[jeffford76]

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North and South had verbally agreed "Suction over strong clubs", and south wrote on the convention card "Suction over strong 1C/2C" and north wrote "Suction over strong clubs". Before the opening lead, South informed E/W of a failure to alert, and after being given by the director the option to change the final pass, West bid 3S and East raised to 6S which was short 2 tricks.

By agreement, the pass of 2S is neutral, and an immediate double by West would have been penalty. East's first double was takeout, and subsequent double was undiscussed. However East is a strong player and West is not, so it is unclear if West would have understood the bids the same way (as potentially evidenced by the 3S call). After hearing East answer, though, West would have just agreed.

To what should the score be adjusted, and is it the same for both sides? ACBL, so no weighting.

[bluejak]

Are you sure East is a strong player? Anyway, his 6♠ is definitely wild, and it is definitely gambling, and it is clearly a serious error unconnected to bridge any way whatever, so I do not think I am giving E/W much of an adjustment! 6♠ is a novice level bid, where a player, ignoring his earlier 2♣ and two doubles, decides to show his values for a fourth time.

[Zelandakh]

What was North's pass of 2♠? If this shows spades, what was South's reason for pulling? If South has pulled because of UI then N-S should probably get 2♠X down lots here even if we do rule that E-W were in wild or gambling territory.

[jeffford76]

I think it is clear that the score for NS gets adjusted to 2SX down a lot.

It was less clear to me what to do with EW. At the time after consulting with another director who did not think 6S met the wild or gambling standard, I ruled that as the EW score instead. I was hoping that there would be more interest here in that question to be able to better calibrate my standard for wild or gambling. Despite the comment from bluejak, East is certainly a strong player, far better than me, and he was playing with a client that could have an enormous range of hands for 3S (and who would be unlikely to cooperate effectively with a more subtle approach).

But suppose that the ruling is that 6S is a wild bid. I want to make sure I understand the adjustment. Here is how I would go about it, and please point out any error. In order to determine the cost of the wild bid, we look at the normal result without the bid. Here there is some question whether that is +170 or +620. In a situation like this, where it is not clear whether the correct action is to pass 3S or raise to 4S is a side that made a wild bid treated like an offending side with the assumption they would make the choice that is worse for them?

Let's say that you decide that the normal call is 4S. This means that the wild bid caused self inflicted damage of whatever the difference is in matchpoints between +620 and -200. From a practical point of view, is the board scored as +1100 both ways and then a matchpoint penalty applied so that the other EW pairs score against the +1100, not the -200 or is there some other procedure?

Presumably if you decide that the normal call is pass, then the procedure is the same, but using as damage the matchpoint difference between +170 and -200?

[bluejak]

Looks the right approach to me.



Even playing with a client, 6♠ looks a completely dreadful bid to me. Sure, the client may have extra values, but does being a client make his hand stronger?

[wank]

a bit excessive to try and make them play 2♠ imo. i can't imagine north's pass in this scheme from south's viewpoint seriously promises a suit to rival kqjxxx - many people pass in these situations just to mess up the opps (as they'll be used to doubling for take-out), in the knowledge that they'll get a second chance to run unless the opps want to try and collect 700, and even if one did agree it to show spades it would probably just be of a consultative nature as south can easily have 3 or even 4 (akin to opening a pre-empt with a side suit).

given the above, bidding 3D with such a big disparity in suit quality seems entirely normal and i doubt pass is a logical alternative.

it would be interesting to hear what options north had when it comes to opening 2 spades or a multi.

[Trinidad]

Of course, South can think that North is only joking with his pass of 2♠. But then still South should pass. After all, if North is really joking, North is the only one who knows that for sure. In that case North can still correct if the double is passed out to him. (And North can keep a straight face if the double is not passed out to him!)

On the other hand, it may also be the case that North is not joking and the two hands could be something like:

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. Then North would be real happy with a 3♦ bid.

The UI tells you that North doesn't have that hand. It also tells you that North isn't joking and that he will pass 2♠X when it comes to him. You are supposed to not take advantage of the UI and pass is certainly a logical alternative.

Rik

[Phil]

Convention Disruption comes to mind.

[mycroft]

So pleased to know that TDs will rule according to Law, then, and not according to what certain people think the law could be, if every TD was a world-championship player, and the only events ran in bridge were world-championship-calibre events.