mfa1010

1) 2♥. 2) 3♠. Bidding four is not kind to partner who just stuck in a 1-lvl overcall.

Comments? I'm used to a style with all sorts of alerts of fundamentally natural bids. For instance: To disclose that a better overcall was available, or a worse one, that it denies a three-card support for partner's suit, that a different suit may be longer or may have been bypassed, that the suit length shown is either surprisingly long or surprisingly short, etc. etc. Here south might have alerted to disclose that this overcall has a lower range than usual for 2-level overcalls (because a strength showing double was available). That may be a needless alert (perhaps - perhaps not, depends on the range I guess), but we encourage people to alert if in doubt. We can't then go about and give so much weight to an superfluous alert that it alone entitles opponents to speculate (not ask) and then get redress. It just isn't coherent. In other words: An alert gives away so little concrete information (since it can be based on many different things) that it can hardly lead to a MI ruling by itself. Absence of an alert is different, since that is equivalent to saying: "Natural, nothing special" about the bid. That can very easily be sufficient MI.

4♥ then 5♦. The most encouraging and flexible approach I can think of. No guarantees of success, but our values should surely be adequate. We will have many slams. I don't like pass. Too random and too final. Partner may be void. A priori he is 1/4 of the time if RHO has seven hearts. Pass was fine on the first round with this length in hearts. Partner will often reopen when we have a game.

I don't think that that would be particular relevant, since whatever damage EW have suffered is outside of NS's liability. It wasn't the (maybe - we don't even know) mistaken alert that caused the damage. East is on his own, when he didn't bother to hear what message south had for him. That, in combination with east's "cunning" plan, caused the damage. Just too bad.

True. If 'nobody' would have a CC then I would not ask for one. I don't like to be pedantic and go around and educate on people. Some do that, I really don't. In our clubs CC are the norm, and pairs without one would feel that they should have had one.

It would be nice to know the directors reasons since there could be a hidden devil in some detail. Did they really correct 4♠X to 4♠, or is that a typo? If, and that is a big if since I don't know their reasoning, they ruled that south's 4♠ was a sewog opposite a takeout double of ♥+♣ then I couldn't disagree more. I say this only because the ruling looks at first glance like a sewog ruling, but we don't know if it was.

Double. I prefer to just close my eyes and bid and hope for the best. Even with my eyes closed I would never finger with 4♥, that would be an awful bid.

Ok, I think I understand your point now. East's failure to alert creates UI and that UI may prevent EW from bidding a game they would perhaps ordinary have bid. I think this is a tricky argument. I haven't heard such a thing before and I don't have an opinion about it yet. But I think that even with that, it would still be "likely" that EW end up in game: Just because east forgot to alert 3♣, it doesn't mean that it is not "likely" (as per law 12C) that he either knows immediately what it means (and just forgot the alert itself) or that he will remember later when west bids hearts. So east is still "likely" to make the right bid, either directly over 3♣X or as a catch-up later in spite of the missing alert. Opposite a bergen raise east will probably (very "likely") think his hand is worth an invitation or better. So within being "likely", east's pass was (1) systemically invitational, leading to an obvious acceptance by west, (2) just marking time with the intention of bidding game later, or (3) temporary just a pass but when west removes to hearts he will feel compelled to raise to take insurance. In either of those cases (that are "likely") the game will be bid.

Agree with han. South's sequence shows a preference and a try to finding a different strain.

Typo? :)

Pass. I have a moth-eaten suit in a moth-eaten hand. If I bid with this there will be three opponents out there waiting to axe me.

3♠. If I was to issue an aggressive invitation I would choose 3♦, since 3♥ might propel partner into a tough 4♥ raise to show the 'double fit'.

Routine 2♠. I'm pretty sure that 2♠ will play quite a lot better than 3♣ in the long run.

Look at the convention card and rely on what it says. If you can't find their card, ask for one. If they don't have one, ask for a TD, since they must have one and you are in a position where you want to see one.

When he doesn't ask about an alerted call he is on his own. For all we know south might have decided to alert to point out some unusual style issue concerning the overcall. It is possible for instance that south just wanted disclose that their overcalls are limited to, say, a bad opener because they would double with more. Or whatever. In any case it is east's problem when he doesn't ask. Even if south was wrong to alert.

I'm with lamford, iviehoff and RMB1. But it is 2 down then, right? After a second spade finesse there are only 10 tricks. I think there are two possible approaches. Either declarer is held to his plan as a whole and not being allowed to realize that the clubs don't cash. That would lead to down 2 after trying to cash the 5th club after having run all the red suit winners. Or declarer is "allowed" to realize his plan is off. But that means his entire plan is off, since topping spades was under the assumption that he needed only 2 spade tricks. So now he has no stated plan for 12 tricks anymore and is reduced to the normal (unlucky) play of taking a second finesse. I think the second approach is right in this case. But both should lead to down two.

4♥ is the normal contract to reach but it will surely go down with the now indicated club lead and the ♠K offside. Unless we have some particular reason to think that EW are about to miss the good game then 4♥-1 for both sides seems to me to be the logical ruling, regardless if we may use weighted scores or not. (As Frances rightly points out we should remember to check if north's double is not antisystemic, since that would influence on the correction.) It's a different style of using PPs than what I have normally encountered. In our national tournaments we use the criterion that PPs can be handed out in a lone case like this only if the infraction would tend to damage the opponents and the player should have been aware of this. This infraction would not qualify.

This is quite interesting. Opposite limited raises we use splinters and 3NT (3♠, if hearts are trumps) as a general slam try, typically without a splinter. Do you have good experiences with showing a side suit instead? Sample sequences: 1NT-2♥-3♠-4♣ splinter or suit (3NT would be a general try) 1♠-3♦ (bergen limit raise) -4♣ splinter or suit.

No. This is a defense that must not fail. We can't sit and watch declarer inhale his long heart suit while we're having ♣AK. Or ♣AQ where we can give him a guess. Both defenders know that. If north didn't have the ♣K it would be an outright mistake not to shift to clubs, since he would be out of entries. With ♥Hxx he risks getting finessed so holding a heart honour is no excuse for not playing clubs. (Your last example hand has 14 cards. Going for down two is not the target here.)

I assume you are asking about the defense. South should shift to ♣A on the reasoning that partner would have shifted to clubs without the ♣K. I don't see ♦3 as a lavinthal for clubs. I'm used to showing length there.

As I understood it, it was an early stage knockout match where some lucky losers would be advancing also. Those who have lost with the smallest imp-margin. It happened to be very inconvenient for the two teams to find a playing date, so instead they made up a close result without playing the match at all and both teams consequently advanced to the next round. It must have been on the expense of some third team.

Assuming no surprices in the Singapore alert regulations this seems like a routine adjustment to 4♥-1 for both sides. Sewog is out. If S bids less than 4♠ with this apparent huge double fit we might even be about to consider a fielded misbid... (just kidding :P). I really don't like PPs for such a mini-offense.

This seems like a difficult distinction to make. I would say that every partnership has a sort of border district of agreements that for different reasons are not so well established as the core system and where consequently there will be some doubt. Maybe it's a rare sequence. Maybe it hasn't come up at all since the agreement was made. Maybe someone once forgot. Maybe there is a solid general agreement but a pinch of uncertainty if it applies to the actual sequence in question. A lot of other reasons are also possible, and the point is that there is a continuous path from a solid agreement to pure guesswork/general knowledge. It seems tough when one is ready to congratulate and another to execute for finding an ingenious way to handle a problem in practice when it happened to be possible to take free insurance in the bidding. Is the solution that we are supposed to take a reservation in our explanations every single time we have the smallest quantum of doubt? I think it would not be helpful to the opponents to hear those reservations time and time again. Or are we supposed to take a reservation specifically when we are about to take a free insurance for a misunderstanding? I guess not. I think this is a difficult area of the laws. In Denmark we don't have regulations about fielded misbids as far as I know.

Bring 'em on :P

I wonder what 3♦ means. If it shows a strong hand, as it would for me, then west is not close to having it. East's bidding can be questioned but he didn't do anything silly, it seems (all depending on the meaning of 3♦).