Chris3875

North opens 2♦which is a multi 2 bid showing either a weak 2 in hearts or spades or a strong balanced hand. South replies 2NT asking for a further description of the hand. North bids 3♥ then scratches out the bid and replaces it with 3♦. Director called and East chooses to accept the 3H (original) bid and South responds 4♥. When it comes back to North she "corrects" the bid to 4♠. You folks will know this convention better than me - apparently the 3♦ was showing top of the range in spades. What should the director's ruling be?

Thanks chrism and blackshoe .... long time no see blackshoe :D

So, there are no further restrictions on OS e.g. lead restrictions on spades or clubs for example?

North opened a diamond, East passed, South bid 1 heart and West passed (written bidding) - sat back in her chair - said "oh" - leant forward and changed the pass to a double. North asked "did you change your mind on that call" and West said "yes". Director called.

There are 2 parts to my query. A director from a neighbouring club was telling me of an incident she had the previous day. E/W were bidding diamonds - North had opened 1C, South bid 2S and North bid 4C to which his partner replied 4D. West asked whether the 4C was Gerber and South said Yes. North immediately said NO and after West passed, North bid 5C and the director was then called. I asked the director what she had done and she told me that she "made" South play the contract in 4D which only made four tricks. My opinion was that you cannot "make" them play the contract in anything other than what they end up bidding, but that you can subsequently adjust the score. That is part one of my question. The second part (and without benefit of the hand or actual bidding sequence) would be that the adjusted score may have ended up being 6C (maybe doubled) by North making whatever - it seems to me that North bidding 5C would have been seen as a King ask by South and North would have had nowhere to go except 6C. On that particular hand, most N/S were in clubs making either 8 or 9 tricks and 5D made for E/W.

The contract is Hearts. North is the dealer and there are 3 cards left in all hands. North has 9xx hearts and dummy has 1 small spade and 2 small clubs. West has 8H, 1 spade and 1 club and East has nothing worth mentioning. The lead is in dummy and North claims but does not give any line of play - just shows his cards. I guess the normal line of play is for North to lead either a small spade or club from dummy and then trump it small in hand, followed by the 9H (West's 8 would drop) but should the "inferior or careless" in the Law Book allow for North to trump high when the spade/club is played from dummy - or alternatively allow for North to follow up the small trump of the club/spade with another small trump lead? The standard of players was basic.

E/W play inverted minors - their system is that if there is an intervening bid or double, all bets are off and they revert to "normal". I have been asked about an incident that occurred last Friday where East opened 1C and South doubled. West bid 2C which was alerted by East and described as 10+ points. The bidding continued and N/S eventually got to 3S making 10 tricks and apparently argued that they would have bid to game if they knew West only had 6 points. East said she did not notice the double and described their system correctly - I contend that her not seeing the double was careless and she did not, in fact, describe their system which is that after an intervening bid or double, 2C is a weak response. Depending on the hands ( which I did not see as I wasn't at the club ) I would have considered awarding an adjusted score of 4S by N making 10 tricks.

It has been a practice at our club that when the card is to be led from dummy, some dummies will put their hand on the table to indicate "play is from this side". Someone has recently pointed out that this is not "preventing an irregularity by declarer" but more a case of "directing play". I should say that the hand is not indicating any particular card to play. I thought it was a bit of a storm in a tea cup but have been wrong before.

Yes, of course - sorry. South didn't accept the pass out of turn and the auction reverted to West who bid 4H.

I think the question the player was asking me was to discount the actual hand that was played in this instance and assume that East (who made the opening pass out of turn) had no points, South who passed had 4 spades but only 11 points - West made the 4H bid on the 12 points and the scruffy heart suit and now North with 16 pts and 4 spades passes so they miss out on their spade contract. Would the director look to adjust in this instance? In a normal bidding sequence West would have probably opened with 1H.

[hv=pc=n&s=sqj743h2dt5cakt76&w=s2hat965daq987cq9&n=skhkj843dkj642cj3&e=sat9865hq7d3c8542&d=w&v=e&b=16&a=4hppp]399|300[/hv] East opened the bidding with a pass out of turn which was not accepted by South - South subsequently passed and West bid 4H - all passed. West went well off, but the question was later asked - would the director have awarded an adjusted score if the 4H bid had prevented N/S from reaching their own game contract or a slam? They would never have done it with this hand - but assuming they had 4S which they didn't bid because of the 4H (bid on 12 points with a pretty scruffy heart suit) would you look to adjust under Law 23 (or some other Law).

The bidding sheet is in the middle of the table with each compass orientation facing the player - the handwriting CAN cause confusion - I recently had a case where a player bid 3D and the next player bid 5H because he saw it as 5D (and when I put myself in the same position as the 5H bidder it certainly did look like 5D). I have only seen bidding boxes used in the finals of big events and they look very awkward to me, but I guess it is a case of what you get used to. As a floor manager/caddy at some of these finals I seem to spend a large amount of time picking bidding boxes up off the floor and sorting out the cards !!

Just a comment which may not have any bearing on your thoughts - with a few exceptions we do not use bidding boxes down under (as the cards would fall out as some wit once commented)- the auction was conducted with written bidding.

Yes, sorry - director allowed the hand to be played in 4NT - then adjusted the score back to 3NT making 11. Didn't seem much point to me. I might have been a bit tempted to see whether 4 spades went off and by how much or even see what happened if South was forced to reply to the ace ask (probably would have ended up in 6NT going off one). I wasn't at this event so don't know what the cards were - and I am only hearing one side of the story too.

Bidding went 1C (at least 3 clubs and opening hand)- 1H - X - P - 4S - P - 3NT. 3NT not accepted and bid changed to 4NT which now becomes a RKC ace ask - director says 1C opener must pass for remainder of the auction. All pass and 11 tricks are made. Director takes the auction back to 3NT making 11 tricks - what's the point?

Bidding went - no intervening bid - 1NT (15-18 balanced) - 2D (alerted and explained when asked as transfer to hearts) - all pass. Before the opening lead is made 1NT opener called the director. Scenario 1 - Opener somehow thought he was passing 2H Scenario 2 - Opener was asleep, knew it was a transfer (after all he alerted it!) and meant to bid 2H

At a recent congress East made a face up opening lead (heart) out of turn. Director was called and Declarer was given the options and elected to accept the lead and be dummy. So far, so good. The Director stayed at the table and when E/W either won the first trick or regained the lead (not sure which - I wasn't there) the Director disallowed the lead of a heart. I can't find anything in the Law Book - can someone please point me in the right direction.

I wasn't suggesting Law 9 - simply querying your reference to it in an earlier reply. If West waited until it was her turn to call, then asked about a possible failure to alert, called the director, surely the 2H bid could be changed under Law 21B - call based on misinformation from an opponent (failure to alert promptly where an alert is required by the Regulating Authority is deemed misinformation). Vampyr says the call cannot be changed because it's not the final call but that is not how I read it. This incident happened at another club and it's true that CC's are not commonly used here (although as a director, I try)

I would be amazed and astounded if they had a CC

North made an assumption that the 2♦ bid was a transfer - correct as it turned out, and was probably horrified when she saw her partner bidding hearts. What is the correct procedure - wait until it is her turn to bid then ask about the 2♦ bid and when it is described as a transfer to hearts call the director who would then give South the opportunity to withdraw their bid of hearts ? I was thinking along the same lines as Pran - at the time she didn't KNOW an infraction had occurred so can we apply Law 9?

I think so ..... I wasn't given the board number, the name of the players or the table result ... but I read between the lines. This seemed to be the only hand where West would open a strong NT and East would transfer to hearts. The deep finesse record says that 3D should make 8 tricks, but if it was being played by a Novice 3 down seems OK too. This board also had an accredited director playing North with a weaker player in South so I'm reasonably sure. My initial thought was to continue the auction from the 2H bid, play out whatever eventuates, than award a weighted score. Although we don't give procedural penalties as a general rule, as this was a red point event (club championship level), I would have given North a warning and maybe even a PP.

[hv=pc=n&s=sq6haq93daj873cq2&w=sk872hk6dkq2cajt9&n=st53h8dt654ck7643&e=saj94hjt7542d9c85&d=w&v=e&b=16&a=1np2d2h]399|300[/hv] I was asked my opinion on this auction - Just out of interest , how would you rule on the following scenario which happened today during a red point session . Average player W opens strong 1 NT , accredited Director N passes , average player E bids 2D which is a transfer to hearts BUT W doesn’t circle the bid then novice player S bids 2H . N summons the Director & requests that S be allowed to change his bid because the transfer wasn’t alerted & he assumed it was a natural overcall of D without asking . W is at fault for not alerting but S didn’t exercise the right to enquire & then there is the unauthorised info in to factor because W now knows that S has at least 5 Hs . I'm not sure what the director ruled as I wasn't told, but I am assuming that South replaced his call with a 3♦ bid which went three off.

Thanks - I'm cheered up considerably now. Because I didn't consider it a "judgement" ruling at the time, I didn't go away and look at the hands - it wasn't until I got home later that I was reviewing the day and checked. I will be having a "word" to South today ..... just so he knows he didn't 100% get away with it.

I'm so disappointed to think that South would have fielded this misbid - I can quite imagine that he probably got some reaction when he explained the 2NT bid to East. He used to be my playing partner :( I'm really cranky with myself too for not picking it up earlier. :angry: