jallerton

Yes, there does seem to be some overlap between Phil's suggested meanings for 3♥ and 3♠ here; in both cases, we want partner is to avoid 3NT with a small singleton heart. If 3♠ shows values in spades then perhaps 3♥ should be a hand with values in hearts. The hand I actually held contained a singleton club and good diamond support: depending on partner's club holding it could have been right to play in 3NT or 5♦.

[hv=pc=n&w=s8hakqjt8dqt75ck7&e=sqt9h73dk83cqt542&d=s&v=e&b=3&a=p1hp1n2s3h3spp4hppp]266|200[/hv] Matchpoint pairs. West plays in 4H after the opponents have bid and raised spades. The defence start with 2 rounds of spades (South wins the jack and returns a low one) and declarer ruffs. Declarer draws trumps in 4 rounds, his LHO having 4. Declarer plays the ♣K and his LHO takes the ace and plays ♠K, ruffed with the last trump. Declarer now play a diamond to the 9, king and ace. RHO cashes ♠A on which declarer discards a diamond and next hand follows suit. Declarer now claims for two off (not stating a line) expecting the fifth spade next with the 2 minor suit queens taking the last two tricks. What declarer did not notice is that his RHO had discarded a spade when declarer was in the process of drawings trumps. The defender admits to this and says he’s going to play a low diamond. The TD is called (by dummy) and this is the 3-card minor suit ending: [hv=pc=n&s=shd7cj8&w=shdqtc7&n=shdjc96&e=shd8cqt]399|300[/hv] TD's ruling: one trick to declarer, two to the defence. Basis of TD's ruling: finessing ♦10 is a normal line of play, so declarer only makes ♣Q. E/W appeal. Basis of appeal: declarer claimed two tricks which were the minor suit queens, known to be winners. The defence cannot prevent him from winning these tricks. In practice ♦10 would be established (and declarer would know this to be a winner when he sees the ♦J fall, so there's a good case for 3 tricks to declarer. Suppose you are on the AC. How do you assess this one?

There should not be any need to specify evidence in the regulations. Whether somebody is a bone fide resident should be a matter of fact; the important thing is to have a clear definition of what is meant by 'bone fide resident'. Of course, if that person's residence status is doubted then people can look at the evidence then.

The best bid clearly depends on your agreements. If you don't have any methods to show this exact hand, you can improvise. After 1NT-2♣-2♦, what would 3♣ mean in your system? If that would not be forcing, how about 4♣? A very old fashioned method called Sharples, a jump to 4m here shows a 4-card suit with slam interest. Maybe agricultural, but not as agricultural as jumping to 6NT!

It's not often that you see an application of the "if it hesitates, shoot it" principle combined with a Reveley ruling.

Related question: what sorts of hand should Responder have if over 2NT he bids: (i) 3♣; (ii) 3♥?

[hv=d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1hp2cp2dp2np3sp]133|100[/hv] I inflicted this sequence on my partner last weekend. What sort of hand would you expect Responder to hold for this sequence?

I prefer scheme (a). It's more important to distinguish between good/bad hands for slam purposes than to locate Opener's void at the 4-level.

The big weakness of short club is when partner needs to guess whether you have clubs or not. There's no general answer here. It depends on the auction and the hand. Sometimes it's not right to lead partner's suit anyway. Style of opening bid is also relevant here. If you agree to open 1♣ on all 4432 shapes, including those with 2 clubs and 4 diamonds, then the 1♣ opening bid is a lot more likely to be short than if playing 'better minor', for example. Your opening NT range will also affect the relative percentages of the clubs/not clubs hands.

Wow. What do you open with a 4=3=3=3 19-count? If you open 1♣, what do you rebid after a natural 1♥ response? If the answer is 1♠, that puts a lot of pressure on Responder to keep the bidding open, without knowing how many clubs he needs to give preference back to clubs. If the answer is 2♠, you make it harder to bid slams as Opener's can have so many more shapes with anywhere between 3 and 7 clubs.

No, it would only be a full description if you explained what hand types might respond 2NT.

How does Responder show clubs under this transfer method? By bidding 3M or 2NT?

In practice, players take into account many factors, including explanations received from opponents, when selecting a call. "Crucial" in Law 40B6b implies to me that we only adjust if the MI was the main reason why the player took the unsuccesful action at the table; so if we judge that the player should have selected the successful action anyway then we shouldn't adjust the score. On the other hand, Law 21B3 implies to me a different approach. We completely ignore what the player did at the table and just make an independent assessment as to what the player (or his peers) might have done given correct information.

As in many situations, the standard is that there's no standard! I'm surprised by the answers saying that 3♦ is game forcing. How often does a game forcing (single-suiter?) hand crop up when partner has shown nothing and an opponent has opened the bidding? I like to double rather than overcall 2♦ on flexible hands, so for me double followed by 2♦ could be a 2452/1453 hand with strong NT values. A jump to 3♦ is a strong bid: single-suited hand, something like an Acol 2, but not forcing. On the rare occasions when the doubler has a game force in his own hand, he can start with a cue bid.

Do you really mean that 2NT shows precisely a limit raise to 3M, or is it actually limit raise or better? If the latter, it's harder to untangle everything after the 2NT response, although admittedly this will not matter on the vast majority of hands. Maybe I don't play enough, but I haven't found putting 3-card raises through the unbalanced 1NT response to be a major issue. Maybe it's because when Responder has a singleton and Opener was going to pass 1NT (so typically 5332), the opponents have a 9- or 10-card fit and one of them has often bid already.

You must be used to Nigel's marking scheme by now. Nigel always gives high marks to his 2nd, 3rd (and 4th) choices, trying to simulate the marks that might be awarded in a magazine problem. He's not as far out as you think, because in magazine panels the respondents often haven't read the system and tend to guess what the system is or even just assume that their own favourite system is in use. Of course, I agree that when assessing logical alternatives we need to know the player's knowledge of the methods in use.

I like your procedure. My previous reply said what the UI suggested to me, but for this ruling, you as TD have to decide what the UI suggested to this particular East player. I consider the failure to find the trump lead to be an error, but it is nowhere close to being a serious error. Serious errors are things like revokes and "blatantly ridiculous calls or plays, such as ducking the setting trick against a slam, or opening a weak NT with a 20-count." (to quote the White Book).

Law 21B3 says: Law 40B6 says: Suppose that South gives a reasonable, but slightly incomplete, explanation of his methods (for example, they have no agreement about the actual sequence, but South fails to mention an analogous agreement which could be relevant). The omitted information was not crucial, but East's thought process might have been different had the explanation been more complete. Law 21B3 suggests that the TD should award an adjusted score, but Law 40B6(b) seems to suggest no adjustment. Which takes precedence?

I like transfers by Responder by an overcall, but I don't think transfer rebids by Opener work that well over a natural 2♠ bid. It's a bit like the uncontested auction 1♦-1♠-2♥: Responder's 2NT Lebensohl bid is a bit clumsy, but at least you gain the advantage that if Responder bids anything else you know the auction is forced to game.

Are you suggesting that a 3♦bid should show 4+ cards in LHO's suit and undefined strength? A novel approach. Yes, there's a decent case for playing 'disturbed' 2M bids as non-forcing, but that treatment also has its own weaknesses. Why? Opener needs at least a king above minimum to force to game, so 3NT or cue bidding would already imply these sort of values.

The fact that West is more likely to hold opening values does not demonstrably suggest bidding over passing on that East hand. If anything, it suggests that West is more likely to jump the bidding to a (quite likely) non making contract if East does bid. No adjustment. South would do better to spend his time asking North why he had failed to make the obvious trump lead.

Correct. However, I have come across people who have assumed this sequence to be forcing, so it's worth people discussing this sequence with their partners. In fact, this whole 1♥-(2♦)-2♠[forcing]-(P) start is a theoretical mess. If Opener rebids 3♣ is that forcing or not? On some hands, you'd want the answer to be yes; on others you'd prefer not. There's even a case for playing Opener's 2NT as Lebensohl here.

Closer, but still the wrong question! The right question is, "Which logical alternative is least suggested by the UI?"

An exposed card during the auction? How did you rule? Or was ♣2 known to be from another pack?

In all three cases, the smallest club is deemed to have been played initially (Law 46B2. So the question is whether the declarer is allowed to correct under Law 45C4b. In case (i) and (ii), Law 45F may be relevant. The question "which one?" seems like dummy trying to indicate that a different card be played. With reference to Law 45F, the defenders are very much damaged by this suggested play; otherwise declarer would probably not have corrected the card (under the WBF liberal interpretation of) 'without pause for thought'.