[FrancesHinden]

 Zelandakh, on 2014-September-10, 05:55, said:

Which side made the extraneous remark? I would be extremely upset if EI provided to me by my opponents resulted in an adverse ruling against us or in my feeling that I could not the value bid and thereby getting a bad score. Should we not be penalising the team that shouted this out?

The third team - who were not just playing a different match but in a different event - were indeed penalised. Not least because they had already been asked to be quiet when scoring up before the remark was made. That is non-contentious.

[blackshoe]

 jallerton, on 2014-September-10, 14:45, said:

but I need to know whether I have played the board in question so that I can know whether the TD should be notified.

Do you? Or should the principle be "when in doubt let the TD figure out," so that you should call him anyway?

[aguahombre]

A player received EI that bidding on over 4S would be a good thing.

He thought it applied to this board.

It did apply to this board, and he used the EI.

I go with Ed's orginal post.

Only if considering a PP against the loudmouths would I politely ask them to show me the hand they claim they were really talking about. I smell a porky, but that's just me.

[Vampyr]

 aguahombre, on 2014-September-10, 22:21, said:

A player received EI that bidding on over 4S would be a good thing.

He thought it applied to this board.

It did apply to this board, and he used the EI.

I go with Ed's orginal post.

Only if considering a PP against the loudmouths would I politely ask them to show me the hand they claim they were really talking about. I smell a porky, but that's just me.

It's not just you; I asked above if there was another board in the set to which the comment might have applied.

[gordontd]

 jallerton, on 2014-September-10, 13:35, said:

Does this mean that the TD is required to ascertain to begin with whether the information did relate to a board already played or not?

It certainly seems to me from the discussions that followed this case that it would be a good idea for the TD to investigate this. If it turns out not to be this board the players can be reassured, although of course that might just transfer the problem to another board.

[sanst]

 pran, on 2014-September-10, 03:25, said:

(Be aware that both sides at table 1 should be considered "not at fault"!)

I think that is a crucial point. We don't know the hands, but N might have a decent hand for his 5♥ bid. If you decide on 4♠= for both sides, because N's bid might have been inspired by the remark, you give NS a lousy score for a fault which is not theirs. IMHO you should award both sides a score which could have been obtained without the EI, that's either Avg+ for both or 4♠= for EW and 5♥x-1 for NS. Wether the obtained result (5♠x-1) is due to some unwise action on E's part, is also dependent on the actual hands and might also been taken into account when adjusting the score.

If the remark was indeed about another board, I would let the result stand. We always get information on boards, if only for the declarer asking rather loudly for a certain card from the dummy, the dummy being slightly deaf.

[pran]

Many years ago I had a bidding problem whether to go for slam or just land in game.

This was in a barometer event so everybody played the same boards during the same round, it was our last board in the round, and while trying to make my decision I suddenly could not avoid hearing from a discussion at another table (where they had completed their round) some remark either that slam was cold or that slam was down one (I no longer remember which it was).

The point is that this remark completely disturbed my thoughts to the degree that I was unable to reach any sane decision. This I told the director who agreed to award us Ave+/Ave+.

I still think that this is the correct ruling: The extraneous remark had ruined our possibility to carry out a normal auction and the board was destroyed beyond repair.

Whether the remark related to this same board or an entirely different board is completely irrelevant, the interference with other players' considerations (in this case mine) is exactly the same.

[aguahombre]

 pran, on 2014-September-11, 13:16, said:

Many years ago I had a bidding problem whether to go for slam or just land in game.

This was in a barometer event so everybody played the same boards during the same round, it was our last board in the round, and while trying to make my decision I suddenly could not avoid hearing from a discussion at another table (where they had completed their round) some remark either that slam was cold or that slam was down one (I no longer remember which it was).

The point is that this remark completely disturbed my thoughts to the degree that I was unable to reach any sane decision. This I told the director who agreed to award us Ave+/Ave+.

I still think that this is the correct ruling: The extraneous remark had ruined our possibility to carry out a normal auction and the board was destroyed beyond repair.

Whether the remark related to this same board or an entirely different board is completely irrelevant, the interference with other players' considerations (in this case mine) is exactly the same.

In your anecdote, the ruling seems to be correct; play stopped because the TD agreed with your contention it was unplayable.

If the TD, however, had let play resume, he then would have to determine whether the EI influenced the result. I don't think he can go back to a+ a+. But, you would still be right that the exact board which was being discussed is irrelevant --the overheard remark was the EI and it either influenced the result on this board or it didn't.

[nige1]

 pran, on 2014-September-11, 13:16, said:

Whether the remark related to this same board or an entirely different board is completely irrelevant, the interference with other players' considerations (in this case mine) is exactly the same.

IMO whether the remark is about a board played in this competition should be relevant to the severity of PP that the director imposes on the loud-mouth.
This thread and Lambert's thread -- Are they perhaps related?

[jallerton]

 blackshoe, on 2014-September-10, 21:43, said:

Do you? Or should the principle be "when in doubt let the TD figure out," so that you should call him anyway?

If I call the TD every time I hear any remark from another table, the TD will be very busy and there will be an awful lot of wasted TD time. If other players do the same, then the EBU will need to employ a lot more TDs.

My practical (but apparently illegal) policy is to only call the TD when I judge that the EI I have received might conceivably affect my actions on a hand I may be yet to play.

[aguahombre]

 jallerton, on 2014-September-11, 15:53, said:

If I call the TD every time I hear any remark from another table, the TD will be very busy and there will be an awful lot of wasted TD time. If other players do the same, then the EBU will need to employ a lot more TDs.

Lord forbid if the TD's would be forced to crack down on violations in order to keep the same number of TD's.

[blackshoe]

 jallerton, on 2014-September-11, 15:53, said:

If I call the TD every time I hear any remark from another table, the TD will be very busy and there will be an awful lot of wasted TD time. If other players do the same, then the EBU will need to employ a lot more TDs.

My practical (but apparently illegal) policy is to only call the TD when I judge that the EI I have received might conceivably affect my actions on a hand I may be yet to play.

The TD's job, or a large part of it, is to make rulings. If that's what he's doing, I don't see how one can consider his time "wasted". Put another way: so he's busy; so what? It is not in the nature of the job that the TD should expect to sit around doing nothing for several hours.

It's not up to players to judge that kind of thing, so yes, I'd say for a player to make that judgement is illegal.

 aguahombre, on 2014-September-11, 16:05, said:

Lord forbid if the TD's would be forced to crack down on violations in order to keep the same number of TD's.

Indeed.

[pran]

 aguahombre, on 2014-September-11, 13:50, said:

In your anecdote, the ruling seems to be correct; play stopped because the TD agreed with your contention it was unplayable.

It is no anecdote, it is a true story from real life something like 20 or 30 years ago

[aguahombre]

 pran, on 2014-September-11, 16:27, said:

It is no anecdote, it is a true story from real life something like 20 or 30 years ago

On my planet, anecdotes are true stories.

[pran]

 aguahombre, on 2014-September-11, 17:01, said:

On my planet, anecdotes are true stories.

Fair enough, but my Oxford says: short amusing or interesting usually true story.

(There is an anecdote about Haakon VII (Norwegian beloved King 1905-1957) who was asked if a particular story was true and answered: No, but that is a good story, I must use it sometime!)

[barmar]

 pran, on 2014-September-12, 01:21, said:

Fair enough, but my Oxford says: short amusing or interesting usually true story.

Apparently context dictates. My dictionary has two definitions. One says it's a story about a real incident or person, the second says"an account regarded as unreliable or hearsay". So he meant the first type, you thought he meant the second.

[aguahombre]

To be perfectly clear, which I apparently rarely am: We will be in a thread discussion/debate regarding some incident ---real or not. A poster will contribute a similar situation from his/her experience to be used for comparison/contrast or just plain interest.

If I believe they are true I call them anecdotes --seems like as good a word as any. If not, I call them hypothetical if they add, or something less polite if they hijack.

[jallerton]

 blackshoe, on 2014-September-11, 16:14, said:

The TD's job, or a large part of it, is to make rulings. If that's what he's doing, I don't see how one can consider his time "wasted". Put another way: so he's busy; so what? It is not in the nature of the job that the TD should expect to sit around doing nothing for several hours.

It's not up to players to judge that kind of thing, so yes, I'd say for a player to make that judgement is illegal.

When you play, do you ever hear anything that is being said at another table, Ed?

Suppose that you hear Mr X at another table saying "small heart". You have UI about a board you may be yet to play: that Mr X is declaring a hand, and that his partner has at least one heart on an unknown board. Do you call the TD? If not, you are making a judgement which is illegal (your words).

[blackshoe]

 jallerton, on 2014-September-13, 13:09, said:

When you play, do you ever hear anything that is being said at another table, Ed?

Suppose that you hear Mr X at another table saying "small heart". You have UI about a board you may be yet to play: that Mr X is declaring a hand, and that his partner has at least one heart on an unknown board. Do you call the TD? If not, you are making a judgement which is illegal (your words).

Very rarely. And yes, if I choose not to call the director in that situation, I'm wrong.

[barmar]

 blackshoe, on 2014-September-13, 13:20, said:

Very rarely. And yes, if I choose not to call the director in that situation, I'm wrong.

Must be nice to play in bridge clubs/tourneys where there's so much space between tables that you can't hear all the little bits of spoken instruction. The rest of us play in the real world. And as someone said above, if we called the TD for everything we overheard, they'd never have time for real rulings.