[blackshoe]

It's not obvious to me.

[pran]

 gnasher, on 2015-October-24, 12:04, said:

I'd forgotten that the EBU had that regulation. Obviously the intent is that it applies regardless of how many cards you happen to hold at the time.

However, I think the EBU's regulation is illegal. Bridge is a thinking game; signalling is part of bridge; therefore thinking about whether or how to signal is a bridge reason.

The wording is also a little offensive. "Players have argued" suggests that the authors think people merely argue that they were thinking, rather than that they actually were thinking. What is wrong with simply "Pausing to consider whether to signal is an infraction".

Because there is no way you can distinguish between the reasons for your pause "whether or not to signal according to agreements" and the more probable "deliberately attempting to disconcerting an opponent":

Law 74C7 said:

The following are examples of violations of procedure:
[...]
7.varying the normal tempo of bidding or play for the purpose of disconcerting an opponent.

[lamford]

 Vampyr, on 2015-October-24, 11:27, said:

West does have two small cards. I don't think it is relevant what the rest of his hand is.

You would no doubt rule therefore that if he hesitated with QTxx he would run foul of the regulation because he had two small cards. If the WB intended it to apply to this situation, they would (or should) have used the expression "only two or more small cards".

[lamford]

 gnasher, on 2015-October-24, 12:04, said:

I'd forgotten that the EBU had that regulation. Obviously the intent is that it applies regardless of how many cards you happen to hold at the time.

However, I think the EBU's regulation is illegal. Bridge is a thinking game; signalling is part of bridge; therefore thinking about whether or how to signal is a bridge reason.

The wording is also a little offensive. "Players have argued" suggests that the authors think people merely argue that they were thinking, rather than that they actually were thinking. What is wrong with simply "Pausing to consider whether to signal is an infraction".

More relevantly, the White Book cannot change the Laws, and as a director I would ignore the White Book if it contradicted the Laws. Pausing to consider whether to signal if there is a demonstrable bridge reason for doing so is not an infraction.

[Vampyr]

 lamford, on 2015-October-24, 14:00, said:

More relevantly, the White Book cannot change the Laws, and as a director I would ignore the White Book if it contradicted the Laws. Pausing to consider whether to signal if there is a demonstrable bridge reason for doing so is not an infraction.

I think that the WB is right on here. Think about whether to signal before the trump is played. After any trick you can leave your card faced to think, and the ethical player will stop and think at such a time in order to make sure he does not hesitate in a tempo-sensitive situation.

[lamford]

 Vampyr, on 2015-October-24, 14:28, said:

I think that the WB is right on here. Think about whether to signal before the trump is played. After any trick you can leave your card faced to think, and the ethical player will stop and think at such a time in order to make sure he does not hesitate in a tempo-sensitive situation.

This is not always practical, and would slow down the game. A defender would have to consider what action he would take if declarer played any of the 24 unseen cards (of which he has twelve) after trick one, reducing to four cards at trick twelve. Besides, as gnasher and wank point out, if you have a demonstrable bridge reason you are allowed to think at the point where you need to think. No law requires you to think at some other time. By all means change the law ...

[Vampyr]

 lamford, on 2015-October-24, 17:11, said:

This is not always practical, and would slow down the game. A defender would have to consider what action he would take if declarer played any of the 24 unseen cards (of which he has twelve) after trick one, reducing to four cards at trick twelve. Besides, as gnasher and wank point out, if you have a demonstrable bridge reason you are allowed to think at the point where you need to think. No law requires you to think at some other time. By all means change the law ...

I think you are wrong. The player in the OP knows that trumps are going to be played very soon, and should decide what he should do. I am not only ruling against him but am considering a DP.

I hope that Frances is reading this and that there will therefore be a clarification in the WB. I was wrong earlier; the rest of the hand is relevant because the player may hold honours in that suit as well. The regulation should address how we should rule when the player holds only small cards in the suit, whether 2, 3 or 8.

[Vampyr]

Another big problem with hesitating when you have nothing interesting in the suit is that partner will know that you had trouble deciding which card to signal with, and/or that your signal was particularly, er, careful.

[karlson]

Firstly, I don't understand anything. Why on earth would west be thinking about covering if he had the ♠Q?

But on the larger point, in my opinion, it would be best if the laws retained the right of the players to think as much as they needed to, and the standard for "could have know that the variation in tempo would mislead declarer" was quite a bit higher. Even if it leads to a little bit of coffeehousing, it's not clear to me that would be as devastating to the game as some people suggest. If you have such great table feel that you can reliably make reads from your opponents' tempo, I bet you have good enough table feel to still get a read even when they're allowed to vary it randomly. And even if does mean that experienced players have to give away some of their edge playing against less experienced opponents, is that such an awful thing?

[lamford]

 Vampyr, on 2015-October-24, 18:48, said:

I think you are wrong. The player in the OP knows that trumps are going to be played very soon, and should decide what he should do. I am not only ruling against him but am considering a DP.

I think it would be a PP, but SB would appeal that (interestingly if you imposed a DP in error he could not appeal, and that is another nonsense in The Book of Nonsense), as he believed that he was entitled to break tempo for a demonstrable bridge reason and he would quote, with his emphasis: It is desirable, though not always required, for players to maintain steady tempo and unvarying manner.

[gordontd]

 lamford, on 2015-October-25, 03:44, said:

I think it would be a PP, but SB would appeal that (interestingly if you imposed a DP in error he could not appeal, and that is another nonsense in The Book of Nonsense), as he believed that he was entitled to break tempo for a demonstrable bridge reason and he would quote, with his emphasis: It is desirable, though not always required, for players to maintain steady tempo and unvarying manner.

No doubt someone else would quote, in response: However, players should be particularly careful when variations may work to the benefit of their side.

[lamford]

 gordontd, on 2015-October-25, 04:25, said:

No doubt someone else would quote, in response: However, players should be particularly careful when variations may work to the benefit of their side.

No doubt someeone else would quote, in response: "<snip> an opponent who has no demonstrable bridge reason for the action <snip>", implying that someone is allowed to think when they have a demonstrable bridge reason, provided that they are "particularly careful" to only think for that bridge reason.

[blackshoe]

 lamford, on 2015-October-25, 03:44, said:

interestingly if you imposed a DP in error he could not appeal

That turns out not to be the case. I think you know that.

[jallerton]

 lamford, on 2015-October-24, 06:34, said:

Perhaps the WB regulation deliberately uses "two" because with three small cards there are six ways of playing the cards over the first two rounds of the suit, all of which will give a different degree of suit preference and there is therefore more to think about and potentially more time required. If they had not meant "two" they would have just written "Hesitating with small cards". One must assume therefore that the extra word "two" means the regulation does not apply to three small cards.

The purpose of the WB is to provide guidance to TDs. It contains many examples, but it is not reasonable to expect a guidance document to describe every situation exactly. Readers are allowed to use their intelligence in assessing whether the example of hesitating with two small cards is explaining a principle rather than issuing a directive about one specific situation.

 gnasher, on 2015-October-24, 12:04, said:

I'd forgotten that the EBU had that regulation. Obviously the intent is that it applies regardless of how many cards you happen to hold at the time.

However, I think the EBU's regulation is illegal. Bridge is a thinking game; signalling is part of bridge; therefore thinking about whether or how to signal is a bridge reason.

The wording is also a little offensive. "Players have argued" suggests that the authors think people merely argue that they were thinking, rather than that they actually were thinking. What is wrong with simply "Pausing to consider whether to signal is an infraction".

Why is the regulation illegal? Isn't it just explaining that deciding which low card to play when following suit is not considered to be a demonstrable bridge reason for breaking tempo in the context of Law 73?

By the way, it is possible to think about one's signal without breaking tempo. it is also highly desirable. Varying tempo before signalling provides UI to partner; this makes defending even harder for players who are trying to comply with their ethical obligations.

 Vampyr, on 2015-October-24, 18:48, said:

I hope that Frances is reading this and that there will therefore be a clarification in the WB. I was wrong earlier; the rest of the hand is relevant because the player may hold honours in that suit as well. The regulation should address how we should rule when the player holds only small cards in the suit, whether 2, 3 or 8.

Do you mean Robin rather than Frances? As an alternative we could ask Paul to become the editor of a new document, the Extended White Book, to cover every possible example he can think of. This will probably be at least ten times the length of the standard EBU White Book. The Extended White Book may not be widely referred to, but at least it can be adopted at one bridge club.

[blackshoe]

Sounds like this Extended White Book will make an excellent foot stool.

[lamford]

 jallerton, on 2015-October-26, 02:06, said:

Do you mean Robin rather than Frances? As an alternative we could ask Paul to become the editor of a new document, the Extended White Book, to cover every possible example he can think of. This will probably be at least ten times the length of the standard EBU White Book. The Extended White Book may not be widely referred to, but at least it can be adopted at one bridge club.

I was asked to assist in the compilation of the White Book, and initially agreed, but changed my mind when I saw how much work was involved. And that was the current White Book!

[lamford]

 blackshoe, on 2015-October-25, 21:56, said:

Quote

interestingly if you imposed a DP in error he could not appeal [that]

That turns out not to be the case. I think you know that.

I think you are mistaken:

91A. Director’s Powers
In performing his duty to maintain order and discipline, the Director is empowered to assess disciplinary penalties in points or to suspend a contestant for the current session or any part thereof. The Director’s decision under this clause is final and may not be overruled by an appeals committee (see Law 93B3).

So, it seems that a DP wrongly issued instead of a PP is final. A bit like the wrong person getting sent off in socccer.

[lamford]

 jallerton, on 2015-October-26, 02:06, said:

This will probably be at least ten times the length of the standard EBU White Book.

FWIW, I would reduce the White Book rather than increase it. On this topic, I would write, briefly, "It is up to the TD (or AC) to decide whether a BIT is for a demonstrable bridge reason".

[RMB1]

 lamford, on 2015-October-26, 03:24, said:

I think you are mistaken:

91A. Director’s Powers
In performing his duty to maintain order and discipline, the Director is empowered to assess disciplinary penalties in points or to suspend a contestant for the current session or any part thereof. The Director’s decision under this clause is final and may not be overruled by an appeals committee (see Law 93B3).

So, it seems that a DP wrongly issued instead of a PP is final. A bit like the wrong person getting sent off in soccer.

I think there are some nuances of distinction which are not obvious from "decision under this clause is final" and "may not be overruled by an appeals committee".

Penalties may not be overruled but TD rulings can be reviewed and the Appeals Committee can suggest the TD change his decision to penalize.

The EBU position is that you cannot appeal suspension from the current session before the end of the session. In principal, the decision could be reviewed later by an appeals committee, who could suggest the TD ameliorate [change for the better] the consequences of the suspension.

[RMB1]

 Vampyr, on 2015-October-24, 18:48, said:

I hope that Frances is reading this and that there will therefore be a clarification in the WB.

 jallerton, on 2015-October-26, 02:06, said:

Do you mean Robin rather than Frances?

I do take note of criticism of the content of the White Book: both the intent and the wording. That does not [can not] mean that all criticisms will be addressed in future revisions.