Forcing partner to Pass - a thought experiment
We have been competing with opponents, us in hearts, them in spades, and the bid is currently with them at 4S. Partner is quite likely to go onto 5H, but I don't want him to. If I spend a long time making my bid he will be obliged to pass as it is a logical alternative the the bid suggested by my hesitation (5H).
This seems wrong. Where in the laws does it prevent me doing this?
Comments
Partner is required to take an action not suggested by the hesitation.
Given that the hesitation is obliging him to pass (or at least being "demonstrably suggested" by the slow pass), then the partner must take a logical alternative to the pass and bid. :)
Meanwhile report said player to the law and ethics committee.
Likewise, if you bid 4H and it is deemed insufficient; if you do not subsequently make it sufficient, partner is silenced throughout. This, too, must be reported to L&E as it is central heating.
More serious answer, how about 72A2:
Calls and plays should be made without undue emphasis, mannerism or inflection, and without undue hesitation or haste.
So the player cannot hesitate without a good bridge reason, and having done his partner must then be mindful of the UI received. Hesitating in order to deliberately generate false UI would surely be "undue hesitation".
Law 72C?
Players who consider employing the reverse hesitation coup do not play with partners who avoid using unauthorised information.
But this falls foul of 72B1 as it is an infringement.
I like the term central heating though - is this a recognised term? If so, where can I find it used?
Does this make it an irregularity? For 72C to apply there must be an irregularity. "Hesitating" is not normally considered an infraction - is it an irregularity? Probably!
You would however be assigning intention to the hesitator - something that the laws don't normally require you to do.
"Reverse hesitation coup" - another term new to me. Love it!
I'd be looking at Law 73D (both sections).
If you know from your hand that you don't want partner bidding 5 !h , and you presumably don't have a double of 4 !s, then you know you are going to pass. To take an inordinately long time to do so, with the intent stated, is definitely not being particularly careful when variations may work to the benefit of your side. (73D1)
If you have no bridge reason to do anything except pass, as above, but deliberately take a long time to do so, you are doing something deliberately which is prone to mislead the opponents. Your motivation may not actively be to mislead, but I would still argue that your action contravenes the "may not attempt to mislead" provision. (73D2).
The reverse hesitations coup does not work long term because partners become aware of it and what is suggested therefore changes.
I've never heard coffee housing referred to as central heating (same initials of course).
That could be an interesting Director call: "hey, my RHO took a long time thinking about their signoff and then LHO continued, isn't that misuse of UI?" LHO: "my partner always hesitates when it's certain and bids quickly when it's close, so the UI suggests I pass the hand out and thus I need to continue!"
Perhaps LHO should have alerted the hesitation? ;-)
I think it's best to try to stem this sort of situation immediately, because an implicit understanding about tempo is almost impossible to resolve (and besides, likely implies that the partnership has been intentionally breaking the rules). Using 73D2 to ban reverse-tempo communication seems like a bit of a stretch to me, but 73D1 seems to simply and uncontroversially ban any attempt to gain an advantage by varying your tempo.
(As a side note: many bridge players recommend working out what you should do in advance in cases where you might need to make a difficult decision and your tempo would give that fact away to the opponents, e.g. deciding whether to rise or duck if RHO makes a particular lead in the middle of a hand. Intentionally taking a long time when you have no decision to make is coffeehousing and banned by the rules; but wouldn't that imply that intentionally playing quickly when you do in fact have a hard decision is banned for the same reason? I guess what the Laws imply is that it's OK to make the decision in the same tempo as you'd play if you didn't have the decision, but not to make it faster.)
Well, it is certainly recommended to do your thinking in advance when, say, you have a number of discards to make, and trying to plan your later discards in advance at a point at which you don't (yet) have a problem as to what to spare on the current trick, with a view to being able to make the (intrinsically more difficult) later discards in relatively normal tempo just seems to me to be good bridge. It shouldn't provide any UI to partner or potentially misleading information to declarer as to the precise point at which the discards became difficult.