[VixTD]

This board made for some confused bidding sequences at several tables in an inter-county teams-of-eight match yesterday, but this was the only time the director was called. The following happened in an encounter between the second teams:

---

2NT was alerted and explained by East as the minors, then immediately corrected to 19-21 pts balanced, before North had a chance to call.
3♣ was alerted and explained as 5-card major Stayman.

North called the director after dummy went down, claiming he would have bid had he been told that 2NT showed the minors. The director established that the correct agreement of 2NT was a balanced 19-21 pts, West had forgotten and realised his error when his partner explained the call. This was the meaning given on the convention card. The director ruled that play should continue, but said that he would look at the hand later.

Result: 3♣(E)+1, NS-130.

Do you see any reason to adjust the score?

[iviehoff]

It has the look of a misbid that escaped rather luckily without abuse of UI. But East's 3C has some slight whiff about it. Quite a few people would bid 3N straight off with 4333 and the well-placed spade K. So perhaps an amber on the fielded misbid scale.

North must have had a very good idea what was going on when West passed 3C.

[bluejak]

I would congratulate West on following the Laws correctly and tell North [kindly] he has no case whatever owing to no infraction.

No, I do not believe 3♣ is suspicious in any way. Lots of players always play 8-card major fits.

[Phil]

Would East have pulled out five card stayman with a 3334 8 count over an opening 2N? I think not.

However, you need to congratulate East on coming up with an imaginative call that catered to both cases of pard 'forgetting' and 'remembering' their agreements. I played a swiss match against JDonn last year and he wasn't sure if his partner remembered Kokish, so he confessed to making a 'safety play' in the bidding. WD then and WD here.

There are more blatant occurrences of both partners forgetting their agreements. Kaplan discussed one in a 40 year old BW where both partners 'forgot' they were playing responsive doubles, to the detriment of their opponents. He said, "its unfortunate, but it better not happen too often".

North was completely deaf to the table action here, and East's corrected explanation could have steered him in the right direction. Passing 3♣ was not advisable, however, I can easily see +400/+550 EW unless leads a very unlikely ♠A, so I doubt this is really a terrible result for NS.

[barmar]

Hmm, could an agreement to play 5-card major Stayman in this auction be considered a psychic control? It means partner is more likely to bid 3♣ than if you were only playing normal Stayman, so you have a little more safety bidding it with minors. On the other hand, if you're short in the majors, there's a reasonable chance that partner will have 4 of one of them, so regular Stayman is still pretty likely.

[wyman]

Phil, on 2010-December-13, 09:54, said:

Would East have pulled out five card stayman with a 3334 8 count over an opening 2N? I think not.

Maybe not at MP, but if the partnership tends to call 2N with some class of (52)(42) hands then it's probably automatic at IMPs. It probably also depends on the quality of player; many novices bid in such a way that if an 8-card M fit is possible, you seek it out, and if you find it, you play in it. IIRC, this competition is of a slightly higher caliber, but I don't know for sure.

[bluejak]

I think medium players also like 8-card fits.

[gordontd]

bluejak, on 2010-December-13, 16:04, said:

I think medium players also like 8-card fits.

Do good players not like them?

[bluejak]

I think good players are more likely to judge. If a medium player plays 5-card Stayman he is quite likely to use it with a 3=3=[4/3], but a good player is more likely not to.

[VixTD]

Quote

However, you need to congratulate East on coming up with an imaginative call that catered to both cases of pard 'forgetting' and 'remembering' their agreements.

Is this a cause for congratulation? I thought fielding a misbid was considered an offence.

I gave the ruling and discussed it with both team captains and the opposing team's legal expert. We were all agreed that there was no misinformation, but when I raised the question of East's decision to bid 3♣, we all agreed it had, as Iviehoff says, "a slight whiff about it". We thought that most players would just bid 3NT without bothering to look for a heart fit, and that 3♣ could cater for this very situation. I found myself alone in arguing for no adjustment, but I eventually persuaded them that this should be classified as an amber misbid.

When I first came across the concept of fielding, I was taught to ask myself "Has the psycher's / misbidder's partner taken unexplained action that could mitigate against possible detrimental effects of the psyche / misbid?" Here I think we are dealing not with unexplained action, as his action is perfectly reasonable, but it is one that caters for a misbid from partner.

If this doesn't count as amber, then I confess I don't know what the amber category is for.

It was gratifying to see both legal teams arguing for a score which disadvantaged their side (I was team-mate of NS).

[jallerton]

I can understand the "amber" classification.

However, I do have a question.

Suppose that the facts has been slighty different in that East had explained the 2NT bid as "I'm not sure. Either it shows both minors or it shows 19-21 balanced.". Do you still consider the 3♣ bid to be a potential "amber fielded misbid"?

[dburn]

No one aspiring to even "medium" status would try to play this in a 5-3 heart fit. East may well have reasoned "initially I forgot and thought 2NT was minors - maybe West also forgot, so let's try 3♣." This phenomenon is known as "reverberant doubt" and is not uncommon among bridge players.

If that was what East was doing, he should be executed for terrible ethics; if he was really going to play 4♥ when West had five of them, he should be executed for terrible bidding. Either way, he will not be greatly missed.

[iviehoff]

jallerton, on 2010-December-15, 17:02, said:

Suppose that the facts has been slighty different in that East had explained the 2NT bid as "I'm not sure. Either it shows both minors or it shows 19-21 balanced.". Do you still consider the 3♣ bid to be a potential "amber fielded misbid"?

I presume East's wording does not mean that that they play it as a two-way bid, but rather that either one or the other is the agreement. In which case West could still have misbid, when we discover which (or neither) of East's two explanations is the agreement, and therefore East could still be fielding. If East gave such an explanation to me, I would call the TD in the hope that I would get more definitive info, for example by sending East away and asking West what the agreement is, or being referred in the direction of a useful piece of paper. If it turned out that a correct explanation was "we haven't explicitly agreed anything, but these are the two possibilities for what West might think the implicit agreement is", then it would seem West has not misbid, but rather is shooting in the dark, and both North and East are freed to make their best shots in return.

[WellSpyder]

dburn, on 2010-December-16, 20:08, said:

East may well have reasoned "initially I forgot and thought 2NT was minors - maybe West also forgot, so let's try 3♣." ....If that was what East was doing, he should be executed for terrible ethics

I don't see an ethical problem at all with this approach to bidding, since East has no UI - what am I missing?

[campboy]

WellSpyder, on 2010-December-17, 03:59, said:

I don't see an ethical problem at all with this approach to bidding, since East has no UI - what am I missing?

If he is basing his action on his knowledge that West is likely to forget the meaning, and that knowledge is not available to the opponents*, then that is a breach of law 40A.

In Jeffrey's version, however, it is clear that he is not basing his actions on the chance of partner having forgotten since knowing that West had not forgotten the agreement would not help East if he himself could not remember it. Furthermore, since he has made the information he is basing his call on available to the opponents, there is no question of a CPU.

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*This might suggest that you can eliminate the difficulty by saying that partner often forgets if this is the case. Indeed, the EBU L&EC have recently removed the regulation forbidding this. However, such an understanding, even if disclosed, may not be permitted by the RA. Suppose I play Landy over 1NT, but partner sometimes forgets; if I allow for this (and disclose it) then we have the understanding that a 2♣ overcall might show both majors, or might just have clubs. This is not permitted at EBU level 2.

[bluejak]

dburn, on 2010-December-16, 20:08, said:

No one aspiring to even "medium" status would try to play this in a 5-3 heart fit. East may well have reasoned "initially I forgot and thought 2NT was minors - maybe West also forgot, so let's try 3♣." This phenomenon is known as "reverberant doubt" and is not uncommon among bridge players.

If that was what East was doing, he should be executed for terrible ethics; if he was really going to play 4♥ when West had five of them, he should be executed for terrible bidding. Either way, he will not be greatly missed.

My experience of medium players differs from David's. Some of them always look for and play in a 5-3 fit whatever the hand, whether they should or not.

Perhaps the problem here is trying to find out whether this player is one such. If he is, then he cannot really be blamed for bidding 3♣ [except for bad bidding, not illegal, fortunately]. If he is not, then maybe Amber is correct.

[bluejak]

WellSpyder, on 2010-December-17, 03:59, said:

I don't see an ethical problem at all with this approach to bidding, since East has no UI - what am I missing?

According to Law 40, heavily paraphrased, you cannot make any call subject to an agreement unless that agreement is fully disclosed, and this includes implicit agreements. If you know that your partner forgets some thing from experience, that experience becomes an implicit agreement.

England investigated this procedure fully many years ago, before I was on the EBU L&EC, and came up with the concept of fielded misbids, which are breaches of Law 40. They also made regulations which make it easy for the TD to deal with once he has decided whether it is fielded or not.

Most other jurisdictions tend to ignore the question of fielded misbids, yet it is a matter of Law.

So if East makes a bid to allow for partner forgetting there are two possibilities.

• 1 He always does in this sequence whoever his partner is merely as a safety play
  
• 2 He does so because partner has forgotten before

#1 seems wildly unlikely to me [though possible]. #2 is a breach of Law 40 unless he discloses that partner forgets.

[mgoetze]

bluejak, on 2010-December-17, 09:17, said:

According to Law 40, heavily paraphrased, you cannot make any call subject to an agreement unless that agreement is fully disclosed, and this includes implicit agreements. If you know that your partner forgets some thing from experience, that experience becomes an implicit agreement.

And then you might be playing a BSC/Level 5/whatever system... then the TD demands that you change your methods, so you decide to change them into "we don't forget this", etc. ad nauseum

[WellSpyder]

Thanks, Campboy & Bluejak for the explanations. I understand the point you are making. But I do wonder how practical it is to have a position where you end up putting yourself in jeopardy whenever you try to allow for partner not having the hand you think he has shown. It is certainly not unknown for my partner to say after a hand "yes, I thought that is what you were showing but I bid X rather than Y [another alternative bid] because then you would be able to bid Z if you really had [something else]." Is this really wrong? Of course, the potential doubt would be disclosed if asked about my bid, but it just sounds like sensible bridge to me to make allowances for potential misunderstandings if this seems feasible at no cost to accuracy if partner actually has what you expect - we all know there are sequences where reasonable people end up disagreeing about the interpretation of a bid while each thinks their own interpretation is more consistent with the pair's other agreements.

[bluejak]

Maybe. But we are talking of following the Laws, not of something else. So, practical or not, you follow the Laws.

Now this is different from a bidding sequence that is so abstruse and unlikely that you make a call to allow for something because of the sequence: that is legal. But when it is because of your history of partner's actions then playing for it without disclosing it is illegal, and rightly so in a game where agreements must be disclosed.