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Appeals

Appeal No 26.
Hesitation

Open Teams Round 25
Ireland v Portugal

Board 20.
Dealer West.
Game All.

Please note: Screen runs from top left to bottom right.
			9 7
			A K 9 8 7 6 5
			8 3
			10 2
	K 8 5 4 3 2	N   W E   S			A Q 10
	10 2				Q 3
	J 7				10 9 5 4 2
	A 9 8				J 7 6
			J 6
			J 4
			A K Q 6
			K Q 5 4 3

West	North	East	South
Sa	Keaveney	Barbosa	Timlin
2	Pass	3	Pass
Pass	4	All Pass

Contract: Four Hearts, played by North
Result: Ten tricks, +620 to North/South

The Facts: Two Spades was weak, and Three Spades was pre-emptive, partner should not bid Four.
The tray had come back from South/West, after a considerable delay. All the players agreed the break in tempo had been of the order of 90 seconds.

The Director: Found that Four Hearts by North was an action that was suggested by the break in tempo and that Passing would have been a Logical Alternative.

Ruling: Score adjusted to -200 to East/West

North/South appealed.

The Players: Did not deny the break in tempo.
North explained he was not able to bid Three Hearts in his system, but when he learnt from East that East/West did not have game values, he felt that Four Hearts was a self-evident call.
He had asked about the meaning of 3 once again, especially since he was aware of the pause and knew the Director would be called. He explained his decision by counting points. His partner held at least the values of a weak No-Trump opening, and he would always raise that to game on this hand. He thought some 90% of players would bid 4 on his hand.
East/West pointed out that the break in tempo makes the call of 4 to be less risky.

The Committee: Found the call of Four Hearts to be quite reasonable, but was not certain that it was the only Logical alternative. A 7222 distribution with 6½ losers is not very good, and two spade losers are very likely. The hesitation took away all doubts that could very well have remained in a substantial minority of players. Ton Kooijman's analysis in a previous article suggests that the definition of a logical alternative in the EBL should be:

A Logical Alternative is any action that would be taken by some of the players' peers, where some has to be interpreted as around 25%.

The Committee felt that Pass was a logical alternative.
The Committee also found that the Director had been wrong in calculating the Adjusted score. If North is deemed to have passed, West will play three Spades and is very likely to make 8 tricks.

The Committee's decision: Director's decision changed, Score adjusted to Three Spades down One, -100 to East/West.

Relevant Laws: Law 16A, Law 12C2

Deposit: Returned