BBO Discussion Forums: Director Error - BBO Discussion Forums

The Director is called after the insufficient bid, which is not accepted, and is changed to Pass. Offender’s partner quickly wins the Ace of spades, and the Director now states that Declarer can require or prohibit the lead of any one suit. Declarer requires a club lead, allowing the contract to make, as would prohibiting a heart lead. Unfortunately, the selected option was allowed under the previous Laws, but not the current ones, so there is an appeal, and you are the Head Director….

This post has been edited by blackshoe: 2021-June-16, 09:43
Reason for edit: replaced bidding diagram. BTW, doubler doesn't get to call after his partner's correction. Auction's over before it gets to him.

LH2650, on 2021-June-15, 18:55, said:

What else is new? I have no directors that don't read TFLB at the appropriate time. Dunk him in boiling oil.

LH2650, on 2021-June-15, 18:55, said:

If I understand correctly, declarer would have had the option of prohibiting a heart lead which you say achieves the same effect. However, that's not the ruling given at the table. So Law 82C tells us to adjust treating both sides as non-offending. Clearly you should assign the declaring side the table score of 6S=. The score for the other side is more interesting, and it depends on how likely declarer would have been to prohibit a heart lead (rather than any of the other suits or not prohibiting any at all), how likely the defence would be to find the heart switch if it was not prohibited and whether the contract can still make.

sfi, on 2021-June-16, 07:47, said:

6S was doubled as I read it, and I'm not sure why offender's partner got to make a final pass (maybe after 18 months online I'm just as rusty as the Director in question).
But otherwise this looks right.

Does declarer know which suit is fatal? Or is it just that he knows that clubs will let the contract come home?

If it's obvious that with the correct explanation, declarer is forbidding a heart lead, then 6♠x= both sides. "treating both sides as non-offending" doesn't mean "give them a good score"; if 0% of players would do something, then we can't say "but this one might".

If it's reasonable to get it wrong, then maybe 6♠x= N/S, -1 E/W. But more likely a weighted score (say 60% making N/S, 60% set E/W).

If it requires looking in the opponents' hands, then maybe 50% making N/S and 75% set E/W (giving "the benefit of the doubt" on a 1 in 3 guess to both sides).

Play with the weights as necessary based on the polling of the hand as to whether it's "obvious" or not - you are polling this, right? (unless they're off two aces or something where everybody would get it right).

Note: even in the old laws, that ruling was wrong; because it was "one suit" and "never mentioned by that player in the legal auction", declarer could require or forbid a club, not "any suit". The only time this ruling was correct was the bit after first release before they nerfed 26B to just "forbid" - and that happened before any NBO started using the 2017 Laws. Not that that matters at all.

pescetom, on 2021-June-16, 08:25, said:

Law 27B2 said:

This law was not essentially changed in 2017

(It is also worth noting that both the 2007 law 23 and the 2017 Law 72C require the director to protect the non-offending side in such cases from damage by awarding an adjusted score if necessary. I would reject an appeal from the originally offending side here.)

sfi, on 2021-June-16, 07:47, said:

I think it is improvident to conjecture before knowing the location of the spots. My understanding of 82C is that the <defender's> adjusted score reflects not being subject to lead penalty.

Law 26B: When an offending player’s call is withdrawn and it is not replaced by a comparable call, then if he becomes a defender declarer may, at the offender’s partner’s first turn to lead (which may be the opening lead), prohibit offender’s partner from leading any (one) suit which has not been specified in the legal auction by the offender. Such prohibition continues for as long as the offender’s partner retains the lead.

There was clearly a director error, so I don't see how the appeal can be rejected.

Law 82C: If a ruling has been given that the Director subsequently determines to be incorrect, and if no rectification will allow the board to be scored normally, he shall award an adjusted score, treating both sides as non-offending for that purpose.

Is there a rectification that will allow the board to be scored normally? I don't see one - you can't go back and change the lead and redo the play of the hand. So "treating both sides as non-offending" what do we do? The first thing, I think, is that for the declaring side, result stands*. As for the defenders, well, "obviously I would have led a heart" is not going to fly. Not after he's seen all four hands. Beyond that, I can't say without all the relevant information (all four hands, and the play, and possibly the defenders' carding agreements).

*I don't think a weighted score is appropriate here - if you weight the score, you're not treating the declaring side as non-offending. It seems to me that "treat both sides as non-offending" results in one of two "adjustments": either the declaring side gets the table score, and the defending side gets the score for 6♠X-1 (assuming down 2 or more is not possible), or the table result stands for both sides.

blackshoe, on 2021-June-16, 10:05, said:

I agree with that.

pran chastized me with

Law 27B2 said:

Thanks, but I did remember that at least.
My point was that it is not his turn to call (there have already been three passes).
[EDIT: I see that blackshoe now corrected this in the OP]

pran, on 2021-June-16, 09:30, said:

Why?

I disagree that weighted score isn't appropriate, especially for E/W. Non-offending doesn't mean "best result likely" any more; if we think that, given the correct ruling, declarer has a straight up one-in-three chance of getting this right, 100% making is much more favourable than "non-offending". "But I made it at the table!" "Yes, because you did something that wasn't legal - even if I was the one that told you you could do it."

Similarly, if it's obvious to the kibitzer at the next table over that the heart lead sets the contract, and there's at least a chance if we don't get it now, then giving E/W any percentage of -1, when with the right ruling, it would never have happened, isn't "treating them as non-offending", it's giving them something they don't deserve.

"It's a straight guess" or "some would deny hearts, some would deny clubs" is why weighted rulings were invented - and "non-offending" means "assume they would guess 10, 15% better/worse than we think they would".

blackshoe, on 2021-June-16, 10:05, said:

In fact, it's not even an appeal (remember, an appeal committee can not overrule the director on a point of law (93B3), so if it was treated as an appeal, all the committee could do is read L26 to the director, and then suggest to her that she should apply 82C. Of course, the result could be appealed, but the ACBL at least discourages appeals on minor weighting "mistakes"). When the TD is made aware of her mistake, however this is done, she should trigger 82C herself.

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Of course not. Especially after declarer exercises their *legal* option to deny the heart lead. Remember that we don't assign a score "without the infraction", we assign the score "without the TD's mistake". So we work out what would happen if, at the crucial time, declarer was told instead "you can bar any one suit". If it's obvious to bar hearts, then 6♠x= for both sides *is* treating both sides as non-offending. If "it's a crapshoot", then you can't say that declarer would *never* bar a heart, and that E/W would *always* find a heart. If it's "well, either a heart or a club" - remember that declarer is entitled to know that LHO was willing to sacrifice in 6♣, so we don't have to worry about a club ruff - then maybe N/S get 60% of it making and E/W get 60% of setting it.

I do agree that, in the cases where declarer doesn't bar hearts, there isn't a 100% chance of a heart lead, that should also be considered in the weighting (again, giving E/W more of a chance of finding it than N/S gets of having it missed).

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My previous comment talks about this bit. If you truly believe that it's a 50-50 chance that declarer would get it right, why is giving 100% of anything fair, when you can assign 50-50 score, and then tweak it the "standard" 10% or so in each side's favour?

pescetom, on 2021-June-16, 11:16, said:

In order to protect the innocent party from damage caused by the irregularity.

But I (also) agreed with blackshoe's reasoning and solution which led to the same result for the innocent party.

mycroft, on 2021-June-16, 11:59, said:

You're assuming that "appeal" means "appeals committee". That's not necessarily the case. See Law 93A. Also, 92C says "All requests for a review of a ruling shall be made through the Director." So you say to the Director "We want to appeal" and the Director says "on what grounds?" And you say "director error" and explain what you mean. Any competent director will now apply 82C.

You say that a weighted score is especially appropriate for EW, who were originally the offending side (assuming South was dealer, as I did in editing the OP). Is it also especially appropriate for NS? If not, well, I don't think you can award a weighted score to just one contestant — you'd have to award it to both.

I know that tweaking a weighted score "the standard 10% in either direction" is common. I do not know if there's a legal basis for doing so.

blackshoe, on 2021-June-16, 20:48, said:

Law 12C2a

It would always depend on the actual hand and the play to that point. But in many of these hands, "don't lead a heart" would be obvious and automatic given the correct ruling; assign 6♠x= both ways on those. Many of the rest might be the kind of hand where "it's likely that declarer would get it right; there's also a chance that even if declarer got it wrong, the defenders would too" - there, you could assign 100% making to N/S, and say 25% set to E/W.

But then we get to the ones where they don't know that the heart switch is fatal; there are those where defenders don't know it either. If it's a straight guess, I can easily see giving 60-40 both ways.

I can't imagine a world where we'd be giving 100% of -1 to E/W. Even if it's an absolute blind guess, declarer is going to get it right 1/3 of the time, and defenders may not get it right if declarer got it wrong. Unless it was "obvious" to declarer to make the wrong guess, I suppose.

Especially if we give 100% of making to N/S. That's (the old) L12C1e thinking, and the "undeserved tops" comments you'll hear from the world when they see that result is the reason why we went to weighted scores.

It is rare that we give weighted-and-split scores, true - the expectation is that we encode the "non-offender" status into the weighting, so the same weighted score in favour of the non-offenders is in "anti-favour" to the offenders. But here, we have to treat both sides as non-offending, so the "favouring" is going to be different - therefore split-and-weighted (if necessary).

mycroft, on 2021-June-17, 09:24, said:

This is not about meddling in policy or practice but to point out that an asymptote on the limits of guess is perilous. If it is considered that when a person guesses it typically is not a pure guess but is informed by the biases of the 'guesser'. For instance my Physics professor in optics managed to put me to sleep for half the course during which I took two mid terms consisting of 15 multiple guess Qs (with 5 responses). Outcome: 4 out of 15 on both occasions. the 8 I got right were because I knew the answer. the 22 I got wrong were the guesses. I think that the opportunities talked about in this thread are affected by informed bias.

pran, on 2021-June-17, 00:26, said:

No. 12C2{a} has nothing to do with weighted scores.

blackshoe, on 2021-June-17, 15:56, said:

but it is the legal foundation for awarding just 40% and 60% (or plus and minus 10%) artificial adjusted scores and no other percentages.

pran, on 2021-June-17, 23:08, said:

So what? I see no justification for varying weighted score in 12C2{a}.