pilowsky, on 2021-July-08, 15:43, said:
You are right and wrong at the same time.
It is a 'fact' that someone says something.
After that, you run into murky territory.
Go back to the start and answer the question - in your own mind - of all the possible reasons why a person may take a certain amount of time to do - or not do something.
The whole idea that a third party - who was not present at the time - can infer anything from a pause is madness.
Maybe you've never been to Minnesota or seen a Pinter play.
It's just magical thinking to believe that you can see into the state of mind of anyone.
Outside a Bridge Club, I have never heard of the concept of "Directors" who can tell what you are thinking by the amount of time you take to think.
No surprise that it's a relatively unpopular game.
If you want people to spend less time thinking, put a clock on them as they do in Chess - a much more popular sport.
I hope the Italians beat the English next week - that's what I'm thinking.
Your first sentence applies to your reasoning too. No director claims to be able to establish what a player was thinking when he did what he did. But back to the case in hand: the director should establish whether the player, ChCh, had a bridge reason to think as long as he did. Therefore he should ask the player why there was a pause. After that the TD decides whether or not the reason was a valid one. You don’t believe the player ‘on his blue eyes’ as we say in Dutch, but you can’t dismiss his answer out of hand.
You seem to miss a basic concept of bridge, namely that it is a MIND game. That makes it essentially different from physical sports, where the director, referee, umpire and the like are supposed to see what happens. In bridge thinking is essential to game and should be taken into consideration if necessary.
I don’t know about Australia, but here judges ask suspects what they were thinking when they are on trial. And they take that into consideration when establishing innocence or guilt - no juries overhere - and when sentencing. They don’t claim to be able to read the mind of the suspect either or to decide what he told was the truth.