Extraneous information (EBU)

[VixTD]

Not from Brighton this time, but from a regional Swiss Pairs event.

 

A player at table 5 called the director to say he had overheard from table 6 (from which the boards were being passed) "It's a 32-point slam - you just have to go for it." Both pairs at table 5 had heard the comment. It is clear which board this referred to, and even if it wasn't, it would probably be obvious as soon as the players looked at their cards.

 

What should the TD do?

[blackshoe]

Law 16C2 gives the director four choices:

 

a) adjust the players’ positions at the table, if the type of contest and scoring permit, so that the player with information about one hand will hold that hand; or

b) if the form of competition allows of it, order the board redealt for those contestants; or

c) 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; or

d) award an artificial adjusted score.

 

a) clearly cannot be applied. b) would work, but would require a fouled board procedure. c) doesn't seem useful — either the pair who might have bid the slam will have to shoot themselves in the foot, or I'll have to adjust the score. That leaves D). I would award an artificial adjusted score of average plus to both sides. Also, Law 90B3 reminds us that discussing hands when the discussion may be overheard at another table is subject to procedural penalty. I would issue one to the pair who made the comment at table six, assuming I can identify which pair that was. I should be able to do so — I would ask the two pairs at that table who made the comment, and expect a truthful answer.

[ahydra]

 

c) doesn't seem useful — either the pair who might have bid the slam will have to shoot themselves in the foot, or I'll have to adjust the score.

 

 

Suppose the pair at table 5 have a perfectly reasonable auction to the slam where stopping below slam is not really an LA - then all is fine, right? With 32 HCP it sounds like this might be the case, so I think it's worth letting this play out.

 

ahydra

[paulg]

Law 16C2 gives the director four choices:

 

a) adjust the players' positions at the table, if the type of contest and scoring permit, so that the player with information about one hand will hold that hand; or

b) if the form of competition allows of it, order the board redealt for those contestants; or

c) 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; or

d) award an artificial adjusted score.

 

a) clearly cannot be applied. b) would work, but would require a fouled board procedure. c) doesn't seem useful — either the pair who might have bid the slam will have to shoot themselves in the foot, or I'll have to adjust the score. That leaves D). I would award an artificial adjusted score of average plus to both sides. Also, Law 90B3 reminds us that discussing hands when the discussion may be overheard at another table is subject to procedural penalty. I would issue one to the pair who made the comment at table six, assuming I can identify which pair that was. I should be able to do so — I would ask the two pairs at that table who made the comment, and expect a truthful answer.

I completely agree. I'd also check old regulations to see if a good thrashing were permitted in addition to the PP.

[ggwhiz]

I'm in ACBL land and can only recall this situation happening once.

 

The Director instructed the table to play it out to try for a legitimate result while they observed and it seems that would have required the agreement of both pairs. It actually regarded the location of the cards on defense and marked the successful line of play so an adjusted score was awarded, avg+ for both if I remember right.

 

Just a warning to the loudmouths but it was only a club game and I'm guessing a penalty would be appropriate otherwise.

[blackshoe]

Well if the club owner/director and all the players are happy to have people tossing this kind of UI around, then sure, no PP. OTOH… B-)

 

If the table is allowed to play the board, and the TD later decides to adjust the score, under the current law he should award an assigned adjusted score, not an artificial one.

 

It would be appropriate to allow the board to be played if there's a chance that whenever the UI might be germane there is no LA to whatever action leads to the slam, but that doesn't seem likely to me. The comment seems to imply there would be at least one point where stopping below slam is an LA.

[mycroft]

I would be pretty evil about this, even in a club game.

 

"A+ both ways, there's really no sane way to play this hand with the information."

"I just had to give 120% on the board you told the room how to bid; guess where I'm getting the other 20% from?"

 

With people who may not actually realize the issue, I might not be as sarcastic, and may couch it in "you really need to be careful about your volume and postmortems", or for the pairs that are both half-deaf, suggest they can only post-mortem outside if they wish to avoid further penalties.

[paulg]

I would be pretty evil about this, even in a club game.

 

"A+ both ways, there's really no sane way to play this hand with the information."

"I just had to give 120% on the board you told the room how to bid; guess where I'm getting the other 20% from?"

 

With people who may not actually realize the issue, I might not be as sarcastic, and may couch it in "you really need to be careful about your volume and postmortems", or for the pairs that are both half-deaf, suggest they can only post-mortem outside if they wish to avoid further penalties.

Our local director took the same approach, telling the whole room that players X&Y had been fined because a table was unable to play a board. He got a round of applause. People go to clubs to play bridge, not sit around for 7 minutes waiting for everyone else to finish.

[Vampyr]

b) would work, but would require a fouled board procedure.

 

I don't think that you can do this with one table playing the redealt board and everyone else playing the normal board!

 

My experience in EBU Swiss Teams is that we were never told to play the board. We have received +3 if our teammates have played the board, and redealt the board if they hadn't yet played it.

 

So I would be surprised if the players were told to play the board in a pairs game.

[axman]

Law 16C2 gives the director four choices:

 

a) adjust the players’ positions at the table, if the type of contest and scoring permit, so that the player with information about one hand will hold that hand; or

b) if the form of competition allows of it, order the board redealt for those contestants; or

c) 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; or

d) award an artificial adjusted score.

 

a) clearly cannot be applied. b) would work, but would require a fouled board procedure. c) doesn't seem useful — either the pair who might have bid the slam will have to shoot themselves in the foot, or I'll have to adjust the score. That leaves D). I would award an artificial adjusted score of average plus to both sides. Also, Law 90B3 reminds us that discussing hands when the discussion may be overheard at another table is subject to procedural penalty. I would issue one to the pair who made the comment at table six, assuming I can identify which pair that was. I should be able to do so — I would ask the two pairs at that table who made the comment, and expect a truthful answer.

 

When the investigation bears out the facts presented including the identity of the player that did the fouling, the offending pairs should be given the explanation that their loud postmortem infracts L90B3 with the consequence that two comparisons have been fouled. That means that four pairs have been deprived of the opportunity to achieve top scores and that the PP will be assessed reflecting the cumulative loss by those four pairs 4*[13imp-AvPlus]= 4*[13-3]= 40 imps.

 

I would think that the intended message will be received hundreds of miles away.

[barmar]

People go to clubs to play bridge, not sit around for 7 minutes waiting for everyone else to finish.

We've sometimes told players to play the board "just for fun" -- it's better than sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

[blackshoe]

I don't think that you can do this with one table playing the redealt board and everyone else playing the normal board!

 

My experience in EBU Swiss Teams is that we were never told to play the board. We have received +3 if our teammates have played the board, and redealt the board if they hadn't yet played it.

 

So I would be surprised if the players were told to play the board in a pairs game.

No. I was thinking this was somewhere in the middle of the session, and that the tables after this one would play the board is re-dealt, if it is re-dealt.

 

Clearly if the movement doesn't allow for it, this option is not on.

[Vampyr]

No. I was thinking this was somewhere in the middle of the session, and that the tables after this one would play the board is re-dealt, if it is re-dealt.

 

For a 7- or 8-board match, a board only visits four tables. So one board would have, as long as it is not among the last two played at that table, 2-4 comparisons and the others will have about 25-200, depending on the size of the event. That seems a little extreme for a fouled board.

[Vampyr]

When the investigation bears out the facts presented including the identity of the player that did the fouling, the offending pairs should be given the explanation that their loud postmortem infracts L90B3 with the consequence that two comparisons have been fouled. That means that four pairs have been deprived of the opportunity to achieve top scores and that the PP will be assessed reflecting the cumulative loss by those four pairs 4*[13imp-AvPlus]= 4*[13-3]= 40 imps.

 

Why four pairs? It is only one table that can't play the board. And it was Swiss Pairs, not teams, so it is matchpoints, but obviously a similarly severe penalty could be assessed.

[axman]

Why four pairs? It is only one table that can't play the board. And it was Swiss Pairs, not teams, so it is matchpoints, but obviously a similarly severe penalty could be assessed.

 

Given the facts I apparently made the erroneous assumption*** that there is a fixed movement of the boards** [as they are ‘passed’ to start a round] when, apparently, the boards were being 'shared' during a round. I chalk that up to not yet having experienced swiss pairs….. and have now experienced proverbial egg on my face. Anyway, time to get cleaned up.

 

*** for some reason I have believed that the preferred scoring was imps rather than mp

 

**as in the boards would be thus moved in a future round and the two pairs at T5 would move apart to play the board against different opponents in different rounds- therefore four pairs

[Vampyr]

Given the facts I apparently made the erroneous assumption*** that there is a fixed movement of the boards** [as they are ‘passed’ to start a round] when, apparently, the boards were being 'shared' during a round.

 

The boards are passed -- they just don't go very far. Table 1 might have boards 1&2, Table 2 3&4, Table 3 5&6, table 4 7&1, table 5 2&3, etc. The rounds are necessarily short, or there would be no possible Swiss movement.

 

*** for some reason I have believed that the preferred scoring was imps rather than mp

 

You can score Swiss Pairs as IMPs, but I don't think that would be very popular, since in this country IMP pairs are generally considered an inferior form of scoring. And anyway, in a typical congress Swiss Pairs and Swiss Teams are both played, so you get to play matchpoints and IMPs.

**as in the boards would be thus moved in a future round and the two pairs at T5 would move apart to play the board against different opponents in different rounds- therefore four pairs

Right. In Swiss Pairs all of the tables must play the same boards in every match, or else the matchpoints (and Victory Points) cannot be calculated.

[VixTD]

I'm in ACBL land and can only recall this situation happening once.

 

The Director instructed the table to play it out to try for a legitimate result while they observed and it seems that would have required the agreement of both pairs.

The requirement for the agreement of both pairs expired with the last redrafting of the laws, so that no longer applies.

[VixTD]

One of the intentions of the latest change to the laws was to allow as many real results to be achieved as possible, and to try to cut down the number of artificial adjusted scores, so wherever possible I try to have the board played out and see if it's possible to allow the score to stand. I've rescued a number of boards this way that the players initially assumed would be unplayable, and would have been ruled so under the previous edition of the laws.

 

I suggested to the players that they try to play it normally, but the players were against this idea, one of them quite vociferously. Although it's supposed to be the director's decision, I allowed myself to be persuaded and gave them both 60%, as I estimated the probability of having to cancel the score (I handn't looked at the hands yet, of course) as considerably over 50%.

 

However, in the set of seven boards they were due to play in that round, none of them matched the description exactly. This was the closest, the only one in which one partnership had over 30 points, and obviously the board in question here:

 

Love all, dealer West

 

[hv=pc=n&s=sa82haqj3daq73cat&w=s654hk95dj9852ck5&n=skqjht74dkt64cj43&e=st973h862dcq98762]399|300[/hv]

Table 6 was the only one out of 28 that played in a slam, and I had every confidence that NS at table 5 would have bid 2NT - 3NT (or possibly use puppet Stayman) without giving more than a passing thought to doing anything else. Now there's a chance that EW would defend on the erroneous assumption that South had 22 points, and if that made a material difference to the defence maybe I'd have to adjust the score.

 

In retrospect, do you think I should have insisted the board be played?

[WellSpyder]

So not only wasn't it 32 points, but you also can't make a slam? Perhaps the extraneous information wasn't quite as useful as the players assumed at the time.....

[blackshoe]

Now there's a chance that EW would defend on the erroneous assumption that South had 22 points, and if that made a material difference to the defence maybe I'd have to adjust the score.

That assumption would be based on the comment that NS have 32 points, given the sight of 10 points in dummy. The comment is UI, so if the defence goes wrong because they assumed that South had 22 points, they're stuck with that, IMO.

 

If you believe there's a chance the board can be played normally, you should so rule. And a ruling is not a suggestion, it's an instruction. I would listen to objections, and might change my mind if there's a persuasive argument, but it sounds to me like the "argument" in this case was a matter of vehemence more than logic. IMO you should have stuck to your guns.

[Vampyr]

That assumption would be based on the comment that NS have 32 points, given the sight of 10 points in dummy. The comment is UI, so if the defence goes wrong because they assumed that South had 22 points, they're stuck with that, IMO.

 

That seems really unfair. I would adjust.

[blackshoe]

That seems really unfair. I would adjust.

Unfair? Why? They used UI, they should not gain from that, and if they lose by it, why should we give them back anything?

[gnasher]

If I were West I'd be unhappy at being on lead with that hand and the UI, and being told to play normally. Trying to play normally when you have UI is *much* harder than playing under the constraints of Law 16B1.

 

Without UI, I think it's close whether to lead a spade or a diamond. If you told me that NS had a combined 32-count, I'd definitely lead a spade. If I do lead a spade, am I taking advantage of the UI, or is that what I would normally have led? Don't ask me - I couldn't tell you. You've already polluted my thought processes by giving me UI.

 

However, it turns out that it doesn't matter what West leads (assuming ♥K isn't an option). So, the UI may have interfered with normal play, but it hasn't affected the result.

 

I think you should have listened sympathetically to the players' concerns but made them play it anyway, explaining that you could still cancel the board if the UI affected the result. If you'd done that, the result would have been a normal NS+460, giving EW slightly above average and NS slightly below. Your actual ruling gave both sides an undeserved bonus.

 

if the defence goes wrong because they assumed that South had 22 points, they're stuck with that, IMO.

I don't think that's either fair or legal. It's unfair because it places the defenders in an impossible position, and it's illegal because the UI did affect the result.

[blackshoe]

You're right. Law 16C doesn't say anything about using UI, only that it may have affected the result. So if it did, you adjust the score. As you say, making 4 looks "normal". Suppose they misdefend, and declarer makes six. Would you adjust that score? After all, the defenders could argue that they misdefended because they were trying to avoid using UI, so the UI clearly affected the result.

 

Note: Law 16A3 still applies in these cases, and it does make "using UI" illegal.

[iviehoff]

I think you should have listened sympathetically to the players' concerns but made them play it anyway, explaining that you could still cancel the board if the UI affected the result. If you'd done that, the result would have been a normal NS+460, giving EW slightly above average and NS slightly below. Your actual ruling gave both sides an undeserved bonus.

If you tell me you'll cancel the board if the UI affects the result, I'll bid the slam and leave you to decide whether it was an abuse of UI. Why should I allow myself to be restrained by UI that is someone else's fault?