BBO Discussion Forums: Should I Have Sanctioned an Appeal? - BBO Discussion Forums

There seems an issue of misinformation in the play: West says that if he knew North had hearts he would have defended differently.

At some stage 1♥ was explained as spades, yet North (when bidding 1♥) did not think this was their agreement and South (when passing 3NT) must have suspected this was not their agreement; yet neither said anything at the end of the auction. If something had been said at the end of the auction then West would have had the change to defend differently.

RMB1, on 2011-February-16, 17:54, said:

That is an interesting question. When North heard the alert of 1H, he would have known he misbid. But we are told that the CC stated that they played transfers after 1m (X), and South's 3S is consistent with that. I don't think North has any obligation to tell the opponents he misbid. And South seems to have guessed that North misbid when he did not correct to 4S. But I don't think either of them had any legal obligation to advise the opponents before the lead. The adjustment should just therefore be for the misuse of UI in the auction.

Poky, on 2011-February-16, 13:05, said:

No, it isn't. A TD's job is to apply the Laws and Regulations, and to run tournaments. His job is only to restore equity when the relevant Law says so, and very few Laws do.

lamford, on 2011-February-16, 17:37, said:

It says 'chief object', not sole object. To suggest that every captain who does not appeal for whatever reason is letting down his team is grossly unfair. Just let people follow their own wishes in this area as everyone else does, and no Law forbids.

lamford, on 2011-February-16, 17:37, said:

Not at all. Rulings can be of no importance whatever but are discussed here for their interest and informational content.

lamford, on 2011-February-16, 17:37, said:

I think East asked for an explanation of 1H immediately. 3S (and 3NT) were not alerted.

Aardv, on 2011-February-17, 03:06, said:

The lack of an alert of 3NT would be further evidence that this was not a "non-serious" slam try, as surmised by gnasher. As would the failure to advise the opening leader of the non-alert of 3NT.

Poky, on 2011-February-16, 08:09, said:

This comment relates to the auction originally given, rather than the actual auction in which it was East who doubled 3NT. But please tell me how the UI situation should have been obvious to West. It might improve my game, which needs it.

Aardv, on 2011-February-17, 06:08, said:

Paul didn't mean to say that. What he meant was that it seems clear that there was a misbid rather than a misexplanation, so you had no chance of getting the information that might have helped you.

I am not quite so certain that this is the case. If a pair "don't discuss things", and something happens to be on the card, does it really mean that they are playing it? Maybe the transfer treatment had been on-again off-again, so that North didn't know it was on this time. Maybe South handed North a card and said "this is what we are playing" and South said OK, but hadn't fully read it.

If any of these had been the case, I am sure you would have gotten an explanation from South before play began. But sometimes these is a sort of sticky situation, where one remembers after the fact, "oh, yeah, he said something about that in November". If it is something you would most likely not have recalled before the fact, was it really your agreement?

I guess it is a question of whether North had forgotten that it was their agreement, or whether he didn't know it was. Sometimes it is difficult for the player himself to know which it is.

Oops, Poky's is the comment you are referring to. I stand by my other comments, but I guess it is left to Poky to explain how you knew what was going on.

This post has been edited by Vampyr: 2011-February-17, 06:55

As the person who started this ball rolling, I hope I may be permitted a few observations.

Readers of bridge articles who don't actually play the game might be forgiven for thinking that the game was all about brilliancies by declarer or the defence whereas those of us who actually play know that, most of the time, at whatever level, it is more about making fewer errors than the oppo.

I sometimes wonder whether some of the members of this forum don't lose sight of the fact that rulings, particularly "judgement rulings" are a very small, though not unimportant, part of the tournament bridge scene. I act as NPC only in the Tollemache Competition; in 19 qualifiers and 13 finals (just over 3,000 boards each played at 4 tables so something over 12,000 opportunties for problems to arise) you could probably count the number of times we have been involved in "judgement rulings" on the toes of Fred Titmus's left (or is it right?) foot.

In this particular case, my side asked for a "judgement ruling" and got one from the TD. Not having attended Ricky Ponting's lessons on how to deal with decisions of arbiters which don't happen to suit my side, I start from the basis that a TD appointed by the EBU to oversee the final of a national event is not only highly likely to be more than competent to do so but also to be right a lot more often than not. TD's, like bridge players, sometimes make mistakes - and then we have appeal committees to overrule them if appropriate. Had I thought for one minute that we had a "cast iron" case, I would happily have sanctioned an appeal if that's what the team wanted to do (assuming someone could have found the £30 deposit as I had run out of cash by then). I didn't think we did, the pair directly affected didn't want to appeal and the effect of a successful appeal wasn't that important. Had it been the case, for example, that Surrey would have won the event in the absence of an appeal but we (or another team) would have won it with a successful appeal, then it would have been right to appeal, to protect the integrity of the event, even if we thought our chances weren't that great.

Having read all the contributions to this thread (which I started out of curiosity, as, no doubt, did Frances with her poll) there are still a number of grey areas which might well have a bearing on the outcome of a hypothetical appeal. We know that the NS pair play a lot of "stuff" and, according to Gnasher, that they don't always spend enough time on it to remember it all. We also know, from Jeffrey via Frances, that they change what they play quite often. When N bid 1♥, he obviously thought that he was showing ♥; according to Robin, when 1♥ was alerted, North continued to think that he had bid in accordance with the latest version of their system (and was of course obliged to carry on bidding as if he had, whether or not that turned out to be right). It is still not clear whether 2♠ by S would have been natural but NF; the fact that N didn't alert 3♠ is some evidence that he thought it was natural and not a splinter. Some seem more ready than I would be to assume that it was evidence that N was "ethically challenged". If 3♠ was natural and forcing, then a natural 3NT, if part of their armoury, seems fairly obvious to me.

When all is said and done, "nobody died". My team, if they have spent any time since Sunday thinking about the event, won't have spent much of it thinking about this board.

Vampyr, on 2011-February-16, 15:51, said:

I'm a simple soul. Whenever I have UI I bid as I would have bid without UI. And I do not see any problem in it. I do not see any reason why the UI should prevent me to use the AI I have available. Is there any law saying that?

But I could agree with you that some people are more skillful in using AI than others.

Poky, on 2011-February-17, 07:33, said:

Law 16D. If you have UI you may not choose from among logical alternatives one which is suggested by the UI. AI from another source can affect what is a logical alternative, and it can affect whether anything is suggested, but merely doing what (you have managed to convince yourself that) you would have done anyway is not good enough.

What's more, when you do "get away with it" it will generally be against people who aren't strong players to realise they've been had.

Poky, on 2011-February-17, 07:33, said:

Yes, there is a Law saying that is wrong - 16. But let us look at the practical approach. There is also a Law saying that when you have UI from partner you must make every effort not to gain from it - 73C. Now, if you just bid "as you would without the UI" there are two main problems.

First, you are not making an effort to avoid gaining from the UI, so you are bidding illegally. Second, do you know how you would bid without the UI? I bet you do not, much of the time.

Let us take a traditional example and see these two in action:



You made a weak jump overcall in clubs. What do you bid now?

If I were to poll a lot of people, I am sure some would pass, some would bid 5♣. The latter might argue that partner should have a club fit for a 4♠ bid: they might argue that this hand will be useless in anything but clubs. What would I do? To be honest, I am not sure: just yesterday I bid 3♣ over my partner's 2♥ [no UI involved] because I thought "my hand will be useless in anything but clubs" and turned +110 into -200. Because of that I shall be less likely to do so in future!

Are you sure? Are you 100% certain what you would do? Players often stop and think, and if they do they are not 100% certain: are you sure you would call on this sequence without stopping to think?

What actually happens, of course, is that partner alerts 3♣, describes it as spades and diamonds, and then you are in this pickle. Perhaps you have forgotten you are playing Ghestem: perhaps partner has forgotten you are not: it matters not: what do you do?

Following your advice you just do what you would do without the UI. How do you know? Are you sure? Really ethical players, like several who post here, would just pass 4♠ doubled and take it on the chin. Unethical and ignorant players bid 5♣. What happens to people who are neither?

The problem is that you can only bid 5♣ if you are certain, really certain, that you would do so without the UI - and few people are that certain. And the Law requires you to take no advantage: are you sure that a 5♣ bid is taking no advantage?

I advise you to reconsider your approach.

bluejak, on 2011-February-17, 09:35, said:

In the OP board it's not a matter of "gaining through UI" but a matter of avoiding silly bidding. I polled a lot of good bridge players and found that in the current spot they were 50%/50% between partner having 6-5 two-suiter and spade splinter (mind it, many of them, like me, do not play splinters in competition except in a suit bid by opponents'). So, in this spot, if you are a good player - 3NT should be a clear-cut action: if partner has hearts he will bid it by his own, and if he has 6-5 this would be a playable spot much of a time (and probably the bid with best EV). Bidding anything else for me (and I would say - for many decent players) is not only a illogical alternative but playing with fire.

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Well, that's maybe right, but we aren't talking about 'much of time' but about one very specific case.

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You already bid a NF bid intending to show your seven clubs and partner placed a contract, you have nothing more to bid. If you get nailed it is a problem generated by Ghestem and not by bad bridge decisions that director wants to imply you are capable of doing it. Pulling out is a blatant use of UI.

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I do not think you gave an example which has much to do with our initial problem. Rather, you can tell us, what would be your ruling on the xx-KTxxx-xx-AQxx board? Do you agree with 6NTx?

Bluejak has already stated his view on the case in this thread, Poky. Unfortunately, it got buried in between a lot of fairly irrelevant arguments.

In my view, Bluejak tells us exactly the right approach to adopt in this type of case. He said:

bluejak, on 2011-February-14, 18:51, said:

I asked a player who has partnered both North and South rather more than they have played with each other what possible meanings he attached to 3♠. He said that in competition the only suit(s) in which splinters apply are ones which have been bid by the opponents. [He also mentioned that "serious 3NT" does not imply in competition either.]

I suspect that North/South had not explicity discussed the meaning of a jump reverse in competition. A slight variant on Bluejak's bidding question is therefore: if you held this hand playing with screens (or on BBO) and you had no agreement about the meaning of 3♠ what calls do you seriously consider?

My answer: given the lack of spade bidding from my opponents (especially these particular opponents) it is virtually impossible that they have ten spades between them, so I am virtually certain that partner has not intended 3♠ as a splinter. The only logical meaning I could come up with is a strong hand with 5 spades and 6 diamonds. Hence the only call I seriously consider is 3NT.

The TD ruled that there was no logical alternative to 3NT. We presume therefore that the TD consulted with and/or polled several independent players and found that less than a significant proportion of them seriously considered anything other than 3NT.

If I had been considering appealing (or if I had been on the AC) than I would be asking the TD to explain how he arrived at the "no logical alternative" judgement. If his methodology was sound, it is unlikely that an appeal would be (or at least should be) successful.

dburn, on 2011-February-14, 16:57, said:

You seem to have overlooked the implications from the fact that (for the purposes of his own bidding) South is not allowed to know that they might have had a misunderstanding; therefore he is not allowed to take into account the fact that E/W may be trying to be clever and cater for a N/S misunderstanding.

Imagine that screens are in use and that North and South have access to an E/W system file. Responder has bid hearts naturally, his LHO has bid clubs in response to RHO's take-out double and partner has now jumped to 3♠. If RHO really has a strong jump overcall he will surely double 3♠ (whatever 3♠ means).

RMB1, on 2011-February-16, 17:54, said:

As this fine convention was on their convention card, it seems very likely that North was "woken up" by the alert and remembered at that point that they had indeed agreed to play this convention. Law 20 tells us that players have the obligation to explain their partnership agreements to their opponents. This applies even though, for the purposes of his own bidding, partner's alert and explanation are unauthorised information.

jallerton, on 2011-February-17, 16:45, said:

Is that right Jeffrey? My understanding is that North is supposed to bid on the basis that E-W have heard South's explanation but North has not.

I doubt that this South would ever bid 3S to show a 5-6 hand: he would automatically bid 2S and then 3S. Before splinters became popular the meaning of an unnecessary jump was a cue for partner's suit: why should that not apply here? Perhaps Ax AQxx AKQJx xx. Is there no logical alternative to risking playing in 3NT instead of slam (grand slam if you trust the club finesse)?

It may be possible to argue that 3S is an impossible bid and therefore North is allowed to remember his system. But if we deny that, I don't see how we can confidently determine that the 5-6 hand is much more likely than the cue or the splinter.

Aardv, on 2011-February-17, 17:13, said:

No, Jeffrey seems to think that the alert is for the benefit of both sides. The main reason that Cambs and Hunts should have appealed would be to get North's action into the record book. Jeffrey completely neglects the evidence of the poll conducted by Frances. None of the arguments justifying 3NT hold water. No doubt the L&E will rule on this case in due course.

jallerton, on 2011-February-17, 16:34, said:

The opinion of wank seems spot on: "I think in the circumstances it seems perfectly reasonable for people to be a little incredulous concerning the suggestion it would be natural." Dburn has already explained to you why you cannot draw inferences from your own spade holding. You know that it is not natural, dburn knows it is not natural, Frances knows it is not natural (modifying her opinion with 'probably') ". Please don't try to treat the readers of this forum as imbeciles by writing such nonsense.

dburn, on 2011-February-14, 16:57, said:

jallerton, on 2011-February-17, 16:45, said:

I am not sure I understand this - North-South are the people who have no idea what they are doing, while East-West are the people who need access to a North-South system file in order to work out what is going on.

jallerton, on 2011-February-17, 16:45, said:

Will he? If I (West) knew that South's 3♠ was support for his partner's imaginary spades, why would I double it with spades, instead of waiting to see where my opponents ended up? After all, if 4♠ is our side's predestined contract, I can always bid it later.

Of course, if North has psyched his 1♥ response (remembering that he has to transfer to his psyche instead of just bidding spades as we used to do in the good old days), then there may be no later and I may collect a bunch of fifties instead of a vulnerable game. But that's life in the big city; if I am granted the disclosure provided in the Laws, then I take my chances when my opponents appear to have bid and supported the suit in which I have a SJO. If I guess wrongly that they have blundered, I pay off; if I guess rightly, I may collect quite a bit more than the value of a vulnerable game when their auction eventually unwinds.

But in the actual case where screens are not in use, North is in duty bound to act as though he had bid hearts to show hearts, and his partner had jumped to three spades knowing that North had hearts. That is: if it is not completely impossible that the opponents had failed to bid spades thus far despite having ten of them, South must place that construction upon the auction. Not "unlikely", not "very implausible" as helene suggests, not "virtually impossible" as jallerton suggests, but "completely impossible". At least, that is the way I understand the Laws and the way I have always ruled on committees. If I am supposed to do otherwise... well, no doubt I will be told in due course.