[barmar]

OK, so then it seems that the relevant law is 70D1:

Quote

The Director shall not accept from claimer any successful line of play not embraced in the original clarification statement if there is an alternative normal* line of play that would be less successful.

The claimer didn't really state a line of play, he assumed that any line of play by declarer would have to give him two tricks at the end. 70D2 says that a defensive claim can't depend on his partner doing anything specific, but it's silent about depending on declarer's plays. In the footnote about "normal" lines of play including careless or inferior plays, are we supposed to allow carelessness only by the claimer, but expect the opponent(s) to play like experts, even if they freely admit that they would not have? Is that implied by the clause that says that doubtful points should be resolved against the claimer?

It feels wrong to punish a claimer when he actually was going to get those tricks. I suppose this serves the greater good of ensuring good claims: a player should not claim when he can't be sure that he'll always get the tricks. But we don't rule against a claimer when their line of play wouldn't actually work against all possible lies of the cards, but happens to work with the actual lie (e.g. he says he's going to draw trumps in N rounds, which requires that trumps be divided suitably, we allow it if they are, even if he didn't say how he would deal with a bad break). But the difference there is that the opponents can't do anything about the lie of the cards, but they can do something about their choices of play, and the claimer shouldn't be allowed to assume the opponents will play inferiorly.

[aguahombre]

 barmar, on 2014-April-07, 16:12, said:

...........claimer shouldn't be allowed to assume the opponents will play inferiorly.

All of the above quote could have been reduced to this.

[aguahombre]

Mike Smolen's partner sat down to the beginning of a K.O. match. I was kibbing and it seemed he might have a "history" against these opponents.

He testily requested some items of protocol and concluded with, "And, no defensive claims!"
Mike, ever the one to try easing tensions, asked "How about defensive concessions?"

It succeeded in lightening up the mood. Mike's partner, however, would have 100% found the throw-in here. He also would have admitted failure to notice a correct play, but that would have been rare and irrelevant to this situation.

[gordontd]

 jallerton, on 2014-April-07, 12:43, said:

Given the stated basis of appeal, was the appeal heard by the Chief TD?

This is one of the questions on matters of procedure that occurred to me reading this thread. The other is whether you should have waited until the matter was no longer sub judice before posting it here (I assume the appeal has not been decided yet?)

[lamford]

 gordontd, on 2014-April-08, 02:53, said:

This is one of the questions on matters of procedure that occurred to me reading this thread. The other is whether you should have waited until the matter was no longer sub judice before posting it here (I assume the appeal has not been decided yet?)

I asked the Chief TD if he had been consulted on the ruling, and he confirmed that he had. He certainly knew that it was a claim ruling, and he posts on here, so can answer your question for himself. I do not know if the facts were presented to him correctly. An AC should have been convened on site at the time, and it was I that suggested that we would refer the decision to a referee, to assist the organisers, and because I thought it was trivial. Nothing in these forum rules, nor in the White Book, prevents an appellant soliciting opinions on any hand prior to an appeal or after an appeal. If I have overlooked such a rule, I, of course, apologise. On one occasion, I solicited opinions and they were received too late, and I was out of time for the appeal by ten minutes! I don't know if we will now be allowed to appeal the decision of the referee (or if the other side will be able to). You can advise us on that, but I believe that the time limit will be 12 hours from the time of the referee's decision, at least it was for a match played privately. And I do not know if the referee has ruled yet. Again the Chief TD can answer that. And, although I stated that I would not reply any more on this post, I think it would be rude of me not to do so to the EBU Chief TD or on this new issue.

[gnasher]

It may or may not be appropriate to post details of a pending ruling or appeal on the internet, but it's certainly unwise. It may cause a suitable referee or committee member to recuse himself, so that your ruling is heard by somebody who is less well qualified.

[lamford]

 gnasher, on 2014-April-08, 05:54, said:

It may or may not be appropriate to post details of a pending ruling or appeal on the internet, but it's certainly unwise. It may cause a suitable referee or committee member to recuse himself, so that your ruling is heard by somebody who is less well qualified.

A good point. I could have waited until the referee's decision. Does that not equally apply to posts where people have reported an original decision and asked people whether they think they should appeal?

[campboy]

I don't know whether there is any rule against posting sub judice rulings, but if you do so could you please make it very clear in the opening post that you have? Quite a few regular posters here are not permitted to comment on such cases.

[aguahombre]

I don't believe seeing opinions about which Laws apply would necessitate recusal. I don't think seeing these fora would create a conflict of interest which wasn't already there. Is there inadmissible evidence where we should dumb down the "jury"?

Certainly a comment on these fora by a committee member prior to the decision would be grounds for recusal, but these people know who they are and wouldn't be doing that.

[lamford]

 campboy, on 2014-April-08, 06:26, said:

I don't know whether there is any rule against posting sub judice rulings, but if you do so could you please make it very clear in the opening post that you have? Quite a few regular posters here are not permitted to comment on such cases.

"East-West have appealed", hidden away in the OP, was the clue that might have guided you and readers to the fact that the appeal (or referee decision) was still pending. I would have used "East-West appealed and won/lost" or "East-West intend to appeal" if the situation had been different.

[lamford]

 gnasher, on 2014-April-08, 05:54, said:

It may cause a suitable referee or committee member to recuse himself, so that your ruling is heard by somebody who is less well qualified.

Vampyr and I would be quite happy having someone who scraped through the Club Director course handle it.

[jallerton]

 lamford, on 2014-April-07, 16:02, said:

My view was that the questions were not relevant. There was a defensive claim. Best play for declarer (which has to be a normal line) takes more tricks than the claimant conceded. End of the matter. It is cloud-cuckoo-land when someone of the Chief TD's or jallerton's ability is even contemplating asking further questions let alone asking them. And that must be my last word on the matter. Someone else can answer jallerton's questions if they choose.

I don't know who the Chief TD was, but I'm sure that he or she has a lot more experience that either you or I have at adjudicating claims ruling. So if, as you seem to imply, I've been replicating the Chief TD's actions in asking questions, then it's good to know that I'm in good company. As far as I can see the statement you have put in bold does not appear in the Laws; if it did then the ruling would indeed be clear cut!

A better approach is to admit that we do not know everything, read what the Laws actually say and if they do not lead to a firm conclusion, to seek technical guidance from publications and/or experts with experience in this type of situation.

[gordontd]

 lamford, on 2014-April-08, 04:48, said:

An AC should have been convened on site at the time, and it was I that suggested that we would refer the decision to a referee, to assist the organisers, and because I thought it was trivial.

The question was whether there should be a committee (which a referee is) at all, or whether under Law 93B the matter should have been heard by the Chief TD.

 lamford, on 2014-April-08, 04:48, said:

I don't know if we will now be allowed to appeal the decision of the referee (or if the other side will be able to). You can advise us on that, but I believe that the time limit will be 12 hours from the time of the referee's decision, at least it was for a match played privately.

Save for the unlikely case of an appeal to the national authority, a decision by a referee has the same status as that by an appeals committee and is the end of the appeals process. There is no regulation that there be a further time limit of 12 hours, but perhaps on one occasion you were given such a time limit after a ruling was made, possibly to allow time for all parties to be told of the ruling.

[lamford]

 gordontd, on 2014-April-10, 05:45, said:

The question was whether there should be a committee (which a referee is) at all, or whether under Law 93B the matter should have been heard by the Chief TD.

I think this question is answered by 93B1: The Director in charge shall hear and rule upon such part of the appeal as deals solely with the Law or regulations. His ruling may be appealed to the committee. So, there is always a right of appeal. For what it is worth, I do not think a contested claim is solely a point of Law.

[lamford]

 gordontd, on 2014-April-10, 05:45, said:

There is no regulation that there be a further time limit of 12 hours

You are correct. On the previous occasion, the ruling by the telephone referee in a match played privately was "a ruling of the first instance" and the time limit on appealing that was 12 hours. I don't know if that is for the Crockfords Cup only, or for all EBU knockout events and I could not find the current rules on the EBU site.

[RMB1]

 lamford, on 2014-April-10, 06:40, said:

You are correct. On the previous occasion, the ruling by the telephone referee in a match played privately was "a ruling of the first instance" and the time limit on appealing that was 12 hours. I don't know if that is for the Crockfords Cup only, or for all EBU knockout events and I could not find the current rules on the EBU site.

There was/is an issue that there was nothing in law/regulation that changed the 20-minute time limit for an appeal to be lodged in the case of rulings given after an event, even if the ruling was given to players who had left the venue. The practical approach is that those giving a ruling of first instance should state a time limit for an appeal to be lodged as part of the ruling: "twelve hours" or "noon tomorrow" are possible time limits.

[I haven't read most of this topic. If I had, no doubt I would have opinions.]

[gnasher]

 lamford, on 2014-April-10, 06:31, said:

I think this question is answered by 93B1: The Director in charge shall hear and rule upon such part of the appeal as deals solely with the Law or regulations. His ruling may be appealed to the committee. So, there is always a right of appeal.

But not necessarily a useful right, because "the committee may not overrule the Director in charge on a point of law or regulations" [93B3].

[RMB1]

 gnasher, on 2014-April-10, 06:49, said:

But not necessarily a useful right, because "the committee may not overrule the Director in charge on a point of law or regulations" [93B3].

In practice, the final parenthetical sentence of Law 93B3 "(The committee may recommend to the Director in charge that he change such a ruling.)" is enough.

[lamford]

 RMB1, on 2014-April-10, 06:57, said:

In practice, the final parenthetical sentence of Law 93B3 "(The committee may recommend to the Director in charge that he change such a ruling.)" is enough.

And, for what it is worth, I do not consider the ruling on a contested claim to be a ruling "on a point of Law or regulations". If it is so considered, then just about every other ruling would be.

[gordontd]

 lamford, on 2014-April-10, 07:10, said:

And, for what it is worth, I do not consider the ruling on a contested claim to be a ruling "on a point of Law or regulations". If it is so considered, then just about every other ruling would be.

No, I wouldn't normally consider it so either, but I think we've all been led astray by you saying "The basis of the appeal is that the TD was wrong in Law."