mjj29

On balance I think I'd prefer "Director, we seem to have got a good score from it, but South bid on over an agreed hesitation by North, so I think you should have a look anyway just to make sure" - as long as you trust your TD to remember he can still give a PP, even when there's no reason to adjust. It also is much less accusatory towards the opponents.

If you found some people who with that hand after the 1S opening would consider any sequence not finishing in at least 4S, then I would agree with you. However, given everyone polled is saying "I'd never pass below game", then it seems more likely this player was going to game via 3C (for whatever reason) than he was bidding 3C because he wasn't sure about going to game. In this way I think the poll may still be useful.

EBU pre-alerting is handled by exchanging convention cards at the start of the round. In a lot of clubs people (usually those playing a fairly simple ACOL variant) don't bother with system cards, but they should and since you are playing something unusual I think you should ensure you have them and make them available to the opponents at the start of each round. The EBU proscribed system card format is available on the EBU website. campboy has already answered the alerting questions during the round.

I sometimes go with "your choice partner"

I'm still confused as to how you propose that lack of agreement be substantiated? I make a call, my partner says 'we have no agreement about this call' and when questioned afterwards I say when asked 'yes, we have no agreement about this call'. Now, you seem to be suggesting that if, having made such a call and avoided a bad score, unless we can prove we don't have an agreement, you will give us a bad score anyway. How am I meant to show we don't have an agreement? I can hardly show you system notes containing all the sequences we _haven't_ agreed! While I'm sure many people would like us to have agreed all possible sequences and remembered them all the time, it's just not the case in real life.

Or, he discovered that his agreements didn't cover this situation and had to make something up and hope. This happens surprisingly often. I'm unclear how you can have evidence of the _lack_ of an agreement?

Sure, but most of the point of my post was that I'd probably rule 'table result stands' in any of the cases.

It's UI that South bid 4NT over 4H _while thinking that 4D was natural_. The sequence 3D-3N-4H-4N means one thing if 3D is natural and another if 3D is a transfer, this difference is UI. At 3N, north has the UI that south thinks he has diamonds and has a 3N response to a natural 3D. At 4N, north has the UI that south thinks he has diamonds, has a 3N response to a natural 3D and has a 4N response to the sequence 3D-3N-4H after a natural 3D - these things _are_ different and might have different suggested calls.

Sure, it's likely both of them are LAs (this is common), the question is, which is suggested by the UI. The UI is that partner thinks we have diamonds, and yet we have hearts. After 3NT, the UI suggests we may be better off than partner thinks we are in hearts when he signed off in 3NT - so it suggests bidding hearts again. Thus, if we were to adjust we would adjust to 3NT+3 - the same as table result. Over 4NT, the UI is that it's a response to kickback in diamonds, showing whatever number of controls that is - and also that partner still doesn't think we have hearts. Would bidding 5H cause south to bid some kind of failing diamond slam? If it would land them in 5H then the UI suggests bidding 5H over passing 4NT (After all, it still could be better that NT and P doesn't know it). If it would land them in a failing D slam, which N can presumably pull to 6H legitimately, do we think 6H makes? If so, again, we won't adjust, either because it would be an adjustment back to table result, or because the adjustment would have been back to 4NT anyway. This way round 6H might not always make (on a diamond lead), but that's mostly a coincidence, and doesn't really affect what's suggested by the UI. It also might get corrected to a making 6NT by south (I might always bid that in preference to 6D anyway on that hand) who has no UI. So, it's not clear what the UI suggests over 4NT. Personally, I think that given the responses so far, the UI suggests that 6H may be quite a reasonable slam (it is, if partner had completed the transfer it would be excellent) and that hearts in general may be better than NT (oppo could still be cashing running clubs), so it suggests bidding over passing, so we cannot adjust when they do pass

How about after an insufficient bid by your partner accepted by the oppenents? It seems reasonable to be able to change your agreements so that you have a meaning for a 2H rebid by 2NT opener....

Because of General Bridge Knowledge he hopes his partner has? Because it's an undicussed cue bid of the opponents suit and while his partner might not understand what he meant, it's surely forcing and hopefully partner will use his next bid to show something useful? Because he's realised that none of the discussed bids show his hand and he has to pick one of the undiscussed bids and hope it works - because of the the discussed bids will be bad scores anyway? Because he's just sat down against me and I've opened 2H showing a weak hand with spades or a weak hand with the minors or a game forcing hand with the minors and it's two board rounds so they didn't bother agreeing a defence to our system? (list not necessarily exhaustive)

Well, they're not following the regulations correctly. I always try to look like I'm thinking for those ten seconds, studying my cards, etc (although, I'll admit that I've not checked with partner whether or not I succeed).

The fundamental problem here is that if you open 2C, alert, and then say "game forcing", the majority of opponents will assume something like an ACOL 2C - ie, a good deal of points and defensive values, not just a big long suit and maybe an outside ace. Hence, if you could hold such a hand, you have not adequately disclosed your methods to your opponents. This is regardless of whether the regulations somewhere mention that 'strong' could include these hands. Now, in a lot of cases we have to assume that opponents are reasonable au fait with the regs - but this is a very common situation, where it is known that just saying "game forcing" is likely to mislead, so you should be more verbose (very few people I find are sufficiently verbose with explanations), and saying "Game forcing, but could be based on a single long suit with little outside values" doesn't really cost you anything.

Well, in the UK that excludes opening bids, so NAMYATS is still alertable (also, lead directing passes and doubles which are lead directing for a suit other than the one doubled)

Calling the director does not mean the director will always penalise them with points! As a TD, even a playing club one, I would much rather I was called all the time, so that I can ensure that the right thing happens - that's only fair to everyone. Where that's not a lead out of turn or similar, but instead something where the only penalty would be a PP (touching cards, etc), remember that penalties are not just given in points. Part of the TD's job is player education. It's perfectly reasonable (and often correct) for the majority of your PPs to be in the form of a warning and explanation of why they shouldn't do what they are doing and what they should do instead. The TD should be able to give this in a manner that doesn't cause offence. Plus, I don't direct because I enjoy shuffling boards around the room. I direct because I enjoy sorting out problems according to the laws. If you never call me - I'll have a pretty boring evening!

Alternatively, you could see it as cases where the partners disagree. Obviously they disagreed at the time when the explanation didn't match the bid, but they may still disagree when questioned - in which case you should presume MI, but if the misbidder says 'mea culpa, partner's clearly right, we agreed that just this morning', it may not be the case. Matt

Then you need better directors and more tolerent opponents (I understand it's not that easy - but it's true. People shouldn't feel bad - calling the director is not an offense to anyone - it's just pointing out that something has gone wrong and this is how you fix that.) Certainly if you don't call the director then you can't be surprised if it gets fixed wrongly... That's the trade-off you make if you'd rather sort it at the table though. Matt

Indeed, far more serious a habit people should be complaining about is the one which makes this necessary - leaving cards up until after the opening lead has been faced and any reviews/questions have happened should be the rule, not the exception.

So, you place the lead face down and wait.... for how long, to check whether your partner has no questions, is thinking about what questions to ask or perhaps wasn't paying attention and didn't notice your lead?

Fair enough, it is my experience in the UK. It seems polite. I always make such a statement (-; Matt

L41A/B: How are you to determine whether or not either your partner or declarer has questions and whether or not you should face your lead if you don't ask them ("Any questions?") and they don't tell you that they do not ("No questions" or "Go ahead")?

The way we are told to rule in these cases (discussions as to how 27B is awful aside) is to ask the IBer away from the table what he meant by the bid. Possible responses are things like "I didn't see the overcall, I was just responding", in which case you judge the meaning and artificiality from the meaning of the response sans overcall. Alternatively you might have "I thought he bid 1NT, not 2NT, so was responding 2C stayman". In this case it seems likely the response will be "I was trying to show 2 key cards, but forgot that 4H wasn't sufficient over 4NT", in which case you judge it to be an artificial bid, showing 2 key cards and look to see whether there is a bid available which also means that - which conveniently, there is. The reasoning behind this is that if you give a L27B1 ruling like this, while you are telling the partner what was meant by the IB, it must, perforce, be something with no additional information, since otherwise you wouldn't be ruling under L27B1. Yes, there is scope for people lying to the director, but that's often the case and something we have to live with. At least by doing so they then aren't giving any UI to partner as per the above. Matt

Whether bidding 2H over a 2D transfer is 'accepting' the transfer or whether breaking is 'accepting' is terminology that seems to vary. I've taken to referring to 'breaking the transfer' as an unambiguous term. For clarity, it seems that if after your partner bids 2D to transfer to hearts, if you would always bid 2H, then it's not alertable. If certain hands would make some other bid (say, when you have 4 card support), then 2H is alertable as it denies one of those hands. Incidentally, the same is true in the EBU, although I think you have to break on _all_ 4 card support hands, rather than just maximums, for it to make 2H alertable.

An impossible bid would be "we've discussed that all possible hands respond one of these bids, and they bid something else" - for example, stayman which could be a bad hand looking to just play at the two level, and all hands will respond 2D, 2H or 2S in case partner wants to pass them with a bust. When partner bids 3N instead that's an 'impossible' bid. An undiscussed sequence would be where you haven't discussed all the possible hands (or any), more likely a couple of rounds into the auction. Say, 1H-(2S)-X-(3C)-X-(XX)-4D - I would have no idea what's going on in this auction (well, I did just make it up, so maybe it's not sensible, but I think you get the point).

Really? Everyone I've seen play that in England (including myself) would just alert it and say 'forcing' unless questioned further. Matt