[bluejak]

A correspondent says:

Scoring: MP

---

W - N - E - S
P - P - P - 1♣
1♦ - 1♥ - 2♦ - 3♠ #1
P - 4♥ - P - 4♦

#1 Alerted.

"I was called to the table after South’s 4♦ bid. South admitted, away from the table, that he had intended to bid 4♦."

Ok, we saw this one in Simple Rulings. Seemed simple enough - allow the 5♦ change without penalty.

Sadly my correspondent continued:

"I ruled that the 4♦ bid was clearly artificial and hence North must pass for the rest of the auction. West did not accept the bid.

"South then bid 6♥ which went two down scoring 0 match points.

"At the end of the session South approached me asking if I should have allowed him to bid 5♦ as it would have shown the same as the 4♦ bid he made insufficiently. Furthermore he said that he thought they would reach 6♠ (This would have scored 22 match points out of 24.)

"My initial reaction was that 4♦ and 5♦ do not convey the same meaning, so North could not bid on over 5♦. South then said he would like to exercise his right to appeal.

"The hand occurred in the qualifying round of a County Championship Pairs and both pairs would have qualified comfortably for the final, whichever way the result went. However, there was a carry forward score and it was agreed that the appeal would be held at the end of the final, if the outcome was likely to affect the overall result. The outcome would not have affected the major placings in the field or the Corwen qualification, so they agreed not to appeal."

If it had gone to appeal, and you had been on the AC, what would you have decided?

[campboy]

Why did North alert 3♠? If, for example, he thought it was a splinter, I don't see NS avoiding 6♥ even without the TD error.

[bluejak]

Sorry: I missed that in the write-up.

"North said, at the end of the auction, he had alerted the 3♠ as he thought it was splinter agreeing Hearts. (2♠ would have indicated a strong black two-suiter.)"

[blackshoe]

Too things strike me — it seems the TD was unwilling to consider that he might have made a mistake, and I find the concept of not bothering to appeal if it "won't matter" to be somewhat bizarre. To me, if I think the TD got it wrong, I want to appeal, whatever the final score may be. I suppose I'm in the minority, though.

[pran]

I agree with campboy, and North's explanation makes sense to me.
Why did South make a skip reverse bid rather than just a reverse bid, and how is N/S going to avoid 6♥ as the final contract with the correct ruling?

South will have a big problem convincing me on an AC that he would pull a 6♥ bid by North (after 5♦) to 6♠, not knowing anything about North's spade support.

[Echognome]

pran, on Apr 30 2010, 12:30 AM, said:

<snip>Why did South make a skip reverse bid rather than just a reverse bid,<snip>

It is not an unreasonable agreement to play that in competitive auctions, you can only splinter in an opponent's suit. In fact, it is my understanding that this is the standard expert agreement in many geographies.

[axman]

bluejak, on Apr 29 2010, 06:40 PM, said:

A correspondent says:

Scoring: MP

---

W - N - E - S
P - P - P - 1♣
1♦ - 1♥ - 2♦ - 3♠ #1
P - 4♥ - P - 4♦

#1 Alerted.

"I was called to the table after South’s 4♦ bid. South admitted, away from the table, that he had intended to bid 4♦."

Ok, we saw this one in Simple Rulings. Seemed simple enough - allow the 5♦ change without penalty.

Sadly my correspondent continued:

"I ruled that the 4♦ bid was clearly artificial and hence North must pass for the rest of the auction. West did not accept the bid.

"South then bid 6♥ which went two down scoring 0 match points.

"At the end of the session South approached me asking if I should have allowed him to bid 5♦ as it would have shown the same as the 4♦ bid he made insufficiently. Furthermore he said that he thought they would reach 6♠ (This would have scored 22 match points out of 24.)

"My initial reaction was that 4♦ and 5♦ do not convey the same meaning, so North could not bid on over 5♦. South then said he would like to exercise his right to appeal.

"The hand occurred in the qualifying round of a County Championship Pairs and both pairs would have qualified comfortably for the final, whichever way the result went. However, there was a carry forward score and it was agreed that the appeal would be held at the end of the final, if the outcome was likely to affect the overall result. The outcome would not have affected the major placings in the field or the Corwen qualification, so they agreed not to appeal."

If it had gone to appeal, and you had been on the AC, what would you have decided?

If I had been on the AC I would be wondering why I was there.

[bluejak]

blackshoe, on Apr 30 2010, 02:31 AM, said:

Too things strike me — it seems the TD was unwilling to consider that he might have made a mistake, and ...

I cannot believe he would have written to me if he was not willing to believe he could have got it wrong.

[pran]

Echognome, on Apr 30 2010, 08:50 AM, said:

pran, on Apr 30 2010, 12:30 AM, said:

<snip>Why did South make a skip reverse bid rather than just a reverse bid,<snip>

It is not an unreasonable agreement to play that in competitive auctions, you can only splinter in an opponent's suit. In fact, it is my understanding that this is the standard expert agreement in many geographies.

But why the skip bid? (Just a waste of auction room?)

Besides, how should South then be able to show a void (or singleton) in spades together with solid heart support and solid control in diamonds?

[blackshoe]

bluejak, on Apr 30 2010, 06:21 AM, said:

blackshoe, on Apr 30 2010, 02:31 AM, said:

Too things strike me — it seems the TD was unwilling to consider that he might have made a mistake, and ...

I cannot believe he would have written to me if he was not willing to believe he could have got it wrong.

I was talking about what he did at the table.

[Echognome]

pran, on Apr 30 2010, 07:04 AM, said:

Echognome, on Apr 30 2010, 08:50 AM, said:

pran, on Apr 30 2010, 12:30 AM, said:

<snip>Why did South make a skip reverse bid rather than just a reverse bid,<snip>

It is not an unreasonable agreement to play that in competitive auctions, you can only splinter in an opponent's suit. In fact, it is my understanding that this is the standard expert agreement in many geographies.

But why the skip bid? (Just a waste of auction room?)

Besides, how should South then be able to show a void (or singleton) in spades together with solid heart support and solid control in diamonds?

Who cares? Are we here to instruct South on how to bid or what agreements to have?

[pran]

Echognome, on Apr 30 2010, 07:12 PM, said:

pran, on Apr 30 2010, 07:04 AM, said:

Echognome, on Apr 30 2010, 08:50 AM, said:

pran, on Apr 30 2010, 12:30 AM, said:

<snip>Why did South make a skip reverse bid rather than just a reverse bid,<snip>

It is not an unreasonable agreement to play that in competitive auctions, you can only splinter in an opponent's suit. In fact, it is my understanding that this is the standard expert agreement in many geographies.

But why the skip bid? (Just a waste of auction room?)

Besides, how should South then be able to show a void (or singleton) in spades together with solid heart support and solid control in diamonds?

Who cares? Are we here to instruct South on how to bid or what agreements to have?

AC should care, they have to judge if there is a misbid or a misexplanation.

To me 2♠ in this position would have been a (strong) reverse bid so the 3♠ bid is clearly a Splinter-type of a call unless solid evidence to the contrary is provided. North's statement corroborates this assumption.

Consequently: I don't believe South when he claims that he could have reached 6♠ rather than 6♥ with a correct ruling. No adjustment.

[campboy]

pran, on May 1 2010, 06:19 AM, said:

AC should care, they have to judge if there is a misbid or a misexplanation.

No they don't, since there is no claim of damage from MI. If North alerted 3♠ because he thought it was a splinter, and South thought it was natural, it doesn't matter which of them is actually right; they are going to bid the same either way.

[greenender]

bluejak, on Apr 29 2010, 06:40 PM, said:

If it had gone to appeal, and you had been on the AC, what would you have decided?

I'd quite like to take this one slowly.

Let's assume from the result in "part 1" in Simple Rulings that the AC readily concludes that the TD should have allowed the correction to 5♦. The AC must then produce an adjustment on the basis of TD error. This means projecting what might have happened:

- if the IB had been corrected to 5♦; and
- on the basis that both sides were non-offending.

This means that in a weighted scores jurisdiction, both sides are entitled to the benefit of a sympathetic weighting. In the ACBL both sides are entitled to the most favourable score that was likely. All projected scores, weightings etc. must, however, take into account the fact that S has UI from the alert of 3♠, and that his actions are constrained accordingly.

What this means in terms of an actual adjustment I don't know, but whilst I could well imagine the table result standing for E/W, I could also imagine N/S being given a result which gave them at least some percentage of threading their way through the shark-infested waters to some other contract.