chrism

I would extend the presumption of "misexplanation rather than misbid" to "misexplanation [only] rather than both" in this case, and for that the "correct" information to which the opponents are entitled is A, the explanation including the hand of the bidder. If the player who believed A had chosen this moment to psych with a hand corresponding to none of A, B and C then I would probably still have to say A if there were any way to determine reliably what A actually is. I wouldn't argue with other interpretations, though.

I had a related problem in a Swiss Teams a few years ago, when one of the players was suffering from persistent flatulence, as reported discreetly by players sitting with their back to the sufferer's during the first two rounds. We managed to assign a stationary table with the player's back to the corner of the room and received no further complaints; had the manifestation been more extreme or less directional, of course, we would have had a harder problem.

I disagree. Law 8B1 defines what constitutes the end of the round; it does not address the circumstances that may result in "a progression of players". If the TD is allowed to cancel a board in mid-flight, there will be a progression of players and the next round will begin for that table; if not, the round will continue until play of the board is completed. I do not think that "the round continues" is the necessarily equivalent to "play of the current board continues". Indeed the law could have said, and did not: "if any table has not completed play by that time, the round continues for that table until play is completed there". It also does not say "if any table has not completed play of a board by that time, the round continues for that table until play of that board is complete", so reading 8B1 as restrictive the TD's powers to curtail would also appear to prohibit requiring a late play for a scheduled board not started when the round is called. I do not see any law that explicitly permits or prohibits the curtailment by the TD of a board in progress, except insofar as it comes under 81C1 "... to ensure the orderly progress of the game".

Yes. My point, doubtless not made clearly, was that this is only a MI case, not a UI case. We rule on the basis that South will pass out 2C, but note in passing that West's 2NT call was not a further infraction.

The ruling was to adjust to 4S down 1 for both sides. I did indeed spend some time with EW discussing the issues, with partial success (I think). A PP would have served no purpose for this West; it would have been viewed as an arbitrary punishment when nothing had been intentionally done wrong, and would have served as discouragement from playing rather than as education. I did not have time to discuss the logic of the 3S call. I did consider it likely that West thought she was in a P/C situation here, where she clearly did not understand the obligation to alert 3H, especially after the confusion of processing partner's apparent misexplanation. We did make progress on the need to provide a correction before the opening lead, and on the fact that protecting the NOS from the consequences of MI is not a punishment to the other pair. That seemed to be as much as I could reasonably hope to achieve in one sitting!

How likely is South to balance if told correctly that EW have no agreement here? I think that passing the auction out is likely enough to adjust to 2♣ which will make exactly 11 tricks as close to 100% of the time as ever happens. EW +150 reciprocally to both pairs. Note that after South balances, West has UI from partner's explanation; however the authorized information that partner just passed an ostensibly forcing bid is enough to let West bid again.

There is no legal auction in which 4♥ can be a LA over 4♠ :)

No. The ACBL may have many idiosyncrasies, but they certainly do not promulgate this particular contravention of the Laws of bridge. I would guess that if you present evidence supporting your case from any of rulings@acbl.org, the ACBL bulletin, or any senior ACBL director (all of whom will confirm that a played card is indeed played), your club will tell you that they meant the Antarctic Contract Bridge League. For what it is worth, I am an ACBL (America, not Antarctic) TD with experience directing events at all levels up to and including National, and I am happy to confirm that your club administration is (to put it as politely as I can) obstinately and obstructively wrong, based on the facts that you present.

[hv=pc=n&s=sa5hat85dqt52cq92&w=sj8643hq9dkj764c4&n=sk72hj764d83ck853&e=sqt9hk32da9cajt76&d=s&v=e&b=3&a=1d2d2n3hp3sp4sppp]399|300[/hv] ACBL club game (real world, not a SB to be seen). NS are an established good intermediate-level partnership. EW are a last-minute pick-up; East is of comparable level to NS, West is much less experienced (but not a complete beginner). The pre-game discussion included an agreement to play "Michaels" with no discussion of what that meant. North asked about the 2♦ call and was told initially "Michaels"; he asked for clarification and was told "both majors", which should, of course, have been the initial response (assuming the near-universal understanding of the Michaels convention). It turned out that West's rather fuzzy understanding, which took the director considerable effort to get clear, was that it "usually" showed a the majors but "sometimes" showed a major and a minor (which is sort-of true) and that there was no particular rule that determined when it meant which. She was sufficiently confident in this belief that she promised to contact her teacher after the game for confirmation (knowing her excellent teacher, West is doomed to disappointment in this quest). East and West were both adamant that they had an agreement; unfortunately, they could not be persuaded to agree what agreement they had. :unsure: To further muddy the waters, West did not explain before the opening lead that partner's explanation did not conform to her understanding. The table result was 4♠ making four. NS contended that they would have defended differently had they received a correct explanation; South said that he discarded too many diamonds, which may well be irrelevant. The opening lead was a heart (hoping to set up a ruff for South); South won the Ace and returned a heart for North to ruff. :o The double-dummy result in spades on the hand is 9 tricks for East-West; two other pairs in the same flight played the hand in spades (2♠ in both cases); one made 9 tricks, one made 10 tricks. There is enough happening here that I think it is an interesting case, though the final ruling seems straightforward (I have been surprised in this respect before, however).

You've never given a procedural penalty to a Stop card? Or indeed to an entire deck of cards for violating 6B ...

Yes. Of course the director tries very hard to find out which card was actually played. This Law covers the case when that proves impossible. Has anyone ever encountered this boundary case at the table? Even the extra-card defective trick is quite uncommon; on the few occasions that I have had to rule on it I have always been able to determine which card was played, and the additional equal-spot condition would seem to render it almost vanishingly improbable.

I would arbitrarily rank equal spots by suit if all else failed.

Even if this were an assertion that all the diamonds are winning tricks (which it certainly need not be - declarer might well intend running the suit until opponents ruff in with a high trump, for example), it is not a statement that all and only the diamonds are winners, so there is no statement of a specific number of tricks. To interpret declarer's instruction as a claim is a perverse misinterpretation of the law, that I doubt even SB would try to justify.

I have not found one, and searching through all the PDFs continues to be a pain.

If so, that would apply to any failure to comply with a lead restriction when able to do so. It's an interesting reading, but I doubt the TD's responsibility should extend to looking at the leader's hand, though I would have to work hard to weasel the interpretation I would like from the concept of "implementing" the instruction to lead a spade. ACtually, the instruction should be "lead a spade if you can" or something similar, and I normally use that form of words; leading any card would seem to be an implementation of that instruction, though possibly an erroneous one.

In this case both sides are offending (unless we judge that the two black Aces look so similar that it is the director's fault for using that deck) so I don't see how 64C applies. I think that Robin's first temptation is a good practical and equitable solution that has no basis in the Laws. Incidentally, the black-Ace confusion has its origins in real life (sorry to disappoint, but the rest was fiction). An entire ACBL district had a rash of revokes at sectional and regional tournaments when using badly designed decks promoting an upcoming NABC. Of course, those decks were quickly withdrawn.

Thanks. Typo fixed.

West is on opening lead against 3♦; East has tried to lead ♠3 out of turn, and South has declined to accept the lead, instead instructing West to lead a spade (East duly picking up his ♠3). Unfortunately West, possibly a little dazed after the fourth cherry brandy, has the ♠A in with his clubs and the ♣A in with his spades (aided by the remarkable similarity between these cards in the special decks that the club is using to promote an upcoming tournament). He leads the ♣A; nobody at the table notices the difference as declarer calls a low spade from dummy, East plays the ♠3, and declarer (void in spades but not clubs) ruffs with the ♦7. Declarer now leads a low club on which West plays the ♠A. At this point his partner starts to ask "no clubs partner ... er, didn't you already play that card to the first trick?". The director, an Armenian who has taken to the job in the vain hope of escaping his uncanny run of bad luck, is called on to deliver his second ruling (so far) during this board. "Strange hand", muses the Senior Kibitzer. "All four hands revoked at trick one". How should the director rule?

Good question. The ACBLscore manual gives the formula and says "The formula for scoring fouled and adjusted boards is the one used by the World Bridge Federation and adopted by the ACBL". I have found this link on the ACBL site: http://web2.acbl.org/codification/CHAPTER%2012%20-%20Section%20g.pdf but have not yet succeeded in tracing it back to the parent document of which this comprises Chapter 12 Section G :huh: It does not appear to be part of the General Conditions of Contest. According to the BridgeGuys site "The formula, created by the World Bridge Federation, for scoring fouled boards and those score results needing adjusted scores was adopted by the ACBL in 1990". I am reasonably confident that the regulation is indeed published somewhere but it may well be in a locked basement somewhere in the Alpha Centauri system.

ACBLScore implements the ACBL fouled board regulation - a group comprising a single table will be awarded A+/A+ by default, though of course that can be overridden manually if appropriate.

Not in competition in anything that I have heard described as "standard", though quite a few players seem to use that description for whatever they happen to play.

Washington Bridge League has about 2 appeals a year in our weekly club game. An appeal committee always comprises 3 players, none of them a director at the club, and normally consists of 2 Flight A players plus one player of about the strength of the weaker pair involved in the appeal. The DIC will form a committee ad hoc on the night, finding volunteers who are independent of all parties. This can sometimes be challenging but we have a large enough game that we can normally manage. Once in a blue moon if the appeal is lodged very late in the session, we have arranged (with the agreement of all concerned) to consider the case by email or before the start of the following week's game.

Apologies for the brief thread highjack; normal service will be resumed after this ... The answer is a word not to be found at the time in Chambers 20th Century Dictionary, the definitive word list for many crosswords, including Ximenes, probably the hardest regularly published cryptic at the time (the clue is from a Ximenes). Spoiler:

A nice pun for British cryptic crossword enthusiasts. I am indirectly reminded of one of the nicest cryptic crossword clues of all time, from the mid sixties and referring to a neologism that would soon become universally known: "Abbreviation not found in Chambers, but should not be looked up anyway (9)"

He might notice that the bid he intended to make is still in his bidding box, or that a higher bid than intended is missing from it.