RMB1

The misere 7NT system may fall foul of the system regulation - in some international competition systems have to be registered in advance and there is a limit to the number of systems per team. In such circumstance you need a suicide partnership who only played together for matches to be lost with this system as their system.

I am not sure how I would rule: I do not think North can change his card but we might adjust. But if I did not adjust the score I would certainly issue a procedural penalty on dummy.

Not much. The law says "Unauthorized information may exist, so the Director should be summoned immediately." When the TD is called he should deal with the use of unauthorised information, but otherwise the play to the last tricks should stand.

+1 My only concern is that I do not know if the people who passed in this poll are peers of South. There is a group of people that I might have polled if I knew who South was, who all double even if they think Pass is a logical alternative. It is possible (for some values of South), Pass is not a logical alternative.

Useless suggestion deleted.

I don't see the damage: if 2♠ would be non-forcing (by partnership agreement) surely West would bid 2♠ and East would Pass.

But "hesitation" managed to sneak into the topic title, and I think we can imagine where the hesitation occured.

I think "will" should be "can". If "everyone" would guess that the one had misbid (based on the auction and the other one's hand) then the other one is allowed to guess that the one had misbid, and act accordingly, without being treated as if they had a CPU.

And in previous years the EBL has held other courses and other TDs have come first (modest prevents ...) And there is whole slew of higher TDs who run the courses and set and mark the examination; I am sure the EBL thinks that those who run the courses are fit to judge those who attend.

I hope various English/European/World TDs will charitably assume this is a wind-up.

The problem we face is this: if [you play the boards out of order and] you put the wrong board number in the scoring device for the board you have actually played, then at the end of the scoring you get to see the frequencies or "traveller" of other tables' results. These are results on a board you have not played yet and might make it impossible for these pairs to play that baord. In the EBU this is covered in our regulation (when we started routinely displaying results from other tables): if North did not get the board right when entering the score and East did not check it when confirming the score, and the seeing the results makes the board unplayable AVE-/AVE-. If there was a violation of procedure and North confirmed the score: AVE-/AVE+.

But why the non-offenders did what they did with the revoke is irrelevant. Either they get they get the table result with the Law 64A penalty or they get an adjusted score based on the outcome without the revoke. There is not adjustment based on the revoke and then the non-offenders being mislead. In assessing the possibilities without the revoke, we would not necessarily assume the defence would let themselves be pseudo-squeezed just because they were pseudo-squeezed adfter the revoke - but anyway it seems the position would not arise.

I do not like the EBU approach to fielded misbids and I think the automatic adjustment should only apply when there is evidence for an undislosed partnership understanding that is not a permitted agreement. (For instance a 3C overcall that coubld be clubs or the red suits). The argument for the EBU approach is based on Law 40A3 and Law 12C1d). Law 40A3 can be read to say that the "misbid" (the call about which there is a concealed partnership understanding) should not be made and the adjustment should be on the basis that the call was not made. Law 12C1(d) is used to give an artificial adjustment because it is deemed that the possible outcomes on the basis that the call was not made are "numerous and not obvious". (This route to awarding an artificial score was not available before 2007 although the "fielded misbid" regulation was.) In this example, if we apply Law 40A3 and Law 12C1c), we would adjust to the outcome with various possibilities for East's first call. If North-South would always reach 4♠ whatever East does, there should be no adjustment. If North-South would always reach 4♠ if East overcalls but might play in 3♠ if East passes then the adjustment should include a proportion of 3♠=.

If North-South are ruled against without being asked about their bidding and they appeal and at the appeal they give a convincing (documented) explanation for their auction and there is still no evidence of unauthorised information, then the TD is not going to come out of this looking good.

If there is not even an allegation that there was UI how can we adjust? Were the potential offenders asked what they meant by 4NT / 5♣ / 5♦? But if these calls are not alertable (above 3NT?) and no questions were asked, then where is the irregularity?

We know (or we find as fact) that East intended 3♣ to show a spade raise, so all this talk that 3♣ could have been a psyche and East is allowed to bid how he likes is so much noise. East did not psyche, he intended 3♣ as a bid with an alertable meaning, and there was no alert, so he has UI and so he is not allowed to bid how he likes - Law 16 constrains his actions. By numbers: Was there UI? Yes, as above. Were there damage? Yes, 4♠ scores better than 3NT. Were there logical alternatives? This is the only difficult question. Was the action taken suggested? Yes, the lack of alert suggest West does not know East has ♠, this suggests East bids ♠. I feel East should just put dummy down when partner bids 3NT but I think a poll would show that not enough players would pass 3NT to make Pass a logical alternatives.

We still haven't seen West's hand, but for some class of players 4♦ (re-transfer to 4♥) might be a logical alternative - then the auction may not recover.

I think what the OP wanted was a ruling "EW guessed right in defending an unfamiliar convention and that should not be allowed, EW should score at most AVE- (and if their table result was already worse than AVE- they should be told not to guess right in the future)." ;)

If WBF and EBL have a rule that would only apply to their competitions. The competence (or otherwise) of the national associations would allow them to have a different rule for banning alerts in their own competitions.

Before we need to look at logical alternatives for East, we have to establish that East had unauthorised information.

I fear that would get the response "I'm sorry, I don't know what that bid means".

East appears to think the agreement about 2♦ is no partnership understanding. He does not appear to have UI. East has decided from 2♦/3♥ that partner has 5 ♥s, this is appears to be based on the general knowledge that some people play system on over 1NT-X, and he does not appear to have a (concealed) partnership understanding about 2♦. No infraction: result stands. West might think the agreement is "system on" and so he might have UI from partner's failure to alert/announce and from the (lack of) explanation of 2♦. There may be logical alternatives to 3♥ but it is unlikely that Pass is a logical alternatives. If West has used UI then it might be right to adjust to 3NT (or who knows) but without the other hands it is impossible to rule. If East/West had an agreement about 2♦ then North/South may have been misinformed and might have continued bidding with the correct explanation. In which case an adjustment for misinformation may be in order, but without their hands it is impossible to know.

OK. I thought you meant the fact that ♠9 would be a major penalty card was important/interesting.

Why interesting? (I really feel I am missing something.) ♦J wins. A ♥ is played from dummy and East must play ♠9, winning the trick. South's remaining three cards are good, whatever he plays on the ♥. Four tricks?

If East or West agrees to the claim, the revoke is established. East won the revoke trick and that trick is transferred. The claim is good and declarer makes the rest, so he makes all the last five tricks. If East/West do not agree to the claim before the revoke comes to light, the revoke is not established and must be corrected. EBU White Book 70.3 tells us to assess the claim with any doubt going against the revoking side. The defenders will only make ♠9, giving four of the last five tricks to declarer.