olegru

Thank you, Captain ;)

As you advised I sent to rulings@acbl.org following email: Today I got answer: NO. The GCC specifically indicates a minimum of 10 HCP. To agree to play otherwise is to play an illegal agreement. RB

North‘s bidding definitely deserve additional call … to friendly psychiatrist.

For me words "huge overbid" is a huge underbid here. :)

I don't like 2♦ bid. Just can't see what I am going to achive with it. Pass looks lik underbid but gives us much better chanses. If partner weak we don't have game and with this amount of fast tricks in ♦ defending 1NT give us a very good chanse to get plus. If partner strong and can dbl 1NT it will be even better.

No, I do not think it is only word. I believe set of rights could be diferent too. Because we are in a bridge forum, question for you: Would you allow the same sex married couple to compete in the mixed pairs? If not, please explain why do we have this discrimination - other married couple can play in the mixed pairs and this one can't. With all euphoria from making equality we can't simply put "=" sign between something are not equal.

Man living with his permanent wife has all duties and rights of married couple by definition of marriage. We have several recognizable forms of relationships. Husband-wife, mother-son, man-girlfriend, brother-sister, person-pet. Rights and duties inside these relationships and between relationship and the rest of sociaty are diferent and regulated diferently in diferent socities. Now we have "new" for of relationship: man and his boyfriend. I am completely agree that that relationship must be recognizable. But I think it should be done as a new form of relationship with own sets of rights, not as a part of existing form.

But should it be exactly the same or something could be different? I am not sure if (for example) right to adopt the child should be the same for "standard" or "non-standard" families. Divorce procedure and sequences? Subsidies and taxation? It is not clear for me what the man living with his permanent boyfriend in legal relationships should be entitle to the same set of rights and duties as a falily, but adolt man living with his old mother does not evenm if thet want so.

Completely agree with this sentence. But problem is not all "relationship recognized by the law" should be called "marriage". It is absolutely clear to me that same-sex people should be able to make some recognized by law relationships. But those relationships are not a marriage by definition of word "marriage". What should be done is to work out new law form of relationships, respectable and recognizable with its own set of rights and duties inside the relationship and otside toward the rest of sociality. Just don’t call it marriage, because marriage is something different.

10-11 points, good ♣ support, ♦ shortness, ♠ control.

For whatever ever it cost I think passing 4♣ doubled and pulling to 4♦ are the very close alternatives depending of partnership style.

I have some concerns about UI North had from missing alert on 2NT Jacoby bid. Was his 4♥ is authomatic bid after 3♦ from his partner or he tried to avoid disaster if partner did not understand his Jacoby? It is hard to say with no cards, but North had 3 small ♦, partner shown ♦ shortness. Why did he dicide shut up the bidding and not investigate slam?

I don't think so. At least I do not like word "psyche" here. I believe it is prohibited to psyche by artificial convention oppenings. ;) It is a deviation in tearms of points, agree. Is it deviation from the real agreement? - Hard to say. We did not discuss anything other than number of points for opening, but both have a similar judgment and both understand that this hand has more trick taken potential than average 10 points hand. What I mean is - If I agreed "to open with 10-13 points", I actually understand my agreement a as promise "to open with average and better than average hands, but not good enough to play a game oposite partner's average hand". At least 9 out of 10 it is the same thing. But I can imagine bad 10 points ot too good 13 points I would not open or good 9 points (or even extremily good 8 points I got in the curent case) I would open. Points count, for me at least, just a simple tool to simpify wording and help to estimate the playing strength but not a boss to dictate me what to do. I am still not sure is it legal or not.

Question: By EW agreements if E would have 1052 would he discard 10 than 5, 10 than 2 ot 5 than 2?

It was a general theoretical question. Practical case was opening 10-13 Flannery with: A1098 KJ1097 1098 3 No questions asked by opponents, no director calls, but I am not sure if my opening was legal under the ACBL law. By "must to be active" I meant, for example, the end of knockout match when you are behind.

We are using artificial opening bid that promise the certain distribution and points range. I have the perfect distribution for my convention bid with hand overloaded with tens and nines but little less points that we agreed. 1. Is this a legal to open with artificial convention bid if I have 1 point less than was agreed? 2 points less? 3 points less? 2. What if the minimum of points required for us to use the convention is the minimum point range permitted by ACBL general chart for use of it? 3. Should “must to be active” tournament situation taking into account? To make problem clear: There is no prior partnership experience with subminimum opening with this convention. I feel that overall picture of the hand compensate insufficient number of points (do not treat it as a psych).

Sorry did not see questions. Yes, it is North America. No, double was not alerted. As far as I know, ACBL does not require to alert pass or correct double here, but I can be wrong.

This description of events looks for me like South asked about every alerted bid, until they repeated several times. In this case absence of question about meaning of alerted bid would be more suspicious then question. Wording probably wrong, but I would like to know more about wording he choose to asked about other alerted bids.

♥7

I was South of that board and if director would rule "result to stay" it would be OK with me. I asked for director before opponents explained pass-or-correct nature of the double and I have no doubts about high ethical standards of those particular opponents. But somehow I would feel more fare if director would ask them to prove that double in that not-so-standard situation actually is pass or correct. (I am not sure if pass-or-correct 100% playable here. How should East bid if he would like to punish? Just pass and let us play 5 clubs with no double?) Lets look at more familiar topic. The same cards, the same bidding, this time correct explanation, but East hesitated before double. I bet East-West would have a very hard time to prove that West had no LA to pull the double. Especially if decision to pull took him more than 2 minutes. Why are we treating UI from tempo as a worse sin than direct UI? Actually a director comes up with some kind of compromise decision. He adjusted result to 5 spades doubled down 2. Honestly speaking I am failing to see the law ground under this adjustment, for me it is just a decision to enable protest if result of this board will be critical. In real live it was not, they kill us on the table. :)

[hv=pc=n&s=st953hkq76d7542c3&w=sk762hajt42d9c752&n=s4hdkqjtcakqjt984&e=saqj8h9853da863c6&d=s&v=n&b=15&a=pp2cp2d2n5cdp5hppdppp]399|300|[/hv] 2♣ - alerted, asked, explained as distributional GF with one- or two - suiters onle. Promise tricks, not neccesary points 2♦ - alerted, asked, explained as 0-1 controls 2NT - alerted, no questions this moment After East double 5 clubs, South asked about meaning of 2NT - explained as untouched suits. After completion of bidding, West said that it was misexplanation, 2NT means majors or minors. Result - 5h, down 1 After completion of the board, South summoned director. He complained that West already shown his major 2-suiter by bidding 2NT, and after his partner decided to double, had no reason to correct it, unless he think that partners decition based on incorrect perseption of his hand. East-West explained that double was not clean penalty, but pass or correct. Additional, probably not relevant, information: 1. 5♥ bid was made after very long hesitation; 2. EW use UDCA. 3. Result from the second table, 5 clubs made. North open 5 clubs, East lead Ace of diamonds, but 9 look discouraging (udca too) and he did not continue suit. ---------------------------------------- What should be directors decition?

Very nice analogy. By the way is the large wasp nest still in your grandfather's house? ;) Or your childish actions and suffering finaly forced adults to make smarter actions to prevent their kids to be sting by wasps?

Maybe I did not :) . Actualy, I still did not find post you are referring to. But as far as directors decision concern we should completely ignore all discussion about cheating and think solely in terms of UI and LA. Sure you do not have to share my opinion about the TD's correct action. But could you share there you see gap in applied logic?

There is no "C"-words in this discussion, just UI :) 1. Was any deviation of correct procedure here? – Clearly it was. South gave alert for not-alertable bid. 2. Could North receive any UI due to incorrect procedure? - Surely he could. Undiscussed 4 spades by their system could be strong (strong 2 in spades or cue-bid on agreed H with strong balanced hand), alert and explanation rule out these possibilities. 3. Did this UI suggest any action? – Yes, of cause. It strongly suggested pass. 4. Did North have any LA to pass? – Guess so. I would never pass 4 spades here. 5. Were EW damaged? – Yes they were. How could we not adjust the score? What to adjust is another question.

And? As we can see from this bidding EW clearly had no partnership experience that suggested what to guess. One person though it is "pass or correct," another "to play." Lets make it clear: 1. Explicit agreements - I discussed with my partner and we both agreed to use this bid for certain purposes. (Example we discussed and agreed to use 15-17 NT. This is our explicit agreement and opponents are entitled to know about it) 2. Implicit agreements – we did not actually discuss but from partnership experience know what to expect from partners bid. (Example, We never discuss but partner have experience when I open 1NT on 3rd sit with 13 points and 6 cards minor. This is our implicit agreement and opponents are entitled to know about it too. ) 3. There is no agreement in situation we never discuss with partner and logic of our system did not give define answer. Opponents are not entitled to know what partner meant by his bid and how I understood his bid. Of cause if our agreements and experience could somehow limit possibilities of possible meanings they entitled to know it.