[mycroft]

Jlall, on Sep 25 2005, 12:57 PM, said:

Right a partnership agreement does not have to be explicit. It can be based on common knowledge (like stayman, even if you haven't discussed or bid it yet before with that partner), previous bids by partner (like if your partner has psyched 1N in third seat twice in 1 session you should start alerting), etc etc. Opening 1N with a stiff I *believe* is ok if it happens less than 1 % of your 1N openers and you do not cater to it. If it happens more than 1 % you need to alert. I am not sure on this point.

Justin, you are channelling the ACBL (and not surprising, really). Different organizations have different rules about when a happening becomes disclosable.

From The ACBL web site:

"You may use your bridge judgment to open or overcall a notrump with a singleton, provided that:

"It is a rare occurrence (no more than 1% of the time), Your partner expects you to have at least two cards in each suit, and You and your partner have no agreements which enable you to discover that partner has a singleton."

In the WBF, things are different (they're talking specifically about psychic calls, but the rule, I would assume, applies to "significant undisclosed deviations" like unbalanced 1NTs):

"In its minute of 30th August 2000 the WBF Laws Committee ruled that a partnership understanding exists when the frequency of occurrence is sufficient for the partner of the player who makes the call to take his awareness of psychic possibilities into account, whether he does so or not;..."

I believe this one is too strict (after all, 100 NT openers would show up for a full-time bridge pair probably in one or two weeks; if 1% of 1NT openers were with a singleton, even 0.5 or 0.25%, they'd have a WBF "implicit partnership understanding" PDQ), but I'm not going to complain about it until I can write a better one.

Michael.

[luis]

Yes you were robbed.
Not only that I find the ruling insulting.

Let's assume you were indeed concealing a partnership agreement -I'm sure you were not-, even then the 3♦ bid is not a result of the concealed information and I would let the table result stand and maybe use a procedural penalty on your side for not properly alerting and disclosing your special agreement.

Take it easy anger management when the TD imposes an incredible ridiculous ruling is one of the skills you will need as a bridge player.

[jillybean]

This is likely a new TD, remember all beginners are taught you CANNOT open 1nt with a singleton or even 2 doubletons and likely they don’t know the rules regarding alerts.

I agree this is a bad ruling but you can help by stating the facts and leaving the insults out.

jb