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I stand by my previous. Good players would be thinking about 5♦ absent UI; not sure how many would take it given the flat hand and three obvious major suit losers (plus however many minors - remember one is all you get for free, unless by magic 6 is on). Everyone else, which includes 80+% of most clubs, bid 3♦ because they were told to take their pick of the minors, and they prefer diamonds. They don't even think about what will happen later. (they start thinking whether 5♦ is a good sacrifice only after the opponents magically find game) With that hand, 4♦ is simply telling the opponents "take your pick of good scores." It is a non-option IMO, no matter what skill level the player is. I am more interested (with good players) how many people think 6♦ is in the picture after the 3NT rebid. re: "I know my partner is constrained" That has been (and remains) a great argument in the Laws crowd, along with the "am I allowed to know that partner's call is 100% because I gave him UI?" 10C1 makes clear that everyone is entitled to "how the laws will apply in this situation". 10C4 says "and you're entitled to get the best score you can within the laws' restrictions, even as offenders". But does "I know partner has to think I have minors, how can I bid in such a way that she can pass what I want her to pass?" (and the other side of the coin "can I bid slam because I know partner's call is IOTTMCO/has no LA?") It would be nice to have official guidance. But second-order issues in the Laws are legion, and difficult, and (thankfully) rare.

My sympathy goes to the director. As a friend once said “directing is like herding cats”. My thoughts are that where possible I always get the scorer to do a screen print of the movement so that I have something to refer to, just in case! I don’t know the precise movement being used but I will assume a 6 table Mitchell with pair 12 the phantom pair. If pair 6 in round 1 put their numbers/names in on table 6 BM then their names will be allocated to the North South Pair (6). There should be no option to enter the East West Pair details. So for the rest of the movement they are still pair 6 as far as the scoring program and the Bridgemates are concerned. After the end of Round 2 gently guide them back to North South according to the places they have been allocated at table 6. Next ask Pair 1 on Table 1 why they didn’t call the director when they were unable to enter the result for the first board (Board 5) or even Board 6 or Board 7 or Board 8. After the game I would suggest to Pair 1 & Pair 6 that they perhaps aren’t suited to being North South and probably ban them from those seats for three weeks. Next, have a break from play and take time to think. Tell the room that there is a problem and you need them to wait quietly. Round 1 has been scored correctly and is in the BM and Scoring program (As far as we are aware!). Round 2 we have Pair 1 playing Pair 6 on Boards 5 to 8 and according to Law 15 those scores should stand. However, they are not scheduled to play one another so we have to alter those in the scoring program after the game. Pair 1 and 6 must give the scorer the results of those boards. Pair 6 should have played Pair 11 on Boards 1 to 4! So why didn’t Pair 11 scream out that they had no opponents? Round 3 Pair 6 are due to play Boards 5 to 8 against Pair 10 but that can’t happen now. So the quick and easy bit is to allocate 60%/60% for boards 1 to 4 for pairs 6 & 11 on the table 6 BM. Tell everyone to play Round 3 and on Table 6 for boards 5 to 8 allocate 50%/50%. Let Pair 6 and Pair 10 play a “friendly” for Boards 5 to 8 understanding that the scores don’t count. The 60/60 and 50/50 is just to get the BM moving on to the next round. Rounds 4; 5 & 6 should be ok (but keep an eye on Pair 6! Tell the rest of the room what you are doing At the end of the session help the scorer to change Boards 1 to 4 from Pairs 6 N/S and 11 E/W to Pair 10 N/S and 11E/W and leave the 60/60 score (Law15B). Now go to Boards 5 to 8 and change Pairs 6 N/S and Pair 10 E/W to Pair 1 N/S and Pair 6 E/W and insert the correct scores rather than the 50/50 that is there. I would publish the scores as they are and say it is the best that I can do. Not sure that there is sufficient to say there is enough boards switched to give a one winner rsult. Whatever you do will look a little odd but given how some pairs have no idea how to follow a movement then I doubt they will “see” the oddity. If you are not content then you could just see if you can change it to a one winner Mitchell without any switches but I can’t see that working. It is just the best of a bad job. I know this is well after the event but it will help when it happens again in the near future. By the way how was this resolved at the time? And yes I have had to do something similar and the best thing is that you don't show any panic whatsoever!

It is a serious issue with a serious reason (which should be obvious in a world where the median age is 70ish). The requirement to also do something audible is also serious (viz my partner blind in left eye story). Frankly (and being USA-blinkered for a minute), not having that regulation would be an ADA lawsuit waiting to happen. Now, allowing it to be ignored in practise...well that wouldn't be the first time in ADA cases either, would it? Yes, I do always do something (first of all, those stupid alert Strips are for the birds, all they do is knock over boxes (during an Alert or when bidding.) I try to pull the Alert card and aim it around where my cards go back into the board (again, my partner blind in left eye...), but will sometimes just point at the bid while Alerting or Announcing. or almost always at least. And if it causes a problem, I apologize (although over 1NT, I'm not upset. If you "expect to" not hear anything, don't hear anything, and are okay with it, then you should be okay when what you didn't hear wasn't "15-17". A few more of those rulings and people will start asking; a few more of those asks and people will stop being lazy and follow the -ing rule. Still apologized, though). No, "nobody" does it. And it "never" causes a problem. And when it does, the Director pulls out the regulation and applies the misinformation ruling. And a few more of those hard done by stories might break through the entitled bridge player bubble and get them to JFDI for their opponents' benefit for a change. I absolutely agree with "could not enforce the Stop card". The difference is that they have made a different decision around "we want them to not Alert because it helps them more than us" than they did over "people just use the Stop card to wake up partner". Still amused by the number of people who tell me "we don't have to pause any more, since they took the Stop card away", though - which means they didn't read the decision, or just saw the part they wanted to see.

As with much of bridge bidding theory, there are some good ideas out there, but they require work on the part of both partners. I play BART over 1M 1N 2C. It’s very common these days for 2C to show 2+, with 2D promising 4+. This makes it easier to pass 2D or raise them, and has the benefit of increasing the frequency of the 2C rebid Increasing the frequency of the 2C rebid increases the availability of bart, which is usually played only over that 2C rebid One problem is that there are multiple versions of bart…I play very different versions in my two partnerships I don’t have a strong preference…I play what partner prefers. In my main partnership, and not going into detail about later auctions (but if you play this, you MUST discuss later developments in order to use it optimally) 1M 1N 2C Slightly different for 1H than for 1S, so 1S 1N 2C: 2D shows 5+ hearts. If 5, then any strength. If 6, then invitational strength…weaker hands bid 3H instead 2H puppets to 2S…responder is often passing but may be about to make a constructive bid… 2S shows 8-10 hcp and 2 spades 2N is invitational but promises 4+ clubs (allowing opener to run to clubs with a weak unbalanced hand) 3C is very constructive but denies the ability to bid 2N 3R shows 6+ and is less than invitational 3S is a 3 card limit raise with weak trump….Qxx or stronger bids 2H to puppet to 2S then raises After 2D, opener bids 2H with 2+ (usually) and otherwise makes a descriptive bid…often 2S (doesn’t promise more than 5) or 2N….extras, usually around 16-17 hcp, may have 2 hearts, 3C with 5=5 blacks, or 3H with extras and 3 hearts After 2D 2H, responder can raise hearts with 6+ and invitational values or bid 2S with 2 spades, 5 hearts and 8-10 hcp, or bid 2N, invitational with 5 hearts, etc There’s more to it than this: I have several pages of notes in both partnerships, in which the main difference is that in one we go through 2D with weak hands and bid directly with better, while in my main one, we do it in reverse. I won’t set out the 1H sequence…I can pm if asked. Most people hear about bart as a way to show hearts but it’s really much more about how responder can distinguish between weak and strong hands, within the context of the forcing 1N response.