[UdcaDenny]

Just played a tournament where opener bid 1C and responder bid 1D.
I passed in 4th position and opener also passed. They didnt alert
and when asked I got the answer "no information". I called TD and
she said it was normal SAYC bidding. Im not an expert of SAYC but
a bid from an unpassed partner must be forcing in my world.

[blackshoe]

It's forcing in SAYC too, but there's no law that says opener can't pass a forcing bid.

[Zelandakh]

Opener is allowed to pass providing they have no UI from their partner to indicate that they have not got a strong hand. It certainly is not "normal SAYC bidding" but perhaps what the TD meant is that the bids have the same meanings as they would in SAYC, that is that the 1♣ opener is 3+ and ~12/13+ hcp, and that the 1♦ response is 6+ and forcing. If it turns out that the opponents are actually playing a system where the 1♦ response has an unexpected meaning, such as being non-forcing, then there should have been an alert. It is certainly not acceptable for the opponents to give the explanation "no information" about a call on the first round of bidding. If the TD allowed them to get away with this then (s)he was not doing their job properly.

As an aside, did you or your partner have a nice hand and pause for thought before passing? If you did this then Opener is allowed (at their own risk) to surmise from this that their partner might not have enough values for game. Of course, another possibility is that Opener simply psyched with a very weak hand. That is allowed provided that they do not do it often enough to create a partnership understanding.

What should have happened is that the TD:
1. asks the opponents to provide full explanations of the calls in their auction;
2. listen to the explanations to find out if there was any failure to alert;
3. ascertain, probably after the hand, why Opener passed the forcing response;
4. if Opener psyched, find out if this happens often anough to represent a CPU;
5. if Opener "took a position", check if there were any mannerisms of other UI that might have suggested the action.

Most likely, the Opener is simply a weak player and there is no rule against that!

[glen]

UdcaDenny, on 2013-February-06, 21:56, said:

... I called TD and she said it was normal SAYC bidding ...

at this point you need to ask for a normal TD

[Bbradley62]

Zelandakh, on 2013-February-07, 03:46, said:

If it turns out that the opponents are actually playing a system where the 1♦ response has an unexpected meaning, such as being non-forcing, then there should have been an alert. It is certainly not acceptable for the opponents to give the explanation "no information" about a call on the first round of bidding. If the TD allowed them to get away with this then (s)he was not doing their job properly.

Opponents are not playing any "system" with special meanings; based on the information available in myhands, it appears that they are two lower-level players who met at the tournament desk one minute before the online tournament started and agreed to play "standard" without having any significant discussion. The director can ask all the questions she wants, but she's never going to get a useful answer. And if this is the type of tournament where many of the same players play "all the time", she probably knows this and simply determined not to waste everyone's time. It's certainly not reasonable to start with the presumption that she wasn't doing her properly.

Zelandakh, on 2013-February-07, 03:46, said:

Most likely, the Opener is simply a weak player and there is no rule against that!

This!