fbuijsen

I feel a lot for blackshoe's line. This is clearly a case of director error. So we assign EW a score for 6♠ made for +1430. We assign NS a score of 6♠x -1 for +200. In addition I assign south a PP of 17 IMPs for clearly and deliberately misusing the rules to try to induce a director error. I also ban south from my congresses for the coming 5 years.

As I read it, lanford's argument is specifically for knockout matches: it is simply impossible to really give unbalanced assigned scores. Let's say you give an unbalanced assigned score of +3 to both sides as above, and the score ends up as 33-31 for team A and 34-30 for team B (the score being 31-30 without the one board). Clearly, the team B ends up winning the match. So the so-called unbalanced score assignment is effectively the exact same as as giving an assigned score of 0 IMPs to each side.

I generally use Suitplay as a reference tool. Whenever there is a card combination where I am unsure of what the best line is, I put it in Suitplay and it will tell you what is the best line to play for x number of tricks.

Download Suitplay and work with that. (Google "Suitplay" will get you there)

With a 15-17 1NT and 20-22 2NT opening, the club suit will be a doubleton (4-4-3-2) roughly 3.5% of the time. I don't remember the numbers for how often it is a 3-card suit, but would guesstimate it is roughly 3 times as often, so about 10% (4-3-3-3, 3-4-3-3 and 4-4-2-3)

I still woudn't do it then, though I guess it's not that big of a stretch. However, there is a reason for choosing the 16-18 range -- 8 tricks is quite a lot and I therefore consider 15-17 already a very aggressive range in such a bidding sequence. I would be very hesitant to stretch my range at the bottom.

I play this exact 2♥ opening this way (majors 4-4 or better), and am convinced that a natural 2NT overcall (16-18) is the best way to play against this -- or possibly any other method that allows you to show 16-18 balanced in another way. I have had the situation against strong opponents several times where they bid to a sharp 3NT and the opponents (us) are given the task of finding the right major to start. That said, stretiching this hand to 16 HCP looks like a very big overbid to me. I consider this one close between 3♦ and pass. Doubling and hoping to find a good fit in a major still is overly optimistic in my view.

Tammens-Wintermans. There is a write-up of the whole incident (in Dutch) in WekoWijzer 82: http://www.bridge.nl/groepen/Wedstrijdzaken/WEKOwijzers/wekowijzer82.pdf

It would seem you do not have a clear agreement over the meaning of doubles in competitive situations. North thought the dbl of 3♦ was competitive, south thought it was penalties. Agreeing with each other which of these applies is paramount, more imprtant than actually choosing the technically best option. A possible agreement that is useful and not too difficult to remember and apply: a dbl of a bid below the 4-level of a suit that has been bid by both opponents is competitive. Other dbls at the 3-level after the first round of bidding are penalty. That would make this a competitive dbl, and south has an easy 5♣ bid: the dbl promises about what North has here: extra values, heart length, club length. NOTE: if you play the dbl as pure penalty here, north is kind of stuck. 3♥ is pretty ridiculous, since partner probably has fewer than 4 of them. I'd guess between 3NT and 3♠ with the north hand.

It's a bit unfortunate trump are 3-0, but it does make more sense to start drawing trupms with the ♦A from south, since east is slightly more likely to have a void in diamonds.

I play the ♠3. If E takes the ♠K and a spade back, I play the ♣5 to the ♣J. If that holds, I can make my 9th trick in diamonds. If it loses to the ♣Q, spade, and spades turn out to be 5-2, it's a bit harder, but it's probably still safest to try to develop the 9th trick in diamonds. It trick 1 runs to my ♠Q, I can play on hearts (A, K, T).

Frankly, I think there's no difference. No doubt it's theoretically possible to make something up that might be useful, the next time it comes up in 15 years or so, but I'm not bothering. 4♣ is probably clearer in just asking for the best major, helene could well be right that 4♦ might just as well be natural, to disarm the psych by responder.

It's close, but I consider the east just a bit too weak for a takeout double in the direct seat. Add any sort of extra value and I am in. As west, over 3♦ I am passing if partner passed-- the distribution may be nice but vs a passed partner game is far away. As it went, I agree with west's bidding, though I'm not sure the X of 3♦ should be reflective, 4♦ seems a better choice. 4♥ needs a bit more than good play and good luck -- you're missing 4 tricks off the top.

No. This is explicitly stated in article 47E2a. Play should continue with the planned opening lead, and the TD can assign an adjusted score if he judges that west was harmed by the incorrect explanation, after the hand.

I voted "K is marginally better", because I think west is lsightly more likely to choose an aggressive lead holding Axxx(x) than holding Qxxx(x). Given the NS holdings, west might have a better club alternative in the latter case. But any difference in odds is very small, so you might just as well flip a coin for your choice.

You're omitting a rather important detail here: is passing 1NTx a Logical Alternative for south? I think it is not, passing is complete lunacy.

For 8 tricks, all you have to do is not finesse for the ♠Q. Maybe declarer had some reason to think the Q would be offside and tried to drop it. After all, it looks like E opened the bidding, so maybe declarer had some reason to place points in the E hand. 7 tricks is harder. I'm inclined to suspect a revoke. That, or some other silly brainwave.

The bidding situation at hand is special enough that there are a host of possible meanings for the 2♥ bid. Therefore I would expect 4th hand to ask here nearly always (given the alert). So asking doesn't suggest a whole lot at all, other than enough interest in the auction that he wants to know what it means. So at most it suggests some values. In fact, I would suggest that NOT asking here gives more UI: a total disinterest in the auction and therefore it suggests a very weak hand more strongly that an ask suggests values.

I am a bit surprised by the idea that "result stands" is considered as an option. The factual situation is quite clear: There is UI, and it suggests bidding 3♦ over other alternatives. So when the director has to judge the situation, that is sufficient reason to adjust the score. I don't see how the reason why the offender chose the 3♦ bid is at all relevant. Whether he missorted his hand, or whether he genuinely considered 3♦ to be the only LA, or whether he just doesn't understand the situation, it's all irrelevant. Given the laws, the director has tro adjust because he gained an advantage (presumably) by choosing the LA that was suggested by the UI. I would probably refrain from giving a PP for the offense (even if I otherwise would have) if I believe the player's given reason for choosing the 3♦ bid.

On seeing the full deal, I would argue that east does not really have a logical alternative. It's clear from the singleton ace of clubs in dummy that there are no quick tricks to cash in clubs. Also, it doesn't seem like spades could work for anything good, nor does it look like a trump switch is useful for anything at all. So I can't see any alternative to playing a diamond at trick two.

Let's just try the standard set of questions in UI matters: 1. Is there UI? 2. Does the UI suggest the play made by the receiver of the UI? 3. Does the receiver of UI have logical alternatives? Answers: 1. Seems like yes. The question could indicate paying special attention to diamonds. 2. Also yes, UI indicates interest in diamond continuation. 3. Unanswerable, since we don't know east's hand. However, I note that west already chose not to lead his partner's suit, so the allowed information already strongly suggests continuing diamonds. However, we'd need to see east's hand to know more. EDIT: Skip that last note, I misread -- it's west that has bid, not east ....

This was the 3rd round or so of 6, so moving the boards around was no option (never mind that the program I use has no good provisioning for it -- it did have one for moving pairs on just one board). In The Netherlands we nearly always play Scheveningen (a Howell, but the board stay at the same table rather than NS). Since we had fewer than 6 tables for a 6x4 session, boards also had to be moved here. Sven Pran is right -- people should check their bridgemate before playing, but sometimes they don't, evne when they've been warned beforehand, and north was a super experienced tournament director. Its just easy to go wrong, is my conclusion.

Apart from the rest of the discussion, this is indeed clearcut. I will be re-scoring the board so that the 2 pairs that played it get their actual score. This will need some wrangling, since both pairs were supposed to be seated NS on the board, but I think I know how to get the NBB-Rekenprogramma program to change this.

Yesterday at my club game the pairs at one table started out playing the wrong set of 4 boards: they had deal 1-4 where they should be playing 9-12. When they had finished playing board 1 they found out about their error (because the Bridgemate refused to accept the score for hand 1). They informed me about their error and continued playing the correct set of boards. Since they both hadn't played board 1 yet, I ended up assigning both pairs Ave-, and Ave+ to both their opponents who were now unable to play the board against them. What I am wondering is, is this: since the two pairs actually reached a result on the board, should I be scoring the board as played for the both of them (with the score achieved), even though they shouldn't have been playing this board against each other?

The pessimists: 1♦ - 1♥ / 3♦ - pass The optimists: 1♦ - 1♥ / 3♦ - 3NT The hog: 1♦ - 1♥ / 1NT - 2♣* / 3♦ - 3NT EDIT: I see that I managed to post at the exact same time as the "solution'. Oh well.