jallerton

Every part of Law 6E starts with the "Director may". In an EBU knockout match played privately there is no director as such. Does this mean that pre-duplicated boards are not legal in such matches? Or do you think that the two captains, actng together, can be the "director" for this purpose?

That's good to know. If as declarer I am down to the only four remaining trumps, then I tend to claim in the method you describe. I think we can infer from his counter example that Bluejak does not agree. However, I agree with Gnasher that the original question in this thread is suitable for BLML.

Law 68C does NOT say "A claim should be accompanied at once by a clear statement as to the order in which cards will be played, or of the line of play or defence through which the claimer proposes to win the tricks claimed." Maybe that's what it ought to say, but we have to use the wording of the Laws as written. In the actual wording, the "of the line of play or defence through which the claimer proposes to win the tricks claimed" clause does not release the claimer from his requirement to accompany the claim "at once by a clear statement as to the order in which cards will be played".

That's my point. Not even you comply with the strict wording of Law 68C. You do not make a "clear statement of the order cards are to be played". Granted, you may a clear statement as to how you propose to make the number of tricks claimed (and your claim statements are probably more detailed than 99% of claims made by other people), but you do not specify the order. So to answer Ed's original question, strictly speaking Mike Flader is incorrect; but in practice it is accepted by virtually all players that complete claim statements are not necessary.

I agree that using Law 12C1d is lazy and unnecessary; it is also just plain wrong, in my opinion. This Law may only be applied "if the possibilities are numerous or not obvious" which, as you have demonstrated, is not the case here (assuming that you decide there was an infraction in the first place). What did the AC decide?

I was West. This was the last board of a 10-board set and a break of about 30 minutes was scheduled next. Why did North not return to the table? I don't know, but I imagine that he assumed the play would be completed and the table would be abandoned by the time he had finished his comfort break/cigarette. In practice we did not call the TD. It seemed obvious that the objective of allowing East to know the North/South partnership understanding could be achieved by South explaining the bidding to East (indeed South had already written down an explanation for West). No doubt Bluejak's average plus/zero ruling is technically correct (although I wonder (i) whether he could take into account the contract reached in the auction (ii) how he translates 'zero' into IMPs and (iii) whether he would have considered the result at our teammates' table - Law 86D). However, I do prefer Sven's practical answer, which has the merit of achieving a normal bridge result.

If players think about the basic principle explained in paragraph 5B1 of the Orange Book: then there shouldn't be too many problems.

Even many players knowledgeable about bridge theory don't know the alert rules! Under the "simple" rule which has been in force for the last five years, a double of a natural 1-level bid is only alertable if "not for take-out". It currently makes no difference if the double has a highly unexpected meaning. However, the good news is that your answer will be the correct one very soon. With effect from 1st August 2011, doubles which have a highly unexpected meaning will become alertable even if they are also for take-out.

That's how I interpret the wording 'quoted' by Matt: "clear statement of the order the cards are to be played". However, having now read my own Law Book, I agree that Law 68C actually says: "...clear statement of the order cards are to be played". To satisfy this requirement, it seems that the claimer needs to specify clearly the order in which at least two cards are to be played; for example, "discarding dummy's ♣3 at trick 12 and dummy's ♣6 at trick 13" would suffice for a trick 1 claim.

Can anyone recall a claim at their table where declarer has stated exactly which specific cards he intends to play to every remaining trick from both his own hand and dummy?

Yes, although you may regret your decision to classify this as a "Simple Ruling". It seems to me that: [1]. Dummy has breached Law 41D. [2]. Declarer has not played a card from dummy (Law 45B) [3]. Dummy's LHO has played a card, when it was not his turn to play. [4]. Law 45D covers the situation where a defender could reasonably believe that declarer had asked dummy to play the card placed in the "played" position by dummy. It is not clear whether it applies here. On the basis of [3] it could be argued that ♠A becomes a penalty card (Law 49) and has to be played to trick 1. What if declarer plays a low spade from dummy, the ace "beats air" and the declaring side gain thereby? Now it could be argued that the TD might need to use Law 23 to ensure that Dummy has not gained from his breach of Law 41D.

"maybe not" is correct. There is not much room available in this sequence, so you if use an extra bid for something, you have to say which other bid you are giving up. If partner has 4 spades with "extreme shortness" in hearts then he will usually either be able to raise diamonds or will have a sufficiently long club suit to treat the hand as a single suiter in clubs.

How long would you wait for? In practice, North did not return to the table of his own volition.

Sven, if I understand the opening post correctly, the player who was supposed to be dummy, put ♠K in the played position but kept the other 12 cards in his hand. The next player then "played" ♠A as if it were a game of Whist.

Screens in use. On the last board of the set, North/South have an uncontested auction and South becomes declarer. As soon as the auction is over, North leaves the table. (It is not known why he felt the need to do so.) West (who has obtain written explanations of the meaning of the auction) makes an opening lead. However, East wants to know the meaning of the North/South auction and has not had a chance to obtain explanations during the auction period. Two questions: 1. What do you do as East? 2. If your answer to question 1 is that East should call the TD, now suppose that you are the TD. What do you do on hearing East's problem?

Are you saying that a player has an automatic right to call the TD whenever he wants? Or just when he suspects an irregularity may have occurred? Under which Law? Immediately after your LHO's pass, you had as much (or as little) right as your partner did to call the TD. However, my preferred solution would have been for you to say nothing, then for your partner (whose turn it is now to call) to ask LHO a supplementary question, e.g. "Are you sure that your agreement is to play 2♠ is a strong jump shift?". 1. If the reply is yes, no-one calls the TD at this stage because no irregularity has come to light so you just continue with the auction (if the 2♠ bidder corrects the explanation at the end of the auction/play, the TD should be called at that point, of course). 2. If Opener admits that the original explanation was incorrect, then attention has been drawn to an irregularity and now either of you may call the TD (Opener "must" do so in any case according to Law 20F4).

These definitions from Ed's circular dictionary are not very useful. My own dictionary defined the noun "remark" as follows: A question comes under the "anything that is said" definition, so I conclude that deceptive questions are covered by Law 73D. The English Bridge Union Laws & Ethics Committee agrees (as quoted by Andy above): The EBU's use of the word "illegally" implies that this is the EBU's interpretation of the Law. Those of us ruling in England must follow this common sense interpretation, I am pleased to say.

I see what you mean. When I said "might", I ought to have said "might or might not". It is has already been demonstrated on this forum that the wording of some Laws is not consistent with the wording of other Laws, so the analogy with a Law on UI is scarcely relevant.

If the lawmakers intended or believed that a question was a type of remark, they might have considered the inclusion of the word "question" in Law 73C to be completely unnecessary, given that they have already included the all-inclusive term "remark".

Interestingly, Law 73F does include the phrase "or the like". Once might reasonably conclude from Law 73E, coming as it does directly after Law 73D2, that the only appropriate method of deceiving an opponent is through a call or play. In my opinion, if a player asks a question, the only point of which is to mislead an opponent, then the play he subsequently makes is unduly delayed by the question. This means that the play has been made with undue hesitancy, which is a breach of Law 73D2. In this circumstance, Law 73F authorises the TD to adjust.

These days, some seem to think that it is possible to turn a remark into a question merely by adding a question mark on to the end, so presumably a question is a subset of the wider meaning of "remark".

Doesn't the meaning of a 1♣ opener in the IBer's system make a difference, Sven?

It sounds as though you have not read the thread I started on IBLF two years ago. My partner was given a verbal explanation which she clearly misunderstood. The TD judged that my partner would have acted differently had she understood the explanation correctly. He assigned to my opponents the normal result had the explanation been correctly understood, but my side kept the (unfavourable) table score. The TD did not explain the legal basis for this, but it seems that either my partner was deemed to have committed a "wild or gambling action" or that by accepting a verbal explanation we were deemed to be an offending side. If you don't like that ruling, consider this. According to a senior EBL/WBF TD, if this situation were to re-occur in a future EBL event, the "correct" ruling would be to allow the table result to stand for both sides! It is therefore perhaps not surprising that Gnasher can only recall having received two written explanations during the course of playing circa 300 boards in Poznan.

Here the UI has been received a result of an opponent's deliberate decision to leave the hand sorted, so does a Law dealing with accidentally received UI apply in this case?

There is the common sense method of discards. Holding a 5-card suit and knowing from dummy that no other player can hold 5 cards in that suit, many players would regard a discard from that suit as safe and informative. By inference the discard is likely to be from a 5-card suit as a discard from Jxx under KQ10x would eliminate the guess position (with Axx over the KQ10x) you mention. The tests from Law 73F are quite simple, but they are not always quite so simple to apply in practice to a particular case. Even assuming the hesitation is deemed to be an infraction, you seem to have missed out some of your workings to explain how you arrive at your adjustment. So in this case, what would have been the expectation had the alleged infraction not occurred? Well this alert East had clearly recognised the potential gain from ducking. He would also have noted that partner had not discarded a spade (so presumably does not hold five) and would duck anyway. In that case, the alleged infraction has not caused any damage. Alternatively, the TD might judge that East would probably (rather than definitely) have ducked if South's play has been in tempo. Now if you believe that South's pause was an infraction, the correct adjustment is a weighted score, say 75% of 5♣= + 25% of 5♣-1.