[AlexJonson]

Vampyr, on 2011-July-18, 21:50, said:

In the other thread there was a clear consensus that "second order" or "reverse" UI is still UI, and a player must make every effort etc. Why must the question be dredged up again?

My recollection is that dburn pointed out a small change in the wording of the latest laws thst appeared to let 'second order UI' through: this topic had previously been discussed and was not thought to be suppported by the previous laws.

There has been no follow up that has clarified the official position (as far as I know). So far it is an interesting notion that has caught your imagination and that of nige1.

[Cascade]

AlexJonson, on 2011-July-19, 13:56, said:

My recollection is that dburn pointed out a small change in the wording of the latest laws thst appeared to let 'second order UI' through: this topic had previously been discussed and was not thought to be suppported by the previous laws.

There has been no follow up that has clarified the official position (as far as I know). So far it is an interesting notion that has caught your imagination and that of nige1.

In my opinion it can't possibly be the intention of the laws that an offending side gains an advantage in terms of the information available to their side based on the tempo of their bids.

They are authorized to base their actions on the calls made on this board. Such information needs to be "unaffected by UI from another source". It seems reasonable to argue that one's own hesitation is another source - other than the call made by partner - that affects the information in partner's call. Partner's 4♦ call contains information from the call itself and on the assumption that partner is honest and noticed your hesitation contains additional information based on the UI from your hesitation.

Imagine you played with a partner who frequently bid on shady values but was an honest player and would have sound values if there was ever UI from your side of the table. If second order UI was allowed one could manipulate this partner by appearing to have problems more often than not and then you would know that partner had full values for his bids. Can those who don't seem to accept the second order UI illegality really argue that this would be legal?

[blackshoe]

I wouldn't argue that it's legal. I would argue that it's far fetched.

[AlexJonson]

Cascade, on 2011-July-19, 14:22, said:

In my opinion it can't possibly be the intention of the laws that an offending side gains an advantage in terms of the information available to their side based on the tempo of their bids.

They are authorized to base their actions on the calls made on this board. Such information needs to be "unaffected by UI from another source". It seems reasonable to argue that one's own hesitation is another source - other than the call made by partner - that affects the information in partner's call. Partner's 4♦ call contains information from the call itself and on the assumption that partner is honest and noticed your hesitation contains additional information based on the UI from your hesitation.

Imagine you played with a partner who frequently bid on shady values but was an honest player and would have sound values if there was ever UI from your side of the table. If second order UI was allowed one could manipulate this partner by appearing to have problems more often than not and then you would know that partner had full values for his bids. Can those who don't seem to accept the second order UI illegality really argue that this would be legal?

Where I part company with you is in believing that someone could manipulate an honest partner in the way you describe. Apart from the oddity of this crook playing with an honest partner, the crook could rarely know whether partner would be faced with the common bid or pass choice in face of UI, so the honest player passes and is not manipulated and the crooked strategy fails.

In other words, the whole thing is not worth the candle. And do you relish establishing whether a player is honest, as a basis for an adjustment.

[mjj29]

Cascade, on 2011-July-19, 14:22, said:

In my opinion it can't possibly be the intention of the laws that an offending side gains an advantage in terms of the information available to their side based on the tempo of their bids.

They are authorized to base their actions on the calls made on this board. Such information needs to be "unaffected by UI from another source". It seems reasonable to argue that one's own hesitation is another source - other than the call made by partner - that affects the information in partner's call. Partner's 4♦ call contains information from the call itself and on the assumption that partner is honest and noticed your hesitation contains additional information based on the UI from your hesitation.

You don't think it's "information ... arising from the legal procedures authorized in these laws and in regulations" then? (L16A1©)

Matt

[Vampyr]

AlexJonson, on 2011-July-19, 14:52, said:

Where I part company with you is in believing that someone could manipulate an honest partner in the way you describe. Apart from the oddity of this crook playing with an honest partner, the crook could rarely know whether partner would be faced with the common bid or pass choice in face of UI, so the honest player passes and is not manipulated and the crooked strategy fails.

In other words, the whole thing is not worth the candle. And do you relish establishing whether a player is honest, as a basis for an adjustment.

This is not the way UI Laws work. Players are not allowed to do things that a cheat would do, but there is never the implication that the person is actually a cheat.

Really, if you do not know this you should not be posting on this forum.

[MickyB]

I consider it obvious that, if "second order UI" were allowed, it would still never be advantageous to hesitate just so you could take advantage of it. That would have been the case under the old rules on LAs, and it is certainly true under the current, stricter rules.

Partner's honesty is fairly irrelevant in all of this. If I hesitate and partner acts, and I expect to get ruled against if he has a marginal hand, I may as well assume he has a clear action and raise to game.

The suggestion that we can't choose our action based on the knowledge that we have broken tempo seems ridiculous to me. If we aren't allowed to know that we have hesitated here, does this mean that we also aren't allowed to know that we have hesitated during the play of the cards? This feels like it will create huge problems on defence.

[lamford]

Vampyr, on 2011-July-19, 11:12, said:

The antecedent of "she" was "player", not "DBurn". Please read more carefully.

And I agree with nige1.

Nige1 wrote: "DBurn drew attention to similar examples. IMO she was inciting her partner to break the UI law." The antecedent of she was DBurn. I know I am risking getting egg on my face arguing with you about grammar ...

[gnasher]

lamford, on 2011-July-20, 05:43, said:

Nige1 wrote: "DBurn drew attention to similar examples. IMO she was inciting her partner to break the UI law." The antecedent of she was DBurn. I know I am risking getting egg on my face arguing with you about grammar ...

Perhaps Fowler can assist us?

The King's English said:

51 AMBIGUOUS POSITION
In this matter judgement is required. A captious critic might find examples on almost every page of almost any writer; but most of them, though they may strictly be called ambiguous, would be quite justifiable. On the other hand a careless writer can nearly always plead, even for a bad offence, that an attentive reader would take the thing the right way. That is no defence; a rather inattentive and sleepy reader is the true test; if the run of the sentence is such that he at first sight refers whatever phrase is in question to the wrong government, then the ambiguity is to be condemned.

Would a inattentive and sleepy reader believe that the "she" referred to is DBurn? I think it would depend whether he'd met herhim.

[lamford]

gnasher, on 2011-July-20, 07:38, said:

Perhaps Fowler can assist us?


Would a inattentive and sleepy reader believe that the "she" referred to is DBurn? I think it would depend whether he'd met herhim.

As anybody who has partnered me will know, I am inattentive and sleepy. And I did not know whether Daphne Burn or Doris Burn was a contributor on here. I would submit that:
"DBurn drew attention to similar examples. IMO the player was inciting her partner to break the UI law." was better. But I do agree that the writer was merely careless (but not irrational).

[Vampyr]

lamford, on 2011-July-20, 05:43, said:

Nige1 wrote: "DBurn drew attention to similar examples. IMO she was inciting her partner to break the UI law." The antecedent of she was DBurn. I know I am risking getting egg on my face arguing with you about grammar ...

No, it's definitely ambiguous and probably wrong, except that "similar examples" and context seemed to me to imply that "she" is part of an example. You are correct.

[AlexJonson]

Anyone who thinks nige1's contribution was ambiguous, in the context of this post, is IMO wrong, possibly well knowing that they could derive an advantage.

[Foxx]

Well, that explains why I haven't seen kiwigirl2/3/4/whatever-the-heck-it-is-now online in several years....

[EDIT] And of course, this means I see her last night on the way out after a session. LMFAO at me.

This post has been edited by Foxx: 2011-July-28, 17:16

[bluejak]

My apologies for not reacting quicker, but a post by Bad_Wolf was clearly outside our published guidelines and was merely rude about bridge in one particular country. I have received a complaint and deleted the post.

My apologies also to Foxx, who quoted Bad_Wolf's post. I have edited it to delete the quote. This is not a criticism of Foxx in any way.

[nige1]

lamford, on 2011-July-20, 05:43, said:

Nige1 wrote: "DBurn drew attention to similar examples. IMO she was inciting her partner to break the UI law." The antecedent of she was DBurn. I know I am risking getting egg on my face arguing with you about grammar ...

Thank you all for drawing attention to my solecism

In my post, before the above excerpt, I quoted Cascade who "observed today a player unashamedly coaching her partner in the postmortem : "you should have bid game because you know my hand will be strong after your hesitation"'.

But I was unaware how many posters believe dburn is a woman. I apologise for the unnecessary confusion that I caused

[jules101]

One of my favourite postmortem moments was....

---

* LOL Number 1 - "I suppose I'll have to open then"

** LOL Number 2 has steam coming out of her ears when she sees dummy. Rooms gets increasingly steamy as she loses more and more tricks, and goes four off for a coast to coast bottom.

LOL Number 1 (once hand had been played) - "Well I did tell you I didn't have very much when I said "I suppose I'll have to open then"", thus justifying her opening bid and subsequent pass!

It was an occasion to savour.

[pran]

jules101, on 2011-August-10, 08:54, said:

One of my favourite postmortem moments was....

---

* LOL Number 1 - "I suppose I'll have to open then"

** LOL Number 2 has steam coming out of her ears when she sees dummy. Rooms gets increasingly steamy as she loses more and more tricks, and goes four off for a coast to coast bottom.

LOL Number 1 (once hand had been played) - "Well I did tell you I didn't have very much when I said "I suppose I'll have to open then"", thus justifying her opening bid and subsequent pass!

It was an occasion to savour.

Lovely.

The only think I found hard to understand is why she went four off?
What happened to her three aces and two trump tricks for KQJ?

[jules101]

pran, on 2011-August-10, 09:17, said:

Lovely.

The only think I found hard to understand is why she went four off?
What happened to her three aces and two trump tricks for KQJ?

I really can't remember the play cos it was played Jan 2010. I just remember the comments and atmosphere. And the result too of course.

The other post reminded me of the incident, and I just looked up the deal and result on club website, so both the hands and the result are accurate.


They aren't the strongest of players, and perhaps LOL Number 2 was rather discombobulated by the sight of dummy!


My pard did suggest (very gently) to LOL Number 1 (after her 2nd comment) that perhaps she shouldn't have made the first comment. This suggestion went over the top of both of their heads I'm afraid.

Some 18 months later they haven't changed. It's always "fun" to see what infraction they will incur next.

[blackshoe]

Ran a game for a friend of mine today. Give you an idea of the level of play, she calls them her "babies". In fact, she told me yesterday when I said I'd do it to "leave your law book at home". Only had one call - lead out of turn. Easy peasy. But I ended up playing in order to avoid a half table (one player's partner didn't show up), and these folks don't understand travelers at all. Apparently they don't understand pickup slips very well either - it took me an hour and a half to sort out the missing pair numbers, wrong pair numbers, and missing board numbers. I did have the right number of slips (and every single one of them had been initialed by somebody - I presume the East or West who played the round at that table. All the problems, of course, were in the section in which I was not playing. Ah, well, at least they all skipped properly when I told them to.

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2011-August-10, 17:31, said:

Ran a game for a friend of mine today. Give you an idea of the level of play, she calls them her "babies". In fact, she told me yesterday when I said I'd do it to "leave your law book at home". Only had one call - lead out of turn. Easy peasy. But I ended up playing in order to avoid a half table (one player's partner didn't show up), and these folks don't understand travelers at all. Apparently they don't understand pickup slips very well either - it took me an hour and a half to sort out the missing pair numbers, wrong pair numbers, and missing board numbers. I did have the right number of slips (and every single one of them had been initialed by somebody - I presume the East or West who played the round at that table. All the problems, of course, were in the section in which I was not playing. Ah, well, at least they all skipped properly when I told them to.

Maybe the club can investigate electronic scorers.