theoretical question...

[Zelandakh]

So Ed, what you are saying in effect is that it is illegal for a player who miscounts their points often enough to be noticed to play any system whatsoever in such a jurisdiction. I realise that some want bridge to be an "elite sport" rather than a parlour game but perhaps this is taking the idea a little far...?

[blackshoe]

You're the one taking it that far, not me.

[Zelandakh]

Then what do you mean? You have accepted Andy's idea that the miscounts represent a disclosable partnership agreement and therefore are part of their system. We are also assuming regulations that make such a system illegal and you are going to penalise them for playing the illegal system and enforce that they play a new one. But that is not possible. Whichever system you enforce the player concerned will still miscount and that will still be part of their agreements. What are they to do other than give up the game?

[Trinidad]

Zel is right...

 

The Laws / regulations get into a problem in this area. Frequent misbids lead to implicit agreements, which may be illegal. If they are then there is a problem. It is easy to forbid certain explicit agreements, but forbidding implicit agreements is difficult.

 

This is a known problem, e.g. in forgetting Ghestem, when 3♣ explicitly means: "the highest two unbid", but implicitly means: "the highest two unbid or lots of clubs". This implicit agreement is forbidden in many jurisdictions.

 

In that case, you can forbid a pair to play Ghestem (which does not solve it completely either, since they may forget that they stopped playing Ghestem).

 

But in the case of someone repeatedly forgetting to open a hand with 4 aces, there is -in principle- nothing you can do, other than forbid them to play bridge at all (which we clearly don't want).

 

The practical solution is that this "HUM regulation" is simply not followed in the local club where these miscounters play bridge. (Probably the opponents will anyway never notice that the player holds 4 aces and/or that he passed in first seat. ;) )

 

Rik

[campboy]

I think "agreements" is the wrong word here. Frequent misbids lead to implicit understandings.

[Vampyr]

What if the regulations tell us that a pass that might be made on a good hand is an illegal system?

 

I can't imagine a regulation that prohibits people from passing opening bids, so long as there is no agreement to open weaker hands.

[Trinidad]

I can't imagine a regulation that prohibits people from passing opening bids, so long as there is no agreement to open weaker hands.

But the problem here is that there is such an agreement.

 

The explicit agreement is to play some normal system, which e.g. means that 12 point hands are opened. The implicit agreement understanding is that hands with 16 points can be passed (because the player in question often overlooks an honor or two).

 

Rik

[hotShot]

What if I hold 12 HCP with 3 of them in a single K, am I not allowed to use judgement that this hand is worth less than average 12 HCP counts?

 

How frequent has my partner to miscount his HCP so that I'm required to act?

[barmar]

I think "agreements" is the wrong word here. Frequent misbids lead to implicit understandings.

 

A distinction without a difference in this context. The laws don't make any distinction between explicit agreements and implicit understandings. They're both disclosable and subject to regulation.

 

If you misbid so frequently that the opponents need to be warned and partner might take this into account in their bidding, your bidding is almost random. I don't think this is intended to be allowed (the Laws specifically prohibit bidding before looking at your hand), because it contradicts the whole idea of bids having meanings. You're allowed to psych, but the definition of a psych presumes that there's a normal meaning to a bid that you're deviating from; by definition, a psych has to be infrequent.

 

If you misbid and/or psych as often as we're talking about, you're practically playing a different game.

[blackshoe]

Then what do you mean? You have accepted Andy's idea that the miscounts represent a disclosable partnership agreement and therefore are part of their system. We are also assuming regulations that make such a system illegal and you are going to penalise them for playing the illegal system and enforce that they play a new one. But that is not possible. Whichever system you enforce the player concerned will still miscount and that will still be part of their agreements. What are they to do other than give up the game?

Have I? I don't recall saying that I accepted anything. I made a general response to your question about how to handle agreements to play an illegal system.

 

The fact, as I understand it, is that we have a pair one member of which frequently misevaluates his hand because he is unaware that he has all the honors that he in fact holds. Three questions have arisen from this fact:

 

1. Once this player's partner becomes aware of this fact, is it AI or UI to him?

2. Once this player's partner becomes aware of this fact, what are his disclosure obligations?

3. Once this player's partner becomes aware of this fact, the partnership will have an implicit partnership understanding. What shall we do if regulations make this understanding illegal?

 

On question 1, Laws 16A1{d} and 16A2 are germane. Those Laws:

 

16A1{d}: A player may use information in the auction or play if:

…d) it is information that the player possessed before he took his hand from the board (Law 7B) and the Laws do not preclude his use of this information.

 

16A2: Players may also take account of their estimate of their own score, of the traits of their opponents and any requirement of the tournament regulations.

Knowledge of this trait of partner's is certainly information that one would possess before taking one's hand from the board, but do the Laws preclude its use? 16A2 would seem to imply that they do, since it explicitly mentions traits of the opponents, but not of partner.

 

Another law that may bear on this is

 

40A2: Information conveyed to partner through such understandings must arise from the calls, plays and conditions of the current deal. Each player is entitled to take into account the legal auction and, subject to any exclusions in these Laws, the cards he has seen. He is entitled to use information specified elsewhere in these Laws to be authorized (see Law 73C).

73C just tells players not to take advantage of UI. There is a list of example sources of UI in that law, but it is not exhaustive, so we have to look elsewhere for that determination, which is why I've included 16A2 in this discussion. This law, coupled with the implication in 16A2, leads me to conclude that the implicit understanding is UI, but I would be happy to consider cogent arguments explaining why it's not.

 

What are the disclosure obligations?

 

[

Law 40A1{b}: Each partnership has a duty to make available its partnership understandings to opponents before commencing play against them. The Regulating Authority specifies the manner in which this shall be done.

The emphasis is mine.

 

In general, RAs specify that the manner in which disclosure shall be made before play commences is through the system card. There is, so far as I know, no RA that explicitly specifies that this kind of information should be disclosed that way. Another method is via pre-alerts, which are usually made at the beginning of a round. Again, so far as I know there is no requirement anywhere to pre-alert this understanding. I suspect the reason for this is that no one expects that a player will frequently and consistently fail to properly evaluate his hand in this way. IAC, the conclusion seems to be that there is no requirement to disclose this information.

 

What do we do if the implicit understanding turns out to be illegal?

 

I've already addressed this in general terms. In this specific case, as several posters have pointed out, applying that procedure would likely result in "kicking people out of duplicate bridge" whose sole fault is that they're not capable of evaluating their hands properly. In a club game there might be a lot of such people. Do we want to preclude them from playing bridge? No. So what do we do? I think the practical answer is to require the partnership to disclose on the system card this trait of one player's, to require his partner to make every effort not to take advantage of the UI (assuming it is UI) that partner has this trait, and to ignore any regulation that makes the implicit understanding illegal (or, better, to make the understanding explicitly legal). This will deal appropriately with the problem at clubs, but it leaves unanswered the problem of what to do if this pair goes to a tournament. I don't have a good answer for that one, except that one might hope that they won't go to a tournament.

[barmar]

I've already addressed this in general terms. In this specific case, as several posters have pointed out, applying that procedure would likely result in "kicking people out of duplicate bridge" whose sole fault is that they're not capable of evaluating their hands properly. In a club game there might be a lot of such people.

 

There's a big difference between having poor judgement and habitually not seeing important cards in their hand.

[campboy]

A distinction without a difference in this context. The laws don't make any distinction between explicit agreements and implicit understandings. They're both disclosable and subject to regulation.

Well the main difference is that if you talk to a player about the legality of his "understandings", he might listen to you. If you talk to him about the legality of an "agreement" that he knows perfectly well isn't an agreement, I don't think he will.

[blackshoe]

There's a big difference between having poor judgement and habitually not seeing important cards in their hand.

Would you rule differently in the two cases?

[barmar]

Would you rule differently in the two cases?

 

It seems like apples and oranges, as the consequences are not likely to be comparable. Players with poor judgement are probably as likely to overbid as underbid; players who can't see some of their honors will more frequently underbid (I'm including preempting as underbidding -- it bids higher, but shows less strength). And poor judgement mostly affects close decisions, so it's not unlike stylistic variation; misplacing cards can turn a hand that 99% of players would open into a pass.

 

 

 

[blackshoe]

It seems like apples and oranges, as the consequences are not likely to be comparable. Players with poor judgement are probably as likely to overbid as underbid; players who can't see some of their honors will more frequently underbid (I'm including preempting as underbidding -- it bids higher, but shows less strength). And poor judgement mostly affects close decisions, so it's not unlike stylistic variation; misplacing cards can turn a hand that 99% of players would open into a pass.

All true, but how would you rule in the two cases?

[barmar]

All true, but how would you rule in the two cases?

 

I wouldn't require disclosure that a player is a poor player, lacking in good bridge judgement. I would require disclosure that partner habitually misplaces cards, and as a result frequently underbids.

 

If his problem is manual dexterity or a physical disability, I'd also recommend one of the many aids that people use to hold their cards.

[mr1303]

I would be deeply embarrassed if my partner called the director on a beginner who had miscounted his points and passed a 16 count.

[Trinidad]

I would be deeply embarrassed if my partner called the director on a beginner who had miscounted his points and passed a 16 count.

Sure.

 

But what if your partner thinks that the beginner is a seasoned player? I have seen rank beginners make good plays out of shear stupidity. Think of the Rueful Rabbit.

 

That is why it is good to disclose up front when you are a beginner.

 

Rik

[blackshoe]

"I am a beginner. I have been a beginner since 1963."

[Zelandakh]

"I am a beginner. I have been a beginner since 1963."

The JFK assassination hit some people hard...

[barmar]

I would be deeply embarrassed if my partner called the director on a beginner who had miscounted his points and passed a 16 count.

 

I was tempted to answer the earlier question about how I would rule with "It will never come up -- no one would think of calling the TD because a beginner misbid." But the title of the thread is "theorical[sic] question", so I suppose real life is irrelevant.

[blackshoe]

I would be deeply embarrassed if my partner called the director on a beginner who had miscounted his points and passed a 16 count.

Let's try to avoid the "call the director on…" meme, okay? The director is not a weapon you use to bludgeon your opponents, he is a referee whose job is to ensure, as best he can, a level playing field. IAC, it is the partner who failed to adequately disclose his partnership understanding (or the partnership as a whole) with whom the director will be dealing. Also, we're not talking about a single case of forgetfulness, we're talking about a pattern that has gone on long enough to establish an implicit partnership understanding.

[blackshoe]

I wouldn't require disclosure that a player is a poor player, lacking in good bridge judgement. I would require disclosure that partner habitually misplaces cards, and as a result frequently underbids.

 

If his problem is manual dexterity or a physical disability, I'd also recommend one of the many aids that people use to hold their cards.

Fair enough. BTW, for those who noticed the mis-spelling in the topic title, I fixed it.