[blml] Reading the pause - the "solution"

[Matthias Berghaus]

Hi all,

here the promised "solution" and some further thoughts:

You hold:

Ax
KQx
AKJxxx
xx

Teams, neither vul, Partner deals and opens 1NT (11-14, any 5card-suit 
acceptable, no 5422 except with both minors). With opps being silent the 
bidding goes:

                     1NT
2C                   2H  (4 or 5 H)
2S                   3C  (4H, 4D)
3D                   3H  (3442)  after about 90 seconds, the only systemic answers 
being 3H and 3S, no zoom or something. Essentially a yes/no question. I had no idea what was happening. My partner knew the relay scheme very well, we used to conduct 6 or 7 rounds of bidding in 30 seconds. I suspected a missorting accident.
3S (Min/Max?)        3NT (Minimum)
4H (RKCB for D)      5C (two, no DQ)
5H (Relay)           5NT (CK, no HK)
6C (Any small extra?)6D  (no)

After the break in tempo the rest was conducted with the usual speed. I explained the bidding: xxx, Axxx, xxxx, AK, no Queens, maybe Jack of spades, certainly not Jack of hearts or diamonds. And no, no idea where the pause came from. Maybe missorting, but no way to tell.

Dummy hit with 

10xx
A9xx
109xx
AK

exactly the hand as described. Hm, what had happened? Still no idea. The hand was easy, diamonds were friendly, hearts were not. 12 tricks. So, after the round I asked my partner what had happened. "You see, I had a card stuck to another card, so I had 2442 and no system bid. It took me some time to realize what had happened, then I found the missing card...."

Is there a moral in this? Probably not, except that certain "unreadable" situations knowledge of the system often tells you what kind of problem is possible and what is not. Here I knew that deliberate violation of our agreements about shape was out of the question, missorting of course cannot ever be ruled out, in which case the total number of red and black cards is probably right, but 4441, 1444, x53x and x35x is still possible. 90 seconds still is a lot of time for that, though.

In this hand the opps didn`t ask for a ruling or something (sometimes people do, there having been a break of tempo), they were satisfied to have received correct explanations. They wouldn`t have had a case here, of course.

Now, let us say partner had missorted. A heart in with the diamonds. No pause this time. Let us say that I had bid 7, the trumps behave, the 5th heart is established for a discard. 13 tricks (we probably have to manipulate the hand somewhat to make the grand even worse than it is here). So partner missorted (or deliberately gave a wrong answer, or whatever) and meets with some attempt to create a swing from the other side of the table (based on the state of the match, for example). How can anyone expect to be able to judge these cases based on a "rule"? 
If any "funny business" is going on the director or the comittee will have to delve into it and get to the bottom of the business, and not apply any "rules"....