[blackshoe]

So don't play up, because if anything goes wrong, you won't get justice.

[mycroft]

a) Do you think that the directors aren't a good judge of a player's peers? Do you have evidence of "helping one's mates"? I have evidence of the opposite, as do many. I know you think it shouldn't matter, but replacing it with "the class of the game" is unfair to everybody - those that are better than "the class" as well as those that are less experienced. Having said that, players have the right to an appeal, where the players polled will be named at least to the panel, who can (and have) decided that wasn't sufficient or wasn't a representative peer set.
b) Are you going to change the rest of the sentence too - the part that says "using the methods of the partnership"? Does that mean those who play K/S, or Precision, or AEC, or Polish Club, will be held to the same bids as those who play the system everybody else is playing? If "of course not", what does that do to "We open most 10 counts, so" or "partner would have opened Jxxxxx and a K 3♣, so he can't have that" or even "we don't let them play 2 of a fit unless we can tell it's wrong"? Where does it stop being "system" and start being "different rulings to different pairs in the same competition"?
c ) One of the joys of bridge is that you can play the big events, with the big people. A regional one-session side game can have people just out of the 199ers all the way up to "pro and client who got knocked out this morning and don't want to play the 5-table one-session Swiss". What's the class of that competition?

[sanst]

Gilithin, on 2023-July-29, 05:47, said:

It has been pointed out fairly often on these forums that moving to a virtual 2 (or 4) room environment with fully electronic CCs would not only reduce the amount of cheating but also the number of difficult rulings. It is probably not possible to take bad refs out of the picture completely but it is possible to reduce the effect they have.

And how many people would still play bridge after that change? I guess that some 95% of the membership of the Dutch bridge union would go to a non-affiliated club, so they can still have their nice bridge afternoon or night without sitting at a computer screen, separated from their partner. Most of us play for fun, not for winning the cup or bowl or whatever you have.
It would be disastrous for bridge at all levels. The Dutch union is financially dependent not only on the membership fees, but also on the money from the national lottery, which again is dependent on the number of members and the international results. Without that income there’s no way we could have teams competing internationally.

[TylerE]

sanst, on 2023-July-30, 02:01, said:

And how many people would still play bridge after that change? I guess that some 95% of the membership of the Dutch bridge union would go to a non-affiliated club, so they can still have their nice bridge afternoon or night without sitting at a computer screen, separated from their partner. Most of us play for fun, not for winning the cup or bowl or whatever you have.
It would be disastrous for bridge at all levels. The Dutch union is financially dependent not only on the membership fees, but also on the money from the national lottery, which again is dependent on the number of members and the international results. Without that income there’s no way we could have teams competing internationally.

I would certainly not burn precious vacation days and fly halfway across the country to play under those conditions.

[barmar]

Gilithin, on 2023-July-29, 05:47, said:

As mentioned previously, the easy change is to clarify "class of players in question" to be the class of the competition rather than the individual pair

Why do you think that's right? If a novice enters the Spingold, why would you expect their LAs to be the same as the champions they're playing against? Are you saying that if you choose to play against such opposition, you have to play at their level and you'll be judged that way?

The point of this law is to judge whether the player was influenced by the UI. There's no way to get into their head to determine what they would have done without the UI (if we ask them, the response will be biased and self-serving, so it's not very trustworthy). So instead we consider what other players like them would have done, usually by polling some of them. So if the player is a novice, we try to find out what other novices would have done.

Yes, this means that players of different skill levels can get different rulings when the basic facts are the same. But that's because "what would have happened absent the UI" is likely to be different. As long as that's what we're comparing with, this is an inherent result.

[sanst]

Gilithin, on 2023-July-29, 05:47, said:

As mentioned previously, the easy change is to clarify "class of players in question" to be the class of the competition rather than the individual pair, which is not my understanding of how this is currently interpreted.

A basic problem of this solution is, that ‘competition’ is not in the Laws and it might be quite difficult to introduce it in such a way that it’s usable all over the world. Besides, what is the class of competition in your average club? I don’t think your proposal solves anything, but probably makes things even more complicated.
The different RA’s should give guidelines to interpret ‘class of players in question’.

[pescetom]

sanst, on 2023-August-04, 01:46, said:

A basic problem of this solution is, that ‘competition’ is not in the Laws and it might be quite difficult to introduce it in such a way that it’s usable all over the world. Besides, what is the class of competition in your average club? I don’t think your proposal solves anything, but probably makes things even more complicated.
The different RA’s should give guidelines to interpret ‘class of players in question’.

I do think you were all rather hard on this legitimate objection by gilithin... it's clear that mere class of competition is probably not the way to go, but it's equally clear that we are (frankly) nude in terms of sample size and objective criteria for selection of peers. I agree that it is up to RAs to indicate how we should identify the class of players (flighting or whatever)... then we need mechanisms (amply possible with current technology) to interrogate a significant number of peers within useful time and to mitigate any bias introduced by having played the same hands (if necessary).

As a foot in the door, I hope to experiment by dividing my club into 3 flights and polling via whatsapp in a standard format to allow definition of LAs and the impact of UI. If this turns out to be more or less workable despite limited numbers and problems of bias and delay, I will try to have it built into the app of our RA, potentially allowing polls of hundreds of peers who are not involved in the actual tournament.

[blackshoe]

Let us know how that goes, please. :-)

[mycroft]

I'd be happy to run something like M:tG's "Rules Enforcement Levels", but I bet translating it - especially the somewhat draconian (but reasonable, perhaps even the only effective) penalties at "Professional" level - to Bridge would lead to frustration (on both ends, I think - "Casual" level might get what some people here want: "warnings at club games, full board penalty at tournaments, for the same offense".