[phil_20686]

Zelandakh, on 2012-September-17, 04:34, said:

Phil, what does partner correctly alerting your bid as expected have to do with a situation where partner correctly but unexpectedly alerts your bid.

Because `expected' is ambiguous.

Suppose you bid 3N over 1N, and partner alerts, so you look down and see that actually you pulled out 3S, which is alertable. Are you banned from realising that you bid 3S rather than 3N at any point in the auction? Of course not. "Expected" must be defined based on what you bid, not on what you thought that you bid.

Expected can mean anything from "one of a range of unlikely but foreseen options", to "near certainty" depending on the context. If I am aware that once every 100,000 boards I misread the auction, and it may lead to alerting complications, it is not, strictly "unexpected" that partner "unexpectedly" alerts, because I have misbid.

If you base "expected" on what you "expect to occur", you are in crazy land, suppose you play a complex system, that has many relays, and in the last 6 outings partner has got it wrong half the time. So you have a relay sequence, which ends in a natural bid, and partner alerts all the relays and doesn't alert the natural bid which ends it. Clearly this is strong evidence that he has got the system right. By your definition, I only expected him to alert correctly half the time, so the fact that he did and therefore clearly remembers the system, is UI to me.

Suppose he has forgotten the system on every single previous occasion, then it is "unexpected" that he alerted correctly, even though it is your agreement? Thus I am surely banned from taking advantage of the shape information that I learned from the relay, since I might have been planning to discount some of it based on past history. :S Surely you can see how the game becomes unplayable under this interpretation?

[Zelandakh]

phil_20686, on 2012-September-17, 09:07, said:

Suppose you bid 3N over 1N, and partner alerts, so you look down and see that actually you pulled out 3S, which is alertable. Are you banned from realising that you bid 3S rather than 3N at any point in the auction?

Since the rules explicitly allow this, I would hope not! "Pause for thought" begins from the moment you realise your mistake...

[gordontd]

phil_20686, on 2012-September-17, 09:07, said:

Suppose you bid 3N over 1N, and partner alerts, so you look down and see that actually you pulled out 3S, which is alertable. Are you banned from realising that you bid 3S rather than 3N at any point in the auction? Of course not. "Expected" must be defined based on what you bid, not on what you thought that you bid.

When you (thought you) bid 3NT, you didn't expect it to be alerted. So the alert, when it came, was unexpected. You are explicitly allowed to use this information for the purposes of L25A1 if you want to change your call, but not otherwise.

[gordontd]

phil_20686, on 2012-September-17, 09:07, said:

If you base "expected" on what you "expect to occur", you are in crazy land, suppose you play a complex system, that has many relays, and in the last 6 outings partner has got it wrong half the time. So you have a relay sequence, which ends in a natural bid, and partner alerts all the relays and doesn't alert the natural bid which ends it. Clearly this is strong evidence that he has got the system right. By your definition, I only expected him to alert correctly half the time, so the fact that he did and therefore clearly remembers the system, is UI to me.

Suppose he has forgotten the system on every single previous occasion, then it is "unexpected" that he alerted correctly, even though it is your agreement? Thus I am surely banned from taking advantage of the shape information that I learned from the relay, since I might have been planning to discount some of it based on past history. :S Surely you can see how the game becomes unplayable under this interpretation?

Fortunately for them, most people in this situation are playing behind screens, which protects them from the UI. Otherwise, I would suggest they play a simpler system, because they would indeed have difficult UI constraints.

[bluejak]

Trinidad, on 2012-September-15, 01:29, said:

It is generally accepted that (in a different situation) it is ok to use partner's (lack of) alert to see that you pulled the wrong bidding card and you are allowed to change to your intended bid.

While true, there is no doubt that this ruling by the WBFLC conflicts with UI Laws for other situations. So we cannot deduce other situations based on this special case.

Fluffy, on 2012-September-16, 03:15, said:

I think we are going too far, if an info that is on plain sight over the table and got there by normal procedures becomes unavaible to me.

There are UI Laws which must be followed. If you think following such Laws is going too far you must take it up with the WBFLC.

However, I think it unfortunate that so many people think that UI Laws are just an artificial method of making the game more difficult for them. In fact the skill in the game is interpreting the legal communications from partner, and allowing further communication [whether voluntary or not] to be used demeans the game.



The player concerned has AI from the failure to announce but UI from partner's failure to alert. Many posters and others I discuss matters with get confused over these situations, asking something along the lines of "Does the AI trump the UI?" or some such. No: the UI Laws do not mention AI, and must be applied.

So the question is a judgement one.

• Has the player got UI from his partner that might suggest a call or play?
  
• Yes, the failure to alert 2♣.
  
• 
  
• Are there LAs to 3NT over 3♣? Primarily, is Pass an LA?
  
• This is very tricky. Presumably for pass to be an LA it would be chosen by a certain number of people [ok, I assume everyone knows how we derive the number] playing a similar system and style, and in the same basic position, ie thinking the opening bid is 1NT but having heard no announcement.
  
• 
  
• Would the opposition have got a better score if the player had chosen the LA [assuming we decide Pass is one]?
  
• Yes, no doubt.
  
• 
  
• Finally, does the UI suggest 3NT over passing?
  
• Yes, no doubt.

So there we are. Of course we always get some people who say that with the auction on the table and the auction being AI this is easy: he is allowed to use the auction. It never seems that easy to me. Would he have remembered with spoken bidding? Would he have even looked down at the auction without the failure to alert? Did not a player in a World Championship not go five rounds before looking down and discovering he had the auction wrong form the start?

One thing that strikes me is that, while the lack of announcement might be relevant [and it is AI] he had not checked the auction before is first call, ie the failure to announce had not woken him up at that point so why should it wake him up later?

I have realised that I have totally overlooked one point: assuming this player still thinks he has used Asptro, what does 3♣ mean? I have been assuming it is natural and to play or constructive. If this is wrong then it is perfectly possible that Pass is not an LA, but then we have to look at other possibilities and other LAs. The big judgement is still what are the LAs to 3NT.

[lamford]

bluejak, on 2012-September-19, 09:41, said:

Presumably for pass to be an LA it would be chosen by a certain number of people playing a similar system and style, and in the same basic position, ie thinking the opening bid is 1NT but having heard no announcement.

Law 16B1(b) makes not mention of what the player thought the auction was for the purpose of deciding on LAs. I think the only factors that determine LAs are the actual auction and the class of player, using the methods of the partnership. So, to poll, we say:

"You overcall 1S with a natural 2C on Ax QJ10x KQxxx xx, and partner bids 3C. What bid do you make? What bids do you seriously consider? Then, and only then:

You have UI from partner's lack of an alert because you thought the opening bid was 1NT. Which of the above LAs is demonstrably suggested by this UI, and now which do you select?"

[mink]

You are a police officer investigating in a case of murder. You have found a person A and some evidence that he is guilty, but you cannot prove it, and A has an alibi. Now you ask a judge for permission to bug A's phone, and when the permission arrives you do so and tape a call where A confesses the murder to a friend. Unfortunately, the judge had forgotten to sign the permission, so it was not valid and the confession is now UI to you. But, now knowing that A is guilty, you take a closer look at some photos made by automatic cameras at the site where the murder happened, and suddenly you are able to identify A on some photo, proving that the alibi is false. What will the jury decide - is the photo legal evidence or must it be ignored, too, because it was discovered only after the illegal bugging?

Karl

[Zelandakh]

That depends on whether police investigations are played by the laws of bridge or not.

Or put another way, The opponents bid to 6NT in an auction where either partner or LHO must have psyched. If partner psyched then I want to pass; if the opponents then double will result in a massacre. While thinking I see partner wink at me, something he did the last time he psyched 3 years ago. Now re-evaluating the evidence I notice they are red against white so the vulnerability clearly suggests that partner was the one that psyched. But then, just as I am ready to pass I see partner stick his chin out, something he only ever does when maximum for his prior actions. I think again and this time notice that LHO opened in third seat. Of course! I think, a classic third seat opening - I have an obvious double. No problem, right?

The point is that comparing the rules of life with the rules of a card game is a silly exercise and we can both come up with ridiculous examples forever and this will only prove how pointless it is.

[mink]

Zelandakh, on 2012-September-21, 02:40, said:

Or put another way, The opponents bid ...

The UI in your text is not even close to the character of UI in the original post (which was no cheating at all only gave a clue that something must be wrong, but not what might be wrong), and the AI in your text is also different - the fact that the opening was in third seat and the and the the vulnerablility are much easier overlooked than an opening bid visible on the table. And what is more, the hints your partner give to you point directly in the same direction as you AI, which is not the case in the OP case.


So I think your example is far more away from the OP case than my police example is, where the similarity of bridge law and public law is incredibly close - in both cases it is forbidden to use UI. I posted it because it might be a good idea to see the case under a different light, but of course it proves nothing.

I would be grateful if somebody who thinks that in the police case the photo can be legally used points out what is the difference between the cases that makes the use of seeing the opening bid of 1S illegal.

Karl

Karl

[mr1303]

The director ruled no adjustment, or more specifically the director didn't adjust the score, because he said he'd have a look at the board once he'd played it, and never got back to us either way. Opponents weren't good enough to notice anything amiss during the play either.

The director didn't really understand why I'd called him over either.

[Lanor Fow]

To not come back to you is poor directing in any case, regarless of whether he though you had a valid complaint or not

[barmar]

mink, on 2012-September-21, 04:11, said:

So I think your example is far more away from the OP case than my police example is, where the similarity of bridge law and public law is incredibly close - in both cases it is forbidden to use UI. I posted it because it might be a good idea to see the case under a different light, but of course it proves nothing.

Although the courts have a rule of "inevitable discovery" -- if they think that the police would have eventually looked closer at the photographs, and the illegal wiretap just hastened the process, the evidence is allowed.

But in bridge, when you have both AI and UI, the UI usually trumps the AI unless the AI narrows you down to just one LA.