duschek

Bullseye! I wish you had written that 24 hours earlier :)

Basically, all bids which do not show the suit or which show other suits, even if unspecified, are artificial. So is (1NT)-2♥ showing hearts and a minor.

Quite a lot of strong players maintain the view that mechanical errors, such as calls or plays out of turn, insufficient bids, and revokes (at least those not established), should be resolved as UI cases instead of being rectified by means of rigid rules which randomly hand points to non-offenders that they could never have scored on some occasions, and provide them with nothing on other occasions. Certainly, there is no more inherent justice in the current mechanical error-laws than there would be resolving them as UI cases. There are two reasons for the current state of affairs, for which I would not expect the WBF-LC to abandon the current principles: Historical reasons. Most mechanical error-laws have a long history of mechanical solutions. At the club level, it is much more practical to use mechanical resolutions and accepting that they are sometimes too harsh, than to tconfuse the players with the UI and LA concepts. When both playing strength and ethics are at a high level, I have no doubt that most players would prefer the UI/LA approach - they have just learnt to accept the strange consequences of the Laws, which apply to them rarely after all, as the rate of mechanical errors decreases when playing strength increases.

Screens in use. South was dealer and opened 1♦, West passed, and South passed on the tray. However, the 1♦ bid fell off the tray, so that it appeared to North and East as though West had passed first-in-hand. North passed, East bid 1♥, and the tray was passed back to South and West, who now discovered that the 1♦ bid had stayed on their own side of the screen all along. Everybody has seen the calls made by North and East; South and West knowing that North and East bid on false assumptions. Director! Some considerations: South is at fault, since he is burdened with the task of passing the tray. West should probably have discovered the error too, the 1♦ card lying on the table on his side of the screen. North and East are responsible for discovering calls out of turn, so should both have discovered the error.

It is not legal:

So it seems to me that a regulation that requires a deposit for an initial appeal is illegal, as is one that gives the initial committee authority to withhold such deposit.It surprises me that the WBF-LC seem to imply that the first appeal should be for free, as I believe it is normal to require a deposit for the first appeal (it certainly has always been the case in Denmark). However, does the following save the day? which I basically read as "Law 93 applies except the RA decides otherwise."

I would be interested in Duschek's reasons for his view.The committee members are there to make a ruling, based on their judgement. In this process, they determine whether the appeal has merit, also based on their judgement. If the appeals advisor happens to judge differently from the committee members (which will be a rare occurrence), the committee members should not be prevented from issuing a clear statement of their opinion about the decision to appeal, i.e., keeping the deposit. In addition, suppose the appeals advisor believes that the appeal has merit based on certain arguments that the appellants for some reason fail to present to the committee. The committee members wonder why on earth the appeal was filed at all on those grounds and keep the deposit with the appeals advisor not being at fault.

No way! The appeals adviser will - obviously - hear what the players say. He cannot be sure it is true or unbiased. It would spoil the whole appeals adviser system if this went through as players would do the obvious. In addition, this would mean that if the appeals advisor believes that the appeal has merit, the appeal can in effect be filed without a deposit (because the appeals advisor has guaranteed that the deposit will be returned anyway). That does not really fit my ideas of the appeals system. The Danish Bridge Federation introduced the appeals advisors practice at the National Championships week this summer. In general, it was very well received by the players. Most league players handle their potential appeals themselves, but many players at the levels below felt much more comfortable in the appeals zone than they used to. We will definitely do that next year too. In one case, the committee withheld the deposit even if the appeals advisor had told the players that they should not lose the deposit. This case elicited opinions to the effect that the deposit should be safe in such cases; so I have already expressed my views on that earlier this year :)

There is a standard position where you hold the KQx behind dummy's ace. Suppose declarer leads a small card off dummy. As I understand the general interpretation of Law 73, after a clear hesitation you cannot play the king to conceal the queen, claiming that your bridge problem was whether to play an honour card at all, because you could then gain from your hesitation misleading declarer. I am not sure whether the case is fundamentally different when holding the AQ behind dummy's KJ10 as discussed here.

With everybody else agreeing that the TD made an error, I may have misread something, but it seems to me that, according to Law 68B2: Play shall continue. The ♥AK shall not become penalty cards, even if exposed. The fact that East holds the ♥AK is UI to West. The fact that West wants more than two tricks for the defence is UI to East. The fact that West has a diamond trick is UI to East.

The weak-only Multi is allowed in Denmark without it causing any trouble (as far as I know). In fact, these years most league players using Multi have no strong options included, probably because it allows responder to preempt whenever he has suitable major suit lengths without fearing a strong hand opposite. There are those who argue that Multi is only allowed for historical reasons, but I believe most players above the beginner's level have little more difficulty defending against Multi than defending against natural weak twos. The issue certainly has not raised any sort of heated debate.

I think it says that there is a world of difference between ethics 1975 and ethics 2009. As for bridge in Denmark, I know there is. Various forms of coffee-housing and UI-based life-saving techniques were considered unfortunate ways of the world in the 70s and 80s. Such ploys were wrong, but no-one knew what to do about it, so players got away with it. No longer so.

I agree, and this is also how TDs work at WBF and EBL events. If they happen to pass by a table when an irregularity occurs, they do not intervene without a player having asked for it. Below the international level, your story illustrates the problem with kibitzing while directing. Players are often unsure whether they should call the TD. In this case, the player looked at you and (wrongly) interpreted your (appropriate) passivity to the effect that calling the TD would not change anything.

Two tricks for declarer. I do not belong to the school which says that in this case it is perfectly normal for declarer to play the ♦J before the ♦A when he claims that dummy is high.

In theory, yes. It is only relevant what the replacement call showed before the insufficient bid was made. You are allowed to replace with a call with the same or a more specific meaning than the insufficient bid even if your hand would not normally be suitable for that call. However, since a takeout double of an opening 1♦ bid may show a 4414 with 10 HCP or a 17+ HCP hand with 5+♥/♠ or any 21+ HCP hand, I agree that Law 27B1b does not apply (at least, in its strict interpretation) and hence the player cannot substitute 1♣ with a double. --- A new question: When a player substitutes an insufficient bid under Law 27B1a (lowest sufficient bid in the same denomination), Law 16D does not apply (i.e., the fact that the hand may not fit with the description is authorised information for partner, but see Law 27D...). However, Law 27B1b (same or more precise meaning) makes no reference to Law 16D. Therefore, information from the insufficient bid is now unauthorised, right?

Also very well, but that is obviously a specific EBU interpretation, whereas most of the discussion in this thread applies outside EBU, i.e., only reading the WBF Laws (12C1b in particular) and possibly existing local interpretations.

Dummy is on lead. The declarer's RHO thinks he hears declarer name a card from dummy to be played and follows suit, he thinks, before dummy touches any card. The other players agree that declarer did not name a card. Is this a lead out of turn, which declarer can accept, or is it a play out of turn?

It is a matter of fact that poor players make more serious errors than good players. If we are to rule by the wording of Law 12C1b, it will therefore hit poor players more often than good players. Note that Law 12C1b does not indicate that the concept of error should be relative to the class of player involved. If the lawmakers would have us consider the level of the player when applying Law 12C1b, perhaps they might have used a wording such as the one in the footnote to Laws 70-71.

Very well, but Law 12C1b reads: Therefore, you should not solely be concerned with wild or gambling action. If passing 4♥ is a serious error, E/W lose compensation whether they are good or poor.

LHO was not aware that he spent ten seconds. RHO admitted that LHO took approximately ten seconds to follow with the ten.

Denmark: We used to have a regulation that the meaning must not depend on the player making the call/play. Since this is the default in 2007 Laws, we have removed that regulation as it no longer has any effect. In other words, in Denmark the two players in a partnership must play the same methods, and it has "always" been so (i.e., as far back as I know of).

The only thing that bothers me is that four very sensible people think the TD should not be called or that the TD should give them an arrogant response (or maybe you are just being sarcastic...). Of course, the defenders can call the TD. In this case, it has a very useful purpose in that the defenders will learn something about the rules from a neutral source, namely the TD.

I agree with Robin and Sven. Since West has no UI, the ruling must be based on the assumption that N/S were never misinformed, but that West himself was "misinformed" as long as he actually was, i.e., the ruling must take into account that West did misbid 3♠ and that he realised his error before his 4♥ bid. This means that both West's bids stand when the TD makes his ruling. East had UI available but obviously did not gain an advantage from it. Since South's 3♣ bid was the only call made under misinformation in the legal auction, N/S can only be damaged if South would have made a different response had he known the correct meaning of 2♦ (doubtful, but may depend on system).

Declarer needs 5 tricks from KJ9xx in dummy opposite Axxx in hand. He leads the ace, both defenders following, then leads small towards dummy. After some 10 seconds, LHO follows with the ten. Consequently (?), declarer finesses the jack, losing to the queen. Your ruling? Could declarer seriously believe that LHO considered which card to play from the QT?

Do you mean to say that if, after the play of a hand is completed, I am aware that an inaccurate explanation has been given to me but know for sure that I have not been damaged, I should routinely summon the TD?