david_c

I don't think it is a clear ruling at all. A majority of people who have responded to the poll would not pass. So it seems to be a close decision as to whether pass is a LA. Note that if the player does not pass, it doesn't matter what they choose to do - they will always end up in 5♦. So even though you may think that 5♦ is unacceptable and 4NT or 5♣ would be OK, the director would not adjust the score for this reason since there is no damage. There is only damage if the director decides that pass is a LA.

Hey, this is really interesting, I think the author has the right play in the wrong situation:

Looks like a freak two-suiter to me. And the reason we didn't bid on the previous round is one of the suits is spades. So my guess is spades and a red suit, at least 6-5, probably 6-6.

Theoretically speaking, for the reason MickyB gave. Alternatively, given that the most widely-played systems in the world involve opening 1m on minimum balanced hands, if passing was better don't you think someone would have noticed by now? :)

I don't see what problem this is trying to solve. If I pick one of these hands, and ask whether you'll be better of passing rather than opening 1m, I think the answer is pretty clearly no. Certainly you won't be doing too badly, for all the reasons mentioned, but it's not going to win you IMPs on these hands. So you must be expecting some gain on the hands you do still open. Whatever this is, I can't see it. You do have the inference that a 1NT rebid shows a 4-card major, but this seems to be virutally useless to partner while being very useful for the opponents.

Not that it makes any difference to my call, but does anyone else think that 2♠ should be a fit bid here?

Agree with whereagles. 3♦ is a "real" invite, not just some mild constructive effort. And on a hand with no aces, 5♦ is such a long way away I can't believe you'd even consider it as a contract.

Pass. I can always compete later if need be. No way am I inviting game on this hand.

I like 5♠ personally. I wouldn't bid six, because no matter how many spades you have, with partner holding an opening hand there's going to be a fair chance that opps can't make slam. Though admittedly the full hand doesn't do much to support this point of view.

I don't think I've even reached beginner level when it comes to solving Frances's problems, but I'll hide my thoughts anyway:

I pass. Slam might be on (particularly if partner is short in diamonds) but it doesn't seem very likely and the 5-level is dangerous. You're worried that partner might turn up with an opening hand? There's not much you can do about that. If you play for that to have happened and it turns out you were wrong then you'll look very foolish. So for reasons of partnership harmony and your own sanity, play for partner to be bidding normally. Besides, even if partner does have a strong hand you might not be making twelve tricks.

Yep, it is perfectly ethical to play on if there is any reasonable chance that you might get extra tricks. Particularly when playing MP, one of the things that makes defence difficult is that you don't know whether you're trying to set the contract or just trying to prevent overtricks. It is perfectly fair for declarer to take advantage of this uncertainty.

That's a fair question. I believe the answer is: no, there is no way you can achieve this. System regulations can work to some extent. Imposing a standard system is a particular case of this. But a standard system can never be sufficiently detailed to tell you about every bid that might be made. You're still going to need to have rules telling you what happens after the standard system "ends". Besides, standard systems are terribly unpopular except with the people who were playing them already. It would never happen. Let's be realistic - bridge is a difficult game to write rules for. And certainly a lot of the time the rulemakers make a complete mess of it. But there is no magic solution; the rulemakers are trying to do the best they can for the game.

Agree that Ekren and Lucas are not natural according to the OB. But ... For alerting of doubles, it no longer matters whether the bid is defined as "natural" or not. The word "natural" appearing in the previous regulations has been replaced by "showing the suit bid". Ekren and Lucas certainly do show the suit bid, so an unalerted double is takeout. (Which is what you would hope, since people defend against Lucas in the same way as they defend against a natural weak two.)

Unfortunately there is a difference between being easy to remember and being easy to get right. The new alerting regs lead to some very counter-intuitive positions, where if you sat down to think about it you might realise it was right to alert, but it might not even occur to you at the table. Even after people have got used to the rest of the new regulations, I can't imagine everyone remembering to alert some of the "obvious" penalty doubles. Frances's example of an alertable takeout double is equally counter-intuitive. Arguably it doesn't matter whether people get these difficult situations right, but if they don't it makes the whole thing seem a little farcical.

I've thought about this a bit more this week ... "No doubles should be alerted" still seems a bit much. Alerting does serve a useful purpose, and some meanings of doubles are sufficiently unexpected that it would be helpful if opponents were informed about them. On the other hand, the EBU's approach seems misguided. It is not necessary to use alerting to distinguish penalty doubles from takeout doubles - at least, not after the first round or so of the auction. So, while it may be useful to have alerts for some doubles here, they're really using them for the wrong thing. And on top of that they get all these problems with trying to write regulations explaining what an unalerted double is supposed to mean. So basically - and this is very unusual - I think the ACBL have got it about right. I'd want to change it a bit for English tastes, but the ACBL's ideas about the sort of doubles which should be alertable seem to be reasonable.

I had a similar problem. There was one sound which still worked properly (I think it was the "friend logs in" sound), but all the others had been replaced by a default Windows beep. Completely reinstalling BBO solved the problem for me.

Oh dear, that's not good. I suppose you're right, though maybe since the completion of a transfer is not alertable any more the idea is to treat it as natural? I wonder why this isn't given as an example in the OB - maybe it wasn't even considered ...

Eek, I think you have the definition wrong - 5-card suits were allowed if they had two top honours, and 6-card suits were allowed without any such restriction. I believe a standard weak two has a frequency of a little over 1%.

Yes and no... The expressions "Natural" and "Conventional" are not mutually exclusive. The Frelling Twos are definely Conventional... Indeed. Also, whether they're natural or not depends on who you ask. Bids that promise another suit are not considered natural in my part of the world (EBU). And the WBF systems policy actually defines natural as the opposite of conventional.

Really I don't think it's possible to come up with a "good" set of alerting regulations for doubles. You can either have simple regulations which inevitably have some silly consequences for what you alert / don't alert, or complicated regulations which people wouldn't fully understand (which is worse I think, since the whole idea of alerting falls apart if people don't know what an alert is supposed to tell them). Actually I'm not convinced that the new regulations for alerting of doubles are any better than the old ones - they both have their flaws - so I'd have preferred to leave them alone and save all the hassle. But the EBU have gone for simplicity, and that does have its advantages. Matt's examples are certainly unfortunate in that you're not likely to want to play those doubles as takeout, but you can't eliminate problems like this without having a lot of exceptions to the basic rules.

Meh. B) You may call it twaddle, but I like it. Announcements will be good for the game. I'm prepared to keep defending our new EBU regs until the cows come home ...

Strange ... I wonder what makes you think you're going to need the director? Well, I suppose I can imagine a conversation starting "Intermediate" "What on earth does that mean?" And now you have to explain. But that's how it's supposed to work - not many people in a club will know what "intermediate" means, but the announcement at least tells them there's something they need to know, and there won't be a problem as long as you give a decent explanation when they ask for one.

These are tough ;) I don't like it, but I would rule there was no MI. If the player who misinterpreted the explanation had stopped to think about it, they would have realised that their interpretation was perverse (see barmar's post). They have my sympathy, but really they've done something a bit silly and will just have to treat this as a learning experience. It's a hard life. I do not think that the Precision player can be expected to write a better explanation. Frances's suggestions work, in that they are unambiguous, but the first is too long - so long that the software wouldn't cope with it - and the second (involving brackets) is not something that would occur to many people. So the explanation given is about as good as you can expect. It's very difficult to come up with totally unambiguous, idiot-proof explanations, particularly online where they have to be written and you don't have time to write an essay. I don't think it can be right to hold the explainer to too high a standard.