Appeals

July 2000

Appeal No 36.
Misinformation - No Damage

Open Teams Round 33
France v Cyprus

Board 5.
Dealer North.
North/South Game.

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

West	North	East	South
Multon	Koumas	Mari	Politis
	1	Pass	4
Pass	5	Pass	5
Pass	6	All Pass

Contract: Six Spades, played by North
Lead: Queen of diamonds
Result: 12 tricks, +1430 to North/South

The Facts: Four Diamonds was explained on both sides as Splinter, but there was some disagreement about how and when this was done.
According to West who asked about the meaning of 4 when the tray came back with 5, South said "Splinter" and only wrote it when West insisted. According to South, he had never said anything, and only written the response.
East stated he had heard South, on the other side of the screen, say "Splinter", and North immediately thereafter said "of course 4 is splinter" before he bid 6.
North stated he had alerted 4, East had asked nothing and North said he had heard nothing.

The Director: Applied Law 85B: If the Director is unable to determine the facts to his satisfaction, he shall make a ruling that will permit play to continue, and notify the players of their right to appeal.
He ruled there had been no unauthorised information.

Ruling: Result Stands

East/West appealed.

The Players: Repeated their statements to the Director. East/West maintained that South had spoken, North/South denied this.
North called his decision to go to slam a gamble, and he explained his decision to bypass naming the Heart control in the same manner: he did not want to tell the opponents.
East tried to explain why he had led a diamond. He was certain from the bidding that North controlled the clubs and the hearts.
During the explanations, it became obvious that North/South had a different definition of "Splinter" than what is the general understanding. When asked, both North and South explained that to them, a splinter showed trump agreement and a first round control, Ace or void.

The Committee: Found that there was no clear evidence that North had used unauthorised information in bidding the slam.
There had however been misexplanation towards East, and the Committee decided to take away the diamond lead from East.
The Committee was not certain that East would always find a club lead, and decided to use Law 12C3: An appeals committee may vary an assigned adjusted score in order to do equity.
The Committee decided to award the lead of clubs, and the slam going down, in 70% of the cases.

The Committee's decision: Score adjusted to the weighted average of:
70% of Six Spades going one down, -100 to North/South
30% of Six Spades making, +1430 to North/South
The same score should go to both sides.

Relevant Laws: Law 75A, Law 12C3

Deposit: Returned

Final result of the match: The result at the other table was +680 to North/South.
The balance is then: 70% of (-100-680 = -13IMPs) + 30% of (+1430-680 = +13IMPs) = -5.2 IMPs, rounded in favour of the non-offending side, so 6 IMPs in favour of the team of East/West at this table (France).