Advice from CTD

Here’s some advice on claiming and hesitations and one or two other things in BCL resulting from questions that have been asked!

Claiming

"If declarer claims (without saying "drawing trumps") in a trump contract with a trump outstanding (having possibly/probably miscounted) can the declarer play trumps after the claim is declined. If not, is it permissible to send a chat "you cannot now play trumps" as the claim is declined or must it go to adjudication?"

And

"Many members make claims without making a declaration of play whilst trumps are still out. My understanding of the rules is that if that happens, opponents can insist on a line of play. Am I wrong? If I'm not, perhaps a notice to all members explaining this rule would be of benefit to all."

In face-to-face (f2f) bridge, it is easy. Play ceases and the TD judges whether, from any claim statement, the claimer knew or may have forgotten that there were any trumps still out, and then whether by careless but not irrational play, claimer would have lost any tricks he was claiming.

In BCL, it is different as there is no duty TD to resolve the matter on the spot, and even if there were a TD on duty and roaming the club, it would be impractical for such a TD to give a timely ruling anyway. So, to dispute a claim, you need to click to reject.

Play “continues” in order to achieve an (illustrative) result for the board. Usually, all the players are happy with the outcome and nothing further needs to be done, but if an opponent feels that the claimer "could have changed" (not "did change") his intended line of play as a result of being alerted by the rejection, the course of action necessary is for an Incident Report to be submitted in order to ask for a ruling. It may then be that the result will be adjusted.

It is not appropriate to instruct a claimer, for example, that he may not draw trumps or that he may not take finesses. Indeed, early claims are often with trumps outstanding when it is clear that the claimers first move will be to draw them."

Hesitations

When is a delay a hesitation?

In the past, we have had to be cautious about interpreting delays as hesitations as the nature of the Internet often gave cause for unintended delays. Nowadays the Internet is usually far more stable and more and more players have good connections.

As a matter of fairness, my advice, if you find you are delaying the table, is to type "Sorry for delay" or “brb” if it's due to a domestic distraction and "thinking" if that is what you are doing. If you have a poor connection, type "bad ping" (or similar) to indicate that this is the reason for delays at your end.

That way, the other players can be informed if a delay at your end is not due to you thinking, and this means that a lack of explanation, by default, indicates that you had something to think about.

When partner has hesitated.

What do you do when your partner has hesitated and passed or you are in some similar situation where you have Unauthorised Information (UI) from partner's action and you are wondering what choices you have?

Law 16B1a says that you must not choose from among logical alternatives one that is demonstrably suggested by the UI.

It is often not at all easy for a player to be able to work out whether a particular call is a logical alternative or not. Sometimes a TD will need to poll up to a dozen or more players to work out whether a particular call (often this call will be a Pass) is or isn't a logical alternative. In such situations, my advice to the player, if they have a call that they "were always going to make", is that they should make that call and be forthcoming in acknowledging to their opponents that their partner has hesitated.

How does a TD work out whether an action is a logical alternative (LA)?

An LA is defined in Law 16B1b and the EBU advice (and it's good advice worldwide) to TDs as per their White Book in applying this law is this:

16.6.1 Is an action a logical alternative (an LA)?
When deciding whether an action constitutes an LA under the 2007 Laws, the TD should decide two things.
1. He should decide whether a significant proportion of the player's peers, playing the same system as the player, would seriously consider the action.
What is a “significant proportion”? The Laws do not specify a figure, but the TD should assume that it means at least one player in five.
If fewer than about one player in five of a player’s peers would consider the action then it is not an LA.
2. If a significant proportion would consider the action, then the TD should next decide whether some would actually choose it.
Again the Laws do not specify a figure for “some”, and the TD should assume that it means more than just an isolated exception.
If no one or almost no one would choose the action having considered it, the action is not an LA.
Serious consideration is more than a passing thought.

16.6.2 Method
Asking players for opinions is helpful in deciding whether an action would be considered and chosen, but the questions should be carefully presented.
For example, in a hesitation case players should be given the problem without reference to the hesitation. The TD should ask them what they would call after the given sequence, telling them the methods employed. If their answer is not the action under consideration, they should be asked what alternatives they considered.
Such polls will help to give the TD an idea of whether an action is an LA.

When I have conducted such polls I can often find a situation where I might ask 10 players and they all say that they are always bidding 5H every day of the week but in addition half of them then add "but I think passing is a logical alternative".

It is one thing saying that they would seriously consider passing and another

saying they think passing is a logical alternative. In this example these players turn out to be wrong in that passing isn't a logical alternative.

At an extreme, I know one or two players who think they are ultra-ethical and say to me at the end of a session. I was always going to bid 5D but when partner hesitated, I passed. That is not being ultra-ethical. That is pushing the destruct button and punishing partner for thinking.

Having said all that, we should come back to the situation where partner has hesitated and you were not clear-cut about what you were going to call. Now your choices are both/all likely to be logical alternatives and you should do your best to make the choice that is least suggested by the UI that you have received.

In general a slow penalty double suggests that you take it out and a hesitation followed by a pass usually suggests bidding on.

Alerting a short 1 Club opening

Why must we always alert a 1 Club opening if partner might have as few as two clubs?

A

Although we have SSDs that give the information of minimum length of a 1 Club opening, it is not part of the game (under World Bridge Federation regulations) that players must look at their opponents' convention card (or SSD) to find out whether a call is natural or conventional.

If an opening bid of 1 Club may contain as few as three cards in the club suit, it is considered natural for alerting purposes and need not be alerted. When an opening bid of 1 Club may contain fewer than three cards in the club suit, the call is considered to be not natural and must be alerted.

Some boffin somewhere worked out that if you play a version of Standard American where you open 1 Club when you have four spades, four hearts, three diamonds and two clubs, and you are outside of your range for opening 1NT, there is only a 4% probability that you will have as few as two clubs! However, some partnerships have different defences depending on how few clubs might be held, and so it is required to alert all openings of 1 Club when there can be fewer than three clubs.

Barrie Partridge Hon CTD