Legalities of timewasting

[Cyberyeti]

I was playing a swiss pairs event at the weekend where round time limits were strictly enforced with no starting a board inside the last 2 or 3 minutes of the round, 50/50 given for boards taken away.

 

Our opps have just had 2 tops and we start the penultimate board of the round with 12 mins left, and they are declaring a non hopeless 1Nx vul. Declarer hesitates for 6 minutes at trick 1, and then having got to trick 8 where he's seen every face card one of the two hands can possibly possess and can basically play double dummy, thinks for another 3 minutes to ensure the last board is removed.

 

Is there anything we can do about this ?

[gordontd]

I was playing a swiss pairs event at the weekend where round time limits were strictly enforced with no starting a board inside the last 2 or 3 minutes of the round, 50/50 given for boards taken away.

 

Our opps have just had 2 tops and we start the penultimate board of the round with 12 mins left, and they are declaring a non hopeless 1Nx vul. Declarer hesitates for 6 minutes at trick 1, and then having got to trick 8 where he's seen every face card one of the two hands can possibly possess and can basically play double dummy, thinks for another 3 minutes to ensure the last board is removed.

 

Is there anything we can do about this ?

You can call the director and point out that it was entirely their fault, so you are entitled to AV+. Do you have any basis for saying "to ensure the last board is removed"? That seems to have been the effect, but you assert a motive.

[Cyberyeti]

You can call the director and point out that it was entirely their fault, so you are entitled to AV+. Do you have any basis for saying "to ensure the last board is removed"? That seems to have been the effect, but you assert a motive.

 

Only in that he has a pretty much complete double dummy blueprint of the hand by then, and I can't misdefend so the second 3 minute hesitation seems utterly unnecessary (although might be one of those "I've butchered this so better pretend to partner it's actually difficult" type things.

[Vampyr]

Automatically assigning 50/50 for unplayed boards isn't legal, is it?

 

And I think that you get more than +3 if your teammates have had an unusually good result on the board; perhaps Gordon can explain how that works.

[Cyberyeti]

Automatically assigning 50/50 for unplayed boards isn't legal, is it?

 

And I think that you get more than +3 if your teammates have had an unusually good result on the board; perhaps Gordon can explain how that works.

 

I was playing a swiss pairs event

[Cyberyeti]

You can call the director and point out that it was entirely their fault, so you are entitled to AV+. Do you have any basis for saying "to ensure the last board is removed"? That seems to have been the effect, but you assert a motive.

 

I mentioned it to the director immediately afterwards, he wasn't interested.

[Vampyr]

oops.

[The_Badger]

Declarer hesitates for 6 minutes at trick 1

 

That's not a hesitation, Cyberyeti, that's a breath hold for a freediver! I don't see why declarers can get away with this: if the shoe was on the other foot and you were two tops up and defending for an extraordinary amount of time on one board, I'm sure any declarer would be screaming for the director.

 

Is there still an Ethics Committee at the EBU? File a complaint against the player. Why let it go? It's probably not the first time this tactic has been employed by this player and his partner.

[steve2005]

You can call the director and point out that it was entirely their fault, so you are entitled to AV+. Do you have any basis for saying "to ensure the last board is removed"? That seems to have been the effect, but you assert a motive.

Would be hard to prove motive but does it matter if opps responsible for slow play isn't a penalty possible.

It does seem slow play isn't uniformly enforced.

[barmar]

I remember noticing a similar thing many years ago on OKbridge.

 

I don't know if it's still the case, but OKbridge tourneys in those days used Swiss pairing. But this was only done for pairs that finished the round on time. If you weren't done with a hand when the round changed, it let you finish that board, and then paired the late pairs as they finished. My theory was that some players adopted the strategy of playing the last board slowly, so that instead of being paired with players who were doing as well as they were (and hence would be tougher to play against) they would be paired against slow players (on the theory that many of them are poor players and likely to give gifts). I never did a rigorous analysis, but I did a few spot checks and noticed a correlation between late players and either coming in near the top or bottom of the leaderboard (the top ones are the presumed users of this strategy, the bottom ones are the fish that they're depending on). But it's hard to prove that this was an actual strategy -- many good players are slow because they spend a good amount of time analyzing the hand to come up with the best line (one of the better players in my club is like this).

[gnasher]

Only in that he has a pretty much complete double dummy blueprint of the hand by then, and I can't misdefend so the second 3 minute hesitation seems utterly unnecessary (although might be one of those "I've butchered this so better pretend to partner it's actually difficult" type things.

 

That doesn't seem sufficient reason to assert that he was cheating. Serious accusations need serious evidence.

[nige1]

That doesn't seem sufficient reason to assert that he was cheating. Serious accusations need serious evidence.

Short of confession, you're unlikely to establish motive but unusually slow tempo is an infraction that declarer could have known would work to his benefit. Hence, law 23 might afford redress.

[cherdano]

Short of confession, you're unlikely to establish motive but unusually slow tempo is an infraction that declarer could have known would work to his benefit. Hence, law 23 might afford redress.

Or you could assign Ave- for the side that is at fault for the delay...seems a bit simpler, doesn't it?

[cherdano]

I admit I once thought about a trick for 3 minutes and then realized that the hand was actually an open book, and the indicated line clear.

[gordontd]

I admit I once thought about a trick for 3 minutes and then realized that the hand was actually an open book, and the indicated line clear.

I've seen good players do this on a number of occasions.

[Cyberyeti]

I've seen good players do this on a number of occasions.

 

This particular hand, one player has penalty doubled a weak NT, opps have 21 points between them, and you know after trick 2 about 6 points in the other hand and that the doubler doesn't have a huge suit, you're missing 2 jacks, you know the small hand doesn't have one of them and the other is irrelevant, so even to a poor player this is pretty obvious.

[ArtK78]

If you explain the situation as you have here, and present it to the TD, and the TD is not willing to do anything about it, then the situation is hopeless.

 

The facts speak for themselves.

[barmar]

I admit I once thought about a trick for 3 minutes and then realized that the hand was actually an open book, and the indicated line clear.

Stuff happens occasionally. But if this is a habit for a particular player/pair (and they're not just poor players who often go into the tank for no good reason), it's not unreasonable to be suspicious.

[nige1]

Or you could assign Ave- for the side that is at fault for the delay...seems a bit simpler, doesn't it?

Although gordontd agrees with cherdano, I still have doubts:

Simple slow play is one thing.

IMO, quite another thing is slow play by a player who would benefit if boards were cancelled -- And who might be aware of that state of affairs.

[blackshoe]

Stuff happens occasionally. But if this is a habit for a particular player/pair (and they're not just poor players who often go into the tank for no good reason), it's not unreasonable to be suspicious.

One could argue that a poor player always has a good reason for going into the tank, since most of them have little clue what they're doing, and presumably are trying to figure out what they should be doing.

[barmar]

One could argue that a poor player always has a good reason for going into the tank, since most of them have little clue what they're doing, and presumably are trying to figure out what they should be doing.

True, it could possibly be argued that tanking is their normal tempo.

[blackshoe]

True, it could possibly be argued that tanking is their normal tempo.

In fact, I did say that the other day when my LHO asked if I agreed that partner had broken tempo — after she passed, his partner bid, and I bid. He apparently found it incredulous that I would not agree. I didn't agree with his timing, either, but we didn't get into that.

[wanoff]

I've seen good players do this on a number of occasions.

 

Not really what this post is about.

The good players you observed may have been tired, slow witted or cheats.

[Vampyr]

Not really what this post is about.

The good players you observed may have been tired, slow witted or cheats.

 

I would not say that the frequent offenders are tired or slow-witted. No, they just think the rules don't apply to them; they are some of the top players, so they deserve more time than everyone else. Opponents sometimes even miss their meal break (breaks on Sundays are short) but the directors never seem to challenge them.

 

One of these great players is fond of playing a card in a suit in which there is a 2-way finesse, and then going into the tank for 3 or 4 minutes. It is something hard to be on the other side of this. Do I take a sip of my drink, do I fold my cards up, look at my watch... I think that probably the best course of action for the opponents is to mirror each other --i.e. one takes a sip of his drink, partner takes a sip of her drink etc. It's not illegal communication, because both players know who holds the missing queen. It is anti-communication.

 

Of course it is a very good idea, after about a minute and a half has gone by, to smile sweetly and say, "If you weren't such an ethical player I'd swear you were looking for a tell".

 

I mean I hate to use the c word, but when you played the jack, the most likely outcome was a small card on your left. Could you not have considered this possibility before leading? Do ethics go out the window when you are trying to give good value to your client?

[barmar]

There's nothing unethical about hoping for a tell from LHO when you lead the Jack. But if you don't notice a hitch, you're back to having to guess. I suppose a good player should anticipate this, and have made up his mind about how he'll play if he doesn't notice anything. But I think there's some psychology going on here -- we tend to postpone tough decisions as long as possible. I'm pretty sure I've occasionally gone into the tank a bit after I've led instead of before, and I may even have noticed it a few times when operating vugraph with national/world champions playing.