[lipi]

I was sitting as west in a no-psyche tourney. In the last hand of the first round...

Scoring: IMP

---

... the bidding went
       2♠ - DBL - pass
3♦ - pass - 3♥ - pass
4♥ - pass - pass - DBL
ALL pass.

Nothing was alerted, the result was down 3 for 800.
After the hand south called the TD and complained about the strange 2♠ bid with only 5 spades and 4 points.

The TD said "you need to alert weak and also that you only have 5" and adjusted the score to 4♥= for N/S.

After I pointing out to TD that a weak 2 does not have be alerted and that I don't see why the adjusted score is not an AVE+- the reply was "no.... and also 5carder, prohibited opps to bid properly". Well....

The first question is whether a weak does or does not have to be alerted. (I know it does not hurt to alert it.)
I do not question that the 5card suit should be alerted, especially since it was agreed upon. (Though nobody asked us.) I do question though that any adjustment is neccessary. (If BBO allows procedural penalty then that would be acceptable.)

But what to do with such a TD? I read somewhere else that abuse@ does not deal with such cases. And in fact I do really appreciate TD's running regular free tournaments, and I haven't had another bad experience with this TD before. The best I can hope for is that he/she is a reader of the forum (and that I get some supportive respones). But any other idea is also welcome.


Added in proof: In the original version of this post it was west who called the TD, now it is changed to South, which was what actually happened.

Added in proof 2: I also messed up the adjustment in the first version, it should have been 4♥= for N/S, not for E/W. Now it is corrected. Sry for all the mistakes I must have been very tired yesterday.

[FrancesHinden]

I don't believe a weak two should be alerted, though I would do so (I am accustomed to doing so in f2f bridge in England where it is alerted).

If a weak two doesn't need alerting, then I don't see why an agreement to play 5-card weak twos needs alerting.

However, I do not see that NS were damaged by any lack of alert, so there shouldn't be any adjustment based on a lack of alert of the weak two (or its 5-card nature or its lack of points). Their strange result came because South made a take-out double holding a penalty double.

The only cause for an adjustment is whether the 2S bid is deemed to be a psyche. That depends on your agreement about what a weak two shows. If you have agreed "0-10 HCP, 5+ spades" (say), then it is in range and clearly not a psyche. If you have agreement "5-9, 5+ spades" then it is out of range, but not a psyche (however I would suggest if you open a lot of 4-counts your agreement is not accurately described). If you have agreed, say, "9-13 HCP, 5+ spades" then it is a psyche and, as it's a "no psyche" tourney, I agree it should be av+/av- as you have broken the rules.

p.s. West called the TD? Really?
p.p.s adjusted to 4H= EW? Really?

[scoob]

i wonder how long this type of behaviour will continue before fred is forced to either address it directly or risk losing patronage over it... there's gotta be a threshold somewhere, yes?

[kgr]

In Belgium weak 2 is not alertable, but recently there was an article defining a weak two bid. If I remember well then it also included minimum 2 honneurs in the suit.
eg something like: AJxxxx
If you open weak 2 with weaker suits then you have to alert it.
If you agreed to open weak 2 with 5-cards then you should alert that.

Fot the rest I agree with Frances: no adjustment. Bad result for NS was not caused by the weak opening.

[luis]

I usually don't say my opnion about non-bridge issues and playing with special rules is not bridge but ok....
There's nothing to alert and south's double is irrational, so result stands, next hand.

[Walddk]

As you all know, we have this discussion on numerous occasions. I suggest the following mandatory table notes:

Table note 1:
"We do not follow the Laws of Duplicate Bridge and adjust, or don't adjust, as we see fit".

Well, fine, then you know if you want to sign up or not.

Table note 2:
"We do our utmost to base our rulings on the Laws of Duplicate Bridge".

Also fine, then you can expect to be treated as you should be.

However, there is one serious problem: if all TDs/Hosts would be honest with themselves, there would be about 5-10 tourneys a day in the latter category! Sad but true.

Roland

[keylime]

Roland,

Well said. :-)

[hrothgar]

Comment the First: I am assuming that either North or South were the ones to call the TD. Its rare that one calls the TD on your partner, particular when you just got a top...

Comment the Second: The ruling was a travesty. North-South's bad result has almost nothing to do with East's 2♠ opening. Rather, the "partnership" clearly wasn't on the same wavelength regarding what a direct seat double of a weak 2 bid shows.

[the hog]

You said this was a no psyche tourney? Well what about the psychic takeout double made by South? That should be subjected to a procedural penalty according to the laws of this tourney.

[mike777]

The_Hog, on Jul 26 2005, 07:43 PM, said:

You said this was a no psyche tourney? Well what about the psychic takeout double made by South? That should be subjected to a procedural penalty according to the laws of this tourney.

No wonder I play no tourneys come on now......

Well said.

This was no psyche tourney...I call director on that takeout x.

[coyot]

If the expected "weak 2" is a 6-10 6card AND you have an understanding with your partner that you open weaker and shorter, you should alert.

If there is no agreement, you're allowed to bid 2♠ on pretty much what you like - and I would argue loudly with a TD that would blame me for psyching (1 card and 1 pt from normal opener is NOT a psyche).

Report the TD to abuse@. If they refuse to do anything about it, confront him in person (i.e. get him to confirm what he did AND then publicly trash him for not knowing the rules of bridge.)

I'm a begginner BBO-TD myself - and if I ever happen to make such a bad decision, feel free to nail me to the cross and let me bleed publicly

[helene_t]

Such incidents happen so often that I can immagine why Abuse doesn't deal with them. It would be a Sisyfos project to deal with them.

Ask the director to read this thread. Chances are that he will learn from his mistake. Also, other TDs who read this forum may learn even before they make such mistakes themselves.

Report this to Abuse only if you have evidence that the TD dammaged you because of your skin colour, sexual preferences or religion, or because he was bribed by NS. I add a smiley here because it's my personal opinion, I do not make any statement about the official policy of Abuse.

As for the (i)relevance of the fact that it was a no-psyche tournament: I don't think that any natural 2♠ opening should be called a "psyche" as long as it is based on at least four spades. I might open 3♠ with 5-5 in the majors, speculating that opps will be stuck because they have insufficent hearts for a double and 4♣/♦ would be Leaping Michael's, and I would call such an action a "tactical bid" rather than a psyche. I might open a weak two with 13 HCPs and call it a "slugish bid" rather than a psyche.

[hotShot]

lipi, on Jul 26 2005, 06:28 PM, said:

I was sitting as west in a no-psyche tourney. In the last hand of the first round...

Scoring: IMP

---

... the bidding went
       2♠ - DBL - pass
3♦ - pass - 3♥ - pass
4♥ - pass - pass - DBL
ALL pass.

Nothing was alerted, the result was down 3 for 800.
After the hand west called the TD and complained about the strange 2♠ bid with only 5 spades and 4 points.

The TD said "you need to alert weak and also that you only have 5" and adjusted the score to 4♥= for E/W.

After I pointing out to TD that a weak 2 does not have be alerted and that I don't see why the adjusted score is not an AVE+- the reply was "no.... and also 5carder, prohibited opps to bid properly". Well....

The first question is whether a weak does or does not have to be alerted. (I know it does not hurt to alert it.)
I do not question that the 5card suit should be alerted, especially since it was agreed upon. (Though nobody asked us.) I do question though that any adjustment is neccessary. (If BBO allows procedural penalty then that would be acceptable.)

But what to do with such a TD? I read somewhere else that abuse@ does not deal with such cases. And in fact I do really appreciate TD's running regular free tournaments, and I haven't had another bad experience with this TD before. The best I can hope for is that he/she is a reader of the forum (and that I get some supportive respones). But any other idea is also welcome.

Just to be sure i got that right:

1) West called the TD about his partners call
2) TD rules east's bid was a violation of the tourney rules
3) TD adjusts west/east's result from -800 to +620

Even a TD not knowing the laws of bridge should be able to guess that you should not adjust a board just because one player did not like what his partner made.

To the case:
1) weak 2 bids should be alerted
2) east is weak with ♠'s so it is no psyche
3) south dbl seems to be penalty, no need to alert it
4) the score should only be adjusted, if N/S claim damage and in fact got damaged by the missing alert, since N/S did not complain, there should be no adjustment

I hope that the TD just made a mistake and did not intend to do what he did.

[lipi]

Sry... I messed up the seats
It was not me who called the TD, it was the South player. I think all other data were correct.

[Brandal]

Walddk, on Jul 26 2005, 12:10 PM, said:

As you all know, we have this discussion on numerous occasions. I suggest the following mandatory table notes:

Table note 1:
"We do not follow the Laws of Duplicate Bridge and adjust, or don't adjust, as we see fit".

Well, fine, then you know if you want to sign up or not.

Table note 2:
"We do our utmost to base our rulings on the Laws of Duplicate Bridge".

Also fine, then you can expect to be treated as you should be.

However, there is one serious problem: if all TDs/Hosts would be honest with themselves, there would be about 5-10 tourneys a day in the latter category! Sad but true.

Roland

There is one thing I dislike more than psyches,and
that is people complaining after a bad score when
nothing has been done wrong.

I think we have to live with the occasional bad ruling
if we want a decent number of tourneys.

I think few tourneys a day with good TD's will damage
BBO more(being so few),than many tourneys where
the occasional ruling is wrong.

Can't be that many bad rulings,they never happen at
my table.

As for the ruling in question....must be one of the worst
I've read about

[guggie]

I am all puzzled. According to the bidding given, NS played 4h, doubled by west

[lipi]

Seems I still didn't get everything right
The adjustment was 4♥= for N/S... (which makes it only worse)...

And normally I wouldn't mind bad rulings since it is only a game. But in a swiss tournament a -10 imp instead of the deserved +10 puts you on the last table, and you even lose the joy of playing against successful opponents.

[Brandal]

guggie, on Jul 27 2005, 07:08 AM, said:

I am all puzzled. According to the bidding given, NS played 4h, doubled by west

[coyot]

Brandal, on Jul 27 2005, 06:42 AM, said:

I think we have to live with the occasional bad ruling
if we want a decent number of tourneys.

I think few tourneys a day with good TD's will damage
BBO more(being so few),than many tourneys where
the occasional ruling is wrong.

Can't be that many bad rulings,they never happen at
my table.

As for the ruling in question....must be one of the worst
I've read about

You're assuming that if we want the TDs to know the rules, there will not be enough TDs?

I don't think so. I've had a few conflicts or misunderstandings with TDs before - and in all cases, they were caused by lack of experience or knowledge of the rules on the part of the TD - and in all cases, it ended well, with the TD seeing my point (or looking it up on the ACBL website ).

I suggested it once already and will do it again:

Let's have a TD-ability test!

Give the TD status only to people that show at least basic knowledge of the rules (covering i.e. the following):
1) wrong claims (and the rule of "any logical play, not necessarily the best play")
2) non-alerted bids (weak 2 on a 5card and 5 HCP is NOT a psyche)
3) full disclosure rule (asking the defendants about explicit and implicit agreements)

I mean, we can have a robot for replacing reds with subs, we don't need a person for that! We can have a robot for starting a tourney and telling the players things enclosed in ♥ . But we NEED people that KNOW the rules and can apply them.

And I think there would be enough people able and willing to do the TDs for free even if the standards for TDs were higher.
(I mean, most of the hard TD work and complicated rules is basically eliminated in the virtual space - hesitations, gestures, bids and leads out of turn, revokes...)

[Brandal]

lipi, on Jul 27 2005, 07:17 AM, said:

Seems I still didn't get everything right
The adjustment was 4♥= for N/S... (which makes it only worse)...

NS shown as EW in diagram?

Or?