[blml] Psyches & deviations

[Wayne Burrows]

On 22/01/07, WILLIAM SCHODER <schoderb at msn.com> wrote:
> At the risk of antagonizing the community, may I express the following?
>
> A mistake in one's agreements is NOT a psychic call.  It is a mistake.
> Please refer to the definition of Psychic Call in the Laws.  When partners
> both make calls that are violations of their agreements it is extremely rare
> that they are both psyching -- in particular the first one to call. For the
> second partner to convince me that he is making a psychic call while
> expecting his partner to hold what he has shown is also rare. For both
> partners to claim  compensating "mistakes" that lands them on their feet is
> magical, beautiful, and so rare as to be in the realm of b--ls--t to me. My
> invitation to ask for an AC to review my ruling is seldomly accepted when it
> means they have to face their peers -- remember, I'm not a "peer". If I were
> I'd be out there playing instead of earning TD munificent sums.
>
> Please don't confuse the two problems.  One is very prevalent (mistake which
> partner "reads" in a multitude of ways), the other is usually quick thinking
> when caught with the goods, Quick thinking, but a hard sell.
>
> The reliance on habitual violations creating implicit agreements sounds
> great, but it doesn't easily work in rectifying the present infraction when
> this is the first time that THIS TD has had THIS PROBLEM with THIS PAIR. Nor
> does it do anything to rectify the probable screwing of these opponents.
> Written records of violations, collated by
> partnership(s) and fully and readily available to the TD at the table would
> be great to have, but I ain't seen 'em yet.
>

If you do not have records then ask the players and they will tell
you?  If they do not then they are cheating.  If they do then on
balance they have a right to be believed unless you have other
evidence that they are habitual liars or you are suspicious for some
other reason then you may have to probe more deeply. My experience is
that most players will cooperate.

There are 1000s of games where the director is more experienced than
the majority of the players or even that both the players and the
director are inexperienced.  It is my experience that violations of
agreements by both partners are common in these games often leading to
disaster but occasionally compensating each other and leading to a
normal result.  Very rarely when these good results happen is there
any suggestion of a CPU - its just bad bridge that happened to survive
this time.

Wayne