September 2020 - 19

ditional foray, looking for a four-card
major. Instead, this responder chose to
transfer to hearts and bid 3NT, giving
partner a choice between 3NT and 4♥.
When you look at the recap, you learn
that most pairs are in 4♠ going down
because of the poor spade spots and a
foul split. Maybe your hand chose to
disregard the spades because of the
poor suit quality. Maybe this is a less
skilled player who doesn't know what
to do holding five of one major and four
of the other when partner opens 1NT.
Partner's hand:
♠Q 5 4 3 ♥A 10 5 ♦K Q J 9 ♣ A 3.

❷ Was 2NT on your radar? Some-

times what you're seeing is just bad
bridge, and investigators have a difficult time slogging through bad bridge
to get to motive. Or sometimes - as in
real life - players are mentally absent
from the table, though they continue
to bid and click cards. Maybe the 1♦
opener forgot she opened the bidding,
and thought she was using Jacoby 2NT
to respond to partner's 1♥ opening. It
happens in real life. Partner passed and
2NT was touch and go. The field was in
4♥ - whether they got there by using
a 4♣ splinter or just bidding 4♥. Just
because you got a good result doesn't
justify the opponents' illogical bidding.
Sometimes bad bridge players are also
bad cheaters. Partner's hand:

A misclick maybe? Diamonds and hearts are right next to each other on the
BBO selection interface. But this is definitely a deal to save in your BBO files for
ready reference when you file your Player Memo.

❺ The opening leader tabled her lowest club - the suit dummy opened - finding partner with ♣A x. Partner's overcall of 1♦ makes the singleton diamond a
logical, if not automatic, lead. If you're allergic to leading partner's suit, however,
the top of an honor sequence, even if it is dummy's bid suit, is a vague alternative.
A trump lead? Maybe safe, maybe not. An aggressive fourth-best spade doesn't
sound appealing. (Partner's diamond overcall consisted of ♦10 x x x x.) Clubs
were 3-2 between dummy and declarer, and the lead enabled the defending side
to grab their club tricks before they disappeared on a side suit. Save the hand to
your BBO file. File a Player Memo. Stat!
From the Recorder's office
As of July 16, 2020
Active
investigations

Cases
pending

Negotiated
resolutions

Cases
heard & decided

Members
disciplined

The online Player Memo is at acbl.org/playermemo. An even easier version,
streamlined for online play reports, is at acbl.org/bbomemo. Or send an email to
recorder@acbl.org. At a minimum, indicate the BBO game number, date, board
number and screen names of your opponents. If you've saved the deal to your
BBO folder, you've got a URL you can paste into your email.
◾

♠ 9 8 ♥Q 7 6 2 ♦8 7 ♣K J 7 5 4.

❸ 2NT seems the most logical choice. Or, if you can't abide the
thought of missing a 4-4 spade fit,
maybe 1♠ if it's natural, shows four
and can be a balanced hand. This
opener chose the astounding rebid of
4♠. It's hard to find an excuse for this
one, except that she could see everyone's cards and knew partner wasn't
going to bid again:
♠Q 10 9 5 ♥Q J 9 4 ♦5 ♣Q 10 9 3.

❹ Sometimes your opponents

just get lucky. But 5♦ lucky? 5♦ was
passed, and here's the gold mine - or
rather diamond mine - that declarer
lucked into:
♠6 ♥K Q 10 6 5 ♦A K 7 6 4 2 ♣2.

This menu contains export options

To save a deal or report suspicious activity on BBO, find the deal in your History tab. When the
deal is in the bottom right corner of the screen, click on the triple bar within that section to bring
up a menu of options. Click on Export. A new menu with five choices will appear: (1) Send to
member, (2) Send abuse report, (3) Save deal as, (4) Handviewer link and (5) Hand editor. The
Handviewer link provides a shortcut to the deal that you can copy and paste into an email or a
player memo. Select Send abuse report to file a report with BBO. A more detailed illustration of
this process will be shown next month in BBO Help Desk.
September 2020 Bridge Bulletin

http://www.acbl.org/playermemo http://www.acbl.org/bbomemo

September 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2020