greenender

Without meaning any disrespect to Andy or Paul, I'm not sure that detailed discussions of the best line in 4♥ add much to a Laws & Rulings forum. I'd be happy with a conclusion that the ruling should contain an X% weighting for a 4♥ contract, making however many tricks it's due to make, further weighted between various possible outcomes (i.e. numbers of tricks) as appropriate.

I agree that the TD was correct to allow S to change his pass. What S failed to reflect on was the bridge logic of the situation. If E thought cue-bids were asking and W thought they were telling, then S knows that E has ♦s stopped and W doesn't. He doesn't know the ♥ position, except for the fact that E doesn't have them stopped, but he knows that E/W have near-game or better values, and that if they do have ♥s stopped, then the ♥s are over him. So, from S's perspective, either E/W have stopped because they cannot stop hearts, or they have just missed 3NT and 3♥ will be expensive. Given that N has bid ♦s and S holds ♠KQ and only ♥J, I know which I'd bet on as S without having seen the hands. Far from providing evidence of collusion, the E/W actions are entirely consistent with their different perceptions of the meaning of cuebids, as disclosed to N/S. N/S should get a life.

I agree. I find E's statement that he was never thinking of doing anything else but passing somewhat disingenuous. Whilst not everyone subscribes to the "bid game if your 6-card suit is raised" philosophy, E has a good offensive hand, particularly if W's heavy raise is systemic. Perhaps E counts the seconds slowly because he spends too much time counting his schmoints.

Surely not, in a jurisdiction where weighted adjustments are not just permitted, but the norm in appropriate cases. If you were going to adjust, you assess the likelihood of 5♦X being allowed to make, and then adjust that weighting slightly in favour of the NOS (sympathetic weighting). You would only allow the NOS the benefit of defeating the contract 100% of the time if you thought that they would actually defeat it, say, 90+% of the time. As I feel that it is more likely than not that 5♦X would make, then the adjustment would be, say 50-50. If one were adjusting.

Correct. In England, at any rate, the number of people who play a 2NT overcall of 1♠ to show the reds is very small. The number who think that "unusual" is an accurate, let alone a sufficient, description, of that method, is far smaller still. I agree with the ruling, and as bluejak said the question of SEWoG thus became moot, but I agree with his analysis of the 5♠ bid. The fact that 5♦X was a likely make was a function of W's extreme distribution, which was unlucky for N/S, but N might have reflected that E had gone to the 5 level thinking W had ♣s. Now that it seems apparent to the world that W has the reds, it is surely more likely that E may well have bid higher than he would have done had he known it was reds. Another reason to pass. This actually looks like a double shot by N, FWIW.

In my view there is a difference: plenty of relatively unsophisticated players play a Multi, at least in the parts of the country where the Multi is common; many of these will not even have considered anything other than that pass shows no interest; and they are the sort of players who are relatively unlikely to know the alerting rule in this particular instance, their instinct being not even to dream that a pass that "shows nothing" might conceivably be alertable. By contrast most of the (much fewer) players who play Ekren are (in my experience) likely to be rather more sophisticated both in terms of having a positive agreement and in terms of being likely to know the applicable alerting rule. I am sure that as a result my partner (I was N) would have asked about the pass in a Multi sequence, but he felt that in practice the inference that E held diamonds was a reliable one in all the circumstances. I asked because, as in most of these team of 8 matches, there was no TD present. Before deciding whether to bother a TD on the telephone at a late hour, there was therefore something of a free-for-all discussion amongst both teams at the end of the match. N/S readily conceded that there was misinformation, but one of their team-mates (a player with international experience) was vociferous in the view that nobody in their right mind should call without asking in this position, and that a TD should rule accordingly. (To be fair, I am with her in the sense that I would probably have asked myself, as Lamford advocates, but I didn't personally see why we should be disadvantaged when partner though he had a clear and reliable inference) In the end we worked out that giving us 50% of the relevant telephone number and 50% of the table result (we accepted that a weighted score would have been appropriate, as it was not completely clear that we could have extracted the penalty) would have moved us only from the bottom end to the top of a 19-1 result, so we let it go and went home.

[hv=d=w&v=b&s=skj64hkt73d6cqt42]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] This is the S hand in fourth seat. Teams of 8, as it happens, scored by the slightly weird method of aggregating all four results and then using the normal teams of 4 IMP scale, with ultimate concersion to VPs. W opens 2♦, weak with both majors, ostensibly 5-9 with 5-4 or slightly stronger with 4-4. N doubles, medium balanced or any very strong hand. E passes, not alerted. E's pass is logically played as one of two things (and all the Ekren merchants that I have played against play one or the other, AFAIK): either showing ♦s, suggesting 2♦X as a possible resting place opposite a semi-fit; or as showing no preference between the majors. (It is clearly techically superior to play the first method, with XX showing no preference, but that's by the way). S reasoned that the EBU definition of a natural pass relates to the last denomination named, i.e. ♦s, so an unalerted pass should show the first option, whereas a "you choose between the majors" pass, being unrelated to ♦s, should have been alerted. Being unwilling to defend 2♦X, he bid 3♣. The N/S methods, which are well-documented, are that a pass shows a willingness to defend 2♦X opposite a balanced 13-16, and implies a willingness to penalise at least one of the majors. 2NT would be Lebensohl, and 2M would show values with a stop in that suit but not in the oM. You can assume in S's position that E/W definitely have an agreement for the meaning of pass, and that it is one of the two outlined. They were also a pair that were more likely than some at this level (first division County League) to have a good grasp of the more esoteric bits of the alerting rules. Two questions: 1. Is S's interpretation of the alerting rules correct? 2. Should he have been expected to protect himself by asking, despite the fact that he believed that a positive inference was available to him from the lack of alert?

If I were to play this system I'd be worried about missing quite a few games with a maximum for 1♣ opposite a fitting maximum for 1♦, so I reckon I'd reserve some sequences for game exploration. I have a real thing about players playing oddball methods who are reluctant to give full disclosure. What is difficult about describing a bid which is just an all-purpose negative, albeit to a weird, rather than a strong, opening? Shoot them, and then ask questions if inclined. :(

A more general question arising from this thread. To what extent do people think it is reasonable for the TD to take a poll on the question of whether the bridge logic of a situation makes a pass forcing? Assume that, as here, even a pair with a moderately comprehensive system file are unlikely to have covered the FP implications of the specific sequence directly. Clearly the poll must be presented in a way that gives all the relevant information (here what other ways of raising to game may be available, and any inferences clearly available as a result). Although I don't know for certain what a "Polish" Multi is, I play a Multi with the same 4♣/4♦ responses, which are used on any hand prepared to take a stab at game in either major for any reason (normally no slam interest as it is usually helpful to find out more at a lower level via 2NT with slam interest). My system file certainly contains no reference to this particular sequence in terms of forcing passes, but it does contain the sort of section Frances mentions about general FP philosophy. I would expect my partner to agree with my conclusion that 4♣ (and 4♦) create a forcing pass at adverse vulnerability (Red), but not at any other conditions, and IIRC what the FP section of the file says, it backs this conclusion. Otherwise I agree with most of what dan_ehh says.

As it happens, I do play a 2NT opening as a weak minor two-suiter (not a split-range one, of which, like Andy, I have never heard), and only because I play a strong club as well as a Multi. But the consequences of partner having forgotten a different artificial use of an opening 2NT are similar to the consequences of Mark's partner in the OP having forgotten their particular brand of artificial 2NT. Assessing what 3NT means in the context of a natural 2NT opening for a pair who do not play a natural 2NT opening depends on the meanings in comparable sequences. In England comparable sequences include 2♣-2♦-2NT, and for 80%+ of people who play a Multi, as well as the legions of Benji players, 2♦-2♥-2NT. It seems that Mark and his partner play some relatively non-standard methods (quite apart from the 2NT opening). It is really helpful to TDs if such pairs can remember their methods, as - quite apart from giving us a quiet life (to which I am sure Blackshoe will remind me we are not entitled!) it does make the assessment of comparable auctions a tad difficult. :P

Sorry, I don't get why 3NT is a possible response to a 3♣ enquiry after a natural 2NT opener, but not after the strong balanced version of a Multi. Except for the players who distinguish distribution by the two sequences (2N shows 20-22 without a 5-card suit, after which 3♣ is Baron; a 2N rebid after a Multi shows the same range with a 5-card suit, after which 3♣ merely asks for the suit: surprisingly common around here) nearly everybody who uses different sequences to 2NT to show different ranges of strong balanced hand uses the same response structure thereafter (at least if responder has shown nothing in particular with a negative or relay response to a 2♣, 2♦ - or in my case a strong 1♣ - opening). I am therefore with bluejak: if you have a comparable sequence ending in 2NT, to which a 3NT response has an agreed meaning, then you assume that partner has some range of strong balanced with the same hand-type as is shown by 3NT in the comparable sequence. If a 3NT response in the comparable sequence has no agreed meaning, then partner is guilty of unauthorised panic, and bluejak is quite right to be cross with him. In principle, absent UI, you are free to guess a level, as I doubt partner's forget demonstrably suggests any particular range over any other, but if partner's response to Stayman (or whatever you play in comparable sequences) would have got you into trouble, and you fall on your feet after his 3NT rebid, then your side is going to get adjusted against because of partner's actions, not yours, so it matters little what you do. I might well pass as the option best calculated to get partner not to do it (either the initial forget or the UP) again.

Most of the things that are specifically permitted arise because people are trying to construct a system and find that some hand-type causes a difficulty. They find a solution, but find that it doesn't come within the list of permitted agreements (either the blanket or the specific ones). They therefore apply for it to be permitted, and frequently succeed. The fact that it may look a little odd in isolation is a red herring. It wasn't applied for in isolation. I wouldn't mind betting that David applied for the Stevenson 1♠ because either he or someone he knew wanted to play a system such as Echognome mentions. After all, if you want to play a strong club and transfer openings showing the majors, 1♠ ought to show something. The general scheme of regulation is far, far better than it was when I started playing nearly 30 years ago. In those days the equivalent of the Orange Book was published annually, and contained far more individually licensed methods and far fewer generic provisions. It also contgained oddities such as that certain things could only be played in the context of a given basic system. Bridge players being what they are, no system of regulation is going to satisfy everybody, but I know of few who would wish to return to the bad old ways. The fact that we have a system of regulation that is as good as it is is due in large part to the enthusiasm and commitment of people such as David over many years, and please bear in mind, that - apart from modest payment for occasional specific projects - all these people are unpaid volunteers.

Assuming an uncontested auction, I think it is helpful for the declaring side at the end of the auction to repond to the defenders' questions according to the way those questions are put. Some players find it more helpful to have the auction explained in sequence, and some prefer a more general "what do you know about partner's hand?" approach. For myself, as defender asking the questions, it will depend very much on the sort of auction the opponents have had, and the degree of familiarity I have with their basic system. In long auctions I do tend towards the step-by-step approach, as I feel that this gives me a better inkling as to how secure they are in their agreements, and therefore how likely they are actually to have what their partner thinks they have shown. In such circumstances I would generally expect the opponents to explain each others' bids, and if the explanation comes from just one opponent I am inclined to ask the other at the end of the explanation "nothing in that you disagree with?". This is largely because I know that (say) declarer ought to correct an explanation by dummy of one of dummy's bids if he (declarer) would have given a different explanation, but I don't always know whether opponents know this. With my regular partner I play a system which has a number of aspects which are not generally familiar to most opponents. Some of our sequences are quite long and include waiting bids by one of us which are designed solely to give the other a chance to differentiate between some of the hand-type options already shown*. In those circumstances I will often make a comment to the effect of "it may be easier if I just tell you what we know about each other's hands". But if the defenders nevertheless want to follow the step-by-step (ping-pong) approach, then we will definitely go along with it. *For example, anyone like to hazard a guess what we have shown in the following uncontested sequence: 1♣ 1♦ 1♥ 1♠ 1NT 2♦ 2♥ 2♠ 2NT 3NT 4♥ end? No, I thought not :)

I agree with bluejak that it is surprising that it was not noticed. Whilst players may not notice (although many will) when someone plays an insignificant spot card that duplicates one in their own hand, it is more surprising that suit distributions round the table not adding up to 13 (in two suits, of course) were not noticed. I would be inclined to rule Av rather than Av+ on the basis that those who did not notice were partially at fault, and would expect this to be accepted with good grace by club players.

Surely the essence of a takeout double when your side has bid two suits and the enemy has bid the other two is normally this: "I want to compete in whichever of our two suits affords the best fit, but I don't yet know which that is". Depending on the auction, the precise suit lengths implied by such a double may vary, but surely the problem is that in a classic support double position, such a double is going to deliver precisely three-card support a high percentage of the time: with four, why would opener give responder a choice; with two, would he not normally rebid his own suit or go quietly? Don't get me wrong: I'm all for correct alerting, and if a takeout double isn't alertable but a support double is, then players who play support doubles should jolly well alert them. But I can't see myself as a TD being that inclined to accept that a player's call could well have been influenced by the MI, if the essence of the MI at issue is the difference between a takeout and a support double. Here, of course, a penalty meaning is in the frame, and I believe that Lamford's conclusion is right.

Robin Doesn't the EBU also say somewhere that "run" is asumed to mean "run from the top"? This seems to be implied from the comment about finding that they are not all winners.

East of the Pond: Red = Vul vs NV Amber = Game all White = Love all Green = NV vs Vul

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. About four or five years ago, IIRC, the EBU L&E introduced a regulation that partner's propensity to forget an agreement should neither be disclosed nor acted on. I believe that the regulation was subsequently scrapped because a (slightly differently constituted, no doubt) L&E was persuaded that the non-disclosure part of the regulation was contrary to the Laws. So whilst I agree with Gordon that telling the opponent that it is supposed to be natural, but may actually be something else, isn't necessarily helpful to the opponent, I think you have to do it because your information comes not just from the contents of your hand but also from partnership experience. Sometimes, your opponent's hand will give him a clue what is going on. I think that since you are effectively playing a legal (two- or three-way) method, you can bid what you like.

I thought it was clear that if one side commits two infractions, then you adjust on the basis of whichever infraction gives them the worst of it. I don't think you ignore the second infraction just because the player wouldn't have had a chance to commit it had he or his partner not committed the first one.

I'm afraid I'm in the camp which discounts this as a practical issue. Whilst I have to accept as a matter of mathematics that the removal of the middle band of the inviter's possible hand types exaggerates the difference between the relative probabilities of him being at the lower or higher ends of the range, when the problem is expressed in point count terms (as to which see below), it seems to me that there are too many other imponderables. I kinow that Andy wanted a theoretical answer to a theoretical question, without side issues, but I guess he has got that from bluejak. In practice the theoretical problem will be sidetracked by one or more of the following: (1) alternative possible invitations which may account for the BIT (2) the need for inviter to give relative weight to different features of his hand, which may suggest different things, in deciding whether to invite (3) partnership and individual player style (4) other UI such as body language which gives a clue to what the inviter has. Besides, I don't think the analysis that (say) inviter will have 16 or 18 for the slow invite, from the original 16-18 range for any old invite, really stands up. If I invite, I tell my partner that I am too good to pass/sign-off and not good enough to blast game. In the absence of special agreements I assume that partner is invited to accept on the top 50% of hands for his bidding so far. Both inviter and his partner will take into account other things than just points in arriving at their decision. I certainly wouldn't be thinking in rigid points terms, and I don't think most players experienced enough to appreciate what Andy is asking would either. Indeed, there is a good argument IMO that a slow invite (when extraneous factors are stripped out) tends to show the top or the bottom 20-30% by probability of the possible hands for any old invite, and to eliminate the middle 40-60%. After all, when I invite, I am trying to assess the probabilities of being able to make game. My view is that that is perhaps a better approximation of the way bridge players think than the point count anaylsis which leads to the conclusion that a slow invite tends to be at the weak end. It also gets rid of the problem, does it not?

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly with all the rude things which have been said about the table TD and the DIC, I think that the correct ruling may be a little more interesting than the lack of attention to it so far warrants. Of course: 1. The TD's allowing of the auction being rolled back to the NOS's penultimate call of the auction (N's double) was wrong. 2. The TD's refusal to contemplate the auction being rolled back to the NOS's final call of the auction (S's final pass) was also wrong. 3. The final ruling should therefore have been on the basis of TD error. 4. The DIC had no business making an adjustment if he believed on the basis of the law that S did not deserve one, although S in fact did. 5. The DIC had no business giving an artificial score. Instead the ruling ought to have been on the basis of the proper application of Law 21, in the light of what Law 82C has to say about both sides being treated as non-offending. So the correct ruling is that N's double stands, and Law 21 has to be applied with regard to S's final pass. Now the Law used to say something along the lines that S's pass can be changed if it is probable that is was made as a result of MI. It now says that the change can be made if the director judges that it could well have been influenced by the MI. So, on the face of it the director has a judgment to exercise. In England the TD does not seem to be expected to be too critical in his exercise of judgment: he just tends to ask S if he wants to change his final pass, and S makes a bridge decision which everyone is stuck with for better or worse. But the wording of the Law implies that it is open to the TD to judge that the call was not plausibly influenced by the MI. Many players would not have sat for 4♠ (doubled or otherwise) on the S hand. If the TD is exercising a judgment role, then it is presumably open to him to form the view that the MI made little difference (as Ed seems to think, not that I necessarily agree with him). The problem, of course, with the TD actively exercising his judgment, as the wording of the Law seems to require, is that the TD's judgment call is going to give information about S's hand to the rest of the players while the hand is still live, so one can see why English TDs rule as they do. Moving on to Law 82C, the final ruling has to be given treating both sides as non-offending in terms of what might have happened had the TD got it right in the first place and applied Law 21 properly. For N/S it is relatively easy: they must be given the benefit of the doubt as to whether S would have pulled the double. For E/W, it does not seem to me to be so clear: they also are entitled to the benefit of the doubt, so it may well be that they get the score for 4♠X+1, if the director, once restored to competence and sanity, rules that it is within the standard for a non-offending E/W that a S who was prepared to defend 4♠ with the default unaltered meaning of W's double (presumably stressing ♦s), may have been prepared to defend 4♠X with the correct information, holding an A and the ♠K notwithstanding his generally offensive hand.

I think that this is a matter of degree. I know that bluejak almost has it as an article of faith that he doesn't expect to remember what the opponents are playing, but I think he may underestimate the degree to which the rest of us do retain some inkling of what is going on from previous instances. I feel that if the hand had come up very soon after the pre-alert, or if the sequence had come up a couple of times already in the set, then N really should be expected to remember. Conversely, if it didn't, then I would be perfectly comfortable with leaving the onus on the alerter to make sure the alert is noticed. IIRC, EBU advice used to be along these lines. So I think the TD should make up his or her mind on the balance of probabilities, giving the benefit of the doubt to the side that claims not to have been alerted properly. Of course, the TD must take care to ensure that any previous instances are comparable. I would regard a previous instance of a transfer into the other major as being comparable, but in more complex auctions things that look similar to previous instances may well not be, so again I would give the benefit of the doubt to the putative NOS.

This is a clear error by the TD. She appears to have ruled under Law 25. Of course 3♠ was not "unintended" because at the time N bid it he thought that E had ♥s and therefore S had ♠ support. On that basis he fully intended to bid 3♠. N's argument was that he would not have bid 3♠ if he had seen the alert and known that E had ♠s rather than ♥s. This is a straight MI ruling under Law 21, and as the auction had not got past his partner, N should have been given the right to change his call if the TD believed that there was MI (i.e. that 1♥ had not been properly alerted). So it is crucial that the TD decides about the alert before anything else. So the matter should have been resolved by the AC deciding whether there was an alert, and if they decided there wasn't, then the ruling should have been on the basis that the TD had offered N his bid back, thereafter treating both sides as non-offending.

I, too, would have preferred 3♦ as E, but the actual choice of 3♣ should have made it easier for W, who had an easy 4♣ bid. After E cues 4♥, I would have thought that W would have heard enough. But deals with 15-16 in both hands are always difficult as the fact that both players have extras can easily get lost.

Gluttons for punishment can read an article on this sort of thing, plus a number of related sequences, on the EBU website: http://www.ebu.co.uk/lawsandethics/articles/1nt/default.htm