jallerton

The contract was cold double dummy after ♦A had been played, but Bas Drijver still had to read the cards correctly to make it. It was not impossible for the ♣A to be onside, or even for ♣J to be doubleton in the South hand. An interesting thought, but not any easy defence to find. If East has ♣109x and ♠Qx then you look silly given that declarer might go off on passive defence. Congratulations to The Netherlands. Justin and USA2 also deserve congratulations for their fine performance over the fortnight. Well played.

I found it quite surprising that the format of an event could be changed half way through the competition.

Yes, you are quite right. I have edited my post to include the omitted word. Interesting. Your example seems to corroborate the suggestion that the specific rule over-rides the general rule! The general rule is that virtually all cars registered in the UK are liable for annual car tax and that the rate of annual car tax is based on the car's carbon dioxide emissions. Following the general rule, one would conclude that the car tax for a Jaguar X type saloon 2.0-litre petrol car is £400. There is a specifc rule that disabled drivers with the DLA404 exemption certificate are exempt from car tax. According to you, a disabled driver with exemption certificate DLA404, who drives a Jaguar X type saloon 2.0-litre petrol, is exempt from car tax. Why is this? Because the specific rule about disabled drivers with exemption certificates over-rides the general rule.

Is that really true, Paul? Suppose that you agree to partner Bluejak for the first time, and that on the first round you get to play against a pair who tell you they are beginners. On the first board, you open 1♥, Bluejak bids 1♠, you bid 2♦ and Bluejak bids 3♣, intending it as fourth suit forcing. You are virtually certain that the 3♣ bid is fourth suit forcing. Do you alert? If not, your opponents (who have never seen this convention being used before) will wonder why you have not disclosed what is (as far as they are concerned) your secret understanding.

I wasn't proposing to give the offending side any redress. According to Law 12B: Assuming that slam would always have been reached had Responder's screenmate seen the alert, the "expectation had the infraction not occurred" is N/S -980. The actually table result was N/S -790. N/S are deemd to be the "innocent side". -790 is not less favourable than -980. Therefore, using the definition above, there was no damage. I agree that the double is not unrelated to the infraction. However, that is only relevant for "serious errors". According to Law 12C1b, redress should be denied for "wild or gambling actions" irrespective of whether such actions are related to the infraction.

Interesting. We would obviously need to see the hands and listen to the arguments of the players, but let's suppose that the TD judges that 6♠ would have been reached had Responder known the 1NT bid to be hearts and another suit. Then one could argue as follows: Table result (with Opener's side NV) = 4♠x+2, N/S -790 Without the infraction, Advancer would know 1♣ to be strong, so would have described 1NT as hearts and another, and hence 6♠ would have been reached for N/S -980. For the non-offending side, this is worse than the table result, so the infraction did not cause any damage. Therefore, table result stands. Other thoughts: 1. The failure to ensure that his screenmate had seen the alert was technically an infraction. However, the screenmate's sleepiness was a contributory factor to the damage. There would still be a technical infraction if they had opened a strong club on all of the first seven boards, but would it then be reasonable to claim damage on the basis of a unseen alert of 1♣ on board 8? 2. It is possible that the player really did see the alert but assumed (wrongly) that the alert was a "could be a doubleton" alert and did not bother to ask. 3. The player who doubled 4♠ should be asked to explain his reasoning. The TD might then consider whether the double should be classified as wild and/or gambling.

If E/W were annoyed at the lack of alerts, they need to consider their own contribution. The TD should ask E/W to confirm the meanings of West's doubles of 2♣ and 2♦. If, as would seem to be the case, they have an agreement that double is penalties, the TD should consider a PP for East's failures to alert penalty doubles of ostensibly natural calls.

Yes, I am surprised it has taken quite this long. There must have been some fairly impressive feats achieved by other people to win this award in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Congratulations, Roland.

Please don't encourage spectators (and, worse still, commentators) to click on GIB on every hand. I see too many comments stating that declarer should take some line which works double dummy, without explaining why this might be the correct line for declarer to take based on the bids and cards he has actually seen.

The Bermuda Bowl is contested by teams representing their own countries. USA and Canada are separate countries so it makes no sense to allow them to have combined teams, Nor does it seem fair to tell Canada that they are not allowed to send a team to make room for USA 3. If we applied the same rule to Ice Hockey, we could say that because Canada has a higher world ranking than USA, the next Ice Hockey World Championships should include two Canadian teams but none from the USA.

The winners do not always take advantage of this opportunity to maximise carry-over. In 2007, Italy won the round robin and picked the team in 8th place (South Africa) against whom they had a negative carry-over. South Africa won that quarter-final match (by more than the carry-over amount). Regarding the semi-final, presumbly the requirement for the two USA teams to meet (if both still in the competition at that stage) takes precedence over the preferred bracket of the round robin winners.

Unfortunately, that is the exact impression given by gwnn's observation: and you gave the distinct impression that this was your opinion too when you said "make that three".

In a Bermuda Bowl round robin match, I'd expect East to work out that the take-out doubler of 2♥ is likely to be short in hearts and thus the opening lead defence of ace and another heart will often result in an over-ruff and could easily let the contract through. The actual lead of South's singleton diamond seems entrirely reasonable to me. In my opnion, it is a serious error to even consider that such an opening lead could be a serious error. At trick 5, South should have enough information to know to duck the heart switch (he can work out that North probably wouldn't run with a 3244 shape), so I would describe his trick 5 play as an error. Are you claiming that all errors at this level should be classified as "serious errors"? If so, I do not agree.

To be fair to the director, all we know is a report of what the vugraph operator thought he heard the director say. There is a lot of scope for words to be lost in translation. Rather than: "director said 5/6 players who he asked passed 3NT after that hesitation" perhaps the TD actually said something like: "5 out of the 6 players I asked passed; therefore the Pass cannot be allowed to stand after that hesitation."

Is something written in a 1974 book up-to-date? What year are we in now, Nigel? 1975?

At the point where you made this comment, only a poster from the Netherlands had suggested opening 1♠. If the deal had really occurred in Poland, any regulations existing in the UK would have been of no relevance. Whatever gave you that idea? If you look at the Laws and Rulings section of the forum, you'll be amazed quite how many disputed claims "happen" at Paul's local club.

No I meant a 20.30 start during the middle of the evening. Son las ocho y media de la noche.

Apparently not. According to the Conditions of Contest on the event website: Mind you the same Conditions of Contest state that the event will start in the "late afternoon" when the published start time is 8.30pm.

You implied in an earlier post that this hand came from an EBU event. Therefore, your failure to opening the bidding should (somewhat luckily) not have cost on this occasion. The "interesting gadget" is not a permitted convention even at EBU Level 5, so the board should have been scored as 3 IMPs to your team, not 14 to your opponents.

Given the system in use, this is a minimum opening bid with 4-card ♠ support. From a constructive bidding point of view, it's a raise to 2♠. In competition, it's often acceptable to stretch one level but not two. If you are making 4♠, partner will probably have enough to reopen (probably with a double) if 4♥ is passed round to her. For that reason, it would be obvious to pass if the vulnerability were reversed. However, we are at favourable vulnerability. There are no guarantees, but if partner has a minimum double, a 4♠ bid might show a decent profit by going one or two off (-100/-300) instead of conceding 4♥= (-620). 4♥is not necessarily making but sometimes the opponents may find it difficult to double or take the push to 5♥. Bidding 4♠ will work out badly occasionally when partner misjudges thinking that you have a better hand. More likely, bidding is wrong when both 4♠ and 4♥ go one down, but that is a relatively small loss converting +100 into -50 or -100. Thus I would bid 4♠ at at the vulnerability and form of scoring. At IMPs the decision is closer but I would still bid. However, at MP Pairs, I prefer Pass. Here the magntitude of the potential swing is not as important as the frequency and I am concerned about the relatively high frequency of both games going one down.

I agree that the single score of 6♣-6 is a possible ruling, but please can you explain why the weighted score you suggest above is legal? You are working on the assumption that Pass and 6♣ are both logical alternatives, so let's stick with that assumption. Surely the UI demonstrably suggests Pass over 6♣ as the latter can be expected to accumulate an extra undertrick and is more likely to be doubled. Hence if 6♣ is a logical alternative, Pass of 5♣ is illegal and no percentage of 5♣ should be included in the weighting. [if 6♣ is not a logical alternative, the weighting should not include any percentage of 6♣ or 6♣x contracts, as it is hard to see how this contract could subsequently be reached.] Also, if North does raise to 6♣ and East doubles, why do you assign a 10% weighting to North pulling to 6♠ whilst retaining a 30% weighting to 6♣x? This seems Reveleyesque to me, as North still has the same UI on this round of bidding. (I have the same concern about Trinidad's suggested ruling.)

Why does that seem fairly clear? It seems fairly clear to me that it is impossible for Dummy in this case to comply with both Laws; there is nothing to indicate that it is acceptable to violate one of these Laws just to comply with the other: hence Robin's original question.

True, but if you believe that an opponent's inadequate answer to partner's question constitutes misinformation, then perhaps the question is at least partly for the opponents' benefit: it helps to prevent damage from the original misinformation.

What did the double of 1♥ mean in your style?

The TD was called following the correction of the explanation at the end of the auction as shown. The TD should have given West the chance to change his last pass and for the auction to reopen. It seems to me that West might well have bid 4♣ and that East would probably have raised that to game. If E/W might/would have bid differently on the previous round, or if North's bid is deemed to be a breach of the UI Laws, then the TD can still adjust the score later.