[iviehoff]

Some people have expressed distaste at the randomising effects that can occur when the rather draconian penalties for calls out of turn (COOTs) and insufficient bids (IBs) are applied, or at least when a player makes a jump in the dark due to partner being barred from calling. Further, all these mechanical restrictions are rather complicated, and in particular the new laws on rectifying IBs are very troublesome for the director to administer.

So, as a vast simplification in the law, I propose that whenever a COOT or IB is withdrawn, all withdrawn actions are Unauthorised Information for the offending side, and AI for the non-offending side. And then bid as normal. Probably require some further detail I haven't thought about.

Adequate? Improvement? Potentially applicable in part? Or do we need the horrible mechanical regulations with their dreadful and sometimes randomising effect to keep people honest?

[mycroft]

Well, it's not simpler. How many threads do we have on COOTs and IBs? Vs UI, was it used, what was it, "but I just bid what I always would have", ...? Now, add all that into the new situations, how many of those do we have every night? And many IBs are "I didn't notice you preempted" calls - which makes it, even with UI regulations, a fair bit easier to defend against those pesky preempts (or have the TD caught up in "I didn't use the UI, everybody would balance with this hand" (well, yes, after knowing that partner would support at the 2 level, but not at the 3 level) or "everybody would bid game with this hand" (well, yes, after knowing that partner would have made a 2/1, instead of "willing to compete at the 3 level")...

And UI rulings aren't simple, and require (shh, this is heresy) bridge judgement and laws judgement from the director. Which, of course, TDs don't have, because they're not "expert players" (or at least, not as good as offender's partner thinks he is). Look at the appeals books at high-class events; how many are UI? How many are *anything else*? Given all of that, how likely is your local club director, who in many cases is still using what he can remember from the 1975 Lawbook, to get this right (note: I've had to "request a reading from the book" on a COOT ruling as it is, this year)?

Add to all of that the discussions we have and perennially have about club TDs ruling in favour of the people who they think won't come back if ruled against, and you have it.

In an ideal world, making it UI and removing the book penalty, which I agree makes these hands a bit of a crapshoot, would be perfect. The ideal world, however, involves TDs with great bridge judgement and no bias in their rulings, who are willing to put in the trouble of getting UI rulings correct and explain them to the players, who listen to the ruling and understand and accept them (or understand and appeal them, and have appeals available that will also rule both on the bridge judgement and the laws).

I do realize I am biased, and I do realize that the status quo is easier to defend than the new. But I don't think I'm wrong.

[iviehoff]

mycroft, on 2013-April-04, 09:43, said:

How many threads do we have on COOTs and IBs?

And UI rulings aren't simple, and require (shh, this is heresy) bridge judgement and laws judgement from the director.

Without counting, I'd guess that UI and MI (which are often hard to separate) are the most common two categories, and then if you lump COOTs and IBs together as a single category, then those are probably the next most common category, though claims aren't far behind.

I realise that UI rulings aren't nice. But at least you'd be getting rid of a whole load of varied complications, and concentrating on just one category of ruling, which has the benefit that the difficult bit can be deferred to after the end of play. Withdrawn COOTs are already UI (though presumably having a horridly barbarous mechanical rectification keeps the requests for rulings down). And then there is horridly complicated stuff with IBs: first assessing whether a non-barring correction is a horror; and second the law explicitly says that what happened is all AI, but then there can be an adjustment of a unique type if advantage is gained. I suspect taht some multiple infraction situations also get simplified.

[Vampyr]

iviehoff, on 2013-April-04, 04:34, said:

So, as a vast simplification in the law, I propose that whenever a COOT or IB is withdrawn, all withdrawn actions are Unauthorised Information for the offending side, and AI for the non-offending side. And then bid as normal. Probably require some further detail I haven't thought about.

This would greatly increase the UI rulings, and at club level this would be unacceptable. The large majority of director calls at club level are for mechanical errors of this kind, and the average playing volunteer is not equipped to deal with UI.

I would go for "after a COOT or IB is withdrawn, the partner of the bidder is barred for the rest of the auction". Simpler, and providing a level playing field compared to the disparate rulings that ill-trained directors are likely to give.

[aguahombre]

Vampyr, on 2013-April-04, 10:11, said:

This would greatly increase the UI rulings, and at club level this would be unacceptable. The large majority of director calls at club level are for mechanical errors of this kind, and the average playing volunteer is not equipped to deal with UI.

Agree with what you attempted to say, but would not have used "mechanical" to describe these irregularities; mechanical is associated with unintended, a mere subset of COOTS and IB's.

The part I like about the current laws is that the mid-auction replacements/roll-backs are procedural, rather than accusatory. You might not like my choice of that "A" word, but a UI ruling is pretty much accusatory, even if we don't want to admit it. That's how it feels to the OS.

[campboy]

Vampyr is right that this is unworkable at club level (and even more so in matches played privately). Even at a congress I would think this change would at least double the number of appeals which is obviously undesirable.

Yes there are plenty of threads about COOTs and IBs but many of them get a definitive answer within a post or two. Typically people ask about COOTs because they don't know the rules but (different) people ask about UI rulings because applying the rules in that area is genuinely difficult.

[Vampyr]

aguahombre, on 2013-April-04, 11:02, said:

Agree with what you attempted to say, but would not have used "mechanical" to describe these irregularities; mechanical is associated with unintended, a mere subset of COOTS and IB's.

Unfortunately, when "mechanical" is taken, there is no good word to describe irregularities that disrupt the basic "mechanics" of the game. Maybe "illegal calls" has to suffice.

campboy, on 2013-April-04, 11:15, said:

Vampyr is right that this is unworkable at club level (and even more so in matches played privately).

LOL I hadn't even thought about matches played privately -- what a nightmare!

[mycroft]

well, we use "book rulings" to describe rulings like BOOTs, OLOOT, and so on that if you "read it out of the book", you'll get it right - as opposed to "judgement rulings" where the book tells you you have to make a bridge or Law judgement. Was that what you were looking for when you said "mechanical" - meaning "put infraction in one end, grind the gears, get ruling out the other end"?

[aguahombre]

Vampyr, on 2013-April-04, 11:51, said:

Unfortunately, when "mechanical" is taken, there is no good word to describe irregularities that disrupt the basic "mechanics" of the game. Maybe "illegal calls" has to suffice.

Maybe when Waterman was taken, I should have used Mechanical.

[gnasher]

I don't have anything to add to what I wrote in this thread:
http://www.bridgebas...nsufficient-bid

To summarise what I said there, I think that Iviehoff's suggested approach should be applied to all such failures to follow procedure, in both the bidding and the play. I think this because the current penalties/rectifications for these infractions are arbitrary, random and often unfair. My main concern is not unfair disadvantage to the offenders, but unfair advantage to the non-offenders.

I realise that a rule change of this sort might create a problem for clubs without a professional director, but the solution is simple: include in the rules both the current system of arbitrary penalties and the equity-based approach suggested by Iviehoff, and allow the tournament organiser to choose which is in force. The director at the Middle Wallop weekly duplicate keeps his easy life, Iviehoff and I get a better game of bridge, the job of a professional director becomes more interesting, and nobody loses.

[Vampyr]

mycroft, on 2013-April-04, 13:13, said:

Was that what you were looking for when you said "mechanical" - meaning "put infraction in one end, grind the gears, get ruling out the other end"?

No, I was really talking about the infractions (violating, as I mentioned, the basic mechanics of the game), but I do believe that the rulings in question should be as above -- which is another meaning often used for the word "mechanical" in bridge.

I like your description of it a lot. This type of ruling is very user-friendly.

[gnasher]

I don't see why matches played privately would create any particular problem. You look it up the infraction in the rule book, and read that "the illegal action is withdrawn, it and any subsequent bidding are UI to the offenders and AI to the non-offenders, and play continues". So you do that.

At the end of the hand, if you think that the offending side have broken the UI rules, you ring one of the directors listed on the EBU website, and he gives you a ruling, just as with all other UI-related rulings.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2013-April-04, 15:06

[Vampyr]

gnasher, on 2013-April-04, 14:55, said:

To summarise what I said there, I think that Iviehoff's suggested approach should be applied to all such failures to follow procedure, in both the bidding and the play. I think this because the current penalties/rectifications for these infractions are arbitrary, random and often unfair. My main concern is not unfair disadvantage to the offenders, but unfair advantage to the non-offenders.

A simple ruling applied always in the same way is not unfair. Perhaps even more important, it is not perceived as unfair. As for the randomising effect, well, the OS have already introduced that.

Quote

I realise that a rule change of this sort might create a problem for clubs without a professional director, but the solution is simple: include in the rules both the current system of arbitrary penalties and the equity-based approach suggested by Iviehof, and allow the tournament organiser to choose which are in force. The director at the Middle Wallop weekly duplicate keeps his easy life, Iviehoff and I get a better game of bridge, the job of a professional director becomes more interesting, and nobody loses.

I had been thinking about this too, but it's not much of a practical solution since it's pretty much a pipe dream. But if anyone is considering submitting a brief to the WBFLC I will be happy to help draft it.

[iviehoff]

Someone sent me a rather entertaining private message, but after I read it yesterday it now seems to have vanished from my inbox. Anyway I'll preserve the anonymity of the sender since they messaged rather than posted, and attempt to interpret my memory of what was rather entertainingly written, since it was worth the reading.

The correspondent argued that the general approach of trying to recover a normal auction where possible following infractions like COOTs and IBs is an entirely wrong idea. Rather they should be seen as such significant departures from proper procedure that they are inherently disruptive in nature, and thus deserve some very harsh consequences, and procedural consequences are very simple. (By "mechanical", I indeed meant "procedural" as Mycroft very nicely described it.) This is a view some others have expressed above, who have argued that simplification is available at the cost of making the consequences harsher.

The correspondent further argued that the UI approach is not necessarily less uncomfortable as a remedy - being in possession of UI and having to comply with Law 16 is not a nice place to be, not assisted by the flaws in that law.

My response to that is that I was not suggesting this in order to make it less uncomfortable for the offenders, rather that it would be much easier for the director to administer at the moment of the offence, and avoid playing a game that didn't look much like bridge due to temporarily changing the rules, which is what barring a player from bidding seems to me to be like. Moreover Law 16 is something that frequently governs our actions, as we tend to be in possession of all sorts of UI quite frequently, so it doesn't really increase the Law 16 discomfort level of a session of bridge very much.

Gnasher has been a very good advocate of the approach I had in mind.

[mycroft]

I basically stand by my first comment. Yes it would be easier for the TD to administer at the moment of the offence (but not much easier; have you tried explaining UI restrictions recently?) but it certainly wouldn't be easier *after*, even for the TD (because they have to check that Law 73 was in fact followed). Certainly, for the NOS it limits the "rub-of-the-green" wins that happen; and makes it easier to defend if they end up defending (as they don't have to have declarer a "blank slate" apart from the COOT/IB) or declaring (because the no-longer-barred hand isn't a "blank slate"), but it really isn't simpler, and it really isn't less contentious.

I would agree with you that "law 16 is something that frequently governs our actions"; I would disagree with the unspoken argument that most players actually handle themselves under it correctly "frequently" - in either case (it's the kind of trivial UI that we don't bother calling the TD over, and the ones that are significant enough that the TD is called. And the acrimonious ones where the opponents see the UI, but don't confirm it with the OS, and it is "used", and the opponents wildly disagree about the UI transmission when the TD is called (and usually before the TD is called, too) - but that doesn't apply here).

[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2013-April-04, 15:09, said:

A simple ruling applied always in the same way is not unfair. Perhaps even more important, it is not perceived as unfair.

I think many players would disagree with that in regard to revoke rulings. Sometimes the revoke was inconsequential, and the result if it had never been noticed would always have been the same as if it hadn't occurred. But the law says that 1 or 2 tricks are automatically transferred to the NOS. Since the laws are mostly aimed at restoring equity (i.e. the result if the infraction hadn't occurred), this feels unfair to some players.

[lamford]

iviehoff, on 2013-April-04, 04:34, said:

So, as a vast simplification in the law, I propose that whenever a COOT or IB is withdrawn, all withdrawn actions are Unauthorised Information for the offending side, and AI for the non-offending side. And then bid as normal. Probably require some further detail I haven't thought about.

One method is to eliminate all bids out of turn and insufficient bids by having only one bidding box which starts with the dealer and is passed round after the bid is made. The only illegal bids one can get now are inadmissible doubles or redoubles.

[Vampyr]

mycroft, on 2013-April-05, 10:14, said:

I would agree with you that "law 16 is something that frequently governs our actions";

Frequently? I think that is a big overbid but anyway it is not just our actions that are of consequence here. The average club director deals regularly with procedural infractions, but rarely or never deals with UI. He would be totally out of his depth. In addition, there will be players who don't understand the issue at all, and there may well be an incorrect assigning of peers and too few of them (due to numbers or practicality) to poll in order to determine LAs.

Perhaps the revoke law does seem unfair to some people. It does retain some of its deterrent effect, which I think is very important. In any case, I have a bit of advice to them -- Follow Suit! -- and would give similar advice to those who think that mechanical rulings for illegal bids would be too harsh.

I know that Andy is not concerned about how "harshly" the OS are treated, but does not like the NOS to be given an advantage that they did nothing to earn. But this is the case whenever our opponents make an error, so I can't really see why it is a big deal -- and anyway under current rules a COOTer may land on his feet, while a person who defends so that a no-play slam comes home may not.

[Vampyr]

mycroft, on 2013-April-04, 09:43, said:

Well, it's not simpler. How many threads do we have on COOTs and IBs? Vs UI, was it used, what was it, "but I just bid what I always would have", ...? Now, add all that into the new situations, how many of those do we have every night? And many IBs are "I didn't notice you preempted" calls - which makes it, even with UI regulations, a fair bit easier to defend against those pesky preempts (or have the TD caught up in "I didn't use the UI, everybody would balance with this hand" (well, yes, after knowing that partner would support at the 2 level, but not at the 3 level) or "everybody would bid game with this hand" (well, yes, after knowing that partner would have made a 2/1, instead of "willing to compete at the 3 level")...

And UI rulings aren't simple, and require (shh, this is heresy) bridge judgement and laws judgement from the director. Which, of course, TDs don't have, because they're not "expert players" (or at least, not as good as offender's partner thinks he is). Look at the appeals books at high-class events; how many are UI? How many are *anything else*? Given all of that, how likely is your local club director, who in many cases is still using what he can remember from the 1975 Lawbook, to get this right (note: I've had to "request a reading from the book" on a COOT ruling as it is, this year)?

Add to all of that the discussions we have and perennially have about club TDs ruling in favour of the people who they think won't come back if ruled against, and you have it.

In an ideal world, making it UI and removing the book penalty, which I agree makes these hands a bit of a crapshoot, would be perfect. The ideal world, however, involves TDs with great bridge judgement and no bias in their rulings, who are willing to put in the trouble of getting UI rulings correct and explain them to the players, who listen to the ruling and understand and accept them (or understand and appeal them, and have appeals available that will also rule both on the bridge judgement and the laws).

I do realize I am biased, and I do realize that the status quo is easier to defend than the new. But I don't think I'm wrong.

I wonder why I am bothering, when this post said everything much better than my attempts.

[mycroft]

Vampyr, on 2013-April-05, 12:04, said:

Frequently? I think that is a big overbid but anyway it is not just our actions that are of consequence here. The average club director deals regularly with procedural infractions, but rarely or never deals with UI. He would be totally out of his depth. In addition, there will be players who don't understand the issue at all, and there may well be an incorrect assigning of peers and too few of them (due to numbers or practicality) to poll in order to determine LAs.

Possibly an overbid, but not a big one. I would suggest that I play 2-3 hands of an average session in the presence of meaningful UI from partner, and I'm reasonably certain that my opponents do as well. Nobody calls the TD, probably nobody "notices", possibly UI is used (in such a way that either it would be impossible to prove, or impossible to work out from the opponents' chair that there truly was UI, or impossible to get *this TD* to rule, or not blatant enough to go after the perennial LOLs or the people who are having enough trouble understanding transfers to get Law73 at the table with whatever heat when it is explained to them).

I try to follow the Law when it happens to me; I assume that the ethical players that know also do; the people I think have issues I watch more carefully, and both suggest people call the TD at the time (rather than discuss it with me (whether it's my game or not) later), and call myself (not expecting a ruling, but giving the rest of the TDs evidence of the players' "methods").

I agree with you that my expectations of club TDs ruling UI is about at the level of my expectation of club players following their UI obligations; but also that that doesn't mean that players are put in Law 16 situations "frequently". Just not situations that involve the TD or even necessarily their opponents pointing anything out.