To UNDO or not To UNDO

To undo or not or not to undo : that is the question.
Whether tis nobler in the minds to suffer
The pricks and pangs of another ignominious bottom,
Or to take up arms and call the director,
And by opposing, end those (bottoms).

I have always been a planner ( sadly, except while declaring) - so I actively thought through what I wanted to do after school. Being a doctor was out of question after a frog dissection gone bad. I read Archer’s Kane and Abel, and the high powered world after a MBA beckoned me. Then we had an IAS officer as a dinner guest. Hearing his exploits and good deeds, an IAS career started holding charm. Around this time, I saw Rahul Bose’s English August and was horrified by the kind of ethical questions he had to face. I decided I neither wanted to die early or live having made questionable choices, so MBA it was. I successfully avoided ethical dilemmas and my image of myself as a fair person was intact until I ran slap bang into online bridge.

We were playing an afternoon BBO tourney. Our opponents reached a brilliant and cold grand slam. My opponent suddenly made an inexplicable play, which he explained on the chat as a misclick due to a phone call. We were getting pulverised, so with a sigh of relief, I said "Sorry opponents no UNDO allowed in this tourney". Then my eager, idealist 20 year old partner, piped up with this brilliant suggestion. "Let’s concede all our tricks".  We conceded and I knew then that maybe, just maybe, I was just a little bit opportunist that such an action didn’t occur to me. He thankfully has not chosen IAS as a career.

I felt a little shamed by his idealism and decided to agree to all undos that were fair irrespective of the stakes. This strategy worked for a while until opponents started refusing my perfectly reasonable undos. Did accepting undos, make you fair or foolish?

One of my favourite TDs, Fali Tamboly, has this to say: And if, after the TD has ruled that UNDO is justified, the opps. still refuse? How does the TD enforce it technically? (She adjusts the score on the board, and by adjusting, ends it - Eds)

It’s happened during the Just Us Gals game. The ladies concerned probably had some past history, or were not on speaking terms, whatever😊

The one asking for Undo refused to bid on. TD ruled that Undo was justified. The other refused to click the Undo button.

Both refused to budge and I did what any good American hockey referee would do😊. Put both in the penalty box (temporarily replaced each with a robot)”

The afternoon games veered from thrillers ( will I make this contract or not), to horror movies ( will they hate me if I refuse, am I being fair, are people going to die if I lose this game)

So finally, after wrestling with such complex questions, I had a sudden realisation! A revelation! This was not my decision to make. I just call the TD.

And on my part, I am trying to not ask for UNDOs. Please note, I said trying. For, after all, we learn well only when we make mistakes.

(All views expressed here are solely the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of the BridgeFromHome team)