[jammen]

A BIT is considered a serious violation during the bidding and causes many controversial committee rulings. Yet a BIT during play is considered normal expert practice for certain slower players. Why? When defenders tanks for several minutes before finally ducking the trick they are illegally signalling to their partners that they could have won the trick. Why is this allowed? Why can you use a BIT to illegally signal high cards? You might as well say out loud "partner, I have the ace but I am going to think for a long time and then play a small card".

Furthermore, why are "slow" players allowed to use this illegal signalling method to help pinpoint their defense. There are expert "fast" players who never tank on defense, they play smoothly and in rhythm. Watch the USBC's and you will see exactly what I am talking about.

[billw55]

Ability to win the trick is not the only reason to hesitate. Perhaps they are considering the proper signal, or deciding whether to split honors, etc.

Anyway, I suppose that declarer could ask for an adjustment if he felt that UI was generated and used, and he was damaged. With all the weird things that happen, there must be some precedent for this.

[ahydra]

Quote

A BIT is considered a serious violation during the bidding

No.

A hesitation is not a violation of the Laws. What is a violation is using the UI generated by partner's hesitation.

ahydra

[jammen]

So there can be UI caused by a BIT during the bidding, but not during the play? Why? Anyone who has watched the USBC's knows exactly what I mean. I have never seen a call made against players who signal their high cards through a BIT.

From the laws: "During the auction and play, communication between partners should be effected only by means of the calls and plays themselves. Calls and plays should be made without special emphasis, mannerism or inflection, and without undue hesitation or haste." (emphasis added).

Bobby Wolff "2. Never break tempo as a defender if the slow choice of what you eventually decide could be thought to be unauthorized information (UI) to partner. If the break in tempo (BIT) occurs, partner should lean over backwards to follow your suggestion (even if he suspects by doing so he is possibly committing bridge suicide), rather than taking advantage of the UI".
http://judy.bridgebl...derbilt-appeal/

[barmar]

Note that the law says "without undue hesitation or haste". If you have a legitimate problem, you're allowed to think.

The reason why this isn't usually considered as serious is because it's usually pretty clear from the auction and the way declarer is playing that he doesn't have the card that partner is thinking of playing. If it's not obvious at the time partner goes into the tank, it usually will become so shortly after. So it rarely has any impact on the other defender's play. This is especially true when they're experts, since they can form pretty accurate pictures of the hands by inference from declarer's line of play.

[aguahombre]

There are some points of interest to the contention, IMO.

1) Not all breaks in tempo we "see" while watching vuGraph are actually occurring at the table.

2) The players themselves do not seem aggrieved when these breaks occur. The revelation caused by the BITs rarely provides useful information to the partner which he already didn't know -- these guys are pretty smart --- and often provides a clue to the Declarer.

3) "Undue" is a key word. Taking the time to think something out might not be considered "undue".

4) All the players at that level are surely aware of their obligations when they actually are in possession of UI. See #2, above. The opponents are big boys and know how to protect their rights.

5) The quote from Bobby Wolf cited by the OP is one of many he mentioned in a blog back in 2013. The appeal case (subject of that thread) had nothing to do with BIT; and, while being good advice, is nothing new to any of the players in this level of competition.

[nige1]

jammen, on 2015-May-15, 06:21, said:

A BIT is considered a serious violation during the bidding and causes many controversial committee rulings. Yet a BIT during play is considered normal expert practice for certain slower players. Why? When defenders tanks for several minutes before finally ducking the trick they are illegally signalling to their partners that they could have won the trick. Why is this allowed? Why can you use a BIT to illegally signal high cards? You might as well say out loud "partner, I have the ace but I am going to think for a long time and then play a small card". Furthermore, why are "slow" players allowed to use this illegal signalling method to help pinpoint their defense. There are expert "fast" players who never tank on defense, they play smoothly and in rhythm. Watch the USBC's and you will see exactly what I am talking about.

Agree with jammen. In principle, the law treats UI created by hesitations during the bidding and during the play, in the same way; but practice works differently.

Even when a hesitation merely confirms an inference from the auction, it still simplifies defenders' more orthodox signals and makes the defence easier. Unfortunately declarer rarely asks a defender "Do you agree that your partner hesitated". Also, the UI might simplify a defender's decisions on several subsequent tricks. Anyway, in practice, putative offenders escape unchallenged because declarer so rarely calls the director.

UI creates confusion among directors and players and decides many tournaments. Law-makers might consider experimenting with timers. e.g. you must delay 5 seconds before any call or play and must complete the action within 10 seconds -- or be shot

As in chess, a player would grow accustomed to using the thinking time of the 3 other players.

[jammen]

I don't believe that there has ever been a case in bridge history where a defender is penalized for UI resulting from partners BIT.

Declarer wins the opening lead in dummy and plays a trump to his king. LHO tanks 3 minutes and finally plays small. RHO wins the next trick, and having deduced that his partner has the ace of trumps and hence where the other high cards are located, makes the killing switch which is not found at the other table where there was no BIT. Nothing can ever be done about this kind of cheating and it's probable that the partners involved aren't even aware of it, as it is unintentional and has been approved by the ACBL as "thoughtfulness".

[RMB1]

I had a UI case from hesitation in the play where I adjusted the score and was upheld on appeal.
It was a long time ago (15-20 years) and the details are hazy. mamos was TD i/c and dburn was the AC.

Early in the play, East played low slowly in a suit he might have nothing in and South (declarer) won.
A trick or so later,South lead a trump and West went up with the ace (in a position it would be normal to duck)
and crossed to East's trick(s) in the suit East had hesitated on (where this was not the obvious suit to switch to).

I adjusted on the basis that there were logical alternatives to West's plays and gave declarer more tricks.

[awm]

I had one very recently where a defender took a long time to lead against a slam. His partner won the trick (all following) and had to decide if his partner had lead a singleton or doubleton. At the table he correctly played partner for doubleton.

I called the director, saying that a singleton lead would not have required a long BIT. The director agreed and changed the result from down one to making.

In fact you CAN get BIT rulings in the play, people just don't call the director much in these situations.

[Vampyr]

I find it very distracting to substitute "led" when I see the word "lead".

I just wanted to add that it is a lot more common to see rulings when a BIT in a tempo-sensitive situation deceives declarer.

[FrancesHinden]

jammen, on 2015-May-15, 10:36, said:

I don't believe that there has ever been a case in bridge history where a defender is penalized for UI resulting from partners BIT.

Declarer wins the opening lead in dummy and plays a trump to his king. LHO tanks 3 minutes and finally plays small. RHO wins the next trick, and having deduced that his partner has the ace of trumps and hence where the other high cards are located, makes the killing switch which is not found at the other table where there was no BIT. Nothing can ever be done about this kind of cheating and it's probable that the partners involved aren't even aware of it, as it is unintentional and has been approved by the ACBL as "thoughtfulness".

You might not believe it, but there have been plenty.

There are also 'invisible' rulings... I have twice seen a player lead (or switch) to a doubleton very slowly. Their partner has to guess whether it is a singleton or a double. The ethical player 'knows' it is a doubleton from the UI, and deliberately plays partner for a singleton. There are plenty of other cases where I have seen a defender ethically misdefend based on partner's UI

[blackshoe]

Is there some reason people are not posting laws questions in the laws forum?

[nige1]

blackshoe, on 2015-May-15, 15:58, said:

Is there some reason people are not posting laws questions in the laws forum?

Please would moderators move errant threads to the correct forum, to make them easier to find.

[karlson]

It's certainly a real problem. One of the reasons people tend not to ask for rulings on breaks in tempo during the play is because it's almost always possible to construct some post facto rationalization for the defense, and those arguments seem to carry a lot more weight than similar arguments during the auction (which, admittedly, are often a bit more subjective). So I'm not sure there's a great solution.

[FrancesHinden]

There was a hand from the world championships not long ago where the defence were ruled against; there was a great deal of discussion about it.

[jammen]

Board 2 there is a directors call on Kranyak for BIT club shift. It's about time.

[karlson]

Here's a hand from a while ago that involved a defensive break in tempo and led to a contentious director ruling. http://bridgewinners.../usbc-appeal-3/

[KurtGodel]

In the Junior Euros I had a queen guess of Kxxx on table with AJT9x in hand. I was intending on playing RHO for the queen as there was quite a big difference in vacant places. Just in case I advanced the Jack, LHO went into a 10 second huddle and then played low. Then it was my turn to think, eventually I elected to play low, of course this lost to Qx. I called the director, and my LHO said she was just giving count. The director told me that it would be ridiculous to cover (the bidding had shown I had at least 5 cards in this suit), and told me not to call for fatuous rulings! I got a bit het up, as this was worth 70% of a board. Then my LHO burst into tears, and said that she would never cheat. I decided to drop it after this, as she was a player from one of the weaker countries and the upset looked quite genuine.

This sort of thing has happened to me dozens of times, nearly always in this sort of spot, or when I have a KJ guess. I now know that you will never get redress, because as soon as you call the director the opponents deny any hesitation, and you just look like a muppet. In these situations, unless I know the opponents to be honest, I just back my initial judgement rather than read too much into a hesitation, unless it is really blatant.

I appreciate that this sort of thing is a little different to transmitting UI to partner, it's about transmitting false information to declarer.

I found myself defending a contract where we had reached a 5 card ending and it was clear that the whole hand was just about a KJ guess. Declarer (who was decent) huddled for a long time and led towards dummy, my partner (for whatever reason) took ages to produce a card (not having the ace - of course) so declarer rose king. I knew and liked declarer, and so apologised for my partner. Declarer then called the director to ask for a ruling, and he explained the situation, saying that he would have at least considered playing the jack. The director awarded a split ruling of 50% of 4H= and 50% of 4H+1. I tried to argue quite vociferously that declarer should get it wrong anyway because 1) partner had led from Qxxx (in another suit) at trick 1, so restricted choice placed the queen in my hand, 2) I had pitched a discouraging club at trick 3 (I knew the hand). Director was having none of this...

[Vampyr]

I got a ruling in my favour with a KJ guess when lefty huddled. In that first case you mention I would definitely have appealed and also written to the director's federation about how hopeless he was.

Try to agree hesitations as soon as they happen. If the opponents disagree, call the director. Very often you will get a ruling in your favour.

And sometimes the opponents will make the director's job particularly easy: I didn't hesitate; I was just thinking about whether....