[Trinidad]

 aguahombre, on 2014-February-25, 10:25, said:

Well, I have failed to get across the difference between two things.

Yes, we must disclose as completely as possible that we signal or don't signal in certain situations; that only the person who believes his partner will need the information will do any righteous signalling, and in what situations those signals will be attitude or count or whatever.

When Declarer asks us to tell him whether -- at a particular point -- whose signals are meaningful to whom (and whether at that moment they are attitude or count or whatever), we don't have to answer that.

Rik would have the TD ask (for the opponents) "Given the auction and play, what will your partner need to know?" This is a direct quote from his post. This is what I don't have to tell the opponents, no matter whether they ask, the TD asks, or God asks. My only proper reply would be to repeat the explanation of our carding agreements in the form Gnasher and others have properly recommended.

Simple example: Partner leads the ACE of a side suit (vs suit) at trick one. There is a singleton in dummy. I play a card, and Declarer asks about my "signal". Partner answers that our agreement is to use suit preference in this situation, but only if we believe the information to be useful to the opening leader. Declarer asks if this time the information would be believed useful to her. If she answers, she is revealing whether or not she herself has all the remaining cards of significance.

In your posts where you quote me, you forgot to quote an important part of my post. The first thing I wrote was "Put your cards down.". This clearly signified that you should not say anything about your hand.

The point in the OP is not the question whether one signals or not, but what one signals. You give an example about a player who says that this is a suit preference situation if it is a signal. The player in the OP does not explain at all what was signaled, other than "what partner needs to know". It cannot be that a pair that has some experience together doesn't know for the lion share of the situations what partner needs to know. And to be clear: these situations are mainly determined by the auction and the cards played and rarely by the cards one holds.

Rik

[aguahombre]

 Trinidad, on 2014-February-25, 17:09, said:

In your posts where you quote me, you forgot to quote an important part of my post. The first thing I wrote was "Put your cards down.". This clearly signified that you should not say anything about your hand.

On my planet, putting my cards down does not make me forget what I hold and therefore what partner is likely to hold. This knowledge then tells me whether I should signal, whether partner should be signalling, and whether the signals are attitude, count, or something else.

When I tell Declarer which one of us is signalling at this particular moment, and what those signals are, I am saying something about our hands. I don't see why this is difficult to understand.

[Trinidad]

 aguahombre, on 2014-February-25, 18:47, said:

When I tell Declarer which one of us is signalling at this particular moment, and what those signals are, I am saying something about our hands. I don't see why this is difficult to understand.

That is why nobody is saying that you should tell that.

I don't see why that is so difficult to understand.

You should explain your agreements (explicit and implicit) without referring to your own hand. That is not difficult to understand.

If you are not able to explain your agreements, you should not be allowed to play them.

Saying "either reverse attitude or standard count, whichever partner needs to know" is not full disclosure if you don't specify the criteria that determine what partner needs to know. Specifying the criteria is objective and doesn't say anything about your hand.

Nobody is asking you to explain:
"This is a Lavinthal situation since he can see that I led a singleton. So, he is telling me to play a diamond so he can give me a ruff."
"Partner has all the high cards, so he won't be telling me anything since I can't do much with the information."

But it isn't too hard to explain (as an example): "Normally we play attitude on opening lead. But since I led the ace and we can see KQJx in dummy, he won't need to signal attitude. Therefore, his signal will be count if he is short in the suit and wants to get a ruff and suit preference when he has length, since he will think that I want a ruff."

This is not saying anything about my hand or partner's hand.

Rik

[blackshoe]

The problem, Rik, is that you want people to actually think about what they're saying. They don't want to do that.

[Trinidad]

 blackshoe, on 2014-February-26, 10:58, said:

The problem, Rik, is that you want people to actually think about what they're saying. They don't want to do that.

That is very true.

From a mathematical point of view, I am saying that it's ok if the kind of signal you chose is a function of what you have in your hand, as long as you can properly describe this function.

That is very different from what Agua thinks I am saying. He thinks that I want to know the function and the result of the function. Now that would indeed give information about what you hold in your hand, but -as I said- that is not what I was saying.

Can you still follow what I am saying?

Rik

This post has been edited by Trinidad: 2014-February-26, 13:23

[RMB1]

 Trinidad, on 2014-February-26, 12:36, said:

From a mathematical point of view, I am saying that it's ok if your signals are a function of what you have in your hand, ...

I find it difficult to think of a signal that is not a function of what you have in your hand. Surely if it is a signal it must show show something, and the only thing you have to show is what is in your hand, so a signal must depend on (i.e. be a function of) what is in your hand.

[aguahombre]

 Trinidad, on 2014-February-26, 12:36, said:

From a mathematical point of view, I am saying that it's ok if your signals are a function of what you have in your hand, as long as you can properly describe this function.

That is very different from what Agua thinks I am saying. He thinks that I want to know the function and the result of the function. Now that would indeed give information about what you hold in your hand, but -as I said- that is not what I was saying.

That is an accurate description of our disagreement. However, when you posed "Given the auction and play, what will your partner think that you need to know?" in post #11, you went beyond our obligation to describe the function and into the result of the process --disclosing the result of the process is giving information about one or both of our hands.

We will continue to agree that disclosure of one's methods is mandatory; we will continue to disagree about the types of questions which must be answered.

[Trinidad]

Sorry, I was unclear.

Please, instead of "Your signal is a function of your hand" read "The kind of signal (count/attitude/Lavinthal/...) is a function of your hand". That is what I intended to say. I will edit.

Rik

[aguahombre]

That helps. Now, if only the wording of your question in post #11 were edited to reflect it, we would be totally on the same page.