QUIZ 16:   May 2020

The WBF laws pages and Stevenson's yellow book are the laws of bridge. However, each Regulatory Authority is entitled to impose their own modifications to these laws so as to suit their environment, Law 80b2: (f) to announce regulations supplementary to, but not in conflict with, these Laws.

Questions

1.  The bidding proceeds 1C by partner and your RHO goes 3C.  
    This is promptly alerted and explained as "Both Majors,
     ghestem."  It continues -
     
           1C - (3C) - P - (3H)
           P  - (3S) - All Pass

     It transpires at the end that 3C was actually Spades + Diamonds, the bidder 
     made a mistake.  The correct bid was 2C. In the meantime, you were cold for 
     3H and 3S went -2 for 100 to you.  3H would have been -5.
     The 3C bidder had:  K109xx, xx, AKJxx, x
     
     DIRECTOR!     What ruling do you expect?
     

2.  Player opened 1NT in 3rd seat with 
         Kx
         Qxx
         AQJ9xx
         Ax             Bidding went 1NT - 3NT.
  
      3NT made on the nose after a small spade was led, away from A-Q-10-6.  
      A heart lead beats this by 2 tricks.

      DIRECTOR!    Your ruling?
      

3.   A couple from Europe come to play at your club  (they are on a cruise
      liner and disembarked for the day). Players have a convention card 
      and asked the TD to look over it and to approve it.  You scan the CC 
      and all looks fine.  You get to carding and see:
       a) They lead smallest from xx in suit contracts;
       b) They make roman signals on honour leads (A or K).  
         [roman = odd likes, even dislikes with suit preference]

      As the TD, what do you tell the pair?
      

It is imperative that all TDs and Club Managers print the following two SABF documents and have it handy always. These two documents are revised each year and the newer version always appears simultaneous with our Congress gathering:

Conventions Control   as well as our   Supplementary Regulations

Answers

1. So... what were the infractions here, if any? One respondent (only two persons bothered to send their views) said "Misbid, not Misexplanation" and thus no penalty. Yes... and No. Sure there was a misbid but was there damage?   Yes!

Supplementary Regulation B1(4) states: ...Mis-bids of artificial overcalls which cause confusion to the opponents shall be treated as misinformation and a score adjustment may be necessary. The offending pair may also receive a procedural penalty...

The more serious infraction, however, was the fact that the bidder used the explanation to her advantage. This is a contravention of Law 16 (UI) which clearly states:
B. Extraneous Information from Partner
1. Any extraneous information from partner that might suggest a call or play is unauthorized. This includes remarks, questions,   replies to questions, unexpected alerts or failures to alert, unmistakable hesitation, unwonted speed, special emphasis, tone, gesture, movement or mannerism.
(a) A player may not choose a call or play that is demonstrably suggested over another by unauthorized information if the other call or play is a logical alternative.

In these situations imagine they are playing with screens and that the bidder cannot hear the explanation. In that case, if partner now bids 3H after you showed D+S (in your mind) what can 3H be? Surely partner could have xx in both of your suits and 6 or 7 hearts, no? That is surely plausable. And with xx in hearts, it would be prudent to... PASS!

Since there was damage, we have to adjust. But to what? 3H by you makes +140, but because of the UI infraction I would adjust to the logical alternative 3H-5 or -250. Furthermore, they must be warned about misuse of Ghestem as repeated misuse entitles you the TD to ban Ghestem from their armoury.

2. Conventions Control page 4: A No-trump opening or overcall is natural, if by agreement it contains no void, at most one singleton which must be the A, K or Q and no more than two doubletons. If the hand contains a singleton, it may have no doubleton.

No offence, thus no penalty.

a) Leading small from xx is a pre-alert. If not announced at the start, it must be alerted at occurrence - and this is the only time an alert is made during the play of the hand. See the Convention Card where xx is depicted as x x.

b) Roman signals has been banned from many jurisdictions including S.A. See the SABF Control of Conventions (page 10): Roman Signals (when odd=like, even=dislike) on the lead of an honour are specifically disallowed. Roman discards to remain allowed.