mrdct

I have to disagree with several of the earlier posters suggesting that this practice is illegal and/or unacceptable. Law 42B2 explicitly gives dummy the right to try to prevent any irregularity by declarer. Leading from the wrong hand is an irregularity, so subject to any other limitations on dummy, he is free to do whatever he likes to try to prevent declarer from leading from the wrong hand. Whilst Law 43A1c requires that dummy must not participate in the play, "the play" in that context is the selection and contribution of cards to tricks without instruction from declarer or otherwise communicating to declarer information about the play (such as the 13th ♣ is high or now would be a good time to draw trumps which would be dealt with under Law 45F). Indicating to declarer that the lead is in dummy is not participating in the play. There is also a strong indication in Law 43B2a that the practice of warning declarer not to lead from the wrong hand is entirely legal until such time as dummy's rights have been limited by a breach of Law 43A2 (looking at declarer's or one of the defender's hands). This player chooses to communicate that warning by placing her hand on the table above dummy's cards dutifully awaiting declarer's instructions and there is nothing wrong with that.

I couldn't imagine passing with the East hand with a nice 5-card suit and shortness in both of LHO's suits, but a huddle by partner certainly removes any doubt. We need a little bit more info about East's general skill level and style and perhaps conduct a poll if feasible.

At most major events each table gets it's own set of boards or the boards just get passed to a lower-numbered table and won't necessarily get played at your teammates' table, so Trustcott cards or curtain cards are pretty much redundant unless each match is sharing it's own private set of boards. In this particular case, I would've thought both teams should be getting average minus on each board of the match which, depending on the length of the match, could result in a very poor result for both teams (e.g for a 16-board match it would be 4-4).

Do you have a reference for that? The copy of the ACBL Alerting Procedures that I have says, "In general, when the use of conventions leads to unexpected understandings about suit length by negative inference, a natural call becomes Alertable".

The only solution I can think of would be an option of an "are you sure?" pop-up to be applied whenever you are in the pass-out seat, but I would not like that as a default as personally I would find it annoying; but it might be something that people would choose such as "auto-play singletons". Off-topic comment: "auto-play singletons" should not be an available option at all as it forces a player to breach the Laws in terms of even tempo of play and gives up serious UI to partner that the card just played was a singleton.

It's not really evident to me what the "blantant(sic) use of UI" was on this hand. Are you suggesting that 2NT was misdescribed or that East may have intended it as something else and then was woken-up by West's explanation? As other posters have said, we need more info about the East-West methods and what East's initial intention was. It does seem clear at this stage that East intend 2NT as something artificial as he doesn't have a ♠ stopper. What might be more important is the theoretical meaning of 3♣ in response to what East intended his 2NT bid as. In answer to you question, before you even call the TD it often pays to ask a friendly question or two of your opponents such as a question to East, what did you mean with your 2NT bid and what's the difference between 3♥ and 4♥ over the 3♣ bid? When you then call the TD, my general approach in UI situations is to try to adopt a fairly soft approach of saying that I'm not accusing anyone of anything and would simply like the TD to have a look at the hand to assess whether or not there was any potential UI available to <player X> and, if so, was his action OK? This achieves two things, firstly it is less likely to offend your opponents and create agro at the table; and secondly TDs don't like being told how to rule so by phrasing your question this way you are empowering the TD and less likely to get him offside. There is absolutely no need to suggest to the TD what East's logical alternatives might have been (he should be perfectly capable of working that out himself). A 5-second analysis of the merits or otherwise of East's 4♥ bid at the end of the hand may not cover all of the nuances that a more in-depth analysis might reveal, so best to keep your powder dry on that issue just in case you are going to appeal.

We have a look at North's hand and the decide whether or not his double was demonstrably suggested by the UI that South thinks he is weak and whether or not passing-out 2♠ (or some other less successful action) was a logical alternative. North really ought to be bidding as if South has 0-5hcp with long ♦. I await the hand.

Is the jurisdiction Indonesia? If so, check with GABSI as a lot of countries have their own system classification regimes. Otherwise, you could have a look at the WBF System Categories which explains it all fairly clearly. As for player categories, refer to the WBF General Conditions of Contest around paragraph 4.5.

As barmar has alluded to, in my part of world there is a radical difference between "accept" which says nothing extra about your hand and "super-accept" which explicitly promises primary support and in some cases other extra information as to strength and/or shape. Hence my disgreement with your suggestion that if you play "accepts" an alert is required.

I don't see why not. Law 17D quite explicitly deals with "calls" which are defined in the Laws as "any bid, double, redouble or pass". The pass card left on the table from the previous board was a call based on this guy's hand from that board which is the wrong board. Law 17D acts to cancel that call and explains what to do depending on how many other people called before it was cancelled.

I disagree. The pass in first seat was a call based on the hand he held on the previous board.

I was responding to your query, why "super-accepts"? and correcting your erroneous statement in which you opined that, "... if you play accepts ... then the completion is alertable, if you do not it is not". In the ABF you only alert acceptance of a transfer if you have an agreement to play super-accepts. That was just providing some clarity for earlier poster who had expressed some confusion as to the jurisdiction.

I agree with WellSpyder that the comment "OK?" could only be taken as a suggestion that play be curtailed which constitutes a claim under Law 68A. The claim appears to translate to something like "I'll make three more tricks if the ♦A is onside stiff or doubleton but otherwise it will be two more tricks". As play did continue after the "OK?" comment, under Law 70D3 the TD can use this as evidence as to what would likely have occurred subsequent to the claim so I'm going to rule that declarer's LHO would still have made same defensive error of flying with the ♦A and let declarer take three of the remaining tricks.

The dealer has comitted an irregularity in not returning all of his bidding cards from the previous board to his box. Accordingly, his side becomes the offending side. I would treat this as a Law 17D matter (Cards from Wrong Board) as the stray pass card on the table relates to a different board (i.e. the previous board). The pass by dealer gets cancelled, but under Law 17D2 the board will have to be abandoned and an artificial adjusted score assigned due to the fact that the offender's partner had subsequently called over the cancelled call. In this situation the non-offending side would be awarded "average plus" which in an IMPs match would usually be 3 imps.

Dummy's rights are set out in Law 42 which includes a right to try to prevent any irregularity by declarer. If dummy has some reason to believe that his partner might be prolonging play unnecessarily for the purposes of disconcerting the opponents, he would be allowed to try to prevent that irregularity (Law 74B4 or 74C7). Alternatively, dummy might be concerned that declarer may be on the verge of breaching Law 90B2 (unduly slow play) in which case he would be allowed to try to prevent that irregularity by advising declarer to hurry-up.

If the 1NT opener always accepts the transfer regardless of shape and/or strength, completion of the transfer is not alertable in Australia (the jurisdiction stated in the OP). Completion of a transfer is only alertable in Australia where there is a negative inference available from the fact that the 1NT opener has not super-accepted or if the partnership agreement is such that accepting the transfer promises certain length in the transferor's suit (e.g. some people who use 2♠ as a transfer to ♣ will bid 2NT without ♣ support and 3♣ with ♣ support - both of which would be alertable in Australia).

I'd try to conduct a meaningful poll of East's peers of course, but I think it would be hard to find a group of reasonably competent players which wouldn't have at least a few people giving some contemplation to passing even if making a further move seems to be the indicated auction. I agree with the table ruling of winding it back to 4♥+2.

The acceptance of the transfer is only alertable if it says something about strength or shape. Most commonly, if you play super-accepts and the acceptance of the transfer denies a super-accept you need to alert it. Reference: ABF Alerting Regs 4.2.

Similar to many alerting regulations, the ACBL regs include, "Players who know that a call is Alertable, but cant remember the meaning, must Alert it anyway". In this case, however, West appears to have formed an opinion that 2NT was natural and non-forcing and as an "impossible bid" I don't think it is caught by any of the definitions in the ACBL regs to require an alert.

On the substantive issue of the hospitality break or lack thereof, I noted that in Gavin Wolpert excellent Road to Victory video series on www.bridgewinners.com he made several references to "hospitality breaks" in the Silodor Open Pairs at the most recent Spring Nationals so I guess the ACBL has these sort of breaks in some serious events, but I'd never heard of the term before I watched Gavin's video series. On the hand itself, does the 2♥ bid promise 5-5 or 5-4? For most people I would presume the latter, so why would East want to play in a 4-3 ♦ fit at the 3-level when he has a known 5-2 ♥ at the 2-level which is almost certainly going to be taken out by South to ♠ anyway? The question is, did the UI of the Stop card demonstrably suggest the 2NT bid? I think not, as the action demonstrably suggested is "pass" (as opined by the OP). We then need to consider if there were any logical alternatives for East which would've been less successful and I would suggest that if 2♥ only promises 5-4, there really isn't any logical alternative to "pass". East-West stumbled upon a good result here as a result of the combination of East pulling out the non-systemic and undiscussed 2NT bid in a misguided attempt to be actively ethical and South failing to mention his ♠ suit at any of his several opportunities. If 2♥ promised only 5-4, table result stands. Conversely, if 2♥ promises 5-5 then 3♦ could be a logical alternative for East showing a willingness to compete to 4♣ in a 10-card fit; although it wouldn't be my ultimate choice it would at least be in my contemplations. So in that sceanrio, I would do a poll of East's peers or make my own assessment of his bridge ability and style, and if 3♦ pops-up as an LA I'm going to try to predict how the auction may have progressed after 3♦. What was South's 1NT range?

A lot of people don't really understand the concept of a "puppet", so I usually say "requires me to bid 2♦ which he's either going to pass if he's weak with ♦ or he will then show a variety of invitational or GF hands".

I have a bit of a problem with the ethics of North bidding 2♠ without enquiring about what the redouble means; essentially saying "I want to show my ♠ suit here irrespective of what redouble means" as opposed to asking about the redouble and then bidding 2♠ which says "depending on the meaning of the redouble, I may have taken an action other than 2♠ so read into that what you may as far as my general strength and ♠ quality is concerned".

It would be worthwhile to have a look at the North-South system card to see if 1NT can be opened with a 5-card major as there is a clear tick-box for that agreement in the very first section on the standard ABF system card; or at least enquire of North-South as to whetehr or not they have any agreement in that regard. This is germane as to whether or not South can legally infer from the 2♥ bid that North has mistakenly treated the 2♦ bid as a transfer. It is a clear infraction by North to have described 2♦ as a transfer when the actual agreement is "no agreement" or "undiscussed". At the very least North gets PP for that. Had North correctly described 2♦ as "no agreement" East would be in a much better position to bid 3♥ over 2♥, but I think with the ♥Kx, 6 ♣ tricks and working ♦Q (North will now be in on the gag that South has a ♦ suit) North will still bid 3NT and East won't find a ♠ lead. Another point to consider is whether East's failure to simply overcall 4♥ immediately was a SEWoG, but we are told she is inexperienced so I don't think we need to go down that path.

Sorry if it's been covered by the mathematicians already, but if one hand has an 8-card suit that must signicantly increases the chances that one of the other three hands also holds an 8+ card suit. Kind of like the Sith they follow the Rule of Two. Notwithstanding that, the prevailing view seems to be that a set of 36-boards containing three 8-card suits has a probability of around 3.5% so it's quite reasonable to expect it to come up once every 30 sets or so. The OP has indicated that his sample is 60 sets so if this is the only occurence, it's actually happening less frequently than expected; but of course only 60 sets of boards is surely an inadequate sample size to draw any firm conclusions. It's been a good 20 years since I last played bridge with hand-dealt cards so I can't really remember if hands were flatter back in the days of shuffling and dealing, but my local club has been using Deal Master Pro for years and I've never heard anyone complaining that the hands seem more distributional than expected.

Whilst China seems to be getting a disproportionate share of WBF events in recent times, the fact is that they run bridge events very well, have excellent infrastructure, government support, great local hospitality for things like airport transfers, affordable accommodation, inexpensive meals and relatively cheap flights from most part of the world (<US$1,000 from pretty much anywhere in Europe). I hope I get to go.