[mycroft]

My guess is that it is because split scores/procedural penalties aren't avaiable to the TDs on BBO.

I, too, would be a lot cheerier about this if they led a heart to stop the crossruff. He didn't - I bet he knew something was off. Partner, on the other hand, who doubled 2H knowing opener has a good xx4x - she might be able to claim damage.

I'd like to rule result stands, and E/W -1/4 board for *blatant* MI. "suit" is clearly ambiguous, although alert and "suit" is odd; but unalerted 2D "Pass or bid your suit" in addition to the 2C explanation takes this to the point where we aren't trying for full disclosure (of course, if 2D is unalertable in the OP's tournament, then this does not apply). I'm sure it's not on purpose; but when neither partner even meets the minimum required, never mind full disclosure, they need a solid reminder.

But the TD can't. So he tried something that gives the same sort of results.
Michael.

[blackshoe]

mycroft, on Jan 16 2007, 11:52 AM, said:

My guess is that it is because split scores/procedural penalties aren't avaiable to the TDs on BBO.

I, too, would be a lot cheerier about this if they led a heart to stop the crossruff.  He didn't - I bet he knew something was off.  Partner, on the other hand, who doubled 2H knowing opener has a good xx4x - she might be able to claim damage.

I'd like to rule result stands, and E/W -1/4 board for *blatant* MI.  "suit" is clearly ambiguous, although alert and "suit" is odd; but unalerted 2D "Pass or bid your suit" in addition to the 2C explanation takes this to the point where we aren't trying for full disclosure (of course, if 2D is unalertable in the OP's tournament, then this does not apply).  I'm sure it's not on purpose; but when neither partner even meets the minimum required, never mind full disclosure, they need a solid reminder.

But the TD can't.  So he tried something that gives the same sort of results.
Michael.

Bleeah. Split scores and PPs should be available to TDs, whatever the venue. And they could be, if the software had been designed and written properly in the first place.

Aside from that, I'm not so sure that compounding the problem of not be able to follow the laws by deliberately deviating further from them is the right way to solve the problem.

[jikl]

My reasoning for being tempted to do Av-- is that I don't think EW deserve their score, however NS in some ways do deserve it, it smells like a doubleshot. I know in ACBL land it would be an auto adjustment for NS, but South, "a star", knew something was wrong and went down the normal line of if I can't win at the table I will win from the TD. Should NS be rewarded? No.

So, within the bounds of what I could do within BBO as TD, I would have result stands for NS and procedural penalty for EW, closest I can get to that is Av--.

Sean

[mike777]

Last night I had an opponent insist I explain partner's alert in an online acbl tourney. They asked 5 times and I told them they need to ask partner. They said they did but they want to know what I think his bid means? Is this correct?

[hrothgar]

mike777, on Jan 23 2007, 04:07 PM, said:

Last night I had an opponent insist I explain partner's alert in an online acbl tourney. They asked 5 times and I told them they need to ask partner. They said they did but they want to know what I think his bid means? Is this correct?

I suspect that this is going to lead to the standard discussion about "sponsoring authorities". In short, whoever is running the tournament gets to make the rules.

Here are my own thoughts:

If we look at Face-to-Face bridge, most tournaments are based on a system in which the partner of the player making a bid is repsonsible for alerting that bid and providing an explanation. There is one very significant exception to this rule: If screens are in use, screenmates alert / explain bids to one one another. Lets assume that North and East are on one side of a screen and South and West are on the other. Furthermore, assume that East made an alertable call. As I understand matters, East is responsible for providing disclosure to North, while West explains the bid to South.

Both these systems share one very common feature: Disclosure about a single bid is only provided by one member of the partership. The opposing pair is not able to ask questions to both members of a partnership, look for a discrepancy in explanations, and use this to determine whether the partnership is experiencing a mis-understanding. In general, a discrepancy only comes to light during subsequent bidding.

From my perspective, this principle should (probably) carry over into the online world: I have no problem with a self-alert structure, where players alert/announce/explain their own bids. I have no problem with a partner alert system, where the partner of the player making a bid alerts/announces/explains. However, I don't think that both players should be required to explain whats going on. (For that matter, I still believe that most of this should be provided by the FD application)

If we return to your specific question, I believe that the ACBL uses a self-alert structure in its online tournaments. However, I've never seen any kind of official statement that the use of self alerts precludes asking question to the partner of the player making a bid.

[jikl]

I think Richard is right, online bridge is the same as bridge behind screens except both opponents know what you think the bid means. The only way to find out about misunderstandings behind screens is when there is an obvious screwup and information is volunteered as to what the screwup could be, such as: "He quite often screws up this sequence" or "He forgets we play 1430 in ♥s and 0314 in the other suits". However, the opposition is only entitled to your agreements.

Now, what are your agreements? In the online world you hear from each person what each bid means by the person that bid it. There is a dangerous thing that can happen here from a devious player looking for a doubleshot, a player can potentially ask for a review of the whole auction from either player as they have received alerts from both players potentially in an auction.

Hopefully the ACBL will see that this is a problem and make some sort of ruling on it, otherwise the director calls are going to be hell. They would need to make very subjective opinions on fining people for setting up doubleshots.

There are also some serious UI problems here when you are asking for a review from both players, (especially if during the auction, the delay will be lengthy given all the potential typing), how is the questioner's partner supposed to interpret the delay and what effect will this have on subsequent actions? We already have this problem with an inherent part of BBO, if one clicks on a bid slower than one's partner you get the message that XXX is already answering a question which in and of itself already conveys some UI.

It is a very complicated issue. As I said, personally I agree with Richard. However, I personally think they can legally ask for a review of the whole auction from both players as they have received alerts from both players so far. If it comes to it, and people start doing this, there better be some serious assessment of time penalties etc, but we know this won't happen.

Sean

[blackshoe]

A review of the auction is just that - it doesn't include explanations.

One could ask for an explanation of the entire auction, and then "explanations should normally be given by the partner of the player who made the call in question" (Law 20F1), but I agree with the idea upthread - once one player of a pair has explained to both opponents the meaning of the call, asking his partner also for an explanation seems why too much like "operating" to me.

In this case (online) I would interpret "normally" in the law quoted above as allowing me to rule that this is not a normal situation, and if explanations have previously been given, then in the explanation of the entire auction, those calls which were already explained should be explained only by the player who already explained them.

[mycroft]

"I'd like a review of the bidding with all the original inflections"

[barmar]

jikl, on Jan 23 2007, 09:49 AM, said:

I think Richard is right, online bridge is the same as bridge behind screens except both opponents know what you think the bid means. The only way to find out about misunderstandings behind screens is when there is an obvious screwup and information is volunteered as to what the screwup could be, such as: "He quite often screws up this sequence" or "He forgets we play 1430 in ♥s and 0314 in the other suits". However, the opposition is only entitled to your agreements.

But they're entitled to both explicit and implicit agreements. Implicit agreements include any knowledge that the partner has of the player's unique tendencies, based on his experience playing with him. So if partner knows that he often forgets a particular convention, the opponents are supposed to be entitled to this information as well.

[mycroft]

More specifically,

Quote

Law 75C:

When explaining the significance of partner's call or play in reply to an opponent's inquiry (see Law 20), a player shall disclose all special information conveyed to him through partnership agreement or partnership experience, but he need not disclose inferences drawn from his general knowledge and experience.

"He tends to forget this a lot" is definately "partnership experience".