PeterAlan

After the 3 heart ruffs and the diamonds, East's endplayed twice, first with the club ace, to give dummy all three spade tricks.

On a detail, AKQJxxx counts as 7 clear-cut tricks (CCTs), since CCTs are defined (Blue Book 2016 5C3 p20) for this purpose as what the suit will make opposite a void in partner's hand and the second-best break (here 4-2) of the other cards in the opponents'. The hand is therefore 8 CCTs, and meets the Extended Rule of 25, subject to proper disclosure, under 5C3(c).

No, you haven't understood it correctly. The raw scores at each of the four tables are aggregated (with appropriate sign to differentiate between N/S and E/W of course) and that sum of four scores is then converted to IMPs. That's how timjands gets to a net 250 in his example (+400, -400, +-400, -+150 -> +- 250). It's a common scoring method for league matches in EBU-land.

It's going direct to the Supreme Court, skipping the Appeal Court step.

Three guidelines for your less credulous future self: When you need a working hypothesis if something sounds too good to be true, it is if something could be a hoax, it is cock-up rather than conspiracy every time.

No, he didn't. He called him the Emeritus Professor of Bio-Sophistry.

Partner once treated me to 1NT (12-14) - 2♣ (Stayman) 2♠ - 7NT I don't have a record of the hands, but I remember having to pick up 4 ♠s to K 10 in order to make it.

In the US, wouldn't he be labelled SoB?

Nigel, what I was objecting to was your assertion that I "think that it's standard Acol to rebid 2♦ with 5+ ♦s and 4♠s": I don't, and I have never said anything like it. You now (and in an earlier post) agree that "with a weak hand, 4♠ and a longer minor, the normal Acol reply to 1♥ is 1♠", so you presumably were aware (despite the impression given by your OP) that there could be a longer minor when the initial response of 1♠ was given (and also accept that it's GBK). However, the whole thrust of your OP is that after the second-round bid of 2♦ this possibility completely left your head - it was then a "revelation to [you]" - and all I have been saying is that it shouldn't have done so.

You are misrepresenting me - I have said that with a hand too weak for a 2/1 response then it's normal to respond 1♠ to 1♥ with (as here) ♠KQxx despite having a longer weak ♦ suit. I'm not speaking for her, but I'd be surprised if this is news to your partner. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that this much appears to be news to you. I have said nothing about whether it's then normal to bid the ♦ suit after partner's 1NT rebid. However, if, with a hand that's not prepared to accept a game invitation, one then chooses to do so instead of passing partner's 15-17 1NT rebid then it's suggestive that the ♦s could be longer than the ♠s: why is one considering the minor suit contract when 7 tricks in NT scores the same as 8 in 2♦, and 8 tricks beats 2♦+1? This seems to me to be true of any natural bidding system, not just Acol, which anyway is more a bidding approach than a single "system".

Nigel, I've already said I think you're overdoing this. Let's suppose, as seems highly likely for the reasons already given, that your opponents do not have any specific agreements or understandings about the 1♥-1♠-1NT-2♦ sequence, and look at exactly what you're complaining about. "North claimed E-W should disclose that diamonds can be longer than spades": If they have no specific understanding, on what basis is E supposed to disclose this about W's bid? Only on the basis of general bridge knowledge, the same as is available to you. W clearly hasn't got a hand he regarded as strong enough to push on to game even after the 1NT [15-17]/ 2NT rebid sequence from his partner, so won't have the values for a 2-over-1 initial response. A player of your experience - far greater than mine - is surely aware, if they think about it, that the ♦s might be longer than the ♠s in a weak hand on that sequence, especially as W had the opportunity to pass 1NT instead of introducing the ♦s on the next round. You have to have reasonable expectations. You're entitled to the opponents' agreements and understandings, but you can't expect to be given at the table every possible ramification of their sequence that they've never previously considered, and, as Paul has already pointed out, it would take forever if they tried to do this. There is a line do be drawn between disclosure (there's a hint in the meaning of the word) and being spoonfed analysis that you should be doing for yourself. "I was interested in 2♦...": Maybe you were, but according to your narrative S hasn't made that specific enquiry before selecting her opening lead. You don't get to ask until she has done so and dummy is about to be faced, so what difference does it make? Finally, whilst the opening ♦ lead made declarer's task a little easier, it did not directly cost a trick and the defence still had time to establish and take all the tricks available to them.

Amen.

Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. I don't propose to address the question of the director's actions, but I have little sympathy with the rest of Nigel's complaints (or with his claim of naivete). How is West supposed to respond to East's opening 1♥? The choices are between 1♠, 1NT and 2♦, and with an 8-count with both a singleton and a doubleton J and such a thin ♦ suit it's hardly surprising that W rejected the latter, and preferred 1♠ to 1NT. As it happens, I play regularly but infrequently (1st and 5th Wednesdays) with S, playing an Acol-ish system, and, although we haven't discussed specifically this kind of position, 1♠ is both the response I would make on the W hand and also the response I would expect from her, and I see it as about as GBKish as one is ever going to get. It is also the response my (regular) partner on the evening made, whereupon we comfortably reached 3NT after a checkback sequence (we were allowed to make +3, the one highlight in an otherwise bad evening, as it happens). I see that Nigel's score is recorded as 2NT+3 (not +2), but nevertheless it was worth 56%, and I'd be pretty happy that my opponents didn't bid game. This was the summer meeting Mixed Pairs, where there are many scratch partnerships. Indeed, I understand that N/S themselves were only paired through the partner-wanted list, and, whilst I don't know whether or not E/W are regular partners, it would hardly be surprising if they too were scratch. Many of the pairs in the field will not have begun to address such sequences, let alone have any established partnership agreement. Some adjustment of expectations is necessary.

"Queen Victoria eats peaches, cherries and cream." (the answer's in the link). Learnt at 11.

This still does not, to my mind, address the point that I raised. They had effectively two choices:. They could peddle a mythical £350m or they could peddle a factual £160m. In choosing the higher figure over the lower figure they expose themselves to being debunked, but presumably consider that risk (or should I say certain negative impact) to have a lesser effect than the marginal additional impact of persuading the electorate of the higher figure over that of the lower figure. My argument (pure speculation) is that much of the effect of their case would have been achieved by peddling £160m, so that the marginal benefit of peddling the higher fictitious figure £350m is slight. It is that marginal benefit that is eroded by having the higher fraudulent claim exposed, and I am just surprised that (if it is the case), that marginal benefit exceeds the cost. I wasn't trying to address your point, but in general I agree with you. Just guessing now (I can't face researching the issue), but it might well be that some of the Leave group (eg UKIP) had been peddling the £350m figure for some time before the referendum, and they didn't want to use the true figure of £160m or so in the campaign because they'd then have to answer questions about why the number had been downgraded.

I think you are too generous. The 350M/weak figure does not even include the famous UK discount. It seems hard to imagine that someone even remotely interested in politics and the EU versus the UK would not know about that. I agree. I have no doubt at all that the £350 million amount was deliberately put forward by people who knew full well that it was effectively a lie, on the cynical basis that if you tell a lie often enough and loudly enough then a fair number of people will believe you. They also reckon that it has a substantial "dog whistle" appeal to their target voting audience. These reasons are why they have continued to use it all the way through the campaign, despite its comprehensive debunking. Similarly, their presentation of the immigration issue has been deceitful and calculated to pander to xeno-, islamo- and a whole range of racist and other phobias. I despise such cynicism in political campaigning, and it is a major reason why I have no time at all for the Leave campaign. Theirs has been Project Cynical Deceit. Peter

I've just seen this, and the numbers in the link Zelandakh quoted are the same as I have (as one would hope!). So it's (1) 17.5375% (to 4 dp), and (2) once in every 478+ 32-board matches. PS: Since the probability of one side holding 16 to 24 points in a deal is 64.9249%, the probability of neither side holding 25+ points for an entire 32-board match is just under 1 in 1 million.

Take the case of the actual incident I mentioned. The defenders did not recognise that there had been a revoke until after they had called to the next board. If attention has already been drawn to the revoke by dummy's question, then Laws 64B4 & 5 do not apply, and rectification is 2 tricks under Law 64A1. If not, then rectification is under Law 64C, in this case 1 trick. Law 61B2(a) does not impose any time restriction on dummy asking declarer, who may already have established the revoke. In your world, we then have the situation that an inaccurate answer by declarer (as happened here) may give rise to an advantage - if it's not recognised in time - that an accurate answer does not.

It isn't pertinent at all. The question of whether he should have followed suit at the time of the putative revoke is a matter of fact that can be settled at any time, and does not in any way depend on whether attention has been drawn to it. It simply comes down to whether or not he had a card of the suit in question. A revoke is no more than the act of failing to follow suit. You seem to be confusing it with the combination of that act and the recognition of it.

I think that the answers you gave within the question are correct: "No" (not applicable; there's no issue) if he didn't revoke; "Yes" if he did. As to why, there's no need to elaborate on the "No", and I've already set out why I think that the answer to the other case is "Yes" rather than being "No" as well.

Indeed. But if there was no revoke, there's no issue anyway. We're only concerned with the case where there was.

Sorry, I shouldn't have used the expression "in point". It just means "relevant". Yes, if someone calls, the director will be dealing with an established revoke: the question then is how rectification is determined, and that depends on whether or not attention has been drawn to the revoke. That is all I am concerned with; I have no interest in PPs or any such complication here, and I am avoiding being drawn into commenting on aguahombre's variant scenario.

It was an incident of this sort that caused me to generate the OP, which is derived from it. What happened was that declarer revoked at trick 2 by ruffing (a club with a heart trump) and when asked by dummy said that she had no clubs when in fact she still held one. She then played on. This was the second board of a 3-board round, and the defenders only recognised that they had been misled when they discussed the hand after playing the third board. Yes, they could have realised at the end of the second hand if they had been fully on the ball, but it had ended with declarer claiming by saying "I have only trumps left"; the defenders hadn't counted declarer's trumps sufficiently accurately to realise that she must still have held one plain card, and accepted the claim. The question is then how the TD adjusts the result. If attention has been drawn to the revoke by the question and answer, then neither 64B4 nor 64B5 apply, and rectification is under 64A; otherwise (the defenders have called to the third board) it is under 64C. Hence my earlier remark, which you appear to be echoing: "This is where the problem lies - the defenders may well not [call the TD], because they do not realise that there has nevertheless actually been a revoke." For completeness, I'll note that the scenarios of the OP of course apply mutatis mutandis to revokes / enquiries by a defending side.

Please see discussion above where this has already been addressed. In brief, declarer's action in not following suit when he should is what constitutes a revoke (see Law 61A) - nothing more is required, so it is both necessary and sufficient. Attention may not be being drawn to the fact that a revoke has taken place, but that's not the same thing as a revoke itself.

No. The act of saying "Having none, partner?" of itself draws attention to the play in question (especially when it elicits a response). Bear in mind that it is only to the advantage of the non-offending side (if in fact there has been a revoke) that such attention has been drawn. We do not want to compound the issue further by allowing the offending side to suggest that, despite this exchange, the state of their opponents' mind is such that attention has somehow nevertheless not been so drawn. But that wasn't what I was alluding to, which was simply that such an act draws attention to the revoke notwithstanding that the players may be unaware at the time that a revoke has in fact taken place.