only conceivable call without the UI so is legal.

You are missing the point. Why should you suppose natural? You just have to decide how people would normally play it in the absence of any evidence of how this pair might play it if they played different methods.

[nigel_k]

I'm still not convinced at all by the references to the other thread.

 

In that thread we were told N/S are a 'not very regular partnership' and the transfer possibility was not mentioned. So it was natural for people to interpret 3♠ according to what they would expect it to normally mean, which is a splinter since a reverse, even in competition, is normally a one round force. Even in that thread some people were skeptical that it was a splinter and willing to act accordingly. The ones who treated it a splinter seemed to recognize, from their own cards, that something funny was going on but preferred to trust their partner rather than the opponents.

 

In this thread N/S have metamorphosed into 'a fairly regular partnership' and have 'won national titles'. They also have transfers on their convention card.

 

All of this suggests to me that people who voted for splinter in the other thread were in a very different position than North would have been at the table with no UI. With all the added information in this thread I maintain that any reasonable North, when faced with the unusual jump to 3♠ and looking at two small spades and opponents not bidding them, would now realize that his 1♥ had been treated as a transfer even if he didn't think so at the point he bid 1♥.

 

Even if North continued blissfully unaware of the obvious evidence from the auction and his own hand, we also weren't told in the other thread of the N/S agreement that 2♠ after a natural 1♥ would have been nonforcing. We can't just disregard any self-serving statement. Instead we have to weigh it against the other evidence. IMO this agreement combined with North's own hand is close to being enough to allow the result to stand.

 

However, the decision not to appeal was probably wrong. Given the number of people in this thread who want to adjust, impose a PP, and probably feed North's testicles to the pigs as well, it seems as though an appeal could have worked if it struck a similarly minded committee.

[dburn]

Hang on a minute. 1♦-Double-1(natural)♥-2♣-2♠ is natural and not forcing? Well it was said by the bard:

 

and all of you who credit that

could sit down on an opera hat

and never crush the darn thing flat

you skeptics

 

Don Marquis, archys life of mehitabel

[dburn]

When I remarked in the other thread that:

 

"Not sure how irregular this partnership is, but if it has used splinters before I'd say it was using one now. This is a little surprising given my distribution, but that is not my business; I will alert and explain 3♠ as shortage with heart support and game values.

 

"Of course, if this not very regular partnership has used (or discussed using) transfers over takeout doubles in the past, then an alternative explanation is possible. If North actually alerted 1♥, then matters become more complex."

 

I did not know anything about the case at all, let alone how much more complex matters were to become. But I did cast my vote for 4♣, because that was what I would do on the untainted auction (where both my partner and I knew that we had hearts, whatever else was going on).

 

Well, it seems that my partner told the opponents that I had spades. Am I allowed to know that he did this? No. Am I allowed to guess that he might have thought I had spades? No. Oh, wait a minute... yes, because the "only" rational explanation of the opponents' failure to bid spades thus far is that I have temporarily forgotten that we play transfers.

 

Even if it were (which it isn't), how can I in all conscience proceed as if partner or I "must have forgotten"? How am I to understand what the Laws require me to do in this kind of position when to bid 3NT would make me feel almost physically sick, but an anonymous though doubtless extremely competent Director at a national final - having completed the necessary consultations and given due consideration to his or her ruling - thought that it was OK?

 

More disturbingly, some of my distinguished colleagues on the EBU L&E seem to think it OK also. Doubtless the matter will be reviewed in due course. I will try not to eat too much beforehand.

[Vampyr]

we also weren't told in the other thread of the N/S agreement that 2♠ after a natural 1♥ would have been nonforcing. We can't just disregard any self-serving statement.

The agreement was that 2♠ was non-forcing after 1♥ that was a transfer. It is unlikely that it would be non-forcing after a natural 1♥ bid. dburn and I have given the same auction as examples, and we both think that the possibility that 2♠ would have been non-forcing after a natural 1♥ bid is vanishingly small. Why are people deliberately misunderstanding this point?

[Chris L]

If I had been asked my opinion on a possible appeal and team-mates had been involved, I would have recused myself. As captain of a team involved in a possible appeal, I would not have put Frances or Jeffery in an awkward position of being asked to offer an opinion, and I would have sought opinion from the (presumably) several other experts on UI at the Tolly final....

 

Even if the pair wanted to "let it go" as the TD had ruled, your role as match captain should have been to insist on an appeal whether or not 3rd place was at stake, and certainly if other members of your team wished to do so. And, what were the final scores, as I know that huge swings can have an effect on other places in the Tollemache final, so it may not have only been third place at stake?....

 

It is clear from the scorecards that only third place would have been at stake on an AC decision.

 

As I thought a previous post had made clear, I didn't seek Frances & Jeffery out for their opinion; it was volunteered in the course of a perfectly friendly discussion. I know them both pretty well and respect their views in such matters and their integrity. Not the least remarkable thing about this, given the vehemence of some of the views expressed (and allowing for the tendency of some people to exaggerate in order to make a point) is that no one on my team felt that this was a hanging offence, not least the pair directly affected. Maybe we were all just tired and disappointed with our performance on the Sunday.

 

I wasn't asking for a lecture on my role as match captain (I have been doing the job now for 20 years with some success) or even a (temporary) allegation that I might not have been able to work out the scoring sufficiently accurately to establish exactly what was at stake. I would have thought that one of the functions of a non-playing captain was to take a more dispassionate view on such matters as appeals. And, given what I believed at the time, that is exactly what I did.

[helene_t]

because there are always (or almost always) logical alternatives to the presumption that partner has forgotten the system.

... or that I forgot the system myself. Fair enough, I just disagree. Even if we assume that 3♠ would have shown heart support if 1♥ had been natural, I don't see any alternative to drawing the conclusion that 3♠ must somehow be natural. This is a regular partnership that plays transfers in this very basic situation. And p makes a call that is all but impossible if my 1♥ bid had been natural.

[lamford]

I wasn't asking for a lecture on my role as match captain (I have been doing the job now for 20 years with some success) or even a (temporary) allegation that I might not have been able to work out the scoring sufficiently accurately to establish exactly what was at stake. I would have thought that one of the functions of a non-playing captain was to take a more dispassionate view on such matters as appeals. And, given what I believed at the time, that is exactly what I did.

You weren't getting a lecture. The thread title "should I have sanctioned an appeal?" clearly asks people's opinions of your actions. You wrote: " I discussed it with Frances & Jeffery amongst others (even though they weren't strictly impartial, but I thought I could trust them) and I was persuaded that an appeal would fail and that I wouldn't waste everyone's time."

 

It is clear that the discussion with Frances and Jeffery was at least partly instrumental in your decision not to appeal, and I offered my opinion that, on this occasion, another approach would have been better. And I was not commenting on how you fulfilled the role over the previous 20 years, as I don't even know you! And your opinion that your county would have come third if the score had been adjusted to 4H - 1 triggered me to ask what the scores were, as that certainly would not be the adjustment, and a bigger swing might have occurred. As wank states, we are drawing lots for doubled contracts at the six level.

[lamford]

<big snip> I maintain that any reasonable North, when faced with the unusual jump to 3♠ and looking at two small spades and opponents not bidding them, would now realize that his 1♥ had been treated as a transfer even if he didn't think so at the point he bid 1♥.<big snip>

 

<big snip> we also weren't told in the other thread of the N/S agreement that 2♠ after a natural 1♥ would have been nonforcing.<big snip>>

On the first point, substitute "unethical" for "reasonable" and you are right. On the second point, we weren't told in this thread either that 2S would have been non-forcing after a natural 1H. It would have been 100% forcing by all of the Surrey team, I assure you.