[pran]

 PeterAlan, on 2012-February-10, 04:24, said:

 pran, on 2012-February-05, 00:02, said:

If East can show evidence of "no agreement" I agree, but the question is then: Why did East bid 4♣ in the first place?

The simple answer to this is because he had to bid something. The problem he has is that, whatever he bids next, you're going to rule that he has an agreement about it.

The very simple answer from looking at his actual hand is that East should have no problem bidding 4♣ if the partnership understanding (in his opinion) is that this shows a side suit in clubs. (In that case he should simply have offered a correction to his partner's explanation of the 4♣ bid before the opening lead.)

If instead the partnership understanding is that a 4♣ bid is artificial in any way then it appears to me that his hand is perfect for a 3♠ bid.

So what is his real problem?

[blackshoe]

 pran, on 2012-February-10, 02:31, said:

I shall never tell you what your opinion is, you will have to tell me why you make calls for which you have no agreements. And you had better have a reason that I can believe.

Frankly, it appears to me unlikely that anyone who pulls a call out of the ether because his system doesn't have a call that meets his current need will ever convince you that's why he did it. As for the opinion thing, that's not what you said in your post #16.

[mjj29]

 pran, on 2012-February-10, 02:31, said:

East will have to show me (convincingly) exactly where in his system description the call would have been described if it were described, and show that there is a "hole" in the system description.

I shall never tell you what your opinion is, you will have to tell me why you make calls for which you have no agreements. And you had better have a reason that I can believe.

Pran, in none of these threads have you ever said how I could convince you that I do not have an agreement. You seem to be of the opinion that undiscussed sequences can't ever happen - which is demonstrably wrong. I don't have a list of all possible sequences we've not discussed written down. If I did - we would have discussed them!

Last night I was playing with a scratch partner. We had discussed (for a scratch partnership) quite a lot of things because we sat out the 2nd round, and assumed others correctly. In a later round we had this auction:

1S-(3H)-X-(P)-4C-(P)-5D-(P)-?

I could not imagine a hand where my partner could bid 5D now and shouldn't have bid 4D at either this or the previous round if it were natural (both of which would have been forcing). Had we discussed this sequence, as I have with other partners, it would have been exclusion keycard for clubs - but I wasn't going to put him on having done that without discussion. Do you discuss this kind of sequence with every person you play bridge with? If I'm asked what 5D means, what should I say? If the opponents call you because they've defended wrongly, would you rule I have an agreement?

This example is, of course, complicated because I have to decide what to do now. All available calls will give me a cold bottom if I'm wrong. If I guess right and describe it as 'no agreement' would you rule against me? If I guess wrong but the opponents could have gotten a few more undertricks (were it IMPs) from it would you rule against me?

My partner had a gambling 3NT opening in diamonds, as it happens, and I guess he had similar problems trying to decide if I definitely would take either of the 4D bids as forcing and if so whether I'd take 5D as natural.

I'd really like to know what you think I should say if asked, what my partner should say at the end of the auction and what you would rule if either of them were 'no agreement' and oppo felt they were damaged.

[pran]

 mjj29, on 2012-February-10, 08:23, said:

Pran, in none of these threads have you ever said how I could convince you that I do not have an agreement. You seem to be of the opinion that undiscussed sequences can't ever happen - which is demonstrably wrong. I don't have a list of all possible sequences we've not discussed written down. If I did - we would have discussed them!

Last night I was playing with a scratch partner. We had discussed (for a scratch partnership) quite a lot of things because we sat out the 2nd round, and assumed others correctly. In a later round we had this auction:

1S-(3H)-X-(P)-4C-(P)-5D-(P)-?

I could not imagine a hand where my partner could bid 5D now and shouldn't have bid 4D at either this or the previous round if it were natural (both of which would have been forcing). Had we discussed this sequence, as I have with other partners, it would have been exclusion keycard for clubs - but I wasn't going to put him on having done that without discussion. Do you discuss this kind of sequence with every person you play bridge with? If I'm asked what 5D means, what should I say? If the opponents call you because they've defended wrongly, would you rule I have an agreement?

This example is, of course, complicated because I have to decide what to do now. All available calls will give me a cold bottom if I'm wrong. If I guess right and describe it as 'no agreement' would you rule against me? If I guess wrong but the opponents could have gotten a few more undertricks (were it IMPs) from it would you rule against me?

My partner had a gambling 3NT opening in diamonds, as it happens, and I guess he had similar problems trying to decide if I definitely would take either of the 4D bids as forcing and if so whether I'd take 5D as natural.

I'd really like to know what you think I should say if asked, what my partner should say at the end of the auction and what you would rule if either of them were 'no agreement' and oppo felt they were damaged.

The prime directive in Bridge is that your opponents shall have the same (or better) foundation as your partner has for understanding your calls.

IMHO situations like the one you describe possibly require you to state that you don't know (or words to that effect) but definitely to disclose the interpretation you have chosen for the purpose of selecting your further calls.

Simply stating that you have no agreement and then choosing an interpretation that "happens" to be correct without disclosing this interpretation to opponents comes dangerously close to successfully exercising a concealed partnership understanding.

[barmar]

 pran, on 2012-February-10, 13:03, said:

The prime directive in Bridge is that your opponents shall have the same (or better) foundation as your partner has for understanding your calls.

Correct.

Quote

IMHO situations like the one you describe possibly require you to state that you don't know (or words to that effect) but definitely to disclose the interpretation you have chosen for the purpose of selecting your further calls.

Simply stating that you have no agreement and then choosing an interpretation that "happens" to be correct without disclosing this interpretation to opponents comes dangerously close to successfully exercising a concealed partnership understanding.

I don't see how you go from the first statement to the second. If you have to guess, then it's fair for the opponents to do so as well. You have to explain your agreements, not how you've decided to interpret a bid.

We're frequently admonished that "I'm taking it as" is NOT the appropriate way to begin a response to a request for an explanation.

[blackshoe]

"Or better"? I don't think so. That's you reading something into the laws that isn't there.

One is not required to "disclose the interpretation [one has] chosen". However, if that interpretation is based on something other than "knowledge generally available to bridge players", such as partnership experience, or knowledge of partner's tendencies or his experience with other partners, then that experience or knowledge must be disclosed. If a player tells the TD that he has no such experience or knowledge, it speaks ill of that TD's professionalism to disbelieve him out of hand. If there is positive evidence (such as that he's been known to do this same thing before) that's different, but you need positive evidence.

[gnasher]

 pran, on 2012-February-10, 13:03, said:

Simply stating that you have no agreement and then choosing an interpretation that "happens" to be correct without disclosing this interpretation to opponents comes dangerously close to successfully exercising a concealed partnership understanding.

If I come dangerously close to revoking, will you apply the revoke penalty as though I had actually revoked?

[AlexJonson]

I find this thread puzzling. A player makes a bad bid, and then apparently uses Ui in the auction. Now we have big discussion about pran.

If I was the TD I would have adjusted to 4 NT.

[pran]

 AlexJonson, on 2012-February-10, 15:13, said:

I find this thread puzzling. A player makes a bad bid, and then apparently uses Ui in the auction. Now we have big discussion about pran.

If I was the TD I would have adjusted to 4 NT.

And I suspect that the reason for this discussion is obvious:

"No agreement" has been shown as a very convenient means for avoiding "full disclosure" to opponents.

A player may claim "no agreement" when asked about a call whether or not he has some understanding of partner's call, and this "no agreement" assertion can hardly ever be proved true or false.

So if he states "no agreement" and then makes a successful guess it is just a lucky rub of the green? This is not what I consider a fair game for Gentlemen and Ladies.

But I have a strong feeling that most players here want to keep it that way rather than having to inform opponents of their (implied) understandings all the time.

So they challenge my view that the "no agreement" escape should not be that easy to use.

My solution is to request that any disclosure shall reveal how the player understands his partner's call and whether that understanding is the consequence of agreements, partnership experience, plain guessing or even common bridge knowledge.

[PeterAlan]

 AlexJonson, on 2012-February-10, 15:13, said:

A player makes a bad bid, and then apparently uses Ui in the auction.

Not so. According to the OP the explanations took place in the correction period, not during the auction, during which there was therefore no UI from them.

The question posed in the OP was answered very early on, and there's very little more to say about it. However, the thread then developed further, as threads do, and there's been plenty to say about those developments.

[blackshoe]

 pran, on 2012-February-10, 16:22, said:

[My solution is to request that any disclosure shall reveal how the player understands his partner's call and whether that understanding is the consequence of agreements, partnership experience, plain guessing or even common bridge knowledge.

Your solution is contradictory to Laws 40B6a and 40C2, and is therefore illegal.

[PeterAlan]

 pran, on 2012-February-10, 16:22, said:

My solution is to request that any disclosure shall reveal how the player understands his partner's call and whether that understanding is the consequence of agreements, partnership experience, plain guessing or even common bridge knowledge.

This won't work. For example, suppose I am asked to disclose how I "understand" my partner's call when I've got a "plain guess". There's no "understanding" - it's a guess, and you've obliged me to say so. What are you going to do if I guess wrong, L/RHO acts on that guess and is damaged? Isn't their action, based on what's known to be a guess, gambling? And how often, if I say it's a "plain guess", are you going to accept I'm telling the truth? Have you really thought this through?

[PeterAlan]

First, and to get it out of the way, I agree with blackshoe's original response to the original question, and of course E should have acted differently in the Correction Period.

 pran, on 2012-February-10, 07:11, said:

 PeterAlan, on 2012-February-10, 04:24, said:

 pran, on 2012-February-05, 00:02, said:

If East can show evidence of "no agreement" I agree, but the question is then: Why did East bid 4♣ in the first place?

The simple answer to this is because he had to bid something. The problem he has is that, whatever he bids next, you're going to rule that he has an agreement about it.

The very simple answer from looking at his actual hand is that East should have no problem bidding 4♣ if the partnership understanding (in his opinion) is that this shows a side suit in clubs. (In that case he should simply have offered a correction to his partner's explanation of the 4♣ bid before the opening lead.)

If instead the partnership understanding is that a 4♣ bid is artificial in any way then it appears to me that his hand is perfect for a 3♠ bid.

So what is his real problem?

You keep starting from the position that there must be a partnership understanding, and then try and view everything in that light. To the man with a hammer, everything is a nail.

If, instead, you entertain the shocking possibility that, notwithstanding W's statement, there was no partnership agreement about the bid you get a perfectly sensible picture. There is evidence for this: first, and quite tellingly, W thought it was a cue bid whilst E, who made the bid, clearly did not. Unless and until they are forgotten, one of the main characteristics of partnership agreements is that the partners agree on them. Second, as a result they've had a bidding misunderstanding whch has led them to a failing NT slam instead of a decent ♥ one. Last, we also now have the advantage of the OP which tells us so.

The answer to your question "So what is his [E's] real problem?" is that he doesn't agree with you that his hand is perfect for a 3♠ bid. He is faced with the necessity, as I said earlier, of bidding something to keep the auction going. I'm not an expert player, least of all in the bidding, so that probably qualifies me to fill E's shoes. Obviously, his bid needs to be relatively cheap, and I suggest that none of his choices are going to be perfect: if we can agree that he thinks neither 3NT nor 4♥ are realistic options, it really comes down to choosing between 3♠ and 4♣. He probably concludes that re-bidding ♠ is what he would do with a hand that has semi-solid ♠s but nothing else, so opts for 4♣ since that at least reflects the limited other feature of his hand.

AlexJonson and others may well regard this as a bad bid, but it's a perfectly understandable one if you bid as badly as I do, and if I were to bid like this with a scratch partner I would expect them to conclude as a matter of logic more than GBK that, since I had passed up ♥, ♠ and NT, then I had nothing further to say about those denominations. And as I'm nevertheless having something more to say with my hand, then I might therefore be indicating that whatever else I've got in it has something to do with ♣. This is not a partnership understanding, its just common sense.

W is then faced with deciding what E's saying about the ♣. In the absence of any agreement, I'm not surprised that W concludes that the only sensible thing E could say about ♣ in this auction is that he's got a control, and bids accordingly. However, being one of a pair inexperienced in the ways of tournament bridge (remember E didn't know to call the TD and correct W's explanation before the opening lead), instead of saying firmly "we have no agreement about 4♣ in this sequence" he said, when he was asked later on, what he thought the bid showed. Big mistake - but that, of course, is what you (though not the Laws and the regulatory authorities) want him to do. He may possibly have genuinely believed that that was their agreement; if so, E disagreed and the OP tells us that it was E not W that was correct.

But this, of course, is fantasy. Obviously, they have a concealed agreement, one of them has forgotten or lied about it, and they've pulled the wool over the eyes of the OP as well. Fortunately, pran, you're there to see through the charade.

[pran]

 blackshoe, on 2012-February-10, 19:02, said:

Your solution is contradictory to Laws 40B6a and 40C2, and is therefore illegal.

Law 40B6a said:

When explaining the significance of partner’s call or play in reply to opponent’s enquiry (see Law 20) a player shall disclose all special information conveyed to him through partnership agreement or partnership experience but he need not disclose inferences drawn from his knowledge and experience of matters generally known to bridge players.

Be aware that this does not include knowledge and experience of matters "generally known" to the player giving an explanation while not also to the player receiving the explanation.

Law 40C2 said:

Other than the above no player has any obligation to disclose to opponents that he has deviated from his announced methods.

This law is not relevant for the player explaining his partner's call!

And you skipped

Law 40C1 said:

A player may deviate from his side’s announced understandings always provided that his partner has no more reason to be aware of the deviation than have the opponents. Repeated deviations lead to implicit understandings which then form part of the partnership’s methods and must be disclosed in accordance with the regulations governing disclosure of system. If the Director judges there is undisclosed knowledge that has damaged the opponents he shall adjust the score and may award a procedural penalty.

So if a player from his experience or otherwise understands, or even just successfully guesses his partner's intention with a call for which he might claim "no agreement" he very likely instead has an implicit understanding which still must be disclosed.

No, I don't agree that my solution is contradictory to these or other laws.

[aguahombre]

I could understand Pran's position about disclosure if it were in a thread about changing laws. I would still oppose the view, however.

But, here he is saying there is virtually no such thing as an inference based on one's own experience or knowledge generally known to bridge players, unless we are 100 percent sure that the person to whom we are talking has the bridge knowledge and common sense to come to the same conclusion.

He further suggests that a guess about what partner is doing, which hasn't been discussed or agreed to before, is an implicit agreement anyway.

If he is performing as a director, that would be bothersome. I am not sure that, even at the club level, a director should be permitted to excercise that kind of disregard for the relevant laws as interpreted by (almost) everyone else.

[PeterAlan]

 pran, on 2012-February-10, 16:22, said:

My solution is to request that any disclosure shall reveal how the player understands his partner's call and whether that understanding is the consequence of agreements, partnership experience, plain guessing or even common bridge knowledge.

This is no solution at all, pran, because you won't accept their word on "whether that understanding is the consequence of agreements, partnership experience, plain guessing or even common bridge knowledge". You don't now, so what will change?

[mjj29]

 pran, on 2012-February-10, 23:53, said:

So if a player from his experience or otherwise understands, or even just successfully guesses his partner's intention with a call for which he might claim "no agreement" he very likely instead has an implicit understanding which still must be disclosed.

If a player has experience about his partner's call - that's disclosable. If he guesses - successfully or otherwise, then it is not.

When a player has to guess the meaning of his partner's call then if he has to disclose his guess and is wrong - clearly he should be penalised for MI. You cannot also say that if he says 'undiscussed' he will be penalised for a failure to disclose. It's Hobson's choice.

This is the same principle that after a player receives UI there must be some action available to him which will not be adjusted if it turns out to be successful.

[blackshoe]

I'm done. Sven, you're wrong, but you're too stubborn to admit it. So I give up. You go ahead and follow the tenet of one of the club TDs here ("I can make any ruling I want!") If you post nonsense here in future, I will point it out, but frankly it's not worth the aggravation to argue with you.

[pran]

How do you single out the player who uses a concealed partnership understanding and discloses it as "No agreement"?

[gnasher]

 pran, on 2012-February-11, 10:47, said:

How do you single out the player who uses a concealed partnership understanding and discloses it as "No agreement"?

You use your judgement. That's what you're paid to do.