Trinidad

Hi Peter, It is not just that you can bid with few points when partner doubles. You have to bid when partner doubles, even with no points. The consequence of having to bid, even with a really bad hand, is that if you do have a good hand, simply bidding something won't do the trick. You need to tell partner that you have a good hand by jumping or by simply bidding game. (Remember that partner's double promised that he has support for the unbid suits.) As to "really getting it" by the time you are 90: Bridge is such a complicated (but very nice) game that I am sure that I won't get it before I am that old. But that doesn't stop me from playing ... and learning. And neither should it stop you. Rik

So, if you have designer clothes and money to buy train tickets you are supposed to stay in Syria and get killed, because if you have money you are clearly not a refugee? And if you wear a T-shirt and jeans and can't afford to flee then ... well ... err ... then it is not a problem for the rest of the world that you get killed. Rik

Really??? Let's be 100% clear: Justin means France is next on the list of countries to qualify for the Bermuda Bowl. He does NOT mean next on the list to withdraw because of a cheating pair. Rik

My wife and I have decided to start practicing. If lots more pairs confess to cheating, we could be eligible to play in the Bermuda Bowl. ;) Rik

Regarding "Huh" (thread title): The Ig Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded for research on the word "Huh". It seems that this word is universally known in every language. (Link to the publication) :) Rik

I think that you fail to understand the meaning of "could". It does not mean: "Lamford is able to construct/concoct a situation where the person in question could". It means "could". If a player clearly randomly and accidentally drops a card out of his hand then he randomly and accidentally drops a card out of his hand. That can not be contrived as a possible attempt to cheat. (But it is, of course, an infraction.) What you and I think of the restricted choice situation is essentially irrelevant. No matter how you interpret it, it illustrates that percentages may change due to an infraction. And, inevitably, there will be situations where the winning line would be the highest percentage action absent the infraction and the different, losing line will be the highest percentage action with the infraction. A declarer who takes the highest percentage line that happens to lose (where he would have taken the winning line without the infraction) has all my sympathy, but will not get rectification. Rik

From the NBB (Dutch Bridge League) website (today, September 17, 2015): My translation: My addition: Eric Laurant is a strong player and he has been chair of the Dutch Bridge League. Rik

A Probst cheat situation only occurs when the infraction could have been intentional (cheating is always intentional). That was not the case here. (And if you think it was, please assume that it wasn't, for the sake of the simplicity of the example.) And no, the infraction is not a restricted choice situation, since Easy could also have dropped one of the x's in the suit with equal probability to the queen and jack. Restricted choice applies when the player's choice is restricted. The player didn't choose to drop the J and the drop is not restricted. It is entirely random. If you take it as given that he will drop exactly one card, any of his 13 cards is equally likely. Rik

The key thing is whether the non-offender had any influence on the result. When the non-offender has no influence on his bad result, then it is obvious (at least to me) to rectify. On the other extreme is the non-offender who caused his own bad result. Then you don't rectify (at least not for the NOS). In between there may be the case where a non-offending declarer does everything right, but ends up with a trick less then he would have had without the infraction. But the doing everything right and going wrong was "rub of the green". Suppose the layout of a suit is: ATxx Qxx J K9xxx After having won trick 1 in dummy (in another suit), declarer plays a small card in this suit from dummy, notes the fall of the J, applies restricted choice, finesses West for the queen and takes all the tricks in the suit. But now, we add an infraction. During trick one, East puts his hand down to write down the contract on his private score card and -oops- the jack flips face up on the table. The TD rules that it is a major penalty card. Declarer sees that it is an about even guess whether to play East or West for the queen (there are no restricted choice considerations). He also sees that he can pick up QJxx with East, if he sees that West shows out. He decides to play for "8 ever, 9 never", unless he sees West showing out. So, he starts with the ace from dummy... and loses a trick in the suit. One can argue that declarer would have never lost a trick without the infraction, but that is not the way to go, IMO. The non-offending declaring was given extra options. If this situation would occur 100 times, in the long run the extra options would be advantageous to him. The fact that on this particular board the advantage happened to work against declarer is not relevant. No rectification, but a lot of sympathy for declarer. Rik

Italics in original, but here, it's equally the emphasis of the situation. That doesn't mean I haven't seen "Your Card" or "Caddy Club" - just not in any game where we actually care. One could argue that "Caddy Club" is not a variation of system for subjective reasons. It can easily be determined objectively what system is used. Rik

It seems that Monaco has withdrawn and that Denmark will play in the BB instead. Rik

I would also say that Law 47E overrules Law 54. (Simply put: if your LOOT was induced by an opponent, you can correct it and the consequences are for your opponent, not for you.) But I do have a problem. In this case, the presumed declarer discovered that something was wrong when he put card #8 down as dummy. What would happen if the mistake would have been discovered later? Suppose that in trick 5 West says: "Wait a second. (looking at South) Didn't you bid 1NT first? How come you are dummy? (looking at North) Why did you say John was supposed to lead?" Are we now going to rule that all the cards played are AI to EW and UI to declarer South and that we start from the beginning with West on lead? As far as I can see there is no time limit on taking back the opening lead. Or are we going to say that East's opening lead may be retracted but all other cards have been played? Or are we going to rule according to law 54 now anyway? And if we do so, at what point during the play did we go from Law 47E territory into law 54 territory? And where in the law book do we find the justification for assigning the border? Rik

In Word (may depend a little on the version, but the principle is always the same): On the menu strip go to "Insert". Then choose "Symbol" from the strip (usually on the far right). You get a couple of symbols that you can insert. Choose "More symbols". Now you get a dialogue box with two tabs ("Symbols" and "Special characters"). Choose the "Symbols" tab. In the dialogue box, choose the "Symbols" font. Scroll through the symbols with the scroll bar and the suit symbols are somewhere in the middle of the list. Now, you can insert the symbol. This is obviously a lot of work to insert one symbol. And as a bridge player, you want to use these symbols often. There is a solution for that. Instead of inserting the symbol into your text (at the end of the instructions), you can assign a shortcut key combination to the symbol. I have assigned <Ctrl> + <Shift> + "s" to the "♠" symbol. So every time I press <Ctrl> + <Shift> + "s", Word will insert a spade symbol. (You can guess what my shortcuts for ♥, ♦ and ♣ are.) Rik

Nothing... except that, at the time I voted, "other" was the last option and "take out to other 3 suits" was not an option. This option only came after Vampyr and I brought up that heart tolerance is needed. And I agree with you that conversion should be possible (but then you will have considerably more than 4+4 in the pointed suits). I just thought it was more important to start with the three suited take out first, before starting to talk about conversion. Rik

I feel the same. Bridge bidding is a game of coding messages (with the opponents knowing the code). If you would have to pick someone in the world come up with a good code for cheating, a bridge champion would be at the top of your list. If I were a cheater I would be thoroughly embarrassed to be caught using a plain straight unencrypted code such as "1 cough is clubs", "board in the middle is diamonds" or "vertical means honor or singleton". I mean in WWII, the resistance had more advanced encrypting with messages like "the cow brings home the milk today" and "the roses will be send tonight". However, for the cheating to be detected it is not necessary to crack the code. The code is the smoking gun. But you don't need a smoking gun to convict someone for murder. And you don't need the cheating mechanism to conclude that someone is cheating. Rik

But FS were on the team that earned the qualification. Rik

I don't have a problem with the 1♥ opening. I could open 1♥, evaluating it as an 18 point balanced hand, planning to rebid 2NT. Change the ♦Q into a ♦K and everybody would open 1♥. When the auction comes back P-P-2♣, I don't have anything to say anymore... but I wouldn't with the ♦K either. That 1HCP doesn't make the difference. Rik

I also voted "other", since to me it is important to note that the doubler will have a three suited take out: spades + diamonds + a doubleton heart. Rik

I suppose you mean: "No one on the firums would pass 1♥." i.e. everybody wouold bid 1♠ over 1♥. In that case, I think you are correct. Rik

The double in the pass out seat shows that you don't want to sell out to 2♣. It asks partner to pick one of the three suits. So, you typically have at least 4 spades, exactly 2 hearts (with 3 you would bid 2♥) and 4 diamonds and probably another spade of diamond. So, something like 4252 or 5242 with about 3-4 HCPs. The 4252 is more likely than the 5242 since you would strive to show your spades with the 5242 hand. Rik

That is true. However, if every time you double they run to a making contract, you are doubling too much. Rik

I think he didn't assume that each position of the board is equally likely. I think he assumed that hating the lead of a particular suit is equally likely for the four suits. I would think that this is not entirely true, but it will be awfully close to 25%. Rik

Even then... players are not allowed to use memory aids in the bidding and play. They are allowed to use memory aids when disclosing... such as a convention card. Rik

Once there is a hypothesis for the code, the code needs to be tested on independent data. In this case, a possible hypothesis is: "the lead desired by third hand is signaled by the board position". So, a group of expert players should go through the boards and determine what lead 3rd hand would desire. A group of observers (preferably those who know nothing about bridge) should write down where the board is placed. If we have only 4 positions for the board and 4 suits to lead, we would expect that the board position matches the desired lead in 25% of the cases. A significant deviation from 25% indicates a correlation between the location of the board and the desired lead. The question is: What is a significant deviation? That depends on the number of boards studied. If one studies 1 board only, then the result will be that either the lead and the board location match (100%), or they don't (0%). So, for 1 board, not even a 100% match is significant. But if you study more and more boards, then the fraction of matches should drop towards 25%. Of course, there is always a small probability that the matches are purely coincidental. If you have 5 boards, there is a probability that all 5 of them match by coincidence: (1/4)^5= 1:1024 or 0.1%. Suppose that we say that 80% match is enough to convict. The probability that 4 of them match (and 1 is wrong) by coincidence is 5*(3/4)*(1/4)^4= 15:1024 or 1.5%. This means that the probability that at least 4 out of 5 match by coincidence is 16:1024 or 1:64 (1.6%). Do we find this 1.6% probability that the board location matched the desired lead by coincidence acceptable? (Which would mean we would "convict" F-S when the board placement was purely coincidental?) That is not up to the statisticians. That is up to the judges. As we look at more boards and more boards, these probability boundaries are approaching 25% matches more and more. If we compare 100 boards and find a 75% match that would be overwhelming evidence. (If I calculated correctly, the probability that this would happen by coincidence would be 1E-25 or 1: 1E25. 1E25 is roughly the amount of atoms in a kg of copper.) Rik

Why would it be a memory aid? You don't have access to your own data, only to the opponents' data. It is entirely equivalent to a convention card, or an FD file: a tool to disclose, available to opponents only. And it gives information that is difficult to write on a convention card. Rik