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Ask the Director

Unauthorised Information
By Mike Amos

Law 16 & 40 footnote

The English Bridge Union runs training courses for Tournament Directors at all levels - from those just intended for people who want to learn about running a small duplicate and acquiring the skills of a Club Director to more advanced courses for County and even Panel Directors. Although I'm often a tutor for these courses, I recognise that I can often learn from the problems other people have and so I always invite them to ring me or send queries. After a recent course in Doncaster, Cheryl Duddell rang me with the following query: -

The scorecards we use at our club have a space for recording the opening lead alongside the contract. One lady at our club has the habit of writing the lead down at the start of play and then later of opening her scorecard and referring to this to remind herself of the opening lead. We are sure this is against the Laws of the game but how can we prove it to her?

Like Cheryl, I was pretty sure that this was against the Laws, but at first sight I wasn't certain that I could put my finger on the particular Law which would make this illegal.

Law 16 has to be the starting point

LAW 16 - UNAUTHORISED INFORMATION

Players are authorised to base their calls and plays on information from legal calls and or plays, and from mannerisms of opponents. To base a call or play on other extraneous information may be an infraction of law.

In one sense this is very clear, we can base our game on legal calls, plays and mannerisms of opponents and nothing else. Most experienced bridge-players understand this Law pretty well. Legal calls, plays and mannerisms of opponents are authorised information - everything else is not. Law 16 goes on to describe some common situations - such as for example when partner provides Unauthorised Information by hesitating, failing to alert and the like or when we overhear information from another table. However this doesn't really help Cheryl - she'd like a Law that says "You mustn't write down the opening lead and refer to it later. If you do we'll ……"

We finally found the clearest answer in a rather surprising place - the footnote to Law 40 which is really about Conventions and agreements and their disclosure to opponents.

The footnote reads
A player is not entitled, during the auction and play periods, to any aids to his memory, calculation or technique. However, sponsoring organisations may designate unusual methods and allow written defences against opponents' unusual methods to be referred to at the table.

We cannot for example refer to our own convention card nor to our scorecard if it records the opening lead.

What should Cheryl do if this continues? Not a lot I guess - a bit of gentle persuasion, a friendly smile at the foibles of others. It wouldn't worry me a great deal, after all, if a player in a club game is having difficulty in remembering the opening lead then they are unlikely to pose much of a threat to the rest of us.

This will probably get me into trouble, but I do think that in a club situation, we have to make compromises about some such relatively trivial things to keep the peace (but not for example rude or boorish behaviour). If she continues to do it, one technique might be for her opponents to ask her what the lead was when she has looked at her card, so that everyone at the table shares the same advantage. My guess is she'd soon get fed up.