ICEmachine

Just play barometer all the time then the late play possibility, puff , goes away :lol: :lol: :lol: Personally I have never been a fan of late play and I think organisers should try their best to let players follow the movement and play the boards according to the movement. Late play delays tournaments and its always irritating for players that finished on time and who are waiting for the final result. I think every time there is a late play that delays the finish of a tournament you will have more unhappy pairs than happy.. so if you take that view it should be avoided!

I agree that the 2♥ bid should be withdrawn. But now you have to come up with a sensible auction if you f.ex. want to weight the score.... I think doing it over an Icelandic beer during the weekend would be a sensible choice :D :D :P

NS didnt get it right to double 2♣ given the explanation that 2♣ = ♣. So we cannot change the result to 2♣x. On the other hand we could say that West has UI and his 2♥ could be guided by that. I would cancel the 2♥ bid and when I look at the East hand I dont think he has a bid over 2♦ as he didnt bid anything right away. So I would suggest that the score should be changed to 2♦ in South and by a quick glance there seem to be 7 tricks NS in diamonds. Ah... I just changed my mind... I think West needs to bid something over 2♦, but his partners explanation made him bid 2♥ instead of f.ex. double. Personally I would double to show extra and even majors. Now the ruling becomes a bit more complex as you need to think about all possible contracts. One of them being f.ex. 3♣

Yes, I agree to this. but is the pass out of turn authorised information for East? In all cases? What is East allowed to do for his own benefit if he knows that his partner has to pass the next time he has to bid? When would you change the score if East benefits greatly in his choice of openings knowing his partner has to pass. And at last... isnt this law a bit stupid and is forcing EW to gamble if its their board? Isnt it more fair and natural to change this law to TD let the board be bid and played normally and if he thinks that EW could have benefited from the pass out of turn then he should award an adjusted score?

You mean that the score was not a consequense to the infraction?

I think there was a mistake to which law NS wanted an adjustment. NS wanted an adjustment based on 12.B.1 Stating that they got a worse score than they would have gotten if the infraction hadnt occured. Moreover because East gambled to bid 3n, South was in the dark when he had to decide what to lead (because of no EW bidding) and decided to lead ♥T instead of a ♣. What is your view on this claim by NS?

Yes, I have always been very skeptical of this. In real life here in Iceland players just say that they would like some extra time to think of the hand if needed and most of the time they do that by leaving their card face up and usually that means that nobody plays to the next trick until this card is being put face down. I dont remember running into any irregularities or TD calls as consequence to any error in this procedure.

What is your view on players who play their card without facing it, claiming that they had no problem with what to play, but would like to think about the hand. I have mostly read about players doing this and have always wondered if it was allowed by the law.

Ofcourse its very difficult to find a nice selection within the scope of the player involved. But I have many times seen passive bidders become agressive and slashing bidders becoming scientific bidders after a very small but noticeable hesitations. I think its impossible to know what the player involved would do if his partner bids in tempo. If he doesnt we can only get as close to the decision as possible but ofc we can never know what the player would do. The best option is to ask players of similar/same level who are a similar type of player. IMO I think that if there is doubt, its enough to not rule in favour of the offending side. Maybe Im harsh, but so many times players change types at the tables depending on bids out of tempo by opposition or partner. How can we decide that it wasnt the case here? Personally I would only be in doubt if the Opener had a 6-card diamond suit and was opening 1NT to hawk the final contract. But is 4252 so obscure distribution that we give the offender the benefit of doubt after opening 1NT?

I think its dangerous to assume that because South is a very good and agressive player (hand-hog) that he can bid 3♦ on the given auction just because he knows defending 3♣ is a bad score. Am I assuming correctly when I say that it more or less says that if its a lesser experienced player or not a hand-hog type you would rule that pass was LA? I am pretty sure that a very good player would see in his partners temp if he has values or not and I would never give a very good player the benefit of doubt. I would let him try and convince 3 other experts in the AC why he thinks pass is not LA!

ok, thanks I figured it would be this way, but I was a bit curious if anyone had a different opinion B-)

Im just a little bit curious of how you would score this adjustment in the tourney? If its imps across the field for example? What score would the other tables compare to?

Ofcourse I didnt mean that you should tell him to hand out 3 imps, but to summon the TD with the intention to have him give 3 imps penalty to your opponents. I at least dont like the randomness of this procedural penalty and the logic that its only given when cases go to AC. Shouldnt we try and have a system or rules that at least tries to be fair and either penalises all or none in the same way?

I agree with a. If South is a professional player he is probably aware if he wants to bid depending on the meaning of 3H, so he can easily ask. I always thought that is south is good enough to understand he mighe be in a "double shot" position, the TD should not allow him to make that double shot. Isnt that exactly what South is doing here? Not that it matters much anyways as a professional player would bid here no matter the meaning of 3H as long as it shows heart support. but I dont understand or agree with b. Does this mean that everytime a pair forgets to alert I can summon TD and ask him to hand out 3 imps penalty for their failure to alert?

If you ask EW about their system you will know from which alternatives East could choose from. The TD ruled that there was no MI as East bid 3♥ knowing at the time that it showed/promised 3-card support given EW agreements. When East was asked why he bid 3♥ he said that he choose it from the available options. To say that 3♥ was the only bid, is like removing all the bids between 2♥ and 3♦ and all the bids from 3♠ and above. There will always be bids available and bridgeplayers more or less try to choose the bid that describes their hands best possible given the system/agreements they use. To say that just because East said at the table that 3♥ was the only bid availble, we should believe him. Common sense gives us a different answer. In the firs post I gave the possible alternatives as East clearly had to choose among them. He chose 3♥ because he didnt want to bid 2N because of 2 reasons. It was NF and he didnt have a stopper in ♦. As strange as those 2 facts may seem, those were his reasons. So given that, then he had no bid except 3♥, as he had too many points for 2♥.