REALLY ticked off that the punt of 1 Spade didn't win problem B , or that i didn't stay with the field's choice of 2D or 1NT to win the iac contest.. but at least the right rebid did manage a 50 garnering an honorable mention. Can't waat for the summary to quote the 2 panelist that did choose the 1 Spade rebid
We are not suprized that the bottom of the honor roll took 720 on this largely no-brainer set!
Jock, I am not surprised that a bid that is counter to BWS did not win the problem, much less garner more support from the panelists. If 1
were 4th suit forcing for one round, then I would be surprised, but when holding 9xx and promising a fourth spade, I would expect nearly every panelist to look elsewhere for a bid. Nonetheless, panelists have not been reluctant to grouse about a favored bid not being available under the system notes; and that is where I would expect to see laments about not having 1
available.
Nothing especially shocking.
But I thought the second choice on the lead problem was weird. Underleading the 
K5? That would never cross my mind. Are we banking on partner to have, specifically, the Q?
Todd, No one should be surprised that the unbid suit would be a popular choice. And certainly, clubs were the second most chosen suit led. Once you have decided that clubs is a weak point for declarer, how should you try to exploit that weakness. I decided that the best way, was to sit with the king behind the hand that implied control, so I looked for a safe lead in another suit. But bridge is a game of judgment, and other judged differently. As the second most popular choice was to underlead the club king, it got the points. I'm not sure it rated a 90, but I suspect the moderator did not want to score the 10/9 lower than 90, and reward the more popular club with the same score. (The politics of MSC scoring.)
Speaking of the politics of scoring, my issue was with Problem C and the selection of 3
as the highest scoring choice. Essentially, the choice was between a game, game force, or game try. Being in game was the clear panel choice, so all game tries needed to be relegated to lower scores. I can also see that a game force is more flexible, giving the partnership room to explore slam, while still ensuring game being bid, but it feels like the moderator is imposing his bias on the scoring. The panel is composed of experts. If they were not interested in exploring slam (or possibly an alternative game such as 3NT), then punishing the fast arrivals is wrong.
That doesn't mean I agree with all of the other choices picking up 100's, but at least in the case of the other, there was greater justification for the scoring.
