[Trinidad]

A case that I heard of. (I was not involved.)

Suppose I hold:

Scoring: IMP

---

Partner starts the auction (with silent opponents):
1♥-2NT*1
3♣-3♥
4♣*2-4♦*3
4NT*4-5♠*5
7♥

1 Alerted: opening, 6+ spades, max 1 spade loser.
2 Cue
3 Cue
4 RKCB
5 2 keycards with the Q of trump

(1 was asked and answered immediately. 2-5 were asked and answered after the auction.)

Partner has explained my 5♠ as 2 keycards with the queen of trump. I thought that spades were set as trump and showed my ♠Q. (I know, I have 3 keycards for spades, please remember, I didn't actually bid this hand, some one else did.)

What am I now supposed to do?

Thanks,

Rik

[RMB1]

I assume 7♥ was passed out and that we have reached the point where South has heard the explanation of 5♠.

If I think that (systemically) spades were agreed or that it was ambiguous, I would explain that partner's explanation of 5♠ was correct but the trump suit was not necessarily hearts.

I would not feel obliged to add the following, but would normally do so: "The confusion about which suit is agreed seems to have lead to some general confusion about counting key cards, whichever suit was wrong. The 5♠ makes no sense, given my hand."

Robin

[Trinidad]

Yes, 7♥ is passed out. The player on opening lead asked the questions before leading.

I'll be more specific:

We explained 4NT as RKCB without mentioning what the key suit was and end in a contract of 7♥. I thought that spades were the agreed key suit. Partner who is about to be declarer in 7♥ explained 5♠ as two keycards + the queen of trump. He didn't mention what the agreed trump suit was for RKCB. Neither did I when I explained 4NT as "RKCB".

Do I need to clarify that -in my opinion- 5♠ showed: two aces + ♠Q or 1 ace + ♠KQ and not two aces + ♥Q or 1 ace + ♥KQ?

Rik

[jeremy69]

I think that when you give an explanation of your agreement it should be a complete one i.e. 2 of the 5 Aces and the SQ. It is not for the opponents to guess what the trump suit is.

[bluejak]

It is not your responsibility to guess it either. If your understanding is it shows two key cards and the trump queen, leaving you to work out what the trump suit is [which is often the case with partnerships that do not play very regularly] then to say two key cards and the ♠Q [or the ♥Q] is MI. We do keep trying to stop people guessing when asked for their agreements.

It is a different if you have a clear understanding as to which suit is agreed, and partner has got it wrong. If spades are certainly agreed by your understanding you should say so. But not if it is merely your best guess.

Note that partner answered 2 and the queen of trump, so that is not MI without a firm agreement. It would be different if he had said 2 and the ♥Q: if you have no clear agreement then you should correct that.

[RMB1]

bluejak, on Sep 23 2009, 01:54 PM, said:

Note that partner answered 2 and the queen of trump, so that is not MI without a firm agreement.  It would be different if he had said 2 and the ♥Q: if you have no clear agreement then you should correct that.

But bidding 7♥ to play over 5♠ gives the impression that "trumps" in the explanation of 5♠ was hearts.

If the agreement is that spades were trumps or there is no agreement as to which suit was trumps, then I think the apparent implication that hearts were trumps should be corrected.

Robin

[bluejak]

Implication? Why are we correcting implications?

[Sadie3]

Why do you think pard was asking about hearts instead of spades? If you believed that spades was the agreed suit and you answered accordingly and your partner understands your agreements as well, I do not understand why he could not be asking about the spade suit. He should know the quality of his hearts and maybe all he needed was to know he had running spades to bid the 7 contract. I see no faulty explanations nor misinformation.

On the other hand, I also do not know anyone that bids 1H 2NT meaning a six card spade suit with max one loser.

[blackshoe]

Looking at the entire auction (and playing, I grant you, my preferred methods, which the perpetrators of this auction were probably not) it looks to me like when South bid 3♥, that set hearts as trumps.

I would explain the entire auction thusly (roughly):

South: Partner has shown 5+♥, 4+♣, a ♣ control, fewer than 3♠ (probably a singleton) and probably no void. 4NT asked for keycards (the 4 aces and the trump K).
North: Partner has show 6+♠, no more than one loser in the suit, ♥ preference, a ♦ control, 2 of the 5 keycards plus the trump* Q.

As David said, if it is unclear to north what the trump suit is, he shouldn't guess when explaining, but if he believes ♥ are clearly trumps, he should say so. Similarly for South.

The fact that North bid 7♥ may imply that ♥ were firmly agreed as trump, or that North believes that to be the case. It does, however, leave South the option to correct to 7♠ if he believes that will be a better spot. That South did not do so may only indicate that he doesn't believe so. Or it may indicate that this pair aren't exactly firm in their understandings. Their opponents may figure this out, they are not entitled to be handed it on a platter.

[gnasher]

It seems to me that your explanation of 4NT was incomplete. A proper explanation of 4NT would be "RKCB with hearts as trumps", "RKCB with spades as trumps" or "RKCB; it's unclear which suit is agreed".

If an opponent assumes that 5♠ related to the queen of hearts, that assumption will have been caused partly by the inadequate explanation of 4NT. You should therefore correct (or complete) the explanation of 4NT.

[Trinidad]

bluejak, on Sep 23 2009, 04:39 PM, said:

Implication? Why are we correcting implications?

Quick clarification:
At the time the questions about RKCB were asked, the auction was already over. 7♥ was bid, followed by three passes. So, at the point of the questions and answers, hearts were already trump. If ♥=TRUMP, then "Queen of trump" = "Queen of hearts". In other words: "equation, not implication".

If one wasn't sure what the keycard suit was, one could explain it as: "2 keycards + the queen of the keycard suit. (I am not sure whether we have an agreement on which suit was the keycard suit on this type of auction)."

Rik

[pran]

Without making any assumption on this particular auction I will just say that I have experienced similar auctions where the player making the 4NT bid (RKCB) had first "established" a particular suit as trumps for the sole purpose of defining which King and Queen should be considered among the key cards.

Eventually it developed that he wanted to play in a different denomination, and having cocntrol of the auction he could do so without any real danger.

So it is IMO for the player who bid 4NT to be responsible for informing opponents which suit is the assumed trump when showing key cards.

At the time of clarification it is the responsibility of the player who responded to the 4NT bid to inform opponents if he thought differently.

This implies that the correct explanations should be (inn sequence):

4NT: "Roman Key Card" (without any indication on which suit is assumed trump)
Response: "Showing xxx keycards with yyy as trump"
After the final pass: "My understanding was that zzz was the assumed trump."

regards Sven

[Vampyr]

RMB1, on Sep 21 2009, 05:52 PM, said:

I would not feel obliged to add the following, but would normally do so: "The confusion about which suit is agreed seems to have led to some general confusion about counting key cards, whichever suit was wrong. The 5♠ makes no sense, given my hand."

I think that this is going too far. I don't think that it is ever necessary to give explanations to opponents based on what is in your hand, even if you don't feel obliged but are just trying to be helpful.

[barmar]

Trinidad, on Sep 23 2009, 01:05 PM, said:

bluejak, on Sep 23 2009, 04:39 PM, said:

Implication?  Why are we correcting implications?

Quick clarification:
At the time the questions about RKCB were asked, the auction was already over. 7♥ was bid, followed by three passes. So, at the point of the questions and answers, hearts were already trump. If ♥=TRUMP, then "Queen of trump" = "Queen of hearts". In other words: "equation, not implication".

If one wasn't sure what the keycard suit was, one could explain it as: "2 keycards + the queen of the keycard suit. (I am not sure whether we have an agreement on which suit was the keycard suit on this type of auction)."

Rik

When talking about keycard auctions, "trump" is short for "the assumed trump suit when keycards were asked and answered", i.e. the suit whose king and queen are counted in the responses. The fact that the trump suit changed later on is not relevant.

[RMB1]

Vampyr, on Sep 24 2009, 04:19 PM, said:

... I don't think that it is ever necessary to give explanations to opponents based on what is in your hand, even if you don't feel obliged but are just trying to be helpful.

I disagree.

Suppose (on a different hand) our agreement is 4130 and I forget and use 3041.
Partner explains 4130 but there is nothing on our convention card to support this.

I know that when the opponents see my hand they will think they have misinformed.
I know the TD will rule they have been misinformed because there is insufficient evidence to rule misbid rather than misexplanation.

I think it is helpful to inform my opponents of my intended meaning (what is in my hand), even though it is not our agreement.
Indeed, I think it is necessary to so inform them, to avoid a ruling on misinformation in the play.

Robin

[bluejak]

You are going to tell them they have been misinformed when you know they have not been?

I am shocked.

[gnasher]

bluejak, on Sep 24 2009, 11:21 PM, said:

You are going to tell them they have been misinformed when you know they have not been?

I am shocked.

No, he's going to tell them that the explanation doesn't match the contents of his hand. He's going to do that in order to reduce the risk of an adverse ruling. He'd prefer to have the result decided by his partner's card play than by a director's view of how his partner might have played the cards.

To me that seems both sensible and legal.