[blml] SF NABC #13

[Adam Beneschan]

OK, I think I've figured out what really happened now.  Here are my
thoughts: 

Every now and then, the question comes up about whether L16 applies
when an "illogical" call is suggested.  Law 16 makes it illegal to
"choose from among logical alternative actions one that could
demonstrably have been suggested yada yada yada", which has led some
to think that if one chooses an illogical bid, even if the UI suggests
that the illogical bid might work out, it's still legal because Law 16
doesn't cover it.  In fact, there's someone on rec.games.bridge trying
to make this argument right now.  My view has always been that the
phrase "choose from among logical alternatives" in Law 16 and
elsewhere was defectively worded, and that it should apply just as
much to an "illogical" call if there are logical alternatives.
Unfortunately, they didn't change this in the 2007 Laws.  (Others
solve the problem by proposing that if a call is suggested by UI, it
can't be "illogical" even if it seems illogical to someone looking
only at the auction.)

After looking at this case, I'm willing to go even further and suggest
that if there's UI and the recipient of UI makes an illogical call, we
should *presume* that the call was suggested by the UI---otherwise why
would the player do something so illogical?  Looking at the case in
question: West had J3 KQ95 AT AKQ83, and found that her partner had
six spades to the AK, missing the queen, the heart ace, and 16-17 HCP.
Bidding 7NT seems foolish; if you can't run spades, where are your 13
tricks?  Oh, you can *hope* partner's high cards are the AK of spades,
the AJ of hearts, the diamond king, and the jack of clubs, but isn't
that too much of a miracle to ask for?  All right, maybe partner has
three clubs instead of the jack and they will break nicely.

Although I can see why someone might bid 7NT if needing a swing or a
top, to me bidding 7NT after asking for the SQ and getting a "no"
answer is quite abnormal.  Because of that, I think it's most likely
that West somehow suspected, from the UI, that East had the queen
anyway.  

The committee here decided that it wasn't clear what the hesitation
suggested, so they refused to adjust.  My feeling is that the
committee shouldn't have had to figure out what the hesitation
suggested; the call chosen by the hesitator's partner was abnormal
enough (assuming no extraneous information) that the committee should
have just presumed it was based on UI, and upheld the director's
decision.  Even if they can't quite fit this into Law 16, they could
rule that West violated Law 73C.

Or at least that's my feeling after looking at this hand.  Is this too
close to "if it hesitates, shoot it"?  Please keep in mind that I'm
not talking about a UI recipient making a borderline decision that
happens to work out; I'm talking about cases where a UI recipient
makes a decision that appears way against the odds, as appears to be
the case here.

                                -- Adam