[Vampyr]

phil_20686, on 2012-August-08, 11:05, said:

You may take your time at any point to consider oppositions mannerisms, expressions, tempo and gestures, as a part of the information available throughout the hand.

What about leading a card in a suit in which you have a two-way finesse as above, and taking (sometimes considerable) time to see if you can get a tell on one of the opponents? I have always felt that this was pretty close to cheating.

[FrancesHinden]

barmar, on 2012-August-08, 08:28, said:

I'm confused by this whole issue. How much information can one get just from watching the sorting? When I first read it, I assumed it was just a prelude to watching where they pull their cards from, which is prohibited.

Quite a lot of players like to have their hand sorted both into suits, and into ranks within suits.
Playing in EBL events, it's common for brand new packs of cards to be used in the dealing machines which are sorted in order before going in the machine.
This leads to hands being dealt which are sorted into suits and ranks within suits, except that aces are 'low' rather than 'high'.

This means that you get many people taking their cards from the board, looking at them, and then moving a number of cards equal to their number of aces.

[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2012-August-08, 11:31, said:

What about leading a card in a suit in which you have a two-way finesse as above, and taking (sometimes considerable) time to see if you can get a tell on one of the opponents? I have always felt that this was pretty close to cheating.

How close can it be to cheating when Law 73D1 explicitly allows it?

I don't think most people who go into the tank like this are really trying explicitly to get tells. They've simply delayed the decision, hoping that to get a gut feeling after they lead the card. They might have led the card before making a decision in the hope that they'd see a cover or hitch when they led; once they don't, they now have to make the decision on their own.

[gnasher]

barmar, on 2012-August-08, 16:58, said:

How close can it be to cheating when Law 73D1 explicitly allows it?

73D1 allows unintentional variations in tempo. What Vampyr described was an intentional variation in tempo in order to induce a "tell". That would be a breach of 74C7.

[Zelandakh]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-August-08, 15:20, said:

This leads to hands being dealt which are sorted into suits and ranks within suits, except that aces are 'low' rather than 'high'.

If I played under those conditions I would lightly shuffle my hand before sorting.

[barmar]

gnasher, on 2012-August-08, 17:04, said:

73D1 allows unintentional variations in tempo. What Vampyr described was an intentional variation in tempo in order to induce a "tell". That would be a breach of 74C7.

I don't think declarer is trying to "induce" a tell, just maybe hoping that one occurs. 73D1 allows this when it says "Inferences from such variation may appropriately be drawn only by an opponent, and at his own risk."

[gnasher]

barmar, on 2012-August-09, 07:27, said:

I don't think declarer is trying to "induce" a tell, just maybe hoping that one occurs.

I don't see any difference between:
(1) Pausing in the hope that the pause will provoke a "tell", and.
(2) Pausing in the hope that a "tell" will occur, which would not have occurred without the pause.

Quote

73D1 allows this when it says "Inferences from such variation may appropriately be drawn only by an opponent, and at his own risk."

No it doesn't. It says that if an opponent varies his tempo you may draw inferences from it. It doesn't say that you may vary your own tempo and then draw inferences from the opponents' reactions.

[aguahombre]

barmar, on 2012-August-09, 07:27, said:

I don't think declarer is trying to "induce" a tell, just maybe hoping that one occurs. 73D1 allows this when it says "Inferences from such variation may appropriately be drawn only by an opponent, and at his own risk."

Aren't you tangling up two different things? Declarer might draw an inference from the opponents' variation at his own risk; but that is not the situation being discussed.

Declarer leads, lefty follows, then Declarer pauses. Declarer in this situation might be pausing to elicit a tell, rather than to think. Whether he may in-fact do it for that purpose doesn't seem to be addressed by 73D1. I would go for a different citation.

[Zelandakh]

aguahombre, on 2012-August-09, 09:49, said:

I would go for a different citation.

74A3, 74B4 or 74C7 perhaps? The last of these seems particularly pertinent.

[shintaro]

gordontd, on 2012-August-08, 08:49, said:

But the player in question believes he gets useful information from it, and it doesn't matter either way to determining the question of whether or not it's allowed.

With your comment above Gordon what woould you do as TD 'IF' a player was aware of this person doing it and then 'Deliberately gave wrong information by sorting his hand to give the impression of say a '2 Suited' hand instead of a Balanced hand ??

[aguahombre]

shintaro, on 2012-August-10, 02:51, said:

With your comment above Gordon what woould you do as TD 'IF' a player was aware of this person doing it and then 'Deliberately gave wrong information by sorting his hand to give the impression of say a '2 Suited' hand instead of a Balanced hand ??

I am not Gordon, but I would go away from the table laughing.

[barmar]

gnasher, on 2012-August-09, 09:40, said:

No it doesn't. It says that if an opponent varies his tempo you may draw inferences from it. It doesn't say that you may vary your own tempo and then draw inferences from the opponents' reactions.

But you're allowed to vary your tempo if you have a bridge reason for it. And trying to decide which way to finesse seems like a valid reason to go into the tank.

I've been in that position. What's going through my mind is something like "Damn, he didn't cover -- now what should I do?" or "he followed smoothly -- is he good enough to do that without a hitch?".

It would be nice if we could plan these kinds of things ahead of time, so we could continue smoothly at this point. But I don't think we should attribute a tank at this point to an intentional attempt to induce a tell rather than just poor decision making.

[gnasher]

barmar, on 2012-August-10, 09:44, said:

But you're allowed to vary your tempo if you have a bridge reason for it. And trying to decide which way to finesse seems like a valid reason to go into the tank.

Yes, of course it is. I didn't suggest otherwise.

Quote

But I don't think we should attribute a tank at this point to an intentional attempt to induce a tell rather than just poor decision making.

I didn't suggest that we should do that either.

My comments were specifically about the action described by Stefanie, which was "leading a card in a suit in which you have a two-way finesse as above, and taking (sometimes considerable) time to see if you can get a tell on one of the opponents". That is, I was discussing the legality of pausing in the hope that a "tell" will occur during the pause.

[barmar]

I just think you're all too cynical if you think someone going into the tank is trying to do anything but make a decision rather than induce something in the opponents. "Sominix coup" is generally referred to jokingly, I'd never accuse someone of trying to pull it off intentionally.

Even 74C7 doesn't seem appropriate. While the tank might disconcert the opponent, I doubt it's the purpose. The purpose is to make a decision when you have no information to go on.

[gnasher]

barmar, on 2012-August-11, 21:39, said:

I just think you're all too cynical if you think someone going into the tank is trying to do anything but make a decision rather than induce something in the opponents.

I didn't say I thought that. I said that *if* they pause for the purpose of inducing a tell, it is illegal. If they pause for the purpose of thinking, of course it is legal.

[barmar]

gnasher, on 2012-August-12, 03:13, said:

I didn't say I thought that. I said that *if* they pause for the purpose of inducing a tell, it is illegal. If they pause for the purpose of thinking, of course it is legal.

OK, fair enough. But I don't think it's very meaningful, since I'm not sure how you would ever tell that they're doing it.

I guess that applies to 74C7 in general. Although in many cases the director may be able to look at the hand and see that there's nothing for the player to think about, so he might conclude that the pause could only be to disconcert the opponents. If there actually is a difficult decision, it would be hard to rule against the player for going into the tank.

[TimG]

barmar, on 2012-August-10, 09:44, said:

I've been in that position. What's going through my mind is something like "Damn, he didn't cover -- now what should I do?" or "he followed smoothly -- is he good enough to do that without a hitch?".

In these cases, haven't you given considerable thought to which way you will finesse before you led the suit to begin with? It's not typical to lead a suit in which you have a two-way finesse and then stop to count things and consider the combination only after one defender has followed, one thinks before leading the suit. I think declarer should generally know what they will do if an opponent follows low (or with a meaningful spot). This doesn't mean declarer can't take an additional moment to consider a pause or hitch or whatever from an opponent, or to count once again just to make sure. But, I don't think declarer should be in need of "tank time" after leading the suit and seeing one defender's card.

[CSGibson]

barmar, on 2012-August-11, 21:39, said:

I just think you're all too cynical if you think someone going into the tank is trying to do anything but make a decision rather than induce something in the opponents. "Sominix coup" is generally referred to jokingly, I'd never accuse someone of trying to pull it off intentionally.

Here in the wild wild west there are frequent serious accusations of pulling off Sominix coups intentionally against a couple of our better players. That, and the matchpoint strategy of using 10 minutes on the first hand so that the other pair will feel rushed on the accompanying board.

[pigpenz]

I guess you can always sort your hands under the table if you need to sort them

[gnasher]

barmar, on 2012-August-12, 03:22, said:

OK, fair enough. But I don't think it's very meaningful, since I'm not sure how you would ever tell that they're doing it.

It's meaningful to anyone who wants to play by the rules.