Springold 0-3-4-6: a TD's view

Not a telephone number, as in Pennsylvania 6-5000 or 6-5-0-0-0, but a bridge hand.

In the Springold this week, a player held — Axx AQxx AKQxxx. RHO opened 3♠ and he bid 6♦: the making slam as partner held xx xxx Kxxx xxxx. His opponent was not impressed and posted this hand on the internet, even before the match was over.

The timing of the TD call is unclear, but the TD ruled result stands. We were not told whether the TD asked the player why he bid 6♦ and, if so, what was the response. A recorder form was completed: in England, reports of hands or reports of disciplinary incidents go on separate forms, completed by the TD; in ACBL recorder forms cover both reports and are (usually) completed by the players.

The law divides information available to players as authorised information and other information ("information being designated extraneous" in Law 16A3, but also referred to as "unauthorised"). Unauthorised information from partner, or from withdrawn calls, constrains a player's actions, according to Law 16B. Unauthorised information from other sourcess that may affect the result of the hand, can lead to an adjusted score. Not mentioned in Law 16, but implicit in Law 73B and Law 90, is that some information is illegally created not just illegally used. There are no increased penalties for using illegal information, but there are strong sanctions for obtaining illegal information (e.g. looking a deals in advance) or passing illegal information (e.g. finger signals).

In this case, the 6♦ bid is so extreme that there is a presumption it must be based on extraneous information. It is possible that 6♦ is a wild bid, chosen deliberately, and this possibility should not be discounted by the TD. It is possible that the player bid 6♦ intending to bid 6♣ and decided not to correct it, but there has been no suggestion of this.

No unauthorised source has been suggested for information that allowed the player to bid 6♦, although some have been hinted at. Some vocal posters on the internet want to take the unlikely nature of 6♦ as sufficient evidence that there must have been unauthorised information (from partner) and adjust under Law 16B, or that the law should be changed to allow such a ruling. This is problematic for two reasons: a player should be free to make wild bids; and since there was no obvious legal unauthorised information, to rule this way the TD is suggesting illegal obtained information (that is, cheating) and he does not have the evidence to rule that there has been cheating.

So what is the possible source for the (presumed) unauthorised information?

• Unauthorised information from partner, as described in Law 16B: nothing has been noted, certainly partner did not say "I have Kxxx in diamonds, perhaps that would be a good trump suit".
• Unathorised information from other sources, as described in Law 16C: this is perhaps the most likely except that the board had been dealt at the table (how quaint), so there was no external source for information about the board.
• The unauthorised information may be passed illegally by partner (" the gravest possible offence", according to Law 73B) but this would need direct observation.
• The information was obtained directly by the player (hardly a less grave offence): since the board was dealt at the table, this would require an interfernce with the making of the board, and again this would need direct observation to convict.

The 6♦ bid does seem an odd way to cheat: you would have thought the player would attempt a more plausible auction to what he is presumed to know is the top spot. But this sort of argument was one of the complications in the Buenos Aires incident: no one would take strange actions based on information from finger signals because it would give away the source of the information, but the strange actions are the evidence that they were using information from finger signals.

As a TD, I am sure I could do nothing in this case but let the result stand and submit a record of the hand. The committee receiving the report might find there is previous evidence about the same player/pair and investigate. They might investigate, e.g. by monitoring the player(s), based on this hand alone. Or they might wait for further evidence before investigating.