[luke warm]

this was the hand today..

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 Pass  Pass  3♠    4♥
 4♠    5♥    Pass  Pass
 Pass  

ok, the director came to the table halfway thru and said he was adjusting the score to avg - for both pairs because east opened "an improper 3♠"

my question is, first of all, is that opening disallowed? secondly, what can a pair do about it when the opps open "improperly"? just take the 40% and be happy? ... oh, i was sitting south fwiw

thanks

[Flame]

This director is a very bad one, i think the only thing you can do is complain in writing to your bridge federation.

[Flame]

A director should check if there was an infomation avaliable to one side and not the other, and wather this information made a different to the score.
In this example its not even close.
First the 3sp bid is not a psych, its not a regular bid but its an accpetible one.
Second the partner didnt seem to know what his partner had and even if he didnt know he didnt use it and normally bid 4sp.
Third - it wasnt the resson for the bad result,let say there was an hiden info and lets check what would happend if you also had this info so you knew the opponents could have only 5 card spade with an unbalanced hand, as i see it you would probebly bid the same (wather its a mistake or not)
even when the director desided to change the score he should give an adjust score probebly 4sp*-3 and not an art score of 60-40.

again not even close and a really bad decision of a director, making lots of mistakes, imo this person shouldnt be ac director because he doesnt understand his job.

[hrothgar]

Comment the first:

I'd be curious why the Director showed up at the table to begin with. If a there were a complaint about the legitimacy of the 3♠ opening, it should be made openly.

Comment the second:

This hand is from an Indy...
Not much chance of a concealed partnership understanding

Comment the third:
Ajusted score with the non-offending side receiving a 40% is just bizarre...

Comment the last:
Unclear why an adjustment is even needed. 3♠ doesn't appeal to me, but its certainly legal...

[inquiry]

luke warm, on Jul 5 2004, 06:17 PM, said:

ok, the director came to the table halfway thru and said he was adjusting the score to avg - for both pairs because east opened "an improper 3♠"

What utter nonsense. If 3♠ was improper for some reason (let's say the condition of contest stated, "3♠ opening bids will not be allowed in this tournment"), then the TD had reason to "punish" the pair who opened 3♠, but not the innoncent, non-offending side.

This is just too wierd.

Ben

[luke warm]

thx flame and richard... i don't know why the director showed up, as you say it was an indy and i didn't think to ask my pard later if she had called... i can't imagine she did, and i know i didn't

it surprised the heck out of me, i was barely halfway thru the hand when it happened... the director (who also ran the tourney) just hopped in, made the statement "score at table 13 adjusted to avg- for improper 3♠ opening"... it was the last board, so *boom* we were looking at other tables... i pm'd the director and asked "why? what happened" and got no answer... i asked again, again receiving no answer, then this person left bbo

i would most definitely like an answer as to why this happened, but i don't know how to get one... since the director was unwilling to speak to me privately at the time, i doubt i'll learn much now

added by edit (ben posted while i was typing this)... yeah, it shocked the hell outta me ... i don't know who this person was, but i'm sure some of you do... if so, try to find out for me what this was all about, if you can... thanks

[keylime]

Jimmy,

I wish I could say that you were kidding, but you're not....

This is a strange one indeed.

[the hog]

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, don't you know that the Ayatollah's correct bidding lessons,(ACBL), say that you have to have a 7 card suit to pre empt. Of course this sort of opening must be totally stamped on when it occurs. Heavens, they will let you open 1C on a three card suit next. What is the world coming to?

[inquiry]

The_Hog, on Jul 5 2004, 09:39 PM, said:

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, don't you know that the Ayatollah's correct bidding lessons, (ACBL), say that you have to have a 7 card suit to pre empt. Of course this sorth of opening must be totally stamped on when it occurs. Heavens, they will let you open 1C on a three card suit next. What is the world coming to?

Even assuming there was a rule that preempts require 7 cards (and such a rule would be illegal in general, imho), why in the world give Jimmy and Average minus for his opponents illegal bid? Why not respond to your paying customer (yes this was from a fee-to-play event, but not ACBL)? The director did several things here that seem to be total indefensible.

Ben

[the hog]

I was kidding, Ben.

[whereagles]

LOL

It is your duty, luke, to notify the national board of this Director's decision. Next time he may be disallowing YOUR off-center 3S bid!

[Gerben47]

My humble opinion is that the correct action is to take all directing powers away from whoever decided this.
Score stands. No alternative.

P.S. In Germany there is a category C, supposedly to protect the less experienced players, where preempts like this are not allowed.
1-suited preempts must satisfy the rule of 18 or have at least 6 cards and 5HCP.
2-suited preempts must satisfy the rule of 18 or have at least 5-5 and 5HCP.

On the other hand Multi is allowed... Crazy, isn't it!
But with KJTxxxxxx xx x x I'm forced to pass under this jurisdiction.

Gerben

[luke warm]

thx all for your replies... i posted this in the td forum and someone suggested that maybe east called the director, maybe saying he'd misclicked 3♠ when he meant to bid 2... that at least would explain why the director even showed up at my table

everyone screws up occasionally, so i don't want to punish anyone... but i would like an explanation as to what happened and an acknowledgement that a mistake was made... what irked me the most was the two messages to this director asking for clarification that got totally ignored.. and this was *after* the tourney...

[Free]

The director has no right to judge weither a bidding is right or wrong. It's based on bridge judgement, and there's no rule which forbids that! Btw, I open this hand always 3♠ in this situation: 3rd NV vs V 5+ card suit...

Second, adjusted score are impropper, and certainly when both sides get AV- Ban this TD immediatly!!!

[Trpltrbl]

That's the problem with many directors on BBO, they have just no idea what to do.
3♠ is perfectly legal.
And to adjust score and give both pairs Ave-, is compeletly insane.
This director should be reported and stripped from Director status, since obviously this director has no idea what bridge is.
How can somebody like that rule a game like bridge ?

Mike

[bearmum]

inquiry, on Jul 6 2004, 03:15 PM, said:

The_Hog, on Jul 5 2004, 09:39 PM, said:

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, don't you know that the Ayatollah's correct bidding lessons, (ACBL), say that you have to have a 7 card suit to pre empt. Of course this sorth of opening must be totally stamped on when it occurs. Heavens, they will let you open 1C on a three card suit next. What is the world coming to?

Even assuming there was a rule that preempts require 7 cards (and such a rule would be illegal in general, imho), why in the world give Jimmy and Average minus for his opponents illegal bid? Why not respond to your paying customer (yes this was from a fee-to-play event, but not ACBL)? The director did several things here that seem to be total indefensible.

Ben

If this was from a FEE to play event - MAYBE BBO needs to exercise more control over WHO is allowed to use BBO to promote their fee site because even to my totally inexperienced eyed the decision seems totally bizzare

[Trpltrbl]

I started a thread about level of TD and BBO should do about it. Like to get as much input as possible, maybe then it will improve.

Mike

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/~bridge2/...t=0&#entry26841

[mikestar]

Even in ACBL this is a GCC legal bid unless by partnership agreement this promised a second suit. It does however require a prealert.

But in an individual, it is essentially impossible for this type of agressive preempt be a matter or partnership agreement, so the bid is legal and the table result stands.


Ave- both ways is flatly illegal. If an artificial adjusted were appopriate, the non-offerders are entitled to Ave+

[Fluffy]

It look like 5♥ was going 1 off, therefore the director may have think you needed a penalty for your 'bad' bidding and put 40% to you.

Again must say I know little about the rules, dunno if what I said has any sense.

[uday]

5H was about to go off 1, wasnt it? And presumably 4H making was the normal contract elsewhere. NS , who were on their way to a near-zero, were not "punished" by their AVE-, they were rewarded.

Second, if this was an ACBL event, we'd all have to follow ACBL rules. If it was not, however, only the TDs and the customers have any input into what the rules are.

There is no point in "complaining to your bridge federation".
What could they do? BBO does not answer to anyone except the customers, and the ACBL (in a very limited sense, because we have an ACBL franchise).

Assuming this was not an ACBL event, there are no "laws", hence nothing is "illegal" except as defined by the organizers of this particular T.

Who knows what the conditions of contest said [ ui - moderating himself ]

Who knows, maybe NS or EW were abusive when asking the TD what happened, and the TD used his Enemy feature.

We're all just speculating.


Comments like

"This director is a very bad one"
"this person shouldnt be ac director"
"This director should be reported and stripped from Director status"

are unpleasantly abrasive, given that none of us know what happened.

Just remember, when posting, that

- some people are trying to make a living here
- some of our posters do not want these people to succeed

and so, it would not hurt to be more constructive, less destructive, less *angry* when discussing things like this. This is even truer when the problem TD/Organization/whatever is identified by name.


I'm starting to wish we did have a rating system for TDs . Maybe if TDs had a score (even self assigned) of their TD style, that would help. For example: 100ACBL might mean that rulings try to be completely in synch with accepted ACBL practices, while 0 would mean that many people would not consider it bridge ( but it could still be fun).

Are there any such things as online quizbooks for TDs with which we could test or score new TDs ? Maybe we can put up the ACBL casebooks (assuming it is legal) and make these required reading.