dburn

Does South have a case? I hope so, for he will need it to pack his belongings before his removal to the State Home for the Bewildered.

I am not sure I have seen Robin's argument before, but it is an interesting thought that one should give some weight to the idea that East-West would break the rules just because North-South have. One can imagine "99% of 4♠ making, 1% of 4♠ down one because declarer would revoke one time in a hundred". But it is better not to imagine this.

I believe I have the answer. When South passed at his first turn, this was because he had picked up a twitch from West that he interpreted as showing a good hand with spades. East had also twitched to show a good hand with short spades. When the auction developed as it did, South concluded that these must have been psychic twitches, so he had better show his jack-seventh of spades after all.

Pass is automatic. 5♦ is illegal.

For the record, the auction went in identical fashion at our table. Mind you, our opponents were playing four-card majors, so that 3♦ rather than 1♥ was the obvious move anyway. Even playing the methods espoused by the OP, 3♦ is the obvious move anyway, but I do not expect him to be able to see that.

East didn't actually have a twitch. If 3♦ had worked worse than 1♥, would you have called the Director because you were misled?

Quite so. Agua, when they ask us "Can you speak Rhinoceros?" we say "Of causeros. Can't you?"

Oh, this thread and the question that began it is not weak at all. The matters that it raises are of considerable importance. Here is some fellow who has departed from a legally required procedure in respect of the calling of a card from dummy. He has done so intentionally in order to gain some advantage. Law 72B is clear: a player must not infringe a law intentionally. Of course, only philosophers know what that means; the rest of you think that it means "with intent to break the law". It does not. Law 73D2 is clearer still: "A player may not attempt to mislead an opponent by means of [...] any purposeful deviation from correct procedure". In calling expressly for a small diamond, South was purposefully deviating from correct procedure in an attempt to induce an error from East, and a score adjustment was in order when this machination succeeded. At least, that is (or so I surmise) the view and the intent of the OP. He has the Law on his side, and the Law is the true embodiment of everything that's excellent. On the other hand, I have just attended a tournament at which every single player (including myself) broke the Law a good few hundred times over the course of a weekend. What did they do? Why, they asked for a small card from dummy. Were the Directors called when this happened? Actually, no. What would they have done if it had happened? Their protocols doubtless proscribe them from telling the paying customers to go and boil their heads, which would in this case be a pity. "The common law", said Travers Humphreys, "is founded on common sense. The other law is made by politicians." Calling "small", or "small diamond", is technically an infraction of Law, but is a procedure so well established by custom and practice that to all intents and purposes it is legal, or (what is not quite the same thing, but ought to be) "not illegal". It is to be hoped that Laws 46 and 47 will be revised in the next edition of the Laws so that what has been done by everybody on what must be a total of billions of occasions does not constitute a breach of Law. To that extent, this thread has drawn attention to a deficiency in the Laws that ought to be rectified. It raises also questions as to what is and what is not a "legitimate swindle", if there can be such a thing. Such matters are entirely subjective, and if experience has taught me anything it is that people who think one way cannot be reconciled with people who think the other way even though both may be equally right or equally wrong. Incidentally, if Grosvenor were East, he would have ruffed the third diamond with the two.

A handsome young airman was dying And as on the tarmac he lay, To the people who round him came sighing These last poignant words he did say: "Take the cylinder out of my kidneys, The connecting rod out of my brain, Take the cam shaft from under my backbone And assemble the engine again. "When the Court of Enquiry gets here Just tell them the reason I died Was because I forgot twice iota Is the minimum angle of glide."

The answer to the OP's question is "I don't know what is going on". At first, it seems as though West was aware of his responsibilities: having bid a natural 3♥ explained by East as spades, he correctly treated East's 3♠ as a cue for hearts and bid Blackwood over it. You may question his judgement in so doing, but his ethics are impeccable. But then, when East bid 5NT, West passed it. A cynic might say that he did this lest worse befall - West knew that if he bid anything at all, East (who thought spades were trump) might do something detrimental to East-West's chances of playing in something they could make. Passing 5NT, therefore, smacks of unauthorised panic. A more charitable view might be that since 5NT did not exist as a response to Blackwood with hearts agreed, it was open to West to pass it anyway on the basis that the partnership auction was (legitimately) known to have gone off the rails. Not as far, though, as some distinguished commentators above seem to have gone off the rails. Of course East wouldn't have passed 6♥ (or 6♣, for that matter, if West had bid it as well he might). East thought spades were trump, remember, and West knew this. True, East is alleged to have said "we have to be in 6♥", but it would be interesting to hear East's suggestion as to how, if 3♥ really did show spades, they would have reached 6♥. Indeed, it would be interesting to hear East-West's account of the motives behind their curious sequence. Without such data, I will not theorize.

Would respectfully suggest that psyching 3♥ when holding four aces is unlikely to be a successful strategy in the long (or even the relatively short) run.

It was dburn who observed that a justification for disallowing selection of illogical alternatives (not proscribed by Law 16) could be found in Law 73, and he did so in endorsement of Chip Martel's principle that the call selected by a player in possession of UI should be considered a LA within the meaning of Law 16. After all, if every LA you can think of will lead to a bad result anyway, it is logical to make an absurd call and hope for the best. An earlier principle stated by dburn is this: the slowness of any call is in direct proportion to the caller's desire that it not be the final call in the auction. West had a prototypical slow 4♥, and East had an obvious 5♥ bid over 5♣ with all working cards. Sophisticated partnerships should consider using East's 5♦ as "last train" in this kind of auction; at least, they should until the just anger of the populace results in the incarceration or execution of people who think that a slow 4♥ doesn't demonstrably suggest anything. Bah.

I'm not sure I agree with the notion that a procedural penalty should be applied every time dummy puts his cards down in the wrong order (682 rather than 862, or AKQ723 rather than AKQ732). Procedural penalties, which are for procedural errors, should be applied always or never when the error in question occurs; they should not be used as (partial) redress for damage when there does not appear to be any other Law that grants redress for that damage. Mind you, I suppose this question might arise: if dummy notices at about trick three that his spades are in the wrong order, what is he supposed to do about it? After all, he may not during the play period be the first to draw attention to an irregularity, even his own...

May be worth mentioning that the spot cards were't quoted in the OP, but they might matter. If your spades were, say, A32 and you led the two playing fourth best, partner would not duck his king from king fifth and out (well, give him a round-suit queen to prevent declarer from having nine fast ones) with ♠Jx in the dummy - why should you not have ace fourth? Nor would he duck his queen from queen fifth and out with ♠Kx in the dummy - again, why should you not have ace fourth and declarer have misguessed with ♠Jx? Attitude won't help in this position either; the only thing that will is playing third and low against notrump as well as against suits, and no one plays that. Perhaps I should lead the ace after all (or the eight from ♠A8x like a true Pole, if indeed ♠A8x was what I had).

The truth, as anyone who has played bridge for any length of time will tell you, is that if you lead a club dummy will have ♣Q98x and declarer ace third. If you don't, they won't. If you don't lead a diamond, declarer will run four heart tricks and five club tricks, while partner had ♦KQxx all the while. If you do, declarer's unsupported ♦K will be his ninth trick. If you lead the nine of hearts, declarer will cover it with the ten from dummy's ♥Q108 and smile at your partner, who has king-low. If you don't lead the nine of hearts, it will transpire that specifically the nine of hearts was the only lead to beat the contract. If you lead a spade, either the ace or a low one, it will turn out that you could have led any of the other ten cards in your hand for a one-trick set. But you didn't. Since you didn't ask, I will tell you anyway - I would lead a low spade, because that seems to require least from partner to enable us to beat the contract even though suits are breaking well for declarer; moreover, a low spade seems to me less likely to blow a trick by force than any other suit. ♠A could work better than a low one in terms of preventing partner from doing something stupid (or something clever slowly, barring me from continuing the suit anyway). If you told me I couldn't lead a spade I would lead a diamond; if you told me I couldn't lead a spade or a diamond I would lead a heart (the nine, just in case). If you told me I had to lead a club, I would join JLOGIC in the bar while you led a club. One of two things would then happen: your club lead would beat the hand and you would play the rest of the match while JLOGIC and I formed a mutual admiration society in the bar; or dummy would have ♣Q98x and declarer ace third. Still, as we took our seats for the rest of the session, JLOGIC and I would be both agreed on the demerits of a club lead and a couple of beers to the good.

Not sure I'd go that far. With such as ♠64 ♥1062 ♦AQ32 ♣AK107 I think most would rebid 2♣ or 1NT after 1♦ (1♥) Dble - (Pass). Indeed, even if ♣A were ♠A I doubt I (or many other people) would rebid 1♠. Verb. sap. - this is why you should open 1♦ and not 1♣ with this hand type.

I am not sure I follow this. Responder to 1NT, intending to bid hearts to show spades, pulled a heart from his hand instead of pulling a heart (specifically the 2♥ card) from the bidding box. He wasn't leading the card - he was trying to bid with it; quite what his state of mind must have been one can only conjecture, especially since he appears to have continued to try to bid with it after his error was pointed out, but the facts as presented by Fluffy seem clear enough. Luckily the ♥9 was nearer his thumb than any of his three honours, so the exposed ♥9 is a single card below the rank of an honour and not prematurely led. Hence Law 24A applies and there is no (further) rectification as far as the auction is concerned. Opener can bid 2♠, responder can bid what he chooses after that, and all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

Do not worry about the field. It isn't worrying about you.

Opener can rebid 2♥ with sundry good hands; if this is defined as "extras with four spades or some other hand type that will bid again over responder's 2♠", then opener can bid 2♠ comfortably with four spades and a minimum and avoid having to jump to 3♠ with marginal extra values. Of course, the partnership needs to work on continuations over 2♥ if responder has extras also, but this need not present insuperable difficulties.

This is a well-known trap for the unwary. The method usually described as "2/4" or "2nd/4th" means second highest from two or three cards, fourth highest from four or more cards. This is more widely practised in Poland (where it is the standard leading method) than in Sweden, but it is not uncommon in the Scandinavian countries. To "standard" southern European players the method is somewhat disconcerting when encountered for the first time. Since from, say, 82 doubleton a "2/4" player will lead the two, declarer will plough on without fear of losing a third-round ruff, and be sadly disappointed. The lead of the 8 from, say, Q82 seems downright perverted, but is merely the normal card from that holding. But well it was said by the bard: For the world is wondrous large - seven seas from marge to marge - And it holds a vast and various kind of man; And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Kathmandu And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban. If you play "standard southern European" - fourth best from suits headed by at least one honour, second best from three or more small cards, top of doubletons - you should not describe this as "2/4" but as "4th (2nd from bad suits)". Unless of course you want to confuse the foreigners, which should be the aim of every true-born Briton.

If you play odd/even discards, then you might properly say "an odd card encourages the suit". Provided of course that you go on to say "but if partner is constrained to discard a heart and has nothing but odd hearts from which to choose, then she does not necessarily want to encourage the suit". Whereas you should not transmit the information that you can tell whether a card is relatively high or relatively low, it seems to me that the information that a card is odd or even is already in the public domain. Of course, you could always try a tactic first employed (in my experience at least) by a player who in later life became a prominent tournament director and member of the Laws and Ethics Committee. When asked by my left-hand opponent what my discard of the seven of spades meant, he said "it means that he regards the trick-taking potential of the seven of spades as lower than that of at least one other card in his hand". Entirely satisfied with this explanation, declarer continued to play.

I don't understand this at all. If declarer won the heart lead with the singleton ace in dummy, then declarer really was in dummy and the spade from dummy was not a lead out of turn. Perhaps it was not the card declarer meant to play, but... ...maybe the "lead out of turn" was the heart from declarer's hand after having been misinformed by dummy that she was in hand. In that case, of course either defender may accept it, but I have never been sure of the protocol here - indeed, I am not sure whether there is one. My own practice after declarer leads from the wrong hand and I am on the wrong hand's left is: if I know that it is in the defenders' best interests to accept the lead I play a card; if not, I do nothing until partner has had a chance to ask declarer to lead from the correct hand or to indicate that he accepts the lead from the wrong one. But how should he do this? And is the information that he wants to accept the lead from the wrong hand authorised to [a] my side only both sides [c] neither side? More importantly, the same questions apply to partner's receipt of the information that I do not know whether to accept the lead out of turn is in our side's best interests. Indeed, my reputation once almost suffered a serious blow when declarer led a spade from dummy despite being in hand. I, who had a singleton spade, sat motionless for a while, then (since I assumed from partner's inactivity that he was prepared to countenance the lead from the wrong hand) followed suit. Declarer finessed in spades, lost to partner's singleton honour, and turned the air blue for several minutes with, among other things, allegations about my parentage that (happily) were unsustainable. The Director being summoned and explanations being given, order was restored and drinks all round were summoned. And yet...

Rubber bridge (almost no conventions allowed) [hv=pc=n&s=sakt92h9432dkckt2&n=sqj3ha65da432caq3&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=1sp2dp2hp3cp3np5sp6sppp]266|200[/hv] 3♣ was fourth-suit forcing, one of the few conventions that are allowed. 5♠ was a general invitation - "bid six if you think you have a suitable hand". [1] Criticise the bidding, bearing in mind that if South's king of diamonds was the king of hearts the slam would be very good, but also bearing in mind that the poor fellow probably thought his ♦K was a good card anyway given his partner's 2♦ response. [2] More importantly, plan the play on the opening lead of ♥K. [3] If you complete [2] successfully, you will make the contract. Conjecture why this might have been very unlucky.

Not sure either of those would work. But if you had chilli powder in the cupboard and prunes in the blender...

Did anyone ask West whether, if his partner had responded 2♦ instead of 2♥, he would still rebid 2NT?