WellSpyder

Are you sure it is reasonable to assume that someone who can't count can nevertheless get to within one of the right answer? :)

That would probably be Irish Fishbein in this part of the world, but my regular partner and I prefer a form of Modified Irish Fishbein. Standard Fishbein uses a double for penalties over an opposing pre-empt, and a bid of the next suit up for take-out. Irish Fishbein, as you have explained, reverses these two meanings. We have modified this further to keep the take-out double of Irish Fishbein, but replaced the bid of the next suit up showing a penalty double with a natural interpretation of this bid....

it certainly didn't come across that way to me. In fact it came across as an incredibly patient attempt to be genuinely helpful, even though you must have suspected it would be ignored or misunderstood by the intended recipient.

Exactly. I do realise that it doesn't matter at all, and that it corresponds to the historical different calculation of match points. I just thought it was a bit ironic that in England we happen to use a name that corresponds very well to the US system of match-pointing even though that isn't actually what we do.....

Anyone else find it curious that board-a-match scoring awards one point per board, while point-a-board scoring actually awards two points per board?

This still happens a reasonable amount of the time. There still seems to be a tendency to assume that an extension of Hamman's rule applies, though - if someone bids 3NT, that ends the auction. I saw this twice on more or less consecutive boards last weekend. On the first one, my LHO bid 3N and partner started to pick up his bidding cards. I objected, and duly put out a green card when the auction came round to me. On the second, partner bid 3N and RHO started asking lots of questions about the auction, which we duly answered. To his credit, RHO did then put out a pass card rather than simply make a lead, and I promptly bid 4♥ as I had always intended to do....

One thing you might want to bear in mind is that as I understand it deciding the legality or otherwise of a particular method is not a question on which an appeals committee can legitimately rule (though as with any TD ruling on a matter of law they can ask the TD to reconsider). Disclaimer: I don't know anything about how these things are organised in South Africa, but the above is at least how I think the laws are interpreted in England.

It is? I think I have been playing at the wrong clubs for the past 30 years....

Who called the TD? Dummy is not expected to acquiesce or dispute a claim, so unless declarer himself is now arguing that he would only lose one diamond trick then as TD I think I would say that I have nothing to rule on and that the result agreed by the declarer and defenders is the one that stands. In any case, declarer appears to have made a clear statement of how he intends to play the hand, involving giving up two diamond tricks. It seems clear therefore that he has not noticed the possibility of ruffing one of the diamond losers. It is, of course, possible that if he played out the hand then he would notice that when the time came. But it is also possible that he would play out a number of trumps first in the hope that the defence would discard a diamond. I see no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt, and would rule two diamond tricks to the defence.

I was West at the other table in this teams match, and North did indeed double at his first turn. My partner passed as East (anyone for redouble?), South rebid 2C and that was the end of the auction.

Does this apply at teams (as OP states this was) as well as pairs? And even if opponents are reasonably honest they could presumably have a 7-card fit, even if they are unlikely to be violating Burns' Law of Total Trumps.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that a low heart was a poor lead double dummy. But that isn't the same as saying you shouldn't lead the suit in practice. I don't always manage to defend hands double dummy, and the same is even true for my partners sometimes, and it can make a difference if my opening lead gives them an idea of which suit I am likely to want them to lead back.

I think extended mental effort is part of it, but I think physical causes like dehydration play a part as well. I find having fairly regular drinks of water does actually help reduce headaches from a long bridge session.

Yeah, I still like the idea of telephones being used for making telephone calls, cameras being used for taking photographs, and the like. And they still don't let me play in seniors events!

Good point. But oppo may not be able to win the club in the right hand to continue trumps without giving you a favourable option in clubs (eg a ruffing finesse).

I think you have misunderstood. Chrism is postulating a situation in which a pair who would otherwise receive an artificial adjusted score because THEIR OPPONENTS have previously completed the board against incorrect opponents may be given an opportunity to receive a real score on the board against other opponents.

Help me out a bit here since I fear I am missing something. Unless there are important ♦ spots that you haven't told us about then it looks to me as if declarer should indeed go off unless a) you lead a ♠ away from the J or b) you don't lead a ♥ and neither do you/partner when declarer ducks a ♦ trick, thereby allowing a double squeeze.

1♦ - 1♥; 1NT - 2♣* 3♦ - 3NT.

Indeed - I was also trying to interpret the "lead warnings" referred to in the OP. Against a small slam it would be different, of course, since West might be looking for a ruff, but that is not typically the case against a grand! He might be looking to give a ruff, of course, but in that case the spades are presumably 5-0 and there is nothing you can do about it.

Perhaps. But overtaking to play a spade looks a lot more successful than trying to cash a second heart, which would allow the contract to make. Was the difference between 1 off and 2 off significant at imps?

"Bridge Behind Bars" by Julian Pottage and Nick Smith relies on the premise that bridge is played in jail (though perhaps I should make clear for those who don't know the book that it is an entertaining work of bridge fiction rather than a factual account....)

I agree this is contradictory. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to me to cause too many problems in practice, and is actually quite helpful. Against experienced players I will tend to assume that the lack of an alert means the bid isn't alertable, unless the lack of an alert is so surprising that no-one will assume there is any UI from just checking they really meant not to alert it. Against less experienced players I will be more cautious about deducing anything from a lack of an alert if the "normal" meaning of a bid is alertable, and the section of the White Book quoted confirms that I cannot expect to gain from "bridge lawyering" an inexperienced pair who have forgotten to alert a bid that I was pretty confident I understood anyway.

These situations always feel like they should be easy, but I have seen them go wrong too often at the table to assume they are too basic to worry about. My approach against NT is to combine the count ask with a request to partner to unblock an honour if he has one. What sort of holding would you have to want to ask for count rather than attitude? Presumably a strong holding. So it is likely to be even more useful to know that partner holds the missing honour than the count. So partner only actually gives count on a K lead when not holding an honour. On this hand this means the K would be overtaken with the A. It is perhaps slightly less clear what to lead back (original 4th highest would be normal for me, but holding a second honour do you want to lead 10 back to show partner that card, too? Certainly with an original holding of 4, playing A followed by 10 looks the most helpful). In this case it shouldn't matter which one you return.

I consider pass and 2♠. I pass, because I can't help feeling that if I'm not prepared to pass now then I was wrong to bid 2♣ on the previous round.

But the question is whether using an irregularity regularly should be an irregularity....