[blml] Marvin French's Procedures for handling UI - part one [SEC=UNOFFICIA

[Nigel]

[Tim West-Meads]
As has been argued here before "Among the white sheep were a goat and a 
black ram - when asked to choose his favourite animal the farmer 
selected the goat." For Goat read "Illogical Alternative", for black ram 
read "Suggested LA" for sheep read "Non-suggested LAs". Thus it is 
linguistically possible to select an IA from among LAs. This 
interpretation is consistent with  the words of L16a2 "When a player has 
substantial reason to believe that an opponent who had a logical 
alternative..". It is the existence of LAs which matters - not the 
logicality of the selected action. Only white sheep are legal!
[Herman De Wael]

No Tim, the goat is legal! only the black ram is the suggested alternative and cannot be chosen.

[Sven Pran]

An example that comes to my mind: I have absolutely no reason to even imagine that my partner is void in a particular suit and wants a ruff until he gives me UI which suggests just this situation. Leading the involved suit was definitely not a logical alternative before the occurrence of the UI but sure is now.

[Nige1]

IMO Tim & Sven are right in law and in common sense. Manifestly, any action that you hope *may* succeed is a preferred logical alternative to an action that you know *cannot* succeed because of either...
(i)  Unauthorised information or 
(ii) The laws about it.

I agree with Herman that this law needs urgent clarification.

IMO the main problems with *Unauthorised Information Legislation* lie elsewhere. For instance...

[A] Determining logical alternatives is easy. Selecting which were suggested by the unauthorised information is hard. Assessing a players "peer-group" is controversial. The result is that different directors rule differently  on identical facts. Players hate inconsistent rulings especially when they are unlucky enough to draw the short straw. Some directors imagine that compromise rulings involving weighted averages of likely scores are more acceptable. That is literally true, in the sense that players feel that it is pointless to appeal such rulings; admittedly, they are also a boon to regular offenders; most players, however, recognise a poor fudge when they see one; and both sides are usually left dissatisfied.

[B] An experienced player knows how directors usually interpret the law. For example, after  hesitating over a close decision, an expert will often grasp the nettle and take the "suggested" action himself (in an attempt to rescue partner from the ethical dilemma created by the break in tempo). Only if pass is fairly clear-cut will he pass. Hence, among experienced players "Pass" is the likely suggested action. AFAIK, however, among the thousands of published "Hesitation" appeals, there is no case where a player was penalised for the *pass* so often suggested.

[C] Experienced players subconsciously read unauthorised information from their partners more accurately than the director. To the player the suggested action is obvious. Whereas, to the director or any third party, there may be no action clearly suggested. A simple example: if partner is prone to underbid in this context, then a slow pass may show a stronger hand than a slow pass in a context where partner is inclined to overbid. Real life situations are typically more complex but regular partners will still read their partner's "tells" better than strangers.

[D] A radical solution (with obvious difficulties and draw-backs) would be to penalise unauthorised information itself as an infraction, where it makes sense to do so. Although hard to implement, this would result in more consistent and objective rulings.