[blml] ACBL LC Detroit minutes

[Herman De Wael]

Eric Landau wrote:
> On Apr 8, 2008, at 3:37 AM, Herman De Wael wrote:
> 
>> Alain, you don't seem to understand my argument. When it turns out
>> that a player has the same idea about the meaning of a certain call
>> than his partner, it is up to him to prove that this is not due to
>> some form of partnership understanding. (The director is to  
>> presume ...).
> 
> "...in the absence of evidence to the contrary".  I trust we do know  
> the difference between that and "it is up to him to prove..."
> 

Yes, so just substitute my phrase with: it is up to him to provide 
evidence to the contrary. I'm sorry for being slack with my wording.
In the cases we are talking about, such evidence is of course absent.

>> Now of course it is possible that the understanding was just a lucky
>> guess. A player is allowed to say "We don't have any understanding".
>> He is allowed to look into his hand and guess a meaning from that. But
>> he'll have to convince the TD that that is what he has done.
> 
> The TD gets to look at the player's hand too, and if it is consistent  
> with the player's story that's one piece of "evidence to the  
> contrary".  But if a TD determined to exercise a presumption of  
> misexplanation requires him to "prove" otherwise, the player's hand,  
> CC and notes, together, will not satisfy.  The TD should make an  
> ordinary (L85) balance-of-probabilities finding.  "The director is to  
> presume... in the absence of evidence to the contrary" requires  
> "absence of evidence to the contrary" -- it is a directive that tells  
> the TD only what to do when he can find no actual evidence to consider.
> 

But these cases are all of that nature! We are talking about two 
players who maintain that they have no agreement, yet both know 
precisely what was happening. So by definition they cannot provide any 
evidence that they do NOT have the agreement they apparently have.

>> I realize there are cases where this is in fact true, but in the vast
>> majority of cases there is reason to believe that players know more
>> than they are telling.
> 
> Perhaps we should waterboard them.  Seriously, ISTM that any director  
> who can say this lacks sufficient competence at "ascertain[ing] the  
> facts" [L85A] to be plying his trade.  Perhaps I'm particularly naive  
> for a TD, but it is only on the very rarest of occasions that I ever  
> feel like I might have "reason to believe that [the] players  [whom I  
> am questioning] know more than they are telling".
> 

But we all know the facts. We have one player who tries to use a 
particular call to show a particular hand (like Alain with his 4414 
bidding 3Di) and another one who apparently understands (Alain's 
partner bidding 4He or whatever his second suit actually was).
Moreover these facts are NOT in dispute. The players are honest, and 
we may even believe them when they say they have not talked about 
this. Yet there is an apparent agreement - probably based on negative 
inferences.
Now I don't really care that I have to make a decision on whether or 
not to believe these players. I am saying that even if they have not 
discussed this sequence, they do have "partnership experience". As 
such, the meaning had to be conveyed to the opponents. If it hasn't, I 
shall check for damage.

> 
> Eric Landau


-- 
Herman DE WAEL
Antwerpen Belgium
http://users.skynet.be/hermandw/index.html