[pran]

Trinidad, on 2015-January-30, 13:16, said:

That is a misunderstanding. The players are not interrupting these TDs. These TDs will say:

"Well. You could, of course, accept the bid out of turn."
Then they will turn to North.
When North is not reacting, the TD will sigh: "Then I will have to get my lawbook."

In practice, many North players will "help the TD out of his predicament".

In addition, the TD can easily prevent that he will be interrupted (obviously never 100%, but still): Before he gives any ruling, he needs to tell North that he can only make his choice after the TD has given him all the options (as I wrote in post #4).

So, with few exceptions for very obnoxious players, the blame lies entirely with the TD, not with the player.

Rik

A TD who halts his explanation half way through and sort of encourages the player to make his choice then???
WOW! "Please enlist to the first available course if you want to continue as Director".

[Trinidad]

Vampyr, on 2015-January-30, 13:42, said:

The Lawbook is not in the TD's hand?

Have you ever been to a bridge club with a playing TD?

I have seen these TDs in small bridge clubs in every country where I have played bridge (USA, Sweden, Finlamd, the Metherlands). (And in all these countries Í have seen TDs who do it right.)

Rik

[Trinidad]

pran, on 2015-January-30, 14:15, said:

A TD who halts his explanation half way through and sort of encourages the player to make his choice then???
WOW! "Please enlist to the first available course if you want to continue as Director".

Oh, I forgot to mention Norway in my previous post.

Rik

[blackshoe]

Vampyr, on 2015-January-30, 13:42, said:

The Lawbook is not in the TD's hand?

No. If you're lucky it's somewhere close by and accessible. Or it might be in the car, or at home, or in the Valley of Lost Socks.

[Vampyr]

Trinidad, on 2015-January-30, 17:44, said:

Have you ever been to a bridge club with a playing TD?

Yes. There are two clubs I play at regularly which are run by volunteers. In both cases e TD for the night keeps the Lawbook at the table with him and brings it to the table where he has to rule (or sometimes, OK, goes back to get it if necessary).

blackshoe, on 2015-January-30, 18:42, said:

No. If you're lucky it's somewhere close by and accessible. Or it might be in the car, or at home, or in the Valley of Lost Socks.

If that is the director's personal copy OK. Then management should be urged to purchase a book that would be the club's property and remain on the premises (or with the club's other equipment).

[blackshoe]

Vampyr, on 2015-January-30, 18:50, said:

If that is the director's personal copy OK. Then management should be urged to purchase a book that would be the club's property and remain on the premises (or with the club's other equipment).

Understand that here, the TD is club management — and the owner of the club.

[Trinidad]

Vampyr, on 2015-January-30, 18:50, said:

Then management should be urged to purchase a book that would be the club's property and remain on the premises.

Certainly a TD should have the lawbook with him. But there are so many "shoulds": people should wear their seat belt, we should love each other and we should have world peace. We are not talking about how it should be. We are talking about how it is.

And if the TD is well liked, and respected, and all the members are happy with him (and there is no one who will do it better) then he is doing a great job, even if he doesn't carry a law book.

Now, I don't want a TD like that in my club, since I take bridge too seriously. But in a bridge club that is meant to give LOLs something else to do besides looking out of the window these TDs are just fine.

Rik

[jallerton]

RMB1, on 2015-January-30, 09:50, said:

Yes, it is what we except of club TDs.

TDs (at all levels) can hope that infractions are accepted because it is easy to rule. But we teach TDs that they must explain the consequences (for the offenders) if the non-offender does not accept, before giving the non-offender the option of accepting. When assessed, trainee TDs will be marked down if they give the option to accept without elaboration.

Except or expect?!?

[RMB1]

jallerton, on 2015-February-02, 15:36, said:

Except or expect?!?

"expect" - oops!

[jallerton]

dburn, on 2015-January-29, 15:44, said:

North deals and West opens 1♠ out of turn. You, the Director, are summoned to the table. What do you do?

dburn, on 2015-January-30, 08:08, said:

Oh, I don't have a problem with North's being to the left of West. What I do have a problem with is this:

If I am North, I know that if I don't accept West's bid East is silenced for the duration. But if someone else is North, he may not know that. Is it part of standard operating procedure to tell him before he selects his option? If not, why not?

RMB1, on 2015-January-30, 09:50, said:

Yes, it is what we except expect of club TDs.

TDs (at all levels) can hope that infractions are accepted because it is easy to rule. But we teach TDs that they must explain the consequences (for the offenders) if the non-offender does not accept, before giving the non-offender the option of accepting. When assessed, trainee TDs will be marked down if they give the option to accept without elaboration.

I am pleased to see Robin's (typo corrected) response to how TDs are advised to handle this particular situation. Indeed this is how I was taught many years ago.

Now compare to the following situation:

South deals and opens 2♦. West (who rarely uses the 'stop' card) bids 2♣, which the TD ascertains not to have been an unintended call. West is invited to a private discussion with the TD and then North has the opportunity to accept, or not accept, the insufficient bid. To make a proper assessment, North might well want to know whether, if he rejects the insufficient bid, West has any call available to him that can be made without silencing East [under Law 27B1(a) and/or Law 27B1(b)]
To repeat David's question in this second situation:
"Is it part of standard operating procedure to tell him before he selects his option? If not, why not?"

[Vampyr]

jallerton, on 2015-February-03, 16:48, said:

"Is it part of standard operating procedure to tell him before he selects his option? If not, why not?"

I took my county director course soon after the new laws came out, and it was either then or in a subsequent discussion with probably Gordon but it could have been Mike, Robin or Max that I was adamant that this is information the next player had to be given, and I was told that this was not the EBU procedure. Perhaps it has been changed though. One can hope.

Naturally West gets the latest in what must be a long string of PPs for not using the Stop card.

[Trinidad]

North will be explained the laws and the consequences of the laws. I would certainly be willing to go as far as to explain that if West (e.g.) didn't see the 2♦ opening and meant to open 2♣ (strong and art.) East will be barred and that if West thought the opening was 1♦ and had a natural 2♣ overcall that he could correct it to 3♣ without barring East.

But I will not tell North what kind of a hand West has or what the reason for the infraction was. North is not entitled to this information.

Rik

[Vampyr]

Trinidad, on 2015-February-03, 19:54, said:

North will be explained the laws and the consequences of the laws. I would certainly be willing to go as far as to explain that if West (e.g.) didn't see the 2♦ opening and meant to open 2♣ (strong and art.) East will be barred and that if West thought the opening was 1♦ and had a natural 2♣ overcall that he could correct it to 3♣ without barring East.

But I will not tell North what kind of a hand West has or what the reason for the infraction was. North is not entitled to this information.

Rik

I should have thought that the information you gave would consist only of whether West has a penalty-free correction.

[blackshoe]

"not an unintended call" does not mean West thought he was opening 2♣, a jump bid. He may have thought he was overcalling 1♦, where 2♣ would not be a jump bid. That said, if he did think he was opening 2♣, I agree with the PP, particularly if the failure to use it has caused problems before.

[RMB1]

jallerton, on 2015-February-03, 16:48, said:

South deals and opens 2♦. West (who rarely uses the 'stop' card) bids 2♣, which the TD ascertains not to have been an unintended call. West is invited to a private discussion with the TD and then North has the opportunity to accept, or not accept, the insufficient bid. To make a proper assessment, North might well want to know whether, if he rejects the insufficient bid, West has any call available to him that can be made without silencing East [under Law 27B1(a) and/or Law 27B1(b)]
To repeat David's question in this second situation:
"Is it part of standard operating procedure to tell him before he selects his option? If not, why not?"

Because the last seven years have not enabled us to agree a practical uniform approach to the application of Law 27, which is faithful to the wording of the law and the intent of the law, and which provides both sides with just the information to which the law allows.

[gordontd]

Vampyr, on 2015-February-03, 18:08, said:

I took my county director course soon after the new laws came out, and it was either then or in a subsequent discussion with probably Gordon but it could have been Mike, Robin or Max that I was adamant that this is information the next player had to be given, and I was told that this was not the EBU procedure.

There is a paper that explains the original EBU position on handling Law 27 cases, which Max wrote when the new Laws came out, and I expect it was this to which you were referred. As time has gone on practice has changed a bit but there is still no unanimity of approach towards this thoroughly unsatisfactory law. I expect we are all waiting for its improvement in the next laws, but I understand that an improved wording may be hard to find and we may end up being disappointed.

[lamford]

I have often wondered if a private discussion is correct, given that the response to the TD is only used to establish whether someone can change their call without penalty, and that information is authorised to the opponents but unauthorised to the partner of the person making the IB. Surely the correct procedure is to ask only the partner of the person making the IB to leave the table.

[Vampyr]

gordontd, on 2015-February-04, 03:35, said:

There is a paper that explains the original EBU position on handling Law 27 cases, which Max wrote when the new Laws came out, and I expect it was this to which you were referred. As time has gone on practice has changed a bit but there is still no unanimity of approach towards this thoroughly unsatisfactory law. I expect we are all waiting for its improvement in the next laws, but I understand that an improved wording may be hard to find and we may end up being disappointed.

Reverting to the version in the immediately previous Lawbook may be the best we can hope for. That version had a few problems, but mainly worked OK. At least then we can go back to the idea that the only "meaning" of an insufficient bid is 'I thought it was sufficient when I bid it'.

lamford, on 2015-February-04, 04:24, said:

I have often wondered if a private discussion is correct, given that the response to the TD is only used to establish whether someone can change their call without penalty, and that information is authorised to the opponents but unauthorised to the partner of the person making the IB. Surely the correct procedure is to ask only the partner of the person making the IB to leave the table.

If the player decides to pass or make a bid with no penalty-free correction, are the opponents entitled to know what the player was originally intending? I think the answer is no.

[mycroft]

I think I don't even go that far. I will ascertain what the bid means, away from the table, to determine whether there are calls that will work; I will explain to the opponents that "if not accepted, and the player makes a call that shows the same or more specific information than what he intended to show here, we will continue without penalty, otherwise his partner will be forced to pass throughout." I will not explain what calls that may be, nor whether I believe there is one.

Frequently, yes, I will be asked "well, what did he intend to show?" "I'm sorry, you are not entitled to that information. You are allowed to guess."
I will let them know if the correction to the cheapest is acceptable (because everything's natural); but if we're in that Law territory, I think they are just entitled to the Law, and they can decide from there.

[blackshoe]

Looking at the laws, it seems to me that all four players at the table are entitled to know what the relevant laws and regulations are before anyone takes any action (Law 9B2). I don't see anything in the laws that would change that. Am I missing something?

Secondly, the opponents of a bidder are entitled to know what his bids mean per the bidder's partnership agreements. No partnership will have an agreement as to the meaning of an insufficient bid, so the correct explanation is "no agreement". This means that Law 27's reference to the "meaning" of an insufficient bid makes no sense. In its defense, the law does refer to "the possible meanings of an insufficient bid", so I suppose that implies the construction of a set of possible meanings which will hopefully include a meaning which fits the bidder's hand (or his intent). But it seems to me that how to determine this set of possible meanings hasn't really been well discussed anywhere. Perhaps that is where we should focus our efforts?