Brighton - Day 1
I hope to post each day from Brighton. For the first week my role will mostly be scoring so most of the rulings will be second hand. But I did give a ruling today and it was on my favourite new law.
A table near the scoring table called for the TD, I was not busy and nobody else looked free. 1♦ - Pass - 1♠ - 2♥ - Double - 2♦. According to my "spiel", I took the 2♦ bidder away from the table, and asked what he intended with 2♦: I was intending to make an unassuming cue-bid raise of hearts; I checked the 3♦ would be an unassuming cue-bid and told him that if he was allowed to change his bid to 3♦ that would not silence partner.
Back at the table, I explained to LHO that she could accept 2♦ and otherwise if offender replaced 2♦ with a call the showed the same (or more precise) then offender's partner could bid again. I told LHO that she could ask about the opponents' system before deciding [but I would not tell her what 2♦ meant]. LHO did not accept 2♦, offender bid 3♦, and I told the table that the bid did not silence offender's partner (LHO said she thought it probably would not).
There was some level of bemusement, and as I left the table I remarked that I had expressed my opinion of this procedure in the last couple of days. [I had written something marginally disparaging of Law 27 on bridgebase forums, earlier in the week.]
As an afterthought, I returned to the table with my law book and read some words from Law 27D: if the offending side have been advantaged from the assistance gained from the insufficient bid then the non-offending side may be entitled to an adjusted score. More bemusement.
4 comments:
Was there a concern about the different values shown by two diamonds and three diamonds?
Yes. I was aware that 2D showed only the values for a "raise" to 2H and 3D showed more. But I was content that 3D was more precise than 2D. There are always negative inferences that means there is never a precise "inclusion", but the "liberal interpretation" of Law 27B1b promoted by WBF LC means these subtleties can be ignored.
In my methods 2D shows a good four-card raise to 2H OR a good three-card raise to 2H or better, whereas 3D would show a good three-card raise to 3H or better. As you suggest this means that 3D is more precise than 2d for me.
What would you have ruled if 2D showed a good raise to 2H but denied the values for a raise to 3H?
The offending side were definitely bemused; the non-offending side were simply amused having seen Robin's recent comments on Law 27.
In principle the TD is supposed to ask lots of questions about the E/W system but in practice it is hard to think of all relevant questions immediately without the opportunity for consultation.
I suspect that Paul is right though. With fewer cue bids "available" if forced to make a sufficient bid, 3D probably does not have "the same or more precise meaning" than 2D. But when the WBF encourages RAs to use an illegal "interpretation" of the Law, it is difficult to say what is "right" or "wrong".
Jeffrey
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