Double Dentist

[Aardv]

Then I think you are still misunderstanding the problem. North must select the suit that he leads back without knowledge of the penalty card(s), even if you apply the most recent WBFLC minute. The White Book summarises it well and this problem is a no-brainer.

 

Information that the player must play the penalty card as the law requires is authorised and partner may choose the card to lead from the suit on the basis of that knowledge (e.g. may lead small from KQJx when partner’s penalty card is the Ace). Information based on sight of partner’s penalty card is unauthorised so that, for example, the player may not choose to lead the suit if the suit is suggested by the penalty card and play of a different suit is a logical alternative.

[WBFLC minutes 1998-08-24#3]

Example: However, they may not act as though they know partner has that card. If a king was led out of turn and the king is now a penalty card, then partner must act as though they do not know about the king, nor about the queen, a normal deduction when partner leads a king. They may not choose to lead the suit if the suit is suggested by the king and play of a different suit is a logical alternative.

A distinction must be made between the requirement that the player must play this card and information that the player has the card. Initially the underlead from KQJx to partner’s Ax is allowed, but subsequently the Director may decide that 50E3 applies. (my emphasis)

The player must convince the Director that he has not gained from the information that the player possesses the card.

[WBFLC minutes 2008-10-10#3]

North has no reason to think that South has a singleton club, except for the UI. He has no reason to think that South has penalty cards in hearts and diamonds, except for the UI. If South led a club in tempo, without penalty cards, how would you defend as North? You would play back a club, of course. Therefore the penalty cards, caused by the haste of the lead, conveyed such information as to damage the non-offending side. North recovered from their effect by cashing the red aces and only then playing a club, using the UI to conclude that South almost certainly had a singleton club. It is a little bit like the second revoke in the same suit, which is another area that the WBFLC managed to screw up in Poznan, when their adviser wrongly advised the AC of the intent of the Beijing minute. You should not be able to gain by a second revoke in the same suit, but an eminent AC did allow a player to do so.

Yes, there may be UI from the fact that two cards were dropped that the lead was a singleton.

 

No, the fact that the penalty cards are in hearts and diamonds is AI. The WBFLC minute makes that crystal clear. I don't understand why you are asserting the opposite. You are allowed to conduct the defence on the basis that partner has ♥10 and ♦10 as penalty cards. In other respects, you are not allowed to conduct the defence on the basis that partner has ♥10 and ♦10.

[WellSpyder]

I would like to echo the sentiment expressed by a number of regular posters that I think it would be a shame to lose Paul's SB posts. I can see the difficulty they create for moderators - they are unlikely to be of help very often to ordinary TDs seeking help with practical issues that have arisen at the table. The difficulty for the forums, however, is that such people don't in practice make up the bulk of regular posters, who are actually interested in tricky rulings. Maybe a new forum on "interpreting difficult laws" or something?

 

The extra difficulty in this case is that it is a genuinely tricky situation that might well arise in real life. Frankly, as a player, I am not expecting to be clear what I can or cannot do if I ever find myself in this sort of situation, even though I will, of course, ask the TD to try to make it as clear as possible at the time. In fact I was considering making a tongue-in-cheek appeal for any fellow posters who would like to co-operate in creating such a situation at the table since the chances of both pairs getting a good score after an eventual ruling based on TD error in failing to make the situation clear must be pretty high....

[dburn]

No, the fact that the penalty cards are in hearts and diamonds is AI. The WBFLC minute makes that crystal clear. I don't understand why you are asserting the opposite. You are allowed to conduct the defence on the basis that partner has ♥10 and ♦10 as penalty cards. In other respects, you are not allowed to conduct the defence on the basis that partner has ♥10 and ♦10.

I submit with due, but without false, modesty that if Aardv thinks X and I think not-X, it is probably not "crystal clear" whether X is true or not.

 

My position is the exact opposite of his. The Law, unmodified by minutes, in effect says this: until partner has played his penalty card, you are not allowed to know anything about its rank or suit. Once he has played it, you are allowed to know that he had to, rather than chose to, play it - but that is all.

 

The earlier minute is consistent with this interpretation. The later minute is not; indeed, the later minute is at variance with the Law itself. It is in my view not possible for the Law and the later minute logically to co-exist; that they physically coexist is an aberration by the WBFLC.

[Aardv]

I submit with due, but without false, modesty that if Aardv thinks X and I think not-X, it is probably not "crystal clear" whether X is true or not.

 

My position is the exact opposite of his. The Law, unmodified by minutes, in effect says this: until partner has played his penalty card, you are not allowed to know anything about its rank or suit. Once he has played it, you are allowed to know that he had to, rather than chose to, play it - but that is all.

 

The earlier minute is consistent with this interpretation. The later minute is not; indeed, the later minute is at variance with the Law itself. It is in my view not possible for the Law and the later minute logically to co-exist; that they physically coexist is an aberration by the WBFLC.

Due respect for dburn and lamford, in the absence of false modesty, demands that I acknowledge that there are two readings of all this which intelligent people might reach.

 

I disagree that the later minute is at variance with the Law itself. I read "Knowledge of the requirements for playing a penalty card..." as including the identity of the penalty card that partner is required to play. And so, I submit, does the WBFLC, or its later minute would indeed be an aberration. And we should assume that the WBFLC is making sense unless the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.

 

Which raises two questions: first, of these two possibilities, what we would like the Law to mean? And second, once we agree what we want the Law to mean, how would we word it? Perhaps these are questions for another forum.

[VixTD]

Bring back Lamford! I very much enjoy his contrived scenarios, even if I'm sometimes a bit slow on the uptake. This one was inspired by something that happened at a real bridge table, and it's got us all thinking about how the a very commonly-applied law and the WBFLC minutes attached to it should be applied. Why would anyone want to suppress this? Shame on the moderators. Surely there's plenty of room here for both simple and complicated, abstract problems. There aren't many situations I come across where I'm at a loss to know how to apply the laws (I can't say the same for how to apply bridge judgement), but this is certainly one of them.

[blackshoe]

Shame on the moderators.

Sure. You think you can do a better job? I'm sorely tempted to let somebody else try.

[VixTD]

Then I think you are still misunderstanding the problem. North must select the suit that he leads back without knowledge of the penalty card(s), even if you apply the most recent WBFLC minute. The White Book summarises it well and this problem is a no-brainer.

 

Information that the player must play the penalty card as the law requires is authorised and partner may choose the card to lead from the suit on the basis of that knowledge (e.g. may lead small from KQJx when partner’s penalty card is the Ace). Information based on sight of partner’s penalty card is unauthorised so that, for example, the player may not choose to lead the suit if the suit is suggested by the penalty card and play of a different suit is a logical alternative.

[WBFLC minutes 1998-08-24#3]

Example: However, they may not act as though they know partner has that card. If a king was led out of turn and the king is now a penalty card, then partner must act as though they do not know about the king, nor about the queen, a normal deduction when partner leads a king. They may not choose to lead the suit if the suit is suggested by the king and play of a different suit is a logical alternative.

A distinction must be made between the requirement that the player must play this card and information that the player has the card. Initially the underlead from KQJx to partner’s Ax is allowed, but subsequently the Director may decide that 50E3 applies. (my emphasis)

The player must convince the Director that he has not gained from the information that the player possesses the card.

[WBFLC minutes 2008-10-10#3]

North has no reason to think that South has a singleton club, except for the UI. He has no reason to think that South has penalty cards in hearts and diamonds, except for the UI. If South led a club in tempo, without penalty cards, how would you defend as North? You would play back a club, of course. Therefore the penalty cards, caused by the haste of the lead, conveyed such information as to damage the non-offending side. North recovered from their effect by cashing the red aces and only then playing a club, using the UI to conclude that South almost certainly had a singleton club. It is a little bit like the second revoke in the same suit, which is another area that the WBFLC managed to screw up in Poznan, when their adviser wrongly advised the AC of the intent of the Beijing minute. You should not be able to gain by a second revoke in the same suit, but an eminent AC did allow a player to do so.

I agree that returning a club at trick two is a logical alternative, but I don't really think that the penalty cards suggest that South has a singleton club. I also think that the only reasonable defence for North is to try to get a club ruff.

 

If the controversial minute which allows offender's partner to underlead KQJ when offender has the ace of that suit as a penalty card is accepted for the sake of argument, doesn't it also follow that offender's partner can underlead AKQ in a suit in which he knows or suspects partner is void when he has a trump as a major penalty card? He's allowed to know that offender has to play the penalty card at the first legal opportunity, so doesn't have to sacrifice his ace to the trump.

[Vampyr]

I agree that returning a club at trick two is a logical alternative, but I don't really think that the penalty cards suggest that South has a singleton club.

 

Yeah, I think that this is a red herring and should be disregarded.

[lamford]

Due respect for dburn and lamford, in the absence of false modesty, demands that I acknowledge that there are two readings of all this which intelligent people might reach.

I also acknowledge that there are two readings of all this which intelligent people might reach, as you and dburn have read it differently. That does not mean that both readings are valid, however. For me the silver bullet is the sentence: "However, they may not act as though they know partner has that card," which the later minute did not repeal. If cashing the ace of each red suit is not "acting as they know partner has that card" then I do not know what is. The EBU interpretation is that a player must first decide which suit to lead without looking at the penalty card. Having decided on that suit, he can then choose which card to lead in the suit taking into account that partner must play the penalty card on that trick. Even then, if leading low from KQJx when partner has Ax gains, the TD should award an adjusted score, because the penalty card conveys such information as to damage the non-offending side. Practically the later minute is ineffective because one is still not allowed to gain from sight of the penalty card. And damage is measured against the equity which a person would have if he did not take advantage of sight of the penalty card, not against the equity if the penalty card had not occurred. In other words one cannot get back to where one was by using the knowledge of the suit and rank of the penalty card. Exactly the same as a second revoke in the same suit should not gain.

 

On a subsidiary note, it is clear that when one leads a card which might be a singleton, and drops a card which is not of the same suit, there is a hugely increased chance that the original lead was a singleton, as RMB1 correctly observed. But the "golden" bullet is that the only LA without sight of the penalty cards is a club. It would be dreadful defence to cash either red ace rather than play a club if there were no penalty cards. Even using the latest minute, one has first to select the suit to be led without knowledge of the penalty cards. You can then select which club to lead if you "know" that partner's penalty card has to be played on that trick. I think that you are not even allowed to do this, and if you gain by using the information of what the penalty card is, the TD adjusts. But let us accept for a moment that you can look at the penalty cards after choosing to lead a club. It is still the case that cashing either red ace is using the UI, because a club is a logical alternative to either red ace.

 

And I think I have said enough on this thread, and, according to the moderators, on all threads of this type. I will review the situation if the forum rules on what constitutes an acceptable OP are clarified in a suitable manner.

[lamford]

Yeah, I think that this is a red herring and should be disregarded.

The fact that they are red herrings not black herrings is very significant ...

[jeffford76]

While I agree that Paul is a smart fellow, and that his insights on legal issues are valuable, I do think his "Secretary Bird" posts go beyond, sometimes far beyond, what David and I were trying to do when we set up these forums: to provide a place where people not familiar with the laws could come and ask for practical help.

 

The fact that the discussion has drifted somewhat from its original intention is not too surprising on an internet group. The fact that many people have engaged on this topic suggests that it is useful to have it.

 

Having one place to ask questions, and a different place to conduct discussions seems like the right way to do this. Of course some of the times the questions asked will actually be exposing difficult points of law. But it's easy enough to direct those to the more discussion-oriented group.

 

I hope the BBO Forums staff will decide on how best to incorporate Laws discussions on their forums today, not feel beholden to what these discussions were "supposed to be like".

[dburn]

Not sure how the moderation of these forums works. If one is a moderator, can one move threads about laws and rulings from "General Bridge Discussion" to "Laws and Rulings" where they belong? Or does moderation extend only within the bounds of a particular sub-forum?

[dburn]

If the controversial minute which allows offender's partner to underlead KQJ when offender has the ace of that suit as a penalty card is accepted for the sake of argument, doesn't it also follow that offender's partner can underlead AKQ in a suit in which he knows or suspects partner is void when he has a trump as a major penalty card? He's allowed to know that offender has to play the penalty card at the first legal opportunity, so doesn't have to sacrifice his ace to the trump.

If West has only one penalty card, and declarer has forbidden a trump lead, then it is AI to East that West will have to ruff the suit East leads if West cannot follow. This information does not derive from the sight of the penalty card; it is an evident logical conclusion from the fact that declarer has forbidden a trump lead (therefore West's penalty card must be a trump) and is thus AI per Law 16A1c.

 

But if declarer had merely left West's card as a penalty card, the knowledge that it was a trump would be UI to East, who is allowed to know only that West must play whatever card this is at his first legal opportunity. If it turns out that West ruffs East's ace and the defenders lose thereby, so be it.

[Vampyr]

I hope the BBO Forums staff will decide on how best to incorporate Laws discussions on their forums today, not feel beholden to what these discussions were "supposed to be like".

 

It would be nice if this forum were a resource available to the community, and not someone's personal fiefdom.

[dburn]

Are you saying that the fact that South must play his penalty card at the earliest legal opportunity is UI?

No, of course not. We (lamford, Vampyr and I) are saying the opposite: the fact that South must play his penalty card at the earliest legal opportunity is AI to North. What we are denying is that North is allowed to know what that penalty card actually is.

 

Consider (Aardv and the author of that joke minute might consider this as well):

 

In the normal run of events, I as West lead a card. North follows suit. Before I led, I knew that East would be required to play a card at his earliest legal opportunity, which happens to be now.

 

But (saving inferences from the bidding or play) I had no way of knowing, nor was I in any way entitled to know, what that card would be until he played it - if I had known, I might have led a different card altogether.

 

Why should this entitlement or lack of it change simply because East has illegally shown me one or more of his cards?

[blackshoe]

Not sure how the moderation of these forums works. If one is a moderator, can one move threads about laws and rulings from "General Bridge Discussion" to "Laws and Rulings" where they belong? Or does moderation extend only within the bounds of a particular sub-forum?

Can't move threads into IBLF from outside. That would require moderator privileges outside of here. Can (I think) move thread out of here, e.g. to "General Bridge Discussion". Other moderator functions are limited to posts and threads within IBLF.

[blackshoe]

I hope the BBO Forums staff will decide on how best to incorporate Laws discussions on their forums today, not feel beholden to what these discussions were "supposed to be like".

We're working on it. As for "supposed to be like," I didn't say that. I said we had an intended purpose, and discussion of minutia in the laws goes beyond that purpose.

 

If everybody wants these forums to become another blml ("How many angels can dance on the ace of spades" I think somebody said) fine with me. I'll just stop moderating anything here.

[blackshoe]

It would be nice if this forum were a resource available to the community, and not someone's personal fiefdom.

When did anyone claim this is his personal fiefdom?

[Vampyr]

When did anyone claim this is his personal fiefdom?

 

I was told by another moderator that this is blackshoe's forum and he runs it as he likes.

[blackshoe]

I was told by another moderator that this is blackshoe's forum and he runs it as he likes.

I am pretty sure that BBO will give me considerable latitude in the running of the IBLF. However, it's not "my" forum. David Stevenson started this many years ago on another site, with the goals I have mentioned. As he was unfamiliar with running forums, he asked me to help him out. Then our other host was closed down, and BBO offered us this new home. That's the history, pretty much.

 

If I see something I don't think is appropriate, I'll do something about it. In fact, I was still considering what, if anything, to do about the "SB" topics when it was suggested to me by BBO that they were somewhat disruptive here, and that we should ask Paul to stop posting them. Not having a better solution immediately to hand, I went along.

 

I sense a lot of hostility towards me personally here, especially from you Vampyr — and this isn't the first time. My take right now: David and I built these forums to help people out. For myself, I would like to continue doing that, but if the people posting here don't want me, I've got other things I can do with my life. I haven't discussed this with David (haven't had contact with him in quite a while) or with the BBO staff, so I have no idea what would happen next if I left. But if that's what you all want, that's fine with me.

[Vampyr]

Well, this particular "disruptive" thread has run to five pages of discussion. It has uncovered serious disagreements as to how the relevant law should be interpreted, and problems with the numerous minutes the WBFLC produce, convinced that they made a hash of it the first time round. (Actually, I am not sure that the miutes should not simply be ignored, since they are not, as far as I know, collected anywhere, and the vast majority of directors wouldn't know they existed even if they were readily accessible). But I digress...

 

Laws 50 and 51 are two of the most commonly applied laws in the book. Maybe some people want help with a specific ruling. Others would like to know for future, and/or would like to be comfortable with their understanding/interpretation of these laws. Often lamford's posts deal with boundary cases, ideas taken to their logical (if absurd) conclusion, laws that don't say what we assume that they mean (because what they actually say is ridiculous) and interpretations that may be the only ones possible but don't jibe with the way we believe the game is meant to be played. This particular thread could easily be and probably has been and will be about a real-life case that some director will have to deal with, but whatever.

 

So some people have indicated that they don't like these threads, OK, they don't have to read them but they have to open it and read the OP before they know. OK, so these threads could carry the subtitle "North London Club", and then everyone will have what they want. If lamford decides to come back under this condition.

[jeffford76]

I sense a lot of hostility towards me personally here, especially from you Vampyr — and this isn't the first time. My take right now: David and I built these forums to help people out. For myself, I would like to continue doing that, but if the people posting here don't want me, I've got other things I can do with my life. I haven't discussed this with David (haven't had contact with him in quite a while) or with the BBO staff, so I have no idea what would happen next if I left. But if that's what you all want, that's fine with me.

 

I think that you sometimes have trouble differentiating between disagreement and personal animosity. I also disagreed strongly enough with your approach in a few past cases to approach another BBO moderator and was told essentially the same thing as Vampyr, that it was your forum, and that they weren't going to make any changes.

 

I previously suggested in the forum that it would be better with more than one active moderator. No one is going to get all the decisions right, but a larger group will do better on more of them. I would like to suggest again, not that you step down, but that you consider sharing the moderation duty with some other active posters.

 

I also think that lamford's Secretary Bird threads have in fact helped people out. Perhaps they weren't the same inexperienced directors you cared the most about helping, but that doesn't mean that the threads weren't useful. Most of the issues I have seen have been from people who don't like them complaining about them, not from the people who were actively engaging with the problems he presented.

[campboy]

Rather than putting a subtitle on these sort of threads, particularly one that isn't very self-explanatory for new people, I prefer WellSpyder's suggestion of a separate subforum for theoretical/hypothetical discussion. But either way I would hate to lose Lamford's threads. Whether I agree with his view on a particular topic or not, I feel I learn a lot from the discussion.

[Aardv]

No, of course not. We (lamford, Vampyr and I) are saying the opposite: the fact that South must play his penalty card at the earliest legal opportunity is AI to North. What we are denying is that North is allowed to know what that penalty card actually is.

 

Consider (Aardv and the author of that joke minute might consider this as well):

 

In the normal run of events, I as West lead a card. North follows suit. Before I led, I knew that East would be required to play a card at his earliest legal opportunity, which happens to be now.

 

But (saving inferences from the bidding or play) I had no way of knowing, nor was I in any way entitled to know, what that card would be until he played it - if I had known, I might have led a different card altogether.

 

Why should this entitlement or lack of it change simply because East has illegally shown me one or more of his cards?

 

Why is this rule reasonable, as clarified by what I consider to be an unfunny minute? I'll answer that:

 

1) We have an elaborate penalty card rule, designed (50D in particular) so that in most circumstances a pair can't benefit from its own penalty card, and with a catch-all (50E3) to cover anything it misses. Perhaps you wouldn't write it like that if you started from scratch today, but there it is.

2) However, we do not want this rule to be punitive in itself. (In this respect, it's unlike the revoke law, which is usually punitive, and rightly so because revokes can easily go undiscovered and we don't want to put temptation in the way of any unscrupulous player.)

3) Because the rule is not intended to be punitive, we don't want it to force a defender to make a ridiculous play, like crashing honours or leading a card for partner to ruff when he's not allowed to ruff it. So we allow the defender to know the identity of the penalty card. This is specified, albeit somewhat ambiguously, by 50E1.

4) The concession to the offending side in 50E1 would make it more likely that the non-offending side would be disadvantaged by the penalty card, for example if the penalty card were a singleton honour which might have been crashed anyway, but we needn't worry about that because we have the catch-all 50E3.

5) Noting the ambiguity of 50E1, the WBFLC has issued its unambiguous and unfunny minute.

 

I understand that some people prefer a different reading of 50E1, and therefore object to the minute. But I think they go too far in protesting that the minute contradicts 50E - it's not a strain to read "the requirements for playing a penalty card" as including the identity of the penalty card.

 

I strongly object to lamford's suggestion that a player should suffer a procedural penalty for following the law as clarified by the minute.

[sanst]

I sense a lot of hostility towards me personally here, especially from you Vampyr — and this isn't the first time. My take right now: David and I built these forums to help people out. For myself, I would like to continue doing that, but if the people posting here don't want me, I've got other things I can do with my life. I haven't discussed this with David (haven't had contact with him in quite a while) or with the BBO staff, so I have no idea what would happen next if I left. But if that's what you all want, that's fine with me.

I certainly don't want you to quit. I've an inkling about the amount of work moderating and maintaining this forum must be and I'm grateful for that. Losing both you and lamford would be really too bad.

 

Joost