[bluejak]

I think "wild" and "gambling" is a bit like the definition of pornography.

If your opponents bid 4♠ over your 4♥ apparently using UI, and you decide that you might get a good board out of 4♠ doubled even though you have not really got a double, but will get an adjustment if this does not work, that is "gambling".

If your opponents give you MI which affects your partner's bidding but not yours, and you bash 6♥ light-heartedly for no apparent reason, that's "wild".

I think.

[barmar]

IMHO....

"Wild" is taking a randomish action with practically no expectation of a good result, thinking you can get any damage adjudicated away due to the opponent's infraction. Like jumping to 7NT after they mis-explain something.

"Gambling" is taking an action with a low expectation of success, but not totally ridiculous or random. E.g. preempting with a long suit, but several levels higher than most would consider appropriate.

[AlexJonson]

campboy, on 2011-November-02, 10:45, said:

I would think that a wild or gambling action is in some sense wilful, that the player knows that it is off-centre (though he might disagree with the TD over how far off-centre it is). An error, on the other hand, is committed by mistake. I am not really sure of the difference between wild and gambling. (I'm reminded of these two comics.)

So here a player knowingly passed the GF bid and I consider that wild and gambling. If the auction had been different and he had passed a GF bid because he didn't realise it was forcing then that would be an error; usually when this happens in an MI case it is related to the infraction because the player would have been on firmer ground with the correct explanation.

The logic of only the serious error needing to be unrelated, then, is presumably that it is wrong to blame a player for getting a decision wrong that he should never have had to make, but if a player chooses to gamble then he should be prepared to take the consequences if it backfires.

Interesting essay. Let's imagine that there is little problem with 'wild'.

What about 'gambling'?

'Off-centre'... centre of what?

[blackshoe]

RMB1, on 2011-November-02, 09:06, said:

I don't think that North on his own can have a concealed partnership agreement.…
As I understand it, there has to be some apparent conspiracy between both members of the partnership to bid one way and explain it another way for there to be a fielded misbid ruling. If the bidder thought he was bidding according to partnership agreements (and those agreements are permitted) then it can not be "fielded". It can be deliberately misexplained and perhaps there should be an automatic penalty for that.

I don't see how there need be any conspiracy. That would require South to deliberately misbid, knowing his partner will field it. Who does that?

I think North can field a misbid if he's aware from partnership experience that his partner frequently misbids in this situation, even if his partner is completely unaware that he does it. Law 40C1 says, in part "Repeated deviations lead to implicit understandings, which then form part of the partnership’s methods and must be disclosed in accordance with the regulations governing disclosure of system. If the director judges there is undisclosed knowledge that has damaged the opponents, he shall adjust the score and may award a procedural penalty." There's nothing here that implies that South (in this case) must be aware of his tendency to misbid. IOW, it's an understanding, even if both players in the partnership don't understand it. Of course, even if they don't discuss it, if North starts alerting and explaining properly, South will soon be clued in.

I had a novice partner once who did not "get" Stayman. She would open 1NT, I would bid 2♣, she would bid 3♣. We talked about it, I explained that "everybody" plays Stayman, and why, she agreed to play it that way, and then she continued to misbid at the table. When I started alerting her 3♣, and explaining it as "she thinks I have clubs" or "she forgets that 2♣ is Stayman", she got upset, saying that I was embarrassing her. So we took Stayman off the card, and I had to remember that 2♣ was natural. Boy, that was hard!

[gnasher]

RMB1, on 2011-November-02, 09:06, said:

As I understand it, there has to be some apparent conspiracy between both members of the partnership to bid one way and explain it another way for there to be a fielded misbid ruling.

I don't think that's the intent of the rules, though it's not particularly clear. The relevant parts are:
"The actions of the psycher’s partner following a psyche – and, possibly, further actions by the psycher himself – may provide evidence of an unauthorised, and therefore illegal, understanding."
"The TD will judge actions objectively by the standards of a player’s peers; that is to say intent will not be taken into account."
"A partnership’s actions following a misbid may provide evidence of an unauthorised understanding, but they are less likely to do so because of the lack of intent to mislead."

Unless the third sentence is intended to create a qualitative difference between the treatment of psyches and the treatment of misbids, it seems to me that it's sufficient for the misbidder's partner to cater for the misbid, even though the misbidder himself is unaware of his own propensity to misbid.