jallerton

What interests me is that this is a typical situation where players change their mind and think they are entitled to change their call by claiming it's a Law 25A case. In practice it is impossible for the TD to be sure what was going through the player's mind.

I disagree. Law 73F is the mechanism for a score adjustment "if the Director determines that an innocent player has drawn a false inference from a remark, manner, tempo, or the like, of an opponent who has no demonstrable bridge reason for the action, and who could have known, at the time of the action, that the action could work to his benefit", i.e. it authorises a score adjustment if there has been a breach of Law 73D. Law 73F does not deal with rectification for violations of Law 73C (and nor does any other particular Law, except perhaps Law 23), so Law 12B2 is not relevant. Law 23 is a possibility, but otherwise Law 12A1 applies.

Were you N/S or E/W at the time? If you are playing N/S, make sure that you always push the tray fully under the screen, so that all calls will be seen by the people on the other side. If you are playing E/W and the opponents are not moving the tray into the correct position, ask them to change this practice and/or call the TD.

It does say somewhere in the Blue/Orange Book that announcements are not intended to provide a full explanation: the opponents can ask if they would like more details. The L&EC had a choice: either make announcements in a standard form or to encourage a more detailed description during the announcement stage. There are pros and cons of the two approaches. However, I'm sure that announcing short clubs in some way is better than the previous practice of alerting such calls. From the "bad old days" I recall several rulings, including one at your table, where confusion was caused when a player wrongly assumed he knew the meaning of an alerted 1♣ opening.

Do you play a double of 3♠ by South as penalty-orientated here? I think it's normally played as T/O, in which cases ahydra's auction seems most likely. As 3♠-2 by West scores the same as 2♦-2 by East, East has not gained through the infraction so I would rule no adjustment under Law 23 and allow the table result to stand.

Law 73C is a "must" Law. The definitions within the introduction to the Laws imply that "must" Laws takes precedence over "may" and "is allowed to" Laws/footnotes. If you really think that (you never used to do so) then you are wrong. Laws 16B and 73C say different things. Often complying with one of them will help to comply with the other, but not necessarily. Atempting to gain an advantage by making a call that would never occurred to you had you not received UI is clearly not "carefully avoiding taking any advantage" from that UI and is an obvious breach of Law 73C. If 16B has not been breached, the TD can use Law 12A1 to adjust for a breach of this Law.

The N/S style is to open a point lighter than you are used to, so all other things being equal, Responder needs to be a point stronger to force to game. That North hand does not look too great to me: a queen high long suit, which needs help from partner to be of much use, and a dubious QJ doubleton. A further reason for pessimism is that sometimes when 3NT is makeable it needs West to be on lead. North knows that his system may have wromg sided NT and that is a reason for caution. Meanwhile, 5♦ looks a very long way off opposite 11-13 balanced. South may not have any extra high cards, but ♦AJxx is a huge holding when partner shows a 6-card suit.

If I understand you correctly, you only asked two players what they thought the UI suggested. I don't think that the TD/AC should attach too much weight to a sample size of 2! Not if partner was thinking of passing 2♦. Not if partner has some 6-4 hand and was thinking of bidding his 2nd suit. Now there is more likely to be a suit wide open in 3NT.

I agree with you there. However, I find the rest of what you say surprising. That does not follow at all. If I know that partner is conservative, I know from AI, not UI, that his invitations are up to strength. On the other hand, if I know that partner is aggressive in this situation, I know from AI, not UI, that he will have bid game already on a stronger invitational hand so when he does invite he tends to hold a weaker hand. You are advocating an "if it hesitates, shoot it" approach. Sorry, that is not what the Law says.

Yes, that sort of thing. Some Laws and regulations refer to both terms. On the EBU 'report of hand form' , TDs are asked to classify an action between psyche, misbid, deviation and other.

Why should 4♦ be forcing? If you play it as forcing then presumably: (i) partner has to keep his doubles up to strength, as he seems to be forcing to game opposite a misfit; and (ii) your 4♦ bid has a huge range. How do you sort out the difference between a minimum opening bid with 6 diamonds, the actual hand in this thread, and everything in between? If 4♦ is non-forcing then partner will know that you have a minimum (or close to) opening bid and can plan accordingly. If he makes a slam try over that then we know he's making a slam try opposite a minimum.

Where would you consider the dividing line to be between a deviation and a psyche/misbid? For example, suppose you have agreed to play a 12-14 1NT opener. Presumably opening 1NT with a an average 11-count or an average 15-count would be classed as a deviation, whilst opening 1NT with an average 2-count or an average 24-count would be classed as a psyche, But where would you draw the line? (By "average" I mean a hand not worthy of either an upgrade or a downgrade in terms of hand evaluation.)

4NT may not be quite so simple if partner thinks it means something else!

No it isn't. That's the whole point of using Law 23. (Sorry if my ruling was too long for you to get to the end!)

Am I dealer? What's the vulnerability?

Fair enough: if there is no official guidance on the matter, then it's completely up to the TD when he decides otherwise! It would be reasonable for the TD to utlise this option in this particular case, but the TD does not appear to have any discretion on when knowledge of such unplayed cards can become authorised or unauthorised.

IMPs, Unfavourable vulnerability [hv=pc=n&n=saj87hq74dq65cat7&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=1n(12-14)p3dp3sp4cp4dp4hp4sp5dp]133|200[/hv] 1NT = 12-14. 3♦ = natural FG, typically a single-suited slam try 3♠ = ♠ values, some interest in playing in diamonds The rest of the auction is cue bidding, 1st or 2nd round controls. If partner had bid 4NT instead of 5♦, that would have been RKCB. What do you do now, and how obvious is it?

There are two two infractions. In the first instance, we have to deal with each of them through the designated book rulings. Is ♠2 to be played from dummy? No. Declarer has called for a specific card not in dummy. Law 46B4 applies. The call is void and declarer may designate any legal card to play instead, Is ♣Q a penalty card? Yes, "unless the TD designates otherwise" (this phrase is used in the start of Law 50, but I can't see any specific guidance on when the TD should decide otherwise!) Is possession of ♣Q and/or the fact the East would play ♣Q on a club from dummy, authorised or unauthorised for declarer? Authorised, as this arises from East's infraction Is possession of ♣Q and/or the fact the East would play ♣Q on a club from dummy, authorised or unauthorised for West? Unauthorised, as this arises from East's infraction. The TD should instruct the players to continue the play of the hand on this basis. However, at the end of the hand, the TD should consider whether declarer has gained by the knowledge that East would have played ♣Q on a low club lead and/or West's restrictions from the fact that ♣Q was a penalty card. If the TD judges that declarer might have gained in this way, he should adjust the score for the declaring side via Law 23 and Law 12C. This could be a weighted score. Finally, the TD needs to consider the position of E/W, who were the non-offending side in respect of the first infraction. Was the act of "following" with ♣Q a "wild or gambling action"? If the TD decides that it was a "wild or gambling action" (this seems a bit harsh to me, but I can see the logic for such an argument), the damage is deemed to be self-inflicted and E/W keep their table score. If not, then E/W receive an assigned score to mirror that assigned to N/S.

One of the advantages of using 1NT rebid as 17/18-19 is that the 2NT rebid can be used conventionally to cover hand types which are awkward to cope with in standard methods, e.g. strong hearts raises and strong club single-suiters. So you'd be giving up that by playing 1♣-1Red-2NT as 20-21 balanced A more serious flaw with your suggestion is that you need to bear in mind that Responder does not always have a 4-card major to show! Without a major, he has to respond 1♠ or 1NT. Opener can no longer complete to 1M so all of the balanced hands have to bid one notch higher. After 1♣-1♠, the weak NT hands have to rebid 1NT, 2NT becomes 17/18-19, so what would you rebid on the 20-21 hand? 3NT, presumably, but that takes up am awful lot of room and you'll find it even more difficult to show a very strong hand with clubs.

I disagree. This hand is much better than something like Qxx Qxx Jxx KQxx. The hand given could be just what partner is looking for: the spade suit could be a good filler opposite length, The diamond holding could take care of partner's losers in the suit. On a good day, even the ♣K might provide a useful pitch. Bearing in mind that with a perfect fitting hand I should be forcing to slam, I should show vague signs of encouragement when my hand is OK, particularly when I'm not committing our side above the 4-level. I bid 4♦.

If all Responder's rebids are natural and FG, 3♠ should be precisely 4-4 in the majors. With 4-5 Responder bids 3♥, relying on Opener to introduce spades if he has 4 of those.

It's not quite that simple. The more expensive the event becomes, the fewer the number of opponents who can afford to play becomes. Then the event is less special for the billionaires. Not many billionaires will be willing to pay for lots of opposing teams as well as their own!

This is an awkward hand for 4-card majors: if partner is 4-4 or 4-3 in the majors, you need to show your spades to find your longest fit. If not, you probably just want to play in the likely 8-card heart fit. Playing KI implies 5-card majors, so raising to 2♥ is best, because it tells partner far more about my hand in one bid than does 1NT. This is particularly important if the next hand is about to compete. Even if the auction is uncontested, say 1♥-1NT-2♦-2♥, partner will expect a doubleton heart (or a very poor hand with 3). If we bid the same way with this hand, it's harder for partner to judge.

What does Opener rebid with a (31)45 shape after 1♣-1♦ in your style? Or is he supposed to open 1♦ on that?

If you transfer to a minor and then bid another suit, what does that mean? If it shows shortage with a single-suited minor suited hand, then Stayman followed by 3m should be natural, FG. If it shows a second suit, then there's less need for Stayman followed by 3m to be natural, so 3m can be used for other awkward hand types, e.g. 3-suiters, raises in Opener's major, Extended Stayman.