Wednesday 19 August 2015

BRIDGE : A GAME OF DRACONIAN RULES....... ( Article by Carp )

In America to " prearrange a deal or part thereof including one card " can it seems lead to a 2 year suspension or expulsion. Indeed , it was recently reported by Paul Cronin that Mike Passall , a member of the ACBL Hall of Fame had been placed on probation for 13 months with 25% of his 77,000 MPs removed for such an ethical violation. My My. 
Not knowing the precise circumstances of incident I can only comment on the wider issues concerning this rule. Clearly , when a player rigs a hand there is intent either to cheat by using the unauthorised information about the hand to his/her advantage , or to cause bidding and play problems to the rest of the field. Both acts amount to a serious form of cheating which necessitates the full force of disciplinary sanctions to be applied against all wrongdoers.
Nevertheless , there are always good reasons why such extreme sanctions should not be used , in that the punishment must be proportionate to the crime.
For instance , a single violation might be so slight as to deny the offending party with no opportunity whatsoever to gain advantage from it. This may be case if the board in question is one which the player is not scheduled to play. Similarly, if a player shuffles a board in a goulash manner ( 4's and 3's ) with the intent to a create wildly distributional hand,  this kind of pre-arranged deal creates the same risks for all players including him/herself. The only advantage gained appears to be the knowledge that all hands may be wildly distributional. The motive of course may be just to create a " fun " or " devilish " hand to play.
Thirdly , if a player replaces an exposed 2 of diamonds back with the other twelve into the East pocket , rather than deal out the whole hand again , the likelihood of gaining any advantage of this one card location is almost zero.  Yes , he/she does know that East does not have a void in diamonds , but so does everyone else should East bid diamonds or open 1NT/2NT. 
In my book , it is always the player's intent which determines the gravity of the offence , and usually this intent is to gain a significant advantage to the detriment of the field. Any form of blatant cheating or spitefully-motivated card manipulation warrants severe punishment , but anything of a minor , zero-damage nature warrants only an apology with a promise not to do it again. 
What Mike Passall  lost was his reputation . That punishment raised questions about his ethical conduct , but if the incident was slight and with no intent to gain advantage or to harm the field , then the punishment was unfair and unjust. If ethics is all about doing the " right " thing then those who sit on these ethical boards passing judgement on others should lead be example.

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