[mrdct]

The Bendigo swiss pairs was played today with a healthy 60-pair field (the venue's capacity) marking the return of the Bendigo congress after a 20+ year hiatus. The field was typical for a country congress with mostly mediocre non-metropolitan pairs with a handful of decent, but not top-shelf, pairs from Melbourne in the field. I was South partnering my 14-year-old son and we were probably (in my biased opinion) one of the best two or three pairs in the field. I'd never come across East-West before, but they were a couple of little-old-ladies and seemed to be an irregular and/or recent partnership.

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North-South were playing a short-club system with transfers, transfer advances, variable NT and a few other gadgets and in the previous few boards had had several auctions with multiple artifical bids, all of which had been alerted using the correct procedure of drawing a circle around partner's bid and saying "alert". It was apparent that East-West were not overly conversant with correct alerting procedures and the greater than usual frequency of alerting going on which may have left them feeling an obligation to make sure they alert anything remotely artificial. They probably play mostly in club duplicates with everyone playing plain vanila standard and nothing alertable ever cropping-up.

After North's second pass, East belatedly drew a circle around 2♦ and said "I'm not sure if I'm meant to alert this". South said "if it's artificial you should alert it". East said "it shows ♠ support but not necessarily a ♦ suit but ♦ will be her best suit outside of ♠". South said, "yeah that should be alerted - we should get the director as North might be able to get his bid back". North said, "I'm still passing" so the director wasn't called and auction proceeded. When the bidding came back to West, she was clearly flustered and asked the table "do I call the director when there has been a misexplanation" and South said, "just finish the auction and if your side becomes the declaring side that's the time to clarify any misexplanations". West then bid 5♦ and North and East swifty passed and before South had time to act, the director was at the table to report on a ruling from an earlier hand. South said to the director, "I'm going to pass, but could you have a look at this board too?" and proceeded to outline the facts noted above with East-West agreeing to what transpired. 5♦ made an overtrick.

At the end of the hand, the director was called back to the table (as requested when he was there a few minuted prior) and asked West why she bid 5♦. Somewhat self-incriminatingly, West said that after the misexplanation of 2♦ she felt she needed to jump straight to 5♦ as anything else could be misunderstood by her partner who thinks she has ♠ support.

The director took it away and returned after the next hand (last of the match) to report his ruling. How would you rule?

[pran]

I would (as Director, and in case also on the AC) investigate the probable outcome if West instead of bidding 5♦ had bid anything else (say 4♦); I consider pass from West in this situation completely out of question.

East might bid 4♥ which then most likely would have become the final contract, making with (at least) 12 tricks. Or East might have bid 4♠ after West probably would have bid 5♦ anyway.

I see no damage to North/South here and would let the table result stand.

[han]

Most importantly, I would try to explain to EW that they have violated the rules. This might not be easy.

I'd probably let the result stand. It should be a very good result for NS anyway, as 6H is cold. It is conceivable that EW would have landed in 4S-1 if the explanations had not helped west, but it is far from certain. I don't think it is unreasonable to change the score to 4S-1.

If I were north then I would urge my partner not to ask such questions. If I had wantged to bid over 2D I could have asked myself.

[aguahombre]

han, on 2011-May-29, 07:37, said:

If I were north then I would urge my partner not to ask such questions. If I had wantged to bid over 2D I could have asked myself.

+1
Yes, South suggesting to his partner what options might result must be wrong. And if the questions themselves were for partner's benefit only, we know that is wrong.

[pran]

han, on 2011-May-29, 07:37, said:

Most importantly, I would try to explain to EW that they have violated the rules. This might not be easy.

Indeed, but with the implied class of player I wouldn't stress this too much.

han, on 2011-May-29, 07:37, said:

I'd probably let the result stand. It should be a very good result for NS anyway, as 6H is cold. It is conceivable that EW would have landed in 4S-1 if the explanations had not helped west, but it is far from certain. I don't think it is unreasonable to change the score to 4S-1.

Why? Given the story don't you believe that West would have pulled to 5♦ anyway?

han, on 2011-May-29, 07:37, said:

If I were north then I would urge my partner not to ask such questions. If I had wanted to bid over 2D I could have asked myself.

What questions?
South answered East's uncertainty about whether she should have alerted the 2♦ bid, and as far as I can see gave a correct comment. The following conversation seems quite OK (and educational) for the class of players involved. And finally South asked the Director in a polite manner to have a look at the board, this is certainly not in any way improper by South.

[mgoetze]

pran, on 2011-May-29, 09:22, said:

Why? Given the story don't you believe that West would have pulled to 5♦ anyway?

Without the UI, 3♠ shows a much better spade suit than this. If West bids 4♦, any East persists with 4♠, pass is certainly a LA. Of course, if I believed the explanation East gave I would be cuebidding 4♥ over 4♦, which makes it a bit more complicated.

[mrdct]

The director did, in fact, adjust the score to 4♠E-1 which was a favourable outcome for North-South with the datum on the board being -510 with only small number of pairs getting to slam in this fairly weak field.

The basis of the director's ruling that was that in the absence of the UI, West must assume that East has extra strength and a self-sustaining ♠ suit; so 4♠ is the most likely makeable game from West's perspective, particularly with an aceless hand.

The other issue here is that East is also holding UI from West's attempt to correct the misexplanation before the auction was over and if West had kept her poker face when bidding 5♦, East may well bid 5♠ if she still believes 2♦ was a ♠ raise.

It's probably an interesting poll question to toss around with the West hand in isolation on the given auction without any alerts and extraneous comments. I'll pose the poll question in a different sub-forum and see what I get.

[peachy]

han, on 2011-May-29, 07:37, said:

Most importantly, I would try to explain to EW that they have violated the rules. This might not be easy.

I'd probably let the result stand. It should be a very good result for NS anyway, as 6H is cold. It is conceivable that EW would have landed in 4S-1 if the explanations had not helped west, but it is far from certain. I don't think it is unreasonable to change the score to 4S-1.

If I were north then I would urge my partner not to ask such questions. If I had wantged to bid over 2D I could have asked myself.

Agree. Also agree it might not be easy to make the 5D bidder understand she has broken the rules, but the TD cannot just ignore it and must do his best to explain.

[jh51]

pran, on 2011-May-29, 09:22, said:

What questions?
South answered East's uncertainty about whether she should have alerted the 2♦ bid, and as far as I can see gave a correct comment. The following conversation seems quite OK (and educational) for the class of players involved.

I agree that the narritive does not give evidence that South asked for an explanation of the alert. I am not certain that the rest of the conversation is OK. If East gave her explanation of the alert without being asked, I would think that explanation would be UI to West. (Beyond the UI inherent in the alert.)

[blackshoe]

Explanations of partner's calls are UI to partner whether they were requested or not.

[jh51]

blackshoe, on 2011-May-31, 14:29, said:

Explanations of partner's calls are UI to partner whether they were requested or not.

I assume you are responding to my remark. I guess I might have said it better. I think you would agree with my point that one is not supposed to gvie an explanation if one is not asked.

[blackshoe]

Yes, of course.

[bluejak]

Almost every reply shows doubt as to the outcome. How can anyone consider an adjustment that is not weighted?