South West Pacific Teams

[benlessard]

I would give +200 NS and -500 for EW, In (3Dx/pass average) hes going to be -800 so I give 3C a cost of -300 pts. Giving a penalty/redress for 3C is clearcut imo.

 

Edited no hes going to be -1100 in 3D. I would average pass (-500) and 3Dx (-1100) for West expected result.

[Trinidad]

I would give +200 NS and -500 for EW, In (3Dx/pass average) hes going to be -800 so I give 3C a cost of -300 pts. Giving a penalty/redress for 3C is clearcut imo.

 

Edited no hes going to be -1100 in 3D. I would average pass (-500) and 3Dx (-1100) for West expected result.

Your post demonstrates how hard it is for people (TD, AC, bystanders) to figure out whether an action was indeed a serious error, given the knowledge that the player had. The TD and AC invariably see the whole hand. The player sees his own 13 cards and has the information from what happened at the table. He is supposed to play the best bridge assuming that there was no infraction.

 

In this case, that means that West should assume that North has a clear cut takeout double. That means that spades will break 6-1. Now, I know that spades will break 6-1 regardless of what suit will be made trump and that this is always bad news for EW. But you cannot fault West for thinking that he should run and that this might save 300 or 600 points. (The fact that spades actually didn't split 6-1 is completely irrelevant for determining whether West made a serious error.)

 

Since running is not a serious error, we cannot tell West that he should have passed, not even by averaging. IMO the 3♣ bid was an error, compared to other ways to run from 2♠X, but this error did not cause any damage. We only let the NOS pay for damage that was caused by their error. In this case, this damage didn't exist since we also expect a score of -1100 in 3♦X, hence we do not make West pay.

 

Rik

[benlessard]

The problem IMO is not assessing running vs not running, its assessing 3C vs others bids. I dont think you will find many players that think taht 3C is better than pass or XX. Since XX will lead to -1100 and pass will lead to -500, 3C deserve a penalty imo. Maybe -300 (over the -200 to give -500) is too much, but to give no penalty goes agaisnt the spirit of the rules IMO. Maybe the rule should make the distinction between a 2 way shot and a bad bid but they dont.

[Trinidad]

The problem IMO is not assessing running vs not running, its assessing 3C vs others bids. I dont think you will find many players that think taht 3C is better than pass or XX. Since XX will lead to -1100 and pass will lead to -500, 3C deserve a penalty imo. Maybe -300 (over the -200 to give -500) is too much, but to give no penalty goes agaisnt the spirit of the rules IMO. Maybe the rule should make the distinction between a 2 way shot and a bad bid but they dont.

Handing out penalties has nothing to do with this. We are talking about a non offending player. Non offending players do not get penalised. The only thing that comes into play is how much we compensate a non offending player when he was damaged by his opponents: We only compensate for the damage due to the infraction. We do not compensate for damage due to serious errors that are not related to the infraction.

 

- For starters: Running is not an error. It actually maybe the correct action. (I wouldn't consider a pass a serious error either.)

- Running, whether with XX, 2NT, 3♣, 3♦ or 3♥ is clearly related to the infraction. So even if it would be a serious error, it wouldn't be a reason to withhold compensation.

 

That should be more than enough reason to fully compensate EW.

 

It is debatable whether bidding 3♣ is a serious error. Usually, we think that serious error means something like revoking or ruffing partner's trick. While I think that 3♣ was an error, it was clearly not as serious as a revoke or ruffing partner's trick.

 

But even if we look further and would think that bidding 3♣ is a serious error and that it was not related to the infraction, we cannot come up with any reason to give a split score. If West made a serious error, his serious error would be that he bid 3♣ rather than redouble or bidding 2NT. The running itself cannot be a serious error if you expect a 6-1 trump split. And since bidding 3♣ leads to the exact same result as redouble and 2NT (-1100), this error didn't lead to any damage. Thus, 0 % of the damage was self inflicted and there will be full compensation.

 

I have rarely come across a case where the AC ruled a split score with this many reasons for not giving a split score.

 

Rik

[bluejak]

The problem IMO is not assessing running vs not running, its assessing 3C vs others bids. I dont think you will find many players that think taht 3C is better than pass or XX. Since XX will lead to -1100 and pass will lead to -500, 3C deserve a penalty imo. Maybe -300 (over the -200 to give -500) is too much, but to give no penalty goes agaisnt the spirit of the rules IMO. Maybe the rule should make the distinction between a 2 way shot and a bad bid but they dont.

I think they do. The principle behind SEWoG is that a double shot attempt is illegal if it involves wild action or if it involves gambling action. However, there is another different principle: that non-offenders should continue to play bridge. This is embodied in the fact that if they make a serious error then they lose redress as well.

[Poky]

Nothing except pass with north's hand is a LA. Not even close.

The guy has a minimum balanced hand with 3 spades. I mean, what kind of AC could say that doubling has no LA, even as a joke?!? Do they chose the most inexperienced and bad players around?!

 

Anyhow: Blatant use of UI. Automatic procedural penalty. Not much of a problem. 2♠ undoubled played.