[CSGibson]

Scoring: MP

(p)-1N-(2♠)-3♦*,
3♠-3N-(p)-4♥,
All Pass

---

1N is 15-17. 2♠ is natural.

This is an appeals committee hand at a sectional. North/South are playing together for the very first time, and are intermediate/advanced level players. North thought that her 3♦ call was a transfer to hearts. After the hand was over, E-W thought that N took advantage of the non-alert of the 3♦ call to make the decision to bid 4 hearts, and called the director.

Despite the fact that N-S had not agreed to play 3♦ as a transfer, the director ruled that North used the unauthorized information from the non-alert of 3♦ to "wake up" to their agreements and bid 4 hearts as a result. The table director's ruling was to roll back the contract to 3N down 2, as he thought passing 3N to be a logical alternative on the auction.

N-S appealed the decision based on the bridge logic that it would be nonsense to leave partner in 3N with a spade void, and both E and W bidding spades vulnerable.

Your thoughts?

[cherdanno]

AWM.

[RMB1]

Even if Pass isn't a logical alternative to 4H (which is what the appellants claim), surely 4C is - showing a second suit, rather than "rebidding" 9xxxx. This will lead to 5C which looks difficult to make.

[karlson]

Agree with Cherdano -- whatever the alternatives to passing 3N, bidding 4h is a blatant abuse of UI. PP?

[peachy]

If North thought it unwise with void in spades to leave partner in 3NT, he/she had legal options: bid 4C. Bidding 4H with 9xxxx suit under UI restrictions is illegally using the UI from the missing announcement, in my opinion. It is announced "transfer", not alerted, when 3D is a transfer to hearts, but that is just minor detail and provides the same UI as a missing alert would.

[Phil]

AWM from me too. 4H just makes my blood boil and appealing this sends me into stroke territory.

4C would be totally OK and I might even accept 4H by South 'along the way'. 4H however is, "I have hearts, idiot" since you didn't alert.

I chuckle at the idea of a North player like this using screens.

[bluejak]

4♥ is unauthorised panic. While the appeal has no merit whatever, since North does not seem a very advanced player he might benefit from education rather than anything else.

[awm]

It may be worth a poll here. For most of us, passing 3NT seems like a very logical alternative. But before we give an appeal without merit, we should poll players of roughly the skill level of N/S. If most of them would not pass 3NT even if partner explained the 3♦ bid as a transfer, then I believe the appeal does have merit in spite of the opinion of better players.

Nonetheless, it's hard to see why 4♣ wouldn't be a logical alternative.

[aguahombre]

Is it true that, even though we are still ruling against the blatant 4H bid, we would do a poll solely on the issue of the appeals's merit?

[blackshoe]

Such a poll would by necessity also address the question of whether a sufficient number of the player's peers would not consider pass an LA. I think the 'sufficient number' is less than would be required than for a ruling that pass in not an LA. Don't ask me for a specific number, though. I don't have one.

[awm]

It seems like there are several possible results from a poll. In particular:

(1) If virtually all players polled bid 4♥, then the table result should be restored. However, this would be quite surprising!

(2) If virtually all players remove 3NT in some way (but many bid 4♣ rather than 4♥), then passing is not a LA. However, the UI suggests bidding 4♥ rather than 4♣, so the result should be adjusted to 5♣ (probably down one).

(3) If a majority of players remove 3NT but a substantial minority leave it in, then passing is a LA, and the UI suggests removing 3NT. The director's ruling should stand. However, since most players pull 3NT, the appeal should be considered to have merit.

(4) If a majority of players would pass 3NT, then I agree with issuing an AWM warning.

However, keep in mind that the players polled should be of comparable level to the bidding side. I've found quite often that an action which I personally find nonsensical is in fact the unanimous choice in a poll of intermediate-level players, so I would not be willing to substitute my judgment in this situation.

[bluejak]

awm, on May 24 2010, 06:37 AM, said:

(3) If a majority of players remove 3NT but a substantial minority leave it in, then passing is a LA, and the UI suggests removing 3NT. The director's ruling should stand. However, since most players pull 3NT, the appeal should be considered to have merit.

I do not think that is right. If the majority remove it to 4♥, ok. But if the majority remove it to 4♣, then the appeal has no merit.

[jeremy69]

If North is a. inexperienced b. believes that to use UI here and bid 4H is ok c. believes that appealing a decision given by the TD is ok then I agree that some education is needed and the type I would provide is that if you waste everyone's time having taken an action of dubious ethicality then you will lose your deposit. If there was "unauthorised panic" whatever that is then having bid 4H and heard the TD rule it not to be ok the offending side are, IMO, pushing their luck.

[blackshoe]

So far as I know nobody in the US requires a money deposit when making an appeal. Law 92A says "Any such appeal, if deemed to lack merit, may be the subject of a sanction imposed by regulation." So there has to be a specific regulation, and it has to say what the sanction should be. While I'm aware that committees do issue "appeal without merit" warnings, I can't find a regulation on it, so such warnings would seem to have no teeth.

[peachy]

blackshoe, on May 24 2010, 09:25 AM, said:

So far as I know nobody in the US requires a money deposit when making an appeal. Law 92A says "Any such appeal, if deemed to lack merit, may be the subject of a sanction imposed by regulation." So there has to be a specific regulation, and it has to say what the sanction should be. While I'm aware that committees do issue "appeal without merit" warnings, I can't find a regulation on it, so such warnings would seem to have no teeth.

Sorry to continue on the Off Topic.

I prefer appeals with no money deposit involved. That makes the process fair for everyone. Despite common conception at large that bridge players are wealthy, there really are players who have trouble coming up with extra $100, maybe even $50. Plus there is no accounting and holding of the monies or passing them back and forth.

[awm]

bluejak, on May 24 2010, 07:26 AM, said:

awm, on May 24 2010, 06:37 AM, said:

(3) If a majority of players remove 3NT but a substantial minority leave it in, then passing is a LA, and the UI suggests removing 3NT. The director's ruling should stand. However, since most players pull 3NT, the appeal should be considered to have merit.

I do not think that is right. If the majority remove it to 4♥, ok. But if the majority remove it to 4♣, then the appeal has no merit.

If a committee overrules the director's decision, then the appeal should always be found to have merit right? This should apply even if the decision is to change 3NT-2 to 5♣-1, rather than to 4♥ making.

It's also possible for the committee to uphold the director's decision, but rule that the appeal nonetheless had merit. This should happen when the committee's action was somehow difficult or contentious. In this case, a poll is taken to determine whether passing 3NT is a LA. If it's not a LA, then the director will be overruled. If the poll result determines that passing 3NT is a LA, but it is very close to the threshold (i.e. if a LA has to be selected by 20% of players, suppose that 25% of the players polled select pass) -- then the appeal should have merit. Basically, N/S thought that "no one would pass 3NT" but actually a rather small percentage of comparable players would pass... I think it's reasonable to bring an appeal in this case. If in fact a large percentage of comparable players would pass then it's an AWM.

I understand that passing 3NT looks blatantly obvious to many of us and this may effect our judgment of what should happen here. Heck, passing 3NT looks blatantly obvious to me too. But I have seen a number of other cases where the alternatives selected by the people polled looked very odd to me.

[jdonn]

If north is so convinced that it's unthinkable to pass 3NT then let's have the committee give him a 4♦ rebid, raised to 5♦ by south who thinks it's natural. 5♦X down how ever much the committee decides would probably be a more effective message than the PP/AWMW/whatever else.

In any case, I think an argument from a player who bid 4♥ at the table that doing anything in particular at that point in the auction would be nonsense has no credibility at all.

[dburn]

To answer an earlier question: "unauthorized panic" occurs when a player who has made a bid that in his mind shows a suit, and gathers from UI that his partner is not of the same mind, bids his actual suit at his first opportunity even though such a call is totally illogical.

Thus North, in the current example, bid 4♥ and not four of either minor (or pass) because he knew that South did not know (or appeared not to know) that North had hearts. This is of course cheating, but there are still people who do not realise this.

If, by way of education, one were to ask North "if you were going to bid 4♥ over 3NT when your partner bid 3NT on learning that you had hearts, why did you not bid 4♥ at once over 2♠?" you might, I suppose, persuade North to see the error of his ways. I doubt it, though.

Meanwhile, it is of course possible that if North were (made to) bid 4♣, South might bid 4♥ anyway as a control bid agreeing clubs. Thus, an adjustment might reflect some percentage of 4♥ making in any event (assuming that such adjustments are legal in your jurisdiction). I am not sure I agree with jdonn that in order to punish North-South for their undoubted transgression, one should impose on North a call that he is not all that likely to make (assuming him to be an upright but misguided citizen who would remove 3NT even if South had explained 3♦ as "hearts"). Score adjustments provide redress; procedural or disciplinary penalties provide punishment.

[jdonn]

I was a bit tongue in cheek with my first paragraph. I'm just saying north should be careful what he wishes for. After all, what you (accurately) refer to as a bid north is unlikely to make I call a much better bid than north actually made.

[bluejak]

peachy, on May 24 2010, 05:59 PM, said:

I prefer appeals with no money deposit involved.  That makes the process fair for everyone. Despite common conception at large that bridge players are wealthy,  there really are players who have trouble coming up with extra $100, maybe even $50.  Plus there is no accounting and holding of the monies or passing them back and forth.

Oh, dear.

No, the process is not fair for everyone because you do not have money deposits. No-one has yet come up with a sanction that even approaches being fair [ok, I think I have one that approaches, but what do I know?].

Looking at how money deposits are unfair does not make them wrong if you do not suggest a viable alternative. And if you do, I bet it will take no more than a few seconds to show how unfair that system is.

As for the remark about no accounting for the money and all the nasty insinuations coming from that, the remark is clearly libellous and I strongly suggest you withdraw it.

awm, on May 24 2010, 06:05 PM, said:

It's also possible for the committee to uphold the director's decision, but rule that the appeal nonetheless had merit.

I think the word "possible" gives the wrong flavour. This is by far the most common decision that ACs make in my experience.