Lanor Fow

Even if most of the cover is white, I would suggest calling it the 'White Book' might be confusing :)

On a recent directors course I went on they gave us nice stickers to stick in our laws book for the amendment. There is a nice gap at the end of the page where it fits.

APologies, I misread and didn't notice it had already been replaced with 2d.

Why is East being forced to correct with 2d? Surely they can make any call that isn't double (all of them silencing P)

Thanks for the clarification. I disagree with basing 'could demostrably be suggested' on the hand that hestitated (either fully or partially), but I disagree with it less than what I thought you were advocating. editted for clarity

But in this particular case, you seem to be saying that a partnership will always know what a slow invite suggests, and if there is a non obvoius call we rule against it. in a 50/50 case obvoiusly both passing and accepting are LAs, and both are non obvoius as there is a reasonable alternative. Thus if I am reading your post correctly (for the specific case of invites, or even more specifically this particular invite) we would adjust whatever action is taken. This to me seems wrong.

If I am reading this correctly, or correctly taking your meaning, this would seem to imply that if one has a 50/50 guess on whether to pass or bid, one will get ruled against whatever one does, on the assumption that one knows what ones partner normally hesitates one. That surely cannot be correct?

The EBU does

Why does 23 not apply? The 'actor' part isn't relevant as the law doesn't say did know, or might have known, but could have known.

Blackshoe, Convention cards are usually exchanged here. How often depends on the level of event, in a club night probably most people don't have them and some who have them don't exchange them. In this event most would have had them, and some (perhaps even most) would have started each round by exchanging them, but not all pairs would have done this routinely. I get the impression that this EW, though they had a card, might not have been routinely giving oppos the card at the start of the round. Similaly in this even you will have had some pairs who would always ask for a card and take a quick look (this NS are likely to be in this catagory) and some pairs who would ignore the CC for the whole round even if present to them. This particular issue could well have been solved if EW routinely checked the oppos convention card before starting the round, the timing of looking at it is unfortuante at best.

I really did mess this up. The hand given is easts not west, I've editted this

Indeed they were, corrected now.

I was directing an event at the weekend that had a number of rulings that I'd like to post here, and see if people agree with me. There were also a quite a few other issues I was dealing with, including bridgemates not working in one room, leading to having to manually input 130 odd scores whilst tryign to sort 4 judgement rulings so it was a hectic event (from which I will be learning a lot). [hv=pc=n&e=s98652htdk985caj4&d=s&v=n&b=15&a=1hp4h4sppp]133|200[/hv] After South opened with 1H, west took NS convention card, looked at it for a few seconds, then passed. The bidding proceeded as per the above, and the contract went down two. 4H makes. You get called to the table at the end of the hand by NS who state that west had looked at the card and hestitated for a few seconds. EW claim the only pause was whilst west was looking at the CC, which seems to be agreed by all present. W states that she only looked at the card becuase NS had asked for their convention card before (this is the first board of the round) which she thought was unusual (county green pointed event, most pairs are likely to have well filled out convention cards). How do you rule. Multiple edits to correct the fact I don't know the compas

Hi, I'm looking into pairs movements with larger numbers of boards than normally played in a duplicate. Can anyone point me in the direction of (or tell me) how many tables you'd need for a web mitchell to work with 30-33 boards. Specifically in cases of 18-20 tables if yoou can't play a web is there a good movement that minimises the number of boards in play (especially in the case of 20 tables, where if you can't play a web, i'd imagine you'd need about 42 baords for a standard skip mitchell playing 16 rounds). Many thanks

From the white book: "1.6.2 Bidding boxes The EBU has adopted the following procedures based on recommendations by the WBF. ... A call is considered to have been made when the call is removed from the bidding box with apparent intent (but the TD may apply Law 25)." So if the bid had not been removed from the box, it's not considered made in the EBU, whatever the intent. It sounds like the director rules correctly (though given your doubts at the table should have made it clearer why he/she wasn't considering the bid mde)

The laws are quite clear on this, if there is no fault on either side it should be ave+/ave+ as awarded. I agree with this, in pretty much any field I've been in I've seen some 'usual' scores, and even boards which might seem like they are likely to be completely flat often have one or more scores that are not the same. Even if there is little chance of more than the nine tricks in NT, people make mistakes, there could be a mess up in the bidding leading to a different contract, the defence could be abysmal and so coudl the declarer play, someone could play the wrong card, revoke, or make any of a hundred different mistakes. All of these things happen regulaly even on the simplest of boards. By not being able to play the boad both partnerships have been denied the opportunity for a brilliancy, or a mistake from their opponants. Average plus seems fair even on the flattest boards.

With regards to doubles the EBU have taken the approach of not only trying to be specific, but also simple, when alerting. I agree with both parts. Some years back the rules were less simple to try and cater for the more 'obvoius' situations. What actually happened was that most people did not know the rules, and so doubles got alerted or didn't incorrectly some of the time. It also meant that given most people didn't know the alert rules for doubles, it was difficult to trust alerts or lack of for doubles so yoou generally had to ask if it would make a difference, leaading to UI for your side. With the new rules, my expereince is that most people, especially at tournaments, know them and follow them. Yes, they lead to doubles that 'everyone' plays being alertable in some cases, but this is a small price to pay for people knowing the alert rules and being able to generally rely on others to know them. As for the spedific part, whilst this is not possible in many cases, I believe that alerting procedure being as specific as possible, whilst still allowing for the vast majority of bridge players to easily understand or learn them, leads to alerts being most useful. In short, I agree with Vampyr.

1. If your partner frequently forgets an agreement, then you should disclose this. let's say 3c showed the reds, but partner often forgets and has clubs. If clubs or the reds is an illegal agreement per system policy, then if yoour partner (or you) forget it enough for it to be an implicit agreement that it could be clubs instead of the reds, then this is now an illigal agreement and you can't play it until your partner (or you) remember it better (though how that's meant to happen without practicing it I'm not sure). 2. If you disclose the agreement as 'The reds' (it's always best to avoid convention names) and then knowing that partner sometimes forgets decide that because of your hand it's likely that partner forgot, then this is basing a bid on a CPU (concealed partnership understanding) and thus illegal (how directors will rule depends on where you are, in the EBU there is a traffic light system that directors use that suggests how much your bid is 'fielding' the misbid, and so how likely it is that there is a CPU. Other NBOs do things in a different way). Note that having the CPU is against the laws in itself, as well as acting on it, hence the answer to 1. If you disclose as per one, admitting that your partner often forgets, then as there is no 'concealed' agreement, then there is no law I know of that prevents you from taking yoour partners forgetfulness into account, based on your hand (as long as there is no other UI). As per one, this assumes that it would not be an illegal agreement. 3. If there is no UI and you realise, you are allowed to wake up. In a lot of places though, 3c being the reds is likely to be alertable. If it is, and 3c being natural isn't, then obvoiusly there is now UI, and even if you realised before partner alerted you are bound by the laws on UI. 4. If none of these bids generate UI by being alertable in one case and not the other, and you have disclosed your partners forgetful nature, and the reds or clubs implicit agreement is not illegal then you are allowed to wake up. That is quite a few IFs though.

NW aren't always primarily responsible for the boards. North is responsible for moving them to the next table after they have been played (law 8A2), but apart from that the only responsiblity mentioned (that I know of) that could be considered 'primarily responsible for the boards' would be: "7D. Responsibility for Procedures Any contestant remaining at a table throughout a session is primarily responsible for maintaining proper conditions of play at the table." This is usually NS, if there is such a pair, but neither pair could be remaining, or as in some rounds of a howel or an arrow swicthed round in a mitchel, it could be EW who are primarily responsiblity for the boards. As to the question, both sides look at the bridge mate, and are therefore (imo) primarily responsible so I'd give A-/A-. I'd also argue that no matter who is responsible for the boards, the issue isn't what board was played, so responsiblity for the boards is irrelevant. I don't know of a law that says the boards have to be played in order. The issue was with the bridgemate, which both NS and EW have a role in.

I really enjoyed your club course some years back. I'm finding it difficult to understand the reference to law 87 myself. It may, I suppose, have been put in for situations where one person, holding a hand from a different board ruffs in when impossible/implausible and neither side notices the other has won; however, in any situation with a fouled board, one would assume that the director would go to the law on fouled board so the reference seems at best redundant. Law 85 seems much more relevant and perhaps that is the law meant to be referenced. The fact that it seems one is meant to rule either a score error or law '87' suggests even more that the reference is incorrect as the possibilities seem more numerable than fouled board or score error (I'd argue again probably suggesting law 85 as being one of the few, if not the only law which would, with part C of 79, enumerate all possibilities)

It isn't. After a claim the director is adjudicating whether the claim is successful, and if not how many tricks would be made under the claim, rather than giving an assigned score. The white book says: "Interpretation of Law 70A The TD is required to simply use their bridge judgement after consultation to decide the outcome of the deal, any doubt going against the claimer, with no opportunity for split or weighted scores. A suitable definition of ‘doubtful’ is ‘within the margins of reasonable doubt’."

Obvoiusly I check the system, but if the system is that it is at least 3 clubs there is no misinformation. People are allowed to misbid.

Even if it were determined that this were an opening lead out of turn, there would be two options for declarer where West can return the card to his hand, and one other where he might return it to his hand later. That said, I disgree that we have to make that assumption from the post. The only part that assumes that is the title, which is often given as an indication of the possible irregularity, rather than an assertion that that happened. If you are going on the facts in the post, then some respected posters have already argued this point.

I'm able to count and think at the same time (I've never tried internally singing and thinking). I'm suprised Pran is unable to. My couunting might not be 100% accurate, but it's consistent. If someone calls the director, which has nto happened to date, I would say I always couunt to ten, which my partner can back up, or (given I do it over every skip bid), opposition if they have played more than a few boards against me. If i had to think longer I plan to tell the director where I got up to in my couunting, and would be surprised if they would rule against me if I said I got to 11 or 12

I'm with those who don't think that this suggests passing or bidding. I'd be more surprised if, in a not that established partnership, a unusual response to keycard was bid in tempo, than out of it.