[Walddk]

You think it's intentional, I think it's coincidental until I see the same thing happening again. I think I will get further in life using my approach, but you are entitled to use yours of course.

Maybe it's the gap of age that makes the difference between yours and mine.

Roland

[Walddk]

Jlall, on Oct 7 2005, 05:12 PM, said:

Walddk, on Oct 7 2005, 10:03 AM, said:

You think it's intentional, I think it's coincidental until I see the same thing happening again. I think I will get further in life using my approach, but you are entitled to use yours of course.

Maybe it's the gap of age that makes the difference between yours and mine.

Roland

for chrissake if someone younger than you has a different opinion is it always because of the gap in age? Perhaps when you cannot logically reply to arguments, you resort to "well you're entitled to your opinion, but mine is better, and you can't see that because you're 19."

Consider prior precendece in similar cases Roland. A player bids 2D with the majors, his pard alerts as DONT. Later, when the director is called, they say it was not misinformation, they actually play DONT so it was a misbid. Do you just automatically believe them? No, of course not, saying it was a misbid is completely self-serving, they must provide some kind of evidence that it actually was a misbid, otherwise MI is assumed.

Consider a dispute about whether there is a break in tempo. EW claims north broke tempo, and south took action based on this. NS claims there was no break in tempo. To resolve this, committees actually LOOK AT THE HAND. Shocking, I know. If north had a spade void and 12 points and passed a 4S opener, the committee will assume there was in fact a break in tempo.

Failure to alert is similar to MI. It is assumed X is standard when it was not alerted, so it is the same as saying it's a takeout X. The hand indicates it was not, south's pass indicates it was not. And yet they say it was. Given this it is their problem to prove there was no break in tempo.

Disagree with me all you want, I could easily be wrong. But PLEASE try doing so with facts and logical arguments as opposed to "maybe its the gap in age..." and "I think I will get further in life..." because it is really tiresome.

I have replied more than once, but I'll gladly do it again, since you don't seem to understand.

The double is for take-out, also to this pair. It is perfectly legitimate that you treat the North hand as too strong for anything else. An 18+ hand can double with any shape as most people play it. I believe you do too. If so, why is the double a penalty double as you see it?

So South didn't take the double out. I would never pass, you would never pass, but that particular South decided to take a view, so he passed a take-out double.

Is that a crime? No! It's definitely not recommendable, but it's not a violation of any law. I claim that it was an accident (= he took a view), you claim that it was intentional (= he intentionally did not alert partner's penalty double).

You don't have enough evidence for your interpretation in my opinion. I want to see it once more before I believe that it's more than a coincidence. We disagree. End of story.

Roland

[Posleda]

Jlall, on Oct 8 2005, 12:12 AM, said:

It is assumed X is standard when it was not alerted, so it is the same as saying it's a takeout X.

What do you mean is "standard X" or "takeout X" ? This may be a reason I dont understand your opinions. In our country standard takeout double means:

1) up to 15 PC with at least 3-card support in non-named suits OR
2) 16+ with any distribution.

N's double is completely in accordance with this definition. From this point of view I have no suspicion about UI, MI or cheating at all.

Dusan

[hrothgar]

Jlall, on Oct 7 2005, 06:12 PM, said:

for chrissake if someone younger than you has a different opinion is it always because of the gap in age? Perhaps when you cannot logically reply to arguments, you resort to "well you're entitled to your opinion, but mine is better, and you can't see that because you're 19."

I'd NEVER cite age as the reason for this difference of opinion...

If provoked, I might cite the traditional attitude of many North American pros that everyone else in the world is a cheat.

Alternatively, I might suggest that many people outside North America have different ideas regarding what is standard for a direct seat double. In turn, this might impact South's decision to pass or pull.

However, I agree that Justin's age probably didn't impact the decision.

[Posleda]

Brandal, on Oct 7 2005, 08:16 PM, said:

Posleda, on Oct 6 2005, 04:27 PM, said:

Who are you, player, to state which bid is good and which bad ?

NS bidding was good - no cheating, no bad bid, no misclick.

Dusan

Well....you do....so why can't we?

Apologies, that's my poor English . Maybe "correct" instead of "good" will be better ? "good" was meant as "according to Laws and produced good result" or so.

I am quite experienced on and off TD. I am not entitled to adjudicate whether a bid is good or bad. I may not. Sufficient, alerted, explained, made in tempo are my categories. No law has been broken in this case.

Dusan

[LH2650]

Jlall, on Oct 7 2005, 10:12 AM, said:

for chrissake if someone younger than you has a different opinion is it always because of the gap in age?

Your particular experience does matter. If you had played in a lunchtime game at work for a few years, you might have a better understanding of how poorly bridge can be played outside the duplicate arena. South's pass looks like a typical mistake (and I have seen it several times) that people make in the process of learning the game.

[Brandal]

Posleda, on Oct 7 2005, 10:57 AM, said:

Brandal, on Oct 7 2005, 08:16 PM, said:

Posleda, on Oct 6 2005, 04:27 PM, said:

Who are you, player, to state which bid is good and which bad ?

NS bidding was good - no cheating, no bad bid, no misclick.

Dusan

Well....you do....so why can't we?

Apologies, that's my poor English . Maybe "correct" instead of "good" will be better ? "good" was meant as "according to Laws and produced good result" or so.

I am quite experienced on and off TD. I am not entitled to adjudicate whether a bid is good or bad. I may not. Sufficient, alerted, explained, made in tempo are my categories. No law has been broken in this case.

Dusan

No problem Dusan

I happen to think insufficient explanations are a bigger/
more frequent problem than cheating......

And I also agree EW could have rescued themselves,
but I have problems with south's pass being "correct"
over a "normal" T/O double of 1S.

Maybe North didn't fully explain?

Because the pass makes more sense in that scenario....

oh well

[hrothgar]

Jlall, on Oct 7 2005, 07:00 PM, said:

Richard: I'm glad you like to generalize for north american pros, it's awesome. Are you a north american pro? Do you know all north american pros? How can you say they think everyone in the world cheats, and do you actually BELIEVE that? Sometimes I wonder if you believe the things you say they are so absurd.

My statement that North American pros have a reputation for leveling cheating accusations against foreigner is fairly uncontroversial. The fact that you find this in any way surprising suggests a somewhat sheltered upbringing. At the very least, you seems to have missed quite a few significant “incidents” over the past few decades ranging from Tobias Stone's suspensions for cheating accusations, Scheinwold's writings, Bob Hamman's “At the Table” and John Swanson's “Inside the Bermuda Bowl”. (Indeed, there has been fair amount of criticism of both these works regarding preoccupation with cheating). If we want to include British ex-pat Alan Truscott we open reams of additional “work”.

Wander over to rec.games.bridge and google Hamman + Cheating or Swanson + cheating in the rec.games.bridge archive. If easily find some VERY spirited discussions. If you prefer a more formal book, I strongly recommend that you get a copy of “Fair Play or Foul: Cheating Scandals at Bridge” by Cathy Chua. Outstanding book on many levels. If you have access to a good Bridge library, you might want to look at some old issues of the Bridge World.

Please note: I'm not trying to open an argument regarding who is or is not cheating, but merely trying establish the factual basis for my earlier comments.

[Al_U_Card]

hrothgar, on Oct 7 2005, 06:22 AM, said:

From my perspective, I think that any discussion of this hand needs to start by analyzing South's pass. The pass is probably not the most critical element required to reach a decision, however, the only time that you can discuss the pass sans-bias is before people see the hand.

In isolation, with just the East hand shown, after p-p-1S-dbl with no spades , 9 hcp and 544 is not a rdbl a likely suggestion opposite the 3rd seat opener that rates to play better in 2 of anything else?

[pigpenz]

hrothgar, on Oct 7 2005, 12:08 PM, said:

My statement that North American pros have a reputation for leveling cheating accusations against foreigner is fairly uncontroversial.

Heck there have been numerous Americans accussed of cheating...the pencil situation in
Houston with Katz/Cohen, Moses Ma, and the guy who had is thumb bit off by a pig who was accussed of dealing from the bottom of the deck, no joke

[McBruce]

hrothgar, on Oct 7 2005, 03:22 AM, said:

If you show the entire bridge hand, you are going to bias the answers that you get. Your correspondent is going to subconciously shape their answers based on extraneous information. If you want to ask people how they would bid in the absence of a hesitation, don't tell them that there was a hesitation. If you want know how people would bid without U/I, don't tell them about the UI.

I think that presenting the hand without UI (unauthorized information) is a fine procedure in many situations where one needs to determine whether there is a logical alternative, but not this one. Where is the UI? There was no hesitation, no comment, no peeking, no evidence to suggest either player had a prior view of the deal.

Of course when you give the hand to others they will do different things--we have already established that the auction is unusual! But that is no lawful reason for adjusting the score when there is no UI. Deciding whether there is a LA only happens when there is UI. A TD cannot assume the presence of UI because there is a single unusual result.

What we do have is the information that N-S won the tournament and refused to justify their actions with the TD when asked. Because it is generally agreed that online bridge is easier to cheat in and because this result--in conjuction with the ignoring of the TD--is suspicious, the only thing a TD can do is to check the other results of this pair and DQ them if there are other equally suspicious auctions. I think BBO gives you about a half hour to do this before the scores are finalized and no further corrections can be made, which means you can look at maybe 6-8 boards closely: so get online and pick the best 8 scores of this pair--that is where you will find unusual actions from both players that work.

But, remember, the standard is high here. To adjust scores you need to be very sure that actions from both players in the same auction or defence are quite unusual. By deciding to perform this check you set up a natural bias which urges you to overstate these types of coincidences. If you are unfamiliar with their bidding system, you could assume cheating where none exists.

If you do find obvious evidence of repeated suspicious coincidences, change those boards to A+A-, report the pair and the deals to abuse, and keep them out of your games in future. I check the winners scores in every Alphabet Point tournament I run. Not once in 62 tournaments have I even come close to wanting to DQ the leader, but these are indys so there is less likelyhood of doublesided partnership action. What I quite often see is that a player wins a 24 table indy by being an innocent bystander while the opponents go whacko on about a third of the boards, and playing sound bridge on the others.

[Chamaco]

Jlall, on Oct 7 2005, 05:23 PM, said:

you said, and I quote "If provoked, I might cite the traditional attitude of many North American pros that everyone else in the world is a cheat. "

This is a generalization. An untrue one.

Well I am happy to know that most american players do not think that the rest of the world (and in particular the Blue Team) cheated.

Reading some paragraphs of the books mentioned was sometimes quite irritating for the tone and the contents, and I was worried that - if not most american pros - at least quite a bunch of US players could at least share some of the views advertised by a few US top players.

Perhaps I was misguided by some old threads I had read on rec.games.bridge.

I am glad Justin is not among them.

[hotShot]

[Al_U_Card]

In another thread, people were chastised for deciding ethical considerations without being present during the (offending?) practice in question. Here, we have a leading statement that asks for a conclusion.

We are already almost hopelessly biased by our own familiarity with our own methods (wherein the "strangeness" of others thoughts and actions which are not our own). In the absence of concrete information to substantiate allegations of wrong-doing, can't a "fix" just be a "fix" or are we all becoming litigators?

[olegru]

hotShot, on Oct 7 2005, 03:05 PM, said:

Is something strange with south bid?
S holds 4333 distribution with 3HCP and his 4card suit is lead by the 9. There is not even a 10 in this hand.
How strong can he expect N to be? 12+ HCP seems ok ...
S only 4 card suit is ♣ so his options are 2♣ and pass.
If N has a minimum opening, EW can still have a full game with 25 hcp on their side.
...
Maybe pass is not an expert bid, but it is not unusual in any way.

So if there is nothing strange with NS bidding there is no case. Result stands.
...

Lets count:
EW have 10 tricks in spades: 1 ♠* +3 = 760 after pass from S > 620 in 4♠ after 2♣ from S. --> pass is bad.
EW have 9 tricks in spades: 1 ♠* +2 = 560 > 140 in 3♠ --> pass is bad.
EW have 8 tricks in spades: 1 ♠* +1 = 360 > 110 in 2♠ --> pass is bad.

Conclusion: Pass is ridiculous.

[hrothgar]

olegru, on Oct 8 2005, 01:04 AM, said:

hotShot, on Oct 7 2005, 03:05 PM, said:

Is something strange with south bid?
S holds  4333 distribution with 3HCP and his 4card suit is lead by the 9. There is not even a 10 in this hand.
How strong can he expect N to be? 12+ HCP seems ok ...
S only 4 card suit is ♣ so his options are 2♣ and pass.
If N has a minimum opening, EW can still have a full game with 25 hcp on their side.
...
Maybe pass is not an expert bid, but it is not unusual in any way.

So if there is nothing strange with NS bidding there is no case. Result stands.
...

Lets count:
EW have 10 tricks in spades: 1 ♠* +3 = 760 after pass from S > 620 in 4♠ after 2♣ from S. --> pass is bad.
EW have 9 tricks in spades: 1 ♠* +2 = 560 > 140 in 3♠ --> pass is bad.
EW have 8 tricks in spades: 1 ♠* +1 = 360 > 110 in 2♠ --> pass is bad.

Conclusion: Pass is ridiculous.

I guess that the offending side got the score they "deserved" then