Jeremy69A

I think it was her partner Miss Lancaster, a spritely 91 year old who had damaged ear drums who objected. They even carried a wooden sign with a brass plate which said "No alerting, please"

All the ones in Wales and Scotland, for example!

The nonagenarian has had in excess of 90 years to learn that this comment is grossly inappropriate so the PP should not be a warning but a chunky fine coupled with the directors sternest finger wagging.

The "I always ask" defence has been used before but directors are not usually sympathetic to this because of the lack of evidence and if you have a marginal hand for your ask even if you really do ask on a balanced 1 count as well I think you are likely to get ruled against.

Oranges would be a better choice of fruit IMO.

I think it is clear to double. However the poll suggests pass is a LA so I would double(because I think it is right) and not sulk(much) if it were taken away.

I think issue 1 is making the regulation reasonably simple so requiring it whenever there is a jump means that it is hard for players to pretend they don't understand but it does exclude some non jump bids that require time and requires a wait in jump bid auctions where intervention is unlikely. In my view this state of imperfection is better than defining all the auctions where a stop is a good idea. Issue 2 is what you do when players ignore the stop card. In my youth I've been known to let the card fall to the floor remarking that I won't be needing that any more but these days it would be conduct unbecoming. I think directors should be keener to enforce the procedure and impose some procedural penalties. This should perhaps be preceded by giving some warnings that tougher times are coming. The directors also need backing to do this from those in charge whether it is the club committee, the county or the national body. If this occurs there will be some initial comment about directors being officious, The Laws and Ethics Committee being an interfering body of small minded people and the iniquity of events being decided by procedural penalties but after a little time and a healthy score of penalties players will modify their behaviour appropriately. Yesterday in an event an auction on board 1 of the round went 1♥ No STOP 3♥. The 3♠ bid was on the table almost before the 3♥ bid. Nothing was said although when I then bid 4♥ the knowledge of the next player that the 3♠ was obvious not marginal might have helped him bid 4♠. On the very next board I overcalled 2♥ with the SIOP card and the next hand paused for an entirely appropriate length of time. Partner bid STOP 4♥ and the next hand passed within 0.3 nanoseconds. A remark was now made to the effect that the STOP procedure was only being observed on one side of the table. The quick fire player got the point, observed the procedure for the rest of the match but sulked and ignored us also. In my view it was just habit to ignore it at the club or wherever she played most of her bridge and no-one ever enforced it or commented on it. Of course in very many auctions it truly makes no difference and no-one really wants to call the director 11 times a session for this thus the authorities have got to take some tougher action.

You are not entitled to any knowledge that is based on an opponent studying his hand to, for example, determine whether a pip is low or not but there are some players who are extremely reluctant to explain what they are doing and this is not because of inexperience. If you ask what is your signal at trick one and the answer is "Attitude on the Ace and Count on the King but you actually play that you will give attitude on the King if dummy has xxx or perhaps Axx and ducks then the "standard" answer is insufficient. You are concealing part of your agreement. Similarly if you lead a top card and hold the trick and there is a singleton in dummy you need to answer the question properly and if you play suit preference here that needs to be mentioned. The worst answer in these positions often given by players of some experience and dubious ethics is "we tell partner what he needs to know". Of course there are times when you depart from your standard signalling but an experienced partnership know quite a few positions where this might be the case and I refuse to believe that there are many reasonable tournament players who don't know whether, for example, a first discard is most likely to be attitude, count or suit preference. They are hiding behind a fig leaf! Other pet hates "All our signals are reverse" Does this include suit preference? "No" "We play count" Normal count? "No, reverse" What do you lead from xxx? "It depends" On what? "How we feel!" Oh and sometimes the answer "standard" seems to mean standard in Mongolia.

Extraordinary. Nearly 3 pages of obsessing about who gets to score/check and who might be offended if they don't get shown the BM and whether this constitutes an offence under some discrimination act. Perhaps we can add this to the prescribed table of penalties. 1vp(or 13.7% of a top) for showing the BM to a male, unasked, in a mixed partnership. I nearly always score if I am North or South and usually ask who would like to check. I occasionally make an assumption if one member of the partnership is over 90(ageist,I know). :o When Bridge Mates first started to be used there was a discussion about whether there should be something in English Bridge on how they worked and what the etiquette might be. There was also some discussion about putting in a photo and labelling the key parts. The person taking the minutes at this meeting was not a bridge player and gave all members of the committee strange looks. It became clear that there was a fundamental misunderstanding about what a bridge mate actually was and an erroneous conclusion had been reached by the minute taker! :D

It's a gamble as partner may have KQJxxxx and nothing. It has some elements of a double shot if you are going to object to the action opposite the slow 3♠. I would expect a TD to consider this quite closely. The current White Book in England says The standard for denial of redress should be wild or gambling action by the non-offenders, without any reference to the possibility of a double shot being required. However, if there is an element of a double shot in the non offenders’ action, it is normal to conclude that the action is wild or gambling.

Maybe in your neck of the woods. You need to get out more. Still alive and kicking in the South. I too have little sympathy for South. However I would require the other side to fill in the bits to tell the opponents section on the front of the card and disclose better but I would not adjust the score. If the argument was that game was 65% on the vague description but only 50% on the actual agreement why wouldn't you bid a 50% Vulnerable game?

I don't think it is the role of the grading system or its inventors to have a view about how contestants play. It will be for the contestants to decided what they think is best. If you do decide on imps etc rather than straight result you also have to think about the effect of concessions. If you play at the club on a normal pairs night and are doing mediocrely with a few rounds to go will you try to win by edging a few over the slips or will you play for your NGS rating? I guess in those clubs with ladders this problem has had to be resolved by contestants before. That would simplify it. I'm sure it will be possible to sort something out but the devil will be in the detail to make it as meaningful as possible without creating a significant extra workload and therefore cost

You may be able to find a way to assess a grade from a locally played teams match but you also have to deal with the input of data into the system. For all pairs and events it is done automatically. Bridgemates in every home?

You are right about multiple teams and Swiss events. I think it is desirable to include the head to head matches but there has to be some thought about how it gets recorded. If you organise a team competition and you want to get something as basic as who played and how many boards it is remarkably difficult! If something is to happen it can't rely on a load of manual data and amending data so this will need some thought first.

I don't think it is a decision to exclude but two problems. The first is the "one at a time" problem i.e. get it going first. I believe it is the intention to include teams. If and when this is done then in events where it is known who is playing who and there is a record e.g. via a bridgemate then all should be ok but for matches played at home in leagues or knock outs the system would not easily know who played whom.

In my opinion it is announceable NOT alertable BUT opponents are entitled to the full information so I think a convention card with the information on it is required and extending the announcement to 12-16(but always with clubs if at the weak end)would be suitable. It would come as a big surprise to the L&E if announcing was being abolished although, as said above, clubs can do that if they wish to do so.

I assume that you did not have the time/inclination to write out the words and that "fyp" is code for fixed your post but I meant what I said even if you disagree so fixing is unnecessary.

If the system is subverted as you suggest by claiming a different name or players are allowed to say that session x doesn't count then it will have little credence.

Your club TD and management will be willing to do this?

Doesn't "I'm not thinking about this trick but the whole hand" impart some information to partner? I find the habit of putting the card face down quite irritating. If you want to think then you can a. do so before playing but other than at trick one there will be potential UI problems arising from this b. play your card in the normal way and at the end of the trick keep it open for as long as you want to think(if you do this very often you may run into time problems but no more or less than playing it face down). You occasionally run into people who are impatient and turn their card over and try to play to the next trick. Just be robust! Bridge players aren't normally shrinking violets. The worst sort are those who not only play their card face down but when they've made their mind up turn it over and get impatient if it takes more than 0.02 seconds to move on to the next trick.

Yes but it is also a game defined by social behaviour. It may be we should always abide by every law but in reality at the club when the octagenarian drops a card from a shaking hand it would be a hard man or woman to insist on it being a penalty card. You have to adapt and one problem is the difference in expectations and rows such as the one Gordon talks about above are caused by inconsistency. A man complained recently in a letter to English Bridge that his partner had followed suit, the opponents noticed and allowed him then to complete his revoke and then take a trick later to beat the contract. I pointed out that a. he was allowed to say "no spades partner" b. his opponents had no duty to point it out to him but to him that was not playing the game. I disagree but it does show that there are different standards and whilst they might be resolved by all playing to the defined rules most would not be happy doing that certainly at club level.

One down for me. Careless to get it wrong but not irrational.

Do you look like your profile picture? ;)

Good of you(posts fixed with a flourish and a sneer :) ) but I meant what I said. In my view the case for a pre-emptive raise along with as many of the toys as you wish to play is less if you do not play a 5 card major system and plenty of players use 3♠ as constructive but are still capable of following suit to good effect.

Even in NW London it is not a common treatment to play 1♠ No 3♠ as pre-emptive other than amongst experts.