[mr1303]

I don't have a full hand record for this one sadly.

Bidding went as follows:

1NT (12-14) - 2C (Hearts and another) - 2H (natural) - 2S
P - 3C - 3H - X
P - 4C - 4H - All Pass

Scoring: MP

---

This was my hand (the 2S bidder).

Table result was down 3, NS +150. EW call the director and feel they were damaged, as the North hand had a long club suit and only 2 hearts.

How do you rule

[campboy]

I take it we can be confident that "hearts and another" was the correct explanation?We would really need to see your partner's hand to make any sort of judgement.

If 3♠ (instead of 3♣) was a logical alternative, then we might consider an adjustment based on 3♣ being illegal under 16B.

It is much more likely that passing 3♥x would be a logical alternative (indeed, it is hard to see how it would not be). While partner's 4♣ bid does not seem to have damaged EW, a PP for use of UI might be appropriate if it was particularly blatant.

In both cases I think it is obvious that bidding clubs is suggested by the UI.

[blackshoe]

The first question, as Campboy suggests is whether "hearts and another" was a correct explanation of the agreement. If it was, there is no damage from MI.

Campboy implies there is UI. He's correct, if the 2♣ bidder forgot their agreement and misbid. That has to be investigated as well.

If those are indeed the facts in the case, then we have to decide whether there was an LA to 3♣, and whether choosing that LA would have resulted in a better score for the opening side. Would responder have bid 3♥ in the passout seat? If so, would advancer still double? We need to investigate and to see the hands in order to determine these answers.

There's also the question whether bidding and rebidding hearts, in the face of presumed heart length (and at least some strength, I would expect) on his right, isn't a serious error, at least.

[Cyberyeti]

The man was willing to bid 4H knowing trumps weren't breaking, they did break and it went -3. If this was anything but a crossruff, he's bidding like a maniac and deserves to keep his score. He signed off in 2♥, then bid twice more, I'd have doubled 4♥ almost on principle.

Otherwise I pretty much agree with campboy's comments, but it is entirely conceivable that the club bidder (having the wrong hand strength for a 3♣ overcall) decided to essentially psyche a 2♣ bid knowing precisely what he should have held, and hoping partner wasn't going to bid 4♥ so he could keep bidding clubs till partner shut up. In that case there can be no adjustment or penalty unless he's done it before.

[bluejak]

What did the 2♣ bidder reply to the question: "Why did you bid 2♣?"

We do ask - repeatedly - that people say what jurisdiction they are in. A fielded misbid may be a possible ruling if this was England or Wales. Was it?

[greenender]

Gluttons for punishment can read an article on this sort of thing, plus a number of related sequences, on the EBU website:

http://www.ebu.co.uk...1nt/default.htm

[peachy]

There have been good responses from bluejak and campboy, most prominently about finding out what the agreement on 2C was so we know whether it was misinformation (wrong explanation) or a misbid.

I would rule that the 2H-3H-4H bidder has lost his mind and all connection to reason. No matter what is judged of NS actions, EW should keep their score and be thankful they were not doubled.

[FrancesHinden]

Assuming that
- The partnership agreement was that 2C was Asptro
- East forgot and bid clubs naturally, and was woken up to his forget by partner's alert, so that he has UI

(if either of these assumptions are wrong, the ruling is not hard but different)

Then East's pull of 3Hx looks like illegal use of UI to me.

The problem is that if 3Hx was going two off, NS have not been damaged.

If 3Hx would have made 8 tricks, I would adjust to 3Hx-1 (as we don't know the hands it's possible that 3Hx would have made 8 or even 9 but declarer took an aggressive line to make 4H knowing that undertricks were only 50s)

[mr1303]

Scoring: MP

---

Apparently I had the hands very slightly wrong. From consultation with my partner, this were approximately the correct hands.

Our agreement was definitely that 2C was hearts and another. Apparently (you many consider this self-serving) partner said she always knew that 2C was hearts and another, but we'd forgotten how to bid hands that just contained clubs, so she decided to bid 2C anyway. Asked why she pulled the penalty double of 3H, she said it was because she thought I was doubling on the basis of of her having promised a heart suit.

Defence was Q of clubs lead, covered by the K and A.
J of clubs, South pitching a spade, followed by 10 of clubs, ruffed by the J in the South hand.

J of spades switch, covered by the ace and ruffed by North.

In the wash, NS ended up winning the K of spades and A of diamonds as well, for down 3.

This took place in the UK

[blackshoe]

It is certainly self-serving, but that doesn't mean we throw it out. I believe this psych is legal in the EBU, so no ruling on the basis of illegal psych. South didn't field it (it is North's action that is in question) so no ruling on that basis. If we accept the claim that it was a psych, then is there still UI?

[barmar]

blackshoe, on Jul 29 2009, 08:10 PM, said:

It is certainly self-serving, but that doesn't mean we throw it out. I believe this psych is legal in the EBU, so no ruling on the basis of illegal psych. South didn't field it (it is North's action that is in question) so no ruling on that basis. If we accept the claim that it was a psych, then is there still UI?

If you believe North, then I don't think passing the double is an LA. South is not likely to be doubling on a heart stack, he's expecting North to have that, and North knows he doesn't, based primarily on their agreements, not the UI.

But EW's complaint isn't about UI, it's about MI. And I don't see how the MI led to the bad result. Why is East bidding Hearts so much if he believes the explanation of 2♣? This seems like a double shot to me -- he's obviously guessed that North doesn't have his bid, and if his bidding doesn't work out well he's going to try to get an adjustment after the fact.

[kenrexford]

If Cleopatra had just gotten an Asp TRO, history would be different. Or, are you saying that she actually did get the Asp TRO, that Asp did not understand it, and as she was attempting to explain this to the Asp, things went terribly wrong?

I'm really confused.

[iviehoff]

mr1303, on Jul 29 2009, 09:33 PM, said:

Our agreement was definitely that 2C was hearts and another. Apparently (you many consider this self-serving) partner said she always knew that 2C was hearts and another, but we'd forgotten how to bid hands that just contained clubs, so she decided to bid 2C anyway.

I don't consider that to be a psyche. It amounts to a hope (common among weaker players) that if you bid 2♣ then 3♣ partner will get the drift that you are showing ♣, ie, a hope that there is an implicit agreement that this is a 2-way bid. If partner gets the drift, then the player was right - there is such an implicit agreement. If partner doesn't get the drift, then the player was wrong - there is no such implicit agreement.

So it is not really a deliberate misbid (=psyche), as the player apparently described it, but rather a mistaken hope that there was a different agreement. Which is a real misbid.

But all the same I'm not convinced there is useful UI. The player was expecting the alert and explanation heard. On balance, it is a piece of terrible bidding that should have resulted in an awful score, but was rescued by terrible bidding from the opponents. Not the sort of thing that law enforcers should be poking their noses into, except to explain to N that if she had succeeded in what she attempted, that really would have been an offence.

From time to time, out of kindness, I play with one of our more ancient members. She loves a game and is mostly very kind and polite, but most people won't play with her because her standard of play is terrible. But it is at least usually predictable, which means you can, if you are canny, get a reasonable score by taking account of it, and preparing the bidding so she is rarely declarer. Only one occasion did she upset me. She makes me play some defence to 1N in which 2♣ is hearts and another - I don't really like playing such a defence to weak NT, especially with weaker players who usually shoot themselves in the foot when they use it. So 1NT (12-14) was opened on my right, and I had a strong hand with clubs, totally unsuitable for a double, and I overcalled the obvious 3♣. She had no idea what 3♣ might mean and was apoplectic with me, how I could do such a "stupid" thing. (Well perhaps I was stupid not to realise that would fox her.) When I asked her what she would have done with my hand, well you can guess.

[mycroft]

Well, don't know about anything else, but I have no sympathy for East.

With HAKQTxx, "knowing" that hearts break badly, and having been penalty doubled in 3H, she bids 4H. I strongly believe that she bid 4H because the 2C bidder pulled 3Hx to 4C, exposing the psychic. Now, if she wants to complain that she was fooled by the psychic, she's SOL.

I don't have a problem, misbid or psychic, with 2S or 3C. Those seem automatic in the "system". I'm not so sure about the pull of 3Hx (after all, he has 3 almost-sure defensive tricks if partner leads spades), but if that's going for -300, no damage. I don't have a problem with the non-double of 4H - I think "everybody" knows that 2C bidder doesn't have hearts now.

If 2C was a deliberate bid hoping to work it out in the wash - psychic, in other words - then, of course, there's a couple of legal issues that make it a bad psychic:
- when partner Alerts, they'll ask. When he explains, you have "UI", and frankly, a defence against "use of UI" consisting of "I didn't misbid, I did it deliberately, I knew what it meant" tends not to fly in the real world.
- This is a pretty common "forget" (witness that this E/W play a cue of the known suit as natural; I would guess (from my knowledge of Landy pairs) that designing your system to assume that overcaller has clubs on this auction is at least as successful as designing it around them having got it right), and a pretty memorable one; "psyching" 2C hoping partner will get it will very shortly become an implicit agreement (it may already be, now - in fact, it may have been bid *expecting* partner to get it). That makes a 2C overcall "clubs, or hearts and another" - which my memory is saying would be legal in this game, but failure to disclose it gets into Fred's thread territory.