mjj29

If you want it to be all-play-all, my normal approach for a small number of tables is to have a mitchell (for 8 or 12 a double-weave) in the first session, followed by two full howells in the second. With an odd number of tables you have to omit the first round of the mitchell and then interweave the two half tables in the howells. At least Jeff Smith's scorer (pairsscorer) has movements for this already in it. With a larger number of tables (that's a multiple of 3) the EBU's approach is to have a howell of N tables and a mitchell of 2N tables, then rotate the three lines (Howell, Mitchell NS and Mitchell EW) over three sessions, with secure breaks between each. With larger still (when all-play-all is not possible) we run multiple sections of web mitchells and then move the lines between each section during each break. In particular, if you end up with a mitchell which is larger than the number of rounds you want to play but want to have everyone playing all the boards I highly recommend web mitchells. I had a 12 table event I needed to run as 2 sets of 8 rounds (so not all-play-all) in which playing a 12-table web skip mitchell of 8 2-board rounds (2 sets of boards needed), followed by 2 double-hesitation 6-table mitchells for another 8 rounds of 2 boards (again, one set each for a total of 2 sets) worked well. These are all multi-session/section movements, for which I use Jeff Smith's scorer. I assume that other programs can also manage this, but if not it's pretty straightforward to use. Matt

As a congress director I would want to know - although since you got a good board anyway I'd understand if you did so away from the table. It shouldn't be too hard to excuse yourself. In a match played privately I don't think there's much you can do. Players shouldn't be lecturing each other on the rules, that causes other problems. In a club while there might not be a director on the night who can talk to them, someone must be able to (possibly on the committee). It's not acceptable at any level and on some of these boards they will gain an advantage. Of course, there are people for whom talking to them won't make a difference, but that shouldn't stop us trying.

No, but it has an anchor suit in clubs (for reference, I believe that it was meant to be (5+H and 4 clubs) or (5+S and 4 clubs), it's possible that it didn't parse that way for you)

If by "appealed" you mean "one of the sides says 'that's completely ridiculous! I would always have done this! I'm obviously going to appeal if you rule that'", then IME nearly all of them q-:

Why not as if they were on the committee? You consult players to make up for the directors not being Zia, but bear in mind that we're not talking about random club or national congress directors, these are the best in Europe and bridge judgement is part of that. Of course with less of a back stop directors need to be more careful about who they poll and making sure those players give it proper consideration. That is part of this change. also, most of these rulings will be weighted on the judgement part so small differences in judgement will only result in small differences in scores anyway. It would be different in a jurisdiction like the ACBL. Lastly, we are just bringing Europe in line with the WBF in this case. They think this is fine (and many of their top directors are also in the EBL)

Yes, that is true. You will be able to send the case to a referee if you believe there has been an error in applying the law or in procedure, but it's expected that the TDs present (who are required to consult with players) will give a reasonable judgement, assuming that correct procedure has been followed. This is what the WBF have also started doing in their tournaments

Well, in the EBU we'd definitely be looking at this since we have a regulation that says if both players psych on the same board it's at least Amber. This won't immediately cause a score adjustment, but any other suspicious events could cause it to be upgraded and I would be talking very seriously with the players to ask them what was going on. The result of this could lead me to rule it as an implicit understanding and adjust accordingly. I don't think the ACBL has a similar regulation, but I hope any director would look suspiciously on these kind of events.

I don't think there's a regulation _per se_, it's just self evident that the meaning of any bid must depend on all previous bids. Hence, my defense must depend on your system, but the converse is not true, thus there is only one way to resolve this. Alternatively, it should also be obvious that if you open, now you must be able to disclose the agreed meaning of the call immediately, thus it can't depend on anything later in the auction. The EBU regulations allow you to change your basic system before each round (if you like, depending on who and what you are playing against), but they do require you to _have_ a basic system for each round.

This is what I was replying to: Perhaps you meant "because you've incorrectly disclosed your actual agreement to your opponents", which is a different thing entirely. We were talking about departing from your agreements which (assuming you're disclosing your agreements) must mean that your actual hand differs.

The alertability of doubles is very simple. There's one meaning for non-alert that's well defined in each case and everything else you should alert. What's difficult is 'no agreement' cases. The regulations _don't_ _require_ you to alert those, but they do ask you to give the opponents as good a guess as you have. Thus, if you genuinely have no idea, then don't alert. If, however, you have a good guess that it's alertable case, then alert and say "we don't have an agreement, but ...".

Yes... that's the definition of a psyche...

If you don't discuss an agreement for the bid and then open it, if your partner gets it right there is no way you're going to convince me that you don't have an implicit concealed agreement and rule against you under L40

but I have an agreement for all possible situations. If I'm the director and you try this you will get very short stick and increasing PPs until you stop My defense isn't 'conditional' any more than playing my defense against a strong club is conditional on you playing a strong club. It's just a different auction so my bids mean something else. Matt

Well, we'll have asked you this at the start, so we'll make you discuss it before the hand starts. Alternatively, I think the director will be sympathetic at making you leave the table and have your partner tell us what his bid means. I don't think you'll get away with 'undiscussed' here.

I don't "use takeout" or "use penalty" - I use both in different situations. What do kind of preempts do you play against someone who doubles weak 2s for penalty and strong 2s for takeout? I don't play the same defence against intermediate-weak natural 2s, multi 2D or acol artifical 2C. Why should you assume I play the same defence to strong and weak natural twos?

If they have no agreement about the double, then they don't need to alert it. You only alert agreements, which they don't have. Also, North saying what she would do if the double was for penalties is irrelevant if a. if was 'some sort of game try' (which isn't penalties, in fact, if it's a game try you probably want to play in game and not defend a fair amount of the time, so it often will be taken out) and b. if she had asked and how we would rule the correct explanation is 'no agreement' anyway, which is probably going to lead to the same result. Table result stands.

IOW: you can have a system you play against people who penalty double 1NT, a system you play against people who don't penalty double 1NT, but you also need a system you play against people who penalty double a weak NT but not a strong NT.

There's some disagreement about this. I think you can use this as evidence that he wouldn't get it right (I think 70D3 supports this), but on the EBL course this year one of the questions in the final exam included a claim, with a later statement like this indicating declarer would have got it wrong. They gave the official answer that the claim was good, but I know a lot of people (particularly the EBU TDs) disagree with that. If you were to rule that the claim wasn't good in the EBU you would find a lot of sympathy with that view. There's also the famous 'claim on a squeeze, later misplay it' ruling, which between the TD and the appeals committee went both ways (although I can't remember which way round).

The new rules are very simple and don't depend on context. If it's above 3NT, you don't alert. If it's a penalty double of NT, you don't alert. If it's a takeout double of a natural suit, you don't alert. If it shows the (artificial) suit doubled, you don't alert. Everything else you alert. Thus, it only depends on the bid you've doubled, and nothing previous in the auction. Here, therefore, if the subsequent doubles were for penalties, you should alert them, even if everyone* plays them as penalties. * not everyone plays them as penalties. This is a change from the previous regulations, which tried to mirror common practice, but had far more caveats and complications. The change was made, I think, in 2006, along with the announcing rules being introduced.

It's debatable whether that should be "required to pay a greater (less fair) share" to be cynical on one side of the argument or that in fact that's precisely what he meant and that lots of people are dodging taxes (on the other side).

I don't understand the people who genuinely think that declarer doesn't care which one is played (unless they are all functionally equivalent, in which case it doesn't matter either). Surely it's completely obvious that he intends to play small in the suit led? Edit: Sure, he may not have been great at communicating it _as the laws say_ and you may not like that he's chosen to do it that way, but it's clear what he _means_

Inferences based on other relevant partnership understandings and those based on shared experiences other than explicit discussion are disclosable

So, as someone who has been trying to use '2nd and 4th' rather than 'standard leads' in order to be more helpful I'm now in a quandary given this discussion of how that is confusing. Obviously I can say "we lead 4th from an honour and second from bad suits", but is there a more concise term of art I _should_ be using which will be unambiguous to brits, poles and others alike?

Depends on where your experience is from. If you both play in the same bridge club with different partners where something is the norm - that is disclosable information. It is not known to bridge players _generally_. If something is 'known generally' then I would say that it would have to be extremely rare that any given opponent would not know it. If you think your opponent might not know it, I don't think that falls within 'extremely rare', so yes, I think that _is_ relevant. Another way to put it is that if a matter undiscussed with your partner comes up and you expect them to get it right, but would not expect a partner who had never played with you, anyone else you know, or anyone else from your age group/country/etc - that's not general knowledge.

If X is penalties than E won't X, he'll bid 3♥, which will be raised to 4 again. Maybe I haven't spent enough time analysing the hand, but how does 4♥ go off?