White Book editing

Meanwhile I have got involved the revision of the EBU White Book. I have attended a couple of L&E committee meetings and given my editing brief — make it shorter!

Despite this, the White Book was donated material that is currently in the Orange Book, but will not be included in its reincarnation as the Blue Book. The shortening was achieved by deleting sections that said the same thing as earlier sections for the second (or third) time; and worse: sections that said something different than earlier sections on the same subject. There were also sections on out-dated technology and out-dated methods of calculation. Finally a consistent approach to white space has improved the look and saved a few pages.

In between the deletion, there has been much re-writing, new interpretations, new regulations, and new VP scales. The VP scales based on the new WBF VP scales, but the “discrete” (integer) scales — not the “continuous” (decimal) scales in use at the European Open Championships.

A draft goes out to the proof-readers today, and it is ¾ the length of the previous version.

Two phone rulings ... and appeals

Being on the end of a telephone means you can take rulings from anywhere in the world. Last month I had to deal with back-to-back telephone rulings from different countries, and both were appealed. Both were misinformation ruling, with the non-offending side failing to make a game try (when game was making).

1. The first ruling was from a welsh event (a different NBO, if not a different country). I contacted various TDs and players and arrived at a ruling the following morning. I gave a weighted ruling — some proportion of bidding and making game — but not enough to change the match result. The non-offenders appealed but my ruling was upheld.

2. The same day the appeal from the welsh ruling was resolved, I was rung for a ruling was from an EBU event. A couple of telephone calls to TDs and I ruled (before the end of the match): score stands. The non-offending side appealed and this time I was overturned. The AC gave a weighted ruling (some proportion of bidding and making game), which this time was enough to change the match result.

The threat of going in the psyche book

At the national level, the EBU has a procedure for recording psyches: they are classified by the tournament director and a form goes back to the EBU. If a pair is thought to have developed a parthnership understanding that is not permitted or is not being properly disclosed, then the record of the pair can be investigated from the forms. The coverage of suspicious auctions is very patchy but the process of recording the hands by the tournament director can be relatively non-confrontational.

At lower levels, the procedures are usually less well defined, even if they exist. The procedure usually involve a “psyche book”, even if such a book does not actually exist. The notional purpose of the psyche book is to record psyches, but as I have discovered, its main purpose if for established players to intimidate their opponents by threating to put them in the book.

Long ago – and far away

Playing in a league match, I psyched 1♠ – presumably I was third in hand, not vulnerable against vulnerable, with not many points and not many spades (two, I think). Partner dutifly raised to 3♠ ahd we played there, drifting a few off. As soon as it became clear I had fewer spades than I was supposed to, LHO (with the big hand) started to erupt. At the end of the hand, players from other tables assembled to help with the situation and soon it felt like all the players in the teams-of-eight match were gathered round the table – except for my partner and me, who were sent to the far end of the room (in disgrace?). I am sure that there was much discussion of putting me “in the psyche book”, although given that the sponsoring organisation was the league, it probably did not have such a book. Eventually play resumed, with no adjustment, although I am sure the opponents (and some of my team) thought I had cheated.

Years ago – but not so far away

My first introduction to the local concept of the pysche book occurred when a player talked to me for advice. Apparently a hand they had bid had been recorded in the psyche book but the player only learned of this after the event, and the pair had not been given a chance to explain their actions. I looked at the hand and it did not look like a psyche and certainly nothing that looked like a concealed partnership understanding. It turned out that the TD's reasons for recording the hand had nothing to do with psyches and “recorded in the psyche book” was a bit of smoke screen.

More recently and not far away

As TD, I was asked for a bid to be recorded “in the psyche book”; since the player who asked was also a TD (and had directed at this club far more ofthen than me), I presumed he knew what he was talking about. I duly took a note of the hand on an EBU “report of hand” form. After the event, I got in touch with the powers that be, only to discover that there is not psyche book and no procedures. Again, this appeared to be sabre rattling, and totally lost of the player complained of.

Iain [M] Banks

Author Iain Banks (sometimes Iain M Banks) died today, it was not unexpected, but still sad.

My first Iain Banks book was The Bridge, which I bought in Edinburgh while working on the Festival Fringe. Although it was nearly midnight the bookshops were still open, which stuck me as very civilized. Only later did I realize that the bridge in the book is based on the Forth Bridge near Edinburgh.

After that I read the lot, from the The Wasp Factory onwards, including the science fiction — The Player of Games was a big favourite. I also really enjoyed the radio adaptation of Espadair Street and the whole family enjoyed The Crow Road on TV.

It is very sad to think there will never be another Iain Banks book.

Plans for the New Year 2013

Get a new laptop — this one still has problems with angle brackets (<, >) and (semi)colons, which makes writing HTML a bit tricky. I could type “&lt” for < in the last sentence, but the semicolon at the end still has to be cut-and-pasted. The computer is also falling apart in other ways — I had to borrow a different one for the last event of 2012 and it did not have all the right hardware drivers.

A number of county and national events coming up in the first few months of the year, in between I have to fit in a trip to Bad Honnef – Germany for the EBL Tournament Director's course.

The EBU is planning to revise the Tangerine/Orange/White books this year. The obvious areas to be addressed are regulations for alerting/announcements and permitted conventions, but they also want to ensure that the documents only contain material that is accurate and relevant. I am helping by reviewing some of the material in the write book — to see if some of the material can be reduced by a third (or a half).

Last year, I responded to the open invitation from the WBF LC and sent in suggested changes for sixteen or so laws, all from issues that had come up in this blog. In many cases I was just suggesting changes to the wording of the laws to enable the law to operate as intended (this was the sort of changes WBF LC said they were looking for); but I did suggest changes to completely change the law, so that it could operate at all (for example, law 27).

To an extent the motivation behind the blog has been satisfied by the responses to the WBF LC, and there has been less to say on the “new” (2007) laws as the years have gone by. I intend to continue to document the ups and downs of being a TD and some of technical and practical issues. I am constrained by avoiding maligning or embarassing players or TD colleagues whose actions I might describe unfavourably. The EBU TDs have a new code of conduct which requires that internet discussion does not disclose identities. The problem is that incidents that are interesting are rare, and in the small world of English bridge it is difficult for the events and the partipants not to become known.

Brighton Days 9 and 10 - lost weekend

Mentioning my boot in this blog, while wearing my boot at Brighton, has allowed a few more people to put a face to the blogger. If you look on the back page of Sunday's “Brighton Focus” (the daily bulletin) you can see my face in profile: photograph by VixTD.

Saturday flew by: not much time between sessions for the scorers but we did get the evening session scores merged and determined the qualifiers for the final before midnight. Scoring in the playing area and running past midnight can mean competing with the noise from the speedball while performing the (sometimes complex) tie-break procedures to determine the qualifiers.

Scoring the finals on Sunday started with typing in the movement data; surely anyone can type in the movement for eight teams in 7 rounds, someone said later. I agreed that was easy but checking that what you have typed has no errors and will not bring the event to a shuddering halt in round 3 is harder, and takes longer. The movement data was OK and the finals went easily for 6 rounds, except for one incident of less than best behaviour at bridge. But in the last round, bluejak had two rulings at the same table between two teams in contention. We were mentally preparing for appeals and a late finish but nothing happened.

One ruling was a hesitation blackwood (bluejak suggests “BIT-wood”) auction where we ruled that a 2NT opener could pass a sign-off with 3 aces (having showen O or 3). The other ruling was a more complicated misinformation ruling and the result was a weighted score: a lot of a profitable sacrifice and a little of the table result, a making game. The first ruling was a slam swing but the second only swung one IMP because the result at the other table was a making slam.

The finals and the final tidying up was finished in time to relax over a vegetarian meal at Food for Friends: an annual event.

Today's missing link: Fours Stars “B” Final data.

Brighton Day 8 - emotional swings

The day started out sombre but finished with all the fun of the speedball

I had the afternoon off and this enabled me to travel to London for my godmother's funeral. This was an internment in a large North London cemetary, like something out of Dickens. The weather was great and we could listen in peace to the readings and prayers. (When you see these scenes played out in films, it is always raining.)

I arrived back in Brighton for the end of the afternoon session and was in time to do a final score correction and post the results to the internet. Then on to the main event with four sessions and two sections over two floors, and lots of scope for scoing issues. There were a number of disputes during the opening matches - this often happens at the start of a long Swiss Teams events.

Sorting out the scoring for the main event overlapped with the start of the Midnight Speedball pairs, which I was supposed to be in charge of. My colleagues rallied round to kick the event off and when I got there Gary had everything under control. During the speedball, Gary managed to pick up two appeals: one from the main event and one from the speedball itself (but both relating to alerting). I managed to get a “referee” from the bar, and the appeal from the speedball was resolved during playing time, with the referee talking to the players between rounds. Play finished in the regulation 90 minutes and results were available on the internet before 01:45. At some stage during the speedball I tripped over a glass: my foot was ok but the glass was unequal to the encounter with my boot!