mrdct

The WBF SYSTEMS POLICY 2002 (Adopted December 1994; amended October 1996, January 2000, August 2002, October 2007, October 2008 & September 2009) defines "natural" as: Law 40B1(a) defines "special partnership understanding" as: I would expect that a short 1♣ opening would be "readily understood and anticipated" by every man, woman and child playing at the World Bridge Series in Philadelphia so for the purposes of that event a short 1♣ opening ought to be considered a natural bid but it still comes down to the opinion of the Regulating Authority. Quite bizaarely, the WBF Systems Policy does not actually define what "artificial" means, but I think it's implied that anything which is not "natural" is "artificial" on ordinary language principles. The description of the "Red" system classification is quite confusing: As per usual, the corresponding system regulations in Australia are far less ambiguous, defining Red Systems quite clearly as: In Australia a 1♣ opening that could be as short as 2 is an artificial one-level opening as it does not convey a "preparedness to play in the named denomination". However, we have a stated exception that "a 4432 shaped hand may be opened 1♣" amongst the definition of a Green System, so playing a short 1♣ will only make your system red if the bid includes 3442, 4342 or 3352 shapes (which is often the case for systems which roll all weak NT openings into the 1♣ bid).

There are a couple of problems here: 1. South and East don't sit on the same side of the screen. 2. The screenmate of the hesitator isn't allowed to draw attention to a hesitation on his side of the screen, and if he does so there is generally a presumption that no hesitation occured.

Without any disrespect to Debbie, who I admire as a person and a top class bridge player, I find it really interesting that she would have the "memorized defenses" to use in events where you can't use written defences and a separate set of "written defenses", which I presume are more complex, to use where written defenses are allowed. I would have thought that the intent of written defenses isn't to allow bridge theorists to efficiently tweak the meanings of every possible competitive continuation after an unusual bid, but is to allow players who don't frequently encounter such bids to have a practical and robust defense similar to that used by players who do come across it more frequently in their jurisdiction.

A few lines ? The ACBL recommended defense vs multi-2D, option 2 is 3 pages long. That sounds about 2.9 pages longer than it needs to be. A cynic might suggest that the ACBL put forward such a convoluted defence to make a point about how difficult it is to defend against the evil multi 2♦. Of course one could probably write a 10-page defence to some of the tricky American inventions such as stayman, so just because somebody came up with a 3-page defence doesn't mean that a convention is hard to defend against. In any case, isn't there a one-page limitation for written defences?

I can't imagine what self-respecting bridge player would avail themselves of the option of having a written defense to a multi at the table. You would be sending a pretty strong message to your opponents that you are uncomfortable about their methods and aren't capable of memorising a few lines of system.

Bear in mind that entry to the Rosenblum is free for teams comprised entirely of youth players.

Fortunately this club has a pretty good culture of calling the director in a non-confrontational manner for pretty much all irregularities, of which there is an astoundingly high rate of insufficient bids and leads out of turn as it happens. The bloke who made the remark was most apologetic to his opponents and was, in fact, the person who called the director.

I couldn't get that link to work, but after a bit of googling I think I've found the relevant article here. Cairns bridge club court action Gavin King Thursday, September 9, 2010 © The Cairns Post The usually sedate sport of bridge is being taken all the way to the Supreme Court over allegations of score tampering. One of the city's champion players is suing the Cairns Bridge Club over accusations he had tampered with scores. [edited by uday, concerned about pasting full articles.]. Original full article here: Original story

[hv=d=w&v=n&n=s1092ha74d765ckq95&w=skqj764hk105dq102ca&e=sahqj8da83cj108742&s=s853h9632dkj94c63]399|300|Scoring: MP[/hv] Playing natural methods, the uninterupted auctions proceeds: 1♠ : 2♣ 3♠ : 3NT 4♠ : 5♥* 5♠ : pass *After an agreed pause for thought, east exclaims "oh dear - I thought you bid 4NT". 11 tricks made. EW are quite inexperienced. Stayman and Blackwood represent the full extent of sophistication in their methods and they most definately have never heard of cue bidding. So I guess the question is, does the UI that east thought he was responding to blackwood suggest that west bid 5♠ in favour other logical alternatives?

If there is an onsite presentation or anybody with a data-enabled phone in the non-quarantined area the players can easily get the match score that way. The rationale for the prohibition on players looking at the operator's screen is mainly directed at conditioning players to always enter and leave the playing area in a manner such that they can't get a glimpse of the operator's screen which is obviously more of a problem at the beginning or midway through a session but we may as well get the players in the habit of not looking at the operator's screen at all. It might also help avoid the situation of a player jumping up to look at the operator's screen when he erroneously thinks he's just played the last board of the segment but in fact has an extra board or two play due to the boards coming out of order or a fouled board. I also think it's discourteous to teammates to ascertain the match score before the actual score-up and as npc I would at the very least strongly discourage my players from that practice.

This reminds me of an issue that has cropped up in the past when I used "B" coverage to broadcast a triangle where the boards are stationary and the pairs move at the half-way point. Essentially I dealt to o1, o2, o3, etc and then c1, c2, c3, etc after the move. I know this caused problems for kibitzers watching via the flash client at the time (April last year). It's a shame as it was quite a neat way to broadcast a triangle.

It is interesting to read about players looking at the operator's computer screen at the end of the match to check the score. In Australia this practice is explicitly prohibited under Regulation 23.9. For operators a really important thing to get proficient with is the somewhat counter-intuitive match setup feature of "B" for Both being for single table coverage and "O" for Open being for dual table coverage.

Putting the suboptimal 4♠ bid to one side, the first thing I would do is establish the meaning of 5♣. Is it slam forcing? If not, then does 5♦ create a slam force in their methods? If after proper investigation I conclude that 5♠ was non-forcing, I then consider what the hesitation suggests. I probably need to establish what their cue-bidding methods are too. It looks like North was probably worried about his lack of ♥ control and had a hand that wanted to push-on beyond 5♠ but didn't feel he had quite enough to do so. But South has the benefit of looking at his own hand and when he runs the various simulations in his head 6♠ surely comes out on top and pass does not look like a logical alternative.

I think you are misreading 27D - it applies if the bid is not accepted, not if it is accepted. Yes, you are absolutely correct. My bad.

Was the second 2♦ bid alerted and described as anything? During the auction, any player can draw attention to an insufficient bid and such action couldn't possibly be passing any "I" let alone "UI". Even after a player attempts to accept an insufficient bid (and unlike my previous post let's assume it's actually East who passes over the second 2♦ bid) an irregularity has still occured and it is entire appropriate for a director to be called as many players would be quite uncertain as to what they can and can't do in that situation.

On what basis do you make the presumption that he intended to relay 2♥? Some investigation is required. Perhaps South didn't see the 2♦ opening and holds a GF opening himself! The second sentance doesn't make sense. After a GF 2♦ opening, all bids by responder are GF irrespective of whether or not he is a passed hand. In answer to your questions: 1. First the TD needs to give West the option to accept the insufficient bid (27A1) in which case the auction will continue "normally" but the non-offending side retain protection if the infraction leads to a good result for NS (27D). The director should explain to West the consequences of not accepting the insufficient bid before he chooses whether or not to accept it (81C2 & 84C). To work out what those consequences are, the TD will need to have a look at South's hand and possibly take him away from the table and ask him what he was intending to do. If South did, indeed, think he was making a relay response to a 2♣ opening, he would be allowed to change his bid to 2♥ and the auction would then proceed normally (27B1b). If the TD determines that both 2♦ and 3♦ would be "incontrovertibly not artificial" then a substituted call of 3♦ would be allowed and any other substituted call would bar North from the rest of the auction and lead restrictions may apply (27B1a & 27B2). 2. What a fascinating situation. So before the insufficient bid by South is rectified, East jumps in with a bid out of turn! The problem is that East doesn't have any right to accept South's insufficient bid (only West can do that). I think what needs to happen is first South gets an option to accept the bid out of turn, in which case the auction then proceeds normally from the 2♦ level. If South doesn't accept the bid out of turn, the bidding reverts to West and we would go back to dealing with the insufficient bid as outlined above. The difference now though is that Law 30 applies and West would not be allowed to double 2♦ or whatever substitute call is made and East must pass at his next opportunity

You are actually quite wrong there Ron. Under the ACBL Code of Disciplinary Regulations hearsay is explicitly included in admissable evidence.

OK in that case we might need to have a closer look at what their agreements are after intervention over RKCB. The OP says "4♠ = If P0D1 then 2 aces" which conveys some doubt as to whether or not EW have a clear agreement of how to respond to RKCB after intervention, but I think I would be persuaded that even if an agreement couldn't be established, 4♠ would be more likely than not to systemically show 2 aces. So now, west has unauthorised information that partner is not on the same wavelength and could very well be attempting to sign-off in 4♠. The UI obviously suggests passing, where it is clearly a logical alternative to bid-on. To determine where that might lead to would require seeing the full hand as I presume west's next bid will be an asking bid. The danger now for EW is that East who doesn't realise that he's in a RKCB auction will likely repsond 5♠ regardless of what he's holding which could propel EW to 6♠x.

The first thing the director needs to establish is whether or not EW do in fact have an agreement to play 3♠ as RKCB (which appears to have been established) and whether or not by agreement responses in trumps are included in the steps (this appear to be in doubt). In my experience I've certainly seen trumps excluded as an asking bid but I don't think I've ever come across anyone excluding the trump suit from responses or giving responder the ability to "sign-off". The RKCB-bidder is the captain and responder just needs to be answering the questions. I think the fact that EW are unsure of their agreements is relevant evidence that the TD must give weight to in establishing whether or not it is more likely than not that EW had an agreement to play 3♠ as RKCB and/or 4♠ as sign-off. Respresentations as to the beliefs of both East and West are also relevant evidence for the TD to consider. After the insufficient 3♥ intervention, pass and dbl will be 1/4 or 0/3 depending on whether they play DOPI or PODI (it's irrelevant which method they play) so 3♠ must be 2 keys without Q and 3NT must be 2 keys with Q. The fact that East has consumed an extra 5 steps is entirely authorised information to West that East is not treating 3♠ as RKCB as he cannot have a hand that will go beyond 3♠ as West is looking at the ♠Q and the ♣K. So, after initially having UI that partner is treating 3♠ as natural rather than RKCB, west would on the surface need to proceed as if partner was responding to RKCB but, the insufficient intervention has thrown him a lifeline in that the 4♠ response is clearly an impossible bid which is AI so west can quite legally reassess the situation and pass 4♠. However, I completely don't understand why West is saying that 4♠ systemically shows 2 aces. Is the OP incorrect with the intervention actually being 4♥? That would change things.

If I ever get my time machine working and travel back 25 years in time to play in a game with hand-shuffled boards, I'll try to remind myself not to develop that habit.

Well I must say, as the offending thread starter, that I'm quite surprised by this action. I made the poll quite clear that I was solely looking at the 85A1 issue which, ironically, was where Justin started the original topic claiming that the laws need to be changed. So many posts are going on about the potential cheating issue, and are seriously confused about the standard of proof required under the laws, where the first point that needs to be resolved is whether it's an adjustment for UI hand. Fred himself has gone on record saying: All I was trying to do was examine whether this view on the UI is shared amongst the BBO forum posters. Anyway, I'll defer to the BBO owners but please don't suspend me. As far as I'm aware this is first time I have ever had a post on any forum (including pinball, health, accounting, cricket and bridge) moderated!

No and no.

If you did that I think you would be passing UI and breaching 40C3(a).

I totally and fundamentally disagree. I regularly play in some pretty low-standard club duplicates packed with beginners and social players who need to look-up the score for 4♥+1 and I have never in my life seen a player consult the scoring table during the auction. Looking at the scoring table during the auction is about as overt as one could possibly get in terms of breaching Law 40C3(a). Law 40C3(a) is a further example as to why one must always ignore headings in legal interpretation as the heading, and indeed the sub-heading, are quite irrelevant to the actual point of law. In this case, the sub-heading is "Deviation from System and Psychic Action" which really has nothing whatsoever to do with the content of Law 40C3(a).

Correct. A fairly well established principle of interpretation of legislation, laws and contracts is that headings are for convenience only and do not control or affect the meaning or construction of any provisions therein. The Introduction to the 2007 Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge reinforces this with the comment: "Many headings present in the 1997 Laws have been removed in the interests of streamlining their appearance. Where headings remain they do not limit the application of any law, nor indeed does the omission of a cross-reference.". Wrong. Law 81C1 empowers the Director to maintain discipline and to ensure the orderly progress of the game which obviously includes dealing with administrative matters such as capturing a unknown player's ACBL player number to enter into the scoring program. In any case, such a request is completely irrelevent to the bidding and play so could not be construed as an aid to memory, calculation or technique. No. Doing so would clearly be an aid to memory, calculation or technique although this is obviously impossible to enforce and is a strong argument for using written bidding to mitigate the risk of players cheating in this manner (albeit a fairly low risk in an event of significant meaning). Clearly disallowed under Law 74B1 (paying insufficient attention to the game). If a player doesn't like a ruling, he has ample time to review the Laws after play or during a break together with options to appeal.