gordontd, on 2013-March-05, 10:55, said:
There is no reason why TDs can't be polled if they are peers of the player, and I've commented before that they can often be very good people to poll because they haven't played the hand. Having polled them, there is no reason not to then show them the whole hand and have a discussion with them about it. Hence they can be polled and also be part of a discussion about the hand.
That may seem correct, but it is not pure and it introduces bias in your poll. Below it will be clear why.
gordontd, on 2013-March-05, 10:55, said:
That's what happened in this case and that's why I worded it like that.
I had not understood it that way from the write up, but that is probably my reading.
gordontd, on 2013-March-05, 10:55, said:
Sometimes the "sufficiently large amount" can be quite small: if it seems clear to me as a TD that pass is a logical alternative, and I poll two people, who are peers of the player, and they both say that they would pass, that is enough to establish that pass is a logical alternative.
Clear, and it seems true. But... this is not the full story.
What would have happened if the two first TDs would have said that they would double or bid 4
♠? You would have gone on to find more and more peers. They weren't there and because of that, you will not be able to finish the poll. You will discard it, thinking something like "at least I tried" and you will move on to base your decision on the discussion with your colleagues. This is why I wrote above that you are introducing bias in your poll: If the result of the poll tends towards pass being an LA, you will use the poll. If the result of the poll tends towards pass not being an LA, you will discard it because you will not be able to get a good poll. To exaggerate a little: 100% of the successful polls will state that pass is an LA, even if it isn't.
To prevent this bias you will have to make sure that you will be able to finish the poll whatever the result will be. Therefore, if you will not be able to conduct a poll to get both possible answers, you should not start it.
As far as I can see (but you can see that better), this is a case where the poll should not have started, since it was impossible to obtain a result of "pass is not an LA". That means that effectively there was no valid poll, only a discussion between TDs.
And if there only was a discussion between TDs, there is no reason why a discussion between AC members should not be able to overrule the result of the TD discussion.
Rik
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