jallerton

Sorry yes, 6331. I should have said: "6322 is the least offensive shape for a vulnerable weak two and 6331 is not too far behind. The AK in his suit, whilst obviously useful offensively, are potential defensive tricks." I'm surprised you think it's normal to play a 4♥ response to a Multi as natural, as (i) I have played Multi with many partners, and I can't recall any even suggesting playing a 4♥ response as natural; and (ii) it would be a very poor treatment to do so, given the relative frequency of the two hand types.

I disagree. As rhm correctly points out, on a hand with length with both majors and possibly less in high card strength, Responder should bid 4♥ (pass or correct) not 4♣. Are we looking at the same hand? 6322 is the least offensive shape for a vulnerable weak two. The AK in his suit, whilst obviously useful offensively, are potential defensive tricks. Compare the offence/defence ratio with another super-maximum weak two such as ♠KQJ10xx ♥xx ♦QJ10x ♣x.

Responder has implied a hand that wants to play in 4♥ opposite a vulnerable weak two in hearts, so "some heart length" is "probably at least two hearts" Why does that make ♥Qxx so good for declaring that you would even consider pulling partner's penalty double?

I've always wondered what standard a player has to be before he becomes an "expert". Roughly how many experts are there in a country such as Isreal or the UK? OK, so Paul's idea of an "expert" is someone who replies to his poll on RGB. Campboy: if you want to become an "expert", you now know what to do.

That doesn't seem to have stopped you posting your own opinions on that matter.

I frequently claim when there are trumps out, but I address the problem you mention by making a claim statement starting with "drawing trumps". Suppose you are in 7♠ in a solid 6-3 trump fit with 7 certain outside winners. Trumps are 4-0 and LHO thinks for a while about what to discard on each trick. Do you really waste everybody's time and LHO's mental energy by playing the hand out until RHO has played all four of his small trumps?

No, Law 73C is a general "must" Law which applies to all players for the whole of the auction and play. There is nothing in either Law 25A or the quoted "interpretation" to suggest that there is some magical exception to Law 73C in this situation. Therefore, Law 73C continues to apply.

In that case, you might wish to revise your previous post of: Let's read Law 25A and the interpretation from eleven years ago: There is nothing in Law 25A or the quoted interpretation to suggest that a player may use unauthorised information to wake himself up to the fact that he has made an unintended call (and Law 25A4 admits that the concept of unauthorised information exists). On the other hand Law 73C demands that the player must carefully avoid taking any advantage from any unauthorised information received from partner's remark, question, explanation, gesture,mannerism, undue emphasis, inflection, haste or hesitation, an unexpected* alert or failure to alert, etc. Conclusion: a player who has made an unintended call may exercise his rights under Law 25A but only as long as he complies with his obligations under other Laws, including Law 73C.

I'm suggesting that is what should happen (and you seem to agree with me); I don't know enough to tell you what does happen in practice. Common sense would tell us that some "interpretations" are no longer relevant, but I'm not aware of any WBFLC list of withdrawn/still relevant "interpretations".

The support 1NT rebid is not forcing. Most commonly it is a weak NT hand (assuming you are not playing weak NT openings), but it can also be an unbalanced hand not strong enough for a reverse. Yes, most strong hands with 3-card support will redouble, but 6430/5431 hands can choose to pattern out instead. Support NTs (and support doubles, similarly) actually fit in better with strong NT systems than with weak NT openers. When playing weak NT, one challenge for Opener when holding 15+ balanced is to show his extra strength in a competitive auction, so there's a lot to be said for using the 1NT rebid to show the strong NT type of hand. When playing strong NT, Opener has already shown at least the strength for a minimum opening bid, so there is no need to act again to show partner you weak NT strength. Now pass/1NT can be used to deny/show 3-card support.

No, I meant what I said. As commonly played (including amongst Israeli experts, we are told) the RKCB user takes control and a sign off in the trump suit by the asker means "we are missing 2 key cards". I agree that East has a very good hand opposite a spade void, but as reported the E/W methods do not allow East to exercise his judgement. Presumably West could make an intermediate call (only one of redbl, 4NT, 5♣ and 5♦ is needed to ask about the queen of trumps) to ask about the minor suit king(s) if he was unsure. The distinction between using 4♠ as a consultative bid (I have a spade void, what do you think?) and as an asking bid (excluding ♠A, tell me how many key cards you have, please) is very important. Suppose, you hold: ♠AKQx ♥Q109xxxx ♦Q ♣Q and the auction commences 1♣-(1♠)-2♥-(P)-3♥-(P)-?. what now? You could be off 3 key cards, but as you are playing Italian cue bids, a 3♠ bid might not help. You decide to ask for key cards with 4NT but then it occurs to you that with a holding such as ♥KJxx partner might show the queen of trumps (as a raise to 3♥ is typically based on 3-card support); a 5♠ response to 4NT would leave you awkwardly placed. Then a solution occurs to you: partner had persuaded to you to play a jump to 4♠ in this situation as "exclusion RKCB", asking for the number of key cards held outside spades (as well as the ♥Q). This convention would keep the bidding one step lower and avoid bidding a slam off two aces. Perfect! You've even discussed how to deal with intervention, so when LHO doubles and partner passes, you know partner has only one key card and so you retreat to 5♥, expecting partner to pass.

I'm suggesting that if the WBFLC considers the wording of a particular Law to be sufficiently unclear that it needs to issue an "interpretation", then it makes jolly sure that the wording of the Law in question is altered to become unambiguous when the next edition of the Laws is published. I'm suggesting that if the WBFLC decides that it would prefer the Law said something else, then it alters the wording of the Law accordingly when the next edition of the Laws is published. I'm suggesting that if an intelligent club TD wants to make a 'book' ruling, he should be able to deduce the correct ruling by consulting a book known as "The Laws of Duplicate Bridge 2007". It should not be necessary to know two Chief EBL TDs (or even to know that there could be more than one 'Chief' EBL TD!) to ask if some unwritten rules exist, every time a club TD wants to make a 'book' ruling. Anyway, that's a slightly off-topic diversion. Ed stated: which seemed to imply that the WBFLC had issued an interpretation regarding Law 73C in unintended call situations. Can he (or anybody else) enlighten us as to what exactly this says?

Given East's minor suit holdings, it's actually quite difficult to construct any hand opposite that would be suitable for exclusion RKCB in spades. I think it would have to be something close to Bluejak's idea, but with ♥Q instead of a low one, so something like ♠none ♥Q10xxxx ♦x ♣AQxxxx. Yes, that make the opponents' bidding strange, but surely it is at least a logical alternative to trust partner rather than the opponents! Campboy advocates awarding a PP for East's 6♥bid, while Bluejak advocates awarding a PP for West's alleged verbal explanation. Both are valid points, so E/W get two procedural penalties and the winning margin is adjusted accordingly.

....but the decision to correct the unintended call was made after receiving the UI. Has the WBFLC issued one of its statements pretending that the Laws say something else "interpretations" on this issue? If so what does it say? I am only aware of the one from the year 2000 which converts "without pause for thoguht" to "without pause for thought once he becomes aware that he has made an unintended call" (though the fact that this wording was not incorporated into the 2007 Laws suggests that it may no longer be in point). and of the following definitions in the Introduction to the Laws: "may" do: failure to do so is not wrong. "must" do: the strongest word, a serious matter indeed.

No, Law 16 is self-contained. Law 16B1 specifies what actions are not permissible in possession of UI from partner. Law 16B2 and Law 16B3 dictate the consequences if a player takes any such action as is forbidden by Law 16B1. True, a breach of Laws 16 is usually also a breach of Law 73C, but there are situations such as the one here where the difference in wording is significant. There's no substitute for reading what the Law actually says!

Why? I can't think of any Law which requires this. Law 68C states that: In his example Fluffy is explaining his proposed line of play sufficiently, is he not?

Most often when an unintended call is made, there is no UI, because the player notices that he has pulled out the wrong bidding card before any other player has reacted. Then the player is free to make a correction under Law 25A. However, we are talking about the situation where a player has available to him "unauthorised information from his partner, such as from a remark, question, explanation, mannerism, undue emphasis, inflection, haste or heitation, an unexpected or failure to alert" (to quote Law 73C). I didn't mention Law 16B because I'm not sure it's relevant to the correction of an unintended call. On the other hand, Law 73C states that players in receipt of unauthorised information "must carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorised uninformation". If, without the UI, a player would not (or might not) have noticed that he had made an unintended call in time to correct it, then when he does receive UI, the only way to carefully avoid taking any advantage of it is to not correct the unintended call. There is no conflict between Law 25A and Law 73C,any more than there is a conflict between Law 73C and other "may" Laws. Law 19A says that a player "may" double the last preceding bid as long as it has been made by an opponent. But if the player is in posession of UI and doubling would not carefully avoid taking any advantage of the UI, Law 73C directs that the player "must" not double. Law 25A says that a player "may" correct an unintended call as long as his partner has not yet called. But if the player is in posession of UI and correcting the unintended call would not carefully avoid taking advantage of the UI, Law 73C directs that the player "must" not make the correction.

The problem is that Law 73C also applies, because Law 73C applies during the entire hand. That's a good question, which highlights the problem with "interpretations" which pretend that Law 73C does not exist.

If you're too lazy to think about the play, I firmly recommend that you double 1♠ and let partner declare the final contract.

Given that, in your opinion, the possibility of damage being caused by the failure to use the 'stop' card is "remote", are you saying that you consider the use of the 'stop' card to be a waste of time and effort? You are quite correct that the next player is supposed to pause for the relevant length of time anyway, in practice many players do not know this. If you ask most players to explain the 'stop' procedure, they will tell you some akin to Orange Book paragraph 7.4: but few will explain that the LHO should pause anyway. In practice, when a 'stop' card has not been used, most players feel under pressure to call with the same tempo as over a non-jump bid.

Perhaps you might like to consider the full wording of Law 23: Note that there is no requirement for the offender to potentially be aware of how his irregularity could well damage the non-offending side, just that the irregualarity could well cause damage. The 'stop' regulations are primarily there to reduce the scope for transmission of unauthorised information. In my opinion, a player who does not use the 'stop' card when required to do so by the regulations: (i) is committing an irregularity; and (ii) could have been aware than the failure to use the 'stop' card could well cause damage to the opponents: typically, it would put LHO under pressure to vary his tempo, transmit needless UI and compromise LHO's partner's options. In any case, as I mentioned in my first reply to this topic, if Law 23 is not considered appropriate to thisscituation, then the TD can use Law 12A1 instead to adjust.

If there has been "a pause for other reasons" then there has been a pause long enough to be a "pause for thought". If you read Law 25A you will see that it makes no reference to the point at which a player realises his error.

Taking a literal interpretation of the wording of Law 25A, I'd have to agree with you, as Law 25A says: "Until his partner makes a call, a player may substitute his intended call for an unintended call but only if he does so, or attempts to do so, without pause for thought." However, many Regulatory Authorities seem to allow a change under Law 25A even when there has been a significant pause for thought. They allow a change as long as the player attempts to change his call as soon as he realises his error. The situation here is potentially more complicated, as (if the 3♦ call was unintended) East may well not have realised he had pulled out the wrong bidding card until either: (i) the point where North or West called the TD, causing East to review the auction. East might be aware of the general advice given to players that they once the TD has been called they should not take any action until the TD arrives at the table; or even (ii) at some point after the TD has arrived at the table, for example whilst the auction is being recounted to the TD.

For ease of reference, I'll assume that the 2♣ Opener was North, East bid 3♦ then South bid 3♣. My ruling has several stages: 1. Ask the 3♦ bidder to explain why he did not use the 'stop' card. If you judge from the response that the player intended to pull out the 2♦ card (or some other non-jump bid) then consider whether a change of call is permitted under Law 25A. If it is, then the 3♣ bid is withdrawn and South is now invited to make a (hopefully legal) call. 2. If the 3♦ bid stands, then deal with 3♣ using the normal recommended procedure for dealing with an insufficent bid. 3. At the end of the hand, apply Law 27D if appropriate. 4. Also at the end of the hand, consider whether the failure to use the 'stop' card may have damaged North/South. It seems to me that South's contention is valid: had East used the 'stop' card, South would probably not have made the insufficient bid. East "could have known" that his failure to use the 'stop' card might cause damage so I suggest using Law 23 (or maybe Law 12A1) and Law 12C to adjust the score: (i) For East/West, decide what would/might have happened after 2♣-STOP 3♦, weighting the score "to reflect the probabilities of a number of potential results". East/West are assigned this weighted score unless the result achieved at the table is worse for them (in which case there is no damage from the infraction). (ii) South's insufficient 3♣ bid is a wild action. Therefore by applyling Law 12C1c to this situation, we arrive at North/South keeping their table result.

OK, but what do you do on the other 364 days of the year?