dburn

Whether or not there is a "right answer" is a matter of opinion. jallerton and I (together with a latter-day Scottish Nationalist whose contributions were, as one might expect, wrong without being illuminating) spent some time in Brighton some years ago establishing a precedent for a "third way" resolution of this kind of problem. It has proved helpful in subsequent cases, and I have alluded to it above. If there is no "rock-solid" evidence to establish whether there has been a misexplanation or a misbid - in other words, if there is doubt as to what the "correct explanation" is per the substantiated version of the partnership's agreed methods - then the "correct explanation" is deemed to be: "no agreement, but the range of possibilities is..." where the ellipsis includes what North thinks and what South thinks. The non-offenders are deemed to have had that explanation, instead of the one they were actually given or instead of the one that the Director believes they should have been given. In most hypothetical cases as in most real cases, the non-offenders then have to guess what to do: the score is adjusted in accordance with how well the referee thinks they would have guessed. They are given considerable "benefit of the doubt", but that is all: they are not allowed to know the opponents' hands, only the opponents' methods (including the extent to which the opponents don't know their own methods).

"One can, I believe, give a weighted score based on the probability of MI" I don't believe that. I believe that the Director must consider the "probability of MI" to be 1 or 0, depending on whether he thinks there has been any. Of course, one can give a weighted score based on the probabilities of various events if the player had not been misinformed. Moreover, the Director might take the view that what he should have been told was "we have no agreement in this sequence but among possible meanings of the call are clubs and checkback." Armed with this, West might have returned a spade or he might not,

Did anyone ask South why he doubled 1♥?

Decent of South, in the circumstances. After all, he could just have scored it up and moved on. Had he done so, at what point would East-West have been unable to have the score changed?

Maybe West could simply have asked South whether or not she had any spades.

I didn't say you shouldn't double without asking - I said you shouldn't double. Followers of Jaako Hintikka will claim that if I said you shouldn't double at all, then I implied you shouldn't double without asking. This kind of thinking is useful in the limited sense of proving that you should not do impossible things, but when it turned out to be possible after all to punch followers of Jaako Hintikka in the snoot, they rapidly adopted a more pragmatic approach. Not that I have any desire whatsoever to punch campboy in the snoot, despite his unfounded accusation of inconsistency. My own view coincides in large part with gnasher's - even if I'm pretty sure 2♦ is artificial, I would be less sure if they didn't alert it. So, I wouldn't ask about it and I wouldn't double it, because I would rely on the rules to protect our side if I did neither, whereas the rules might or might not protect our side if I asked and was unexpectedly told "natural".

Technically, South should neither ask nor double. If it turns out that 2♦ was artificial, the score will be adjusted if the opponents were damaged by presuming it was natural. As a practical matter at a level of play below the most serious, South might ask then double. In the vast majority of cases this will enable normal play of the board without resort to the local constabulary (whose competence might not extend to providing the correct level of redress if South adopts the technical approach).

No, of course not. We (lamford, Vampyr and I) are saying the opposite: the fact that South must play his penalty card at the earliest legal opportunity is AI to North. What we are denying is that North is allowed to know what that penalty card actually is. Consider (Aardv and the author of that joke minute might consider this as well): In the normal run of events, I as West lead a card. North follows suit. Before I led, I knew that East would be required to play a card at his earliest legal opportunity, which happens to be now. But (saving inferences from the bidding or play) I had no way of knowing, nor was I in any way entitled to know, what that card would be until he played it - if I had known, I might have led a different card altogether. Why should this entitlement or lack of it change simply because East has illegally shown me one or more of his cards?

If West has only one penalty card, and declarer has forbidden a trump lead, then it is AI to East that West will have to ruff the suit East leads if West cannot follow. This information does not derive from the sight of the penalty card; it is an evident logical conclusion from the fact that declarer has forbidden a trump lead (therefore West's penalty card must be a trump) and is thus AI per Law 16A1c. But if declarer had merely left West's card as a penalty card, the knowledge that it was a trump would be UI to East, who is allowed to know only that West must play whatever card this is at his first legal opportunity. If it turns out that West ruffs East's ace and the defenders lose thereby, so be it.

Not sure how the moderation of these forums works. If one is a moderator, can one move threads about laws and rulings from "General Bridge Discussion" to "Laws and Rulings" where they belong? Or does moderation extend only within the bounds of a particular sub-forum?

I submit with due, but without false, modesty that if Aardv thinks X and I think not-X, it is probably not "crystal clear" whether X is true or not. My position is the exact opposite of his. The Law, unmodified by minutes, in effect says this: until partner has played his penalty card, you are not allowed to know anything about its rank or suit. Once he has played it, you are allowed to know that he had to, rather than chose to, play it - but that is all. The earlier minute is consistent with this interpretation. The later minute is not; indeed, the later minute is at variance with the Law itself. It is in my view not possible for the Law and the later minute logically to co-exist; that they physically coexist is an aberration by the WBFLC.

North does have some AI - East has not required a spade shift, as he would have done had either of South's penalty cards been a trump.

Indeed. Every time they publish a new set of Laws, I hope Kipling was right after all: And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return. Then I reflect that the headings are not part of the Laws, and I go back down the pub.

WBFLC has created a complete nonsense out of what until then was at least moderately sensible. That is: the Law could be interpreted as if it were consistent, and even as if it would usually preserve equity. Following the joke minute, the Law can no longer do either (whereas a non-joke minute would actually have clarified the Law). Prior to the joke minute, what I have said above was a possible, consistent, and fair interpretation of the words on the page. In effect, what the Law said was (and still should be): Until partner has played his penalty card, the suit and the rank of that card are UI to you (because this is "other information from the sight of a penalty card"). Once he has played it, the fact that he had to play it rather than chose to play it is AI to you; for example, there is no requirement on you to interpret it as a signal (because this is "knowledge of the requirements for playing a penalty card"). An example with which Gordon (and Max) will be familiar: you open 1NT and after pass-pass-4♠-all pass, you lead something. Declarer wins it and leads a spade towards ♠Qx in the dummy. You are spared a guess as to what to play from your ♠Kx because partner has at some stage produced his (singleton) ♠A as a major penalty card. Why should you be the only defender in the room "allowed" to get the position right without needing to think? The score might be adjusted under Law 23 or 50E3 some other such fatuity (it should be noted in passing that given Law 23, Law 50E3 is superfluous). But why in blazes should it need to be adjusted? What is the point of making a Law that works perfectly well (because it leads the defenders always to crash their spade honours, just as they might have done had they not committed an infraction and as they should now do as offenders), and then saying "oh, we didn't mean to make defenders crash their honours, so we'll "clarify" the Law in such a way as to render it inconsistent and almost incomprehensible? Of course the WBFLC minute has altered the Law. And not for the better.

Yes, I know you are. This is because the WBFLC has done something remarkably stupid even by its own standards. I was explaining what the Law actually says, not what the WBFLC says that it says.