[WellSpyder]

iviehoff, on 2013-May-14, 03:16, said:

The canonical case is 1H - pass - 3H (BiT) - pass - ? where the clearly ethical action is pass.

You lost me there.

1) How can one say what the ethical action is without seeing the hand? Pass may not even be a LA.

2) It may be clear to you that the BIT indicates extra values, but it isn't clear to me. How do you know partner wasn't thinking about bidding just 2H?

[gwnn]

I would think it suggests 4S, but I can't demonstrate it right now (which does not immediately prove that it isn't demonstrable!).

[gwnn]

WellSpyder, on 2013-May-14, 03:27, said:

2) It may be clear to you that the BIT indicates extra values, but it isn't clear to me. How do you know partner wasn't thinking about bidding just 2H?

Most players decide quickly between 2H and 3H and think somewhat longer between 3H and a GF bid.

[gnasher]

iviehoff, on 2013-May-14, 03:16, said:

I think the true restriction is something like "you are allowed to choose an off-beat action so long as it doesn't have appear to have any advantage over a normal ethical action, given the situation you are in." Nearly always that will be the same thing as "you are allowed to choose an offbeat action as long as it is unsuccessful".

The canonical case is 1H - pass - 3H (BiT) - pass - ? where the clearly ethical action is pass. If 6H looks to have scoring advantages over pass, then that will be disallowed. In practice, that is very close to saying it will be disallowed if you make it.

I don't understand. If 6H has a scoring advantage over pass, it's suggested over pass, isn't it?

[WellSpyder]

gwnn, on 2013-May-14, 03:32, said:

Most players decide quickly between 2H and 3H and think somewhat longer between 3H and a GF bid.

If you say so. I must admit from my own experience I'm much more likely to find it tricky to decide between a constructive and an invitational raise than I am between an invitational raise and a GF one.

[iviehoff]

WellSpyder, on 2013-May-14, 03:27, said:

You lost me there.

1) How can one say what the ethical action is without seeing the hand? Pass may not even be a LA.

I was setting that out as a definition of the situation I was examining.

[iviehoff]

gnasher, on 2013-May-14, 03:47, said:

I don't understand. If 6H has a scoring advantage over pass, it's suggested over pass, isn't it?

Quite so, that's the point I'm making: that suffices to make it illegal. The reason it is non-obvious to some is that it need not suggested over 4H, the action you would have chosen without the uI. Plainly you already understood this, but it was not obvious from the way the previous person described it.

[fbuijsen]

WellSpyder, on 2013-May-14, 04:25, said:

If you say so. I must admit from my own experience I'm much more likely to find it tricky to decide between a constructive and an invitational raise than I am between an invitational raise and a GF one.

My experience is similar. My regular partner is an optimistic bidder. When he makes some kind of limit raise after a long tank, he has convinced himself to make a slight (or sometimes not so slight) overbid the vast majority of the time.

[lamford]

PhilKing, on 2013-May-13, 16:26, said:

Although several people suggested passing was not absurd, no one actually passed. It registered a grand total of 0% of the votes. So I disallow pass immediately.

As far as I could see there was no poll, and only about 15 separate views, if you ignore ones drifting to discussions about Donald Duck. A significant number of those seriously considered Pass, and the normal procedure is to assume that in a big enough poll some would select it, as happened after you posted. Only about half indicated what they would actually choose. I agree with JLOGIC that Pass is poor, but I would still include it as an LA based on that thread.

But even if nobody chose it nor mentioned it, as was the case with 5C, it would not be an infraction to select it, unless it was demonstrably suggested by the UI. The infraction is to choose from LAs one that is demonstrably suggested. I believe there is yet another WBFLC pronouncement that it is an infraction to choose a non-LA if it is likely to do better than any of the LAs. For you to disallow pass you would have to decide that it demonstrably suggested by the BIT. You assume it is an LA before deciding that as the bid chosen is always deemed to be an LA.

[blackshoe]

lamford, on 2013-May-15, 08:37, said:

…the bid chosen is always deemed to be an LA.

Because the law's phrase "logical alternative" doesn't mean what it says. Instead it means something like "plausible alternative for the class of player involved". At least, that's what Grattan Endicott told me well before the 2007 laws were promulgated. I would have thought that if that's what was meant, the drafting committee would have changed the wording, but obviously they didn't.

[Cascade]

gwnn, on 2013-May-14, 03:32, said:

Most players decide quickly between 2H and 3H and think somewhat longer between 3H and a GF bid.

In general I don't agree with this type of reasoning.

In particular, we don't care what everyone else does we care what this particular player does. To me it seems clearly wrong to deduce that this particular hesitation suggests something in particular because other hesitations would suggest that.

[gordontd]

lamford, on 2013-May-15, 08:37, said:

A significant number of those seriously considered Pass, and the normal procedure is to assume that in a big enough poll some would select it

I'd like to take issue with this assertion. Were it true, there would be no need for the second requirement in the law.

[Vampyr]

lamford, on 2013-May-15, 08:37, said:

it would not be an infraction to select it, unless it was demonstrably suggested by the UI. The infraction is to choose from LAs one that is demonstrably suggested.

Why does every one forget that the law reads "could demonstrably have been suggested"?

[gwnn]

Cascade, on 2013-May-15, 15:27, said:

In general I don't agree with this type of reasoning.

In particular, we don't care what everyone else does we care what this particular player does. To me it seems clearly wrong to deduce that this particular hesitation suggests something in particular because other hesitations would suggest that.

I wouldn't agree with this type of reasoning either unconditionally, but I thought directors need to judge on the balance of probabilities, based on the available information. They need not prove logical truths, or even "beyond a reasonable a doubt."

[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2013-May-16, 07:27, said:

Why does every one forget that the law reads "could demonstrably have been suggested"?

Maybe because it's hard to understand how to apply it properly. Almost anything "could be", in real life we generally only concern ourselves with what "is" or "is likely" (religion being the notable exception).

[campboy]

Vampyr, on 2013-May-16, 07:27, said:

Why does every one forget that the law reads "could demonstrably have been suggested"?

We don't, really. If an action is demonstrably suggested to us, then it could have been demonstrably suggested to the player. It is not necessarily the case that it was suggested to the player. This is a typical "could have known" style situation of the laws emphasising that an adjusted score is not an accusation.

[aguahombre]

Vampyr, on 2013-May-16, 07:27, said:

Why does every one forget that the law reads "could demonstrably have been suggested"?

Because they would like to remember it as "demonstrably could have been suggested".

[lamford]

gordontd, on 2013-May-15, 15:28, said:

I'd like to take issue with this assertion. Were it true, there would be no need for the second requirement in the law.

The Law says: "A logical alternative action is one that, among the class of players in question and using the methods of the partnership, would be given serious consideration by a significant proportion of such players, of whom it is judged some might select it."

So, it is wrong to reject a call as an LA because nobody in a small poll actually selects it, as the only requirement is that the TD judges that some might select it. (My emphasis). If a call is given serious consideration, then, ipso facto, it will normally be judged that some might select it, so, in practice, the second requirement in the Law will always be met if the first is.

In the other thread, it seemed likely from the comments that some of those who mentioned Pass as an option "might select it". Whether they did so is therefore not the test. It does not say "did select it".

[aguahombre]

lamford, on 2013-May-16, 10:24, said:

The Law says: "A logical alternative action is one that, among the class of players in question and using the methods of the partnership, would be given serious consideration by a significant proportion of such players, of whom it is judged some might select it."

So, it is wrong to reject a call as an LA because nobody in a small poll actually selects it, as the only requirement is that the TD judges that some might select it. (My emphasis). If a call is given serious consideration, then, ipso facto, it will normally be judged that some might select it, so, in practice, the second requirement in the Law will always be met if the first is.

It might frighten you that I agree. If something is seriously considered, there should be a presumption it might have been selected. ACBL bashers take note: there is ill-conceived wording in laws all over.

[gnasher]

lamford, on 2013-May-16, 10:24, said:

The Law says: "A logical alternative action is one that, among the class of players in question and using the methods of the partnership, would be given serious consideration by a significant proportion of such players, of whom it is judged some might select it."

So, it is wrong to reject a call as an LA because nobody in a small poll actually selects it, as the only requirement is that the TD judges that some might select it. (My emphasis). If a call is given serious consideration, then, ipso facto, it will normally be judged that some might select it, so, in practice, the second requirement in the Law will always be met if the first is.

In the other thread, it seemed likely from the comments that some of those who mentioned Pass as an option "might select it". Whether they did so is therefore not the test. It does not say "did select it".

I think that the wording is intended to cater for an action which would be seriously considered, but unanimously rejected as a result of this consideration. Sometimes you have to consider an action in order to conclude that it's wrong. This occurs in the play more often in the bidding, but it can occur with a bidding decision that lends itself to analysis rather than judgement.