[lamford]

 pran, on 2013-November-23, 07:48, said:

Would you rule differently if the call had been for the "smallest Diamond" instead of for for the "small Diamond"?

WHY - or in case WHY NOT?

As usual your posts contribute almost nothing to the thread, and the capital letters add nothing either. Calling for any of "smallest diamond", "smaller diamond" or "small diamond" is an infraction.

[pran]

 nige1, on 2013-November-23, 08:50, said:

Thanks, Paul. Reminds me of "The Thumb in the Eye" chapter from Bob Hammans' "At the Table" where the pros relish "playing hardball". I feel that directors should proactively discourage that attitude. South's "small ♦" designation is an irregularity and South could have known it would work to his benefit. East may suspect (or even know) that both dummy's diamonds are good but East could be lulled into a false sense of security by South's illegal designation, which might be a deliberate attempt to bluff East by word of mouth. East's failure to ruff is an error but, IMO, not a SEWOG. IMO the director should rule 6♠-1 for both sides.

If directors were to encourage players to use legal designations, there would be some short-term protest. In the long term, however there would be fewer acrimonious rulings and interminable threads in the laws forum. Better, the laws should simply prohibit illegal designations rather than provide interpretations of them.

That would be a matter for the WBFLC to consider.

The current Law on declarer's play from dummy dates from 1975, before that the laws simply stated that declarer plays a card from dummy by naming it or touching it.

I assume that the tradition of naming a card in some cases by just using words like "small", "low", "high" or "top" etc. (in addition to the denomination when necessary) goes back at least 100 years, never causing any problems, so I don't really see any good reason for another change of the law in this respect (beyond the change made in 1975).

[pran]

 lamford, on 2013-November-23, 11:54, said:

As usual your posts contribute almost nothing to the thread, and the capital letters add nothing either. Calling for any of "smallest diamond", "smaller diamond" or "small diamond" is an infraction.

Which confirms my suspicion that the reason for your ruling is not East being misled into believing that the "small" Diamond was not a winning Diamond, but the desire to make rulings on technicalities as such.

[ggwhiz]

 lamford, on 2013-November-23, 11:54, said:

Calling for any of "smallest diamond", "smaller diamond" or "small diamond" is an infraction.

I believe you with your far superior knowledge of the laws but what an inane law! I and every player I know have designated plays from dummy as small (or just "diamond") or big since the mid 70's and have never heard of a single ruling being made (or requested) on this issue. Reminds me of a successful lawsuit where a guy blew the skill testing question in a contest and sued the company (McDonalds?) for discriminating against stupid people.

Mind you our Canadian football championship was held in Montreal one year and Calgary was playing in it. One hotel found out to their chagrin that they MUST by law provide accommodation for their guests horses and that prompted some long overdue legal housekeeping..... and more housekeeping from some poor minimum wage stiffs.

[pran]

 ggwhiz, on 2013-November-23, 14:47, said:

I believe you with your far superior knowledge of the laws but what an inane law! I and every player I know have designated plays from dummy as small (or just "diamond") or big since the mid 70's and have never heard of a single ruling being made (or requested) on this issue.

This was perfectly legal (with nobody's cause for concern) until 1975!
From then on explicitly spelling out the rank and suit of the card played has been a recommendation ("should"), not a requirement ("shall").

[nige1]

 pran, on 2013-November-23, 14:18, said:

Which confirms my suspicion that the reason for your ruling is not East being misled into believing that the "small" Diamond was not a winning Diamond, but the desire to make rulings on technicalities as such.

In the past, Bridge law was simpler and better. Unfortunately, current law is chock-a-bloc with bizarre technicalities that need the urgent attention of law-makers. Lamford draws attention to them. Until law-makers get round to addressing such issues, however, it's incumbent on directors to enforce the law, as written.

[pran]

 nige1, on 2013-November-23, 16:16, said:

In the past, Bridge law was simpler and better. Unfortunately, current law is chock-a-bloc with bizarre technicalities that need the urgent attention of law-makers. Lamford draws attention to them. Until law-makers get round to addressing such issues, however, it's incumbent on directors to enforce the law, as written.

And when the Law says "should" I see no reason to rule as if it said "shall". The introduction to the laws gives the Directors clear information on how to understand these words.

[blackshoe]

 pran, on 2013-November-23, 16:10, said:

From then on explicitly spelling out the rank and suit of the card played has been a recommendation ("should"), not a requirement ("shall").

You are misinterpreting the law. When a player "should" do something, it is not a recommendation. If it were, it would not be an infraction to fail to do it.

[pran]

 blackshoe, on 2013-November-23, 21:41, said:

You are misinterpreting the law. When a player "should" do something, it is not a recommendation. If it were, it would not be an infraction to fail to do it.

I agree, but this is a technicality. Don't forget

Introduction said:

'should' do (failure to do it is an infraction jeopardizing the infractor’s rights but not often penalized)

The only sensible interpretation of this is that penalization should only take place when there are aggravating circumstances.
(And I see none in the description of the case we discuss here.)

[campboy]

"Not often penalised" means... not often penalised. It would be rare to give a procedural penalty. It does not mean that it is rare to adjust when there is damage.

I think it would be an improvement for the laws to permit "small", etc, as legal designations. Provided it is used consitently it seems unreasonable to expect declarer to change to saying "six" in this specific case. Of course we would still be able to adjust if a declarer who normally specifies the rank were to say "small" in this case: that is a variation in manner which could benefit him, so he should careful to avoid it (73D1).

I am glad this is an invented case; provided declarer normally says "small" I do not want to adjust, but I can't see a legal reason not to as the law stands.

[JLOGIC]

So you think if there is an infraction, there is automatically an adjustment? That makes no sense. If there is a BIT that is an infraction, but it only leads to an adjustment if it might have changed the outcome of a hand.

In this case, even if calling "small" instead of "six" is an infraction, why would we think it might have influenced the play? It's not like "six" would wake east up to it being a high diamond, but small means they will not realize it's high. If someone knows the six is high, and they see the six played from dummy, just because declarer said "small" they are not obligated to think it's not a winner. As far as I know small does not mean "non winner." There is no chance someone who saw the 6 in dummy and saw it played, and knew it was high, would now fail to know it was high when declarer said small. That is absolutely absurd. Even if small is an infraction, there is no reason to believe east knew the 6 was high but when they heard small, they didn't think it was high, and thus pitched. Give me a break.

[paulhuggin]

I don't see how this is coffee housing any more than stronger opponents making better use of a bidding system than weaker ones. Declarer is not obliged to tell the defence whether the spot cards they are calling from dummy are winners or not (and it would surely open up a worse can of worms if they got that wrong, deliberately or otherwise). And how is declarer supposed to designate the 6 with J6 remaining - should they always name the card's ranking? that can get irritating at other times, which is why it's not part of the laws. It's not declarer's job to make sure defenders have been following the spot cards.

[cherdano]

I think declarer *should* be obliged to call for the ♦J, not the ♦6, to help RHO realize that he has to ruff in.

Sarcasm aside, while I wouldn't use the same language as the poster with an ALL CAPS name, my feelings are pretty similar.

[OleBerg]

Incredibly silly ruling.

Even if South deliberately called it a small to confuse the opponents, I find it silly to adjust. I know that this may very well be illegal, but if it is, the rules are silly. The lovely game of tournament-bridge is first a competition of wits, and only secondly a social gathering. It is the players own responsibility to keep track of the cards.

What's next? Will it be an infraction if you call for a high diamond in a dummy containing ♦KQJ, and will the opponents get redress when they forget to take the ace, because they think that the king is high?

It happens 24/7/365 that players designate cards as "High" or "Low", and it is a fundamental principle of the laws, that you do not evaluate the person in question, but that you evaluate the situation as such.

This goes for §23 as well. You should not contemplate whether the player in question could have known that an infraction could work to his/her advantage, but whether a player of the general level of the infractor could have known it.

As a whole, if you choose to adjust here, you should also give a warning, and subsequent administrative penalties, every time a player designates a card by anything other than its name.(Like "High" or "Low".)

Non-sarcasm aside, I would use the same language as the poster with an ALL CAPS name, but I am not as good at it.

Best Regards

Ole Berg

[OleBerg]

Mostly for JLOGIC:

As an active TD I can assure you, that we can circle-jerk to our own brilliance without having to resort to such silly rulings.

Best Regards

Ole Berg

[gnasher]

 JLOGIC, on 2013-November-24, 05:17, said:

So you think if there is an infraction, there is automatically an adjustment?

I don't think anyone said that.

If there is an infraction, the director should consider two things:
- Does the infraction merit a procedural penalty? If so, he issues one.
- Did the infraction damage the other side? If so, he adjusts the score.

It should be automatic for him to think about both of these, but it's never automatic to adjust the score.

Quote

That makes no sense. If there is a BIT that is an infraction, but it only leads to an adjustment if it might have changed the outcome of a hand.

A BIT isn't usually an infraction. It's merely an irregularity.

It's true that sometimes breaking tempo can be an infraction, for example if you pause without any bridge reason and that misleads an opponent. But in general stopping to think is legal. That's a good thing, because bridge would be an awful game if thinking weren't allowed.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2013-November-24, 07:00

[campboy]

Sure, you only adjust if you think there was damage, ie if you think the infraction might have changed the outcome. Unfortunately, much as I might like to believe otherwise, if a declarer who normally says "small" was to say "six" in this case, I think there is a reasonable chance it would wake East up. As I say, I do believe that it is completely unfair to expect such a declarer to do this, but the solution to that is to change the law.

Obviously it is far better to discuss this sort of problem in a theoretical setting and get the law fixed before it actually comes up, which is exactly why Lamford's threads can be so valuable.

[OleBerg]

For chrism:

You wrote: "Declarer was clearly aware that the ♦6 was not "small" in the sense of being a loser,..."

Where in the laws is it said, that the term "small" is equal to a loser?


And yes, I would like to compare with the story, where the Hog says something like: "It is a small heart".

The two situations are nothing like each other. The Hog transfers unauthorized information to his partner, information the partner could not get in a legal manner. If South is, as alleged, "coffee-housing" in the described situation, he changes his use of technicalities in the game, to try and get an advantage. As the practice of calling a card "low" if it is the smallest in dummy is generally accepted, it is a part of the game.

I would rather much compare it to this one:

Declarer has:

Dummy:

♥AQJ109

In hand:

♥5432

Declarer plays a small heart to the ♥9, East showing out.
Now declarer crosses to the hand, leads a heart attempting to finesse.
West plays the ♥K, but declarer, being ahead of himself, finesses with the ♥10. Just declarers own silly fault.

Not that my comparison is completely similar to the original problem, but it is a lot more like it.

Best Regards

Ole Berg

[pran]

 gnasher, on 2013-November-24, 06:55, said:

A BIT isn't usually an infraction. It's merely an irregularity.

It's true that sometimes breaking tempo can be an infraction, for example if you pause without any bridge reason and that misleads an opponent. But in general stopping to think is legal. That's a good thing, because bridge would be an awful game if thinking weren't allowed.

By your own language BIT is always an infraction:

Law 73A2 said:

2.Calls and plays should be made without undue emphasis, mannerism or inflection, and without undue hesitation or haste.[...]

The word "should" have exactly the same meaning here as in Law 46A.

[gnasher]

 pran, on 2013-November-24, 07:05, said:

By your own language BIT is always an infraction:

Law 73A2 includes the word "undue". If a pause is justifiied by the need to think, it's not undue.