dburn

[hv=d=e&v=n&n=skq3hjdqj2ca86542&e=sa92hk1098765d73c7]266|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv] You, East, open 3♥ and South's overcall of 3NT is passed out. West leads ♥3, jack king, two. You continue with a heart of your choice - ace, queen, club. Declarer leads a diamond to the queen, cashes the jack of diamonds and leads a third round. Your partner has played the nine and four of diamonds in that order, to indicate a doubleton. What do you discard on the third round of diamonds, and why?

What? I ask a question when, after I opened a weak no trump and partner passed a 2♣ overcall, it is more or less certain that I cannot possibly be interested in the answer? But perhaps this occurred in some jurisdiction where bridge is played, and not in England.

Impossible. They weren't even born in 1981.

More complex, perhaps, are these questions: East opens a strong club out of turn - North is the dealer. South does not accept the opening bid, and the auction reverts to North who has a Yarborough. May North psyche, knowing that to do so will bar West? If so, is the knowledge that North is more likely to psyche in this position than some others AI to South? If North does psyche and East doubles for penalty (obviously so, for West must pass), may North-South claim a foul under Law 23? If North does not psyche (because on this occasion he does not have a Yarborough but an opening bid) and East doubles for penalty when South has a Yarborough, may North-South claim a foul under Law 23? If North bids (whether or not he psyches), is there any legal call East may make that will not bar West?

This at any rate is conclusive evidence that Han is a true mathematician. In my original post I said that at five tables out of eight the South players doubled one diamond, and at three they doubled one club. Non-mathematicians will be able to compute from this the number of passers, but for Han's benefit we will say that the cardinality of the set of passers equalled the cardinality of the empty set.

Well, not to worry. Since the pack apparently contained 53 cards none of which was the queen of spades, your result presumably did not stand in any case.

To give some idea of the modern game, this hand: ♠KJ94 ♥AK87 ♦982 ♣72 was considered to be a favourable-vulnerability takeout double of an opening bid of one diamond at five tables out of eight in the semi-finals of the 2007 Bermuda Bowl and Venice Cup. Where the opening bid was instead one strong club, all three players doubled to show both majors (in two cases) or "diamonds or both majors" (in one case). Since partner had: ♠Q1053 ♥J103 ♦7 ♣KQ1086 and since the lie of cards was moderately favourable, game (4♠) was cold. It was reached at one table out of eight, when the response to the takeout double was 1♠ (giving you some idea of what a modern partner expects for a takeout double) and the doubler raised this to 2♠ after 1NT to his right; advancer now bid game. At three other tables, advancer jumped in spades (once to three, twice to two). These partnerships did not reach game - in fact, one of them reached three hearts when, after the opponents competed in diamonds, advancer intellectually bid his heart fragment and doubler left him in it for down one. At a fourth table, advancer doubled a pre-emptive raise to three diamonds and doubler passed this out for plus 200. At the tables where the opening bid was a strong club, one advancer bought the hand for 3♠ and one for 2♠. The third assumed his partner had diamonds rather than the majors and did not bid at all, losing 120 against 1NT. What can we learn from all this? If we knew that, we'd presumably have learned it by now.

really? Shouldn't X be penalty over the bidder after three different natural bids and a partner who has claimed the hand? Or is it really more useful to say that you have exactly 4 spades? If partner has "claimed the hand", then presumably we can make a forcing pass here (and I would prefer that to a natural 2♥). But since 2♣ was apparently not forcing, neither of us has actually "claimed the hand" - we were not compelled to bid beyond 2♣, so in theory at any rate we can pass the opponents out in 2♦. In short: if pass is forcing then it is a kind of "takeout pass" and appears sounder to me than 2♥, which should be a more one-suited hand; moreover, if pass is forcing then double is penalty (yes, I know it is possible to play otherwise, but it is not actually very sensible). If pass is not forcing, then double is takeout and I would double (after which bids of hearts by either side are natural - that double was takeout of diamonds, not hearts). I recommend that pass be forcing (and that these semi-positives are in fact played as forcing for one round), but that is up to you.

Unlikely - the hand occurred this year in Brighton. I was part of the AC with Jeffrey and Mike Ash; our deliberations lasted longer than those of any other AC on which I have sat (though I have taken longer to make up my mind acting as a single referee). Comments so far have followed the different lines of thinking that the original AC members pursued. I will continue to watch and learn.

So I did. Still, better to be lucky than good.

The quickest way to answer the first of Fred's questions appears to me to be this: East began with either ♥J10x and any five clubs, or with ♥10x and six clubs to the queen (if West had four hearts and three clubs to the queen, he would have been squeezed and the hand would be over). There are four ways for East to hold ♥J10x and four ways for him to hold ♥10x, so the relevant ratio is the number of ways he can hold any five clubs (63) to the number of ways he can hold the queen and five low clubs (56). This gives odds of 9 to 8 in favour of playing for the drop.

Deleted - that was nonsense. I think I'd better think it out again.

In simple terms, when we say "you did this, but we will adjust as if you hadn't done this", we are not saying "you are a cheat". Rather, we are saying "you did what you would have done if you were a cheat, and because we can't have actual cheats in the game we must rule against you".

I wouldn't, but apparently the WBFLC would. Law 77 is one of the Laws you are (presumably) supposed to remember. Parenthetical question: suppose my opponent asked me during the auction or play "what's three down doubled non-vulnerable?" and I said "minus 500". What is the penalty for aiding and abetting in a breach of Law 40C3a? And is my opponent in duty bound to ignore the answer I have just given? I wouldn't, and apparently neither would the WBFLC. Law 50 is one of the Laws you are (presumably) not supposed to remember. I refer the Honourable Member to the answer I gave immediately above. The truth appears to be that players are entitled to any number of aids to memory, calculation or technique when someone at their table (including themselves) has just broken a Law, but not when they haven't. The people who wrote the Beijing 2008 minute are... well, they would not meet the initial requirements for playing a game of marbles.

Why are players not supposed to rememebr laws? It appears that they are, or at any rate that it would be a good thing for them if they did. But it was not actually I who suggested that players are not supposed to memorize the Laws.

I don't know what your partner was thinking about either - he had a pretty clear 3♣ bid himself. But why should he do that when he can show those values with less risk by passing slowly, just in case you didn't have your previous bidding?

Standard top Italian operating procedure appears to be to lead an honour from two touching honours if the highest pip is the eight or better, and to lead low otherwise. I don't expect it works all the time, but those guys know a lot more about what works most of the time than I do.

And let me just remind you that the Laws also exist - before, during and after the bidding and the play. Since players are not supposed to remember them, the only way in which they can access this "existing" information is by looking it up. I am aware that some people believe in the existence of such a principle. I also believe them to be wrong; the principle is nowhere stated in the Laws. Of course, in order to resolve many of the problems created by self-contradiction and redundancy in the Laws, it may be helpful to resort to such a principle in certain cases, but in other cases it may not. Yes, of course. The Director has a duty to advise the players of their rights under the Laws (see Law 81C). Nowhere is is stated that this duty is to be exercised only when the Director chooses; a player has a right to know the score for the fourth non-vulnerable doubled undertrick, and if he can't remember what it is, the Director is bound to tell him.

In other words: No player is expected to memorize the Laws (Sven Pran). Duplicate bridge tournaments should be played in strict accordance with the Laws (Law 72). No player is allowed to find out what the Laws say if he doesn't already know (Sven Pran). Insanity is right. But whose?

This discussion is again derailing completely, and it is surprising that dburn is still unable to distinguish "apples" (AI) from "oranges" (looking it up). Law 40C3a has nothing to do with whether or not information is authorized. It concerns the use of aids to memory, calculation or technique and simply states that such use is illegal. This means that in addition to information you can derive from legal calls and play on a board, any information you posess in your mind before you take your cards from a board is authorized for you, but that it is illegal for you (during auction and play) to look up such information (in order to refresh your memory) regardless of where and how you can find that information. The fact that for instance the contents of the law book and the score tables on the rear side of bid cards or on score sheets for teams events is authorized information is completely irrelevant, Law 40C3a makes it entirely clear that looking up such information (anywhere it can be found) is illegal during calls and play. It's all right, Sven. I can tell apples from oranges, and I know that there are certain kinds of information that players are not permitted to look up during the auction or play if they cannot remember them prior to the auction or play. If it were the case that players are supposed to remember the Laws prior to the auction or play, they would of course not be permitted to "look up" the Laws during the auction or play. But you and I are both agreed (or so it seems to me) that players are not supposed to remember the Laws prior to the auction or play. If, then, a player wishes during the auction or play to know what the Law says, and if he is not supposed to have remembered the Law beforehand, how is he to acquire knowledge of what the Law says? To me, it is intolerable to expect players to play a game in strict accordance with the Laws if [a] they are not supposed to know those Laws beforehand and they are not permitted to find out about them except by breaking them (or by being present when someone else breaks them). That is why I contend that if at any time a player wishes to know any Law (or regulation), he has an absolute right to know it at that time without having to remember it in advance and without being refused access to it by the Director or anyone else. As I have already remarked (because it is true), Law 40C3a does not in fact prohibit players from using any aid to memory, calculation or technique - certain such aids are explicitly permitted by the Laws, certain such aids are permitted (or even required) by regulation, and certain such aids (such as the right to count one's tricks) are "permitted" by simple common sense. It is my contention that even if knowledge of a Law may assist a player's memory, calculation or technique, that knowledge may not be denied a player who is assumed to possess it anyway even though he is not supposed to have acquired it in advance.

Oh, I don't think that Sven is in any doubt as to whether a player is entitled to know the entirety of a Law he has just broken, and neither am I. Where we appear to differ is that I think a player is entitled to know the entirety of a Law even if he hasn't just broken it.

Which law says so? Law 16A3 says that: and the Definitions, which are part of the Laws, include: Hence, any information at all that is "part of the lawful procedures of the game", including of course the Laws themselves as well as regulations made under those Laws (such as the method by which IMPs are converted to Victory Points), is authorized. It would be somewhat remarkable if there were any Law that, in and of itself, was not authorized information to the players - those players would have cause to feel aggrieved if, given that there existed a Law such that players were not authorized to know what it said.

Hard to imagine what evidence South had for suggesting that he had been misinformed - did he really believe that West had doubled in the hope that East would take it out into something that might make facing 4=2=3=4 and scattered values, especially given that North was supposed to have spades?

Oh, I do not mean to rely very much on that argument, if at all. I cite it merely as evidence that Law 40C3a does not actually mean what some people think it means. I have never quite understood why this argument is adduced to support the claim that players are not, in the general case, entitled to any information that the Laws regard as authorized, or the claim that certain information is authorized only at specific times. But we may as well dispose of it here: the entitlement to use information gained by unintentionally seeing an opponent's card after the auction begins is parenthetically granted by Law 74C5 and is the only instance where the Law says, in effect, "you're not really supposed to have this information, and you certainly can't deliberately try to obtain it, but if you come by it thanks to an opponent's carelessness, you can use it." If it were generally the case that information accidentally revealed to you by an opponent was authorized, then you would be entitled to bid a slam on board 13 if on leaving the other table of the match, an opponent remarked loudly enough for you to overhear "sorry, I should have bid a slam on board 13". Information from your own methods is of course authorized to you during the auction, but if you forget your methods you may of course not consult them during the auction - you are supposed to remember them before the auction begins. But information from the Laws is not information that you are supposed to remember before the auction begins, yet such information is authorized to you during the auction. How, then, are you to acquire the information that is clearly your legal right? Why, you are entitled to ask the Director what the Law says, without let or hindrance.

Very well. Some here consider that a player is not permitted during the auction or play to learn the score for a particular result by looking at a bidding card or asking the Director, because to do so is a violation of Law 40C3a since it would constitute an "aid to memory, calculation, or technique", and no such aids are permitted under that Law. But the last clause is simply false, for Law 40C3a does not preclude such "aids to memory, calculation or technique" as asking for a review of the auction (or, where bidding boxes or written bidding are in use, consulting the record of the auction in order to "remember" what it was). Nor, as far as I am aware, is a player who does not know how many tricks his side has taken prohibited from counting the cards pointing lengthwise towards his partner in order to find out. It may be argued that bidding boxes and reviews of the auction are legal because they are specifically permitted by other Laws, and that "therefore" Law 40C3a actually means "any aids not permitted in the rest of these Laws". But it cannot be argued that a player is permitted under some other Law to count his tricks during the play, yet no one would argue (or at least, so I hope) that a player is not permitted to count the tricks he has already taken in order to determine how many more tricks he needs to take. Therefore, Law 40C3a demonstrably does not actually prohibit all aids to memory, calculation or technique, and any argument based solely on the fact that it does must fail. It should be noted here that Law 40B2b expressly prohibits a player from consulting his own system material; if Law 40C3a were all-embracing, then Law 40B2b would not be necessary. It is not considered necessary for a player to have committed all the Laws to memory, but all the Laws are authorized information to players at all times, so that if a player wishes to know what the Law says in order to assist his memory, calculation, or technique, he is permitted to discover what the Law says, and neither Law 40C3a nor any other Law overrides that permission.