From: altus@leland.Stanford.EDU (Steve Altus)
Subject: Re: Ethics question
Keywords: no agreement = procedural penalty
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 09:14:56 GMT



In article <1992Dec14.225451.24791@cbnewsc.cb.att.com> rainbow@cbnewsc.cb.att.com (Rob Buchner) writes:
>
>
>To clarify further, in the midwest, for an expert player to claim
>ignorance of an auction is an automatic procedural penalty. Unless

in the midwest on what planet?

>you've NEVER played together before, it is expected for a partnership
>to know what are all their agreements and tendencies, and to be
>able to clearly and concisely explain them to their opponents.
>To say that you haven't discussed an auction is pure poppycock.

oh man...  some of us have LIVES, you know?  can't sit around discussing
EVERYTHING...  unless you're truly an established partnership (see more
on this later, since Rob, at least, doesn't understand what this term 
means...)

>You will receive a procedural penalty, period. If you must,
>you can qualify your statement (preferably without your partner
>hearing your explanation) saying that you aren't sure, but I 
>think it should mean so and so and that is how I'm taking it.

wow, this is a great new rule! ... how do i take that? um, let's
see..  let me look at my hand...  oh, i have a singleton club that
pard might want to know about.  "i'm taking it as asking for shortness."
*whew*  got a chance to make sure pard knows what my next bid means...

>Playing together ONCE qualifies you as an established partnership.
>And you will then be held responsible for ALL bidding sequences.

ah yes...  so if i play three times a week with someone for the next
year including playing every day in national events at all three NABC's,
but play once every three months in a sectional with someone else, i 
am expected to have the same number of agreements with both people?
uh, yeah, right...  why don't i just give up the game now.

>And that means a procedural penalty when you say you have no

my you like saying "procedural penalty"...  do you like the alliteration
or something?  you know, you could start alt.tongue.twisters if that's
your cup of tea...

>To suddenly try and say you have no clue is almost laughable.
>To say you have no agreement is not an answer, it is a cop-out.

To give an answer when you have no agreement is CHEATING.
now, you could say what other options partner had, by agreement,
and in fact should, and if you've noticed tendencies in similar
situations you should mention that also, but just saying, "i'm 
taking it as penalty" is CHEATING.

>If you are playing together as a partnership, you will receive

which many people playing at my table seem not to be doing...

>The onus is on the partnership to know what they are doing.
>And if you don't know, a procedural penalty is now automatic.
>Skill level is not a factor here since anyone playing in a 
>tournament is assumed to have reasonable partnership knowledge.

ooops, we've generalized the argument, from experts to anyone
but professor, didn't you leave a few steps out?

>Opponents are entitled to know what is going on in an auction.

even when YOU don't.

>
>Maybe harsh, but that is what directors have been instructed to do.
>Anyone not having an agreement will receive a procedural penalty.
>Then the directors will assess whether there was any further damage.

in the group i read which relates to my field, there was a guy who 
was always saying things attributed to classes and professors which
were obviously grossly misunderstood.  we finally suggested that he
discuss his posts with the professors before posting, to make sure
he really understood what they said.  i think maybe you should do 
that the next time you post about something a director tells you.

>In other words it is very possible to receive negative MPs on a board.

yes, by mis-duping it when scoring is across the field, by fouling it,
and in a few other ways that involve PROCEDURES;  not by anything you
do in the bidding (although my partners will tell you that some of my
bids should be strong candidates!  but that is a figure of speech, they
don't REALLY mean that.  maybe Rob doesn't understand that.)

>The rules committees are striving to protect opponents from these
>random happenings, whether they be intentional or unintentional.

oh boy, i'll be sleepin' better tonight!  and what country did you
say this was in?  maybe i should move there...

>And if you provide an explanation which turns out to be inaccurate,
>it is also an automatic procedural penalty unless you can prove 
>your explanation is indeed your partnership agreement, which is 
>hard to do unless you have something written down somewhere.
                            ^^^^^^^^^

something?  but by your earlier arguments you would need to have written down
EVERYTHING,  because you're responsible for EVERY auction.  and you
have to know them all...  no copouts.  basically, if anything comes
up which you haven't discussed, you get a penalty, period.

so the correct winning strategy is to create as many bizarre auctions
as possible, so that all your opponents will get lots of procedural
penalties and negative matchpoints, and you can win by default.
I get it!  wow, this sounds like fun...

>Consider yourselves forewarned. For a partnership, not having

oh, THANK you fairy godmother!  and if i didn't read rgb, oh boy,
i'd be hosed...



LOOK, i hate it as much as anything when opponents lack of an agreement
leads to a bad result, but that's part of the game!  i'd MUCH rather 
have someone say, "we haven't discussed it" than make something up which
is as likely as not to be wrong.  of course, i always phrase my questions,
"have you discussed what (whatever) shows in this situation?"  if they
haven't, i might ask about alternatives, but i think it's absolutely 
disgusting to say, "how do you take that, and if you don't tell or you're
wrong i'm calling the cops for your procedural penalty.  and while we're
at it, african or european?"


--steve altus