A pending case from Greek appeal commitee.
Dealer North, Both non vulnerable.
North holds:
8
86542
Q9
109876
Bidding goes:
P - P - 1NT - P
2D - P - 2H - P
P - 2SP - P* - P
3CL - All Pass
- BIT
Td's decision adjusted the score 2sp (+2). The decision has been appealed.
If necessary I will provide the full hand.
Your opinions and ruling...
Comments
Do we know the strength of the 1NT open?
Yes of course 15-17
The words that come to mind include "Touch" and "Barge Pole". We should not be preempting the situation/outcome. I know I would not like it if I was the TD involved.
CMOT_Dibbler
[ Removed - Tag ]
I agree with CMOT_Dibbler that we should not comment on an appeal that is still taking place. The only thing I would say is that the way to determine whether or not Pass is an LA is to take a poll.
I think it would also be helpful to know what agreements (if any) are in place about action over 2 !s by opener, particularly how they play double.
I rather assumed that this thread was intended to be a poll.
I have to agree with the comments that we should not be preempting the outcome and I'll remove my earlier post.
Sorry for my poor English, but I am not aware of the phrase "Touch" and "Barge Pole" meaning :)
Thank you
There's an English expression, "I wouldn't touch this with a barge pole", meaning "I would rather not interact with this at all".
Ok thank you all. I was not aware that this is the wrong way to handle such an issue.
I think it's a difficult case and thought it was right to ask for some help. I am really sorry.
Actually for history TD has not provide a poll so there is basic problem now, how this case should be judged without one.
To my mind, the question to consider is whether the BIT suggests keeping the bidding open, rather than passing. If keeping the bidding open is suggested (I'm not saying that it is) then pass is clearly a logical alternative. If the BIT doesn't suggest keeping the bidding open then there is probably no restriction on North's actions.
For me, unless there was some grave error by applying the laws incorrectly, then a judgement call should be backed up at appeal.
Such as a football player being sent off after 1 yellow card because the ref thought a player already had one. this can be appealed as this is application of law. Appealing a goal as being given or denied by the ref, giving evidence after the match is too late.
Same thing here (for me) - has the law been applied correctly? Seems to that yes, it was.
Was there a judgement call? Yes, therefor the judgement of the TD should be backed up.
I certainly agree that we shouldn't be commenting on a live appeal. It is useful though to look at the methodology for dealing with such cases - you don't get much practice with this sort of thing on club nights.
Assuming the BIT is not disputed; you need to determine if N had a logical alternative to the 3C bid and if the 3C bid was demonstrably suggested over logical alternatives. You need to consult with several players who are peers of N in terms of skill and experience and ask what bid(s) they would consider and select at their 4th turn to bid - without telling them about the BIT. You can also ask what they would infer from a slow pass by partner. You, and the players you poll, also need to know if N has any agreements on the meaning of other possible bids in this auction. Once this information is available the rest should be easy. If the TD didn't conduct such a poll then the appeal committee certainly should.
If you were to give me the hand and ask the appropriate questions I would say that with my regular partners I would PASS at my 4th and not consider any other bids. A slow pass by partner would suggest they have a 4-5 spades or 4-5 hearts. As TD I usually start from a slow PASS meaning that the player would rather not play or defend that contract but you have to listen to what the players and those you poll have to say.
Peter
Thank you all for your answers, I appreciate them.
Well my problem in this case consists from the words demonstrably suggested. Even if poll describes pass as a logical alternative, which we all assume it is a quite possible outcome, does hesitation anyway suggests demonstrably North to bidding on (bidding 3c in this occasion)?
That is my dilemma...
Most people here seem to assume that Pass would be a logical alternative, but I'm not certain that would be the outcome of a properly conducted poll, especially if playing matchpointed pairs and considering the vulnerabilty.
Miltos, can you explain exactly what your role in this is? Are you on the appeal committee? If so, and the TD did not conduct a poll, you might want to conduct one yourself and I find Bridgewinners polls can be very useful for that as they tend to get a lot of replies quite quickly. Of course there is the question of whether or not those who reply are peers of the players, but that too can often be discovered.
Also remember law 73C - a player must "carefully avoid" making use of unauthorised information also applies. "demonstrably suggested" only applies to law 16B.
The following is only my opinion.
Sometimes a player indicates that they want to take action i.e. NOT let the opponents play in the last contract bid, but they have a problem. This is usually because they have an imperfect distribution for any form of action that they can show by partnership agreement e.g. lacking 4 cards in an unbid major.
In such situations their partner has basically three choices.
1) Pass - which they would probably do had partner passed in tempo
2) Double - which basically means: I don't mind what you want to do partner, I can stand it.
3) Bid - which may be influenced by trying to work out why partner paused.
Now obviously if their partner has such a hand where the action was obvious i.e. no logical alternative to doing so, then there is no problem. (Which is why we poll in the first place. In the example given, a poll of peers could have suggesed that there was no alternative to bidding 3 Clubs, in which case table result stands).
It can be argued in such case that (if there are alternative choices to the action chosen) that none of them are demonstrably suggested as in 16B. However that is not the law of 73C.
If a player takes an action that could be beneficial i.e. is playing for a specific reason why partner hesitated, then he is not "carefully avoiding" taking advantage of the unauthorised information.
Of course we have selection bias here - if the decision is unsuccessful then opponents aren't damaged and probably won't call the director. It is only when the decision has resulted in the opponents suffering (possibly) by the failure to avoid taking advantage that the TD is called.
The EBU white book states that "A hesitation followed by a pass would normally be willing to hear partner bid on" - this should (probably) be amended to "... willing to hear partner take a positive action", to cover the 'catch-all' double.
There is currently a similar situation on bridgewinners - where the NT bidder bid 3Clubs after a pause by partner, after a 2S overcall of a 1NT bid. https://bridgewinners.com/article/view/break-in-tempo-2-r5o0gxlyr4/ again opinion is split between : is 3 Clubs demonstrably suggested, is there a logical alternative and the NT bidder isn't carefully avoiding taking advantage of the break in tempo.
I am very much in favour of drawing players' attention to Law 73C, normally by way of a friendly warning in the first instance. Instances where you are not going to adjust under Law 16, particularly on the basis that the action taken was not demonstrably suggested, may still involve a conclusion that the player has not made every effort to avoid taking advantage.
Hi Gordon, thank you very much for your suggestions.
The problem starts from the fact that this tournament was held last weekend, and it was a Greek festival with money prizes. The organizers should have recommend an appeal committee, but they neglected it! So in this case the appeal came to the standing appeal committee of the Greek federation, which as you said I am a member of.
So yes I am very interested to make a pole to Bridgewinners , as tjhe TD did not conduct one. Is it possible to give me some guidelines how to to a pole in this site you recommend me?
Than you a lot for your precious help.
There is a good example of what I mean at https://bridgewinners.com/article/view/break-in-tempo-2-r5o0gxlyr4/. The poll there clearly demonstrated that the bid chosen was not suggested by the UI, but as Pass was the majority choice of those polled, it seems clear to me that not to pass was a breach of Law 73C.
I have only occasionally visited Bridgewinners so maybe someone else can give you site-specific advice, but when polling for logical alternatives, you should provide our hand (that of the hesitator's partner), the auction up to our call after partner's "hesitation", the vulnerability and type of scoring, and any relevant agreements (eg partner's 1NT is 15-17), but no mention of any irregularity, and just ask what we would call now. I recommend avoiding any suggestion that you might be polling for a ruling and to make it appear that you just want to know what you might have called.
I use a similar forum on Bridge Club Live when I want to poll for a F2F ruling (and I use my local club when I want to do a poll for a BCL ruling!).
It's a bit more of a problem if you decide you also need to poll to determine whether bidding on (or action) is "demonstrably suggested" by the "hesitation" as it is better to poll a different group of people, but if you do use the same forum, I would suggest that you wait till you get enough replies to the LAs question before asking this question and revealing that it is for a ruling.
Best wishes to you and your fellow appeal committee members.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
Yes, follow Barrie's suggestions and go to https://bridgewinners.com/poll/new_bidding/ to make the poll. I think the form of scoring is very important.
When you have entered all the details and previewed it, you need to find the Publish button and click on it - I don't find it very user-friendly!
The poll there clearly demonstrated that the bid chosen was not suggested by the UI, but as Pass was the majority choice of those polled, it seems clear to me that not to pass was a breach of Law 73C.
I really don't understand that logic. If the bid chosen is not suggested by the UI, how on earth can it be a breach of Law 73C? I don't think the BridgeWinners thread is analogous for two reasons. Firstly, I think the bid there is in breach of Law 16, and secondly the hesitation there was by a hand that could have a wide range of values. A hesitation by a hand that has opened 1NT cannot pass much information as it already clearly defined.
My feeling is that a positive action (bidding/ doubling) when a negative action is suggested absent the UI is not 'carefully avoiding' making use of the UI (that partner wanted the partnership to take some action). Basically - if the UI COULD have suggested that an action would benefit the partnership then the player is in breach of 73C in trying that action. If we don't apply 73C and only apply 16B then we will get a lot of decisions by directors in allowing players to take actions in the hope of benefiting from their partner's 'extra values'. (Called the 'Dear Hearts and Gentle People ruling by David Burn). In fact very few BITS would ever get ruled against since many of them could include "Partner might have been considering doubling for penalties with hidden extra defensive values" - which would mean that any bid would not be demonstrably suggested by the BIT.
Obviously this is going to happen most in the 'pass Vs not-pass' sphere.
In the Bridgewinners case there were three possible calls in the frame. Pass was the non-suggested majority call chosen by the poll. Double was the suggested large minority choice. The bid actually chosen was a very small minority choice. In my book that makes it clear to disallow double under Law 16 (had that been the call made). It makes it less clear (IMO) to disallow the chosen bid. If the results of the poll are accurate, then if you are not going to pass, then double is overwhelmingly more likely than the bid chosen. I don't think you can say that the bid chosen is demonstrably suggested in those circumstances.
I don't want to re-hash the Bridgewinners thread here. If you think that the Bridgewinners thread is not a good example, fair enough, but (IMO) there is a general principle that if (say) Pass is not only a logical alternative, but the actual majority choice of the poll, then to do anything other than pass at least risks a breach of Law 73C. Put it this way: the poll says it is obvious to pass - to do anything else when in receipt of UI is not carefully avoiding taking advantage. Law 16 is objective - you test the action actually taken by looking at the logic of the situation, assisted by polling. Law 73C is more subjective and is not specifically about the legality (in the Law 16 sense) of the choice actually made.
I want to steer clear of specifics relating to Milton's case, as we are here to provide guidance on the process rather than to second-guess the outcome of a live case. Your point about the limited possibilities of what a subsequent hesitation by a 1NT opener might convey is of course a good one, but surely it is all about distribution. Partner has shown no values, despite which opener has effectively said "I want to do something". I know what I think that suggests in terms of his spade holding, if nothing else.
Well I joined bridgewinners already, and I have created a general poll. Anfortunately I read Barries post after so I had set both questions from the beggining.
Do you think it's usefull for our discussion, to post the link in this thread, and try have some conclusions about demonstrable suggesting or not, and about law 73C?
If running a poll on BW, I try and avoid linking to other sites/ discussion groups about the same hand, purely to have pristine data about the results and comments. After a couple of days, I'll post the circumstances and see what follows then. But each to their own opinion.
Ok respect this. Thank you Weejonnie.
Can't seem to find this on BW Milton.
Found it,
Hi all and thank you for your answers,
I am in the appeal committee and although Miltos was really helpful and did a lot of research we had to exclude him from this one because he was a member of the directors’ team, in another tournament of course and he had nothing to do with the TD’s ruling but still.
We did several polls both at the clubs and the online one that Miltos created and the polls at the question “what you think that S holds?” were:
50% spade penalty (because of the singleton spade)
40% heart fit and max
10% 6card minor and other
We have reached a decision so you can speak freely and we would appreciate your point of view.
Should I post the decision and the reasoning?