[fred]

blackshoe, on Jul 15 2008, 09:10 PM, said:

Better, Fred?

Yes! If anything too good since I personally do not like it when TDs make references to specific laws according to what sound like random numbers and letters to me (12C1 for example).

I realize you might not do this if you were making a real ruling and that you probably only did so here for the sake of clarifying how the rules in this area are meant to work.

Thanks for that.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[mike777]

1) I hope 3c=weak is 100% alertable
2) I hope the opp have a filled out cc.
3) If I do not bother to look at cc blame me to full extant of the law.
4) If no cc or cc is wrong...they get full error and fault.
5) why? no alert, no cc, cc is wrong.

[blackshoe]

fred, on Jul 15 2008, 05:39 PM, said:

blackshoe, on Jul 15 2008, 09:10 PM, said:

Better, Fred? 

Yes! If anything too good since I personally do not like it when TDs make references to specific laws according to what sound like random numbers and letters to me (12C1 for example).

I realize you might not do this if you were making a real ruling and that you probably only did so here for the sake of clarifying how the rules in this area are meant to work.

Thanks for that.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Generally speaking, I don't quote law numbers at the table, because I've found players don't have the patience or the interest. It seems unfortunate to me - it seems it would be hard to say what your basis for an appeal is if you don't know the basis of the ruling - but so be it.

However, when "making rulings" in forums like this, particularly when the question was raised by another TD, I think it's important to make sure to specify the laws and the reasoning behind the ruling. My first post here failed in that, so thanks for catching me on it.

[blackshoe]

hotShot, on Jul 15 2008, 05:10 PM, said:

While the offending side has to prove their agreement, so that the TD can judge between wrong bid or wrong information, the laws on the NOS are much more relaxed.

"Prove" is too strong. The laws say that "in the absence of evidence to the contrary, mistaken explanation shall be presumed rather than mistaken bid". So if the OS want the TD to rule mistaken bid, they have to provide some evidence to that effect. It's up to the TD to judge whether the evidence is sufficient, but proof is not required.

[jillybean]

Thanks all, after a little prompting from FG this has turned into a great thread with very helpful info

[badderzboy]

Another point to this example is the director doesn't need to take responsibility to deciding if NS would reopen but ask peers for their judgement holding the South hand and you hear the auction 1♣-p-3♣(weak)-p-p do you pass or bid and if so what.

If peers make dbl a logical bid then it is fair to judge damage NS and adjust assuming that EW are playing inverted minors as the hand does sort of suggest.

In the UK you may well get a split ruling but this doesn't apply in ACBL.

[uday]

Something feels uncomfortable about this whole situation.

The alert chart says

DONT ALERT "All jump raises in or out of competition except a weak jump raise after a pass by RHO (no competition)"

There is no definition of "weak", is there?

There are many hands in the intersection of "weak jump raise" and "single raise" ( the latter unalertable as far as i can tell). xxx x xxxx Axxxx is one example. In one partnership, I'd bid 3C with this hand, defined as "Club support, single raise strength" . In another partnership, I'd bid 3C with this hand, defined as "Preemptive."

This hand is single raise strength ( 6-10 support points) and it is a hand with which many people would prempt rather than bid 1N ( the usual choices when playing inverted minors ). This hand is also kinda weak, if you look at HCP or defensive capabilities against a H contract.

So I'd argue that this particular NS passed knowing that W could have held a "weak hand" with club support in some contexts. And thus I'd argue, no damage, no redress, since that is exactly what EW held. The award feels like a freebie.

[awm]

I'm pretty sure that in this instance "weak jump raise" means a raise of less than invitational strength, and that mixed jump raises are alertable also. At least this is "rules on the ground" -- admittedly the alert chart is vague.

[hotShot]

uday, on Jul 17 2008, 05:18 PM, said:

Something feels uncomfortable about this whole situation.  

The alert chart says

DONT ALERT "All jump raises in or out of competition except a weak jump raise after a pass by RHO (no competition)"

If a player asks about an unalerted bid, he generates UI. The purpose of the alert is to allow questions about the bidding without generating UI.
One should take it as: "Opps you better ask about this bid."

So we act as if there were a standard bidding system that everybody knows and alert any deviation. Unfortunately there is no universal standard bidding system.
So there is deviation from club to club, from country to country.
I have not seen a good solution to the general alert problem yet.
But it seems logical to define that a 2-level raise should be stronger than a simple raise, and alterable if it is not.

uday, on Jul 17 2008, 05:18 PM, said:

There is no definition of "weak", is there?

I think the new rules define weak hands as 0-9 HCP.


Off Topic:
There are jurisdictions who forbid to alert pass, dbl and redbl. Just imagine the trouble that causes.

[jtfanclub]

uday, on Jul 17 2008, 10:18 AM, said:

Something feels uncomfortable about this whole situation.

The alert chart says

DONT ALERT "All jump raises in or out of competition except a weak jump raise after a pass by RHO (no competition)"

There is no definition of "weak", is there?

There are many hands in the intersection of "weak jump raise" and "single raise" ( the latter unalertable as far as i can tell).

Well, it's all very unclear, just as 1NT may only not include only invitational+ hands. What is invitational?

In this case, this one feels fairly simple to me. The expected meaning of 3♣ is a limit raise. East has a nice 14 count. Therefore, I would expect East to either accept or explore further vs. a limit raise. East didn't. Therefore, East was not expecting a limit raise.

Whether I think this is a warning or an adjustment, it seems clear to me that this should be alerted (as unexpected, if nothing else). So should 3♣ if it could be made on a 3136 hand with just an ace, unless you expect partner to explore further with a hand like East's.

While there's nothing solid about this, the general rule seems to be:

Weak - 0-9
Invitational - 10-12

So if I had to name an fixed rule, if most of the time you bid it it's in the 0-9 range, it's weak. The fuzzy rule would be, if you don't end up in game a significant proportion of the time after you bid it, it's weak. I don't know what significant is. 30%, maybe.

In the ACBL, all responses fit into one or more of Weak, Invitational, or Game Forcing. So the really fuzzy rule would be, if you had to put the bid into one or more of these, where would it go?

There is no 'single raise' rule in the ACBL. If it's a jump raise not in competition that's not invitational, it's alertable.

[blackshoe]

Whether you judge that the NOS "failed to play bridge" or not (and that is, in effect, what Uday is doing) there was still a failure to alert, and the NOS were still damaged thereby, even if some of the damage was mitigated by their subsequent bidding (or lack thereof). To not adjust the score, at least for the OS, is giving them a freebie, and I do not see any reason we should do that.

The new GCC does not define "weak" (or strong, unfortunately) explicitly. There is an implicit definition that a "weak" bid shows less than 10 HCP.

Max Hardy opined that a good 9 points (with a fit) is sufficient for "invitational". I agree with him.

Trying to constrain "weak", "invitational", and "strong" with precise point counts is pointless.

A warning is, in effect, a procedural penalty, and the consideration of when (and how much) a procedural penalty is appropriate is separate from the consideration of when (and to what) to adjust the score.

[mycroft]

To AWM, it is more than anecdotal that rulings are different if you are a newbie or a Name Player, or somewhere in between. That's because some parts of the Laws, and the regulations, refer to the class of player.

I would say that North has a case, if he was going to bid over 3C, were I North (although I don't think I would bid); I would say that South does not have a case, were I South. After the pass, I think (in the ACBL's paranoid regulationset) that querying or checking the card just in case "everybody plays inverted minors, therefore they're not Alertable" is in play here (we have this problem with weak Jump Shifts after 1x-p in my area; "everybody" plays them (well, I don't, at least not into the minors, ugh), and they have no idea that that is Alertable, for instance). Same as I would be expected to check if 1NT-2H is a transfer after opener rebids 2S. That's because "Players who, by experience or expertise, recognize that their opponents have neglected to Alert a special agreement will be expected to protect themselves."

Were I someone less experienced, especially if I were playing two-way Stayman and weak NTs or whatever, then of course one was misinformed.

Similarly, newbies get shorter shrift on bum claims than experts, because there are lines of play that are careless for the newbie, but irrational for the expert. Conversely, newbies get more leeway with hesitations than experts, because frankly, the hesitation means they have 13 cards in their hand, and haven't seen this auction before. You or me, the same hesitation would not only mean a problem, but it is probably obvious what the problem is.

However, what I think you meant, and what I hope remains anecdotal (and hopefully stamped out) is rulings in favour of Name Players just because they are Name Players. How much of that is privilege, how much collegial bias and how much is Expert Knowledge Transfer I don't know, but I know I try to rule the same whether it's the 99er game or Mr. and Mrs. Olympic Gold Medal (of course, I don't know too many Name Players (or maybe, not many Name Players know me) yet).

[skjaeran]

ArcLight, on Jul 15 2008, 10:41 PM, said:

BTW - why did East oepn 1 Club and not 1 Diamond? WIth 4-4 and better Diamonds?

In 'most of the world' it's a standard 1♣ opener.

[rigour6]

I agree, this has been a very helpful thread.

My own view is that the raise must be weak because holding that hand and bidding 3C, there's no way I want partner to be thinking about bidding again, unless he's holding a just barely sub 2C opener. That's my standard.

Fred's right, of course, and reminds me that you should be a little more systematic and detailed in your explanation while you conduct your inquiries/make your ruling.

But here's the rub: time.

In a face to face game, yes, you do occasionally get the director calls backed up, but it's rare - and you have time. You can do the "let's go for a walk" thing where you take a player away from the table, ask him to show you his hand, ask what he thought the bid meant, what he would have bid had he known, etc. I appreciate that you can do that in private chat online as well BUT in ftf it does not slow the tourney. First of all, in ftf play, people don't leave. I've seen it happen four times, 2 were medical emergencies, one was a ahem partnership misunderstanding, and the last one was pretty funny, the players were new and asked "that's it, then?" on the penultimate round, the opponents thought they were asking is this round over, and said yes. The new guys were asking was that the end of the last round, they left, lol.

In online play, when you're TDing, sub calls are pretty much a constant buzzing sound. Don't tell me to maintain a ban list for disconnects - mine has (no exaggeration) over 400 people on it. It's a race between me to ban people and the universe who keeps coming up with more people who disconnect. So far the universe is winning.

Ftf also has the "late play" option. BBO doesn't.

In ftf, you can call the round, and hope your table with the ruling can catch up within a couple of minutes. In BBO depending on the format, the round does not move until the last table finishes (one reason why I rarely TD in Swiss or survivor formats). So online your duty to the field to keep things moving is higher. And if you don't attend to that duty, two things happen: one is disconnects, and the other is angry calls, which take more time to get off the screen.

Speaking of angry calls, when you are at a table making a ruling, the other people know where you are, what you're doing, and they understand this is part of the game and there may be a delay occasioned by it. Online, they don't know these things, this makes them more likely to message you about the delay, and less likely to be tolerant of the delay. You can't call over your shoulder, "be with you in a second". If you want them to wait, you have to type that in, again taking you off the task at hand. Here's how it typically goes: Our hero TD is at table 5 trying to put humpty dumpty together again.

Table 8 N: please come
(brief pause)
Director is requested to Table 8. (close or move pop-up)
Table 8 N: we need you here
(briefer pause)
Table 8 N: hello? EW are talking Polish. Please come.
(very tiny pause)
Table 8 W: Opps not playing
Table 8 S: please come to table 8
Director is requested to Table 8. (close or move pop-up)
Message direct to 8N: I am at another table, please stand by.
Table 8 S: table 8.
Table 8 W: Why you not come?
Table 8 N: (to tourney) don't bother calling the TD in this tourney, he won't come.
Sub needed: Table 8E has disconnected.

This is happening in-between trying to figure out Table 5 and dealing with 3 ticked off people there.

The tools you have are to possibly average a later board to try and catch them up to the field. Do that, and watch the players scream bloody murder.

This is again in a fun online tourney with no money on the table.

What do you do? You take shortcuts. You ask them to finish play and tell them you'll look at it later. When you get a free moment, you do, and you make an adjustment.
It's harder to ask questions then because the players have moved on to other hands most likely. You can't send them a group message anymore, and you haven't time to send them 4 seperate ones. You adjust, then you answer their individual outraged demands as to why you made that adjustment, try to accept their insults, and sub someone in for them when they leave in a huff. Note this happens, regardless of the merits of the case. Had an auction the other day, guy overcalled with a 6 card suit headed by KQ, and alerted it as "psychic". Opponents bailed on the auction and the guy rolled up his 2 contract making for a top. I adjusted, he asked why. I assumed he was a newbie and explained to him that a) his bid wasn't psychic and "psychic" is not actually a good alert explanation and c) without his action the opponents would have found their normal contract. Given the lack of experience I assumed he had, I adjusted it to Ave. (note: I know I shouldn't have, it should be A- to him, and I explained that to him, that typically in this thing I should adjust his side to an Ave minus). He disconnected. This sort of thing: unusual in the details (don't recall seeing a "psychic" alert before), not at all unusual in the course of action.

So you don't always explain your ruling. You don't always ask all the questions you should/would in ftf.

And sometimes I just go "good lord, I haven't time for this" and I wipe the board to an average, and we can pretend it just never happened. Is this right? No. But is easy, expeditious, and fair to the field. I'll take my abuse for it, including from this forum, and points well taken. I shouldn't do it. I try to avoid it. But it's a fun tourney, no money on the table. So sometimes I do.

[blackshoe]

"fair to the field" is debatable.

[jillybean]

Rigour6,

I think the key here is that you know the rules of the game and you do your best. I can’t remember reading your tournament rules but I don’t imagine you’d have anything like ‘2 trick penalty for non alert'
Sometimes things go awry and all you can do is what you’ve said, A== for everyone. No it’s not correct but I doubt you’d be trying to sell it as correct.

Free games are played “at your own risk” , even some pay tournaments have rules such as no psyches pos1&2. Perhaps the poster who said there is no such thing as a serious game online is correct.
Its sad, I think these “tournaments” are detrimental to the game but what can you do. Look at the attendance rates, people don’t care or don’t know any different.

[jillybean]

Perhaps we need a group for 'serious bridge', consisting of players who appreciate the rules.

[rigour6]

blackshoe, on Aug 1 2008, 09:27 AM, said:

"fair to the field" is debatable.

It is. Perhaps, "often fairer to the field than letting the board stand" is a better way to say it.

I don't claim to be a clever man. Sometimes in a ftf game, I need to actually think about the adjustment for a couple of minutes. I've got lots of questions to ask myself, in terms of UI, level of players, differences in the contract, differences in the lead, what line of play could be taken, whether there's "agreement", whether there's damage, the afore-mentioned "did one side fail to play bridge", the afore-mentioned "is that in fact an inverted minor raise or it a (mis)judged invitational raise", the afore-mentioned "could/should the non-offending side have been reasonably expected to take action to protect/better inform themselves"? I've got more questions I could ask, but what I'm trying to do is restore the score for the hand to what it would have been had the infraction not taken place. In a ftf game, I have more time, i can often work it through. Even then, sometimes, it's controversial. You do get cases where your ruling is idiosyncratic (if the guy playing north had been sitting south, I'd rule one way, but since he wasn't, it goes another way - not because of like/dislike, but because of level of experience/skill). Online? Again, compared to ftf, I'm shooting into the dark, unless I hilariously choose to believe people who describe themselves as "experts" and "world-class".

I know some players want/expect/demand that what I should do is punish the offending side. They have a quick and easy answer: these guys did something wrong, so we get a top (or more often, an ave +). But that, to my understanding, is not what I'm supposed to do - and part of the reason it's not is that throwing ave +/- s around distorts the results for the field.

And I'm lazy. So here comes the ave =, and let's go on about our day.

I take jilly's point, which is that I should by rights insist dogmatically that proper bridge be played at all times, and my rulings should do likewise. When I am lax, I do my players (or the game) no favours in the long run. Mea culpa. Maybe I am part of the problem as much as part of the solution. But I hope not. Also, I do note that for some people, the stakes in this game are not so high, they just want to enjoy themselves and that's it. Else how can you explain ghoulash? Personally, I'd rather play parcheesi than ghoulash, it's like listening to "The Chipmunks Sing The Songs of Leonard Cohen". But the people in ghoulash seem to be having a good time, so who am I to judge? (I do judge, mind you, oh how I judge). Vive la difference.

[blackshoe]

rigour6, on Aug 1 2008, 11:38 AM, said:

Online? Again, compared to ftf, I'm shooting into the dark, unless I hilariously choose to believe people who describe themselves as "experts" and "world-class".

There are some cases, at least, where one could rule adverse to the self-described "world class" or "expert" player on the grounds that what (s)he did was "irrational, wild, or gambling" for a player of that class. A few such rulings might persuade the person to change his or her profile.

Quote

I know some players want/expect/demand that what I should do is punish the offending side.  They have a quick and easy answer: these guys did something wrong, so we get a top (or more often, an ave +).  But that, to my understanding, is not what I'm supposed to do - and part of the reason it's not is that throwing ave +/- s around distorts the results for the field.

No, it's not what you're supposed to do. As for players demanding that you make any particular ruling, sorry, no, that's not how it works. You make your rulings according to the laws and regulations in force. If players don't like that, they can either appeal (good luck) or take their ball and bat and go home.

Quote

And I'm lazy.  So here comes the ave =, and let's go on about our day.

In the 2007 laws, there is this new law:

Law 12C1(d) said:

If the possibilities are numerous or not obvious, the Director may award an artificial adjusted score.

That's in lieu of an assigned adjusted score. IMO, to use this law, or to award average to both sides instead of determining degree of fault, out of laziness (admitted or otherwise) is dereliction of the TD's duty to rule in accordance with the laws (see Laws 81B2 and 82A).

IMO, duplicate bridge ought to be serious enough that players and TDs expect to adhere to the rules. If folks want a more relaxed game, let 'em play in the rubber room. (Pun intended. )

[rigour6]

blackshoe, on Aug 1 2008, 12:13 PM, said:

In the 2007 laws, there is this new law:

Law 12C1(d) said:

If the possibilities are numerous or not obvious, the Director may award an artificial adjusted score.

That's in lieu of an assigned adjusted score. IMO, to use this law, or to award average to both sides instead of determining degree of fault, out of laziness (admitted or otherwise) is dereliction of the TD's duty to rule in accordance with the laws (see Laws 81B2 and 82A).

IMO, duplicate bridge ought to be serious enough that players and TDs expect to adhere to the rules. If folks want a more relaxed game, let 'em play in the rubber room. (Pun intended. )

Love the pun. I think your post touches on the heart of the question: what's the standard? If I find fault on both sides (they should have alerted, but they should have asked - taking your point those aren't equal faults) does ave = pop up as an option? Or is 51-49% fault sufficient to trigger A+-? If it is, I think most missed alerts end up in Ave +- territory, barring the more proper action of a substituted score. Because to me those other factors (experience etc) might provide a context for adjustment, but in terms of fault, the primary fault will always lie with the missed alert. That's the thing that started us down the wrong path, even if the opponents had the last "clear chance to avoid the accident", if I may borrow that phrase.

This is where I lose my way, because my reading of the laws doesn't call me to do this sort of "quantum of guilt" calculation in the primary case - absent actions which are "malicious".

I should be clear that I am confessing laziness, not excusing or advocating for it.
Likewise, I am pleading time constraints and informality of tournament as mitigating circumstances - not defenses.

So in summary
1) Yes I feel I should conduct a proper examination, rather than slip into Ave = as a cop-out, but
2) I am not sure that I understand on an instinctive level the degree of fault necessary to trigger ave +-. To my way of thinking, it stands out as a case where the fault is larger than technical, or the damage to the other side is clear but difficult to quantify with any confidence.


But I am interested in the guidance of others as to the 2nd point particularly.