[Zelandakh]

You are probably thinking of:
"As a matter of courtesy a player should refrain from:
3. detaching a card before it is his turn to play."

However a better try is perhaps
"Every player should follow uniform and correct procedure in calling and playing."

I have to admit this is not something I get too worked up about. What does annoy me is when someone holds their card out fully visible to me (and often also to partner) but not in such a way that it can be considered played while they um and ah about their decision. Perhaps this approach would be a good one to adopt under Andy's objections though. Now noone can proceed (since no card is played) but opponents can think with full information. Is it really how we want bridge to be played that players have to resort to such tactics though?

[Vampyr]

 bluejak, on 2012-March-20, 08:16, said:

I have not been allowed to think at the time I want to in the trick.

Of course you can think before playing a card. No one is saying that you should auto-play to a trick and then think about it!

The procedure that is being recommended is for when you have already decided what to play to the trick in progress. Besides being considerate and time-saving, this avoids MI, so it must be correct under law.

[MickyB]

 Jeremy69A, on 2012-March-13, 09:16, said:

Doesn't "I'm not thinking about this trick but the whole hand" impart some information to partner? I find the habit of putting the card face down quite irritating. If you want to think then you can
a. do so before playing but other than at trick one there will be potential UI problems arising from this
b. play your card in the normal way and at the end of the trick keep it open for as long as you want to think(if you do this very often you may run into time problems but less frequently than playing it face down).

fyp

[Jeremy69A]

Quote

fyp

I assume that you did not have the time/inclination to write out the words and that "fyp" is code for fixed your post but I meant what I said even if you disagree so fixing is unnecessary.

[MickyB]

 Jeremy69A, on 2012-March-22, 09:12, said:

I assume that you did not have the time/inclination to write out the words and that "fyp" is code for fixed your post but I meant what I said even if you disagree so fixing is unnecessary.

If I "play" my card face-down, think, reveal it and then partner/declarer get to think at the end of trick one, then more time is used than if we all think at the end of trick one. This means that we are more likely to run into time problems.

[bluejak]

 sasioc, on 2012-March-20, 08:46, said:

Another point, that no one has raised so far, is that I have had opponents place a card face down, occasionally saying that they are not thinking about the current trick, and then change it after a while. Although I'm not sure what the actual rules about this are, it doesn't seem ideal for someone to imply or state that they are not thinking about the current trick and then demonstrate that they actually were.

Absolutely agree. I have thought about the hand when I want to all my playing career, and have never indicated I am not thinking about this trick then changed my card, which I consider unethical at best.

 Vampyr, on 2012-March-21, 19:29, said:

Of course you can think before playing a card. No one is saying that you should auto-play to a trick and then think about it!

The procedure that is being recommended is for when you have already decided what to play to the trick in progress. Besides being considerate and time-saving, this avoids MI, so it must be correct under law.

I doubt that it saves time, and it seems a very inconsiderate suggestion.

 MickyB, on 2012-March-22, 11:58, said:

If I "play" my card face-down, think, reveal it and then partner/declarer get to think at the end of trick one, then more time is used than if we all think at the end of trick one. This means that we are more likely to run into time problems.

This a joke, right? Who on earth "runs into time problems" because on rare occasions players like myself stop to think in a way that certain other people do not wish to tolerate?

[gnasher]

 bluejak, on 2012-March-22, 18:56, said:

I doubt that it saves time, and it seems a very inconsiderate suggestion.

What is inconsiderate about it?

Quote

This a joke, right? Who on earth "runs into time problems" because on rare occasions players like myself stop to think in a way that certain other people do not wish to tolerate?

Sometimes a table finishes late. Usually that is because one or more of the players has spent some time thinking, and the total time spent on thinking and playing has exceeded the time available for playing. If the time is used inefficiently, that is more likely to occur. Which part of that don't you believe?

[Vampyr]

 gnasher, on 2012-March-23, 01:11, said:

What is inconsiderate about it?

I think that David has run out of arguments but is upholding the proud IBLF tradition of never changing your mind even if you have been shown quite clearly to be in the wrong.

[barmar]

 Zelandakh, on 2012-March-21, 09:39, said:

What does annoy me is when someone holds their card out fully visible to me (and often also to partner) but not in such a way that it can be considered played while they um and ah about their decision.

Isn't a defender's card considered played when it could be seen by their partner?

[blackshoe]

Yes.

Quote

Law 45C1: Compulsory Play of Card: A defender’s card held so that it is possible for his partner to see its face must be played to the current trick. If the defender has already made a legal play to the current trick, see Law 45E.

[bluejak]

 Vampyr, on 2012-March-23, 05:52, said:

I think that David has run out of arguments but is upholding the proud IBLF tradition of never changing your mind even if you have been shown quite clearly to be in the wrong.

I don't need new arguments: no-one has produced any reasonable argument against it. I am following the Laws and recommendations, and all that has happened is that some people object for no good reason. We need a bit of tolerance in this game,a nd I do not believe any argument that supports intolerance is a good argument.

Fortunately, players at the table seem more tolerant than players in forums. No-one objects to this approach, which has been recommended several times by authorities, except people on forums.

[Vampyr]

 bluejak, on 2012-March-24, 15:27, said:

I don't need new arguments: no-one has produced any reasonable argument against it.

The argument that has been presented numerous times is that it ia, at the very least, more efficient if you let others think during "your" thinking time. So that if you know what card you are playing to the current trick, you can allow everyone at the table to analyse the hand in the light of this information. (Also you don't create MI by implying that what you are thinking about is what card to play to this trick.0

On the other hand, while you have used the word "inconsiderate" you have not explained why, nor suggested why your approach is better than the one that I and others have recommended.

[bluejak]

When you decide to think about the hand, I am sure neither you nor anyone else worries about the whole matter of everyone's thinking. That is not the way bridge is played. Your arguments are purely artificial, having no connection with the real world, where people think when they need to think.

It is inconsiderate to suggest that, unlike the rest of the world, myself and other people who follow the recommended procedure, should have to work on a different thinking arrangement from the majority.

[gnasher]

 bluejak, on 2012-March-25, 09:53, said:

When you decide to think about the hand, I am sure neither you nor anyone else worries about the whole matter of everyone's thinking.

I'm not sure why you claim to have such insight into what other people think, but you are mistaken.

Quote

this approach, which has been recommended several times by authorities

Quote

myself and other people who follow the recommended procedure

Which authorities reccommend this, or have recommended it? (I'm not expecting an answer to this, since you haven't bothered to answer any of my other questions, but I thought I'd ask anyway.)

[Cyberyeti]

 gnasher, on 2012-March-19, 12:05, said:

The Wikipedia explanation of straw men is quite good: "To 'attack a straw man' is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the 'straw man'), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position." When you said "There is no such rule as the one you have invented", that was a straw man, because I had never suggested that there was any rule.

That is the American definition, now catching on in the UK. It used to mean something related but quite different, essentially a straw man was a hypothetical situation that you used to test what might happen (from the jousting dummy IIRC) and had no prejudicial overtones.

[gnasher]

 Cyberyeti, on 2012-March-25, 11:37, said:

That is the American definition, now catching on in the UK. It used to mean something related but quite different, essentially a straw man was a hypothetical situation that you used to test what might happen (from the jousting dummy IIRC) and had no prejudicial overtones.

I think you'll find it's already caught on. The OED gives the definition (amongst others) "an imaginary adversary, or an invented adverse argument, adduced in order to be triumphantly confuted". It gives an example from 1624: "To skirmish with a man of straw of his owne making".

[axman]

 gnasher, on 2012-March-25, 10:10, said:

I'm not sure why you claim to have such insight into what other people think, but you are mistaken.



Which authorities reccommend this, or have recommended it? (I'm not expecting an answer to this, since you haven't bothered to answer any of my other questions, but I thought I'd ask anyway.)

There was a case where a player claimed he had been concerned about one of his idiosyncracies. He consulted an authority.... and practiced his advice. It was some years later that a different authority disagreed to the extent that he was kicked out.

[Cyberyeti]

 gnasher, on 2012-March-25, 12:19, said:

I think you'll find it's already caught on. The OED gives the definition (amongst others) "an imaginary adversary, or an invented adverse argument, adduced in order to be triumphantly confuted". It gives an example from 1624: "To skirmish with a man of straw of his owne making".

I think both meanings have existed for a while, but which one is most popular has changed. I certainly only ever used the other one (frequently along with many others in a work context) until the last few years.

On the subject here where I wanted to play a singleton but think about the whole hand, I was recommended to play it face down, and I think it's a perfectly reasonable and normal thing to do.

[bluejak]

 gnasher, on 2012-March-25, 10:10, said:

I'm not sure why you claim to have such insight into what other people think, but you are mistaken.

Ok, you are the world expert on what other people think, and I haven't a clue.

 gnasher, on 2012-March-25, 10:10, said:

Which authorities reccommend this, or have recommended it? (I'm not expecting an answer to this, since you haven't bothered to answer any of my other questions, but I thought I'd ask anyway.)

Reese, the EBU of many years ago, various writers in Bridge magazine and so forth

Of course I have answered some of your questions, you just don't like the answers.

[MickyB]

Ok, so the two methods being suggested are -

i) Play your card, then leave it face up while you think about the hand.

ii) Place your card face-down while you think, then play this card when you have finished thinking.


The main advantage of option i is clear - everyone gets to think with the maximum information available. This is [usually] also beneficial for the player in question, who gets to see what declarer plays to the trick.

There are practical problems with both methods. If you use method i, and the rest of the table continue playing while your card is face-up, there may be some confusion. Usually this should be minor, though - partner should presumably be sufficiently aware to not play until you have quitted your card, and even if he is not, it will rarely cause any problems.

This is, in my opinion, a less significant problem than that of a card being placed face-down and then changed. Besides the ridiculous amount of UI that is created when this happens, what about the times that it doesn't? Declarer may be deceived into thinking that the defender had no problem, when in fact he did. What about if someone plays against ABC in round 1, and he pulls this stunt, and then plays against DWS in round 2?

Apparently leaving your card face up as a means of slowing the game down has no backing in the laws. This is surprising to me, I'll admit, but I don't see that as justification for method ii. After all, if this was really what we were supposed to do, wouldn't the "change of card" problem above be dealt with in the laws? It would be both simple and sensible to say that a card intentionally placed face down in these circumstances is played and cannot be changed.

What advantages are there to method ii?

Maybe if declarer is allowed to use *my* thinking time efficiently, he'll realise something that he wouldn't otherwise. Then again, the same applies to partner. Similarly, with a time monitor present, doing this may reduce declarer's thinking time. Maybe if I just waste declarer's time he'll lose focus. Hardly sound reasons.

That it is not prohibited to use method ii is barely relevant. It is still misguided or inconsiderate.