Trinidad

Thanks for the clarification. How about if you see it from the other side: The opponents can use the database to disclose their tendencies to you. The database helps them to disclose adequately. To stay with Ken's example: In the auction 1♣-1♠; 2♠, you might ask how often the raise is based on three cards. An experienced pair will have a "feeling" about that and will answer as good as they can: e.g. "40-60%". Unfortunately, humans are very bad at guessing frequencies (which is why it is a popular theme in many game shows on TV). They are even worse at "feeling" probabilities. The database might show that in the past 3 years, the raise was based on three card support in 97 out of 535 cases (=18.1%). You could ask the opponents a follow-up question: "What kind of a hand would raise on three card support?" They might answer: "Typically unbalanced." You could also ask the database for the distributions of these 97 hands and it comes up with: 3145: 44 3415: 41 3316: 7 3136: 4 3406: 1 Total: 97 Now you know that the real answer is: "always unbalanced". In both cases, the answer that you would get by asking is slightly off the mark. I would certainly not accuse the opponents of bending the truth: They gave the best answer they could give. But the best answer that they could give is not really "adequate disclosure". A database could help the opponents in disclosing adequately, just like a convention card helps them to disclose. Having said all that: I am, in general, not a fan of an electronic playing environment. But having a database to help understand the opponents' bidding could (emphasize could) be a genuine advantage. Rik

Are we on the same page here? We are not talking about our own convention card. We are talking about the opponents' convention card being made available in electronic form... and in a totally different format than what we are used to. I don't need notes. I am allowed to ask my opponent at any time that I am bidding or on play... and he is supposed to give a correct answer. The practical problem is that often a player cannot give the answer, because often the answer cannot be phrased conveniently in words. A database might give an accurate answer to a question that should be answered, but is difficult to answer. _________________________ I see a lot of practical problems with the presentation of data in the database. For one thing, I would not like it if you need a PhD in data analysis to understand the presentation in the database and I fear that a PhD in data analysis would be very helpful. So, enough problems on the practical side, but on the fundamental side: You are entitled to this information about your opponents and they are supposed to provide it. That is full disclosure. Rik

On the contrary. 16A1d deals with authorized information and does not apply. "40A something" (to be precise: 40A1b) specifically allows an NBO to specify how a pair is supposed to disclose its methods. So, an NBO can require the players to make their style and tendencies available through a database of partnership history. In other words: Under the current laws it is perfectly possible to require disclosure by means of a database. The technology may not be there yet, and the implementation may be difficult, but the laws are prepared for it. Rik

The other interpretation is not possible. It is part of full disclosure that your opponents have the right to know your style and tendencies. The problem in the analogue world is that it can be very difficult to disclose the partnership tendencies and style. The partnership will have a clear "feel" for each others style, but how are you going to put that in words? Many pairs will resort to descriptions of preempts like "aggressive, but not idiotic", which is already an awful lot better than "ATV". With the help of a database the partnership style can be quantified. It can be presented by means of frequencies of distributions, HCPs, ODR, losers, or whatever. It is not illegal to disclose your style to your opponents, nor is it illegal to ask for the opponents' style. But in the analogue world it can be difficult to answer the question. This is where the digital world could help. (Though I don't think it is straightforward.) Rik

This is why observers should not be told the code. They are supposed to observe and record: Is the board placed in section A, B, C, D, or other of the table? (Or who is coughing how many times and when?) Other people (with expert bridge knowledge) should record what lead third hand would desire. A third set of people uses the code to translate the observed behavior (board placement, coughing, whatever) to its alleged bridge meaning (desired opening lead). A fourth set of people compares the bridge expert findings with the translations of the behavior. If they find a high correlation (again, the first correlation was when the code was broken) between behavior at the table and the desired lead then that is very strong evidence. Rik

Would you rebid 2♠ with AKxx x xxxxx AQx? I wouldn't. Rik

Popcorn is always yummy... with or without a show. Rik

Sweden will play in the Bermuda Bowl, but Bertheau and Cullin will not be on the team, according to PG Eliasson, the Swedish team captain: The team will consist of : Rik

There is no need to enter politics or to start a revolution. But the least you can do is spread the word: tell the people that you talk to in the pub, at work, while grocery shopping, or at the bridge club, that the UK should take more refugees and that you don't subscribe to the "Why should we care? Our country is full and it's not our problem." view. Rik

This. I do not understand why Vampyr would consider it illegal. (I do see a practical problem: How are you going to present the data in the database to the player? Scroll through hands? Present the average number of hcps + a standard deviation? Average, standard deviation, minimum and maximum number of cards in the suit shown and the other suits? It will be a difficult job to interpret this at the table or to reduce the data in such a way that every player will be (equally) happy with it.) Rik

So, you will be working for the UK to accept more refugees? After all, you have more power to change something in the UK than in the USA. Rik

What law makes it illegal to ask for the meaning of the opponent's auction? You are allowed to ask about style, but many people have difficulties explaining style. An example: Our preempts can be very weak, but they will be based on a high ODR and will have a relatively good suit. At equal vulnerability in first seat, we will open ♠7♥853♦74♣JT87643 with 3♣, but we will pass with ♠7♥Q53♦K4♣KT87643. I know people who explain their opening style as having "opening values". If a database can do all the formal explaining (like BBO-FD), why wouldn't it be allowed to do the style explanations in the form of example hands? Rik

I don't agree. F-S have already said hey won't play together until this is resolved. The Bermuda Bowl starts at the end of this month. The sooner the EBF vacates the qualification spot, the easier it is to replace the Israeli team in the BB. And no matter what would happen in the next few weeks, it would be very hard (if not impossible) for the Israeli team to perform well under these circumstances. Rik

Funny detail: With Israel withdrawing, the likely scenario will be that teh WBF asks the EBL to send an other team. The EBL will then select the number 7 from the list. This team is Sweden... with Cullin and Bertheu who as I understand it) cracked the FS code... (together with Magnus Magnusson from Iceland). Their hard code cracking work may have earned them a place in the Bermuda Bowl. Rik

Cherdano already pointed out that the countries that you probably refer to (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, ..) are not neighbors of Syria. But, then again, neither are the EU countries. Something that is more important: Why would the Syrian refugees flee to "The wealthy neighbors"? They are fleeing from IS and Assad. "The wealthy neighbors" are supporting IS. (And Iran is supporting Assad.) For a Syrian refugee to flee to Saudi Arabia would make as much sense as for a Polish Jew in WW II to flee to Berlin. They can only flee to the North (Turkey), the West (Lebanon) or South (Jordan). After Jordan, they can't go further and behind Lebanon and Turkey lies the Mediterranean and the EU. Rik

Wrong way to look at the analysis. In three occasions, a specific routine was used and the lead corresponded to the implied signal. It is one more piece of analysis. I did not claim that (standalone) it proves or disproves anything, but I hope it (along with other videos) can establish a pattern and prove/disprove the use of the routine to convey UI. The right way to look at the analysis is to consider that the position of the board on the table (as it is placed by third hand) is an excellent predictor for the opening lead, under the condition that the opening lead is not blatantly insane. Normally, you would not expect the position of the board to have any power at all to predict the opening lead. Normally, it would have just as much predicting power as the sum of the phone number of the playing venue, the local temperature in centigrade and the number of minutes past the hour when the cards are taken out of the board: None. We let two people predict the opening lead (suit only). Person 1 is an international top bridge player. The information that he gets is the auction, duly explained, and the hand of the opening leader. With this information he needs to pick the suit that was led. Person 2 knows nothing at all about bridge. We have only taught him that if the board is over here, he needs to say "spade", and when it is over there, he needs to say "heart". He does not get to see the hand or the auction (it wouldn't do him any good anyway). He only gets to see the position of the board on the table. You would expect that the expert would easily win over the non-bridge player. The latter is expected to be right in 25% of the cases and the expert in something like 90%. But now we are suddenly in a situation where the non-bridge player might well beat the expert! Rik

I would think that if you don't understand the E/W bidding at the table then pass is certainly an LA. The question remains: "What does the BIT suggest?" If you look at the North hand only (that is the information that North had at the time) you need to ask yourself what South could be thinking about. Could he have a 4=4=3=2 with 9 HCP and think about a penalty double? That is highly unlikely, given that you hold Kx in spades (and the opponents would have 9 clubs together that they never mentioned in a takeout double auction). So, partner must have been thinking about bidding 4♦ (or possibly 3NT, "along the way to 4♦"). That means that the BIT demonstrably suggests bidding 4♦ over passing. So, the BIT suggests 4♦ over pass, which is an LA, and, therefore, 4♦ is not allowed. Rik

The fact that the partner of the opening leader takes care of the tray in 13/15 cases doesn't prove anything by itself. This is the exact confirmation bias that Mike is talking about. You implicitly assume that whoever handles the tray is normally a random decision: Whoever handles the tray is coincidental. And if it is than 13 out of 15 times the partner of the opening leader, you are entirely correct in concluding that this is such a large fraction that this probably is not random anymore... There must be a reason why the partner of the opening leader is handling the tray. So, you need to come up, objectively, with explanations why the partner of opening leader is the one handling the tray. One explanation is: They cheat. Another explanation is: The opening leader has something to do (think about the lead), his partner doesn't have anything better to do. I could easily imagine that if you examined 20 NS pairs in a high level tournament with screens, you would find several pairs where the partner of the opening leader takes care of the tray even more often than 13/15. (And you will also find pairs where South (or North) will always handle the tray.) So, this 13 out of 15 number is high, but is the fact that it is high an indication that they cheat? No, it isn't. I stop for red traffic lights in over 999 out of 1000 cases. That is pretty extreme, that cannot be a coincidence anymore. And no, it isn't a coincidence, but there is a good reason: The traffic rules tell me to stop and I am a good citizen (or so I claim). Is there then no evidence? I have to admit that I didn't go over the hands. (I am not a bridge pro and need to make a living doing other things.) The real powerful evidence is the evidence that has the power to predict. Board set X has been used to crack the code: The position of the board on the table indicates the desired opening lead. Now you go to board set Y and you look for each board: - What lead would third hand desire? - What lead did the position of the board on the table indicate? - What lead was made? If there still is a large correlation, then that is very strong evidence for cheating. Note that you don't have to crack the code. If you find a strong correlation between the lead desired by third hand and the lead that was made, that is also strong evidence for cheating. Obviously, it is even more powerful to have the code and the cheating mechanism, but it isn't really necessary. However, it is necessary to establish as a fact that something unusual is going on. The partner of the opening leader handling the tray in 13 out of 15 cases does not seem unusual to me. Rik

I think his reasons are pretty clear, as far as I can see: He gave the authorities all the information and asked them to take appropriate action (and to take it soon since there is a WC coming up). He uses the step by step feeding of information to the public -and making a bit of a "performance" out of it- as a form of leverage towards the authorities: "Look, authorities, it looks much better on you if you take action soon. The longer you wait, the more I will publish and the more the public opinion will wonder when you are finally going to do something." I don't think that his strategy will work. But that is because I am a cynic and I think the authorities will shrug their shoulders, regardless of what Boye is doing or what the public will think. But I think it is a very good strategy to try (and I can't think of a better one). Rik

This has little to do with what is "expected" and what is not. The Dutch alert regulation specifically makes strength or the forcing or non forcing character of a bid "generally non-alertable" (whatever that means). Inverted minors are not alertable (and neither are "standard" minor raises), weak jump raises are not alertable (and neither are invitational or forcing jump raises), etc... So, the difference between "forcing for one round", "forcing to 2NT", and "forcing to game" is really not an issue for an alert in the Netherlands. Rik

You are confusing the actual layout with the layout that can be expected given the MI. The MI was: "clubs were bid and raised naturally". Life doesn't come with guarantees, but it is entirely reasonable to expect "bid and raise naturally" to mean that they have 8 clubs. Add the five in my hand and you get to 13, leaving partner with none. That means that with the MI given, I can reasonably expect partner to ruff clubs at trick 1. I have a spade entry for trick 2 and in trick 3 partner will ruff the second round of clubs and I am still going to make my ace of trumps. In addition, I have good hopes that the ♠K is with opener (who has shown most of the high card points). If that is the case, I will have an extra spade entry (and trick) and can give partner another club ruff. I have good hope that they are down three before they take a single trick and you call it a SEWoG to double? Furthermore, the "SE" is clearly related to the infraction. If I would have had the correct information and would have known that West could have had a singleton, I certainly wouldn't have doubled. I might still have led a club. (Because I don't expect West to cue a void or singleton in partner's suit, marking him with a club ace or king + the four card suit that I expect with East + the five clubs that I hold myself = 10, leaving 3 other clubs with North, East, and West. Since from the auction, it doesn't seem that we are going to defeat this contract on high cards, it would be reasonable to think that the contract can only be defeated if partner can get a ruff. And the only suit in which he could get that ruff at some point is clubs. So, I might lead clubs since I don't expect the alternatives to beat the contract.) But with the correct information, I certainly don't expect to beat the contract (as I did with the MI). And I certainly would not have a strong opinion about the correct lead. But I do have strong opinion about the correct lead when you are explained that the opponents most likely have 8 cards in a side suit where you hold 5 cards (+ the trump ace as insurance!) yourself: You give your partner the ruff. Rik

So, you have bid hearts and spades and play RKCB. Your partner bids 4NT. Are you going to show the ♠K or the ♥K, or both? Whenever you have bid multiple suits, whether you play kickback or not, you simply need to have clear rules on what the trump suit is. Rik

That is reasonable and that is the approach that many countries take. What is left is that someone will have to pick a country of citizenship. In my opinion, citizenship is a fairly useless concept. When was the last time you had to prove your citizenship for anything? Rik

?!? Non-offenders are always completely objective and never make self-serving statements? We shouldn't believe the non-offender, just because he is a non-offender. We should believe him because his statement makes sense. In this case, his story about how the MI misled him doesn't make any sense. So, we don't take his word and we think for ourselves. That is a second infraction, in my book good for a PP. But an infraction only leads to an AS if there is a causal relation between the infraction and the poor result for the NOS. This causal relation is missing. (In fact, the MI should have led to a better result!) Therefore, there is no justification for an AS. And she did that just as wrongly. If I understand the way this forum works correctly, in these cases the OP (in this case: you) asks us to take the position of the TD and rule on the entire case based on the facts in the OP. In this case, my ruling, and campboy's, is that the MI did not suggest the lead of the ♦7 over the potentially winning club lead. In fact, the MI strongly suggested the potentially winning club lead over the ♦7. Even with the help of the MI, South wasn't able to find the club lead. Without the help of the MI, he would have never found the club lead. After that simple conclusion, it is irrelevant how many tricks declarer would have made on a club lead, because South would have never led a club. He was not misled in his choice of the lead by the MI. And now, instead of letting us rule on the entire case, you state that we are only allowed to second guess the TD on the amount of tricks that East was going to take, and that we are not allowed to rule whether South's choice of lead was influenced by the MI... because this TD -who was silly enough to wrongly decide how many tricks East would take- has already decided that the MI influenced the choice of leads ... and now the TD is suddenly perfect. You get my opinion on the entire case as presented in the OP, not on "what if we ignore one part of the TD decision, but accept the other part without criticism?". Rik

Just my opinion: The fear of going down in 4♠ when 6♥ is cold is nonsense. Yes, when you start playing kickback, you will forget the convention, just like people will play 2♦ in a 2-2 fit after 1NT-Pass-2♦- All pass. But that will be over soon if you have any bridge talent. (And if you don't have bridge talent, I recommend that you don't try RKCB either. Just stick with Blackwood.) And in my bridge career I have lost hundreds of IMPs when I didn't know whether we played 1430 or 0314 when I played RKCB. My loss in playing kickback has been limited to about 14, since I forgot the convention only once. (My kickback partner has never forgotten it.) Kickback is nothing more than flipping the meaning of two bids: the cuebid of 1 above the trump suit and 4NT. So, if partner passes your 4♠ kickback bid, because he thought it was natural, he would have also passed a 4♠ cuebid (if you would play RKCB), because he would also think that that was natural. There are two big advantages to kickback, related to each other: - The ace asking happens at a lower level. - The ace asking happens at such a low level that the rest of the auction can be standardized and become independent of the trump suit. That last part is important. It is not so important to lower the level of ace asking. It is important to lower it enough to make the system independent of the trump suit. Most will not understand how the system depends on the trump suit when playing RKCB, so I will illustrate this: Suppose we are playing RKCB (1430/0314, I don't care). Spades are trump, we ask for keycards and get a reply of 5♦. Now 5♥ asks for the trump queen. Diamonds are trump, we ask for keycards and get a reply of 5♦. Now 5♥ asks for the trump queen. These two cases seem, at first glance, to be the same. But they are very different. When spades are trump, 5♥ is a try for a small slam (since we can still stop in 5♠). When diamonds are trump, 5♥ is a try for a grand slam (since it got us past 5♦). In RKCB, the meaning of the queen asking bid depends on the trump suit. In kickback, the meaning of the queen asking bid is standardized: It is a small slam try. Does kickback have drawbacks? Yes, but the fear of forgetting the convention is not one of them. The biggest drawback is that you have less room to cuebid. This is particularly true when a minor is set as trumps. In that case, bids between 3m and 3NT are ambiguous: they typically show a stop for 3NT, but they may be a cue for slam. This means that the partner who was merely showing stops for slam has not been cuebidding... and now we are deciding whether to ask for keycards or whether to continue cueing. If you play RKCB, you don't have that problem. You have the rest of the 4-level to cue. (However, you may have the problem of deciding whether 4NT was asking for aces or a suggestion to play. ;) ) I like kickback so much that we have other structures that use a similar concept. As an example, after a 1♠ opening, 2NT is Jacoby 2NT, our game forcing spade raise, with a nice rebid structure for opener, just like for most pairs. After a 1♥ opener, 2♠ is "Jacoby 2NT", our game forcing heart raise. It has the same rebid structure, just one bid lower, which has the same position relative to the bids in the trump suit. The same holds for our "Bergen like" raises: 1♠-3♦ has the same meaning as 1♥-3♣, except that we are dealing with different trump suits. Once I was familiar with the concept of bids "relative to the trump bids" (which happened really fast) I found it much easier to play than "suit X means Y". Rik