Bidding problem with a ruling twist

[brianshark]

IMPs, All Vul, Teams

 

You hold ♠- ♥Kx ♦AK98654 ♣9863

 

Your partner opens 2♣. This is either a weak 2 in diamonds or a strong balanced hand of 25-26 or 28+ or a GF single-suiter or 3-suiter.

 

For better or worse, you respond the artificial, waiting, passable 2♦. Partner jumps to 4♦ showing a GF 3-suiter with shortness in diamonds. You have no agreements about continuations. (Yes, this is probably not the greatest method in the world) 4N would be to play, 5NT probably some sort of pick a slam.

 

What do you bid?

 

 

 

===========Part Two Below==========

 

 

The setting is a 6 team single round robin with 2x10 board matches over a weekend.

 

At the other table, the auction went something along the lines of:

2♣ - 3♦

3NT - (tank)4♦

5NT - 7♦

 

(with fairly standard methods, 5NT confirmed as = GSF)

 

Now imagine that at some point earlier in that match, a player at another table was a bit loud and said "7♦ makes" while yelling at his partner after they found themselves in 5♦. At this point, a player at another table loudly "shushs" them. A significant portion of the room heard this. That includes me, but I forgot it pretty quiclky afterwards. When I'm concentrating my memory of everything, including what I held in the previous hand, is pretty terrible.

 

The tournament director was immediately called by one of the opponents once 7♦ was bid and she explained that she heard the "announcement" that 7♦ would make. Her partner concedes that the auction is a reasonable one. Both opponents and the responder in the above auction admits to have heard the player at the other table (responder was, I think, the one who said shush). The opener in the above auction did not hear the shout. That was not questioned by anyone. Someone mentioned something about him being "tone deaf", probably not literally but he hasn't the greatest hearing anyway.

 

It is also worth noting that at our table (the auction in the first part, which ended with a 6♣ call by me), my LHO immediately excused himself from the table just before the opening lead was faced to speak privately to the TD. He returned and play continued.

 

Partner held something close to:

 

♠AKJx ♥AQxx ♦Q ♣AKQT

 

I'm not sure about the opponents cards but everything broke and 7 is cold in ♣, ♦ and NT.

 

So given the facts, what is your decision as TD?

[Finch]

There was a ruling pretty similar to this recently at an English congress, which led to a great deal of bad-tempered debate (including various disciplinary & procedural penalties).

 

The one thing that everyone agreed on is that

 

- if you believe you have UI about what makes/does not make on the hand it is your responsibility to call the TD IMMEDIATELY. You absolutely don't wait, find out what the opponents bid to, possibly wait to see if it makes and then say the opponents may have heard something.

 

- I'll give both sets of opponents the benefit of the doubt as they waited until the bidding was over but didn't wait to see the result, it's possible it's only then they worked out which board it was.

 

- responder at the at other table should have called the TD when she saw her hand and recognised it was likely to be the 7D makes hand. She has a decision over 3NT which could have been influenced.

 

Anyway, I cancel the board and award both sides Ave+. Various additional PPs are quite possible

 

- to responder at the other table for not calling the TD in time

- to the loudly discussing pair

[brianshark]

Just to clarify, "she" refers to my team mate who was an opponent of responder at the other table. Repsponder himself was a "he".

 

Also, when you say cancel the board, do you just mean for this match, or all 3 matches which played the same boards?

[JoAnneM]

Was this ACBL? If so, is that opening bid even legal? What is it called?

[pclayton]

Was this ACBL? If so, is that opening bid even legal? What is it called?

Yes it is legal as Midchart.

 

According to the new CC, you can play it in pairs events.