mrdct

I think what Zimmerman has done for bridge in bringing these two top-class pairs together in the face of all of the problems they were having with their respective NBOs is to be applauded. Surely, it's in the best interests of bridge to have the best players in the world contesting the major championships. It's certainly in the best interests of humble spectators such as myself. I would have no objections if other well-heeled sponsors undertook similar projects and I'm somewhat surprised that none of the top American sponsors have looked at taking over getting in bed with a Caribbean NBO, many of which routinely don't send national teams to zonal or world championships. I imagine it would be relatively easy for an American pro to split their living arrangements between Florida and <insert Carribbean country of choice> to meet WBF eligibility requirements and still be able to play all of the NABCs, etc. Also, in many Carribean countries if you pull-off a win in a major sporting event you get knighted! Any takers for Sir Justin Lall?

With my regular expert partner, the auction probably would've gone as follows: [hv=d=n&v=e&b=9&a=2s(5-5%20blacks%20or%20reds)d(XXX%20def%20%5B1st%20dbl%20values%2C%202nd%20dbl%20t/o%2C%203rd%20dbl%20pen%5D)p(p/c)3h(F1%20natural)p4c(cue%20agreeing%20%21H)p4d(1st/2nd%20control%20in%20%21D)p4n(RKCB%20in%20%21H)p5c(1%20or%204)p5d(asks%20for%20%21HQ)p5n(%21HQ%20and%20%21SK%20no%20%21CK)p6nppp]133|100[/hv] I freely admit, however, that in a pick-up partnership the only thing we probably would've discussed had we been pre-alerted was a range for the 2NT overcall and the applicability of lebensohl so we would only have got to slam if one of us took a bit more of an optomistic view. I'm confident, however, that my partner would've chosen 6NT over 6♥ knowing that at least three suits will be breaking badly.

I knew there was a possibility that 3♠ was intended as a cue agreeing ♥, so I felt that 4♠ was a bit of an each-way bet catering for partner actually having a ♠ suit or, if ♥ has been agreed, cueing my ♠K and denying 1st or 2nd control in both minors (admittedly a slight lie re ♦). Similar to my partner, I was waiting to see what she did next and when it wasn't 4NT (to which would've shown one keycard and been right whatever trumps were) or 5m, I chickened-out. I think 6♥ was bid at about 10% of the tables in the field (all going down), but nobody bid 6NT. We were, however, in a potential position to take advantage of the extra information about north's hand and bid the superior 6NT but the murky agreementless auction made that just a little bit too hard for us. If bidding the slam would've put into 1st place and some extra prize money, I probably would've sought a ruling - but we finished 9 VPs behind 1st so it was all academic.

On the actual auction at the table, west could've raised 5♥ to 6♥ and then east converts to 6NT to protect the ♣AQ knowing that all suits are double-stopped, a ♠ ruff in east's hand would be at serious risk of an overruff and with a 5-5 shape in north 6NT will probably have some extra chances. At the table, I didn't really know what partner meant by 3♠ (she later opined that she presumed we were in a GF auction and just wanted to see what I did next and thought it might be interpreted as a cue agreeing ♥) and when she converted 4♠ to 5♥ I just adopted the precautionary principle.

[hv=pc=n&s=s54hat874dt832cj8&w=sk732hkqj63d6c952&n=sqj986hd954ckt764&e=sath952dakqj7caq3&d=n&v=e&b=9&a=2s(5-5%20blacks%20or%20reds)dp(pass%20or%20correct)3h(nat%20F1%20%5Bassuming%20leb%20situation%5D)p3s(undiscussed)p4s(undiscussed)p5hppp&p=sqsas4s2h2h4hkd4c2c4cqc8h5h7hqs6d6d5djd2h9hah3c6cjc5c7cadad3c9d9dkd8s3s8dqdts7ctd7hthjs9sksjsts5h6ckc3]399|300[/hv] Here's the actual hand. A ruling wasn't sought at the time as I was actually quite relieved to make 5♥ against the 5-0 trump break and thought there was a good chance they would be in 6♥ going down in the other room (as it happens they played in 4♥ in the other room). It seems, however, that 6NT is unbeatable with ♦ breaking 4-3 and even 6♥ could've made if I'd played for the 5-0 break initially. So, hypothetically, if a ruling was sought on the hand would you consider adjusting to 6NT making or at least some percentage thereof?

Trust me, I called the TD back within about 3 nanoseconds of RHO making his remark. Unfortunately, however, the TD was mainly interested in getting everyone to shut-up and play-on and I foolishly conceded the high moral ground when I used an expletive towards my RHO; but I would claim I was under significant duress as if there is one thing that I can't tolerate, it's people questioning my ethics. As it happens my partner was declaring the next hand in a partscore so with the permission of everyone at the table, I left the room to get some fresh air and make a cup of tea for myself as I was a litle bit flustered. When I returned, it appeared that RHO had misdefended and LHO then got stuck into me for my "antics" which apparently contributed to RHO's loss in concentration. So the TD was called back to the table, but he didn't do anything other than hover around the table as we played the next board in complete silence. Ironically, the 2♠ opening came up again on the next hand and we gained a big swing with them going a few more off than they needed to in a vulnerable misfit against our making partscore in the other room. Needless, to say, the remaining three boards of the match were played in icy conditions, but all pushes and we eventually won the match 21-0 and snuck into 2nd place.

I think it depends on when it's picked up. In the OP here, I think it would've been reasonable for the TD to tell the OS that they can't play RCO Twos for the rest of the match (which would've been a shame for us as we gained 12 imps a few boards later when they went for a number in a hopeless vulnerable misfit). In the APBF example, the discrepency between the lodged system card and the card at the table wasn't confirmed until after the match and the TD scrubbed the affected boards and awarded A+/A- on those boards which I think gave us a 12-imp turn-around from memory. I put this problem to one of Australia's top TDs who opined: "I might let an unprepared pair confere if this came up in a 2 or 3-board Mitchell or Howell encounter. However in an environment involving longer matches, I would have expected any pair worth their salt to have already made themselves aware of the opponent's 2-level structure before they started the match and I would thus be much more reluctant, especially in respect to something as common as an RCO". I actually think this is quite unreasonable. I ascertained that they were playing 2/1 with a short club and had no pre-alerts or brown sticker conventions listed on their convention card, so quite reasonably assumed that whatever their twos are they will at least be anchored or be a normal multi for which we had agreed defences. I don't see why it should be up to me to carefully review my opponents' convention card to determine whether or not they are hiding some funny conventions for which I might want to prepare a defence. The whole idea of the pre-alerts section on the convention card and the pre-alerting process itself is to make sure attention is actively drawn to the unusual stuff at the start of the match. If there are no pre-alerts, I assume there is no unusual stuff in their system that I need to discuss with partner before we start.

Suction was certainly on the WBF card that Bach-Cornell brought to the table, but I can't recall if it was on the front or in supplementary pages. The issue, however, was that the WBF card which had been prelodged on the championship website on which I based all of the player briefing notes on things they might need to prepare defences to was substantially different to the card they had at the table and my pairs had therefore not prepared a counter-defence to "suction" which, imho, caused some damage on one of the two hands in the match where it came up. It was interesting that nobody picked-up on the problem until early in the second round-robin, which probably says something about how closely lodged convention cards get scrutinised at that event; but when I'm NPC I always print-out two full sets of date-stamped convention cards as lodged and give those to my players before each match so they have a litle of extra time to confer on any funny stuff and don't need to do it in front of the opponents. If the opponents turn up at the table with a different convention card, as your teammates did, I don't have a lot of sympathy.

The suction example is quite interesting Wayne. As you would recall, in last year's APBF Championships your teammates were pinged 3-imps per board for each time it came up and lost a 6-imp gain versus my team due to it not being disclosed properly (wasn't on the prelodged WBF card but was on the card at the table). I think they were also barred from playing the convention for two matches.

I've got nothing against brown sticker conventions and think the current regulations in Australia dealing with them are fine; all I ask is that if my opponents want to play a brown sticker convention they disclose it in the manner set out in the regulations and that TDs enforce the rules.

They aren't always available, particularly at congresses, but I've certainly seen them more than once. Whether there are physical brown stickers available or not doesn't alleviate one from the requirement to disclose whether or not you are playing a brown sticker convention. That's not true. The System Cards page on the ABF website has fairly simple instructions on how to put a brown sticker on your computer-generated convention card and I have seen some cards printed with same. In any case, there is "Brown Sticker" check-box on the Standard ABF System Card which doesn't require any special skills or knowledge to tick. If the pre-alerts section on my opponents' System Card is blank, can't I reasonably assume that they aren't playing anything for which I might need to prepare a defense? First part is true, but under ABF System Regulations (Section 7 to be precise) written defenses to brown sticker conventions are allowed at the table. As it happens, however, I have never seen anyone do it as they'd probably be a little bit embarrassed. The problem here was that I was playing in a pick-up partnership, albeit both of us are experienced players, and have never played together and don't really move in the same bridge circle of system commonality. In an earlier round our opponents pre-alerted that they were playing a multi 2♦ and we had quick chat about that and if the people playing their RCO Twos had pre-alerted, we would've done the same.

VBA Tournament Regulations As far as I can see, the regs don't deal with whether or not the TD should allow us to discuss a defense; so I was wondering if there was anything in the Laws that did. It was certainly made very clear to the TD that there was no pre-alert, no brown sticker on the CC and nothing written in the pre-alert section on the CC. I don't believe there is any requirement in Australia or Victoria for people playing BS conventions to suggest a defence or concede seating rights (that only applies to HUM systems). The reason I asked about the UI implications is that my RHO actually suggested at the end of the hand that my side may have used UI to get to our game as I apparently would only have called the TD if I had some values. I thought that was rubbish, and indeed a tad offensive, as if I had an absolute yarborough it probably would've been even more important to that clarify with partner how I'm going to distinguish between a weak hand and strong hand if partner doubles (e.g. would lebensohl still applied even though 2♠ is unanchored).

At the start of a 9-board match I was playing earlier today in Melbourne, I handed a copy of our convention card to each of our opponents and said "we are attempting to play a fairly simple form of acol". My RHO said, "we are attempting to play 2/1 with a short club". I glanced at their convention card noting that it had a red sticker (systems employing artificial one-level openings that do not fall under the definition of Yellow (HUM) systems, other than Strong Club/Strong Diamond (Blue) systems), the "pre-alerts" section was blank and there was no brown sticker on the convention card. I didn't look at anything else on their convention card and tucked it away under my scoresheet. About three board into the match, my LHO opened 2♠ which RHO alerted, partner enquired and the explanation was given as "at least 5-5 in the blacks or the reds". I felt a bit miffed as my partner and I hadn't been given any opportunity to discuss what we play over this convention so I called the director even though it wasn't my turn to act as I thought an irregularity had occurred in terms of inadequate disclosure by my opponents which the TD may be able to rectify by allowing us to quickly discuss a defence. Somewhat to my surprise, the TD said "their opening twos are clearly written on the front page of their convention card and you two are experienced enough that your should know what you are doing against these sort of openings - please play-on". The hand itself was unremarkable, although there was a chance that we might've had a misunderstanding about whether lebensohl applied after my partner doubled 2♠ but we bid and made our making game for a flat board. The Regulations for the event were limited to: Regulations: VBA Regulations apply. Systems: Highly artificial systems are not allowed. System cards are mandatory. Alerting: Current ABF procedures are enforced. Two questions: 1. Should the TD have allowed us to discuss a defence before partner acts over 2♠? 2. What UI might my calling the TD and enquiring about whether or not we can discuss a defence have generated?

It's the alerter's responsibility to ensure that his opponents have heard the alert, so if you partner didn't hear it and your side is damaged, you will be entitled to an adjusted score.

A landscape orientation would be really useful. I quite like watching vugraph with voice commentary on my big screen TV which has an Android OS. The flash version is kind of OK, but if there is no mouse or keyboard input for 10 minutes or so it seems to fall-over and I need to re-login. The new BBO App seems more stable and doesn't fall-over, but the lack of a landscape option pushes everything to the left side of the screen barely occupying 25% of the TV screen. It's still watchable, but looks a bit silly. I haven't tried the bridge.aucy app yet. Does it include the voice commentary on vugraph?

I guess my point with Scenario 2 is that when a thoughtful declarer is diligently planning his play in a grand slam at IMPs, where going down when it was makeable will at best cost 17 IMPs and if they happen to have missed the grand in the other room will cost 31 IMPs, it's reasonable for declarer to take his time and think through all of the potential bad breaks, blockages, entry problems and squeeze positions. I think it's probably true that there's no layout where playing the ♦A at trick 2 could cost, but it still took me half a minute or so (about the time declarer was in the tank in this case after dummy came down) to rule-out the possibility of that consuming an important entry for potential squeeze positions of which there are many. On the hand itself, there was no question that 13 tricks was cold due to the ♦ suit breaking; but let's imagine that South was looking at: ♠2 ♥9876 ♦109754 ♣854 He knows declarer has ♦Ax (or perhaps an oddball 1NT opening with stiff ♦A) so the ♦ suit isn't going to be running and it seems that he has ample idle cards so he cockily says, "I wouldn't think too hard about this one mate, diamonds aren't breaking so unless you've got nine tricks outside of that suit you're stuffed". Now in my books that would clearly be a "suggestion that play be curtailed" constituting a claim and when East contests it, the principle in Law 70A of resolving doubful points (in this case, would declarer find the simple pop-up squeeze against North in the Majors?) in favour of the non-claimer ought to apply.

So at what point do hurry-up comments become claims for the purposes of the "suggests that play be curtailed" provision in Law 68A: 68A. Claim Defined Any statement to the effect that a contestant will win a specific number of tricks is a claim of those tricks. A contestant also claims when he suggests that play be curtailed, or when he shows his cards (unless he demonstrably did not intend to claim - for example, if declarer faces his cards after an opening lead out of turn Law 54, not this Law, will apply). my emphasis added What sort of comments by a contestant do you think are covered by the "suggests that play be curtailed" limb of Law 68A? I guess one that springs to mind would be where dummy is land-locked and high but for one potential loser and a defender points to that card and says, "that's either a loser or a winner".

[hv=pc=n&s=sj32h9876dt94c854&w=sk97hadkqj863caq2&n=sq65hqt543d75cj76&e=sat84hkj2da2ckt93&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=p1n(15-1%20bal)p4d(range-probing%20kc%20in%20%21D)p5c(minimum%20with%202%20kc%20in%20%21D%20no%20%21DQ)p5h(asking%20for%20%21CK)p6c(%21CK%20%26%20%21HK%20no%20%21SK)p7nppp]399|300[/hv] This is a real hand from Round 5 of the recent Victor Champion Cup in Melbourne. Scenario 1 All four players would be consider "expert" by any sensible definition and have all represented Australia at either junior or senior level, but not open level. At the conclusion of the auction an accurate and confident explanation of the bidding was given by East with West in full agreement with the explanations being given. As South began contemplating his lead, West showed him his hand and said "if he's got what he just said he's got, I think I can count 13 tricks". East then showed South his hand to confirm that he did, in fact, hold what he said he did. South then conceded 13 tricks and said "might have been interesting if ♦ were 5-0". So an uneventful +1520 for East-West but it might have been quite a different story if ♦ weren't breaking. My gut feel is the West has probably been a tad naughty here in showing his hand to South and making the comment that he did as it could be construed as "participating in the play". If ♦ did happen to be 5-0 and the TD was called, how would you rule? Scenario 2 At another table, East-West also got to 7NT and South lead the ♥8 and declarer (who is also a very strong player with international representative experience) went into planning mode. Under a little bit of time presure, South said "we've only got six minutes left to play two more boards - can't you claim?". East said "I think you've just claimed - please show me your hand". South refused and the TD was called. After the facts were relayed to the TD, East said "I've only got a problem if ♦ are 5-0 and if that's the case I think South's suggestion that play be curtailed is a claim and I should be able to take a winning double-dummy line of which there will likely be one through squeezing someone in ♦ and a major or double-squeeze if they can both guard ♠". The TD observed that ♦ were not 5-0 and ruled 13 tricks and told the players to hurry-up with their last two boards. So hypothetically, if ♦ were 5-0 would you treat South's suggestion that play be curtailed as a claim or would you tell them to play it out? Also, as it seems East has a pretty good plan on how he's going to cope with a bad ♦ break, is it reasonable or relevant to assume that he'll execute the squeeze properly?

I must say that even 18 including 5 part-time seems quite a lot. What do they all do? As far as I know, the ABF (which is 40% bigger than the EBU based on membership figures on the WBF site) only has one employee at its national headquarters in Canberra; although it has outsourced a number of activities for things like running the masterpoint scheme, the website and convening the major national tournaments, and has quite a few people on small stipends for things like performing coordinator-type roles (e.g. me as the National Youth Coordinator).

1. No. 2. No. You can only ask what their carding agreements are. Both questions are quite silly in any case as the relative "highness" or "lowness" will be dependent on which pips are seen and unseen.

I also find this a bit unnatural and would prefer a system inserted pause of half a second or so when the robot has an insta-play as it often looks like 4 cards being played simultaneously which makes it a bit hard to follow what's going on.

I'm using an iPad and have a few suggestions: - when declaring and using pictures of cards I'd prefer or at least like to have the option of dummy being orientated normally in columns with trumps on the left; - when watching vugraph it would be good if the other room's result (if available) could be displayed; - when watching vugraph and checking the results it would be nice if you could bring up the entire scoresheet (hiding the hand record of the previous board). There seems to be a down button to do it but it's greyed out. My life has just got a whole lot better - thanks to Fred and the team at BBO!

No-Trumps is not a "suit" for the purposes of the Brown Sticker definition.

The classification of your system as green, blue, red or yellow is based solely on the meanings of your one-level openings, so the use of this 1NT overcall treatment is of no relevance to the system classification; although you would be required to prealert it. It doesn't fit the definition of a brown sticker convention so you would be free to play it any ABF or WBF event subject to meeting the prevailing disclosure requirements.

For online bridge the fact that there is a discussion about the alertability of a bid of itself makes it alertable as the test for alertability for online bridge is "if in any doubt alert". My personal opinion is that is is highly discourteous on BBO to alert bids without an accompanying explanation. It only takes a few milliseconds and makes things move a lot faster in practice as there will be less questions asked by your opponents. It's also useful for kibitzers and post-factum analysis of the LIN files.