[PeterAlan]

I'd be grateful for views / education on this one, to aid my understanding on how to deal with such cases - I wasn't involved in making the ruling, and wasn't party to the discussions that led to it. Having dipped into the White Book I have a question on one particular aspect of it, as below, but I'd be grateful for any general comments on the determination as well.

A ruling from the club tonight:

---

Table result: 5♥X -1; E/W +200

E's Pass of 4♥ was very slow, and led to N asking for a ruling on W's 5♣ bid. The ruling handed down was 50% of 4♥= & 50% of 5♥X -1; N/S +210.

My specific question is about the application of the Reveley ruling guidance in 16.3 of the White Book. That's written in black and white terms of a call being "disallowed because the TD judges that an illegal alternative was chosen when unauthorised information was present", but here, in effect, the TD has decided that 50% of the time 5♣ was disallowed and 50% of the time it wasn't. Enlightenment, please!

PeterAlan

PS: How does one add comments / highlights to bids during hand diagram creation, please?

[nige1]

PeterAlan, on 2011-March-16, 19:07, said:

Table result: 5♥X -1; E/W +200
E's Pass of 4♥ was very slow, and led to N asking for a ruling on W's 5♣ bid. The ruling handed down was 50% of 4♥= & 50% of 5♥X -1; N/S +210.
My specific question is about the application of the Reveley ruling guidance in 16.3 of the White Book. That's written in black and white terms of a call being "disallowed because the TD judges that an illegal alternative was chosen when unauthorised information was present", but here, in effect, the TD has decided that 50% of the time 5♣ was disallowed and 50% of the time it wasn't. Enlightenment, please!

---

I hate Reveley rulings. In this context, a Reveley ruling must be illegal.

[RMB1]

PeterAlan, on 2011-March-16, 19:07, said:

My specific question is about the application of the Reveley ruling guidance in 16.3 of the White Book. That's written in black and white terms of a call being "disallowed because the TD judges that an illegal alternative was chosen when unauthorised information was present", but here, in effect, the TD has decided that 50% of the time 5♣ was disallowed and 50% of the time it wasn't. Enlightenment, please!

This is an illegal (Reveley) ruling. Pass is a logical alternative to 5♣ and all other logical alternatives are suggested over Pass. So West was required by Law 16 to Pass and we must rule on the basis that 5♣ is replaced by Pass. This ends the auction, so the only weighted outcomes we might consider are the possible results of playing in 4♥.

Weighted ruling come from Law 12, which applies after actions have been disallowed by Law 16. Law 16 does not allow for actions influenced by unauthorised actions to occur some fraction of the time.

If, on a different hand, East bid a disallowed 5♣ over 4♥ by North, then we may allow some proportion of the result of West passing or bidding 5♣ when 4♥ comes round to him.

[bluejak]

PeterAlan, on 2011-March-16, 19:07, said:

PS: How does one add comments / highlights to bids during hand diagram creation, please?

When you use a hand diagram there is a box under each call. If you put something in there [for example, 'Alerted' or '12 to 14'] before you name the call, the call will appear in the diagram in a Yellow box, and your comment will appear if you click on it.

Note that in the thread pinned to the top of each of these four forums there is some guidance over the use of forum software. If anyone can think of anything else they think should be included please tell Ed or me.

[PeterAlan]

bluejak, on 2011-March-17, 09:12, said:

When you use a hand diagram there is a box under each call. If you put something in there [for example, 'Alerted' or '12 to 14'] before you name the call, the call will appear in the diagram in a Yellow box, and your comment will appear if you click on it.

Note that in the thread pinned to the top of each of these four forums there is some guidance over the use of forum software. If anyone can think of anything else they think should be included please tell Ed or me.

Thanks, David, I'd tried to use the wrong Comment box (the one at the bottom) and wasn't getting the results I wanted!

And thank you to Nigel and Robin for the very helpful replies.

Peter

[FrancesHinden]

What Robin said.
Just in case you thought his reply wasn't sufficient by itself!

[mycroft]

Besides it being Reveley (it is possible to get to the same contract in some auctions, but not this one, if you think that any action is suggested over pass for West by the UI (reasonable), and that pass is logical (also reasonable, if West was willing to let them play 4H the first time by not bidding 5C the first time)), the result of the weighted score is incorrect.

Assuming the weighted score was a legal ruling, it is not:

• 50% of 4H=, +620 + 50% of 5Hx-1, -200 = +210 (okay it is a bridge score, but nobody's making 11 tricks in NT on this hand); it is
  
• • 50% of 4H=, +620;
    
  • and 50% of 5Hx-1, -200,

both of which are scored as normal, and the generated scores are weighted and added to get a result.

So, if it was Matchpoints, and +620 would score 18/24, and -200 would score 3/24, then their result would be 10.5. At IMP-scored teams, if the other table was 5Cx-1 +200, then it would be 50% of +9 and 50% of -9 is zero IMPs (very different from +210 - +200 = +10 = zero IMPs!)

How the rest of the field gets scored is according to the White Book, and gets complicated after more than one of these weighted results on the same board. But that's what computers are for.

[blackshoe]

mycroft, on 2011-March-17, 17:26, said:

Besides it being Reveley (it is possible to get to the same contract in some auctions, but not this one, if you think that any action is suggested over pass for West by the UI (reasonable), and that pass is logical (also reasonable, if West was willing to let them play 4H the first time by not bidding 5C the first time)), the result of the weighted score is incorrect.

Assuming the weighted score was a legal ruling, it is not:
- 50% of 4H=, +620 + 50% of 5Hx-1, -200 = +210 (okay it is a bridge score, but nobody's making 11 tricks in NT on this hand); it is
-50% of 4H=, +620; and
50% of 5Hx-1, -200,

both of which are scored as normal, and the generated scores are weighted and added to get a result.

So, if it was Matchpoints, and +620 would score 18/24, and -200 would score 3/24, then their result would be 10.5. At IMP-scored teams, if the other table was 5Cx-1 +200, then it would be 50% of +9 and 50% of -9 is zero IMPs (very different from +210 - +200 = +10 = zero IMPs!)

How the rest of the field gets scored is according to the White Book, and gets complicated after more than one of these weighted results on the same board. But that's what computers are for.

Maybe I'm missing something, but if 5♣ is judged to have been a violation of Law 16, then 5♥, doubled or not, is never going to happen as far as the ruling is concerned. As I read Robin's post, and if I'm reading it right I agree with him, the only weighting of the scores would involve a judgement that a contract of 4♥ might have more than one possible outcome. So you might get

50% of 4♥ making (+620) plus 25% of 4♥ making 5 (+650) plus 25% of 4♥ down 1 (-100), or some such. I agree that you need to IMP each of these results against whatever happened at the other table, and weight the IMP scores. By my calculations, your 5♣X-1 (-200, not +200, it's your teammates in clubs) at the other table would result in 0.5*(9 IMPs)+0.25*(10 IMPs)-0.25*(7 IMPs)=4.5+2.5-1.75=5.25 IMPs.

[mycroft]

Oh yes, Ed, I agree with you. That was my first paragraph - that it likely wasn't a legal ruling.

I was just pointing out that even were it a legal ruling, it doesn't get scored as +210. That TD (or PeterAlan, as a TD) may eventually have another weighted ruling to put in, and I want to get *that one* right.

[blackshoe]

Okay, I guess we're agreed on the process, at least.