Jeremy69A

How big a penalty would you award yourself for this action? Law 74 is being tested here! So you pass 4♠ and partner had decided to open 2♥ on ♠ - ♥ KQxxxx ♦KJ10xxx ♣x Not the most mainstream weak two however in a (misguided?) effort to catch up he now decided to cue bid. Assuming that the 4♠ was adjudged to have been bid with special emphasis then regardless of what the alternatives were the player should be given a sizeable penalty and the more experienced the player the larger the penalty. Personally I would approve of them having to wear a large hat with the word "Cheat" on it for the remainder of the session and all of the next one. :D

Oh but they do. I played a match recently where we were playing strong club. We gave convention cards to our opponentsw. They didn't have any. One opponent was apologetic and told us what they played. It wasn't trivial and whether I would have remembered was another matter. The other one told me I should be happy to play against a pair with good disclosure and no convention cards rather than the other way round. She didn't seem impressed by my answer that I hadn't been given the choice. The view was roughly "we don't have them, we forgot, what is your problem?, haven't you got anything better to do" It was a shame it wasn't an EBU event because if it had been there might have been the simple card produced from the TD's pocket ;) .

I guess it is possible that partner has pulled the wrong card or in a drunken moment I agreed something else obscure but if you pass 4♠ and it is a long term partner I think you are making an error. A bucket of trust is about to disappear. I would bid 5♣ and accept that I maybe about to make it even worse.

I'm sure you are theoretically right but as a practical matter it is awkward if quite a few people are waiting for results etc at the end of a long event. In the final of the EBU Premier League weekend this year the results and presentation were delayed for 40 minutes or so for an appeal. No way really to avoid this. Yesterday at Bournemouth the Chief TD had 40/50 people waiting at the end of an event whilst a team decided whether or not to appeal at the end of the event. They were most put out at being hurried and in the end decided not to proceed. I don't think you can hold this sort of appeal later and for committees you are reliant on the help of long suffering volunteers who have probably already had their drinking eating and sleeping time impinged on earlier in the weekend! Add me to the list of those who are surprised ;)

Your suggestion is taken on board for the 2023 edition! However to show the importance of terminology the August Edition 2011 will show the word "Strong" replaced in favour of "Good" in 11L3 which for those whose life is too short to look is the bit about South African Texas/NAMYATS openings. Someone (not on the L&E)espoused the view that if they were described as a "Strong" 4H or 4S opener then by definition they would be required to meet the extended rule of 25 which was not the L&E's intention.

No infraction. No adjustment.By all means record it.

If my partner opened 2C I would explain it as GF or 23-24 balanced rather than a hand which complied with the Extended Rule of 25. That's not a comment on the language in the OB but rather that I am trying to communicate partner's hand to, perhaps, some not great players who don't have the OB as their bedtime reading. I did once play with a partner who alerted and explained a Precision 1D extremely precisely. No-one could have criticised his disclosure. Unfortunately he was drowned out by the snoring of the opposition as the explanation entered it's second hour. :D

Yes. Although it was not put to the test he who makes a comment like this is least likely to know the rules. ;)

East leads a diamond out of turn against 2♠. The TD arrives and explains the options and declarer bans a ♦ lead. West now leads a ♥ from Qxx. The effect of this is to pick up the suit for three tricks and a discard. East in the post mortem shows good hindsight by saying that West should have led the ♥Q. West replied that as he had UI on this hand as a result of the lead out of turn this would be ethically dubious. Any opinions on this assertion?

Agree with others. No adjustment for EW as the damage is entirely self-inflicted. If it were a penalty double why is playing in a poor 4 card suit better than a singleton honour in partner's suit. Perhaps partner is in the habit of overcalling 2C on K543! :lol: Gentle warning to North to alert support doubles. I would not adjust their score.

Because as a matter of regulation in Shropshire where this event was held and indeed in the rest of England a cue bid at this level is alertable. However from the description it seems as if NS do not have an agreement so no alert is not an infraction if South believed it to be natural. I don't think EW have suffered damage except perhaps as a result of their own bidding.

I would rule this one down. I think that after the trump show out continuations to go down maybe careless but are not irrational. It would be nice to fine declarer for being so careless as to make such a ridiculous claim, to waste so much of everyones time and to express the claim in such a way as to irritate. Regretably I don't think these are necessarily grounds for the imposition of a PP or 3. :)

True but it has been known for an appeal form to be forwarded to the Secretary of the L&E which has not come from an EBU tournament and if it is interesting it might makes its way to screeners and meeting (not that he will thank me for saying so)

I ruled, on appeal, on a "I realised as soon as I had bid it" case. The player then doubled the oposition contract so as to avoid his partner bidding on viewing that 590 was better than a four figure penalty. The director overturned this and made it 1100 at the 5 level. They decided to appeal and I ruled it to 1400 thanks to Deep Finesse plus a double disciplinary penalty(the player concerned was very experienced and had played for England). He was not happy with me nor were his team mates. In the case cited above I think the side that bid 5D not only had their score rightly returned to 4S but the player concerned also deserved a penalty for his blatant use of UI. If they are not talking to you then that is their loss/your gain as others have said.

I fear you have played two or three matches in a partnership where at least one person thought this was not true. Perhaps it can be clarified before (if) we play Round 5!

Well it's true that I have written an article for the required market but also true that it isa notihng like as difficult as some people like to make out. If we can leave doubles of transfer completion aside for the moment then the rules up to and including 3NT are not hard: They bid a suit: double is take out no alert, anything else do alert. This not only includes penalty doubles but, for example, support doubles. They bid a suit artificially: doulbe shows that suit otherwise alert They bid NT naturally: Double is for penalty. Anything else alert. If people could manage that then it would cover 99.8% of all doubles. I agree that there are one or two situations that could be better explained but problems don't generally arise from these except in the strange world of this forum. Let's call it "pedantworld" The OB update in August will seek to cover a few of the 0.2% more clearly (I hesitate to say better).

When declarer claims they have had some time looking at their combined assets and when they lay their hand down and make an inadequate statement it is hard for the opponents to get to grips with the hand quickly. The non claiming side is this at an initial disadvantage. The manual of good claiming should include a section on playing out for a few extra tricks against bad opponents so that if and when you do claim it is a simple ending otherwise it does not really save time. I don't see a great deal wrong with the law as it stands. Don't claim unless you are going to get it right. I'm sure we have all seen the attempted claim where declarer has 3 trumps and 3 of the same plain suit in each hand and claims on a cross ruff. Assuming this is not deliberate(in which case surgical removal of a limb without anaesthetic is an appropriate penalty) it is my belief that the claimer should pay for their carelessness. It may give a bonus to the non offending side but many breaches of the law do this. A poor claim is a mistake just as returning the wrong card to let a game through or ruffing a winner accidentally is. A problem ,on this site, in my opinion is that there are correspondents who are always looking for a reason to excuse the poor claim and allow declarer tricks that they are manifestly not allowed. If they can't phrase their claim properly then they deserve what is coming and will either take more care or continue to lose tricks. Sometimes it is stated that if officials are really tough on claiming it will discourage claimers and slow the game but I think there is little evidence of this. Poor players generally do not claim and when there is a contested claim it usually occupies 8 times as much time as playing it out ever would have done.

You can call the director and it is his decision as to whether to issue a procedural penalty for the failure to alert. In England this is fairly unusual. Inexperienced pairs, for example, are rarely fined. In this particular case the director did not fine the pair but the referee judged to.

If that is the case then no problem and declarer's fault for not looking but it's been a long time since I saw a declarer caught by this although partner did cash an ace agaisnt a slam and contiue. Both declarer and I were ruffing (in my case unexpectedly). Declarer, a renowned quick player, ruffed with the 4 out of turn just before I ruffed with the 5. He sulked mightily when I wouldn't let him take it back.

Your partner should get a life and stop trying to annoy his opponents by playing his cards out of order. I had partner who when he got bored would play cards out of order and very quickly. This succeeeded in confusing or annoying defenders and when he evnetually had to concede a trick becuase of this I thought it well deserved even though I was also on the receivng end of the conceded trick.

It is not typical in England to fine a pair for failing to alert. Most committees take into account the experience of the pair which is why I don't agree with this referee. If you do decide to fine then, as DBURN said earlier in the thread, you should fine whether you adjust the score or not. Appeal committees often do not do that which is where, perhaps, education is needed. There is no evidence that appeal committees or referees are giving anything less than the standard fine.

Couldn't agree more. Too often appeal committee's use it as a "We had to rule in your favour but just to show we don't think mnuch of it we are going to hit you with a fine"

I mostly agree. I would not have hit the pair with a fine because they were not experienced tournament players and,as you say, it was not a heinous crime, however if I had done so then it would have been the standard which, in this case, is 3imp's

Some unsuccessful merging of a BBO id and a BBO forum id!

I look forward to the software for this board moving to a new version where an online red pen is provided so Bluejak can mark our posts with perhaps also a Jeremy Paxman voice going "No. No, you are completely wrong. Don't you know anything"?