mrdct

Says who? The WBF Alerting Regulations have a specific section for play without screens and clearly contemplate application beyond "international standard events". As it happens, the non-alerting of "any no-trump bid which suggests a balanced or semi-balanced hand, or suggests a no-trump contract" only applies in events of a lesser standard where screens are not in use. When screens are in use there are quite a lot of situations where a 1NT bid would be completely alertable under the concept of "an opposing pair may reasonably be expected to understand its meaning". Indeed, when with screens the recommended approach is if in any doubt about whether or not a bid is alertable or that your screenmate may not fully understand its meaning - you alert it. There is also the bit about "nevertheless, players must respect the spirit of the Policy as well as the letter" which, in this case where WBF regulations are being applied in a jurisdiction not requiring system cards would suggest to me that a 1NT with a potentially unexpected range could be alerted as the "spirt" of the policy is one of full disclosure. Having said all of that, if the 2♦ overcaller gets his side into trouble because he didn't bother enquiring about the 1NT range even though his defence to 1NT varies materially based on its range then I would not be overly sympathetic. His partner will have little choice but to assume that his partner knows what the range is and treat 2♦ as a transfer to ♥ until and if it becomes obvious via authorised information that he simply can't have that hand. I'd be interested to see the hand where this issue arose and what the outcome was.

North has UI from his partner's failure to alert 1♠, but he also has quite a lot of AI that south can't really hold a 5-card ♠ suit as that would give him a 6-5 in ♦&♠ with the opponents never finding their ♥ fit. In any case, if south does happen to hold the 6-5, one would expect him to bid 4♠ himself over 3NT so it seems perfectly reasonable to proceed cautiously with a practical 3NT bid. I think the best the EW could hope for is an adjustment back to 3NT undoubled.

In which jurisdiction can one appeal to a second appeals committee if you didn't like what you got from the first appeals committee?

Table result stands, but I'm feeling generous and will let EW get their deposit back. Under the EBL Alerting Policy (although it is not clear that those are regulations to be applied in this case as we haven't been told what the event was) I'm not convinced that 2NT is alertable anyway, but if was me I would at least wave the bidding cards around a bit before placing them on the tray to let my screenmate know that it might be good idea to ask about it. West to be advised that when playing with screens it's a good idea to ask before making assumptions about what point range is ascribed to any NT bid; particularly when you can ask the guy who actually made the bid. South to be advised that when playing with screens one should generally err on the side of over-alerting to fully protect one's self (i.e. when in doubt - alert).

That doesn't answer the question though. Is dummy allowed to leave the table in the middle of a hand?

It might be useful to ascertain what north-south's agreements are, but I think as soon as north bids 5♣, south is pretty much off the hook as he now has clear AI that partner has interpreted the 3♥ bid as natural and can therefore proceed however he likes. Was 4♥ alerted by south, or are 4-level bids non-alertable in your jurisdiction? In south's mind, what other super-accepts were available to north (i.e. what would 3NT, 4♣ and 4♦ have meant)? A super-accept with 4♥ with three lower bids available seems extremely odd and I think on that basis I would be quite willing to let south pass 4♥.

Is dummy allowed to leave the table in the middle of a hand to go to the toilet? How is dummy able to comply with Law 74B1 while he or she is on a toilet break? How does dummy get around Law 74C8? Being somewhat security conscious, my personal policy is that if one of my opponents wants to go to the toilet during a match either myself or my partner goes with them, so such breaks will only occur between hands or else everything stops with the hand in progress until dummy and the accompanying defender return to the table.

If the alertability of north's bid depends on the meaning of west's bid, how is south able to determine whether or not to alert without making some enquiries (be that a qustion or looking at the convention card) when it's not his turn to act?

That's a pretty good point - such a line would certainly be careless but I don't think you could say it's irrational. I've changed my mind - 7NT-1.

The TD needs to go to some effort at least to establish what the north-south agreement is for the 3♥ bid as they can't both be right. Enquiries need to be made about what 3♣ and 3♦ mean and whether or not north had a weak jump shift available. Did the TD have a look at their convention card? If they play 1♣:2♥ as weak, I don't think pass of 3♥ is a logical alternative, but if 3♥ is the only bid north can make with a pile a crap with 6♥ I think pass is most definately a logical alternative and bidding-on is quite likely suggested by the tank.

Excuse my ignorance of the ACBL regulations, but how is a "relay system" defined? Can I play 2/1 but have some relay structures in some auctions, but not have "tell me more" type bids as a fundamental feature of all of our low level auction developments?

Just to be clear here - the original post did say the contract was 7NT so there is no possibility of declarer going astray with a ruffing finese in ♦. The fast claim omitting the clarification statement is understandable given the time constraints so I'm going to be leniant on that point. To go dwon in 7NT requires declarer to cash both minor Aces before getting ♥ wrong which I assume in this league would go beyond the requirement of "careless but not irrational". Accordingly, given that all lines shy of prematurely and unnecessarily cashing the minor aces result in 13 tricks I rule that 7NT makes.

If their agreement is to bid 2♣ on a three-card suit when holding a 5323 then it is not a deviation. It then becomes an issue of whether or not under the ACBL alerting regulations a bid of a 3-card suit is natural.

Depends entirely on the jurisdiction. In Australia the following regulation would apply to most events: So in this case, the offending team would start the 2nd stanza down 0-48 which would give an overall match score of 97-20 in imps to Team A which on the WBF VP scale is 25-3 in VPs but Team B would also suffer a 5 VP penalty so it would be 25 VPs for Team A and -2 VPs for Team B. I think the car accident is irrelevant - they should drive more carefully and be thankful that they are still alive.

You might need to re-read the Australian regulations (which are the relevant one's for this thread as that was the jurisdiction in which the OP's situation arose). There are two states of a bid, "made" and "selected". Bids are "made" when the bidding cards are "held face up, touching or nearly touching the table; or maintained in such a position as to indicate that the call has been made". There is nothing in the Australian regulations that would permit a director to allow a "made" bid to be changed. A "selected" bid is quite a different concept and is the mere the act of touching or extracting a bidding card from the box but not going so far as to "make" the actual bid. Under Australian regulations, "selected" bids can be changed if the TD determined that the selection was unintentional; but once a bid is "made" there is no turning back.

You have to give full disclosure about your system, including defences to conventions and other treatments, whenever your opponents want and in many case before they even ask and well before it actually comes up. If your defence to strong club is something about which your opponents might need to discuss the implications (such as twerb) you would be cheating if you didn't pre-alert. Yes - cheating.

The ruling was based solely on the local bidding box regulations and no reference was made to the Laws.

Good question. If the meaning of 2♦ has already been provided, inclusive of the 17-24 range for the 4441 option, then a later question about the range can only pertain to the weak option so it looks like the correct explanation was given. As others have noted, it is also important to establish what the systemic meaning of 4♠ is. It sounds to me like east has misbid and ought to have bid something other than 4M to show the strong 4441 and west has given a completely accurate explanation of the range for the weak option which 4♠ must surely have shown. If east, as I suspect, has indeed misbid he is under no obligation to "correct" west's systemically accurate explanation of his range.

Jurisdiction is pretty important here as bidding box procedures are subject to local regulation. Assuming this happened in Australia, the relevant regulations in force at the moment are: In Australia I have personal experience of TDs and appeals committee taking a pretty lenient view of what "unintentionally" means. Specifically, I was involved in a case where a player misdescribed his partner's bid and pulled 4♠ out of the box (which would've been the final contract in a 4-2 fit) and held it less than an inch from the table on a slight angle and visiable to all before realising his error and put it back and made an alternative bid that lead them to a making slam in a 6-4 fit. The TD ruled (and the appeals committee concurred giving me a 1VP appeal without merit fine) that he bid 4♠ unintentionally and could change it without penalty. So in this case, in Australia at least, I think the guy who had the brain-snap and pulled the pass card out would have a pretty good chance of finding a TD or appeals committee willing to let him change his call to 4♥.

So can I get that straight - are you saying that in ACBL sanctioned club duplicate sessions the ACBL Regulations don't apply? To take it a step further, if the club in question doesn't have any regulations of its own, does that mean that other things governed by regulation like simple alerting become unregulated and players can cease to alert at that particular club? I still revert to my conclusion that Law 40B4 applies as even if not specifically dealt with by local regulation, EW have failed to provide proper dislcosure of their methods.

Surely in the absence of any specific regulation made by the club, the ACBL regulations would apply.

1A: 3NT (at these colours against competent opponents I would expect anything remotely resembling ♦ support in west to be raised so I think it's quite probably that we have ♦ double stopped and a balancing double in this situation isn't an iron-clad guarantee of 4♥ in partner's hand). 1B: 4♥ 2A: Probably a hand with some slam aspirations that was too good to balance with 4♥. 2B: 4NT rkcb. 2C: 4♠, 5♥ or 6♥

If the applicable alerting regulations in he ACBL require a multi 2♦ to be prealerted and EW have failed to do so, I would apply Law 40B4: 4. A side that is damaged as a consequence of its opponents’ failure to provide disclosure of the meaning of a call or play as these laws require, is entitled to rectification through the award of an adjusted score. I've got no idea what the ACBL approved defences are to the multi 2♦, but I would reconstruct the likely auctions and results as if NS were expertly applying both Options 1 and 2 and adjust the score to whichever yields the superior outcome for NS. Without the full hand diagram it's hard to reach any sensible conclusion. It may well be that the table result stands as if NS discover via their approved ACBL defence that they have the majority of the points, all suits stopped and a source of tricks in ♦, 3NT sounds like quite a likely contract. The fact that the TD hasn't previously provided advice to EW to prealert is irrelevant as it's incumbant up the pair playing the unexpected convention to make proper disclosure. Ignorance of the law is no defence.

Yes, it's done quite often at major events. The last I can recall is the Rosenblum. There are plenty free sites that you can uplink your video stream to as there are plenty of plenty of freeware software packages to upload an image to your webiste every minutes or so (the latter being my preferred method particulary if bandwidth is tight).

It looks like an interesting problem, but it's kind of hard to make a ruling if you don't post the hand. I would say that one would be more inclined to preempt versus a strong club than a natural club as the preempt is generally more successful if made before the opponents have introduced one of their suits. Accordingly, I am unlikely to believe that if the strong club had been alerted in time you wouldn't have bid 2♥.