[el mister]

Played this hand last night in a club duplicate:

---

1N is forcing 2/1 style so could have some stuff.

So slam has a shot here - we don't play any advanced key card ask below 4N or detailed cue bidding agreements, so it's basically 5D or 6D. In an analogous major suit auction I might leave it in 4 or 5 but for a minor suit auction at pairs I think I'd always go 6 here.
Unfortunately, previous board we were treated to a loud conversation from a guy at the next table (where our boards were coming from) on 'LET ME TELL YOU WHY I BID AND MADE SIX DIAMONDS HERE.' (The guy in question is not a complete tit AFAIK, I think he might have been playing with a pupil and wanted to explain things to her, but it was easily audible and he was shushed).

So, can I bid 6D here? The argument 'I always choose 6m over 5m at pairs if it is reasonable' seems a bit different to a situation where you unequivocally have the cards for the bid (does not seem to be the case here). Plus I didn't know the rules for UI from another table so I just bid 5 making 12 for an avg minus.

[gordontd]

You should have called the TD who would apply Law 16D, which in this case would be likely to end with both sides being given Av+ for the board.

[jvage]

el mister, on 2019-June-07, 06:10, said:

So slam has a shot here - we don't play any advanced key card ask below 4N or detailed cue bidding agreements, so it's basically 5D or 6D.

I agree with Gordons response to the Law-question, but have a comment to the bidding. You don't say if 4♦ was forcing (it would be for me). Even without detailed agreements, you should be able to bid 4♥ (my choice, planning to bid 6 if partner responds 4♠ or 5♣) or 5♣ to involve partner in the choice between 5 and 6♦.

[pescetom]

gordontd, on 2019-June-07, 06:20, said:

You should have called the TD who would apply Law 16D, which in this case would be likely to end with both sides being given Av+ for the board.

Would TD's verdict differ if the auction has already arrived at 4D before he is called?

[gordontd]

pescetom, on 2019-June-07, 07:34, said:

Would TD's verdict differ if the auction has already arrived at 4D before he is called?

The TD is meant to be called when the extraneous information arises, because there may be solutions to mitigate its effect. However, many players seem not to realise this and only call when they identify the problem it gives them, in this case when the 4D call is made. I would be happy to cancel the board if called at this time and give both pairs Av+.

[barmar]

While not exacctly the same, I was on the lookout for a similar problem at the club this week.

Early in the session, I overheard another pair talking about a cold 7♦. It was a Howell movement and they were in the process of moving to a new table, so I couldn't tell where they'd come from, so had no idea which board it was.

Late in the session I had a shapely hand with 15 HCP, 6 diamonds. Partner supported my diamond overcall, and the opponents jumped to game in their suit. I wondered if this could be the hand that was being talked about. I eventually took the push to 6♦. This turned out to be a good sacrifice, not the 7♦ hand.

So you can't always assume that you know which hand the UI is referring to (although in this thread it was pretty obvious). This is more of a counterexample to the ChCh stories that Lamford likes to post.

[pran]

barmar, on 2019-June-07, 08:49, said:

While not exacctly the same, I was on the lookout for a similar problem at the club this week.

Early in the session, I overheard another pair talking about a cold 7♦. It was a Howell movement and they were in the process of moving to a new table, so I couldn't tell where they'd come from, so had no idea which board it was.

Late in the session I had a shapely hand with 15 HCP, 6 diamonds. Partner supported my diamond overcall, and the opponents jumped to game in their suit. I wondered if this could be the hand that was being talked about. I eventually took the push to 6♦. This turned out to be a good sacrifice, not the 7♦ hand.

So you can't always assume that you know which hand the UI is referring to (although in this thread it was pretty obvious). This is more of a counterexample to the ChCh stories that Lamford likes to post.

Many years ago I was involved in a similar situation (note that we play barometer so all the boards in a round are played at every table during the same round).

I was at a critical point during the auction and had to decide whether to just bid game or invite to a (marginal) slam, when I heard a remark from another table, something like "the slam is cold".

Part of the story was that the remark could very well have been a postmortem referring to a board in the previous round when (known to all of us) there had indeed been such a board.

I called the (acting) Director, stated that it now had become impossible for me to decide whether to go for game or slam and asked for an AVE+/AVE+ ruling. This was granted.

[barmar]

Barometer games in a small room are definitely a problem. No matter how many warnings the TD makes about not talking about the hands, people just can't help themselves, and some voices carry.

[pran]

barmar, on 2019-June-08, 15:38, said:

Barometer games in a small room are definitely a problem. No matter how many warnings the TD makes about not talking about the hands, people just can't help themselves, and some voices carry.

I don't know about other countries, but Scandinavian culture results in very little problem of this kind here. We play bridge, we don't talk.

[pescetom]

pran, on 2019-June-08, 21:05, said:

I don't know about other countries, but Scandinavian culture results in very little problem of this kind here. We play bridge, we don't talk.

I finally understood why barometer is unheard of in Italy ;-)

[gordontd]

pran, on 2019-June-08, 21:05, said:

I don't know about other countries, but Scandinavian culture results in very little problem of this kind here. We play bridge, we don't talk.

We find it helps to have the tables play the boards in a different order each round in barometer events. It's less clear to what any overheard comments might refer.

[pran]

gordontd, on 2019-June-09, 04:07, said:

We find it helps to have the tables play the boards in a different order each round in barometer events. It's less clear to what any overheard comments might refer.

With typically three or four boards per round and every table plays the same three boards during the same round it doesn't really matter in which order you play your three or four boards as far as talking loud about a board is concerned. However, we do encourage players while beginning with one of their boards at random to continue with the next board in sequence (e.g. 3-4-1-2 or 1-2-3-4 etc.)

[BudH]

pran, on 2019-June-09, 06:54, said:

With typically three or four boards per round and every table plays the same three boards during the same round it doesn't really matter in which order you play your three or four boards as far as talking loud about a board is concerned. However, we do encourage players while beginning with one of their boards at random to continue with the next board in sequence (e.g. 3-4-1-2 or 1-2-3-4 etc.)

Running a "Dupli-Swiss" at both my local club and upcoming in a sectional ACBL tournament in early Auguet, we typically have 6-board matches at the club and likely 8-board matches in the upcoming sectional tournament. In the 8-board case, for Round 1, a group of four tables shares the 8 boards, so each table plays the boards in order 12345678, 34567812, 56781234, and 78123456.

It has been a struggle to get players to keep quiet, especially upon completion of a board. I think it will be easier for no result to be spoken when we hopefully soon are using electronic scoring (Bridgemates) for the data entry, so the contract and result will be on the Bridgemate table unit and should not even need to be spoken verbally following the play.

[Vampyr]

BudH, on 2019-June-14, 22:05, said:

Running a "Dupli-Swiss" at both my local club and upcoming in a sectional ACBL tournament in early Auguet, we typically have 6-board matches at the club and likely 8-board matches in the upcoming sectional tournament. In the 8-board case, for Round 1, a group of four tables shares the 8 boards, so each table plays the boards in order 12345678, 34567812, 56781234, and 78123456.

It has been a struggle to get players to keep quiet, especially upon completion of a board. I think it will be easier for no result to be spoken when we hopefully soon are using electronic scoring (Bridgemates) for the data entry, so the contract and result will be on the Bridgemate table unit and should not even need to be spoken verbally following the play.

Maybe I am really dense, but it seems to me that you are using too many board sets. If you pass them along the whole section you can get away with fewer, I think. Though I don’t actually know what “Dupli-Swiss” means.

Where do you live that Bridgemates have not been in universal use for years?

[BudH]

Vampyr, on 2019-June-14, 23:25, said:

Maybe I am really dense, but it seems to me that you are using too many board sets. If you pass them along the whole section you can get away with fewer, I think. Though I don’t actually know what “Dupli-Swiss” means.

Where do you live that Bridgemates have not been in universal use for years?

I'll give you an example of what likely will happen in the early August ACBL sectional tournament in South Bend, Indiana:

1. 6 rounds, 8 boards per round, 24 teams, using Tables A1 through A12 and B1 through B12.
2. Tables are grouped in 4-table groups (A1-A4, A5-A8, A9-A12 and the same for the B tables.)
3. Each group of four tables has a set of boards. In Round 1, A1 through A4 start with Boards 1-2 on A1, 3-4 on A2, 5-6 on A3, and 7-8 on A4. After completing two boards, they are passed to the next lower table. All tables play boards in ascending order, either 12345678, 34567812, 56781234, or 78123456.
4. ACBL's scoring software ACBLscore does not "play nice" with Bridgemate. I am learning how to use new software (BridgeTD) which will work with the Bridgemates to allow electronic scoring with the Bridgemate system and it coordinates with ACBLscore with proper result information transferred.

I suspect other areas of the world find it much easier with team events to use Bridgemates.

[Vampyr]

BudH, on 2019-June-16, 07:51, said:

I'll give you an example of what likely will happen in the early August ACBL sectional tournament in South Bend, Indiana:

1. 6 rounds, 8 boards per round, 24 teams, using Tables A1 through A12 and B1 through B12.
2. Tables are grouped in 4-table groups (A1-A4, A5-A8, A9-A12 and the same for the B tables.)
3. Each group of four tables has a set of boards. In Round 1, A1 through A4 start with Boards 1-2 on A1, 3-4 on A2, 5-6 on A3, and 7-8 on A4. After completing two boards, they are passed to the next lower table. All tables play boards in ascending order, either 12345678, 34567812, 56781234, or 78123456.
4. ACBL's scoring software ACBLscore does not "play nice" with Bridgemate. I am learning how to use new software (BridgeTD) which will work with the Bridgemates to allow electronic scoring with the Bridgemate system and it coordinates with ACBLscore with proper result information transferred.

I suspect other areas of the world find it much easier with team events to use Bridgemates.

Maybe you are using the same number of boards as we use here? I can’t figure it out LOL. You can, of course accommodate numbers or teams (or pairs) that aren’t multiples of 4 if you just pass the boards along rather than have a sharing arrangement.

But I am still curious about what a “Dupli-Swiss” is!

[pran]

Vampyr, on 2019-June-16, 19:21, said:

Maybe you are using the same number of boards as we use here? I can’t figure it out LOL. You can, of course accommodate numbers or teams (or pairs) that aren’t multiples of 4 if you just pass the boards along rather than have a sharing arrangement.

But I am still curious about what a “Dupli-Swiss” is!

I figured out that he uses 6 copies.
5 is sufficient when 24 tables play (barometer style i.e. the same) 8 boards in a round and they share their boards through a common exchange table.

[Vampyr]

pran, on 2019-June-17, 01:50, said:

I figured out that he uses 6 copies.
5 is sufficient when 24 tables play (barometer style i.e. the same) 8 boards in a round and they share their boards through a common exchange table.

Not to mention the huge waste of time while everyone goes to the exchange table between every board.

[pran]

Vampyr, on 2019-June-17, 16:12, said:

Not to mention the huge waste of time while everyone goes to the exchange table between every board.

"huge waste"?
Is that theory or experience?

(How many minutes do you allow for 8 boards to be played during a round? 1 hour is ample, and that includes changing seats for the next round.)

[pescetom]

We've played movements with an exchange table and it worked perfectly well. And if it works in Italy it should be a breeze elsewhere