March 2025 - 36

RULING THE Game
Q
A
Q
In a recent Swiss teams, the
opponents told me I can't deal
the cards back and forth into
five piles, making the last pile of 13
by combining the two end piles. Is
this correct?
No. Law 6B suggests that best
practice is to deal into four
piles clockwise. It requires
the cards be dealt one at a time, face
down into four hands of thirteen
cards each. You simply have two
target places where one of the four
hands is built. On the other hand,
dealing back and forth into just four
piles violates this because you would
deal two consecutive cards into the
same hand. This is equivalent to not
dealing the cards one at a time.
At our unit's annual Swiss
team party, I couldn't find any
of our opponents to sign the
reporting ticket. I later figured out
they were setting up the buffet lunch
for us. I did not turn in our ticket,
which led to a tongue-lashing from
our normally nice director. This hurt
my feelings; I was just trying to do
the right thing and thought the ticket
had to be signed before it could be
turned in.
A
It sounds like your director
might have been a bit hangry!
They were probably waiting
for your result so they could let the
computer pair the teams for the following
match and go enjoy their own
lunch.
Here is how we like to think about
this issue: Bridge events need timely
and accurate recording of results. In
pairs games, this normally happens
one deal at a time through electronic
scoring, with one side recording and
the other approving. The director can
assume that the recorded score has
been agreed to by both sides. With
the manual reporting used in some
36 | Bridge Bulletin | March 2025
team games, having the opponents
approve the score ticket gives the
director the same sort of confidence.
Having the correct score recorded
is the goal; having a signed ticket is
best because it offers additional evidence
that both sides agree. If you
cannot get approval, please submit a
score anyway. If you're an opponent
who did not get to approve a score -
electronic scoring devices sometimes
auto-approve after a delay - check
with the director later in the game to
ensure that the score for the deal or
match was recorded correctly.
Q
The following happened at
our club's monthly Swiss team
game. I still do not understand
why my partner was so upset
with me. I held:
sQ J 7 2 hK 3 d9 6 cK J 8 5 3.
As dealer, I passed, as did my lefthand
opponent. Partner opened 1s,
and my RHO passed. I was excited
to get to use the new Bergen raise
convention my partner taught me, so
I bid 3d, which for us shows 10-12
support points and four-card support
of spades. Partner did not Alert,
which woke me up to the fact that
we don't use Bergen raises when we
have already passed. (I was supposed
to bid 2c, reverse Drury, to show a
limit raise.) We were vulnerable, and
my stupid bid might have caused us
to miss a vulnerable game. Partner
rebid 3s, and I bid 4s, hoping it
would make. Although we had 10
trumps, we had four losers in the
other suits, so we went down one.
We always finish before our teammates
do, so during the time before
we got back to compare scores, partner
scolded me, telling me I cannot
bid 4s in that auction.
I told them that I realized I had
misbid, so why couldn't I gamble that
4s would make. They got flustered
and could not explain. Can you?
MODERATOR: MATT KOLTNOW
NATIONAL TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR
rulings@acbl.org
A
For sure! You said it yourself.
When partner did not Alert
3d, you realized that you
had misbid. Failure to Alert when
an Alert is expected is unauthorized
information. This triggers Law
16B1, which reminds a player who
has unauthorized information from
partner that they cannot choose from
amongst logical alternatives one that
is demonstrably suggested over another
by that information. Law 72C1
describes a player's obligation when
having received unauthorized information.
In plain English, these two
Laws say that once you have received
unauthorized information, when
there are two reasonable things to do
next, you must not pick the one that
has been made more appealing.
How does that apply to this case?
Let's compare this auction to how
it would have unfolded online. You
would have bid 3d and self-Alerted it
to the opponents. You have no reason
to think partner does not understand
your bid the same way you mean it.
In your system, partner is in charge
because you have limited your hand.
Partner's 3s means, " I heard your
limit raise, and my hand suggests we
do not have the assets for game. " It
is not a cooperative bid. You learned
nothing new about partner's hand;
why would you bid game when you
previously treated this hand as " less
than enough to force our side to bid
game " ?
In face-to-face bridge, what you
learned from partner's correct failure
to Alert was that you had misbid, and
partner probably understood you to
have a hand with natural diamonds
and invitational values. Their 3s bid
suggests they prefer spades to diamonds,
which they would normally
do with a sixth spade. You are not
allowed to know any of this because
partner's failure to Alert is not information
you can use to choose your
next bid. 2
March 2025

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