[Trinidad]

OleBerg, on May 14 2009, 11:05 AM, said:

jdonn, on May 14 2009, 05:53 PM, said:

Instead of having a tournament director appeal his own ruling, why not just send the ruling directly to a committee to begin with? I can't think of any situation in anything where an official appeals his own ruling, in fact it seems meaningless. What if neither side wants to appeal?

Well, thats what I do, send it directly to committee, without a ruling.

I forgot what recent international championship (last year) it was that suffered from this problem. The TD didn't give a ruling but moved the case to the AC immediately. It seem to recall that one of the parties involved (Italy?) wasn't even aware that there was an AC meeting.

Even if the TD is going to appeal his own ruling, he has to make his ruling first (otherwise there is nothing to appeal). The opinion of the TD also matters to the AC.

Rik

[Cascade]

jdonn, on May 15 2009, 04:24 AM, said:

mike777, on May 14 2009, 11:22 AM, said:

OleBerg, on May 14 2009, 11:05 AM, said:

jdonn, on May 14 2009, 05:53 PM, said:

Instead of having a tournament director appeal his own ruling, why not just send the ruling directly to a committee to begin with? I can't think of any situation in anything where an official appeals his own ruling, in fact it seems meaningless. What if neither side wants to appeal?

Well, thats what I do, send it directly to committee, without a ruling.

I do not understand how do you appeal a ruling when there is no ruling? I assume the committee is an appeals committee not a ruling committee.

I assume the director is a ruling director not an appealing director?

In my experience there are very few appealing directors

[MFA]

Cascade, on May 14 2009, 02:49 PM, said:

jdonn, on May 15 2009, 04:24 AM, said:

mike777, on May 14 2009, 11:22 AM, said:

OleBerg, on May 14 2009, 11:05 AM, said:

jdonn, on May 14 2009, 05:53 PM, said:

Instead of having a tournament director appeal his own ruling, why not just send the ruling directly to a committee to begin with? I can't think of any situation in anything where an official appeals his own ruling, in fact it seems meaningless. What if neither side wants to appeal?

Well, thats what I do, send it directly to committee, without a ruling.

I do not understand how do you appeal a ruling when there is no ruling? I assume the committee is an appeals committee not a ruling committee.

I assume the director is a ruling director not an appealing director?

In my experience there are very few appealing directors

Hahaha.

Perhaps the bad appealing directors got tired of having their initial rulings changed, and the good appealing directors got tired of losing frivolous appeals' deposits, when their rulings were fine in the first place.

So now there a only very few of them left.

[barmar]

Methinks MFA didn't get the pun.

But I guess that's a common problem in a forum with heavy international participation.

[Cascade]

barmar, on May 15 2009, 09:18 AM, said:

Methinks MFA didn't get the pun.

But I guess that's a common problem in a forum with heavy international participation.

He did laugh.

[MFA]

barmar, on May 14 2009, 04:18 PM, said:

Methinks MFA didn't get the pun.

But I guess that's a common problem in a forum with heavy international participation.

Hmm.

Methinks that barman didn't get my joke about a director losing a deposit for appealing his own ruling. But I admit it was extremely bad.

Edit, ok I get your point .

[barmar]

Cascade, on May 14 2009, 04:19 PM, said:

barmar, on May 15 2009, 09:18 AM, said:

Methinks MFA didn't get the pun.

But I guess that's a common problem in a forum with heavy international participation.

He did laugh.

Yeah, that confused me, too, but the rest of his response doesn't fit. I think the joke he "got" wasn't the joke that was intended.

[jonottawa]

I watched the hand on Vugraph.

I agree with Fred and Jan. If the opening leader perceived a BIT, he did a very bad thing.

I find efforts to cast aspersions on the vugraph operator to be disgusting. I would want an objective witness at the table regardless of which side I was on. I would not be 'annoyed', I would be relieved, in such an instance. I think the vugraph operator did a fantastic job and I would, in almost all circumstances (barring some weird axe-to-grind situation,) trust the opinion of a vugraph operator over the opinion of any of the participants.

Self-serving arguments, shudder, etc. This wasn't a close decision in any way, shape, or form.

[barmar]

Tempo problems are some of the trickiest issues in duplicate bridge. I'm sure most of us can recall many times where one player said "He took forever to make that bid", while another says "it was 5 seconds, 10 at most." Most people don't have a good sense of time (the 10 seconds you're supposed to wait after a skip bid feels really long when you don't actually have anything to think about).

Even the VuGraph operator might not be the best judge in most cases. If he wasn't specifically paying attention to the tempo, he might have as hard a time saying what happened after the fact (a number of psychological studies have shown that eyewitness testimony isn't really as good as we'd like to think). But that's not what happened in this case. His chat log made it clear that he noticed the hesitation as it was occurring, and then there were several lines of dialogue from commentators before the bid was made.

[gwnn]

Even snooker is cooler than bridge in this regard

[jdonn]

I just had lunch with someone who played in the Cavendish, and was told the following:

- All four players agreed the amount of time the tray was on that side of the screen was around 15-20 seconds. They did disagree on whether or not this constituted a noticeable break in tempo in the given situation.
- The regulations (emailed to every player who entered) not only state that up to 25 seconds means there is a presumption of no break in tempo, but also give the power to the second player on either side of the screen to slow down the tray in order to maintain an even tempo.
- Like me, he also called the director from the 'wrong' side of the screen in the past (in last year's Cavendish) and was told by a director that it seriously damaged the credibility of his claim. Apparently this doesn't apply if your nickname is that of a beverage.
- Feldman and Zagorin were informed by the directors after the ruling was made that if they appealed there was no chance they would win, and thus didn't appeal.

[Cascade]

jdonn, on May 15 2009, 10:50 AM, said:

- Feldman and Zagorin were informed by the director's after the ruling was made that if they appealed there was no chance they would win, and thus didn't appeal.

Who was that bully?

That seems way out of line to me.

[Cascade]

barmar, on May 15 2009, 10:07 AM, said:

But that's not what happened in this case. His chat log made it clear that he noticed the hesitation as it was occurring, and then there were several lines of dialogue from commentators before the bid was made.

I don't believe that the chat log makes it that clear. Here are the first few lines of what HedyG posted earlier. She posted another six lines of chat after this but it is clear the lead has already been made.

poohbear: Taking NO prisoners. Lev bids 3NT
*vugraphzpt: Not sure what Feldman is thinking about here
poohbear: need a !h lead to beat it
vugraphzpt: Maybe doubling for !H lead
poohbear: If the spade honors were split then 2 rounds of spades and a !h play would work as well . Revert to spades after the King wins
vugraphzpt: EW 42nd before this session
**poohbear: I like the lead

* Notes the comment from David.

** Notes that the lead had been made

It is possible that all or none of the intervening comments were made before the lead was made.

I have seen and can easily imagine a situation where even David's (vugraph) comment did not appear on the screen until the lead had actually been made.

[the hog]

Cascade, on May 15 2009, 06:08 AM, said:

jdonn, on May 15 2009, 10:50 AM, said:

- Feldman and Zagorin were informed by the director's after the ruling was made that if they appealed there was no chance they would win, and thus didn't appeal.

Who was that bully?

That seems way out of line to me.

I agree with Wayne's comment here. If this is correct, the director should be reported.

[jonottawa]

This is pathetic.

Blame the vugraph operator.

Blame the director (who was trying to help them out by warning against a sure-to-lose appeal, which isn't particularly uncommon last I checked.)

Blame the rules.

Blame the fact that one of the pairs is 'famous.'

Ignore the blatantly self-serving comments, annoyance at the honest, relevant and appropriate testimony of a completely impartial observer, and beyond-dubious arguments.

I can't STAND it when people get preferential treatment just because of WHO THEY ARE, but this is not one of those cases.

[Cascade]

jonottawa, on May 15 2009, 03:42 PM, said:

This is pathetic.

Blame the vugraph operator.

Blame the director (who was trying to help them out by warning against a sure-to-lose appeal, which isn't particularly uncommon last I checked.)

Blame the rules.

Blame the fact that one of the pairs is 'famous.'

Ignore the blatantly self-serving comments, annoyance at the honest, relevant and appropriate testimony of a completely impartial observer, and beyond-dubious arguments.

I can't STAND it when people get preferential treatment just because of WHO THEY ARE, but this is not one of those cases.

Assuming Josh's friend's statement of the facts is correct in particular that the hesitation/delay was agreed at 15-20 seconds then we have no option but to conclude that the director has done a poor job.

The regulation essentially states that a 25 second delay should be ignored and goes further to encourage the players to delay if the other opponent took a short time to call.

Whether you like the regulation or not the laws are clear that the director is "bound" by the announced regulation. The director has no power to ignore this clear regulation when making a ruling.

Having made a shoddy ruling (assuming the facts as stated above) the director is completely outside his powers to bully a pair into not appealing by saying that they have no case.

The director's responsibility is to advise the pair that they have a right of appeal. Given that the director made the ruling it is not his place to prejudge what another body of people would think about that ruling.

In this particular case and again assuming the facts as reported by Josh I would be very surprised if an appeal committee did not overturn the director's ruling and further I would hope that the committee would be asking serious questions about why the director was ignoring the announced regulations.

[jdonn]

jonottawa, on May 14 2009, 10:42 PM, said:

Blame the vugraph operator.

I certainly don't.

Quote

Blame the director (who was trying to help them out by warning against a sure-to-lose appeal, which isn't particularly uncommon last I checked.)

Who else do you blame for a bad ruling if you think there was one? As for what he said to them, unlike the last few posters I honestly don't care (which is why I didn't reply to those posts), I merely stated what he said because people asked earlier in the thread why the pair didn't appeal if they thought the ruling is bad.

Quote

Blame the rules.

If you are referring to the side of the screen that called the director, do you realize both the purpose of that rule and why it's very relevant to the ruling when it's not followed? Because it doesn't seem so.

If you are referring to the time taken, what would you think when there is a clear guideline about the time that should be taken that is completely ignored?

Quote

Blame the fact that one of the pairs is 'famous.'

I know of three cases in which a director was called about the break in tempo from the side of the screen from which it occurred. In one of those cases the player was not famous and had to work hard just to convince the director to listen to his complaint, and he was ruled against. In one of those cases the player was not famous and was informed by the director his complaint would be heard but would have reduced credibility, and he was ruled against. In one of those cases the player was famous and the director listened to the complaint and ruled in his favor.

Please draw your own conclusion.

Quote

Ignore the blatantly self-serving comments, annoyance at the honest, relevant and appropriate testimony of a completely impartial observer, and beyond-dubious arguments.

- Which blatantly self-serving comments?
- Which beyond-dubious arguments?
- The annoyance wasn't at the testimony of the vugraph operator, in fact I don't even think they are aware he testified. It was at his comment to the vugraph audience because it made them look like cheaters.

[Trinidad]

jdonn, on May 14 2009, 05:50 PM, said:

I just had lunch with someone who played in the Cavendish, and was told the following:

- All four players agreed the amount of time the tray was on that side of the screen was around 15-20 seconds. They did disagree on whether or not this constituted a noticeable break in tempo in the given situation.
- The regulations (emailed to every player who entered) not only state that up to 25 seconds means there is a presumption of no break in tempo, but also give the power to the second player on either side of the screen to slow down the tray in order to maintain an even tempo.
- Like me, he also called the director from the 'wrong' side of the screen in the past (in last year's Cavendish) and was told by a director that it seriously damaged the credibility of his claim. Apparently this doesn't apply if your nickname is that of a beverage.
- Feldman and Zagorin were informed by the directors after the ruling was made that if they appealed there was no chance they would win, and thus didn't appeal.

If these were the facts as the TDs had them, it is clear that the ruling should have been: No irregularity, next board please.

Rik

[Trinidad]

jonottawa, on May 14 2009, 10:42 PM, said:

This is pathetic.

Blame the vugraph operator.

Blame the director (who was trying to help them out by warning against a sure-to-lose appeal, which isn't particularly uncommon last I checked.)

Blame the rules.

Blame the fact that one of the pairs is 'famous.'

Ignore the blatantly self-serving comments, annoyance at the honest, relevant and appropriate testimony of a completely impartial observer, and beyond-dubious arguments.

I can't STAND it when people get preferential treatment just because of WHO THEY ARE, but this is not one of those cases.

Assuming Josh' account of the story is true then the VuGraph operator didn't do much wrong, the rules were perfect, the fact that one pair is even more famous than the other is irrelevant and the observations of the VuGraph operator were confirmed.

The full blame goes to the TD: He established that there was UI when the regulations clearly state that there can't have been any. And I can't find any words for a TD at the level of the Cavendish who tells a pair that they don't have a chance with an AC when the situation was such that he should have encouraged an appeal (or even appeal his own ruling).

Rik

[MFA]

Just thinking that it could be possible that this "someone who played in the Cavendish" might not be 100% spot on about all details as they happened at the table.