[blackshoe]

Trinidad, on 2012-December-16, 12:02, said:

His partner agreed.

This was a league with teams from different clubs competing against each other. It is certainly possible that the hands were played at the club where this pair normally plays. Remember that over here many clubs play predealt boards. A logistic error is all that is needed...

So perhaps the reason the league could find no record of previous play of the boards (presumably in league play) was that the boards were played in a regular club game, not a league game. That works.

[blackshoe]

I agree with Sven that Law 6D2 technically applies. I agree with the league, Gnasher, and Rik that the league's solution was the most practical if no other team was from the same club as the one that remembered the boards. Such other team, if there is one, should also be required to replay any match they played with boards from another event in which they participated.

I also think the TD should seek guidance from higher authority (the TO) in cases where the "practical" solution would require him to violate Law 81B2.

[pran]

Trinidad, on 2012-December-16, 14:20, said:

I obviously don't know, but to me it seems likely that the board set was taken from a set that was played at this pair's bridge club, some time ago. In that case, it was this pair and possibly their team mates who would know about the boards.

This is the crucial point and I agree with you if that could be ascertained.
However all that has been told so far is that nobody could establish where and when the boards were originally played or whether the other contestants in the session definitely had not played the boards. You seem to admit yourself that you are only guessing?

Trinidad, on 2012-December-16, 14:20, said:

I agree with Andy that -given the situation at the end of the day- the league's decision is the most practical solution and it is fair. We are not talking about regular club bridge nights. These are 24 board matches and they are played during a weekend, at 2 matches per day at a central location. (I believe it was a conference center this time.) Some teams are traveling over three hours to play.

The playing days are scheduled more than a year ahead. Many players have families and are involved in other activities than bridge. Given that the other matches -most likely- were not influenced at all, I think that it would be entirely disproportional to:
- ask people to come an extra day
- try to arrange a conference center at short notice

This would be the equivalent of deciding that a pairs event at a regional needs to be completely replayed 3 weeks later.

The two teams that were involved in the match where the boards were recognized are from clubs that are located only 30 km (20 miles) from each other. They also happen to both play their club games on Thursday evenings. It is relatively easy to arrange a new match between these two teams.

Rik

All this is OK if, as I have already said several times, it can be established (beyond doubt) that no other team than the two immediately involved may have seen (or learned about) the boards at an earlier time. But that condition must be confirmed, not just assumed. I haven't seen anybody here confirming that the two teams were the only teams affected, all I have seen are assumptions. And that is not good enough.

I remember a similar situation some 20(?) years ago in Norway. I was not involved, but I knew the player who blew the whistle: He entered an event way up in northern Norway and recognised the cards during the first round. It turned out that the distributor had simply sent the same cards that had already been used in a similar event in southern Norway, assuming that nobody would go some 2500 km to play both events. However, my friend had a schedule which made it convenient for him to participate at both places and the scandal was on.

As they were able to establish exactly what had happened and that he was the only player who had entered both events the event was run with him and his partner excused and compensated.

But they could only do this because they were able to establish all important facts about the incident.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2012-December-16, 16:36, said:

I agree with Sven that Law 6D2 technically applies. I agree with the league, Gnasher, and Rik that the league's solution was the most practical if no other team was from the same club as the one that remembered the boards. Such other team, if there is one, should also be required to replay any match they played with boards from another event in which they participated.

I also think the TD should seek guidance from higher authority (the TO) in cases where the "practical" solution would require him to violate Law 81B2.

The condition above (colored by me in red) is only sufficient if they can establish that the boards indeed had been used in that particular club only, and with none of the other league contestants playing them.

We still haven't been told that this is the situation?

[gnasher]

pran, on 2012-December-16, 13:33, said:

You should care!
It is idiotic to ignore the danger of destroying an event by having the contestants (re)playing boards they already more or less know.

I'm not ignoring any risks. I have considered the risk you mention and concluded that it's vanishingly small.

I reached this conclusion because I know that if anyone else had recognised the boards, they would have called the director and said "I recognise this hand". That's what people do in this situation. Nobody would think "Ooh, I remember this hand. Let's see if anybody else does; if they don't, maybe I can take advantage of what I remember."

[axman]

gnasher, on 2012-December-16, 17:41, said:

I'm not ignoring any risks. I have considered the risk you mention and concluded that it's vanishingly small.

I reached this conclusion because I know that if anyone else had recognised the boards, they would have called the director and said "I recognise this hand". That's what people do in this situation. Nobody would think "Ooh, I remember this hand. Let's see if anybody else does; if they don't, maybe I can take advantage of what I remember."

Some data may be useful here.

In one of the cases where there was a replay issue [when I was a principle], mid-session a rumor came to my attention that a pair of boards had not been duplicated and thus the set was in play for a second time in 24 hours. I tried to recognize those hands and did not. Yet, even though I did not recognize the hands I did two tricks better on each of the boards the second time around.

Which goes to show that the subconscious pays much better attention than our conscious; and what we don’t consciously remember can be remembered and acted upon subconsciously.

[barmar]

My guess is that at least 90% of players would not consciously recognize hands that they'd played during a previous session. In fact, most would have a hard time reproducing any but the most interesting 1 or 2 hands in a session they just finished, and would need a hand record for most of the spots of those hands. The Al Roth anecdote is mostly interesting as an indicator of his amazing memory of bridge hands.

On the other hand, the subconscious is a pretty amazing thing. I wonder if it might recognize the hands, and subtly bias the players. Probably not for most average and lower players, I suspect -- unconscious behavior is mostly used for habitual and intuitive activity, and most of bridge is not ingrained that well in non-expert players.

[mycroft]

Like gnasher, I can't imagine anyone saying "I think I recognize the hands; let's use that information". Like barmar, I can very easily see people playing the hands better the second time by making the right guesses on straight guesses, because they analyzed the hand last time, and somewhere in their subconscious, they "knew" how to play it.

I can't imagine playing a match where I'm told that the "right results", which I know in advance, are UI. Not only would I have the same problems as in the OP, when I *did* do the right thing, the opponents would always be wondering if it really was because it's the right thing or whether it was just that it's the thing that works on this hand. I can't imagine this being sensible or a comfortable game of bridge.

[Trinidad]

mycroft, on 2012-December-17, 13:20, said:

I can't imagine playing a match where I'm told that the "right results", which I know in advance, are UI. Not only would I have the same problems as in the OP, when I *did* do the right thing, the opponents would always be wondering if it really was because it's the right thing or whether it was just that it's the thing that works on this hand. I can't imagine this being sensible or a comfortable game of bridge.

I was astonished that these guys managed to play about 10 boards under these circumstances. I would be completely sick to my stomach after three. After ten I would be ready for a hospital...

Rik

[PeterAlan]

I believe the Al Roth story wasn't about any old club game - it was the 1955 Bermuda Bowl:

The Bermuda Bowl - History and All Time Best Deals (Henry Francis & Brian Senior) p28 said:

One incident calls for special mention. Roth picked up a hand and immediately called the director. "I've played this hand before," he told Al Sobel. Sobel told him that was impossible and instructed him to continue play. Roth insisted that he had played it before, then left the table and went over to a corner. He proceeded to write all four hands and give the paper to Sobel. "Check it out," he said. Sobel did so and discovered that Roth was absolutely correct. The hand had been played a few days before.

They don't relate how it happened, though.

[blackshoe]

PeterAlan, on 2012-December-18, 10:12, said:

I believe the Al Roth story wasn't about any old club game - it was the 1955 Bermuda Bowl:


They don't relate how it happened, though.

Cool, thanks for posting that.

I imagine that at some point somebody was supposed to shuffle the deck, and didn't.

[Zelandakh]

PeterAlan, on 2012-December-18, 10:12, said:

They don't relate how it happened, though.

It seems from his Obituary that it remains a mystery:

Quote

During the 1955 Bermuda Bowl, Mr. Roth was declaring a two-spade contract and felt he had played the deal before — but as a defender. He called over the chief tournament director, Al Sobel, who did not believe Mr. Roth because the cards had been dealt at the table. Mr. Sobel made Mr. Roth call out all of the cards in each hand — including the spot-cards — before he threw out the board. No one ever discovered how the duplicate deal happened.

[blackshoe]

Maybe it was a random deal, and just happened to randomly duplicate a previous deal. The odds of that are vanishingly small, but they're not zero.

[Zelandakh]

Just to add, I have found another account of the incident which says that the first time he played the deal he was defending a 1NT contract.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2012-December-19, 09:32, said:

Maybe it was a random deal, and just happened to randomly duplicate a previous deal. The odds of that are vanishingly small, but they're not zero.

So small as to be negligible, IMHO. Occam's Razor applies.

[blackshoe]

You can apply it if you like; my point is that Occam's Razor or not, the chance that's what happened is not zero. IAC, we'll never know what really did happen, and it really doesn't matter anyway.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2012-December-19, 11:35, said:

You can apply it if you like; my point is that Occam's Razor or not, the chance that's what happened is not zero. IAC, we'll never know what really did happen, and it really doesn't matter anyway.

The chance is definitely not zero, but it is far less than the chance for a player even to get all thirteen cards in the same denomination. In fact the chance is exactly the same as the chance for a deal to be dealt with all the spades to North, all the hearts to East and all the diamonds to South (which of course will give West all the clubs).

With hand dealt boards I believe in two possible explanations: Either the board had not been redealt since last it was used or the shuffling and dealing was inferior to say the least.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2012-December-19, 11:35, said:

You can apply it if you like; my point is that Occam's Razor or not, the chance that's what happened is not zero. IAC, we'll never know what really did happen, and it really doesn't matter anyway.

There's also a non-zero chance of an egg un-breaking spontaneously. But I'm not going to make any decision predicated on it actually having happened.

[lamford]

RMB1, on 2012-December-15, 14:35, said:

If the two sets do not match but one board is the same I seek guidance from a higher source.

As you will know that the chance of two deals being identical, card for card, is of the order of 5.36E+28, I presume that you will not need guidance on this. Will you therefore be asking God if he was "having a bit of fun"?

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2012-December-20, 00:34, said:

There's also a non-zero chance of an egg un-breaking spontaneously. But I'm not going to make any decision predicated on it actually having happened.

Is there really? Can you prove it?