Deal Of The Week: June 21, 2025
The stories you are about to read are true. The identities of the players have been omitted or obscured to protect the innocent, and prevent the guilty from gloating. In the bridge justice system, the Director does not watch the action directly, instead waiting for the players at one of dozens of tables to call after an infraction. Then the players assume the Director just arrived has been there all along and can work out exactly what happened, merely from a series of clues reluctantly given, after the poor Director — having walking the diagonal length of a large ballroom, ducking obstacles along the way such as players trying to back their chairs into him, or attempting to get him to pass boards to the next table so they don't need to move, or asking their vitally important question (disallowed in the entry selling line with three dozen people behind waiting to buy) about the alertability of a convention that has never come up and probably never will — catches his breath and asks "how can I help?" These are their stories....
Case One: We Don't Have A Tournament Leaderboard For That, But If We Did....: After the previous District 19 event in Victoria where all of the team events were single day bracketed round-robins, playing traditional knockouts seemed to confuse many Penticton players. "We're playing against the same team all afternoon?", they would say as though it was something they had never done before. "Can we switch at halftime at least?" (I told them to check with the opponents and make sure both teams didn't switch.) By the third of these traditional knockouts, we had a number which broke down into three large brackets with very few three-way matches, and things got under way without the usual barrage of questions, and my first call was to the top bracket area, where a player had ended up, after a spirited and competitive auction, in four of a major, and the player on opening lead had led thirteen cards face up, thinking he was dummy and apparently hallucinating that an opening lead had been made by his RHO. I suggested that since this was the first board of the match that they simply reshuffle, but the declarer disagreed. I looked up the relevant laws on multiple penalty cards and described for them how this would go, and play began with declarer choosing a card from the thirteen tabled. Somewhat to my surprise, declarer chose not to have the player with the penalty cards discard high cards when given that option, and instead specifically chose normal cards to be played. Perhaps it didn't matter, as declarer was soon conceding down one.
Opinion was divided among the directors I related the story to, since Law12A2 says we should award an artificial score if no rectification can be made permitting normal play of the board. So instead of giving declarer a double dummy problem and the right to dictate much of the defenders' decisions, we would give declarer +3IMPs and the defenders -3IMPs if they choose not to simply redeal the board. Some said I should have suggested more strongly that redeal was best, but once declarer chose not to take full advantage, the result was probably normal enough. I heard later it had little to do with the match result.
Case Two: Take A Closer Look At Your Cards If In Doubt: Again in the knockout team area, where, because cards are not sent through the duplicating machine each session, they can survive for a long time without anyone complaining about the faded markings on the face of the cards. (Faded cards in the duplicating machine cause multiple errors and are replaced with new decks.) A player had seven clubs to the AKJ and a spade void, got to a vulnerable 5♣ and the obvious way to play the hand was to first ensure a few ruffs in dummy, ruffing back to hand in spades once and using other side suit entries the other times. When I arrived this process had been completed and declarer was back in hand, ready to finally pull trumps with the AKJx remaining. He led the ace of clubs and discovered that the card he thought was the ace of clubs was actually the ace of spades with a faded suit symbol in the corner he was viewing! Now suddenly, everything changed: the ace of spades won the trick, but then he was playing trumps from his hand with KJx against the AQT and others, not knowing where any of them were, and he had revoked earlier by ruffing the spade in hand while holding the ace of spades. A late misguess left him four down, with an extra one added for the revoke for five down. We had a close look at the cards and the A♠ was ambiguous from one corner, but many of the other cards were also faded. There might have been a way out if the A♠ looked exactly like the A♣, based on the Law that specifies the cards in a deck, but this was ambiguous, suggesting a closer look. The other index and the central pip was clearly a spade. I could not find a Lawful way to get the unfortunate player out of this, and the result stood.
Most tournaments have extra decks available when a bad one is discovered, but the side that went -500 wanted one concession which I granted. "Please let this board go to the other table in its current condition," they pleaded, "so we can at least have a chance to recover!" And, I can report that the team that went -500 not only won and advanced, but later squeaked through a tied semi-final in a playoff and won the bracket!
Case Three: Add This One To The Bruce File...: Late in the week, with tired legs from standing, walking, waiting for five days, I got what looked to be a simple enough hesitation ruling that a little polling would get the answer expected and create a ruling most expected. I have been surprised often by the results of polls before though, so I carefully wrote down the hand, looked it over to decide how to present the problem without the hesitation to the people polled, and then went to find three responses from the same general area (players in the same bracket). For a more complicated question I often check with a senior director to ensure I am not missing anything before finding my pollees, but this one seemed quite clear. And, getting the responses I expected, before delivering the ruling, I checked with another TD. All was well until he spotted the card on which I had written the "you hold this" hand given to players for the poll.
The polled hand had only twelve cards! Somehow three people had looked at it, thought about it, and given an answer without noticing. When I requestioned them with the missing card added, a few said 'this is the same hand as before!' Nobody changed their mind.
Case Four: What Shall We Poll?:
Here is a good example of getting help from other TDs. In the auction above, 1♣ was artificial and 16+, and the 2♦ overcall was pre-emptive. The 3♣ bid showed long clubs, but opener and responder had different ideas on whether it was forcing or invitational, and the opponents got the wrong answer (invitational) from opener, before the next player chose to bid on to 3♦. Opener bid 4♣, partner raised, and eleven tricks were made. Opponents were told before the opening lead of the misinformation; the TD was called after the hand was over. What now?
The first thing to do as Director, is to ensure you have all the facts; most TDs will do this by instructing play to continue with the next board and taking the one just completed to write out the cards in each hand. From that you reconstruct the auction, ensure that it makes sense against the diagram, and then take a few minutes to work out how to proceed. Sometimes a second look at the deal viewing the actual cards people saw as they bid and played will give you new questions to ask, or clear up in your mind the more intricate details of an auction which the players watched develop and you were told about in considerably less time.
But the other thing that sometimes happens is that you get sidetracked to one issue and miss others, especially on a long, busy day of standing about waiting for director calls, or walking quickly through a long room to attend to calls far away. Often someone else's second look will alert you to things you've missed, and sometimes it can be surprising that you missed something so obvious.
In this case, I was over-focussing on South's 5♣ call, since South had unauthorized information. South knew that his invitational 3♣ call had been misinterpreted by North as non-forcing. I was trying to make the case in my head that perhaps this affected South's decision to go on to 5♣. What I missed was that with correct information that 3♣ was in fact forcing, West might not bid 3♦, giving the strong hand a chance to double, and opening up the possibility that the opening hand, thinking 3♣ was non-forcing, might pass and play 3♣. The final ruling of 3♣ making five was delivered to the players and the amused response from both sides was "what took you so long?" (Once again it was irrelevant to the match result.)
This might be the most difficult part of directing and the part misunderstood by many players (and especially by tournament organizers that fear overstaffing and non-profitabitilty). Going from walking the room awaiting calls and answering questions and being alert to problems that may arise, to being able to suddenly shut everything happening around you out to focus on a single hand in front of you is not easy! Tournaments need that extra director, sitting at the computer entering names or organizing other things, or planning space for the next day, who can occasionally be called upon for a second opinion. Floor work is 90% simple rulings from the book (or more often from memory), and 10% more difficult situations where the answer may require a quick check of what the Laws say, a detailed look at the hand as a whole, or a second opinion from someone whose watch step-counter isn't up in the 12,000 range already with seven hours to go.
Case Five: Arguing for the sake of argument: Called to a table where the dealer has pulled out the 1♣ bid-box card, and gotten it halfway to the table before putting it back in the box. I began by pointing out that the rules for bid-box cards do not define such an action as a bid, but that the partner of the dealer had some unauthorized information, that dealer was considering 1♣ as an opening bid. The dealer now bid 2NT, saying "and now the unauthorized information is all gone."
"Really?" I said, having had a problem or two at this table before. "I would suggest that it's not the greatest idea in the world to contradict what the Director has just said, especially if he is still present. Your revised opening bid may have eliminated much of the unauthorized information, but partner still knows you were considering 1♣. I'm sure he will do his best not to take advantage if that knowledge is an issue."
And very luckily for the player involved, it was not.
Case Six: Adjusting Scores: I did write this one down but it ended up in the hotel room bin along with many other pickup slips of quickly scrawled auctions and hand diagrams. One side opened 1NT, and at some point there was a 2♠ call by an opponent and a tempo break before the 1NT opening side got to a contact that made. We found that pass was a logical alternative by polling players, which would leave 2♠ as the final contract, and it remained to decide whether 2♠ would make or go down one. My initial ruling was that 2♠ would probably make, but could go down one, and perhaps the technically correct ruling would be to give some small percentage of down one and some larger percentage of making. The offending side presented a scenario where it could go two down and rallied for that result, which involved underleading high cards to get the other defender in for two timely ruffs. I probably went too far towards the offending side by ruling 100% of down one. A technically correct ruling would be perhaps 50% of down one, 40% of making 2♠ and 10% of down two, the end result perhaps giving the offenders an IMP or two extra on the board. When we assign weighted scores, we are instructed to give a little bit extra to the non-offenders when deciding the percentages. For example, if someone hesitates before passing and partner bids 5♥ over 4♠, and it goes for 300 doubled, while 4♠ is on a 50-50 guess, the weighted score suggested by the guidelines is 60% (not 50%) of 420 or 620, and 40% of -50 or -100. If that comes to less matchpoints or IMPs than 100% of +300 for the non-offenders, then +300 it is. When you're the offending side you do not get the benefit of the doubt. Thanks to weighted scores you no longer get the worst result possible, but you certainly don't get the best result possible!
Case Seven: Call, don't wait.: Personality clash based on a forcing club system and the explanations; one side wants an answer, the other side says the questions are frivolous. I calm them down, get the question answered, get play restarted and seeing frustration I ask if I need to stay. They nod, and I stay to the end of the deal, then point out the disparity between the number of directors and the number of tables we are covering. "If I have to stay here and there is another similar problem, you will be surprised at the severity of the penalties that result. Let's play bridge." Off I go to a spot nearby and they get through the rest.
On the way back to the table, one of the players in the confrontation comes my way and tells me the incident started when there was a question about the forcing-club system and the response was "we're behind, and the answer to that would take me some time to fully explain." "Your response to that should have been an immediate Director call," I said. "Waiting until now to tell me makes it more difficult to solve. I am sure that when I raise the issue with the other player I will get a denial and a different story. But I'll try."
Needless to say, an immediate Director call would have made it far more difficult to deny saying something that the other players all heard. The questioner would have gotten the full answer, and the questioned player would have gotten a penalty if the comments were reported correctly. You cannot escape answering questions just because you think you are falling behind on time. Not calling makes it harder to confirm what has happened while the Director wasn't there. Calling right away will make what the player said difficult to deny.
Later, after my talk with the questioned player, I reported back to the questioner. "I told him that because you had not called the Director immediately, I was sure of only one thing, that we would get into an irresolvable argument about what was actually said, so all I am going to do at this point is report to you what your opponent believes you said, and point out that if this is even close to true, you were one immediate Director call away from serious trouble, and should rethink this strategy in future. Our conversation ended with something I believe no Director has heard from this player before: 'Fair enough...'"!
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