[Vampyr]

 blackshoe, on 2013-April-10, 09:44, said:

In the case at hand, the agreement as to the meaning of 2♦ is as written on the system card. The fact that both players forgot this time does not change that fact.

As Robin wrote here and I wrote in the other thread, this is simply wrong.

[GreenMan]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-April-10, 08:56, said:

One thing you probably should have done is told them that the agreement was made a year earlier and this was the first time it had come up. Then the opponents at least have the same information as you and your partner (which they are entitled to).

This. I try to do this in cases where it might be relevant.

[barmar]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-April-10, 02:27, said:

Sorry but this really stinks. It looks very much like North made the bid with a particular meaning in mind and was woken up by partner's alert. South leaving the table is a (unofficial) means for North to give the explanation they were thinking of. If North left the table after South did then I would ask them where the f*** they think they are going. To get the wrong explanation from North after they have been woken up by South is just ridiculous. For the TD to just say everything is OK without some kind of explanation is also pretty bad imho - were your opponents regulars? Did you ask after the hand whether North had psyched or whether they had misbid? Did you ask why South alerted when they apparently had no reason to think that the bid was artificial? Or why they subsequently bid 2♥ and passed 2♠? It is all fishy and the TD has done an unbelievably bad job of sorting it out. As Robin points out, there are issues of UI, MI and (perceived) fairness here. It is not impossible that you got the correct ruling though - we need to know a little more about what was really going on to be able to say. That you appear not to have been told the basis for the ruling is perhaps part of the problem.

Here's how I interpret what happened:

North misbid.
South couldn't remember the meaning, but was pretty sure it was alertable, so he correctly alerted.
The alert woke North up to his mistake.
When asked, South said he couldn't remember. Someone should have called the director at this point. Instead, he offered to step away from the table while North explained, and everyone agreed to do this (I think this is how the director usually handles situations like this, so no real harm done yet).
Now North is unsure of his obligation -- should he explain their actual agreement or what he thought it was when he made his bid. So he left the table to ask the director. If he explained to the table why he was leaving, that would give away that he'd misbid, which would defeat the purpose of asking the director.
The director advises him, correctly, that he should explain their agreement, not his mistake.

There may have been some procedural problems here, but I don't think they had any impact on the eventual result. EW were given a (presumably) correct explanation of the NS agreement. North has UI from South's inability to explain, but I don't think that he took advantage of it. The auction makes it practically impossible for South to have a heart suit that can play opposite a void, so passing 2♥ is not a logical alternative.

I also think EW should have been able to work out that North didn't have what his bidding showed. If he was showing both majors, that makes South the captain, so why did he bid 2♠ over 2♥? Your side has at least 22 HCP, so there aren't enough points in the deck for North to be making a forward-going move after South chooses.

[aguahombre]

Add to that excellent summary the elephant in the room. East, with 5 hearts and a somewhat balanced partner, knows North does not have the majors way back there when South "preferred" hearts.

[PhilKing]

It's a shame OP did not pass over 2♠, which was, after all, a game try.

Lefty would have jumped to 4♥ and we would all have lived happily ever after. The end.

[Hobartian]

Thanks again for the responses.

This is another opinion that I was given from a person who was not involved.



"I can see why this thing is difficult to accept because I see a number of problems.

The first is that they have both transmitted unauthorised information (Law 16B1a) by their inability
to provide an explanation at the table and in needing a long chat with the director before answering
a simple question even if those actions are per se legal.
Thus, I would see them as being constrained (Law 16B1b) in their choice of bid.

The second is that north knows you have a 9+card heart fit and has bid that suit
in what might be seen as a psychic maneuver in a situation protected by his
partner's professed lack of knowledge as to what 2D means. This game is fraught enough
with possibilities for cheating that one not only needs to be lily-white but also needs
to be seen to be lily-white. If one realizes the problem here, one would probably just say
what had happened before the auction finished. Personally, I would be severely
embarrassed to say I had hearts (and spades) in this situation when I don't.
OTOH if I had psyched and partner alerted and explained correctly, I wouldn't
though it seems a daft psyche at unfavorable vulnerability.

The third is that Law 17B1b requires the director to rule misinformation (mistaken explanation)
rather than miss bid. To escape that constraint, the potentially offending side have to produce
system notes: I guess the Director never required this. It suggests the ruling was wrong.
If that was the case Law 21B3 requires an adjusted score if the NOS have been damaged.
(NOS = Non Offending Side)

The play to trick 1 is consistent with partner leading from 53 or 853 (if you use MUD) or Q85
therefore failure to give the ruff is not an egregious error which breaks the nexus between the
offence and the result (Law12C1b regarding SEWOGs)

I would have adjusted (after consulting) but the problem is to what?
S has said 2D is artificial so it is clearly not just spades: if it is D+S or H+S then sh might reasonably
bid 3D or 3H i.e. there are logical alternatives to pass. One could adjust to 3D*-3 or 3S*-2.
3H*-5 seems unlikely as N would bid over that.

I think 3S*-2 = 500 is a good choice and let them, the offending side, appeal to see if they can
get it back to av+/av-.

In summary, they are clear the offending side, you were clearly damaged and you should have gotten
an adjustment.[/i][/b]"

[Vampyr]

 Hobartian, on 2013-April-11, 01:03, said:

To escape that constraint, the potentially offending side have to produce
system notes: I guess the Director never required this.

System notes can be helpful, but not necessarily; one of the pair might not have looked at them for months or years, and changes to the system may have been made but not yet incorporated into the system notes. Besides, not all pairs have them.

The agreement should be on their convention card, though, and the director needs to gather further evidence. Potential questions would be: How long has it been on your card? How many times has it come up since then? Has either of you forgotten it before? etc

[bluejak]

 RMB1, on 2013-April-10, 09:26, said:

Given that, I would expect your partner to correct your corrected explanation, along the lines of "although our notes say 2♦ is artificial, it appears we have both forgotten this agreement, and so it appears our implicit agreement is that 2♦ is natural and that is what you should assume".

I would not. We tell players what to do in a simple way, along the lines of "If your partner misdescribes your agreed system you must correct, but if he describes it correctly you do not correct it. In neither case is the contents of your hand relevant." Now you say that in a specific rather murky situation you would 'expect' a player not to follow the advice. Why not?

 Hobartian, on 2013-April-11, 01:03, said:

The third is that Law 17B1b requires the director to rule misinformation (mistaken explanation)
rather than miss bid. To escape that constraint, the potentially offending side have to produce
system notes: I guess the Director never required this.

This is just wrong. The majority of players never have system notes. That does not mean they should be automatically ruled against. It is up to the TD (or AC) to decide what evidence is adequate in any specific situation.



I think the comments made here suggesting a bias on the part of the TD are unfair and do not follow from the description of facts.



When the player who had "shown" both majors removed 2♥ to 2♠ did the OP really think he had both majors?

[ahydra]

 bluejak, on 2013-April-11, 03:57, said:

This is just wrong. The majority of players never have system notes. That does not mean they should be automatically ruled against. It is up to the TD (or AC) to decide what evidence is adequate in any specific situation.

I've always had system notes - even with pick-up partners I'd at least fill in the front of my scorecard. 99% of the players at my club do the same. A lot of clubs say that you must play simple system if you don't have a CC. I agree with your last sentence, but the Law does say one should rule Mistaken Explanation by default unless evidence to the contrary can be produced - and I don't think relying on (possibly self-serving) verbal evidence from the OS should count. Given one can fill in the front of a scorecard before play starts, I'd say lack of a CC would normally equal lack of evidence. (Edit: of course, this may not be status quo wrt CCs in OP's club. What I'm saying is that it's hardly unreasonable to expect players to have at least some minimal written notes about their agreements)

Quote

I think the comments made here suggesting a bias on the part of the TD are unfair and do not follow from the description of facts.

What about the TD not even entertaining the director call by the NOS after play ended? For example, he didn't check for possible use of UI.

ahydra

[Zelandakh]

 bluejak, on 2013-April-11, 03:57, said:

When the player who had "shown" both majors removed 2♥ to 2♠ did the OP really think he had both majors?

Why not? If someone opens 2♦ on BBO and self-alerts it as a weak 2, do you suspect they have really opened an Ekrens or Multi 2♦ opening whenever you hold 6 diamonds? And while the facts do not automatically indicate that the ruling was biased, nor is that ruled out either. We simply do not have enough facts. It would have been nice if the TD had at least explained that (s)he had considered the implications of the UI, MI, etc and made their ruling based on X, Y and Z. Then there would have been less reason for the OP to come here for explanations, less bad feeling, and less appearance of potential bias. Surely you would consider that good TD practise at the very least?

[Vampyr]

 ahydra, on 2013-April-11, 04:12, said:

I've always had system notes - even with pick-up partners I'd at least fill in the front of my scorecard.

Is the front of your scorecard 40 pages (my guess of the average system notes) in length?

[gnasher]

 bluejak, on 2013-April-11, 03:57, said:

I would not. We tell players what to do in a simple way, along the lines of "If your partner misdescribes your agreed system you must correct, but if he describes it correctly you do not correct it. In neither case is the contents of your hand relevant." Now you say that in a specific rather murky situation you would 'expect' a player not to follow the advice. Why not?

We also (at least in England) tell players that if one partner misbids and the other takes an action that appears to cater for the misbid, they will be treated as though they have concealed a partnership understanding. A corollary is that they should disclose this understanding.

[ahydra]

 Vampyr, on 2013-April-11, 04:24, said:

Is the front of your scorecard 40 pages (my guess of the average system notes) in length?

From context, I would have thought the person who sent Hobartian that e-mail he posted meant a CC (or even the front of a scorecard - just some written evidence of the meaning of the 2D bid for this pair), rather than full-blown system notes. I had the same meaning in mind when I wrote "system notes" in my post.

ahydra

[blackshoe]

 blackshoe, on 2013-April-10, 09:44, said:

In the case at hand, the agreement as to the meaning of 2♦ is as written on the system card. The fact that both players forgot this time does not change that fact.

 Vampyr, on 2013-April-10, 11:26, said:

As Robin wrote here and I wrote in the other thread, this is simply wrong.

It is wrong in one respect only: I had thought the OP specified that the agreed meaning of 2♦ was written on the system card. It does not.

 Hobartian, on 2013-April-11, 01:03, said:

The third is that Law 17B1b requires the director to rule misinformation (mistaken explanation)
rather than miss bid. To escape that constraint, the potentially offending side have to produce
system notes: I guess the Director never required this. It suggests the ruling was wrong.
If that was the case Law 21B3 requires an adjusted score if the NOS have been damaged.
(NOS = Non Offending Side)

There is no Law 17B1b. Presumably the intent was to refer to Law 21B1{b}, which requires the TD to rule mistaken explanation rather than mistaken bid "in the absence of evidence to the contrary". Any credible evidence that it was not mistaken explanation is sufficient to "break the constraint". Some one suggested that a possibly self-serving verbal statement "does not count" as such evidence, I would guess because such a statement is self-serving. This is nonsense. A verbal statement, self-serving or not, is evidence. How much weight the TD gives it is the question. In most cases, I would not dismiss it out of hand, although I might not give it a lot of weight. It is, however, usually credible enough to "break the chain".

Some seem to think the TD did not do a proper job here - that he was biased, or perhaps just incompetent. I don't think that's clear; what is clear is that we don't have enough evidence to judge the case.

I think the OP is in Australia, in which case, based on other posts from that country (here and elsewhere), the offending pair might not have had a system card at the table.

[barmar]

 ahydra, on 2013-April-11, 04:12, said:

I've always had system notes - even with pick-up partners I'd at least fill in the front of my scorecard.

I don't know about other areas, but there's no good place on the ACBL convention card to fill in defense to an opponent's NT overcall (unless you simply play the same defense as if they'd opened 1NT). The front of the scorecard contains summary information about the most common auctions, but if you want details and uncommon auctions, you need real system notes (which few players other than the most dedicated have).

So much of the time the only evidence we have of a partnership understanding is the players' self-serving answers.

[Hobartian]

This incident did occur in Australia in an event to determine who would represent the state in a forthcoming Interstate competition. The two players concerned are a husband and wife combination and are a long established pair having represented their state before and regularly play in Congresses all over Australia.

They did have system cards. In hindsight I should have called the TD immediately instead of allowing the first player to leave the table and then the second player to have a private conversation with the director.

Why did the 2D bidder want to speak to the director? Did he tell the TD that he had made a psyche or an inadvertent bid? I don't know what occurred but I do know that North came back and told me his 2D bid meant he had both majors.

Perhaps he was told by the TD that he could not change or explain his bid, It is interesting to note that after south returned to the table she bid two hearts after originally stating she did not know what the 2D bid meant. It is also interesting to note that she passed two spades doubled only holding the king doubleton.

Perhaps I should have been able to work it out. However, I am seventy years of age and was playing with a novice in the last match of two days play and was not anticipating skullduggery. I do know that it has left a sour taste in my mouth and left me with the feeling that I could do better things than play bridge.

[barmar]

 Hobartian, on 2013-April-11, 08:08, said:

Perhaps I should have been able to work it out. However, I am seventy years of age and was playing with a novice in the last match of two days play and was not anticipating skullduggery. I do know that it has left a sour taste in my mouth and left me with the feeling that I could do better things than play bridge.

I know it's hard to be rational about things like this, but I think you need to calm down. People make mistakes, and sometimes they even notice UI and act on it (it's difficult to overcome the biases it causes). it's rarely intentional, and "skullduggery" seems like the wrong attitude to take. You seem to be perilously close to using the C word, and that seems very inappropriate for this situation.

Bridge bidding is all about listening to the auction and making inferences about likely suit distributions and fits. I think it's poor sportsmanship of you to start insulting the opponents when you failed to do this.

The laws are very clear on what players are required to disclose. When they misbid, they still only have to explain their agreements, not what's in their hands. As has been explained earlier in the thread, even if there was UI, neither of them took advantage of it. They messed up, but got lucky and landed in a reasonable contract; you couldn't see what should have been obvious, and now you're whining about it.

[billw55]

 Hobartian, on 2013-April-11, 08:08, said:

Perhaps he was told by the TD that he could not change or explain his bid, It is interesting to note that after south returned to the table she bid two hearts after originally stating she did not know what the 2D bid meant. It is also interesting to note that she passed two spades doubled only holding the king doubleton.

South did know that 2♦ was alertable, and so presumably at least partly artificial. With nothing more than that to go on, 2♥ is a reasonable way to proceed. As to south passing 2♠x, she had a doubleton in both suits her partner bid, had already bid both her own suits, and partner still had a call to bail himself out if needed; so I have no problem with this either.

It does bother me that you were given an explanation that neither opponent was aware of at the time of the bid, but I don't know if anything can be done about it.

[barmar]

This isn't the first thread we've had like this. There's a common misconception that the Laws are designed to protect the innocent -- when the opponents screw up like this, you're safe from getting a bad result. So on numerous times, we've had threads started by someone who thinks the TD didn't give them what they deserved.

It's true that a number of the laws try to punish the offenders and reward the non-offenders. The rules on revokes, penalty cards, bids out of turn can give the non-offenders a big advantage. And often the UI laws prevent players from reaching normal contracts. But not all the laws are written this way. When misbidding is involved, the opponents don't get an automatic benefit. The expectation is that in most cases they'll come out ahead, because it's difficult for players to recover when the wheels come off. But sometimes they land on their feet, and that's what we call "rub of the green". It's annoying when it happens, but that's life.

Human nature plays a part in this, too. It's really easy to remember the occasions like this, where the opponents screwed up, but it turned into a disaster for you. But it's almost certain that you have gained more than you've lost from mistakes like this over your playing career. But all the gifts don't stick in your memory as well as the fixes. The brain is wired to obsess over failures, even ones we can't do anything about.

[billw55]

Yes, all true enough. What I am driving at was best summed up in the (heavily repped) first reply by RMB1; the relevant excerpt of which I quoted:

Quote

I suggest that if South could not remember the agreement when explaining, and North forgot the agreement when bidding, that there was no actual partnership understanding of 2♦.

It is not obvious to me that system notes (if present) should override both players when determining the actual understanding. Maybe this is a hard rule, I don't know.