[hirowla]

Hi, I ran into this situation the other night. The bidding goes something like the following (everybody is playing a weak NT).

P - 1NT - P - 2♦* - 2NT**

*transfer to ♥
** partner's bid

My opponents then ask me about the 2NT bid. I'm sitting there with 0 points and we have no agreement in this situation. From my inferred knowledge, he could be bidding an unusual NT (asking for the minors) or he could be sitting with almost anything else (except ♥) - but either way, I don't have a clue and it isn't in our system.

My reply was that we have no agreement as to what the bid means. They ask me what's the minimum number of points he could have - from my perspective, it could be 0! I then repeated we have no agreement over what the bid means. The opponents called the director and asked about the bid. I told him we have no agreement. His decision was to send me away from the table and ask my partner what the bid means.

I was under the belief that the opposition only have the right to know our agreements (explicit or implicit) and not what our bid means. Yes they are entitled to know inferred knowledge based on our experience together, but this has never come up before so there isn't anything there. So I asked the director later why he did that and he said they have the right to know what my partner means by his bidding - even saying that in a situation where my partner was psyching a bid then the opponents have the right to know what the bid means (and presumably know it is a psych bid) if they ask what it means.

What is the proper view? Do the opponents have the right to know what a bid means when there is no agreement between us as to what it means, or do they only have the right to know our agreements (explicit and implicit) and hence the proper response is we have no agreement? If the jurisdiction matters, it's in Australia.

Thanks,

Ian

[blackshoe]

If you'd said you'd forgotten your agreement, the TD's procedure would have been correct. Given that you said you had no agreement, the TD should have read Law 20F5 to the table. This is the law:

Quote

Law 20F5:
(a) A player whose partner has given a mistaken explanation may not correct the error during the auction, nor may he indicate in any manner that a mistake has been made. “Mistaken explanation” here includes failure to alert or announce as regulations require or an alert (or an announcement) that regulations do not require.
(b) The player must call the director and inform his opponents that, in his opinion, his partner’s explanation was erroneous (see Law 75) but only at his first legal opportunity, which is
(i) for a defender, at the end of the play.
(ii) for declarer or dummy, after the final pass of the auction.

Your opponents are not entitled to know what your partner intended, if you have no agreement. They are certainly not entitled to know that he psyched, if he did.

If you and your partner have mutual experience that suggests a meaning, or you play with the same third party and both have an agreement with that party (and are each aware of the other's agreement) you should explain that.

If I had been in your partner's shoes, and I agreed we had no agreement, that's what I would have said after you were sent away from the table. That's all I would have said. If I thought we had an agreement, I would have said, "I'm not saying anything about our agreement, but I think if I believe his explanation is mistaken, the proper time to say so under the law is either after the auction, or after the play, depending on which side declares." If the TD insisted on making me explain what I have in my hand(!) I would appeal on the grounds of director error.

[aguahombre]

The question about point count is just plain silly. Your pard is in fifth chair and didn't open, yet he is willing to compete at the 3-level.

Common sense would tell you it is a two-suiter, most likely the minors; but you are not required to provide common sense to them, or even to use common sense, when you have no agreement.

OTOH, we couldn't get away with that logic; we know it shows the minors.

[hirowla]

I thought the whole thing was silly. It could have been the minors but I thought it could have been a strong hand facing a 0 count from me and a transfer sequence which may not promise any points either (maybe I got the sequence wrong - maybe the 1NT person opened, that seems to make a bit more sense). We don't play unusual NT in that situation (now if the bidding had continued P - 2♥ - P - P - 2NT, that is a known sequence for us and would have instantly for the minors).

The thing that got to me was we said there was no agreement, yet my partner was forced by the director to explain what his bid meant - knowing that we didn't have an agreement on it. Yes he was "winging it" but he would have known we have no agreement in that sequence. I think it stirred them onto a good result (they played a ♥ game).

So it is true to say the opposition can know our agreements, not what my partner meant by a bid outside of our explicit and implicit agreements?

Thanks,

Ian

[blackshoe]

 hirowla, on 2011-November-29, 22:53, said:

So it is true to say the opposition can know our agreements, not what my partner meant by a bid outside of our explicit and implicit agreements?

Yes. The director erred.

[bluejak]

When a player does not know his agreements and I am called as a TD, I send him away from the table. But I then warn the partner who remains that there is no need for him to tell his opponents anything but agreements: he does not need to tell them the contents of his hand. If and only if there is an agreement that his partner has forgotten should he now tell the opponents what it is.

My guess is that the TD did not warn in this case!

[BunnyGo]

Do the opponents have the right to know if you play unusual no trump in similar situations? This seems to fall under the category of implicit agreement.

[WellSpyder]

 blackshoe, on 2011-November-29, 18:53, said:

If you'd said you'd forgotten your agreement, the TD's procedure would have been correct.
....
If I had been in your partner's shoes, and I agreed we had no agreement, that's what I would have said after you were sent away from the table. That's all I would have said. If I thought we had an agreement, I would have said, "I'm not saying anything about our agreement, but I think if I believe his explanation is mistaken, the proper time to say so under the law is either after the auction, or after the play, depending on which side declares." If the TD insisted on making me explain what I have in my hand(!) I would appeal on the grounds of director error.

What do people think of blackshoe's final point? I agree with everything else he says, but I don't agree with withholding the correction until the "appropriate" time. Surely the ideal position is for opponents to know your agreement as soon as possible. The laws impose a delay on a correction in some circumstances to prevent huge UI problems. But that doesn't apply here since partner has been sent away from the table. So my expectation is that the right of oppo to know your agreement here overrides the normal prescription on when you should correct MI. Don't the laws support that??

[gnasher]

 WellSpyder, on 2011-November-30, 05:31, said:

What do people think of blackshoe's final point? I agree with everything else he says, but I don't agree with withholding the correction until the "appropriate" time. Surely the ideal position is for opponents to know your agreement as soon as possible. The laws impose a delay on a correction in some circumstances to prevent huge UI problems. But that doesn't apply here since partner has been sent away from the table. So my expectation is that the right of oppo to know your agreement here overrides the normal prescription on when you should correct MI. Don't the laws support that??

Law 40F tells us that "Except on the instruction of the Director replies should be given by the partner of the player who made the call in question", so by implication the director is within his rights.

[blackshoe]

 WellSpyder, on 2011-November-30, 05:31, said:

What do people think of blackshoe's final point? I agree with everything else he says, but I don't agree with withholding the correction until the "appropriate" time. Surely the ideal position is for opponents to know your agreement as soon as possible. The laws impose a delay on a correction in some circumstances to prevent huge UI problems. But that doesn't apply here since partner has been sent away from the table. So my expectation is that the right of oppo to know your agreement here overrides the normal prescription on when you should correct MI. Don't the laws support that??

The director error to which I was referring was in requiring the player to describe what is in his hand (or what he "intended" his bid to mean) rather than his partnership agreement. The laws do not support that.

 gnasher, on 2011-November-30, 06:33, said:

Law 40F tells us that "Except on the instruction of the Director replies should be given by the partner of the player who made the call in question."

Yes, but that doesn't answer WellSpyder's question.

I suppose if the TD had instructed "explain your agreement" or some such, that overrides the timing specified in Law 20F5. But that applies in cases where the bidder's partner has forgotten the agreement, not in cases, as here, where he asserts there is no agreement. I do not think we want players routinely calling the director and asking for this procedure just because explainer asserts there is no agreement. There has to be some evidence leading to the conclusion that there actually is an agreement.

[gnasher]

Blackshoe, I think the part where Wellspyder and I disagreed with you is:

Quote

I would have said, "I'm not saying anything about our agreement, but I think if I believe his explanation is mistaken, the proper time to say so under the law is either after the auction, or after the play, depending on which side declares."

The director can tell you to explain your agreements now; if he does, now is the the proper time to do so.

[blackshoe]

Fair enough. I did say I agreed with that in my last post.

[pran]

 blackshoe, on 2011-November-30, 06:51, said:

[...]
I suppose if the TD had instructed "explain your agreement" or some such, that overrides the timing specified in Law 20F5. But that applies in cases where the bidder's partner has forgotten the agreement, not in cases, as here, where he asserts there is no agreement. I do not think we want players routinely calling the director and asking for this procedure just because explainer asserts there is no agreement. There has to be some evidence leading to the conclusion that there actually is an agreement.

The TD is in his full rights requiring that the player "explains his agreements" (i.e. his agreements as the player himself believes they are) at the time the TD has been called to the table.

If the player claims that they have no agreement he will then have to tell (at least to the TD) why he made his call in the first place, and he should have available a pretty good reason for this.

If the player claims that his call was made according to general bridge knowledge he will have to tell in what way he understands his own call according to this general bridge knowledge.

In no way does any of these requests ask him to disclose his actual holding of cards, but they deny him the right to conceal from opponents any explicit or implicit understanding under the cover of "no agreements".

I have been trained for an assumption (which IMHO conforms with the following clause in Law 75C: the Director is to presume Mistaken Explanation, rather than Mistaken Call, in the absence of evidence to the contrary) that the agreement is according to the cards held by the player in question unless proven otherwise.

[Vampyr]

I think that Sven is properly addressing the problem, and most others aren't. How often does it happen that:

• Player A makes a call which is meant to be (or is obviously) artificial
  
• Player B (A's partner) truthfully says that there is no agreement
  
• Player B guesses correctly
  
• The opponents are none the wiser

For my money, too often.

There is a reason A made an undiscussed bid -- he thought that B would somehow figure it out. Whether the situation is faintly analogous to another bid in their system, whether a partner in common or many of the players in their "crowd" would play it a certain way... or perhaps the bid is an extension of, for example, Cappelletti, where the pair have agreed to play the convention but B does not know what the 2NT bid is supposed to mean.

Maybe AB's opponents made this bid the previous round, and A commented on what a good agreement it was.

I don't know. I just know that B is in a better position than the opponents to work it out, and often does. He must have more GBK than his opponents

Perhaps a good question to ask oneself before saying "no agreement" is "why did partner think I would know what this bid meant?"

[axman]

 hirowla, on 2011-November-29, 18:04, said:

Hi, I ran into this situation the other night. The bidding goes something like the following (everybody is playing a weak NT).

P - 1NT - P - 2♦* - 2NT**

*transfer to ♥
** partner's bid

My opponents then ask me about the 2NT bid. I'm sitting there with 0 points and we have no agreement in this situation. From my inferred knowledge, he could be bidding an unusual NT (asking for the minors) or he could be sitting with almost anything else (except ♥) - but either way, I don't have a clue and it isn't in our system.

My reply was that we have no agreement as to what the bid means. They ask me what's the minimum number of points he could have - from my perspective, it could be 0! I then repeated we have no agreement over what the bid means. The opponents called the director and asked about the bid. I told him we have no agreement. His decision was to send me away from the table and ask my partner what the bid means.

I was under the belief that the opposition only have the right to know our agreements (explicit or implicit) and not what our bid means. Yes they are entitled to know inferred knowledge based on our experience together, but this has never come up before so there isn't anything there. So I asked the director later why he did that and he said they have the right to know what my partner means by his bidding - even saying that in a situation where my partner was psyching a bid then the opponents have the right to know what the bid means (and presumably know it is a psych bid) if they ask what it means.

What is the proper view? Do the opponents have the right to know what a bid means when there is no agreement between us as to what it means, or do they only have the right to know our agreements (explicit and implicit) and hence the proper response is we have no agreement? If the jurisdiction matters, it's in Australia.

Thanks,

Ian

Partnership understandings are to be disclosed. Partnership understandings encompass agreements and partnership discussions, and the inferences that arise from such discussions as well as partner’s use of judgment when he has employed a particular call. It also encompasses knowledge of partner’s field of knowledge as is pertains to the different ways a particular call might be utilized which have not been excluded by overt discussion; and, as players are required to explain partner’s calls when asked I should think that this encompasses the meaning of the call.

As you might surmise, partnership understanding extends considerably further than partnership agreement- and it is partnership understandings that are to be disclosed in response to an opponent’s query..

[hirowla]

 blackshoe, on 2011-November-29, 23:10, said:

Yes. The director erred.

Which is the relevant law that says this? I'd just like something to quote, that's all.

[hirowla]

 Vampyr, on 2011-November-30, 14:45, said:

I think that Sven is properly addressing the problem, and most others aren't. How often does it happen that:

• Player A makes a call which is meant to be (or is obviously) artificial
  
• Player B (A's partner) truthfully says that there is no agreement
  
• Player B guesses correctly
  
• The opponents are none the wiser

For my money, too often.

There is a reason A made an undiscussed bid -- he thought that B would somehow figure it out. Whether the situation is faintly analogous to another bid in their system, whether a partner in common or many of the players in their "crowd" would play it a certain way... or perhaps the bid is an extension of, for example, Cappelletti, where the pair have agreed to play the convention but B does not know what the 2NT bid is supposed to mean.

Maybe AB's opponents made this bid the previous round, and A commented on what a good agreement it was.

I don't know. I just know that B is in a better position than the opponents to work it out, and often does. He must have more GBK than his opponents

Perhaps a good question to ask oneself before saying "no agreement" is "why did partner think I would know what this bid meant?"

I know what you're saying. We do play Unusual NT but not in that sequence (at least we've never discussed it). If he thought I'd "work it out", he was wrong! I just though that instead of saying "it might be the Unusual NT, it might be a strong NT hand, or it might be something else" - I said we had no agreement. Maybe I should have said "we play Unusual NT but it's never come up in this sequence and we've never discussed it in this sequence" and left it at that, other then saying we have no agreement if pushed further (which I was). I was actually getting annoyed when pushed to tell a minimum point count of a sequence I've made clear we have no agreement - I should have said "between 0 and 28 points" (given there was a weak NT opening!). BTW, our convention card does mention Unusual NT on there (and yes the card was present and available!).

So what could I have said to give the relevant information?

[blackshoe]

 hirowla, on 2011-November-30, 17:47, said:

Which is the relevant law that says this? I'd just like something to quote, that's all.

Law 20F5.

[hirowla]

 blackshoe, on 2011-November-30, 18:13, said:

Law 20F5.

Isn't that just about mistaken explanations? What I meant was the law that says agreements are what should be said and not bids?

[blackshoe]

 pran, on 2011-November-30, 11:02, said:

I have been trained for an assumption (which IMHO conforms with the following clause in Law 75C: the Director is to presume Mistaken Explanation, rather than Mistaken Call, in the absence of evidence to the contrary) that the agreement is according to the cards held by the player in question unless proven otherwise.

Then I question your training. You are required to gather all available pertinent evidence, and then to weigh that evidence and decide, on the preponderance of the evidence, whether it was mistaken explanation or mistaken call. There is no provision in law for deciding solely "according to the cards held by the player in question". That's evidence, sure. So is his testimony (and his partner's) and any system cards, system notes, or other written evidence. And anything else you can uncover.