Two Committee
members (Lenart, Morse) left the hearing at the end of the testimony due to
other commitments (this was the third appeal heard by this Committee during the
current sitting) and did not participate in the discussion or the final
decision. One indicated before he left that he favored assigning N/S Average
Plus and E/W Average Minus.
Dissenting Opinions (Colker, Anderson): We
disagree with the Committee's decision. While it is disruptive and generally
not good for our game when players forget their methods, these things do
happen. Under the present laws, as long as the opponents are properly informed
of the systemic meaning of a player's bid (not necessarily his actual hand)
there has been no infraction unless the partnership is found to have an
undisclosed understanding, which was clearly not the case here. We also find it
likely that West's initial few words to South, his halting speech pattern and
sudden change in explanation conveyed to his screen-mate the idea that his hand
did not match his bid. We would have preferred it had West simply and
completely volunteered his error to his screen-mate, but the laws do not
require players to do this, and Active Ethics is not yet the law.
Similarly, we find East's conservative
4ª bid not to be an egregious action; rather, we would characterize it as
a non-aggressive (perhaps less-than-expert) call, typical of the level of
bridge involved here. We believe that the problem with the E/W convention cards
stemmed from the pair's failure to notice and remove a reference on the front
of the card to the two-suited major-suit openings played by their spouses when
modifying the computer file from the spouses' card. The methods were not part
of E/W's system, nor did the presence of the error have any bearing on the
present situation (except for the inquiries needed to determine
this).
Finally, we believe N/S's problems stemmed
solely from their failure to have adequately discussed their conventional
defenses to strong opening bids. We regret that we cannot find any basis in the
laws for adjusting either side's score from that which occurred at the table.
We believe that the TDs got this one exactly right. We, too, would have allowed
the table result to stand for both pairs and then strongly advised E/W to be
more careful with their bidding in the future and to immediately correct the
deficiencies with their convention cards.
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