[pran]

The objective of Law 64C is to take away from the offending side any net gain they might have from a revoke after Laws 64A and 64B have been applied.

Nothing more and nothing less.

[sanst]

 blackshoe, on 2015-March-26, 07:36, said:

I agree with the second sentence, but not with the first.

There is a deterrent effect in the rectification for a revoke. That's because a revoke is considered a serious error, not just an accident. The obligation to follow suit takes precedence over all the other laws in the book (Law 44C). So if you revoke, the laws' first action is to give a trick or two to your opponent. If that's not adequate to restore equity, then the laws say "adjust the score". I think you'll agree that's fair. But if the revoke penalty goes beyond restoring equity (for example, a two trick penalty when equity would be one trick) you don't adjust the score because you want to make it clear to the revoker that he needs to be very careful not to do that. I think that's fair too.

As far as I know the revoke penalty tricks were introduced to spare the director the task of establishing the outcome of the play, with all the buts and ifs which came with it. I'm not sure when that happened but it certainly was quite some time before I learned to play bridge. I think it would be better to handle revokes as you do claims, but since revokes are far more common than disputed claims, I see the current laws as reasonable. But wether the deterrent effect is felt by the majority of the players, I rather doubt. With regard to these tricks the laws don't use the term penalty any more.

[gnasher]

 sanst, on 2015-March-26, 17:04, said:

With regard to these tricks the laws don't use the term penalty any more.

But it's still a penalty, regardless of what the WBFLC choose to call it.

[pran]

 sanst, on 2015-March-26, 17:04, said:

With regard to these tricks the laws don't use the term penalty any more.

 gnasher, on 2015-March-27, 01:59, said:

But it's still a penalty, regardless of what the WBFLC choose to call it.

Regardless of what the WBFLC has chosen to call it over the time it has never been intended as a penalty!

It was (and is) a standard reaction to keep the non-offending side unharmed by revokes. The original reaction was a standard 3 tricks transfer, assuming that this would always be sufficient compensation regardless of the circumstances.

Then Culbertson (sometime in the thirties) was asked about a case when declarer in a 3NT contract had made 12 tricks by revoking while he would have been set without this irregularity. Culbertson replied that 3 tricks is the reaction, so declarer should be credited with his 3NT contract just made (after the 3 tricks transfer).

This obviously was an unforeseen anomality in the laws which eventually was rectified by introducing what is now Law 64C. One consequence of this change in the laws was that the standard reaction could be (and has been) reduced to a more reasonable 2 or 1 tricks transfer depending on whether the offender won the revoke trick or not.

[ArtK78]

 Vampyr, on 2015-March-26, 12:39, said:

Did you mean to say the offending side?

It would be nice if "equity" could be interpreted as the normal result without the infraction, plus the one(or two, if applicable)-trick revoke penalty. For those who object, how about if the penalty in such cases did not accrue to the NOS?

No, I meant what I wrote and I wrote what I meant. If the remedy provided in Law 64 was intended to be the "normal" result on the board plus one or two tricks to the non-offending side, then that is how the law would have been written. I don't know how that would be considered to be an equitable result, but that may just be me.

The real-world definition of the term "equity" as used in the Laws is "justice, impartiality or fairness." This is clear in context. For example, look at Law 84D:

D. Director's Option

The Director rules any doubtful point in favor of the non-offending side. He seeks to restore equity. If in his judgment it is probable that a non-offending side has been damaged by an irregularity for which these Laws provide no rectification, he adjusts the score (see Law 12).


The Laws use the concept of equity without using the term equity in Law 12:

B. Objectives of Score Adjustment.

1. The objective of a score adjustment is to redress damage to a non-offending side and to take away any advantage gained by an offending side through its infraction. Damage exists when, because of an infraction, an innocent side obtains a table result less favorable than would have been the expectation had the infraction not occurred.

So, as explicitly stated in the Laws, the objective of a score adjustment is to put everything back to the way it should have been but for the infraction. Punshiment of the offending side is not the objective of the Laws. While not explictly stated, the theory behind this is that the infraction was not intentional, and the proper remedy for the infraction is to take away any advantage gained by the offending side inadvertently due to the infraction BUT NOTHING MORE in those cases where (1) there is no remedy provided for in the Laws; or (2) there is a remedy provided by the Laws but it is insufficent to properly compensate the innocent side.

On the other hand, where the laws provide for a particular remedy which results in a MORE favorable result for the innocent side, Law 12B2 explicitly prevents the director from reducing the penalty.

2. The Director may not award an adjusted score on the ground that the rectification provided in these Laws is either unduly severe or advantageous to either side.


Note that while Law 12B2 uses the words "to either side," it actually only applies if the innocent side obtains a benefit from the rectification provided in the Laws which is greater than would have occurred if there were no infraction. To read Law 12B2 in any other way would put be contrary to Law 12B1.

[barmar]

 ArtK78, on 2015-March-27, 13:41, said:

Note that while Law 12B2 uses the words "to either side," it actually only applies if the innocent side obtains a benefit from the rectification provided in the Laws which is greater than would have occurred if there were no infraction. To read Law 12B2 in any other way would put be contrary to Law 12B1.

Except that 12B1 only applies when the Laws actually authorize a score adjustment in the first place -- it then tells him what his goal should be in the adjustment. If the Laws specify some other rectification, the director can't decide that it's not severe enough and award an adjusted score instead.

But the revoke law is an explicit exception to this: it first defines a normal rectification, and then says that if this isn't sufficient, he can award an adjusted score (in which case, 12B1 applies, so he tries to restore equity). But note that it does NOT say that he can award an adjusted score if it's beyond sufficient -- he can only go one way.

[RMB1]

 sanst, on 2015-March-26, 17:04, said:

As far as I know the revoke penalty tricks were introduced to spare the director the task of establishing the outcome of the play, with all the buts and ifs which came with it. ...

I think this is an unlikely reason for the origin of penalty tricks for revokes.
I suspect that even before bridge there were penalties for revokes in games like whist. The only scoring unit was tricks and I suspect the penalties for revokes were a draconian number of tricks. Following suit was one of the few rules in such games and the penalties were there to ensure they were taken seriously. The revoke penalty in bridge started off as three (more?) tricks and has reduced over time.

[gnasher]

 RMB1, on 2015-March-28, 15:33, said:

I suspect that even before bridge there were penalties for revokes in games like whist.

Yes, it's in Hoyle:

https://books.google...epage&q&f=false

[Vampyr]

 RMB1, on 2015-March-28, 15:33, said:

The only scoring unit was tricks and I suspect the penalties for revokes were a draconian number of tricks.

"Draconian"? This seems to suggest that the requirement to follow suit is unreasonable.

[aguahombre]

 Vampyr, on 2015-March-28, 17:43, said:

"Draconian"? This seems to suggest that the requirement to follow suit is unreasonable.

He said draconian number of tricks, not draconian rule about revoking.

[Vampyr]

 aguahombre, on 2015-March-28, 17:52, said:

He said draconian number of tricks, not draconian rule about revoking.

Yes.

[barmar]

Before I learned Bridge (in my mid-20's), I'd played some other trick-taking games (mostly Hearts and Spades). I can't for the life of me remember if anyone ever said what the penalty was for not following suit in those games. But I also don't remember revokes being very common. The same with most of the other common procedural errors we deal with, like leads out of turn (these are probably less common in games where the winner of the trick collects it, since someone else is unlikely to think they won the trick if they didn't scoop up the cards).

[aguahombre]

 barmar, on 2015-March-28, 20:33, said:

Before I learned Bridge (in my mid-20's), I'd played some other trick-taking games (mostly Hearts and Spades). I can't for the life of me remember if anyone ever said what the penalty was for not following suit in those games. But I also don't remember revokes being very common. The same with most of the other common procedural errors we deal with, like leads out of turn (these are probably less common in games where the winner of the trick collects it, since someone else is unlikely to think they won the trick if they didn't scoop up the cards).

Playing "Hearts" in my youth (not in the mid-2o's) I remember the penalty being an artificial "bitch" of 13 pts. We might have just made that penalty up, however.