RMB1

But psyching is not partnership agreement yet authorities forbad psyching of artificial opening bids which are only artificial through partnership agreement. The old laws allowed regulation of conventions and the WBFLC said that it was it would not challenge regulations that prohibited psyching of conventions. The new laws allowed regulation of special partnership understanding, so it difficult to see how the law makers could object to regulations that prohibited psyching of calls that were the subject of special partnership understandings.

[An unfortunate title for a topic in "Laws and Ruling", especially when there is no mention of an appeal.] What UI? There is no UI from 2♦, Law 27B1(a) says so. There is UI from "I thought I had opened" but surely he has shown opening values by bidding over 2♥. What we do have is Law 27D: If North had bid 3♦ instead of 2♦, South would probably have bid on and gone down, so the TD shall award an adjusted score. If the insufficient bid had not occurred, North would probably Pass 2♥. South may bid again but perhaps he has no good action. Possible outcomes are 3♦= and 2♥ making. Under Law 12C1c I would weight the outcome; under Law 12C1e I might score award 2♥ making. What is the form of scoring in a "cash game", is it rubber bridge? In which case ignore the above which applies to a different code. :)

I would hate to think my grumpy remarks had disciples. In this case there is no requirement to call the TD by the non-offending side: they accepted the claim. This is a case of dummy attempting to withdraw a concession by declarer. There is no requirement for the TD to be summoned (immediately) in Law 71 as there is Law 68D. No doublt I am missing something. In ©, what sequence of plays allows East-West to get six tricks after the rounded winners: ♥A, ♥K, ♣A, ♣K, ♠2 ? Did you mean declarer cashes the heart winners only: ♥A, ♥K, ♠2 ? Surely a disciple of Burn would now give the defence the rest of the tricks: cashing hearts for dummy to throw ♦A and declarer ♣AK, and then clubs for declarer to throw ♦KQJ.

I suspect its not my correspondent who wants to make these doubles but his opponents. :) I do not know whether there was an actual instance, or what the hand was. Nor do I know what the actual partnership agreement is (I suspect there is no explicit agreement to make such doubles).

A correspondent writes: The regulations for alerting doubles is: The regulation for permitted doubles is: To paraphrase my correspondent slightly: Is a takeout double of natural 1 of a suit that may be a balanced 9HCP permitted? Is a takeout double of natural 1 of a suit that may be a balanced 9HCP alertable?

Perhaps 2NT was intended as a good raise of clubs, similar to 1M:(X):2NT

Misinformation?

Thanks, that helps. The EBU used to have such a regulation. When we did, someone opened 2D (strong GF) on a weak two in hearts. After 2D-P-2H-P-P-? LHO passed knowing that psyching 2D was illegal. Opener was asked why he bid 2D - he had forgotten the system, he intended it as a multi, as he played with other partners. This was ruled not a psyche because it was not deliberate. If in your case he misjudged the hand as being a game-force then this is not a deliberate mis-statement, so not a psyche. They may have an implicit agreement to open such hands 2D: this may be misinformation, and this may be an illegal agreement; either way adjustment may be in order.

For what purpose did the TD have to decide whether this was a psyche (or something else: deviation, misbid, etc.) ?

I can't vote. :( I do not agree with either option in the second and third poll, and the system will not accept my vote without selecting one (each?) of those.

Why does East only want down one? Isn't East's other card a winner? This isn't a "finesse or drop" position: West is showing out on the ♣. It is a miscounting postion: declarer thinks East has ♣Qx when he has ♣Q only. For a declarer who is convinced that East has ♣Qx, playing the King or small both lead to -1, so I rule both are normal. If playing small at trick 12 leads to down 2, that is what I rule.

Woo! (we won)

If declarer gets greedy and tries to prohibit (almost) every suit, and defender can not comply then Law 59 would allow the defender to lead or play any (otherwise legal) card.

Because a red ruling says that the offenders have a concealed partnership understanding, and for a partnership to knowingly have an understanding that they conceal smacks of cheating.

What was the nature of the unauthorised information?

[i think this is the right place to hide this. :)] Yesterday, while commentating on BBO I said that England would bat today (that is on 3 January 2011, in Australia) despite the fact the Australia had won the toss and chose to bat. (It did not occur to me that it might rain.) At the time, I said this prediction had the same value as my predicions on bridge as a commentator. But some Australians understandably were affronted. All I can do is apologise here for my slur on the competence of the Australian batsman and say that 4-134 is a fine score. I am sorry for any offence I may have caused. May the best team win.

Surely this White Book paragraph should be part of the permitted opening bid regulations, added to EBU Orange Book 11C10 (quoted up-thread): "Whatever strength is agreed for an opening bid, it is not permitted to agree that responder may Pass a 1NT overcall with 11HCP or more."

To be honest, I am not sure that I "knew". But the first (and only?) time this came up was at a national event and I was able to consult the chief TD (of the event and of the national authority) before giving the ruling. He told me 2♥ was "incontroveribly not conventional" (as the law was then); and so that was what I ruled.

Under the previous laws, I have ruled that 1NT-2♦(=♥)-2♥ is not conventional/artificial because it had no meaning beyond willingness to play in 2♥. So 1NT-(P)-2♦(=♥)-(2♠)-2♥ is incontrovertibly not conventional/artificial. I think that this is still valid, so Law 27B1a applies and 3♥ does not silence partner. If opener tells us (away from the table) that he had not seen 2♠ then 2♥ has no meaning, except to deny a transfer break. Pass by opener certainly has a more precise meaning than 2♥ because all transfer breaks would bid over 2♠, so Pass does not silence partner under Law 27B1b. Any bid by opener is likely to show some degree of heart support, and certainly does not deny values for a transfer break. Is "denying the values for a transfer break" a negative inference that the new flexible WBFLC interpretation tell us to ignore? I don't know. I suspect that we should feel encouraged to allow other bids not silencing partner under Law 27B1b, using Law 27D to adjust if damage does occur. What about double? Is this support? or penalties (denying heart support)? or negative/unassuming (4-4 in the minors)? Any meaning is still more precise than 2♥ (except possibly for "denying a transfer break"). Probably the same answer as for bids. Nice to see the new year starting with same (fear,) uncertainy and doubt concerning Law 27, as some of us had in the old year.

My first reaction on reading the original post is neatly summed up by:

The OP said "England, UK". The regulation (unless the club makes its own rules) is

I am sure the most worrying thing for David is that the "authoritative source" will turn out to be himself. :) As pointed out in a previous thread, the terminology does let us down. If a psyche is deviation from partnership understanding, then this may not be a psyche, because it may be red, because it may be partnership understanding to open this light in third position. This what the traffic-light classification is attempting to capture. Even if it is their (disclosed) agreement to open in third on Kx/x/10xxxx/KQxxx (which would be permitted) then I think this is psyche rather than a deviation. If they do have a (disclosed) agreement to open random 8HCP hands, then failure to double is not red.

Some are prepared to apply Law 12C1b when there has been a revoke by defenders following use of UI by the declaring side. (Revoking is listed as an example of a Serious Error in EBU Laws and Ethics Committee minutes 20 September 2009.) The revoke is an infraction but we treat it as a serious error unrelated to the infraction by the opponents, the use of UI.

See Use of unauthorised information is a serious error.

The OP seemed to think that opening a "usually 5-10" 2♠ on 3HCP was an important reason for questioning the ruling. Many thought the ruling was routine and the 2♠ opening was irrelevant. But there was some interest in the whole issue of "stretching" the range of weak twos, regardless of this case or the particular players.