jvage

The AC decided to let the result stand. Personally I found this to be a difficult case. One factor was that the bidding was unusual, so that one would expect a hesitation almost independently of the hand. The deciding factor was however our second poll, which asked what the hesitation suggested. 3 of the 7 players polled believed 5♠ was suggested over pass and 1 believed it was unclear what was suggested. The 3 best players polled (all have been on the Norwegian open team) however all said that the BIT suggested pass, and two of them believed a succesful pass should not be allowed. We would like to avoid putting the player in a position where there was no legal action after partners BIT. Also the chosen action was not considered to be "demonstrably suggested over another" (§16C2).

As I wrote in the OP, they had not discussed this or similar positions (have you discussed the position after an opponent first pass and then preempt at the fivelevel?), and N/S did not mention any agreements that were relevant. Part of the assumed BIT was surely to consider if this was a forcing pass position and what double would show and if partner would assume the same. In retrospect both believed double was takeout-oriented, but some may consider that as selfserving evidence.

In this case neither the pollees, the TD or the AC had played the boards, the match was played privately with only 2 tables. The appeal was several days later, and some of the pollees may have seen a discussion about the hand on Facebook. In our poll we asked if they had heard about the hand, which I think about a third had, I don't know if the TD asked about this. We did not notice any significant difference in opinion from those who had seen the hand before. John

Since this would probably not have been a problem otherwise, I can add the result of our first poll. This seemed to confirm the appeallants view that a larger poll would establish that Pass was indeed a LA. In our larger poll almost half the players either passed or considered passing. Edit: I don't have the exact numbers here, partly because it is not clear if one shold include the AC's own view when we discussed it among ourselves, but lets say it was 4 passes and 6 5 spades of which 1 considered pass and one considered 5 diamonds (out of 10). The split was roughly the same in both groups. John

[hv=pc=n&s=sat2hajt6dkqt985c&w=s964h974da763cat8&n=skqj853h52dj42ck6&e=s7hkq83dcqj975432&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=p1dp1s5c(x)d(xx)p5sp6sppp]399|300[/hv] 1. E/W claim "Stop" was used before 5♣, N/S claim they did not see any Stop-card 2. Agreed BIT before X, N/S claim maximum 30 sec, E/W claim it was at least a minute The lead was a club and 12 tricks was made (as you can see, a heart-lead would beat the slam). Both N/S and E/W are strong players. N/S are semiregular partners, but as far as I know they did not have any relevant agreements. The match was played privately (early stage of qualification for national teams championship) and a TD was called after play ended. E/W questioned the 5♠ call after Souths hesitation/BIT (they argued that North had to pass after the UI). The TD polled 4 players, all bid 5♠, but one commented that he considered passing. The TD let the score stand (6♠N=) and E/W appealed. The appeal is finished (I was in the committee), since it will be published on the federation pages and it has created an unexpected amount of discussion on Facebook etc. I think it is OK to also present it here. The AC made some additional polls, but first I present the case as it was given to us. Apart from the facts presented above there were some arguments from both sides along the lines you would expect (I can elaborate a little, but there was no info about systemic agreements etc.). Note that East passed in first hand and then bid 5♣ on his second turn, making this an unusual position. How would you rule? John

This seems to fall under §64C2a: "After repeated revokes by the same player in the same suit (see B2 above), the Director adjusts the score if the non-offending side would likely have made more tricks had one or more of the subsequent revokes not occurred." If East followed with the ♣Q on the second round declarer got the rest (11 tricks). With a one-trick penalty for the first revoke declarer makes 12 tricks (the trick won by the ♣A is transferred, §64A2).

The regulations are not as detailed as this. They only say that 10 seconds is the correct time to take, wether or not stop has been used. I don't think this is a big problem in practice, at least we have not had any appeals to the national level concerning such small deviations.

I am not familiar with the previous instructions to Norwegian TD's which Sven mentions, but I would assume this was only about disputed hesitations. If there was no consensus on wether or not there had been a hesitation a general advice to rule no UI if there had not been a required stop-warning seems sensible. Here is an extract of the relevant current regulation covering this (my translation from Norwegian): "A BIT clearly longer than 10 seconds (or clearly shorter than 10 seconds) is therefore presumed to possibly submit UI, even if RHO did not use the stop-card or say "stop"." John

I guess you meant the opposite, Paul. With your strategy I will always make (while I would sometimes misguess if you had chosen the opposite strategy) :D I think that might just go to show that this defensive strategy would rarely be found in practice. Espescially since I didn't actually tell you how I would play (against most opponents I do however think I would guess the diamondsplit better than just the original odds). My point was just that it's close, possibly closer than the 3% difference that you mention, which is already relatively close.

The best play in the diamond-suit is actually interesting. It seems the TD gave 2 conflicting statements: "...it was not just a case of the percentage line in the diamond suit alone" and "declarer had misplayed the hand by playing the jack". If you play the 9 and it loses to the 10 you are in practice down (this also loses to a singleton Ace in West, when both plans fail without a defensive blockage in clubs and/or spades). It looks like it is quite close between this and playing a diamond to the J. If the J loses to the A you still make with diamonds 3-3. If the J wins you can either switch to hearts (playing a spade to hand first) or continue diamonds if you think the opponents carding indicates 3-3 diamonds. If the TD thinks that declarer was misled I wonder why he saw the need to say that North had made a mistake. This is nothing near a "very serious error", it seems relatively close. Regarding the tempo-issue, it might seem obvious to declarer to play a diamond at trick two, but not what diamond to play from dummy. So if Lamford had said it was Charlie the Chimp declaring, one would have expected the first trick followed by a diamond to be fast. Then he would closely follow East tempo at trick 2 and call the TD if he misguessed (yes, I know about the "own risk" in §73D)...

You didn't mention wether declarer took some time at trick one. If trick one and the lead to trick two came (relatively) quickly I would tend to give East more than 5 seconds to think about the complete hand. If so it doesn't matter if (s)he had a problem at trick two.

Also many players and some directors actually think that the instruction in §42B2 "He may try to prevent any irregularity" (Dummy's rights) is valid in this case. Of course it's not (the irregularity has already happened), but it doesn't seem like an action deserving a PP, even if it is a player with some knowledge about the laws.

I agree that East's bidding looks strange, and I got difficutlies seeing how this was influenced by MI. West's pass over 3NT does however look like it may have been influenced by the MI. I can (barely) understand the pass with the explanation that North showed diamonds and hearts, but 4♥ looks obvious if the explanation was clubs+diamonds.

There is also a natural explanation for this result. Since team A had already won the qualification they had much less motivation to play their best game in the final match. I have seen this many times; In the final round where one team has won the event they often lose big, even when the team they meet is supposedly much weaker. This is likely more due to subconciously relaxing than actively throwing the match.

I agree with Gordons response to the Law-question, but have a comment to the bidding. You don't say if 4♦ was forcing (it would be for me). Even without detailed agreements, you should be able to bid 4♥ (my choice, planning to bid 6 if partner responds 4♠ or 5♣) or 5♣ to involve partner in the choice between 5 and 6♦.