David Stevenson
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According to EBU/WBU regulations all artificial bids are alertable with certain exceptions, namely bids above 3NT and those which are announced like Stayman and major suit transfers. If you were playing on BBO then the distinction hardly matters since you just alert and explain it. In practice if you explained it before making the call it probably does not matter whether you alerted it as well, but your explanation did not necessarily make it clear that it was artificial so a less experienced opponent could have been confused as to whether you had hearts as well as being strong and excited.
After the last pass of the auction the opening leader and the declarer may ask questions about the bidding (and for declarer, carding arrangements). When opening leader has selected his lead he heads face down and it is considered polite and normal to ask “Any questions, partner” or the like. While the lead is face down the opening leader’s partner and the declarer may ask questions about the bidding (and for declarer, carding arrangements). After the opening lead either defender or declarer may ask questions about the bidding (and for declarer, carding arrangements) whenever it is his turn to play, including for declarer when it is dummy’s turn to play.
I am not sure why you think the law says differently, but that is the law and its international interpretation.I don’t like the word ethical. Proper would be better. After a break in tempo from partner you must choose a call that is proper, not one that is improper. If you choose a call that is improper the result may get adjusted against you.
What is the difference between improper and unethical? A call is unethical if the player making it knows that it is improper but does it anyway. In a large number of unauthorised information situations a player has made a call that he believes was proper or has made an improper call because he did not notice the unauthorised information. Directors will never say the players are unethical and other players should avoid this as well.
Note the term ‘break in tempo’. Since the rules cover calls that are faster than the normal tempo and also because the word hesitation has unfortunate connotations there is a growing idea amongst directors and people who understand the laws to refer to a ‘break in tempo’, often shortening it and calling it a BIT.
There is no crime in thinking, and thinking is not hesitating. The problem is that anything you do at the bridge table might be noticed by partner and may affect his bidding. If you frown after partner bids 3S then it might affect partner on the next round if he is thinking of doubling. What you have done is given partner unauthorised information.
Actually it is more than that. After all, partner might not have noticed your frown, or may only have noticed it subconsciously. But it could still affect his bidding or seem to. As a result laws are written in such a way that your partner’s actions are constrained if you have made unauthorised information available to him. The law says nothing about whether he noticed nor used it consciously. That is why there are adjustments but no mention of a crime.
The most common existence of unauthorised information is when you make a call out of tempo. For example, if the bidding goes 1NT Pass 2NT to you, you will often pass quite quickly because there is nothing to think about. There is what you might call a normal tempo to bidding and when a call differs from that tempo it indicates something about your hand. Most breaches of tempo are when a call is notably slower than normal and the common term for this is hesitating. Suppose the bidding goes 1S Pass 4S and after a full two minutes thought your partner doubles, looking worried. Do you think he has three trump tricks and two aces? Of course not! So there is a tendency to take such a double out when if it had been made in normal tempo you might have passed. Nobody is suggesting you do this deliberately (at least, some opponents might suggest it, which is implied in your use of the word accusers, but the director will not think this way) but it does not matter. The laws are based on an attempt to get fairness which means using this sort of information from partner is illegal whether you use it knowingly or not.It is to reduce problems of this sort that the Stop bid regulations were invented. When a player makes a jump bid it is more likely that his LHO might have a problem so LHO is required to pause for some time whether he has a problem or not. This is controlled by anyone who makes a jump bid putting the Stop card out before the jump bid and then leaving it out for some time after the bid is made, during which time LHO may not call. In practice many people in clubs put the Stop card out but withdraw it immediately after the bid is made.
When you make unauthorised information available to partner, as I said above, his actions are constrained. If he has a reasonable choice of calls then he is not allowed to choose any call that is suggested over another call by the unauthorised information. If the director believes he has done so and gained thereby he will adjust.So what is the solution to all this? One solution is to always call in tempo, apart from pausing the required amount of time over a Stop bid. This is pretty much impossible since there are times when you need to think more than at other times. The second solution is to try to avoid taking any advantage when your partner makes unauthorised information available which experienced players often try to do. Of course it is sometimes impossible since the partner of the person who has made the unauthorised information available may not have noticed it! The best solution is to accept that you will get ruled against every so often and just accept it.
They can claim whenever they like. It is often a good idea for defenders to claim when declarer has all the tricks and is playing them out slowly.
It is certainly normal for players to have different agreements from what you consider standard and both these bids are legal. But the question is what needs to be disclosed to opponents and how.
If they open 1NT with a singleton as often as from time to time then that needs to be part of the announcement, something like “12-14, may have a singleton”. If, on the other hand they never have a singleton and the player just decided to bid it on this occasion for any reason you like to name, missorted hand, or misread or misclicked online, or saw difficulties with rebids, then that is fine. You are entitled to their agreements, not that they follow them.
Responding 1NT with two four card majors may be bad bridge, failing to understand the advantages of bidding 1H, just a bright idea on this hand, or some such. But if it is part of their system, perhaps responses of 1M show 5 cards, I would expect a better explanation, such as “6-9, may have a four card major”.This is a tricky one!
According to the EBU Blue book:
‘Any bid which shows at least four cards in a specified suit is permitted. The quality of the suit and the strength of the hand must conform to the standards generally played for a natural call at the minimum possible level (bids showing at least 5-5 in two suits may traditionally be made on very weak hands).’
That is one of the vaguest and least workable regulations I have seen and certainly did not used to be in the book but there is at least a suggestion that these overcalls may not be legal after one level openings and in the direct position. Any defence is permitted after higher openings or after an opening bid and two more calls. So if this player bids 1S over 1D by partnership agreement on
Qxxxx
xx
xxxx
Tx
I think it is an illegal agreement. If he is really doing so 2 or 3 times a session then an agreement exists even if the pair has never discussed it.
At least your other two questions are easy! I do not consider this part of the basic system so it does not need to be mentioned at the start of the round but it does need to be alerted and explained either in response to a question or (on BBO or similar) before making the bid.It is very easy to call the director. There is a button, usually blue with three parallel lines, and when you click on it ‘Call Director’ is one of the options. It has an explain box so you just explain.
You have never got the right to refuse to accept a result at any duplicate online or live. Either you accept it or you call the director.It appears Bernard has got this slightly wrong. There are some events at Level 2, typically for novices, and some holiday events are Level 2, and defences to 1NT are quite restricted, and in those this use of 2C is not permitted. But the majority of club events are Level 3 or Level 4, and you can play any defence to 1NT in those, so in most club events you can play 2C as clubs or the majors.
Be careful if you do play this to alert it and describe it correctly. You must not say “Landy” or “the majors” but something like “the majors, or just clubs”.
Some players do take out whenever they have fewer than five points. One possible approach is to take out into a five card suit, or to bid 2C with no 5 card suit other than clubs. 2C would alertable being either 5 clubs or no 5 card suit. If you do respond 2C playing this way the doubler will rebid a 5 card suit if he has one.
This method is not guaranteed but in practice it rarely seems to result in being doubled in anything. Of course you lose out when doubler had it going off in his own hand but this is unusual.Unlike Julian I have never played passing with any balanced hand and I am happy with my results. Perhaps you should discuss the two approaches with your partner and try one of the other and see what happens.
It looks fairly easy to reach the slam after a 1H opener but there is a growing irrational fear amongst many club players of opening at the one level with a seven card or longer suit, so they either open a preempt on a hand that is too strong or a strong bid like an Acol 2C or a Benjamin or Reverse Benjamin 2C or 2D on a hand that is too weak. The EBU is trying to control the latter practice because people announce a hand as strong and opponents do not bid expecting a lot of top card strength. The rules they give for an artificial strong bid is that it must have either
(A) 16+ points, or
(B) 12+ points and 5+ controls, where A=2, K=1.
This hand has only 4 controls so it does not qualify.
Furthermore if they do allow (B) then they should say so, perhaps “Strong, artificial, may be weaker with good controls” or some such.I suppose the fairest thing to say is that the double click on BBO or the two taps on EasyBridge is an option and perhaps everyone should try it both ways and decide for themselves.
Whether Undos are allowed in the play is a matter for the organiser though it is early days for RealBridge. I have tried the two taps (as they call it) myself and found it annoying so gave it up. It is my belief that once you get used to it and play a lot you may find yourself misclicking and automatically confirming on RealBridge so losing any advantage from two taps.
The legal approach is that if the organiser allows you to Undo then you have every right to ask for an Undo and most players accept Undos. In general it is difficult to decide why the player has gone wrong and the opponents have always got the right to call the director and let him decide. This is the same in live bridge, BBO or RealBridge. While I have no experience of other platforms like BCL or Stepbridge I presume the approach is similar.The reason why the EBU allows Undos in leagues and similar but only in the bidding, the reason why the SBU and other organisations allow Undos only in the bidding is because in live bridge when you make an unintended call you can correct it. So if someone in live bridge accidentally took a pass card out of the box when they intended to bid 1NT it can be corrected. So it is not fair to say it could not happen in live bridge, the reason for that rule is to bring it in line with live bridge.
Of course you say it was obviously not a misclick but you have no evidence for that. It is very easy to misclick and most of us have done so. In nearly every case where someone asks for an Undo it is because of a misclick. It is easier to make a very strange misclick (such as a pass for a bid) than to pull a completely wrong card in live bridge, though both are possible.
Misclicks in the play are a different matter. Played cards may not be withdrawn in live bridge even if unintended so most organisations do not allow misclicks in the play. Nevertheless some do.
