mjj29

that... may have been me. and the J and K are clearly both odd and prime.

Fixed your post

Next you're going to try and stop me calling for "The Beer Card".

Do you have any unauthorized information? From just this description I would say you do not - although obviously your partner's manner when you explained the call may affect this. If you do not have any UI, you are not constrained to do anything. OTOH, your partner definitely _does_ have UI, so you may discover that his bidding will be rolled back by the director at the end of the hand. (which is not to say that he _can't_ bid 5C there, if 4D would be pass-or-correct in the system he thinks you're playing then it's likely he can)

OTOH, I'm much less worried about actively disclosing these kinds of inferences when it's a subset of what they might expect. If I only make this rebid when I have an unbalanced hand, and they expect that I might have an unbalanced hand or a balanced hand, then all hands I could possibly have are ones they would expect to have this auction with, it's hardly a surprise when I do have them. (of course there are some inferences they don't have that might have been useful, so this isn't a hard and fast rule). In the case of the 'unalertable X showing 5m 4M' then if they expect penalties, the hand I hold doesn't conform to that at all, so I'd definitely want to point that out.

I'm not sure what you wanted to point out with those examples, but none of them are in conflict with the laws. They are, infact, explicitly allowed by the laws (The Endicott fudge was restricting the other calls, not the natural bids - although now it's unneccessary, since NBOs can specify anything as a 'special partnership understanding' and regulate it (L40B1.a)). Choosing options after an irregularity is L40B3 and asking "having none" is L42B1 and L61B3. You may argue that this part of the laws is in conflict with the other parts, but of course the law contains general rules and specific exceptions. How else would you write a set of regulations?

This at least is reasonably well published (there are threads on it on the EBU blogs and elsewhere, and it's covered in the tournament committee and L&E committee minutes). The cliff notes version is: people got upset at minor transfers to the major openings being played against them at some congresses and complained to the tournament committee, who asked the L&E to make them illegal. L&E said 'that's not a good idea, are you sure', tournament committee said "we'll just run most of our events as "Level 4 except you're not allowed to play these", L&E decided that was more silly and codified the split as L4 and L5, from which the tournament committee can pick for each tournament. tl;dr: blame the players who complained, then just play in the spring fours, gold cup, premier league and swiss teams congress where they are still allowed (list not exhaustive)

You'd like to think that those two would be fine, but recently in the EBU strong feedback from tournaments lead to the tournament committee banning transfer openings to the majors in most EBU congresses. It's clear from this that EBU tournament players would not be happy with 'anything goes'. On the flip side, I encounter many many systems at EBU congresses which are not 'simple systems'. Thus it's equally clear they would not be happy with the latter option. The devil is in the details. In response to your other point about 'local regulations making things harder to enforce' - many of the ambiguities stem from the Laws themselves, not from the local regulations and a lot of (at least the EBU) regulations are about ways to resolve those ambiguities, thus making them easier to apply in the EBU. I'm not claiming it's necessarily a strict gain, or even a net gain, but it's certainly not a strict loss.

If you ever think you have this situation I think that actually none of them are suggested so you're free to take any of them. Like you say though, I don't think it's really possible (you're wrong about one of them).

I'm of the opinion (although it's not shared by everyone) that as a player L73 is the important thing - are you carefully avoiding taking any advantage of the UI? If for you there is only one LA, then I believe you have done that. However, the TD (since he is not telepathic) can't use that basis and instead uses L16 for guidance. This may mean that you don't violate L73, but still get a ruling under L16 that changes your result on the board. This is fine and you should take the ruling with good grace (or appeal). If you want to try and get a better result by playing well in the contract you think the TD would likely adjust the score to then that's also fine, but I don't think you need to anything other than follow L73 at the table. Matt

Blatant sexism (-;

There may be some confusion here. Certainly if I lead face down, then I can't later change my lead. If while deciding on which card to lead can I place a card on the table in front of me (but don't lead it), think for a while longer, change my mind and then lead a different card face down? Obviously there are UI implications here, but I can give UI over my opening lead in a number of other ways, but is that allowed? Or do the laws define that if a card is face down it is ipso facto a face down opening lead?

It's legal (and reasonably common) in England as a discard system ('Italian' discards). It's not legal as a signaling system for the reasons (AIUI) that have been given.

I usually go with "Call me back if you'd like me to have a look at the hand afterwards"

I have upfront approval to do this, don't worry. All the directors are happy for one of the others to help, given there are enough of us. When giving rulings in the club everyone is just happy to get the right answer. Obviously judgement rulings would be consulted whoever was giving them.

Indeed, if it doesn't necessarily have hearts (by agreement), then it doesn't show hearts, even if responder will always make a bid catering for hearts being the option. That would be like describing 2C (weak 2 in diamonds or an Acol 2C bid) as 'diamonds' because responder will always bid 2D in case it was a weak 2 in diamonds.

Certainly when I'm at the club but not directing I'll chip in for rulings if I'm done / dummy, whereas the 'director' does the movement. The venue reps (ie: people with the keys) also tend to setup the computer et al. So I guess it comes down to the same thing really.

I doubt the club rules _required_ him to play, I'm sure they would be happy to have a non-playing volunteer director (of course, whether they would get any...) Do people directing at clubs really care about 10% on a board? I'm sure I lose more than that from worrying about the movement anyway. I wouldn't (and haven't) have any problem awarding myself 40% on a board if necessary (of course, I generally play and direct quickly enough that this isn't a problem). My partners are perfectly aware that in playing with the director their score may suffer. They also don't care about the score at a random club night. It's not like it's anything important. (People may disagree with that last statement. Those people need to lighten up. I also suspect that they don't make good directors either)

There's Orange Book 5B10 (this being EBU) which you may or may not think is relevant: I would always alert something like this. There's no question in my mind that it _wouldn't_ be some form of Stayman, so I'll alert a bid which is clearly alertable, even if that's deduced from general bridge knowledge and not from an agreement per-se. Of course, when asked I'd always start with "We've not discussed this but..."

I think both the laws and regulations allow the TD common sense in this regard. If EW are at the table they are responsible for stopping N from putting the board the wrong way round. If both have left the table, clearly it's all North's fault. Particularly since they shouldn't be taking cards from the board without the opponents present.

Generally they don't print "X is not permitted" at lower levels, I expect that is either something that used to be permitted, or something which people mistakenly believe is permitted. Normally it's of the form, "L234: 1C can mean X" then later "L34: 1C can mean Y" and then "L4: 1C can mean Z", with the effect that at L4 1C can mean X, Y or Z. Often Y and X are a subset of Z anyway.

Usually I'll include an explanation, but where I think it's obvious or they don't really need to know now I'll alert, bid and then update the explanation during the next round of the auction, which keeps the auction going where they don't need to know but does end up with the explanation if they do

Certainly in BM2s (and I believe BM1s, but I've been using BM2s recently) you just go to the TD menu and erase a score for any board - that board doesn't have to be the current or most recent round. It'll then go straight back to asking for that one score in that round.

They are entitled to assume it's not a non-alertable meaning. Of course, given how similar you can be to a non-alertable meaning and need an alert this might not help, but...

I suspect there's a lot of difference between the ACBL and the EBU here. AIUI many (most?) of the ACBL clubs have a paid director (possibly the owner) who does not generally play, or does so only to fill in the movement. In this case I would agree with the A-/A+ or A/A+ options. In the EBU, certainly at the clubs I have played in, the club is run by the members, all of whom are volunteers. There are obviously larger clubs where this isn't the case, but I get the impression these are in the minority. Where everyone has turned up to play and the director is doing so as a volunteer on a rota in order to see the club run, I have much more sympathy with the A+/A+ or A/A+ views. Being able to play quickly with partners who play quickly certainly helps as a playing TD though. I don't think I've ever had to not play a board when directing due to running out of time (although I have due to playing the wrong board and seeing the results on another board before playing it. I did give myself A- for that :P ).