StevenG

The problem with your example is that the offending pair who may be getting barred is the expert pair, and the non-offending pair who may be getting cheated is the expert pair. I agree that a bad ruling woud be unfair to them, but you seem to be totally unconcerned about fairness for the novice pair. And when the novice pair are not novices, but good club players, or near-expert, then what?

How can you tell? (for either the novice or the expert)

So if the weaker player works out that 7NT is the only sensible bid, he will be ruled against, even though all the LAs are demonstratively illogical. Is that not unjust? Maybe it is more sensible to reflect that these situations come about when your partner gives you UI, realise that you often get a bad score under such circumstances, and stop whingeing that it shouldn't apply to you, because you're too good to be penalised. Just don't give the UI in the first place.

Well, if it does, I wish it wouldn't, because it's extremely disruptive.

I thought this question had died an unlamented death :) However, what I frequently see is someone who just arrives at a table, has a profile that just says SAYC (if not completely empty), never speaks, and never answers question about system. Usually the auctions are nightmarish - it's often helpful to have the auction 1NT - pass - pass - pass when responder has 10 points, and for the SAYC player to leave the table in a huff after game is missed. Otherwise everyone stays uncomfortable until the player leaves, and if his partner leaves knowing the game is unplayable, most people will not join the table. Usually when I check the player's record, he or she has never played a hand in the Acol club, at least in the time period shown. This, and my observation that such players appear all too regularly, is why I wondered whether there is a bug allowing this to happen.

Rik, Your example comes down to methods of the partnership, not the ability of the players. Are you saying that intermediates are assumed never to play expert methods?

So does that mean that you should be allowed to bid 4♥, but that lesser players shouldn't?

That's because it only shows you the boards you played - and as a kibber, you didn't play any. You need to edit the URL, removing the username at the end of the string. It's messy, though.

I don't think it's where you come from, it's when you learnt. Every (British) text I read during the 80s and 90s said to bid hearts with both majors, and every person I've played with who learnt during that period bids hearts. Bluejak says that some authorities from earlier times said to bid spades, but I've never seen that advice.

What methodology exists, other than a (sensible) poll?

But 16B uses "given serious consideration by a significant proportion of such players, of whom it is judged some might select it" as part of the definition. Some RA's even specify percentages. How do you ascertain "a significant proportion" and "some" without polling?

Can "help me find a game" put players into the Acol Club? Otherwise I don't understand how so many non-Acol players could end up there (very disruptively).

Thr corollary is that the offenders are guaranteed a better score than they would reasonably likely have got at the table. This cannot be right.

In the Acol Club, most "no transfers" players are intermediates who don't fully understand them. There's a high correlation with people who play strong twos, which suggests they learned a long time ago but have never played club bridge.

Like insisting on playing strong NT, and not finding anyone in the club to play with?

You'll never get club players to alert these doubles. They can't alert based on ideas they don't understand.

I would have thought it so common amongst weaker players that it could not be considered unexpected.

But if TDs are expected to give weight to WBFLC minutes when ruling, then surely an updated law book would disseminate to club level much more quickly.

Number of views changed to 101 instantly on my post. I guess that view count must only be updated when someone adds to the thread.

Did this query disappear into a black hole? Not only has it not been answered, it consistently shows 0 views. I have no direct interest in the question, but I've long been curious as to why one sometimes plays a board, only to find it still unplayed by anyone else up to an hour later, and I hoped the answer to this query might spread light on the matter.

I must assume that Bluejak isn't boasting about having used a CPU to bid a grand slam. In which case, I don't understand his point.

Once at the club, a pair at table 8 received new boards from table 9 - and promptly passed them down to table 7. They then continued by replaying the boards they had just played on the previous round without either player noticing. Meanwhile table 7 played the wrong board set without anybody noticing either. It was only on the next round, when somebody realised they were bidding a board for the second time did the problem come to light. The scorer had fun with that one.

I've played with BridgeMates without travellers and, quite frankly, I loathe it. If you can't see roughly how you're doing, there's no way to generate any adrenalin, and the session just becomes a treadmill. If they were turned off at a club, I wouldn't go to that club.

How does one player misbidding create a UPU at all? Yet the EBU argument claims that he does.

Surely that suggests (not proves) that the UPU exists at the time of the fielding. It does not in any way prove that it existed at the time the misbid was made. We all know in practice the fielding occurs only because the fielder guesses from the sequence that something, somewhere, is wrong, not that he has any idea exactly what it is. In which case any UPU, such as it is, is created at the time of the first misgivings.