Rescued from the archives: alerting mania

In the past, it was permitted to request one's opponents not to alert. The EBU (and others) have removed this option and from time to time people ask why. David Burn gave a long answer to "why" on RGB which I have pointed to in subsequent threads. It always takes a long time to track down the original posting, so I am copying it here (without permission).

Prologue

David Burn wrote in message news:38C7B408.92CA38A3@btinternet.com: Since I actually do know the answer to the question of why the L&E Committee of the EBU decided that players should not be given the option to ask opponents not to alert, I am prepared to tell anyone who may still be interested.

Ian Payn wrote: Go on, then...

Don Varvel wrote in message news:38C9E205.BBFA1314@ihome.com: I'm still reading too, and curious.

Alerting mania

Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
From: "David Burn"
Date: 2000/03/11
Subject: Re: alerting mania

What follows is long and not especially interesting. However, since various people have expressed an interest in it anyway, I will summarise the thinking which led the L&E Committee of the EBU to remove from players the right (which they had previously enjoyed) to request that the opponents not alert conventional calls that would otherwise require an alert. I will also attempt to show some of the reasons why EBU alerting regulations are as they are.

What is the purpose of an alert? It is to make the opponents aware that what they might expect a call to mean is not what it in fact means. To let the opponents know what your auction means is a requirement of the Laws:

Law 40B
A player may not make a call or play based on a special partnership understanding unless an opposing pair may reasonably be expected to understand its meaning, or unless his side discloses the use of such call or play in accordance with the regulations of the sponsoring organisation.

and the alert procedure in its various forms is the almost universal way of implementing the required disclosure. One could argue, in fact, that if I make a call whose meaning I believe that you, my opponent, may not reasonably be expected to understand, it would be *illegal* for our side not to alert. Therefore, you could not require our side not to alert since you cannot require us to break the Laws. However, it would be possible for the SO to incorporate in its regulations a clause saying that you do have the right to forbid alerts. The question is: why has the EBU not done this?

Now, whereas it would be theoretically possible to have a "free-wheeling" procedure under which players use their judgement about what opponents might reasonably expect a call to mean, such a procedure would not be at all satisfactory for a number of what I hope are obvious reasons. Therefore, the great majority of SOs make regulations as to what does and does not require an alert, without reference to what the opponents may reasonably be expected to understand. The approaches adopted vary from SO to SO. In England, we have a relatively simple rule that you alert anything which is not natural [for example, Stayman], and anything which though natural is "unexpectedly" forcing or not forcing as the case may be [for example, 1H (1S) 2D non-forcing]. You also alert anything which, though natural, is affected by other parts of your methods in a way that the opponents might not expect [for example, if you play that double of a 4C splinter requests a heart lead, then you should alert a pass of a 4C splinter].

This, of course, leads to some anomalies - the requirement to alert Stayman is the subject of frequent and not unjustified ridicule. However, it has long been the L&E's policy that the great majority of tournament players know the current rules (which partially cover three sides of A5 paper) and, though they may grumble about some of them, by now even the "irrational" rules have become firmly-ingrained habits which it would be folly to ask players to break. It would be possible to create exceptions to the basic rules in order to conform more closely to the intent of Law 40B - to ensure, in other words, that only genuinely unexpected calls were alertable - but this would require a far more complex and far more volatile set of regulations (such as presently exist in the ACBL, for example). It is our experience that the vast majority of players do not care what the rules actually are, as long as they are comprehensible and they don't change.

Contributors to this list and to this thread are, of course, not among that "vast majority of players", a fact which some of them would do well to bear in mind. There is a view that in certain positions, alerts do not work for the benefit of the opponents (who do not care what the auction means while it's happening, because they have no intention of bidding anyway and can find out at the end), but do work to the benefit of the alerting side (because they help to avert possible misunderstandings). Now, unlike previous defenders of the EBU position, I am not going to pretend that this is not true in a small minority of cases. Of course, there are people who will think for some time about partner's bid of 4NT and then alert it, in order to make sure that partner knows that the forthcoming bid relates to the number of aces in the hand and not the number of cards in the suit bid. Of course, there are practitioners of relay systems who ensure that their auctions stay on the straight and narrow by alerting anything to which they are going to give a conventional response and - worse - not alerting anything over which they want to bid the final contract. Such people are cheating; they are intentionally breaking the Laws:

Law 73A1
Communication between partners during the auction and play shall be effected only by means of the calls and plays themselves.

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

If you suspect that your opponents are going to indulge in such practices, does it not make sense that you should be able to remove the illegal means by which they communicate, through asking them not to use it? No, it does not. You are at the bridge table to abide by the Laws, but that is the extent of your concern - the actions and the consciences of your opponents have nothing to do with you. You are not at the bridge table to enforce the Laws. That is the responsibility of the tournament director, to whose attention you should draw any irregularity that you think has been committed, and let him deal with it.

Nor are you at the bridge table to call your opponents cheats. The only reason you could have for asking the opponents not to alert is that you suspect they will use their alerts to their benefit. A lot of the "experience" to which David Stevenson alluded was of precisely that nature; this exchange used to happen with some regularity:

G:	"Don't bother to alert your bids."
H:	"Why not? Are you suggesting...?"

Of course, G was indeed suggesting that H and his partner might be a pair of cheats, but since he could not say this, he would bluster something nonsensical and the game would invariably begin in a spirit of acrimony.

This, however, was not the main difficulty. The fact of the matter is that the great majority of pairs are not cheats. Players who use complex methods that require frequent alerts are, by and large, aware of their ethical responsibilities and take care not to use information from partner's alerts. Auctions in which such information may be made available and used are in any case uncommon.

But the average player has a lot to contend with in terms of the alerting regulations anyway. Though they are, as I have said, relatively simple, they are not trivial. It is enough to expect players to know *what* they should alert. It is too much to expect players to remember *whether* they should alert at all because five minutes ago this particular opponent asked them not to. Another part of our "experience" was this common scenario:

G:	"Don't bother to alert"
	(never, incidentally, "Please do not alert", for the point is to instil a sense of inferiority and trepidation).
H:	"OK then".

One the second board of the match, H would forget and alert Stayman, or something else innocuous. G would sigh, roll his eyes to the heavens, and say in a long-suffering tone: "We did ask you...". H would be discomfited, and for the rest of the match he would be concentrating hard on breaking the habits of alerting that are second nature to the way he normally plays. This, of course, would impair his concentration on the bridge itself, with the inevitable consequences.

The simple fact of the matter was that the "Do not alert" gambit was not itself free from taint. Most of the time, its effect was not to prevent illegal communication but to intimidate - and that, in a number of cases, was precisely what its practitioners intended. Whereas the chance that illegal communication will occur is small on any given deal, the chance that a player will find himself disadvantaged by having his habitual practices disrupted - practices normally required by the Laws - is not inconsiderable.

Another part of our experience was this:

G:	"Don't bother to alert."
H:	"OK then. Three hearts."

Three hearts showed a spade pre-empt. Now, the only way for G and his partner to discover this would be to look at the convention card (or ask H's partner) - but they would have to do this even when it showed a heart pre-empt, so that vast amounts of time were being wasted while "don't alert" pairs found out that their opponents were conducting an entirely natural auction. Moreover, you would be surprised - for all of you are pure in heart - at the number of ways there are to look at an opponent's convention card in order to ensure that your partner will know that your three spades overcall is for takeout on *this* occasion. More time had to be wasted at the end of just about every auction while the "don't alert" pair found out what it meant. And, of course, the "don't alert" pair were at a considerable disadvantage when it came to avoiding the transmission of unauthorised information in a number of quite simple positions. Suppose you had:

xx AKJ10x xxx Axx

and RHO responded 2D to LHO's 1NT. Now, if that were natural and non-forcing you'd want to bid 2H, but if it were a transfer that's the last thing you'd want to do. So you'd ask, be told it was a transfer, and pass it. Now everyone at the table would know you had hearts - partner could not act on this information (though that did not usually stop him), but the opponents could. You may say that the "don't alert" pair had only themselves to blame for this, and I may agree with you - but part of our responsibility as a governing body is to prevent people from breaking the Laws if we can.

In summary, the main reasons why we do not permit pairs to prevent their opponents from alerting are:

• To avoid the unpleasantness inherent in any such request by people who see it as a slur on their integrity (which, of course, it is);
• To avoid players being placed in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar position through having to change firmly-ingrained habits of alerting;
• To prevent the waste of time that happens when auctions have to be rehashed at the end of every hand; and
• To prevent the transmission of unauthorised information that will inevitably occur during some unalerted auctions.

These reasons are not arbitrary; they are (as David Stevenson suggested) based on the considerable experience of members of the then L&E Committee, all seasoned tournament players though possessing varying levels of expertise.

We acknowledge that information may be illegally transmitted through alerts, but we do not believe that it is for the players to attempt to prevent this, any more than it is for the players to attempt to prevent any other breach of Law by their opponents. If players have reason to believe that a breach of Law has occurred, their proper course is to summon the tournament director and seek the protection that the Laws afford them.

I hope that this has been helpful. I am of course prepared to discuss the question further should this be thought of interest. I should say in conclusion that I am a member (and former Chairman) of the L&E Committee, but that although I have attempted to represent its position as fairly as I am able, none of the above should in any sense be considered an official opinion.

David Burn
London, England 

Fun at the Tollemache Qualifier 2009

The Tollemache Qualifier is an intense, gruelling event for players and TDs. I had three appeals, relating to Law 46 B (different intention is incontrovertible), Law 21 B (misinformation / "fielded misexplanation") and Law 40 B (illegal agreement).

One hand was free from ruling but was a curious lead problem; in particular the defence have to finesse the ten in dummy's A10xxx to defeat 6NT. (As I discovered on the train home, trying to make sense of the double dummy analysis on the hand records.)

Board 22	K 8 7 5 3
(Rotated)	8 7
	4
	A 10 5 4 2
J 3		Q 6 2
Q 6 5 3 2		10 9 4
7 3 2		10 6 5
K 8 7		Q J 9 3
	A 10 9
	A K J
	A K Q J 9 8
	6

Some played in 6D or 6S and some tried a grand slam. You always lead a trump against grand slams? A trump is the only lead to defeat 7D but a trump is the only lead to let through 7S.

According to the double dummy analysis, South can't make 6NT but North can. The defence must lead clubs otherwise declarer can duck a spade to establish his twelth trick. North ducks the club and the defence must continue clubs, otherwise declarer can reach this position.

	K 8 7
	-
	-
	A 10
J 3		Q 6 2
Q		-
-		-
K 8		J 9
	A 10 9
	J
	8
	-

The D8 executes a double guard squeeze, North discarding another spade.

If East leads a club it must be an honour and whether he leads the other honour or a small club at trick two, the club guard is isolated; whichever of East or West retains a club honour is caught in a simple squeeze. South throws HJ on a small club return and throws a spade on a second club honour from East.

But if South is declarer, West must lead a small club, finessing C10. East takes the finesse and can lead CQ at trick two: both defenders are able to retain a high club. This destroys the timing for the double sequeeze, as South is prematurely sequeezed out of one of his major menaces.

Easy game!

Application of Law 12

There is still some strange wording in Law 12 covering what was previously described as the distinction between "consequent" and "subsequent" damage; "subsequent" damage could have been due to wild or gambling action by the non-offending side, by their serious error, or just "failure to play bridge". However, I think the effects are clear: for the offending side (OS) we adust if they obtain a table result better than they would have without the infraction; but the non-offending side (NOS) do not get an adjustment for damage which is self-inflicted, defined as due to a serious error or wild or gambling action (WoGA).

In practice there are four cases: all damage is self-inflicted, some is self-inflicted, no self-inflicted damage, or no damage at all. There are scores we have to consider

1. the score for the Actual table result (including any serious error or WoGA)
2. the score for the result Before infraction (assigned by Law 12C1c or Law 12C1e)
3. (≥ A) the score for the result that Could have been scored, with the infraction but without serious error (could be weighted?)

The overall damage can be divided as

• Real damage: D_R = B − C
• Self-inflicted damage: D_S = C − A

Starting from C ≥ A there are four cases

• C ≥ A > B: no advantage, no damage, no adjustment;
• C ≥ B ≥ A: all damage self-inflicted, no real damage D_R ≤ 0 (virtual damage), NOS get A, OS get B;
• B > C = A: no self-inflicted damage, D_S = 0, NOS get B, OS get B;
• B > C > A: real damage and some self-inflicted.

In the final case, the OS get B and the NOS get A + B − C. The adjustment for the non-offending side can be seen as either

• actual score + real damage: A + D_R = A + (B − C); or
• adjusted score − self-inflicted damage: B − D_S = B − (C − A) = A + B − C.

Examples

NS bid to 4H and EW "use UI" to compete to 4S, which is doubled. In defending 4SX, NS might revoke (a serious error) and lose a trick they would otherwise score. The result in the other room is 4H=, NS +420. This is the normal result in 4H, so B (the result before the infraction) is 0 IMP. The type of adjustment depends on the table result.

4SX-1 NS +100. Revoke

A = IMP(100-420) = −8 IMP. Without the revoke: 4SX-2 NS +300. C = IMP(300-420) = −3 IMP.

Real damage D_R = 3 IMP, self-inflicted damage D_S = 5 IMP.

Offending side (team of EW) get 0 IMP, non-offending side (team of NS) get 0 + (−8) − (−3) = −5 IMP.

4SX-2 NS +300. Revoke

A = −3 IMP. Without the revoke: 4SX-3 NS +500. C = IMP(500-420) = +2 IMP. No real damage (D_R < 0).

Offending side get 0 IMP, non-offending side get −3 IMP (table result).

4SX-2 NS +300. No revoke

A = C = −3 IMP. No self-inflicted damage (D_S = 0). Both sides get 0 IMP.

4SX-3 NS +500.

A = +2 IMP. No damage. Table result for both sides.

Club TD approach to insufficient bids

Another year, another Club TD course (Book Rulings), and more problems with Law 27. See RMB Bridge Laws: Some Law 27 examples with club TDs

The general instructions to EBU TDs is to take the offender away from the table to establist the "meaning" of the insufficient bid and to establish which bids will not silence partner ("rectification" bids). This is a lot of faff for a (playing) club TD, who does not expect to have to collect this sort of information before making a mechanical ruling, and does not expect to have to talk to players away from the table.

As last year, I used the example of 1NT-(Pass)-1S, where 1S was intended as an opening bid. The offending side's responses to 1NT are: Stayman, Transfers, 2S is something artificial related to the minors, 3suit is natural GF. On the course, we see that there is no correction under Law 27B1a and (with prompting) we need to look at 2H and 3S under Law 27B1b. The insufficient bids shows spades and opening values: does this apply to 2H/3S? 2H does not show opening values, so is not a "rectification bid". 3S does show spades and opening values, so looks like it has a more precise meaning than 1S; but would all hands that bid 3S have opened 1S? Some 3S responses to 1NT might have opened an Acol 2S — but this is probably a negative inference that the "liberal interpretation" encouraged by the WBF LC means we should ignore. So 3S is a "rectification" bid (phew!)

At club level, I think we need to simplify the approach to be taken by TDs. Short of ignoring Law 27B1b, it is difficult to see how any simplification can avoid having to talk to the offender away from the table. Even if the TD is prepared to rule on whether a call is covered by Law 27B1b at the table, the offender will not be prepared to make a "rectification" call without checking first with the TD whether or not his call will silence partner. All I can suggest is that the TD uses the spiel I suggested last year RMB Bridge Laws: Law 27: untested spiel and includes in the second option the calls he considers to be rectification calls. If the offender thinks there are other rectification calls only then will he need to have a discussion with the TD away from the the table.

Revised spiel

To offender: don't say anything about why you made the insufficient bid, it may only make things worse.

To LHO: you will have the option of accepting the insufficient bid but first you should hear what happens if you do not accept.

TD decides whether Law 27b1 applies, and whether there are rectification calls under Law 27B1b; based on the existing auction, the convention card and questions at the table about offending side's agreements.

To offender:

• You have as many as three options: the first two, if applicable, will not silence partner, the third option will. We can discuss these options away from the table.
• Firstly, as the insufficient bid and lowest sufficient bid in the same denomination are not artificial, then you have the option of making that sufficient bid and partner will not be silenced.
  OR ... as the insufficient bid or the lowest sufficient bid in the same denomination is artificial, then you do not have this option.
• Secondly, if there is a sufficient bid, pass, double or redouble which means the same as, or is more precise than, the insufficint bid, then you have option of making any such call and partner will not be silenced.
  These calls are ... OR But there are no such calls.
• Finally, you can make any other sufficient bid or pass and partner must pass for the rest of the auction.

To LHO: Do you wish to accept the insufficient bid? You can ask the opponents about their system, but you are not entitled to ask the intended meaning of the insufficient bid.

(If necessary, talk to the offender away from the table, determining which calls will or will not silence partner.)

Allow offender to call, and announce whether partner is silenced. Wait for the end of the auction and ask to be called back if there is a problem.

No postings in August or September

Blog got mentioned in English Bridge.

Today is the anniversary of the surgery on my foot, see no posting in October. I have still got health problems: most obviously a boot to imobilise my left foot, which I have been wearing for eight months.

Can 4NT be "incontrovertibly not artificial" ?

Another more interesting insufficient bid from Devon!

W	N	E	S
1S	2H	X	3H
X	4H	5D	P
4NT
5NT

North pointed out that 4NT was insufficient, and West said something like "oh dear, well I can make it good" and bid 5NT, someone suggested it wasn't as simple as that and the TD was called. I (the TD) decided that I should talk to West away from the table, and she told me that she intended 4NT as natural (to play). I decided that I would err on the side of allowing the auction to continue, prepared to fall back on Law 27D if the other side were damaged. So I ruled that if North did not accept 4NT, the correction to 5NT must stand (Law 27C) but would not silence partner. I thought I was ruling under Law 27B1(a) that 4NT was "incontrovertibly not artificial" but perhaps I was ruling under Law 27B1(b) that 5NT had "the same meaning as" 4NT.

5NT ended the auction and was destined to go off. I told the table to call me back and left the table.

But it's never that simple.

I returned to the table to point out that if I had ruled that 4NT or 5NT was artificial, then East would be silenced anyway. Meanwhile, West had explained that there had been a misexplanation. The first double had been explained as take-out, showing the minors, and the second double had been explained as take-out, equal length in the minors; but West had intended the second double as penalties. The misexplanation did not appear to damage North-South but I guess there was heaps of unauthorised information.

I repeated my instruction to be called back but I heard no more: I guess 5NT went off.

Insufficient bids in Torquay

Good

A few natural insufficient bids passed off almost without mention of the new law. At least twice, a player had make an insufficient bid of a new suit in a competitive auction, I found myself saying

If you bid three hearts (or any other call that shows hearts) then partner can bid again, otherwise ...

Bad

There was a more complicated example:

W	N	E	S
1NT (12-14)	2C (nat)	2S *	3C
2NT

Nobody had asked about 2S, so I did: "balanced invitational or slam try". So if South had passed 2NT shows a minimum 1NT, I asked: "Yes". I ruled that 2NT was not artificial and that Pass would show the same as 2NT, so West could bid 3NT or Pass without silencing partner.

Ugly

I made the mistake (!) of hanging around for the rest of the auction.

W	N	E	S
1NT (12-14)	2C (nat)	2S *	3C
2NT/P	P	3S	End

So I intervened and reminded EW of their obligations, both thought that the explanation of 2S was (still) correct. Their card showed "Modified Lebensohl" (but this meant system on, with stolen bid doubles). East said he had made a mistake, and North asked if West was allowed to know that East had made a mistake. I answered "No" and asked NS to call me back; but the hand records showed 3S was three off, and I was not called back.

No surprises that East had a weak hand with five spades, it was more of a surprise that North had four clubs and five diamonds.

VBA code to calculate par for zero-sum butler

Function par(ByVal scores As Range, Optional ByVal delta As Integer = 10)
    ' scores is the range of cells containing the scores
    ' delta  is the smallest difference between scores
    On Error GoTo par_error
        If scores.Count = 1 Then    ' dispose of trivial case
            par = scores.Value
            Exit Function
        End If
        
        Dim data
        data = scores   ' read range into array, for efficiency
        Debug.Assert IsArray(data)
        
        Dim par1 As Integer, par2 As Integer
        Dim sum1 As Integer, sum2 As Integer
        ' set initial values to bracket the par value
        par2 = 8000
        par1 = -par2
        sum2 = scores.Count
        sum1 = -sum2
        While par2 - par1 > delta
            par = delta * Fix((par1 + par2) / (2 * delta))
            
            Dim sum As Integer, i As Integer, j As Integer
            sum = 0
            ' calculate the net sum of imp scores against par
            ' imp_() is a function to calculate the IMP scale
            For i = LBound(data, 1) To UBound(data, 1)
                For j = LBound(data, 2) To UBound(data, 2)
                    sum = sum + imp_(par - data(i, j))
                Next j
            Next i
            If sum = 0 Then Exit Function
            ' if we haven't found par, adjust the bracket
            If sum < 0 Then
                par1 = par
                sum1 = sum
            Else
                par2 = par
                sum2 = sum
            End If
            ' check we haven't lost the plot!
            Debug.Assert par1 < par2 And sum1 < 0 And 0 < sum2
        Wend
        ' if we can't find a par value giving sum = 0
        ' take the par will the smallest sum ...
        If (-sum1) < sum2 Then
            par = par1
        ElseIf sum2 < (-sum1) Then
            par = par2
        ' ... splitting ties choosing par nearer zero
        ElseIf par2 > 0 Then
            par = par1
        Else
            par = par2
        End If
    Exit Function
par_error:
    MsgBox "Error in par: " & Err.Description
    par = CVErr(xlErrValue)
End Function

Butler scoring and other abuses of the IMP scale

I posted some random thoughts on butler scoring on a thread IBLF and earlier I promised something here on butlering so here it is.

IMP scale

I think that when you compare a pairs score with par, the difference should be doubled before converting to IMPs. The par score should not be thought of as the result in the other room but as the average of the two results at the two tables of a match. To recover the "teams result", the diffence between one real score and the average/par score needs to be multiplied by two before converting to IMPs. If you like, the IMP score can then be divided by two to represent the actual contribution of each of the pairs in a team. (Obviously this won't affect the relative scores of different pairs.)

Calculating par

Someone else on IBLF said it was obvious that the scores for all the NS pairs should sum to zero, since this determines the par score it should be used to calculate par. Other ways of calculating par approximate to this but you might was well use this desired property as the definition. Implementation is easy, some sort of binary chop will work. You need some rule for deciding what to do when there is no zero-sum par. I suggest minimizing the absolute value of the sum of the NS scores, splitting any tie by picking closest par to zero.

Barking alternative to butler for teams of eight

Another abuse of the IMP scale is to score teams-of-eight by aggregating the four scores and converting to IMPs. This is done in the Eastern Counties League and the Berks and Bucks league. You can use forms of butlering to compare the performance of the pairs in such teams-of-eight matches, or you could use cross IMPs. I think the right form of cross IMPs is

IMP(A+B+C+D) + IMP(A-B+C-D) + IMP(A-B-C+D)

to calculate the score for pair A, with pair B sat the same way, and other pairs of the team (C, D) sat the other way. This formula can be extended if there are multiple matches (in different divisions) played at the same time with the same boards. A pair is compared with all other pairs sat the same way against all possible pairs of pairs sat the other way; with all scores from four different tables. If there are two matches (8 tables) then the three terms above become 105, and if there are three matches (12 tables) there are 495 terms. When I implemented this, I described the scoring option as "barking" (a pun on my name and anticipation of other people's reaction).

Self promotion

Effective today, I have been promoted to EBU National Tournament Director — to join an illustrious list. Thank you to the various colleagues who have taught and encouraged me in my rise through the ranks, starting from the county director's course in 1990.

Inadvertent designation is an offense?

I had a routine application of Law 45C4(b) ("... may change an unintended designation ... without pause for thought"), except that the next player had managed to play a card.

Declarer called for ♦10 from dummy and then said he meant ♣10, he said he had been looking at the dummy's clubs at the time, but RHO had followed to ♦10 with ♦7. I was content that the designation had been inadvertent and ruled that the ♦7 can be withdrawn (and must be, if RHO has a club) and that ♦7 was authorised to the LHO and unauthorised to declarer, and to call me back if the defence felt damaged.

Then I checked this in the law book, which said what I thought it said, but Law 45C4(b) ends with "see Laws 47D and 16D1". Law 16D says that withdrawn actions are authorised to non-offenders (16D1) and unauthorised to offenders (16D2). Elsewhere in the laws, there are references to Law 16D or specifically to Law 16D2, but this is the only reference to Law 16D1. I don't understand why the laws have gone out of their way to specify just Law 16D1 here.

• Do the laws think there is no offending side in Law 45C4(b)?
• Specifically, was information arising from ♦7 authorised to declarer?

Alerting doubles in the EBU

The EBU has decided to keep its current regulations for alerting of doubles. There are a number of issues with the current regulations which players and TDs have to be aware of.

Undiscussed doubles

A Brighton in 2007, a player doubled the final contract after the opponents had bid three suit and partner had overcalled in the fourth. Partner decided the double was penalties, based on general bridge knowledge rather than any partnership agreement, and did not alert. The opponents felt misinformed but got no satisfaction from the TD, the AC, or the commentators in the EBU Appeals booklet.

EBU regulations say that this double was alertable unless it was takeout but elsewhere that inference from general bridge knowledge are not alertable. However, general bridge knowledge often says that doubles are penalties, either through bridge logic or as a default. Does the regulation about general bridge knowledge apply to doubles? If so, should the regulations on doubles indicate that the meaning of an unalerted double is either "takeout" or "no partnership agreement".

Lightner doubles

Doubles of the final suit (slam) contract, which ask for a lead of a suit (not trumps) are alertable. This may not have been the intention but it is agreed that this is what the regulations require. But sometimes it is unclear if a double should be Lightner, or there is no partnership agreement only general bridge knowledge. This leads to the same problem as "Undiscussed doubles".

I'll post this now, but there will be a follow-up on doubles of pass-or-correct and preference bids, and 1m-(1H)-X. I also intend to blog on the subject of butlering: my "barking method" for calculating par and a modified scale (half the imps of twice the difference scale).

Normal, irrational, likely, legal plays

The forums (RGB, IBLF, BLML, BBO) are awash with discussions of claims, as ever. I can not resist a posting on the different classes of plays that the (current) claim laws require a TD to consider.

1997 Laws

In the 1997 laws there is

• "normal" (Laws 69, 70 and 71), includes careless or inferior but not irrational (footnote 20);
• "irrational" (end of Law 70E), because of the footnote I had interpreted this as the opposite of normal (probably erroneously);
• "legal" (Law 71A), I think we understood this and, with the proper interpretation of Law 71, we did not need to distinguish this from "normal".

So, with my naive understanding of "irrational" in Law 70E, we only needed to understand what was or was not "normal", as in "normal play of the remaining cards" or "normal line of play".

2007 Laws

Now, in the 2007 laws there are again three different classes of plays, but now I think they are all independent.

• "likely" (Law 69B), a clear change from 1997;
• "normal" (Laws 70 and 71), includes careless or inferior (footnote 22);
• "irrational" (Law 70E1), without this word occurring in the footnote.

The change from "normal" to "likely" in Law 69, and the removal of "irrational" from footnote 22, indicates to me that there are now three independent tests to be applied in Laws 69, 70, and 71. For now all I can do is record the different terms, we will have to await experience, case law, and interpretation to distiguish them.

Bounded rationality

It is clear in that "irrational" in the 1997 laws could not interpreted literally, leading the Ace from A10xx opposite KQ9xx was normal but also irrational. A friend, bridge partner, and mathematician who mixes with economists, introduced me to the concept of bounded rationality which is used by economists and game theorists to label some kinds of irrational behaviour from supposedly rational agents. The idea is that rational agents (e.g. humans) don't have time/effort/inclination to calculate the correct rational response in a given situation, so there is a bound on the agents' rationality which does not allow the agent to complete the calculation, and may lead them to behave irrationally.

In understanding how we describe claims ruling, it is useful to think that some normal plays (including careless or inferior) could be classed as boundedly rational while remaining strictly irrational. I don't know whether this concept would help in interpreting "irrational" in Law 70E1.

WBF LC documents on the 2007 laws

The World Bridge Federation Laws Committee has recently produced two documents with interpretation of the new laws (or advice on interpreting the laws).

• Minutes of a meeting of the WBF Laws Committee in Beijing on Friday, 10th October, 2008.
• Commentary to the 2007 edition of the Laws of Duplicate Bridge by Ton Kooijman, Chairman of the WBF Laws Committee.

In particular, the Committee favour a liberal approach to Law 27B, noting that there is an inclination to allow artificial correction of some insufficient bids even in cases where the set of possible hands is not a strict subset of the set of hands consistent with the insufficient bid. This "mildly liberal interpretation" will allow play to continue; with Law 27D being used at the end of the hand, if the offending side have gained through the insufficient bid.

This appears to mean that TDs will ignore negative inferences from potential meanings of the insufficient bid, inferences which would exclude hands from the set of hands consistent with the insufficient bid, and so exclude some hands shown by a potential correction. So in the auction 1D-(1S)-1H, we would allow a correction to a double under Law 27B1(b), although some hands would not respond 1H (because they would bid a longer club, or spade, suit) but would nevertheless make a take-out double. If these negative inferences become relevant, the TD will adjust under Law 27D. As ever, we need to see more examples to see whether this liberalism will be for the best.

P.S. I have returned to work (see No posting in October), still with some medical issues to be played out. Hopefully, more bridge and directing in the coming months.