c_corgi

I agree with Bluejack here: it seems a lot simpler and more reasonable to accept that the opponents choice of which 4-card major to respond on may not - for whatever reason - be the same as yours and that you should enquire if you want to know. There is nothing stopping an active statement (at least with screens), but in the absence of one we may have to judge whether it was misinformation or the players own misunderstanding and the latter seems preferable.

The former seems unlikely at this vulnerability and the latter unlikely given that partner can probably have a variety of GF with primary clubs. I think the misunderstanding is exposed.

Hi Nick. I think you are saying that you were the South player at the table. That sounds plausible. Is 1NT - 2red - 3D an alternative way of bidding the same hand? It was suggested upthread that having moved over 3NT you had no way of playing in 4NT. Is this correct and, if so, how much of a concern was it?

East has attempted to play partscore with an almost certain game on. This seems like a fundamental misjudgement, the presence of which suggests that subtleties relating to the form of scoring cannot be assumed to be acted upon.

It seems clear from the OP that East thought 3S was non-forcing and East feels that it was only "probably" an underbid. Even if he has subsequently decided that it was definitely an underbid, the UI constraint surely precludes him from waking up to this.

When you bid 3S you gave up on 4S. You certainly can't change your mind having recieved UI. You were right to feel constrained.

Mine was a shoddy post based on muddled thinking and expressing myself poorly, so I'll try again. My hope (which I think is in line with campboy) is that when rectifying against damage we don't have to also rectify against iviehoff's slings and arrows of fate. Using campboy's approach with a more sophisticated formula for weighting the adjusted score could eliminate the 51% sensitivity by arranging for the NOS expectation to always return to what it was before the infraction should it fall below that level as a result of the infraction. The formula would be something like: P(S) - P(Smi) = the amount of 3NT-1 given to NOS when a spade lead was not found and the MI made a spade less likely. [1-P(Smi)] where P(S) is the probability of a spade lead without MI P(Smi) is the probability of a spade lead with MI

I hope campboy is right, because otherwise the score will be significantly different if the chance of a spade lead without MI was 50% or 51%: if it is 50% the table score stands, if it is 51% the NOS gets his losing guess back.

I don't see why not: it is equivalent to saying: "If pass was an LA for this player, then I am not his peer and should not have been polled".

This forum has 8 emphatic bidders, 1 bidder who considered pass and 1 passer who considered it close. I don't think this tells us that pass is an LA, although it doesn't mean it isn't either. This is a situation which requires extremely careful selection of peers. Many of the pollees in this thread - and the winners of the A final to whom you referred - are expert players, but we don't know who the pair at the table was. We do know that they are playing a somewhat unusual system, which may have negative inferences that we are not aware of and that the South hand has made a 3NT call which I suspect few of these expert pollees would have chosen. For many players it may even be that the hesitation does not demonstrably suggest bidding on, being consistent with 3 decent spades, no heart stop, good clubs and no particular suitability for a diamond contract. The news that North chose an action which does not permit getting out in 4NT (I think all the pollees assumed playing 4NT was an option over their try) is the strongest evidence I have seen that passing was an LA, but I think we need all the facts before jumping to conclusions.

Regarding the thread title, my impression is that the situation is not deteriorating: just not improving fast enough.

A card played from declarers hand or a defenders is a less desirable unwind than one from dummy, because sight of a card from a hidden hand might affect the subsequent "bridge result". A card intended as a lead to the next trick on the assumption that the "correct" cards had been played to the previous is a more desirable unwind than where a card has been deliberately selected in following to the actual lead to the next trick, again because the latter would provide extraneous information. Both of the above suggest it is less of an unwinding job in the OP case. Aside from considerations relating to the desirability of unwinding, the laws are unclear whether the point of no return has been reached. That being the case we have one interpretation available which leads to a sensible result and one that does not.

L45D allows the card declarer called from dummy to be played, thereby creating a sensible bridge result rather than following a potentially nonsensical line. It imposes an arbitrary limit of both sides playing to the next trick as the point where it may become impractical/undesirable to unwind the play. If it is unclear from the laws whether both sides have played to the next trick, but the card which may have met this criterion did not advance play in any meaningful way (as here) it seems obvious to err on the side of unwinding the play so that the correct card is played.

I think it is best not to pursue that line of reasoning. We may find that calling the director could be regarded as "wild or gambling". :P

Pass. Automatic.

South's actions look normal, but North probably had LAs when he bid 3D: he has quite a good hand for a non-inverted raise when partner shows clubs.

The diamond discard suggests 3-3 or 1-5. In the 1-5 case we may need to use both entries to finesse against East's J10. I try a heart honour, hoping to get a read on the position or induce a misdefence

See edit, but not sure if that was what you were referring to. The facts you reiterated are the ones I was discussing. They mean that Bluejack's pollees are not peers of West.

All your poll suggests is that people for whom pulling the redouble was an the only LA would not be in a position to do so, having already bid over 5S. The only plausible reason I can think of for not bidding directly over 5S would be to avoid pushing N/S into slam, but West did not mention this. West's statement sounds unconvincing: E/W actions on the board do not look as though they were low variance efforts designed to protect a lead, so why should that consideration suddenly be so paramount as to rule out LAs now that there is UI?

A tournament with a particularly cosmopolitan atmosphere such as this seems like a good thing. The way forward is surely to have more tolerance and patience with people struggling with a foreign language rather than penalise it.

I seem to recall a thread from a few months ago which discussed this type of hand. I can't find the thread, but my recollection is that to determine if there was an agreement to open such hands, the director asked the player's partner. The bar seemed to be set quite high in terms of achieving a "no agreement to open this hand" verdict. IIRC expressing sympathy with partner's decision was deemed to be evidence of an agreement. Apologies if I have misrepresented anyone here. EDIT: the thread related to EBU regulations

Yes, but if so it probably needs to be trick 2, hence lead the KD to retain the lead.

1. 2D at any vul 2a. QH 2b. KD

It depends what the situation was after the first revoke. In the OP case after the first revoke declarer was entitled to his 12 legitimate tricks plus the revoke penalty. Restoration of equity regarding the second revoke protects this. It is not to be confused with situations where the effect of the second revoke was irrelevent, for example: Declarer has no further entries to dummy and is cashing dummy's AKQxxxx. A defender holding Jxx revokes on the 3rd round, enabling him to win the 4th and incurring a two trick penalty. Equity would be restored by awarding declarer the 4 extra tricks for his small diamonds instead of the revoke penalty. If the defender revoked on the 4th round as well and won the 5th, equity would still be restored to ensure that the second revoke did not damage the NOS, but since they were at no point entitled to more than the seven natural tricks the second revoke does not incur a penalty.

Over 3H there is no room to investigate. I prefer 3C to 2S, which will leave you better placed. Partner could also have anticipated the problem and bid 3C rather than 3H, intending to respect a direct 3NT but insist on playing in a suit otherwise.