jallerton

OK, so it appears that Vampyr is mistaken when she is interpreting this 'simple' rule. If the pass showed willingness to play in 2♥x, then it would specify suit holdings (in hearts) and would therefore be alertable.

Maybe that is why the Law requires the TD to be called whenever an explanation is corrected (or a call is alerted late). Once the TD has been called, the TD is in charge of the table. The Law does not confer any right to a player to ask to speak to the TD away from the table, and the TD did not ask the player to leave the table (so that is not part of the TD call). The Law I quoted above does permit players to draw inferences from the opponents' actions. I suspect that West probably didn't realise at the time that his request was giving information away about his hand.

At what point did East ask this question? Had West already made a lead face down? Or was it before the opening lead had been selected? Who called the TD?

Not very well expressed, but I think the third option is there for people who think the decision is close.

Isn't the fact that RHO choose to accept the 3♠ bid authorised information? That suggests to me that he would prefer to defend game rather than a part score, hence making a 4♠ bid more attractive.

In order to assess the logical alternatives, VixTD needs to determine the meaning of his partner's insufficient 3♠ bid. Many players would struggle to work out the meaning of an insuffcient bid, but fortunately VixTD has years of experience in attempting to rule under Law 27B1b.

Ask your partner to read and post on BBF. Then the pair of you can represent the BBF team against JEC!

Both hand types (the 4M, (5)6♦ FG hand and the solid major hand wanting to know only about cue bids) are quite rare, so it's hard to say which is better, without a simulation. I'd probably use the BBO partnership bidding tool if I wanted to form a more definitive judgement. As I'm sure you've worked out, the gains for using the jumps to show 4M come from being able to play in 4/4 & 5/3 major suit fits whilst avoiding 4-3 fits. The losses, in theory, are that these calls take up a lot of room. It's harder to judge when to play in Responder's suit, especially when Opener rebids 3♠.

Yes, many people have considered playing this rebid structure. I know that because this is exactly what many players do play!

I would also lead a diamond. If we have 4 spade tricks to cash, we might get another chance to do so later. However, it's not necessarily true to state that hearts are not breaking: sometimes declarer has a no-trumpy hand with 3-card support.

If trying to bring the club suit in for one loser, there's a case for playing West for KQx(x) rather than K10x/Q10x(x). Although half as likely, at least when your ideal club layout exists, you are spared the problem of what to do when East switches to a heart. Of course, estimating what will happen at other tables is not an exact science (particularly when you know little about the opponents' hand) and you don't know quite what proportion of the field is being treated to a heart lead. Anyway, the winning line is neither of these. Let me turn this into a double dummy problem by telling you that: Spades break 3-3. East holds ♣K10x and ♥A; West holds ♣Qx. Two questions: 1. What is the winning line to make 11 tricks? 2. What do you call the end position?

If you cash two rounds of spades, both defenders follow upwards. They play standard signals, but should they signal honest count in this situation? A significant minority plays 5-card majors. Even without that knowledge, I think you are right to consider that other declarers may be favoured by a heart lead - some opening leaders may choose a heart lead (if holding heart length) even when the opening bid was 1♥. It's not thread-jacking if you are explaining how you'll play the hand given in the opening post! If West plays the Q from Q10x and you duck, a really alert East might guess what you are up to and overtake.

Yes, that may well be the answer; maybe 4-boards rounds would be worth considering also. This could be worth trying at an event like the Easter Festival of Bridge, in which there are not enough pairs to make it all-play-all. Although each between-round movement takes longer, you gain time back by not playing 2-board rounds.

Each round is referred to as a "match" against a particular set of opponents. In Swiss Teams, each "match" is played against another team. In Swiss Pairs, each "match" is against another pair. In the UK, Swiss Teams and Swiss Pairs rounds tend to be of a similar length, typically of 7 or 8 boards per round.

Sorry, assume the opening lead was ♦10 (this was the card actually led at the table when declarer had managed to imply diamond shortage in the auction).

I've played in an event in Sweden which in principle used current match assignments, except that assisgnments were made about 5 minutes before the end of the current round, based on whatever information was available at the time. This included all of the current round scores for the faster-played matches, and all but one (occasionally two) comparisons from the slower tables.

All true, but given that the short round Swiss events format has rarely been used in England, what makes you think that such a format would not also be popular?

[hv=pc=n&s=sakq2hk962daqc865&n=s865hdkj964caj943]133|200[/hv] MP Pairs. Playing 4-card majors, South opens 1♥ and gets to 3NT on an uncontested auction. West leads ♦10. What's the best line of play?

Your last sentence is the important one. The convention cards are technically not complete unless they disclose all of the partnership's understandings. Some pairs try a lot harder than others to include as much detail as space allows on their convention card, but even they struggle to find room for all partnership understandings (in practice, this is only likely be achieved in a new partnership which uses the convention card categories as a template for its for system discussion). The workaround is for players to freely disclose verbally all relevant agreements which would be on their convention card if only the partnership had managed to comply with the strict requirements of Law 40A1b. You might think that, but the WBF has decreed that all insuffcient bids must have meanings. There's no general bridge knowledge as to what particular IBs should mean, so perhaps these meanings are derived from implicit partnership agreements.

Yes, for the correction to not silence partner, both the insufficient and replacement calls had to be "incontrovertibly not artificial". It was usually fairly easy for the TD to judge whether or not these criteria were satisfied. So he would make his ruling at the table (reading the relevant Law to the players and explaining the consequences to the players) and then the players would continue the auction; in fact, just like the recommended answer to the scenario in David's original post. One reason why many non-offenders find the recommended Law 27B1(b) procedure so unsatisfactory is the secretive nature of the ruling, which is based on the (potentially self-serving) undisputed evidence of one player.

and in bridge forum circles, popularised by Cyberyeti.

I am pleased to see Robin's (typo corrected) response to how TDs are advised to handle this particular situation. Indeed this is how I was taught many years ago. Now compare to the following situation: South deals and opens 2♦. West (who rarely uses the 'stop' card) bids 2♣, which the TD ascertains not to have been an unintended call. West is invited to a private discussion with the TD and then North has the opportunity to accept, or not accept, the insufficient bid. To make a proper assessment, North might well want to know whether, if he rejects the insufficient bid, West has any call available to him that can be made without silencing East [under Law 27B1(a) and/or Law 27B1(b)] To repeat David's question in this second situation: "Is it part of standard operating procedure to tell him before he selects his option? If not, why not?"

It depends on the director! This type of sequence (a protection after 1NT-slow pass-pass) featured in an EBU Appeals Booklet a few years ago. My view was (and still is) that the hesitation did not demonstrably suggest bidding over passing: if partner was thinking of bidding another suit that might make protecting less likely to be a good idea. However, other commentators felt that an assigned score of 1NT making the requisite number of tricks should be awarded unless Pass was not a logical alternative.

It's also confusing to call something which is no longer printed a "book".