c_corgi

It always confuses me. Is the right to call the director something that needs to be reserved? It often sounds more like a euphemism for "I want to disparage your ethics, but I want to do so in the absence of the director and I don't want to fall foul of BB@B [or ZT or whatever the local regulation is]."

I would make a mental note that any self-serving statements by East in future should be disregarded.

The sentence I put in italics is the key here. 3S only announces a dangerous misfit if the 3S bidder does not realise that one partner should give way ASAP. In any serious partnership the 3S bidder does realise this and will pass instead of bidding 3S. Therefore 3S does not mean "I have forgotten the principle of giving way ASAP", it means "Let us investigate the best contract by defining our hands further; in this case I have extra length and GF values".

Sorry, my post was rather a waste of time! I was trying to ask how you avoid the circles which can arise when whatever one side plays the other side plays something different and can only be resolved by insisting that one side declares their system first, as per various earlier threads. But a coherent post seems to be beyond me at the moment. FWIW I agree that it would be good if disclosure of countermeasures were required.

Can't they vary the meaning of their double based on the style of your WJOs?

It sounds as though North is sufficiently well-versed to be expected to protect himself by further enquiry after West's description (which could obviously be interpreted as virtually anything). West's disclosure was clearly inadequate, but that is not an excuse for N/S to blame any bad result they incur on dummy not conforming to their expectation: it feels as though any dummy might have been deemed "unexpected" on this basis. To me "a normal raise" sounds like "whatever it would be if a pickup partner bid this way". Dummy doesn't seem unexpected in that context. What did N/S expect and why?

If 2D is NF, then 2H is likely to buy the contract, so bidding it seems plausible. If 2D was forcing then West would not be allowed to play in 2H and bouncing to the limit to cramp their auction seems plausible. In fact this is the only one of the Brighton threads where I am persuaded by the NOSs arguments. I agree with gnasher that the NS auction is likely to get out of control if it goes 2H 2S P 3D P and North moves again.

He would soon be banished to the changing laws forum.

How do we try to determine if it would have been suggested to most of a player's peers? I thought that the polling and peers etc was for determining LAs and that the nature of the UI would not be revealed to the pollee where possible. I assumed that whether it could have been demonstrably suggested was determined by analysis rather than polling.

South's explanation seemed to me to disclose this reasonably well, just not in secretary-bird proof terms.

Probably. But in deciding whether the UI makes it obligatory to bid 4C we must determine whether it would be an LA if it had not been chosen. For instance in the hypothetical case of 3D+1 being the table result. I should have said "I am not sure that anyone has claimed 4C would have been an LA if it had not been chosen at the table."

I am not sure that anyone has claimed 4C is an LA. Personally I am not sure that it is. But I do think Pass was suggested over 4C by the UI. If 4C did transpire to be an LA, then I think a weighted score including 4C=, 4C-1, 4CX=, 4CX-1 and 4D= should be considered. I have no idea if that would be more favourable to the NOS than their hypothetical 3D+1.

Given that West is void in Diamonds he has reason to suspect that partner's hesitation is based on a marginal penalty double. That being the case he is perhaps obliged to choose 4C (if it is an LA) over pass. Looking at East's hand it seems quite likely that he valued it as four and a bit defensive tricks and a marginal penalty double. As marginal penalty doubles go, the East hand is relatively suitable for play in clubs, but I don't see how that is West's fault.

Division 1 of what?

I rule director error for failing to point out the UI implications of the penalty card before West led a diamond. South has violated 74B5 (obviously) and 74A2 (requesting that an opponent be issued with a PP for an infraction that was induced largely through South's own behaviour), so South incurs the requisite PP/DP himself. No, I would not behave this way as South, at least in terms of the secretary bird behaviour; if West had received a proper explanation re UI and led a heart, then playing clubs in order to force the penalty card discard seems legitimate.

Wasn't that because they couldn't get along sufficiently well to make arrangements which were mutually acceptable? I realise that they withdrew, but I don't see any way that it contradicts my statement.

We actually know very little. It would be easy to write versions of the story to show any or all of GABSI, IBF and WBF in a very poor light without being contradicted by known facts. All that we do know is that two countries cannot get along sufficiently well for a national bridge team from one to visit the other. It is possible that any or all of the bridge organisations involved did everything within their power to prevent the current situation, but were undermined by their governments. Whatever the cause of the situation, the Israeli team(s) which are unable to attend are clearly victims of it. This is very sad, but it is not going to change. Reading various forums I see a lot of outrage and denunciation of GABSI and WBF, interspersed with tit-for-tat denunciations of Israel and IBF. What has happened is that the political differences between two countries have translated into quarrels between the bridge players of those countries and their sympathisers. Instead of harbouring ineffectual grudges, we should unite and support the Indonesian hosting of the championships. This does not mean we should pretend nothing has gone badly wrong, it would merely demonstrate goodwill and acknowledge that the adversarial approach is not productive. A better outlet for the frustration would be to campaign for more robust and transparent procedures within WBF, so that a similar situation can be prevented – or at least clearly understood – in future.

East will evaluate KQx Qx Axxx xxxx or KQx xxx Axxxx Qx as a perfect maximum (or likely more than a maximum) and slam will be grim. I think it needs a perfect maximum with 4 trumps to be good, which seems too small a target to aim for even if it is in the range.

With the North hand I would fit jump over 2C. I would prefer a stronger hand, especially since it would set up a forcing pass at this vulnerability, but it seems worth it to get the whole hand off my chest in one go. Other routes are not attractive either.

He is doing the opposite. I was fine with this: But now I think the hog was referring to me :P

Me too. A technical point about in which order a defender plays low spot cards may be the major talking point about a hand. It is difficult to anticipate which hands will create such interest. The format of one hand per thread is cumbersome, but alternatives have their own disadvantages and I doubt there is a good solution.

If West was looking for slam that seems over-optimistic (what is upper limit for 2S?) If not then 3D leaked a lot of information to the defence and risked ethical problems if East had bid 3S out of tempo.

It seems harsh to blame West's 1NT for this result: it looks like N/S missed the slam because the auction tempo worked badly for them, with North wanting his partner to show (or bid slam with) a heart control and South judging his hand too poor to justify doing so with only 2nd round control. I doubt they missed the slam because they thought West's 1NT promised a defensive trump trick against a spade contract: an out and out psyche seems plausible given the known lack of E/W values. Whether 1NT was a good idea is another matter, but what it did achieve was a cramped and murky auction for the opponents, stopping in 5 of a major; this rates to be a good outcome, with the unexpected trump trick beating the 5 level probably more often than the opponents missing an unlucky slam.

LHO doubled 2H and didn't lead a heart, so it seems unlikely that either opp began with KQ hearts or that LHO has length in both minors. I'm basically with johnu, although I cash 4 spades first, then 2 more diamonds ending in hand for the 5th spade.

But it gives up on West having 1624 shape with one heart honour, which seems a likely holding.