[chrism]

Phil, on 2013-August-10, 08:03, said:

A SECOND director yesterday took both by partner and I away from the table in the fast pairs when one of our opponents incorrectly explained a bid and gave us a chance to correct it

Side Note: directors actually handed out a lot of time penalties for a change. WD.

It is standard practice in the ACBL for directors to establish whether correct information would have changed your action, and to do so at the earliest opportunity, before your answer may be tainted by fuller knowledge of the hand. Such answers are used as part of the process of determining possible outcomes in the event that an eventual ruling on the hand is needed, though good directors will recognize that an answer made in such such circumstances is merely suggestive rather than definitive. Are you sure that you and your partner were actually being given the option to change your bid rather than just answering such a question?

To do so in a Fast Pairs event is, of course, questionable, given the time constraints. And there is certainly a school of thought that argues persuasively that those questions are in any case unnecessary and inappropriate. In principle, I am a believer in the Don't Ask school; however, when working in ACBL tournaments, I follow common practice (by asking) in order to ensure as much consistency as possible in the way that calls are handled and rulings delivered.

[mycroft]

Yes, standard procedure in the ACBL is to ask each player, away from the table, whether with the right information, they would have done something different at any opportunity the Law does not allow them to actually change. Yes, it's different in the UK, and some people, validly, suggest that forcing people to think about this at the time, rather than "at the table" or giving them the benefit of the doubt, isn't the way the Law should be interpreted. But the ACBL has a history of "win by any means" players, who are very good at saying nothing until they know exactly what "should happen", and then claim that of course that's what *would happen* without the irregularity by the opponents (and frequently they grab for any slight irregularity they can get). So we put you to the trial as soon as possible (of course, we look at the hand as well, and if there's something "anybody" would have got right, or if there's use of UI as well, or if one person doing one thing would have caused their partner to do something they weren't thinking of at the time, then...)

I, personally, explicitly exclude in my asking the call the person is allowed to change (assuming we've been corrected while the last NOS call can be changed). Then I bring them back to the table and tell the opponent who can, that they may change their final call.

But no, the TDs aren't letting you change your call; just retrieving ammunition for the discussion about the ruling.

I'd try to do that *quickly* in the Fast Pairs...

[billw55]

barmar, on 2013-August-10, 01:16, said:

I think this could fall under:

and/or

Neither of these say specifically that you may not detach a card and then change it, but they suggest that it's poor form, and could suggest UI. As someone said, it's a bad habit.

It's the same reason you should avoid starting to pull a card from the bidding box, and then changing it. It's best to do your thinking with your head, not your hand.

Maybe bridge should institute a touch rule like chess.

Yes, like chess. I learned chess first and played competitively from youth to post college, so this became my habit in all games. Non-touch move habits still tend to bug me in other games, such as changing cards before playing them, or "hoverstones" in a Go game, etc. Probably the worst is shuffing checkers around in gammon, because some players accidentally or deliberately put them back in the wrong places, and I have to check them every time.

Personally I would favor a law stating that a detached card is a played card.

[blackshoe]

billw55, on 2013-August-12, 06:41, said:

Yes, like chess. I learned chess first and played competitively from youth to post college, so this became my habit in all games. Non-touch move habits still tend to bug me in other games, such as changing cards before playing them, or "hoverstones" in a Go game, etc. Probably the worst is shuffing checkers around in gammon, because some players accidentally or deliberately put them back in the wrong places, and I have to check them every time.

Personally I would favor a law stating that a detached card is a played card.

Perhaps so, but the law is what it is, and until it's changed we have to go with what it says now.

[jeffford76]

Phil, on 2013-August-10, 08:03, said:

Side Note: directors actually handed out a lot of time penalties for a change. WD.

My experience is that the national Fast Pairs is the one event where this is fairly common.

[Phil]

chrism, on 2013-August-10, 14:12, said:

Are you sure that you and your partner were actually being given the option to change your bid rather than just answering such a question?

Yes I am. In the first instance, my partner made the last call, and I was taken away from the table and asked if I'd like to change my call. I responded no(?).

[Phil]

jeffford76, on 2013-August-12, 10:49, said:

My experience is that the national Fast Pairs is the one event where this is fairly common.

I wrote about this a few years ago after looking at the recaps after the 1st day in Toronoto. You can read about it here:

Fast? Pairs

In Toronto, there were 12 pairs penalized in the evening session.

In Atlanta, here is a summary of the evening session (51 top):

73.0 - 1
51.0 - 2
21.5 - 2
8.5 - 24
5.1 - 1

The most frequent penalty was 8.5 or 1/6 board.

I did hear a cell phone ring twice, which might account for a few of the penalties.

In summary, the directors did a much better job enforcing the time this year, or maybe it was the humidity and southern cooking that was slowing players down

[blackshoe]

Someone was penalized 73 MPs? Was that over several boards, or just one one?

The "standard" penalty for a violation of the phone regs is a full top, and I see two of those, which would account for the twice you heard a cell phone ring.

Ten percent of a top is the "standard" PP in England, and I've often thought it should be standard here. Looks like at least one TD in Atlanta thought the same. I don't get 1/6 of a top though.

[Phil]

blackshoe, on 2013-August-12, 14:42, said:

Someone was penalized 73 MPs? Was that over several boards, or just one one?

The "standard" penalty for a violation of the phone regs is a full top, and I see two of those, which would account for the twice you heard a cell phone ring.

Ten percent of a top is the "standard" PP in England, and I've often thought it should be standard here. Looks like at least one TD in Atlanta thought the same. I don't get 1/6 of a top though.

I don't think it was for a single board. My guess is it was a full board for one slow hand plus 1/2 board for a hand not quite as slow. Roughly speaking.

[barmar]

In the National Swiss, people were asking what the orange dots were next to some of the team names. A director said that they were teams that had time warnings against them, for turning in the results late. I don't know if any of them turned into actual penalties due to repetition.

[Mbodell]

barmar, on 2013-August-12, 22:59, said:

In the National Swiss, people were asking what the orange dots were next to some of the team names. A director said that they were teams that had time warnings against them, for turning in the results late. I don't know if any of them turned into actual penalties due to repetition.

Nice. That's how they track the swiss team here with the same idea of first time is warning, second time is VP penalty.

[Phil]

If you are ever late reporting, get your teammates card, compare for the played hands and report *some* score. After you get the actual result, turn in a corrected one.

[jillybean]

Phil, on 2013-August-13, 07:19, said:

If you are ever late reporting, get your teammates card, compare for the played hands and report *some* score. After you get the actual result, turn in a corrected one.

!

[barmar]

Phil, on 2013-August-13, 07:19, said:

If you are ever late reporting, get your teammates card, compare for the played hands and report *some* score. After you get the actual result, turn in a corrected one.

I suppose it's hard to be caught, but it can't really be legal to turn in a score you don't know to be correct. You also have to get the opponents to go along with this scheme.

Anyway, if they ever start using electronic scoring in the national Swiss events, you won't have this trick available. They really need to do this, as waiting for the directors to enter all the scores and do all the pairing adds about 2 hours to the event. We had to find a substitute for one of the players on our team because he wouldn't be able to make his flight home if he played the last round (if we were doing well he would have rescheduled his flight and stayed, but we were near the bottom of the field so the sub took over).

[billw55]

barmar, on 2013-August-14, 11:01, said:

Anyway, if they ever start using electronic scoring in the national Swiss events, you won't have this trick available. They really need to do this, as waiting for the directors to enter all the scores and do all the pairing adds about 2 hours to the event. We had to find a substitute for one of the players on our team because he wouldn't be able to make his flight home if he played the last round (if we were doing well he would have rescheduled his flight and stayed, but we were near the bottom of the field so the sub took over).

It's not like they have a shortage of bridgemates. Maybe the software does not allow for so many tables yet? There must be a good reason, since using them would be so much better.

[Phil]

barmar, on 2013-August-14, 11:01, said:

I suppose it's hard to be caught, but it can't really be legal to turn in a score you don't know to be correct. You also have to get the opponents to go along with this scheme.

So both teams avoid a penalty for the late reporting? Seems like people's interests are aligned. Many times you don't even bother getting a signed pickup slip anyway. This is a case of begging for forgiveness instead of asking for permission.

I've actually never done this but I witnessed this when I kibbed the Senior Swiss.

[blackshoe]

Funny. I've never signed, or seen the other team sign, a team score slip. In fact, what the ACBL's General Conditions of Contest for Swiss Teams say is

Quote

The captain of the winning team (both captains in case of a tie) must report the result of the match in IMPs as soon as it is known, by bringing both his/her reporting form and the one filled out by the opposing captain to the reporting station

.
Nothing about signing them, and I don't recall a space on the slip for it. I have had TDs tell me they only want the winning team's slip - they don't want to see the losing team's. I suppose this is because they don't want to get confused.

I didn't look at more specific CoC for Team games, so they may have such a provision.

Actually, in the very first team game I played in the US, I was "elected" captain by virtue of the fact I was the only male on the team. I had no clue about this rule, or the way things were supposed to work. One of our matches, which we won, the captain of the opposing team offered to take the score slips up. Since I didn't know the rule, I let her do it. The director scored this match as a win for the other team. I didn't find this out until we were on the way home, and one of my teammates asked "didn't we win this match?" seeing on the results printout we'd "lost" it. It took me several weeks to get hold of the TD — first he was out of town, then he was sick, then he was out of town again — and by then he'd thrown all the paperwork away and we were out of luck. I've learned my lesson though — if my team wins a match, our captain will be turning in the score.

[barmar]

billw55, on 2013-August-14, 12:10, said:

It's not like they have a shortage of bridgemates. Maybe the software does not allow for so many tables yet? There must be a good reason, since using them would be so much better.

Does BridgeMate support Swiss Teams? In the past, they've only use BridgePad (the silver devices with the flip covers) for team games, but only for the regional events. But ACBL has stopped using BridgePad at Nationals; someone told me that they had too many problems with them and switched to using BridgeMate exclusively. So they went back to manual scoring for all the Swiss Team events. I guess we're now waiting for BridgeMate to implement Swiss Team support, or BridgePad to resolve the problems so that ACBL will start using them again.

They used BridgeMate in a side BAM that I played in. It worked for sending the scores to the directors, but had other problems. It didn't understand about cross-overs, so displayed the wrong names for the EW pairs that should be arriving at the table (the directors turned off the player name display). And at the end, when we displayed our score, it didn't match the recap at all (it said we were 50%, we were actually about 67%).

[blackshoe]

I wonder what problems the ACBL had with Bridgepads. We use them here, and while we've had the occasional problem, as far as I know it's usually been down to the director being unfamiliar with them.

[gnasher]

barmar, on 2013-August-15, 10:10, said:

Does BridgeMate support Swiss Teams?

BridgeMate supports Swiss Teams, but ACBLScore doesn't support BridgeMates for Swiss Teams:

http://www.bridgemat...g%20Bridgemates

"While ACBLscore does not currently support 'Remote score entry' for team games, most other scoring programs used around the world have integrated the use of Bridgemates for team games."