[pran]

pran, on 2014-March-05, 17:29, said:

What Law 23 says is that if I at the time I committed an irregularity could with some significant (although not neccessarily very high) probability have predicted that my irregularity might result in damage to opponents (without neccessarily knowing in what way!) then there is cause for adjustment if my opponents really became damaged from my irregularity.

nige1, on 2014-March-06, 12:12, said:

I hope not. Law 23 has no requirement that a player knew that his irregularity might harm opponents or how it might do so. For law 23 to apply, it's sufficient that there was at least a small but significant likelihood of damage, which the offender "could have known" about.

aguahombre, on 2014-March-06, 12:44, said:

I have failed to communicate that these two readings of Law 23 are different, and that Nige1's reading is what the Law actually says.

Honestly I fail to see the alleged difference in reality?

[nige1]

lamford, on 2014-March-06, 13:17, said:

There should be a rectification when the player, at the time of the infraction, could have calculated that committing the irregularity and paying the proscribed penalty had a higher expected value than not committing the irregularity.

A significant positive expectation for the law-breaker usually eguates to a significant negative expectation (i.e. damage) for the other side.

[mycroft]

many of the L23 cases that make sense have been turned into prohibitions in the Laws. Viz at least the inability to double after making an insufficient bid; the pretty much auto-clawback if you try to pull insufficient, then 4NT; the "equity" ruling for revoke-to-kill-entries; that's just off the top of my head.

The advice given me (sort of, in a side note) when becoming a tournament director was "you should look, but you'll probably never see a L23 case." My belief here is very much like the one lamford quoted; I'd put it more in the "Probst Cheat" category - if you do something someone trying to get a better result through cheating would do, even innocently, you get ruled against. If it's not something that has a Law already, L23 will work.

I don't think that a case where "well, if partner's got the low end of what they've promised, we probably survive this one, and may likely get a good score; but if it's all average, we could go for our life, let's hope not" comes under that category. Add "heard something from the previous table" to the OP, and we're here. But with North having an equal chance of having West's hand as her own, "bidding to silence partner so he won't hang us in Spades" seems - low EV?

[mfa1010]

lamford, on 2014-March-06, 13:17, said:

No. If that were the case, they would have left out the word "well", which, as gnasher points out, implies a higher probability. The long-suffering TD has to assign a probability to this "well", as he has to do with the "some" in Law 16.

http://bridge.rfrick...s/couldwell.htm has an interesting discussion of the meaning of "could well". I think that this is the right interpretation:

There should be a rectification when the player, at the time of the infraction, could have calculated that committing the irregularity and paying the proscribed penalty had a higher expected value than not committing the irregularity.

Strictly requiring that the irregularity is +EV for the offending side is imo going too far.

"Damage" is a concrete negative outcome for the nonoffending side on the particular board. Not an average of outcomes.

"Could well damage" implies that "damage" might concretely occur with some reasonable, nonspecified probability. And that is all. I think the rule covers situations where damage could well go either way, even if the irregularity is probably -EV for the offending side, as long as it is reasonably close. It seems clear that what we don't want, is for offenders to speculate in committing irregularities, and a margin of judgement seems right.

In my opinion this board is such a case. The irregularity is probably -EV, I would say. But it is easy to imagine that it will work to the offender's advantage (and thus could well damage the opponents), because with a 1hp hand vul vs not it could well be good to silence partner, especially holding a surpise void of spades, the master suit and most probable trump suit.

I would adjust the score.

[iviehoff]

mfa1010, on 2014-March-06, 17:29, said:

Strictly requiring that the irregularity is +EV for the offending side is imo going too far.

"Damage" is a concrete negative outcome for the nonoffending side on the particular board. Not an average of outcomes.

"Could well damage" implies that "damage" might concretely occur with some reasonable, nonspecified probability. And that is all. I think the rule covers situations where damage could well go either way, even if the irregularity is probably -EV for the offending side, as long as it is reasonably close. It seems clear that what we don't want, is for offenders to speculate in committing irregularities, and a margin of judgement seems right.

In my opinion this board is such a case. The irregularity is probably -EV, I would say. But it is easy to imagine that it will work to the offender's advantage (and thus could well damage the opponents), because with a 1hp hand vul vs not it could well be good to silence partner, especially holding a surpise void of spades, the master suit and most probable trump suit.

I would adjust the score.

I agree with all that.

[Zelandakh]

mfa1010, on 2014-March-06, 17:29, said:

Strictly requiring that the irregularity is +EV for the offending side is imo going too far.

And what you are suggesting here goes too far too. By this definition almost any psyched OBOOT is a Law 23 case because you can construct some hands where it will work. This kind of bad reasoning is almost certainly why the "well" is written in, to avoid Directors making adjustments for "rub of the green" cases.

[StevenG]

Zelandakh, on 2014-March-07, 03:30, said:

And what you are suggesting here goes too far too. By this definition almost any psyched OBOOT is a Law 23 case because you can construct some hands where it will work. This kind of bad reasoning is almost certainly why the "well" is written in, to avoid Directors making adjustments for "rub of the green" cases.

Since any non-psyched OBOOT puts the NOS into an unusual auction that they could get wrong (and be damaged in a way that cannot be replicated at any other table), then I don't think it unreasonable that a psyched OBOOT, forcing NOS into a decision with incorrect information, should automatically be a L23 case.

[mfa1010]

Zelandakh, on 2014-March-07, 03:30, said:

And what you are suggesting here goes too far too. By this definition almost any psyched OBOOT is a Law 23 case because you can construct some hands where it will work. This kind of bad reasoning is almost certainly why the "well" is written in, to avoid Directors making adjustments for "rub of the green" cases.

This is not correct, not my position, and not what I wrote.

And regarding this particular case, I judge it not to be just a rub of the green case. This bid out of turn is just too likely to win (cause damage), and too close to what a crook might do on purpose. If the thing were legal, I might have done it myself if I needed a swing, things didn't even have to be desperate.

But that doesn't mean that the same is true for any bid out of turn.