Judgement Ruling
Non Vul vs Vul, North deals and bids 4H.
East thinks for a while, sufficient to be judged BIT, and passes. South also passes.
West thinks for a while and bids 4S. N/S call the Director and protect their rights.
N and E pass, S bids 5H, W and N Pass, East dbls.
Contract goes down 2.
S calls the Director and shows him West's hand, which is JT7653-3-K8-KT95.
Director rules that although he agrees that the 4S bid by W was not an LA, since S bid 5H he has no redress.
S maintains that he bid 5H as a sacrifice because if the bid of 4S by West was genuine then S could see no defence to beat it. South's hand was A-K8-J765432-J62. The Director sticks to his ruling.
N/S appeal.
An online poll by the referee shows that 60% of the respondents bid 5H in South's position without the BIT by East.
Decision?
Comments
I think we should start by polling the West hand and the question should be to determine whether Pass is a logical alternative, not 4S. If Pass is a logical alternative (and we are satisfied that the BIT demonstrably suggested bidding over passing) then the final contract will be adjusted to 4H and the rest becomes irrelevant.
Thanks
Just curious as Stop cards are a matter of Regulation and not Law, but would I assume correctly that your Regulating Authority has a mandatory 10 second pause, and that the delay by East was therefore significantly in excess of that?
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
Well the final contract may be 4H bit the rest isn't irrelevant if we judge that the 5H call was a gambling action which if unsuccessful it may be hoped to recover through rectification - then we have a split score: EW get the score for 4H making by the opponents and NS get the score for 4H making less the loss (if any) between 4 Spades and 5H-1 as that was self-inflicted. (Obviously if 4S makes then there is no loss)
"S maintains that he bid 5H as a sacrifice because if the bid of 4S by West was genuine then S could see no defence to beat it." This is unlikely to meet the high standard required to be considered a gambling action.
Not bidding 5!h is also a gamble – you're gambling that 4!s goes down.
As such, it only makes sense to do a "gambling action" adjustment when one possible call is much riskier than the other possible call.
I should perhaps have said that in principle we consider whether or not South's action was gambling and we can test this by polling with that hand, not only asking what players do with it after 4S is passed back to them, but also what they think of the 5H bid and South's stated reasons for bidding it.
If polling on South's decision to bid 5H then the BIT by EW is AI and should surely be disclosed to anyone being polled.