david_c

That's a shame. I'd always been impressed by the old Scottish regulations - they seemed to take most of the good bits from the EBU OB, without following it down its more dubious paths. Certainly they were very well written, as system regs go. Whereas, the WBF regs are notoriously woolly (particularly the HUM definition, which sadly is probably also the most important section). Is Precision meant to be a Blue system? I can't find where the Precision 2♦ opening is allowed.

In standard methods, slight preference for A. As I see it, the point of A is specifically to guard against a heart raise from LHO, which happens very frequently on this auction. Distinguishing between 4- and 5-card spade suits helps opener know whether to compete over 3♥ (say). If you have neither 4 spades nor enough support to raise partner, there is not so much urgency since your hand is more defensive. Yes it would be nice to have a call to show this type of hand, but it feels right to give a higher priority to the hands where we can anticipate having to make a difficult competitive decision later. If we play a 1♦ opening that shows "real" length (say 1♦ = 4+ unbalanced or 5♦332) then A becomes even better since we can happily raise on 3 cards, which takes care of most of the problem hands. Whereas, after a short/multi-way 1♣ it's much less attractive: you've lost most of your raises, which makes any minor-suit oriented hand harder to bid, and many of these are important to compete with. So there I'd go for C, or come up with some structure specifically designed for this auction.

That seems a very different situation to me. If someone is cashing winners (or cards that they believe to be winners), then I'll usually be prepared to believe they would cash them from the top. But if they are conceding a trick - particularly if they are conceding a trick to the last card outstanding in that suit - then it seems perfectly natural to me to do that by playing a low one.

Perhaps it doesn't matter, but I would call this a misbid and not MI. Certainly the pair had a clear agreement to play "unusual", and IMO unusual is minors irrespective of what West thinks. I don't think this is the same as the situation where a pair has no firm agreement at all - here they do have a firm, well-documented agreement but one player doesn't understand it. I'd treat this the same as a forget.

I'm inclined to believe E/W. I'd call it a deviation (it's not a misbid because it was deliberate); no adjustment.

I'm slightly surprised to see this attributed to me, because I don't agree with it :P It's true that a separation between the hand types can help in some auctions, but I view this as a "second-order" kind of effect. And having no gap can be helpful sometimes too as it gives opener some flexibility. For a multi-way opening (one with some weak options and some strong options) what you really need is: - The weak option should be descriptive (homogeneous). - The strong option should be strong enough that it is safe for opener to bid again to distinguish it from the weak option. (See 10. breaking homogeneity.) Changing the NT range makes no difference to either of these things. It's a fine system and I'd play it myself in 1st seat non-vul, except that I prefer to play a single system throughout. The place where I think a gap does help is with responder's negative free bids, things like 1♣ : (2♦) : 2♠. In Polish club this is to play opposite a weak NT* but shows enough for game if opener has the strong type. This is one of the highlights of the Polish Club system, because it works very well when it comes up and it's very frequent. You can do the same thing in Millennium Club (the weak NT system) and it still works very well when it comes up - but it will come up much less frequently, because many of these hands are now game forces or invites. Indeed if you play NFBs you're now getting in the way of the game forcing types (which are much more common than in Polish Club); you can switch to transfers but that doesn't come for free either. [*Unless opener has a super-accept type of hand.]

Yes, I was trying to say that there are two examples in the book, and the other one is a rule of 25 hand.

Yes, Rigal gives this example of a strong 1♣: ♠ 86 ♥ K5 ♦ A4 ♣ AQJ8532 (Another example is a rule-of-25 15-count.) I don't think Rigal's style is particularly aggressive for a strong club system. Generally single-suiters are good hands for upgrading to a strong club, which is unfortunate because they tend to be undervalued by "rule of X" (particularly 7222s like the one above). Personally I think the EBU has done pretty well in this area - after all, it wasn't so long ago that the rule was 16+ HCP with no exceptions. But certainly there are plenty of hands disallowed that look like reasonable 1♣ openers for a traditional Precision style.

Isn't this just 5♦+1 to both sides (or 5♦= for N/S)? "Treating both sides as non-offending" means they each get the benefit of the doubt. But surely here there is no doubt that, without the director's mistake, N/S would have passed 5♦ out. No other contract is conceivable once East has chosen to correct to 5♦. In order to reach anything other than 5♦ we'd have to show that the director's error made a difference to East's choice of 5♦. I don't see any reason why this would be the case, and even trying very hard to give E/W the benefit of the doubt there doesn't seem to be any alternative call that leads to 6♦. I can understand the director wanting to give E/W something, but where is there anything to give?

Some of these posts surprise me: I think BUSA is blameless. Maybe bridge should be considered a sport, or maybe it shouldn't - either decision seems reasonable. But once it has been decided that bridge is not a sport for BUSA's purposes, then they can no longer claim to officially represent bridge. A BUSA staff memeber no longer has the authority to send off applications relating to bridge. They can pretend they have the authority, but that would be a lie, and very unprofessional, and it seems rather unfair to put pressure on them to do this. Surely EUSA are the villains here. They must know perfectly well that not all sporting organisations include bridge as a sport, and yet they only accept entries through those organisations? That's mind-boggling. It comes across as EUSA being less interested in staging a bridge event, and more interested in using bridge players as pawns in the game of getting national organisations to recognise bridge as a sport.

I'd change Law 27. In the previous incarnation of IBLF, bluejak posted an idea for this which I thought was excellent: - If an insufficient bid is not accepted, it can be corrected to the lowest sufficient bid in the same denomination, regardless of what those bids might mean. - Any other correction silences partner in the usual way, again regardless of what it might mean. - Information from the replaced insufficient bid is UI to partner.

I'm not a fan. I think Zar points give the illusion of accuracy without actually being accurate. As Tysen says in the link Richard gave, "Zar's method of distribution counting just doesn't reflect real trick-taking ability accurately." It's all very well wanting to take distributional values into account. But if you're going to give a complicated formula, you'd better make sure that this complexity is actually being used to good effect. Given how complicated Zar's method is, it really ought to come fairly close to how experts actually evaluate their hands. But it doesn't. For example - what do you think the difference is between a 4333 and a 4432 shape? Experts seem to rate 4333 as a minor downgrade for the purposes of opening the bidding; personally I'd put a value of about -0.3 HCP on 4333s. Zar points evaluate 4333 as being 2 ZP worse, which corresponds to about 1.5 HCP; that's the same as the value of a queen in this method. No, if you're going to make a system which takes shortage into account, it really ought to give it its proper value, not massively over-value it. Similarly, I don't think it makes sense to try and express distribution very accurately, while ignoring other important factors (such as tens) altogether. Basically you have a choice: either you can use your judgement to evaluate hands, or you can delegate to some complex point-count method. It makes no sense to have a complex point-count method which is so flawed that you have to use your judgement to correct for its flaws. To be fair there are many good ideas in the Zar method. 6-4-2-1 is in many ways a better high-card evaluation method than 4-3-2-1. But this is nothing new, and it seems other people have implemented things like this much better than Zar.

The phrase you quoted was the explanation for the noun "subsitute". I change my vote though to "both exist" and "jdonn is right in this specific use in law 27B4". However, in the context that REALLY matters, i.e. football (the one with a ball not the one with a banana), there is clearly a "substitute" = new player, and a "substituted player" = the one who had to come off the field. Agree with this: Josh's version looks right to me in this context, but I think in general it could be either.

Hmm. I do think that, if you have not discussed it, you have a right to expect that partner will bid 2♦ on this sort of hand. I do actually think 2♣ is the better bid (in fact I prefer to play 2♣ as artificial - clubs or any balanced hand) but I would say this is by agreement only. [Edited for clarity]

Actually that's not true. Certainly the EBU has a procedure for recording psyches, but the TD is not obliged to record every one. The EBU's Orange Book (section 6C1) says: Psychic bids do not have to be reported but a player may request the TD to record them if he wishes. To do so is not to accuse the opponents of malpractice. The TD may record any hand if he thinks fit.