[Trinidad]

aguahombre, on 2015-November-16, 06:30, said:

ahydra, on 2015-November-16, 03:57, said:

Need to poll other players - it's quite close. Partner and I protect quite aggressively so this would be a clear 2S bid with the 6th spade.

ahydra

If you think it is close, you already know there is an alternative to bidding 2♠. No need to poll other players; the poll is to determine if there are alternatives, not what ruling to give.

I agree with ahydra that the decision whether pass is an LA is quite close.

From that it follows that I think the question of whether to bid 2♠ or pass (without the UI) is not close at all. (After all, I am not even sure whether I deem pass an LA).

You should not mix up these two cases of "It's quite close".

Rik

[mycroft]

aguahombre, on 2015-November-17, 22:05, said:

So, for you, passing is a logical alternative to bidding 2s. Earlier, you agreed that 2s could have been suggested over pass by the BIT but didn't know if pass was a LA; we are making progress.

Not sure I agree. What I said before was that I don't know if - for me at matchpoints - pass is an LA - which almost certainly means "it is", but you know. The way I'm arguing certainly implies that were I to be the TD, that would be the way I would expect to rule - but because I both have more experience working with weak NT auctions than 90+% of ACBL tournament players and because "those who can, do. those who can't, teach. those who can't teach, go into administration", I'm going to poll this one.

And because I'm not likely to be a valid candidate for the weak 2-passer's peer, I'm resisting adding my voice to the poll because it's not useful.

What I'm saying is that bidding is not without risk, and that the optimistic *minimum* that BillW and others are implying is just that; and also that you can be conservative when playing an anti-field system (at matchpoints, remember; +150 beats +140 even if game is there) and *also* know where the red cards are. Not that a misfitting 17 is any better than a misfitting 15; but the people arguing that it's so obvious to balance and anyway the extra strength promised in the UI isn't much/any more than what was promised by the auction have a higher hill to climb when the UI promises 11 or so and the auction promises 6 (or likely 7) than when it promises 8 (and likely 9).

[mycroft]

If you were to ask me in the bar after, with the UI, I'd probably say "I'll bid 2♠, but if the TD is called, I'll certainly cooperate - and if I'm ruled against, I wouldn't really be surprised. I don't think it'll be a no-brainer 'it's obvious to pass', though."

[jillybean]

It's clear from this thread that I am reading too much into the laws in that I must "carefully avoid taking any advantage of the unauthorized information."

In my inexperienced opinion, my decision not to pre-empt in first seat has now become a clear decision to bid after partner has hitched. If it is a marginal preempt then isn't the marginal
2 level over call influenced by the UI that partner has some values?

[aguahombre]

jillybean, on 2015-November-21, 10:54, said:

It's clear from this thread that I am reading too much into the laws in that I must "carefully avoid taking any advantage of the unauthorized information."

In my inexperienced option, my decision not to pre-empt in first seat has now become a clear decision to bid after partner has hitched. If it is a marginal preempt then isn't the marginal
2 level over call influenced by the UI that partner has some values?

Yep. You are reading it just fine. If you believe the BIT could suggest to you that bidding 2s would get a better result than the LA of passing, then you should pass. Some people don't think passing is a LA; I believe it is. Some posters have tried to justify 2s as the ethical alternative on the theory that the BIT suggests a misfit for spades; they could try that on a TD and maybe find one who would buy it.

[jillybean]

Another question. As a director when polling players do you include the fact that you have UI from partner's BIT or do you present the problem as a pure bidding question?

[aguahombre]

jillybean, on 2015-November-22, 10:27, said:

Another question. As a director when polling players do you include the fact that you have UI from partner's BIT or do you present the problem as a pure bidding question?

A poll should be to determine if the action taken has a logical alternative. No, the information about a BIT has nothing to do with whether there is an alternative. If there is an alternative, then we need to decide if the action taken could have been suggested rather than the alternative by the UI. The poll is not about what is suggested; it is about alternatives --- whether they exist.

Of course, anyone with an IQ above their shoe size will know why you are asking the question; but so what?

[barmar]

Although after asking the question without mentioning the BIT, to determine the LAs, a TD who is unsure what the BIT suggests might then ask a followup question about what the pollee thinks the BIT suggests about partner's hand.

If there were enough time and pollees, it would probably be better to do these as two separate polls, so that the answer to one question doesn't bias the answer to the other. But that's probably not practical in most cases.

[mycroft]

Yeah, I don't think anybody thinks that 2♠ isn't "demonstrably suggested by the unauthorized information". And it clearly will almost certainly work better than anything else. So it all boils down to "would a significant number of the player's peers think about passing this, and would a non-trivial number of them actually do it?" If the answer is "yes", then we roll back to 1NT making whatever. If the answer is "no", then we let 2♠ stand.

And the difficulty is, of course, determining the player's peers. I argued that I am highly likely to be not one because I play a weak NT by preference, and have a *lot* more experience than most with these auctions. I would also argue that it is likely I would open this hand, even at these colours, at MPs. My *guess* is that I'm also not likely to be this player's peer in sheer experience and play level (and neither would most of the commenters here) - but it could turn out that I'm wrong. [Edit: I am reminded that this is Flight A NAP final. Ignore this. Still, I wonder how you get to either 2500 MPs or "happy playing against minimum 2500 MPs" without knowing what to do over a weak NT with a borderline call. Oh wait, no I don't - they've learned exactly how to.]

I will say that were I to be playing with not my regular partners, I would treat this as a teaching moment of the "Sorry, partner, from your manner I thought *you* had it!" genre. I'd pass and once partner sees the bad score, explain that "you have to learn to pass flat 11s routinely. If you tell me bidding is safe with your hesitation, the TD will take a good score away from me if I bid, and let me have a bad one." Even though this hand is in fact borderline safe (which means that we think that bidding is "well, I can *see* people thinking about passing, but nobody's really doing to do it, right?"), it's also borderline "teachable".

[jeffford76]

mycroft, on 2015-November-23, 12:52, said:

I will say that were I to be playing with not my regular partners, I would treat this as a teaching moment of the "Sorry, partner, from your manner I thought *you* had it!" genre. I'd pass and once partner sees the bad score, explain that "you have to learn to pass flat 11s routinely. If you tell me bidding is safe with your hesitation, the TD will take a good score away from me if I bid, and let me have a bad one." Even though this hand is in fact borderline safe (which means that we think that bidding is "well, I can *see* people thinking about passing, but nobody's really doing to do it, right?"), it's also borderline "teachable".

I'm not sure people playing in a Flight A NAP final will take well to their non-regular partner trying to teach them.

[mycroft]

Argh, NAP final. Read the opening post again every once in a while, Mycroft.

Having said that, the day I play with a non-regular partner in the NAP district A final is probably the day I will in fact not make a bid with a borderline-with-UI hand after partner tanks. Do I really want to play with someone who plays WeaSeL/weak NT in the national finals?

[barmar]

mycroft, on 2015-November-23, 12:52, said:

Still, I wonder how you get to either 2500 MPs or "happy playing against minimum 2500 MPs" without knowing what to do over a weak NT with a borderline call. Oh wait, no I don't - they've learned exactly how to.]

I have about 3700 MP, but around a third of them are from playing BBO robot duplicates. I don't do at all well when playing against real flight A players.

[nige1]

jillybean, on 2015-November-21, 10:54, said:

It's clear from this thread that I am reading too much into the laws in that I must "carefully avoid taking any advantage of the unauthorized information." In my inexperienced opinion, my decision not to pre-empt in first seat has now become a clear decision to bid after partner has hitched. If it is a marginal preempt then isn't the marginal
2 level over call influenced by the UI that partner has some values?

I like Jillybean's argument. Possible results from a poll of other players shouldn't be relevant to her decision. For Jillybean, herself ...

• This hand was inadequate for a 2♠ opening.
• Now, Pass is a logical alternative
• Partner's hesitation makes a protective 2♠ safer.
• QED

[jillybean]

This is exactly what I am talking about here

http://bridgewinners...from-reisinger/

[Manastorm]

I bid 2♠ always, if it is rolled back, I think people are crazy. 3♠ is taking advantage of the BIT, because I am placing partner solid opening
values based on the BIT. I am not sure what hand partner is expected to have, but it must be close to an opening hand. I feel any action, which is based on
large deviation from it wihtout BIT is suspectful.

[Manastorm]

I add that I am in the camp: if nobody actually passes without BIT, pass can't be logical alternative.
I continue that people should change their system, if the hand can't be opened. Some values, awesome spade suit, shortness
and I want to let opponents bid their hand freely?

This post has been edited by Manastorm: 2015-December-15, 03:41