Laws talk for players
I have been asked to give a talk on the laws to my local bridge club. The talk is aimed at players rather than directors, so I am going to cover the things that a player should know, but not those that a director would explain once called to the table.
Apart from the obvious "When to call the director", I was planning to include:
- UI - what the restrictions are (logical alternative etc.), for when your partner misalerts or similar, and calling the director may give further UI.
- How to properly describe a bid (c.f. the recent discussion here on Multis) or a signal/discard
- How to properly make a claim
- Alerting, Announcing and Asking
- Unintended call
- Dummy's rights
- When is a call made? A card played?
- Misinformation - when to tell the opposition
- Procedural penalties
Does anyone have any suggestions for areas I have missed?
Thanks in advance
Comments
How long is this talk 2 or 3 hours?
I would concentrate on the word 'information', as the basis for part of your talk and 'correct procedure' for the remainder (probably the first part).
JerremChild, Full of admiration that you have been asked and that you have put some good thoughts on paper. You might need to do it in two or three sittings but perhaps you could let us know how you get on.
I would suggest that once done, you might take the time to give a copy of your notes to the teachers advisory Group committee for them to consider including into any teaching format in the future. Perhaps you could find out from the audience how well it was received and whether they would have appreciated it earlier in their "careers".
CMOT_Dibbler
I would not attempt to explain logical alternatives to a layman apart from saying: If you feel you may have been treated unfairly as a result of UI call the Director.
Apart from Comparable Calls this is possibly the most difficult part of Directing.
Yes I know one or two players who will actually consider this when partner hesitates and may even decide not to make the bid they intended because it could be ruled as invalid. These are expert players, much better at Bridge than I am, with many years of experience. I think they are all former Directors.
You will lose ordinary club players if you try to explain the complex issues.
I like the idea in general. There is a lot of simple information about the Laws that could be covered. I would probably start and end with the rule that says keep the board in the centre of the table the right way round!
Alan
Concentrating on two ideas would make a sound basis for this discussion:
1. The opponents are entitled to know as much about the meaning of your partner's bidding as you do;
2. You are only entitled to use information from your partner if it comes entirely from the legal auction or cards played and not from the manner in which they are played or calls made.
Well, I'm hardly an expert player. But I do notice when my regular partner's hesitate and often know what it means (with irregular partners the meaning is less certain). Not making a decision which takes advantage of that is hardly difficult, although I agree insofar as the logical alternative is a bit of a technical way to describe the situation and could use translating. Simple examples are good for that. Slow pass over a pre-empt, that's an easy one.
Once you get them to understand BITs and the problems they cause then maybe they can then be told why we use the stop card =)
You can approximate the UI rules closely enough to get ordinary players to do the right thing in practice:
"If your partner does something (e.g. hesitating) which gives you information you wouldn't otherwise have about the hand, you must do the opposite of what the information suggests, unless it would be unreasonable or illogical to do so."
On another note, weejonnie has a good point: Stop card procedure is definitely something that needs discussing. Hardly anyone seems to get it right at my club (although I find that a significant minority of players will react correctly to the Stop card when I play it correctly). I've seen situations like (LHO "Please can you pick the Stop card back up, I can't play until you do", ais523 "Sorry, just counting to 10, I've reached 10 now" picks up Stop card), which indicate that players understand how they're supposed to react to a Stop card without having any idea what the benefit is. (Note that in this situation RHO has the same UI as if LHO had ignored the Stop card altogether!) I get fairly annoyed when my RHO doesn't time the length of the mandated Stop card BIT for me, because it's hard to count to 10 and make decisions about what call to make at the same time.
2 Hours, and will include a quiz or two.
Stop Cards and Board Placement would be covered quite neatly under Procedural Penalties
Thank you for all the wonderful suggestions. Keep 'em coming!
All the ideas above are fine and I particularly like Gordon's bit about full disclosure. For me, if you can get them calling at the appropriate time the rest should fall more in to place.
The director is there to help ... sort out what may or may not have gone wrong and explain what happens now.
The director is not a stick you use to beat opponents.
If someone calls the director about something you have done this is not an accusation of cheating.
The basic answer to the vast majority of directing issues (as in this happened, what should I have done) club players bring to me, is; or starts with; call the director
Another one you might consider is players making their own rulings at the table. Such ad hoc rulings might be right or they might be wrong but less experienced players are usually unwilling to challenge the word of an experienced player at the table. It all comes back to "call the director when something goes wrong".
At some clubs the director is called as a matter of course when something goes awry. At other clubs, there is a view that you are calling the director on someone and players at these clubs often feel resentment when the TD is called.
I applaud your attempt to educate the players and am looking forward to the feedback from your talk.
Hi Jeremy,
It's a great idea you are proposing, which I think will suit/help many club players and aspiring TDs.
I used to give a talk to Improvers called "Director Please" as many improvers are reluctant (if not terrified) to call the TD or have the TD called at their table. I was also concerned some club players would 'tell them what to do', rather than call the TD. I have copied it in the next comment and happy to email it to anyone.
Good luck and hope it goes well.
Director Please:
• When things go wrong, call “Director please”, in a manner not to offend.
• If the Bridgemate or scores are a problem, call “Director please”
• The English Bridge Union (EBU) rule book gives the actions to take when things go wrong.
• Count your cards (face down)
• A bid out of turn > “Director please”
• Insufficient bid: Don’t let the opposition tell you to make your bid good ! Did you know, the first
option is the next player can accept your insufficient bid. > “Director please”
• An incorrect bid may be corrected, (if your partner has not yet bid, after your incorrect bid) >
“Director please”
• When can you ask about the bidding (or alerts). When it is your turn to call.
• The Board in Play should remain on the centre of the table ‘and’ in the correct orientation.
• Opening lead Face Down: “any questions partner”. The bidding cards should still be on the table
(including passes) and put back into the box when the opening lead is faced.
• Opening lead out-of-turn: > “Director please”
• Playing from the wrong hand. Can this be accepted ? > “Director please”
• Revoking (established or not established) the director will explain: > “Director please”
• Revoke enquiries (having none partner ?) Only applicable at the current trick.
• Quitted tricks the wrong way round. (Your trick’s wrong partner !) Only at the current trick.
• Looking at other peoples cards to the last trick (only if a card is still face up)
• Don’t let the opposition make their own rulings and don’t let them tell you what you must do.
Call > “Director please”
• With STOP bids, the next player should wait for ~10 seconds before bidding or passing.
• Pulling two cards out in error > “Director please”
• Exposed cards Major and Minor penalty cards. (different rules apply) > “Director please”
• Slow play; the Director may possibly award an adjusted score: Average, Average+, Average-.
• Hesitations are sometimes inevitable and depending on the situation, may be acceptable. The
Director is the best person to resolve any issues.
• Don’t be alarmed or feel intimidated if the opposition call for the Director. It is not an offence
and the Director is the best person to resolve the problem.
• Best behaviour at Bridge. If there is bad behaviour at the Bridge table > “Director please”
• At the end of play, please shuffle your cards before returning them to the board. It’s the rules !
It's not (or shouldn't be) an accusation of anything. Even when pointing this out I would avoid using the "c-word".
Certainly at club level a lot of irregularities/ infractions go unreported - most players feel they are playing with friends and it is regarded as an unfriendly act. I get very few judgement calls re UI, IMHO most calls are:
a) scoring errors
b) revokes
c) loots
(I nearly had a minor penalty card case on Tuesday - would have made my day =) )
If you have too many cards, call the Director immediately.
If you have too few cards, wait for other players to finish counting first, then call the Director. This way, if one of the other players counts face up (and realises they have 14 cards, and calls the Director before you), the situation can still be corrected without giving anyone extraneous information. (The player with 14 cards knows which card they had extra, but not whose hand it was replaced in, and thus they don't have any information they shouldn't otherwise have. If the player with 12 cards calls the Director, know the player with 14 cards knows where the card went.)
When can you correct partner's incorrect explanation?
These days I see a lot of people getting this wrong when they are the declaring side.
I've been following this for a week, and made a few notes after the club sessions that I've played and directed in. Of course, the trap to avoid herei is trying to replicate a three day TD course in an hour or two. So I' suggest my favourite areas to focus on where where a greater understanding would help the players themselves, us the directors and hopefully even opponents or as we sometimes call them "fellow club members" or even "friends".
SteveMap gave an excellent list, and here is my top three:
And some extras if time permits: