Do you have a LA?

[Trinidad]

This thread has gone way off topic, how did you rule?

I don't see where the thread went off topic, but here is my ruling:

1) The question was asked at the wrong time. That is an irregularity.

2) The question carries UI. South is supposed to "bend over backwards" and not use it.

3) My interpretation of the UI would be: "Partner wants to know how many keycards 5♣ shows."* This interpretation does not suggest any LA (should there be more) over any other.

4) Declarer made an extraneous remark, trying to persuade opening leader not to lead a club. This is AI to South.

5) The remark was intimidating, an infraction of Law, and certainly worth a penalty.

6) The AI from declarer's remark, turned the good lead of the ♣A into a lead to which there was no remote LA. Ïf declarer states that she does not want a club lead, any other lead than a club would be absurd. As an aside, if it turned out that declarer made the remark "in jest" and another lead, that could have been chosen without the remark, might have beaten the contract, an AS will be assigned to adjust for declarer's misleading remark.

7) The ruling:

North is told that he should do his asking after the opening lead has been made and that the timing of his question was an infraction. The fact that this infraction is "common" among players, does not give North the right to infract the Laws.

The result on the board stands as 6♥-1.

Declarer gets a penalty for the intimidating remark.

Declarer gets a compliment for executing the trump coup. There is no Law that specifically says the TD must do that, but it certainly is in the interest of the game to do so.

 

 

* If you seriously think that the question was intended to suggest a club lead and South was following the suggestion, then you have a problem. It is hard to change other people's behavior and if your bridge club is full of this kind of "bridge", with no alternative club around, I don't envy you. However, I could not imagine being friends with an actively unethical bridge player. It would have to be the only character flaw in someone who is otherwise like Mother Theresa and that seems an unlikely combination. And, though it is hard to change the behavior of others, it is easy to chose who your friends are. If I would think South was leading the ♣A because North told him to, South would not be a friend.

 

Rik

[jillybean]

 

* If you seriously think that the question was intended to suggest a club lead and South was following the suggestion, then you have a problem. It is hard to change other people's behavior and if your bridge club is full of this kind of "bridge", with no alternative club around, I don't envy you. However, I could not imagine being friends with an actively unethical bridge player. It would have to be the only character flaw in someone who is otherwise like Mother Theresa and that seems an unlikely combination. And, though it is hard to change the behavior of others, it is easy to chose who your friends are. If I would think South was leading the ♣A because North told him to, South would not be a friend.

 

Rik

 

Stop suggesting I think the question was asked in a deliberate attempt to cheat or that I'm suggesting the player on lead here was unethical. I've have said many times that I don't think it is an attempt to cheat, Many players simply don't know about UI or LA's, that doesn't make them unethical. The object of this post was to see if there is a LA to a club lead, I was not sure.

 

 

For the vast majority this is not an attempt to cheat, I don't think for a moment the players consider their question inappropriate and I would never imply so. It does however draw attention to the suit and I'd be rich if I had a nickel for each time partner led the named suit.

[Vampyr]

It would have to be the only character flaw in someone who is otherwise like Mother Theresa and that seems an unlikely combination.

 

You seem to be suggesting that Mother Teresa was a good person. I thought that that rumour has been debunked by now.

 

LOL I think that this is the first off-topic post in this thread.

[blackshoe]

I talked with South here again today and he said that when I called the director they felt I was accusing them of cheating and they have learned a costly lesson.

Whenever a director is called, unless it is a for a LOOT or BOOT, people tend to react badly. Today at an adjacent table, declarer asked the opponent to wait until his partners lead

was (face down) on the table before he stated "no questions partner" and the response was, "what are you going to do, call the director?" THIS type of reaction is typical.

 

This thread has gone way off topic, how did you rule?

It sounds to me like your director and club management need to work to overcome this unfortunate attitude. It will be tough, and they probably won't want to do it, but they should IMO.

[Trinidad]

I talked with South here again today and he said that when I called the director they felt I was accusing them of cheating and they have learned a costly lesson.

The point is that threatening to call the TD is much more unpleasant than actually calling the TD in a courteous manner.

 

If someone would threaten to call the TD "against me", I would call the TD myself for the threat.

 

Rik

[jillybean]

The point is that threatening to call the TD is much more unpleasant than actually calling the TD in a courteous manner.

 

If someone would threaten to call the TD "against me", I would call the TD myself for the threat.

 

Rik

I think you are reading more into what I said to my opponent. It is known that I do call the director when there has been an irregularity and my comment was delivered in a light, humourous manner.

I admit, I made a poor choice but it is not the problem here.

[jillybean]

It sounds to me like your director and club management need to work to overcome this unfortunate attitude. It will be tough, and they probably won't want to do it, but they should IMO.

I agree but it won't happen until there are a sufficient number players unhappy with the status quo and that's not going to happen.

[blackshoe]

Gotta start somewhere. :D

[WellSpyder]

Today at an adjacent table, declarer asked the opponent to wait until his partners lead

was (face down) on the table before he stated "no questions partner" and the response was, "what are you going to do, call the director?" THIS type of reaction is typical.

I must admit that if an opponent responded in this way to me I would be calling the director now, rather than waiting for another question at an inappropriate time.

[sfi]

This would be a disciplinary penalty, I think,

 

True enough.

 

and while I have nothing against it, I don't think it should be given unless the opening leader's partner receives a PP. There is no NOS in this case.

 

I don't agree that the question warrants a penalty, but that's probably because I ascribe different motives to it. If the question is intended to focus leader's attention on the club suit, then I would agree.

[Vampyr]

I don't agree that the question warrants a penalty, but that's probably because I ascribe different motives to it. If the question is intended to focus leader's attention on the club suit, then I would agree.

I don't really care about the motive; I think that asking questions before partner has selected a lead is a serious enough offence to warrant a PP, especially since it started the whole unpleasant incident.

[Bbradley62]

So, the consensus appears to be: result stands, with possible penalties for both North and East.

[sfi]

I don't really care about the motive; I think that asking questions before partner has selected a lead is a serious enough offence to warrant a PP, especially since it started the whole unpleasant incident.

 

Even if the discussion continued:

 

East: It's not your lead.

North: Sorry.

 

You'd still assign a PP? Because that sort of thing happens all the time.

 

In this scenario, North committed two infractions - asking out of turn and asking about a specific bid rather than the entire auction. Even so, I would guess the situation occurs at least once a session. That's a lot of procedural penalties, especially given that I have never seen one actually being given.

[Vampyr]

You'd still assign a PP? Because that sort of thing happens all the time.

 

But this time it caused a problem.

[jillybean]

 

I don't agree that the question warrants a penalty, but that's probably because I ascribe different motives to it. If the question is intended to focus leader's attention on the club suit, then I would agree.

 

Intent should have no bearing at all.

[pran]

cancelled - there must havde been some forum mixup here

[Vampyr]

Intent should have no bearing at all.

 

That's not true; if it can be proven that North was trying to draw partner's attention to clubs, then a lot more than a PP is required.

 

Some education at this table and this club about the role of the director would be a good idea.

[jillybean]

:) I should have seen that coming.

[Trinidad]

Intent should have no bearing at all.

?!?

Any educator will tell you that you need to reward or penalize intent and not the consequences of an action, for the simple reason that people in a learning phase, usually children, but also bridge players, have an influence on their intents but not on the consequences of their actions because they can't see them or can't control them. Intent is why there is a big difference in the punishment for premeditated murder and negligent homicide, even if the consequence is the same.

 

Educators will tell you that when a child wants to help you with cleaning and grabs a dirty, greasy rag to "clean" your expensive carpet, ruining it in the process, you will need to reward it for helping. In practice, of course, often the child gets penalized for ruining the carpet. (Parents are only human.)

 

On the other hand, parents rarely penalize their children for throwing a peanutbutter-jelly sandwich on that carpet, as long as the sandwich happens to land with the peanut butter and jelly on top. The punishment comes when the kid does it again 5 minutes later when it lands upside down. Same action, same intent, different consequences and, since real parents are imperfect, different punishments. But if you want the child to behave, you will have to punish it after the first thrown sandwich, regardless of how it lands.

 

Intent has no bearing on liability. Everybody is liable for the consequences of their actions. And in bridge liability is dealt with by adjusted scores. Penalties are meant to correct behavior, by making sure that the misbehaver will not have the intent to misbehave again. This simple sentence shows that it is not very effective to punish someone for something he did but never intended to do.

 

Rik

[jillybean]

Very interesting but am still not sure what intent has to do with applying bridge laws. There is no mention of intent that I can see in the laws, there is no premeditated or negligent extraneous information, and I imagine, for a good a reason.

 

[snip] people in a learning phase, usually children, but also bridge players

 

I think you may have misunderstood the context , this occured during an open game, the player has 1800 master points and I would hope and expect players who have amassed this number of master points in live games would have learned how to conduct themselves at the table. If the player had 50 points in the BCD game I should still call the director and the director would apply the laws as he sees fit but perhaps not as he would in an open game.

 

The laws talk about rectification and restoring equity, which if you decide here that there was no alternative to the club lead, there is no rectification. Unless the director sees fit to apply a penalty, there is no "punishment" but I assume the director may see fit to apply a penalty for subsequent infractions. (Penalties of any kind are very very rarely., if ever handed out here)

 

The problem may be like a lazy parent, players often overlook this type of infraction or correct it themselves. Now we have these 50MP players growing up to be 1800MP players who are still unaware of how to conduct themselves at the table. The response I got when I brought attention to the infraction was "everyone does it", in that case perhaps the laws should be changed.

[Vampyr]

Very interesting but am still not sure what intent has to do with applying bridge laws.

 

It matters in a variety of rulings, but unfortunately determining intent often requires mind reading.

 

The response I got when I brought attention to the infraction was "everyone does it", in that case perhaps the laws should be changed.

 

"Everyone" does not do it. If the laws were changed to conform to the club in the OP, we would have a very zany and ineffective Lawbook.

[sfi]

Intent should have no bearing at all.

 

There is no requirement for the director to assign a procedural penalty (Law 90 says the director may do so). It seems to me that intent should be the primary determining factor in the decision about whether or not to do so, but I may be out of step with current thinking on this point. As I said, I've never seen anyone actually receive a PP, so I don't know when good directors around here would apply them.

 

As a first step in the actual situation, how about the director simply point out that North should not be asking questions when it is not that turn to lead. And then point out that anyone asking about the auction should ask about the entire auction.

 

This requires two things though - that the director actually know the rules and how to apply them, and that players call the director at the appropriate time. Without these two things, it is hard for players to learn correct procedure.

 

I still see your comment as a far more flagrant violation than North's action, no matter how much it was intended in jest.

[campboy]

While a PP might be reasonable if North was aware that partner was on lead, I think it would be quite inappropriate if he asked the question because he thought it was his lead. And it is not an infraction to ask (at an appropriate time) about a specific call -- Law 20F3 permits this.

[sfi]

And it is not an infraction to ask (at an appropriate time) about a specific call -- Law 20F3 permits this.

 

Indeed it does. This seems to have been changed in the last update.

[Trinidad]

It matters in a variety of rulings, but unfortunately determining intent often requires mind reading.

Indeed it does. But what you describe as "mind reading" is not as impossible as you imply. Anybody with some empathy, decent people skills, an investigative, open mind and the capacity and willingness to listen can draw large amounts of conclusions about other people's thought processes.

 

And that is one of the reasons why good TDs (and judges) have exactly these characteristics.

 

Rik