jallerton

I can't find a subsection [c] within Law 16C1, so you're probably right that such a law is not used in WBF events. It looks as though you are referring to Law 12C1c, but I think you are incorrect to look at that Law in isolation. You need to read Law 12B1 first to put this into context. In essence, Law 12B1 tells us when to adjust. Law 12C tells us how to adjust. Law 12C1e states: In areas (including English and WBF events) where the Regulatory Authority has not opted to use any part of Law 12C1e(i) or (ii), then these cannot be used. The way to redress damage as defined in Law 12B1 is to decide what would or might have happened absent the infraction. If there are several possibilities, the only way to achieve "equity" is to weight the score "to reflect the probabilities of a number of potential results" as Law 12C1c explains.

If you are going to bid, isn't it safer to do so earlier in the auction? I can understand avoiding a weak 2♥ opening 2nd position vulnerable, but perhaps an opportunity arises on the second round of the auction. Double shows hearts, but tends to be lead directing, more consistent with a decent 5-card suit. But what sort of hand bids 3♥ over 2♥? I think it ought to be something like this: reasonable playing strength but unsuitable for a 2♥ or 3♥ opening. On a good day, partner will work out that my suit isn't great before he makes his opening lead against a spade contract. Being 17 IMPs down shouldn't affect their strategy as the VP scale is virtually linear.

Is this true? I think the following poster has a good point: East apparently did not feel comfortable about doubling, so there must be a fair chance that East would run if 5♠xx is passed back to her. So if pass by West is a logical alternative, why isn't it possible to award a weighted ruling?

[hv=pc=n&w=st8762hj2dakq5ca7&d=e&v=e&b=6&a=1cp1s4h4sp]133|200[/hv] What do you do now? In case it's relevant, you are playing weak NT. Partner's 1♣ opening shows at least 4 clubs unless he is 4=3=3=3 with 15-19HCP. IMPs scoring.

I've heard and read Roland saying that he didn't know the identity of his successor. Is it the intention of BBO that there will be a successor for any of the (many) aspects of Roland's job, or are you relying purely on 'automation'?

The best way to help and support them is to suggest that for judgement rulings (most commonly, UI and MI cases, they consult with a TD (or Referee) who is used to dealing with this type of ruling.

Those lines are misere, rather than careless. In my opinion, when an opponent leads into a tenace, or concedes a ruff and discard, it's normal to take advantage of the 100% guaranteed extra trick presented to you. Fluffy's opponent conceded because she was expecting him to lead another club, not because she was intending to something irrational.

What are the QoS settings? What is the MAC's network software stack?

No! Whilst it is true that East legitimately knows that West is probably short in ♥, a hand with short hearts and reasonable values would double or bid. Most likely West has a weak hand with short hearts. North and South could each hold approx 10HCP on this auction, leaving approx 3HCP for West. I'd be surprised if double even made it into logical alternative territory, let alone being the only logical alternative. The EBU has recently published some guidance on penalties: It seems to me that the reasonably experienced Division 1 player ought to know the Laws here and that a procedural penalty is in order, as well as the obvious score adjustment.

Person A is asked to sit on an appeals committee and it transpires that person B, whom A knows, is one of the people appealing. In which of the following circumstances should person A excuse themselves from sitting on the appeal due to a perceived bias/conflict of interests? 1. Person A and person B are related to each other. 2. Person A and person B are good friends. 3. Person A often partners person B. 4. Person A used to be a regular partner of person B, but they don't play together anymore. 5. Person A and person B are regular team-mates. 6. Person A and person B are regular team-mates. When they do play in the same tean, B pays A to do so. 7. Person A and person B used to be regular team-mates, but are not anymore. If your answers depend on other factors, please specify.

I like it! This frees up 1♣-1♠-3M for single-suited club hands. Or you could extend the transfers rebids and play 1♣-1♠-2♠ as a transfer rebid in clubs (possibly FG) and 1♣-1♠-3♣ as the good diamond raise, retaining 1♣-1♠-3M as splinters agreeing ♦. I'm less keen on playing 1♣-1♠-2♦ as strong balanced because then either you have dangers of wrong-siding NT or you have to use a sometimes convoluted system of retransfers later.

So why did you change?

From that we can infer that Law 27B1b is nonsense.

I have another question. I have just received an e-mail (from the npc of one of the teams) inviting me to commentate "either regular or voice commentary" on the Buffet Cup (the first such e-mail I have received since Roland's retirement). However, the vugraph schedule page (whether I am logged in or not) suggests that this event will not have voice commentary. Maybe the organiser failed to tick a box somewhere. Is the npc going to be disappointed?

There are different types of active checks. One possibility is to refuse to accept sessions being posted out of sequential order; another is just to provide a "warning: are you sure?" type.

No, the organiser from the Indian event used the correct day (entering in Indian Time, presumably) but entered a session due to start at 2.15pm as 02:15. It's actually quite an easy mistake to make if you don't always think in terms of 24 hour clocks and are not used to completing forms of this type. To reduce the chances of this sort of error being repeated, I have a few suggestions: 1. The 'drop down box' for the start time of the session currently defaults at the top just before midnight. Is it possible for the default position to be moved to midday or thereabouts? 2. If more than one session is being entered, perhaps your program could recognise when (say) the session on line 2 is due to start before the session on a previous line; the program could then report this error to the person who is attempting to input the event details, suggesting (or forcing) a correction there and then. 3. It would be a good idea for somebody to check the vugraph schedule every few days, to identify any obvious errors.

It depends where you play. Law 40B3 says: For example, for events in England, section 7D1(j) of the 2012 EBU Orange Book is relevant:

Describing everything Roland has done for BBO Vugraph over the last ten years as "assistance" must be the biggest understatement ever written on BBO Forums.

I think you're missing an important point here. Declarer stated "you get a heart". Implicit in this statement was that he would retain trump control so as to be able to enjoy the established heart(s). [if you swap ♥A and ♥K round in the position, surely no-one would consider awarding anything other than 1 trick to the defence.] In this context, playing the last round of trumps is not a normal line, whilst the play of ♥Q or ♥J may be normal, albeit inferior, when made by a player who did not appreciate that singleton K was even a possibility. You seem to be contradicting yourself here. If it's legitimate to "take advantage of poor claims" at high levels, it's equally legitimate to do so at club level. Is that the old "protecting the field" argument? We haven't see the full hand, but quite possibly declarer "randomised" the result earlier by failing to take the heart finesse when dummy had the lead. That was an obviously incorrect ruling (perhaps the TD didn't understand the suit combination), but each claim has to be assessed on its merits.

I could be wrong, but my understanding was that Roland had selected from amongst the scheduled vugraph broadcasts which ones would be most appropriate for voice commentary (presumably the ones he expected to have the most spectators, whilst using his judgement on the likely number of sensible commentators he could recruit).

OK, here is my suggested list of corrections (this assumes that you are only prepared to have one line for even the more popular time zones and do not wish to split time zones which use "daylight saving" from those which don't). GMT -12:00: Eniwetok, Kwajalein GMT -11:00: Midway Island, Samoa GMT -10:00: Hawaii GMT -9:00: Alaska GMT -8:00: PT (US/Canada), Tijuana GMT -7:00: MT (US/Canada), Chihuahua, Mazatlan GMT -6:00: CT (US/Canada), Mexico City GMT -5:00: ET (US/Canada), Bogota, Lima GMT -4:30: Caracas GMT -4:00: Atlantic Time (Canada), Caracas, La Paz, Georgetown, Asuncion GMT -3:30: Newfoundland GMT -3:00: BrazilBrasilia, Buenos Aires, Georgetown, Montevideo, Greenland GMT -2:00: Mid-Atlantic GMT -1:00: Azores, Cape Verde Islands GMT: WET, London, Lisbon, Reykjavik, Monrovia, Casablanca, GMT +1:00: CET, Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris, West Central Africa GMT +2:00: EET, Athens, Istanbul, Helsinki, South Africa GMT +3:00: Baghdad, Riyadh, Nairobi, KaliningradMoscow, St. Petersburg GMT +3:30: Tehran GMT +4:00: Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Baku, Tbilisi GMT +4:30: Kabul GMT +5:00: Ekaterinburg, Islamabad, Karachi, Tashkent GMT +5:30: Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi, Colombo GMT +5:45: Kathmandu GMT +6:00: Almaty, Astana, Dhaka, Colombo, Ekaterinburg Novosibirsk GMT +6:30: Rangoon GMT +7:00: Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta, Novosibirsk GMT +8:00: Beijing, Perth, Singapore, Hong Kong GMT +9:00: Tokyo, Seoul, Osaka, Sapporo, Irkutsk Yakutsk GMT +9:30: Adelaide, Darwin GMT +10:00: Sydney, Brisbane, Guam, Yakutsk Vladivostok GMT +11:00: Magadan, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vladivostok GMT +12:00: Auckland, Wellington, Fiji, Kamchatka, Magadan GMT +13:00: Samoa, Nuku'alofa

Is that all one needs for a "strong" NT these days?

Thanks for the updated list. Unfortunately it does seem to contain quite a few errors; perhaps you are using an old source. For example: Sri Lanka (including Colombo) uses Indian Standard Time (GMT+5:30). Many of the times in Russia are an hour ahead of the times you list (e.g Moscow is GMT+4 all year round). It may be possible to describe Moscow as technically GMT+3 with permanent "daylight saving", but it might not be obvious to the organiser of a Russian event to check the "daylight saving" box in January when there is a metre of snow outside. Samoa is now GMT+13. This is not the same as GMT-11. If Samoa hosts a BBO event, you don't want the commentators turning up at the right time but on the wrong day!

Presumably the "average club players" get this idea from the "expereienced players" you mention.

It's actually slightly more complicated than that as there are some countries/regions of countries which put their clocks forward and/or back on different dates than other countries/regions of countries in the same hemisphere in the same basic time zone. I don't think that this subject if off topic. Vugraph automation is attempting to automate much of Roland's work, and Roland's knowledge of world time zones is second to none. Taking your example, Mexico City and Dallas are in the same basic time zone (GMT-6 in Winter) and both use "daylight saving time". However, these two places do not always share the same time as they put the clocks forward (and back) on different dates. There are also some events which take place on the Saturday and Sunday of a weekend in which the clocks go forward or back. I suspect that you need more than a checkbox to deal with this.