[lamford]

StevenG, on 2011-March-03, 03:54, said:

If you do not know what the UI is, or what it suggests, you cannot possibly be taking advantage of the UI by ignoring it.

That does not, however, absolve you of your responsibilities under Law 16.

It seems hard to "ignore it" if you do not what it is or what it suggests. But, yes, if you were unaware that partner took thirty seconds to bid 3NT, having broken off to take two diazepam tablets before bidding, then you could not be accused of taking advantage of the UI, which you are not aware of, by ignoring it.

[gnasher]

If partner makes a slow natural jump, that might suggest that he was thinking of something lower. eg

pass 2♠ dbl pass
4♥

If 4♥ was slow, that suggests he was considering a weaker action. With a marginal slam try, therefore, the doubler is obliged to move.

[pran]

pran, on 2011-March-02, 10:12, said:

I no longer remember the details, but I have once adjusted the result on a board from 5♥= to 6♥-1 on the ground that pass (to 5♥) rather than bidding 6♥ "could demonstrably have been suggested" by UI.

gwnn, on 2011-March-03, 05:09, said:

I've spent the last 16 hours trying to come up with an auction where this makes sense and I don't see it. Could you give a possible example? I don't care about the actual details, just a possible case where it makes sense.

I think whenever we have a slam auction and I bid 5♥ slowly, I show that I think maybe 6♥ could be a better contract, either I wanted to bid 6♥ directly, or cuebid before. When partner passes 5♥, he carefully avoided taking advantage of my hesitation and should be commended.

The best I could come up with is something like
1H-4H
..5H-pass ? (i.e. the 5♥ itself is the slam try)
this case is very complicated. I suppose a slow slam try like this could show either a minimum or a maximum, and since a minimum is more likely than a maximum, raising is less likely to succeed.

I believe the original case was a Blackwood sequence, but your case is as good an example as any:

If the jump to 4♥ (limit raise) was made on a maximum hand and the raise to 5♥ was apparently very reluctant I would quite possibly adjust a pass to 6♥ if it only makes 5.

[AlexJonson]

pran, on 2011-March-03, 07:04, said:

If TD can show that there is UI and that a player "who had a logical alternative has chosen an action that could have been suggested by such information" he "shall assign an adjusted score (see Law 12C) if he considers that an infraction of law has resulted in an advantage for the offender". (Law 73C leading to 16B3)

Violations of Law 73 other than those leading us directly to Law 16B3 are still subject to rectification and/or PP. Such PP is not depending on any advantage for the offender.

Thank you Pran.

If we are always in 16B3 territory, then given the lack of consensus on this case, it follows that a poll would be the only way to resolve it (IMO).

[gwnn]

gnasher, on 2011-March-03, 07:11, said:

If partner makes a slow natural jump, that might suggest that he was thinking of something lower. eg

pass 2♠ dbl pass
4♥

If 4♥ was slow, that suggests he was considering a weaker action. With a marginal slam try, therefore, the doubler is obliged to move.

fair enough. just goes to show that 16 hours is not enough for me.

[Vampyr]

pran, on 2011-March-03, 07:16, said:

I believe the original case was a Blackwood sequence, but your case is as good an example as any:

Really? I should have thought that Hesitation Blackwood cases are always rolled back to the 5-level. I cannot imagine penalising, I mean rectifying, a player for not respecting his partner's signoff.

[dburn]

AlexJonson, on 2011-March-02, 15:09, said:

But Pran, that exactly seems to be the result of allowing people to choose between Laws 73 and 16 when they rule (according to dburn and Lamford).

I notice that neither dburn or Lamford care to deal with that, do you?

I have observed in another thread that, at least in the ACBL, any action (however illogical) chosen by a player in possession of UI is now considered a logical alternative for that player. That thread was constructed by lamford in order to "deal with" the issue raised here, so I hope at least that AlexJonson will discontinue to believe that either of us is avoiding the question.

I observe here that if a player considers that any selection from among logical alternatives is likely to work badly for his side (because if it succeeds, it will be ruled against), he may not attempt to avoid the provisions of Law 16 by selecting an illogical action, because to do so is a violation of Law 73. The ACBL minute from the Reno meeting was designed, as far as I can see, to bring the selection of an illogical (in the wider context) action within the purview of Law 16, and a praiseworthy effort it was too. It is deeply flawed, but that is only because the Laws themselves are deeply flawed.

At the moment, the second best advice I can give to a player in possession of UI who is (correctly) trying to maximise his side's score is this: select from among logical alternatives that which you think is least likely to be overturned if it works. This is rather more cynical than the "Rubens approach" (advocated in The Bridge World passim for about thirty years), which is in essence "do what you would have done anyway and accept adverse rulings with good grace". But it isn't much more cynical: if you are correct in thinking that your action is least likely to be overturned if it works, you are less likely to incur an adverse ruling than otherwise.

The best advice I can give is to play with someone who doesn't transmit UI. But well it was said by the bard:

A man has horns in Tufnell Park.
A man eats clocks in Camberwell.
A man plays billiards in the dark
Entirely by the sense of smell.
A man I knew extremely well
Went up to bed and met a bear
That said its name was Little Nell -
But cases of the kind are rare.

[AlexJonson]

[quote name='dburn' timestamp='1299195949' post='532643']
I have observed in another thread that, at least in the ACBL, any action (however illogical) chosen by a player in possession of UI is now considered a logical alternative for that player. That thread was constructed by lamford in order to "deal with" the issue raised here, so I hope at least that AlexJonson will discontinue to believe that either of us is avoiding the question.

I observe here that if a player considers that any selection from among logical alternatives is likely to work badly for his side (because if it succeeds, it will be ruled against), he may not attempt to avoid the provisions of Law 16 by selecting an illogical action, because to do so is a violation of Law 73. The ACBL minute from the Reno meeting was designed, as far as I can see, to bring the selection of an illogical (in the wider context) action within the purview of Law 16, and a praiseworthy effort it was too. It is deeply flawed, but that is only because the Laws themselves are deeply flawed.

(...)

Of course I agree that selection of a bid that noone else would make, and that would almost always result in a poor score, can only be treated as a logical alternative for reasons of convenience (quite possibly good reasons in the interest of the game).

I don't see the connection between this line of thought and situations such as the case in this thread.

Anyway if it is all really a bit of scholasticism to while away the time, while the practical player just passes slow game bids and slow doubles, then it is not nearly as much of a problem as I imagined.

[Vampyr]

AlexJonson, on 2011-March-03, 18:40, said:

Of course I agree that selection of a bid that noone else would make, and that would almost always result in a poor score, can only be treated as a logical alternative for reasons of convenience (quite possibly good reasons in the interest of the game).

I don't see the connection between this line of thought and situations such as the case in this thread.

Why only for reasons of convenience? It made sense at the time, after all.

Anyway, the connection between this line of thought and situations such as the case in this thread is that they are identical.

[AlexJonson]

Vampyr, on 2011-March-03, 19:38, said:

Why only for reasons of convenience? It made sense at the time, after all.

Anyway, the connection between this line of thought and situations such as the case in this thread is that they are identical.

Are you confusing this thread with Lamfords invention to investigate Law 73? This thread seems a standard example of choice of genuine candidate logical alternatives.