[inquiry]

I guess ew should appeal. While it is true 2♣ could be a two card suit, but usually it will be more. With the proper alert, it is still a little unlikely that north will shift as simple defense seems to be club. club ruff, diamond, club ruff (if west has 4♣).

So the question is not what the odds of making would be if a diamond shift occurred, but rather that plus what is the odds of a diamond shift if alerted first, then what is the odds declarer would go down. Somehow 50-50 does not seem even remotely close to me.

But clearly, NS have no complaint with the ruling.

[cherdano]

inquiry, on May 29 2008, 08:09 AM, said:

I guess ew should appeal. While it is true 2♣ could be a two card suit, but usually it will be more. With the proper alert, it is still a little unlikely that north will shift as simple defense seems to be club. club ruff, diamond, club ruff (if west has 4♣).

Uhm. You did see that North also has a sure trump trick? So he only needs one ruff from partner to beat this, and if West has four clubs diamond-diamond only loses when West also has 6 spades.
I guess we would need to know the spots to tell whether North can always find the right continuation after trying ♦A.

[FrancesHinden]

p.s. I've been thinking about the play problem on ace of clubs lead, ace of diamonds and a diamond switch, and I don't think the winning line is obvious at all.

In addition to the (family of) layouts Justin gave, sometimes trumps are 4-1 with the king onside.

That's why the only way to find out is to ask people how they'd play the hand single dummy.

In my experience, when given a play problem away from the table, people generally play the hand _better_ than they do in 'real life' because they are more aware that there's a reason they've been given it as a problem so it probably isn't straightforward.

Doing BBO commentary is good practice at the whole DD/single dummy problem. When you can see all four hands you know what the right line is, and you can often convince yourself it's obviously the right line, then declarer does something totally different and you realise that either
i) Declarer is not a good player (or is having an off day), or
ii) He's catering to a completely different problem

[jtfanclub]

Jlall, on May 28 2008, 11:46 PM, said:

It is just impossible to avoid a thread with an idiotic kenrexford/jtfanclub/hog/mike777 post in it. It hurts my eyes.

Going completely off-subject....

Why are you here? And I don't mean that in a sarcastic way.

If you're here to teach, great. Love to have you. I'm here to learn, myself. I'm sorry if my learning method is abrasive, but I can't learn from the one-liners that are often used to answer questions here- there's no context.

If you're here to find out what the masses think, also great. I'm not sure why you're then upset when you hear what we think.

If you have a serious question about something like this, you can ask your dad, or Bob Freakin' Hamman, or any number of your other buddies that are among the best players in the world. If that's really all your here for, and you can't stand to skip posts like mine, why not set up an email group?

I'm sorry if you think I'm spamming your threads. I'll try to control it in the future. But, you know, I don't claim to be anything other than what I am...a slightly above average player who got taught by LOLs and as a result what I've been playing since before you were born is quite possibly out of date or simply non-standard. How could I even know? So compared to you, I am an idiot at bridge. It's not shocking to me that you think my posts are idiotic.

[MFA]

How misleading is this non-alert?
Just curious. Forcing NT is quite unpopular in Denmark, so here 2m on three would surely also be alertable and therfore forcingNT + non-alert 2♣ would be suspicious to a good player by itself. I would surely have asked about club length, if I was to bank on this kind of defense.

What I'm trying to say is - should north have protected himself in any way? What is "standard" in ACBL about this situation?

The ruling seems fair, if north is completely innocent about the missinfo.

[mr1303]

My 2p worth is that some of the posts in this thread need censoring/removing.

Getting back to the point of the thread, I wouldn't appeal this as either side. I think the ruling is about right, since the exact layout isn't necessarily clear even after the ace of diamonds switch. However, with the possibility of a 2 card suit in the West hand, it may occur to North to not continue clubs immediately, so there is some possibility of a diamond switch. As to the exact percentages? I think getting it right 50% of the time (as North) may be a bit high, but I'm not convinced that strongly.

[blackshoe]

Law 12C3 is the one which allows varying an assigned adjusted score. The law gives this power only to appeals committees, but the WBFLC, in a minute a few years ago, extended the authority to zonal authorities (and to the WBF itself) to allow TDs to use it. The EBL has, if I'm not mistaken, taken advantage of this - Law 12C3 is available to TDs there. The ACBL has not taken advantage of it. I don't know about other zones. I believe it is an election in the new laws, and that the ACBL has again elected not to allow TDs to use it, but I'd have to look it up (it's in the minutes of the Detroit BoD meeting) to be sure.

As for PPs in the ACBL (I can't speak for other jurisdictions) the consensus at club level seems to be "oh, noes! If we give a PP, the players will all leave en masse, and we'll lose money!" It seems to have infected lower level tournaments as well. Personally, I think it's bullshit, but what do I know?

[kenrexford]

Ultimately, I'm not sure that there is much in the way of results differences of opinion. The adjustment worked a 5-IMP change to the results, ot a 50% change. I think a 3-IMP change would be appropriate. The poll suggested a 40% change, which turns out to be a 4-IMP change.

[MFA]

kenrexford, on May 29 2008, 03:19 PM, said:

Ultimately, I'm not sure that there is much in the way of results differences of opinion.  The adjustment worked a 5-IMP change to the results, ot a 50% change.  I think a 3-IMP change would be appropriate.  The poll suggested a 40% change, which turns out to be a 4-IMP change.

The result from the other table is irrelevant for the TD's decision at this table.

So
"I think a 3-IMP change would be appropriate."
is the wrong perspective imo.

[kenrexford]

MFA, on May 29 2008, 04:22 PM, said:

kenrexford, on May 29 2008, 03:19 PM, said:

Ultimately, I'm not sure that there is much in the way of results differences of opinion.  The adjustment worked a 5-IMP change to the results, ot a 50% change.  I think a 3-IMP change would be appropriate.  The poll suggested a 40% change, which turns out to be a 4-IMP change.

The result from the other table is irrelevant for the TD's decision at this table.

So
"I think a 3-IMP change would be appropriate."
is the wrong perspective imo.

But, the resuylt at the other table is extremely relevant to the question of whether to appeal or not. If the appeal would not change anything about the result of the match, why appeal? Principle?

[barmar]

kenrexford, on May 29 2008, 10:09 PM, said:

MFA, on May 29 2008, 04:22 PM, said:

kenrexford, on May 29 2008, 03:19 PM, said:

Ultimately, I'm not sure that there is much in the way of results differences of opinion.  The adjustment worked a 5-IMP change to the results, ot a 50% change.  I think a 3-IMP change would be appropriate.  The poll suggested a 40% change, which turns out to be a 4-IMP change.

The result from the other table is irrelevant for the TD's decision at this table.

So
"I think a 3-IMP change would be appropriate."
is the wrong perspective imo.

But, the resuylt at the other table is extremely relevant to the question of whether to appeal or not. If the appeal would not change anything about the result of the match, why appeal? Principle?

He didn't say the other result was totally irrelevant, just to the TD's original decision whether to adjust or not.

It also should be irrelevant to the appeals committee. They should just look at what happened at this table.

[FrancesHinden]

The two things the AC really really don't want to know are
i) What happened at the other table
ii) What the margin in the match was

This is particularly important in KO matches. It just makes the job so difficult if you know one team won by 3 imps and you know what effect any ruling you make will have on the result.

[kenrexford]

barmar, on May 30 2008, 10:50 AM, said:

kenrexford, on May 29 2008, 10:09 PM, said:

MFA, on May 29 2008, 04:22 PM, said:

kenrexford, on May 29 2008, 03:19 PM, said:

Ultimately, I'm not sure that there is much in the way of results differences of opinion.  The adjustment worked a 5-IMP change to the results, ot a 50% change.  I think a 3-IMP change would be appropriate.  The poll suggested a 40% change, which turns out to be a 4-IMP change.

The result from the other table is irrelevant for the TD's decision at this table.

So
"I think a 3-IMP change would be appropriate."
is the wrong perspective imo.

But, the resuylt at the other table is extremely relevant to the question of whether to appeal or not. If the appeal would not change anything about the result of the match, why appeal? Principle?

He didn't say the other result was totally irrelevant, just to the TD's original decision whether to adjust or not.

It also should be irrelevant to the appeals committee. They should just look at what happened at this table.

My point, though, was in response to the question of whether to appeal. When I make a decision whether to appeal or to not appeal, I usually take into account whether it makes any difference in the results. If the committee could change the score, for example, to 7NTXX-13, and I still lose the match, I want beer instead of a visit to the committee.

[ArtK78]

FrancesHinden, on May 30 2008, 10:58 AM, said:

The two things the AC really really don't want to know are
i) What happened at the other table
ii) What the margin in the match was

This is particularly important in KO matches. It just makes the job so difficult if you know one team won by 3 imps and you know what effect any ruling you make will have on the result.

If the result of the appeal was not relevant to the outcome of the match, there would be no appeal (with the possible exception of an appeal in the course of a very long match).

So the committee is well aware that their decision may effect the outcome of the match.

[MFA]

ArtK78, on May 30 2008, 12:21 PM, said:

FrancesHinden, on May 30 2008, 10:58 AM, said:

The two things the AC really really don't want to know are
i) What happened at the other table
ii) What the margin in the match was

This is particularly important in KO matches.  It just makes the job so difficult if you know one team won by 3 imps and you know what effect any ruling you make will have on the result.

If the result of the appeal was not relevant to the outcome of the match, there would be no appeal (with the possible exception of an appeal in the course of a very long match).

So the committee is well aware that their decision may effect the outcome of the match.

Still, it's knowing the margin that causes the problem.

Around 10 years ago we had a very close national championship final that had a serious slow play problem in the last segment, so the TD judged that penalty imps had to be awarded to the more offending side.
But how much more offending were they? Everybody had been slow to some extend, but one pair certainly in particular.
Even though there was vue graph and everyone seemed to know exactly the standing of the match, he carefully avoided to hear anything and made his decision in vacuum - which just happened to change the winner of the match. But the important thing was not knowing that when he decided upon the penalty.

[nige1]

IMO

• A PP is inappropriate. The misinformation wasn't deliberate.
  
• I prefer an old fashioned ruling of 4S-1 because there is fair chance of defeat with correct information; but almost no chance on the misinformation given.
  
• The director's decision is reasonable because the contract might make anyway. But I hate modern 12C3 rulings. Frances is right: if the director or committee know how the match ended, they may have the opportunity to play God with weighting adjustments of a few percent either way.
  
• If either side should appeal it is NS - for many reasons. For example, in international competition on a similar 54 hand, a world champion found the killing lead of the A of the shorter suit. The director should not rule out that kind of possibility if N had correct information. After two rounds of diamonds, defensive prospects are excellent
  
• If either side appeal because they think the weightings are slightly wrong, then they are unlikely to get far because, AFIK, committees are usually instructed not to tinker with weightings.
  
• It is reasonable for Jlall to feel miffed but he shouldn't take it out on us poor plebs