[mikeh]

I came in late, but I disagree with josh enough to justify (to me, anyway) adding my 2 cents worth.

I don't think that any committee (or director) should invoke a presumption that there has been UI because the BIT hand ended up with the holding that made the dubious call effective.

This is the kind of reasoning that critics of committees often make (altho josh makes an interesting additional point about the imp table, which I had not seen advanced before).

The problem is that we only see, at committee, those cases in which the dubious action worked out. Imagine swapping the N-S hands: 6♥ is hopeless, and EW would get a bad score.

So the committee process self-selects for bad bids that work out. If we then tell committees that they should assume that bad bids that work out are caused by UI, we are being very unfair...bad players always lose when their bad bids don't work and now we are saying that their bad bids must always lose out if there was any BIT, because we are going to assume that the BIT suggested the winning action, even when, logically, it doesn't. And bad players tend to BIT more than experienced players.

Those who argue that weak hands pass quickly, so that any BIT shows extras, are talking nonsense, if they mean that as a general proposition.

There are always going to be hands that hit the seam in any player's view of whether the hand should pass or raise or bid 3N. I don't care where you draw the lines: some hands are always going to land on or near them. And most players will tend to break tempo whenever a hand lands on or near such a dividing line.

So any normal player, confronted with the auction to 3♥, will sometimes have a hand that requires him or her to think. And that includes thinking about passing/raising or raising/3N or raising/cuebidding and so on.

The fact that the imp scale might make assuming the BIT showed extras more attractive than assuming that it showed weakness isn't very persuasive to me.

For one thing, not mentioned by Josh: if the tank was due to weakness, then the odds are very, very high that slam is hopeless: partner was thinking that game was borderline, and our hand will rarely be more than 1/2 trick better than a 3♥ call, else we would not have bid 3♥! So our slam rates to fail, and often by several tricks. Being -500 in 6♥ doubled while our opps made game is not my idea of being favoured by the imp scale.

And on frequency, when we hold 17 hcp, the average holding around the table is about 8 hcp. Partner will more often hold a 6-7 count thinking about passing than he will a 12 count thinking about slamming. So on a frequency basis, he will have the weak BIT more often than the strong.

Having said all that, I think that a committee is entitled to ask about the partnership's experience with BITs in invitational sequences. Does this partnership usually resolve pass or raise decisions very quickly in favour of raising?

If so, then the BIT would appear to suggest extra values and I'd disallow the slam.

I appreciate that this approach fails when the EW pair is prepared to mislead, but that's an entirely different problem.

[jdonn]

mikeh, on May 11 2010, 01:19 PM, said:

So the committee process self-selects for bad bids that work out. If we then tell committees that they should assume that bad bids that work out are caused by UI, we are being very unfair...bad players always lose when their bad bids don't work and now we are saying that their bad bids must always lose out if there was any BIT, because we are going to assume that the BIT suggested the winning action, even when, logically, it doesn't. And bad players tend to BIT more than experienced players.

That was very unfair to my point of view for two reasons.

First is that it's not bad bids that work out. It's bad (in this case impossible, don't forget) bids that work out because partner had what you are considering the BIT suggested. So if 6♥ made in this example opposite Kxxxx Qx xxx xxx then I wouldn't punish the player simply due to his 6♥ bid working out, as we would have clear evidence the BIT doesn't suggest extras for this pair.

Second is that I didn't say to assume a BIT suggests something when logically it doesn't. I'm referring specifically to cases where it's not clear in the abstract what the BIT suggests. Clearly if it obviously suggests something then it obviously suggests something. What I am talking about is evidence to consider, not an override to clear logic of the given situation.

[kenrexford]

Here's my take, one that I consider to be consistent.

If this hand in this sequence makes a NF 3♥ call and then blasts 6♥ after a hesitation, and the contract makes, I adjust and possibly add a procedural penalty.

If this hand in this sequence makes a NF 3♥ call and then blasts 6♥ after a hesitation, and the contract fails, I give a procedural penalty.

If in either situation there is an appeal, it is without merit UNLESS the offending side can prove to me that the person bidding 6♥ is actually a complete moron with no idea what he is doing. The main evidence against this is the fact that he opted to bid hearts repeatedly, and not leap to 6 of some other random contract, as this illustrates a level of cognition high enough to adjust and give a procedural penalty.

The nonsense about the hesitation suggesting any number of things is lunacy. This is because the main premise to Mike's argument is flawed. This is not a "dubious call." There is no doubt. This is not questionable. This is not a low-percentage but plausible option. This is complete read-based, not hand-based. Please.

If the situation was "dubious," then sure. This is not.

This is not even a bad bid.

Some calls are impossible without reads. 1NT-3NT-6NT is not dubious, it is a read. 2H-3H-6H is not dubious, it is a read.

[mikeh]

I think the main difference between me otoh and josh/ken oto is our view of the jump to 6♥.

As I understand their arguments, they say, in essence:

6♥ is impossible. No bridge player would ever jump to 6♥ unless they had UI.

The BIT, being the only odd thing about the auction, must therefore have conveyed UI

Since 6♥ had play (bearing in mind that it was still a bad contract, as can be seen by reversing the NS hands, and holding the contract to 4), the UI MUST be deemed to have suggested a good hand.


But:

1. One man's impossible bid is another's ignorance or lack of skill. I accept that to any decent player 6♥ is either impossible or a silly gamble...the two are not the same. Some people love the thrill of a gamble that to others seems stupid. Some people simply have no clue.

I invite anyone with doubt on this to play a few boards in the MBC on BBO...wait til the boards have been player 10 times then carefully review the other table bidding, play and results. I am morally certain that on most hands a skilled, knowledgable player would see several calls and plays, over the 10 tables, that appear to be 'impossible' in the same sense as the 6♥ call was here. Some of them will work: most of them will be costly.

So I cannot accept that it is 'impossible' for 'any' player to jump to 6♥. Stupid, yes. Silly, yes. But a lot of players are one or both of those. And some are simply erratic and enjoy stories...to the point that they make a lot of impossible bids because the ones that work generate a thrill that makes the failures worth while.

Anyone who knows inveterate gamblers knows the type of people I am speaking about: the perpetual losers who rarely speak of their bad days but are gleeful when they have a winning day.

2. The BIT, as I stressed earlier, is value neutral unless this particular pair has the idiosyncratic habit of never thinking on pass/raise borderline decisions.

3. The problem with this branch of their reasoning is easy to demonstrate. Assume that similar auction, with similar BITs, occurs on twenty different hands. On ten, the EW pair get way too high and go -500. On the others, 6♥ makes.

The committee only hears about the successful ones. They hear that 10 times out of 10, there was a BIT and partner lept to an impossible 6♥ and made it! Therefore, they reason, this BIT HAD to suggest extras. After all, 10 out of 10 times, that is what the BIT player held.

In reality, half the time the BIT was based on weakness and half the time on strength. It only appeared to point in one direction because of the self-selection I wrote about earlier.

Another example might help. What if the EW pair could show that they had had this situation, with BIT, a dozen times that session and that they had swung high every time, and got 8 bad boards and 4 good ones? Do we still assume that the BIT showed extras? it turns out that it had, 5 times (4 earlier and this one time) but had been on weakness 8 times. Surely the correct view is that the BIT suggested pass!

All of this is by way of stressing that without info not contained in the OP, it seems unfair to assume that these players see the world the same way as a real expert would.

[jdonn]

mikeh, on May 11 2010, 03:44 PM, said:

Since 6♥ had play (bearing in mind that it was still a bad contract, as can be seen by reversing the NS hands, and holding the contract to 4), the UI MUST be deemed to have suggested a good hand.

Not since 6♥ had play. Since the person who broke tempo had extras. Just clarifying (I thought I clarified the same thing from you in your prior post?)

You know better than to use your example about "what if 8 times out of 12 he really did not have extras!" Obviously if we knew that was the case it would be different but we don't know that's the case. That's why this is evidence, not proof.

It would be like a jury convicted a defendant on the basis of eye witness testimony and the defendant's lawyer says "but what if 8 times out of every 12 that the witness believes he saw something he was wrong?" Well that's a silly thing of the lawyer to say, isn't it? Obviously IF that were the case things would be different, but if he can't show that it IS the case then the jury can attach as much credibility to his testimony as they feel is right.

In other words, when I use something as evidence I know I will be right less than 100% of the time. I hope and believe I'm right most of the time but admit it's not 100%. So what is the point of saying "what if this is the greater than 0% of the time that you are wrong?" Well, what if it is? If you can show it is then I admit I was wrong. If you can't then I don't know why you pointed out what I already admitted.

[pran]

For the record:
The board in question was played at 18 tables with the following results:
1*7♥ E 13 1510
2*6♥ E 12 980
1*3NT W 13 520
1*4♥ E 13 510
1*3NT W 12 490
1*5♥ E 12 480
1*4♠ W 12 480
7*4♥ E 12 480
1*3NT W 11 460
1*5♥ E 11 450
1*6♠ W 9 -150

So "nobody" would bid 6♥?

(We did not consult this list when handling the appeal, it would have been irrelevant for the question, as was the actual cards held by West.)

[jdonn]

pran, on May 11 2010, 04:40 PM, said:

So "nobody" would bid 6♥?

After the start 1♥ 1♠ 3♥ 4♥? I'm willing to bet none of the pairs got there that way. There were probably at least 12 or 13 different auctions perpetrated by those 18 pairs.

[bluejak]

jdonn, on May 11 2010, 12:09 AM, said:

bluejak, on May 10 2010, 05:36 PM, said:

jdonn, on May 10 2010, 08:11 PM, said:

Phil, on May 10 2010, 12:16 PM, said:

Normally I would say, East has no idea what is going through partner's mind, but as Josh might say the auction alone suggests some monkey business.

Bingo. If there was no UI suggesting bidding on then where did west find this "impossible" auction?

I have just played a four day teams in South Africa. The number of "impossible" auctions perpetrated at my table in this time cannot be counted on my fingers. Players often make "impossible" calls without any UI, so the fact that a call is "impossible" might suggest the possibility of UI, but is nowhere near compelling evidence that there was UI.

I agree, an "impossible" auction is not compelling evidence of UI. However I believe the combination of
- a break in tempo, followed by
- an "impossible" auction, then dummy comes showing
- the hand that broke tempo having exactly what makes the "impossible" auction work
is pretty compelling evidence that the break in tempo passed along the type of UI that the hand would suggest. Did that sort of thing happen to you many times over the weekend?

Quote

jdonn, on May 10 2010, 08:11 PM, said:

This is just one of those cases where in the abstract the UI could suggest either weakness or strength but where a partnership will be much better at interpreting its own 'black magic' than any director arguing in theory could.

These are strong arguments, but not really ones that a TD can use for ruling. While my experience of opponents is that this is not a case where the BIT suggests going on, in a specific partnership their experience may suggest it.

So why can't the director use that argument for ruling? I thought he could use anything he wants, it's his judgment.

Some impossible bids were highly successful: some were not. I took little notice.

I think there is a danger in this post of the "If it hesitates, shoot it" syndrome. The pause suggests either a weak hand or a strong hand. The argument that we do not know but because there was a strong hand here and a silly bid was made that was successful therefore the silly bid was based on UI and a knowledge that partner is strong is the worst type of circular reasoning.

While a TD can use any evidence he likes, I do not believe that "If A then B, B happens to be true, so A is true" is logic a TD should associate with.

[kenrexford]

I think you are missing something that seems to have been stated and seems to be obvious, but you still miss it, Mike.

I, and I think others, are NOT saying that anything about Responder's hand is relevant to the discussion. Hence, the fact that Responder held extras is not remotely relevant to the question of whether UI was acted upon.

I, and I think others, would argue that the 6♥ call that FAILS should also receive a TD call, and a procedural penalty, for knowingly acting on UI, even if errantly. Hence, the fact that people take the top as "just desserts" for this type of action is understandable but not relevant. ALL calls, successful and unsuccessful, of this nature should be reported and punished.

Furthermore, I think you are giving North way too little credit for the rules to be enforced logically. If a person is actually so stupid that he would bid a NF 3♥ and then blast slam without even asking for Aces, let alone inviting, then he is punished for taking unauthorized info from the hesitation unfairly, but such are the rules. He's too stupid to understand, anyway, the actual rules, even if you explain it to him.

But, no matter what you show me as proof, I won't buy that Dealer is that stupid. Show me a series of insanely idiotic calls, and I still won't be swayed. So, for me, this is so patently obvious, that your deference to Dealer's stupidity frightens me. Even if you are right, it doesn't matter, though. We cannot enforce UI rules unless we assume in the rules a minimum competence level, as otherwise we run into a serious problem.

Here's a simple reason why. If you accept this lunacy, then you have to go to the next logical analysis. If the UI suggests either a hand too strong for 4♥ or too weak for 4♥, then it seems that Opener has two additional options you have failed to consider. He might bid 7♥ but for the sense that the bid is too weak for 4♥. If he's stupid enough to bid 6♥, then why would 7♥ not have been bid but for the hesitation?

Also, you have to consider, IMO, 4♠ as a final contract, as well as 7NT, 6♣, and 5♦. Why? Because Dealer is a raging luinatic, so anything is possible.

This last part is probably hyperbole, but I think the first part is legitimate. 6♥ as the call could be an overbid based on the hesitation. Or, it could, in his mind, be a conservative call because of the hesitation suggesting a poor dummy. Either way, 6♥ seems wrong. In this guy's mind, this should be a pass-or-7♥ sequence, clearly. I mean, if 6♥ is right without the hesitation, then how can 6♥ be right WITH the hesitation???

Of course, this is all nonsense, because anyone with a brain KNOWS what Dealer was thinking.

[pran]

jdonn, on May 11 2010, 10:46 PM, said:

pran, on May 11 2010, 04:40 PM, said:

So "nobody" would bid 6♥?

After the start 1♥ 1♠ 3♥ 4♥? I'm willing to bet none of the pairs got there that way. There were probably at least 12 or 13 different auctions perpetrated by those 18 pairs.

I never said they did, in fact I don't know how the different auctions went by.

But can you find a "better" (more reasonable) way of reaching the various contracts above 4♥?

[kenrexford]

Let me put this another, simpler way.

The UI is NOT that partner has a strong hand, let's say. It is that partner does NOT have a simple call. Hence, he either has slam interest or interest in passing, or maybe interest in bidding 3NT or 4♠ or 7♣. But, he does not have a simple 4♥ call.

It doesn't matter what Responder actually has. What matters is that the odds of 6♥ working have INCREASED. Sure, the odds of 6♥ being doubled and set 7 tricks also has INCREASED. But, that is irrelevant. The UA is that partner has an unknown hand that is not normal.

If Opener were to bid 6♥ in a normal auction, he might face, for instance, these odds:

10% MAKING
90% Down two
10% Down three

These numbers are off, but follow along.

If the hesitation suggests the first or third option, then the odds change:

50% MAKING
50% Down three

Now, the odds have changed. Without the hesitation, 6♥ was a 10% shot. With the hesitation, it is a 50% shot.

Tweak the odds even slightly, and the slam bid may well be 51% or 60% or 80%. Whatever. Just not 10% or 5% or 1%.

Again, the NATURE of the hesitation is not critical. It is the existence of the hesitation coupled with a call that has no plausible merit EXCEPT because the hesitation was read as changing the odds of success of this otherwise lunatic call.

[gwnn]

mikeh, on May 11 2010, 06:19 PM, said:

Those who argue that weak hands pass quickly, so that any BIT shows extras, are talking nonsense, if they mean that as a general proposition.

There are always going to be hands that hit the seam in any player's view of whether the hand should pass or raise or bid 3N. I don't care where you draw the lines: some hands are always going to land on or near them. And most players will tend to break tempo whenever a hand lands on or near such a dividing line.

Thank you for your nice and frank evaluation of the simplification of my point of view MikeH. I simply said that in my experience, on average, people think less about game vs partscore hands. I agree that there are some hands which cause headaches for players, especially 3NT vs 4H, that is a good point.

But BIT is just a 3 letter acronym and it encompasses a wide variety of actions, in particular, it can be anywhere from 5 seconds to 3 minutes. I think the longer the BIT, the more likely the almost slam invitational hand. I don't think anyone has ever thought for a minute about "oh should I pass, should I bid 3NT or 4H? uhhh". Also, I think I can tell from most tanks of opponents' whether they are thinking slam or game. This is obviously a function of opponents and the level of the field, I assume at higher levels it becomes less and less true, but this is not, in all likelihood, a very high level pair.

Anyway I was not saying that all BIT's point towards a slam try, nor did I say that this is an universal truth. This is contrast to you labeling my point of view, based on my admittedly restricted experience at the bridge table, as nonsense, one word.

[pran]

kenrexford, on May 11 2010, 11:04 PM, said:

I think you are missing something that seems to have been stated and seems to be obvious, but you still miss it, Mike.

I, and I think others, are NOT saying that anything about Responder's hand is relevant to the discussion.  Hence, the fact that Responder held extras is not remotely relevant to the question of whether UI was acted upon.

I, and I think others, would argue that the 6♥ call that FAILS should also receive a TD call, and a procedural penalty, for knowingly acting on UI, even if errantly.  Hence, the fact that people take the top as "just desserts" for this type of action is understandable but not relevant.  ALL calls, successful and unsuccessful, of this nature should be reported and punished.

Furthermore, I think you are giving North way too little credit for the rules to be enforced logically.  If a person is actually so stupid that he would bid a NF 3♥ and then blast slam without even asking for Aces, let alone inviting, then he is punished for taking unauthorized info from the hesitation unfairly, but such are the rules.  He's too stupid to understand, anyway, the actual rules, even if you explain it to him.

But, no matter what you show me as proof, I won't buy that Dealer is that stupid.  Show me a series of insanely idiotic calls, and I still won't be swayed.  So, for me, this is so patently obvious, that your deference to Dealer's stupidity frightens me.  Even if you are right, it doesn't matter, though.  We cannot enforce UI rules unless we assume in the rules a minimum competence level, as otherwise we run into a serious problem.

Here's a simple reason why.  If you accept this lunacy, then you have to go to the next logical analysis.  If the UI suggests either a hand too strong for 4♥ or too weak for 4♥, then it seems that Opener has two additional options you have failed to consider.  He might bid 7♥ but for the sense that the bid is too weak for 4♥.  If he's stupid enough to bid 6♥, then why would 7♥ not have been bid but for the hesitation?

Also, you have to consider, IMO, 4♠ as a final contract, as well as 7NT, 6♣, and 5♦.   Why?  Because Dealer is a raging luinatic, so anything is possible.

This last part is probably hyperbole, but I think the first part is legitimate.  6♥ as the call could be an overbid based on the hesitation.  Or, it could, in his mind, be a conservative call because of the hesitation suggesting a poor dummy.  Either way, 6♥ seems wrong.  In this guy's mind, this should be a pass-or-7♥ sequence, clearly.  I mean, if 6♥ is right without the hesitation, then how can 6♥ be right WITH the hesitation???

Of course, this is all nonsense, because anyone with a brain KNOWS what Dealer was thinking.

Dealer was North (6♥ was bid by East)

[gwnn]

Very good post by kenrexford, except his odds don't sum to 100%.

[helene_t]

Odds always add up to more than 100%.

Unlike percentages.

Sorry for being pedantic.

[jallerton]

As in all potential UI cases, the TD should ask the 6♥ bidder why he chose this call. [If the TD did not ask this question, then the AC should make sure that they do so.]

Unfortunately, the opening post does specify whether or not East was asked this question and, if it was asked, what reply was given.

Whilst the TD might well conclude that there has been no breach of Law 16A (as nothing was demonstrably suggested) he might also decide, having heard the player's reasoning, that there has been a breach of Law 73C.

Law73C said:

Player Receives Unauthorised Information from Partner
When a player has available to him unauthorised information from his partner, such as from a remark, question, explanation, gesture, mannerism, undue emphasis, inflection, haste or hesitation, an unexpected* alert or failure to alert, he must carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorised information.

Assuming that the TD judges East to be good enough to appreciate that it is highly unusual to make any call other than pass over 4♥, then he might reasonably conclude that East has not "carefully avoided taking any advantage from that unauthorised information".

[gwnn]

It is my understanding that percentages are just fractions with denominator=100, why would they add up to 100%? In fact I am quite sure they add up to +inf (or 0 if we allow for negative numerators).

[aguahombre]

jallerton, on May 11 2010, 05:00 PM, said:

Assuming that the TD judges East to be good enough to appreciate that it is highly unusual to make any call other than pass over 4♥, then he might reasonably conclude that East has not "carefully avoided taking any advantage from that unauthorised information".

Doesn't this say it all?

And if the TD can't see that, then certainly somebody on the AC might bring it up. Problem solved. 4+2.

[mikeh]

aguahombre, on May 11 2010, 06:23 PM, said:

jallerton, on May 11 2010, 05:00 PM, said:

Assuming that the TD judges East to be good enough to appreciate that it is highly unusual to make any call other than pass over 4♥, then he might reasonably conclude that East has not "carefully avoided taking any advantage from that unauthorised information".

Doesn't this say it all?

And if the TD can't see that, then certainly somebody on the AC might bring it up. Problem solved. 4+2.

Absolutely right, and in the real world one hopes this happened.

But the OP left out all of this.

What disturbs me is that a good player (josh) and a lawyer (ken) are prepared to impose on an unknown East their personal views of whether 6♥ should be permitted without any information as to E's level of ability. This is a very bad practice for committee members.

Neither really address the fundamental issue that the tank could be as much a sign that even 4♥ is in jeopardy as it is that slam may have play. Josh tried to do so with his reference to the imp table, but his analysis was incomplete because he ignored the very real cost of getting doubled when the tank was due to weakness.

Ken simply ignores it: to his way of thinking, since no bridge player could possibly choose 6♥ if there had been no break in tempo, there has to be a penalty.

One cannot help but wonder what he would do if a pair bid 1-3-4-6 with no BIT and it made. I suspect that, to be consistent, he'd roll it back and adjust the score. To make it even more absurd, if they bid this way and went down, they'd still get a procedural penalty...presumably for making a bid he personally couldn't tolerate.

Get real: there are a host of BAD players out there who don't know, don't understand, and don't care that you think that a bid is 'impossible'.

They usually fare badly, because there is a reason good players consider their aberrant bidding to be 'impossible'. But once in a while, they gain. Sometimes that will happen on an auction in which, viewed objectively there has been a BIT that, in and of itself, was neutral as to the information that might be conveyed. Just because an information-neutral BIT happened, and a player took unusual action, does NOT justify the inference of cause and effect. It DOES justify asking questions about skill level, past experience, basis for bidding and so on.

To say that every bridge player must be treated as if he or she were of a certain minimal competency is inconsistent with everything I've ever been told about committee work. We don't punish bad players because their bidding is not consistent with expert bidding. We don't let experts off the hook because they claim not to know basic bidding. In short, we assess the conduct of players by reference to their peers.

And as I said earlier, look on BBO and you will see calls that seem impossible on many boards. I doubt that you'd have to review many hands to find actions at least as 'impossible' as the 6♥ call here.

Finally, of course if E were competent, I'd be very very suspicious and would need to be convinced by E as to why he/she chose 6♥.

As for gwnn's apparent concern that I was attacking him, I wasn't and I apologize if I created that impression. The OP said nothing, that I saw, about the length of the BIT, and I feel (based on my experience) that it is simply wrong to assume that, as a general rule, people don't break tempo as much on weak hands as they do on strong ones. Personally, and I know that my own practices are not universal, I tend to break tempo longer with weak than with strong. That is because my partners will invariably pass if I make a simple raise, but have to bid if I cue bid. Therefore, I try to cuebid without breaking tempo but take as long as I want on what is likely to be the final partnership decision. I have taken several minutes to pass, as an example...I did so just last Saturday.

[gwnn]

Duly noted, next time I play against mikeh I will bear this in mind I think I can tell 90+% of the time whether my opponents are thinking of going to slam or signing off in a partscore by their mannerisms and tempo (also about some ex-partners, which is of course a little annoying). This impression may be faulty and exaggerated, I don't know.