[dickiegera]

My partner whom has a history of not looking at her bids and makes to me what seems to be a mechanical error.

Am I allowed to ask partner if her bid is correct?

It turns out she thought I bid 3♠, not 2♠ and she thought she was bidding 4♠.

Thank you

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[VixTD]

No, you are not allowed to ask.

Quote

[Law 73B1] Partners shall not communicate by means such as the manner in which calls or plays are made, extraneous remarks or gestures, questions asked or not asked of the opponents or alerts and explanations given or not given to them.

It probably won't cause a problem if there's a clear reason that prompted the question, for instance if partner placed some bidding cards on the table and the top one fell onto the floor, or if it was an insufficient bid (in which case the director should be called). If you ask in the normal course of events there's a danger that you could communicate something about your hand (perhaps that it makes partner's bid unlikely), or wake a forgetful partner up to the meaning of a call.

[aguahombre]

There is nothing "mechanical" about her failure to pay attention to your bid. No, you cannot ask if her bid was correct. VixTD has covered the rest of it, IMO.

[barmar]

dickiegera, on 2013-December-10, 07:58, said:

It turns out she thought I bid 3♠, not 2♠ and she thought she was bidding 4♠.

What did she actually bid?

[dickiegera]

barmar, on 2013-December-10, 11:13, said:

What did she actually bid?

She bid 4NT.

I did not believe that bid to be possible and asked if that was her bid. I believe that I should not have asked.
She then changed her bid to 4♠.

I always need to check on revokes with her. She will revoke and later show up with a card in that suit even when I ask about a revoke.
She has 5000+ points

[chrism]

dickiegera, on 2013-December-10, 16:05, said:

She bid 4NT.

I did not believe that bid to be possible and asked if that was her bid. I believe that I should not have asked.
She then changed her bid to 4♠.

I always need to check on revokes with her. She will revoke and later show up with a card in that suit even when I ask about a revoke.
She has 5000+ points

You are correct - you should not have asked. I hope that "changed her bid" is a terse way of saying "called the director, explained that the call was a mechanical error to which her partner had drawn attention, and was permitted by the director to change her bid" and that the director duly admonished you and administered a quarter-board procedural penalty. I fear that I hope in vain.

[Vampyr]

If your partner has trouble with the bidding cards, you should be permitted to request that the bids at your table be made verbally as well.

[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2013-December-10, 20:20, said:

If your partner has trouble with the bidding cards, you should be permitted to request that the bids at your table be made verbally as well.

If she has a physical infirmity that makes it difficult for her to use the box, I agree. But if she's just inattentive to what she's doing, no dice. Bridge is a mind sport, and paying attention is a skill that's supposed to be tested by the game.

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2013-December-11, 16:20, said:

If she has a physical infirmity that makes it difficult for her to use the box, I agree. But if she's just inattentive to what she's doing, no dice. Bridge is a mind sport, and paying attention is a skill that's supposed to be tested by the game.

Perhaps the inability to pay attention is due to a mental infirmity. I think she should still be allowed to play the game, even if it is a mind sport.

[blackshoe]

How far do you take "mental infirmity"?

[aguahombre]

blackshoe, on 2013-December-11, 19:16, said:

How far do you take "mental infirmity"?

Terry asks me that about twice a session.

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2013-December-11, 19:16, said:

How far do you take "mental infirmity"?

I guess it depends what it is. It seems as if the most likely candidates are an attention disorder or the start of dementia. If it is the first, the player should try to sort it out if possible, although I can easily imagine that she may not wish to take medications for it. If the second, it would be cruel to deny the person the pleasure of bridge while she can still basically play.

[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2013-December-11, 23:48, said:

I guess it depends what it is. It seems as if the most likely candidates are an attention disorder or the start of dementia. If it is the first, the player should try to sort it out if possible, although I can easily imagine that she may not wish to take medications for it. If the second, it would be cruel to deny the person the pleasure of bridge while she can still basically play.

How far would you take this? If a person has a memory disorder, should we allow them to ignore the Law prohibiting memory aids? If it's a short-term memory disorder, would you keep the quitted tricks face up? If it's a problem with long-term memory, should they be allowed to consult their own convention card?

I can understand not wanting to disenfranchise people who are at the mercy of problems outside their control. But in physical sports we don't generally go out of our way to accomodate injured players. Instead, there are often different leagues (e.g. the Paralympics) where they can play among their peers.

[GreenMan]

What barmar said. Duplicate clubs and tournaments aren't denying anyone the opportunity to play bridge, just the opportunity to play in their events if they can't meet some minimum level of competency. Someone with a mental infirmity that prevents them from participating meaningfully in the auction cannot "basically play."

[dickiegera]

barmar, on 2013-December-11, 16:20, said:

If she has a physical infirmity that makes it difficult for her to use the box, I agree. But if she's just inattentive to what she's doing, no dice. Bridge is a mind sport, and paying attention is a skill that's supposed to be tested by the game.

As I said before she has 5000+ pts, has played for 40+ years. I have for the past year been asked by her to always ask when she fails to follow suit. I do, saying for example "no spades' and on occasion she will say "none' and later we find out that she did have a spade.

Dementia? Maybe. She claims she is dyslexic.

Thank everyone for your imput.

[barmar]

We used to have a player in our district who had multiple sclerosis, and couldn't pick up cards with his hands. He had a rack that his cards were put on; usually an opponent would remove the cards from the board, and spread them out on the rack without looking at them (the player at the previous table was requested to sort the cards when returning them to the board). And he had a rubber-tipped pointer that he used to push cards off the rank onto the table. This worked reasonably well, but if he were frequently pushing wrong cards with that pointer I think we would have had to find some other solution -- some problems simply make the game unplayable.