There were two interesting comments in the EBU June Magazine of 2003, which I would like to bring to your attention. Partly because of space, I have re-written them to suit my own needs, but the conclusions etc remain as in the magazine.

COMMENT 1. ( Law 13.3.1)

This first comment is only valid for System Level 3 (and above), hence it would only be used by a small percentage of our own members – however, it may well be used against you.

It is now permitted (from last September) to agree to open 1NT with a singleton but it must be on a 4,4,4,1 hand (with any singleton) or on a 5,4,3,1 hand (with a singleton which must be an honour ).

If you do this, it must be on your convention cards & it must be alerted and the point count must be within the agreed range for a natural 1NT opener.

You could also open 1NT on a 5,4,3,1 hand and a singleton which is not an honour. If you do this, then partner must be under the impression that the singleton is an honour & his bidding must reflect this. It is not allowed to have an agreement with partner that the singleton could be other than an honour; therefore, this bid could be used only very sparingly.

An interesting situation arose where in an uncontested auction, East/West bid to 4H, with East making the first heart bid (ie. placing him as declarer & giving the lead to South ). Before the opening lead was made, East placed his bidding cards back into the bidding box and West did not.

North looked at the table & saw that one of West's bids had been in hearts & there was no bid in front of East, so he led a card face down. South said "no question" and the lead was faced. East commented that this was an opening lead out of turn.

North, in his defence, said that there were no bidding cards in front of East & he led after looking at West's bidding cards.

For a Director, this throws up two different interpretations. First, you could conclude that the lead occurred because of a Law infraction by East (the Law is quite clear that the bidding cards had been put away prematurely). Second, you could reason that North/South had not paid enough attention to the earlier bidding. Which do you go for?

The writer in the magazine (Jeremy Dhondy) considers the two themes in more detail & then gives his own opinion. It is not made clear if there is an EBU "Laws Committee" decision, so I will not expand any further but will leave you to make up your mind what you would rule as the director.

I think that this is one of many examples where there is no clear cut answer & only an EBU appeal would legislate.

You get these Laws and Law changes which are probably totally irrelevant to the vast majority of our own Club members. Bridge is so bound up with Laws and Directives and Interpretations that there is a Law booklet with 100 pages in it; an orange booklet with 54 pages in it and also an (outdated ) Supplement of 64 pages. County Tournament Directors (and above) have to live with this!

Similarly, you get these situations, of which Comment 2 is an example, where I tend to think that once again the majority of our members would not be interested either in the situation or in the Director's ruling. Nevertheless, there must be those amongst us who like to hear about these things.