[barmar]

jfnrl, on 2013-June-26, 08:00, said:

I am not a TD, but I suppose that French TDs applies the last sentence of law 40 C 1 "If the Director judges there is undisclosed knowledge that has damaged the opponents he shall adjust the score and may award a procedural penalty".
No prove of a violation of the laws or regulations is requested. An assumption is enough.

That seems to be a very lax interpretation of "judges".

[jfnrl]

barmar, on 2013-June-26, 08:57, said:

That seems to be a very lax interpretation of "judges".

In french, the sentence is :
"Si l’arbitre juge qu’une connaissance
non divulguée a porté préjudice aux adversaires il attribuera une marque ajustée et il peut imposer
une pénalité de procédure."
"juger que" means "to consider that" (source : reverso)
It seems that we don't have the same laws

[aguahombre]

jfnrl, on 2013-June-26, 08:00, said:

I am not a TD, but I suppose that....No prove of a violation of the laws or regulations is requested. An assumption is enough.

blackshoe, on 2013-June-26, 08:53, said:

No, it's not. The TD is required to rule on the basis of the preponderance of the evidence available, not on assumption.

jfnrl, on 2013-June-27, 07:20, said:

In french, the sentence is :
"Si l’arbitre juge qu’une connaissance
non divulguée a porté préjudice aux adversaires il attribuera une marque ajustée et il peut imposer
une pénalité de procédure."
"juger que" means "to consider that" (source : reverso)
It seems that we don't have the same laws

I suspect we do have the same laws, but a non TD is having trouble with translation. My assumption is based on a preponderance of evidence from the words "prove", "requested" (required?), etc in the posts.

[nige1]

Most players habitually open "lighter" in third seat than they admit on their system-card. They aren't psyching or deviating because they have an implicit partnership agreement. Many use Drury to reduce the risk. Drury was invented as a "psych"-control and that is still its most profitable use. Many are ignorant of the rules. Some justify their actions by using their interpretation of relevant laws and regulations. Others insist that it's "Judgement" or "Just Bridge". Directors are rarely called to report such behaviour. When a director is called, an adverse ruling is rarer still. When two players have already passed, ultra-weak hands are uncommon, so it is hard to establish a pattern of clear-cut examples.

When extreme examples occur in BBO featured matches, kibitzers sometimes draw attention to them, pointing out some of the pairs who do this habitually. Cascade cited such a case in a BBO forum. None of this has any effect.

Some interpret Bridge rules more literally and harshly. As a result, a few masochists handicap themselves, heavily. As long as the current system-regulation protocol persists, Bridge will be a two-tier game.

[Zelandakh]

Cthulhu D, on 2013-June-24, 00:00, said:

we open 8-9 counts in 1st/2nd, and it it is passed around to me third in NV vs V, I'm pretty sure I should bid 1S with

S: x
H: xxx
D: xxx
C: Txxxxx

Looks like a choice between opening 1NT or 3/4♣ to me when not playing Drury. Playing Drury certainly makes a 1♠ opening much more attractive, especially if I have a private agreement with partner never to raise the suit beyond 2. It is a little like the famous (and subsequently banned) system of the British team from ages past where no bid was allowed to be considered a real suit until shown not to be a void.

[hrothgar]

nige1, on 2013-June-27, 08:48, said:

Drury was invented as a "psych"-control.

No it wasn't

Drury was developed because people properly noted that

1. Third and fourth seat openings have a wider ranger than first and second seat opening
2. Traditional response structures for sound first and second seat openings didn't work well opposition wide ranging third seat openings

[aguahombre]

hrothgar, on 2013-June-28, 06:19, said:

Drury was developed because people properly noted that

1. Third and fourth seat openings have a wider ranger than first and second seat opening
2. Traditional response structures for sound first and second seat openings didn't work well opposition wide ranging third seat openings

Actually, I think it was invented in necessary self-defense by Eric Murray's partner, and then banned in response to 1/2 seat openings because it is a psyche control.

[Cthulhu D]

Zelandakh, on 2013-June-28, 04:43, said:

Looks like a choice between opening 1NT or 3/4♣ to me when not playing Drury. Playing Drury certainly makes a 1♠ opening much more attractive, especially if I have a private agreement with partner never to raise the suit beyond 2. It is a little like the famous (and subsequently banned) system of the British team from ages past where no bid was allowed to be considered a real suit until shown not to be a void.

I have a system inference that unless partner is very weak he doesn't have 5 spades. Given that they almost certainly have a spade fit I feel the 1S psyche is more likely to bury their fit than the preempt or psyching 1NT.

[Zelandakh]

Nonetheless, it is dangerous if you do not have the agreement suggested, since partner might decide to raise to 3 or 4♠ after LHO's double. And if these raises do not exist, it seems to me that the system has been designed with psyche control in mind and should be looked at quite strictly.

[mycroft]

I don't think that Eric Murray's third-seat openers were psychic as much as they were natural and very wide-ranging. It may have been that they were illegal on the current GCC (which bans agreeing to open at the 1 level with less than 8 Work HCP); but they were legal then.

He (as far as I know) wasn't opening 1=3=4=5s 1♠ or the like, just 4=4=1=4 6-counts, raised to 3 with a max passed hand, and going toll-free.

Yes, it has been used with the "I'm going to pass Drury" hands by others; and if it's used in that manner, then it is a psychic control. It is disallowed on the GCC opposite 1/2 seat openers, likely because the ACBL wants to discourage very light 1M openings opposite an unpassed hand; also because allowing "limit raise+, or" (which is usually what the 2♣ system players want) leads to half-duplex (relay) auctions that the ACBL also wishes to discourage at the GCC level (especially half-duplex auctions that can stop short of game). None of this has any reference to "psychic control"; although there may be some who wish to use it as such (though not as many as will scream "psych" on a 4=3-(something) 8-count 1♠ opener even after being Pre-Alerted of its systemic nature).

Again, the major reason for the psychic control regulation is that they aren't psychics that are being controlled; they're expected enough that they build system to handle them, and (almost always) that expectation is an illegal partnership understanding on the relevant regulations being used. And that isn't, really, a bad thing.

[barmar]

mycroft, on 2013-July-08, 11:53, said:

Again, the major reason for the psychic control regulation is that they aren't psychics that are being controlled; they're expected enough that they build system to handle them, and (almost always) that expectation is an illegal partnership understanding on the relevant regulations being used. And that isn't, really, a bad thing.

What isn't a bad thing: the PUs, or the regulation that prohibits them?

[mycroft]

Sorry, what I meant was that a regulation designed to penalize trying to get around the regulations by "not discussing", especially attempts to play an illegal system by just *not telling anybody you're doing it* (which compounds the first infraction with lack of disclosure and taking the gains from that insufficient disclosure as well), isn't a bad thing.

[Cthulhu D]

Zelandakh, on 2013-July-01, 01:58, said:

Nonetheless, it is dangerous if you do not have the agreement suggested, since partner might decide to raise to 3 or 4♠ after LHO's double. And if these raises do not exist, it seems to me that the system has been designed with psyche control in mind and should be looked at quite strictly.

Any system that systematically opens balanced 8 counts with an aggressive preempting style has an inbuilt psychic control in that aggressive moves opposite a psyche in 3rd are extremely unlikely, hands that would make aggressive pre-emptive raises are overwhelmingly likely to have preempted to begin with (perhaps on an assumed fit basis). But drury is clearly a psychic control and is permitted, so who knows.

[blackshoe]

Someone asked what "regularly" means in this context.

It's a judgment call. Basically it means "often enough that partner comes to expect it". There's no specific number, or time period, except that once is not enough. One must also remember that not all psychs are the same, so if a player makes say three different psychs in the same session, that's still not enough. Although I suppose someone could argue that it's enough to conclude that whatever partner's call, it might be a psych. OTGH, that's generally true unless partner is known to "never" psych. Bottom line: it's up to the TD.

[gnasher]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-25, 06:39, said:

Someone asked what "regularly" means in this context.

It's a judgment call. Basically it means "often enough that partner comes to expect it". There's no specific number, or time period, except that once is not enough. One must also remember that not all psychs are the same, so if a player makes say three different psychs in the same session, that's still not enough. Although I suppose someone could argue that it's enough to conclude that whatever partner's call, it might be a psych. OTGH, that's generally true unless partner is known to "never" psych. Bottom line: it's up to the TD.

That sounds like a definition of "frequently". Doesn't "regularly" imply that it follows a fixed pattern, such as psyching every Tuesday on the third board of the day?

[barmar]

gnasher, on 2013-July-25, 07:36, said:

That sounds like a definition of "frequently". Doesn't "regularly" imply that it follows a fixed pattern, such as psyching every Tuesday on the third board of the day?

Has any done a study linking women's psychic bidding with their menstrual cycle?

Following a repeating pattern is definition #1 in my dictionary. But definition #2 is "done or happening frequently". Which do you think is more likely to have been intended in this context?

[blackshoe]

People — well, except maybe David Burn — tend to use words interchangeably even when they don't mean precisely the same thing.The law doesn't use either "frequently" or "regularly", it speaks of "repeated deviations". ABF regulations on psyching speak of the frequency of doing it. The EBU White Book (2013 edition) speaks of frequency, but it also says that a partnership's actions one instance of a psych may be considered evidence of a CPU. I suspect they intend something more than just "one psych = CPU", that some other evidence is involved, but they don't clarify. If they do mean one psych is alone sufficient, I think they're overlooking the law's reference to "repeated deviations". The ACBL (see Duplicate Decisions) speaks of "frequent, random psychs" and "excessive psychic bidding". So regulators don't use "regularly".

[campboy]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-25, 09:03, said:

The EBU White Book (2013 edition) speaks of frequency, but it also says that a partnership's actions one instance of a psych may be considered evidence of a CPU. I suspect they intend something more than just "one psych = CPU", that some other evidence is involved, but they don't clarify.

I believe what is meant is that, while it isn't a CPU unless something similar has happened before (or unless the pair have explicitly discussed it), a partnership's combined actions on one board may be sufficient to conclude that it is very probable that something similar has happened before.

[nige1]

nige1, on 2013-June-27, 08:48, said:

Drury was invented as a "psych"-control

hrothgar, on 2013-June-28, 06:19, said:

No it wasn't
Drury was developed because people properly noted that
1. Third and fourth seat openings have a wider ranger than first and second seat opening
2. Traditional response structures for sound first and second seat openings didn't work well opposition wide ranging third seat openings

Eric Murray says that Douglas Drury invented his eponymous 2♣ convention
"for the express purpose of mitigating the losses suffered by my partners because of my uncontrollable mania for opening balanced Yarboroughs in third or fourth position with one spade."

[gnasher]

barmar, on 2013-July-25, 08:24, said:

Following a repeating pattern is definition #1 in my dictionary. But definition #2 is "done or happening frequently". Which do you think is more likely to have been intended in this context?

The second definition is one that I'm unfamiliar with. Perhaps it depends on your dictionary.