[mgoetze]

I don't get it, even if the assumption is that exactly 8 tricks can be made in both hearts and spades, surely -110 is preferable to -200? Maybe I need to actually read Cohen's book sometime...

[AlexJonson]

If every one of our decisions stood up to analysis we would be world champions, most likely.

[billw55]

AlexJonson, on 2012-March-30, 14:44, said:

If every one of our decisions stood up to analysis we would be world champions, most likely.

True enough. But it is not really the 3♥ bid that is under analysis. It is the claim that a different call would be chosen for a "reason" which sounds irrelevant.

[AlexJonson]

billw55, on 2012-March-30, 14:56, said:

True enough. But it is not really the 3♥ bid that is under analysis. It is the claim that a different call would be chosen for a "reason" which sounds irrelevant.

If North was void in spades with Axxxx clubs how many tricks do NS make.

[nigel_k]

Maybe this is not how directors rule in practice, but I think that 'but for' causation is not enough. I.e., in order to show that the misexplanation caused damage, I think you have to do more than establish that, but for the incorrect explanation, South would not have bid 3♥. Otherwise the marriage of Hitler's grandparents caused the deaths of millions of innocent people. This is not what we normally mean when we use the world 'cause'.

I would be inclined to just rule that South's poor judgment was such a dominant cause of his poor result that nothing else matters. So 'wild or gambling' doesn't come into it. But anyway, 3♥ was wild. And if it wasn't wild, it was certainly a serious error and was unrelated to the infraction because the explanation given in no way suggests that bidding 3♥ is a good idea.

[mgoetze]

AlexJonson, on 2012-March-30, 15:41, said:

If North was void in spades with Axxxx clubs how many tricks do NS make.

And how many do EW make in spades then?

It's pretty obvious these people don't make their decisions by visualising possible hands for their partner. And I was not asking what reasons you could possibly have for bidding 3♥.