[iviehoff]

To which a careful player will carefully constructed his answer to cater for the possibility of false-carding, or signalling only when they desire to do so. But I would not give a MI ruling if they failed to carefully construct the small print: carding practices are a polite arrangement with partner, not a contract with the opposition, and the opposition should take that as read when asking questions about it. You obviously cannot ask questions like "how strong a player is your partner, does your partner understand the all the well-known automatic false-cards situations, would it occur to your partner to false-card in such a situation." Nor can you obtain such information by trying dress up more innocent-sounding questions cutely.

[gnasher]

iviehoff, on 2012-February-22, 06:00, said:

To which a careful player will carefully constructed his answer to cater for the possibility of false-carding, or signalling only when they desire to do so.

Yes, but only if that's relevant to the question that was asked. If RHO knows that his partner will always signal honestly with xxx in this position, he should say so when asked.

[iviehoff]

gnasher, on 2012-February-22, 06:40, said:

Yes, but only if that's relevant to the question that was asked. If RHO knows that his partner will always signal honestly with xxx in this position, he should say so when asked.

In what position? When he is sitting under dummy holding AQJx? I really think that is explaining to the opposition how to play bridge, not explaining your signalling agreements. It is not disclosable.

[gnasher]

iviehoff, on 2012-February-22, 09:58, said:

In what position? When he is sitting under dummy holding AQJx? I really think that is explaining to the opposition how to play bridge, not explaining your signalling agreements. It is not disclosable.

I believe that:
(1) In some partnerships, the hand under AQJx will always give correct count with xxx. In some other partnerships, the hand under AQJx will play randomly with xxx.
(2) If your partnership falls into one of those two categories, and you know that as a result of partnership experience, you have an implicit agreement about what to play with xxx sitting under AQJx.
(3) If you have an implicit agreement about what to play with xxx sitting under AQJx, and you are asked what your partner would play with xxx sitting under AQJx, you should disclose that agreement.

Which of these do you disagree with?

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2012-February-22, 10:32

[gwnn]

Nice. I was afraid I'd end up the creator of the first ever thread in the Laws section where there's no disagreement whatsoever between replies. Worse still, it was about a situation made up by me!

[aguahombre]

The hypothetical declarer asked a Poker player's question at a Bridge game. And, I am obligated to answer as a Bridge player. My answer would (hypothetically) be very carefully worded to disclose our agreements.

"We use standard attitude and count signals when we believe a signal will be useful to partner. Many times, we don't signal at all." Whether this particular situation is one where partner believes a signal will be useful depends on whether she already knows and believes I already know how many cards Declarer holds in the suit, and I would tell Declarer that ---if he still wants to continue fishing.

Declarer is not entitled to know whether we can deduce from his bidding and play how many cards he holds in the suit.

I also know that a player of (say) Gnasher's quality would not woodenly give count in a situation just because it "looks" like a case where partner would need count, yet he knows it isn't.

[iviehoff]

gnasher, on 2012-February-22, 10:07, said:

Which of these do you disagree with?

It can only be in a small number of long experienced and high quality partnerships that signalling behaviour in such a specific situation can have reached the level of being an implicit agreement. Given that there are two plausible alternatives, and they would come to an implicit agreement to consistently choose one rather than the other, only then I can agree that such people may have a disclosable agreement.

For the great majority of people in the great majority of situations, we are just working out what we would do. And even if in fact everyone of competence could agree that there was only one sensible thing to do in such a situation, that would still be exercise of judgment in play, not an implicit agreement.