[ggwhiz]

Interesting thread, clarified a few things that I wasn't sure about on the Laws and gave me pause on some others.

Here I believe it is written as (MAY) have been intended to deceive as opposed to proving that intent?

Along those lines, a 1 minute tank with a weak pre-emptive raise, then pass is not legitimate either.

I'm with the 650 in 4♥ camp for both sides.

[bluejak]

Whether you adjust under Law 73F does not depend on intent.

Whether you take any other action - for example, dragging him before a Committee and accusing him of cheating - does.

[Cascade]

bluejak, on Jul 23 2010, 03:29 AM, said:

Cascade, on Jul 22 2010, 01:38 PM, said:

L73F requires for their to be no demonstable bridge reason.

If East gives a demonstable bridge reason for his tempo then in order to rule against him you need to make a determination that he was not telling the truth in order to apply a L73F adjustment.

Not at all: the same applies to hesitations. TDs make judgements after hearing the evidence. Sometimes their judgements do not appear to agree with what they have been told. That does not mean anything so simple as an accusation of lying, it is a difference of opinion over judgement.

I think you either did not read what I wrote or did not comprehend it.

My premise is that East has a demonstrable bridge reason. That is he gives a reason and it is demonstrable. Then the Law 73F caveat - "who has no demonstrable bridge reason for the action" - applies and no Law 73F adjustment can be made legitimately.

[jallerton]

So the questions to be asked are:

1. Is considering whether or not to make a pre-emptive raise a "demonstrable bridge reason"?

2. If the answer to question 1 is yes (making 73F1 not relevant) can or should the TD ever adjust as implied by Campboy above for a breach of Law 73D1?

[Cascade]

jallerton, on Jul 23 2010, 09:40 AM, said:

So the questions to be asked are:

1. Is considering whether or not to make a pre-emptive raise a "demonstrable bridge reason"?

2. If the answer to question 1 is yes (making 73F1 not relevant) can or should the TD ever adjust as implied by Campboy above for a breach of Law 73D1?

I don't believe so since 73F tells us the correct procedure for deciding on a remedy should there be a violation of L73 - "When a violation of the Proprieties described in this law results in damage to an innocent opponent..." - and includes that very strong caveat - "who has no demonstrable bridge reason".

"You have a bridge reason but I am adjusting any way" seems to me to be and unlawful position.

[jeremy69]

Quote

"You have a bridge reason but I am adjusting any way" seems to me to be and unlawful position.

I think there can be positions where the player believes he has a bridge reason but the TD and those he consults do not. In that event ruling against him is quite likely.

[barmar]

Players make this kind of decision all the time, and it doesn't usually take a minute. So to meet the "demonstrable bridge reason" requirement, I think he needs to explain why it took such an exceptionally long time in this case. It's not enough to just say "I was thinking about whether to make a preemptive raise."

[bluejak]

Cascade, on Jul 22 2010, 09:26 PM, said:

bluejak, on Jul 23 2010, 03:29 AM, said:

Cascade, on Jul 22 2010, 01:38 PM, said:

L73F requires for their to be no demonstable bridge reason.

If East gives a demonstable bridge reason for his tempo then in order to rule against him you need to make a determination that he was not telling the truth in order to apply a L73F adjustment.

Not at all: the same applies to hesitations. TDs make judgements after hearing the evidence. Sometimes their judgements do not appear to agree with what they have been told. That does not mean anything so simple as an accusation of lying, it is a difference of opinion over judgement.

I think you either did not read what I wrote or did not comprehend it.

My premise is that East has a demonstrable bridge reason. That is he gives a reason and it is demonstrable. Then the Law 73F caveat - "who has no demonstrable bridge reason for the action" - applies and no Law 73F adjustment can be made legitimately.

I read it: perhaps you meant something different from what you said.

You wrote - and it appears above in the quote - that he "gives" a demonstrable bridge reason, no doubt as he sees it. That does not mean he has a demonstrable bridge reason in the view of the TD.

Now you say that he "has" a demonstrable bridge reason. Well, if he has, what are we arguing about? But that is different.

I think your problem is that you are confusing what a player believes, or says, and what the TD believes: they do not have to be the same thing.

Later you say "'You have a bridge reason but I am adjusting any way' seems to me to be an unlawful position.". No doubt, but it is not the player who makes the final decision in bridge judgement cases. And if the player claims to have one and the TD judges otherwise, that's the way it goes, just like a hesitation.

[Cascade]

bluejak, on Jul 23 2010, 11:12 AM, said:

Cascade, on Jul 22 2010, 09:26 PM, said:

bluejak, on Jul 23 2010, 03:29 AM, said:

Cascade, on Jul 22 2010, 01:38 PM, said:

L73F requires for their to be no demonstable bridge reason.

If East gives a demonstable bridge reason for his tempo then in order to rule against him you need to make a determination that he was not telling the truth in order to apply a L73F adjustment.

Not at all: the same applies to hesitations. TDs make judgements after hearing the evidence. Sometimes their judgements do not appear to agree with what they have been told. That does not mean anything so simple as an accusation of lying, it is a difference of opinion over judgement.

I think you either did not read what I wrote or did not comprehend it.

My premise is that East has a demonstrable bridge reason. That is he gives a reason and it is demonstrable. Then the Law 73F caveat - "who has no demonstrable bridge reason for the action" - applies and no Law 73F adjustment can be made legitimately.

I read it: perhaps you meant something different from what you said.

You wrote - and it appears above in the quote - that he "gives" a demonstrable bridge reason, no doubt as he sees it. That does not mean he has a demonstrable bridge reason in the view of the TD.

Now you say that he "has" a demonstrable bridge reason. Well, if he has, what are we arguing about? But that is different.

I think your problem is that you are confusing what a player believes, or says, and what the TD believes: they do not have to be the same thing.

Later you say "'You have a bridge reason but I am adjusting any way' seems to me to be an unlawful position.". No doubt, but it is not the player who makes the final decision in bridge judgement cases. And if the player claims to have one and the TD judges otherwise, that's the way it goes, just like a hesitation.

Perhaps I meant exactly what I said.

Lets say East gives a reason as appears to be the case for the problem in this thread. Then there are two possibilities:

1. It is a demonstrable bridge reason

2. It is not a demonstrable bridge reason

In which of these two situations would one accurately write "East gives a demonstrable bridge reason"?

I did not imagine that I would have to explain that it would be the first situation.

David seems to be arguing that it could be the second situation. I situation in which the clause "East gives a not demonstrable bridge reason" would be required.

I had no qualification anything like "as he sees it" nor did I intend such a qualification. I wrote what I meant and you jumped in and twisted the words because you did not comprehend what was written (since you have now confirmed you read it this is the only option remaining).

[ggwhiz]

Quote

I think there can be positions where the player believes he has a bridge reason but the TD and those he consults do not. In that event ruling against him is quite likely.

That sums it up for me. Nobody is accused of cheating and justice is served.

In my experience, the "culprits" are guilty of being lazy, distracted or whatever but not deliberately pulling a fast one and they tend to blush after losing the ruling.

[campboy]

I realise that the original case did not take place in the EBU, but it is perhaps relevant to the debate about the relationship between 73D and 73F to quote the EBU white book on that topic.

Quote

Hesitating with two small cards
Players have argued that they were wondering whether to play high-low, but Law 73D1 makes clear that this is an infraction. The player has failed to be "particularly careful in positions where variations [in tempo] may work to the benefit of their side" and to do so is not usually considered "a demonstrable bridge reason" for the purposes of Law 73F2.

[barmar]

Making a judgement mistake is not the same as lying or cheating. Just because you thought you had a valid bridge reason for the hesitation doesn't mean you actually did. And it's the TD's job to make this determination if damaged the opponents.

[duschek]

I have been offline for 5 days and return to read a lot of insightful answers. Thank you very much! No doubt I owe you information about the actual ruling.

We (the TDs) were quite certain that assigning 4H+1 was the correct ruling, but were less sure about South's pass. We decided not to apply Law 12C1b, considering it a borderline case, though in hindsight prefer considering South's pass a gambling action (not a serious error) thus implying that the score should stand for NS (though I am still not 100% sure as there are obvious arguments both ways, as this thread also indicates).

EW appealed the ruling, and the committee were equally not in doubt as for the EW score, but changed the NS score to 25% 4H+1 and 75% table result, reflecting our doubt in a strange way (I disapprove of applying Law 12C1c that way on the present case).

Nobody even considered a PP, appreciating that East felt there was a problem, but certainly should have solved it in normal tempo; in no way suspecting East of deliberate foul play.

P.S. I am annoyed that we happened to overlooked the difference between "wildly gambling" and "wild or gambling" during the translation process, though I believe that a note on the interpretation of Law 12C1b could remedy this.

[bluejak]

duschek, on Jul 25 2010, 12:34 AM, said:

EW appealed the ruling, and the committee were equally not in doubt as for the EW score, but changed the NS score to 25% 4H+1 and 75% table result, reflecting our doubt in a strange way (I disapprove of applying Law 12C1c that way on the present case).

I wonder if you can explain why you disapprove. Of course, you may think the judgement is wrong, and that's fine. But if the AC considered that a player who would not make a double that seems obvious to me even with the tank might not make one without the tank, why not?

The way you put suggests you mean something different from just disagreeing with the bridge judgement: am I wright?

[Cascade]

duschek, on Jul 25 2010, 11:34 AM, said:

Nobody even considered a PP, appreciating that East felt there was a problem, but certainly should have solved it in normal tempo; in no way suspecting East of deliberate foul play.

To me this is not consistent with the ruling.

Acknowledging that East felt he had a problem seems to me to be accepting that he had a bridge reason for his tempo.

It would seem reasonably normal to me that sometimes one takes longer to solve a problem that is obvious to others. There are many reasons for this but they do not discount that the player concerned at the time had a bridge reason for this thought.

[duschek]

bluejak, on Jul 24 2010, 06:57 PM, said:

But if the AC considered that a player who would not make a double that seems obvious to me even with the tank might not make one without the tank, why not?

I suspect the AC felt that the player would have made the double without the tank, but that passing was 25% justified and 75% a gambling action, so to speak. This suspicion may be confirmed by their ruling that EW would get 4H+1, though I admit that unbalanced weighted scores are possible.

Cascade, on Jul 24 2010, 08:06 PM, said:

Acknowledging that East felt he had a problem seems to me to be accepting that he had a bridge reason for his tempo.

That was not the intended meaning of my post. Suppose a player holding 3 balanced HCP opposite a weak NT decides this may be the hand for doing something odd to escape a penalty double, then realises that pass is the wise action because any other action would be too risky after all. That is also a bridge reason, in a sense, but would in the same way fail to pass the parts of Law 73 which were relevant in this case.

[Cascade]

I am not sure which parts of L73 you mean.