[blml] An EBU L&E decision.

[gesta at tiscali.co.uk]

Grattan Endicott<gesta at tiscali.co.uk
[also grandeval at vejez.fsnet.co.uk]
******************************************
"The intellectuals' chief cause of anguish 
are one another's works."
                 ~ Jacques Martin Barzun. 
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

         +=+ The EBU Laws & Ethics Committee asked me to make this 
decision known on blml:-

           
     Dealer E
      N/S vul
      
      

      North
     
     
       
     Swiss Pairs
      
     ª

      ©

      ¨

      §
     A 4

      A 5 4

      A Q 10 6 5

      Q J 7

       
     
     
       
      
     West
     East
     
       
      
     ª

      ©

      ¨

      §
     K 10 7 5

      J 10 8 7 6 3

      -

      K 10 2
     ª

      ©

      ¨

      §
     Q J 9 3

      K 2

      K J 3 2

      9 5 4
     
       
      
      
     South
     
     
       
      
      
     ª

      ©

      ¨

      §
     8 6 2

      Q 9

      9 8 7 4

      A 8 6 3
     
     
       
     Bidding:
     West
     North
     East
     South
     
     
       
      
      
      
     1NT1
     Pass
     
     
       
      
     2¨2
     Dbl
     PassA3
     3¨
     
     
       
      
     3©
     3NT
     Pass
     Pass
     
     
       
      
     Pass
      
      
      
     
     
       
     1          10-13
      2          Explained simply as "transfer"
      3          Denies 3-card support
     
     
       
     Result:                        3NT-2 N/S -200
     
     
                 

Tournament Director's statement of facts & ruling 

Phone call was made late on Friday night to register a request for a ruling; details were submitted on Saturday afternoon.

N/S are claiming damage on the grounds that the 3© bid should have been alerted, as its meaning was affected by other agreements, and that the "transfer" explanation was insufficient.  E/W play that an immediate 3© response to 1NT is pre-emptive.  N claims that, armed with this knowledge, it is less likely that she would have bid 3NT.

I ruled that 3© is not alertable - it is competitive in nature, and is scarcely affected by undisclosed agreements.  The opponents could reasonably expect that there were other such agreements, and had the opportunity to ask for any further implications about the bid.

3© was a free bid, and therefore hardly likely to be made on a weak hand.  Even with a "correct" explanation, I don't believe that N would have bid any differently.

I allowed the result to stand.

Appeals Committee's decision

Our reading of OB 5.2.1(c) indicated that 3© is alertable.

If N was in full possession of the facts we believe that she might not have bid 3NT but would have done so much of the time.  Because N/S do not play Lebensohl N would have had to guess more often here.

We do not agree that N is required to ask to receive information here.  If she asks and then passes, S would be under ethical strain.

We adjusted the score to:-

15% of             3©-1 by W            N/S +50
plus     85% of             3NT-2 by N            N/S -200

L&E comment:    

It is clear from the large percentage of the table score included in the weighting by the Appeals Committee that there is a plausible argument that N was not damaged.  However, the L&E has concluded on balance that no adjustment at all should have been made because the 3© bid did not require an alert.

>From N's perspective the likely strength for W's 3© ranged from merely competitive to positively invitational.  The fact that a purely pre-emptive hand was excluded could perhaps have been inferred from W's decision to bid again.  The third basic alerting rule in the present Orange Book requires an alert if a call is "natural but its meaning is affected by other agreements which your opponents are unlikely to expect".  The degree of unexpectedness of the actual methods in use in this case was not sufficient to require an alert.

Mr Endicott undertook to place the agreed minute on BLML.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Presumably the subject must have been discussed on blml at some stage.

                                               ~ Grattan ~   +=+




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.amsterdamned.org/pipermail/blml/attachments/20071025/d9838f9a/attachment-0001.htm