[mrdct]

iviehoff, on 2011-July-18, 09:11, said:

In the present case, a player acted illegally by failing to shuffle his hand. But it was teams play, so the information went to his direct opponent and if acted upon could only be to the non-shuffler's disadvantage. Do we want to punish the non-shuffler for acting in a way to his own disadvantage, or protect him when he acted illegally? I think not. It seems poetic to leave the table result.

It may be urban legend, but I was once told of the cheating technique where one encodes a message to one's teammates by selectively sorting one's hand at the end of the board. When the board gets played in the other room, your similarly unscrupulous teammates looks to see if their opponents sort their hand and if they don't the encoded message has been passed. The message could be something like "the marginal slam is making" or "the sacrifice is profitable". This is obviously a very high risk form of cheating as you would need to have your entire team in on the plan.

Another insidious technique I've been told of is sorting your hand with a ♣ pip within the ♠ suit such that you might get your opponent at the other table to open a 4-card ♠ suit and play in a 4-2 fit.

I'm still of the view that the potential EI conveyed by a hand arriving sorted is non-conclusive and I wouldn't feel any need to call the TD if my hand arrived sorted; I would simply bid my hand on its own merits taking into account whatever AI there is from the auction and other authorised sources.

[blackshoe]

axman, on 2011-July-18, 11:03, said:

I should think that this is something that you must avoid doing before the end of play [or at least prior to you declaring???]. Here you have info???/inferences not available to the others and to call the TD now creates inferences for the others. imo calling the TD immediately will trash the hand.

Maybe so, but 16C1 says "When a player accidentally receives unauthorized information about a board he is playing or has yet to play… the director should be notified forthwith, preferably by the recipient of the information". So it's most definitely not something you must avoid doing before the end of play.

[blackshoe]

Vampyr, on 2011-July-18, 13:18, said:

The fact that the scoring is IMPs does not imply that the board was played in an event with just two teams. If it were a teams event with more than two teams the board that arrived at the table in question was probably not the same board that was played at the other table with the same two teams.

Take it as given that it is the case that the board was played by the team mates of the two pairs playing at the table where the problem arose, just before the board was placed to be played on that table, okay?

Sheesh.

[mycroft]

Ah, yes, yet again the two countries divided by a common language.

Remember, all you Americans, that teams in England are routinely played with preduplicated boards, and as a result, they just hand out 1-2 to table 1, 3-4 to table 2, 5-6 to table 3, 7-8 to table 4, and back to 1-2 for table 5 again, and they just rotate down table when they're done. So it certainly isn't clear that, unless it's a private match, the boards you get you got from your opponent sitting in the same seat.

Remember, all you not-Americans, that teams here are played almost always with hand-shuffled boards; and that no matter how many teams there are, both teams in a match, and only those teams, play that physical set of boards. Even when we *do* use predups, we still run it with caddies between tables, and the same set of boards. For us, if somebody boxed the spade A in my pocket when it came to me (to take an example "totally at random"), it's very hard to make an argument that it *wasn't* the result of what the other team's player in my seat did (and most of the time it wasn't, it was the caddy dropped the board and boxed the card putting it back. That never happens, and it's acres more likely than the third-place possibility).

[jallerton]

blackshoe, on 2011-July-18, 19:04, said:

Maybe so, but 16C1 says "When a player accidentally receives unauthorized information about a board he is playing or has yet to play… the director should be notified forthwith, preferably by the recipient of the information". So it's most definitely not something you must avoid doing before the end of play.

Here the UI has been received a result of an opponent's deliberate decision to leave the hand sorted, so does a Law dealing with accidentally received UI apply in this case?

[barmar]

jallerton, on 2011-July-19, 15:35, said:

Here the UI has been received a result of an opponent's deliberate decision to leave the hand sorted, so does a Law dealing with accidentally received UI apply in this case?

How do you know it was a deliberate decision? Maybe he just forgot to shuffle, which seems more likely. The only common case of deliberately sorting a hand is when there's a handicapped player at the other table, who requests that you sort the hand to make it easier for him. And then there's the cheating scheme described above.

And if you're going down that road, just what WOULD constitute accidentally-received UI? Other situations that are usually considered within this scope are overhearing the postmortem at another table, but surely they were talking deliberately.

[gnasher]

It's reasonable to assume that the player at the other table didn't intend to give UI. The fact that he negligently made the UI available doesn't make the receipt of the UI any less accidental.

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2011-July-19, 16:01, said:

How do you know it was a deliberate decision? Maybe he just forgot to shuffle, which seems more likely.

"Forgot to shuffle"? Most hands are not sorted at the end of play.

Anyway, the creation of the UI may or may not have been accidental, but the receipt was certainly accidental. Unless Jeffrey is suggesting that the two players have some prearranged signals?

[Phil]

Perhaps we need to shuffle the cards even before we look at them?

[mrdct]

Vampyr, on 2011-July-19, 18:13, said:

Most hands are not sorted at the end of play.

True, but many hands are claimed at trick 1 or 2 and there are several reasons why a hand may arrive sorted, so I'm at a loss to understand how a person could conclude that a board was passed-in at the previous table just because his hand arrived sorted so I don't think there is necessarily any 'accidental UI' that you need to be calling the director about.

Coming back to the OP and what South may ethically or unethically do over 4♥, it doesn't really look like a hand likely to have been passed-in at other tables given that east apppears to have opened in 4th seat without length in ♠ and then has competed to game after a simple negative double by his passed-hand partner. We are also told the scoring is IMPs, so what's to be gained by doubling anyway?

[blackshoe]

jallerton, on 2011-July-19, 15:35, said:

Here the UI has been received a result of an opponent's deliberate decision to leave the hand sorted, so does a Law dealing with accidentally received UI apply in this case?

First, we don't know it was a deliberate decision. People do things without thinking all the time. Second, how is the recipient to know whether the perpetrator did it deliberately or accidently? I think "accidently" in this case means that the receiver didn't do anything designed to gain the information. He just happened to find the hand sorted when he took it out of the board.

[blackshoe]

Phil, on 2011-July-19, 19:28, said:

Perhaps we need to shuffle the cards even before we look at them?

Perhaps we do, but the laws do not (yet) require it.

[aguahombre]

How many posters would be willing to admit that, given the team conditions, the following would actually occur:

---They would say nothing at the outset.
---They would bid the hand as if nothing extraneous was known.
---They would not double 4H.
---As the auction progressed, they would be more convinced the hand was not passed out.
---Nobody would ever know the hand was pulled out sorted.
---Their conscience would be clear.
??

[mrdct]

aguahombre, on 2011-July-19, 23:26, said:

How many posters would be willing to admit that, given the team conditions, the following would actually occur:

---They would say nothing at the outset.
---They would bid the hand as if nothing extraneous was known.
---They would not double 4H.
---As the auction progressed, they would be more convinced the hand was not passed out.
---Nobody would ever know the hand was pulled out sorted.
---Their conscience would be clear.
??

Yes
Yes
Yes
Wouldn't have been in my considerations
My opponent at the other table may know
Yes

In my entire bridge career, I have only once seen a player (a quintessential SB-type) call the TD because their hand arrived sorted and it pissed me off incredibly as the TD lazily decided to scrub the board. It was actually a really interesting hand that I was denied the opportunity to bid and play. Stop being such conspiracy theorists and just play each hand on its merits.

If there was any potential grey area with my actions on a sorted hand that I received, I'd tell my opponents at the end of the board that my hand arrived sorted and if they think I may have used EI feel free to get the TD to look at it. Sure to win some ethical brownie points and certainly keep the conscience clear if that was remotely an issue.

I'm pretty sure nobody at my local bridge club follows this forum, so as a scientific experiment when I play tomorrow night (as playing director) I am going to sort my hand after every board and see if anyone notices and/or calls me. We pretty much always play a Howell movement so I'll get a reasonable sample size. It's a mixed standard club of generally beginner-standard retirees at the senior citizens centre, but usually get two or three of our life masters along so probably typical rural duplicate.

I'm betting that "zero" is a pretty strong favourite for the number of TD calls I receive on this issue.

[gordontd]

mrdct, on 2011-July-20, 04:45, said:

In my entire bridge career, I have only once seen a player (a quintessential SB-type) call the TD because their hand arrived sorted and it pissed me off incredibly as the TD lazily decided to scrub the board.

My estimate is that I've been called about this somewhere between ten and twenty times since the new laws came in.

[aguahombre]

I think at pairs, there are obligations to a whole field to be considered --and maybe an obligation to the person who didn't shuffle that he be made aware of his transgression.

The conditions were not that in the OP, and no indication that it happened again in the match.

[WellSpyder]

gordontd, on 2011-July-20, 07:23, said:

My estimate is that I've been called about this somewhere between ten and twenty times since the new laws came in.

And what have you done about it when you have been called?

[gordontd]

WellSpyder, on 2011-July-20, 07:52, said:

And what have you done about it when you have been called?

Read them L16C, and read the culprit L7C, in tones dependent on the circumstances. I remember being quite robust on the most recent occasion, but can't remember any other details about it.

[lamford]

gordontd, on 2011-July-20, 08:42, said:

Read them L16C, and read the culprit L7C, in tones dependent on the circumstances. I remember being quite robust on the most recent occasion, but can't remember any other details about it.

Life ban from YC, wasn't it? I guess there have been a few non-shufflers, judging by the lower attendance at the Summer Party!

[bluejak]

blackshoe, on 2011-July-17, 18:07, said:

Vul is actually unknown, scoring is IMPs. The kicker is that when South (the OP) took his hand out of the board, it was completely sorted, as shown in the diagram. He inferred several things from this: that the board was passed out at the other table, that all four hands have roughly 9-11 HCP, that all four hands are relatively balanced. All this suggested to him that he should double 4♥. His question was whether he has UI, and whether he is constrained to pass. That's an interesting question, but this other one occurred to me: suppose the TD decides he has UI, and so is constrained to pass. Thus, if he might have doubled, his side might have attained a better score. That's the very definition of "damage" which should be redressed if it was due to an opponent's infraction. Here, ultimately, it seems to me that his opponent's failure to shuffle his cards is an infraction of Law 7, and so indeed he has been damaged by an opponent's infraction, and is entitled to an adjustment. What say you all?

Bonus question: Suppose we decide he's entitled to an adjustment in the case above. Now suppose that he did in fact double. Aren't the opponents entitled to an adjustment on the basis of use of UI? If so, has this South shot himself in the foot, are the laws flawed, or is there some other reason he doesn't get the benefit of defeating the doubled contract?

Having read this and no replies so far, this occurs to me:

Quote

When a player accidentally receives unauthorized information about a board he is playing or has yet to play, as by looking at the wrong hand; by overhearing calls, results or remarks; by seeing cards at another table; or by seeing a card belonging to another player at his own table before the auction begins, the Director should be notified forthwith, preferably by the recipient of the information.

Why did the player not tell the TD immediately? Ok, perhaps it is understandable that he did not when he picked up his cards, but after pass Pass Pass? What was he thinking?

So my immediate view is that the player at the last table must be penalised, and this player should be penalised as well. Well, not penalised, but he should get Ave-, his opponent Ave+, for letting the bidding get to a position where there was a major problem caused by this.

Incidentally, you ask if the Laws are flawed: if the players ignore them then they do not work, true. That’s flawed players not flawed Laws. Law 16C is so simple and players do not follow it. Grrrrrrr.