[Vampyr]

pran, on 2015-May-16, 09:47, said:

Requesting a spade shift (from North) was not an option for East?

Right, this is what David was saying.

[VixTD]

lamford, on 2015-May-16, 10:28, said:

Cashing a red ace can never gain. I find it quite remarkable that seemingly intelligent people on here can find no ethical fault with North's line of cashing both red aces. For me the only issue is the size of the PP.

Sorry for being so dense earlier and misunderstanding the problem.

I have to say I'm with Art and Mycroft. A literal reading of law 50E1 means that North is allowed to know that South will have to discard on a club if he leads one back. I don't think this is what the law makers intended when they devised this law, and I agree they've made a mess of it.

[blackshoe]

lamford, on 2015-May-16, 08:54, said:

Because I expected there to be a massive difference in the application of Law 50E by TDs worldwide, partly because they have been misled by gibberish from the WBFLC, which contradicts an earlier minute from the same body. [Actually, I lie; my motivation was to see how many upvotes the thread would get - a purely selfish motivation].

In addition, I asked "How would you rule?" I did not know the answer to that question, so my motivation was just that, to find out how the TDs on this forum would rule.

I would think that if a minute contradicts an earlier minute, the later minute governs, and the earlier becomes irrelevant. Even if the later minute is gibberish. It does occur to me that if the later is gibberish, one would be hard pressed to say what it contradicts or affirms.

[lamford]

blackshoe, on 2015-May-16, 11:55, said:

I would think that if a minute contradicts an earlier minute, the later minute governs, and the earlier becomes irrelevant. Even if the later minute is gibberish. It does occur to me that if the later is gibberish, one would be hard pressed to say what it contradicts or affirms.

The later minute still indicated that the suit must be selected without knowledge of the penalty card, and it did not indicate that the earlier minute was wrong. In fact they are both given side by side in the EBU White Book (see below). The later minute indicated that if one is playing a card in a suit in which partner has a penalty card, one could take into account the fact that partner had to play that penalty card on that trick. The later minute is, effectively, of no relevance as the TD can, nay should, rule that the penalty card conveyed such information as to damage the non-offending side when it does do so. So, if one gains by leading or playing low from KQJx when partner has the ace, the TD should award an adjusted score. If you do not gain, then it does not matter anyway! But, as dburn says, one should not have to resort to that to correct the WBFLC's idiocy.

[lamford]

VixTD, on 2015-May-16, 11:45, said:

Sorry for being so dense earlier and misunderstanding the problem.

I have to say I'm with Art and Mycroft. A literal reading of law 50E1 means that North is allowed to know that South will have to discard on a club if he leads one back. I don't think this is what the law makers intended when they devised this law, and I agree they've made a mess of it.

Then I think you are still misunderstanding the problem. North must select the suit that he leads back without knowledge of the penalty card(s), even if you apply the most recent WBFLC minute. The White Book summarises it well and this problem is a no-brainer.

Information that the player must play the penalty card as the law requires is authorised and partner may choose the card to lead from the suit on the basis of that knowledge (e.g. may lead small from KQJx when partner’s penalty card is the Ace). Information based on sight of partner’s penalty card is unauthorised so that, for example, the player may not choose to lead the suit if the suit is suggested by the penalty card and play of a different suit is a logical alternative.
[WBFLC minutes 1998-08-24#3]
Example: However, they may not act as though they know partner has that card. If a king was led out of turn and the king is now a penalty card, then partner must act as though they do not know about the king, nor about the queen, a normal deduction when partner leads a king. They may not choose to lead the suit if the suit is suggested by the king and play of a different suit is a logical alternative.
A distinction must be made between the requirement that the player must play this card and information that the player has the card. Initially the underlead from KQJx to partner’s Ax is allowed, but subsequently the Director may decide that 50E3 applies. (my emphasis)
The player must convince the Director that he has not gained from the information that the player possesses the card.
[WBFLC minutes 2008-10-10#3]

North has no reason to think that South has a singleton club, except for the UI. He has no reason to think that South has penalty cards in hearts and diamonds, except for the UI. If South led a club in tempo, without penalty cards, how would you defend as North? You would play back a club, of course. Therefore the penalty cards, caused by the haste of the lead, conveyed such information as to damage the non-offending side. North recovered from their effect by cashing the red aces and only then playing a club, using the UI to conclude that South almost certainly had a singleton club. It is a little bit like the second revoke in the same suit, which is another area that the WBFLC managed to screw up in Poznan, when their adviser wrongly advised the AC of the intent of the Beijing minute. You should not be able to gain by a second revoke in the same suit, but an eminent AC did allow a player to do so.

[blackshoe]

lamford, on 2015-May-16, 12:27, said:

North has no reason to think that South has a singleton club, except for the UI. He has no reason to think that South has penalty cards in hearts and diamonds, except for the UI. If South led a club in tempo, without penalty cards, how would you defend as North? You would play back a club, of course. Therefore the penalty cards, caused by the haste of the lead, conveyed such information as to damage the non-offending side. North recovered from their effect by cashing the red aces and only then playing a club, using the UI to conclude that South almost certainly had a singleton club. It is a little bit like the second revoke in the same suit, which is another area that the WBFLC managed to screw up in Poznan, when their adviser wrongly advised the AC of the intent of the Beijing minute. You should not be able to gain by a second revoke in the same suit, but an eminent AC did allow a player to do so.

North has good reason to think South might have a singleton club. After all, once dummy comes down, he knows there are five clubs in the combined East and South hands. He also knows his partner did not support his 2♣ opening.
North has reason to know, not to think, that South has penalty cards. How does he know? The director told him so.

What information is it, precisely, that sight of the ♥10 and ♦10 conveyed, and how does that information suggest that North not lead a club?

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2015-May-16, 18:11, said:

What information is it, precisely, that sight of the ♥10 and ♦10 conveyed, and how does that information suggest that North not lead a club?

The fact that if South does have a singleton club, he cannot ruff while those two penalty cards are still there.

[blackshoe]

Vampyr, on 2015-May-16, 18:25, said:

The fact that if South does have a singleton club, he cannot ruff while those two penalty cards are still there.

Are you saying that the fact that South must play his penalty card at the earliest legal opportunity is UI?

[lamford]

blackshoe, on 2015-May-16, 18:11, said:

North has good reason to think South might have a singleton club. After all, once dummy comes down, he knows there are five clubs in the combined East and South hands. He also knows his partner did not support his 2♣ opening.
North has reason to know, not to think, that South has penalty cards. How does he know? The director told him so.

What information is it, precisely, that sight of the ♥10 and ♦10 conveyed, and how does that information suggest that North not lead a club?

I think I have explained the reasons in full already. In any case, I have decided to close my forum account after the following message exchange with barmar:

barmar, on 2015-May-16, 20:07, said:

We'd like you to stop creating your Secretary Bird threads in the Laws forum. They just rehash the same issues that were discussed in an earlier thread, with endless debate about how many trumps can dance on the head of a pin, and rarely shed any new light on the subject matter. They're of purely academic interest, rarely related to anything that directors have to deal with in the real world.

Blackshoe says that this is the kind of stuff that turned people off BLML, and these forums were supposed to be a safe haven from them.

We're asking you to end them voluntarily, but if you persist I'm going to take away your thread-creation privileges in the Laws forums.

Thank you.

lamford, on 2015-May-17, 01:29, said:

I am not prepared to contribute to BBO forums on that basis, with censorship (other than normal decency) on what is posted, so please close my account.

[gordontd]

lamford, on 2015-May-17, 01:40, said:

I think I have explained the reasons in full already. In any case, I have decided to close my forum account after the following message exchange with barmar:

I think it would be a great pity if we were to lose lamford from the forums. I rarely contribute to the SB threads, but I admire his inventiveness in creating them and respect his desire to try to tease out the details and contradictions of difficult cases. If we lose him we will lose one of our most intelligent and insightful contributors. Might a solution be for the SB/North London Club threads to be so marked in the titles and then those who don't like them can just ignore them?

[chrism]

gordontd, on 2015-May-17, 02:50, said:

I think it would be a great pity if we were to lose lamford from the forums. I rarely contribute to the SB threads, but I admire his inventiveness in creating them and respect his desire to try to tease out the details and contradictions of difficult cases. If we lose him we will lose one of our most intelligent and insightful contributors. Might a solution be for the SB/North London Club threads to be so marked in the titles and then those who don't like them can just ignore them?

I agree completely - exploration of the boundary cases, inconsistencies and ambiguities of Laws and regulations is worthwhile, and these fictionalized thought experiments are a valid (and often entertaining) way to explore. I am quite shocked that a moderator would deem them inappropriate. Are we to lose every voice that is considered (by someone) too persistent in following an agenda? If so, the forum will be impoverished, and ultimately lonely.

[blackshoe]

While I agree that Paul is a smart fellow, and that his insights on legal issues are valuable, I do think his "Secretary Bird" posts go beyond, sometimes far beyond, what David and I were trying to do when we set up these forums: to provide a place where people not familiar with the laws could come and ask for practical help. That people are beginning not to see these forums as that place is exemplified by the several new threads on legal issues that have been started recently in the "General Bridge Discussion" forum. So I would like to get back to our roots. Doesn't mean I want to "censor" ("Censor, v. To not allow me (for infinite values of "me") to post whatever I want") anyone. Maybe there's a way to have both kinds of posts. I'll discuss it with Barry and David to see what we can devise. I had not anticipated that Paul would "/ragequit" over this issue. Hopefully, we can come up with a solution that will bring him back.

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2015-May-17, 09:01, said:

Hopefully, we can come up with a solution that will bring him back.

Gordon has done this already.

[campboy]

gordontd, on 2015-May-17, 02:50, said:

I think it would be a great pity if we were to lose lamford from the forums. I rarely contribute to the SB threads, but I admire his inventiveness in creating them and respect his desire to try to tease out the details and contradictions of difficult cases. If we lose him we will lose one of our most intelligent and insightful contributors. Might a solution be for the SB/North London Club threads to be so marked in the titles and then those who don't like them can just ignore them?

Yes, I feel exactly the same way.

[nige1]

• Paul, please reconsider your decision. Your posts are interesting, instructive, and amusing. Without posts like yours, a law-forum descends into endless repetition of the same simple cases - and even when the facts are agreed, directors usually arrive at contradictory rulings.
  
  Paul's posts isolate critical fundamental issues, one at a time, so that we can at least attempt to decipher what rule-makers intend. In the long-run, that should help directors to agree on more commonplace rulings and make the forum a more useful resource.
  
  A couple of obvious points:
  Posters often post to the wrong forum, whatever the topic -- moderators perform a useful function by moving aberrant topics to the correct forum,
  The law forum -- particularly Paul's topics -- seem popular, now. Increasing censorship won't help,

[Aardv]

lamford, on 2015-May-16, 12:27, said:

Then I think you are still misunderstanding the problem. North must select the suit that he leads back without knowledge of the penalty card(s), even if you apply the most recent WBFLC minute. The White Book summarises it well and this problem is a no-brainer.

Information that the player must play the penalty card as the law requires is authorised and partner may choose the card to lead from the suit on the basis of that knowledge (e.g. may lead small from KQJx when partner’s penalty card is the Ace). Information based on sight of partner’s penalty card is unauthorised so that, for example, the player may not choose to lead the suit if the suit is suggested by the penalty card and play of a different suit is a logical alternative.
[WBFLC minutes 1998-08-24#3]
Example: However, they may not act as though they know partner has that card. If a king was led out of turn and the king is now a penalty card, then partner must act as though they do not know about the king, nor about the queen, a normal deduction when partner leads a king. They may not choose to lead the suit if the suit is suggested by the king and play of a different suit is a logical alternative.
A distinction must be made between the requirement that the player must play this card and information that the player has the card. Initially the underlead from KQJx to partner’s Ax is allowed, but subsequently the Director may decide that 50E3 applies. (my emphasis)
The player must convince the Director that he has not gained from the information that the player possesses the card.
[WBFLC minutes 2008-10-10#3]

North has no reason to think that South has a singleton club, except for the UI. He has no reason to think that South has penalty cards in hearts and diamonds, except for the UI. If South led a club in tempo, without penalty cards, how would you defend as North? You would play back a club, of course. Therefore the penalty cards, caused by the haste of the lead, conveyed such information as to damage the non-offending side. North recovered from their effect by cashing the red aces and only then playing a club, using the UI to conclude that South almost certainly had a singleton club. It is a little bit like the second revoke in the same suit, which is another area that the WBFLC managed to screw up in Poznan, when their adviser wrongly advised the AC of the intent of the Beijing minute. You should not be able to gain by a second revoke in the same suit, but an eminent AC did allow a player to do so.

Yes, there may be UI from the fact that two cards were dropped that the lead was a singleton.

No, the fact that the penalty cards are in hearts and diamonds is AI. The WBFLC minute makes that crystal clear. I don't understand why you are asserting the opposite. You are allowed to conduct the defence on the basis that partner has ♥10 and ♦10 as penalty cards. In other respects, you are not allowed to conduct the defence on the basis that partner has ♥10 and ♦10.

[WellSpyder]

I would like to echo the sentiment expressed by a number of regular posters that I think it would be a shame to lose Paul's SB posts. I can see the difficulty they create for moderators - they are unlikely to be of help very often to ordinary TDs seeking help with practical issues that have arisen at the table. The difficulty for the forums, however, is that such people don't in practice make up the bulk of regular posters, who are actually interested in tricky rulings. Maybe a new forum on "interpreting difficult laws" or something?

The extra difficulty in this case is that it is a genuinely tricky situation that might well arise in real life. Frankly, as a player, I am not expecting to be clear what I can or cannot do if I ever find myself in this sort of situation, even though I will, of course, ask the TD to try to make it as clear as possible at the time. In fact I was considering making a tongue-in-cheek appeal for any fellow posters who would like to co-operate in creating such a situation at the table since the chances of both pairs getting a good score after an eventual ruling based on TD error in failing to make the situation clear must be pretty high....

[dburn]

Aardv, on 2015-May-18, 01:25, said:

No, the fact that the penalty cards are in hearts and diamonds is AI. The WBFLC minute makes that crystal clear. I don't understand why you are asserting the opposite. You are allowed to conduct the defence on the basis that partner has ♥10 and ♦10 as penalty cards. In other respects, you are not allowed to conduct the defence on the basis that partner has ♥10 and ♦10.

I submit with due, but without false, modesty that if Aardv thinks X and I think not-X, it is probably not "crystal clear" whether X is true or not.

My position is the exact opposite of his. The Law, unmodified by minutes, in effect says this: until partner has played his penalty card, you are not allowed to know anything about its rank or suit. Once he has played it, you are allowed to know that he had to, rather than chose to, play it - but that is all.

The earlier minute is consistent with this interpretation. The later minute is not; indeed, the later minute is at variance with the Law itself. It is in my view not possible for the Law and the later minute logically to co-exist; that they physically coexist is an aberration by the WBFLC.

[Aardv]

dburn, on 2015-May-18, 07:35, said:

I submit with due, but without false, modesty that if Aardv thinks X and I think not-X, it is probably not "crystal clear" whether X is true or not.

My position is the exact opposite of his. The Law, unmodified by minutes, in effect says this: until partner has played his penalty card, you are not allowed to know anything about its rank or suit. Once he has played it, you are allowed to know that he had to, rather than chose to, play it - but that is all.

The earlier minute is consistent with this interpretation. The later minute is not; indeed, the later minute is at variance with the Law itself. It is in my view not possible for the Law and the later minute logically to co-exist; that they physically coexist is an aberration by the WBFLC.

Due respect for dburn and lamford, in the absence of false modesty, demands that I acknowledge that there are two readings of all this which intelligent people might reach.

I disagree that the later minute is at variance with the Law itself. I read "Knowledge of the requirements for playing a penalty card..." as including the identity of the penalty card that partner is required to play. And so, I submit, does the WBFLC, or its later minute would indeed be an aberration. And we should assume that the WBFLC is making sense unless the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.

Which raises two questions: first, of these two possibilities, what we would like the Law to mean? And second, once we agree what we want the Law to mean, how would we word it? Perhaps these are questions for another forum.

[VixTD]

Bring back Lamford! I very much enjoy his contrived scenarios, even if I'm sometimes a bit slow on the uptake. This one was inspired by something that happened at a real bridge table, and it's got us all thinking about how the a very commonly-applied law and the WBFLC minutes attached to it should be applied. Why would anyone want to suppress this? Shame on the moderators. Surely there's plenty of room here for both simple and complicated, abstract problems. There aren't many situations I come across where I'm at a loss to know how to apply the laws (I can't say the same for how to apply bridge judgement), but this is certainly one of them.