[hotShot]

Luis, when North bids 5♣ it is to late, the damage is done.

luis said:

He has 8 hearts and pd has spades. After 4♠ was passed back to North he bid 5♣ do you need more facts? ...

West was told: North holds 5♥, he has to act upon this information. Of cause he can decide not to trust South, but i don't think it is a winning strategie.
Counting the missing ♥'s North is left with KTxxx, 2 save tricks for North if playing ♥. It makes no sence to bid this 8 card suit and it is impossible to play 6♥.
So the decision not to bid his suit definitly happend, before west bid 3♠. At that time west did not know that North had in fact the minors.

luis said:

Absurd, you have 8 hearts, North can't have a heart suit. Furthermore assuming hearts are 8-5-0-0 then when North bids 5♣ over 4♠ the picture is completely clear.

At the time when the picture "is completly clear" West bid his heart suit. Even East understood that West has good long hearts and does not "correct" to ♠. But With the bidding space gone and East can't bid the slam.

South gave an explanation that does not fit North hand. It is NS task to prove that S actually told what the agreement was. If NS can't prove that e.g. by pointing on their convention card, the TD has to assume missinformation. If the explanation of South is right, North missbid and there is no adjustment.

So there is missinformation.
There is damage and they are related => score adjustment.

[hotShot]

arrows, on Dec 5 2005, 05:01 AM, said:

I am really confused, why 5C bid could be using of UI?

And in this situation, what is the appropriate action of North?

North 5♣ bis is very strange. He has to assume that his partner understood his bid correctly. Since South did not bid, North has to assume that South does not have 3♦ or 3♣. If he had bid 5♦ he would have shown a 6-5 distribution giving a new information to partner.

So bidding 5♣ suggests that North knows that South missunderstood his bid. The knowledge that South missunderstood the 2NT bid is UI to North, because he can hardly have gained it from the bidding. (In f2f bridge he might have heard partners explanation.) Bidding 5♣ uncovers the missunderstanding that happend.


North has to bid what is least suggested by the UI. Possible bids are:
pass, 5♦ and 5♣
Bidding pass or 5♦ should be ok.

[david_c]

arrows, on Dec 5 2005, 04:01 AM, said:

I am really confused, why 5C bid could be using of UI?

And in this situation, what is the appropriate action of North?

5C is criminal. If the 2NT bid had been explained as both minors, then there's no way North would bid 5C. He might pass, or he might bid 4NT, or he might even bid 5D I suppose (though I think that's a lunatic bid), but definitely not 5C because that would suggest that his clubs were at least as good as his diamonds. So the only reason to bid 5C is to wake partner up. North is not allowed to use the fact that his partner needs waking up.

North should probably pass. But if he thinks that it's clear to take another bid, then he must bid 4NT, not 5C.

[david_c]

Kalvan14, on Dec 5 2005, 01:45 AM, said:

W was certainly damaged by the incorrect explanation: if he had known that N had the minors, he would have certainly bid 4♥ over 3♥ (hiding an 8-card suit is not good bridge  ).

Yes, this is more like it. West is endplayed in the bidding. What is he supposed to do over 3♥? It's fair to say he knows what sort of hand North has, but how does that help him? Much as he would love to show his eight-card heart suit, he can't do this because his partner is likely to interpret a heart bid as a cue.

Given the correct information, West would surely have bid hearts over 3♥ (or at least at some point before deciding to play in 4♠). Then we still don't know whether E/W would bid to slam, but we have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Finally, you might look at E/W's actions over 5♣ and ask whether they were trying a double-shot. Well, no, that's ridiculous. What if they'd bid to 6♥ on a different layout and gone off? Would we also accuse them of a double-shot then? Certainly they know what is going on once North bids 5♣, but it gives them a problem which is too difficult to solve.

I voted for "hard to say" because we weren't told what reasons were given for the ruling. But I think the adjustment is correct. North should also be given a lecture or penalty for the 5♣ bid.

This post has been edited by david_c: 2005-December-05, 08:16

[hrothgar]

luis, on Dec 4 2005, 09:35 PM, said:

There was missinformation
There was damage
Damage was not due to the missinformation(*)

Result Stands.
Procedural penalty to NS for not knowing what they play against a strong club.

As far as I know, players are permitted to forget their agreements. Arguments that players can be penalized for memory failures runs dangerously close to Wolff's discredited theories regarding convention disruption.

I agree that their is grounds for a proceedural penalty, however, said penalty should be based the 5♣ bid which suggests blantant use of UI...

[inquiry]

The ruling is utter non-sense. There is no ground for such an adjustment on this hand. I think the "serious" consideration given by East over 5♥ had more to do with going back to ♠ than playing exactly 5♥. In fact, I find North's pass over 5♣ and over 5♥ both remarkable, given his partner couldn't do more than bid 3♠ over the 3♥ bid showing spades. The pass over 5♣ was "forcing" suggesting a mixed defensive/offensive hand. The 5♥ bid should be a slam try, denying a diamond control. I can't imagine North, with ♦King, not bidding the slam in spades over this auction. But biddign slam (or assigning slam) as the final contract doesn't mean it will make. The possibility exist declarer might take a spade hook losing the stiff spade queen, especially after ♦ACE at trick one.

There was, however, enough violations on this hand to warrent some director actions. For instance, assume, for a moment, that 2NT had been properly alerted. Over 3♠, West might have cue-bid 4♣ (presumably accepting spades). If so, north's 4♦ cue-bid would set the road to slam. As it is, East has no club control, and West has no Diamond control, so slam bidding is a guess at best. However, if properly alerted, West would "probably" not get a chance to cue-bid 4♣ as EAST would surely bump up to 5♣.

There should be some penalties here, however.

1) NS didn't know their system over a forcing club. Very odd
2) North's Five club bid at unfavorable vul seems based upon UI that his partner didn't understand his 2NT bid as "for the minors". If his partner had properly alerted, would he have bid 5♣? The answer is no, that bid would have been much less attractive (else he would have bid 4NT over 1♣, not 2NT, QED.

As director, I would let the EW score stand (5♥ making whatever it made). They had an opportunity to protect themselves in the auction, and did not.

The NS result will be, however, be an assigned average minus (lose 3 imps or 40%) on this hand, plus an additional minus 3 imp procedural penalty. I would return EW's deposit.

[hrothgar]

luis, on Dec 5 2005, 07:45 AM, said:

What kind of Wakeup call? 5♣ he has a lot of shape and both minors so he is free to make a bridge decision and bid 5♣

North has a number of different bids available once 4♠ has been passed arround to him including Pass, Double, 4N, 5♣ and 5♦

Different partnerships have different agreements regarding how these bids should be treated. For example, I prefer

5♦ = Diamonds are MUCH better than Clubs
5♣ = Takeout: Prefers Clubs to Diamonds
4NT = Takeout: No preference between Clubs and Diamonds
Double = Takeout: Prefers Diamonds to Clubs

Using this set of agreements, I think that I have a clear double. We're I to chose a bid other than double, it would be 4NT.

Of course, its perfectly reasonable to invert several of these bids...

From my perspective, there are two reasonable explanations for the 5♣ bid:

1. North is cheating. He is attempting to signal partner that he has Clubs and Diamonds rather than Diamonds and Hearts.
2. North / South have an agreement that the 5♣ bid shows a takeout oriented hand with either no preference between the minors or better Diamonds than Clubs.

If North / South were able to document the second of these two cases, then it would be appropriate to permit the 5♣ bid. In the absence of said documentation, I would (unfortunately) be forced to concluded that North was attempting to signal partner that he actually holds the minors.

It is, of course, possible that North believes that his partnership is psychically attuned and that South will be able to derive the meaning of the 5♣ call from first principles. Then again, any partnership good enough to do so probably would have gotten the explanation right for the 2NT bid...

In short...

Once you screw up, your options become more limited

[luis]

I can't believe many of you guys. You hold 8 hearts in your hand and you believe North can have a diamonds+hearts 2 suiter? And the suit is 8-5-0-0 and everybody is bidding calmly. This is really bridge-insulting.

Even then assuming West is silly enough to believe hearts are 8-5-0-0 bidding 3♠ accepting the transfer with 8 hearts and then passing 4♠ is completely criminal.

N&S can be doing bad things but they didn't do anything to let EW get a result they really don't deserve at all. There are at least 4 or 5 criminal bids by EW.

[inquiry]

luis, on Dec 5 2005, 10:51 AM, said:

I can't believe many of you guys. You hold 8 hearts in your hand and you believe North can have a diamonds+hearts 2 suiter? And the suit is 8-5-0-0 and everybody is bidding calmly. This is really bridge-insulting.

Even then assuming West is silly enough to believe hearts are 8-5-0-0 bidding 3♠ accepting the transfer with 8 hearts and then passing 4♠ is completely criminal.

N&S can be doing bad things but they didn't do anything to let EW get a result they really don't deserve at all. There are at least 4 or 5 criminal bids by EW.

Well, I think we agree on how the ruling should go on this hand. But WEST knowing North doesn't have ♥'s actually hampers the auction, not helps it.. becasue while WEST knows, he also knows

1) His partner will be short in hearts
2) If he bids (say 4♥) over 3♥, his partner will will not take this as a heart suit, and will clearly bid again.

This second item, is probably why a tame 3♠ bid with an eight card heart suit.

[hrothgar]

luis, on Dec 5 2005, 06:51 PM, said:

I can't believe many of you guys. You hold 8 hearts in your hand and you believe North can have a diamonds+hearts 2 suiter? And the suit is 8-5-0-0 and everybody is bidding calmly. This is really bridge-insulting.

Luis, how many partnership agreements do you that are explictly based on the assumption that the opponents have lied or screw up thei alerts?

The issue is NOT whether West has reason to believe that North holds a 5 card Heart suit, but rather, whether the misinformation caused damage to the partnership.

[han]

Fluffy, on Dec 4 2005, 07:52 PM, said:

North should be penalized for cheating (5♣ bid is obvious use of UI), and EW should keep their result because they weren't damaged by the missinformation. I would had let them play 4♠ +1 If 5♥ didn't score better.

I absolutely agree that NS should be penalised for the use of UI, 5C would never have been bid after a correct explanation (but 4NT instead). The fact that NS don't know their system is an extra consideration.

I think the actual ruling is nonsense.

[arrows]

If I read this thread right, the majority here think the ruling make little
sense, but N-S should be penalized for misinformation.

At the table, East's bid of 3 hearts, which obviously was not a general cuebid,
was not alerted. And after the play, E-W called director and claim they were
damaged by the misinformation but failed to suggest a reasonable way to reach
the slam if there were no misinformation.

Since without misinformation, how to bid slam is really still a
tough problem. I guess it's might be better if the director cancel this
board, and award E-W team some IMPs.

I was the North, my partner is basically a rubber player. We are casual
partnership and play a vanilla SAYC with only a few conventions.
In retrospect, I agree that I failed to realize that bid 5 clubs could be
interpreted as using of UI.

East-West are world class players and seasoned partnership. I don't know,
I think after 5 clubs, the situation should be clear for players of their
caliber. I don't think it's fair to adjust the result to 6 hearts make while
they judged to stay out of the slam in auction.

[luis]

arrows, on Dec 6 2005, 07:51 PM, said:

If I read this thread right, the majority here think the ruling make little
sense, but N-S should be penalized for misinformation.

At the table, East's bid of 3 hearts, which obviously was not a general cuebid,
was not alerted. And after the play, E-W called director and claim they were
damaged by the misinformation but failed to suggest a reasonable way to reach
the slam if there were no misinformation.

Since without misinformation, how to bid slam is really still a
tough problem. I guess it's might be better if the director cancel this
board, and award E-W team some IMPs.

I was the North, my partner is basically a rubber player. We are casual
partnership and play a vanilla SAYC with only a few conventions.
In retrospect, I agree that I failed to realize that bid 5 clubs could be
interpreted as using of UI.

East-West are world class players and seasoned partnership. I don't know,
I think after 5 clubs, the situation should be clear for players of their
caliber. I don't think it's fair to adjust the result to 6 hearts make while
they judged to stay out of the slam in auction.

I agree with most of what you said but you already know this from my posts.

[Fluffy]

arrows, on Dec 5 2005, 03:01 AM, said:

I am really confused, why 5C bid could be using of UI?

And in this situation, what is the appropriate action of North?

If you want partner to compete you bid 4NT, 5♣ means 6♣+4/5♦, that bid was jsut made to help partner because he was mistaken

[han]

Exactly, as Fluffy said. 5C is crazy without the UI.

[dburn]

I am very surprised indeed at the number of strong disagreements with this ruling.

The point is that once 2NT is explained as clubs and hearts, West cannot bid his eight-card heart suit not because he believes North has five of them, but because he knows that East will treat 4♥ as a cue bid agreeing spades. In short, the misinformation has seriously prejudiced East-West's chances of reaching the right contract.

Whether or not they actually would have reached the right contract is far from clear. I would expect a director to award 6♥ making, and for an appeals committee to adjust to some percentage of 6♥ making and some percentage of 5♥ making six (the table result).

I would also expect the director and / or the appeals committee to have at least a stern word with North regarding his 5♣ bid, which seems to me a clear case of illegal use of extraneous information (from South's explanation of 2NT). If North were a player of any experience, I would expect a procedural penalty to be awarded.

[cherdano]

dburn, on Dec 26 2005, 03:44 AM, said:

I am very surprised indeed at the number of strong disagreements with this ruling.

The point is that once 2NT is explained as clubs and hearts, West cannot bid his eight-card heart suit not because he believes North has five of them, but because he knows that East will treat 4♥ as a cue bid agreeing spades. In short, the misinformation has seriously prejudiced East-West's chances of reaching the right contract.

Whether or not they actually would have reached the right contract is far from clear. I would expect a director to award 6♥ making, and for an appeals committee to adjust to some percentage of 6♥ making and some percentage of 5♥ making six (the table result).

I would also expect the director and / or the appeals committee to have at least a stern word with North regarding his 5♣ bid, which seems to me a clear case of illegal use of extraneous information (from South's explanation of 2NT). If North were a player of any experience, I would expect a procedural penalty to be awarded.

I agree with all this, and strongly this agree with Luis this time. Sorry, Luis, do you really play 1♣-(2NT= red suits)-3♠-4♥ as showing hearts? Everybody and their aunt plays this as spade support. 5♥ would be splinter/exclusion according to your liking. The only thing you can do is to hope the opponent's mess will sort itself out, so that you can bid hearts later (and the criticized tame 3♠ bid did exactly that). By that time you are in a very muddy area with regards to strength.

I also disagree with Gerben. If opponent's don't know what they are playing over 1♣, they have to say so. If they claim 2NT shows the reds, then you are entitled to believe that, and if it is wrong (that this is the agreement), then there was MI.

Arend

[FrancesHinden]

After Arrows' comment in another thread, I was going to write a long reply here, but David (dburn) has said virtually everything I was going to more concisely. Still, the fact that other people say things better than I do never manages to shut me up!

There are two rulings involved on the hand.

1. MI
i) Has there been misinformation? Yes, it appears that the correct explanation for 2NT was either "minors" or "no agreement" [if it can be proved that the agreement over a strong club is 2NT showing the reds that's a different matter]
ii) Have EW been damaged? The TD should ask EW how they have been damaged rather than make it up himself, but an answer such as "I couldn't bid my 8-card suit because partner would take it as a cue bid" is enough.
iii) In Europe, the suggestion of a weighted score using 12C3 is fine, in the US where this isn't allowed, I expect NS to be given -980 and EW probably +980, possibly 480 (it is 'at all likely' that they will reach slam, but I'm not sure if it's 'probable' or not).

2. UI
I would ask North why he bid 5C. Unless he gives a compelling answer, I can't see any reason other than using the information that partner thought he had the reds. I would ask South why he passed 5C. His partner overcalled 2NT showing the reds, then bid 5C. What does that mean? If he's immediate reaction is that partner didn't have the reds after all, then he is admitting that he knows his explanation the round before was wrong. I also would usually give NS a PP, and possibly a large one, unless they really convince me they have no idea of the laws of bridge in which case they get a strict talking to.

[arrows]

I had my reason to bid 5C, I showed 2 suiter, whatever partner thought they are,
Can't I start to compete from the lowest suit? Not allowed?

[cherdano]

arrows, on Dec 30 2005, 06:02 AM, said:

I had my reason to bid 5C, I showed 2 suiter, whatever partner thought they are,
Can't I start to compete from the lowest suit? Not allowed?

Not in this case.
1. You have UI: The fact that partner explained 2NT as showing the red suits is unauthorized information to you.
2. You have logical alternatives: Maybe YOU would always bid 5♣ in this case, but this doesn't matter. A majority of your peers would pass over 4♠, certainly way more than enough to make it a LA.
3. The UI clearly suggests bidding 5♣: If partner had understood 2N as minors, he would be certain not to have a big club fit. If he understood it as red suits, there is a good chance to have a big club fit.

Maybe you have heard that "you may not choose among logical alternatives one that is demonstrably suggested by unauthorized information". If there is a more clear-cut UI case, I have not seen it.

As far as your result is concerned, I think you were lucky that you didn't get a harsh procedural penalty for your 5♣ bid in addition to the -980.

Arend
P.S.: I think the only debatable part of the ruling is whether EW would have found 6♥ without the MI. I think it is pretty realistic (but it's a judgement calll, of course):
1♣-(2N=minors)-3♦=good spades-P=didnt know what 2N meant
4♥=big suit-P-5♦ etc.
Or
1♣-(2N=minors)-3♦=good spades-5♣
5♥-P-6♥