> It seems like the most obviously stupid idea in the world to say that whether an action is legal in your game depends on whether the player was thinking good

> It seems like the most obviously stupid idea in the world to say that whether an action is legal in your game depends on whether the player was thinking good thoughts or evil thoughts when he took it. It can actually be worse than this: some rulings depend on what might be the range of reasonable actions for players similar to the players in front of you. So your ruling can be different depending not only on the partnership's methods but also their general level of skill, and your judgement about whether they might or might not be expected to be aware of some subtle inference that could be made about the board situation. Although the tournament director's immediate disciplinary authority is plenary and unreviewable (so they can penalise or expel from the tournament players they consider to be cheating, or excessively rude, without comeback) judgement rulings are subject to appeal. So the final decision might (in particularly serious and important cases) be made weeks after the event by a panel of directors who have never even met the players involved. On the basis of sometimes sophisticated/arcane reasoning. See the commentary for appeal 16.012 in https://www.ebu.co.uk/documents/laws-and-ethics/appeals/EBU-appeals-2016.pdf https://www.ebu.co.uk/documents/laws-and-ethics/appeals/EBU-... for example.