LH2650

In SAYC the official agreement is: "preemptive, good trump support but fewer than 10 points"

East should pass 4 ♥, and West should then bid 4 Notrump. I don't see how these actions are affected by the failure to Alert. No adjustment.

Hopefully there is a third option. You pull out your Alert Chart, and look it up. If you are running an ACBL tournament, you then say "Not Alertable." Your Appeals Committee case realizes my worst fears about 12C3 rulings. The committee now tries to placate everybody, avoiding tough decisions. Has there been any increase in marginal appeals, now that you have a good chance of getting at least a small piece of the pie?

And I was told that this was perfectly legal. Do other people think so? See Law 40E1. The ACBL has elected to require both members of a pair to play the same system.

No, you are allowed to change a call until partner has called. No standard bidder rebids 2 clubs with 17 HCP, a void, and support for partner's suit. These people were playing a forcing club.

The 3 diamond bid had been made before the director was called. The double could not be retracted.

The director must conclude that you and/or your partner would have done something different, given the correct information. If there is no rational basis for your bid given the information available to you at the time, why should he reach that conclusion? BTW, I think 2 hearts is going down, and your partner's equally strange bid is the cause of your disaster. Luis's ruling is not possible. You can apply a procedural penalty for a failure to alert, but you can't change the score unless there was damage.

If you had called the director in a timely manner, the contract would have been returned to 2 hearts, undoubled. Now, the director must estimate the outcome of the play of 2 hearts, giving the defense the correct information, and without declarer having any benefit of conclusions he may reach as a result of your (rather incredible) double. Different results may be chosen for the two sides, per Law 12A2.

Fascinating. You attack the concept of Active Ethics as created by the ACBL, and then refuse to accept their definition of it. I have reviewed your link to Lille, and think that you have misrepresented Mr. Wolfe's position. Three times, he makes his central point in various forms (I'll help) - that there was a failure to alert. Mr. Stevenson does not respond to this. THAT would have been an interesting discussion.

Active Ethics has four components: Principle of Full Disclosure - Law 40B Social Behavior - Law 74 Slow Play - Law 90 Statement on Conventions - generally leads to misinformation, Laws 21 and 47.

Those who rage against banning psyches should also rage against goulashes, because they are not "bridge", being in violation of Law 6. You don't have to play in them, and their presence doesn't eliminate a "standard" tournament. By the way, assuming the psyche were allowed, EW were lucky not to be defending 4-of-a-major, undoubled, down 1.

According to the problem assumptions, West holds 5 hearts and the spade King, so he has 7 unknown cards, and East has 10. However, the basic conclusion that Kxx is more likely than Kx appears to be correct. I make the probabilities to be .397 and .353.

Since West is assumed to be long in hearts, East is assumed to be long in spades. On the bidding, West is assumed to have the spade King, so the most likely holding is Kx opposite Jxx. The point of the problem is that if you play Ace and a spade toward the Queen, West can win the King and play another heart for a high ruff. If you come to your hand in a side suit and lead a small spade, you are in a position to overruff with the Ace when West rises with the King and leads the 4th heart. The Queen then clears the suit.

Assume all calls are non-frivolous. The last thing a director should do is to even hint that he should not be called, since many more problems arise from a delayed call than excessive calls. There is simply no need for sanctions here.

After 1 heart, how does this system allow play in a 4-4 spade fit, unless opener has reverse strength?

2 spades - what I would have bid over partner's 1 spade in an uncontested auction. My negative doubles are much too aggressive to consider pass or 2 notrump.

The July 2004 Bridge World editorial contends that, if the partnership agreement is that the first cuebid shows an Ace (which is, I believe, the agreement of most ACBL club players), then your West knows from his hand that something has gone wrong, and is entitled to act on that. There may be no irregularity here at all.

I just got a flash of inspiration! Jilly actually made a 12C3 ruling! She determined that equity was Average and Average Minus, and varied the assigned adjusted score to achieve this.

123C: Unless Zonal Organizations specify otherwise, an appeals committee may vary an assigned adjusted score in order to do equity. There is no option to give this authority to the Director. However, in the current effort to revise the Laws, there has been discussion of giving this authority to the Chief Director.

Yes, everywhere! This is a 12C3 ruling, which can made only by an Appeals Committee, and not ever in the ACBL, since they have exercised the option not to use this Law.

Actually, I agree. My comment was intended to be in contrast with the actual assignment of Average / Average Minus. However, if the on-line director feels unable to assign actual results due to experience or time constraints, I would accept Average Plus / Average Minus as a practical solution.

You either have to assign Average Plus / Average Minus or estimate probable results on the board (per 12C2), given the proper information. It seems to me that the overcall was an overbid, and that it leads to at least -200 for NS. Last time I mentioned that procedural penalties were possible after repeated failures to Alert, I got ripped, so I won't do that here!

3 hearts. I’m on an excellent maximum, partner presumably has an invitational hand with a 4 card major, and I’m accepting. The vulnerability does not allow me to play 2 spades doubled. If I pass, partner bids 3 clubs, and I bid 3 hearts, is that forcing? I don’t intend to find out.

Food for thought - Why didn't North Blackwood directly over 2 clubs? What did North learn from 3 hearts, which might be an attempt to get to 3N - secondary cards and not even a real suit? Presumably North had a plan. What would he have done over 3N? For this problem, a direct 2N would have been Jacoby

As responder, you hold the given hand in an uncontested 2/1 GF auction: [hv=d=n&v=n&s=sqxhaqxxdxxxckjxx]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv] 1S – 2C 3C – 3H 4N - ? If you decide to make a Blackwood response, use standard RKC: 0/3, 1/4, 2 w/o Q, 2 w Q.