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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♦.

I agree that the N/S bidding was bad (at least South's bidding, 2♥ seems reasonable to me), but the number of tricks taken and the results from the other tables leaves the impression that the general level may not be very high. The initial double would not be my choice, but when that was chosen it does seem like it was misinformation that created South's final problem. I believe her when we are told she would have bid 3♦ if 1♦ had been correctly alerted and explained. An experienced/strong player may have found that something was wrong if East had shown 12+, West 6(?)+ and North 9-11(?) when she herself got 15, but this player didn't. While we can dislike the pass, she now got a bidding problem with no obvious solution. The link between subsequent and consequent doesn't IMO depend on how big an error that is made, but if the error is directly linked to the infraction, and that seems to be the case here. Also, if you consider this a "very serios error unrelated to the infraction" (§12C1e) then you shold normally award a split (non-balancing) score.

There is now also a separate "Commentary on Law 23" written by the Chairman of the WBF Laws Committee. Among other things it also clarifies the situation mentioned above about whether a one-level overcall of 1 ♠ is a CC after an out-of-turn 1♠ opening (it is normally not): http://www.eurobridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Comparable-Call.pdf My guess is that the next clarification may be linked to corrections after "serious error". There seems to be a couple of mistakes in example 13 in the original document. First that they seem to judge the error in relation to "serious error" when the threshold in Law 12C1e is increased to "extremely serious error". Second that the calculation as given will result in a negative MP score for the non-offending side (assuming they get an average for -420, one is instructed to subtract the difference in MP between +50 and -920, likely worth respectively a top and a bottom in MP).

It seems others made the same mistake as me, when I first skimmed through the original post. I didn't notice this was in a weak NT setting. The problem would be different in a 15-17 1NT setting as most of us are used to. In that case the replacement call of 2NT would strongly indicate exactly 18 hp.

Whether or not 2NT should be accepted as a Comparable Call is a judgement issue for the TD. For me, who generally follow a rather liberal policy (in accordance with the guidelines from the WBFLC), this is not clear. To Lamford: If a 3NT replacement is chosen this would bar partner if it is not found to be a CC, so the UI issue is likely irrelevant. To Nigel: I did not find what you wrote in the commentary. It says the player sitting behind the offender (not the TD) may ask offenders partner about alternative calls before deciding to accept an irregular bid. If the TD needs information to establish if any replacement calls are CC he should ask the offender away from the table.

Hi Gordon! Yes, I should have mentioned §27. My thinking was that 2♥ was natural and that 3♥ was a cuebid, but I did not get an explanation from the TD. The reason I did not double 2♥ is that I thought it would show an honour, that would be the meaning of a double of a 3♥ cuebid. With my non-regular partner I did not have an agreement about a double of an insufficient 2 ♥ :) John

[hv=pc=n&s=s2haq952da65c8654&w=saj9854hkjt87dc73&n=sk63h643dk9873ckt&e=sqt7hdqjt42caqj92&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=p1sp2d2h]399|300[/hv] This was our only Director call during the week in Pula, and I think it has some interesting aspects. I was North, playing with a non-regular partner in the Butler pairs. At the table West bid 2♥ over partners 2♥. When I told her that this was insufficient she immediately replaced 2♥ with 3♥. I then called the TD, partly because I considered accepting and bidding 3♥ over 2♥. When the TD arrived he started by giving me the option of accepting, but during the time this took I had realized that I did not have a 3♥ bid (partner had passed initially, and although I never asked about the unalerted 2♥ it looked like it could be natural and we were vulnerable...). I refused to accept and the TD then took West away from the table, presumably to ask about the meaning of 2♥ and 3♥ (and possibly other calls). I don't know what was told to the TD, but when they came back he said West could bid 3♥ instead of the insufficient 2♥! The bidding continued undisturbed 3♥ - 3♠, 4♠ all pass. 4♠ made an overtrick, for a score of -1 IMP for us. The TD's in Pula are generally very good, but this ruling seemed strange to me. We did not appeal, but I wondered what other people think (as a sidenote; I have several times been a member of appeal committees in Pula). It also made me think about a slightly different scenario. Assuming a double by West is penalty and showing at least 4 hearts, would a double be a Comparable call? To me it seems to comply with §23A2 "Defines a subset of the possible meanings attributable to the withdrawn call" (or possibly §23A1) in that it also shows hearts, possibly a better suit than 2♥. If a penalty double is considered a Comparable call it may lead to another problem. Here 2♥X is no disaster (-500 would be a good score for N/S), but if North had less support he would probably like to accept the insufficient bid if he knew that it could be changed to a penalty double. Should he be informed about this before he makes a choice or is §23C (later adjustment due to damage to non-offending side) relevant?

I had an interesting problem where this distinction was important. I was Dummy against a very good pair. Partner (who I think sort of believed I was the one in the partnership who knew about the laws and the one to take responsibility for such things...) led towards my (dummys) AKJ in clubs. He asked for the Ace and my LHO played the Q and then quickly changed this to a low club without saying anything... My partner (declarer) looked at me with a glance that said: "What do we do now?" also without saying anything. I knew about my limitations as dummy, but at the table I chose to say (after a short break, but still before anyone else had said anything): "Maybe we should call a director?" After which both opponents started almost screaming about "Dummy is not allowed to call the director", which is not the case and was not my main problem....

Apart from potential system regulations (which does not apply in Norway, where I live), are there any reasons not to switch the suggested X/1♠ responses? Note: What you suggested used to be standard, now almost all good players around here, including Helgemo-Helness (yes, I know they are Monegasq...) and Brogeland - Lindqvist have switched them around.

I didn't see anyone answering what it seemed was the main question in the original post, namely if this was "rub of the green" (as it seems the OP thinks) or if it should be adjusted after the play using the new 23C. This is assuming 2NT is allowed as a "comparable call", which I agree is far from obvious, and may depend on opening style (in my area good players open so many 11 points hands that 2NT for many would show a minimum opening...). The text in 23C is not clear, but my understanding of the intention of the lawmakers is that this sort of results (the offenders being lucky because they had to pick a "comparable call" instead of their normal call) is one of the reasons to adjust, and 23C should be applied here. There was an example used in the Prague seminar (where Gordon and probably some other regular posters also attended) about the introduction of the 2017 laws that seems relevant. I don't remember the case exactly (it was a bit more complicated) where one player bid an insufficient 1♠ following 1♦ (from partner) - 2♣. He had something like 4333 and opening strength, and the normal bid of a negative double was not allowed as a comparable call (because the insufficient bid said he had longer spades than hearts). He bid 2♠ (showing 5+ spades), allowed as a comparable call, and they were lucky when 4♠ in a 43-fit worked better than the normal 3NT. If I remember correctly this was used as an example of the use of 23C, the board should be adjusted after play finished.

Due to timepressure (as mentioned I was also playing) I was far from sure I made the correct ruling here. In practice I allowed declarer to score 9 tricks (9 or 10 does not matter much for the score). There was no appeal. What I considered possible is the very real endplay for the contract if North discards 2 hearts on the spades (+♦K). Since Dummy is void in hearts and has a threatening clubsuit this did not seem totally irrational to me. North is then endplayed with a small club (declarer keeping ATx in clubs in dummy and in hand Qx in hearts and a good diamond). North then needs to cash the ♥K (which it doesn't matter whether or not South overtakes) to keep the contract to 9 tricks.