mrdct

The old ABF regulations for written bidding (which unfortunately I can't find a copy) did require the final pass to be two parralel diagonal lines across the bidding square but I think it's drawing a long bow to rule that a single diagonal line in the pass-out seat is not a pass and allow it to be substituted with some other call unless the change is clearly done without any pause for thought.

That's usually my preferred response to this sort of situation: "That's a nasty twitch you have there" "I see morse code is coming back in a big way" Any other good ones people can think of?

Players calling for cards from dummy before it's dummy's turn to play is a pet peeve of mine. Similarly, I get quite annoyed at declarers who follow suit from their own hand before RHO has played to the trick. I think saying "Jackkk...king" is a designation of the Jack so I'm going to force him to play the Jack under the Queen and advise him to wait until his LHO has played a card in future before calling for a card from dummy. Law 44C4: It seems that declarer's intent was to play the Jack and he only changed his mind when he saw the Queen on his left so I don't think he can get relief.

Sorry, I didn't reaise that UI laws don't apply at "Australian country bridge clubs" - particularly after the TD has explicitly instructed you to "ignore South's comment and continue as though the South bid was a transfer to spades".

Hence, enquiries need to be made as to north-south's methods. However, if their methods aren't documented anywhere and they claim to play change of suit non-forcing after a transfer that would be a self-serving assertion that would surely need to be discounted. Given that playing 3♥ as forcing would be a feature of just about any natural system, probably even more so by weaker players who don't have more sophisticated methods to show their 2nd suit, I think it's probably quite reasonable to conclude that north acted on the UI. I'd still love to know what north actually held.

I think it's a clear 1♣ opening followed by bidding ♦ twice and at the four-level if necessary. The opponents can surely make 4 of a major whilst 5 of our minor is unlikely to be worse than -2. The last scenario is exactly how the auction would've gone at my table and I would've ripped the double to 4♦. If the opponents bid 4♠ and partner doubles it, I'll pass as partner knows that I'm at least 6-5 in the minors but has still judged to double it.

Why would a responder with 5-5 in the Majors bid stayman? The normal way of handling such hands is to transfer to ♠ and then bid ♥ naturally. If they play Smolen they would go via stayman with 5-4 in the Majors, but not with 5-5. Obviously it would be useful to know their systemic agreements and the hand. Did the TD ask the 1NT opener why he passed 3♥? Do NS have a partnership agreement to play a change of suit after a transfer as non-forcing (I would want to see real evidence of this in the form of systems notes or something on their convention card)?

I don't think the 1NT opener would be allowed to field this misbid until the 5-level as: 1NT : 2♥ = transfer 2♠ : 3♥ = natural and forcing 3♠ : 4♥ = slam-try cue 4♠ : 5♥ = i forgot we were playing transfers* *it would be unreasonable to treat this as a further cue after the sign-off in 4♠ and nobody cueing anything in the minors. It's hard to rule without seeing all the hands (I wish people would post the hand diagrams with these sorts of problems) but it seems likely that if the 1NT opener were to treat the 3♥ bid as natural and forcing, there is a decent chance EW will wind up in 4♥x or worse. I'll reserve judgement until I see the hands.

Believe it or not, there do exist some players out there who aren't proficient with executing simple squeezes and, surprise surprise, in this field 5 out of the 9 tables only made 12 tricks so I guess there must exist a "normal line of play" to make only 12. Most likely I expect that players who aren't good with squeezes might have pitched ♦s on the run of the ♣ thereby blowing the threat in that suit and then just cashed out for 12 tricks.

I'd bid 5♣ as exclusion rkcb in ♠ (last suit bid naturally) and if partner shows me two keycards I should have plenty of room to ask about the ♦K and ♥K to potentially bid the grand. Dream auction: 1♦ : 1♠ 3NT : 5♣(1) 5♠(2) : 5NT(3) 6♥(4) : 7♠(5) (1) Exclusion RKCB in ♠ (2) 2 keys no ♠Q (3) Asking for ♦K (doesn't ask for ♣K due to known void) (4) ♦K & ♥K (5) I hope this ♠ suit will play for no losers!

It looks like I might need to switch to the ♦J now if my side is going to get 6 defensive tricks and I just need to hope that partner's ♥ ruff can wait.

The last thing we need is something that makes it easier for players to run away from a game in progress.

I still no idea what is meant by:

In the first instance I would be docking the TD's pay 25% for the night for not doing his job properly in keeping control of the movement which is particularly important for less familiar movements like this. As for the scoring of the two unplayable boards, both team 2 and team 4 are at fault in that they didn't check that they had the right boards and the right opponents before they started the round, but as the TD is partially culpable, I'm just going to score zero imps on the affected boards and give a procedural penalty to your teammates for the slow play which lead to the whole problem. I don't fully understand the movement. What does "one up, one down (and compare)" followed by "two up, two down" mean? How can there be any comparisons after the first match? Did the TD seed the field somehow to work out which four teams each team would play? Surely it would've made more sense to play a complete American Whist movement with 6 x 4-board matches where you simply go "boards up one table and pairs up two tables" and score-up all six matches at the end of the night.

How? There isn't any reconfirmation of alerts and explanations at the end of the auction. Declarer is completely entitled to assume that he got the same explanations on his side of the screen as were given on the other side of the screen.

I agree that there is no legal basis for west to ask his partner to leave the table so that he can (presumedly) correct a misexplanation. Only a director can send someone away from the table. In this case the fact that he isn't holding what he's shown looks very dodgey and should at the very least go to the recorder. However, putting aside the UI issues for which the non-offenders would be naturally protected, what if west called the director and said "I wish to seek general advice from you in relation to my rights and responsibilities". Whilst this could be construed as illegally drawing attention to the irregularity of partner's misexplantion, could it then be at the director's discretion to send east away so west can tell everyone what's on his mind? I've seen the situation where, playing without screens, a player alerts something and then upon enquiry announces that he isn't 100% sure what it means after which the director is called who sends the forgetful player away and asks his partner to describe his own bid. I presume the director has discretion to do this, but the players can't do it of their own accord.

At matchpoints I would be little bit concerned about blowing a ♠ trick if dummy tracks with ♠K10x so I'm going to try the ♥J as that seems most likley to be partner's suit and if it happens to be declarer's suit it's not likely to cost. I don't see much merit in leading from my entry-less ♦ suit that may well be into a tenace anyway. I would typically read into the 2♥ bid that responder doesn't have 4♥ as a hand with 4♥ would usually bid 2♠ (to play opposite a weak 2 in ♠ but is interested in competing to at least 3♥ opposite ♥). If my oppos are green vs red the 2♥ bidder probably doesn't have 3♥.

Were any of these bids artificial? What is the NT range? Is the NT opener allowed to be a 4225 or a 5224? If 2♦ is a transfer to ♥, opener has denied 3♥ so if he's not allowed to have the 5422 shapes, he must have at least 3♦ so 6♦ doesn't need very much to be cold if the NT opener has sharp cards. Accordingly, if 1NT is 15-17 and we aren't allowed to open 1NT with two doubletons, I'm going to try a 4♠ cue and if partner bid 5♣ I'll have a punt a 6♦. It would've been nice to have a universal agreement that 4m is RKCB in that minor. Also, I strongly agree with gnasher that this hand should've shown ♦ first. Given the quality of the red suits, there could even be merit in ignoring the ♥ suit and treating it as a single-suited slam try with ♦.

The screenshots do look quite good, but whilst I do watch quite a lot of vugraph on my iPhone, I can't really see myself playing bridge on it for more than a few hands for novelty value so $5 upfront and a recurring $20 every six or twelve months is beyond my price-point. That being said, if there was an app with a playable interface to BBO I'd probably be willing to part with a few bucks to always have a live game available in my pocket if I'm in the mood - particularly if it gave me a better vugraph interface (the main deficiency of which is the inability to see the scoresheet).

I've not tried the app you are referring to, but I've tried iBridgeBaron Lite (which is free) and that interface is quite playable for example hands against bots, but with a live partner and opponents I think it's going to be very hard to fit an alert button in and be able to ask questions.

Has anyone worked out if the results against the non-qualifying nations would change the placings if they were counted (be that in full or even some sort of partial carryover)?

I think this is a pretty good point. Whilst declarer clearly misplayed the hand there does appear to be a fairly strong causal link between the misexplanation and the misplay. Even at the highests levels of bridge, all players from time to time will fail to completely analyse a hand and will start connecting the dots on available information and then reach a premature and inaccurate conclusion as to the layout and procede with a misplay accordingly. At the club duplicate this probably happens several times per hand and at the USBF Trials it probably happens once or twice per session with varying degrees of conspicuousness. It does seem pretty likely to me that if north had been told by his screenmate that 2♥ was Michaels the chances of him finding the "obscure" play of the ♠8 would be greatly reduced, if not entirely eliminated. On that basis the misexplanation has surely contributed to NS' poor result. The fact that nobody seems to be able to come up with a credible 52 card layout consistent with the information available to north suggests that north was probably having quite a hard time getting his head around potential layouts too, so he has some sympathy from me.

There may have been some merit in putting on ladies matches in the last round if the organisers had seeded the draw to ensure that the contending teams played each other in the last round.

I thought I read somewhere else that the composition for the 2011 Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup was still undecided with it being a possibility that USA will reduce to one team in each series due to its membership falling below 140,000.

Law 20F1 is not relevant when screens are in use. Screen regulations always modify the application of Law 20. Under the WBF General Conditions of Contest 25.3: However, the USBF Conditions of Contest are quite different to the WBF regulations and include the following in section XIV.B Screen Procedures: On that basis, in the US Open Team Trials it would be OK to ask a defender on the other other side of the screen what one of his alerts was but in the Bermuda Bowl you would not be allowed to do it and need to wait until the end of the hand to seek any redress if differing explanations have been given.