Hesitation
I'd welcome views on how to handle this situation:
North East South West
Bid Pass Bid Pass
Pass Bid
North then calls director saying that West hesitated. Opponents deny this although, looking at West's hand, it does look as though West had something to think about. No-one had previously suggested that there had been a hesitation.
I'm concerned that North's director call opens up opportunities for gaming or even gives UI to their partner - specifically because the call is from North before South has bid.
How should I deal with this? Is there advice I could give to players to avoid this happening in the future?
Comments
Firstly, you should not take West's hand into account when determining if there was a hesitation (it's generally better not to look at the hands at all unless you have to).
Secondly there either was or wasn't a hesitation, and in the absence of agreement between players it is up to the director to decide based on the balance of probabilities.
In these cases I usually ask the accused hesitator to re-enact what they did. The opposition will probably disagree, so I ask them to show me what they thought it looked like. The truth is usually somewhere in between.
I might ask the accused player to come away from the table and tell me what they were thinking about - that often helps.
In terms of advice to the players, tell them to agree a hesitation at the time and call the director immediately if there is no agreement.
Finally, be wary of a player saying they didn't notice their partner hesitate - I often find this means they did!
Either way, North’s call for the TD may well be legitimate, and is effectively reserving his rights. The TD is likely to try and establish if there was a hesitation and unlikely to look at any of the hands at this stage.
Bidding and Play should continue; calling the TD at the end of play if N/S feel damaged by the final result.