[bid_em_up]

Playing in a KO match in recent ACBL regional, the opponents have had a strong auction where they have bid and raised spades. LHO eventually bids 4N (RKC, 1430) and RHO responds 5♦. LHO then tanks for about 4 minutes, and finally bids 5 spades. My partner passes and RHO insta bids 6♠. Director is called, situation explained, and told to play on.

It turns out that RHO had answered 4N incorrectly (thinking 0314), and that he "realized it" after he bid it. Sure he did, like during that 4 minute tank.

After play of hand finished, director called back, and told of subsequent actions and result. At the end of the match, we still did not have an answer regarding this board, but we were so far out of it, the ruling was not going to affect the state of the match so we informed the director of this and that was the end of it.

So, out of curiousity, is RHO allowed to "realize his misbid" which is the cause of the BIT, and then correct it accordingly?

[kenrexford]

Whatever the ruling, one thing somewhat disturbs me.

I would never decline to geta ruling on a pending director call unless:

1. It does not affect our result,
2. It does not affect the opponents' result, and
3. It does not affect the field result sufficiently to affect someone else's score.

Nothing would tick me off more than to come in 2nd in an event because the winners deferred a ruling long enough for their opponents to not care, when I REALLY CARE, or if I came in second by a half point due that would have been a full point better had the ruling been made.

I even think that a protect-the-field appeal is sometimes warranted.

[awm]

While I agree with Ken in principle, this is a KO event. The matches are win/loss, and it sounds like the result of this board is not going to effect the winner. There's no concern about the rest of the field or the winner's overall score (as there might be in a pairs or swiss teams event).

Anyway, I think it is routine to roll this back to 5♠. The huddle (how could you have so few keycards? is that even possible?) surely helps to clue partner in to his misbid.

[bid_em_up]

kenrexford, on Jun 8 2010, 02:40 PM, said:

I would never decline to geta  ruling on a pending director call unless:

1. It does not affect our result,
2. It does not affect the opponents' result, and
3. It does not affect the field result sufficiently to affect someone else's score.

Huh?

Hellooooo, KO Match? (with no carryover, and we were losing by infinity + 1). Doesn't that meet your criteria?

Besides, I was ready to get the hell out of there.

[bluejak]

The trouble with these sort of rules is that circumstances alter cases.

In the one where I was involved as a player I opened 1♠, partner bid 2NT, raise to 3♠ or better, I bid 3♦, game values, no slam interest opposite a raise to 3♠. The trouble was that I was borderline between 3♦ and making a slam try. Partner now cue bid and I was never going to stop below slam.

Partner bid 4NT and I responded wrong. He signed off and I went on. The trouble was that his signoff was very slow. In fact all his bids were very slow: as I told the AC I was bored out of my mind which is why I responded wrong.

Now, as I told the AC, and they accepted, since I was always going to slam, the effect of a very slow signoff is not relevant. But this was a special case.

In general there are dangers in progressing. One view, expressed by the TD on that occasion, is that there is case Law in the ACBL to suggest that partner's slowness may have reminded the player of the wrong response.

The EBU has commented:

White book 2010 said:

16.4 "Hesitation Blackwood"

The partner of a Blackwood bidder is normally expected to accept his partner's decision, and when that decision is after a pause for thought, he is not permitted to continue except when partner "cannot" have a hand on which slam will fail.

While this is the normal case there are particular positions where it might be acceptable for a player to continue, which include:

• Responder holds an unshown but useful void.
  
  
• Because he has miscounted responder has more aces than he has shown.
  
  
• After a response showing 0/3, 0/4 or 1/4, responder has the higher value.

[Pict]

Seems very simple.

If partner could ever want to play at the five level after your reply, you have to pass. You can tell yourself you 'really knew' immediately after your misbid that you misbid, but nobody is listening once pard has tanked - tough luck.

Unless:

You could literally never pass out below slam on your hand.

Edit - just seen Bluejak's contribution. I'd like to see the full hand - so hard to make these up.

[bluejak]

The trouble is that it is several years ago so I do not remember the hand.

[axman]

bid_em_up, on Jun 8 2010, 01:21 PM, said:

Playing in a KO match in recent ACBL regional, the opponents have had a strong auction where they have bid and raised spades. LHO eventually bids 4N (RKC, 1430) and RHO responds 5♦. LHO then tanks for about 4 minutes, and finally bids 5 spades. My partner passes and RHO insta bids 6♠. Director is called, situation explained, and told to play on.

It turns out that RHO had answered 4N incorrectly (thinking 0314), and that he "realized it" after he bid it. Sure he did, like during that 4 minute tank.

After play of hand finished, director called back, and told of subsequent actions and result. At the end of the match, we still did not have an answer regarding this board, but we were so far out of it, the ruling was not going to affect the state of the match so we informed the director of this and that was the end of it.

So, out of curiousity, is RHO allowed to "realize his misbid" which is the cause of the BIT, and then correct it accordingly?

RHO is certainly permitted to realize he has misbid; further he is subject to adjustment and penalty should he have UI [includes UI from any junctiure of the auction] and act on it as he did in this case.

[kenrexford]

Oh. KO. Well, then, leave when you can.

[blackshoe]

I must confess that I don't really understand the attitude that if the result of an appeal isn't going to matter, one should not bother appealing. I tend to judge the merits of an appeal I'm considering making on the merits as I see them of the ruling. If it's a judgment case, and it seems close to me, then fine. If it's not close, and I think the TD was bonkers, I think it's worth an appeal, whatever effect it may have on our standings, our opponents' standings, or the field. That said, the laws now make it clear that both members of a pair (in pair games) must concur in the appeal, so if my partner says "it's a waste of time; I want to go home", I defer to that, as it seems to me it will usually be counterproductive to try to convince partner otherwise, partnership harmony being more important than the result on one board. NB: in club games, I would expect my partner to not want to bother, 99 times out of a hundred.

[TylerE]

It's not an appeal being debated. The director took the board away to consult but never actually came back with a result. (I was the other member of NOS in this case)

[blackshoe]

Yeah, okay, not an appeal. Even worse, IMO. If a TD comes to the table to make a ruling, he ought to make one, sooner or later, and tell both pairs involved what it was. If a pair came to me while I was deliberating and said "we don't care about the ruling", I'd still make one.

[mrdct]

What was the entire auction and what was RHO's hand? Depending who may or not be limited and what controls may or not have been shown, RHO could quite easily have a hand where pass is not a logical alternative so I'll defer my vote until I see the additional information.

My preliminary thoughts, however, are that your opponents probably benefited from the long tank as an immediate 5♠ would almost certainly be passed by RHO unless he held something extraordinary and I'm likely to give the benefit of any doubt to the non-offending side.

That being said, unless RHO is a known self-serving habitual liar, I'm often inclined to place a fair bit of weight on the honesty of bridge players so I will look him in the eye and ask him whether he realised his error before or after his partner went into the tank. I will also ask him if the question of why is partner taking so long entered his mind.

[jdeegan]

This is absurd. A four minute hez is UI, big time. And what could he have been thinking about??
Partner has to bend over backwards to avoid using it. With an extra unshown ace and a max consistent with earlier bidding, bidding six is OK, I guess. I would need to see their convention card, though, to verify that RKC responder really did mis-answer his controls. The question is what would he have bid over a fast 5♠.

[bid_em_up]

mrdct, on Jun 8 2010, 10:13 PM, said:

What was the entire auction and what was RHO's hand?

Maybe Tyler remembers the auction.

iirc, his hand was Jxxxx xxx KQxx A

There is no way the guy knows about the trump suit (dummy held AKQx♠). This was my objection, and why I thought pass was a clear-cut logical alternative.

[bid_em_up]

blackshoe, on Jun 8 2010, 09:25 PM, said:

Yeah, okay, not an appeal. Even worse, IMO. If a TD comes to the table to make a ruling, he ought to make one, sooner or later, and tell both pairs involved what it was. If a pair came to me while I was deliberating and said "we don't care about the ruling", I'd still make one.

Good for you.

However, I expect that after 30 minutes and consulting with two other Nationally certified directors, you would have been able to make a ruling. This one hadn't, and I wasn't waiting any longer.

[TylerE]

I don't remember exactly... but it was something like..

1x - 1♠
3♠ - something (4♦?)
4N - 5♦
5♠ - 6♠

[mrdct]

Nothing extraordinary about that hand - roll the contract back to 5♠.