TimG

I'm a bit surprised your partner passed 4♥. I don't think it is hard to envision a slam on this auction.

I don't think you've made that case -- I think you've said it is so -- but I don't think you've made a case that the defending side will often need a way to show the transferred to suit. It would be interesting (to me, anyway) to see how often a no-suit-quality-requirement four-card opening picks off the opponents' only game strain (or only partscore strain). You'd also have to factor in how often the opening reveals the correct line of play to declarer (whether playing the suit opener showed four-cards in or in another strain) which is rather difficult to do with a double-dummy analysis. If your case has been made elsewhere, I apologize, but in this thread it seems your case amounts to:

One thing the defending side loses is the ability to pass with the suit shown by opener and know that they will either get another turn or have opener play in their suit. If RHO opens 1♥ canape (promising only 4) and I hold a decent hand with hearts, I can pass with the knowledge that either I will get a second chance to act or they opponents will be playing in my suit. If RHO opens 1♦ showing the same hand and I hold a decent hand with hearts, I can't pass with the same safety. Even though I have an extra option to show my hand, something has been taken away from me. I don't think your conclusion that 1♦ must be easier to defend because of the extra option available is necessarily correct.

I believe that the "transfer" 1♦ is inherently harder to defend. The reason is this: when opponents open in a suit showing only four cards there (especially with canape style etc) there is a strong possibility that my side's best contract is in the suit they showed. It is important for us to have methods which allow us to reach this contract when it comes up. If opponents open 1♥ showing 4+ hearts (canape, etc) and my best suit is hearts, I can pass. Either the opponents will end up playing 1♥, which is usually a decent score for me (okay, occasionally if they are NV and I can make game in hearts I get a lousy score, but otherwise it's usually decent) or they will continue bidding, which means I get another chance to introduce my hearts naturally later. Thus I do not need any direct bid which "shows hearts" and can use the same types of methods I might use against 1♥ showing 5+ hearts without a big problem. However, if opponents open 1♦ showing 4+ hearts (canape, etc) and my best suit is hearts, I have a problem. If I pass, the opponents might end up playing 1♦. They might even have a good fit there, and now I have sold to 1♦ when I can make a heart contract. So there is some need for me to act directly when I have hearts, which takes away some of the sequences I might otherwise use to my advantage (i.e. "cuebids" in competition might have to be natural etc). There is a bit of a difference here. Again, if the bid shows constructive values I'm inclined to allow it... but I think that very weak "natural bids" are not so hard to defend, whereas very weak "non-forcing transfer bids" are a bit more difficult. Well, you can always overcall 1♥ when they open 1♦ and you have hearts. Everything else can be the same as if they had opened 1♥. You have more room to describe your hearts after the transfer opening than after the natural opening. True: there is less chance that you will end up defending 1♥. I realize a line must be drawn somewhere and it is not really my intention to argue the merits of transfer openings or the ease with which they may be defended. My point is more along the lines of even with the regulations you present, it would seen that there would be a need for multiple charts -- surely things like multi and transfer openings that could be based upon a 4-card suit should be allowed in some events -- and I wonder what the other charts would be and what criteria should be used to decide which is in effect.

If your opponents are using ferts (and a forcing pass), shouldn't you encourage them to open a fert? In first seat, I think it's right to pass with lots of good hands and invite the opponents into the auction. I think the reason forcing passes are often prohibited is because of the randomness associated with the results after a fert, not because of the effectiveness of the fert.

AWM's suggested rules allow a 1♥ canape opening (promising 4+ hearts) with 8-9 HCP, but not a 1♦ opening to show the same hand.

I think a standard 1♣, even a 1♣ that could be based upon a 2-card suit would qualify as a combination of: It shows a balanced hand of a certain strength or 4+ card in clubs.

I'm sorry I don't have citations for either of these, but... 1) I believe a book on baseball's fastball has recently been published. In it, there is some discussion based upon experts' opinions in various fields that the limit on a human pitched fastball is 107-109 MPH. I do not know whether this is speed at release point, over the plate or somewhere in between. 2) A few months ago, I heard a radio piece about the 100m dash. There was a similar discussion based upon experts' opinions in various fields that suggests there is at least another second to be taken off the current record before the human limit is reached.

I don't think this generally holds true in physical sport. In 1920 the world record for the 100m dash was 10.6 second, today it is under 9.6 seconds. In 1920 the world record for the 100m freestyle was just over a minute, today it is under 47 seconds. It's not just that the old records have been improved upon slightly, but rather significantly over time. A lot of this has to do with improvements in nutrition and equipment. I suspect Kobe would put up better numbers than the Big O if he was transported back in time (with his modern sneakers, conditioning, nutrition, etc.).

That just means that there is silence, not that it reveals anything significant.

At the Fall 2009 meetings of the C&C Committee, "Woolsey 2D over 1NT (and others)" was discussed. The Committee proposed "to modify the GCC to allow bids with no anchor suit to include double, 2C and 2D." This was sent to the BoD for approval. I do not know whether the BoD acted upon this at the recent Spring NABC. Nor do I know when the change would be published if the BoD did approve the proposal. A change made to the mid-chart and defense database at the Summer 2009 meetings of the C&C Committee still has not found its way into the online charts. Tim

The OP clearly stated this was a regular pair. The purpose of the player memo system is that you don't need to do your own private sleuthing to see if this happening repeatedly.* * Please don't think I'm advocating reporting everything to the friendly local authorities. I have filed a total of one player memo in my life -- for rampant abuse of the alert system by a pro, playing with another pro, in a KO where we crushed them so there was no appeal. I think regular pairs are often prone to these types of problems because they are the ones often tinkering with the subtleties. This is the sort of misunderstanding that arises when system is under development. I agree with you to a certain extent about the recorder system. In this case, I would simply leave it to players that face these guys on a regular basis and thus would have a better understanding of whether this is habitual.

Did responder actually say that? Did it make sense to you? Or did he say opener would have rebid his 4-card club suit rather than 2NT? Or...is there a "not" missing from the post? I found that part a bit confusing at first, too, but concluded that responder meant opener would have bid 3C instead of 2N with 1534. I would just assume this pair was not quite on the same page rather than they were making things up on the fly as xcurt suggests. If they do this on "numerous" hands, there is an issue, but I wouldn't bother getting involved unless I had real reason to believe this was happening repeatedly. If it was happening repeatedly, I agree with having a talk with a director or filing a player memo. But, I think a player memo is too much trouble if there isn't evidence to suggest repeated occurrences and there is an innocent explanation.

Was 2NT a midbid, or was the explanation incorrect?

I am not inclined to pay for online news. Perhaps relevant, I do read about sports and check scores online. I used to do this almost exclusively at ESPN. But, it seems to me that more and more of their content is now restricted to Insiders (subscribers). I find this annoying. Now I use CBS Sports almost exclusively for reading recaps and checking scores even though the same content is still free at ESPN. I just hated being teased by the Insider content at ESPN.

That would be a treat!

To those that think west has UI, note that the OP said east informed the table that he had overheard the result, not what that result was. It appears to me that he only said he heard "12 top tricks" when the director was finally called. If I could rule without referencing any Laws, I would assign -680 to N/S and +1430 to E/W and hit the loud mouth with a procedural penalty. I'd also thank East for his honesty, but tell him that he should have called the director when he became aware of the information (or became aware that the information that he heard applied to the board in play).

I suspect the masterpoints awarded to each team over a sample of tournaments would be a reasonable way to measure the results.

Yes, I believe you are right that the host District generally specifies the formats used in regionally rated events at NABCs. The chatter I heard was from the last Fall NABC, not the Spring NABC held recently in Reno. Still, I'm curious about the differences in expectation between the different formats.

Isn't this a good/bad 2N situation? Edit: sorry missed Adam's reference to this.

It seems possible to me that South was attempting to use some sort of general or default agreement against artificial methods and that North either didn't think it applied to this particular opening or didn't believe they had such a general or default agreement. Yes, South must have thought there was, at least hoped there was, an agreement when he bid 3C. It is an interesting question whether this thought or hope is enough of an agreement that it must be disclosed. Suppose that there had been screens in use, would south have alerted his screenmate to the meaning of 3C, or when asked would he have said "we have no agreement"? Which would he have been required to do?

I received an e-mail today that suggested some regionally rated Swiss Team events at NABCs now consist of eight six-board matches. Can someone provide numbers for the difference in reliability of a six-board result as opposed to a seven-board result? How does this affect the reliability of the overall event results? I suspect that for the event, this change would be similar to the difference between a 56-board and a 48-board KO match, but it must be different because of the VP factor. Thanks.

South is only obligated to correct an incorrect explanation of partnership agreement. He is not obligated to tell the opponents there has been a misunderstanding.

I bet you're using the "Hand diagrams" option instead of the "Pictures of cards" option. Select "options" then "more options" and you should see a "basic options" window with the pictures and diagrams options, select "pictures" and I think you'll see your old familiar layout.

My opinion regarding strength of field is that you should not pay much attention to it. If you're playing in a weak field, the purpose is probably to practice for "real" events rather than beat the field. You'll get better practice in if you do the right thing.