Who would be a tournament director?

Press, 14 June 1978, Page 14

Who would be a tournament director?

CONTRACT BRIDGE

By

J.R. Wignall

In rubber bridge where only money is at stake observance of the rules tends to be rather casual, but once players start to compete for honour and glory they soon become very aware of the laws. All games have referees of one sort or another. In competitive bridge this official is the tournament director; his job is to administer, the rules. Partly because of their complexity and partly because of the keen competitive outlook the game seems to encourage, administering the rules is not quite as simple a task as it sounds. By and large the usual infringements such as leading or bidding out of turn are well covered and easily settled.

Two areas, however, pose considerable difficulty for the director. These are partnership understandings, and hesitation during the auction.

The law on the first of these is quite clear — you cannot have a secret understanding With your partner. It is its application that produces the difficulties.

Every partnership has a range of agreements or conventions, some obviously more than others. It is a convention, for example, if you agree that your opening bids of one no-trump will contain 16, 17 or 18 high-card points, or that openings of one spade will guarantee a five-card suit.

These are simple agreements, the existence of which everyone could be expected to know, but these days the number of purely artificial bids seems endless. There are, for instance, at least six widely differing meanings for an opening bid of two diamonds, most of them quite unconnected with the user’s holding in the suit.

The law makers therefore have instituted an

‘‘alert procedure”. If your partner makes a conventional bid, the meaning of which your opponents may not understand, you should tap on the table to alert them. It is then up to either opponent to inquire the meaning of the call at his or her turn to bid.

The procedure by and large works well, although it has a number of drawbacks. In serious compeition it is rigidily enforced.

In the last World Olympiad in Monte Carlo a

Danish player over-called a strong opening bid of one club with a highly conventional call of one heart. This was not alerted by his partner and not surprisingly the opponents found it hard to reach their correct spot of four hearts, finishing instead in an inferior three no-trump. The chief tournament director of the World Bridge Federation immediately adjusted the score and gave the innocent pair the credit for bidding and making game in hearts.

He took the View that when once the artificial bid had not been alerted the auction could not proceed on natural lines and hence an arbitrary decision was necessary on tne likely result. In awarding this the offenders could not be allowed to profit.

The other area of difficulty occurs more frequently than failures to alert. Bridge is a difficult game necessitating a number of decisions as it is played. In the nature of things no-one can make all his decisions without some hesitation. The rule here, too, is quite clear — you must not take advantage of your partner’s manner-

isms. The law givers have ruled that the offence is not in trancing, but in allowing one’s actions to be influenced by partner’s hesitation. To make matters worse many players take it as a personal insult if they are accused of benefiting from a hesitation. In top-class bridge no such insinuations ate intended. Here the players recognise that however ethical a player may be, his action may be influenced subconsciously or otherwise by the mannerisms of his partner.

So when such a situation arises the innocent side normally calls the director to monitor the subsequent proceedings and then if they are not happy with the result they ask for an adjusted score. When this happens one side or the other will normally ask for a review of the score by an appeals committee. By and large such committees now work on what is known as the 70 per cent rule. If they consider that 70 per cent of good players would have taken the action which was adopted at the table, then they will allow the score to stand. If, however, this is not the case then there is a presumption that the player was influenced by the hesitation and the score is adjusted.

This deal caused quite a stir in a big American tournament. North was the dealer with only his side vulnerable: N A— 6 5 V Q 4 ♦—J 8 7 2 A—Q 1096 4 W E A— KJ 1094 A— AQB 732 V— s V— A 98 3 ♦—KQS3 ♦—964 A— B 5 2 4— S A—V—K JlO7 6 2 ♦—A 10 4—AKJ73 W N E S No IS 2H 3H No 4S 5C No No 5S Dble No 6C Dble All Pass Over East's opening bid of one spade, South made a simple over-call of two hearts. He had plenty in reserve but expected to catch up later. West’s bid of three hearts showed a good hand with good spade support so East called game in spades. South bid five clubs and when this came round to him East pushed on to five spades. At this point South huddled for a while before doubling. Clearly he had a good high-card strength as well as two good suits but his trance suggested some doubt. When North removed the double to six clubs his opponents summoned the director.

As often happens in these situations the complaining side now allowed their judgment to lapse. East had already bid his hand to the full and should have left the next decision to his partner but instead he elected to double six clubs. There was no reason now for West to remove the double to six spades so he passed, but he proceeded to go far wrong in the defence.

The lead of the king of diamonds would have defeated the contract, allowing the defenders to make one trick in each red suit. But West led the king of spades and South became a happy man. He ruffed, drew trumps in three rounds, and settled down to hearts. Eventuallj' he discarded three of dummy’s diamonds on the good hearts in hand and made his contract.

Naturally East-West took the matter to the appeals committee which decided in its wisdom that North, with a hand quite useless in defence but with good holdings in both his partner's suits, was justified in bidding six clubs. They therefore allowed the score to stand.

This was of course particularly galling for EastWest, who not only could have beaten the slam but could have made six spades themselves in some comfort.