[jillybean]

---

Your lead?

[a_user]

♦3

[akwoo]

I generally ask lots of questions. The alert or lack thereof is irrelevant, because my first question is whether 2♣ was game forcing. If the answer is "Yes", my second question is whether 2♠ promises extra values. My third question is how many diamonds 2♠ implies, and, if they can't answer that, about what hands would bid 2N instead. I haven't even gotten to the 3♥ bid yet.

[paulg]

akwoo, on 2025-March-17, 22:28, said:

I generally ask lots of questions. The alert or lack thereof is irrelevant, because my first question is whether 2♣ was game forcing. If the answer is "Yes", my second question is whether 2♠ promises extra values. My third question is how many diamonds 2♠ implies, and, if they can't answer that, about what hands would bid 2N instead. I haven't even gotten to the 3♥ bid yet.

I prefer "What have you both shown?" as my first question.

However the question is moot as I am not on lead.

[jillybean]

paulg, on 2025-March-18, 02:49, said:

I prefer "What have you both shown?" as my first question.

However the question is moot as I am not on lead.

Oops, fixed OP

[jillybean]

It appears necessary to always "protect yourself" and ask about every auction before the Opening Lead.

---

North led ♥7 , the Director was called to the table when dummy came down.
North tells you they would have made a different lead, "probably a club" if the opponents had disclosed their methods.

How do you rule?

[HardVector]

This is in the international laws forum. What country are you in?

[jillybean]

Sorry, ACBL

[mycroft]

ACBL Alert Procedure, prologue said:

Penalties for failing to Alert are not automatic. However, a player who is misinformed by an opponent’s failure to Alert will be protected.

Law 20F5b, edited said:

A player who believes that partner’s explanation was erroneous (see Law 75B), must call the Director and inform the opponents, but only at the first legal opportunity, which is[,] for declarer or dummy, after the final pass of the auction.

Law 20F5a, excerpt said:

‘Mistaken explanation’ here includes failure to alert or announce as regulations require or an alert (or an announcement) that regulations do not require. [mycroft: "here" is universally held to apply to 20F5b as well]

Yeah, so I don't like the different phrases used in the various bits of this Law (see also 20F4a for yet a third phrasing), but IRL "failure to Alert is MI, MI must be corrected in the appropriate way, depending on who worked out it was MI and whether they're playing or defending" is how this is read/ruled.

So, what was 2♣? Let's assume that they didn't have four hearts in with their clubs, and their agreement is that 2♣ is "artificial game force" (*).

Then it should have been Alerted at the time, and the opponents, if damaged in the auction, should get L21B protection.

When it wasn't, partner should have corrected the failure to Alert before the opening lead. They did not, and the opponents, if damaged by the opening lead, should get 47E protection (but note the final sentence in 47E2a applies here).

If it makes a difference with a club lead, you decide how likely it would be for them to lead one (pretty, IME) and, if it leads to a better outcome, do the L12 dance.

But you require them to play the hand out (after getting all the information you can, hopefully without passing that information to the other defender!), because that is the base for "damage" (and because there's nothing in the Law that allows you, or them, to not do so). You do not take any guff about that - "if you were damaged, you will be protected, but you must play the hand now."

And then you do the work, and give the ruling; and if necessary, prepare for the appeal (which, in a club, is frequently, "talk to the other director after they've played the hand, walk through your ruling, and get acceptance. Then get *them* to explain it to the aggrieved side." Or, you know, "be convinced you were wrong, and change your ruling.")

(*)Note that there are definitely other cases here, and the first thing the director needs to know is which one applies:

• Psychic call; they expect to be playing either 4♥ or 3NT and want to inhibit a club lead. (not likely with this hand, but 3433?)
  
• "I just wanted to force to game, and 1♥ doesn't." In other words, they don't know what they're doing. *If* declarer would read it that way, then yeah, they have an agreement and it's Alertable. If it was just "I thought this was the only way to GF" and partner's as much in the dark as the opponents, then it's Just A Misbid. (but I bet, if you ask carefully, you'll find that they don't *know* they have this agreement, but declarer would agree that "2♣ is how you game force". This kind of confusion is endemic to "new to 2/1 GF" players, I don't know why).

And, once the director have determined what (under the Law) their agreement is (and for the purposes of the ruling, it *is* "Director's Determination", Law 75D), you then get to find out if it's a *legal* agreement (which in the ACBL, it absolutely is, but if it was "INV+ raise or GF non-raise" for instance, that would only be allowed on the Open/+ charts (and wasn't legal on GCC, the "unpassed hand Drury" restriction). If it isn't, then you apply the "use of illegal agreement" rules, which in the ACBL are basically the same - if the opponents were damaged by the use of the illegal agreement, then we adjust the score based on what would have happened in the expected legal auction(**).

(**) Please note, this is one of the few cases I have seen where I am comfortable with a 12C1d "A+/A-" ruling. Probably not here, but I have seen (sorry) "without the illegal 2♦ opener, they may or may not have opened 2♥, and it's probably 60% that next hand would take action, and Advancer is borderline on GF/Lebensohl, so...And if they don't open, but come in after p-1♣-p-1♠, then (another 5 options)..."

[jillybean]

East thought they were playing a generic 2♣ GF
West believed they had dropped the generic 2♣ GF (I don't blame them if they use it on hands like this)

Before the opening lead, East neglected to announce that there had been a failure to alert. "Don't do that again"
Is anyone other than SB aware of this Law?

After a review of the board, it appears 3NT is makeable on any lead. No damage, No adjustment.

Here's a wrinkle. During the review it becomes apparent that the East/West hands were switched after the hand was played 2 rounds ago.
How do you resolve this?

Tut-tut for table 2 4, "Don't do that again"
A+ for tables 3 and 4 2
Restore the correct hand for the remaining tables?

[sanst]

 jillybean, on 2025-March-18, 14:26, said:

Here's a wrinkle. During the review it becomes apparent that the East/West hands were switched after the hand was played 2 rounds ago.
How do you resolve this?

Tut-tut for table 2, "Don't do that again"
A+ for tables 3 and 4
Restore the correct hand for the remaining tables?

It's a fouled board (Law 87A) and should be scored according to Law 87B. Here the director took the easy way out, A+, but that's illegal. Although there was an irregularity, a result was obtained so the conditions set for an AAS are not met. In this case you get two sets of scores on this board which are used to compute the final results.
In general I'm not fond of penalties, but in cases like this I'm all in favour of a penalty for the pair that changed the hands, even if they are novices. This is really ruinous for the results on this board and thus for the whole match. Hopefully it teaches them a lesson. "Tut tut. Don't do that again" certainly doesn't.

[mycroft]

1. What? Yes, everybody (should) know(s) that you must correct a failure to Alert. The problem is that they don't know what to do when they're defending, so they come to the director and ask. Which, as you can guess, causes other issues. If they don't know this, you've got bigger problems than "friendly game"; I guarantee the people who "can't be ruled against" will be absolutely indignant that *they* did this *against us*!

They also don't realize the difference between "partner misexplained" and "I misexplained". But with the new (okay, 2017) law revision, that's okay, because as long as they point it out before the opening lead, they're in time (if not best).

2. Table 2 fouled the board. The director needs to know what happened - most often it's East grabbing West's hand after to tell them what they did wrong and then putting it in their slot, but N-S can be responsible for it (they put their cards back in the slot, swap it, and when E-W object, bring it back backwards; or after E-W left, N-S pull out the hands to see how it should have been played), or even another table can have the problem (what do you bet there's a sitout somewhere, and the players pulled out all four hands to "bid them", or pulled out their own and realized E-W have the cards, so replaced their cards and pulled out E-W?) and where.

I will note though that if the boards are going up, your game is running a bit unusually (criss-cross Mitchell?) It's more likely that it was fouled at table 5 and played at tables 4 and 3...(*)

Then the director marks the board fouled for all the tables it was played with the reversed hands (ACBLScor "FOUL" command), and lets the computer DTRT. Having said that, I know what the computer does, and I would, if reasonable, allow the board to be played fouled at least 4 rounds before correcting (assuming that it is played at least 8 rounds), and if it was a 12/13 round event, have it fouled about half the time. If the board is fouled fewer times than that, artificial percentages are assigned rather than using the Fouled Board Formula, and the closer it is to even, the "fairer" the formula works. But it does increase the number of pairs who complain when they look at the hand records after that "when we played it, the finesse was off/they got to open rather than us opening 1NT/...".

(*) Two comments here. First, I will admit that I failed my first shot at the Club Director's Exam, almost certainly because I mis-fouled the "fouled board" traveller exactly in that way. Yes, back in the day, you had to hand-matchpoint travellers, including one with an obvious foul, as part of the Club Exam. So, this should not be taken as a "ha you don't know how to direct!" comment. But second, this is a *really common thing* to get wrong in the chaos, but also a *really bad one*, as you're disrupting the wrong table, and then embarrassing yourself after they tell you "but we haven't played it yet!" Same with trying to find E-W pair 9 for a suspicious score check and going the wrong direction once you find pair 7, or after working out on your fingers where they *should be*. (Again, can you tell that this is from personal experience?)

[jillybean]

How did I miss 87B I need to setup a game at home and practice these ACBL Scor commands.
I see why Club Directors only adjust to A+ or skipped.

As I've said previously, tut-tut, don't do that again is the norm. Nothing will change until these players run into a Tournament Director or EDGAR. From time to time I hear the story from a player who was admonished at a Regional/NABC for repeated infractions involving disclosure, tempo and such like. These players are genuinely astonished that they are breaking the law, and often somewhat indignant.

[jillybean]

note to self add sticky to 25A and 87B

[mycroft]

You know, I don't mind "tut-tut, don't do that again." Especially if they don't. After all, Law 20 or 45 protects the opponents on this hand from the FtA, and the Alert protects the rest of the field from the next few times; and the equivalent "please finish that discussion and have an agreement for next time; I will assume you have one, and it will probably be the one you didn't disclose properly" applies to the "we talked about taking that off the card, but we clearly didn't agree."

The ones that get me are the ones who don't in fact "don't do it again". And I don't mean on a different agreeement that they didn't realize was Alertable, I mean the ones that get told "you are not allowed to play odd/even *signals*, except on the first discard" and then proceed to explain their old agreement at the next table (correctly, mind you, just knowingly illegally), because most people don't know to call. I mean the ones who, 3 years and 1500 MPs into a partnership, still say "it's undiscussed" as the *complete answer* to things like "how strong is 1♠-p-3♦?" or "does the rebid deny 3 spades (in a support double situation)?" And I'm sure it *is* undiscussed, deliberately they avoid having these conversations... Or the ones who, for years in the 1960s, were always able to come up with some reason why they "judged" their flat 9 to be upgradable to a "10-12" - until History came down from on high and said "when we said 10 minimum, we meant 10 Miltons. If you do it with even KJT9 AJT9 T98 T9, we'll nail you to the wall. Of course that doesn't apply to 1♠ on AKT98 T987 4 863, even though that requires 8 minimum" because frankly, the practitioners of the latter weren't so obnoxious about their BS attempts to get around the rules (and, well, nobody that played with any BOD member at the time played EHAA. I'm sure that had *nothing* to do with it). Or...

As you strongly imply, that would be unethical and an attempt to play without full disclosure or around the legally created regulations in the ACBL. But EDGAR isn't likely to get you there (although some of That Other Guy's tests probably would, if he allowed the ACBL to use them).

And maybe yes, we let even them get away with it more often than we should, and more "heads I win, tails I break even" than is good for the community. But that's a diehard 2% of the community. Almost all others (with the exception of Announcements, especially 15-17 NTs. Okay fine, frankly they're only hurting themselves.) say "thank you", and then, the next time the auction comes up, *do the right thing*.

The role of a penalty is to stop the incorrect behaviour (as opposed to a rectification, which is to recompense the damage caused by the incorrect action). If "tut-tut, don't do it again" (and my "polite" equivalent of that is more forceful than that, as I assume is nearly everybody's) stops it, then the penalty was sufficient and was correctly applied. We don't need to send people to jail (or even Suspension) over FtAs, especially if it's ones that are a result of Bad Bridge Players playing Bad Bridge. It's not like there's a need for An Example for Public Deterrence, like some other actions - seriously, do you think it would help?

[mycroft]

Some notes:

• Yeah, eventually someone's gonna get me for FtA on the 4522 13 count. That just "feels" wrong, because it was a specific exception in the last regulations, and I just can't get it into my head until too late. I assume the equivalent "Forcing, may have 4 spades" for those who do play Flannery is easier to remember, because that auction comes up more often. Having said that, I've never heard it in 6 years, and I play in a fairly heavy Flannery environment in the summers.
  
• I am more likely, as I have said before, to issue an actual MP penalty to players who foul a board or the movement than to those who (unless blatantly or deliberately) commit a play infraction or even a disclosure infraction. And maybe it's just a "you're making me work" thing, but it does ruin the board for the players (even if it's just "wait, it wasn't like the hand record when we played it" or "well, you'll have to wait a bit, and you only get to play 26 boards"). But that's (the other reason) why it's *critical* to *find out* where the foul happened, and *how* it happened; if you're going to issue a penalty, it rebounds really hard if it turns out you penalized the wrong people!
  
• Yeah, it's worth walking through the ACBLscor commands (and the F1 help for a lot of them, if you don't understand it. Even if all the help tells you is "you don't need to understand this one", like the various CFIGs or double-ranking, or the "G" command during fouling (at least I hope you never need it). One thing, if you think your club is ever going to do a team game, is to take one of your pair entry sheets home, and treat each table as a "team", and set up the game, enter all the names of the "teams", and walk through pairing and scoring.
  
• One of the reasons I'm pretty nice about the odd FtA is because I know the old Alert procedure was hard to read and complicated, and the new one is legalistic (therefore hard to read, but at least not ambiguous) and complicated - and different. There are people who have played for 20 years and have finally got through their head that support doubles were Alertable - only to find that they're not any more. Or "(1♣ Precision)-2♣", or weak jump shifts (not in competition), or... Especially since we still encourage the use of the old card (with the old Alertable markings), and "it says right on the card that..." I would *like* them to have read it and looked at the differences and know what is Alertable in their system (even if they have no clue about mine, that's not a big deal); but that's a war I'm going to lose, when I'm faced with people who after three years of playing 2/1 GF, will bid 2♣ with 6 hearts and 2 clubs and 13 high because "I need to set a game force".

[jdiana]

I understand that this is not the right way to play 2/1 but I don't see any bid that requires an alert, unless they were playing 2♣ as a completely artificial game force (i.e., they might have < 3 clubs).

I've seen lots of club players bid 2♣ with only 3 or 4 clubs "to establish a game force" and don't think that's the end of the world.

[akwoo]

mycroft, on 2025-March-18, 19:11, said:

I assume the equivalent "Forcing, may have 4 spades" for those who do play Flannery is easier to remember, because that auction comes up more often. Having said that, I've never heard it in 6 years, and I play in a fairly heavy Flannery environment in the summers.

One note - are you sure that these pairs playing Flannery actually know how to play Flannery? I do know a pair playing Flannery (with 2500 MPs or so each, including probably 1500 together) for whom 1♥-1N DOES deny 4 spades. "Partner could have 4 spades with a 16 count." (At that point, I'm not going to point out to them that partner then could afford to reverse over the 1N response.)

[pescetom]

 jdiana, on 2025-March-18, 20:58, said:

I understand that this is not the right way to play 2/1 but I don't see any bid that requires an alert, unless they were playing 2♣ as a completely artificial game force (i.e., they might have < 3 clubs).

I've seen lots of club players bid 2♣ with only 3 or 4 clubs "to establish a game force" and don't think that's the end of the world.

If anything I think it is the inferences from *not* bidding 2♣ that really need alerting if they are playing that this is the only game forcing 2/1. But I gather ACBL is not keen on alerting inferences in general.
This is not just an issue with beginners or hopeless players, BTW. Yesterday I played 2/1 (or so we agreed) with a very experienced player, five minutes discussion. On the second board I went down in 4 hearts after a 1♥-2♦ auction. Turned out he had 11 HCP 2352. "Yes of course that's all my response promised: why not bid a natural 2/1 in diamonds when you have 2 clubs to force to game?".

[jillybean]

pescetom, on 2025-March-19, 07:44, said:

If anything I think it is the inferences from *not* bidding 2♣ that really need alerting if they are playing that this is the only game forcing 2/1. But I gather ACBL is not keen on alerting inferences in general.
This is not just an issue with beginners or hopeless players, BTW. Yesterday I played 2/1 (or so we agreed) with a very experienced player, five minutes discussion. On the second board I went down in 4 hearts after a 1♥-2♦ auction. Turned out he had 11 HCP 2352. "Yes of course that's all my response promised: why not bid a natural 2/1 in diamonds when you have 2 clubs to force to game?".

I see it's a Global problem. This looks like a text book three card limit raise.
Your partner must have thought you only pened solid 13 counts and played your hands better?