[awm]

West deals, the auction was as follows:

1♠ - Pa - 2♠(1) - X
Pa - 3♥ - Pa - Pa
X(2) - All Pass

(1) Alerted as showing exactly three card support.
(2) North asked east about this call at the end of the auction...

North declared 3♥X, finding that east held four hearts and west held one. The contract went down a large number of tricks.

After the hand, north calls the director. He had asked east (his screenmate) about west's double at the end of the auction. He claims that east's explanation was:

"Responsive... oh, he passed 2♠X... then it's penalty-oriented."

North says that he would've played the hand very differently if he had known that the likely trump length was on his left, and that the explanation of "penalty-oriented" mislead him about the trump holdings and might not reflect their real agreement.

East claims that she never said anything about penalty, and that in fact she knew it could not be penalty due to her own heart holding. She insists that her answer was merely "responsive" and that this is their agreement.

While the director is investigating, west pipes up that he thinks their agreement is penalty, and that he intended his double as penalty despite the singleton trump. He says he doubled because he has three aces and he knows that they have only an eight card spade fit (and it's MP scoring).

How should the director sort this out?

[RMB1]

What does "responsive" mean to the players?
To me, for a double at this stage of the auction, "responsive" is pretty meaningless.
Surely this double will usually end the auction and I don't think EW have an agreement about how many trumps it shows.

If West expects partner will pass, then it is "penalty". But "penalty" doesn't mean "trumps". East's explanations have confused things but don't seem very relevant.

> How does the TD sort things out?

He tells them to use written pads for explanations behind screens.
He listens to North and East and makes his mind up about what East said.
He determines whether what East said did not describe their partnership understanding.
If East did not describe their partnership understanding (which may be that there is no understanding) and North misplayed the hand because of East's mis-description, then the TD can adjust.

To me, North paying anynattention to what East said after "Responsive" was a serious error, perhaps in the sense of Law 12C1b.

[nige1]

awm, on Oct 11 2010, 07:24 PM, said:

West deals, the auction was as follows:
1♠ - Pa - 2♠(1) - X
Pa - 3♥ - Pa - Pa
X(2) - All Pass
(1) Alerted as showing exactly three card support.
(2) North asked east about this call at the end of the auction...
North declared 3♥X, finding that east held four hearts and west held one. The contract went down a large number of tricks. After the hand, north calls the director. He had asked east (his screenmate) about west's double at the end of the auction. He claims that east's explanation was: "Responsive... oh, he passed 2♠X... then it's penalty-oriented." North says that he would've played the hand very differently if he had known that the likely trump length was on his left, and that the explanation of "penalty-oriented" mislead him about the trump holdings and might not reflect their real agreement. East claims that she never said anything about penalty, and that in fact she knew it could not be penalty due to her own heart holding. She insists that her answer was merely "responsive" and that this is their agreement. While the director is investigating, west pipes up that he thinks their agreement is penalty, and that he intended his double as penalty despite the singleton trump. He says he doubled because he has three aces and he knows that they have only an eight card spade fit (and it's MP scoring).

RMB1, on Oct 11 2010, 07:48 PM, said:

What does "responsive" mean to the players? To me, for a double at this stage of the auction, "responsive" is pretty meaningless. Surely this double will usually end the auction and I don't think EW have an agreement about how many trumps it shows.  If West expects partner will pass, then it is "penalty".  But "penalty" doesn't mean "trumps".  East's explanations have confused things but don't seem very relevant.

To me a low-level penalty-double does mean trumps unless partner's calls have shown length in the suit.

awm, on Oct 11 2010, 07:24 PM, said:

How should the director sort this out?

RMB1, on Oct 11 2010, 07:48 PM, said:

He tells them to use written pads for explanations behind screens. He listens to North and East and makes his mind up about what East said. He determines whether what East said did not describe their partnership understanding. If East did not describe their partnership understanding (which may be that there is no understanding) and North misplayed the hand because of East's mis-description, then the TD can adjust.

Good thinking

RMB1, on Oct 11 2010, 07:48 PM, said:

To me, North paying any attention to what East said after "Responsive" was a serious error, perhaps in the sense of Law 12C1b.

Why should North ignore the alleged "corrected" explanation ("Responsive... oh, he passed 2♠X... then it's penalty-oriented")?

[bluejak]

RMB1, on Oct 12 2010, 01:48 AM, said:

What does "responsive" mean to the players?
To me, for a double at this stage of the auction, "responsive" is pretty meaningless.
Surely this double will usually end the auction and I don't think EW have an agreement about how many trumps it shows.

Many names have changed in meaning. The trouble is that players ascribe their own meaning, and in the general shift away from trusting authority towards trusting oneself [however ignorant] they presume their meaning is right.

A responsive double is a name given to a specific situation where traditionally people played double as penalties. When it changed to takeout - far earlier, maybe 20 years earlier than the general shift from penalties to takeout - it was given a name. So it refers to a takeout double in a specific position. Unsurprisingly the cited sequence is not the position.

But loath as I am to blame the victim, who seems to be getting more and more blamed these days [speaking from a lot of personal experience] I do think that players who allow screen mates to speak answers to questions are causing trouble by doing so. Especially if they ask the question verbally, they are immediately offenders as well.

RMB1, on Oct 12 2010, 01:48 AM, said:

If West expects partner will pass, then it is "penalty".  But "penalty" doesn't mean "trumps".  East's explanations have confused things but don't seem very relevant.

He did not say 'penalty', which expects partner to pass, but 'penalty-oriented', which expects partner to pass usually. Not so strong.

RMB1, on Oct 12 2010, 01:48 AM, said:

To me, North paying anynattention to what East said after "Responsive" was a serious error, perhaps in the sense of Law 12C1b.

I do not really agree: he changed his answer from the meaningless 'responsive' to the defined 'penalty-oriented' so he has actually given an answer and the word 'responsive' was a red herring.

[peachy]

Unfortunate that an oral response was given. There are notepads at both sides of the screen to write questions and answers. Question could be a silent gesture toward the bid but answer should be written. Speaking during the auction makes the benefits of the screen disappear. There was MI, there was damage. Adjustment looks normal to me.

[awm]

These comments about writing the explanations rather than speaking them are all very nice, but having just played in a WBF event my observation is that very few people actually write the explanations on the pads provided. Perhaps the directors should go on a crusade to get people to write their explanations and not speak them, but until such a thing happens this type of situation will continue to be quite common. It's not even clear who you'd penalize -- East who didn't write her explanation on the pad, or North who didn't insist that East write down the explanation for further reference?

[nige1]

awm, on Oct 12 2010, 02:20 PM, said:

These comments about writing the explanations rather than speaking them are all very nice, but having just played in a WBF event my observation is that very few people actually write the explanations on the pads provided. Perhaps the directors should go on a crusade to get people to write their explanations and not speak them, but until such a thing happens this type of situation will continue to be quite common. It's not even clear who you'd penalize -- East who didn't write her explanation on the pad, or North who didn't insist that East write down the explanation for further reference?

IMO, the onus should be on the explainer and directors should start to enforce the rules.

[bluejak]

awm, on Oct 12 2010, 08:20 PM, said:

These comments about writing the explanations rather than speaking them are all very nice, but having just played in a WBF event my observation is that very few people actually write the explanations on the pads provided. Perhaps the directors should go on a crusade to get people to write their explanations and not speak them, but until such a thing happens this type of situation will continue to be quite common. It's not even clear who you'd penalize -- East who didn't write her explanation on the pad, or North who didn't insist that East write down the explanation for further reference?

In general it is not the way that the game is regulated for TDs to look for infractions, whether it is boards being removed from the middle of the table in clubs or failure to follow screen regulations.

But when things go wrong, anyone who failed to follow the rules that led to things going wrong is at fault. While a questioner who asks incorrectly is somewhat at fault, a player who tells me his answer was so-and-so but he has not written cannot expect to be believed.

I would have no problem in such a situation with treating both sides as offending: after all, they are.

[jeremy69]

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In general it is not the way that the game is regulated for TDs to look for infractions

That may be the practical effect of a limit on how many directors there are or a personal preference of TDs but I am not aware that any edict has been pronounced that means this has to be the case.
In this instance it is certainly the case that few write down and many offer verbal explanations(including me). This is, of course, laziness. If it was clear that any infraction spotted would lead to an automatic fine then habits would soon change and speaking as someone who gets deafer with the years and can't always hear the verbal explanation I think I would welcome this.

Quote

IMO, the onus should be on the explainer and directors should start to enforce the rules.

Strongly agree!

Quote

But loath as I am to blame the victim, who seems to be getting more and more blamed these days [speaking from a lot of personal experience]

I don't think this is so. It may, of course, be that sometimes people view themselves as victims when they are not!

[FrancesHinden]

awm, on Oct 12 2010, 08:20 PM, said:

These comments about writing the explanations rather than speaking them are all very nice, but having just played in a WBF event my observation is that very few people actually write the explanations on the pads provided. Perhaps the directors should go on a crusade to get people to write their explanations and not speak them, but until such a thing happens this type of situation will continue to be quite common. It's not even clear who you'd penalize -- East who didn't write her explanation on the pad, or North who didn't insist that East write down the explanation for further reference?

Once your team has lost 10 imps through not insisting on written explanations, belive me you start to insist on writing things down.

[BillHiggin]

Yikes - all this talk about the method of east's explanation seems to have bypassed the important step of determining the truth and a ruling.

I believe that North's representation of East's explanation makes sense, and meshes quite well with West's statements. The double was penalty oriented (or maybe pure penalty). However, it was the double itself that misled North, not the explanation!

No adjustment!