[blml] Be prepared! [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[richard.hills at immi.gov.au]

Alain Gottcheiner asked:

>What would logical alternatives be after a sequence
>where former bids were ridiculous? Remain ridicule?

Richard Hills (reprint of 24th July 2004 posting):

I have reconsidered my initial position upon the
actual case at the stem of this thread.  I now
believe:

(a) I was wrong,
(b) The TD was wrong,
(c) The AC majority was wrong,
(d) The AC minority was *right*, and,
(e) The EBU L&EC was wrong.

EAST      SOUTH     WEST      Bunny
3D        3S        5D        5S(1)

(1) Hesitation

I now agree with the AC minority that, when bidding
for the first time at the five-level, 50% of the
time a bunny will hesitate due to fear of making an
overbid, and 50% of the time a bunny will hesitate
due to fear of making an underbid.

Director's statement of facts:

>North asked the nature of the 5D bid and was told
>that it was pre-emptive in nature ('to up the
>ante').  He thought and then bid 5S.

In my opinion, only a bunny would need to ask about
the nature of the 5D bid.  Therefore, I now join
the AC minority in ruling that the bunny's
hesitation did not demonstrably suggest anything in
particular, so that South was free to guess to call
*either* Pass *or* 6S, without South having their
guess adjusted if South guessed lucky.

However.....

EBU Laws and Ethics Committee:

>>The L&E is on record as concluding that in many
>>situations a slow bid is more likely to suggest
>>extra values than that the bid is a stretch.
>>However, the L&E doubts that this is a valid
>>conclusion of general application when a player
>>is under pressure at a high level.  Accordingly,
>>although the TD's conclusion that Pass was not a
>>logical alternative does not seem right, it
>>would not have been surprising if the score had
>>been allowed to stand on the basis that the
>>successful action was not suggested by the
>>unauthorised information.

[snip]

I still believe that the EBU L&EC was wrong, since
(in my opinion) the EBU L&EC over-generalised.

EAST      SOUTH     WEST      Expert
3D        3S        5D        5S(1)

(1) Hesitation

In my opinion, experts freely overbid in tempo,
but experts are much more worried about underbids,
so experts are much more likely to break tempo
when underbidding.  Therefore, if an expert broke
tempo in this auction, as the expert's partner I
would assess that 75% of the time the expert was
underbidding, and only 25% of the time the expert
was overbidding.

In my opinion, the score that experts hate above
all others is +190.

:-)


Best wishes

Richard James Hills, amicus curiae
National Training Branch, DIAC
02 6223 9052

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