BBO Discussion Forums: Is Pass an LA? - BBO Discussion Forums

billw55, on 2012-September-24, 12:19, said:

This is true if you count HCPS, but not if you count tricks.
You have at least 10 Hearts between you and partner and the opps are bidding 5 ♠ vul against not. How many Heart tricks will you have? Now count your tricks in diamonds and spades. So you have one defensive trick. Partner passed 5 ♠, he did not show 3 defensive tricks. So the best you can do is to switch from + 100 to +300- and the worst case is much worse, so why do you bid?

But obviously you are in VERY good compagnion. Most experts here on BBF seems to play a double as: I have a real 5 ♥ bid, not just a sacrifice. Please do something intelligent. But please do just pass if you have two defensive tricks and still no play for 6 ♥, anything else would be silly.

RMB1, on 2012-September-24, 15:02, said:

Is this true? I think the following poster has a good point:

mich-b, on 2012-September-24, 07:41, said:

East apparently did not feel comfortable about doubling, so there must be a fair chance that East would run if 5♠xx is passed back to her. So if pass by West is a logical alternative, why isn't it possible to award a weighted ruling?

jallerton, on 2012-September-24, 16:14, said:

I agree, other rulings were possible.

So what I learn is not to make rash statements about what rulings are possible.

lamford, on 2012-September-24, 06:59, said:

I was consulted when returning by car from losing a k/o match in Carlisle - perhaps I am the "leading TD" - and after ending the telephone call, I considered what I would bid and asked my three team-mates.

All four of us would have bid 6♣ directly over 5♠ and considered nothing else.

All four of us would have bid 6♣ over the redouble and considered nothing else.

I do not believe pass is an LA and no longer consider it close.

bluejak, on 2012-September-24, 16:54, said:

All your poll suggests is that people for whom pulling the redouble was an the only LA would not be in a position to do so, having already bid over 5S. The only plausible reason I can think of for not bidding directly over 5S would be to avoid pushing N/S into slam, but West did not mention this. West's statement sounds unconvincing: E/W actions on the board do not look as though they were low variance efforts designed to protect a lead, so why should that consideration suddenly be so paramount as to rule out LAs now that there is UI?

This post has been edited by c_corgi: 2012-September-24, 18:24

Mr. Corgi: Your contention doesn't seem to be in line with the facts. Bluejack's four people would have bid 6C direct over 5S. They would bid 6C over the redouble.

The argument that if West didn't bid over 5S, the UI suggests doing so over 5SX is valid. But, West was never in that position. The redouble changes the math drastically, especially considering the state of the match. Passing is no longer logical, and it is a masochistic alternative.

aguahombre, on 2012-September-24, 17:57, said:

See edit, but not sure if that was what you were referring to. The facts you reiterated are the ones I was discussing. They mean that Bluejack's pollees are not peers of West.

I don't think there is a large enough pool of players to restrict the definition of a peer to only those who would have bid the same way up to the point of the poll.

It also might be an awkward process to select "peers" and then eliminate them by that criterion. At some point you just have to say, "All right, so a cow flew by earlier; what do you do now?"

I think pass by West over 5♠xx is a logical alternative. for which the test is pretty mild iirc - something like "in his contemplations".

The ruling is still a bit complex after that as there is surely a good chance that East will rip the redouble himself at least some proportion of the time. Also, I think South's redouble should probably be treated as a SEWOG as it's basically telling the opps to sacrifice in 6♥ which seems to be a serious error unrelated to the possible infraction of West taking advantage of the UI.

If weighted rulings are allowed in the jurisdiction (sorry I can't remember what the situation is in the EBU on that) I'm going let NS keep the table result and give EW something like 50/50 table results and 5♠Sxx=.

That might actually result in both teams losing the match, which I imagine means a a close loser from another part of the bracket survives to the next round - but need to see what the regs say about that.

mrdct, on 2012-September-25, 04:01, said:

That would be amusing, classifying the only bid that happened to give NS a chance to win the match as a SEWoG, as Pass would have lost by 5. A bit like VixTD once adjusting the score to what some would have viewed as a SEWoG.

The point is that it is no surprise that players who wanted to bid the round before want to bid now, and it is entirely consistent with the hypothesis that everyone will give the same answer to both questions.

If we can only find players who would bid the round before, the question we need to ask is whether the subsequent round of bidding has made passing more or less attractive. Unless passing has clearly become less attractive there is no reason to suppose it would have gone from this player's preferred action to "not an LA".

mrdct, on 2012-September-25, 04:01, said:

I am not sure that you can have a weighted ruling in a head-to-head match, which this was. If you decide that East would pull the redouble half the time, then EW would still gain on the board - as making 6Hx is so huge. Trawling through the EBU Appeals booklets, however, I find no evidence of this type of "change of mind" ruling. East doubled 5S because she thought it was going off, not with the intention of pulling any redouble to 6H. RMB1 did not consider the possibility of East pulling - or we would have needed to play extra boards in case the weighting led to a tie.

You can give weighted and split scores, but the final result of a knockout teams match only depends on the difference between the two IMP scores, not what they are. So the team that "loses" by fewer IMPs than their opponents will win the match.

bluejak, on 2012-September-24, 16:54, said:

Now this is really interesting.

Why should 6♣ be considered rather than 6♥? We are already committed to the six level. We have at least nine hearts and probably ten. How likely is it that 6♣ is going to be a better contract than 6♥? Why give out this potentially valuable (and as yet totally undisclosed) information to the opponents? Or is the intent to encourage partner to bid 7/6 with a double fit and a spade void, should ops try to save? That doesn't seem like a good idea with this zero control hand.

I like this thread, learning a lot.

mrdct, on 2012-September-25, 04:01, said:

No.

Quote

(Emphasis is mine.)

billw55, on 2012-September-25, 06:50, said:

Who's making? Who's saving? I don't know, but if I bid 6♣ *partner* might. Sure, so might the opponents, but when I bid 6♥ and they bid 6♠ (because 5♠ was making, clearly, and 6♥ is a good sac, and we're 20 down, so the odds say go), how much harder is it for partner to get his decision right than if I show him the massive two-suiter that I opened on? And imply that I might be a little light on defensive tricks (because I didn't give partner a chance to double)?

6♣ is *never* playing. It's just giving partner the tools to make the right decision over 6♠. After all, if -1200 in 5♠xx is "so bad", -1430 or -1660 in 6♠ is just as bad. I bid 6 because I think it's a save against -650/-680; I bid 6♣ because 7 will be a save against -1430, but not against +100/+200.

Yes, we need to find people who are willing to give up -6x0, to see if they're willing to give up -1200/-1600 when partner says "you opened, this is going down". I hope I'm not one of them.

Another question is whether this is a FP situation (almost certainly not), and if it is, is pass-and-pull is compared to the alternatives.

After comments form lamford here, from a very senior TD I heard recently, and based on several letters to me, perhaps it is time I made a clear statement.

When giving an adjustment in an event in England or Wales, you give it under Laws 12C1A, 12C1B and 12C1C. It does not matter whether it is matchpoints, imps, point-a-board, hybrid [Pachabo] or aggregate. It does not matter whether it is a UI case, or MI, or Law 64C [a revoke] or any other Law which leads to an adjusted score. It does not matter whether it is a duplicate, a teams round robin, a league match, an inter-County event, an individual, knockout teams or a friendly match between two clubs.

This means that such scores may be weighted or split. Furthermore, the norm is for it to be weighted. It is [should be] unusual for it to be a single score.

It is my view, based on my reading of the Laws, that the same should apply to any other non-Law 12C1E jurisdiction, which I believe [though am not sure] applies to everywhere outside the ACBL. However, I think weighted scores have not been understood properly by some jurisdictions, which is why they are quite rare in some places, and in some places they may only be given by ACs, which is both illegal and ridiculous.

bluejak, on 2012-September-24, 16:54, said:

If you all would have done something else over 5♠ and are using that as part of the basis of your ruling, then you are not considering whether passing 5♠XX is an LA for a player who was willing to defend 5♠.

Given that this player was willing to defend 5♠, I think it's impossible to argue that it is illogical for this player to defend 5♠XX, especially given the conditions that the opponents are down in the match which make partner's double sounder than usual and the opponent's redouble less sound than usual.

mrdct, on 2012-September-25, 04:01, said:

Usually, when we are talking about SEWoGs, we are discussing errors made after the infraction and not before. After all, errors made prior to the infraction already are supposed to have inflicted their own damage.

I would rule that pass is an LA for West and assign a weighted score based on what I think the probability is that East is running. If that probability is high, this may indeed lead to an overall result that is worse then the result NS would have gotten if South would have passed the double. In that case, it would be justified to call the redouble an error.

But is isn't a SEWoG in the sense of Law 12, since the damage that was done (going from a potential score of 5♠XX making or 6♥X-1 to a certain score of 6♥X-1 only) is 100% caused by the infraction.

Rik

mycroft, on 2012-September-25, 10:10, said:

Everyone, as it turns out! It is Lamford's misfortune that his teammates did not play well enough on the other 31 boards to make this hand not an issue.