mink

Jdonn: I know you said this, and you provided only 5 cards, not 52. A penalty double with ♥QJ is really calling for trouble. Jdonn: This one is even worse, you want to tell us that he made his 3♣ bid with AKx and East doubled with JTxxx, Qx, x, xxxxx??? Jdonn: This is just a shape and no cards at all. And it is a shape not consistent with a takeout of ♥. If you want to require the declarer to take care for a mess like this, you could also say he should ignore opps' bidding completely. Jdonn: In my opinion, if somebody wants to convince me that a player has made an error, it it his duty to show me a layout where the given line fails. That there is no layout where a given line gains does not make this line erroneous. He just tried for something that was impossible to achieve. As long as he does not take a risk this is fine with me. Karl

There was a lot of discussion in this thread about whether the ♠8 in trick 3 was a serious error or not. But this was of no concern to the AC - they (and probably the director, too) ruled that there was no link between the misinformation and the play: Here, the AC is making fun of the declarer. If he is misinformed, of course he will make faulty assumptions. And these faulty assumptions made him play ♠8 in trick 3, which he fore sure would not have done if he got the correct information leading to more accurate assumptions. In order to decide that, the TD should have judged if East's pleading is comprehensible. What others play is only relevant when it shall be decided if the play was a serious error. Anybody who suggests that North would play ♠8 even if he got the correct information and therefore knows that there is a reasonable chance that West has a singleton ♦ also suggests that North is completely insane. Some accuse North to make assumptions about the hand that are impossible or unlikely. But what should he really assume? N/S have 25 HCP, and for his "takeout" 2♥ West should hold the majority of the E/W HCP. This means East doubled with very limited strength, and one should assume that he has a good length in ♥ containing Q and J in order to compensate for his weakness. Before leading to trick 3, North already knows that West has ♣AK, as East would probably not underlead his A. The question remains, who has ♠A? If West had the A, he really would be a little strong for his initial pass. But if he had not the A, he would be a little weak for his takeout. Also, if East had the A, why didn't he ever bid ♠? The situation is so difficult for North because, given E/W played the same system, the penalty double is insane with the hands they actually have. East doubled because he thought that West had more strength for his takeout and subsequent 3♣ bid. He got it wrong. But when North gets it wrong, too, with the same wrong information, is it his own fault? About the "serious error" question: Anybody posting in this thread has yet failed to provide a 52-card-layout that is consistent with the bidding and that contains a West hand that is consistent with the information North got, and where the play of ♠8 in trick 3 causes the contract to go down while it would make on drawing trumps. Only if such a layout could be found, you could argue that ♠8 was an error, and only if it was a quite possible and easy to imagine such a layout, you maybe could argue that it was a serious error. If such a layout cannot be found, ♠8 would be just obscure, as those who were polled said, but nothing one could really criticize. Please keep in mind that it does never hurt if East is short in ♦ as he would ruff with a trump that makes a trick anyway. The TD, the AC and all in this thread who supported them may be excellent bridge players, but in my view fail to see the situation from North's point of view. The actual hand layout, where the ♠8 was really an error if North was provided with the correct information, seems to bias people against North. I am sure, if a hand like [hv=d=s&v=n&n=sq4hak3dkq54cqt72&w=sj976h7d932cak986&e=sat532hqj82d6c543&s=sk8ht9654dajt87cj]399|300|Scoring: IMP (always -1)[/hv] had been posted, most would just shrug when learning that North played ♠8 in trick 3 - it simply does not matter. One last comment to the AWM warning. The writeup says: It is a well-known fact that in judgment cases often different people come to different conclusions based on exactly the same information. It must be possible to appeal if the appellant just thinks that the TD's decision is an minority view of the problem. A serious TD gives both sides the opportunity to present their case and delays his ruling until he has gathered all relevant information. According to this AC, it is always pointless to appeal against a decision of such a TD. Karl

Quote Bluejak Posted on Jun 21 2010, 03:51 PM There was one thing in this thread that really did surprise me: about half of the posters thought that the 4♦ bid was wild or gambling. Therefore I posted the North hand on the German bridge mailing list, asking what North should call given that the double was explained as "support". I got 11 responses. Most of them voted for pass, and most of them stated they would have bid their 2-suiter at once instead of 1♠. One poster considered 4♦, but finally chose pass in as he hoped that opps do not make 4♥ and he wanted to tell them as little as possible about his hand. One thought that something should be done, but the preferred to double which he thought would be slightly better than 4♦. Now I told them that actually North had bid 4♥ and asked them to decide if this was a serious error, wild or gambling. This time I got 3 responses all saying that the 4♦ was not SEWoG. I assume that if any of the original 11 posters had a different opinion, he would have posted that. The poll in the German mailing list was different from the presentation here: The Germans did not know that the 4♦ bid resulted in a very bad score for N/S - they only knew the North hand and the bidding up the North's second bid. This way, they were exactly in the same position as the original North and not possibly biased by knowing the other 3 hands and the final score as it happened. Karl

The ♠10 was played in trick 1 and again in trick 3. I assume second time you meant ♠J. I cannot see any problem with that claim. Karl

When thinking about what is normal, the question arises to me: If for the last 2 tricks I have ♠A2 in my hand and no ♠ in the dummy and I believe that opps are out of spades, too, is it normal to play the 2 now? - I do not think that anybody would do this in this situation, but instead all will play the A first in case due to miscounting an opp happens to still hold a spade card, no matter how confident you are about your counting. If you agree with that, then you should also assume that in the claim this thread is about, declarer plays the J first. Karl

I started to encounter this problem about a week ago. I am using Firefox running under XP on a 22" Monitor full screen. The problem occurs when the cursor already rests on the card that I intend to play in the moment when it becomes my turn to play. In many cases, the card left of the card that I am pointing to is lifted and also played if I just click as I do not play enough attention. If the card under the mouse pointer is the leftmost card, no card is lifted, and nothing happens when I click. The problem disappears for the current turn after I move the mouse over some other card and then back to the intended card. I think this is a serious malfunction and really requires attention by the programmers! Karl

I fully agree with peachy. 4♦ is a sound call nonvul vs. vul given E/W have a 9 card hard fit. They nearly never double but bid 4♥, and now partner can decide if it is worth to sacrifice in 4♠ or 5♦. If the 4♦ bid is removed assuming correct information, East will rather bid 4♥ and not 3nt, because in nt it might be difficult to reach the dummy. My adjustment: 33% 4♥-2 33% 4♥-2 doubled by South 23% 3nt= 10% 3nt-1 Karl

I like this ruling. Karl

These instructions refer to the downloadable windows client. With the flash client, you do not need any instructions to adjust, as - if you are directing - below each hand diagram there is an button that allows you to adjust a score simply by clicking. If the contract shall not be changed, all that is needed is to click on the desired number of tricks. I really recommend the flash client when you are directing, and it has other advantages, too. Karl

I would say No. The N/S bidding does not make sense if partner has 2 ♠ cards or more. East's bidding also does not make sense if he didn't psyche. So I think I would have gotten the message, too, though I have probably never met East. Karl

prirate22, apparently you are using the downloaded windows client, with lobby chat switched on. I suggest that you switch off lobby chat unless you are looking for a team game. With lobby chat switched off, you will not receive those invitations to sub in a tourney. As a matter of fact, these are not issued by a td, but by the bbo server if some td tries to find a sub for his tourney and there are no subs available. These messages are received by all who have lobby chat on, so you get those for private tourneys, too. This feature was implemented many years ago when most tourneys were available to all. Maybe it would be a good idea to de-implement it now. If you like to sub in any tourney then I recommend to use the new client available from www.bridgebase.com, where you have the option to register as sub for all tourneys. Karl

Of course it would! If he asked and then bid ♣, opps later might say that he showed his ♥ suit by the question, and the ♣ suit by the bid. Therefore I think it is a good idea for North not to ask. About changing the regulation: Obviously the current regulation makes it impossible for N/S to learn about the meaning of the 2♥ bid without creating UI. However, the only safe way to change this is to require that each alerted call must be asked about, which for sure in not the way it should be as it would force players to ask even if they are sure about the meaning and know their opps very well. Stating that the next seat must ask only if he does not know the meaning would achieve nothing, because this cannot be proved and therefore misused. Karl

I have often observed that if one finesse works in one suit, then a second finesse in another suit works in the opposite direction. Considering that opps' honors tend to be distributed equally, this observation seems to make sense to me. That means that sometimes to guesses that seem to be independent are not really independent of each other. Karl

As you presented this problem, I think you can be quite relaxed, because even in case that their methods are natural after your 1♦, your LHO has used UI (answer to your partner's question). But what if partner did not ask, but simply double assuming that 2♦ must be natural if not alerted? Now you need to know what their methods really are, maybe by consulting their cc. Therefore, as a TD, I would always assume misinformation if there is no cc or the topic is not covered by the cc available. Karl

Agree with Mink. Two infractions: In the auction, a double seemingly based on partner's hesitation. In the play, a hesitation with no apparent Bridge reason other than to bamboozle declarer. IMO: The director should concentrate on the second infraction. Even if the director (wrongly) judged declarer's mistakes to be egregious, he should still penalize East.I don't really understand what you two are talking about. If East were planning to cater for diamonds not breaking, he would need 2 entries to the dummy, which could only be the ♣10 and the ♣Q. So in that sense, he was not damaged by the hesitation. If declarer assumes that East might have ♦Q98 and West should have an A for his double, it makes sense that he plays low in his hand in the first trick, ruffs a spade, draws trump and ♦A and then plays low to ♣Q - this is the only entry he needs. Assuming the second hesitation did not take place, maybe he would rather win the first trick with ♦A in his hand, draw trump and ♦ and make 13 tricks. This line is superior in this case because West must have some reason for his ♦ lead, and the most plausible reason I can think of is to assume that there is no entry to the dummy except the ♦ suit and declarer has only a singleton ♦. Assuming that declarers ♦ is singleton is more likely if West has more than one ♦ card. Leading a singleton ♦ is not an option, as South thinks that West has the points and therefore West mus think that it is unlikely that East has ♦A. Karl

I think this is an interesting question you raise, and I fully agree with the answer you gave. However, I cannot see what in your example the possible "wild and gambling" action might be - pass and 5 C are both not wild and gambling if the hand is like you described it. Karl

I can imagine that North made his bid disregarding South's question and would have made it without the question, too. However, the question did both indicate ♥ and strength, and pass is a LA for sure. Contract has to be changed to 3S. Karl

The 2 hesitations are independent. If the second did not occur, and South made his contract, for sure he would not call the TD in order to get the double removed, and even if the TD was called by EW, he would not remove the double, because there would have been no damage. Karl

I have written to abuse several times, and was not ignored. Did you receive an automatic message that ask you to answer it? If you do not to that, your original message does not make it through the spam defense lines. If you do answer the automatic message, someone in the abuse department will do something about you request. However, they never say what they do; you will only get a message that the case is opened and another one when the matter is closed. One of the possible actions they take is ban that user for an appropriate amount of time. Karl

Well, thinking a little more about it, there is also no point for East to think with Qxx. So his thinking is totally pointless in any case. But I doubt declarer should be blamed for not noticing this. Karl

East has no bridge reason at all to think after the dummy played ♦J. If he felt he needed to think about why ♦J was called, he could have done so after the trick is complete. If he does think before he plays, declarer can and should conclude that East holds the ♦Q. It is also plausible that the thinking was done with Qxx, because East knows that South must have ♦A and there is no point in playing anything but low with Qx. If there had been no thinking by East, declarer could and should and probably would have played ♦A in trick 1 win 12 tricks without any problem, as ducking the A is only an option in case of a bad ♦ distribution. Therefore I would adjust do 6Hx=. In this case, the question if the pause during bidding is UI or not becomes irrelevant. Karl

If the responder had recognized the 1nt opening and intended to transfer to Spades, he could have changed his call according to law 25. As he did not try to do so, I would probably not believe if he tells me now that it is was what happened. Therefore, only if he thought that 1 m was opened and they play transfer over 1 m in at least all cases in which they would have done so over 1 nt, I would allow him to bid 2 ♥ without silencing his partner. Karl

Germany, regional event, MP, nonvul all, dealer East, Bidding: West____North___East____South ________________pass____pass 1 Club__x_______2 Dia___pass 2 NT____pass____3 Club__pass pass____pass No alerts. Before his lead, North asked about the meaning of the auction and East told that his 2 Dia bid was meant to be an artificial raise of clubs with 6-9 points and at least 5 club cards and no 4 card major, not saying anything about the D suit. Immediately after the bid was made, East recalled that this convention had been dropped some time ago and changed to normal inverted minors. The correct bid would have been 3 Club now. North called the TD. TD ruled that there was a misinformation and North may change his last pass, but has to live with the outcome if he does. Indeed North elected to change the pass to 3 Dia, and South bid 3 Heart which became the final contract, and went down yielding a zero for North/South. The TD stayed at the table during the play, and when it was over he informed the players that he was not going to adjust because North changed his bid at his own risk and was told so before. However, the TD felt that West should not have bid 2nt with her 11 points and balanced hand, and that he would have adjusted the score to the probable outcome of 2 Dia if North did not change his pass. Though there was no UI, West admitted that she felt that 2 Dia might have been bid because partner had forgotten that the convention had been dropped, just because a natural 2 Dia bid was not very likely to occur. There had been no history of erroneously bidding according to the old convention because it was only about 2 weeks ago when it was dropped. The fact that East bid 3 Club over 2 NT was not discussed. The East hand was something like Jx xx 10xxx AQxxx Questions: 1. Should West have alerted the 2 Dia, and, if asked, tell that she felt that East might have forgotten that the old convention no longer existed? Problem is that this would mislead opps if East's 2 D bid was as natural as it should be, and she had no real clue (UI) that East had misbid. 2. Or should West ignore her feeling and pass the 2 Dia? 3. Should East talk about his misbid when asked about the bidding by North? 4. Should the TD allow North to change his last pass - what was the misinformation? 5. Was it ok that the TD refused to adjust? (North did not ask him to do so, btw.) Karl

Law 41C: There is nothing stated that declarer must ask someone, nor is stated who should tell him. So it should be legal for the dummy to say "You are playing 6nt undoubled", when the declarer has obviously a wrong idea of what the contract is. Asking something like "what card do you intend" would be talking him into something he does not intend, and nobody can expect the dummy to do this. And just sitting there and do nothing is not really an alternative, because doing nothing is an extraordinary behavior of the dummy that very likely will cause the declarer to notice the irregularity. Law 46B: What was declarers intention? He did not want to play a heart or a diamond or a club, he wanted to ruff, as he said. If anything is incontrovertible it is this. So you cannot argue he meant heart; he just asked for something impossible. Karl

This would be a great improvement for me, as it is very tricky to find out about such boards today without asking the tourney. If you do so, you get about 3 chat messages per ave board. Karl