Hesitations
Hi
As a new club director, Im currently dealing with a few situations regarding hesitations. The typical scenario which you;'ll relate to is that competitive bidding is proceeding in tempo, then we have a hesitation (typically longer than 15 seconds ) and then the dreaded PASS appears followed by another competitive bid from Hesitators partner. Whilst I know and remind players of the need to bid/ play 'in tempo' Im wondering, ias experienced TDs) can you give me guideline of on the amount of time a player may have to think, before passing as I want to communicate with all the members on this whole topic. (btw this also applies to play and hesitations too) Many Thanks
Comments
I think it depends on the player. As long as they're consistent then whether it's 5s or 20s doesn't matter. If they take the same amount of time for every call / play, there can be no UI from "hesitation" / "haste".
I know life isn't like that, but they vary at the risk of giving UI.
As above: hesitations (or insta-plays) vary between players. As a club TD you should have (or obtain) a pretty good idea as to who are the slow (thinking) players and who are the quick (instinctive) ones, if that is any help.
As you probably know, a break in tempo (BIT) is not of itself an infraction - Bridge is, after all, a thinking game and some players think quicker than others - and some auctions by nature are more difficult to assimilate: very unusual ones may take longer to work out than others and a delay in making a call might be expected. Bidding boxes have made life easier - in the past
"I'd like a review of the bidding with all the original inflections." - George Kauffman?
Also: if partner takes some action after a BIT, that may not be an irregularity either. The question, as ever is: what does the BIT demonstrably suggest partner do and are there any logical alternatives? The most common discussion is after limit bids: If the auction goes 1NT - (pause) - 2NT (natural) was partner thinking about passing or bidding three? A player with an average hand e.g. one with 13 points has no idea whether pass or 3NT will be the winning action and, as no action is demonstrably suggested, can make either.
So: don't fall into the habit of "If it hesitates, shoot it"
The EBU does have some suggestions in the White book as to what a hesitation means.
8.16.2 What does a hesitation mean?
The EBU RC considers that:
(a) A hesitation followed by a pass would normally be willing to hear partner bid on
(b) A hesitation followed by a minimum bid after RHO’s pass would normally have
something in hand
(c) A hesitation followed by a penalty double is normally willing to see it removed
(Back to me): although the first option says "bid on" - this could be interpreted as "not pass". In some situations it will be unclear whether the alternative was going to be bidding on or doubling for penalties. If the players do not use a forcing pass in that situation (which compels some action), you often find partner doubling, knowing that the player can pass it (if they were thinking about penalising the opponents) or bid on (if not). This gets round the argument that the pause did not "demonstrably suggest bidding on over pass" or "demonstrably suggest doubling over pass". In such cases I normally rely on 73C - a player must "carefully avoid taking any advantage" of the information - as a "double" is not such.
And of course, if a player takes action that seems "demonstrably suggested" e.g. removing a slow double you must decide whether there are in fact any logical alternatives to do that. To do that you naturally poll other players (flawed of course in a club when everyone plays the same boards but it is the best you can do). (In my experience my club partners do not remove penalty doubles even when their hand is screaming: bid on. They also seem to regard "Stop 3NT" as a command to stop bidding - even with substantial extras)
As Jeremy and John both say.
Picking up on:
I also get asked about the maximum time a player should be allowed to think before playing a card.
There are no quantitative answers to these questions and we can only answer qualitatively. So much depends on the circumstances and the tempo of the auction or of the play or of the (alleged slow) player generally.
I played on one occasion with a partner who hadn't played for some years and he was slow all evening. At one point my LHO asked me if I could agree that my partner had hesitated and I had to reply that it was his fastest call all evening!
One thing to watch out for when called to a table is if an alleged hesitation followed a Stop bid, and if so, whether the Stop procedures had been followed. There is also a relatively new bit in the EBU White Book. Para 8.16.6.1says:
A short hesitation following an unexpected call by an opponent would not necessarily be considered to be a departure from normal tempo or to transmit significant unauthorised information ."
If you are planning to send a communication to your club members, I would discourage them from the officious expression "I'm reserving my rights" as less experienced club members don't know what it means and the singular right to call the TD exists without having to be reserved. More friendly is for a player to ask "Can we agree that Barrie spent a fair bit of time thinking before he called?" and whatever is replied, they get the TD to inform of a possible issue.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live