[fred]

The wheels are spinning.

In the past 24 hours I have received:

1) An e-mail from the ACBL Recorder that stated that our complaint was being investigated and asked me if I wanted to add anything to my original report.

2) A cc of an e-mail from the alleged offender to the ACBL Recorder that tried to explain the other side of the story. I don't think it would be appropriate to quote from that e-mail here, but I will confirm:

- The alleged offender clearly acknowledged the intentional violation of the rules that I reported.

- The alleged offender tried to justify these actions based on repeated claims (which I strongly disagree with) that my partner and I frequently psych 1NT openings and that we intentionally fail to disclose details of our agreements in this area.

That's all I have to say about this matter for now.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[McBruce]

Thanks for that, Fred.

I have some serious doubts about whether this should be going to a Recorder, although the guidelines for the National Recorder may be different from the Unit Recorder position I am familiar with, having known several local Unit Recorders and approved and suggested people for the position when I was a member of the local Unit Board. It was always my understanding that the Recorder option was an option given when the situation required a confidential investigation of a matter that might indicate a breach of ethics, but might also be an innocent misunderstanding of the rules. Filling out a Recorder form allows a discreet investigation without any publicity, and also--in very, very rare cases--allows a hearing for ethics or conduct violations to be made aware of the nature volume, and relevance of Recorder complaints against a player.

This incident, I suspect, is not the type of incident that the Recorder process was made for. We can't have a situation where both sides think the other is blatantly abusing the Laws -- and not get a resolution, especially in the middle of a major event. Surely at an NABC there is an Ethics Committee or a Laws Committee or some body that can be convened to make a decision, at least for the duration of the event, and review it all later if necessary.

If I were in Fred's chair (I'd be a much better player than I'll ever be, but never mind that...) I'd have to wonder whether the pair had any other surprises in store, and whether any of them were going to cost IMPs. I would expect the TD to make some decision on whether the non-disclosure was illegal or not at the time, even if uncertain (Law 85B), and refer the matter to the appropriate Committee ASAP (Law 81C7). It doesn't sound like this was what happened at all. Instead, the Recorder option was offered. I think that's inappropriate.

[awm]

The director's job is normally to restore equity. If there was damage on the particular board in question, then the director would do something about it. But Fred indicated that the result of the board was normal and not interesting.

The issue here is ethics and possible cheating due to an intentional failure to disclose. There is also a counter-charge of undisclosed frequent psychics against Fred's side. The proper forum for addressing these things is not the director -- it's a disciplinary committee. The recorder is in charge of (among other things) gathering the evidence to be presented to such a committee.

It was my impression that testimony to the recorder was confidential. In fact I find it amusing that the various posters on this thread have taken such care to avoid revealing the identities of Fred's opponents (although it is not hard to figure out their identities by doing a bit of research) but then Jan posted an excerpt from a confidential recorder form directly to this forum. In fact I felt the need to report that post, as it seems like an abuse of her influential position in ACBL/WBF. I suppose it is nice to know that recorder forms don't simply vanish into oblivion, but it is also somewhat troubling to see that certain people who have no direct involvement in the case are allowed to read and publicize the contents of these forms, and it is also troubling to compare the quick action to address the complaints of some players (i.e. Fred) with the glacial (or non-existent) pace of addressing the complaints of other players (my friends and I have filed many recorder forms to no effect).

[fred]

helene_t, on Aug 7 2009, 12:12 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Aug 7 2009, 01:00 PM, said:

This raises another big question:  Just WHY are the opponents alerting their third seat penalty doubles.

Penalty doubles aren't alertable.  An agreement to alert them could easily be viewed as an deliberate attempt to conceal the fact that they ARE playing penalty doubles in this situation.

I don't think so. They were playing behind screens, so my guess would be that they explained the "penalty" spontaneously rather than just alerting.

We were not playing behind screens.

In the Spingold (and Vanderbilt) play behind screens starts in the round-of-16. The incident in question happened in the round-of-32.

Richard raises an interesting point and I agree with him that alerting their non-alertable penalty Doubles had the potential to further compound the consequences of my opponents' poorly-judged decisions, but my strong sense is that the alert of the penalty Double was actually made in the spirit of proper disclosure (as opposed to being intended to further deceive us).

That is not to say that I agree that my opponent "should have alerted" - the right way to think about this IMO is that my opponents should have never put themselves in this (impossible) position to begin with.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[JanM]

awm, on Aug 8 2009, 12:46 PM, said:

It was my impression that testimony to the recorder was confidential. In fact I find it amusing that the various posters on this thread have taken such care to avoid revealing the identities of Fred's opponents (although it is not hard to figure out their identities by doing a bit of research) but then Jan posted an excerpt from a confidential recorder form directly to this forum. In fact I felt the need to report that post, as it seems like an abuse of her influential position in ACBL/WBF. I suppose it is nice to know that recorder forms don't simply vanish into oblivion, but it is also somewhat troubling to see that certain people who have no direct involvement in the case are allowed to read and publicize the contents of these forms, and it is also troubling to compare the quick action to address the complaints of some players (i.e. Fred) with the glacial (or non-existent) pace of addressing the complaints of other players (my friends and I have filed many recorder forms to no effect).

I was sent the statement (not a "recorder form" because it was Fred who filed the recorder form) by the person who wrote it, with an express statement that I could forward it to anyone else. I did not get it because of any confidential position I may hold (and indeed I do not have any confidential position with either ACBL or WBF, but everyone seems to get USBF confused with those other two organizations). I posted the excerpt only because I had previously stated that I thought Fred's opponents had not deliberately concealed their methods from him and the excerpt contradicted that statement.

[awm]

Apologies to Jan. I misinterpreted the statement "I have now read Fred's opponents' statement to the recorder" which sounded an awful lot like the supposedly private testimony to the recorder had been read and posted. If the opponents in question sent you this information voluntarily and wanted it posted to BBO that is of course a different situation entirely.

[TimG]

awm, on Aug 8 2009, 12:46 PM, said:

The issue here is ethics and possible cheating due to an intentional failure to disclose. There is also a counter-charge of undisclosed frequent psychics against Fred's side. The proper forum for addressing these things is not the director -- it's a disciplinary committee. The recorder is in charge of (among other things) gathering the evidence to be presented to such a committee.

If these things come to light at a tournament through the directing staff, the Director-In-Charge is empowered (or at least was ~5 years ago) to send a charge to a disciplinary committee.

[cherdanno]

Btw, while some of the posts in this thread are a little painful to read, I have to smile every time I read the thread title - a legal opinion is never that quick, I suppose.