[Trinidad]

aguahombre, on 2015-March-15, 08:35, said:

No, but it is one of the three things I mentioned which could justify a PP. I don't believe violation of a procedure should go directly to procedural penalty without one of your three things occurring -- nor have I seen it happen.

Actually two of those three things happened on this occasion:

• It was blatant.
  
• He compounded it by stating that nobody would miscount trumps when declarer, in fact, clearly was already confused about the trump suit.

If I don't give a PP for that then I will never give one.

Rik

[blackshoe]

aguahombre, on 2015-March-15, 08:35, said:

No, but it is one of the three things I mentioned which could justify a PP. I don't believe violation of a procedure should go directly to procedural penalty without one of those three things occurring -- nor have I seen it happen.

There is also the consideration of the seriousness of the offense, as indicated by the wording ("should", "shall", "must" and their negatives). And that is an area that many TDs ignore.

[aguahombre]

blackshoe, on 2015-March-15, 11:13, said:

There is also the consideration of the seriousness of the offense, as indicated by the wording ("should", "shall", "must" and their negatives). And that is an area that many TDs ignore.

Yes. Perhaps "blatant" should only connote deliberately trying to get away with something. In the given case --- even though Dummy could have known his rules violation might well damage the opponents (L23 for adjustment) --- I don't believe it meets what I consider the really "serious" offenses (defying cell phone regs, cheating, ZT, etc) for which an immediate jump to negative discipline is warranted.

[mycroft]

I think that the not only not remorseful, but actively excusing behaviour by dummy to the TD is enough to make this go from "you know you aren't supposed to do that; you're owning up to it and clearly won't do it again; alright, let's leave it at that" to "you obviously don't realize how serious a violation of 'dummy must not participate in the play' this statement was; perhaps a 1/4 board will make it clear".

I could see several reasons to be more lenient; but this is egregious behaviour that clearly is illegal to any player who knows anything about tournament bridge and being dummy. Being publicly unrepentant, to the point of not admitting there even is an issue, only more so - so my default is "penalty unless it's clear to be lenient/it's clear the warning will get the point across", rather than the other way around.