jallerton

I agree with almost all of what you say, but the last couple of sentences are an exaggeration. A couple of early repliers to this thread passed, as did the player at the table. Aa part of the polling technique here, it might be best to give people the hand and the auction without any explanation of the 3♥ bid. If they give you an answer without asking you about the strength of 3♥, then it would be reasonable to conclude that the strength of 3♥ did not affect their bidding. If they answer without asking, you can still confirm this concluaion by following up with the "Does the strength of 3♥ make a difference?" question.

OK, but the opening post said that 3♣ asked for the singleton, which is not the same as a puppet. Presumably partner had other options, e.g. 3♠ rejects game tries whatever opener's singleton and another bid (e.g. 4♠) accepts all game tries whatever opener's singleton. Opponents are entitled to know that partner was interested which singleton you hold.

In explaining the 3♣ bid, you should give whatever explanation is necessary to give a full description of partner's bid. Giving a vague explanation is misinformation (an infraction of Law 20F). Although this might happen to reduce the chance of partner receiving significant unauthorised information, that does not make it legal to give a vague explanation. If partner does happen to receive UI, then so be it; partner will just have to deal with it the best she can when it is her turn to call.

Interesting. Aside from the translation of certain English words into the related language of American, the document referred to in the link provided by Ed seems to differ somewhat from The Laws of Duplicate Bridge 2007 as promulgated by the World Bridge Federation. Without looking too hard, I find that: The introduction is different (even though in both versions "this Introduction and the Definitions that follow form part of these Laws"). ACBL has added a Contents section (which the WBF had decided to omit from the 2007 Laws for some bizarre reason). Several extra words have been added to Law 12C1(e)(ii). There may well be other differences. As the original poster on this thread comes from Belgium, it's safer to use the WBF's own website when confirming the exact wording of the applicable Law.

Why does it matter whether the 3♣ bid is a serious error? N/S are not required to know how to defend against this convention; South's not knowing what bids mean here is clearly not "unrelated to the infraction".

No x 4 Let's get this straight. Australia has a rule (no alerts) that makes it difficult to disclose what methods you are playing at the point where the opponents might actually want to know, but someone is suggesting that the opponents have to be told in advance when a double has its most natural meaning, on the off-chance that a natural double might come up!

Did the TD ask South why he did not bid at the table, but feels that he would have bid 3♠, had he been given the correct explanation? If so, what was the reply?

Players get the alerting rules wrong all the time. If you are going to issue a procedural penalty every time someone makes that type of mistake, you'll be a very busy TD and you won't be popular with the players or with the scorers. I've seen plenty of faulty alerts over 3NT over the last or 4 years, just as I have seen plenty of announced transfer responses to 2NT openings and 1NT overcalls. Now that the alerting rules are slightly more complicated than they were five years ago, I'm afraid we have to accept that people will sometimes get confused. Of course, your "near alerts" have exactly the same practical effect has real alerts.

The basic problem is that the overloaded North/South version of the Multi is totally unplayable, made even worse when the pair has not properly discussed the meaning of some of the responses. Certainly many players in the North position would be not entirely sure what hand type would be shown by 4♠. In this case, the TD has to tread carefully. I would want North to explain the meaning of 4♥. "To play," he'll say. "To play opposite a weak two in spades?" I'll further enquire. Then I'll gague his reaction. In practice, this is the sort of auction where there could be issues with tempo, especially if North is not in the habit of holding out the 'stop' card and/or East is not in the habit of waiting for the full 10 seconds. A fast 4♠ is more likely to deliver a weak two in spades that prefers 4♠ to 4♥, whilst a ponderous 4♠ gives sends the messgae "Why have you just pre-empted the auction? What on earth am I supposed to bid with an Acol 2 in spades here?"

It might depend a little on the N/S agreement (if any) on the strength for this splinter and the N/S cue bidding style. South's decision to go past 4♥ without being able to cue bid a minor suggests that ♥AKQ is a distinct possibility and ♥Q is not necessary if South has 6 hearts. Although he would be wrong on this occasion, North might reasonably infer that ♣A is very likely to be onside and there is a fair chance that a diamond finesse, if required, will work too. Now without the UI, North would be fully entitled to take the pessimistic view and reason as you do. Without the UI, North might also take the optimstic view and reason as I do. But once North has UI, he is obliged to work out what logical alternatives are demonstrably suggested and to bid accordingly. The 5♥ bid is therefore illegal, in my opinion.

So in Norway, are players supposed to alert a natural and forcing 1♠ bid in the sequence 1♥-(dbl)-1♠?

We would need more information before making a ruling. What were the other three hands? What would a 2♠ opening be for this pair? If Opener can really have an "Acol 2" in spades and open 2♦ what sort of hands qualify? If they have to bid 2♦-2♥-3♠ on all such hands, does that mean they can't have a 2-suiter?

Another possible strategy, not included in the list of options above, is to open 2♣ and then rebid 2NT.

Always? Surely, if partner is 4=4=4=1 he should be pulling; if we wanted to play in 3NT opposite that, we would have bid it on the first round. I agree with your other observations. We can't expect to get to the right contract all of the time. That's why the opponents pre-empt.

True, but if the other defender is giving his own answer to the original question (rather than correcting partner's explanation) presumably that's OK.

I agree that declarer could have a spade void from West's point of view, which is why West is unlikely to find the deep finesse at trick 1. However, from East's point of view, the lead of the "much better" club jack rates to "pin" a singleton honour in West's hand rather than pinning anything in declarer's hand. East has received the (correct) explanation that 3♣ is natural and should be assumed to select his opening lead on that basis. When, as here,there is no plausible auction to end in a redoubled contract, no they don't.

The two teams came up with a proposal for split and weighted scores? Tell me, David, you weren't by any chance playing on one of these teams, were you?

If you were to give a weighting to one trick, it should be a fairly low percentage! Whilst the TD should give the benefit of the doubt to the non-offenders in close cases, this does not mean he should assume that they will defend double dummy. Even if East finds a small trump lead, why is it obvious that West will put in the 7 if dummy plays low (or the 10 if dummy plays the 8 or 9)? An opening lead of the club jack might make the defence easier, but even you did not seem to be proposing that.

I understand the point you are making, but the fact is that the lawmakers chose to include in Law 12C1 the wording "serious error (unrelated to the infraction)". If a non-offender's first opportunity to call or play after the infraction is "unrelated to the infraction" it is hard to see what actions would be deemd to be related. In my opinion, it is rarely appropriate for Law 12C1 to be invoked, but let me give you a theoertical example of where it might be appropriate. N/S "use UI" to arrive in 6♠, whereas had complied with Law 16/Law73, they would have stopped in 4♠. West has the same obvious opening lead against both contracts and is normal for South to adopt the same line of play. The 6♠ contract reached at the table is destined to go off until East revokes. With the revoke trick transferred, 6♠ now makes. As there is not much of a link between the revoke (which might equally have happened had East been defending 4♠) and the N/S infraction during the auction, the two incidents may be considered to be unrelated.

I agree with the rectification adjustment to 5♣x by North; you are right that the contract would probably make two tricks rather than three. However, I strongly disagree with your denial of redress to East/West, the non-offending side. Here is why. 1. As a matter of Law, the TD can only deny redress to East/West if either of their Passes over 5♥ is deemed to be "wild" and/or "gambling". It is not sufficient for either of the Passes to be deemed to be a "serious error" as the opportunity to make these calls is clearly related to the infraction of the 5♥ bid. 2. Just because the TD happens to play Pass as forcing in this particular sequence at this vulnerability, there is no reason why East/West should have this agreement. 3. High level competitive bidding decisions are rarely easy. To illustrate the point, we need look no further than the people consulted by the TD: two out of the three said they would double 5♥, despite holding a trump void and probably at most one defensive trick. 4. As I understand it, West's stated reasoning for passing was that he was concerned that either a 5♠ bid or a double from him might be interpreted as wild or gambling by the TD. The TD should sympathise with a non-offender's predicament in this situation. Remember, it was North, not West, who caused this mess! 5. Some commentators have suggested over the years that the non-offenders are supposed to "continue to play bridge" after an irregularity. OK, let's analyse the situation as West. North can't have a natural 3♣ overcall now that he has run from 5♣x. Perhaps we have come across Gh****m misunderstanding before and we infer that North has both red suits. Can North be 5-5 in the reds? Not really, no. In that case, North would be bound to stay in 5♣x because that is what Law 16 requires him to do; West knows that 3♣ has not been alerted and therefore knows that North's actions have been constrained by the UI. As West, we therefore infer that North has no logical alternative to pulling 5♣x so he must have a freak hand with a lot of playing strength such as ♠none ♥KQJ10xxx ♦AJ10xxx ♣none. In that case, doubling 5♥ would be a very poor idea. Competing to 5♠ might be a better option, but (i) we can expect bad breaks in the black suits too and (ii) who is to say that bidding 5♠ won't push them into a making 6♥? In summary, West's Pass is nowhere close to being either wild or gambling. If North had not broken the Law, E/W would probably have been writing down +2300 after an enjoyable defence. They've already been denied their enjoyable defence, so the least the TD can do is to give them back their +2300.

The mistaken bid "isn't punished" in the sense that there will be no misinformation as E/W have been given a correct explanation. You are also correct that South may not have UI. However, North does have UI. Presumably he did not intend 3♣ to show clubs, but when South did not alert the call, he learnt that South had interpreted the call as natural.

I can't tell you the thought process behind this regulation, but it seems to me that it is a good way to warn players that they are not entitled to double shots when (it is deemed that) they knew the explanation received was obviously wrong. The appeal case quoted by Alphatango and Frances is a good example. Another would be a situation where a player knows from inconsistent alerting that the opponents have clearly had a misunderstanding and the player has to decide whether or not to double the final contract in the pass out seat. Even though he knows that at least one of the calls has been mis-alerted, he passes without asking and defends the final contract undoubled. If the contract makes, he says nothing more. If instead, after the hand is played out, he discovers that double would have worked better, he asks the TD for an adjustment, citing the misinformation he already knew about.

West already has "certainty" about the opponents' misunderstanding, without considering any inferences from East's question. When considering classifying a non-offender's action as "wild", "gambling" and/or a "serious error", the TD should always ask the player to explain his reasoning. In the extemely unlikely event that West comes up with Nigel's incredible line of reasoning, I would withdraw my suggestion that West's lead was "wild" and/or "gambling".

In an ideal world, the key arguments of each side would be recorded in the "N/S comments" and "E/W comments" sections of the appeals form. However, in recent times, TDs have seemed reluctant to hand the appeals form to the players to let them record their comments in adevance of the appeal being heard, whilst AC chairmen rarely have the time and inclination to record the verbal arguments given during the appeal.

Indeed it does not. Unfortunately, it does not say that 10HCP is "red" either, which is why I would like clarification. I was asked to act as a referee on this exact situation (P P 1suit 1NT P on a 10-count) a year or so ago. The TD had ruled it as "amber". My initial thought that the psyche ought to be "red", but the person whom I consulted thought it ought to be "amber". Then I recalled reading something about this in the new White Book and located the aforementioned White Book reference re 11HCP. In the end, I left the TD's "amber" classification to stand [not least because the TD's ruling should be assumed to be correct unless the AC can demonstrate why it was wrong], but I'm still not sure whether or not this was the correct ruling.