Unauthorised Panic

Unauthorised panic is a term that has been coined for a common use of unauthorised information, not always an infraction. A player makes a call that shows some suit or suits and partner misalerts or misexplained, so the player knows that partner has misunderstood the call. At this next turn to call, the player bids his suit (or one of his suit) in an attempt to wake up partner. Usually there are logical alternative to (re)bidding the suit; often bidding the suit again would not itself be a logical alternative.

I suffered an example of this recently: 1♠ – 2♦ – 3♥ – 4NT – 6♦ – 6♥ – 6NT – Pass.

3♥ was an attempt to agree ♦ but was not understood as such and not alerted (UI). 6♦ (after some thought) was unauthorised panic, a second attempt to agree ♦. The same twelve tricks are available in diamonds, spades or NT, so this was not a good score. I was the only one who noticed what had happened.

I do not know what the result would have been if opener had given the correct RKCB response with diamonds agreed, and his partner had continued bidding as if hearts were agreed. Probably the auction would have continued with the same ... 6♥ – 6NT – Pass. So no damage.

Minor penalty card (or not)

Law 50 B

A single card below the rank of an honour exposed unintentionally (as in playing two cards to a trick, or in dropping a card accidentally) becomes a minor penalty card. Any card of honour rank, or any card exposed through deliberate play (for example in leading out of turn, or in revoking and then correcting), becomes a major penalty card; ...

The first sentence suggests that if two cards are played to a trick, a card below the rank of honour that remains unplayed becomes a minor penalty card. This is how we ruled for a number of years.

The second sentence suggests that if two cards are played and the unplayed card was the card originally intended to be played, then that card becomes a major penalty card (regardless of rank). To apply the second interpretation, we need to know which card was intended to be played and there may be no alternative but to ask the player (away from the table). This involves a number of awkward points: the player choosing which of two cards to designate as played needs to know that the status of the remaining card depends on which card was originally intended, the player may lie (or be suspected of lying) in answering which card was originally intended, and are the opponents entitled to know which card was originally intended or just the status of the remaining card (and, if they know the law, they may deduce which card was originally intended)? The originally interpretation avoids these issues, and (as a consequence) is still adopted by many directors.

Torquay

At the recent EBU congress in Torquay, we came across an example where the original intent was clear, and the second interpretation did not lead to these awkward issues, and a card below the rank of honour exposed as one of two cards played to a trick clearly became a major penalty card.

East, a defender, had previously discarded on a diamond trick, played ♣9 to a subsequent diamond trick, but when it reached the table a small diamond appeared beneath the ♣9. The application of Law 58 to the two cards played simultaneously meant the diamond must be played, because it was the legal play. It was clear that East did not think he had a diamond in his hand, so the director was content that the ♣9 had been the card played (exposed through deliberate play) and so was a major penalty card; without having to ask East away from the table.

In retrospect, this is really two examples. It would have been possible to make the determination that the ♣9 was originally intended, without the combination of two circumstances: the earlier revoke and the ♣9 being the original only visible card. If there had been an earlier revoke and both a diamond and a club appeared as played, it may be possible to rule that the card that should have been played to the revoke trick was not the intended card. Alternatively, if the club was played completely obscuring the diamond until the two cards were on the table and became separated, it would be possible to rule that the club was the originally intended played card.

As in many other cases, determining intent and asking questions to determine intent are things the laws should avoid.

Best foot forward

This weekend was a significant step forward: it was the first bridge event I have done without a plastic boot/cast on left foot since the Tollemache Qualifier in November 2008. Last week, I was fitted with a new pair of orthopaedic orthotic shoes and was encouraged not to wear the boot/cast. I still have many medical issues to work through but this was definitely a step in the right direction.

The blog has dried up, despite having time on my hands. I would like to post on various topics: the application of Law 86D, alerting of undiscussed doubles, red fielded misbids; and I would still like to give club TDs some practical advice on law 27. But there never seem to be the right hands to illustrate the points I want to make.

Law 86D

OK, this was a Law 86D case from this weekend.

Board 18 was (spectacularly) fouled a one table, through no players' fault, and had already been played at the other table in the match. I asked the other table if there had been an exceptional result on the board and NS said they defeated 4S that may not be bid or may be bid and made. I tooked at other results on the board and 4S was being bid and was sometimes making. So NS had got a good (if not unusual) result on the fouled board and the conditions for Law 86D were met: one of the non-offending sides had scored a favour result. (But Law 86D talks about the non-offending side, does this imply there must be only one non-offending side for an assigned adjusted score?) So I gave NS an assigned adjusted score for NS+50 score against 50% NS+50 50% NS-420 (+5IMPs); and EW an artificial adjusted score of Ave+ (+3IMPs). Is this the way the law is supposed to operate?

A WBF minute on Law 86D from 2008 was subsequently withdrawn in 2009, and there is much in the EBU White Book (and at the EBL TD Course in Sanremo). These deal with the less obvious case of giving an offending side some benefit of its favourable result on a subsequently fouled board.

Both sides revokes: WBF minute

January is a good time for breaking resolutions! This is discussion of a hypothetical problem (against the stated policy of this blog) which arose from the recent WBF LC meetings. The WBF LC minutes are reproduced in the recent EBU L&E minutes. The item I am interested concerns both sides revoking on the same hand.

7. When both sides have revoked on the same board (Laws 64B7 and 64C), each revoke is examined separately in assessing the equity when that revoke occurs.

What does it mean? Or more accurately, what does the TD do? Having examined each revoke separately and assessed the equity, what does he do with the different answers to arrive at an adjusted score?

Extreme example

	North
	irrelevant
West		A
irrelevant		--
		A K Q J 6 5 4 3
C2 lead		10 9 8 7
	--
	A
	10 9 8 7
	A K Q J 6 5 4 3

South plays in 3NT: North and West follow suit and can not win any tricks. South plays clubs from the top and East discards SA on CJ, and wins C6 with C10. East plays diamonds from the top and South discards HA on DJ, and wins D6 with D10.

South makes 8 tricks. Both sides have revoked: so we examine each revoke separately. Without East's revoke South will make 9 tricks. With East's revoke but without South's revoke, South makes 4 tricks; or 5 tricks if we apply the one trick revoke penalty for East's revoke. This gives two or three separate results: 3NT= and 3NT-5 (and 3NT-4); which one do I assign?

For what it's worth, my vote is for 3NT=, ignoring both revokes. But I don't see how this fits with the wording of the minute.

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.