[rwylee]

Scoring: MP

E 1♠
S 2♥
W X
N XX
AP

---

In a pair tour I just hosted, NS got a 2♥XX-1 result. S reported to me that he found suspicious of the pass by E and W. He even said they might chat on MSN. I reviewed the board a few times and found no evidence of cheating. Otherwise, the contract would be down two or more. Therfore, the result stand. Even though the pass seemed a bit odd, I think it was acceptable. However, after I had explained to S, he still insisted that I should do further investigation and report to abuse. I am just wondering how you interpret the pass and how you comfort and explain to players like S? Thanks in advnace!

[Gerben42]

Maybe EW had a misunderstanding about what is a pass of the redouble. What I do know is that they had a misunderstanding in the defence, should be 3 down really. I would tell South that he is lucky he was not 3 down (-1000) or conceded 620 for 5♦+1.

Edit: Got the vulnerability wrong. Still -400 is better than 5♦+1 which is -420, but 3 down is -1600!

This post has been edited by Gerben42: 2005-October-13, 05:42

[luke warm]

yeah, this looks like simply a misunderstanding, not cheating... the first x is perfectly ok, and i think west was at a loss after that

[Rebound]

Looks to me like East never heard of a negative double and thought it was penalty - in that case passing the redouble is reasonable from his/her perspective. On West's account, thinking partner was aware of the negative double but chose to pass would lead West to believe partner had a hand worthy of pass.

As has been posted before, not agreeing with a player's bidding methods is not cause for any adjustment.

[Gerben42]

Much confusion can be caused by a redouble. Let me tell you a story.
In a junior international match this auction came up:

North: 2♦: Weak two in ♥ or ♠
East: Double: Strong
South: Redouble: Wants to play 2♦xx
West: Pass: Meant as "partner please bid something I don't know where to go", understood as "wants to play this"
North: Pass: "Want to play this also"
East: Pass: "partner wants to play this, can't see why not.

NS +2360

I guess these EW were more experienced than your EW here, and yet this costly misunderstanding happened.

[hrothgar]

I can understand why N/S is suspicious. It feels "wrong" to get set redoubled at the two level when you and the opponents both have 9 card fits available. However, a "wrong" feeling does not justify a cheating accusation. It is certainly appropriate to report the board to the director. However, its up to the director (or a surrogate) to try to find systemic patterns that suggest abuse.

While I understand why N/S is suspicious, I have VERY little sympathy for their complaint.

1. South decided to make a vulnerable 2 level overcall on a crappy 3=5=2=2 hand. When this tactic produces less than stellar results, the partnership starts whining for an adjustment. Quick word of advice: If your partner redoubles for business and the opps can set you two, you might want to have some partnership discussion regarding overcall style

2. About that redouble... I'm not sure WHAT redouble should show in this position. I think that I prefer 2 card trump support, values and a low ODR, suggesting defending that the three level (I'd be interested to hear what other people play). A others have noted, its entirely possible that E/W believed that N/S were having some kind of meltdown where South had passed a SOS redouble. From West's perspective, the hand could easily be a complete misfit - East didn't support either of his minors or rebid in Spades.

3. If I can "only" see the E/W hands, its unclear that defending 2HXX is a winning action. If I can see all 4 hands, I'm gonna defend a lot better than down 1.

[david_c]

rwylee, on Oct 13 2005, 07:26 AM, said:

I reviewed the board a few times and found no evidence of cheating.

I agree. It looks like this was handled very well.

Perhaps South was too persistent here; but probably they just need to be reassured that you will keep an eye on E/W. If you have time at the end of the tourney, it wouldn't hurt to look at E/W's other hands, just in case. And if you tell South that you are going to to this, then that should keep them happy.

[pigpenz]

Looks like to me west is clearly going for top or bottom, his parnter opened the bidding has singleton in his partners suits and 2 quick tricks, on a good day they will beat it, this was a very Good day and they should have beaten it two.

[jillybean]

Cheating or not I don’t know but if a player is convinced the opps have been cheating make your ruling but ask them to go through myhands and create a case to send to abuse.

TD’s are busy enough as it is.

The enemy here was MSN, a change from the ‘mysterious’ kibitzer – how the heck does a player know what his opps are up to, they could be sitting in the same room.

jb

same with complaints of bad behaviour - ask the player to send the details to abuse@
http://www.bridgebas...h/scrnsnap.html

[pigpenz]

yes you in windows you can hit the prtscn button key and paste into mspaint and save it as a jpg and send it to abuse.....it also works for capturing rude behavior on the chat screen. Rain was tellingme they prefer that because the chat logs that bbo saves in your profile are too easy to alter, but a screen capture would just take too much time to alter.

[kfgauss]

I have an agreement with some of my partners that if we could have passed a double for penalty, a pass of a redouble means the same thing except in a handful of specified sequences (e.g. 1 of a suit, double, redouble).

This would apply in this situation. It is perhaps a dangerous agreement if there are forgets, and that could easily be what happened here, as others have suggested.

This doesn't come up so often, and one might think it's mostly to expose psyche xx's, but there are legitimate times it comes up. Playing in a regional, I opened 1C, strong, and my LHO overcalled 1D, suction, showing hearts or spades and clubs. Partner passed and RHO bid 1H, pass or correct. I doubled for takeout of hearts and LHO redoubled, pass, pass, back to me. They had no agreement about the xx, but it turned out LHO had meant it as "I have a good heart suit" (1S would show S+C, and pass would just show hearts normally). Partner had 6 hearts too and was trying to make a penalty pass. Sadly, this was with a partner with whom I had no agreement and so I pulled instead of taking our juicy penalty.

Andy

[luke warm]

pigpenz, on Oct 13 2005, 11:39 AM, said:

yes you in windows you can hit the prtscn button key and paste into mspaint and save it as a jpg and send it to abuse.....it also works for capturing rude behavior on the chat screen. Rain was tellingme they prefer that because the chat logs that bbo saves in your profile are too easy to alter, but a screen capture would just take too much time to alter.

i just hit alt-prntscrn and paste into a word document...

[jillybean]

luke warm, on Oct 14 2005, 03:29 AM, said:

i just hit alt-prntscrn and paste into a word document...

I just hit print screen and then paste...

[luke warm]

i think the difference is, alt-ps copies the active window... say bbo is open but you can see your desktop on the borders... prntscrn would capture that also, whereas the other way would just capture the bbo view