[mrdct]

This situation reminds me of the infamous German concession versus England in the semi-final of the 2008 World Mind Sports Games in the middle of segment after going for for 1100, 1400 and 1400 on consecutive boards.

At the time, without all of the facts, I was right in there with lynch mob ready to tar and feather the "offending" players. It turned out that the players politely asked the Chief Tournament Director if it would be possible to end the match, the CTD said OK but the German captain has to agree, the German captain couldn't be located, one of the German players became physically unwell and after a few minutes the CTD agreed to stop the match.

The lesson learned is that these sorts of threads are completely pointless when not armed with the full facts. We have no idea what external issues/factors may have affected the decision to concede and may never know to the extent to which those reasons may be personal.

[mich-b]

hotShot, on Jan 3 2010, 06:06 PM, said:

Lets be a little creative here, I bet you all would tell everyone starting with your teammates and your national bridge organization , that you have to go home because your wife had a nervous breakdown when your child had just been arrested for shoplifting.

Do you really think CoC could prevent someone from withdrawing is such a case?

Well, if that was the case they could have just said, that they have some perosnal/family reasons without getting into details.

But , for those of you who say that more info is needed, isn't it obvious that the only way to get more info is to have an ethics committee address the issue , and start by asking the players for their real reason?

And additional info :
The conceding pair are candidates (either together or with different partners) to represent their country in international competition later this year.
Do you think that changes matters ? Should their early concession influence their selection?

[peachy]

mich-b, on Jan 4 2010, 02:00 AM, said:

hotShot, on Jan 3 2010, 06:06 PM, said:

Lets be a little creative here, I bet you all would tell everyone starting with your teammates and your national bridge organization , that you have to go home because your wife had a nervous breakdown when your child had just been arrested for shoplifting.

Do you really think CoC could prevent someone from withdrawing is such a case?

Well, if that was the case they could have just said, that they have some perosnal/family reasons without getting into details.

But , for those of you who say that more info is needed, isn't it obvious that the only way to get more info is to have an ethics committee address the issue , and start by asking the players for their real reason?

And additional info :
The conceding pair are candidates (either together or with different partners) to represent their country in international competition later this year.
Do you think that changes matters ? Should their early concession influence their selection?

If selection were done by a committee of some sort, any reasonable committee member would not select this pair to represent the country until the "real" reason for withdrawing is determined somehow. The given reason is not "real" because down 16 with 42 boards to play is nowhere even near hopeless and if the players thought it _was_ hopeless then they have a problem with common sense and judgment - a very good reason not to be selected. As others have said, they will be facing natural justice /peer distrust in the future.

[cicus]

aguahombre, on Jan 3 2010, 11:58 AM, said:

Aber and Glen's Darwinian "natural selection" theme is, of course, correct. But, wow!! This really happened this way? Brutal to the other pair, hurtful to the allure of the event itself, potentially unfair to the winning team of the other match (stamina).

Do the event organizers have the authority to bar this pair from future events?

There is no legal ground to bar them. I am sure they had decided to withdraw before they sat down to play, the only reason they played at all was to obtain the right to withdraw.