[campboy]

wanoff, on 2015-July-29, 12:37, said:

I don't remember using it either without a fit but ........ big balanced, 2 cd fit, 0/1 stop in their suit comes to mind.
The point is, does the EBU require chapter and verse, something like 'Either a good spade raise excepting the mixed raise to 3 level (and possibly the limit raise), or some other unspecified hand that has never occurred before' ?
I am sufficiently an anorak to be able to give this explanation, but is this really the direction the EBU wish to go in attracting new members ?

I don't see that it is particularly onerous to get this right. At a club, "good hand with support" seems to be adequate for one way of playing it, and "good hand, normally with support" for the other.

[steve2005]

I don\t see the problem, partner didn't have support but has a good hand. Surely they showed this when in later bidding, so everybody would know.?

[mycroft]

See Frances' comment - they have *no way* to turn off the "has support" information. Neither do I, nor "anyone" in my area (but we play this raise slightly stronger, usually limit+). So what happens if partner has the hand that "can control the auction", fails, ends up in 4 of their "fit", and I take the sacrifice, only to find it's a phantom because partner has 4 of them rather than the 2 I can count?

Hard for "everybody" to know this when it's not explained, and there is no experience of it being anything else.

Having said that, if "good single raise" is the *agreement*, and partner decided to deviate because he could "control the auction", and it's a surprise to overcaller, that's legal. If it's not a surprise to overcaller (even because they've read the same books), then we might rule MI.

I have to admit I always got caught by my 1♦ in Precision. "11-15, 2+♦, 1NT would be 10-12"; on the 1NT rebid, "oops, could be a average or worse balanced 16. I always forget that in my explanation". Yes, that could have caused me problems; no, it never did.

[blackshoe]

campboy, on 2015-July-30, 02:39, said:

The question is not whether they've agreed to play it that way; the question is whether they've agreed to play it as it was actually described. And it sounds like the answer is no. If wanoff thought it could potentially be a strong hand without support (as he's said in this thread) and his partner thought the same thing (since he bid it with such a hand), it seems clear that they do not have the agreement that it always has support. So there was MI.

You see the fact that wanoff has read about including strong hands without support in the cue bid, coupled with the fact that his partner cue bid with that hand, as definitive evidence that they have an agreement to bid that way. I don't, absent additional evidence that they've done this before. They have an explicit agreement that the cue bid shows support. Maybe wanoff's partner just took a shot, figuring that he could control the auction. Is there any evidence why he bid this way?

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2015-July-30, 09:50, said:

You see the fact that wanoff has read about including strong hands without support in the cue bid, coupled with the fact that his partner cue bid with that hand, as definitive evidence that they have an agreement to bid that way. I don't, absent additional evidence that they've done this before. They have an explicit agreement that the cue bid shows support. Maybe wanoff's partner just took a shot, figuring that he could control the auction. Is there any evidence why he bid this way?

Yes. It was their agreement.

[Trinidad]

Vampyr, on 2015-July-30, 10:36, said:

Yes. It was their agreement.

And even if it wasn't their agreement, then wanoff didn't know better than that it was their agreement (that the cue could show a strong hand without support). So, to put it black and white, wanoff knowingly explained something else ("shows support") than what he thought the agreement was ("shows support or something strong", "as we all know").

That seems to merit some form of reprimand, even in the case that wanoff's ideas about the agreement were wrong and his explanation -by pure coincidence- happened to be correct.

Rik

[Vampyr]

Trinidad, on 2015-July-30, 12:34, said:

That seems to merit some form of reprimand, even in the case that wanoff's ideas about the agreement were wrong and his explanation -by pure coincidence- happened to be correct.

Also the committee may well have been exasperated if wan off presented his case as he did in this thread -- telling us what explanation he gave, asking whether it was correct... and then several posts later gets round to mentioning what his agreement is.

[campboy]

blackshoe, on 2015-July-30, 09:50, said:

You see the fact that wanoff has read about including strong hands without support in the cue bid, coupled with the fact that his partner cue bid with that hand, as definitive evidence that they have an agreement to bid that way.

No I don't and I did not say that. I see it as evidence that they don't have an agreement not to bid that way. I don't think they had a clear agreement as to whether support was promised or not.

Now the question of whether they have an agreement that they can bid this way, as I said before but evidently need to say again, is neither here nor there. The only relevant question is whether they actually have the agreement that was explained, that it must have support. Wanoff doesn't claim to believe that, and there is absolutely no reason to think that wanoff's partner believes it either, since he never describes it that way.

[blackshoe]

campboy, on 2015-July-30, 13:34, said:

they don't have an agreement not to bid that way

So? I don't see anything in the law about agreements not to bid some way.

[FrancesHinden]

wank, on 2015-July-29, 16:33, said:

which club is this? (just so i can avoid it)

By the way, while I agree about the MI I also agree with this. A TD's ruling is one thing, a 'reprimand' is another: to me that implies that you were knowingly doing something 'wrong' which obivously (to me) isn't the case.

[Vampyr]

campboy, on 2015-July-30, 13:34, said:

No I don't and I did not say that. I see it as evidence that they don't have an agreement not to bid that way. I don't think they had a clear agreement as to whether support was promised or not.

OK, well partner didn't have support and wanoff believed that he didn't promise support. Yet they didn't have an agreement? What do you have to do to be deemed to have an agreement -- carve it in cuneiform?

[campboy]

blackshoe, on 2015-July-30, 15:24, said:

So? I don't see anything in the law about agreements not to bid some way.

Wanoff's explanation indicated that it shows support by agreement. In other words, that they have an agreement not to bid it without support. If they do not have such an agreement (whether or not they have the opposite agreement) then there was MI. What is difficult about this concept?

[campboy]

Vampyr, on 2015-July-30, 16:26, said:

OK, well partner didn't have support and wanoff believed that he didn't promise support. Yet they didn't have an agreement? What do you have to do to be deemed to have an agreement -- carve it in cuneiform?

I'm generously assuming that they simply agreed to play "UCB" without discussing exactly what that meant, and a hand where one of them wanted to bid it without support hasn't come up before. If it mattered to the ruling, I might investigate whether they have a clear agreement on this issue more carefully. But it doesn't matter, since there was MI either way.

Basically there is a difference between the case of "I might occasionally bid this without support, but I don't know whether my partner would because it's never come up" and "I know my partner might occasionally bid this without support, even though it's never come up". But whichever applies, it should have been disclosed and it wasn't.

[fromageGB]

It seems that support is expected, so I can't see why you refer to it as an unassuming cue bid. You can't assume anything about an unassuming bid. If the words "unassuming cue bid" were used in the explanation, as well as the description "a high card raise" then I think this is a contradictory explanation (but of course not worthy of a reprimand). Well, now you have discussed it, you can obviously give a better explanation next time.

[Vampyr]

fromageGB, on 2015-July-31, 04:32, said:

It seems that support is expected, so I can't see why you refer to it as an unassuming cue bid. You can't assume anything about an unassuming bid. If the words "unassuming cue bid" were used in the explanation, as well as the description "a high card raise" then I think this is a contradictory explanation (but of course not worthy of a reprimand). Well, now you have discussed it, you can obviously give a better explanation next time.

In reality, everybody says they play an "unassuming cue bid", but most have not the slightest idea what that means.

[barmar]

FrancesHinden, on 2015-July-30, 15:33, said:

By the way, while I agree about the MI I also agree with this. A TD's ruling is one thing, a 'reprimand' is another: to me that implies that you were knowingly doing something 'wrong' which obivously (to me) isn't the case.

Seems to me that a reprimand wouldn't be warranted unless you'd already been warned that your explanation was inadequate, and you continued to use it.

[blackshoe]

campboy, on 2015-July-31, 02:53, said:

I'm generously assuming that they simply agreed to play "UCB" without discussing exactly what that meant, and a hand where one of them wanted to bid it without support hasn't come up before. If it mattered to the ruling, I might investigate whether they have a clear agreement on this issue more carefully. But it doesn't matter, since there was MI either way.

Basically there is a difference between the case of "I might occasionally bid this without support, but I don't know whether my partner would because it's never come up" and "I know my partner might occasionally bid this without support, even though it's never come up". But whichever applies, it should have been disclosed and it wasn't.

So it is illegal to deviate from your agreements unless your partner, who presumably does not know that you have or may have deviated, tells the opponents that you may have done so. This is where I have a problem.

[billw55]

1eyedjack, on 2015-July-29, 13:43, said:

Whatever, getting a reprimand from your club's Laws and Ethics committee has to be the overreaction of the millennium.

True in isolation, which leads me to suspect there is more to the story.

[PhilKing]

billw55, on 2015-July-31, 13:46, said:

True in isolation, which leads me to suspect there is more to the story.

Yep - it could possibly be that buckle heads like giving reprimands.

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2015-July-31, 12:36, said:

So it is illegal to deviate from your agreements unless your partner, who presumably does not know that you have or may have deviated, tells the opponents that you may have done so. This is where I have a problem.

Why do you think partner has deviated? Partner has made a bid, and the OP agrees that such a bid with such a hand is within their agreements. Why are you having trouble understanding this?