mrdct

I was the NPC of the Australian Open team at the event in question and we appealed a ruling from our match versus Chinese Taipei regarding a disputed claim. Mr Grenside did in fact chair the appeal but made it very clear that he would not be participating in the deliberations, would be abstaining from the vote and would be there solely to ensure that correct procedure was followed. As it turned out, we lost the appeal but did I get my deposit back. It was an interesting case which I may post at some further point in time, but I accepted the appeals committee's decision and have every reason to believe that both sides got a completely fair hearing; I was just unable to properly argue my "it would take an irrational play to go down" contention. Mr Grenside was neither a player nor captain of any of the five Australian teams contesting the APBF Championships. As far as I know, he was at the event primarily to be the appeals committee chairman but also to attend some of the zonal adminstrative meetings on behalf of the ABF. It may have been a good idea to have deputy chairs to cover potential conflicts of interest, but that would of course result in additional cost, and few would have Mr Grenside's experience in this area. It was clearly articulated at the opening captains' meeting what the appeals process and committee composition were and nobody, including directing staff all of whom were present, raised any concerns or objections. The thing I found most surprising was not the composition of the appeals committees but the way which apparent dissatisfaction with appeals committee decisions and processes received an airing in the event's daily bulletin; particularly given that the dissatisfaction was expressed anonymously. Please note that this is my own personal view and not an official view of the Australian Bridge Federation.

I was at the event in question, but not the table. It's important to point out that screens were in use so only West and South really know exactly how, when and where the ♦7 was held. It does not appear to be in dispute, however, that the ♦7 was not a played card but was prematurely detached from South's hand and held in a position where West could see it. The fact that South had ducked the ♦K earlier in the play makes me very suspicious that the premature detachment and display of the ♦7 may have been a deliberate ploy to reinforce his earlier legal deception to make declarer think that the ♦ hook was going to work again. South presumedly did not admit that (whilst not in the bulletin write-up, I was told that South's explanation for detaching the ♦7 was that he simply assumed any normal declarer would be cashing out at this point) however as matters of disputed facts need to be determined on the balance of probabilities (Law 85A1), I think it's more likely than not to have been a deliberate ploy or at the very least South ought to have known that it could have the propensity to mislead and should've been extra careful not to illegally mislead declarer. My take on all of this is that West has made a SEWoG (Law 12C1b) in not cashing out for her guaranteed 9 tricks at imps and may well have been equally deceived by the earlier duck of the ♦K as the premature detachment and display of the ♦7 in the end position. West was being greedy, careless or both and most certainly contributed to the poor result through a gambing action of taking a completely unnecessary finesse. She deserves to go one down. South, however, appears to have attempted to mislead his opponent through a purposeful deviation from correct procedure and that is covered by Law 73D2 and he deserves to have the game make against him. I rule EW 3NTW-1 and NS 3NTW=.

As an interesting aside, in Australia where written bidding is prolific, the correct procedure is to remove the bidding slip after everyone has followed to the first trick but in practice it's generally only the rare SB-types that tear away the bidding slip at that point which has lead to the situation of most players in Australia playing most of their bridge with the auction right in front of them for the entire play of the hand. This is quite useful for beginners and probably a good thing, but you do find that club players with decades of experience remain reliant on having the auction in front of them throughout the play and may even perceive it as rude if you remove the bidding slip during the play. For defenders, in practice Law 20F2 gives them a right to receive a review of the "opposing auction" by simply saying "please tell me what all of your calls meant" so they can certainly find out what declarer and dummy bid but not what their partner bid. For declarer they can only ask about "single calls" of the defenders; but I guess they could use trial and error to ascertain the auction if they completely forgot - e.g. "what did your partner's 1♥ overcall mean?", "he didn't bid that", "ok then what did your partner's 1♠ overcall mean?". Turning to online play, one could argue that the auction ought to be suppressed from view after the first trick to better comply with the laws.

I'm looking forward to seeing how that technology actually works and hope it isn't going to be anything obtrusive that would interfere with the flow of the game. I wonder how much more expensive the playing cards with the ID chips in them are. Are you selling those yet Nick?

Correct. The director should not inform East of the differing explanations until after the completion of the play. Moreover, the director should probably remind West to be careful about inferring anything from East's director call and anything he might have heard from the other side of the screen. The rules for screens are governed by regulation not laws, so the tournament organisers are free to adopt whatever regulations they like, but I wouldn't advocate doing anything different to the quite sensible WBF Screen Regulations. The rights of the non-offenders are fully protected and the benefit of any doubts as to facts and what may or may not have occured without the infraction will generally be resolved in favour of the non-offenders. If there was a requirement to have differing explanations cross-checked on every hand, it would slow things tremendously where screens already take a little bit of extra time. Law 84D requires directors to rule on doubtful points in favour of the non-offenders. The explanation given at the table certainly appears to have influenced East's lead selection, but his case would be stronger if the explanation was limited to just ♣s. It's hard to say as I don't know the player concerned, but I think with an explanation of 3♣ is both Majors, a ♣ lead is obvious. I think that in the absence of the misexplanation, East-West would not have been in a position to misdefend and the misdefence whilst being a fairly poor effort isn't so bad as to be considered a SEWoG. Under Law 21B1(b) where there is a question about whether something is a misbid or misexplanation, the presumption is misexplanation unless there is clear evidence to suggest otherwise. So in this scenario, the presumption would be mis-explanation. As an aside, had North described 3♣ as "undiscussed" or "no agreement" he would be in much better shape. The message is that when asked about a bid don't speculate - just tell it like it is or as best you can recall.

The examples given in 16B1 are just that, examples. If you rewind to the first bit of 16B1a "...a player makes available to his partner extraneous information that may suggest a call or play" this is obviously very broad and surely includes anything that partner does other than legal bids, calls and plays. Refering back to 16A1c, the qualifier to the "arising from legal procedure" exemption is quite obviously there to make it clear that UI can still be transmitted by doing something compliant under the laws and regulations. If the circumstances are such that based on partnership experience the player in question only calls the TD for BIT situations where damage or potential damage is perceived, his partner can eliminate the hands on which partner wouldn't bother calling the TD which is clearly UI.

It would be subject to local regulation of course, but under WBF rules and any other screen regulations I've every seen it is expressly prohibited for there to be communication accross the screen regarding the auction and explanations until the completion of play of the hand: Having slept on this hand, I think SEWoG is a bit harsh and I'm now thinking that East was 99.99% sure to lead the ♣Q if he hadn't been misinformed and the defence can't really go wrong after that. So I'm going to rule 3NTN-1.

[hv=pc=n&s=sjt753hat76dktc76&w=skq84hkq92d98ck98&n=sa2h543daqj63ca32&e=s96hj8d7542cqjt54&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=1np2cp2dp3c(N%3EE%3A%20nat%20then%20changed%20to%20might%20also%20show%20both%20Ms%20but%20not%20sure)p3dp3nppp(TD%20called%20to%20protect%20rights%20re%20ambiguous%20explanation)&p=s9stsqsas2s6sjskc8c2c4c6c9c3ctc7cqh6ckcad3d2dkd8s7s8h3d4hkh4h8has5s4h5d5dtd9dad7dqc5s3h2djcjh7h9d6hjht]399|300[/hv] I'm inclined to view West's ♣9 as a SEWoG, but I don't really want to let North off the hook for what is quite clearly a misexplanation. I think let the table result stand as it's largely self-inflicted by East-West but slap a procedural penalty on North-South for the mis-explanation.

This is information that further exonerates South. She is allegedly in position of UI in the form of North's mannerisms and haste, but she also has a substantial amount of AI in the form of the 4♠ bid itself. She clearly thought it through thoroughly and reached the sensible conclusion that her partner must have made a mistake and actually holds a ♠ suit. It seems that if there was some stray UI floating around, South bent over backwards to avoid using it. She should probably be nominated for an ethics award.

Planet Earth would be one of them. In this case, however, the basis for the procedural penalty is better referenced to Laws 73A2 and 73B1 (Appropriate Communication between Partners and Inappropriate Communication between Partners)

You conveniently omitted the qualifier "but see B1 following" which clearly brings a director call and the related questions and comments by partner into the "extraneous information" camp.

Try reading Law 16 in its entirety which basically says that you can base your actions on legal calls and plays (together with a view other esoteric things like illegal calls which have been accepted) and all other information is "extraneous" and a player may not base a call or play on such extraneous information. Law 16B1(a) gives a few examples of extraneous information, "a remark, a question, a reply to a question, an unexpected* alert or failure to alert, or by unmistakable hesitation, unwonted speed, special emphasis, tone, gesture, movement, or mannerism". By any reasonable interpretation of this, a decision by partner to draw attention to a BIT and/or call the director about it, falls within the meaning of "extraneous information". The recipient of the UI is now able to differentiate between the hand-types where partner would be inclined to take issue with the BIT and the hand-types where he would not. Of course, if partner is in the habit of routinely calling the director 100% of the time whenever he spots a BIT there would be no UI and in this case I've got no idea whether or not the guy who called the director is the SB type.

Laws 16A3 and 16B1(a).

I disagree. Every single thing a player does outside of his legal bids, calls and plays is extraneous information which is unauthorised to his partner. Plenty can be read into partner's decision to call this director and those things are clearly UI.

It's interesting that his ruling was "no damage" rather than "no infraction". I would've asked the TD to elaborate on his ruling to confirm what "facts" he has managed to establish. If the facts are as Wayne outlined, I think north is the culprit not south. Nobody has managed as yet to come up with a hand for north which is consistent with anything other than a weak two in ♠. The top-heavy 6-6 in the reds is closer to a game-force than a weak two.

"He Said She Said" situations are always difficult to rule on as you basically need to call someone a liar if you are going to determine the facts. Law 85 gives us guidance on how to determine disputed facts (essentially balance of probabilities but if the facts still can't be determined you make a ruling that allows play to continue). I find it really surprising that south apparently opined that virtually 100% of the players in the tournament in question would flagrantly breach Law 73D. If I've misbid and realise it, the last thing I would do is act in a manner to draw attention to it. If, on the balance of probabilities, it is determined that 4♠ was an over-emphasised insta-bid I would be inclined to issue a procedural penalty against north and probably refer him to the recorder or disciplinary committee for some reeducation. From south's perspective I'm struggling to think of weak two in ♥ that will make a slam-try after a clear sign-off from a partner that has promised nothing more than invitational or preemptive values. Accordingly, 4♠ can only mean: I've stuffed up and I've actually got a weak two in ♠; or I think I've already shown a weak two in ♠ and I'm taking your 4♥ bid as some sort of slam try in ♠ for which I'm not interested. In both cases, south has no logical alternatives other than "pass".

I've never heard of the "Rule of 25" or the "Extended Rule of 25", but if that is the north-south agreement and it's a term defined in the EBU regulations, I don't have any problem with north-south describing their agreements as such. If east-west wanted some clarity on what sort of hands conform to the north-south interpretation of the "Extended Rule of 25" they should've asked.

Are we allowed to know what NS's methods are? Would 3♥ have been forcing?

Why don't we round up all of the people who don't speak English and take them out the back and shoot them in the head. That way we could all live in this utopian world where we all speak the same language, have the same religion, eat the same food, wear the same clothes, have the same culture and play the same brand of bridge. Sounds like a blast.

I would strongly recommend having a look through Gavin Wolpert's video series on www.bridgewinners.com the most recent of which carries some very sage advice about how to handle time presure situations. Basically at the start of a two-board round which Gavin and Joel were late starting due to hold-up unrelated to them, Gavin preemptively called the TD to make sure he was aware that they were starting late just in case they need to argue their way out of a slow play fine later. As it happened, Joel took an eternity to play the first board (albeit superbly) which left only a minute or two for the second board. Before they started the second board Barry Rigal, one of their opponents for the round, purposefully and quite rightly instructed his partner to not feel under any presure or obligation to play quickly. One of my regular partners can be quite slow on tricky hands and from time to time the opponents piss and moan about it. My general advice to him is that if the opponents give him the hurry-up by all means try to eliminate non-bridge related time wasting such as post mortems and not getting onto the next board promptly, but under no circumstances should you try to speed up your thought processes as that will just lead to an error more costly than a slow play fine. I usually politely but firmly tell opponents giving me the hurry-up that if you think we are in time trouble call the TD, but otherwise keep it to yourself as I'm now going to have to recount the hand as you broke my concentration.

Never heard of it - but if it conveys the sort of hand that North holds it's still a non-alertable natural bid under the EBU definitions. Do you have any documentation or references for this convention? I've googled "delay unusual", "delayed unusual", "delay gambling" and "delayed gambling" all with and without "NT" and "3NT" and I've not found anything.

I don't think it will make any difference to the ruling, but when and by whom was the enquiry about the non-alerted 3NT bid made? North's 3NT bid falls entirely within the definition of "natural" in the EBU Orange Book Clause 5F1(b): Personally, I've never come across a pair which has a partnership agreement for what a 3NT rebid by a previous preemptor against game-forcing opponents opposite a passed hand at favourable vulnerability means and would be extremely surprised if such a pair exists. South possibly should have said "no agreement" rather than "natural" but the definition of "natual" is so vague and broad in these sorts of auctions it doesn't really convey any information to North about how South is treating it. To my mind "natural" there means a suggestion/willingness to play there but if the going gets tough quite likely holding a fall-back position to his primary or secondary suit. It certainly doesn't mean north has a balanced 25-26hcp hand. It looks to me like North is quite legally frigging around at favourable vul where his opps look virtually certain to be cold for game. There doesn't seem to have been any alert or explanation of South's pass after the first double, so any subsequent view expressed by North that it means "pick a minor" is irrelevant as there has been no extraneous information passed from North to South during the auction.

Well the thing is we like to keep score which is pretty hard with just one table unless you just run with total points which isn't really satisfactory; and the screens are just great to pretty much eliminate all of the stray UI situations. My screens are solid MDF, but I've also made some pretty good screens from a plasma TV box that you can fix to a folding card table with cable ties; so home screen play is within reach of anyone who can get their hands on a big cardboard box and a sharp knife.

I think you are right that nobody at the table was paying attention, but that doesn't mean that South can undo his BOOT. Once South has made his BOOT, the onus passes to West to be paying attention and if West fails to realise that East's pass card belongs to the previous board that's just bad luck for him too. Under Law 29A, when West passes he has forfeited any right to rectification and the auction proceeds normally from that point. Interestingly the ACBL Bidding Box Regulations seem to be silent as to the correct procedure for the disposition of bidding cards at the end of the auction, so it might be difficult to ping East for any irregularity other than the failure to pay sufficient attention to the game.

In Australia we don't really have a league teams scene that bears any resemblance to what you enjoy in the UK and what I've also seen in some scandinavian countries, which is a shame, but we are of course a much bigger country geographically so the logistics are much more difficult here; for example in my case the nearest bridge club other than my local is 90km away. As it happens, we do play an annual challenge match against that club and as both clubs have dealing machines we do use pre-dealt boards. When I used to live in Melbourne there was a league teams competition involving perhaps a dozen clubs, but I think it died-off over the years. It might be something I'll try to reinvigourate if and when I move back to Melbourne. I'm no doubt a bit of an exception, but I use pre-dealt board for home games with my kids and anyone I can rope in as a 4th (my wife doesn't play). I usually grab a dup file from a large swiss pairs event from 5+ years ago that I didn't play in and get the guy at my local bridge club to deal a set for me with my own set of boards and then we have datums to score-up against and hand records to discuss the hands. Of course, we also use screens for all of our home games as I've made over a 100 of them in my garage for various state associations in Australia and kept a couple of "not quite rights" for my own use. We have a nice big family room where we have a bridge table permanently set-up.