[Kaitlyn S]

I used to play a lot of tournament bridge. Four rulings happened that turned me off to the game - the fact that they could have happened at all made me think that I don't understand the rules of the game enough to play it and didn't really want to study bridge law; it was just easier to give up tournament bridge and take up other fun pursuits. I've been away for several years and I think my life is happier without it. However, someone wrote someone in another thread that made me think that the director and subsequently the head director gave me bum information which helped give me the impression that I didn't understand and never would understand how the laws would work (i.e. that my thinking was correct and the directors made me think I was just confused about the rules.)

This is from a recent thread: "The defenders took a couple of seconds"

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-30, 10:52, said:

I'd like to talk about this, because this is a very large part of why I don't play tournament bridge anymore and haven't for years.

Partner led against 3NT, and I thought about the hand for maybe 15 seconds before playing my singleton. At trick 6 or so when I showed out, an argument ensued, with my point being that if I don't think, partner will have the UI that I have a singleton because I always think third hand. I stated that somebody needed to be educated.

Well, the one who was educated was me. My pleas that I would be giving partner UI fell on deaf ears. Partner was so upset at what was being said that she had forgotten the play of the cards when play resumed and gave up a trick and many matchpoints.

I went to the head director after the game and explained my situation. (Not trying to get any MP back, but trying to understand why the rules would force me to give my partner UI.) He said firmly, "you are not allowed to take time with a singleton." That made absolutely no sense to me, and I really didn't see playing any game where the rules don't make sense. That was the last straw for me as far as tournament bridge was concerned. I haven't been back since.

Your comment "perhaps at trick one" makes me think that I was given bad information by the director and the head director. Am I right? Should I have started a new thread?

The upshot was that most of the posters thought I was right and that the head director only confirmed the erroneous floor director's error as being correct. One poster stated that I might have indicated by some other means that I had more than one card, however to me that would be outright cheating. What I did is what I always did, I thought about the hand as a whole, then played my singleton, as to not give my partner any information she didn't deserve.

This made me wonder about the other three situations that helped contribute to my decision to abandon tournament bridge. I'd like to hear opinions on them.

1. I opened 1NT. LHO overcalled 2D, alerted as showing hearts. Partner bid 2H, I bid 2S, partner bid 4S. LHO made a lead that was good for me. Dummy came down with four spades. DIRECTOR! from LHO. "These people are playing something alertable and nobody alerted. I might have made a different lead if I knew what they were playing.

Kaitlyn: We play a cuebid as Stayman. She was asking if I had four spades.
LHO: Well if you don't play 2H as a transfer, you need to alert.
Kaitlyn: Cuebids don't have to be alerted. She cuebid your hearts. Besides, you should have known it wasn't a transfer because I didn't say "Transfer."
LHO: I never said "hearts" so only if dummy said 3D would it be a non-alertable cuebid.
Director: She is right. 2H is not a cuebid because nobody ever bid hearts. Therefore you need to alert the Stayman bid. If she feels injured, she can ask for an adjusted result.
Later, the head director backed up the floor director's ruling. Fortunately LHO had an awful game and didn't want to stick around for an appeal so the result stood. However it feels wrong to me that she could "take back" her bad lead because I didn't alert what I thought was a self-alerting cue bid. It felt wrong enough to give up playing tournament bridge for.

2. Partner and I were in a forcing auction and RHO who had overcalled 1S now bid 3S. I thought for a few seconds and made a forcing pass. LHO says to my partner "We all agree now that if you do anything, we can roll it back." I said "I don't agree with that - she is allowed to make her normal bid." "DIRECTOR!" I went over the situation and thought the director should have made clear that partner should take her normal action. Instead, the director just repeated what my LHO had said, so partner passed (thinking anything else would be rolled back to pass if we didn't get a bad score), and we got 2 MP on a 12 top instead of 11 when partner makes her normal double. I believe the director essentially encouraged my partner to pass a forcing pass! Dummy came down with a hand that clearly knew they were in deep trouble in 3S. I didn't know LHO and I wanted to record this incident in case this player had a habit of using the director to get him out of trouble when the auction doesn't go his way. I talked to that director and another one and both of them told me that even filing a recorder form would be considered both frivolous and attacking. Needless to say, this single incident made an otherwise pleasant day miserable.

3. We were playing in a IMP team game where I thought for a few seconds and doubled. Our agreement on that double was cooperative takeout. Partner had a singleton king of trump and would never leave a cooperative takeout double in with a singleton trump (might not have even left in a cooperative penalty double in, and I don't think anyone would have played the double as strictly penalty), and pulled and we made a game. The director was called. He took the board and said he would come back with a ruling.

We had finished the match and compared and won by a few IMPs with the actual result. The director's ruling was: I am rolling back the result to 3 hearts doubled. In 3 hearts doubled, I am assuming that you (Kaitlyn) would have risen with the ace of hearts on the first trump lead, dropping your partner's singleton king, letting them make 3 for 730. You may appeal the ruling, but if you do appeal, the decision will be made after the game, and you will play the entire game with the victory points based on your actual +600 for 5D making (thus playing tougher teams all day) and then lose whatever IMPs the appeals committee decides upon.

As it turns out, the field was weak and the teams that played this board were the only reasonable ones in the field; most of the other players would have just assumed the director knew more than they did and went with -730 for us; there might have been a few other reasonable players in the room but they were friends of the director and probably wouldn't overrule him either. Even if they give us +200 for the set, we have to play teams based on +600 when eventually we're only getting the score for +200. This seemed very unfair and once again a director made an another entirely pleasant event seem miserable.

After having four perfectly good days ruined, I decided that there were other activities that I could enjoy where no single person could ruin the day, and have been enjoying them ever since. I don't really miss tournament bridge but if the ACBL and tournament bridge is looking for more players, then this should be a wake up call for them.

However, that's not the point of this post. I am really curious whether any of these directors were correct in what they did.

By the way, if it seems like I was on the bad end of a lot of rulings, it is probably because we, like most pairs (I think) would be able to get rulings just as bad in our favor, but don't try for them. We didn't call the director unless there was a revoke or the like; doing so seemed too obnoxious, litigious, and almost cheating, trying to get something you didn't deserve. Most of the pairs probably feel that way, leaving those few who don't to get a pretty large unfair advantage. Another factor in deciding to give up the game.

[sfi]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-30, 16:43, said:

One poster stated that I might have indicated by some other means that I had more than one card, however to me that would be outright cheating.

Not at all. It's easy to start to reach for one card and change your mind. That's not cheating, although it is UI to your partner.

[sfi]

It does seem like you ran into a particularly poor set of directors. My thoughts:

1. A matter of regulation. If a cue bid is a bid in a denomination "bid or shown" by the opposition, you are right. If it is just "bid" than the opponents are right. Alert regulations may not always make logical sense to everyone concerned, but following them should never be wrong. FWIW, I prefer the first (and your) interpretation. Luckily I play somewhere where the authorities agree. It turns out the ACBL regulations agree with you as well.

2. If it clearly was a forcing pass, the director is simply wrong. If it was unclear (for instance, the auction may have been 1H - (1S) - 2S (inv+ raise) - (3S) where some people do play it as forcing and others don't), then I would ask for evidence to support your claim. In any case, the director's approach at the table was poor. Additionally, I have no idea why the directors are even involved in the recorder process - that's why there are separate recorders at events.

3. Rolling back to 3H-x is similar to the situation above. I would want to investigate your actual agreement further before making a ruling. Forcing you to drop partner's king just seems vindictive, and the threat about the change of score for seeding purposes looks illegal.

[Kaitlyn S]

 sfi, on 2016-September-30, 17:57, said:

If it was unclear (for instance, the auction may have been 1H - (1S) - 2S (inv+ raise) - (3S) where some people do play it as forcing and others don't), then I would ask for evidence to support your claim.

I'm just curious. How would a pair, if they didn't carry along system notes with them, provide such evidence? We would have played the sequence you mentioned as forcing, but my recollection was that the actual auction we had was "more" forcing than that.

I'm also thinking about your average pair that really has little chance to win and having any written notes about the system would never occur to the pair. They know a pass is forcing only because they've had arguments about it but proving anything about their system that isn't on their convention card would be extremely challenging (and guessing what is on their card without looking might be challenging also.) The pair might have to play in Flight A because they've collected points for 50 years. If this pair says something is forcing, they probably are right, but they can't prove it, and this is just the type of pair that the bridge lawyers try to steal points from. And they'll get away with it because this pair can't prove anything.

Mind you, if I'm sitting the same direction as a pair of these lawyers, I'm giving them a board and a half head start because I refuse to try to steal points in this manner.

[Phil]

I didn't read the defender takes a couple of seconds thread. In your comment above, you do not specify how long declarer took. If declarer played very quickly, you can tank with a singleton, and there's no recourse. if declarer did wait-10-15 seconds themselves at T1 and you tanked with a singleton, that would be very poor form. You do not have to turn your card over right away if there's more thinking to do.

The other rulings were basically ridiculous.

[sfi]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-30, 18:52, said:

I'm just curious. How would a pair, if they didn't carry along system notes with them, provide such evidence? We would have played the sequence you mentioned as forcing, but my recollection was that the actual auction we had was "more" forcing than that.

Are they available on line or in emails? I would expect serious partnerships to be able to access them for this sort of purpose, and I have been able to show directors online evidence of agreements at least twice when it impacted a ruling.

Without documentary evidence it's much harder to rule in your favour. Are other people at the tournament familiar with your agreements? Do you have other hands from the same tournament that can support your agreement?

Providing the logic behind why you decided to make them forcing would help, but it's not strong evidence.

[Kaitlyn S]

 sfi, on 2016-September-30, 19:08, said:

Are they available on line or in emails? I would expect serious partnerships to be able to access them for this sort of purpose, and I have been able to show directors online evidence of agreements at least twice when it impacted a ruling.

Without documentary evidence it's much harder to rule in your favour. Are other people at the tournament familiar with your agreements? Do you have other hands from the same tournament that can support your agreement?

Providing the logic behind why you decided to make them forcing would help, but it's not strong evidence.

That's going to help the pairs reading this, but in your average Flight A event, I'll bet less than half the pair has documentation, which means that more than half the time the litigious pair wins their case and gains undeserved matchpoints or IMPs, putting every other pair in their direction at a serious disadvantage. It won't affect me anymore, but I'd be a lot happier about the situation if some equity were given to pairs who were not litigious; after all, if the litigious pair is being "cheated", then so is everybody else in their direction but they aren't getting free points from the director when the supposedly cheating pair cant prove anything.

Note that while a Flight B game probably has less people trying to steal points through litigation, they also probably have only about 10% of the pairs with any written agreements and that may be a high estimate.

Now that I know the procedure, I can make a mint off my matchpoint saving device - a little plastic holder that says "All passes that could be forcing are forcing, and all doubles that could be cooperative takeout are cooperative takeout." There is an opening to store other agreements in. You can get a set for you and partner for only $6.95 plus S&H from Kaitlyn Smith Enterprises, PO Box 2365BOGUS, MyHappyCity, WX. Please allow 15 years for delivery.

Seriously though, I don't think that I am the only person that is uncomfortable with the fact that certain pairs are taking advantage of the "laws" and the current climate where anything that hesitates is shot (giving a bonus only to those unscrupulous enough to take advantage of it.)

Thank you very much for your informative reply. If it sounds like I'm being bitter, well, yes, I am. If it weren't for the lawyers and the crappy directors that let them steal, I would still be playing tournament bridge. i can't believe I'm the only one in THAT situation either, and it would not surprise me if the number of us was in the thousands. After all, you are never going to hear from most of us. We just don't play anymore and apparently are not missed.

[sfi]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-30, 19:32, said:

Seriously though, I don't think that I am the only person that is uncomfortable with the fact that certain pairs are taking advantage of the "laws" and the current climate where anything that hesitates is shot (giving a bonus only to those unscrupulous enough to take advantage of it.)

Thank you very much for your informative reply. If it sounds like I'm being bitter, well, yes, I am. If it weren't for the lawyers and the crappy directors that let them steal, I would still be playing tournament bridge. i can't believe I'm the only one in THAT situation either, and it would not surprise me if the number of us was in the thousands. After all, you are never going to hear from most of us. We just don't play anymore and apparently are not missed.

TL;DR version: The nature of having a ruling will always have the chance for one side to feel unfairly done, and competent and fair directors are critical to making sure both parties understand why the specific ruling was made.

I'm not quite sure it's as problematic as you say, although I do understand your frustrations. If the situations you describe are accurate, the primary issue was that of the directors not understanding their role. A good director would start by listening to both sides before determining what evidence to gather and how to proceed.

In my experience, most opponents will call the director when they genuinely think they might have been damaged. What to you seems like rules lawyering may seem to them like trying to get to where they would have been without the infraction. You need the director to sort this out before it descends into acrimony.

Think about it from the other side, and I'll give you an example where I did call the director. The opponents bid something like 1C - 1H - 2H - 2NT - (pause) 3H - 4H. I thought the 4H bid was influenced by the hesitation, particularly when declarer showed up with an indifferent balanced 12 count. The opponent claimed she was always going to bid 4H and wanted to show her hand along the way. That may have been the case, but the evidence suggests otherwise. She made a game try and then overruled partner with no clear reason to do so and no evidence that this how the partnership always bids these hands. The director can only weigh up the balance of evidence, the logic of the situation, the advice from other expert players, and their own experience to make the best decision on the available information. This particular case got rather heated and she only did not appeal after lots of discussions with good players who were friends of hers, who sat down the next day and discussed the situation in depth.

It's also important to remember that a ruling for one side doesn't mean the other did anything wrong. Mostly the laws are there to try and restore equity (admittedly they also presume competent directors).

I've seen situations where a good player tries to use the laws to their advantage and starts to suffer "the boy who cried wolf" syndrome. It's a small community and people get a reputation. But it doesn't happen that often in my experience.

Of course, I may be biased by experiences in Australia. When I do play in the ACBL it does feel more like some players are playing to the letter and limits of the law, and I don't particularly enjoy that. So I can certainly understand how a few bad experiences in a row can drive people away.

The solution, IMO, is for the directors to treat everyone fairly and explain any issues particularly to less experienced players. I found the directors very good last time I played in the US a couple of years ago (even though I still think one ruling should have been in our favour), but I haven't been a novice for some time. If they aren't being fair and informative it certainly will contribute greatly to driving people away from the game.

[barmar]

I've been playing tournament bridge for over twenty years and I can count on one hand the number of director calls for these kinds of irregularities. Maybe this is why I find the SB threads so far from reality.

[Kaitlyn S]

First, you mention you haven't played a novice game so I am assuming you assume I'm a novice. ll four of these happened in unlimited games (some were Flight A - the top flight.)

 sfi, on 2016-September-30, 21:09, said:

In my experience, most opponents will call the director when they genuinely think they might have been damaged. What to you seems like rules lawyering may seem to them like trying to get to where they would have been without the infraction. You need the director to sort this out before it descends into acrimony.

In many places that is true. However, there are some bad trickle down effects. Mr. Bridgebottom thinks and Mrs. Bridgebottom bids a game. The game happens to make so the director takes it away. If the finesse had lost and the game went down, the shysters collect their +50. The effect of this thievery are not lost on Mr & Mrs Bridgebottom who realize what it takes to win. So now when somebody hesitates against Mr. Bridgebottom, he knows that he can take his set or roll it back when the contract makes, so he calls the director even though everybody solidly has their bids, because he doesn't know any better. If he gets a director that gave me -730 assuming that I'd crash partner's stiff king with my ace, Mr. Bridgebottom might get an undeserved good score even though any competent director would just try to educate him why he's not getting an adjustment. Now the pair that the Bridgebottoms stole from are looking to steal from someone else....

 sfi, on 2016-September-30, 21:09, said:

Think about it from the other side, and I'll give you an example where I did call the director. The opponents bid something like 1C - 1H - 2H - 2NT - (pause) 3H - 4H. I thought the 4H bid was influenced by the hesitation, particularly when declarer showed up with an indifferent balanced 12 count. The opponent claimed she was always going to bid 4H and wanted to show her hand along the way. That may have been the case, but the evidence suggests otherwise. She made a game try and then overruled partner with no clear reason to do so and no evidence that this how the partnership always bids these hands. The director can only weigh up the balance of evidence, the logic of the situation, the advice from other expert players, and their own experience to make the best decision on the available information. This particular case got rather heated and she only did not appeal after lots of discussions with good players who were friends of hers, who sat down the next day and discussed the situation in depth.

Please do not get upset with me. I have used this argument many times and every single time the person gets really angry because they think I am accusing them of cheating. I'm doing nothing of the sort. I am simply trying to make a point.

While I really think you thought you were doing the right thing, you are taking advantage of the rest of the field who would not call the director. For if it happened at any other table, your side would get -420, but you got -170. Maybe you deserve -170, but are you really entitled to be the only pair in your direction that can achieve -170 with these cards against this pair? Maybe it's because you know the laws better than the other players, but if you ask every other pair in your direction what they would have done, some of them would think it was unfair or just generally obnoxious to try to get -170 when the opponents bid a game. Now, I understand your point that the person took advantage of the hesitation and shouldn't be allowed to get their game bonus. However, can you see that you are getting free matchpoints when being compared to someone else in the same situation that doesn't call the director because he doesn't want to be contentious?

But here's the real rub. Let's say everyone knows the rules and will call the director. I personally don't think you are entitled to take -170 or +50; what I think you are entitled to is to roll the contract back to 3H before play begins. In other words, if 4H goes down on a foul split or bad play, I don't think you should get +50 if your intention was to call the director and roll it back to 3H. Ideally, the fair thing to do is have the director talk with you and your partner independently and if either of you want to defend 3H, you get to defend 3H, but if it only makes 3, you get -140 and not +50. Do you see why I think this is fair? The person hesitated, partner took advantage. So they aren't entitled to be in 4H. But they aren't entitled to be in 4H when it goes down either. But I'll bet if 4H goes down, you would have happily taken your +50. And here's where people get upset with me - I think you are taking unfair advantage when you do that. You are essentially only correcting the score when they guessed right. If their game is on a finesse, even though they did something wrong, you get the benefit of a losing finesse by setting them, or by only giving them a part score when the finesse wins. There is no legitimate contract that they could be in that would give you that high an expectation. You don't deserve that much expectation.

Mind you, you would gain an advantage even if you had to roll back the contract before play started! For you could choose to defend 4H if you know hearts are breaking badly or if your high clubs sat over opener's bid club suit, and roll it back when you expected they would make 4H. But this whole idea of the people that know the laws well getting the benefit of setting the contract or rolling the contract back seems like too much of an advantage for the people who call the director.

 sfi, on 2016-September-30, 21:09, said:

It's also important to remember that a ruling for one side doesn't mean the other did anything wrong. Mostly the laws are there to try and restore equity (admittedly they also presume competent directors).

As you can see, I don't think they are restoring equity when they let the "innocent" pair keep their set but let them roll back their opponent's makes.

 sfi, on 2016-September-30, 21:09, said:

I've seen situations where a good player tries to use the laws to their advantage and starts to suffer "the boy who cried wolf" syndrome. It's a small community and people get a reputation. But it doesn't happen that often in my experience.

I haven't seen that. The people that call the director usually end up getting a good score. I had some really good friends and almost lost our friendship because of this issue. They won a lot because they had no problem calling the director on every third hand it seemed and always got to either set the opponents or have their games rolled back. You can imagine how our conversation went. We're still friends though, but we no longer have tournament bridge in common, they can get all these great scores from the directors and I'm not there to tell them what I think of their tactics.

 sfi, on 2016-September-30, 21:09, said:

Of course, I may be biased by experiences in Australia. When I do play in the ACBL it does feel more like some players are playing to the letter and limits of the law, and I don't particularly enjoy that. So I can certainly understand how a few bad experiences in a row can drive people away.

The solution, IMO, is for the directors to treat everyone fairly and explain any issues particularly to less experienced players. I found the directors very good last time I played in the US a couple of years ago (even though I still think one ruling should have been in our favour), but I haven't been a novice for some time. If they aren't being fair and informative it certainly will contribute greatly to driving people away from the game.

The problem is that I seem to have a different opinion of what "treating everyone fairly" means than the rest of the world. As far as I am concerned, "treating everyone fairly" would allow the contract to be adjusted before trick 1 is complete but not after that. This is really touchy when it's a play or defend situation and all 13 of dummy's cards are exposed. But I'll bet you that my idea of what's fair won't match anybody else's. Because I'm for restoring equity. I'm not for giving the non-hesitating side the best of both worlds. There's a difference and if the ACBL and its directors would realize that there is a difference, I might actually show up to a tournament again.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here and I really do appreciate you taking the time to point out your point of view which seems to be the prevailing POV. However, I don't have to say I like the prevailing POV and have expressed the reasons why I do not like it. Trust me, I am about fair play. I looked at a recap sheet after a tournament where we tied for first overall, and realized that we had scored better on some boards with a 9 top than the other co-winners while the other boards were all on an 8 top, and the director had not factored the boards. I caught the director going out the door and explained that we did not deserve to co-win because if our good boards had been factored so all the boards had an equal weight, we would be second. He argued that I didn't have any idea what I was talking about, but I went home, came back the next day, and the scores were recalculated and we had been deservedly demoted to second. If I had said nothing, we would have tied for first, but my partner agreed with me that giving up the co-win was the right thing to do.

[Kaitlyn S]

 barmar, on 2016-September-30, 22:48, said:

I've been playing tournament bridge for over twenty years and I can count on one hand the number of director calls for these kinds of irregularities. Maybe this is why I find the SB threads so far from reality.

I hope that you are not seriously trying to imply that I'm lying about what happened?

Of course, two of my four examples were hesitations and one was because we played Stayman where many would play transfers, so if you and your partner bid quickly, and play the more normally accepted bids, those three would not have happened to you.

[nige1]

On the whole, I agree with Kaitlyn_s and sfi that the rulings were bad. I also know players who have given up tournament Bridge after incomprehensible rulings.

I disagree with Kaitlyn about players "using the law". IMO, players don't call the director often enough. Directors are usually helpful and fair-minded. They often pour oil on troubled waters. Calling the director is not a cheating allegation. Most infractions are unintentional. if you won't call the director, he can't educate habitual offenders. For example, most players seem to use UI. If you don't call the director, they won't get the opportunity to mend their ways. Also, directors make better rulings, with practice.

When RHO bids 2♦ showing 5+ ♥s, and you bid 2♥, most players would recognize that as a cue-bid. Unlike in Kaitlyn-land, 2♥ would be alertable in Scotland, especially if the partnership agreement is that it's Staymanic. Even here, however, I can't imagine opponents claiming damage for failure to alert,

What do Kaitlyn's local regulations say about doubles? Slow doubles are a problem, everywhere. Here, in Scotland, a double isn't alertable. In England, the rules are more complex. There, if partner makes a double of a natural bid, you alert unless it's for take-out. Hence, in England, an optional double is alertable.

What do Kaitlyn's local regulations say about a forcing-pass? Here it's alertable. What was the auction when partner made a forcing pass? Your convention-card or system-notes could corroborate that the pass is forcing but like Kaitlyn, few players have anything directly relevant. In some auctions, however, the likely forcing nature of the pass should be obvious to the director, because it's a common treatment or follows logically from other agreements.

Bad rulings can be frustrating and annoying but they are usually the fault of regulators rather than directors. Stupid, woolly, and unnecessary rules cause inconsistent and seemingly unjust rulings. Even in the simplest cases, with facts agreed, there are many horrific examples in legal discussion groups like this.

IMO, most local regulations should be scrapped and the remainder standardised and incorporated into the law book. Similarly, the Law-book itself urgently requires radical simplification and clarification.

[lamford]

 barmar, on 2016-September-30, 22:48, said:

I've been playing tournament bridge for over twenty years and I can count on one hand the number of director calls for these kinds of irregularities. Maybe this is why I find the SB threads so far from reality.

SB says that is because there are no SBs in the US. He thinks it is just that the opportunities for TD calls are being missed.

Every right implies a responsibility; Every opportunity, an obligation, Every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller

[PeterAlan]

 lamford, on 2016-October-01, 03:59, said:

SB says that is because there are no SBs in the US.

In the US, wouldn't he be labelled SoB?

[nige1]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-30, 23:47, said:

First, you mention you haven't played a novice game so I am assuming you assume I'm a novice. ll four of these happened in unlimited games (some were Flight A - the top flight.) In many places that is true. However, there are some bad trickle down effects.

Mr. Bridgebottom thinks and Mrs. Bridgebottom bids a game. The game happens to make so the director takes it away. If the finesse had lost and the game went down, the shysters collect their +50. The effect of this thievery are not lost on Mr & Mrs Bridgebottom who realize what it takes to win. So now when somebody hesitates against Mr. Bridgebottom, he knows that he can take his set or roll it back when the contract makes, so he calls the director even though everybody solidly has their bids, because he doesn't know any better. If he gets a director that gave me -730 assuming that I'd crash partner's stiff king with my ace, Mr. Bridgebottom might get an undeserved good score even though any competent director would just try to educate him why he's not getting an adjustment. Now the pair that the Bridgebottoms stole from are looking to steal from someone else...

I disagree with Kaitlyn on this. Bridge is a game of mistakes. Often, when an opponent makes a mistake, you get an "undeserved" good score. Infractions are usually mistakes. When the director judges you guilty of an infraction that damages opponents, it's reasonable that he redress that damage. Even if opponents suffer no damage, the director might impose a PP. In practice, most infractions go unreported, so habitual law-breakers usually show a long term profit.

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-30, 23:47, said:

Please do not get upset with me. I have used this argument many times and every single time the person gets really angry because they think I am accusing them of cheating. I'm doing nothing of the sort. I am simply trying to make a point. While I really think you thought you were doing the right thing, you are taking advantage of the rest of the field who would not call the director.

We sympathise with Kaitlyn because we've all received doubtful rulings. But we can't blame directors if players won't call them.

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-30, 23:47, said:

But here's the real rub. Let's say everyone knows the rules and will call the director. I personally don't think you are entitled to take -170 or +50; what I think you are entitled to is to roll the contract back to 3H before play begins. In other words, if 4H goes down on a foul split or bad play, I don't think you should get +50 if your intention was to call the director and roll it back to 3H. Ideally, the fair thing to do is have the director talk with you and your partner independently and if either of you want to defend 3H, you get to defend 3H, but if it only makes 3, you get -140 and not +50. Do you see why I think this is fair? The person hesitated, partner took advantage. So they aren't entitled to be in 4H. But they aren't entitled to be in 4H when it goes down either. But I'll bet if 4H goes down, you would have happily taken your +50. And here's where people get upset with me - I think you are taking unfair advantage when you do that. You are essentially only correcting the score when they guessed right. If their game is on a finesse, even though they did something wrong, you get the benefit of a losing finesse by setting them, or by only giving them a part score when the finesse wins. There is no legitimate contract that they could be in that would give you that high an expectation. You don't deserve that much expectation.

Mind you, you would gain an advantage even if you had to roll back the contract before play started! For you could choose to defend 4H if you know hearts are breaking badly or if your high clubs sat over opener's bid club suit, and roll it back when you expected they would make 4H. But this whole idea of the people that know the laws well getting the benefit of setting the contract or rolling the contract back seems like too much of an advantage for the people who call the director.

As you can see, I don't think they are restoring equity when they let the "innocent" pair keep their set but let them roll back their opponent's makes.

I haven't seen that. The people that call the director usually end up getting a good score. I had some really good friends and almost lost our friendship because of this issue. They won a lot because they had no problem calling the director on every third hand it seemed and always got to either set the opponents or have their games rolled back. You can imagine how our conversation went. We're still friends though, but we no longer have tournament bridge in common, they can get all these great scores from the directors and I'm not there to tell them what I think of their tactics.

The problem is that I seem to have a different opinion of what "treating everyone fairly" means than the rest of the world. As far as I am concerned, "treating everyone fairly" would allow the contract to be adjusted before trick 1 is complete but not after that. This is really touchy when it's a play or defend situation and all 13 of dummy's cards are exposed. But I'll bet you that my idea of what's fair won't match anybody else's. Because I'm for restoring equity. I'm not for giving the non-hesitating side the best of both worlds. There's a difference and if the ACBL and its directors would realize that there is a difference, I might actually show up to a tournament again.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here and I really do appreciate you taking the time to point out your point of view which seems to be the prevailing POV. However, I don't have to say I like the prevailing POV and have expressed the reasons why I do not like it. Trust me, I am about fair play. I looked at a recap sheet after a tournament where we tied for first overall, and realized that we had scored better on some boards with a 9 top than the other co-winners while the other boards were all on an 8 top, and the director had not factored the boards. I caught the director going out the door and explained that we did not deserve to co-win because if our good boards had been factored so all the boards had an equal weight, we would be second. He argued that I didn't have any idea what I was talking about, but I went home, came back the next day, and the scores were recalculated and we had been deservedly demoted to second. If I had said nothing, we would have tied for first, but my partner agreed with me that giving up the co-win was the right thing to do.

Kaitlyn's sense of fair-play is admirable. But I disagree about "equity rulings". WBF so-called "equity" seems an inappropriate basis for rule-making although its rules sensibly recommend giving the benefit of the doubt to non-offenders. Nevertheless, I would prefer Bridge rules to be more deterrent.

[Kaitlyn S]

 nige1, on 2016-October-01, 03:09, said:

I disagree with Kaitlyn about players "using the law". IMO, players don't call the director often enough. Directors are usually helpful and fair-minded. They often pour oil on troubled waters. Calling the director is not a cheating allegation. Most infractions are unintentional. if you won't call the director, he can't educate habitual offenders. For example, most players seem to use UI. If you don't call the director, they won't get the opportunity to mend their ways. Also, directors make better rulings, with practice.

If the intent is to educate, I totally agree that the director should be called more. If the intent is to get an adjustment, I disagree.

Let me give an example. A pair uses hesitation Blackwood and the non-Blackwood bidder bids six.

Case 1: Slam is cold. I have no problem making an adjustment here, and the players should be educated. Perhaps there should be material available to explain UI and taking advantage of it, or perhaps the tournament can assign a position to someone who knows it well to explain it to all the people that need to know it so that the already overworked directors don't get further stretched.

Case 2: Slam is on a finesse - strictly 50-50 where counting doesn't help. Here, the 6S bidder did not improve the contract; the defenders had exactly the same expectation against 6S that they did against 5S. So why should the defenders be given a set when 6S goes down and -680 when 6S makes? If the expectation of the UI-using pair hasn't improved, I believe there should be no adjustment. Certainly if a pair used UI to get to a worse contract, the defenders are better off by the pair using the UI, and if the worse contract is a lucky make, too bad. The UI did not help the declaring side; in fact, it got them to a worse contract which in most cases would have benefited the defenders. Today they got lucky and made it. I think it's appalling to let the defenders have their wonderful result when the awful contract reached misfires but to give them a decent result when their opponents got really lucky. This is NOT restoring equity. It is a gift for calling the director.

Again, calling the director to educate is laudable. Calling the director to get a decent score when the opponents' final contract was no better than the alternative but happened to be lucky this time is just stealing IMO.

In Sify's example, where his opponent bid 4H after a hesitation, given that the rules don't allow for the defenders to roll it back to 3H AT TRICK ONE, I would say that if 4H is cold, it gets rolled back to 3H and the UI pair gets educated. If 4H was 50-50 or worse, 4H making stands since the defenders' expectation was not harmed by the pair taking advantage of UI. If it's somewhere between 50% and 100%, either assign 170 or 420 (for the other pairs to compare with) depending on how good a contract 4H was; and award matchpoints to restore equity based on expectation.

The problem is that directors have been trained to do it the other way - to give the "non-offending" side the best of both worlds (which kind of makes them offenders too IMO) and it would take a long time before directors actually could truly restore equity.

My friends that call the director all the time are one of the most hated pairs in their bridge club, and with good reason. For while close to 100% of their director calls are proper (if the intent is to educate the opponents), the "equity" they receive is far greater than their expectation would have been if the UI had not existed. And to me, that's unfairly taking advantage of the laws.

You would think that people get screwed once and they'll learn about UI and taking advantage of it. Not true. Some people are incapable of understanding the concept and will only think that the "experts" are taking advantage of them.

A pair of recent life masters had the auction 1D P (long think) 3D (limit) P 3NT on a balanced 13. The 3D bidder had 13 points and the 3NT bidder said "I knew she had a problem and it was probably that she was too good to bid 3D so I bid 3NT." They thought this was perfectly fine, and no amount of convincing from my partner and I could get them to think otherwise! Other novices joined in the conversation and they couldn't see that this pair had done anything wrong either. So the education process is going to be difficult and tedious. (By the way, if you suspect our explanations were bad, you can see me explaining things in "Bidding Problems for Novices" and my partner is world class when it comes to explaining things to people that don't understand them.)

Of course, in this case 3NT was an excellent contract so I would agree that rolling it back to 3D was the proper thing to do. However, if only half the pairs in 3NT made it, I would feel really uncomfortable about having it rolled back.

But while the top bridge minds understand UI and it's ramifications, I would be surprised if 2/3 of the ACBL membership didn't get it, and wouldn't get it even if you explained it to them. So unfortunately there will always be UI and it will be rampant, and those that call the director will get awarded matchpoints and IMPs that far exceed the restoration of equity. To me, that's just wrong.

[Bbradley62]

 sfi, on 2016-September-30, 17:57, said:

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-30, 16:43, said:

You may appeal the ruling, but if you do appeal, the decision will be made after the game, and you will play the entire game with the victory points based on your actual +600 for 5D making (thus playing tougher teams all day) and then lose whatever IMPs the appeals committee decides upon.

and the threat about the change of score for seeding purposes looks illegal.

That doesn't look like a threat to me; that looks like a helpful explanation of procedures so player can make a proper cost/benefit analysis of choosing to appeal.

[Kaitlyn S]

 nige1, on 2016-October-01, 09:45, said:

I disagree with Kaitlyn on this. Bridge is a game of mistakes. Often, when an opponent makes a mistake, you get an "undeserved" good score. Infractions are usually mistakes.

Yes, but when a pair makes such a "mistake" against a pair who thinks it's just nasty to take advantage of an alleged infraction, that innocent pair does not get an "undeserved" good score. And since my premise is that most pairs don't understand UI themselves, they will not call the director since they really have no idea when such an infraction occurs. And yes, just like real life, if you want to study the law, you'll do better off. The lawyers get tons of money and the pretty girls (or handsome guys) and the normal people get squat and girls that look like me And so it goes, the people willing to take the time to learn the ins and outs of bridge law are going to get many matchpoints and IMPs and are going to be resented for it just like real-life lawyers. And just as the persistent real-life lawyers sometimes win settlements when they are undeserved, the bridge lawyers will get undeserved matchpoints. Sometimes the resentment will result in lost players, sometimes it will only result in bad feelings. Almost never will it result in the player being truly educated about UI. For no matter how well you explain it, it will sound like "Blah, blah, blah, you're getting screwed" to the person who just took a matchpoint hit.

Now, evidence to the contrary, I understand the ramifications of UI very well and while I don't agree with the rulings given, I realize that there are pairs that are legitimately damaged by their opponents taking advantage of UI.

Is the solution to give each player a pamphlet and make them pass a written test based on understanding the ramifications of UI?

That would be an awesome solution if you were looking for a 2-table Flight B and a 2-table Flight C at your next regional. People being forced to understand something that they just don't get are going to give up.

Restricted choice is a relatively simple concept but most of the players in Flight B won't understand it no matter how well it's explained, and indeed if they think they understand it, they'll try to incorrectly apply it to AQ10xx/xxxx where the honors aren't equal or in AKQ9xx/xx where an opponent might drop an honor offside from J10x.

If they don't get restricted choice after the first five times it's explained to them, what makes you think they will get the ramifications of UI after the first five times it's explained to them? I can hear the non-experts now - "It's just another way for the experts to take our matchpoints. They're trying to explain to me why this isn't true, but frankly they would have a better chance trying to convince me that slavery or the Holocaust was a good idea."

 nige1, on 2016-October-01, 09:45, said:

But I disagree about "equity rulings". WBF so-called "equity" seems an inappropriate basis for rule-making although its rules sensibly recommend giving the benefit of the doubt to non-offenders. Nevertheless, I would prefer Bridge rules to be more deterrent.

And I would agree with you if the deterrent served to educate the people so that in the long run the gains by the pairs calling the directors would be negligible. And by educate I mean that they could totally understand the whole concept of UI and the taking advantage of UI after having it explained one time. But, like the principle of restricted choice, there are just going to be some people that don't get it and they are never going to get it, and yet they are forced to play in Flight A because they've been playing too long. And all you are doing is making them miserable, and quite possibly chasing some of them away. Now there are those that argue that the bridge world would be a better place without the people that can't understand UI. That's fine - be prepared for a much smaller base of people.

However, in two of my four rulings, UI was a factor but I believe that in both cases my partner did not commit an infraction, but instead in one case made her normal call and was awarded -730 instead of +600, and in the other case passed a forcing pass because she was convinced that the director was going to steal any result we achieved and award free matchpoints to our litigious opponents. Now, how do you think my partner and I were educated? I think the only thing we were taught is that tournament bridge isn't any fun anymore.

Of course, even in the case where the people are 100% aware of UI, there are times that no matter what action is taken, the result may be rolled back, for the lawyers can make a case that the action taken was indicated by UI so essentially nobody did anything wrong but the hesitating side is going to get a bad score no matter what happens - which is why I am more in favor of true equity rulings.

Let ms show you one of the problems in trying to ram something people don't understand down their throats. Ol' Mrs. A tanks and doubles, Mrs. B pulls. The director is called and their +650 is rolled back to -990. This lesson isn't lost on Mrs. A. Next time Mrs. A holds KQJ9x in a competitive auction. She waits a full 30 seconds before doubling. The lesson that Mrs. B learned is "If I pull, I get screwed" so she passes, which is exactly what Mrs A wants. Of course Mrs A is cheating here, there is no doubt. I can also tell you that there is no possible explanation that you can give to Mrs A that she is cheating because (a) she won't possibly understand it and (b) she's only getting back what was stolen from her earlier. The only lesson she will have learned is that if she wants partner to pass her double, she should think a long time first.

Yes, in an ideal world, we would all understand UI and its ramifications We don't live in an ideal world, we live in a world of human beings and there are many that just do not understand the concept no matter how many different ways you explain it. Is it possible that they are taking advantage of the situation? Indeed it is, and I don't have any problem trying to restore equity in the most blatent of cases. However, if you look at my two UI cases, you can't help but come to the conclusion that our opponents knew full well that they weren't entitled to anything and their intent in calling the director was to steal if the director was incompetent, and lo and behold, they got lucky and their thievery was successful. By the way, from what I knew of the players, there is no chance whatsoever that they were clueless people that were stolen from themselves and cluelessly calling the director thinking they might be right. They knew full well they were stealing. At the very worst, they would get nothing but rattle us for the other boards in the set.

[Kaitlyn S]

Let me put things in a different way. What is the point of playing bridge? Seriously - why do you play bridge?

It might surprise you that most of the people who play bridge play it to have fun! Yes, it's stimulating, and might ward off Alzheimer's, but it's a game and it is meant to be a game and it is meant to be fun.

So the ACBL is marketing.... fun. The ACBL is in competition with any other organization that might be marketing fun - book clubs, exercise clubs, dance classes and dances, movies, theater, television, board gaming, wargaming, bar hopping, camping, chess clubs, golf, tennis, I could go on forever. If bridge becomes less fun than any of the other activities, the other activities will take players from bridge and the ACBL will die a well-deserved death for forgetting that the reason people play bridge is to have fun.

Now you may disagree with me, but do your own poll of the true novices in your area if you don't believe me. Give them a sample UI scenario and ask them what they think of it. Here's one for you: West opens 3 clubs. North thinks a long time and passes as does East. South bids 3NT on a balanced 14 count and makes it. Ask your novices what they think of that situation, and please don't ask them after you've just given them a lecture on UI. I think you will be shocked at what you hear. And if you tell them that the innocent pair called the director and got the result rolled back to 3C down 2, they will probably tell you that they think the innocent pair cheated.

Trust me. You can tell them that they have it backwards, and explain why, and they might believe you. But they will not know why. And a few days later they'll answer the question the same way they did today. And yet, to the top players, these are the people whose dues and game fees are paying for you to go to the World Championships. To the ACBL officials and directors, these people's dues and fees are paying your salary. They don't get it and they never will. You can try to bash them over the head with explanations that will turn them off, or with penalties that will wake them up. And what will happen? Next time it's time to renew their membership - well that $34 or so will go a lot better toward a gym membership or the racquetball club.

You can say that they need to learn for the benefit of the game. Well, does the game benefit much when you chase them away? You can have a nice little clique of people that actually understand UI but you'll pay your own way for the GNT and the championships and you'll be looking at 12-table Regionals. And when the people that understand do finally die off, who will replace them?

There aren't enough top bridge players to sustain tournament bridge. I just got a message from the Bridge World magazine that they are in danger of going defunct and they need me to give up my life subscription and start paying for subscriptions again. Does any top player not get the Bridge World? That ought to tell you how many decent players there are. It would not surprise me if the number of people that truly understood UI and its ramifications was roughly the same as the number of Bridge World subscribers (and likely the intersection would be very large.) Also, the number of people that UI has been explained to is probably closer to the ACBL membership, which is a much, much larger number. (If you don't subscribe, it's a great magazine - tell 'em Kaitlyn Smith sent you and maybe they'll stop sending me requests for money.)

I know it's a real problem. You have the decent players thinking that the game really should be played without people taking advantage of UI, and that everybody needs to be educated. I think we can all agree that this would be ideal. But then you have the vast majority of the players who won't understand UI no matter how well or often you explain it, and continual attempts may simply drive them to another activity. There are so many to choose from. Trying to "restore equity, giving more to the innocent pair than they should be entitled to" is going to hasten the demise of tournament bridge.

Now, let's look more closely at one of my cases. A pair calls the director because partner doesn't leave in a slow takeout double with a singleton trump. Never mind the atrocious ruling. What on earth would make the pair even think that they were entitled to redress? The mere fact that they would even try should tell you that the whole process of score adjustments has gotten way out of hand. Frankly I think they should have been admonished for a frivolous call. The director knew full well that we as a pair did not need to be educated on UI - we had played on teams with him. The players who called him should have also known that also since we had played against them hundreds of times. So seriously, how does it come to a point where a pair that takes out a takeout double with a singleton trump has the director called looking for a score adjustment? And you know that if they did it against us, a seasoned Flight A pair known for good ethics, that they were probably also doing it against every other pair also - pretty much any time someone took a few seconds to bid. THIS WAS NOT (!) my friends that I said called the director every third board but damned if they weren't in the same bridge circle. If you have clowns doing this, and sometimes the director actually gives them points (and maybe some of the time they are deserved, but they clearly weren't in my case so they probably aren't in a lot of others also), they are going to drive players away. So I think this whole push to get the directors called more is misguided and could very well lead to the demise of organized duplicate bridge as a whole. Players will flock to the non-sanctioned games where they barely have rulings. And they will be a lot happier.

Look, I don't disagree with you one bit that it would be good to get the players educated - if it could be done. If you honestly believe in your heart that the players who get the director called on them will actually understand the situation when it's explained to them, then I understand your feeling that the directors should be called more often. Where we differ is our views on how practical that solution is.

[helene_t]

I think all of these rulings are somewhere in the range from "very bad" to "probably bad, depending on circumstances".

But I also think that we have to accept that bad rulings are a part of the random variance in scores akin to rub of the green and bad splits, something we just have to live with. As long most boards do not require arbitrage, most rulings are correct and most director errors not due to directors favouring their pets or discriminating against specific segments of the players.

Directing bridge tournaments is complex, compared to other sports. We don't usually have video footage or direct TD testemoni, and things like de facto partnership agreements are difficult to verify.