duschek

In Denmark it is normal to have a local AC whose rulings can be appealed to the national AC (with another deposit, obviously). I do not expect this to change, nor do I want it to.

It probably depends on which law. I think players are expected to know the consequences of Law 1 by heart, for example, even if it is a law.

Personally I put much less effort into appeals than most players put into post mortems between sessions. My suggestion to you would be to file the appeal, turn up and present your case, and stick with the committee ruling. I suspect you mentally prepare for a trial as in the Hollywood movies :) A bridge appeal is of far less importance. It is no more important than any other board played. However, I rarely hear of anybody deciding not to analyse the present deal with reference to the ability to focus on the remaining hands.

And this was not an instance for applying Law 25A? :)

I am slightly worried when some say that you do wrong in not including in your explanation of the ♠2 the fact that it completes the signal given by the ♠5. This means that you do wrong (legally) when forgetting a card played (because you cannot comply with the "requirement"), which obviously cannot be the case. You can request a review of the auction, but not of the play.

We will need to know the hands, particularly East in order to evaluate whether there was a logical alternative to 2NT, with 2NT being suggested by the BIT, in which case 2NT is illegal. So I will have to make some assumptions: 1) If the TD is going to let EW keep their score, the implication is that they did nothing wrong, in which case NS must also keep their score. 2) Otherwise, if 2NT is illegal, with pass being a logical alternative to 2NT, the score should be adjusted to 2D played by South with whatever number of tricks that is going to make (also for both sides). In any case, I am not going to rate the ruling, as the important part here is to discuss what the correct ruling might be.

Quite frankly, if a system permitted by regulations contains prealertable agreements which take 12 minutes to prealert, the system would not be my primary candidate for reconsideration. (Smiley conveniently removed from quote).

Using the result between the two (or more) teams as the primary tie-breaking method has one obvious advantage over any other method: The players know the odds instantly, even before the last round (provided of course that the teams met). Opponents' VPs is fine, but has one drawback in that a 25-5 VP win is now better than a 25-0 VP win. Apart from that, surely players understand that scoring 190 VPs against good opposition is better than scoring 190 VPs against weak opposition. Imp difference is very natural, the main problem being a matter of calculation. Players are interested in VPs, not imp differences (except when calculating VPs). Also, slaughtering a weak team works very positively for your imp difference, but does not say as much about your strength as does beating a better team. Imp quotient feels strange indeed. Imp matches and VP scales are all about imp differences and not at all about quotients. A 50% chance of winning 13 imps at the risk of losing 13 imps is at break-even. Imp quotient now says that it is good bridge to make that random proposition at neither or both tables, and bad bridge to make it at either table but not both. Players never think in terms of imp quotients, so using imp quotient for tie-breaking seems very much an academical exercise.

I suspect the AC felt that the player would have made the double without the tank, but that passing was 25% justified and 75% a gambling action, so to speak. This suspicion may be confirmed by their ruling that EW would get 4H+1, though I admit that unbalanced weighted scores are possible. That was not the intended meaning of my post. Suppose a player holding 3 balanced HCP opposite a weak NT decides this may be the hand for doing something odd to escape a penalty double, then realises that pass is the wise action because any other action would be too risky after all. That is also a bridge reason, in a sense, but would in the same way fail to pass the parts of Law 73 which were relevant in this case.

I have been offline for 5 days and return to read a lot of insightful answers. Thank you very much! No doubt I owe you information about the actual ruling. We (the TDs) were quite certain that assigning 4H+1 was the correct ruling, but were less sure about South's pass. We decided not to apply Law 12C1b, considering it a borderline case, though in hindsight prefer considering South's pass a gambling action (not a serious error) thus implying that the score should stand for NS (though I am still not 100% sure as there are obvious arguments both ways, as this thread also indicates). EW appealed the ruling, and the committee were equally not in doubt as for the EW score, but changed the NS score to 25% 4H+1 and 75% table result, reflecting our doubt in a strange way (I disapprove of applying Law 12C1c that way on the present case). Nobody even considered a PP, appreciating that East felt there was a problem, but certainly should have solved it in normal tempo; in no way suspecting East of deliberate foul play. P.S. I am annoyed that we happened to overlooked the difference between "wildly gambling" and "wild or gambling" during the translation process, though I believe that a note on the interpretation of Law 12C1b could remedy this.

East was not familiar with playing constructive weak twos. Was considering whether to raise to 3♠ directly; the hand might still belong to their side.

[hv=d=w&v=b&n=st765hkj753d2cakt&w=sqj9842htda73c763&e=sk3ha94dq9654c952&s=sahq862dkjt8cqj84]399|300|Scoring: MP[/hv] Danish Pairs Championships, E/W co-favourites for the title, N/S recent champions though not in the primary group of contenders. West opens 2♠ (constructive weak two, 8-11 HCP), North passes. Now East thinks for appr. one minute before passing. South then decides to pass. South is not happy when seeing dummy and calls the TD after play has finished. Your ruling?

N/S bid to a lightish and making 4♠ without interference. After the hand, East summons the TD, explaining that he had heard a remark from the next table that 4♠ would make. The players from the neighbouring table confirm that such a remark was given after they had completed the hand, possibly a bit too loudly. Half of the field bids the game, so 4♠ making is worth 75%, while a spade partial is worth 25%. You quote Law 16C, telling East that he should have called you immediately after hearing the remark. What is your ruling if 1) you are confident that N/S did not hear the remark. 2) N/S may have heard the remark, although you are not sure at all. 3) N/S tell you that they also heard the remark.

Like the majority here, I definitely consider pass a LA. Of course, E/W would always bid on with this hand. Their experience tells them it is right (they got the experience from this hand). Of course there are those (impartial) who say they would also have bid 4♥ nearly always. However, I suspect what they mean is "I think it is a fair gamble" rather than "I think nearly no-one is going to pass".

We have had this regulation in Denmark for almost 10 years now. I have yet to see a league player (myself included) who follows it consistently as a matter of habit.