BBO Discussion Forums: Major Penalty card - BBO Discussion Forums

 iviehoff, on 2012-October-03, 10:20, said:

That general understanding is wrong. You aren't required to draw attention to your own irregularities (9A4), but once attention has been drawn you "the Director should be summoned at once" (9B1a).

However, since this is a "should" rather than a "must", failure is not often penalized. I think the way these "should" infractions is often dealt with is that we don't penalize if the failure is inconsequential. But when it results in damage, it's appropriate to penalize so they learn the lesson and don't get away with it.

As an analogy, traffic cops don't usually give speeding tickets if you're less than 10 MPH above the speed limit (except maybe at speed traps). But if you're 5 MPH over the limit AND you cause an accident, they'll probably cite you for both infractions (and look for any other minor infractions they can heap on).

I am surprised that nobody seems to grasp the idea of awarding a split score here: For declaring side the table result and for defending side the likely score had they called the Director.

True, the Director can impose a PP for the same result, but why bother with PP's when you can achieve the same with split score in a way which is easier accepted by the players?

 pran, on 2012-October-03, 13:50, said:

Under what law are you adjusting the score of the defence (and only the defence)?

 iviehoff, on 2012-October-04, 01:36, said:

Law 12C1f said:

Humph. That is like using "may" to decide you can weight the scores or not dependent on whether your friends are involved.

Of course the adjusted scores need not balance. Even the most junior TD has learnt that. However that does not mean that you can split the score because your friends are involved, or because your wife shouted at you before you left the house this morning. It means that you can split the scores for cause.

So the question remains:

 iviehoff, on 2012-October-04, 01:36, said:

 pran, on 2012-October-03, 13:50, said:

 bluejak, on 2012-October-04, 04:35, said:

Was my reply to this question invisible?

 VixTD, on 2012-October-02, 11:03, said:

 iviehoff, on 2012-October-04, 01:36, said:

 VixTD, on 2012-October-04, 06:32, said:

If you mean the first of the three posts quoted here, which was post # 10 in the thread and is on the first page of the topic, no, not invisible, but it's interesting that you "replied" to the question in the second quote (post # 23, page 2) long before it was asked. As for the argument you present (a split score based on Law 12B1), I don't think it holds water. For one thing, you're talking about multiple offenses with different offending and non-offending sides. For another, I don't think 12B1 justifies splitting the score - that would have to be justified by some other law (for example, the provision in 12C1{b} for splitting a score after a SEWoG by the NOS, which doesn't apply here).

If you talking about some reply to post # 23 that you made after that post, then yes, it's invisible. In fact, it's not here at all (I can see "invisible" posts).

 VixTD, on 2012-October-04, 06:32, said:

It was asked of Pran, and he had not indicated that he was adopting your argument, in fact he doesn't appear to have noticed it because he said that nobody had considered it.

But let's look at your argument, a bit further than the unfortunaate reference to 12B1, because you give some sort of an argument if we look further than that. (It is clear from 12C1(a) that you still need to point to a specific legal justification somewhere else for adjusting, and 12B1 is just a general philosophy of adjustment, not a specific irregularity which gives grounds for adjustment.)

Your argument for adjusting is the offence of failing to call the director. There is no specific power to adjust for that offence, so to adjust you'd have to use 12A1, which is a general power, rarely used, to adjust for anything where the laws don't give indemnity. As I already said, I don't like adjusting for failing to call the director on this occasion, because it isn't really sufficiently clear to the players that attention was in fact drawn to treat them as offending in my view. Your grounds for a split score is that both sides are offending, which is a correct argument for a split score, but the offence of the other side is also failing to call, which as I said I don't like. There's a third issue I don't like with this ruling, which is that 12A1 refers to giving indemnity, but by treating both sides as offending and therefore adjusting one side down but not the other up, so you aren't giving anyone indemnity. But that maybe probably an arguable point.

 bluejak, on 2012-October-04, 04:35, said:

I consider this text an insult that I would never expect from any person considering himself a gentleman.

Of course split scores, like any adjusted score are used for cause.

And may I just remind that PPs should seldom if ever be used to rectify an unfair result, they are penalties, not rectifications.

I just thought it was odd that Pran asked whether anyone had considered awarding non-balancing scores, when I had done just that. Iviehoff and Bluejak asked under what law a non-balancing score could be given, and I thought I had explained that too.

I still think my ruling is correct. I did look to other laws than 12B1, but that seemed to be the one that fitted best. I was considering the failure to call the director when required to do so an "offence" for the purposes of 12B1, and so it is, but if we take as the original offence the revoke, then at that point EW are the only offending side, and law 11A states that:

Quote

Maybe that means if no rectification is given to one side, none may be given to the other side either. Still considering NS as non-offending as far as the revoke is concerned, law 12C1(b) states that:

Quote

Could failure to call the director be regarded as a "serious error"? Probably. "Unrelated to the infraction"? That depends what sort of "relationship" you have in mind. It could at a stretch be called "wild or gambling".

I still prefer 12B1, and if you insist, 12A1. It fits with the explicit intent of the laws, and serves justice.

 VixTD, on 2012-October-04, 12:10, said:

I think it is best not to pursue that line of reasoning. We may find that calling the director could be regarded as "wild or gambling".

 VixTD, on 2012-October-04, 12:10, said:

On browsing back in this thread I discover that you indeed did just that. At the time I didn't notice, but I agree that you gave a very good explanation.

What worried me was the suggestions for apparently using PP to restore equity, that is plain simple abuse of the PP tool.

VixTD said:

In my view, failure to call the TD to assess rectification is "wild", far more so than, for example, making a poor call later in the auction after a UI infraction.

Another possibility is to say that both sides are "offending" as the problem was caused by the infraction of failing to call the TD. In ACBL-land this would be easy, we could apply Law 12C1e(ii) to each side, but using 12C1e does not appear to be allowed in the EBU.

Standing on the table and singing the Hallelujah Chorus is wild, but I don't expect it would have any impact on this ruling.

I can't recall anyone ever using SEWoG to refer to anything other than bridge decisions, not legal decisions. I admit that there's nothing in the Laws that supports this restriction, but it's just not how I think anyone has ever understood that Law to be used.

 barmar, on 2012-October-04, 20:57, said:

A revoke would be treated as a SEWoG, wouldn't it? That's an accidental failure to follow the rules which is likely to damage one's own side. It seems to me that not calling the director in this situation is a more serious error, because it's an intentional breach of the rules.

 VixTD, on 2012-October-04, 12:10, said:

12B1 is never a reason to adjust, this is well established. It really is a basic error to think it can ever be a reason. So I think you need to know never to cite to 12B1 as your reason to adjust. 12A1 is a reason to adjust, but since it in essence says that there is a hole in the laws it needs to be very sparingly used. With so many irregularities around that have specific rectifications, it seems curious to need to point to 12A1 on this occasion. What's wrong with Law 23?

In relation to 12C1b, I am happy at the suggestion that failing to call the director to assess rectification of the opponent's obvious successive irregularities committed in plain sight is a serious error, but it clearly it is fully bound up with those irregularities. If there were two quite separate irregularities, you could say failing to call for the second one is a serious error that you would use to change your adjustment for the first one. Here it is all of a piece.

Jeffrey and others suggest that it might be "wild" or "gambling". "Wild" is doing things you know are mad without regard to the consequences, and I don't think it was anything like that. In fact the player was quite the opposite of wild, he was meek. "Gambling" is making a conscious decision to do something you know is against the odds in the hope that on this occasion it will prove the winning decision. It wasn't anything like that either.

So I really don't think we are in 12C1b territory. But even if we were in 12C1b territory, in 2007 we stopped the practice of just giving the table score to the wild/erroneous side. Rather what you have to do these days is grant the adjustment for the thing you are adjusting for, and then separately assess the cost of the subsequent error/wildness.

Quite clearly 11A is pertinent. The non-offending side (for the tangible irregularities, not the failure to call point) took action before the rectification. This is why in my original post I was entirely happy that the non-offending side get no rectification - it all happened in plain sight, and they need to learn to call the director. The question, that Bluejak importantly made, is whether we want to do something to keep the offending side honest. In such a case the non-offending side would normally then benefit from that adjustment, unless you have SEWOG or both sides offending as cause to split the score.

As I said before, putting the unfortunate references to 12B1 to one side, your approach is a legal approach (the dubiousness of using 12A1 when treating both sides as offending, aside), it just depends on a series of judgments (as many rulings to) which I disagree with. I ask again - what's wrong with Law 23? There's a solid reason to adjust. 12A1 only applies when there is no other solid reason to adjust.

Ok. The revoke was ruled without the TD being called, that's true, and certainly a mistake by the declarer. In effect the defender ruled her own card as a major penalty card and left it face up on the table.

Now let's consider Law 50D1A. This is a Law about the disposition of a major penalty card. It applies whether the TD is called or not. It was breached. What action are you going to take against the offending side for breaching it?

 iviehoff, on 2012-October-05, 02:02, said:

You keep saying this, and calling it "unfortunate", but how was this established, where and by whom? I agree with you that it would be nice if we could find a law that explicitly permits a split score here, but I'm not sure we can.

 iviehoff, on 2012-October-05, 02:02, said:

This just tells you to award an adjusted score "if the offender could have known (etc.)". It doesn't make any mention of non-balancing scores.

 iviehoff, on 2012-October-05, 02:02, said:

I'm aware of that, I was just assuming that the wild or gambling (in)action (the failure to call the director) cost NS the entire score for the contract plus that for the undertrick(s), so I was just "undoing" that part of the adjustment for them.

 bluejak, on 2012-October-05, 06:39, said:

There is a specific law on what one should do when that breach occurs, it is L 52. But we have been unable to agree on what L 52 means (the word "accept" is especially problematic - does it mean "no further rectification"? does it mean this is no longer deemed a revoke?) or make it consistent with the laws on revokes (is this still a revoke? does "accept"-ance mean it established? does "accept"-ance limit declarer's right to draw attention to an unestablished revoke and see it corrected? does L 64C apply?). These issues have been much discussed above. A fallback option is to apply L 23. A fallback fallback option is to apply L 12A1.