[barmar]

 blackshoe, on 2014-January-22, 17:46, said:

I fail to see how anyone would expect that this very common deviation from correct procedure could work to his advantage. You might as well apply Law 23 willy-nilly to every deviation.

Hear, hear! That interpretation would essentially allow SB a double shot every time his opponent makes the slightest deviation. He can always claim that the opponent induced his misplay, and the opponent could have known it was possible to work to his advantage.

"could well work to his advantage" has to mean that there's a reasonable likelihood of it working, not just some remote possibility. And in the case at hand, declarers make incomplete designations all the time, and they almost never induce misplays by the defenders. How could anyone extrapolate from this that it could well work to their advantage, when it probably never has before in their experience?

The type of deviation that this law is targeted at are things like hesitating with a singleton. If you do it intentionally it's coffeehousing, which is illegal under 73D2; but it's obvious enough that an opponent may be misled by tempo that you also have to avoid unintentional hesitation per 73D1.

[iviehoff]

 lamford, on 2014-January-22, 08:27, said:

Under which Law is East obliged to wait for dummy to place the diamond in the played position?

East can play before dummy if he wants to, and all the law says is that he must play the card he exposed, though he will get absolutely no relief if dummy doesn't do what he expects in that case. Although the card dummy must play is fixed at a certain point, the procedures for playing the card have not been completed at that point. The key point is the identification of what is card that has been played. If East wished for clarification of the interpretation of the irregular designation, he could have called the director, so he makes any interpretation of an incomplete designation at his own risk. If East had waited for the completion of the procedures in relation to playing the card, he could then have relied upon what he sees. East isn't obliged to wait, but by waiting he can rely upon what card dummy places in the played position. He cannot rely upon his own interpretation of the incomplete designation, that is at his own risk.

 lamford, on 2014-January-22, 08:27, said:

South has played when he said "ten", and East followed to the ten of clubs. Are you saying that he can do so if there is only one ten in dummy, but has to wait if there is more than one ten in dummy? This allows declarer to make minimum designations in the hope of achieving MPCs.

No I'm not saying he has to wait, he can even play before dummy for all I care, but that would be obviously at his own risk. What I am saying is that if he decides to make his own interpretation of the incomplete designation, then he makes that interpretation at his own risk. He could have asked the director to make the interpretation, or waited for dummy to put a card in the played position and relied on that instead.

 lamford, on 2014-January-22, 08:27, said:

And for a Law 23 adjustment against SB, you need an infraction by East. There is clearly one by South, and you submit no arguments to refute the claim that South "could have been aware" his infraction would benefit his side.

That was a cheeky point by me, only relevant if I'm wrong about all the above. If I'm wrong about the preceding and East is allowed to rely upon his own interpretatino of the incomplete designation, then what I'm saying is that morally East is in the wrong and I'd like to find an excuse for such a L23 adjustment against him, because it is a coffee-house and so bad it ought to be adjustable. But I realise I am going to have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find an irregularity to allow it.

As I said, there isn't really any sanction against East even for playing before dummy. But I would say it was a violation of the proprieties (the one about detaching a card too soon) for east to take action too soon, and I'll use L23 when it can matter. I will argue that although we reach a point where declarer's play is irrevocable before completion of the complete procedure of playing a card, the playing a card is only finished when the procedure for playing a card is finished, and that is the correct point for deciding whether East is detaching cards too soon.

 lamford, on 2014-January-22, 08:27, said:

And for completeness, I assume you would rule that the ace of clubs is a MPC, and West has to duck the second diamond, so 6NT=?

Correct.

[c_corgi]

 lamford, on 2014-January-22, 08:27, said:

...
And for a Law 23 adjustment against SB, you need an infraction by East. There is clearly one by South, and you submit no arguments to refute the claim that South "could have been aware" his infraction would benefit his side.

An irregularity is what is required for a Law 23 adjustment to be considered. Surely failing to follow suit when able constitutes an irregularity, even in situations where the normal revoke and exposed card penalties do not apply.

 lamford, on 2014-January-22, 08:27, said:

And for completeness, I assume you would rule that the ace of clubs is a MPC, and West has to duck the second diamond, so 6NT=?

6NT makes whether the ♣A is a penalty card or not, providing it is UI to West. Once West is obliged to duck the second round of diamonds, declarer can unblock the hearts and come to two spades, 4 hearts, two diamonds and 4 clubs.

[barmar]

Here's another take on this.

The law about how an incomplete designation is interpreted refers to the cards that actually exist in dummy, not the cards that any player mistakenly thinks are in dummy. Why should an opponent get an extra benefit because he misreads the cards in dummy? He wouldn't get a pass if he misheard the card that was called, would he ("I thought you called for the 8, not the Ace")?

Declarer knows what cards are in dummy, and he knows how incompleted designations are required to be interpreted, so his expectation is that everyone else at the table will understand it. I don't see how he "could well have known" that SB would choose this occasion to misread dummy's cards.

[nige1]

 nige1, on 2014-January-22, 07:56, said:

Were the law to insist on correct designations, all such interesting problems would disappear.

 iviehoff, on 2014-January-22, 08:03, said:

The other, more realistic, way to make the problem disappear is to specify that abbreviated designations of certain popular and unambiguous kinds are perfectly regular. Now even the most imaginative SB of an East hasn't a leg to stand on, and no injustice has been done.

 lamford, on 2014-January-22, 08:13, said:

I tend to agree. However, this will lead to SBs making the minimum legal designation hoping to induce an error from an opponent. I also find it annoying when declarer calls for a card by rank only from dummy, both when I am dummy and when I am a defender.

 Vampyr, on 2014-January-22, 08:55, said:

Or multiply, because these designations would rarely be made. The law should, instead, not class incomplete designations as irregularities. Except maybe "play", because that really does sound like "play anything" and is stupid.

Iviehoff and Vampyr are right that this and other sophisticated laws could be clarified. In theory, for example, here you could specify lots of short designations (e.g "small") as perfectly legal. The problem is that such "clarifications" make laws longer and more sophisticated.

In practice, few club-level directors and fewer players have the time or inclination to endure more nit-picking. To this law, for example, a typical player reaction is "Why don't they just specify that declarer plays a card by placing it in the played position or by naming its suit and rank." "The rules should forbid other designations as infractions." (Unanimous view of a group of players, yesterday).

Thus, for Bridge-rules, in general, there is an interesting dichotomy between:

• On the one hand, the hope of players for simpler rules that they could understand, especially if those simpler rules would result in more consistent rulings. and
• On the other hand, the law-maker's and director's apparent desire for increased devolution, subjectivity, and complexity. For example, posters in on-line law-discussions seem to delight in the resulting intriguing rulings. The typical director reaction to any simplifying suggestion is immediate rejection.

The best hope for Bridge is that law-makers realize that simplifying the rules is in the interest of rank-and-file directors as well as players. Otherwise directors are likely to find that there are few players left to direct.

[pran]

 nige1, on 2014-January-25, 04:35, said:

Iviehoff and Vampyr are right that this and other sophisticated laws could be clarified. In theory, for example, here you could specify lots of short designations (e.g "small") as perfectly legal. The problem is that such "clarifications" make laws longer and more sophisticated.

In practice, few club-level directors and fewer players have the time or inclination to endure more nit-picking. To this law, for example, a typical player reaction is "Why don't they just specify that declarer plays a card by placing it in the played position or by naming its suit and rank." "The rules should forbid other designations as infractions." (Unanimous view of a group of players, yesterday).

Thus, for Bridge-rules, in general, there is an interesting dichotomy between:

• On the one hand, the players' hope for simpler rules that he could understand, especially if simpler rules would result in more consistent rulings. and
• On the other hand, the law-maker's and director's apparent desire for increased devolution, subjectivity, and complexity. For example, posters in on-line law-discussions seem to delight in the resulting intriguing rulings. The typical director reaction to any simplifying suggestion is immediate rejection.

The best hope for Bridge is that law-makers realize that simplifying the rules is in the interest of rank-and-file directors as well as players. Otherwise directors are likely to find that there are few players left to direct.

Be aware that today's bridge is a game that has been developed during hundreds of years (from Whist through trumph Whist, auction Whist and auction Bridge only to mention a few variants).

The laws of duplicate bridge as we have them today have carried forward many of the traditions from these earlier variants and has just formalized the understandings that were obvious fifty or hundred years ago.

Bridge (as its predecessors) has always been a game for Gentlemen (Ladies came later!). Everybody knew how to play the game and they frowned on anybody trying technicalities to bend the rules they all knew so well.

Eventually these rules have been formalized into laws (not always absolutely successfully) and in order to apply these laws the director needs a feeling for the tradition behind the rules. He usually gets such feelings through his training and by studying commentaries to the laws.

Law 46 is typical in merging old tradition into legal terms. "We" do not want to abandon methods that has always worked to everybody's satisfaction although they strictly speaking do not conform to "correct procedure".

So please let us leave Law 46 as it is, and use it the way it is intended, without SBs and others try ingenious technicalities to fool the game.

[Vampyr]

 nige1, on 2014-January-25, 04:35, said:

In practice, few club-level directors and fewer players have the time or inclination to endure more nit-picking. To this law, for example, a typical player reaction is "Why don't they just specify that declarer plays a card by placing it in the played position or by naming its suit and rank." "The rules should forbid other designations as infractions." (Unanimous view of a group of players, yesterday).

Who were these players? Few players, in my experience, always name the suit and rank of a card they are playing from dummy.

And how would insisting on the "correct" designations be enforced? Would a director stand by each table ready to hand out PPs to players who asked for eg a small diamond?

[blackshoe]

Deleted your two posts, Sven. The "duplicate, please delete" in the first one was sufficient.

[pran]

 blackshoe, on 2014-January-25, 09:50, said:

Deleted your two posts, Sven. The "duplicate, please delete" in the first one was sufficient.

Thanks,
In fact I posted the "please delete" before I remembered that I could just edit my duplicate post! (Silly me )

[barmar]

 pran, on 2014-January-25, 10:29, said:

Thanks,
In fact I posted the "please delete" before I remembered that I could just edit my duplicate post! (Silly me )

I wish the forum software had an option to allow users to delete their own posts within N minutes of posting. It allows setting a time limit on editing (but we haven't enabled this), but the deletion permission is all or nothing.

Although maybe I should just allow it, since the editing permission means they have unlimited capability to replace the post with "Deleted".

[pran]

 barmar, on 2014-January-25, 10:59, said:

I wish the forum software had an option to allow users to delete their own posts within N minutes of posting. It allows setting a time limit on editing (but we haven't enabled this), but the deletion permission is all or nothing.

Although maybe I should just allow it, since the editing permission means they have unlimited capability to replace the post with "Deleted".

IMHO a good idea.

I think that both editing and deleting should be time limited (Although I must admit that I have taken the liberty to correct a typo in one of my posts when I discovered it several days later).

[nige1]

 Vampyr, on 2014-January-25, 08:11, said:

Who were these players?

Scottish players, more familiar with basic laws than most.

 Vampyr, on 2014-January-25, 08:11, said:

Few players, in my experience, always name the suit and rank of a card they are playing from dummy.

Currently, irregularities by others irritate my friends; but they, themselves, admit to laxity about complying with current laws about designating cards, using stop cards, making final passes,and so on. Partly due to ignorance -- for example, one thought "small" was a legal designation. And partly because directors condone reported irregularities (arguably, with legal justification). They'd welcome simpler rules and try to comply with them.

 Vampyr, on 2014-January-25, 08:11, said:

And how would insisting on the "correct" designations be enforced?

If the law mandates a designation, then, IMO, it isn't "correct" -- it's just correct . Anyway, sensible defenders would wait until declarer designated dummy's card correctly because, if they played prematurely they'd break the law.

 Vampyr, on 2014-January-25, 08:11, said:

Would a director stand by each table ready to hand out PPs to players who asked for eg a small diamond?

If players know a rule, understand it, and are confident a director will enforce it, then they tend to comply with it and report infractions. If directors know and understand a rule, then they have a better chance of applying it consistently. Thus, simpler rules that players and directors could understand, would make the game more fun.

Compared with other laws, current designation laws are relatively clear and simple, but apparently their interpretation is still contentious enough to engender controversies like this.

[blackshoe]

 nige1, on 2014-January-25, 20:22, said:

Scottish players, more familiar with basic laws than most… And partly because directors condone reported irregularities (arguably, with legal justification).

It sounds like your players are more familiar with the laws than your directors are. I find that hard to believe.

As for condoning reported irregularities, with legal justification, can you provide examples (other than those covered by Law 46B)?

[nige1]

 blackshoe, on 2014-January-26, 02:43, said:

It sounds like your players are more familiar with the laws than your directors are. I find that hard to believe.

I don't understand Blackshoe's conclusion but he's free to believe it or not as he wishes.

 blackshoe, on 2014-January-26, 02:43, said:

As for condoning reported irregularities, with legal justification, can you provide examples (other than those covered by Law 46B)?

This thread, like another recent Lamford thread, is about Law 46 and commentators believe the director should condone incorrect designations.

Blackshoe has a better chance of encountering such incidents, involving other laws, since he has reported that US players are prone to infractions with pass-cards and stop-cards. Presumably, he reports them to the director

One of my group did make brief mention of a case, where all the players picked up their bidding cards after "....4♠ Pass Pass Double". A defender claimed he would have run, had he noticed that the contract was then redoubled. I know nothing else about the incident except that, for my friend, the lesson was "don't pick up bidding cards prematurely".

As implied above, such problems are exacerbated because players learn to stop calling the director, after a few frustrating incidents. My experience is typical:

Nowadays, when players trot out the "no agreement" mantra, I'm sometimes tempted to suggest that they "pull the other one" but instead I just grin and bear it. A long time ago, however, I would call the director when experienced opponents claimed "no agreement" about a common situation. The director would patiently explain that opponents are entitled to have no agreement and then politely remind me to avoid harassing them with further questions. On a few occasions, I later overheard opponents discussing the incident, and it became clear that they did have an agreement. A couple of times, I reported this to a director, suggesting that opponents should at least be obliged to admit to their agreement on their convention-card but the director took no action.

[Vampyr]

 nige1, on 2014-January-26, 13:24, said:

I don't understand Blackshoe's conclusion but he's free to believe it or not as he wishes. This thread, like another recent Lamford thread, is about Law 46 and commentators believe the director should condone incorrect designations.

No, the real issue is that the Laws should broaden the definition of correct t designations.

[blackshoe]

 nige1, on 2014-January-26, 13:24, said:

I don't understand Blackshoe's conclusion but he's free to believe it or not as he wishes. This thread, like another recent Lamford thread, is about Law 46 and commentators believe the director should condone incorrect designations.

Blackshoe has a better chance of encountering such incidents, involving other laws, since he has reported that US players are prone to infractions with pass-cards and stop-cards. Presumably, he reports them to the director

One of my group did make brief mention of a case, where all the players picked up their bidding cards after "....4♠ Pass Pass Double". A defender claimed he would have run, had he noticed that the contract was then redoubled. I know nothing else about the incident except that, for my friend, the lesson was "don't pick up bidding cards prematurely".

As implied above, such problems are exacerbated because players learn to stop calling the director, after a few frustrating incidents. My experience is typical:

Nowadays, when players trot out the "no agreement" mantra, I'm sometimes tempted to suggest that they "pull the other one" but instead I just grin and bear it. A long time ago, however, I would call the director when experienced opponents claimed "no agreement" about a common situation. The director would patiently explain that opponents are entitled to have no agreement and then politely remind me to avoid harassing them with further questions. On a few occasions, I later overheard opponents discussing the incident, and it became clear that they did have an agreement. A couple of times, I reported this to a director, suggesting that opponents should at least be obliged to admit to their agreement on their convention-card but the director took no action.

You said that Scottish players are "more familiar with basic laws than most" and then went on to talk about directors who apparently don't know the laws. Do your directors in fact know and understand the laws better than your players do?

This commentator believes that in making rulings the director should follow the laws, and in most cases Law 46B covers what the director should do in cases of violation of Law 46A. That's not "condoning" the incomplete or incorrect designation, in my book.

Yes, it's frustrating to call an incompetent director and get an incompetent ruling - or no ruling. Keep in mind though that often (at least in my experience) players don't have all the facts.

A director who receives a report such as you describe and then takes no action is incompetent. OTOH, a director might very well take some action - and not tell the person who reported the problem. That may be incompetence, it may not.

[blackshoe]

 Vampyr, on 2014-January-26, 13:53, said:

No, the real issue is that the Laws should broaden the definition of correct t designations.

Or perhaps make 46A less stringent ("does" instead of "should do").

[nige1]

 Vampyr, on 2014-January-26, 13:53, said:

No, the real issue is that the Laws should broaden the definition of correct t designations.

A flat contradiction but for some, including the op, an issue was whether a director should condone a usually harmless irregularity when it has a rare unfortunate consequence.

[nige1]

 blackshoe, on 2014-January-26, 14:19, said:

You said that Scottish players are "more familiar with basic laws than most" and then went on to talk about directors who apparently don't know the laws. Do your directors in fact know and understand the laws better than your players do?

• Vampyr and I were referring to a small group of players, with whom I was discussing some aspects of law -- not to Scottish players as a whole.
• Directors everywhere (not just in Scotland) tend to know more about Bridge rules than the average player.
• In on-line discussion, however, directors often demonstrate that they don't know the law and can't agree on its interpretation.

 blackshoe, on 2014-January-26, 14:19, said:

This commentator believes that in making rulings the director should follow the laws, and in most cases Law 46B covers what the director should do in cases of violation of Law 46A. That's not "condoning" the incomplete or incorrect designation, in my book.
Yes, it's frustrating to call an incompetent director and get an incompetent ruling - or no ruling. Keep in mind though that often (at least in my experience) players don't have all the facts.
A director who receives a report such as you describe and then takes no action is incompetent. OTOH, a director might very well take some action - and not tell the person who reported the problem. That may be incompetence, it may not.

My conclusion is different: On the whole, directors do the best they can. The fault is in fragmented, over-subjective, and over-sophisticated Bridge rules, which nobody seems to understand -- not even the law-makers themselves. They result in inconsistent rulings that are insufficiently deterrent.

BTW, Blackshoe, you haven't told us whether you call the director about bidding-box (e.g. pass and stop-card) irregularities in the US and what, if anything, the director does about them Judging by previous comments, they're widely condoned but I wouldn't conclude that necessarily means that US directors are "incompetent"

[blackshoe]

 nige1, on 2014-January-26, 15:00, said:

BTW, Blackshoe, you haven't told us whether you call the director about bidding-box (e.g. pass and stop-card) irregularities in the US and what, if anything, the director does about them

No, I haven't.