[finally17]

xcurt, on Mar 29 2008, 12:05 AM, said:

I'm a little late to this thread, but I really hope people aren't advocating just ignoring the rules because they don't suit them.  The entire playability of bridge as a sport depends on trusting that everyone is competing honestly.

I advocate ignoring the rule because I don't think the ACBL has the right to try and enforce a rule on their customers (they tend to forget that major part) that:

a) is a major inconvenience for a large % of the population (most people) that carries a cell phone

b ) will have essentially no effect on any play issues

c) as has been hashed and rehashed, will do nothing to stop people who want to cheat

d) makes more difficult some few (in number) but rather serious safety concerns

e) I'm sure there's a e) and an f) and probably an g) but it's late and the first 4 are more than enough


This is less about the game, which will be completely playable in either case, and more about certain basic principles which I believe this ban violates. Call it a simple thing, or a childish thing that we can't have our toys, but the principles are there nonetheless.

[jkdood]

I have the greatest admiration and respect for my dear JoshD and dear MatMat and other well-spoken friends here! But I am thinking the ACBL may have just implemented this policy, for legal reasons, to selectively enforce ONLY against the suspected abusers that may have already been seen in the bathrooms, so to speak, looking guilty.

The rules, which apply to all members, must apply to all members if the ACBL can detain someone (suspected, monitored, etc) for a search of sorts and find on them a cellphone and administer harsh punishment (such as expulsion.)

So I hope I am right that my sense is that it is just a tool the ACBL can use to attack a known problem that defies other measures, such as hearings and lawsuits.

Now legally speaking, the ACBL can't just ignore and not enforce the rules, for
a bit, against those blatantly in violation, which complicates things greatly. I almost think we should just ignore it silently and see if my guess pans out, but I suppose that is asking a bit too much faith. Sigh.

[Trinidad]

matmat, on Mar 29 2008, 01:00 AM, said:

mike777, on Mar 29 2008, 12:57 AM, said:

I think it says the World if you think not having your cellphone on your body for 3hours at a bridge tourney is punishment....

mike... this is getting old.
I couldn't care less if i have the phone with me or not during the 3hours of bridge.
I *WANT* the phone with me at intermissions between sessions when trying to coordinate lunch/dinner with people, after sessions when i want to go somewhere else... and i don't want to waste 40 minutes of my lunch or dinner break simply retrieving and putting back my f@#$@#$ phone.

So, give it to the tournament director and you will have it back in less than a minute after the bridge. You can make all the arrangements you want to.

This arrangement works just fine in high level competitions in The Netherlands. (All phones are handed in at the start of a session, stored in a secure place during the session and can be picked up at the end of the session.)

Rik

[finally17]

jkdood, on Mar 29 2008, 02:22 AM, said:

The rules, which apply to all members, must apply to all members if the ACBL can detain someone (suspected, monitored, etc) for a search of sorts and find on them a cellphone and administer harsh punishment (such as expulsion.)

So I hope I am right that my sense is that it is just a tool the ACBL can use to attack a known problem that defies other measures, such as hearings and lawsuits.

I realize that this is way off-topic, but I feel the need to respond anyway. There are some odd assumptions made above.

What kind of authority do you think the ACBL has to respond to allegations or even proof of cheating? They don't have the right to detain or search (even a search "of sorts**," whatever that means) anyone, regardless of what they suspect of have proof of. They have no legal authority, and even if they did, cheating is not illegal.

Kick cheaters out of an event, suspend them, banish them entirely sure. Strip them of previously granted honors and awards. Perhaps fine them (I'm not even sure about this). But detain and search? The best they could do is insist on a search for further participation, which could just as easily be denied, and they'd probably end up on the wrong end of a lawsuit for that.

Again, cheating at bridge is not illegal. It's at worst a violation of implicitly agreed to contracts which may or may not be enforceable but at most would result in a civil suit (which I think is unlikely in the extreme, even in the overly-litigious US).

**I question whether these cell phone finders that have been spoken of are even legal for a private entity such as the ACBL to use, if that's what you mean by "search of sorts". I would bet that their legality varies from state to state, and that in many states they're just plain illegal. Which introduces a problem of selective rule enforcement if the ACBL were to use them. I know that if I were to be at an ACBL event and had a director walk up to me with such a device and say "we know you have a cell phone on you," I would in fact take out my cell phone. But rather than handing it over, I would first call the police, and then call a lawyer.

[jkdood]

Excellent point... will we have to (or be asked to) sign a waiver when we pay dues or entry fees?

[mike777]

" would bet that their legality varies from state to state, and that in many states they're just plain illegal. Which introduces a problem of selective rule enforcement if the ACBL were to use them. I know that if I were to be at an ACBL event and had a director walk up to me with such a device and say "we know you have a cell phone on you," I would in fact take out my cell phone. But rather than handing it over, I would first call the police, and then call a lawyer."




Ok

At this point it really sounds like all my and all your ACBL fees for the next 50 years will go to pay lawyers vs...this guy.

I think I said this many posts ago.....

I keep repeating myself since you guys keep bringing up the same points from days ago

Hopefully this will stop the ACBL from making any rules in the future...I sue!


I object!...I sue......see you a million bucks later......this was all said day one..

[barmar]

Rob F, on Mar 28 2008, 09:38 AM, said:

- other form of protest (please describe and organize)

- whenever you're dummy, call ACBL HQ and hang up.

[finally17]

mike777, on Mar 29 2008, 04:15 AM, said:

I think I said this many posts ago.....

I keep repeating myself since you guys keep bringing up the same points from days ago

My bad. I'll try and make sure to at least read every mike777 post before commenting from now on.

[xcurt]

matmat, on Mar 29 2008, 01:16 AM, said:

don't see why if the acbl officials think that if the general membership cheats, the general memberships can't suspect the officials are corrupt/biased -- are they not selected from the general pool, after all?

Read the history of bridge at the world level. People cheat. That is axiomatic.

If you're seriously considering deliberately violating the ban, then go play in the side game, it may be bridge (as in entertainment) but it's not bridge (as in sport).

Also, if you do violate the ban, and someone remembers that you advocated deliberately doing so, then you should expect to be in front of a C&E committee when, as will eventually happen if only by accident, you are caught.

[matmat]

xcurt, on Mar 29 2008, 05:21 PM, said:

Also, if you do violate the ban, and someone remembers that you advocated deliberately doing so, then you should expect to be in front of a C&E committee when, as will eventually happen if only by accident, you are caught.

I suppose if they have a tough time filling their space in the bulletins with actual prosecution of cheaters, they might as well go after people who carry their turned-off cell phone.

[finally17]

xcurt, on Mar 29 2008, 05:21 PM, said:

If you're seriously considering deliberately violating the ban, then go play in the side game, it may be bridge (as in entertainment) but it's not bridge (as in sport).

I want to carry a cell phone and all of a sudden I'm not eligible for this "sport" that you call bridge; not eligible for real competition, but only "entertainment"?

That's just ridiculous.

[JoAnneM]

I voted that I would still carry it because I am becoming so forgetful that I would never remember to take it out of my purse. Don't they know how old we all are?

And what are they going to do about digital hearing aids, those are electronic devices.

[blackshoe]

Somebody upthread (or maybe in the other thread) said that medical devices are specifically exempt.

I didn't vote in the poll, since it's unlikely I will get to an NABC. Since the rule won't affect me until (unless) it trickles down to the sectional or club level, I'm just not going to worry about it. I'll probably be dead by then anyway.

[pclayton]

cardsharp, on Mar 28 2008, 02:19 AM, said:

I'll be following the ban.

To be honest I think you are all overreacting and sounding like spoilt children. I mean, it's not like they are trying to take your guns away.

Paul

?? I'll have my pistol on me. Properly unconcealed of course.

I find this is more effective than having directors enforce ZT rules.

[han]

My gun also keeps partner focussed and my teammates never complain when scoring up. Try it, after playing with a gun once you'll never want to play without again.

[blackshoe]

This probably falls into the category we in the Navy call "sea stories" but...

In California, it used to be the case (may still be for all I know) that one did not need a permit to carry an unconcealed handgun. Seems that Joe Citizen went to court one January for a minor traffic violation, and stuck his pistol in his belt. The judge didn't say a word to him about it. Instead, he had the bailiff follow the guy outside after the trial. When Joe Citizen, standing on the courthouse steps, put his jacket on (it was chilly) the bailiff arrested him for "carrying a concealed weapon".

[helene_t]

han, on Mar 30 2008, 05:47 PM, said:

My gun also keeps partner focussed and my teammates never complain when scoring up. Try it, after playing with a gun once you'll never want to play without again.

Your avatar alone does half the job, Han.

Btw I always put "no smoking" and "no guns" icons on our convention cards. Nobody takes notes of the "no smoking" icon but the reactions on the "no guns" icon are often not that positive. So apparently it is a controversial topic.

Haven't tried the "no cell phones" variant, since two of my partners can't live without the phone.

[blackshoe]

The English have banned handguns for a long time. So long that they had to ask the US for some to arm the Home Guard during WWII.

I lived in England for three years (1990-1993). The gun ban didn't help a neighbor of mine. He went out into his back garden one night to tell a bunch of teenagers to go party someplace else. They didn't have any guns, so they beat him to death.

OTOH, a bridge game seems the wrong place for debates on gun control - or smoking control, for that matter. OTGH, if your icon is on your card in a venue where smoking (or guns, I suppose) at the table is a possibility, and you are simply expressing your desire that it not be at your table, well, that's your right (see Law 74A2).

[xcurt]

finally17, on Mar 29 2008, 10:54 PM, said:

xcurt, on Mar 29 2008, 05:21 PM, said:

If you're seriously considering deliberately violating the ban, then go play in the side game, it may be bridge (as in entertainment) but it's not bridge (as in sport).

I want to carry a cell phone and all of a sudden I'm not eligible for this "sport" that you call bridge; not eligible for real competition, but only "entertainment"?

That's just ridiculous.

How do I know my opponents do not have a concealed partnership undestanding?

How do I know my opponents do not have a means of concealed partnership communication?

How do I know that neither opponent has extraneous information about the hand?

How do I know that neither opponent is taking advantage of familiarity with partner's mannerisms for his own advantage...

Once people start following rules as they deem fit, you're left with the law of the jungle. What's to stop me, for example, from deciding that I'm not going to tell the opponents (via the alert procedure), perhaps, that the auction 1m (unbalanced)-1M; 1N tends to show a stiff in responder's suit, since that's "just bridge" given the rest of my system as marked on my card. I don't think these are good methods, but I have played them and I have seen others playing them. And when I'm always not bidding 2M on KQT8x as responder, the whispers will start. If you don't like this example you can make up your own pretty easily. And don't pretend you haven't been on the other side of this equation. When I was playing frequently on the west coast, there was a "methods" pair that I figured out routinely stretched by a couple of HCP, or by a step in playing strength. I remember one hand they got my partner bidding 1NT/1M for light 3-suited takeout. The guy had 4333 with 3 cards in each of the off suits and 4 cards in the bid suit, with about a 9 count. Technically their explanation, 3-card support for each of the unbid suits, 8-15 HCP, was correct. But nobody in their right mind would imagine the opponent could hold such a hand given the way the explanation was presented. Once I figured out these guys, I had a huge, huge, laughably huge edge over them, since I knew, but they didn't know that I knew. But that's not bridge.

In other words, basically, once we go down this road, we're playing poker. And please don't say that screens solve these problems. They don't solve the all, for sure, and they may not solve any of them. Anyway screens can't be used in every round of the major pair games (the first day of the 3-day LMs is usually 12-14 sections, or 150 tables depending on venue) or the major team events (the first day of the Spingold is also about 100 tables give or take).

I'm sure the folks on this forum aren't planning on cheating. But there are cheaters out there, no doubt. And if everyone is carrying on their person the means to cheat, how can we determine which among them is using such devices in some illicit fashion. And keep in mind that it's to your advantage, more so than for a known top player, to have everyone know that you and everyone else in some NABC is clean. Just look at what happened in the last SF NABC after the Chinese women's team blew away the field in the Women's BAM. At least some folks couldn't reconcile the winning margin with the idea that these players were that good, and some really nasty rumors got started. That's awful for the players in question, and also very bad for bridge. If you come out of nowhere to win a big national pair game, do you want people questioning how you got there?

Anyway, I'm not going to respond any more to folks that want to deliberately violate some rules, particularly anti-cheating measures, no matter how poorly implemented. I'm just very, very, very disappointed that so few take the ethical aspects of bridge so lightly. I don't think that such actions belong in high-level (ie bridge as sport) events, at all.

[jdonn]

xcurt, on Mar 30 2008, 02:32 PM, said:

finally17, on Mar 29 2008, 10:54 PM, said:

xcurt, on Mar 29 2008, 05:21 PM, said:

If you're seriously considering deliberately violating the ban, then go play in the side game, it may be bridge (as in entertainment) but it's not bridge (as in sport).

I want to carry a cell phone and all of a sudden I'm not eligible for this "sport" that you call bridge; not eligible for real competition, but only "entertainment"?

That's just ridiculous.

How do I know my opponents do not have a concealed partnership undestanding?

How do I know my opponents do not have a means of concealed partnership communication?

How do I know that neither opponent has extraneous information about the hand?

How do I know that neither opponent is taking advantage of familiarity with partner's mannerisms for his own advantage...

Once people start following rules as they deem fit, you're left with the law of the jungle. What's to stop me, for example, from deciding that I'm not going to tell the opponents (via the alert procedure), perhaps, that the auction 1m (unbalanced)-1M; 1N tends to show a stiff in responder's suit, since that's "just bridge" given the rest of my system as marked on my card. I don't think these are good methods, but I have played them and I have seen others playing them. And when I'm always not bidding 2M on KQT8x as responder, the whispers will start. If you don't like this example you can make up your own pretty easily. And don't pretend you haven't been on the other side of this equation. When I was playing frequently on the west coast, there was a "methods" pair that I figured out routinely stretched by a couple of HCP, or by a step in playing strength. I remember one hand they got my partner bidding 1NT/1M for light 3-suited takeout. The guy had 4333 with 3 cards in each of the off suits and 4 cards in the bid suit, with about a 9 count. Technically their explanation, 3-card support for each of the unbid suits, 8-15 HCP, was correct. But nobody in their right mind would imagine the opponent could hold such a hand given the way the explanation was presented. Once I figured out these guys, I had a huge, huge, laughably huge edge over them, since I knew, but they didn't know that I knew. But that's not bridge.

In other words, basically, once we go down this road, we're playing poker. And please don't say that screens solve these problems. They don't solve the all, for sure, and they may not solve any of them. Anyway screens can't be used in every round of the major pair games (the first day of the 3-day LMs is usually 12-14 sections, or 150 tables depending on venue) or the major team events (the first day of the Spingold is also about 100 tables give or take).

I'm sure the folks on this forum aren't planning on cheating. But there are cheaters out there, no doubt. And if everyone is carrying on their person the means to cheat, how can we determine which among them is using such devices in some illicit fashion. And keep in mind that it's to your advantage, more so than for a known top player, to have everyone know that you and everyone else in some NABC is clean. Just look at what happened in the last SF NABC after the Chinese women's team blew away the field in the Women's BAM. At least some folks couldn't reconcile the winning margin with the idea that these players were that good, and some really nasty rumors got started. That's awful for the players in question, and also very bad for bridge. If you come out of nowhere to win a big national pair game, do you want people questioning how you got there?

Anyway, I'm not going to respond any more to folks that want to deliberately violate some rules, particularly anti-cheating measures, no matter how poorly implemented. I'm just very, very, very disappointed that so few take the ethical aspects of bridge so lightly. I don't think that such actions belong in high-level (ie bridge as sport) events, at all.

You must be great fun at parties.