arikp111

As being East on this hand I'm afraid the actual facts are not as stated above. 1. don't recall North saying that, rather when asked by the TD why did he bid slam he told him he had such a good hand that he felt obliged to bid it. he made an argument of evaluation rather than mathematics (# of KC) 2. we never had the chance to officially argue anything. At the table the TD asked for review with explanations. That's it. It's is true however that I used this argument while discussing the hand after the match was concluded together with members of the other team who were considering whether to appeal. And of course I suggested it on IsraBridge forum and here as well. Arik

I've not answered your question because I find it to be irrelevant. S wasn't looking for grand, he wasn't sure 6 is on. when the TD asked N why he bid slam he answered along the lines "look at my hand, how good it is; how can I not bid the slam" He certainly didn't say "if I got 4 KC I must bid on and 6S is my weakest bid."

At this point I would like to add that S actual hand was: ♠AQXXXX ♥JXX ♦KXX ♣X Clearly, 5♠ doesn't make any sense - he knows N must hold 4 KC unless he super-accepted with 1 KC and 19 HCP. So finding equally ridiculous hands that will bid RKCB and would make 6♠ a lousy proposition opposite North's actual hand is quite an easy exercise.

I was east on this hand. I posted these questions here as on the the Israeli thread there were IMHO some peculiar comments and I wanted a second opinion (and hopefully more... ) Some thought the TD did wrong by even going through the process of consulting with five players. They believe the case is so clear cut that the score (NS +1430) should have been upheld on the spot. Others even went further and claimed that I should not have called the TD and that calling him was ill-judged, petty and quarrelsome. As for the result of the ruling - in similarity to the opinions expressed here - most of the repliers said that had they been on the poll they would allow the 6S call. FWIW I think that the 6S call should be disallowed and changing the score to 5S+1 is the correct thing to do. Here is my reasoning - I believe both N and S should know that 5D shows unconditionally 4 KC hence 5S is a clear sign-off. I agree that generally when asking for KC and getting a 4 KC reply should mean slam is to be bid but this case is an exception. I can think of several hands S (the 5S bidder) can have, in the context of the bidding thus far, where he has no KC and will only bid slam when PD shows all the KC. It might be bad practice to use RKCB in this instance but still... Some of the repliers (on the Israeli forum) said that they would bid the slam on grounds that "what possibly more can N have" I've two issues with this statement. 1. I believe RKCB is simply a question, it doesn't hold any invitational overtones to it, hence N is not entitled to apply judgment unless his answer to RKCB has been ambiguous, which is not the case here. 2. For sake of argument, let's assume that N (the 2NT opener) is allowed to bid slam based on the quality of his hand. I think that in the context of super-accepting N has a minimum and therefore PASS is a LA. The hand can be made better in several aspects - more KC, more controls, having a good side suit. Furthermore, few boards earlier S made a serious underbid which led to NS missing a cold game. Might not the BIT help N just enough to bid the slam on the premise that S did it again? Finally, let me digress on the issue of whether a 2NT super accept hand can hold just one KC. To begin with I ran a simulation of 100000 2NT opening hands, I didn't quantify into the parameters a fit in S or anything else that might imply super-accept. I asked how many KC do these hands hold, I nominated the SK arbitrarily as the 5th KC. The results were: 0 KC 0% 1 KC 0.46% 2 KC 14.47% 3 KC 51.33% 4 KC 31.34% 5 KC 2.4% As can be seen 4 KC is about 68 times more likely than 1 KC, I think that if we factor in super accepting then the ratio would be way bigger. Now, I would like to claim that by definition super accepting should no be done with 1 KC. Even with the example hands presented on this thread e.g. QJxxx, AJ, KQJ, KQJ or QJxx, Jx, KQJ, AKQJ one should notsuper accept. why is that? Say I bid just 3S - if PD passes for sure he doesn't hold an Ace so game is off the top - GOOD. if PD bids 3NT I can cue-bid to show a good hand for S. if PD invites sometime further in the bidding I'm going to cooperate adamantly. To summarize, I can see no wrong coming out of bidding just 3S with these hands.

The following occurred in a second division league match of the Israeli Bridge Federation (scoring method is IMPs, screens are not in use): Bidding: E/ALL N E S W P P P 2NT P 3H P 4S P 4NT P 5D P 5S* P 6S P P P 2NT - 20-22 balanced 3H - standard transfer 4S - super accept, no other special meaning 4NT - RKCB (S) 5D - 1/4 out of 5 5S* - considerable BIT, it took south about a minute to bid it When the bidding concluded east called the TDand relayed the facts. Both parties agreed to the facts as stated above. The TD instructed the players to continue playing the board and score it normally for the time being while he considers his ruling. Result: NS +1430 North hand: KJTXX AX AQX AQX The TD eventually changed the score to: NS +680, EW -680 The TD stated that he had consulted with five players out of which two said they would pass 5S. In his own words: "As 40% constitute PASS as a logical alternative to bidding 6S I've got no choice but to change the score accordingly." For various reasons the team NS pair is part of decided not to appeal: - Last match of the day, long trip home. - Had they won the appeal they would still lose the match (for some reason how bad is the loss was of no concern to them.) Anyway, the day after one of the team members posted this hand on an Israeli bridge forum asking whether this ruling was reasonable. At this stage all I would like to say is that a heated discussion ensued and in fact is still going on at the forum. I'm interested in hearing the opinions of this forum's members as to: - what do you think of the ruling process - do you find the poll result to match your thinking? - do you think that east was acting in a spiteful manner by calling the TD and should not have called him to begin with? You may find the following facts of relevance: NS pair could be considered as advanced+ players. This was the 12th board of a 16 boards match. On the 10th board NS missed reaching a lay-down game as south decided to take the low road and invite rather than bid game by himself holding 12HCP and a fit opposite a 1st in hand vulnerable 1S opener.