[pran]

gartinmale, on 2012-February-04, 04:55, said:

All of them have played the board already. I suppose in a perfect world that doesn't matter.

I think it matters a lot.

In most tournaments I know of all players shall eventually have played all the boards, so if you avoid polling players that have already played the board in question chances are high that they will play that board at a later time.

Strange way of polling if you ask me.

[aguahombre]

bluejak, on 2012-February-03, 18:20, said:

I don't understand: why is there no-one to poll? Of course there are people to poll, other players in the club.

Maybe if you read the whole post, which explains what I meant, you would understand. You might not agree, but you would know what I was saying.

[AlexJonson]

pran, on 2012-February-04, 13:37, said:

I think it matters a lot.

In most tournaments I know of all players shall eventually have played all the boards, so if you avoid polling players that have already played the board in question chances are high that they will play that board at a later time.

Strange way of polling if you ask me.

Good irony Pran as teachers say. I suspect that 'polls' are almost never taken in clubs (if anywhere else). The TD consults somebody else.

I don't particularly mind if the word 'poll' turns out to have a completely different, almost opposed, meaning in Bridge as against the world at large. I do mind if people pretend that polling in it's normal everyday sense is a common, even typical activity carried out by Bridge TDs, if the facts are different.

[pran]

AlexJonson, on 2012-February-04, 14:28, said:

Good irony Pran as teachers say. I suspect that 'polls' are almost never taken in clubs (if anywhere else). The TD consults somebody else.

I don't particularly mind if the word 'poll' turns out to have a completely different, almost opposed, meaning in Bridge as against the world at large. I do mind if people pretend that polling in it's normal everyday sense is a common, even typical activity carried out by Bridge TDs, if the facts are different.

It is my experience that when TD needs a poll it is in order to make a judgement decision there and then.

Most players available for such poll are the participants in the event, TD just has no time to sit down with a telephone and call various players around the country.

(I realize that we have an easier task in Norway with our almost universal style of barometer schedules where all participants play the same boards at the same time, but this doesn't change the fundamental requirement that no player may in any way be informed of a board he has yet to play.)

[bluejak]

aguahombre, on 2012-February-04, 13:42, said:

Maybe if you read the whole post, which explains what I meant, you would understand. You might not agree, but you would know what I was saying.

I have re-read your post, and do not understand why there is no-one to poll. There are other players in the club. Poll them.

Your presumption that none of them understand anything seems a bit outlandish to me.

[aguahombre]

The point being that anyone who might understand would not be peers.

[bluejak]

I think some people are beginning to make me feel that the point of polls is seriously misunderstood. A TD has to make a decision, a judgement decision, in a judgement ruling. It helps him if he asks some players for their opinions. Now, some people seem to think that you take a vote and are bound by the answers. That is highly simplistic and a very poor approach unless the TD is very poor. Much better is for a TD to merely let such polls affect judgement.

Now, if I understand you, you are saying that you as the TD can understand what is going on, and no-one else can possibly understand it. Sorry: that is an unhelpful and wrong and arrogant approach. Players, especially relatively good players, understand quite a lot of what other players think even when they do not believe the logic themselves and would not follow the approach.

The correct way to rule in judgement cases in a club is to tell some players the situation and use their opinions to help you rule. The wrong way is to say arrogantly "These players are too stupid to understand the position" and decide yourself without consultation. Whether the players you ask or not are peers is not relevant: do you really believe you are the only peer in the club?

[aguahombre]

You are talking about using the opinions of others at a club about what they might do in a situation, with given parameters, to make a decision. That is a good thing, and it is "polling" in that sense.

I was arrogantly taking a pot shot at the East and West involved in the OP situation, and using a different "poll" definition which includes "peers" to do so.

[barmar]

Put more simply, it doesn't make much sense to conduct a poll in regard to actions by players who don't seem to know what they're doing in the first place.

However, it's not clear that West in this situation is one of them. While many would open West's hand, many others prefer more sound openings and wouldn't; it's clearly right on the border. The poll would be kind of like a MSC hand where some of the participants would like to abstain, because they would have done something different earlier. In this case, you can tell the pollee: "Your paying client has asked you to make only sound openings, so you passed in first seat -- what do you do now?"

[bluejak]

Let me get this straight. Someone makes a call which you think is a very poor choice. Because you do, you assume no-one in the club will agree with it so you do not do a poll?

That is completely ridiculous.