[BunnyGo]

Last week we had the following auction:

1N (12-14)-4C*
4D**

*4C in our system is a strong heart bid. 6+ hearts and slam interested. I forgot this and did not alert. When the opps asked me what it meant, I said "Ace ask".

**I bid 4D which is the 14 ace response in our system (when Bergen does apply...rarely). What should partner have explained when they asked him what it meant.

Bonus: What is partner's obligation in the bidding follow-up. He blasted 7H (off 1 on a 3-0 offsides split) since he knew I was lost. We discussed later that this was probably not the ethical or legal bid, but we weren't sure what was. Should he have bid 4S (like he was planning....kickback) or what?

[bd71]

I'm as curious in the answer as you...a relevant question seems to be whether 4♦ is defined in your system after the 4♣ hearts bid?

[BunnyGo]

We had not discussed it. I had expected it to be a "last train" in that 4 hearts was agreed to be not interested, 4S was kickback, and I thought 4D was slam interested but nothing specific to bid. My partner thought 4D was a cue.

[phil_20686]

He should say whatever your agreement is assuming that you had explaned correctly.

He is only allowed to use the information from the bidding, I think for most people who play that 4d should be a contextually good hand for slam, so you can either sign off or not. You may have an ethical problem if he now knows that you dont have enough aces for slam, but in reality this is not a biggie as everyone is planning to bid keycard if they are planning to move at all. In that case I think your basically obligated to bid to the 5 level, since slam try + positive response always makes bidding on a LA.

[wyman]

The easy part is that he should have bid as though you explained 4C as a strong heart bid, 6+ and slam-interested.

Re: explanation, I would have informed opps that "a 4D response to Gerber shows 1 or 4 aces". But I'd obviously call the director when the auction ends and explain what happened. Note that this is a "what I would have done." It's possible [and per Phil above, apparently it's the case] that the right thing to do is explain what 4D shows per your system and let the director sort out UI issues later, but especially given the way your director botched the swapped cards...

Opponents get a KITN for asking for no bridge reason before the end of the auction period. You get a KITN for forgetting your system. Partner gets a KITN for blasting 7H, blatantly using UI.

[billw55]

BunnyGo, on 2011-November-21, 08:54, said:

Last week we had the following auction:

1N (12-14)-4C*
4D**

*4C in our system is a strong heart bid. 6+ hearts and slam interested. I forgot this and did not alert. When the opps asked me what it meant, I said "Ace ask".

**I bid 4D which is the 14 ace response in our system (when Bergen does apply...rarely). What should partner have explained when they asked him what it meant.

Bonus: What is partner's obligation in the bidding follow-up. He blasted 7H (off 1 on a 3-0 offsides split) since he knew I was lost. We discussed later that this was probably not the ethical or legal bid, but we weren't sure what was. Should he have bid 4S (like he was planning....kickback) or what?

If this bit is accurate, partner obviously needs a talking to about the laws.

Regarding explaining 4♦:

BunnyGo said:

We had not discussed it.

Hence the proper answer is "no agreement". After the auction, he must correct your explanation of 4♣.

[BunnyGo]

billw55, on 2011-November-21, 09:43, said:

If this bit is accurate, partner obviously needs a talking to about the laws.

Yes, that much we already discussed. The questions here are follow-ups from that conversation that I didn't know the answers to.

[WellSpyder]

wyman, on 2011-November-21, 09:30, said:

The easy part is that he should have bid as though you explained 4C as a strong heart bid, 6+ and slam-interested.

Re: explanation, I would have informed opps that "a 4D response to Gerber shows 1 or 4 aces".

Sorry, Wyman, but I think these two sentences completely contradict each other - and IMO only the first is correct. "Slam interest, probably [or maybe perhaps] with DA" might be a plausible explanation of 4D if 4C is explained as a strong heart bid, but explaining how you respond to Gerber would be a very odd thing indeed to do if 4C meant something completely different from Gerber.

[wyman]

WellSpyder, on 2011-November-21, 10:24, said:

Sorry, Wyman, but I think these two sentences completely contradict each other - and IMO only the first is correct. "Slam interest, probably [or maybe perhaps] with DA" might be a plausible explanation of 4D if 4C is explained as a strong heart bid, but explaining how you respond to Gerber would be a very odd thing indeed to do if 4C meant something completely different from Gerber.

So you should inform the table that partner has misexplained the bid? If you're going to do that, you should just call the director, since there's a clear irregularity.

Yeah ok, you've convinced me. I guess it's the opps' fault for asking, and you should just explain what partner's bid actually means and call the director. KITN for me now as well.

[phil_20686]

This is actually very difficult, if you explain partner must ignore it and can no longer "remember" that it was not gerber, if there is gerber, followed by a response, then subsequent bids must be GS GS tries normally right? So it may well end up being ethical to bid 7H depending on how the auction develops -

Suppose
1N-4c
4d-4N
5c-5d


To me now it looks like a responder has shown a GS try with the trump queen and interest in a third round diamond control?

On the other hand, responder things he is making a queen ask for 6h opposite 1 keycard.

Bidding grand now would not necessarily be unethical.

[WellSpyder]

wyman, on 2011-November-21, 10:31, said:

So you should inform the table that partner has misexplained the bid? If you're going to do that, you should just call the director, since there's a clear irregularity.

Strictly speaking, I don't think you need (or indeed should) either call the TD or inform the table that partner has misexplained the bid - though, of course, your explanation of partner's call may well tell everyone that you disagree with partner's explanation of your previous call. If partner does indeed now realise that he has misexplained your bid, then it is HIS responsibility to call the TD.

The general principle is that there is no law against giving partner Unauthorised Information (though, of course, there is a law against him taking advantage of it, and this can put him in a tricky position). On the other hand, there IS a law against giving MisInformation. So you just have to give the opponents the correct information and let the TD deal with the UI consequences if this becomes an issue.

[mycroft]

"we have no agreement about this call. 4H would be signoff, 4S would be ace-asking, 4NT would be (whatever that is)." I think the logical implication of your system is that 4D is "I like my hand for hearts" in a generic way, because that call is frankly more important than the balanced hand ace-asking the unknown, probably unbalanced, heart hand, and you have a call for that. But you don't have to say that.

Yes, that wakes partner up. No, he can't take advantage of that, either. Yes, that wakes the opponents up - that's legal, ethical and correct. Yes, you will have to answer "what is 4D in response to 4C Gerber?" if asked (I get to have fun with that, because my answer is "we play 'No Gerber Ever.'") No, you don't get to use the answer to that question when making your next call.

"you're clearly lost, I don't want you doing something stupid" is highly improper, as has been mentioned. I hope it has been adequately explained.

It's almost certain that the TD will be required on this hand; I'd make sure that she was there when I corrected the explanations before the opening lead, whether or not the opponents are screaming for her (and frankly, it's likely they are, as soon as you start the "no agreement" explanation).

[barmar]

billw55, on 2011-November-21, 09:43, said:

Hence the proper answer is "no agreement". After the auction, he must correct your explanation of 4♣.

If you have meta-agreements that apply, or inferences from the general approach, you should describe how they apply to this undiscussed bid.

[JLOGIC]

In practice I agree with the suggestion to say that "partner is showing x number of aces," and that is what I do when this happens. I mean, that is in fact what partner is trying to show, it's not like the opponents are receiving misinformation that might cause them to fail to double or not double an artificial bid. Telling partner exactly what misunderstanding you are having does not feel appropriate. Perhaps I am not following the letter of the law, and perhaps it is wrong of me to try to do anything other than that, but I do feel as though I'm following the mysterious "spirit of the law." Obviously I would bend over backwards to bid how I would have bid otherwise, aka bidding 4S kickback if I play that (or 4N keycard if I play that), assuming that partner is making a last train 4D bid which is what it would have meant.

[Zelandakh]

My understanding is that you explain your agreements for the auction irrespective of what the previous explanation was. That is, something along the lines of: "We have not specifically discussed this but general partnership principles suggest it is a slam try for hearts." I actually find it quite strange that anyone would agree 2-under transfers without agreeing what bidding the in-between suit means but whatever.

Your partner's obligation was to carefully avoid taking any advantage from the UI that the mis-explanation has given him. In other words, to avoid selecting any option that might clear the misunderstanding up. 7H here is a clear breach of that and may well warrant a penalty. An additional obligation is for him to correct the explanation before the opening lead is faced. You also have obligations - you must avoid taking advantage of the UI that partner's explanation gave and continue bidding as if 4C was Gerber and avoiding any choice that takes advantage of the UI. In that case it would presumably mean passing the 4S Kickback bid.

I am really quite surprised at Justin's view in this because giving the wrong explanation, even when it tells what partner was really trying to show, suggests that there is a real agreement in place and not that the opps are having a misunderstanding. As has been pointed out there is no law against giving UI to partner and not doing so gives partner the chance to "wake up" while giving the correct explanation effectively bans them from doing so until such time as an "impossible" bid takes place. I have no doubts that Justin's partner(s) are ethical enough to deal with the extra UI that this would give!

[billw55]

barmar, on 2011-November-21, 20:15, said:

If you have meta-agreements that apply, or inferences from the general approach, you should describe how they apply to this undiscussed bid.

I often wonder about this. When I am making an interpretation, rather than an agreed systemic call, I would be concerned that a spoken explanation of my reasoning would place severe UI restrictions on my partner. These situations happen just about every session, mostly in competitive auctions but not always.

Isn't it OK to sometimes just play bridge?

[barmar]

billw55, on 2011-November-22, 07:41, said:

I often wonder about this. When I am making an interpretation, rather than an agreed systemic call, I would be concerned that a spoken explanation of my reasoning would place severe UI restrictions on my partner. These situations happen just about every session, mostly in competitive auctions but not always.

Sometimes you can't avoid giving UI when meeting the disclosure obligation. The latter takes precedence.

If you and partner are already in agreement about what his bid means, your explanation shouldn't put any restrictions on him. Things only become tricky if you give an explanation different from his intent.

[billw55]

barmar, on 2011-November-22, 15:38, said:

Sometimes you can't avoid giving UI when meeting the disclosure obligation. The latter takes precedence.

If you and partner are already in agreement about what his bid means, your explanation shouldn't put any restrictions on him. Things only become tricky if you give an explanation different from his intent.

Exactly! If partner makes a call for which we have no definite agreement, what may follow:

1. I say "well I am taking it as thus and such". Partner has UI as to my interpretation of his bid - and may be constrained from taking a normal action if there is a logical alternative. This hardly seems a fair result of the opponents question; they could even do this on purpose. Never mind that I am speculating and may be giving MI as well.

2. I say "no agreement, just bridge". Now nobody has any UI or MI. But ops may be underinformed - or are they? After all "no agreement" is accurate.

Maybe experts, bidding theorists, and directors all know the exact agreed meaning of every bid in every auction. But I don't, and speculating out loud feels wrong. I suppose this is what screens and written explanations are for (well, partly).

[barmar]

If you're pretty sure it's new territory, you can certainly say "no agreement".

But as I said earlier, if you have partnership experience that biases you in a particular direction, then you need to disclose that. You can say things like "With no interference, it would have meant X."

[wank]

billw5, you're allowed to give partner unauthorised information. in fact you must give him unauthorised information sometimes as part of giving a proper explanation, which includes the sort of undiscussed implications you're talking about.

it's upto your partner to avoid using the UI, not upto you to avoid giving it.