Special kudos to Susan Morse, who earned the title in her category nationally, and to Ken Cohen who garnered more points than any other player across the country online. Unit 141 winners will be honored at the May 1 Annual Meeting and Brunch. You can expect to see national winners profiled in the April Bridge Bulletin.

MINI-MCKENNEY
0-5 Jerry Goodman
5-20 Susan Morse
20-50 Cheryl Stark Abrams
50-100 Alexander Okamoto
100-200 Bruce Young
200-300 Bill Kutzryba
300-500 Helen Walker
500-1000 Ralph Collins
1000-2500 Bruce Lang
2500-5000 Elaine Clair
5000-7500 Marty Rabinowitz
7500-10,000 Corey Krantz
10,000+ Eric Greco

ACE OF CLUBS
0-5 Brenda Vogel
5-20 Susan Morse
20-50 Cheryl Stark Adams
50-100 James Koss
100-200 Andrew Rosenberg
200-300 Bill Kurtzryba
300-500 Helen Walker
500-1000 Ralph Collins
1000-2500 Bruce Lang
2500-5000 Elaine Clair
5000-7500 Margaret Coe
7500-10,000 Arnold Selig
10,000+ Craig Robinson  

Dotty (circa 2009) at her Buxmont Club

 

Mark your calendars. This year's Unit 141 Brunch, Annual Meeting, and Sonny Jaspan Memorial Game will take place on May 1, at Bala.

HOTEL: The bridge rate for the hotel is $125/night -- the same as last year. Reservations can be made by contacting the DoubleTree ( 301 W. DeKalb Pike, King of Prussia) at 800-222-TREE or 610-337-1200. You can also click here for a direct link to our dedicated reservations website. The bridge rate is available until June 6 or as long as rooms in the "block" are available, so make your reservations early!

BREAKFAST: Free breakfast of coffee, tea, danish, bagels, and muffins will be served each morning from 9:45 AM to 10:25 AM, Tuesday through Sunday, in the hotel restaurant T. Burke's.

LUNCH: A free lunch will be served on both Thursday and Sunday. On the other days, the hotel will sell a la carte lunch items (salad, sandwiches, snacks, etc.). In addition, players can have lunch in the hotel restaurant Three01 for about $15 per person. Finally, 299ers can enjoy a special event on Friday (a two-session Dupli-Swiss) that also includes lunch. Pre-registration is encouraged and players interested in this event should contact Bruce Lang ([email protected]).

RESTAURANT GUIDE: A restaurant guide is available online at the District 4 website. The printed Welcome Bulletin, available at the tournament site, will also include the restaurant guide.

HOSPITALITY SUITE: The "Sweet Hospitality Suite" in room 806 will open each evening, Monday through Saturday, from 9:00 PM - 11:00 PM. The suite will offer desserts, drinks, and light snacks. All are welcome.  

Rui Marques, Assistant Chief Director for the European Bridge League and World Bridge Federation and Unit 141 resident, continues his series on bridge rulings and table irregularities.

Have a question or topic for Rui? Send your ideas to [email protected] for Rui's response in a future newsletter.

 

Strange Bid Out of Rotation 

Playing on a side event at the recent U.S. nationals in Reno, I witnessed an interesting situation at a neighboring table: Board number 8, West dealer, nobody vulnerable.

West opens 1 Spade and East, holding [void ]  AKQ8763   9542  52, jumps to 4 Hearts . North, slightly surprised, calls the director. Law 28 defines this action as a call out of rotation (easy). Law 29 tells us what to do next. The offender´s LHO (South) may elect to call, forfeiting the right to any rectification (Law 29A). If not (Law 29B), the out-of-rotation call is canceled and, because it was made at RHO´s (North) turn to call, we are directed to Law 31A, which basically translates like this...

1. If North passes, East will have to repeat his call out of rotation and there is no further rectification.
2. If North makes a legal call, East can also make any legal call. If East repeats the denomination (hearts, in this case), West will have to pass on his next turn to call; otherwise West will have to pass for the remainder of the auction. In addition, the lead penalties of Law 26 may apply.

Would you accept East's bid out of rotation? South asked West about the meaning of 4 Heart bid and was told it was a splinter! East had completely forgotten the agreement. So, South decided to not accept. The bid was canceled and North elected to bid two clubs on  874  2  AQ76  AKQT9. At this point, East, having been given his options, decided to bid 4 Hearts again! 4 Hearts became the final contract and made with less than optimal defense.

This is a nice instructional case. Can we do something other than accept the result at the table? Law 23 (awareness of potential damage) is a general law that may apply after the irregularity. It allows the director to award an adjusted score (after the auction and play have completed) if he or she deems that the offending side has "gained an advantage through the irregularity."

So the director could adjust the score if he/she thinks that East, upon bidding 4 Hearts out of rotation, could have been aware that his partner´s enforced pass would be beneficial for East-West. In this case, however, that would be a hard sell. If South had accepted the 4 Heart bid, West would have bid 4 Spades on AKQxxx and an extra king outside, and East-West would be headed for a hefty minus score. So, East's bid looks like a genuine mistake. There is nothing on the laws that allows the Director to provide the unfortunate North-South pair with some compensation. This whole case boils down to the rub of the green, for which the laws do not and will never provide any compensation.

Maybe this is a good example of why some strong players systematically accept this kind of irregularity, because not doing so introduces a randomness factor that sometimes works spectacularly well for the opponents...