VixTD

I think beginners like MUD because they like the idea of conveying their holding to partner on the second round. I think any signalling system that takes two rounds to convey a message is too slow. The message has to be got across (as far as it can be) with the first card. In the same way beginners like to signal length with 9743 by playing the 4, then the 3. Advanced players learn they should play the 7, then the 3 (or the 4).

Thanks, everyone, for your comments. Mikeh, it's the "declarer would have played the queen" clue that I was missing. In the UK fourth-highest leads are common, and from xxx I and many others favour the top card against no trumps, but Cherdano is right that MUD leads are common, particularly in partnerships that don't like to take the trouble to learn one method against suits and another against no trumps. (I don't like MUD in any situation, but it's less odious against suit contracts.)

This hand came up in an online EBU virtual club matchpoint game: [hv=pc=n&s=saqthj4daq97cakj7&w=s984ha8532dkj3c52&n=sk52hq6dt852cqt94&e=sj763hkt97d64c863]399|300[/hv] It was played at nine tables. At one South played in 3♣, but at the other eight South was in 3NT. Assume the bidding was 2NT - 3NT; there are no clues to the distribution. West led either ♥3 or ♥2, according to agreement. You can see that EW can take the first five tricks, but not surprisingly that didn't happen at all tables. Five Souths made 3NT, one with an overtrick, when dummy played low at trick one and East put in the nine. Of those Easts who played the king at trick one, one blocked the suit by returing the original fourth best 7. Two returned the 10, but one West played the eight (!) at trick three to undo all the good unblocking work. Those who blocked the suit had the last laugh when East switched to a diamond to try to reach partner with the last heart and declarer took the finesse for two down. Is there any guide to whether to play the nine or the king at trick one? Is it just a guess? I can see that one works when partner has led from Axxxx and the other when they've led from Jxxxx.

Yes, OK, I think you're right in this case, although I would say you have to show that North knows it could well be favourable, not will be favourable. If it's only wrong when you move all West's high cards to South, it's quite likely to be favourable.

I don't think this is enough. Others have commented on the threadbare nature of North's hand, so don't you think that North could have known that forcing partner to pass 2NT would work out well for their side? Let them play it out in 2NT, but then adjust the score under laws 27C and 12C to 3NT-2.

Sorry for replying late. I don't know if I would alert an insufficient bid if no one had drawn attention to it. I might well wait to see if no one notices and bids over it. I don't think this is a problem as we can't really have agreements for insufficient bids. If attention has been drawn to it I might alert, particularly as we're expected to alert if there's any possibility the call could have an alertable meaning. I would not volunteer any further information unless the opponents asked, at which point I would explain what any similar (legal) sequences would mean.

Whether playing the card first called for makes "bridge sense" or not is irrelevant - that's not the criterion that applies. In the classic example where declarer leads small towards AQ in dummy and calls "queen" when LHO has played the king, we do not allow a change of card, even though playing the queen under the king is a silly play. The queen was (in all probability) the card declarer intended to play. The laws and commentaries refer to allowing the change of "an unintended designation". If we accept that designations can either be intended or unintended, with no other possibility, doesn't it follow that if you don't allow the change in this case, you are saying that the designation of a small card was intended? (OK, strictly speaking that there is insufficient evidence that it wasn't unintended, because in cases of doubt we rule against the offender.) What I am trying rather clumsily to say is that I find it easier to decide what to rule if I ask myself: "Was the small card the one that declarer intended to play when they called for a card?" rather than "Was the designation unintended?" It may well be true that declarer's mind had wandered and that they had lost concentration, but I don't think any of that means that they intended to play a small card. I tend to routinely allow the card to be changed in these cases unless there is evidence that it could have been an intended designation. That declarer immediately corrected themselves before anything else happened to indicate that playing small would be a poor choice is evidence enough that the small card was not the one intended.

In the EBU I would certainly alert such an insufficient bid, if one or more of the possible intended meanings was artificial, even if some or all of them should be announced. Then the opponents can ask, and I can just explain the relevant parts of our system that might apply, and they can try to guess what's going on, and little or no unauthorized information would be transmitted. It's easier to do this where we have a regulation that requires "don't knows" and "possibly artificial" meanings to be alerted.

In England and Wales we have:

I'm surprised that what looks like a fairly run-of-the-mill (although not necessarily easy) ruling in a league game where "average" players are competing has become a possible appeal to the National Authority. From the sparse information given about the TD and the referee's decisions it looks as if they both may have failed to do an adequate job, or at least not explained themselves clearly. I don't think the speed of declarer's play to trick one is particularly relevant (although excessively speedy play is poor form). If East needed time to consider their play to the second or subsequent tricks, they should have thought about it (for as long as it takes) before quitting trick one, not during the play of trick two. Deciding whether to signal with otherwise insignificant cards is not considered sufficient reason to pause during the play of that trick (WB8.73.1). If the TD really is convinced that declarer will play the nine every time without the hesitation, their giving of some proportion of 3NT-1 doesn't make sense to me. Is it possible (despite what they said) that they thought they might play the jack regardless? Were they thinking that West might win, continue spades and that declarer might play a heart before unblocking the diamond? The referee's conclusion that the hesitation does not indicate possession of the diamond ace may be bridge nonsense (and I agree with Lamford on this), but it's also legally irrelevant. The law that applies here is 73E2, which does not concern itself whether the inference the non-offender has drawn is a sensible or logical one, just whether an innocent player has drawn an inference and thereby been damaged, and clearly that's the case here. The TD (or the referee) should poll some players of similar standard to North and assess the likelihood of playing the nine after an in-tempo play from East, and assign a weighted score based on the probabilities (which may well be 100% of 3NT=). If either the players or the TD had mentioned on the appeal form the question of whether thinking at trick two was legitimate with only small cards, the referee should have commented on it. (If none of them did, perhaps they should have.)

Law 46B3(a) notwithstanding, it is unusual for declarer to call "small" when switching to a different suit without specifying the suit, so that makes me think that declarer's intention was to play a small diamond when they said "small". If they had intended to play the heart next, "heart" would be the normal shorthand designation. However, it is entirely possible that what was in declarer's mind the whole time was to cash the heart and "small" slipped out inadvertently, or declarer said "small" intending it to refer to the heart, so I would try to find out the precise order and speed of events, when and how declarer reacted when they realised the diamond had been played, and allow declarer to change the card if I am convinced their other intention was incontrovertible.

Lots of (particularly elderly) club TDs can manage something akin to the 1997 insufficient bid ruling of allowing the call to be accepted and if it isn't, allowing a no-penalty change to the lowest legal call in the same denomination if both the insufficient bid and its replacement were "incontrovertibly not conventional" (the attendant problems of ascribing a "meaning" to an insufficient bid notwithstanding). The 2007 laws introduced the concept of the intended meaning of the insufficient bid, which has now been removed, so it's better to skip that version of the law book entirely. There's nothing wrong with the service I've been giving them, I follow the (much lauded) EBU club directors training course and role-play ruling simulations. They won't be confused when a better trained TD gives a proper ruling at a congress, because they know that the ruling they are giving at the club isn't actually correct, they just know it is the best they can manage in the few minutes available to them to get play going again at the table where a problem has occurred and allow the game to finish. Is that really so terrible in a club game? What do you suggest? Forcible retraining of less-than-perfect TDs, or sacking of the only person in the club who's willing to give up their time to helping to organise the game, is like insisting on applying the letter of the laws of association football in a children's kickabout in the park.

I instruct them to allow everything the (current) laws allow, including this. The problem is not what I'm teaching them or the way I'm teaching it (contrary to Ed's less-than-charitable opinion), but the students' inability to understand or apply the laws, in particular to manage the three categories of comparable call, on top of the "lowest legal call that specifies the same denomination" of law 27, and then under which circumstances lead penalties and an adjusted score should be considered afterwards. The best some of them can manage is "do you want to accept the bid?" (yes or no, answer now), followed by "you have to make a comparable call" when it's not accepted.

I don't think I've ever met anyone as po-faced as you, Ed. Many of the club directors I train have a long-ingrained understanding of how to deal with insufficient bids under the 1997 laws, at least as to which replacement calls are allowed without silencing partner. They cannot understand the 2017 laws, and get completely bogged down trying to apply them. If the outcome of their attempt to apply the 2017 laws would be worse (further away from the outcome intended under those laws) than the outcome of their attempt to apply the 1997 laws, wouldn't it be better for them to apply the 1997 and get on with the game? I do say this to my students, but I still try to teach them how to apply the current laws, so you can put your soap-box away. Training club directors has to make a compromise between perfect judgement and application of the laws, and the best practical result you're going to get under the circumstances. What you want out of club directors is someone who can run and score a duplicate tournament, apply the laws fairly and make sure the players have an enjoyable time, as far as possible. Worrying whether they've extracted the last drop of meaning from laws 23A, 50E or any of the other impenetrable laws for which you need to put in far more hours study than are available on a basic directors' course to understand is not something we should be doing.

WBFLC has stated that their main target is to allow boards being played out for fair results as far as possible rather than have to award artificial adjusted scores. In the old days of bridge a non-offending side could simply demand a re-deal whenever an irregularity occurred, this is obviously not satisfactory in modern duplicate bridge so now we have several laws on how to rectify various kinds of irregularities. Law 23 is one such law and I disagree that it is so difficult to apply, but it certainly takes a competent director to understand and apply it correctly. This is no different from other laws in the book, and that is why we have commentaries to the laws for anybody to study and training courses for those who want to become a director. This is fine for those directors such as you and me who want to go on training courses and study commentaries, but what about the majority of club and regional directors who don't? I train club directors in the UK, and they find understanding and applying law 23 the hardest part of the job. I have said (only half-jokingly) that the 2017 version of law 23 should be regarded as the equivalent of a heavy-goods vehicle - only TDs with a special licence should be allowed to drive it. Less qualified TDs should just apply the 1997 laws on insufficient bids; they'd do much less damage that way.