[blackshoe]

billw55, on 2013-June-03, 12:12, said:

Which goes to show that penalties work. Too many take the line of thinking that penalties will make people leave and clubs will dwindle. Not so!

So true.

[mamos]

In my (not so) humble opinion, the director's power to suspend is a most useful and powerful action. It is of course to be used sparingly, I guess I've only used it five or so times in thirty years of a lot of directing. None of these suspensions lasted very long and a couple of times they involved two players. As a TD you have the absolute power to suspend (Law 91A) - you'd better not mess up because you might not get any more work, but if a player or players are over excited and have lost their temper or control, are disturbing others or whatever the best plan is to calmly tell them that you want them to stop play and leave the room. You can point out that if they don't you have the further power to disqualify them alongside the Tournament Organiser.

Outside in the corridor, reason and sanity usually prevail, apologies can be made and everyone can get back to the business of playing bridge. The longest this ever took in my experience was about twenty minutes in a Swiss tournament when two players at adjacent tables got into a fist waving, chest thumping altercation about (ffs) who was supposed to be passing boards to whom. They went outside at my request and we assigned for the next round without these competitors. By this time they had seen the error of the ways, kissed and made up and wanted to know if they could carry on in the tournament. All the other players had been assigned and started play so the only solution was to assess disciplinary fines and match the miscreant competitors for the next round.

As bridge players and TDs, we must not be prepared to accept the unacceptable. If players step out of line in a big way, they need to be shown that we won't put up with it. I think it more likely that the offended party will never come back because no one did anything than that the player who is is is suspended or disciplined will decide to give up the game because the TD was not prepared to tolerate bad or offensive behaviour.

Mike

[VixTD]

chrism, on 2013-June-03, 11:20, said:

...threw a tantrum, a few insults and his cards (how's that for zeugma:)?)...

It would be a zeugma if one of the things he threw could not be literally or figuratively thrown. This is an example of syllepsis. (You could have added "...and the match".)

[VixTD]

mamos, on 2013-June-04, 04:07, said:

You can point out that if they don't you have the further power to disqualify them alongside the Tournament Organiser.

Why would you want to disqualify the Tournament Organiser?

[gordontd]

gnasher, on 2013-June-03, 07:41, said:

Did you suspend him, or expel him? That is, would he have been allowed back in the next session?

I suspended him. It was the final session of the event, but otherwise he would have been allowed back in.

gnasher, on 2013-June-03, 07:41, said:

To disqualify a contestant, the TD has to obtain the approval of the Tournament Organiser.

That's the advantage of suspension, in terms of the smooth running of the event.

[gordontd]

gnasher, on 2013-June-03, 07:50, said:

Law 91 refers to suspending or expelling a contestant. A contestant is "in a pair event, two players playing as partners throughout the event; in a team event, four or more players playing as team-mates". The examples we've seen so far involved the removal of a player, with the implication that a five-man team could have continued in the event, and in ArtK's example it sounds as though the remaining player could have continued with a substitute.

Is it actually legal to suspend or expel only one member of a contestant?

Law 92A says "A contestant or his captain may appeal for a review of any ruling made at his table by the Director", so unless you think this refers only to NPCs (in which case the use of "his" instead of "its" as the possessive pronoun for a team would be odd), then in at least one situation the Laws use the word "contestant" in a different way than it defines it. I doubt if that would surprise many members of this forum.

[lamford]

VixTD, on 2013-June-04, 07:48, said:

Why would you want to disqualify the Tournament Organiser?

. But Mike wrote "alongside" not "along with", unambiguously.

[barmar]

VixTD, on 2013-June-04, 07:47, said:

It would be a zeugma if one of the things he threw could not be literally or figuratively thrown. This is an example of syllepsis. (You could have added "...and the match".)

Oxford American Dictionary:

Quote

zeugma
a figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses (e.g., John and his license expired last week) or to two others of which it semantically suits only one (e.g., with weeping eyes and hearts).

syllepsis
a figure of speech in which a word is applied to two others in different senses (e.g., caught the train and a bad cold) or to two others of which it grammatically suits only one (e.g., neither they nor it is working).

So the first parts of the definitions is the same, but the second parts are different ("semantically" vs. "grammatically"). In the way chrism used the word, I think either applies.

[GreenMan]

VixTD, on 2013-June-04, 07:47, said:

It would be a zeugma if one of the things he threw could not be literally or figuratively thrown. This is an example of syllepsis. (You could have added "...and the match".)

I believe "a tantrum" is equivalent for this purpose to "the match" so the original word does apply.

[mycroft]

barmar, on 2013-June-03, 10:19, said:

It's like a poor person saying "You can't sue me." Yes, legally you can sue anyone, but there may be no point in it -- you can't get blood from a stone. So you effectively can't sue them, and in the same way you can't effectively appeal in the above case.

blackshoe, on 2013-June-03, 11:54, said:

Nevertheless they are entitled to appeal if they want to, and the TD is not empowered to deny them this right. There is, of course, as I already mentioned, the possibility of an AWM warning or penalty.

And, of course, the possibility of the AC immediately referring the matter to C&E - or reorganizing as a C&E itself.

One of the nice parts of suspension is that it may not automatically trigger a C&E hearing...if the suspension does its job and the behaviour stops. But it is, I would assume, recorded, in case of continuance. Pushing it, when you're wrong, might be very wrong.

[VixTD]

Quote

[Chambers Dictionary (10th edition)]
Syllepsis: n a figure in rhetoric by which a word does duty in a sentence in the same syntactical relation to two or more words, but has a different sense relation to each.
Zeugma: n a figure of speech by which an adjective or verb is applied to two nouns, though strictly appropriate to only one of them.

So "He upset his coffee cup and a passing waiter" would be an example of syllepsis, as both coffee cups and waiters can be upset, but not in the same sense.

"He smashed the coffee cup and the table cloth" would be a zeugma, because although coffee cups can be smashed, table cloths cannot.

This is how I've always understood these two terms, but it could be that they are used more loosely than I thought.

[VixTD]

lamford, on 2013-June-04, 09:16, said:

But Mike wrote "alongside" not "along with", unambiguously.

I think the ambiguity is rendered by the word order rather than the choice of words. Had he written: "...you, alongside [or along with] the TO, have the further power..." the meaning would have been clear.

(Apologies to those who are trying to have a serious discussion about suspending players.)

[blackshoe]

VixTD, on 2013-June-04, 10:54, said:

I think the ambiguity is rendered by the word order rather than the choice of words. Had he written: "...you, alongside [or along with] the TO, have the further power..." the meaning would have been clear.

(Apologies to those who are trying to have a serious discussion about suspending players.)

What the law actually says is "subject to the approval of the TO". Works for me.

[FrancesHinden]

blackshoe, on 2013-June-03, 00:45, said:

What does "suspend" mean in this law? For that matter what does "current session" mean? If "session" means, as it seems to, a period of time during which contestants are scheduled to play a particular set of boards (e.g., 27 in a pairs session), how do you suspend a contestant for part of a session?

Back to the original question, you might suspend pair A for the remaining boards of their round against pair B but allow them to continue for the rest of the session (most relevant with rounds longer than two boards).

[pran]

FrancesHinden, on 2013-June-05, 05:13, said:

Back to the original question, you might suspend pair A for the remaining boards of their round against pair B but allow them to continue for the rest of the session (most relevant with rounds longer than two boards).

Excuse me, but this sounds ridiculous.

Either you give them a (substantial) PP, or if their action has been severe enough to justify a suspension you suspend them, and then for at least until the next major break between rounds.