Judgment Rulings/Psyches and Misbids
JUDGEMENT RULINGS:
Unauthorised information, Misinformation, claims, psyches and Misbids are
the only issues when you need to reserve your rights.
On a Club Director Training course a full day is taken up by this subject.
Having been asked as Senior Director to explain psyches I found one entry in
the psyche book from earlier this year. On speaking to all concerned it was
agreed that this should be removed as it did not have the ingredients of a
psyche.
This is a very complex subject, and judgment rulings as a whole need
explaining for one to fully understand.
The Director is called and the following conversation takes place.
North: Director, please.
TD: How may I help?
North: I should like to reserve my rights.
TD: (To North) What happened, please?
North: (explains)
TD: (to East/West) Is that an accurate statement of fact)
TD: (to all) play on, please, and call me at the end of the hand if you wish.
This alerts the director to the fact that a judgment ruling maybe required.
The players have the right to appeal a director's judgment ruling.
The director should record details of all four hands and the vulnerability etc.
The auction (if relevant) the cards played.
Any statement that the players may make about their actions.
You should call the director at the first opportunity, failing to do so will
entitle the director to ask you to explain. The only acceptable explanation
should be that new information has come to light.
UNAUTHORISED INFORMATION
Unauthorised information (UI) lies at the heart of most judgment rulings. We deal with it in four stages, but there is some overlap:
The basis in law . When does UI arise?
Can occur in both the auction and play.
The TD action at the end of the hand. How the TD arrives at the ruling and score adjustment.
When the facts are disputed.
The basis in law
Law 16 tells us that the players are authorised to base their calls and plays on information from legal calls and/or plays, and from mannerisms of opponents. All other information is unauthorised, including some things that most people think are authorised, eg. When partner answers an opponent's question.
Law 73C tells a player in receipt of UI what his obligations are. A player can only do his best when in receipt of UI. If the director has to adjust the score, the director is not accusing him of cheating, merely saying that he is faced with a difficult problem and maybe, with more experience, would have handled it differently.
2. Six Common mishaps from were UI can arise.
Your partner asks a question or looks at the opponents convention card.
Your partner answers a question put to him by the opponents.
Your partner alerts a bid you meant as natural, or fails to alert a bid you meant as conventional.
Problems involving use of the convention card.
Fingers wandering round the bidding box.
A break in tempo (usually hesitation).
a) Asking questions/looking at convention card.
N : South opened 1club and West looked at my convention card and passed.
I am declarer in 3NT and East has led a club.
TD : East and West, is that an accurate statement of fact.
W : Yes.
TD : (to all) Play on, please. Call me back at the end of the hand if you wish.
Note that law 20F gives any player the right to ask questions and 40B2c at their turn during the auction. Law 41 refers to questions before and after the opening lead is placed face down. The right to ask questions is to do so not without consequence.
In this case it suggest to partner an interest in the suit just bid. The answer to a question partner asks is authorised information; the fact that he asked it is not. As far as UI is concerned, there is no difference between picking up a convention card and looking at it and asking a question.
b) South answers a question, legitimately asked by the opponents.
The answer comes as a surprise to North, who is now aware that he and his
partner are having a bidding misunderstanding. This is unauthorised to
North.
South alerts North bid. North is surprised because he considers it
to be natural. North must continue bidding, assuming South though though
his bid was natural. Alternatively South fails to alert North's conventional
bid. North must continue assuming South recognised his bid was
conventional.
Note that the unexpected alert,or failure to alert, may make North realise that it is he,
who has forgotten the system. North is not allowed to know that!
It can be very difficult for North to cope with the situations that can arise out of (b) and ( c ). North knows that something has gone badly wrong, yet the laws oblige him to carry on as though all is sweetness and light. Often he is obliged to bid a contract which he knows will be absurd, and if doesn't do so the director will adjust accordingly.
Problems involving the use of the 'Stop' card.
There are two kinds, either:
LHO bids too Quickly or slowly; or
a player pulls out a Stop card then makes a non jump bid.
N : I opened 2h, East thought for ages before passing, Pass from
partner and now West has reopened with a double.
TD : (to North) Did you use the Stop card?
N : Yes.
TD : For how long was it on the table?
N : About ten seconds.
TD : (to East) Do you agree firstly that the Stop card was on the table
for about ten seconds, that you did not pass straight away after it
was removed?
E :Yes, but I did not think 'for ages' afterwards.
TD :Thank you. (to West)There has been a break in tempo. Any
information this conveys is unauthorised. You must try to avoid
taking any advantage which might accrue to your side. (to all)
Play on and call me back at the end if you wish.
The Stop card should be on the table for about ten seconds. If it has merely been fingered or removed prematurely, the director will be reluctant to give North the benefit of the regulations as North has himself broken the rules. 'The player must pause for about ten seconds before calling,' irrespective of how quick it was removed. The director has to make sure that East was not just observing the regulations.
Alternatively:
N :West opened 1 spade, I over called 3 hearts, and East went 'Stop'
4d
E : Yes I.....
TD : STOP, I'm sorry to be so abrupt, but please don't say anything.
Did you mean to bid 4d, or did you pull out the wrong card from
the bidding box?
E : I meant to bid 4d.
TD : (to West) You must act as though there has been no Stop card, and
if, for instance, 4d is natural in this auction, treat it as such. Please
continue and call me back if you wish at the end of the hand.
In practice, the TD will be lucky if East has not already told everyone that he hadn't seen the 3h call. It will often be transparent what sort of hand the offender really has, and partner will find it very difficult to put this out of his mind. That is why, particularly for the inexperienced, the TD should specify West obligations. However the TD must not tell East what he should bid.
Some times you may get the stop card out and then realise that you don't want to use it. Call the TD if you don't want to make a skip bid there may be UI.
e) Fingers wandering in the bidding box. This can be very informative – the bidding has been 1nt Pass 2nt (invitational). From the path of partner's hand, opener can tell whether he was thinking of bidding 3nt or passing. This is an offence. Players should decide what to bid before touching the bidding box.
f) A break in tempo (usually a hesitation).
N : In an uncontested auction, East thought for s while before
bidding 3h; West then bid 4h.
TD : East and West, is that an accurate statement of fact?
E&W: Yes
TD : Please call me back if you wish.
Most often there is no need to recall the TD.
An Exercise showing when to call a TD and the outcome that will follow.
Graham Lightfoot 19/07/2014
MISINFORMATION
Your opponents have the right to know your system. They do not have the right to know what is in your hand. If the contents of your hand differ from the explanation of
your system, then either:
a) The explanation is wrong. This is misinformation and your opponents have been damaged; or
b) You have departed from your system, either accidentally (a misbid) or deliberately
(a psyche).
When a misbid occurs you may well achieve a good score. Opponent's are often very
unhappy that the result of you messing things up leaves them with a bad score and you with a good one. However, unless there is evidence that your partner made some allowance for you forgetting (called 'fielding the misbid), the score stands, irrespective of the damage done, If a misbid is fielded, the hand is scored 60/40%.
What is misinformation?
- Failure to alert an alertable call constitutes misinformation.
- A relevant but incomplete explanation, even when perfectly accurate, constitutes misinformation.
- A mistaken explanation, given to an opponent who asks for an explanation, is misinformation.
- A wrongly completed convention card, which misleads an opponent who looks at it, is misinformation.
Mistaken explanation can give rise to damage both in play (for declarer or defenders, including the opening lead) and in the auction.
Misinformation is likely to come to the director's attention during the course of a hand in one of five ways.
- An alert is made after the next player has called.
- The presumed declarer/dummy corrects an explanation before the opening lead is faced.
- A player asks a question which elicits the unexpected information.
- An unexpected dummy appears on the table.
- A player claims to have been damaged by an opponent's extraneous remark/ suggestion/variation in tempo.
1 A late alert
Under Law 21B a late alert constitutes misinformation and the next hand to bid may change his call 'when it is probable that he made the call as a result of misinformation.' Under Law 16C1, if he does, information from the withdrawn call is authorised to the non-offenders but unauthorised to the offenders.
- Correction of information before opening lead
An explanation is corrected when the opening lead is face down. This tends to happen because if you are aware that your partner has given opponents misinformation during the auction you are not allowed to correct it until the end of the hand (if you become a defender) or at the end of the auction (if you are declarer or dummy).
25/07/2014
CLAIMS
Law 68D states that: 'After any claim or concession, play ceases (but see law L70D3).' The players often want to : 'Play it out,' but the mere fact that a player has claimed and another player has disputed the claim makes normal play impossible. For example, a declarer who has forgotten that there is an outstanding trump is quite likely to be reminded of that fact.
When the TD is called to the table the conversation may go as follows:
W : Director, please.
TD : How may I help?
W : Declarer has claimed the rest and I think he is wrong.
TD : What is the contract and where is the lead (Answer).
(to declarer) Please repeat exactly what you said when you made the claim.
(to west) Why do you contest the claim?
(to all) Please put your hands face up on the table.
The TD should not encourage disagreement at this point, but should leave a moment or two for the opponents to object. The TD should remember the exact words spoken as there may be an appeal.
The TD should now devise a line of play consistent with anything the declarer said which is careless or inferior but not downright stupid for him to lose the maximum number of tricks.
Note that anything said or done after the objection is made is to be discounted – even if declarer plays on and goes down, if the claim was sound the TD rules in the claimants favour.
If a player thinks that all of his cards are winners, he has no reason to play the suits in any particular order or to lead high cards before low cards, but the TD must use common sense. If declarer has a holding of AKQJT2, opposite 43, The TD should not try to make him play the 2.
Finesses are permitted if one opponent has already shown out and declarer is aware of it, or if taking them is to the claimer's disadvantage – the TD doesn't want to object to drop a singleton King offside!
Outstanding trumps cannot be drawn if it is at all likely that declarer has forgotten them.
Sometimes, declarer's play up to a point that will make it clear what his intentions were, either about the next trick/s or the hand as a whole. In such circumstances, using Law 70A ruling as equitably as possible to both sides, the claim succeeds.
The following examples try to show you were the boundary lies. Declarer in 7 spades:
1 He holds spades AKQ to 9 opposite a void; he plays one round , both opponents follow. He
claims, saying nothing. One round establish that trumps are breaking. Of course he is going
to continue to draw trumps.
2 He holds spades AKQ to 9 opposite a void; he plays two rounds, one opponent plays a club
on the second round. He claims, saying nothing. Why play a second round, but not a third,
which is necessary to draw all of the outstanding trumps? There is evidence here that he
missed the club discard. He should not be permitted to draw any more trumps, but that
doesn't necessarily mean that he will lose a trick to that trump.
3 He holds spades AKQJ to9 opposite a void; he wins the first trick by ruffing the Ace of
hearts and claims, saying nothing. He doesn't need to draw any trumps to know they are
breaking. Of course he will draw trumps.
4 He holds spades AKQJ to9 opposite a void; he wins the first trick with the Ace of hearts and
claims saying nothing. Is there any danger that declarer thinks he is in 7nt?
Law 70D3 acknowledges that play should have ceased, but often has not. The law gives guidance on how to proceed.
25/07/2014
|