Lots to do for scoring the Swiss Pairs: dealing with new replacement pairs after pairs withdraw, dealing with names (foreign names with prefixes 'de', 'van' were causing us particular grief), and sorting out stratification. Assignments on the web and uploading to Pianola went faster than last night. I did not quite finish in time to play in the speedball but I was there to help set up the Swiss teams scoring. (Ultimately the Swiss teams speedball was scored by hand – so we will try to recreate it on the computer on Sunday.)
Claims
Two claims caused some discussion/disagreement. On the first a player claimed 12 tricks, in a line which included throwing a loser on a trick he would have to follow suit. Nevertheless the only normal lines would drop a doubleton queen for 13 tricks and that is what he got. On another claim, declarer claimed one off as soon as he saw the bad trump break, without planning the further play. There were ways to go off but the play had to be perverse not to make. (Should 'perverse' replace 'irrational', 'not normal', 'beyond careless or inferior'?)
Fielded Misbids?
I had to rule on a misinformation/misbid auction. Dealer opened 1♣ (strong, artificial) and rebid 2NT in a competitive auction. This was explained as 23+ (1NT was available to show a weaker balanced hand). This explanation caused the defenders to misdefend 3NT when declarer turned up with only 19 HCP. Opener claimed this was misbid, he bid 2NT because he thought the auction was already at the two level. This was plausible: there had been a lot of bidding for the auction to still be at 1♠ and the player had not used the stop card before bidding 2NT. So I ruled misbid rather than misexplanation. The defenders asked me if the this misbid has been fielded – perhaps responder was worth a slam try opposite 23+ HCP. I decided the misbid was not fielded but really the 'fielded misbid' regulation seems unnecessary in this sort of auction – any meaning for 2NT is permitted, there seems no reason why they should try and conceal their agreements about strong balanced hands, and (absent any unauthorized information) why shouldn't they bid how they like.
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