[helene_t]

Scoring: Matchpoints

---

West North East South

- - - 1NT
Pass 2♣ 2♠ Pass
Pass Dbl Pass 3♦
Pass Pass Dbl Pass
Pass Pass

3♦X was made. Director adjusted to ave- because the off-shape 14-count 1NT was not alerted.

I'm surprised:
- My profile says that 1NT may be undiciplined.
- This evaluates to an average SAYC 1NT opening according to every book I've read.
- I was playing with a casual p that had access to no more information about my bidding style than did the opponents (actually, this was my second 1NT opening in the tournament, the first one I had 15 HCPs and a 4333-shape with one ten).
- The tournaments did not specify any rules, nor did the director anounce anything other than "alert all conventional calls".
- I don't see how the result could have been influenced by the failure to alert the 1NT opening.

[EricK]

It does seem a strange decision.

If you had had a 3rd club and one fewer diamond (and West's hand adjusted accordingly), it still looks like 3♦ makes.

I assume it was East who called the director. Did East explain what different bid would have been made had they been explicitly informed about the possibility of a 6 card minor? East's double was a risky bid which didn't pay off.

An off-shape bid is not the same as a conventional bid, IMO

Eric

[helene_t]

The discussion was about whether I had 14 or 15 points. East sayd that I failed to alert a "weak" 1NT. The agreement was 15-17.

[badderzboy]

Helene, you got mugged since

(1) when do you alert your NT range if not 15-17 or is it an ACBL requirement? , opps can ask (I must admit I always alert the range to be polite so people don't get narked as I plat ACOL).

(2) Your bid is not a psych as you do not significantly misrepresent your hand and the extra length and texture of the hand surely makes it worth 15-17, a question of judgement which a director cannot rule on surely?.

It's a shame people try for the double play, if the dbl works I'm happy if it doesn't I'll moan and try and get an adjustment!

I play a weak NT and this is too strong in my opinion for 12-14 and I would happily rebid 1NT showing 15-16 after a 1♦ opening



Steve

[helene_t]

I would alert 1NT if I played anything different from 15-17. I evaluate this hand as 15.5. This was not an ACBL-events btw.

[EricK]

helene_t, on Jan 9 2005, 11:05 AM, said:

The discussion was about whether I had 14 or 15 points. East sayd that I failed to alert a "weak" 1NT. The agreement was 15-17.

So East was upset that your hand was weaker than you advertised, yet when s/he doubled the contract made!

This is just ridiculous.

Eric

[hrothgar]

Not sure how best to describe the ruling. I keep vacillating between "Joke" and "Travesty". Regardless, the ruling is not in accordance with the Laws as I understand them.

I suggest avoiding tournaments run by said director in the future...

[luke warm]

the ruling makes no sense to me... even if this was a 'no psych' tourney, your 1nt bid can't be misconstrued as a psych by anyone... what the hell does 'off shape' mean in this context? is there a tourney rule that 1nt openings can't be 6223? geez this kinda stuff chaps me

[hotShot]

The decision is wrong:


1) If you play 15-17 an adjustment of 1hcp is allways legal
2) there are limitations about single's, void's and 5 card majors, but nothing about a 6 card minor

But, in F2F Brdige i would want to see a CC to prove your NT range.

But this would perhaps lead to a procedural penalty, and not to a score correction.

[helene_t]

Sorry for an error in the original post: the scorring was matchpoints, not IMPs (corrected now). How can this happen? I used Linconverter.

Personally I don't think the scorring matters. At IMPs doubling 3♦ requires some 85% chance of beating it. But in this case it's safe not to double at matchpoints also, since North's double shows that the board belongs to NS so even 1 down undoubled would have been a good score for EW.

[Gerben47]

Hi Helene and others,

This ruling is beyond ridiculous and shows that there should be some kind of control system. I would send this to abuse@bridgebase.com so that they can consider retracting this person's TD licence (at least on BBO).

[Rebound]

You got ripped. Plain and simple. The ruling was contrary to the Laws. It just shows the overall poor understanding of the laws by the directors I have seen.

[helene_t]

Thanks for the suggestion, Gerben. However, the TD was polite enough and said he would catch up on this thread. I think that will suffice.

[the hog]

No Helene you don't need to alert this. The td is incompetent.

[adriana]

Helen,
I gave u ave not because of the points range but because of the shape.
You forgot to mention also that it was a tourney with 50 tables and i have had no CoTD.This is a good lesson for me..for further tourneys.Maybe i should just play and let the others play in main when no other tourneys runs,or not making such large tourneys,no matter how much people are asking me to increase number.
I will look if i have saved chat..it was about SHAPE not points.If i was wrong I'm sorry,and i'll think twice(or more) before thinking at others instead playing.
Thank you

[hrothgar]

adriana, on Jan 11 2005, 07:42 PM, said:

Helen,
I gave u ave not because of the points range but because of the shape.
You forgot to mention also that it was a tourney with 50 tables and i have had no CoTD.This is a good lesson for me..for further tourneys.Maybe i should just play and let the others play in main when no other tourneys runs,or not making such large tourneys,no matter how much people are asking me to increase number.
I will look if i have saved chat..it was about SHAPE not points.If i was wrong I'm sorry,and i'll think twice(or more) before thinking at others instead playing.
Thank you

Adriana, I understand your desire to defend yourself. Many posters on this forum, myself included were sharply critical of your ruling. In defending yourself, you are making two assertions

1. Your ruling was based on the fact that Helene's shape was non-standard and not the strength of her hand. Regardless of wheter your ruling was based on strength rather than shape, the ruling is still incorrect. Players are allowed to exercise judgement. If a player believes that it is best to (occasionally) treat a 6322 hand or even a 5431/4441 as balanced then they are permitted to do so. Equally significant, if this decision is based on judgement rather than explict partnership understanding then they do not require an alert.

2. You reference the fact that you were supporting 50 tables without the help of a co-director as factor contributing towards the ruling. Its now 24 hours later and you still don't seem to understand the principles involved...

I think that it is very important for any tournament director to recognize their own limits. In particular, you need to carefully consider whether soloing a 50 table tournament is really providing a service to the players or simply asking for trouble. I've directed roughly 20 tournaments on BBO. I think that I have a pretty good familiarity with both the Director's GUI and the Laws. Even so, I hold myself to a pretty strict limit of 20 tables when running an Indy and 12 tables when running a pairs event.

[luis]

Horrible ruling.
Keep opening 1NT when you think your hand is worth a 1NT opening, don't let this sort of aberrations change the way you excercise your right to evaluate bridge hands as you like.

TD: Shape? You changed the result because of Shape? With my best respect you shouldn't change any result without consulting with a good TD or a good player.

[inquiry]

I see no harm in alerting that you open "semi-balanced hands 1NT" and if the opponents ask, tell them what semi-balanced is. I will open some 5422, 5431, and 6322 hands 1NT. I do not open all such hands that fall into my NT range, 1NT. I will also open 1NT with 5332 with a five card major 1NT (not all 5332 hands, but some). Do I have a partnership agreement? Well, on line both misho and henk will know that I open some semi-balanced hands 1NT. Other partners? I guess they will just be surprised. If my hand "looks" like a 1NT opener, I will open it 1NT (or 2NT, or multi 2D balaned) even with what this TD considers non-standard shape. I don;t think I am far from accepted standards on this (some people will not open 1NT with 5 card major, some will not opne with a singleton, some will not open with a six card suit). I even opened 1NT with a six card major once, and if I get the hand again, I will open it again 1NT.

So, when will alerts be required? Well, if your partnership has methods to "catch" a 1NT opener with a five card major (that is, you have PREPARED for it). So, for instance, if you play puppet stayman to 1NT, either the 1NT bid should be alerted, or the puppet stayman alerted (I do not have methods to catch the off-shape 1NT opener with any of my partners).

Now, as for how "rare" is a 1NT opener with 6322 distribution? I put bridgebrowser to this using 2,599,148 hands in the "active" (as opposed to archieved) BBO main room database. Thir represents 162,247 hands if we assume each hand was played 16 times (for main room, a fair assumption).

Of these records, 1NT was the opening bid 298,267 times (which means 1NT was opened 11.44% of the time). Of these 298,267 times, the opener had 6322 distribution 4,733 times. This comes out to be 1.6% of all 1NT opening bids. Now, when you consider that 6322 is rarer than the more balanced patterns, and few people will open 1NT with a six card major, I think this suggest that opening 1NT on 6322 is actually fairly common practice, and should not really be a huge surprise to anyone when it happens. You will see that distribution approxiametly twice for every 100 1NT opening bids against you.

Ben

[arrows]

I think many people usually are confused about the explanation of a call.

The explanation of a call should articulate the expectation one should have
upon this call in the given situation in a long run.

Of course, there's deviation between the expectation and what one actually
has in particular hand. There's way too many players are trying to make an
issue on this. i.e. they are not interested in the expectation of a call,
like here, the expectation of 1NT opening is 15-17 balacned, and it's boring.
What they really care about is whether you have made a off-shape call
particularly in this hand.

Some pros are said open 1NT with even 5521, I am pretty sure there's no
pre-alert for that.....

[inquiry]

arrows, on Jan 16 2005, 06:52 PM, said:

Some pros are said open 1NT with even 5521, I am pretty sure there's no
pre-alert for that.....

If you make a habit of opening 1NT with off shape, particularly 5521, then you don';t prealert, but when you open 1NT, you alert and explain, among others, that you occaossionally open off shape. If htey ask, you say, 5521, what ever..

If you have never opened 5521 with your current partner and the urge strikes you to do so, say nothing, disclose nothing. If your partner is in dark, your opponents should be too.