StevenG

I heard this story from EW immediately afterwards. I was told that declarer had already realised she had revoked and had spoken to a TD away from the table. EW seemed to think that they that been told that they were entitled to know that there had been an established revoke, but not what the actual revoke was. (This made no sense to me - if they knew there had been a revoke, why were they not playing with more care?) The actual problems seem to be the one-trick penalty (which would, I assume, have been two tricks under the previous laws) combined with the fact that declarer established the revoke away from the table with informing her opponents. However, I would not be surprised if there was a material error in the facts as I heard them.

Perhaps he should work at overcomng this reluctance: think how much trouble would have been saved if he had just done the obvious and asked before bidding 3♣. Perhaps he knew what the 2♥ bid meant. Edit: Whoops! should read the read of the new posts first ...

What's wrong with saying "12-14, some 11s"?

I'm getting more and more puzzled by this. As North, I have 6 points, West seems to have 7-9, that leaves 25-27 between the other two hands. East has an opening hand, South has a double of an opening hand. Later events have shown East's hand to be minimal(ish). We know (I assume) that South has four hearts, but a hand that chooses to double rather than overcall in hearts. Surely all the hands are so constrained by the AI that any vague inferences from a perfectly natural question must be non-existent. South's question. I don't recall seeing South's hand anywhere on the thread, so it is difficult to know why the question was asked. However if it was me as South, I would know that I have an opening hand, partner has made a bid which, whilst non-forcing, is potentially reasonably strong, and the opponents are competing with an artificial bid, the meaning of which I have no idea about. (I will say here that I have NEVER seen that 2♥ bid before.) Am I really supposed to be able to work through all possible meanings of the 2♥ bid, including meanings I have never seen and could not possibly imagine, and infer that I will pass every single one of these hypothetical meanings? All in tempo? Or should I just ask about the alerted bid and find out what it means? After all I have no idea what is going on. Isn't that what alerts are for? As North, I would know that South has no idea what is going on, and would find it impossible to ascribe any meaning to the question other than "South doesn't know what's going on". As an aside, Jeffrey says I think that is rather ambitious. I doubt very much whether many non-experts construct hands opposite. I'm certainly not capable of doing so. All I can do is use my experience to evaluate my hand in general terms against what I know from the auction, use what tools I have, LTC, LTT, and decide how many tricks I am likely to make in offence or defence. I find the 4♥ bid difficult to fathom at the vulnerability, but I find the 3♣ equally baffling, and that occurred before the alleged UI. When polling, must we not only poll people who believe that 3♣ is the right bid? (I am aware that we are told all players at the table are of a good standard, so perhaps I am underestimating North/South's experience.)

Ace of spades followed by Jack. If declarer has the club Ace, he doesn't have a spade stop, otherwise East may still be able to set up his spades with the club Ace as an entry.

In these partnerships there are only ever two possible agreements:- 1) 4♣ is always Gerber 2) 4♣ is always Gerber, unless it obviously isn't West was playing the latter, East may or may not have been playing the former.

At least with curtain cards, when a board gets fouled it's picked up at the next table. Without, if the normal contracts remain similar, it can get halfway round the room before somebody notices a problem, and nobody then knows when the fouling happened.

In my partnerships, I would expect the pause to mean either:- 1) I wouldn't normally bid this but this is IMPs not MPs so I'll stretch for a game contract, or 2) I've got game values but my heart void is a problem. Don't much fancy 3NT either. What on earth do I do? Neither suggests bidding on. I can't imagine it showing extra values. It's not as though a slam try wouldn't rule out stopping in 5♥. Clearly others have different expectations. Since 6♥ does make, I'd like to know what East had, and why West thought 6♥ was a realistic bid.

I agree with the TD.

What actually was the agreement? If the 2♠ bid was a misbid, then EW appear to have done nothing wrong. If, however, 2♠ is systemically natural (or there is no agreement), then, as Campboy says, the explanation of the redouble gives clear misinformation.

In competitive auctions, my preferred methods are that doubles are essentially pragmatic and could show a number of things. It is nearly always straightforward for partner to work out what is intended, given the negative inferences that can be made from the failure to make other bids, and from their own hand. I can have a sequence where I know from my hand that partner intends the double as takeout. I can have exactly the same sequence and know from my hand that partner is sitting on a trump stack and intends the bid as penalties. Where, in the spectrum of takeout to penalty, does a "do something sensible partner" double that can be either takeout or penalties fit? This is an optional double - which is always alertable at 3NT or below. I thought an optional double was one where the doubler was ambivalent about whether it was taken out or left in.

In competitive auctions, my preferred methods are that doubles are essentially pragmatic and could show a number of things. It is nearly always straightforward for partner to work out what is intended, given the negative inferences that can be made from the failure to make other bids, and from their own hand. I can have a sequence where I know from my hand that partner intends the double as takeout. I can have exactly the same sequence and know from my hand that partner is sitting on a trump stack and intends the bid as penalties. Where, in the spectrum of takeout to penalty, does a "do something sensible partner" double that can be either takeout or penalties fit? (The interesting thing is that playing with my bridge contemporaries, i.e. people who started playing tournament bridge within the last five to ten years (or less), I find that they have usually developed the same sort of methods independently from me, yet when I've brought this subject up before, players with long expereience give the impression of finding the method much harder to understand.) I read Jeremy's "English Bridge" articles on alerting of doubles with interest. In the first he mentions in passing that there is a problem with a situation where you have no agreement as to what the double shows. Unfortunately, nowhere in the rest of the two articles does he mention the problem again or clarify what the official position is. Since very few people understand the rules in complicated auctions, or, if they do, are capable of doing the mental gymnastics required at the same time as concentrating on trying to bid sensibly, it is impossible to rely on alerts or lack of alerts. This, to my mind, makes the regulation completely useless, except for the well-defined stuations in the first round or so of the auction.

Can I take it then that the EBU would prefer it if unaffiliated clubs did not adopt EBU regulations? Virtually the only source of new players we have in my area is the unaffiliated clubs. Players play kitchen bridge, then play at an unaffiliated club. A small number of these then start playing at an affiliated club (often because they build a partnership with an EBU member at the unaffiliated club); quite a few still fall by the wayside because they find the more serious bridge too stressful. Clearly, if they have to handle unfamiliar alerting procedures, some will find it even more stressful and fail to return. Bridge is dying in my area and anything that reduces our meagre influx of new players will only kill it off even quicker. (There is absolutely nothing in P2P that will encourage new players.) Thank you EBU.

We are not told the jurisdiction or the class of players. I'm assuming EBU, because it's Gordon who posted it. Nothing has been said about the 3♠ bid. Was it alerted? At club level in the EBU, most ordinary Acol players still play it as invitation after an intervention, and, as a result, the OB says that a preemptive raise in this situation is alertable. So, whether ot not 3♠ is alerted makes a huge difference as to how I evaluate my hand.

Double if partner's overcalls are sound. Pass if they are not, when 4♠ is likely to be the normal contract.

This all seems extremely pointless, anyway. Although we have local clubs that are unaffiliated, the people who run them invariably include EBU members who will still have the same access as before. Or is the next move automatic expulsion for any EBU member who plays at an unaffiliated club?

Does that mean that I, as an individual who is interested in these things, will no longer be able to download copies of these publications for my personal use?

I overlooked nothing. I said that there is no blockage - perhaps that was a clumsy way of putting things, but whereas the clubs taken in isolation are blocked, there is no shortage of entries to unblock them. There is an easy route to 13 top tricks by cashing the top tricks in the right order, no top tricks have to be sacrificed to create entries (and we could afford to lose one, in any case), therefore the claim is not flawed.

Are you really claiming to be that poor a player? I wouldn't expect anyone other than a novice to get it wrong.

Oh, this is just plain stupid. There is no blockage, there are 14 tricks on top. Why ever you should rule 12 tricks - on the grounds that declarer just might be incompetent, rather than that he didn't say something that didn't need saying - is absolutely beyond me.

Declarer's line for 13 tricks depends on finding spades 3-3. The finesse is an alternative line which fails and finessing is not irrational - 12 (11?) tricks. I don't understand this. Surely taking the finesse is an unstated line of play, the success of which depends upon finding one opponent rather than the other with a particular card (♠J), so L70E1 disallows that line. If the spades had split 4-2 but the finesse was right we would give 12 tricks not 13. This is because the claim statement implicitly suggests that spades are played from the top and L70E1 makes that line mandatory.

Thank you. That was my interpretation also. Unfortunately, my partner was adamant that it was unusual, showing a minor two-suiter, and that he had played it that way all his life. I pointed out that 4NT would be the bid to show a two-suiter, but thought I'd better take advice in case I was wrong.

If the bidding goes 1♥ - Pass - 3♥ - 3NT, what should the 3NT overcall mean? Both pairs playing Acol, if that is relevant.

Where do the hands come from? from the ECats website may be of interest.

I'd always assumed that the correct way to TRY to change your call was to call the TD.