mrdct

[hv=pc=n&s=sjthaj8742dtck653&w=s87hkqt3d8642cqjt&n=sq54h6dj973ca9842&e=sak9632h95dakq5c7&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=p1s2hppdpp2n(S%3EW%20%22alert%22%20N%3EE%20%22rbl%20would%27ve%20been%20minors%22)d3cpp3sp3np4dp4sppp&p=dtd2d3dksasts7s4sksjs8s5s6c3h3sqh6h9hahtc5ctcac7d7dah2d4h5h4hqc2cqc4d5c6d6d9dqh7s9h8d8c8s3hjcjc9s2ckhk]399|300|Long hesitation before the 3NT bid by West.[/hv] This hand came up last night when I was doing voice commentary on the closed room of the Round 7 Bermuda Bowl encounter between Israel and Egypt. The Herbts brothers were NS for Israel and Said-Nabil EW for Egypt. East-West were playing 5-card majors 2/1 GF. I have no idea if the ruling was appealed so it's in the Laws & Rulings thread for the time being. During the auction the vugraph operator reported the following (verbatim): "2NT alert at SW" "but not at N/E side of the screen" "N points at XX to tell E XX would be minors" "now N is tell E something, cant hear it" (after the slow 3NT bid came back to the N/E side) "E still in the tank" (the 4♦ bid took a long time also) After the play was finished: "asking director" "N called and explains, that his point is about the hesitation from W and the 4♦ bid after 2 minutes of thinking from W" About one hour later: "director at the table, referring to board 1" "telling: 3NT -1 first board 1" "E not amused" "director said 5/6 players who he asked passed 3NT after that hesitation" Just the "facts" as per the BBO records at this stage, but I think this hand has a few ruling issues in it and I'd been keen to hear people's thoughts.

Is there any way of saving these videos to my HDD so I can watch them offline?

When there are bugs around it's advisable to wash your hands between rounds and to carefully avoid touching one's eyes or nose. These simple measures will dramatically reduce the likelihood of picking up a cold or some other virus from people's coughs, sneezes and spittle. If you wanted to go a step further you could wear a surgical mask which may sound extreme but in Japan it is quite a common sight at the bridge table.

Is there an authoritative source for that definition as it doesn't seem to fit the EBU interpretation?

His first two questions quite obviously did not give rise to a full disclosure explanation of the call in question which is presumebly why he saw fit to ask the third question. Perhaps there was something contradictory in some of the earlier statements by South which led to East's confusion as alluded to earlier: and

Taking the piss

Moreover, the EBU regulation for psychic controls uses very strong language in its prohibition. Have another look at OB 6 A 3 (my emphasis added): "Systemic psyching of any kind is not permitted. A partnership may not use any agreement to control a psyche. For example, if you play that a double of 3NT asks partner not to lead the suit you’ve bid (Watson), you may not make such a double if the earlier suit bid was a psyche". This regulation has one "not permitted" and two "may nots" and uses an example of a convention which is quite legitimate in non-psychic circumstances which is prohibited in psychic circumstances. I am at a loss to understand how this regulation could be interpreted any differently than, "if you have a partnership agreement (special, conventional or otherwise) which is permitted in the level of event you are playing, your partnership may not make use of that agreement to control a psyche". It actually does as the regulation refers to "any" agreement so all agreements are covered. You are not allowed to use any partnership agreements as a psychic control in the EBU. If the intent had been to allow benign conventions such as stayman and drury to still be employed as a psychic controls, surely the regulations would've provided some counter-examples to Watson so that users could understand where the line is drawn.

The TD needs to quiz East-West on what their actual agreement is. It seems that West either forgot they had agreed to play Michaels or did not believe that they had agreed to play Michaels. East, it seems, was quite clear in his mind that East-West had an agreement to play Michaels and even went so far as to pre-alert it to his screenmate (even though they don't appear to have been using screens). I would be asking East on what basis did he believe they had an agreement to play Michaels. I would then weigh-up the evidence and determine whether this was a misexplanation or misbid situation applying Law 21b1b "The Director is to presume Mistaken Explanation rather than Mistaken Call in the absence of evidence to the contrary". My preliminary view is that this should be treated as 'Mistaken Explanation' but that fact can only really be determined properly by the TD at the table. Next question is, would South have done anything differently if 2♥ had been described to him as Michaels? I'm with pran and bluejak on this one and don't really think it would've made any difference to South's decision to "insure" against 4♠ being cold; noting that it is very close to making and would be gin if West's & North's round kings were swapped. Regarding the likelihood of 4♠x actually making, the person on lead will know that 2♥ is Michaels having been prealerted and with East making a correction of the "general force" explanation prior to the opening lead so I would find it pretty extraordinary to not lead a top ♦ to have a look at dummy.

I agree that EBU position on psyching is messy (don't get me started on this green, amber, red stuff) but a discussion on how to fix it would be a matter for the "Changing Laws and Regulations" forum, not here where we are trying apply the Laws and Regulations as written to lamford's problem. On-topic here are the issues of: - Can an implicit agreement fall within the scope of OB 6 A 3? - Do the EBU restrictions on psychic controls extend to agreements and conventions of a non-nefarious nature (such as a Watson double, stayman or a waiting 2♦ response to a GF 2♣) when such agreements and conventions are used to control a psyche? - Does it matter if the agreement or convention used to control a psyche is used by the psycher or the psycher's partner or is it a partnership matter? I've certainly reached the conclusion that by explicitly banning the use of a Watson double to control a psyche, the EBU has the most intolerant regulations in relation to psychic controls of any jurisdiction that I've seen and I can't really see how it could be argued that if it's not OK to use a Watson double to reveal your psyche that it could be somehow OK to reveal your psyche of a GF 2♣ opening by passing the 2♦ waiting bid response.

No, only the use of the waiting 2♦ bid to control a psych would be illegal in the EBU. It is fine to use it as the usual/expected response to a GF 2♣ opening.

Evidently, which is why yes/no questions and yes/no answers have little or no place at the bridge table as they are fundamentally in conflict with priciples of full disclosure as recognised by several major RAs. Going back to the OP, the fact that East asked the third question should've made it perfectly clear that East did not understand the explanation given of the bid being queried so it is incumbant upon South to provide a proper explanation that East will understand. If that means he needs to speak slowly in words of two syllables or less to get his message across, so be it, but making a smart-arse remark doesn't do anything in helping East understand the meaning of the bid in question. Any chance of posting the hand?

That would exclude a Watson double then as that convention is "designed" to direct partner to a better lead not to find out if partner psyched. But we know that the EBU explictly defines a Watson double as a psychic control when used by a player who has psyched earlier in the auction. The point is that under O B 6 A 3, even if a convention was "designed" for a purpose unrelated to psychic control, you are not allowed to use such a convention as a psychic control. It all comes down to what you use a convention for not what it was designed for.

Indeed, if my partner opened 2♦ (bad weak two in either major) and I was asked the question "weak or strong?" apparently in the EBU I would get away with simply responding "weak" as it's apparently "not unreasonable" to give such a reponse in that jurisdiction as it's "true". In the Orange Book example of a Ghestem 3♣, if I asked if it was "weak or strong" and was told it was "weak" without any additional details about what suit or suits it shows, I would proceed on the basis that the hand was weak with a ♣ suit and be pretty upset when the hand turns up with a ♠/♦ two-suiter.

This is true, but the EBU regulation talks about the "partnership" using an agreement to control a psyche not the "psycher".

We clearly have a different view on what constitutes a "psychic control". The EBU says that "a partnership may not use any agreement to control a psyche" (my emphasis added). Note that this regulations talks about a "partnership" not a "player". The EBU goes on to give a very specific example of a Watson double which an entirely legal convention to have in your set of agreements (implicit or otherwise) but you are absolutely prohibited from using it to control a psyche. Psyching a 1NT overcall against 1♦ on a weak hand with long ♣ and no four card major makes it quite likely that partner will bid 2♣ so the availability of the stayman convention greatly reduces the risk of something adverse happening and provides systemic protection for the psyche. This is precisely the sort of prohibited use of a convention as a psychic control that OB 6 A 3 is directed at.

The extract from OB 3 B 9 that I find worrying is "...if a 3♣ overcall is Ghestem, showing a hand with two specified suits, and if an opponent merely says “Weak or strong?” it is not unreasonable for a player to answer “Weak”, since this is true (and since more complete answers have been known to elicit comments such as “I did not ask that.”)". The apparent justification for not requiring a full explanation when a binary question is asked about a bid is the fear of an adverse comment from the questioner not any basis in Law or principles of full disclosure. As far as I'm aware, the EBU is unique in waiving full disclosure obligations when a binary question is asked.

Does anyone know if a process exists to become an ACBL-accedited director from outside the ACBL?

A good way to look at these sorts of hands is to ask yourself what action(s) South would've taken if 3♣ had been alerted and confidently described by North as "5-5 in ♠ & ♦". Without the hand it's difficult to conclude, but absent the UI it does seem that South has already described his hand and it's really up to North to decide whether or not to rip it to 5♦ or 5♠. The basic test is does the UI (the non-alert) suggest the action of bidding 5♦ and were other logical alternatives available to South which would've been less successful? On what we know so far, the UI that North is under a misapprehension that South holds length in ♣ most definately suggests that 5♦ will be a better spot than 5♣x so South would need to be something like a 5170 to allow the rip. The other thing that a TD might check is whether or not the misdefence that led to +500 rather than +800 was a "serious error (unrelated to the infraction)" as described in Law 12C1b in which case the ruling might be NS+500 (the table result) and EW-1400 (or whatever 5♣x was likely to yield). As alluded to by Fluffy, the correct forum for this is Laws & Rulings.

Despite what the players may have said when interviewed, it is quite clear that North interpreted the double precisely as South had intended it with both players relying on their "mutual experience or awareness" to arrive at essentially the same meaning of South's double. This is prima facie evidence that North-South had an implicit agreement to treat unexpected doubles of freely bid games as "something funny is going on here so have a good think about making the non-obvious lead". Such an implicit agreement is completely legal in the ordinary course of events, but it is illegal to use it as a psychic control in the EBU. I'm sure lamford has a transcript of the interrogation of North and South and can fill in the gaps below: To North: "What was your interpretation of South's double?" Answer: To North: "Why did you lead a ♠?" Answer: To North: "Did South's double inform your choice of lead?" Answer: To North: "What would you have lead if South had not doubled?" Answer: To South: "What were you intending to convey with your double?" Answer: I don't see what concealment has to do with this case, but the Orange Book is quite clear that you are not allowed to use (i.e. pull the relevant bid out of your bidding box) a psychic control. Also, certain bids can be prohibited by RAs, for example in Australia it is illegal to psyche a strong artificial opening and if you do, you will get an A- and your opponents will get the better of A+ or the table result.

I think there would be quite a strong argument that passing stayman after psyching a 1NT overcall with a weak hand with long clubs is an illegal use of the stayman convention in the EBU. It's similar to opening a GF 2♣ with a weak two in ♦ hand and then passing partner's expected waiting bid of 2♦ - not allowed in jurisdictions where psychic controls are illegal.

The prohibition is not on the agreement itself, but on the use of such an agreement to control a psyche. Watson is a completely legal convention, but you are prohibited from using it to control a psyche. As several posters have pointed out, agreements can be implicit aswell as explicit and the Orange Book specifically includes "implicit understandings" in the definition of "agreements" in OB 3 A 1.

When there's a playing director, the usual procedure is for him to have a look at the hand at the end of the night. I think you should've called him back asked him to have look at it after he's played it, during the tea break or after the session. It looks like an adjustment to 5♣= to me.

How about EW have a particular convention for which they didn't give adequate notice and disclosure prior to the event and have been barred from playing that convention but go ahead and use it anyway. When it comes up, NS have SEWoG unrelated to the use of the illegal convention and get a really bad score. This could be scored as the table result for NS and A- for EW.

Another way of looking at this is to not go beyond the first sentence of OB 6 A 3: "Systemic psyching of any kind is not permitted". The way I interpret this is that if I choose to psyche, but have a bid available to me to later reveal to partner that I have psyched, I'm not allowed to make that subsequent call. The fact that North-South have not specifically agreed to play "Watson doubles" is not relevant. North-South's "partnership agreements" include both what they explicitly discussed and a much larger volume of presumed understandings based on general bridge knowledge, where they come from and experience. Those presumed understandings surely include that if a hand opens a weak two, hears nothing from partner and sees his opponents freely bid to 3NT, a double can only mean "I've psyched". Can anyone come up with a hand for South which is not a psyche where a double would make any rationale sense if the assumption were that partner is still going to lead a ♥?

The ABF has similar approach to the ACBL. Some selected extracts from the ABF Alerting Regulations: "It is an essential principle of the game of bridge that you may not have secret agreements with partner, either in bidding or in card play. Your agreements must be fully available and fully disclosed to your opponents." "You should follow the principle of full disclosure (as required by the Laws) in following these Regulations and in explanations of calls. Your principle should be to disclose, not as little as you must, but as much as you can, and as comprehensibly as you can." "If an enquiry is made, a full explanation of the call must be given. This includes any conventional or partnership agreement, whether the agreement is explicit or based on partnership experience." "Merely to name a convention (e.g. Michaels, Lebensohl, etc.) is not an acceptable explanation. There are many variations of most conventions, and a more specific explanation is normally required. Similarly, the use of "Standard" or "Natural" to describe calls, signals or leads is rarely sufficient - nor are the terms "Weak", "Strong" or "Intermediate" - without appropriate qualification."