sanst

I would say that Blackshoe understands it perfectly. Yes, there are quite a few poor directors, although most of them do the job to the best of their knowledge and abilities. And I completely agree with him that the club management should not interfere with his or her decisions. If there are complaints, that management should seek the advice of an experienced director or the RA and, if necessary, relieve that director of his duties. I had once a decision turned back by the president of the club, who wasn’t a director at all and didn’t ask me about it, so a quited directing there immediately. In the end my decision was upheld by the AC. Actually, I’m in favour of a change of the law always allowing a change call in case of a IB or COOT without restricting the partner, but the TD should always afterwards decide whether the OS gained an advantage by the infraction and award an AS if necessary and give a PP when there was use of the UI from the call. Rulings will always be variable. If you don’t want that, you should always cancel a board if there’s an infraction and decide A+/A-. That’s the way the law deals with minor traffic infractions over here: so much over the speed limit > that’s €xxx. Please, pay here. Only in highly exceptional circumstances you can go to court and make a successful appeal. I don’t think that’s the way we want to play bridge.

Then there is Law 23C.

In the draft of the commentary there are examples. And some more here. BTW, it’s remarkable that the ACBL website doesn’t use the more secure https protocol, but still operates on http.

I would think it’s dependent on what 2NT would mean without the IB. Over here it usually is a 1NT, 15...17pt. This hand is stronger,I would probably allow a double, but it depends on the EW agreements.

It’s 54C. I have it on good authority that this confusing, if not faulty, wording will be brought to the attention of the WBFLC by someone with some clout with that august institution.

N is declarer in a spade contract. While E is still considering his lead, W puts ♣J open on the table. South, the dummy starts putting his cards on the table and the declarer can't stop him before everyone has seen ♣A. The TD comes and applies Law 54C: declarer has to accept the lead and S puts the rest of the dummy on the table. Is this the right decission or is this a Law 56 case, the point being that Law 54 starts with "When an opening lead out of turn is faced and offender’s partner leads face down", but the offender's partner hadn't led face down or otherwise. If Law 54 doesn't apply, this is treated in Law 56

Therefore I never assume what the answer means and always ask. There are to many variations in use. The same with Stayman.

At first sight I would say “No infraction“. But I don’t like West’s reasoning. The most important rule in a partnership should be “Trust your partner” and I would expect my partner to call accordingly. It’s may be not frequent, but a six card opposite a five card of a suit is not that rare and I don’t think that’s a valid reason for a pass. And assuming that your partner has forgotten the system? Are you sure that there was no non-verbal signs that make you think so? Or is this partner prone to such memory lapses? And I’m also quite curious: what did you think that partner had? And why didn’t you show your six card diamonds in a hand without any defensive values?

So you think that each player of a pair should ask the same questions. That’s pretty nonsensical. And SB should call the director anyway, because ChCh put the questions in RR’s head. Although the Laws don’t say so explicitly, it seems logical that the questions and answers are AI to both opponents. I would say, so logical that the lawmakers never thought that anyone could think otherwise

The RA can allow players to use memory aids (Law 40B2d). The Dutch union allows players to make a note on declarer, contract and lead and use this during the play. This information should be kept from other players. Hardly anyone seems to know this, but it can be quite useful for players with memory problems.

But the Bridgemate doesn’t show that, just the scores on the board played. You need the app to see the actual rankings, if this service is provided by the organiser. In our club we have decided not to activate this, because there are quite a few - mainly elderly - players who don’t have a smartphone or don’t know how to use it, and also we’re afraid that the others would look almost permanently at the screen like some youngsters.

As the most famous Dutch football player of all time said: “Every disadvantage has an advantage”. That goes for Bridgemates as well. These are a great help for scoring, given a quick and correct result. Who remembers the days of paper travellers, with al the work involved? Using the Neuberg formula when necessary. It took at least half an hour to give a preliminary result and then you had to check and recalculate everything again later and could publish a definite result only days later. But Bridgemates offer many opportunities for showing results and once the club members discover this, they want the full monty: percentages and all scores on a board. When checking the input many Easts just push the button and blare out the percentage, even when the board hasn’t been played before. This worse the players, the more interested they are, I’m afraid. An attempt at our club not to show the percentage, since this is only relevant in the last round, met massive opposition and had to be abandoned. To try not to show the scores and percentages, no matter how sensible that is, would probably lead to a revolt like that of the yellow vests in France

Declarer didn’t state a line of play. In my book that’s an easy one. We assume the worst line of play that isn’t abnormal and isn’t dependent on a finesse. To play low spades from both hands is not normal, but any other isn’t. You have to take in account the quality of the player involved. A reasonable good one will play the ace first and a small one to KJ. If the Q doesn’t drop before he plays from the dummy, a trick is lost to the queen. FWIIW, I’m a fully qualified TD. ;)

That’s easy to do in the settings. But I suppose you don’t like travellers either. Have you found a better way to keep track of the scoring of a board?

You’re right. But who would have an agreement that in a balancing situation you will have 8-ish points when bidding? Besides, on this forum we assume quite often since you can’t ask all the players involved the relevant questions. In this case you have to ask both E and W separately what their agreements are, consult their SC and ask W again whether this is really their agreement. I can’t do that so I have to assume or keep quit. I choose the first option.

Do NS know how many points there are in a board? S certainly can work out that E must have next to nothing or nothing at all. This isn’t a psych, this is E knowing that EW have a fit in hearts and letting partner know that. The only infraction is W explaing the HCP’s wrong. It looks like these aren’t experienced players. As a director I would explain that you have to give information about agreements and not guess about partner’s hand and give that as information. S should be told, if necessary, that you should trust your partner. BTW, this is not a yarborough, since the hand has honours, the tens.

Maybe not, but it’s irrelevant since the term is not in Law 11.

What do you mean, “not necessarily “? That’s not part of the text of Law 11 and it’s an impossible condition. Everbody can know the text of the Laws, since these are in the public domain, but most players have hardly any knowledge thereof. If it is imperative for the application of Law 11 that the player is of necessity in ignorance of the relevant conditions, then you are in the domain of the impossible and that law would be a dead letter.

I would stay clear of the “could have been aware” clause. That’s SB’s specialty but is hardly ever used. Here Law 11A is of more importance: “The right to rectification of an irregularity may be forfeited if either member of the non‐offending side takes any action before summoning the Director. If a side has gained through subsequent action taken by an opponent in ignorance of the relevant provisions of the law, the Director adjusts only that side’s score by taking away any accrued advantage. The other side retains the score achieved at the table.“ The result is a split score.

Law 12B2 explicitly forbids the TD to adjust the score “on the grounds that the rectification provided in these Laws is either unduly severe or advantageous to either side”. Only if there’s some pretty good evidence that the infraction was deliberately made to gain an advantage, you can adjust.

Ahydra gives the arguments which explain that EW are innocent of any misdemeanor. SB is using the director to get the result changed to his advantage. Het should congratulate the opponents for the perfect defense instead. For this breach of Law 74 he deserves a PP.

And as an implicit agreement it’s not allowed according to the Blue Book 9A3(b): “An overcall of a natural opening bid of one of a suit that does not show at least four cards in a known suit”.

I was more thinking along the lines of Bird & Anthias. ;)

Is the fact that SB had to ask this question AI to ChCh? I rather doubt it. But I also don’t see in the Laws a legal ground for the question. Law 20 states “He is entitled to know about calls actually made, about relevant alternative calls available that were not made[snip]”. But this is a question about a possible call that might or might not be made in the future. OTOH, Law 40 says that you should make your partnership understandings available to your opponents. The Regulating Authority specifies the manner in which this is done. The EBU has done that in the Blue Book “Pairs are required to have two fully completed system cards“. I would decide that due to the fact that EW didn’t have two fully completed system cards N was forced to ask a question which might be illegal, but he didn’t have a choice. EW, who are responsible, shouldn’t take advantage from this. I find this a difficult situation, since you might also argue that he, had the SC been complete, had bid 3NT anyway. With the hand of W I would have led the ♣9; the spade lead is not good because there is only a very remote chance that you would set up a trick. But the peers of ChCh might think otherwise.

Not revoking in thirty years doesn’t prove anything. Prisons are overflowing with criminals who never killed, maimed or otherwise broke the law in over thirty years, but did it nevertheless.