[Zelandakh]

bluejak, on 2012-February-14, 09:56, said:

The decision is fine.

The general approach to rule-breaking in a lot of areas is tolerance if it does not matter, but if you break the rules, and it matters, it is your fault.

If you drive in England with a light missing because the bulb has failed, a policeman might stop you, but if he does he will merely mention you should get it fixed. On the other hand if there is an accident, then the fact your lights were not working properly will be taken into consideration when fault is determined.

Similarly we know well that spoken answers to questions are common behind screens, and are generally tolerated. But when there is a dispute, tolerance is no longer acceptable. East claimed a response that made him let through the contract: he should have made sure he got responses in writing: he did not: he has no legal claim.

In the case of the car it is my responsibility to fix the light. In the bridge case it is Explainer's responsibility to write the answer. Surely the lack of written explanation should count against North at least as much as against East.

[barmar]

mrdct, on 2012-February-14, 01:17, said:

The OP included an important qualifier of "he thinks" in the presentation of the facts, "North says that he and his partner already play 41/30 for 20 years, so he thinks he gave the correct explanation".

And East thinks he heard a different explanation. Why do East's thoughts trump North's? Are you just going on the basis of which words seem more certain? I.e. if the OP had said "so he's sure he gave the correct explanation" you'd give it more weight?

But even if North did give MI, I think East simply stopped playing bridge. If South only has 1 key card, that means West has at least 7 HCP, which means South opened 1NT with at most 9 HCP. OK, let's allow that he psyched (I assume they're playing strong NT). What hand can South have where it's necessary to switch to clubs immediate? If West's lead was not a singleton, then South's hand would be something like:

---

How is he getting rid of all his club losers?

On the other hand, the exception for SEWoG is only for errors unrelated to the infraction. If East was confused, it was apparently because of the MI (assuming North did explain incorrectly), so does this mean he's allowed to stop playing bridge like this?

[kgr]

bluejak, on 2012-February-14, 09:56, said:

The decision is fine.

The general approach to rule-breaking in a lot of areas is tolerance if it does not matter, but if you break the rules, and it matters, it is your fault.

Thank you for your answer! Please consider the point below:
You could also argue that there was no discussion that E asked for the meaning of 5♦. So it doesn't matter that it was written or not. It also doesn't matter if he did ask any other questions without writing them during the hand or gave oral explanations of his passes or not.
The discussion is about the explanation of 5♦. That explanation was not written and there is disagreement over it between E and N. Because it was not a written explanation we therefor assume the that there was MI.

[kgr]

barmar, on 2012-February-14, 10:59, said:

On the other hand, the exception for SEWoG is only for errors unrelated to the infraction. If East was confused, it was apparently because of the MI (assuming North did explain incorrectly), so does this mean he's allowed to stop playing bridge like this?

The error was related to the (possible) infraction. East assumed his partner has an A and planned his defense based on that.

[blackshoe]

kgr, on 2012-February-14, 11:58, said:

Because it was not a written explanation we therefor assume the that there was MI.

Actually, what the law says is that "the Director is to presume mistaken explanation rather than mistaken call in the absence of evidence to the contrary". Here you have evidence to the contrary (North's statement that he believes he explained the bid correctly per their 1430 agreement), so you can't just assume there was MI, you have to weigh all the evidence.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2012-February-14, 12:49, said:

Actually, what the law says is that "the Director is to presume mistaken explanation rather than mistaken call in the absence of evidence to the contrary". Here you have evidence to the contrary (North's statement that he believes he explained the bid correctly per their 1430 agreement), so you can't just assume there was MI, you have to weigh all the evidence.

I'm not even sure that clause is relevant in this case, since we're not trying to decide between mistaken explanation and mistaken call. We're trying to determine what explanation was given in the first place.

[bluejak]

Zelandakh, on 2012-February-14, 10:17, said:

In the case of the car it is my responsibility to fix the light. In the bridge case it is Explainer's responsibility to write the answer. Surely the lack of written explanation should count against North at least as much as against East.

East accepted an illegal explanation. He must also accept the consequences. He had a perfect right to ask for the explanation to be written.

[joostb1]

kgr, on 2012-February-14, 12:00, said:

The error was related to the (possible) infraction. East assumed his partner has an A and planned his defense based on that.

So east also assumed that S had only 13 pt. Any reason for that? Does he know that S has a habit of opening 1SA with a hand with considerably less that 15 points?
Not returning diamonds is a serious error and it's East's responsibility that NS made 6S. If his reasoning was right (in which case S had only 13 points) and returning clubs was the only way to get the contract down, then he would have had a valid case had he played diamonds instead.

[kgr]

kgr, on 2012-February-14, 08:18, said:

Arbitrage
There is no agreement in the declarations of North and East concerning the meaning of South’s 5D. According to article 5.1 of the screen regulations, both the questions and answers to the questions have to be done in writing. This is apparently not done in this bidding. Therefore - because of contradictory statements – it is not possible to give due to the demand of OW to an arbitral score to them.

kgr, on 2012-February-14, 11:58, said:

Thank you for your answer! Please consider the point below:
You could also argue that there was no discussion that E asked for the meaning of 5♦. So it doesn't matter that it was written or not. It also doesn't matter if he did ask any other questions without writing them during the hand or gave oral explanations of his passes or not.
The discussion is about the explanation of 5♦. That explanation was not written and there is disagreement over it between E and N. Because it was not a written explanation we therefor assume the that there was MI.

blackshoe, on 2012-February-14, 12:49, said:

Actually, what the law says is that "the Director is to presume mistaken explanation rather than mistaken call in the absence of evidence to the contrary". Here you have evidence to the contrary (North's statement that he believes he explained the bid correctly per their 1430 agreement), so you can't just assume there was MI, you have to weigh all the evidence.

My statements in the 2nd quote were referring to the TD decision in the 1st quote.
You are referring to a law to determine if there was MI or Mistaken Call. But in this case there is certainly no mistaken Call.
I tried to make the point that if written questions and explanations are required, then is there a problem with asking what 5D is, if everybody agrees that it was asked?

barmar, on 2012-February-14, 13:47, said:

I'm not even sure that clause is relevant in this case, since we're not trying to decide between mistaken explanation and mistaken call. We're trying to determine what explanation was given in the first place.

right

[barmar]

joostb1, on 2012-February-14, 14:07, said:

So east also assumed that S had only 13 pt. Any reason for that?

Actually, 9 HCP. He must have assumed that South psyched.

More likely, he was so fixated on the number of aces that he didn't even bother doing the arithmetic. He also didn't think about hand shapes, in which case he could have figured out that there's no way for the club trick to go away. If partner has 3 ♦, declarer has only 2, so there's no long ♦ to pitch dummy's ♣ on. And there's no distribution of ♥ and ♣ that allows him to pitch all the ♣ in hand on the long ♥.

He really gave this hand very little thought. But apparently that's allowed if you can blame it on the MI.

[bluejak]

barmar, on 2012-February-14, 14:19, said:

Actually, 9 HCP. He must have assumed that South psyched.

More likely, he was so fixated on the number of aces that he didn't even bother doing the arithmetic. He also didn't think about hand shapes, in which case he could have figured out that there's no way for the club trick to go away. If partner has 3 ♦, declarer has only 2, so there's no long ♦ to pitch dummy's ♣ on. And there's no distribution of ♥ and ♣ that allows him to pitch all the ♣ in hand on the long ♥.

He really gave this hand very little thought. But apparently that's allowed if you can blame it on the MI.

Is it? I would say that this is something that is not a matter of universal agreement.

• We could argue that playing for partner to have an ace when told he has an ace even though he really cannot means that the damage is caused by the MI and adjust.
  
• We could argue that playing for partner to have an ace when told he has an ace even though he really cannot means that non-offenders have committed a serious error based on not playing bridge, so unrelated to the infraction, and adjust for the offenders only.
  
• We could argue that playing for partner to have an ace when told he has an ace even though he really cannot means that the damage is not caused by the MI but by the defender's stupidity and not adjust.

In many of these cases different people argue differently. Now, the bridge judgement does not interest me, but the approach does, and we should be consistent. The ACBL used to say as their interpretation of an earlier Law book that non-offenders were required to continue to play bridge. I understand that they have decided in general to follow the Law book approach now.

In my personal view, when you misdefend because you stopped thinking when you were told something then you should get full redress, ie I believe #1 above is correct. But I expect others to differ.

[mrdct]

The facts presented in the TD's report are materially different to those presented in the OP; most notably the manner in which North asserted that his explanation was "1430". I'm not sure how it sounds in Dutch, but I could see how a whisphered "1430" in English could be misconstrued as "14" so I think that North should be told that when he is giving an explantion of a RKCB response he should say what the response means not what version of RKCB they play.

The TD appears to have attempted to resolve the dispute fact following the guidance in Law 85 but was unable to do so so fell back on Law 85B and essentially made a ruling that allowed play to continue. To my mind, the decision to adjust rests entirely on whether or not you conclude that North gave a misexplanation. To determine whether or a potential appeal here would have merit, I'd need to see a full verbatim transcript of what the players told the TD.

[barmar]

But if East thinks a little, he should realize that partner's Ace is irrelevant to his decision at trick 2. It can't go away. But the diamond ruff can. If partner has that Ace, the contract is always down 1, and he's eschewed the defense that can set it 2.

[mrdct]

bluejak, on 2012-February-14, 09:56, said:

East claimed a response that made him let through the contract: he should have made sure he got responses in writing: he did not: he has no legal claim.

Since when is the onus on the receiver of an explantion to ensure that it is given in the prescribed manner under the regulations? Both North and East have committed infractions by not following Reg 5.1, but I'd suggest the more serious infraction is on North as it's the person giving the explanation that needs to be understood.

[kgr]

mrdct, on 2012-February-14, 14:52, said:

To my mind, the decision to adjust rests entirely on whether or not you conclude that North gave a misexplanation. To determine whether or a potential appeal here would have merit, I'd need to see a full verbatim transcript of what the players told the TD.

Given the discussions here, I would think that this appeal always has merit. I thought that an appeal has merit when the case is not clear-cut?
BTW: thanks for the answers (you and others)

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2012-February-14, 13:47, said:

I'm not even sure that clause is relevant in this case, since we're not trying to decide between mistaken explanation and mistaken call. We're trying to determine what explanation was given in the first place.

Point taken, but even more reason not to just assume mistaken explanation. I suppose what I'm saying is that I want to hear more from North. If it's true he's not sure what he said, then I would lean towards MI.

As a general rule, I think that where players tend to ignore a law or regulation, particularly when it's both sides doing it, as here, you have to proceed slowly towards getting them to change. Warn them first, and announce to the room that the "in writing" provisions will be enforced, and then enforce them. The alternative is to ignore their existence altogether. I don't think it's really fair, when both sides are supposed to do something, that you tell one side they're out of luck because they didn't make sure the other side did it right.

In this case, I agree with David that if we decide there was MI, the fact that East basically stopped thinking doesn't matter. Not thinking at bridge is a serious error, but in this case it's not unrelated to the putative infraction. I'm not sure I'd agree with the principle generally, though.

I think an appeal would have merit, unless it turns out East is telling porkies about what North said.

[barmar]

Unfortunately, flaunting the requirement for written explanations is rampant. I've operated Vugraph for many NABC+ events, so I've seen some of the best players in the world playing behind screens. They use the pads whenever they need to explain something detailed, but often use hand signals for many of the common alerts (I don't think I've seen whispering, though). E.g. a Precision 1♣ is usually indicated by making a fist, and the negative ♦ by pointing down -- they rarely write down the actual point ranges. If they're playing a short ♣ or ♦, I think I've seen them simply hold up the number of fingers for the minimum.

[mrdct]

barmar, on 2012-February-14, 16:45, said:

Unfortunately, flaunting the requirement for written explanations is rampant. I've operated Vugraph for many NABC+ events, so I've seen some of the best players in the world playing behind screens. They use the pads whenever they need to explain something detailed, but often use hand signals for many of the common alerts (I don't think I've seen whispering, though). E.g. a Precision 1♣ is usually indicated by making a fist, and the negative ♦ by pointing down -- they rarely write down the actual point ranges. If they're playing a short ♣ or ♦, I think I've seen them simply hold up the number of fingers for the minimum.

That's pretty much my experience also, but I've also seen a moderate amount of whisphering. When I was at the APBF Championships last year in KL, the CTD announced at the start of play on day one that any director calls regarding alledged misexplanations which are not supported by a written explanation will only be dealt with if the players agree what was verbally asked and responded. Sounds like a sensible approach to me. The team I was captaining was under strict instruction to write all explanations unless they are absolutely obvious (e.g. 2♥ transfer to ♠ - you just pull a ♠ card out of your box or clenched fist means strong, etc.).

[bluejak]

mrdct, on 2012-February-14, 14:57, said:

Since when is the onus on the receiver of an explantion to ensure that it is given in the prescribed manner under the regulations? Both North and East have committed infractions by not following Reg 5.1, but I'd suggest the more serious infraction is on North as it's the person giving the explanation that needs to be understood.

The onus is on a player to do one of two things when his opponent breaks the Laws and Regulations of bridge: either call the TD or accept the consequences of the infraction.

[jallerton]

bluejak, on 2012-February-14, 14:29, said:

Is it? I would say that this is something that is not a matter of universal agreement.

• We could argue that playing for partner to have an ace when told he has an ace even though he really cannot means that the damage is caused by the MI and adjust.
  
• We could argue that playing for partner to have an ace when told he has an ace even though he really cannot means that non-offenders have committed a serious error based on not playing bridge, so unrelated to the infraction, and adjust for the offenders only.
  
• We could argue that playing for partner to have an ace when told he has an ace even though he really cannot means that the damage is not caused by the MI but by the defender's stupidity and not adjust.

In many of these cases different people argue differently. Now, the bridge judgement does not interest me, but the approach does, and we should be consistent. The ACBL used to say as their interpretation of an earlier Law book that non-offenders were required to continue to play bridge. I understand that they have decided in general to follow the Law book approach now.

In my personal view, when you misdefend because you stopped thinking when you were told something then you should get full redress, ie I believe #1 above is correct. But I expect others to differ.

I think this is a good summary which applies to many MI cases. Often a non-offender might have found the winning call or play despite the explanation. Sometimes analysis shows that a non-offender should have winning the winning call or play despite the explanation. Sometimes (as here) it should have been totally obvious to the defender that the explanations he (thought he) had received did not make any sense.

Have the lawmakers given any guidance as to when a TD should use solution 1, when he should use solution 2, and when he should use solution 3?