[MickyB]

broze, on 2013-April-29, 10:58, said:

After having yet another opponent ask "Why have you underlined leads that aren't even part of your system? - it's confusing", I've come to the conclusion that you guys are in the minority although I do have sympathy. I blame the EBU CC.

I've never had any such complaints, perhaps because I only play tournament bridge so most oppo are familiar with the EBU CC's request to "clearly mark the card normally led if different from the underlined card". How are you marking the card you lead? I just have the card in "Arial Black" and bold.

In any case, perhaps this is the best solution -

H x x x
T x x x

[Trinidad]

blackshoe, on 2013-April-29, 09:06, said:

You can rest easy, Iviehoff, Sven is right.

If Sven would be right, he would have referred to a Law in the book. Sven is right, but Barry is more right: This is not specified in the laws, it is "common understanding".

That means that it won't be as easy as some suggest to do something about dummies who tell declarer after each trick in which hand he is:

You call the TD. He comes, you explain what happened and the TD tells the dummy that he is not allowed to tell declarer whether he is in hand or in dummy. Your opponent is surprised:
- "Wasn't there a law that specifically allowed me to prevent an irregularity by declarer? Wasn't that part of dummy's rights somewhere? Or did they change that? And leading from the wrong hand is an irregularity, isn't it?".
The TD explains: "You are preventing too early. Now you are participating in the play."
- "Participating in the play?! I am not suggesting what cards he should play. I am merely preventing an irregularity."
"Well, but you are preventing too early anyway.."
- "Well, I always say 'Don't put off to tomorrow what you can do today' and my mother always said 'It's better to be safe than sorry'. Is there a law that says when I am preventing too early? I guess there must be."
"Well ... err ... no, there is no such law, but it's just common understanding, so..."
- "Now I have never heard of that. There is no such law, so then it should be allowed. But you say that it is common understanding. I have never heard of this understanding, so it can't be that common."
"Well ... err ... Barmar told the people at the BBF laws forum that this is a common understanding."
- "What?!? So Barmar needed to point this out to this crowd of experienced TDs that are regulars on the BBF laws forum? If these guys didn't even know this, then it can't be that common, can it?"
"Blast!"

Rik

[blackshoe]

You could make a living writing fiction, Rik.

[Trinidad]

blackshoe, on 2013-April-29, 13:33, said:

You could make a living writing fiction, Rik.

Who knows, maybe after I retire but I like my current job too much to switch careers.

Rik

[aguahombre]

Fiction, based on fallacy. The posts by Sven and Barry were not aimed at the experienced directors who participate in these fora. They were for the edification of casual readers. It seems that they might have been helpful to some of each.

[barmar]

Rik's dialogue actually makes me doubt my earlier conclusion.

Maybe we can rule against it on grounds of 74A2: dummy doing this before every trick is annoying, like card snapping.

On the other hand, could dummy use the same justification to remind declarer what suit was led, to prevent a revoke (in addition to his ability to prevent an established revoke by asking after a failure to follow suit)?

[nige1]

IMO it's more important for players than directors to be able to learn and understand the rules of Bridge. Players are expected to comply with the rules in real time. Whereas, directors can refer to relevant laws, regulations, minutes, and conditions of contest, as necessary. Directors can also consult with other directors to discover when the official interpretation conflicts with rules as written..

[Trinidad]

barmar, on 2013-April-29, 16:47, said:

Rik's dialogue actually makes me doubt my earlier conclusion.

Maybe we can rule against it on grounds of 74A2: dummy doing this before every trick is annoying, like card snapping.

Precisely!

Rik

[pran]

Trinidad, on 2013-April-29, 12:24, said:

If Sven would be right, he would have referred to a Law in the book. Sven is right, but Barry is more right: This is not specified in the laws, it is "common understanding".

That means that it won't be as easy as some suggest to do something about dummies who tell declarer after each trick in which hand he is:

You call the TD. He comes, you explain what happened and the TD tells the dummy that he is not allowed to tell declarer whether he is in hand or in dummy. Your opponent is surprised:
- "Wasn't there a law that specifically allowed me to prevent an irregularity by declarer? Wasn't that part of dummy's rights somewhere? Or did they change that? And leading from the wrong hand is an irregularity, isn't it?".
The TD explains: "You are preventing too early. Now you are participating in the play."
- "Participating in the play?! I am not suggesting what cards he should play. I am merely preventing an irregularity."
"Well, but you are preventing too early anyway.."
- "Well, I always say 'Don't put off to tomorrow what you can do today' and my mother always said 'It's better to be safe than sorry'. Is there a law that says when I am preventing too early? I guess there must be."
"Well ... err ... no, there is no such law, but it's just common understanding, so..."
- "Now I have never heard of that. There is no such law, so then it should be allowed. But you say that it is common understanding. I have never heard of this understanding, so it can't be that common."
"Well ... err ... Barmar told the people at the BBF laws forum that this is a common understanding."
- "What?!? So Barmar needed to point this out to this crowd of experienced TDs that are regulars on the BBF laws forum? If these guys didn't even know this, then it can't be that common, can it?"
"Blast!"

Rik

Dummy preventing Declarer from playing from the wrong hand is a specific exception (Law 42B2) from the general Law that Dummy may not participate in the play (Law 43A1{c}). I am surprised that I should have had to quote these Laws in my submission.

Remember also the last clause in Law 43A1{c}: nor may he communicate anything about the play to declarer
There is a very fine line between "preventing an irregularity" and "communicate anything about the play", this line is crossed at the very moment the irregularity is initiated.

[blackshoe]

Um. I would have said "completed," not "initiated". Declarer calls "four of..." Is dummy not permitted to notify declarer at this point that he is in his hand? After all, the call for a card from dummy has already been initiated.

[WellSpyder]

blackshoe, on 2013-April-30, 07:16, said:

Um. I would have said "completed," not "initiated". Declarer calls "four of..." Is dummy not permitted to notify declarer at this point that he is in his hand? After all, the call for a card from dummy has already been initiated.

I think you and pran are at cross-purposes. The line has to be crossed twice - once to get from "communicating anything about the play" territory into "preventing an irregularity", and once to get you back into the normal "communicating anything about the play" territory. "initiated" marks one crossing point, "completing" marks the other one. So I think you are actually saying the same thing in different ways.....

[blackshoe]

So just to clarify, if partner has not initiated an irregularity and does not appear to be about to do so, saying something is "communicating about the play". If he has initiated an irregularity or appears to be about to do so, saying something is "attempting to prevent an irregularity". If the irregularity has been completed, we're back to "communicating about the play". That matches my understanding, at least.

[Trinidad]

blackshoe, on 2013-April-30, 07:32, said:

So just to clarify, if partner has not initiated an irregularity and does not appear to be about to do so, saying something is "communicating about the play". If he has initiated an irregularity or appears to be about to do so, saying something is "attempting to prevent an irregularity". If the irregularity has been completed, we're back to "communicating about the play". That matches my understanding, at least.

That matches everybody's understanding and IMO it is the way to think... but the law says something else.

The law deals with preventing an irregularity. Prevention takes places before the irregularity, i.e. before it starts. You are keeping matches out of reach for your kids to prevent a fire (before it starts). It is a good idea to use a fire extinguisher once a fire is initiated, but at that time we are not preventing a fire anymore, we are fighting the fire to limit the consequences.

Similarly, once the irregularity has been initiated ("four of.."), we cannot prevent it anymore. We can only limit the consequences. That is a good idea (we are all on the same page there) but it's not what the law says.

Rik

[barmar]

Trinidad, on 2013-April-30, 09:02, said:

Similarly, once the irregularity has been initiated ("four of.."), we cannot prevent it anymore. We can only limit the consequences. That is a good idea (we are all on the same page there) but it's not what the law says.

That's how I generally view it. Once he says "four of..." it's too late. But if he says "Umm..." and starts gesturing towards dummy, I might be able to stop him.

It's easier when it's the other way around. If he's in dummy, and you see him start to detach a card from his hand, you can (and may) say something.

[aguahombre]

barmar, on 2013-April-30, 09:24, said:

That's how I generally view it. Once he says "four of..." it's too late.

Is it still too late if there happen to be zero or all the fours in dummy?

[Trinidad]

aguahombre, on 2013-April-30, 09:42, said:

Is it still too late if there happen to be zero or all the fours in dummy?

If all the fours are in dummy, then it is too late.

If there are no fours in dummy then we just wait until declarer finishes his sentence: "four of ... those delicious muffins, please." (This basically only works with the four. The exception is that it can also work with the three when declarer is on a diet.)

Now serious again: As a TD, I will always rule that a dummy is allowed to stop declarer if declarer says "four of..." (irrespective of the number of fours in the dummy). And I will always rule that a dummy is not allowed to tell declarer after each trick where he needs to lead the next trick from, as soon as an opponent complains (Law 74). But I am aware that an accurate interpretation of the text in Law 42B2 does not support this.

Rik

[MickyB]

There are lots of things that dummy could do, supposedly in the name of "attempting to prevent an irregularity", that we wouldn't permit him to do. I think it is reasonable to conclude that he is only supposed to attempt to prevent irregularities that he has been given reason to believe might be about to occur.

[nige1]

Trinidad, on 2013-April-30, 09:02, said:

The law deals with preventing an irregularity. Prevention takes places before the irregularity, i.e. before it starts. You are keeping matches out of reach for your kids to prevent a fire (before it starts). It is a good idea to use a fire extinguisher once a fire is initiated, but at that time we are not preventing a fire anymore, we are fighting the fire to limit the consequences.

I like Trinidad's "Prevent a fire" analogy. As I now understand it, the official interpretation is:

• You break the law if you attempt to "prevent the irregularity" by taking away the matches but
• You are allowed to try to "prevent the irregularity" after the child has struck the match and before he lights the fire and
• Once the fire is lit, you can call the fire-brigade, but it's "Burn baby burn"

[Trinidad]

So, if you have a partner who -on average- leads out of the wrong hand twice per board that he declares, you are allowed to tell declarer what hand he is in?

And if declarer says "four of.." the irregularity is not "about to occur". It already has occurred.

Rik

[nige1]

aguahombre, on 2013-April-29, 14:24, said:

Fiction, based on fallacy. The posts by Sven and Barry were not aimed at the experienced directors who participate in these fora. They were for the edification of casual readers. It seems that they might have been helpful to some of each.

I agree with Blackshoe that an important aim of IBLF should be to help ordinary inexperienced directors and players. For example, we must learn to take on board that even if we're able to understand the words of the simpler rules, rule-makers may intend something else