ContractBridge.net Forums - All Forums

movements for 16 to 22 Tables

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:01:10 +0000

Hi All
I am a Director in a club in new Zealand
Typically on a night I direct we have 16-22 Tables
I run a single board Mitchell movement with 24-26 boards.
We have feed ins after the top table and a relay table if it is an even number. Nice and simple.
There is a move to change to 2 boards per round but maintain a single section.
One option I have found is a WEB movement but I was wondering if there was anyone out there with other options to consider.

Cheers
Alan

A very insufficient bid

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 04:46:01 +0000

I have only recently become a member of this forum but have been reading the posts with interest for some time.
At a recent club night I opened 1S as dealer, followed by an insufficient bid of 1H by my LHO. Director explained the options to my partner and to LHO who chose to correct to 2H.
I should note that LHO was a very junior player, but when I looked at the hand records at the end of the session, I was a bit bemused by the playing strength of her hand:

S AKQ10
H AKQ843
D 72
C 6

I started thinking about what other corrections she might have tried and how I would have ruled if I'd been the (not very experienced) director. If she'd changed to 4H I assume there would be no problem as Law 27B2 would apply and her partner would be silenced for the rest of the auction.
But I was wondering what should have happened if LHO had asked to change her insufficient bid to Double, clearly a more accurate expression of her hand than either a 1H or a 2H overcall. Would that be acceptable under Law 27B1(b) or would Double not be 'fully contained within the possible meanings of the insufficient bid' in which case I guess law 27B3 would apply?
I'd be interested to know how others interpret this aspect of Law 27, which I've always found a bit confusing.

Bill Hughes Sim Pairs

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 21:52:21 +0000

Every year I run a Simultaneous Pairs, that is played throughout the world in clubs in the same week. Every player gets a booklet of hands afterwards. The winning pair in each club gets a prize: each player gets a small shield, a pen, and a small amount of money. In large heats second place gets a prize too, and there are overall prizes for the best scores around the world. I have never had an entry from a New Zealand club but I am hoping this is the year I get one.

It is held in clubs on any day between 25th and 29th June. Cost per head is 4.90 New Zealand $. Because of the ECats scoring system, competitors can see their scores and everyone else's online and see how scores develop.

If any club wishes to enter, or to get further details, please email me on or through the Personal Messages on this website.

Odd bridge connection

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 07:17:37 +0000

Those of a certain age may have noticed that seventies progressive rock icon Roger Waters (ex-Pink Floyd) just played a series of gigs here in Auckland.

In Cambridge, one regular at the club was his mother Mary Waters. One of the nicest players that any club could ever hope to have as a member. Always friendly, polite and sportswomanlike. Given her son, it was amusing that she lived in Rock Road and played with a regular partner by the name of Queenie Band.

Introduction Thread

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 06:54:54 +0000

Just a personal opinion but I think that this forum, could do with an introduction thread for new members to say hello and state something about themselves.

Having said that much in my first post in this forum, I guess that I should say something about myself.

I am John O'Connor, better known on the net for the last 20 years as jpoc.

I first played bridge at school when I found a copy of the old Charles Goren book in the local library and roped three friends into playing rubber on a regular basis. After a while, the four of us wandered in to the local duplicate club and played regularly and got hammered by people who knew what they were doing.

I then went off to study at Cambridge uni which has one of the strongest uni bridge clubs in the UK. Of course, I did not play one hand of bridge there but when I graduated, I found myself working for a man who was keen on bridge but had no regular partner so we set ourselves up at a local club and played with what counted for competence in that club for a couple of years.

After that, I moved back to Cambridge and played at the local club for several years. There, I rubbed shoulders with a number of very good players and on occasion managed not to embarrass myself. I played in as many congresses as I could manage and achieved some minor successes. I got to play against the likes of Hoffman, Crowhurst, Forrester, Flint, Senior, Mould and even Mahmood and on rare occasions even beat them.

Then, I left England and embarked on a tour of Europe as an itinerant computer geek. Bridge then became a largely social activity though at times, the oppo was of Bermuda Bowl class - Munich in particular.

Then I got married and, apart from a few occasions when I played as a sub in one of the Munich club Bundesliga teams, I did not pick up a pack of cards for ten years.

Last year I arrived in Auckland, bringing my 53 year long big OE to a close and wandered along to the Auckland club where Patrick made me feel very welcome.

I am still pretty rusty and I am only just building up the stamina to get through an evening's duplicate with full concentration throughout but I am enjoying Wednesday evenings very much indeed. I will give it a few more months before deciding whether I want to continue as a social club player or take things more seriously.

Both teams opening the bidding

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:34:16 +0000

I am confused about the bidding when both teams want to open. For example, North opens with 1 Spade and East would have opened with 1 Club.

Do players just add 1, i.e. 2 Clubs in the above example, but treat it as the equivalent of 1 Club? Likewise with West's reply (assuming South passes), is 2 Hearts the equivalent of 1 Heart?

Or do different rules come into play? Any links to instruction manuals that discuss this situation also appreciated.

Most of the instructions our group of four beginners have found, don't appear to cover it, yet we keep running into it (causing some heated debate )

Law 26A or B

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:29:43 +0000

A player opens out of turn 2D Precision style showing 4414 or 4405 shape (shortage in diamonds)
Not accepted and subsequently passes throughout.
What lead restriction would apply? Does Law 26A apply as if it designates three suits?
And if so what if the openers options also include 4315 and 3415 shapes?

No alert

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:20:12 +0000

A club night at the Karori Bridge Club.
North opened 1NT, doubled by East (16-18 HCP).
South then bids 2H, not alerted. West passed and North bid 2S.
East now bids 3D, South 3S and West 4D, which was the final contract. It just made on a Club lead.
It appeared that the not alerted 2H by South was for transfer to Spades.
At the end of play West called the Director and said that she would have doubled 2H if she had known that this was for transfer. East would/could then have bid 2NT and West would have bid 3NT. The Director agreed and changed the result to 3NT by East, making. NS appealed this decision, but lost.
I'm not sure about the decision, although I personally was happy with it (I was East!).
Should West not first have asked North if the 2H bid was a transfer (which is quite common!)? On the other hand, she could have given UI to East by asking!
East, South and West were experienced players, I'm not sure about North, but NS was not an 'established' partnership.
South appealed because she said that she would have bid 4S over the 3NT and 4S goes only one off!
At the other tables there was one other 3NT contract, making and one 3S doubled, one off. The rest showed Diamond contracts.
Comments please!

Played wrong board

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:33:06 +0000

A table, scheduled to play boards 15 & 16, first played 16 (don't ask me why!!) then started 17 realising their error at the end of the bidding. (which was N: pass, E: 1NT all pass)

When they re-played it against the correct opponents next round the bidding was pass, 1H at which point I, as director, immediately cancelled the board and awarded an artificial NS 40, EW 60

South, who is a qualilfied club director, disagreed with that ruling saying as they hadn't seen any cards other than their own, they should have been allowed to play the hand for a normal result.

He was also aggrieved beacuse it was me, as South at the next table, who had placed board 17 on the by-stand between the two tables as soon as we had finished it. IOW it was me who caused the problem.

I am keen to hear others' comments

Lead penalty

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:14:29 +0000

A pair are playing Precision where a 1D opening could be a balanced hand 11-12 otherwise it promises at least 4 diamonds.

One of them opens 1D out of turn. Not accepted and that player passes at his correct turn.

Is that a bid which “designates diamonds” IOW can declarer demand a diamond lead? Or does Law 26B apply?

The TD is not supposed to look at the offenders hand of course but if he does he will see a 3253 12-count. Whether that player intended to bid 1NT or 2D on the second round would depend on what suit partner bids.

What is BridgeScorer?

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 01:51:05 +0000

BridgeScorer is a new application for Android phones & devices. Current Features include:

Duplicate Scoring (Single hand only at the moment)
Rubber Scoring (Both single hand and session)

There is a free version available that has Duplicate Single hand Scoring so why not try it out? Just go to https://market.android.com/details?id=co...orer&hl=en from any Android device.

If you think its cool and want to do some Rubber Scoring as well, get the full version (release expected today).

If you have any questions or comments, just post on this thread. If you have the app already and want to report a bug, go to the Bug Report thread. Any and all feedback is welcomed!

Bug Reports (Earn $$$ for finding scoring errors!)

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 01:46:24 +0000

We are pretty confident that our latest version of BridgeScorer is absolutely perfect when it comes to scoring bridge. So confident in fact that if you are the first person to report a specific scoring error we will pay you NZ$5.00!!

We would like to think our app is also free of all bugs, but few programs a perfect, so if you do find a bug, please post a message on this thread, and we'll do our best to fix it in the next release.

Double Revoke

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 00:47:57 +0000

It would surprise nobody who has played against us, that Julie (my partner & regular bridge partner) find plenty to argue....er..... debate about, but we are normally in synch when it comes to interpreting the Laws.

However, one incident on a daytime session at the club has caused some discussion. I had to give a ruling where South and West had both revoked on the same hand.

My ruling was that this was a situation where no automatic penalty applied, and as there wasn't a non-offending side there was no side that could be given an adjustment to provide equity.

I wandered over to the office and spoke to Julie (who is the club's Sectretary/Manager as well as being a qualified National Director herself) and said "You don't see one of these too often." Subsequent discussion then revealed that she would have treated it differently because she would have treated N/S as non-offending to assess West's revoke and then she would have treated E/W as non-offending to assess South's revoke. Her view (and a very reasonable one) is that it is important that neither side should be able to benefit from their own offence.

Now, clearly you can be an offending side for something else on the board, without it affecting your rights to claim a revoke penalty. For example if you made an opening lead out of turn, that would make no difference to a later revoke, or even a revoke on the first trick. That would seem to indicate that Julie might be right.

Perhaps my interpretation is a more literal one, but my view is that the Lawmakers' intention is to say that if you can't get through the play without both sides revoking then things are getting too crazy and an adjustment isn't appropriate (It's Bridge Jim, but not as we know it). I believe that both sides can be offending because we are looking at a Law 64B(7) and both sides are covered under the same terse nine words. Surely that makes them both offending sides for that Law? Maybe I am right after all.

Now I could construct a hand very easily where if you knew you were getting a 1 trick penalty from the opponent's revoke you could parlay that into a greater penalty by discarding and then winning a later trick that you weren't entitled to so you could stop declarer running a long suit in dummy. That can be dealt with quite comfortably under Law 72B1. However all of the players concerned wouldn't be anywhere near sharp enough or unethical enough to even think of doing such a thing, so it isn't an issue on this particular case.

Is there any evidence that conclusively proves one of us to be right?

Cheers
Patrick

What do you bid?

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 22:15:52 +0000

I am interested in how one would rate the alternatives for bidding this hand, as an experienced player partnering a complete beginner (only a few weeks out of the lessons).
Partner opens 1H, you bid 2C, partner bid 2D. What do you call now?
Partners sequence should promise 5 hearts unless it is 4441 shape with a singleton club.
Partner has no inkling whatsoever of the concept of “fourth suit forcing”

This leads to an issue I feel strongly about. I shall have more to say in due course unless it is apparent nobody is interested.

Excessive psyching

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 22:11:16 +0000

The NZ Manual says “Persistent psyching is not permitted. Directors should regard two (psyches) by a partnership in any one session as evidence of persistent psyching”

This in popularly (and incorrectly IMO) interpreted as “one psych a session is Ok; two is not” regardless of any other considerations. And as a consequence a second psyche in a session should result in an adjusted score.

If that were the case the Manual would simply say “More than one psyche a session is illegal”. The actual wording is as consistent as one might reasonably be able to get with Law 40C “partner has no more reason to be aware of the deviation than the opponents”

A pair who psyches once every session is guilty of persistent psyching IMO. So is one who always psyches when holding a weak hand third-in-hand when non-vul vs vul (as they only get one chance each in each 16 boards they are unlikely to fall foul of the “two psyches a session” limit). But one isolated instance of a second psyche in one session should not automatically be deemed illegal.

I believe directors should look at the psyche records over a longer period than one session to judge whether they are psyching too much. And if so warn them to reduce the frequency and if the don’t then issue a DP.

Comments please.

Bid becomes insufficient

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 03:32:57 +0000

North bids 1 East bids 1
Now North says “Eeek I have made an unintended bid” The director is called and agrees 1C is unintended and allows North to change it to 1 according to Law 25A1.

Now Law 25A4 says LHO (East in this case) may withdraw his call. (And “may” means “failure to do it is not wrong”

Does that mean East may keep his insufficient bid? And anyone may now bid 1H (or 1S again) afterwards?

Spam

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:22:45 +0000

Some of you may have noticed that our forum was getting spammed quite heavily about a month ago. You may also have noticed that spamming is now far less frequent, but still more prevelent than it was before we changed the software. I thought I'd let you all know why this has been happening and what we are doing about it.

The original forums were not subject to spam because the registration policy was very strict. In fact, only people withan New Zealand ISP email address or personal invite could join. As nearly all spam comes from outside New Zealand, this was a very effective spam stopper.

Unfortunately there are 2 problems with this approach. First, more and more people are using generic email addresses like gmail, and this policy was preventing legitmate people from being able to join. Second, we want this forum to be available to any bridge player in the world.

So when we switched the software over, I lightened the restrictions, and that is when we started getting heavily spammed. Since then, I have upgraded our registration form to make it harder for spammers to join, however it is not perfect, and the odd one is still trickling in.

When it comes to forums, there is a very simple trade off - more members, more spam - I believe at the moment we have found and acceptable configuration, which maximises the number of people who can join while keeping spam levels to a minimum.

I keep a close eye on things and remove spam as soon as I can, however theres only so much I can do, which is why we have other moderators - Julie, Patrick and Bruce. If you would like to help keep the spam out, there are a few things that everyone can do:

* Report the post - there is a Report button at the bottom of every post.
* Tell a moderator - Moderators names show up in Pink, you can send a private message to a moderator telling them about the post.
* Ask to become a moderator - then you can delete spam yourself

If you think you might like to be a moderator, send an email to support@contractbridge.net

The Eloquent Expert

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 04:50:33 +0000

The Eloquent Expert

This character appears on a number of occasions, probably all over the world, and I am keen to hear advice on how s/he should be handled by the TD.
In general terms please. I am not seeking an answer to the specific example which I have added below which is just to illustrate.

The bidding:
South (EE): 1
West: 2 (described on enquiry as 11-15 but actually the hand (and the agreement) is weak)
North: 3
all pass

South makes 9 tricks.
South asks the TD for an adjustment because of the misinformation.
Firstly, with the correct information s/he would have bid 3NT
And secondly, would have played the hand differently, describing how s/he, as an expert, would have made all the correct inferences, and make 12 tricks. Adding that when playing in 3 s/he had to “play safe” to guard against bad breaks, given that a lot of the field would be in game.
The TD, being less of an expert, has no idea whether or there is any merit in what EE is claiming. And there are no other similarly expert players in the room.

Should EE be given the benefit of the doubt more so than another less expert player?

Patrick & Tom win the NZ Pairs

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 06:18:09 +0000

Congratulations to our very own Patrick Carter and partner Tom Jacob for winning the NZ Pairs this year. Patrick says this is his 32nd attempt, and is glad to have finally come out on top. This is also Tom's first NZ pairs trophy.

Site Manager Officially Released

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 20:36:10 +0000

ContractBridge.net's new Site Manager has been officially released. Special thanks to Napier Bridge Club for piloting the software for us.

You can play around with the new software at our demo site: http://democlub.contractbridge.net

If your club would be interested in getting this new software, email support@contractbridge.net