TimG

It would be my opinion that withdrawing and replacing a played card draws attention to the irregularity. I suspect that the reason dummy is not permitted to draw attention to an irregularity is in part because he might be waking declarer up and in part because he might be wrong. For instance, dummy might recognize that a defender has not followed suit when he could because dummy has a count on the hand. If dummy says "I believe there has been an irregularity, east must surely have a diamond left to play" he may wake declarer up to the fact that west had earlier not followed suit. Or, he may just be wrong and the attempt to correct the mistaken dummy could lead to giving declarer information.

Well, ♥A and a ruff are pretty likely against 6♠.

Nope, I'm just saying what I think West's hand should look like. I agree that if this is the construction East comes up with, he'd want to pull to 4♠. You are right, my choice of "prove" did make it sound like I was using it as an example of a hand where East would want to pass 3NT. Poor choice on my part.

I know one hand does not prove anything (and this hand may be a bad example anyway), but absent specific agreement about 3N, I would expect a source of tricks, something like: AKJxxx JTxx Ax A In which case west might think 9 tricks in NT could be easier than 10 in spades. It is sort of hard to construct such a hand with East holding ♥KQx, but this is the sort of hand I'd expect for 3N.

I agree with others: East is in possession of UI based upon the failure to alert; 4♠ is suggested over Pass; and that the real question is whether pass is a LA. Without special agreements about an uncontested 1♠-3♣-3N that might change my mind, I would be of the opinion that Pass is a LA.

"We have no partnership agreement" is not equivalent to "I'm going to make a hedge bid". "We have no partnership agreement" does mean that there will be reliance upon general bridge knowledge, but that doesn't always lead to a hedge. But regardless of that, of course an answer to a question when there is no firm partnership understanding can lead to UI. Just like the failure to alert already may have.

What did the speaker mean?

"Natural" is an agreement. It might be useful to have a partnership agreement that in the absence of specific agreements, all calls are natural. But, that doesn't seem to be the case here (and is not what I would assume at the table). "Just a bid" says to me that there is no specific agreement or default agreement. "Just a bid" says "I'm going to use general bridge knowledge to try to figure out what is going on".

Are you saying that "I don't know what we play" is never a legitimate answer? What you have said in your post is essentially "general bridge knowledge includes uncertainty about whether 2♦ is natural or a transfer". We can figure that out, the opponents can figure that out, everyone can figure that out...except apparently those that are at the wheel who ought to be penalized? You are not alone in thinking that any "convention disruption" ought to be penalized, but I do think you're in a small minority.

I think there must be a difference in bridge environments between ACBL and where Frances is playing. I don't think there are many players in the US that would even think about getting cute on a hand like this. Psyches, even "baby psyches" are rare beasts over here. I also disagree with the "99% of decent players know how to deal with it" estimate. Since we rarely, if ever, see such things, we are generally unprepared for them. But, maybe I'm off in my estimation of what a "decent" player is.

Would (should) West bid differently with ♠AKJx ♥x ♦K9xx ♣A9xx?

Didn't declarer at the other table also score his last two tricks with the 9 and then J of clubs? The play to that point was a little different, but I think the ending was essentially the same.

IMO...East's "just a bid" means "no partnership agreement" or "I don't know if there is a partnership agreement" which are basically the same as far as what actions east is permitted to take. If he's not sure whether it is natural or a transfer, for instance, he should be allowed to make a call that caters to the two possibilities. All the while, he should disclose to the opponents that he is not aware of any special partnership understandings. (This assumes that there is no UI for west as a result of the failure to alert or surprised look on his face if the explanation was given during the auction.) To me, it is general bridge knowledge that 2♦ could be a transfer. West is the player that likely has UI from the failure to alert. West must take special care to assume his partner alerted (and explained properly if asked) and knows what the, perhaps assumed, partnership agreement is. In this case, they must assume that 3♦ shows whatever it shows after a transfer to hearts (presumably some super accept) and bid accordingly. Anyway, assuming no reaction from west that gave UI to east prior to his 3♦ call, I think the normal ruling would be result stands.

I believe that the ACBL rule making alerts and announcements compulsory is relatively new (last decade or so).

Yes, I believe that is the case. As an aside: Calcuttas are likely illegal in many states.

Great solution. Start a club that runs rated tournaments, keep ratings, and publish them. Then players who consider ratings important can enter your tournaments and get what they want. You can deal with the cheating issues (if there are issues). And, BBO doesn't have to be involved except in providing the mechanism for you to host tournaments.

BBO's "masterpoint system" differs from what most people propose for a rating system in a couple of big ways: 1) You can never lose BBO points, one can play with or against players of any rating and never have to be concerned that it will adversely affect one's rating; and 2) Only certain games are eligible for BBO points, so if one signs on and plays a few hands to unwind, they don't have to be concerned that they are not giving it their best effort.

Irina Levitina must rank pretty high in the bridge/chess duality.

When there is a rating system, there will be some number of people who either try to manipulate the system or will outright cheat in order to inflate their ratings. When it is perceived that a rating system can be manipulated (maybe the system does not take into account weak or strong opponents or weak or strong partner as well as it should), people will start to use those criteria when selecting a game. That means some people will be rejected as partners and opponents based not only upon the actual ratings, but on how it is perceived the results will unfairly affect ratings. "Normally I'd play with you even though you are a weaker player, but I must consider my rating, so I can't play with you." That sort of thing. Most consider outright cheating a bad thing. There probably wouldn't be a whole lot of actual cheating, but there would be a lot of suspected cheating. As it is, you can brush off a certain amount of suspicious play because there is little or no incentive to cheat and if you are cheated, it doesn't really matter (unless your enjoyment of the game is affected). When there are ratings, people now think that the cheating does matter and become more suspicious of unusual play (or just plain good play). Rumors will abound. BBO support will be bombarded with complaints. Etc.

You're not betting $ on the outcome of an ACBL event, are you? :-) Edited to add a smiley; I was just teasing.

A rating system encourages other activities as well.

So, in a four-way with A, B, C, & D, A plays B and C plays D, then the losers playoff. So, any combination of teams can advance, but some pairs can't both advance and have played each other. A & C can't both advance, for instance, if they have played each other. That would seem to make it easier to set the initial matches in such a way that avoids playbacks. Tim

Wasn't Billy Eisenberg once a backgammon and bridge world champion? Kit Woolsey can probably make a valid cherdano-like claim that that there is no one in the world better than he is at both bridge and backgammon (or coudl have at some point in the last 25 years). Was bridge Oswald Jacoby's best game?

Me too. There are a lot of modified version of the game, some with very minor modifications and some with entirely different maps.

A bit of a hijack, but where do US residents play online poker these days? I used to play a bit of low stakes, but stopped for a while and then when I went back to try it again, I found the environment had changed considerably (and my funds no longer available)!