[jillybean]

Mike,

Of course, you are correct. There is no point in getting upset, it's just a club game. I too have mellowed a lot, especially in club games and especially against
players whom I know, or suspect are new and those who will never understand the implications of tempo. I know that sounds condescending, but it's a fact that some are simply not playing the same game. Some may say that about my game too, but I do know how I wish to be playing.

Club game or tournament, I do still get heated when "A" players fail to maintain proper tempo in tempo sensitive situations, and other &^%$.

Don't mellow out too much, Bridge would be very dull with a room full of lemmings.

[blackshoe]

If West bid 2♣ in his normal tempo, then the bid wasn't "slow" as far as the law is concerned. The fast double is the only break in tempo he made.

[jillybean]

 blackshoe, on 2024-September-11, 09:04, said:

If West bid 2♣ in his normal tempo, then the bid wasn't "slow" as far as the law is concerned. The fast double is the only break in tempo he made.

True. However, do you not agree that it needs to be taken into consideration?


PlayerX normal tempo is slow, very slow. This of course causes problems when X has a nothing hand. With a yarborough, X does not maintain anything like their regular tempo.

My mention of SLOW was to highlight the BIT between normal tempo and the lightning fast X.

Let's say Normal tempo is 2-4 seconds?, fast tempo for N players will be .1-2 seconds, there is less room for UI

Player X normal tempo is 10+ seconds - fast tempo .1-2 seconds.

[pescetom]

 jillybean, on 2024-September-11, 10:41, said:

Player X normal tempo is 10+ seconds - fast tempo .1-2 seconds.

Are you serious?
10 seconds (by the clock, our perception is not always accurate) is a long time.
We have only 2 or 3 players really that slow, and they realise that they are not ready for the sanctioned tournament.

But yes, everyone can insta-bid however fast their normal tempo may be.

[mikeh]

Jb: I am often slow….I can take (in a long team game) a minute or even more on what I see as a difficult bid. My main partner is equally slow on difficult hands. On normal hands we are, I think, pretty good at maintaining an even tempo.

Slow bidding is NOT a problem. What can be and, all too often, is a problem is partner using the UI from the slow call to choose his action.

Typically, when we break tempo, two things may happen.

1. The slow player makes a bid that is forcing….now partner can’t pass inappropriately and in the vast majority of cases he has little idea what the BIT indicated….was I thinking of a non-forcing action? Am I now stretching because I decided to overbid rather than underbid? Was I weighing two or more different forcing calls? So my BIT doesn’t suggest relative weakness or relative strength, nor is it an indication that I may not have the shape suggested by my call. Indeed, this is probably the situation in which I am most likely to take my time….so long as I make a forcing call, partner will (almost always, but every auction is different) be unable to figure out what my problem was.

2. The player passes or makes a non-forcing call or a double that is defined in our methods as penalty or optional. Now partner is under pressure….it’s often fairly obvious what type of problem the slow player has, at least in general terms. That’s where ethics come into play. Partner may not choose, from logical alternatives, an action that caters to the likely reason for the BIT. This is a big reason why I (and my main partner) rarely break tempo and pass or make a double in situations where the double is not clearly defined. In our methods almost all doubles in competition are well defined, btw.

I do see a tendency to suspect that the person breaking tempo is actually acting unethically. No doubt there are players, especially non experts, who do (consciously or unconsciously) use tempo as part of their bidding…slow shows a relative weakness, fast shows extras and normal shows normal. And they can be infuriating to play against.

But if you’ve watched important matches on vugraph you’ll know that top players are often slow…more in the play perhaps but also in the bidding, and it’s extremely rare for a TD to be called. Why? Imo, because they all adhere to an approach similar to the one I’ve described.

Bridge requires thinking. A few players process information so quickly that they almost never commit a BIT, but most of us don’t think that quickly.

While your example suggests that your particular opponents varied tempo to indicate, firstly, doubt about the 2C call and, secondly, no doubt at all about the double….I really don’t think that there’s any reason to adjust the board.

Both actions by west were normal….not the tempo but the calls. 2C was obvious, even if not to him. Double was even more obvious.

South’s 3S bid showed an appalling lack of understanding of the game. A weak, short spade suit, sterile shape, no source of tricks, and the opps announcing that the hand belongs to them!

As for east’s pass, he’s going to be a little uncomfortable in that he has overbid his high card values and left a king diamond undisclosed, but what else should he do? 4D is just silly…the kind of action that ends partnerships.


Imo, were I to be polled, I’d place 100% of the responsibility on south and would consider any appeal by south to be utterly without merit. Had west bid in tempo at both opportunities how could the result be different? Ruling that east must pull the double would be a travesty.

[akwoo]

 mikeh, on 2024-September-10, 12:13, said:

Obviously untrue….she couldn’t have known I was bidding 3C, and she completely missed the point, as did her partner. He held Qxx in hearts..something like Jxx Qxx AJxx xxx….a clear 4H bid even after an appropriate pause over 3C….he passed, but not because he was being ethical. He said that he wanted to bid but thought she’d play him for a better hand, lol.

This is a digression, but...

I'm wondering why this is a clear 4H bid over partner's 3H overcall. Isn't a typical (NOT minimum!) hand for the 3H overcall something like Axx AKxxx Kxxx x
(a minimum is something like Qxx AKJxx Qxxx x) in which case 4H is well less than 50% given the preempt makes bad splits more likely? Or should requirements for the 3H overcall be significantly stronger (in playing strength if not hcp)?

[jillybean]

mikeh, on 2024-September-11, 11:33, said:

Slow bidding is NOT a problem. What can be and, all too often, is a problem is partner using the UI from the slow call to choose his action.

We have a few players who are notoriously slow. I'd say close to 10 seconds, but that is a guess. It seems to me that they don't start thinking until it's their turn to bid and then they think about the final contract and play of the entire hand. They are good players, I doubt this is the reason but I see no other explanation for the constantly slow tempo.
IMO, when these players have a yarborough or penalty double, maintaining a steady tempo is crucial. If they make a fast action they may as well blow a trumpet too, the action is glaringly obvious.

Mike, I've played against you a few times and I've noticed that you obviously think about what you are doing but I think your tempo is normal.
Thinking when you have something to think about is rarely a problem, I'd venture to say it is never a problem in an uncontested auction when you are deciding such things as to start a Q bid sequence.

In a contested auction, slow followed by fast/slow pass, fast/slow doubles are problematic.

Back to this hand, I am not saying my opponents deliberately varied tempo to signal anything, I am saying a lightning fast double does suggest partner should definitely leave this penalty double in.

South was playing his very first sanctioned game. These -1100 have been the best learning tools for me, I hope for him too.
I did not call the Director , I would not want an adjustment.

[thepossum]

I have a question about tempo and information

It would obviously be ridicuous to expect every bid to be at the same tempo - most are automatic - a few require thought - some require a lot of thought

That information is available and obvious to all at the table - how is it UI - anyone with half a brain folliwng the auction would know why some bids take a while - oh no partner just doubled 5 spades in a highly competitve auction - what now - you all know by now why I prefer casual friendly Bridge

[blackshoe]

Law 16B1: Any extraneous information from partner that might suggest a call or play is unauthorized. This includes remarks, questions, replies to questions, unexpected alerts or failures to alert, unmistakable hesitation, unwonted speed, special emphasis, tone, gesture, movement or mannerism.
(a) A player may not choose a call or play that is demonstrably suggested over another by unauthorized information if the other call or play is a logical alternative.
(b) A logical alternative is an action that a significant proportion of the class of players in question, using the methods of the partnership, would seriously consider, and some might select.

That second sentence up there is poorly worded, because that list is of things that might provide extraneous information. They are not information in themselves.

That said, what does "unmistakeable hesitation" mean? What about "unwonted speed"? "Unmistakeable" means "not able to be mistaken for anything else" or "very distinctive". "Unwonted" means "unaccustomed or unusual". So, if a player's slow bid can't be anything else except a slow (for him) bid or his fast bid is not something he usually does, then whatever inference you can draw from this break in (normal, for him) tempo, if that inference might suggest a call or play, the inference is unauthorized. So, if the player who broke tempo is your partner, you have to determine whether whatever call or play you want to make is demonstrably (obviously) suggested over some other call or play. If it's not obvious, it's not prohibited. Note that the term "logical alternative" applies to "some other call or play", not to the one you're contemplating making. IOW the other call or play is a logical alternative to the call or play you're thinking of making.

The other way to look at this is via Law 73C:
1. When a player has available to him unauthorized information from his partner, such as from a remark, question, explanation, gesture, mannerism, undue emphasis, inflection, haste or hesitation, an unexpected alert or failure to alert, he must carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorized information {see Law 16B1(a)}.
2. A penalty may be assessed against a player who violates C1, but if the opponents have been damaged, see also Law 16B3.

73C1 provides the same list as 16B1 and says the same thing as 16B1a. 16B3 tells the director to adjust the score if in his opinion an infraction of 16B1 has resulted in damage to the NOS.

How is 73C1 different from 16B1? What does "carefully avoid taking advantage" mean other than "the same thing as 'may not choose…'"? I don't know. I do know that I've in some cases spent a lot of time and effort trying to figure out what, if anything, my partner's BIT means. And then usually "carefully avoid(ed) taking any advantage" when it turns out I didn't have to do that. :-(

These days, I ask myself "does partner's BIT obviously suggest something?" If it's not immediately obvious to me I do whatever I was going to do without worrying about logical alternatives or taking advantage. If the director later rules that I broke the law, I'll accept that, but I will ask him to explain to me what inference he thinks can be drawn from the BIT, and how that inference obviously suggests that I do what I did and over what logical alternative.

Note that, in law, "must" (Law 16B1) is the strongest positive imperative, while "may not" (Law 73C) is only the second strongest negative. Either way, they're strong enough that a violation of either law ought to "more often than not" lead to a Procedural Penalty. That doesn't happen, of course. Maybe if it did players would try harder not to break tempo, on the grounds that "if I hadn't broken tempo, partner wouldn't have been stuck trying to avoid taking advantage of UI". Or maybe they wouldn't, I don't know. <shrug>

That some actions require some or a lot of thought is why "normal tempo" is not a specific number. It depends on what the player concerned normally does in the situation at hand. Funny thing, I play with and against a lot of the same people every week, and I have no database in my head of what their normal tempo is in various situations. Maybe I'm unusual in that.

Opponents, btw, are constrained to call the director only when two things are true: they consider that UI was provided, and they believe that "damage could well result". Most player IME seem to assume that if there's UI around, they're gonna be damaged, so they're not really following Law 16B2 when they reserve their rights. OTOH, 16B2 is kinda superfluous, since not reserving your rights doesn't obviate those rights.

I dunno, Possum, did this help?