gordontd

Well, it's a little contrived, but those who fail to follow the most basic requirements of the game must expect that sometimes bad things will happen as a consequence. How would you prefer that we prevent defenders from assisting their partners and damaging declarers by playing prematurely?

I agree that this sort of thing is problematic, because it simply creates uncertainty for the opponents in an attempt to avoid the consequences of one's own imperfect agreements or understandings.

Yes, it's material, because you were taking issue with a statement about beginners not considering the second round of bidding.

While 2S might be non-forcing in some versions of Std Am, it is forcing in sayc because a 2/1 promises a rebid.

:P :D :lol: Be serious! No beginner, opening with a pre-empt, considers the second round of bidding! Strange statement. I have no count of how many times I have seen just beginners first preempting and then bidding their suit again when opponents enter the auction. Their logic appears to be something like: "I'll preempt, but I am willing to sacrifice higher if neccessary". Sven And do you think they planned their later action when they were deciding on their first call?

On what basis did you make this ruling? On what basis did the AC adjust it as they did?

What do you mean by a Level 3-4 tournament? Isn't it a Level 4 tournament? Does the restriction you quote apply to Level 4 or just to Level 3? [edit] I've now checked this and it does seem to apply to Level 4 as well as Level 3. So, the final question is what their agreement was as to their Multi? What sort of hands were contained in it?

what on earth does that have to do with the 1C insufficient bid??? The question that Max Bavin suggested we directors ask ourselves, in his paper for the EBU when the new laws came into effect, is: "Would all hands which might make the new call (the replacement bid) have also made the old call (the insufficient bid)?” So, the reason the hand is relevant is because the player would (I imagine) double first with that hand, but would not have opened 1C with it. The same would be true of a very strong balanced hand - eg a 22-count. Thus the insufficient bid would not be "corrected with a legal call that in the Director’s opinion has the same meaning as, or a more precise meaning than, the insufficient bid (such meaning being fully contained within the possible meanings of the insufficient bid)"

John Maddog Probst used to knit while directing, until he had his stroke. He's now a lot better and getting out and about - he even played in a novice duplicate a couple of weeks ago, but I think it'll be some time before his sight is good enough to knit again.

How do you get to two tricks? If you don't make declarer lead the DJ first, then the defenders only get one trick. If you do make declarer lead the DJ first, then they get all three. Or have I missed something? [edited a few minutes later] Oops, yes, now I see - I was thinking in terms of tricks to the defenders, you were both talking about tricks to declarer.

I don't think I agree with this. Declarer is presented with two possibilities: LHO was thinking which of two cards to play, or declarer was thinking which card of a singleton to play. Even if the actual doubleton holding should occasion no thought, the only legitimate explanation for the pause is that the defender was in fact thinking what to play. Players do surprising things, and the pause in this situation - for no demonstrable bridge reason - has indeed deflected declarer from his normal line.

In the original post it clearly did mislead

If you have a fouled board, or if you have a two-section event with different sized sections, your initial match-pointing would give different tops which need to be factored up. This is usually done using the Neuberg formula.

Yes, America does it one way, and most other places do it another.

http://www.ebu.co.uk/publications/Minutes%...09/19%20may.pdf Appendix A

That's what I did, having consulted with David and others.

Depends where you are.

Is it? Not in my experience. Anyway, that wasn't the way the pair in question were playing.

I've been in situations like this more than once. I would ask Player A to apologise for the bad language. If he refused to do so, I'd suspend him for the rest of the session. Then Player B would have nothing to worry about. If he did apologise, I'd insist on Player B playing the remaining board. If he refused, I'd suspend him for the rest of the session. The aim is to keep the game going with the minimum of disruption for everyone else. Players can't pick & choose who to play against, and must expect to comply with any reasonable request of the director. Being asked to apologise for bad language is a reasonable request, and so is being required to play the scheduled boards. The usefulness of suspending a player for the rest of the session under L91, as a method of control, is that the player can't appeal against it, and so it avoids them disrupting the game further.

You bid 1♠ and partner rebids 2♣. Now _P = 10. 2♥ =7. 2H on the third round would be a wild overbid.

You see it as other players telling you what to do. To me it seems more like the opponents offering me the ability to think for a while without limiting my partner's options.

The OP is in the EBU where stop card regulations are in force, so when we are told the 3♠ bid was slow we can assume it was over and above the required pause.

This line risks going off if the club finesse isn't working, so would be unlikely to be taken unless a diamond had been returned after North won the ♠Q. Otherwise it would be much better just to give up a club and keep the ♦A intact. Even if they do return a diamond after the ♠Q one might hold up the first round of diamonds before taking the club finesse. So 11 tricks seems much more likely to me than any other number, since it's teams.

In the end it turned out to be a hypothetical question. I told the insufficient-bidder's LHO that she had the option to accept the insufficient bid, and that if she didn't then the three options of L27 would apply. The insufficient-bidder seemed a bit uncertain, so I took her away from the table, where she told me that she didn't have a suitable hand to bid 2♠ and couldn't make a negative double because her husband doesn't play those. It seemed as though she was going to be left with barring her partner whatever she did... but then LHO came to her rescue by accepting the insufficient 1♠ So I still haven't had a single L27B1b correction to a negative double - I've had very few L27B1b rulings at all, and those I have had have either been ace-asking auctions or a negative response to a strong club.

Has he perhaps now found other battles to fight?