jdeegan

:) The reason you don't superaccept on three but do so on four or five is the law of total tricks. With a combined 9+ trumps you are normally OK at the three level regardless of pard's high card holding.

:) DIRECTOR!!!

:D It's not only forcing, it has a specific meaning - to wit, my 5♦ bid had plenty of playing strength, and I'm not looking at two quick ♠ losers - conceivably I could have three small spades. The operative rule is that we voluntarily bid game to make - and pard seconded the motion - hence the forcing pass is clearly in force.

;) 3♥ seems the best choice given the possible continuations. Pass is OK. 3♠ gets 4♠. 3NT works. 4♥ may be the only makable game. Must be because I have the expected 17 HCP, and ♥ is a playable trump suit even opposite a small singleton. DUHHH.

<_< wtf = as in wtf was that all about?

:unsure: Uh... 4NT as an invite opposite a long diamond suit and not much else??? What do I accept with??? Quantitative 4NT works with two balanced hands facing one another where point count bidding works rather well. A combined 31 HCP - not so good for six - 33HCP usually OK. With a six or seven-bagger as the principle source of tricks - controls and fitting cards in the long suit(s) are what you need. You might say a direct 4NT is an idle bid since a forcing suit bid followed by 4NT is always available. Meckwell may have assigned a special meaning to this auction, but for most of us, the aforementioned 99%, it is RKC for diamonds. Plus, there is real merit in keeping the opponents in the dark with a short auction.

:P I have to join the camp that wonders why I doubled at my first turn to bid. It seems an easy 3♦ bid to me - a 3♠ Q bid seems a bit much with 3-4-3-3 distribution even with 2.5 quick tricks. Chances of a ♥ fit seem very remote since pard did not double - automatic with almost any 1-4-6-2 or 1-4-5-3 shape or the like because of equal conversion. Time now to pass - elementary bridge as partner is 'good for' only one trick and I have only two.

:P This is absurd. A four minute hez is UI, big time. And what could he have been thinking about?? Partner has to bend over backwards to avoid using it. With an extra unshown ace and a max consistent with earlier bidding, bidding six is OK, I guess. I would need to see their convention card, though, to verify that RKC responder really did mis-answer his controls. The question is what would he have bid over a fast 5♠.

:D I agree with PeterAlan's analysis: "I would not be inclined to overturn the TD's decision. This is not quite the same as to say that if I was ruling ab initio I would necessarily have ruled the same way, but I consider that I need a rather higher standard in order to over-rule an experienced TD's judgment with my own. Before getting to the bridge judgments, however, there are, as always with these wretched UI cases, the various legalities - a major problem being that there's always something in one law / regulation or another to support whatever point of view one wishes to advance." :) :lol: It is elementary that once the pure game was sullied with the abomination of alerts, myriad new opportunities were created for cheating. No amount of new regulatory language can anticipate every possibility and block it. :lol: :lol: Imo what happened was as follows: (1) South made the modern equivalent of a slow pass by asking about the 2♥ bid. He has, imo, a clear 4♣ call, but he knows his partner is an overbidder, so he passes 'slowly'. (2) North, having made an aggressive (but not an overbid) 3♣ call, responds to the slow pass with a 4♥ overbid. (3) East, a customer, does not realize the importance of his sixth ♠, and passes. (4) West, the pro, has no reason to bid. Par for the hand is 4♠, either making or down one depending on the location of the ♥ K. 4♥ makes when 4♠ is down one or goes down one when 4♠ makes, assuming 3-2 ♥'s Ditto for 4♣, except it may occasionally make one more trick than hearts. Imo, N-S bear watching in the future. My conjectures about them may be wrong, so adjusting the score on this hand might well be an inexcusable injustice.

:blink: :) :lol: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana...1905 :lol: :lol: :lol:

:lol: Now we have a bridge hand where North needed to ask about the 2♥ bid right then, and then probably should have bid 4♣, but didn't. 4♥ looks to be about 50%. 5♣ doubled is down one, and 4♠ does appear to make since the heart is onside (and/or a stiff heart). One could, conceivably, adjust the score to 3♠ making 4, but it seems unwise to intervene in this comedy. North's "illegal" bid gave E-W the option to bid a makable game. Hands like this are difficult for even the best players to judge, and I won't criticize E-W as bridge players (esp. since I don't even know what their hands were). However, letting the opponents play 4♥ undoubled at IMPs in this vul is really taking an extreme position. Bidding 4♠ is cheap insurance. We have all come out on the wrong end of hands like this, but imo. they are a big part of the fun.

:P The starter of the thread was kind enough to send me a description of doubler's hand. To wit: 3-4-4-2 distribution, 12 HCP and AQ10x in ♥. This is not a hand that a cheater would hesitate with. He/she was, evidently, a little concerned that the ♥ suit might be behind him/her. People who play artifical bids like 2♥ put something of a burden on the opponents and should be ready to accept the consequences of the opponents' asking about them. It appears to me that every card has to be right for 4♥ to make. I doubt if 4♥ is a great spot under most circumstances. It could have been -500 or -800 doubled with a different lie of the cards. E-W just got fixed on this one. To me, the fact that they complained and wanted an adjusted score is disgusting. The game has taken a serious anal turn with all this stupid lawyering.

:P Pretty clear pass against competent opponents. So little to gain, so much to lose. It is within shouting distance of the cusp, so 2♦ might work against weak opponents merely because it makes them face an unusual bidding situation.

:P Chicken on the first one, 5♣. Second one is imo, an easy 5♥. I pard has a stiff ♠, they have 11 of them, and bidding on is right. If he has two or three ♠, he has half the deck in high cards. Either way, bid on.

♣ :P This bridge hand and situation is starting to bug me. Were I on the appeals committee, I would want to know South's hand. If he has about 16 working HCP and 2-4-4-3 or 3-4-4-2 distribution, then I would be very suspicious that E-W had been had by a wired pair of no great sophistication. I think this illustrates the essential problem with Law 16B1a, it puts all the onus on North to "bend over backwards" (oddly enough, the same phrase Oswald Jacoby and Paul Hodge used when they taught me bridge ethics 40+ years ago). The real problem is that both parties are usually involved in this kind of UI cheating, so the sole focus on North that derives from current regulations is not sufficient. Personally, with the aforementioned heavy double with less than 4 ♣'s, I would be thinking that an in tempo pass was my best bid and make it so as not to prejudice partner's action. Dast I say it, but it is child's play to cheat the existing system just by barring partner from taking an unwanted push with a well-timed hesitation. Hard to catch this one since the offender can do it with an ethical and unwitting partner and only when he is in contention. "Bend over backward" was originally given as a way for honest players to be more ethical, not as a basis for a code of law. Imo, the only thing that is feasible is to identify cheating, and admonish or discipline these players. Restoring equity to the opponents in every single situation on the basis of the facts of a single bridge hand simply cannot be done. Remember, its only a game. Games have to be fun.

:D And people wonder why the game is declining in popularity.

This is nonsense of course. There is no real difference in law between a slow pass that suggests a particular choice of action and a question which suggests a particular choice of action. Law 16B1a is the relevant law. It does not much matter whether South passed slowly or asked about the 2♥ call, save that asking particularly suggests interest in hearts whereas a slow pass does not suggest anything so specific. I would not bat an eyelid, of course, if North had asked in this auction; that would be practically expected and does not give any meaningful UI. But after North doesn't ask, for South to ask now rather than at the end of the auction is pretty unusual. The last sentence of your post is a sentiment which is not shared by the writers of the lawbook. It is a general principle in bridge law (see, for example, law 23) that the possibility of innocence is not enough; you must protect the non-offending side by adjusting the score if there is a reasonable possibility of guilt. There are many situations where the law requires an adjusted score where the player "could have known" that his actions were likely to damage opponents, even though he might not have known. Following this principle, and being seen to do so, does not merely protect those who are known to be innocent from those who merely may be, it also protects you from being sued for slander. It is very important that an adjusted score should not be an accusation of deliberate wrongdoing. :D Well, we are back to the same basic question: "Did N-S do a 'job' on their opponents?" I think TO doubler's question is beyond reproach. His partner evidently knows the meaning of the 2♥ bid (or doesn't care), but the poor fellow who asks needs to find out if he is up against a ♠ preempt or a ♥ suit on his left and 6 or 7♠ on his right, or is it a really weak 2♠ raise with 4 pieces. Really good reasons to ask his question. But, then he passes. Is this like a slow pass (to bid 4♣ or not)? I am beginning to think it is. It's like if 2♥ meant 4♠ and a weak hand, I would have bid 4♣. Consequently, his partner needs to bend over backward to avoid bidding what a slow pass suggests, namely 4♣. Bidding 4♥ vul is really off the wall. Was he thinking that his pard had a 4♣ bid, but didn't have a fourth ♣? If that is the actual holding, then that's too much coincidence for me. Finally, you cannot say that someone who fails to bend over backwards to avoid a specific indicated call is innocent.

I think you have misread the auction. North had the 6 count and South a. made the take out double and b. asked the question. The hand given bid 3C followed by 4H. :lol: Thanks for the correction. Now the auction makes a little more sense. The 4♥ bid is very, very aggressive, but I still don't see why the TO doubler's question for clarification about the alert of the 2♥ bid transmits UI. After all, he is going to be on lead vs a ♠ contract. I agree with jdonn that both opponents have to be able to ask clarifying questions without prejudicing the auction. The 4♥ bidder may have: (1) needed a board due to the state of the match (2) read something in the OPPONENT's mannerisms - a smug 3♠ bid (3) illegally read something in the way pard asked about the alert (4) received a vision from the bridge gods It sounds to me like E-W got frustrated when N-S overcame their preempt. Possibly N-S DID do a job with the asking about the alert being the equivalent of a very slow pass, but what are you going to do? It was NOT a slow pass, and imho that has to be that. You cannot enforce a system that once in a while punishes the innocent.

:) Bizarre bidding, not the least by South who made a TO double with 6 HCP, but he did have the ♥'s he promised. I don't see where the "director" found any UI. South has a right to find out what LHO's alerted 2♥ bid meant. Odd for a passed hand, North, to bid 4♥ after passing initially, but he could have the hand for it - 4-6, 4-5 or 5-6 in ♥ and ♣ plus a few working high cards, but not enough to open the bidding second seat. It's hard to say not seeing North's hand, but imo E-W are probably the lowest of the low, lawyering to try to get a good score rather than playing bridge. It's just a game, folks.

:huh: You might consider bidding 5♥ if the opponents reach 4♠. It is -800 tho if the ♦ ace is offside, tho. I just don't want to stir them up to begin with. This is not a bad hand for an audacious psyche. At least you have a half-assed desperation landing spot at 5♥ if things get out of hand.

:huh: You gonna lead a ♦?

:) Anything but 4♥. I think the actual hand you cite is probably close to the general case and does contain a valid lesson. By preempting you are fighting vulnerable with a very short stick. Unless pard has a really good playing hand your yuckky 5-3-3-2 shape won't help much at the 5 level despite the extra trump. More to the point, if you don't preempt to 4♥ (or even 3♥) the opponent with the doubleton ♥ will get overly pessimistic, thinking the ♥'s are 2-2. Sometimes (maybe half the time) this will matter and work in your favor. Personally, I would much rather pass than bid 4♥, which in some circles is known as a transfer to 4♠.

:) 2♣ - Pard bid 1♠ non-vul vs vul at the one level. This may not even be our hand. The ♥K is not a good card. Let's set the defense and make a constructive move. If pard has cards, he will bid some more. Imo, 3♣ as a fit jump is optional assuming I were playing it. Change the ♥K to any other suit, and it would be mandatory

:) 4♥ - think you gotta blast despite the actual outcome where pard has a magic hand - and opps silent with 10♦. Imho, way too much to gain by blasting. Occasionally blasting will help you make the hand. Other times just get an overtrick or so.

:D Transfer = 100% for me. Why try to steal with Texas when we are vul. Might easily go for -200 or more against their partscore. 7-2-2-2 opposite a balanced hand is yuck. I will, probably, compete to 3♥ based on the law since pard rates to have 2 or 3 ♥. Wish I could transfer to 3♥ and then pass. On the actual hand you have an easy 3♥ over 3♦. You need more HCP to bid game to make when you don't have any singletons or voids between the two hands.