[blml] ACBL LC Detroit minutes [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[Hans van Staveren]

[HdW]

> (b) According to Herman's words (but perhaps contrary to Herman's
> intent) Herman will not be convinced by written evidence alone
> (even with zero counterweighting evidence), but will be convinced
> by written evidence plus additional evidence.
> 

Well, the bid that is on the table is counterweighing evidence, no?


[HvS]

Well, really I would say no here. Of course the bid is on the table, so it
is nonsense to say the player will never bid what he bid with this hand,
since he just did.

However from a directors point of view only agreements count. Both explicit
and implicit. But even an implicit agreement has to start at some point, and
if this is really the first time the deviation occurs there is no implicit
agreement yet.

What I would accept is that the fact that there is a hand not conforming to
the explanation gives rise to reasonable suspicion, warranting some form of
investigation.

This is of course where the Dutch NAC goes off the charts. Not only don't
they investigate anything, they take this isolated occurrence(isolated as
far as they know) and immediately rule misbid.

Take the analogy with so called patterns of hands. At the end of any
session, especially when computer dealt hands are used, you will hear a
player explaining the similarity of all the hands, conforming to an alarming
pattern. Of course any set of hands has some pattern. But if you want to
investigate the dealing software for an actual error leading to this
pattern, you have to throw away this set of hands as evidence. You already
used it as a trigger for investigation. But I digress slightly. You'll have
to excuse me as the author of BigDeal.

Hans van Staveren