[mrdct]

Scoring: IMP

---

North-South are playing a strong club system and have the following auction up to the point when the director is called:

1♣(1):pass:2♠(2):3♥
4♠(3)

(1): 15+ any.
(2): Both minors 6-10hcp at least 5+/5+ but alerted late and simultanteously to an attempt to withdraw the 4♠ bid.
(3): Later described by both North and South as unequivocally to play (i.e. South would certainly have passed it).

A few other important facts:

North was using a left-handed bidding box which he had sitting on the North-West corner of the table and he uses his left hand to extract bidding cards which he places quite close (around 5cm or 2 inches) from his bidding box as he makes his bids.

The 4♠ bid was held about 1cm or 2cm (less than an inch) above the exisitng 1♣ bid in a position where West could see the face of the bidding cards, but neither East nor South could see anything other than a reasonably thick wad of bidding cards. When questioned by the director, West expressed uncertainty about whether he saw 3♠ or 4♠ due to the way that North was holding the bidding cards.

North freely admitted that when he pulled the 4♠ bid out of the box he intended to bid 4♠ but then suddenly remembered the correct conventional meaning of 2♠ and belatedly alerted and put his bidding cards back in his box.

The director was called at this point and ascertained that South had not seen what North had bid and after a few minutes of deliberation and consulation with other directors returned to the table with a copy of the recently amended Australian bidding box regulations in use for the very first time in this event:

Quote

C. BIDDING BOXES

3.5 A call is considered made (without screens) when a bidding card is removed from the bidding box and held touching or nearly touching the table or maintained in such a position to indicate that the call has been made.

3.6 A call selected may be changed without penalty if it is determined by the Director that
• It is a call selected unintentionally or
• It has not passed the screen and the Director consents to the change.

The Director first allowed West the option of changing his 3♥ call due to the late alert (which West declined to do) and then allowed North to substitute the 4♠ bid with his desired call (after which North-South motored into a cold 6♣ contract).

Adding insult to injury, the director was kind enough to inform East-West that had the previous regulations still been in place (which essentially deemed any call "made with intent" to be irrevokable) he would've ruled the other way with a result of 4♠-2.

East-West appealed arguing that 4♠ was a call that ought to have been "considered made" and was not able to be changed without penalty as the bid was made intentionally.

How do think the appeals committee should rule?

[Mbodell]

It sounds like the only issue is if "held about 1cm or 2cm (less than an inch) above the exisitng[sic] 1♣ bid in a position where West could see the face of the bidding cards, but neither East nor South could see anything other than a reasonably thick wad of bidding cards" counts as "held touching or nearly touching the table".

I'd think 1 or 2 cm counts as nearly touching the table, but it would depend to me on how they were held (I.e., what angle). For instance, if the cards were placed at 90 degrees to the table facing the player then maybe this is them still thinking about the bid but not making the bid. Which wouldn't make the player have to make that bid (although would create UI).

[mrdct]

90 degrees is probably about right as he was just about to lay the wad of bidding cards on top of the existing 1♣ bidding card and was holding them more-or-less facing West.

I don't think there is any question about him still thinking about the bid as he pulled the bidding cards out of his box as he freely admitted that he fully intended to bid 4♠ but just caught himself before he laid the bidding cards on the table.

It was quite a unique situation due to the use of a left-handed bidding box that was on the table and him placing his bids right next to his bidding box as he made each bid. To further complicate matters, North was a bit fidgety and fumbly with all of his bids during the match but to his ethical credit he gave a fair demonstration of his action to the director and was completely cool about the director call and the appeal.

[bluejak]

The description of the regulation seems based on the ACBL approach of following when a card is played by declarer. Critical to that is the concept of "held" being interpreted as stationary, or the equivalent, so were the cards held stationary, or did he move them down then grab them back? If the former, they were played: if the latter, not.

[mrdct]

The concept of "held" is an interesting one complicated in this case by the fact that the bidding box was on the table only a couple of inches away from where the bids were being placed and the fact that the player in question is quite a fidgety sort of player so nothing is really stationary until he lets go of it.

At the end of the day it pretty much came down to the table director's interpretation of the recreation of North's actions and when it came to the appeals committee, the chair of the appeals committee opined that in such circumstances the appeals committee will always be very much inclined to rely on the table director's interpretation of the facts. Accordingly, the appeals committee dismissed the appeal. It then became a question of whether or not to issue an Appeal Without Merit fine, for which the relevant Australian regulations are:

Quote

Treatment of Appeals without Significant Merit
4.1 Contestants who pursue an appeal that the appeal committee deems “frivolous” or “without significant merit” are subject to the procedural penalty according to the scale fixed by the National Authority from time to time. The current maximum penalties are shown below in item 8.2
4.2 In determining whether to deem an appeal “without significant merit” the Appeal Committee must take into consideration the standard and experience of the appellants.
4.3 An appeal should not be deemed to be “without significant merit” if the Appeals Advisor indicated that the appeal had a reasonable chance of success.

F. PROCEDURAL PENALTIES
8.1 The ABF has decided to impose score penalties rather than financial penalties when the committee considers an appeal “frivolous” or “without significant merit”.
8.2 In ABF events the maximum penalty that an appeal committee can award is:

10 IMP (e.g. knockout match) or

1/10 the total VP available (e.g. WBF scale) or

1/10 the maximum IMP available (e.g. ANC teams) or

1/2 a top in an event scored by MP or

A penalty equivalent (in the scoring method) to one of the above

An Appeals Advisor (nominated by the directing staff) was consulted prior to appealing, who was in fact the author of the bidding box regulations, and that Appeals Advisor gave somewhat ambiguous advice that he felt that an appeals committee would probably side with the table director, but the bidding box regulations have never be tested and East-West might get lucky. Importantly, the Appeals Advisor most certainly did not advise against appealing; but it's debatable whether or not by inference that can be taken as an indication that the appeal has "a reasonable chance of success".

Possibly also relevant to the issue of whether or not the appeal was frivolous was the material number of IMPs and VPs involved. As the slam was missed in the other room, a 26 IMP swing was at stake which translates to 5 VPs which turned to be the exact number of VPs the East-West team missed out on qualifying for the finals by.

[jallerton]

The appeal clearly has merit as there is no case law on the subject and it is perfectly reasonable to consider 1 to 2cm away to be "nearly touching".

However, it seems to me that the appeal should have been heard by the Director in Charge, as the appeal is purely on the interpretation of Law and Regulation.

[bluejak]

Whether a card is "nearly touching the table" is surely a matter of judgement and as such suitable for an AC?

[ICEmachine]

Well it seems that North figured out the meaning of 4♠ before he finished executing bidding his bid, so IMO I would let him change the bid, but according to the regulations it seems ok to decide on the contrary.

I would say that there is UI but there seems to be a remote chance that anyone can benefit from using them. Its normal that people forget conventions and how many times have you seen people handling 5♣ and then changing it to 5♦ when anwering 4NT (when changing from 3014 to 4130). Would you only allow the change if players didnt see the 5♣ bid? I think you should change the regulations .

[jallerton]

bluejak, on Feb 6 2010, 11:42 PM, said:

Whether a card is "nearly touching the table" is surely a matter of judgement and as such suitable for an AC?

The facts are not under dispute; there is no judgement for the AC to apply.

It is the TD's job to interpret the regulation, including what is meant by "nearly touching the table".