[mikeh]

awm, on 2012-May-16, 16:57, said:

This does seem like a poor ruling to me. If Roswell held the heart JT8x, would he hesitate before encouraging? I think not.

This business of "attitude about card X" is really bull. An attitude signal indicates your attitude about the suit. With a solid holding surely encouraging is automatic. Certainly T8xx may also encourage (since it appears from the queen lead that Meck has QJ) meaning its far from 100% clear to continue given encouragement, but I still think continuing must be a LA.

Claiming "not to have noticed" Brad's tendency to open balanced 11s also seems irrelevant and something of a dodge.

Of course, the writeup in these cases often fails to reflect what was said. And the winning margin was more than the value of this hand, so suggesting that "the wrong team won" is too much.

You rebut your opening comments in your closing comments!

I'm not stating, as a positive opinion, that the committee 'got it right', for precisely the same reason that I think it unfair, and arrogant, to assert that the committee got it wrong.

How on earth can anyone seriously assume, without hesitation, that no member of the Diamond team and no committee member didn't ask basic questions, such as: what would W have played under the Q with J108x? Or, if we accept that the Q doesn't ask about the J, what does it ask? Or, if the 3 were played in tempo, what would it have meant according to your carding agreements?

Without knowing if these or similar questions were asked, and what the answers were, it is incredibly presumptuous to publicly criticize the committee.

As a trial lawyer, I am sometimes asked about cases that are reported in the media....some of them cases in which I am counsel. I long ago realized that no media report is ever accurate, no matter how honest the reporter/editor combination tries to be. Yet people continually base their criticisms of the outcomes of such cases on the media reports and assume that they are completely justified in doing so. That mistaken attitude seems to dominate this thread. It is too bad for the game, the players, and the committee.

[bluecalm]

Quote

How on earth can anyone seriously assume, without hesitation, that no member of the Diamond team and no committee member didn't ask basic questions, such as: what would W have played under the Q with J108x? Or, if we accept that the Q doesn't ask about the J, what does it ask? Or, if the 3 were played in tempo, what would it have meant according to your carding agreements?

We (or at least I) don't. However we (or at least I) expect to read about this meaningful information in published appeal, instead what we have is total confusion and lack of crucial information.
I am not convinced they got it wrong, but they got the write-up terribly wrong which suggests their decision making process was flawed even if they somehow lucked out into correct verdict which, again, is impossible to say without knowing about crucial stuff you mention and which is missing from the write-up.

[awm]

I'll just say that:

(1) When this happened, I thought it was a slam-dunk case for Gitelman/Moss and was surprised the director ruled against them. I was sure it would be overturned on appeal.
(2) When the appeals committee ruled the result stands, I was surprised.
(3) When I read the summary of the appeal, none of the information presented changed my mind, and in fact the manner in which it was presented suggested that the committee was not considering things in the proper manner (a good summary of proper procedure was given by bluecalm in his post).

Obviously there might be other information that I'm not privy to, and the accounting of how the committee arrived at its decision could easily be incomplete. What I'm trying to say is, on the basis of the limited information available to me, it appears the committee got this one wrong. I don't think there is any contradiction in admitting that I am far from omniscient, while still stating an opinion based on the information available to me.

[blackshoe]

bluecalm, on 2012-May-16, 17:59, said:

c)Is continuing hearts LA here ? Again, the answer to this questions is the same as the answer to similar question: "Would at least some players at level similar to Meckstroth at least consider continuing hearts?". If the answer is yes, then continuing hearts is LA. What Meckstroth planned to do before, what he claims he noticed etc. has no bearing what so over here. The question is if having his agreements in this spot (apparently none) would other players consider continuing hearts after seeing a small one.

Your third sentence is not entirely correct. If a significant portion of Meckstroth's peers would seriously consider continuing hearts, and at least some of them would actually do so, then continuing hearts is an LA. I agree with your sentence following that one — "I was always going to <whatever>" cuts no ice, nor does whether he noticed something or other.

[Mbodell]

mikeh, on 2012-May-16, 18:09, said:

You rebut your opening comments in your closing comments!

I think in this case there is a difference between "the wrong team won" the appeal and "the wrong team won" the trials. You can believe the former, but note that if granting the appeal the end result on the trials would be the same team winning (not withstanding differences in strategies and swinging and aggravation and what not).

[gnasher]

mikeh, on 2012-May-16, 18:09, said:

As a trial lawyer, I am sometimes asked about cases that are reported in the media....some of them cases in which I am counsel. I long ago realized that no media report is ever accurate, no matter how honest the reporter/editor combination tries to be. Yet people continually base their criticisms of the outcomes of such cases on the media reports and assume that they are completely justified in doing so. That mistaken attitude seems to dominate this thread. It is too bad for the game, the players, and the committee.

But we're not reading a report in the media. We're reading an official writeup of the appeal, written by the appeals committee and published on the tournament organiser's website. We should be able to rely on this to be accurate and sufficiently complete for us to understand the evidence that the committee considered relevant and the reasons for their decision.

[mikeh]

gnasher, on 2012-May-17, 02:10, said:

But we're not reading a report in the media. We're reading an official writeup of the appeal, written by the appeals committee and published on the tournament organiser's website. We should be able to rely on this to be accurate and sufficiently complete for us to understand the evidence that the committee considered relevant and the reasons for their decision.

I have only rarely been involved in Appeals that resulted in any written summary ever being released, but I have been involved in quite a few appeal hearings (usually as a member of the committee), and my experience is that a LOT more goes on at a committee hearing than would appear from virtually every summary I have ever read. A summary is precisely that: a summary. Only someone with no first hand experience of these things could possibly expect that the committee (or whoever actually edited/published the summary) would put in all of the questions and answers and arguments that actually occurred, or all of the discussion amongst the committee members before the decision was reached.

I have seen first hand the harm that ill-informed criticism of a committee ruling can do: the team that won the appeal is seen by many as somehow undeserving of their victory and the committee members are seen as incompetent or biased or both. The more important the event, the more harm is done.

The OP here smacked of exactly that sort of innuendo, and it has been echoed by a number of posters. This is destructive of the game.

I think there are grounds for expressing surprise at the ruling, and wanting to know exactly what was said at the hearing....but no grounds upon which any of us, not involved in the match or hearing, have any 'right' to know. 3 competent experts, including arguably the most qualified committee member in NA, heard an appeal brought by 2 of the smartest, most articulate bridge players in the world, and the committee made a ruling after a full hearing. We don't and won't ever know what happened, so why don't we just recognize that, stop the whining and uniformed criticisms and move forward....as I suspect the Diamond team has already.

[bluecalm]

This is write-up from one of the most important tournaments in the world. TD's around the world will read it hoping to learn things.
As much as I want to believe the write-up doesn't illustrate what really happened during committee session I am not very hopeful. After all if you know all the information what would you choose to put in the write-up: meaningful stuff or some randomish information loosely related to final decision?

I have read quite a bit of summaries from appeals released in US and I was usually very impressed by them. They were clear, conclusions were clear and facts presented were meaningful. Here we don't see anything like that.

I understand the committee job isn't an easy one and that resulting summary might not be perfect but I believe your defending them here on principle of: "things are difficult, we can't judge easily" instead of relating to what was actually written. I mean if they put peanut butter recipe in the write-up we could still apply your arguments to defend it...

[barmar]

bluecalm, on 2012-May-16, 17:59, said:

The committee sound completely confused imo. The ruling should go like this:

a)was there UI ?
....
b)does UI clearly suggested some actions ?
...
c)Is continuing hearts LA here ?

Actually, c goes before b. The steps are:

1) Was there UI?
2) What are the LAs?
3) Does the UI demonstrably suggest one LA over another?

Anyway, Rodwell's claim is that continuing hearts wasn't an LA, he gave his reason (if there was any chance that he would continue, he would have led the ♥K to find out if partner has the J), and the ruling indicates that the AC believed him. The wording of the ruling doesn't express this well, but I think that's the intent, so they did follow the law.

You can rightly feel that Rodwell's argument doesn't convince you, but given that the AC was convinced I think they applied the UI Laws properly.

[Phil]

Maybe its time for appeals to be recorded?

[bluecalm]

Quote

Actually, c goes before b. The steps are:

1) Was there UI?
2) What are the LAs?
3) Does the UI demonstrably suggest one LA over another?

It's logical equivalent, isn't it ?
It's also less efficient as you need to know what UI suggests anyway and if it suggests nothing then you don't need to bother about determining LA'a.

Quote

he would have led the ♥K to find out if partner has the J), and the ruling indicates that the AC believed him

As I said ,this is cute but it doesn't matter. What matters is if players of similar strength in his position would seriously consider continuing a heart without UI (or however it's exactly spelled now). It would be very useful to know what signal to Qh meant and what would Rodwell play from JTxx. It's really sad that there is information that "low heart wasn't attitude for J" but there is no information what was it and what exact agreement they have here.

[fred]

mikeh, on 2012-May-17, 09:39, said:

I have seen first hand the harm that ill-informed criticism of a committee ruling can do: the team that won the appeal is seen by many as somehow undeserving of their victory and the committee members are seen as incompetent or biased or both. The more important the event, the more harm is done.

The OP here smacked of exactly that sort of innuendo, and it has been echoed by a number of posters. This is destructive of the game.

This is one of the main points that those of us who are against Appeals Committees make: Appeals are poison

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[barmar]

bluecalm, on 2012-May-17, 10:15, said:

It's logical equivalent, isn't it ?
It's also less efficient as you need to know what UI suggests anyway and if it suggests nothing then you don't need to bother about determining LA'a.

But if there's only one LA, you don't need to know what the UI suggests.

Quote

As I said ,this is cute but it doesn't matter. What matters is if players of similar strength in his position would seriously consider continuing a heart without UI (or however it's exactly spelled now). It would be very useful to know what signal to Qh meant and what would Rodwell play from JTxx. It's really sad that there is information that "low heart wasn't attitude for J" but there is no information what was it and what exact agreement they have here.

But you only have to consider players of similar strength who would have led the Q in the first place. What he convinced them was that anyone leading the Q rather than the K isn't interested in partner's attitude, so the signal is irrelevant.

There is the question of why West played an encouraging card, though. If the lead of the Q doesn't request attitude, he can presumably play any card he wants.

[mikeh]

fred, on 2012-May-17, 10:33, said:

This is one of the main points that those of us who are against Appeals Committees make: Appeals are poison

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

I agree with that sentiment.

I'd like ACBL, or any other governing body, has statistics on the frequency with which appeals are allowed.

The difficulty with doing away with appeals, as I see it, is that director rulings require 3 distinct considerations.

The first is to ascertain the facts. Often, the parties agree, but sometimes they don't, especially in BIT situations.

The second is to determine the law, and often that ends it: a revoke, a lead out of turn, etc.

The 3rd is to evaluate bridge actions...what were the LA's, for example, in a BIT situation? What would a peer of the player in question have been thinking?


I don't think a committee is any better than a director at the first, and may be worse, because both sides have had a chance to 'practice' their stories by the time the appeal is heard. I see no benefit to an appeal process on this.

The second is a question of law, and the rules (at least in NA) say that the committee is bound by the director's statement of the law, so the appeal committee can't change this anyway. Again, there is no benefit to the appeal process on this issue.

It is the third problem that justifies, if anything justifies, the appeal process.

The reality is that few directors are experts. I am sure that many of us have had bad experiences in which the director simply fails to understand the bridge logic inherent in a situation. However, my experience is that most directors will consult with the better players in the field about a hand....and will pay attention.....so in any serious event (and I am including everything from a Regional on up, and I have seen this at Sectionals as well), the ruling is made with input from at least one and usually several good players with no knowledge of who the parties were, and so with no possibility of bias. However, these experts are rarely told of any of the arguments that the parties would make, and sometimes the impression given after only a couple of minutes thought, in the middle of a session, and without benefit of hearing alternative approaches, will be wrong.

Having said that, my expectation is that this process has become good enough that the truly bad ruling, that should be reversed on appeal, is a rare event these days.

Rare is not non-existent, so the appeal process can serve a useful purpose. The question is whether this 'cure' causes more grief than the harm it undoes.

I used to be in favour of committees....perhaps because I started playing at a time when directors weren't (as far as I can recall) as careful about checking with good players before making rulings....tho it is possible that I simply wasn't one of the players they used to check with

I am now more of the opposite view, but if I were to learn, for example, that 44% of appeals succeeded, then I'd say the good outweighed the harm. Where the break-even figure would be is a matter of personal judgment.....I'd say that the poison from appeals is so harmful that I'd want to see a success rate of at least 25% to feel that the benefit outweighed the cost.

[MrAce]

fred, on 2012-May-17, 10:33, said:

This is one of the main points that those of us who are against Appeals Committees make: Appeals are poison

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

It doesn't matter who made the final decision, a TD or a A.C, as long as it is a strongly debatable decision, it will be poison.

Lets assume for the sake of argument that there were no A.C, and TD decision was final. Carl would still make this thread asking people if the trials was won by the wrong team or not. People would still debate here (and somewhere else too ) if the winning team deserved it or not. If the decision was biased or not. These would equally hurt bridge as MikeH said. Thats why i don't understand what does all this have anything to do with appeals ?

In this example it gave Diamond team another shot, incase there was a mistake made in T.D ruling. A.C decided that there wasn't, rightly or wrongly.

-Appeals have the luxury to sit down and think for hours and hours before they reach an agreement, a T.D will never have this luxury.

-People who are complaining or defending themselves about a board at the table will NEVER have the luxury of fully analysing the hand before they complain or defend themselves against the complaint, at the table. It definetely needs some time to fully investigate the actions in this board and express your side of the story to whomever is making the final decision.

Imo those who are against A.C are trying to get rid of something that doesnt work perfect, instead of fixing it. I have ideas about how to fix it, i wont write in detail but mainly there should not be anyone in the committee who is a contender. In fact committee members should be professionalls who are dedicated, trained and paid just for this job. To start with, it can be seasoned Tournament Directors who are retired or promoted to this position after working in the field for long time as T.D. In each major event 3 or 5 of them should be paid just for showing up and waiting to be called to duty if needed.

[mikeh]

MrAce, on 2012-May-17, 11:47, said:

Imo those who are against A.C are trying to get rid of something that doesnt work perfect, instead of fixing it. I have ideas about how to fix it, i wont write in detail but mainly there should not be anyone in the committee who is a contender. In fact committee members should be professionalls who are dedicated, trained and paid just for this job. To start with, it can be seasoned Tournament Directors who are retired or promoted to this position after working in the field for long time as T.D. In each major event 3 or 5 of them should be paid just for showing up and waiting to be called to duty if needed.

But you are missing, I think, the main purpose of the current appeal process.

Appeals are rarely, if ever, about the Law, which is the area of expertise of the directors.

Appeals are about bridge judgment, and the idea of a panel of tournament directors being considered my peers, as bridge players, is laughable...and I'm not at the same level as the finalists in a major event like the US trials, or a Vanderbilt, etc. So even if we could justify the expense (having 3 to 5 ex directors standing by for 10 days or so, with hotel rooms, food, per diems and a salary won't be cheap), you're not addressing the real issues that committees must decide.

[ArtK78]

The problem with the Appeals Committees is that they are made up of players - players who, no matter how expert and how experienced, are friendly (or not friendly) with the competitors from years of playing with them and against them. So, instead of having some neutral party (TDs) make a binding ruling, it is a group of players acting as an Appeals Committee making the binding ruling. THIS is where the poison comes from.

Say what you will about rulings made by a TD (or by a group of TDs), but the issue of bias virtually never enters the discussion. Committee rulings always seem to engender accusations of bias EVEN THOUGH both sides have the ability to object to the composition of the appeals committee prior to the hearing of the case.

So, if one accepts the fact that the vast majority of TD rulings are upheld on appeal (and I believe that is the case - a review of published rulings at recent North American Championships should confirm or reject this position), then it makes a great deal of sense to establish the TDs as the final arbiters of irregularities at the bridge table.

I am aware that some players have put forth the position that prominent players, such as Meckwell, intimidate TDs into making rulings in their favor. Whether this is true or not, do we have any evidence that rulings in favor of such players are often overruled on appeal? If those rulings are not overturned on appeal, then we are back to the original position that the continued existence of Appeals Committees is counterproductive.

[fred]

MrAce, on 2012-May-17, 11:47, said:

It doesn't matter who made the final decision, a TD or a A.C, as long as it is a strongly debatable decision, it will be poison.

About the best you can hope for is what they have in baseball: everyone hates the umpire.

Some poison can't be avoided, but the more people who are responsible for making difficult decisions, the more poison there will be.

The is especially true given the incestuous nature of the bridge world. Everyone knows everyone else - poison spreads rapidly. Everyone has opinions (ie bias) concerning everyone else - increased poison levels.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[gnasher]

mikeh, on 2012-May-17, 09:39, said:

I have only rarely been involved in Appeals that resulted in any written summary ever being released, but I have been involved in quite a few appeal hearings (usually as a member of the committee), and my experience is that a LOT more goes on at a committee hearing than would appear from virtually every summary I have ever read. A summary is precisely that: a summary. Only someone with no first hand experience of these things could possibly expect that the committee (or whoever actually edited/published the summary) would put in all of the questions and answers and arguments that actually occurred, or all of the discussion amongst the committee members before the decision was reached.

I didn't say I expected them to include "all of the questions and answers and arguments that actually occurred, or all of the discussion amongst the committee members before the decision was reached". I said we could expect them to describe the evidence that they considered relevant and the reasons for their decision, and to do so accurately.

In this case, they might have described their reasons like this:

"The committee determined that there was unauthorised information. However, for a player who had switched to the non-systemic ♥Q, there was no logical alternative to continuing with his original plan."

or this:

"The committee determined that there was unauthorised information. However, West's signal related to holding (or not holding) ♥10 rather than ♥J. Hence the UI did not suggest switching over continuing."

But they didn't say that. They said "there was no unauthorized information" and "the indication was overwhelming that East never planned to continue hearts". It seems to me quite reasonable to point out that the first statement is untrue and the second irrelevant. Since these is apparently the committee's own words, they can't be dismissed as being equivalent to a "media report".

[MrAce]

mikeh, on 2012-May-17, 11:55, said:

But you are missing, I think, the main purpose of the current appeal process.

Appeals are rarely, if ever, about the Law, which is the area of expertise of the directors.

Appeals are about bridge judgment, and the idea of a panel of tournament directors being considered my peers, as bridge players, is laughable...and I'm not at the same level as the finalists in a major event like the US trials, or a Vanderbilt, etc. So even if we could justify the expense (having 3 to 5 ex directors standing by for 10 days or so, with hotel rooms, food, per diems and a salary won't be cheap), you're not addressing the real issues that committees must decide.

It may not be satisfactory to you, but since the suggested alternative is " final decision by a T.D " which by the way in some cases maybe an unexperienced T.D, it is still much better.

You are wrong about the "Law" and "Judgement" part as well. A.C can not give decisions against the written LAW. What you are talking about is the "interpretation" of the written laws of bridge. What is unacceptable for me is to think that T.D makes his decision without using his judgement, or appeal makes their decision purely depending on judgement and ignoring the LAW. This is their EXPERTISE, this is their job. To make a decision on a complained hand is the job of a TD. If a TD made a judgement error, it is best to be checked with other people who is also expert in this job. If they are having hard time to understand a very deep thinking process of a top level expert player, there is no rule that says they can not call your peers to AC and get an opinion before they reach the final decision.

There are a lot of examples, where the judgement points that an individual would have never done something that he was forced to by TD or LAW. But when LAW was clear about it, judgement was thrown out in a split second, governing rule was priority in decision process.

Although i admit that there is a difference between a top level expert and top level TDs, when it comes to hand judgement at the table, you are way overstating this difference when the hand comes down to autopsy table and when there is more than 1 person involved during the autopsy process. T.D are not dumb muppets. They may not play and see as fast as you can if they sit and play at the table, but you can bet on them that they will if both sides make their case and tell them their side of the story. Especially if they are DEDICATED, TRAINED and PAID specifically for this job.

No need to mention, the people you call your 'peers', even when they do their best to be objective, will have at least some level of personal interest in the outcome of your case/decision. Imho this is where it gets the most poisonous, and nobody will ever know if it was deserved posion or not .

And nobody seems to comment on the other issue that i brought up. Lets assume you have an incident at the table, TD is called, you told him your complaint and opponents defended themselves. TD went and came back with a decision, which by the way some people want this to be the FINAL say. Imo the posion FRED talking about will be even much more. Imo it is not about how many people are involved in this process but it is about how properly and in which conditions this decision was made.

1-You have a TD, who doesnt have the luxury to make an autopsy of the hand due to various reasons, such as limited time, limited informations since parties have not come up with their detailed complaints and/or defenses.

2- You have parties, who just complained or defended themselves in a limited time, because they still have a lot of boards to play and focus on. But they cant do it because TD decision will be final and they know it

As an international level expert player, would you like to have the comfort of forgetting this hand and how you can find evidence to prove your side of the story, and move on with the idea that if there is something to be added , you can later in A.C. OR knowing that TD's decision will be final, therefore you must focus on trying to catch the inconsistency of the given defense by your opponents, trying to remember their concistency in previous boards etc etc... instead of focusing on your game at the table, before TD gives his decision which will be too late after that ?