If LHO bids 5C and partner passes, I bid 5S. Partner's pass is forcing and shows interest in playing. I have a good hand and partner is marked with club shortness, so 5S is rather obvious imo

If LHO bids 5C and partner doubles, I am completely happy passing, nothing yuck about it. I lead As and will probably find out what red suit to shift.

If RHO bids 5C, it is rather interesting whether pass is forcing. if you have KQ-7th and few else you rather have it be NF.

The initial question by PBAL must be a level btw. If you do not bid 4S with that hand you are seriously overthinking bridge

Gabe, you're right about (5C) P – (P) being a 5S bid, not a double; when I started I wasn't clearly thinking through the forcing pass issue. My bad.

Whether pass is forcing when RHO bids 5C on his own: I agree there are hands on which you'd rather it not be, but I think it still is. Our side has bid a game, and the bad guys have not shown strong hands nor a fit — 4C wasn't forcing, so unless RHO is walking the dog, 5C is a sac. Against sacrifices (even those that might make!), I think pass has to be forcing, because the times you want to have a conversation with partner about whether to bid on or double will outnumber the times you want to go quietly.

Re opening lead, I play king from ace-king — iirc Lawrence's discussion of this issue in his book on opening leads is excellent. I realize I'm in the minority among advanced players, though.

I'm leading K from AK if I want a distribution signal and A if I want a preference signal. I had the specific agreement that leading an A vs trump contract asked for a roman signal (odd=encouraging, even=lavinthal), which has worked pretty well for us.

About the forcing pass situation, I agree that playing it forcing in this situation is probably optimal

(1NT)-(2D)
(3H)-(4NT)
(5D)-(6H)-?

Opponents auction, you are next to act after the 6H call

JTxxxx
Q9x
void
Axxx

Do you try the double here to wake partner up to a diamond lead? Is there too much of a risk of them pulling to 6NT?? This is matchpoints, is your choice different at imps?

I dbl at all forms of scoring. If they can make 6N, they can probably make 6 hearts on a non-diamond lead.

At matchpoints I dbl to try and get a top. At IMPs I pass because it is not likely they find Qh. If they have a 9-card fit they will unlikely finesse. If they have a 8-card fit, it is more likely they finesse the other way, since you are behind the length. If dummy has one high heart and a J/T and they lead small to hand, consider inserting the 9.

If the layout is something like:

AJ7xx

KTx

they can now handle a 4-1 split.

We already know they have a 9 card (and possibly 10 card) fit. Opener super-accepted showing 4 card support, and responder may have a 6 card suit.

The discussion about Israel on bw and bff rivals youtube and porn site comments as the nut low prose in human history

Why in the world is anyone discussing Israel there?

Israeli team for Venice Cup situation, Migry situation, etc.

Prob best to get the recaps at BW/BBOF rather than rehash here.

Anyone want to play in a BBO individual tourney?

Interesting auction happened tonight... Sitting west, north deals.

N/S vul MPs

AQT97
JT9x
J98x
Void

(1C)-1NT-(P)-2C
(X)-X...

Director!

ruling is partner has to take back the double, make a bid, and I am barred for remainder of auction.

He pulls back the double, and pulls out the XX!

all pass.

So here I am in 2Cxx.

LHO leads the QC and partner tables

J652
A
A76
AK862

After sub-optimal defense, I emerge with 9 tricks for +760. We're cold for 6S, but nobody is there...

My heart definitely skipped a beat when the blue card came down

You're slightly lucky — your forced pass enabled partner to make you sit for a double you at least might not have sat for if you'd been allowed a voluntary call — in other words, it damaged your opponents. When a penalty for an infraction causes damage to the other side, an adjusted score may be awarded (see below) — probably +480 as I think you'd get to 4S (but if no one else got to six, they wouldn't let you have it either).

Cool hand and situation though.

The relevant law:
So, could partner have been aware at the time he made his inadmissible double that barring you would be good for your side? Pretty clearly yes he could have — clearly he wants you to sit for the double with most hands you can have, and he also has to know you might take it as rescue or might take it as penalty but not trust him.

The thing is, I think this law is probably usually interpreted to say "might" have been aware, not could (as a literal interpretation will strike most directors as unfair, even though it isn't, at least for players who know the game well enough to know the rules). And my guess is that your partner pretty clearly didn't actually realize that doubling instead of redoubling might benefit your side. So most directors would allow the result to stand, even though that's legally incorrect.

Interesting twist... I did not know this.

However, I can have a 0 count 4450 here, which partner definitely doesn't want me to have. He'd much rather be in 2S. Without the forced pass though, we are 100% getting to 4S.

My initial look said he'd rather be in 2CXX with a majority of hands you can have that would pull (it's matchpoints so that’s what matters); if you went to an appeal, you'd try to argue that that's false. Anyway, those are the issues from a director's point of view.

And very few people know that, of course. And almost no one would know the law well enough and quickly enough actually to be able intentionally to take advantage of the forced pass, so Law 23 is almost irrelevant from the standpoint of behavior modification. (It does matter at least occasionally, btw — in fact, I have been in spots wherein I considered taking an illegal action that would bar partner [but of course didn't do it], for this sort of reason; if law 23 weren't there I could have.) In practice it's just intended for fairness — a system wherein a penalty sometimes benefits the offender isn't very appealing.

Note that the "could be aware" part is important. If a penalty benefits your side for a random, unpredictable reason, then there's no redress under the law as it stands.

I remember once opening 1S out of turn, at partner's turn, barring him for the duration of the auction. I had a decent 14 or 15 count with decent spades, so after the legal auction got to me I bid 4S instead of 1. Partner had a rock with four-card support, and we missed an easy slam — except that that slam went down, at every other table in the section, on a 4–0 rail. Cold top for my irregularity, but no way I could have predicted it when I screwed up, so result stands.

How is 6S cold when the Ks is likely offside and you have a diamond loser?

I assumed he meant that it made, meaning spade king onside. And even then it's not trivial to play.

Question:

Here is an auction- Opps silent:
x 1C
1D 1N
2D 2N
3H 4H

My lead. No alerts.

I lead a spade and the dummy comes down with 4 spades and 4 hearts.

Was I entitled to an explanation of the NT bid? I assumed from the auction that the spades were in my partners hand. I could not even imagine how dummy had 4 hearts.

The offenders have about 8000 points between them. My partner and I have less than 1000 combined.

http://www.acbldistrict22.com/522/130827M.htm

Board 2.

Dunno, dummy has 4h for his 4H bid and therefore skipped his 4-card heart suit bidding 1NT , so why not a 4-card spade suit as well?

But I think atak can better answer this, there are glaring differences between bridge laws in US and Europe.

Bypassing a 4 card major to respond 1NT is not alertable in the ACBL. I think they probably "should", but it's not required. A lot of decent opponents will kindly offer after the auction that it could bypass.

DW is correct — bypassing a four-card major, or even two of them, is specifically listed as not being alertable in the ACBL alert chart.

However...

North has a strong notrump opening, if they're playing strong notrumps, so I assume they're not. (They might be playing 16–18 though.) And in that case the 1NT rebid should have been alerted for a different reason: Any 1NT rebid by opener that by agreement could have 16 or more HCP is alertable. We can't tell that that's the case here, but I bet it is.

But that won't help you, because you weren't damaged by that; I don't see any argument that such an alert (that 1NT could be strong) would have affected your lead. Moreover, I'm not sure that being alerted to the possibility that opener could hold four spades would have, either. For one thing, as gabe says you have an indication from the auction that opener has hearts (though not necessarily four — imo he could have three, as responder seems to be insisting on a suit contract so opener with 3=3=2=5 and poor spades would probably choose 4H here, with responder suggesting something along the lines of 0=4=6=3 or 1=4=7=1), so it's at least suggested that he might have spades too.

Further, even if you know opener might have four spades, it doesn't greatly change whether a spade from your hand is likely to be the best lead. Most of the time he doesn't have four spades, so while this does alter the probabilities somewhat, my opinion is that it's not enough to swing the lead. (I'm actually not quite sure about this, and could be convinced otherwise. If you know opener''s possible shapes include, for example, 4=3=2=4, then a spade is certainly not what I'd choose [I'd go with a heart, and may have anyway], and if this auction promises four hearts and thus makes 4=4=2=3 possible, I'm not sure what I'd lead.) But bottom line is that there was no infraction so we don't need to worry about it.

______

re DW's suggestion that they should alert something even if it's not required, I don't agree. Not because it's affirmatively bad to do it, but because that sort of thing sets a precedent that alerts outside what's required can be expected. That gives an advantage to players who choose not to while also causing opps to feel wronged when they don't get the (legally unnecessary) alerts they thing are still sort of warranted; the much simpler solution is that everyone make all required alerts, and absolutely nothing that isn't required.

Note: This view, that players should not "actively" volunteer information unless they're required to do so, is a minority position in the United States. (I can't speak for other countries.)

What would be the applicable rule in Europe? That 1NT is not conventional (it's an offer to play in that strain, and is balanced), therefore not alertable? (I think that's what it would be in the UK.)

To clarify, I think that it should be alertable, not that I think they should do it even though it isn't -- I agree that one shouldn't contravene the alert regulations just because you think they're dumb. I do think that the right sort of opponent will mention something after the auction.

Big clarification. I think I agree — I'd like to see us alert anything that most players will be surprised by, and most US players will be surprised by this hand taking this path. I don't feel strongly about it, though.

My beef with the original "should" is that I've heard too many directors extend it, to the point where they've either threatened to rule on the basis of a failure to speak up about something that wasn't alertable, actually ruled on that basis, or pressured players (including me) to give opponents information to which they weren't entitled.^{1, 2} If that never happened I think I'd have no problem with much of the dicta about "active ethics".


¹ The one that comes up a lot is the question "How are you taking..." a call about which a partnership has no agreement. Too often, I have encountered directors who believe it is proper to answer this question, or at least to answer it if the questioned player's holding makes clear to him what the call probably meant. I understand the sentiment, but it's ill placed, particularly as it can lead to further problems (UI if the director isn't careful, and a weird sort of MI when the player who made the call had something different in mind from what his partner guesses).

² I have never succumbed to such pressure, including from the head director of a national event regional event at an NABC. [Edit: Got my controversies mixed up.] Wrong is wrong. (I won the appeal.)