[gwnn]

revoking is the functional equivalent of giving away an unnecessary ruff-sluff. it gives your opponents an undeservedly good score. it gives players on the opposite side a very slightly worse score. that's life.

[blackshoe]

nige1, on 2010-November-24, 10:57, said:

• Few players understand the law. When they notice an infraction, they may not recognise it as such.
• Players don't report suspected infractions. After a session, you hear players complain about opponents' alleged infractions. "What was the ruling?" you ask. They admit "We couldn't be bothered with the hassle of calling a director. We were playing badly and out of contention".
• A player may not report an infraction because he subsequently did something that he fears the director will judge to be a serious error and deprive him of redress: so calling the director would add insult to injury.
• Even top directors aren't omniscient so they don't rule against all infractions.

Nothing stops players from learning what they need to know. They can read, can they not?

I have absolutely no sympathy for players who do not call the TD and then whinge about something that happened. "Out of contention" or whatever is not an excuse.

Your last two points are just ridiculous.

[nige1]

blackshoe, on 2010-November-24, 16:56, said:

Nothing stops players from learning what they need to know. They can read, can they not?

I'm sure that directors, who post on-line, can read. But discussion groups like this show that the interpretation of a bridge-law often splits them into opposing camps. How can a mere player cope?

blackshoe, on 2010-November-24, 16:56, said:

Your last two points are just ridiculous.

[Siegmund]

Quote

You think that is unfair? I remember defending a contract that was already down by the time the revoke took place that made - because the defender revoked on the same trick that his partner had already won.

Now that may actually be a detail worth bringing to the laws committee's attention. We know the intention of the law is that a trick already won isn't taken away by a revoke... right now it is done by trick number, but it could be clarified to not take away this trick. (I have no strong feeling on whether it's an item worth pressing.)

[WellSpyder]

Siegmund, on 2010-November-24, 18:19, said:

Now that may actually be a detail worth bringing to the laws committee's attention. We know the intention of the law is that a trick already won isn't taken away by a revoke... right now it is done by trick number, but it could be clarified to not take away this trick. (I have no strong feeling on whether it's an item worth pressing.)

I think I did mention it on a forerunner of this forum when it happened. The general reaction was along the lines of "if you revoke, you have to take whatever is coming to you."

[mycroft]

Count me in the "You weren't paying attention and failed to take the Q with your K, thinking 'of course, declarer's playing the A'? Tough. You weren't paying attention and failed to play your spade to the Q? Tough. What's the difference?" camp. The fact that one case is a trick lost in play, and another is a trick lost in rectification is irrelevant. The fact that there is, in fact, some penalty aspect to the revoke laws (less than before, note), and that the Goddess Equity is not always honoured, is to me a feature, not a bug ("primarily intended", note, not "intended") - I wish the laws were less equity-oriented, more people might learn them to follow that way. But I'm a hardarse; the lawmakers are probably righter than I.

Windfall to the other N/S pairs in a pairs game? Again, Pitr's famous line, as misquoted above ("misplay, revoke, what is difference?") comes to mind.

[bluejak]

There is an interesting distinction between practical approaches and theoretical approaches. A practical person thinks that the fact that a revoke makes a fairly trivial difference to players at other tables is irrelevant, especially as similar effects are made by cardplay effects. A theoretical person thinks that size is irrelevant, practicality is irrelevant, it is just unfair.

The problem with the theoretical approach is that when you have taken it to its logical consequence you have created too many bad effects. But theoretical people are not trying to improve the game: fairness is everything, whether it ruins the game does not matter.

We have a dreadful Law on insufficient bids because of attempts by theoretical approach people to improve this, and they clearly have not. Please do not mess up the revoke Law as well.

What we want for something that happens frequently in clubs is something simple enough for poorly trained club TDs to apply - and that is what we have. No needy to mess it up for a very slight [alleged] theoretical gain.

[pran]

bluejak, on 2010-December-09, 05:46, said:

There is an interesting distinction between practical approaches and theoretical approaches. A practical person thinks that the fact that a revoke makes a fairly trivial difference to players at other tables is irrelevant, especially as similar effects are made by cardplay effects. A theoretical person thinks that size is irrelevant, practicality is irrelevant, it is just unfair.

The problem with the theoretical approach is that when you have taken it to its logical consequence you have created too many bad effects. But theoretical people are not trying to improve the game: fairness is everything, whether it ruins the game does not matter.

We have a dreadful Law on insufficient bids because of attempts by theoretical approach people to improve this, and they clearly have not. Please do not mess up the revoke Law as well.

Rather than just reading your repeated negative critics on Law 27 I would have expected you to submit your suggestion on how this law ought to be written?

It is very easy to just critizise a law, but that doesn't bring us anywhere.

[bluejak]

pran, on 2010-December-09, 17:49, said:

Rather than just reading your repeated negative critics on Law 27 I would have expected you to submit your suggestion on how this law ought to be written?

It is very easy to just critizise a law, but that doesn't bring us anywhere.

I have written it several times.

• Any insufficient bid may be accepted by the player's LHO. It is accepted if that player calls.
  
• Otherwise the player corrects it to any legal call. The original call is unauthorised to partner, authorised to opponents.

Very difficult.

[nigel_k]

bluejak, on 2010-December-09, 19:13, said:

I have written it several times.

• Any insufficient bid may be accepted by the player's LHO. It is accepted if that player calls.
  
• Otherwise the player corrects it to any legal call. The original call is unauthorised to partner, authorised to opponents.

Very difficult.

I like this and you could do the same with leads out of turn instead of having a penalty card. I wonder why the 'theoretical approach people' prefer the existing law to the above.

For revokes, maybe there could just be a general provision that the director can modify the standard penalty when it leads to a result that couldn't have occurred on any rational play and defence (analagous to the mistaken claim law). But if anything that might require a 'poorly trained club director' to use their judgment is dismissed as impractical, then maybe the revoke law can't be improved.

[pran]

bluejak, on 2010-December-09, 19:13, said:

I have written it several times.

• Any insufficient bid may be accepted by the player's LHO. It is accepted if that player calls.
  
• Otherwise the player corrects it to any legal call. The original call is unauthorised to partner, authorised to opponents.

Very difficult.

Oh dear!
Do we not have sufficient unauthorized information "problems" as it is today? Now we shall have to deal with UI whenever there has been an unaccepted insufficient bid?

If we shall change law 27 to make it simpler I would suggest: ... otherwise the player corrects it to any legal call and his partner must pass for the rest of the auction. That would remove absolutely all problems with insufficient bids and it would be fair to everybody (consistent rulings, and remember we still have Law 23).

But I am not so sure that "we" would be happy with such a rigid law?

Oddly enough I have had little problems with the new law 27 which I consider a significant improvement from the older laws; it reflects the development in partnership agreements from the time most calls were "natural" till todays highly sophisticated systems.

[RMB1]

There are a number of "solutions" to the insufficient bid law.

• Offender's partner is silenced, whatever the correction;
  
• Offender's partner is not silenced, whatever the correction;
  
• Offender's partner is not silenced if the correction is the lowest sufficient bid in the same denomination, regardless of the meaning of the insufficient bid or the correction;
  
• In any case, the insufficient bid is unauthorised information and there can be lead penalties;
  
• If offender's partner is silenced, Law 23 applies;
  
• The insufficient bid can be accepted.

[Trinidad]

bluejak, on 2010-December-09, 19:13, said:

I have written it several times.

• Any insufficient bid may be accepted by the player's LHO. It is accepted if that player calls.
  
• Otherwise the player corrects it to any legal call. The original call is unauthorised to partner, authorised to opponents.

Very difficult.

So you seriously want to convert a mechanical infraction into an ethical one?
After your lecture about theoretical and practical approaches, I expected your proposed new law to look like:

• Any insufficient bid may be accepted by the player's LHO. It is accepted if that player calls.
  
• Otherwise the player corrects it to any legal call. His partner must pass throughout.

That is simple. A club director will be able to handle this. It may be harsh on the offending side, but certainly not unfair. After all, the offending side knows or could know that we treat insufficient bids like this.

My personal preference would be to return to the old law.

Rik

[pran]

Trinidad, on 2010-December-15, 04:17, said:

So you seriously want to convert a mechanical infraction into an ethical one?
After your lecture about theoretical and practical approaches, I expected your proposed new law to look like:

• Any insufficient bid may be accepted by the player's LHO. It is accepted if that player calls.
  
• Otherwise the player corrects it to any legal call. His partner must pass throughout.

That is simple. A club director will be able to handle this. It may be harsh on the offending side, but certainly not unfair. After all, the offending side knows or could know that we treat insufficient bids like this.

My personal preference would be to return to the old law.

Rik

The principles of the old law worked perfectly well when most calls were "natural". However, with today's "forest" of artificial calls the result of IB very often became that the offender could replace his IB with any legal call at his choice and his partner must pass for the rest of the auction.

This unneccessarily inhibited normal auction and play of many boards, and what WBFLC apparently wanted to accomplish with the new Law 27 was to allow boards being played normally also when an artificial insufficient bid could be replaced with a legal call without essentially changing the information conveyed in that round of the auction.

Personally I like the result, but only time will show if Law 27B shall survive in its present form.

[bluejak]

Trinidad, on 2010-December-15, 04:17, said:

So you seriously want to convert a mechanical infraction into an ethical one?

Sure: if you work out what will happen in practice you will see it will not provide many problems in clubs where most insufficient bids are, and at high levels TDs can handle UI easily because of lots of practice.

[RMB1]

Trinidad, on 2010-December-15, 04:17, said:

So you seriously want to convert a mechanical infraction into an ethical one?

I'm not sure about "ethical", but yes we want to make explicit that insufficient bids may require a "judgement" ruling.

Trinidad, on 2010-December-15, 04:17, said:

My personal preference would be to return to the old law.

But the old law (and the current law) involve judgement rulings: if partner is not silenced then we have to apply Law 27D (or its predecessor); if partner is silenced then we have to apply Law 23. Both require a judgement decision on the TD's part.