This page discusses problems directors face. It would be good if all directors consider letting me have details of anything interesting that cropped up at the club.
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| A Psych |
Psychic bidding in the past was much more popular than is fashionable at the moment. Nevertheless it is a perfectly legal ploy.
I heard of one of our members playing at another (non EBU) club and opened 1♠ with 5pts and Axxx in Spades. A clear psych! Apparently it caused quite a lot of comment at the table. What i have to say to you is that comment at the table is definitly against the rules, if you have have any concerns avoid ill feeling by calling the director for a ruling rather than getting into an argument.
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| The Auction is Over. |
After three passes the player who made the final bid bids again. The players start to play this 'contract' and during the play someone realises that something odd has happened and calls the director.
LAW 22A One or more players having bid three passes in rotation end the auction and the final bid becomes the contract. In this case the Action was ;
pass 1NT 2S pass 3H pass pass pass 3S pass pass pass
So the contract is 3H but the players have been playing 3S.
Unlike a bid out of turn or an underbid there is no provision in the law for this bid to be accepted the auction ends after the three passes. Clearly we can not wind back and require 3H to be played as players have all seen opponents cards. The right thing to do now is to award a reasonable score for 3H. Fortunantly in the event its not critical how many tricks 3H is likely to make but if it is important its possible to award say 50% for 3H= plus 50% of 3H+1 where maybe the extra trick depends on which way you finesse against a Q.
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| CARD PLAYED |
LAW 45B Declarer plays a card from dummy by naming a card.
LAW 45C 4a A card must be played if a player names it.
LAW 45C 4b A player may change an unintended designation if he does so without pause for thought.
I think it is possible to name a card from dummy which is 'unintended' and correct the error 'without pause for thoiught' but the TD would need to be sure that the original call was 'unintended' and not a change of mind. So if you lead a card from hand intending to ruff on table and after you have called for the trumping card then realise that defender has ruffed and you are underruffing then tough just take on board the lesson that you need to see what defender has done before making your commitment. Calling for the trump might be careless and you might wish you hadn't done it but it wasn't 'unintended'.
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| Dummy plays the wrong card. |
I played in the Great Northern Swiss pairs at the weekend and had to call the director!
I lead a little ♥ from hand and everyone is expecting me to ruff in dummy but instead I chose to thow a loser and called for a ♣ . Partner plays a trump and RHO produces a low card leaving my little one as the top card. When the director appears LHO agrees that I did indeed call for the ♣ so that is the card played from dummy. RHO can now withdraw the little card and substitute a winner: the card they played first is not a penalty card but is UI to their partner in the (probably unlikely) event that this would make a difference.
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| You're on table |
It's quite common for declarer to lead a card from the wrong hand. Maybe its careless maybe they planned a sequence of plays and just forgor where they are up to.
Many players are under the misconception that declarer must lead from the the hand which won the last trick and must be corrected.
Play from the wrong hand is an irregularity and dummy should not draw attention to irregularities. It can be a fine line because dummy can seek to prevent declarer leading from the wrong hand so 'you are on table partner' is fine before declarer makes his move but when the card hits the table (or indeed he calls for a card from dummy) the play is made and if its from the wrong hand dummy should keep their own council. [Same applies to any irregularity say dummy spots a revoke say nothing till play has ended]
Once the card has been played defenders have the option of accepting this lead or requiring its retraction and the lead is made from the correct hand and in this case declarer plays as they like there is no question of the card lead being a penalty card or that declarer should lead the same suit.
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| Misinformation |
Some of us have quite complicated bidding systems and some of us forget. I had one this week 1♠ 3♣ and the overcaller intends this as one of those fancy ghestem type bids showing two suits (♣ & ♥ ). The partner forgets this and thinks its a natural overcall and to further complicate matters gets asked about it and explains its an intermediate jump overcall (opening strength + six clubs)
In the bidding the opener has the UI that partner has not understood his bid and is duty bound to lean over backwards to bid as he would have done if partner had alerted the bid and explained it correctly. The contract ended up as 4♥ and now the opener should explain what has happened before the opening lead. If not the defenders might be able to get an adjustment if they feel they got off on the wrong foot due to not knowing what happened.
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| Correcting an Underbid |
A bid is made when the card is drawn from the bidding box and should not be changed without the director's instruction.
I was called to a table recently and the bidding was 1♠ 2♥ 2♦ the players had called attention to the underbid and the player in question had replaced the offending bid with 4♠ .
Its better if play stops completly when attention is drawn to an irregularity and the TD can explain the options - however..
First off we take back the 4♠ bid and put back the 2♦ and explain to the next player they have the right to accept the underbid and if not then the underbid has to be replaced by a legal call and any call other than 3♦ will silence the offender's partner for the remainder of the auction. She doesn't accept the underbid and now the player can reinstate the 4♠ bid indeed she has to.
No says the next player she has 'to make it good' (ie bid 3♦ ) Well the law says (LAW 27B) 'must be corrected by a legal call' and further (LAW 27C) the premature substitution stands. The offener's partner is now silenced for the remainder of the auction and if the offenders become defenders there will be a lead penalty on account of the UI arrising from the ♦ bid but everyone passed and 4♠ was the final contract so that was fine.
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| Double Felony |
Directors are used to dealing with single mistakes and ensuring play continues in the fairest way possible which is the objective of the law. However double errors can be harder to handle. I was called to a table recently and a defender had ruffed a club and led the ♦A but a little club was hiding behind the diamond and the two cards came out stuck together.
- digression - there is a story in one of the earlist Emglish Bridge magazines from 1935ish where in an important match the players were enjoying tea and scones with sticky strawberry jam during play, those were the days! And (some suspected deliberatly) a card became firmy stuck behind another one glued with the jam and when the hand was played in the other room this fact did not become apparent till late in the play long after this card pair had been played.
Anyway this looks like an established revoke of the worst kind (the revoke card having won the trick) followed by defender exposing a card. Gemerously the ops decided to go with the fiction that the defender had spotted the club before making the lead and in that case the revoke is corrected.
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