[bobecky]

Scoring: XIMP

---

I am sure no one at BBO cares about this situation; the director clearly doesn't care.

The director is supposed to attempt to restore equity on a hand where an infraction has occurred. On Board #2 of the 10:15 pairs on Sunday, our opponents bid 7NT by South on the following hand:

NORTH
A1075
j85
---
AKQ853


SOUTH
KJ632
AK94
K8
97

After a diamond lead to the Ace and a diamond return, declarer claimed with no explanation of how he would play the hand. I immediately called the director. My partner rejected the claim. Declarer now led the club 9 and finessed (my partner held J1042). I did not play in fourth seat, but protested to the director that 1) declarer was not allowed to take a finesse unless it had been proven by earlier play and 2) declarer would be -300 if he took all winners with no finesses or he would be -600 if he took an early finesse that lost (e.g., a losing spade finesse). In any event, we were entitled to +100 that we earned at trick one. Director awarded us 3.0 IMPs (Avg. +). Our +100 at trick one was worth at least 15 IMPs. These opponents only lost 3 IMPs on a board where they should have lost at least 16 IMPs -- probably more.

The winning strategy on BBO is apparently to make a bogus claim when a poor result is imminent and receive an Average Minus.

[DrTodd13]

I think I would give EW 6 tricks. If NS claims 12 tricks and the claim is rejected then his line of play afterwards must be for 12 tricks. Playing 2 clubs and finding they don't split he must then try to take 5 spades and with west having club length the odds would favor the spade finesse which will fail and EW will take 5♦ and 1♠.

I agree with you that people don't tend to care about these situations. I had one myself where declarer claimed X tricks, the claim was rejected which woke him up to realize one of his tricks wasn't good and then he didn't even try to take X tricks but took the safe X-2 tricks. The "certified" director was oblivious.

[bobecky]

This was NOT a free tournament; this was an ACBL tournament, and the opponents won masterpoints as a result of this claim. The directors are supposed to be ACBL certified and have at least a minimal amount of bridge knowledge.

The director told me that she had no way to adjust the score. I cannot believe that the BBO prgram does not allow adjustments since the Laws of Duplicate Bridge specify that when a claim is made play ceases, and the director assigns the result. (The Rubber Bridge Laws do allow the play to continue, but the Duplicate Laws do not.)

[adhoc3]

Given the declarer play S22 normally, he got 11 tricks already: 5S+2H+1D+3C. Dont know what had dummy ducked when playing D, if they were S, the declarer got 12th trick by dropping HQ. More down tricks wont worth more as I think most player were on 6S as SQ missing. Too bad that TD gave you and A+, not the actual +100.

You were afforded a big gift, and taken away by your TD by mistake. It's really bad enough, anyway, $1 only:))))

Good lucky:))

[inquiry]

The likely result stays minus one. Cash a club, find bad news. Cash AK of spades find good news, cash ak of hearts find good news. Win 5S, 3H, 3C, 1D = 12 tricks. no finesee no problem.

The director should adjust the score to 7N - 1, -100 for NS, rather EW accepted the claim or not. An adjusted score of average minus for NS and average plus for NS is a gross tragedy of justice. Given the result is easy to see and to adjudicate.

I am certain all ACBL directors know the laws, if this happened in an ACBL event, I suspect they are just not yet familiar enough with the software or was having a bad day (nobody is perfect).

Laws 68-71 deal with CLAIMS AND CONCESSIONS but the directors really need to keep law 12C2 in mind too, which states, in part:

2. Assigned Score
When the Director awards an assigned adjusted score in place of a result actually obtained after an irregularity, the score is, for a non-offending side, the most favorable result that was likely had the irregularity not occurred or, for an offending side, the most unfavorable result that was at all probable. ...

Average plus and average minus clearly violates this law, not to mention the claim laws. EW should have accepted minus one, ns had minus one on this layout (luckily). That should be the result as there are 12 tricks. The director could easily adjust the result to 7NS-1.

For what it is worth, i have posted how I rule in online cases using the most relative laws for on line bridge at:
http://forums.homeba...php?showforum=6

[Gerben42]

Quote

EW should have accepted minus one, ns had minus one on this layout (luckily).

No they shouldn't. Declarer was too lazy to think anymore now that he was down where he didn't even have 12 top tricks (maybe he thought he had).

If the ACBL wants these games to be serious, then have a serious director and make serious rulings. Note that this is a CLAIM and not a normal adjusted score, so every possible fork in the road must be taken incorrectly unless it's a stupid line of play.

Declarer cashes two rounds of ♣. Bad luck, doesn't work. Now he finesses ♠ into the hand with the long ♣ (percentage play!!!). Bad luck again! Since ♣J is now high, 6 down please.

Next case.

[inquiry]

Gerben42, on Feb 27 2006, 07:44 AM, said:

Quote

EW should have accepted minus one, ns had minus one on this layout (luckily).

No they shouldn't. Declarer was too lazy to think anymore now that he was down where he didn't even have 12 top tricks (maybe he thought he had).

If the ACBL wants these games to be serious, then have a serious director and make serious rulings. Note that this is a CLAIM and not a normal adjusted score, so every possible fork in the road must be taken incorrectly unless it's a stupid line of play.

Declarer cashes two rounds of ♣. Bad luck, doesn't work. Now he finesses ♠ into the hand with the long ♣ (percentage play!!!). Bad luck again! Since ♣J is now high, 6 down please.

Next case.

Let see. you going to rule he can't take club finessee after the claim, but can take the spade finessee when if loses? What if the spade finessee wins? Would you let him take it? (give east Qxx of spades)? Of course you would not, you would say, hey, the percentage play is look for 2-2 spades first before touching clubs.

The play here, after the line-less claim should be to cash top tricks, end up down one, score it 7NT-1. That seems the likely result with "normal play" enforced after the bad claim.

[uday]

I don't believe for a moment that an ACBL TD said that he had no way to adjust the score. I just don't buy it.

Perhaps you misunderstood what the TD said. Perhaps this wasnt an ACBL tourney. Perhaps there were factors you dont mention (like a sub jumping into a blackwood auction and continuing by bidding 7)


I'll take a look at the chat logs and find out

[Al_U_Card]

uday, on Feb 27 2006, 09:17 AM, said:

I don't believe for a moment that an ACBL TD said that he had no way to adjust the score. I just don't buy it.

Perhaps you misunderstood what the TD said. Perhaps this wasnt an ACBL tourney. Perhaps there were factors you dont mention (like a sub jumping into a blackwood auction and continuing by bidding 7)


I'll take a look at the chat logs and find out

Now THAT is an answer. tks Uday.

[awm]

The rule for claims when no line of play is stated actually is pretty harsh. Declarer is assumed to take the least effective line of play which is "not irrational." So I think in this case declarer is pretty much always going to be assumed to get spades wrong since neither playing for a 2-2 break nor finessing in either direction can really be taken as irrational (they are all very close in percentage). You don't just assume declarer will get a two-way guess correct when adjudicating a claim without a line.

[david_c]

inquiry, on Feb 27 2006, 02:25 PM, said:

Let see. you going to rule he can't take club finessee after the claim, but can take the spade finessee when if loses?

That's right.

Declarer has more than one normal play possible in the spade suit, so we give him the least favourable result which could arise from one of these plays.

Law 70E:
Unstated Line of Play (Finesse or Drop)
The Director shall not accept from claimer any unstated line of play the
success of which depends upon finding one opponent rather than the
other with a particular card, unless an opponent failed to follow to the
suit of that card before the claim was made, or would subsequently fail
to follow to that suit on any normal line of play; or unless failure to
adopt this line of play would be irrational.

Notice that this applies equally to a successful drop as a successful finesse.

[Gerben42]

There is the famous case when an international player claimed with the words "I won't do anything stupid", at which point one of the opponents remarked that he just did something stupid

Lesson: Don't claim unless you are 110% sure that it is correct, and ALWAYS state a line of play.

[kenberg]

The play:
As to the play after the claim, he can't take the club finesse (obviously), I can't make him lead the Jack of hearts from his hand and play low from dummy, but I can make him take the spade finesse. This is not a matter of legalisms (although it is the law) but of common sense. We don't know how he would have played the spade suit and the reason we don't know is that he claimed the hand without a line of play. In fact, when he finds long clubs in one hand it ups the odds of long spades in the other so the finesse, while never irrational, might now offer the best chance at bringing in the suit. At any rate, I can make him take it.

ACBL tourneys:
I play in quite a few. More than once, it goes like this: A problem arises, the director is summoned, the clock advances, the next round starts. The score I receive is not what I believe I should have. I send a message to the director asking him to review, with a brief statement of my views. As near as I can recall, the director has always adjusted the score. Certainly I have never had a director plead that he did not know how to adjust the score. Anything can happen, but it has not happened with me.

This one might cause trouble since even here there seems to not be uniform agreement that declarer must take the losing finesse. I can see how the score might be adjusted to down 1. This would be a severe error imo (but a ver good score already), but I can see it happening. The ave plus is of course wrong. I imagine directors have many demands during an online tourney and perhaps this was given as the default. Not good, but it seems to happen. I have found though that a request for a review is always honored and I can't recall not having a satisfactory ruling as a result.


Ken

[kenberg]

There is another reason declarer should take the spade finesse. He reasons as follows: We should be in spades. Perhaps some will be in 7S. Those who are in 7S will play the top spades. If the Q falls, I'm toast. If the Q does not fall, they are down 1. If I take the finesse and it holds, that means that the 7S players are down one on a normal line, and I am down one in an abnormal line in a stupid contract. If everyone else is in 7S off one on the non-dropping Q, the finesse will bring the result back to a tie for 7N off one on the losing ace of diamonds. Clearly the finesse is the way to go. The fact that 7S won't be universal diminishes the strength of the argument, the fact that some probably will be there gives it enough force to make the finesse the stand-out play.

Regardless, I can make him take it.

[barmar]

See this thread, where I complained about a similar assignment in a (pay, but not ACBL) tourney I was kibbitzing, due to a failure to alert. Rather than go through the work of determining if the NOS was damaged and would have done something differently, and without waiting for a table result, he just assigned av+/av-. The NOS might have been heading for a top (the opps got to an unmakable slam), but instead only got av+.

Maybe av+ was good, since other tables also got too high and got doubled, but it didn't seem like the TD made any attempt to determine this, he just assigned av+ in what seemed to be a reflex action. Artificial scores are only supposed to be assigned when a board is unplayable.

[uday]

After investigation: yes, the TD made an error. The ruling sucked and the TD inexplicably said that the board could not be adjusted.

Can't do anything about that result at this point of course, but I have brought this to the attention of our acbl tourney coordinator and she has resolved this w/the TD.

Crow doesnt taste any better cold, I must say!

[bobecky]

Thanks, Uday. You really DO care.

[keylime]

bobecky, on Feb 27 2006, 08:42 AM, said:

Scoring: XIMP

---

I am sure no one at BBO cares about this situation; the director clearly doesn't care.

The director is supposed to attempt to restore equity on a hand where an infraction has occurred. On Board #2 of the 10:15 pairs on Sunday, our opponents bid 7NT by South on the following hand:

NORTH
A1075
j85
---
AKQ853


SOUTH
KJ632
AK94
K8
97

After a diamond lead to the Ace and a diamond return, declarer claimed with no explanation of how he would play the hand. I immediately called the director. My partner rejected the claim. Declarer now led the club 9 and finessed (my partner held J1042). I did not play in fourth seat, but protested to the director that 1) declarer was not allowed to take a finesse unless it had been proven by earlier play and 2) declarer would be -300 if he took all winners with no finesses or he would be -600 if he took an early finesse that lost (e.g., a losing spade finesse). In any event, we were entitled to +100 that we earned at trick one. Director awarded us 3.0 IMPs (Avg. +). Our +100 at trick one was worth at least 15 IMPs. These opponents only lost 3 IMPs on a board where they should have lost at least 16 IMPs -- probably more.

The winning strategy on BBO is apparently to make a bogus claim when a poor result is imminent and receive an Average Minus.

I am very disappointed to have heard of this horrid ruling.

I'd give the offenders the least desirable score with a very stern taking to after the fact.