[bentarm]

A pair at the club I play at has an agreement that their discards are "either reverse attitude or standard count, whichever partner needs to know". Is this agreement legal?

They play together regularly, so it seems like they are more likely than their opponents to have an idea of what they think partner needs to know. If it is legal, are they under any sort of obligation to explain the sort of situation in which they think they would give count vs. attitude in any more detail?

[Bbradley62]

Do they play count or attitude in situations where it is "standard" to play the other?There should be no problem with their agreement being "we play upside-down attitude, but not upside-down count", but you may or may not be implying that there's more to it than that.

[aguahombre]

Firstly, the question is whether the dual discarding agreement is illegal because it is encrypted. My answer is not, unless the entire array of cards in both defenders' hands is considered a decription key; I think the key must be at bit more specific than that.

It is not a dual message carding system because only one message is conveyed (whether first discard or not).

So, then an opponent discards the lowest card in a suit. Declarer asks and gets the answer, "either normal count or reverse attitude about that suit." The defenders know which it is, but they are not required tell Declarer where all the cards are by answering that question.

[Trinidad]

 aguahombre, on 2014-February-16, 12:04, said:

Declarer asks and gets the answer, "either normal count or reverse attitude about that suit." The defenders know which it is, but they are not required tell Declarer where all the cards are by answering that question.

That is at best a half truth. There are some standard situations where you play count and some where you play attitude. A pair does not need to follow this standard, and can have their own agreements what count is important and when attitude.

If I were declarer and I get an answer like that, the defenders get one chance to tell me whether this for them is typically a count or an attitude situation. After that, they can explain to the TD what it is.

Only when the defenders can only see from their own cards what it is they don't need to explain. This situation is extremely rare.

Rik

[chrism]

Most partnerships play "Attitude, Count or Suit Preference, whichever partner needs to know" (with any or all of the encodings being upside down). There may or may not be a clear order of precedence, depending on specific situations or general principles ("always SP at trick 1 if dummy has a singleton", "always count at trick 1 in NT contracts", "attitude except when it is obviously known or irrelevant", etc) and such agreements should be disclosed. However, any partnership approaching advanced level will face many situations where they can work out what signal is most useful based on the information available, and can work out that partner is likely to understand their intention in that context. Somewhere in between, there is inevitably a grey area between "just bridge" and "partnership understanding"; I would expect a player to err on the side of disclosure in borderline cases, but never to the point of revealing specific elements of the current hand.

As described, the agreement in the OP is entirely legal.

[aguahombre]

 Trinidad, on 2014-February-16, 12:17, said:

Only when the defenders can only see from their own cards what it is they don't need to explain. This situation is extremely rare.

That just isn't right. It is quite common for competent defenders to see from their own cards and from the auction and from dummy and the play thus far whether signalling at all is necessary. Using those general Bridge skills in combination with one another does not mean they all of a sudden have to tell declarer what they have or what they know declarer has.

We don't signal at all unless we believe the signal will be useful to partner. We disclose this when asked about our signalling methods. If then asked if signalling will be useful to partner right now, we don't have to take the bait. He is fishing...perhaps to find out which one of us knows the situation or doesn't.

[inquiry]

Legal.

[Zelandakh]

Legality is not really the issue, clearly it is. The problem here is one of disclosure. There are going to be many situations that are going to be clearly one or the other without reference to their own cards and declarer is entitled to that information.

[barmar]

 Zelandakh, on 2014-February-21, 10:37, said:

Legality is not really the issue, clearly it is. The problem here is one of disclosure. There are going to be many situations that are going to be clearly one or the other without reference to their own cards and declarer is entitled to that information.

While this may be true, it seems like it would be difficult to enumerate them. It seems more like "I know it when I see it". It's not just your own hand, but all the information from the auction, dummy, the play so far. From this we try to figure out what partner will find the most useful, and hope that he will come to the same conclusion and read our signal correctly.

There may be a few simple exceptions, like "We always give suit preference" when partner leads a suit and dummy has a singleton/void. But for the most part, it's more intuition and judgement than specific agreements.

[VixTD]

I raised a similar question a few years ago (here) and many people agreed there was a problem with adequate disclosure - those using such methods will often know more about when a particular signal is used than a "what partner needs to know" explanation gets across to the opponents.

[Trinidad]

 VixTD, on 2014-February-24, 08:43, said:

I raised a similar question a few years ago (here) and many people agreed there was a problem with adequate disclosure - those using such methods will often know more about when a particular signal is used than a "what partner needs to know" explanation gets across to the opponents.

IMO, the way to deal with this is to call the TD.

What the TD should do:
- Ask the explainer to put down his cards.
- Ask him to think about the auction and the play so far.
- Then ask him: "Given the auction and play, what will your partner think that you need to know?"

The options are:

• Attitude
  
• Count
  
• Other (specify)
  
• He thinks I don't need to know anything / he wasn't signalling

Rik

[aguahombre]

My point, Rik, is that just from the auction, the play thus far, and the look of dummy ---the defenders and Declarer all have the same information.

Telling Declarer whether signalling is necessary here, and then whether it is attitude, count, or suit preference would be telling Declarer which defender needs signalling information and which defender doesn't need the information and will be giving it to the other one ---and that would be telling Declarer who has what.

So "What will your partner think you need to know?" could be answered:
--nothing.
--count
--attitude
--something else.

Or --"It is partner who needs to know something, not me".

Any answer reveals to Declarer how the defenders' cards are divided, and we are not required to do that.

[helene_t]

It is one of those things that is just very difficult to disclose. With one p I had the agreement that we don't give attitude against a suit contract when p leads dummy's singleton, but of course we would still do it if dummy was void in trumps. What if dummy had a singleton trumps? Doubleton? I dunno.

With another p the agreement was that attitude still applied unless dummy had 4+ trumps. That was an explicit agreement so of course we disclosed it.

But mostly you will just have to judge whether dummy has sufficient ruffing power (and whether it might be of interest to try to force dummy, or just to tell partner that the suit is safe to continue). And then declarer's judgment is as good as mine. Or maybe it is better. Or worse - but I don't have to teach declarer judgment.

There must be a line somewhere - a well-oiled partnership will have an (implicit or explicit) agreement about which signals they usually give when partner leads the king against a suit contract and dummy shows up with three small cards. But generally, if they say that all they know is that p will try to figure out which signal is more useful in this situation, I will trust that they have nothing further to disclose.

[aguahombre]

 helene_t, on 2014-February-24, 10:23, said:

There must be a line somewhere - a well-oiled partnership will have an (implicit or explicit) agreement about which signals they usually give when partner leads the king against a suit contract and dummy shows up with three small cards. But generally, if they say that all they know is that p will try to figure out which signal is more useful in this situation, I will trust that they have nothing further to disclose.

This is actually on point with my point. Declarer asks, and gets "Suit Preference". From that, Declarer knows (and knows my hand is such that I know) partner has led a Stiff King, and the duck holding AJX might not be brilliant.

[gnasher]

aguahombre said:

My point, Rik, is that just from the auction, the play thus far, and the look of dummy ---the defenders and Declarer all have the same information.

No they don't. The defenders have experience of playing together, and that experience creates understandings. Those understandings are information which must be shared with declarer.

 aguahombre, on 2014-February-24, 10:58, said:

This is actually on point with my point. Declarer asks, and gets "Suit Preference". From that, Declarer knows (and knows my hand is such that I know) partner has led a Stiff King, and the duck holding AJX might not be brilliant.

Nobody is suggesting that declarer should receive an answer that depends on the defenders' cards. A proper answer to his question is something like "Normal count if he has the length; attitude if I have the length; suit preference if it's likely to be a singleton" (or whatever the implicit agreement is for determining what you signal).

You answer as you would if you were a spectator who had no information except the auction, the contents of dummy, the cards played so far, and the same experience with your partner as you have. This may be difficult to do, but you should still try.

[mycroft]

I don't have to tell declarer what's in my hand. I do need to tell declarer what would determine whether - in my partnership - to signal, and if so - in my partnership - what signals would be given where (I refer to my story of playing with a pure novice and, when being asked our signalling strategy, responding with "what's a signal?")

Your agreements on whether to signal may differ from mine or from declarer's - even if they're also playing "we rarely signal, and when we do, we tell partner what they need to know." Declarer is not entitled to the contents of your hand - but declarer is entitled to the thinking you would make with what he thinks your hand will look like to read your signal as best he can.

I agree with everyone that it's difficult. I agree with gnasher that it's possible. I disagree that declarer can work it out as well as you can. In fact I think that is impossible, even with the same skillset - and doubly impossible without it. I also believe that while that is impossible to achieve in practise, anything that inhibits it is against the core concept of the game - and it is incumbent on the people playing the method to be able to explain it sufficiently to the opponents.

Quote

Law 40B6b: The Director adjusts the scores if information not given in an explanation is crucial for an opponents choice of action and that opponent is thereby damaged.

I see nothing in this line that gives an exception for "unless it's too difficult to explain."

[Trinidad]

 aguahombre, on 2014-February-24, 10:12, said:

My point, Rik, is that just from the auction, the play thus far, and the look of dummy ---the defenders and Declarer all have the same information.

Telling Declarer whether signalling is necessary here, and then whether it is attitude, count, or suit preference would be telling Declarer which defender needs signalling information and which defender doesn't need the information and will be giving it to the other one ---and that would be telling Declarer who has what.

So "What will your partner think you need to know?" could be answered:
--nothing.
--count
--attitude
--something else.

Or --"It is partner who needs to know something, not me".

Any answer reveals to Declarer how the defenders' cards are divided, and we are not required to do that.

In those cases you reply something like:
"Normally we signal X in this situation, but we agree that the player with most/the vast majority of the HCP doesnot signal."

BTW, I think it is pretty obvious that you do not signal to a player who doesn't have the possibility to do something useful with those signals. But that situation is relatively rare and, not unimportant, has very little to do with partnership agreements. If I have a 1NT opening and the auction starts 2NT on my right, Pass by me, 3NT on my left, and all pass, I will not make an honest lead and I will not signal honestly. What is partner going to do with the information I am giving?

This discussion is not about these rare cases. It is about pairs who explain at every opportunity that they will signal what (they think) partner needs to know. This is unacceptable since there must be partnership experience about how each player signals in different situations.

Rik

[WellSpyder]

 mycroft, on 2014-February-24, 15:37, said:

I agree with everyone that it's difficult. I agree with gnasher that it's possible.

Did gnasher say that? I thought he said it was required so you should do the best you can, but not that you could necessarily succeed!

[barmar]

 WellSpyder, on 2014-February-25, 08:56, said:

Did gnasher say that? I thought he said it was required so you should do the best you can, but not that you could necessarily succeed!

He gave an example that he claimed met the requirement (he said it was a "proper answer"). So it's sometimes possible in his opinion.

[aguahombre]

Well, I have failed to get across the difference between two things.

Yes, we must disclose as completely as possible that we signal or don't signal in certain situations; that only the person who believes his partner will need the information will do any righteous signalling, and in what situations those signals will be attitude or count or whatever.

When Declarer asks us to tell him whether -- at a particular point -- whose signals are meaningful to whom (and whether at that moment they are attitude or count or whatever), we don't have to answer that.

Rik would have the TD ask (for the opponents) "Given the auction and play, what will your partner need to know?" This is a direct quote from his post. This is what I don't have to tell the opponents, no matter whether they ask, the TD asks, or God asks. My only proper reply would be to repeat the explanation of our carding agreements in the form Gnasher and others have properly recommended.

Simple example: Partner leads the ACE of a side suit (vs suit) at trick one. There is a singleton in dummy. I play a card, and Declarer asks about my "signal". Partner answers that our agreement is to use suit preference in this situation, but only if we believe the information to be useful to the opening leader. Declarer asks if this time the information would be believed useful to her. If she answers, she is revealing whether or not she herself has all the remaining cards of significance.