[WellSpyder]

pran, on 2014-July-24, 01:46, said:

I just cannot understand how North's comment can be taken as a suggestion to curtail the play

Frankly, I find this a pretty amazing comment. You might want to disagree that it was a suggestion to curtail the play (though I wouldn't). But I don't see how any logical-thinking person can fail to see why at least some would take it as a suggestion to curtail the play.

[pran]

pran, on 2014-July-24, 01:46, said:

I just cannot understand how North's comment can be taken as a suggestion to curtail the play (and thus being a claim), but East certainly curtailed the play (by conceeding all remaining tricks).

gordontd, on 2014-July-24, 01:53, said:

And North's comment was a suggestion that he do that.

Oh, was it?

VixTD, on 2014-July-21, 07:39, said:

After a heavy sigh from East, North says helpfully: "Oh, yes, you can't lead a diamond or a spade". (East has discarded on a diamond and ruffed a spade.)

[helene_t]

It depends on the intonation. But we were told that he said "helpfully" that (...) so presumably he meant it as "it doesn't matter what you lead".

I wouldn't take this as a claim since even if it doesn't matter what East leads it might still matter what West plays, or it could be that North hadn't made his mind up what he would play. Although I concede that it is a bit far-fetched that it might not matter what E leads in such a scenario. It may be fair to call North's comment stupid/unhelpful/misleading but I don't see it as a claim. Even if we interpret his comment as "nothing matters anymore", he hasn't stated how many ticks he claims.

I would like to give a split score here since I believe North commited an infraction and I don't want him te benefit from that. But I have no clue if that is legal.

[blackshoe]

gordontd, on 2014-July-24, 01:53, said:

And North's comment was a suggestion that he do that.

Again, I'm with Sven here. I do not consider North's comment a claim.

helene_t, on 2014-July-24, 02:55, said:

I would like to give a split score here since I believe North commited an infraction and I don't want him te benefit from that. But I have no clue if that is legal.

Either North's comment was a claim, and your rule it as such (which means no split score) or it wasn't a claim, and you rule that East conceded the remaining tricks, so again no split score.

If North committed an infraction, you apply whatever redress is specified in the law he broke. Which one is it?

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2014-July-24, 05:58, said:

Again, I'm with Sven here. I do not consider North's comment a claim.


Either North's comment was a claim, and your rule it as such (which means no split score) or it wasn't a claim, and you rule that East conceded the remaining tricks, so again no split score.

If North committed an infraction, you apply whatever redress is specified in the law he broke. Which one is it?

It can be a question whether North's comment is a violation of Law 74B2 and/or Law 74C4.
However, any reaction stronger than possibly a warning is in my opinion a gross over-reaction.

[blackshoe]

If you give a warning for violation of some part of 74, you should be prepared to give a PP if he does it again. Equally, if you've already warned him about this kind of thing in the past, you should almost certainly give a PP now.

[Trinidad]

pran, on 2014-July-24, 01:46, said:

I just cannot understand how North's comment can be taken as a suggestion to curtail the play.

I, and I suspect many others who think that this was a suggestion to curtail the play, can understand how someone could not take it as a suggestion to curtail play.

A more absolute opinion does not mean a better qualified opinion.

Rik

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2014-July-24, 08:00, said:

If you give a warning for violation of some part of 74, you should be prepared to give a PP if he does it again. Equally, if you've already warned him about this kind of thing in the past, you should almost certainly give a PP now.

Sure.
A warning is an instruction from the Director not to commit the irregularity again, and if someone deliberately violates Law 90B8 (s)he will automatically face a significant PP from me.

As I remember I have had to penalize under Law 90B8 only once during my more than 30 years of directing, and then I penalized (I believe) 50% of top on one board. I have never since had any lack of respect from that player.

[VixTD]

helene_t, on 2014-July-24, 02:55, said:

I would like to give a split score here since I believe North commited an infraction and I don't want him to benefit from that. But I have no clue if that is legal.

I think it probably is just about legal. I think Pran et al. are arguing that in order to apply law 73F and from there award an assigned adjusted score under law 12C the TD has first to identify another part of law 73 that the offender has infringed. Since this is nothing to do with communication between partners or variation in tempo, and there has been no intention to mislead, law 73F does not apply. This does not mean that they cannot award an adjusted score, as they can always fall back on law 12A1 if they think an offender has gained from an infraction for which there is no specific penalty. If the TD really thought that North should not have made the remark, but also that East should not have been taken in by it, they could rule that both are at fault and award a split score. I'm not recommending it, but I think it would be just about legal.

I'm glad there's now more support for my original opinion that North's comment should be regarded as a claim.

[aguahombre]

Trinidad, on 2014-July-24, 08:15, said:

I, and I suspect many others who think that this was a suggestion to curtail the play, can understand how someone could not take it as a suggestion to curtail play.

A more absolute opinion does not mean a better qualified opinion.

Rik

Although I am in Sven's camp that North's comment didn't quite reach "suggestion to curtail the play", I must applaud the way you presented the paragraphs I quoted. A plus just didn't seem like enough.

[FrancesHinden]

I also would rule that it is a claim i.e. a suggestion to curtail the play.
I also understand why some people would not rule that way, because I am interpreting what I believe was the intent of the statement.

I believe that most (all?) people would interpret the statement "it doesn't matter what you play" as a claim.
What is less obvious is whether the actual statement is equivalent. Clearly it isn't in a logical/grammatical sense, but I think the import was intended to be the same, and I would rule accordingly.

[blackshoe]

FrancesHinden, on 2014-August-02, 04:03, said:

I also would rule that it is a claim i.e. a suggestion to curtail the play.
I also understand why some people would not rule that way, because I am interpreting what I believe was the intent of the statement.

I believe that most (all?) people would interpret the statement "it doesn't matter what you play" as a claim.
What is less obvious is whether the actual statement is equivalent. Clearly it isn't in a logical/grammatical sense, but I think the import was intended to be the same, and I would rule accordingly.

If the intent was "it doesn't matter what you play, I have the rest (or at least one of the future tricks)" then it's a claim. If the intent was "it doesn't matter what you play, I'm winning this trick" it's not a claim. I don't think you can infer either intent reliably from the statement alone.

[barmar]

Why would a player make a statement that only pertains to whether he's going to win that trick? There's so much more to the play of a trick than who will win it that the statement is not at all helpful. And unless he makes it clear that he's only talking about how it affects what he does, I'd say that it's misleading, and deserves a PP.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2014-August-02, 21:16, said:

Why would a player make a statement that only pertains to whether he's going to win that trick? There's so much more to the play of a trick than who will win it that the statement is not at all helpful. And unless he makes it clear that he's only talking about how it affects what he does, I'd say that it's misleading, and deserves a PP.

If no player would ever make a statement that only pertains to the current trick, why would the lawmakers word the beginning of Law 68 the way they did? I wouldn't call such a statement misleading, and I would certainly not say that it necessarily deserves a PP.

[barmar]

It's not just that it only pertains to the current trick, it's that it's not even true about the current trick. "It doesn't matter" means there's no difference between the choices, not just that the differences don't affect who will win that trick. Declarer was supposedly trying to be helpful, but it's not helpful if the choice still affects what his partner should play to the trick. On the contrary, it's misleading.

[blackshoe]

It seems that about the only thing we can all agree on here is that the comment was extraneous.

[WellSpyder]

blackshoe, on 2014-August-03, 09:27, said:

It seems that about the only thing we can all agree on here is that the comment was extraneous.

Indeed.

I'm entirely happy to agree with the rest of Barmar's recent posts, though, and wish (not for the first time) that I could give them an upvote.

[Zelandakh]

FrancesHinden, on 2014-August-02, 04:03, said:

I believe that most (all?) people would interpret the statement "it doesn't matter what you play" as a claim.

Say the table conversation went as follows:
Dec: "It does not matter what you play."
Def: "How many tricks are you claiming then?"
Dec: "I am not claiming."

How do you think the TD should resolve this?

[Bbradley62]

Zelandakh, on 2014-August-20, 05:38, said:

How do you think the TD should resolve this?

By telling Dec to either claim or stfu.

[blackshoe]

Bbradley62, on 2014-August-20, 05:44, said:

By telling Dec to either claim or stfu.

You want him to unsay what he said?

If a director said that to me I wouldn't say a word. After all, he's told me to shut up.