dburn

One could argue, of course, that there also other ways to support hearts and make it forcing - just as one can go through fourth suit and then raise clubs, one can go through fourth suit and then raise hearts. The danger with the latter approach is that if you intend to support hearts, you may be crossed up by opener rebidding at an inconvenient level. If for example you play that 1♣-1♦-1♥-1♠-3♠ is natural, showing a strong 4=4=1=4 or 4=4=0=5 shape, responder can still bid 4♣ to set clubs and try for slam, but if he wants to set hearts and try for slam he has no clear way to do this. Similar objections apply if it is possible for opener to bid 3NT over 1♠, though I cannot imagine many of the contributors here doing anything as uncouth as that. Passing thoughts: if you do play that 3♠ over 1♠ is natural, not only can responder not easily investigate slam in hearts, he can't easily investigate slam in spades either. Maybe his 4♦ should be an end signal, and his 4M forcing. Also, if you play six-ace or double-keycard Blackwood, maybe four of opener's minor in this and analogous sequences should be that. Meanwhile, it seems to me that 4♣ is on balance best played as a splinter, although I would not object to playing it as natural if that is what partner wanted me to do.

No, no - perfectly valid questions, all of them. In my original post I stupidly forgot to give details of the remaining responses to 1♥: 2♣ shows a hand that would pass after 1♥-1NT-2♣. 2♦ shows a hand that would pass after 1♥-1NT-2♦. This is known as the Advance Preference concept - as with the better-known advance cue bid, responder saves space by giving preference directly, rather than waiting for opener to show his second suit. 2♥ is natural, about 6-9 points with heart support - the Raise Is Limited principle. 2NT asks opener how many points he has, in order that responder can determine whether the hand should be played in a part score, a game or a slam - the Find Out Our Level convention. Lest people should be concerned that this method is too complex to remember in the heat of battle, a mnemonic may readily be constructed from the initial letters of the three innovations described above.

I believe, in view of discussions elsewhere, that it might be better still to play 1♥-1♠ as a game-forcing raise in hearts. 1♥-1NT shows 6+ points and 4+ spades, while 1♥-2♠ is reserved for hands without spades, without heart support, and without high cards. An advantage of this method is that opener can pass with 5-6 in the majors, rather than having to venture to the three level.

You're talking about boolean algebra, not English. In common English usage, "or" almost always means "exclusive or", because there's rarely any point in making a statement that incorporates both alternatives being possible. In cases where there's a potential ambiguity, you might emphasize the exclusivity by prefacing it with "either", but most of the time this is just assumed. Actually. I was talking about English and not Boolean algebra. In the latter, an expression of the form "p or not-p" is analytically true (it is a tautology), while an expression of the form "p and not-p" is analytically false (it is a contradiction). In the former, "p or not-p" is still analytically true, but "p and not-p" is not analytically false (since both p and not-p may be true for certain values of p). In the present case, where p is the proposition "a 2NT opening that has certain not generally accepted distributional constraints requires an alert", p is true (or may be true) according to one regulation, and is false (or may be false) according to another regulation. This places an intolerable burden upon those who wish to ascertain whether p itself is synthetically true, and they are not greatly assisted by receiving the information that "it is and it isn't" (nor, of course, the non-information that "it is or it isn't", since they already know this). As a practical matter, if I were playing such a 2NT opening I would give what I suppose might appropriately be termed a "fuzzy alert" - that is, I would wave an alert card around in deliberately vague fashion and if an opponent showed the slightest interest, say something like "strong and balanced but with no five-card major, 4-4-4-1 possible" (unless 4-4-4-1 was not possible). Is this contrary to regulation? I do not know, and I do not care; the purpose of an alert is to tell the opponents what they might otherwise not know, and not to conform to some regulation or other.

In English, the proposition "X is alertable or it is not" is not strictly incompossible with the proposition "X is alertable and it is not". The Law of the Excluded Middle has yet to find its way into either the Laws of Duplicate Bridge or the Orange Book. Of course, this position is absurd, but so are our alerting regulations.

If this is a reference to the "seven spades is cold" example, that is not silly or made up at all - it actually happened, and a moment's reflection will convince you that it is not all that unlikely to happen in some bridge event at some time. But the bluejak definition of a "silly example" or a "silly argument" is "anything that demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that bluejak is talking complete hogwash". A "sensible" argument, for instance, is something like this: In other words, "this is the norm because it is the norm". Not only is this form of argument ridiculous, its premise is not even true - if a Director can use 16C2A or 16C2B he should most certainly do so before resorting to 16C2C, because if a board on which UI exists through no fault of a player can be played without UI, or redealt, that is greatly preferable to having a board played with UI. Yes you have, but as usual you have paid no attention to them because you believe that anyone who disagrees with you is sneering at you. Are you seriously asserting that a player who has unauthorized reason to suppose that twelve tricks will be available on some deal or other in the course of the current round can bid and play "normally", uninfluenced by UI, a deal on which there are in fact twelve tricks available? Or, for that matter, can bid and play "normally" any other deal in the round? If so... well, that line of argument is not worth even a sneer. And what do you suggest that a playing Director should do about it? Indeed, what do you suggest that any Director should do if a player says "I have received information that on one of boards 7-9 there are twelve top tricks, but I don't know which board"? Show your working, quoting the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge and not "the norm" in the Much-Festering-under-Lyme Bridge Club. I haven't, and nor has anyone else (although now I come to think of it, the contract might have been six diamonds rather than seven spades, but this does not matter). But even if I had, one of the ways in which a Law is proven is by examining how it will work in all conceivable circumstances; if it does not work, then it should not be the Law.

Certainly the original "Kaplan question" arose in the course of an auction where Kaplan, who knew what the opponents' bidding meant, asked (at his turn, and before the end of the auction) a question solely in order that Norman Kay should know it also. Moreover, Kaplan had reason to believe that the explanations so far given to him and to Kay (no screens in those days) were at best incomplete and at worst erroneous; he wanted to ensure that the game proceeded with everyone in full possession of those facts of which the Law states that they should have been in possession. Notwithstanding which, it was then and remains now the case that: [a] players should not take the Law into their own hands, even if they wrote the Law in the first place; players should not communicate with their partners other than by means of legal calls and plays. Trivially, dummy should not go around asking questions in order to help declarer with the play - as others have correctly said, dummy has no right to go around asking questions anyway. More generally, no one has at any point the right to ask a question solely to assist partner. This is not as widely known as it should be, though, and I was suggesting only not sentencing a man to death - or worse (the shame, the shame) a procedural penalty - for a first offence.

I think this means "To mislead the opposition [in order] to avoid giving UI to partner is [...]". I could be wrong; if I am, then no doubt I will be added to the ever-growing list of people who have misinterpreted bluejak either by believing that he says what he means or (more naively) by believing that he means what he says. But one cannot "use the Laws unethically"; it is, as someone once remarked, never unethical to play a game according to the rules. If the rules permit conduct that will be considered morally reprehensible, then the rules and not the conduct are at fault. There is no Law that obliges you to attempt to avoid the legal consequences of a fumble, whether you had something to fumble about or not. Nor, more emphatically, is there a Law that gives you the right to make some remark in an attempt to avoid those consequences. Which one?

Awkward when there is a playing Director, or even when the Director isn't playing. "Director, I know that on one of the three or four boards shortly to arrive from the next table, one side or the other has twelve top tricks." How the Director is supposed to "sort it out" I have no idea, and neither does the law book. Law 16C begins: and continues with a great many specific recommendations about what should be done on a specific board about which the player has information. It contains no recommendation at all regarding this case, where a player has received information about "a board" but no one knows which board. Perhaps the authors did not envisage this case, or perhaps they chose (wisely) not to deal with it. As an exercise, what should be done if five minutes after the tournament begins, North at table 1 announces in a voice loud enough to be heard round the room that "seven spades is cold"? Since it will be clear to all that this can relate only to Board 1, what should happen to Board 1? Show your working, having particular regard to the Laws of Duplicate Bridge 2007 and to the Bluejak Principle that players who have paid to play 24 boards should not play only 23. Meanwhile, it appears to me that the original poster behaved, for practical purposes, in almost exemplary fashion. Unwilling to have three or four boards scrapped just in case there were twelve top tricks on any of them, he resolved to reveal the UI in his possession only when it might become relevant. Note that the former course of action would require the TD to examine each board in turn before allowing the table to play it, whence it would have been clear to all concerned that they probably should not bid a slam. When, however, the OP had good reason to believe that he was playing the board about which he had UI, he should have summoned the Director and laid the facts before him, rather than consulting the opponents (and indirectly conveying UI to his partner). Then, the Director could have acted as I have indicated: allow play to continue until a point at which it became obvious that normal play was impossible, and award an artificial adjusted score. This is not an ideal solution, but bridge is not an ideal game, and the Laws are not ideal Laws. I cannot help that, but I feel at the very least that blackshoe was a little hard on Ant590 when referring to him as "the cause of all the hullabaloo".

Oh, I don't know. This is an example of what used to be called the "pro question" or perhaps the "Kaplan question", where a player asks a question not for his own benefit but for his partner's. I can understand, given its provenance, why the belief might persist that such questions are permitted, and I would hesitate to fine even an experienced North who so believed.

I suppose that if after 3♦-3♥-3♠-4♣, my bid of 4♦ would be "last train" and not explicitly a control bid, partner might be better placed to avoid the five level when we did not belong there. I don't know, because I don't have very much experience at all with "last train" (at least in the bridge sense; in the going-home-from -the-pub sense I am probably one of the world's leading authorities). If the method is that after 3♦ partner bids 3♥ only with three cards, else 3NT, then I would certainly start with 3♦. Perhaps partner, with such as ♥Kx and a bunch of aces and kings, or with ♥KQ and ♠A, might see his way to bidding 3♠ and not 3NT. On the actual auction, it was not wrong for opener to lie with 3♥ rather than 3NT; his heart support would often be as good as a three-card holding, while his spade guard was considerably worse than it might have been for 2NT. Whether or not his hand was "better than a non-serious 3NT" at his next turn is questionable; 4♣ was probably wrong given his spade holding, because if partner had the king he would expect opener to have the ace, not ♠Qxx. But opener's jump to 6♥ was... well, it was so bad as to be, in the words of an eminent scientist, "not even wrong".

Brian Callaghan realised this a long time ago when he formulated Binkie's Second Law: you should always open the bidding in fourth seat, because if the hand belonged to the opponents, one of them would have opened the bidding in first or (especially) third seat. This has served us well over many years, though it has not had quite the universal application of Binkie's First Law: both defenders should not unblock the same suit at the same time.

Now, where a player has hesitated before playing a singleton (as in this case), there should at least be some investigation into whether this was in fact an attempt to mislead an opponent. One may be satisfied that it was not, but an apology from the offender is not evidence. As to Law 73B1, announcing to the table that "I do not have a problem on this trick" may be held to be a communication with partner, as well as an attempt not to mislead declarer. Provided that partner does not act on the information received, there may be no breach of Law involved, but again the Director should not ignore the possibility.

That east is a big fat liar. Insufficient evidence. Nothing in the original post suggests that East is either big or fat. But with the rest of your conclusion, I agree entirely.

I believe that there is (at least) one position in which an artificial score may replace a result actually obtained at the table. That was not the case on this occasion, but it was the case where the players continued to play the board despite East's prior possession of unauthorized information from another table. In general, I believe that a Director may say in effect that "if you had called me when you should have done [instead of incorrectly rectifying the irregularity yourselves], I would not have allowed this board to be played, so I will cancel the result you obtained on it and award an artificial adjusted score" (note that L12A3 does not restrict the Director in terms of the kind of adjusted score he may award).

Law 91B reads: The phrase "for cause" does not appear elsewhere in the Laws, and as with Law 81, its use here indicates that the Director needs a sound reason to disqualify a contestant. I imagine that the Director could instruct a non-offending side to waive a penalty, and if they refused, apply a procedural penalty under Law 90B8 that would have the same net effect on the scores as if the original penalty had been waived. One rather hopes that such extreme measures will never be necessary, however.

[1] doesn't seem right; with correct information West would be more, not less likely to double 2♥ (given than he doubled it anyway). If North has majors, East is more likely than otherwise to take the double out into clubs, which would suit West fine. [2] isn't right; the 2♠ bid was not legal. [3] isn't right; we can tell what might have happened and assign probabilities to each occurrence. [4] seems right; with correct information West would double, North would pass and East would bid. The score should be adjusted to whatever the most favourable of likely outcomes would be for East-West (minus 150 in 3♦ would be my guess). [5] isn't right, or at least not completely right; North-South can't get 570 for this performance. If it is judged that East-West's actions were wild, or gambling, or serious errors unrelated to the infraction, then they do not receive redress for such damage as was self-inflicted. In my view both East and West are a pair of complete nutters, but being a complete nutter is not in itself illegal and given their levels of sanity, their actions were not such as to deny them full redress for North's irregularity.

If partner has xx or xxx in spades, his 2NT bid is at least questionable. What would it mean if I were to bid 3♠ at this point? Because if that would be a control-bid for hearts, I would quite like to bid it.

Since L16C2 applies "before any call has been made", I find it hard to see why you think it "may apply to events that occur after calls have been made". Simply because one of the things the Director can do is "allow completion of the play of the board". To do this he will need to permit some calls to be made, or the board will take a while to complete. However, the calls and plays necessary to ensure completion of the board are made under the provision of the rest of the Law, which says that the Director stands "ready to award an adjusted score if he judges that unauthorized information may have affected the result", so that L16C2C applies to the events required to ensure completion of play - in particular, to all calls made after the second of the auction. Come to think of it, if (as I have suggested that he should) the Director intervenes at a point where normal play has become impossible because of unauthorized information, that will constitute completion of the board, so that it may not be necessary after all for the Director to wait until play has finished before awarding an (artificial) adjusted score.

[hv=d=n&v=e&n=saxxxhak10xdxxcjxx&w=shq9xxxdaj98ck10xx&e=s10xxhj8xxdq10xcaqx&s=skqjxxxhdkxxxcxxx]399|300|Scoring: XIMP[/hv] Don't remember the spots and can't find the record, but this was the hand in its essentials. Maybe doubling this East is a long-term winner after all - West didn't have to be quite as suitable as that.

Judging by the methods apparently in use on the hand CSGibson quotes, I would say not - the hand is unsuitable for opening six spades, or three hearts, or three clubs, so one diamond is all that is left.

I think that with trump splitting badly, an obvious tap suit, and good trumps including the T, that this contract will nearly always go off no matter what partner has. Opponents have bid at the 5 level, but there's nothing saying they got it right, and a lot in my hand saying they got it wrong. Who cares if the opponents "belong in this part of the forum"? Listen to the bidding and look at your hand, it's surely correct imp and matchpoint odds both to X this. Well, those four spades to the ace and the complete lack of anything in the minor suits do not really amount to "a lot in your hand saying they got it wrong". Unsurprisingly (at least, to my way of thinking) the opponents had nine hearts, one of them had no spades, and you could not beat 5♥ doubled (partner's king of diamonds proved not to be a side-suit trick). Mind you, declarer had to play it well, but since declarer was Lars Blakset, this was to be expected. Perhaps it was also to be expected that he and his partner would not voluntarily contract for eleven tricks, vulnerable against not, if they expected to go down several. Still, I am suitably chastened. When OleBerg and I were commentating on the deal this afternoon, I opined that North should not double before I had actually seen that the contract was going to make - I thought it would go one down, but felt that the odds did not favour doubling a freely-bid game at IMPs unless you thought it more likely to go two down than to make. Of course, you might double to protect your position if you thought that 4♠ was going to make, but the auction had suggested what was true: that 4♠ had a bunch of minor-suit losers, so that ought not to have been a concern (although it would have made on a heart lead). If, though, everyone here would double, I guess I was wrong.

"For cause" is a legal phrase that means more or less what it says. In some legal systems counsel in cases tried by juries may challenge the appointment of any juror either peremptorily (without giving a reason) or "for cause" (giving a reason why the juror is likely to be prejudiced and thus unfit to try the case). There is usually a limit to the number of peremptory challenges, but any number of jurors may be challenged "for cause". A "for-cause audit" takes place when someone has reason to believe that something dodgy is going on; it is distinct from a regular (say, annual) audit or a random audit. As used in Law 81, it means that the Director cannot waive a penalty unless he does so "for cause"; he may not waive the penalty just because he feels like doing so, or even just because the non-offending side has asked him to do so. Usually, as Peter says, the "cause" is that the infraction was not bridge-related but a function of a player's temporary or permanent impairment. The Director must bear in mind Law 12B2:

Perhaps I'm being obtuse, but my copy of Law 16C2 begins A number of calls have been made, so I don't see why you think this law applies to this situation. Law 16C2C permits the Director to "allow completion of the play of the board standing ready to award an adjusted score if he judges that unauthorized information may have affected the result". That is, Law 16C2 may apply to events that occur after calls have been made, and therefore to this situation. Law 16C3, on the other hand, does not apply at all to this situation. However, Law 16C2C appears to indicate that if the Director allows play on the board to begin, he must also allow it to finish, and only then award an adjusted score. This is pointless: what the Director ought to do is to allow play to begin, but curtail it if it becomes clear that play can no longer continue normally because of the unauthorized information. This is analogous to the the situation in which a pair has started to bid a board against the wrong opponents; when the right opponents arrive, play is permitted to continue as long as the auction follows in all respects that conducted against the wrong ones, but curtailed as soon as it does not (Law 15C refers). If the Law does not permit the Director to follow this course of action, then the Law is indeed an ass.

That's an ideal to strive for, but you won't achieve it, at least not in an acceptable manner. There are rules that are objective and repeatable, but they aren't acceptable. For example, a claimer loses every trick in the case of a faulty claim is an objective rule that produces the same result every time, but it isn't acceptable. If I ruled the world, the law on claims would say this: A player making a claim faces his cards. He states the number of tricks he proposes to take, and one or more orders in which play will progress so that he can take those tricks. If the claim is contested, the Director adjusts the score as if any play not explicitly covered by the claim statement had proceeded in the legal order least advantageous to the claimer. Is this what is accepted? No, for people make bum claims all the time, being encouraged to do so by officials who say "yes, of course you'd have made four tricks from AKx facing Q10xx" when there is no "of course" about it at all. Is this what is acceptable? I don't see why not - it takes no more than a few extra seconds for players to claim as I have indicated above instead of saying "the rest are mine". And if they go down twelve instead of down one by saying only "I have them all", perhaps they'll learn not to say that next time. At any rate, it is considerably easier for officials to rule on what is or is not explicitly covered by a claim statement than to rule on what some buffoon might or might not have had in mind when he claimed x tricks despite possessing only x-1 winners. Players at all levels don't mind the rules being harsh. What they mind is the rules and the rulings being [a] inconsistent and incomprehensible. If you've got fifteen golf clubs in your bag, you get penalized out of all proportion to the "offence" when the extra club was a plastic putter for your three-year-old kid. Golfers don't mind that. Why should bridge players?