[blackshoe]

bluejak, on 2011-July-20, 10:07, said:

The EBU L&EC discussed this many years ago and decided such a principle was not valid. It was the strong view of one of the Committee that if you ask a poor question and get a poor answer as a result then that is your fault.

Ah. Well, I do have some sympathy for that position, but I'm afraid this is one of the few cases in which I think the ACBL's position is better than the EBU's. But never mind, that's the EBU's position, so be it.

[gnasher]

bluejak, on 2011-July-20, 10:07, said:

The EBU L&EC discussed this many years ago and decided such a principle was not valid. It was the strong view of one of the Committee that if you ask a poor question and get a poor answer as a result then that is your fault.

For example, if someone opened 2♠ which is alerted [in those days weak two openings were alerted] then if a question was asked "Is that weak?" and the answer came "Yes" then it was the fault of the player asking if a full answer was "Yes, and shows a second suit".

I don't mind the principle, but I don't think much of your example. In that example, the poor answer doesn't result from the poor question: the answer is wilfully misleading. If you answer "Yes" in that situation, you know that it will be interpreted as "Yes, it's a weak two bid". What sort of bridge player would say that?

[bluejak]

The example is one of the examples given at the time by the afore-mentioned member of the L&EC. It is not "my" example.

Actually, I don't agree it is a bad example at all. Consider your action as TD if you had been called at such a time and it had happened - and don't say it would not happen, everything seems to happen eventually. How do you rule?

"Is that weak?"
"Yes."
End of hand: partner says [after you have misdefended] "That was Lucas: didn't you realise?"
"Director!"

How do you rule?

[AlexJonson]

Agree with Gnasher, no Bridge player will respond 'yes' to 'weak', if they play Lucas or some other intersting convention.

[gnasher]

bluejak, on 2011-July-21, 14:35, said:

The example is one of the examples given at the time by the afore-mentioned member of the L&EC. It is not "my" example.

Actually, I don't agree it is a bad example at all. Consider your action as TD if you had been called at such a time and it had happened - and don't say it would not happen, everything seems to happen eventually. How do you rule?

"Is that weak?"
"Yes."
End of hand: partner says [after you have misdefended] "That was Lucas: didn't you realise?"
"Director!"

How do you rule?

If I judged, after asking appropriate questions, that responder's intention was to leave his opponents unaware that 2♠ promised a second suit, I would like to be able to rule that he'd intentionally misled his opponents.

I think that such an answer nearly always does have that intention. It's hard to believe that responder thought he was being asked "I already know, or don't care, what shape it shows, but I'd like to know how strong it is." It's almost certain that the intended question was actually "Is that a weak two bid?", and it's almost certain that responder knew that.

The point is that people commonly use the single word "Weak" to mean "A weak two-bid".

A better example would be something like 1♠ (2♥) 3♥ - "Does that show spade support" - "Yes" - when in fact it shows 4-7 and spade support. I think this is a reasonable response, because the term "support" isn't commonly used to mean "support with invitational values". It wouldn't be acceptable to reply "Yes" if 3♥ actually showed support with a singleton heart, because you know that your answer will leave them unaware of the singleton heart.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2011-July-21, 15:14

[nige1]

Blackshoe's ACBL interpretation seems preferable to Bluejak's EBU interpretation but the WBFLC shouldn't devolve this kind of responsibility to local rule-makers.

[bluejak]

If you wish to add new Laws that the WBFLC do not please do so in the correct forum.

[lamford]

gnasher, on 2011-July-16, 03:31, said:

The misexplanation doesn't mean that South is no longer bound by the laws.

True, but the TD does not award an offender redress under 73F for a violation of the Proprieties. The Laws still requires a player not to mislead [any] opponent by means of "remark or gesture, by the haste or hesitancy of a call or play (as in hesitating before playing a singleton), the manner in which a call or play is made or by any purposeful deviation from correct procedure", under 73D2.

However, this clause does not prevent a player misleading an opponent by a question. Certainly none of the definitions of remark I can find include question, and this might be another bug in the Laws (and no, there is no need to move the thread, blackshoe or bluejak).

[blackshoe]

Wouldn't have occurred to me to move the thread at this point, but let's keep discussion of how to fix any such flaw to the "changing laws" forum, please.

[gnasher]

So it's OK, in a thread about a speciifc ruling, to digress to the extent of discussing the difference in regulation between the ACBL and EBU, and the rationale for each organisation's approach, but not to discuss whether they should, in fact, be different?

Personally (and possibly because I'm often guilty of wandering off-topic), I'd welcome a little more laisser faire from our moderators.

[blackshoe]

This is the internet. Wandering off topic is a given. But the purpose of "Laws and Rulings" and "Simple Rulings" is to show people how to make good rulings and what, in a particular case, the ruling should be. "I think the rules should be different" is a far cry from that. We set up "changing laws..." as a place for such discussions, and we'd like to keep them there. Occasional brief digressions are not a problem, but if the thread gets hijacked, it will get moved. Sorry if that offends you. We just don't think it's a good idea if discussions of how the rules should (in some peoples' view anyway) be different obscures the main purpose of the two "rulings" forums.

[barmar]

lamford, on 2011-July-22, 05:16, said:

However, this clause does not prevent a player misleading an opponent by a question. Certainly none of the definitions of remark I can find include question, and this might be another bug in the Laws (and no, there is no need to move the thread, blackshoe or bluejak).

Does this essentially mean that the only kind of question you're not supposed to ask is one that's only for partner's benefit, since the Laws specifically prohibit that?

[lamford]

barmar, on 2011-July-22, 09:15, said:

Does this essentially mean that the only kind of question you're not supposed to ask is one that's only for partner's benefit, since the Laws specifically prohibit that?

I think one can ask any question as declarer without the opponents claiming 73D2 redress. Questions by a defender can convey UI, but if they mislead there is no redress, which tallies with gordontd's opinion that a defender asking about the queen of trumps when looking at it does not suffer a penalty. Remarks by a declarer can mislead. Remarks by a defender can both mislead and convey UI, of course.

[gnasher]

Do the Laws actually forbid asking a question whose sole purpose is to mislead an opponent?

For example, suppose that declarer in the original post had said "I asked about their leads because I wanted to convince East that West had the jack." Which Law would he have broken?

[mfa1010]

lamford, on 2011-July-22, 05:16, said:

True, but the TD does not award an offender redress under 73F for a violation of the Proprieties. The Laws still requires a player not to mislead [any] opponent by means of "remark or gesture, by the haste or hesitancy of a call or play (as in hesitating before playing a singleton), the manner in which a call or play is made or by any purposeful deviation from correct procedure", under 73D2.

However, this clause does not prevent a player misleading an opponent by a question. Certainly none of the definitions of remark I can find include question, and this might be another bug in the Laws (and no, there is no need to move the thread, blackshoe or bluejak).

If you insist not to subsumize a totally superfluous question under "remark" then you might use that the list of ways to mislead an opponent is not exhaustive in 73D2 - compare "deviation from correct procedure" with the non-exhaustive list in 74C.

I think it is an intolerable result that it is lawful to try deliberately to mislead an opponent by posing cunning questions with that purpose alone (see Andy's post above).

[barmar]

mfa1010, on 2011-July-22, 13:35, said:

If you insist not to subsumize a totally superfluous question under "remark" then you might use that the list of ways to mislead an opponent is not exhaustive in 73D2 - compare "deviation from correct procedure" with the non-exhaustive list in 74C.

I think it is an intolerable result that it is lawful to try deliberately to mislead an opponent by posing cunning questions with that purpose alone (see Andy's post above).

Usually when a list is not intended to be exhaustive, there's a qualifier like "such as" or "for example" preceding it.

But even if that list is just examples, they all fall under the category of "extraneous or deviations". Questions about the opponents' methods are perfectly legals, except in the case where you ask solely for partner's benefit.

That's why it's been suggested that this is an unintended consequence of the Laws, which need to be refined if we consider it intolerable.

[mfa1010]

barmar, on 2011-July-22, 19:46, said:

Usually when a list is not intended to be exhaustive, there's a qualifier like "such as" or "for example" preceding it.

Yes. Usually.

Quote

But even if that list is just examples, they all fall under the category of "extraneous or deviations". Questions about the opponents' methods are perfectly legals, except in the case where you ask solely for partner's benefit.

Disagree with that distinction between extraneous or deviations. Hesitating is also a perfectly legal, except when it is done to mislead an opponent.

Quote

That's why it's been suggested that this is an unintended consequence of the Laws, which need to be refined if we consider it intolerable.

I agree that a refinement would be nice. In the meantime we have to make do.

[campboy]

I don't understand why it matters whether questions are covered by 73D2 or not. If we were going to rule on the basis that declarer was deliberately misleading defenders then we would need much more evidence to that effect; if not then 73D2 would not be relevant, since it says "may not attempt to mislead".

[gnasher]

campboy, on 2011-July-23, 03:32, said:

I don't understand why it matters whether questions are covered by 73D2 or not. If we were going to rule on the basis that declarer was deliberately misleading defenders then we would need much more evidence to that effect; if not then 73D2 would not be relevant, since it says "may not attempt to mislead".

If we did decide to rule on the the basis that declarer was deliberately misleading defender, which law would we use?

[pran]

gnasher, on 2011-July-23, 05:33, said:

If we did decide to rule on the the basis that declarer was deliberately misleading defender, which law would we use?

I don't understand what could be wrong with using Laws 73D2, 73F and 12 ?