[mike777]

1d=1h
2nt=3nt

2nt is not alerted and at end of play you see his hand is:

QJ86=K964=KJ6=K9

both opp's cards say SAYC
Opp tell you to not question their "credentials"
1h bidder is expert and tells you "what else could partner bid"
2nt bidder is advanced and tells you he has his 2nt bid, not a psyche.
ACBL director tells you 2nt bidder claims he bid his hand correctly and the opp have no agreements or understanding of bid. No penalty, no adjustment.

It seems if 2nt bidder has bid his hand correctly then he has not filled out his cc correctly?

It seems to me that either the opp have an understanding of 2nt bid, SAYC, or they have filled out their cc incorrectly. My point here is the 2nt bidder has filled out card saying sayc and 2nt is not an sayc bid. Has not the 2nt bidder filled out the cc incorrectly and is there not some penalty? Are not players required to have some general agreements or are they allowed to play no agreement bridge, filled out a cc incorrectly and play random bidding tournament bridge?

It seems some ACBL bridge law must have been broken and injury has resulted from it. If these were novices that would be one thing but they are not.

Your comments?

[Al_U_Card]

My nose doesn't work too well but that stinks to hi heaven......if 1H promised 5 and 2NT was a 4 H card minimum raise (why not 3H then) the only sensible thing is for you to defend and believe that declarer holds all of your pards hcp....for his sayc bid showing 18-19 hcp.

[inquiry]

Let's start with the obvious. 2NT rebid here, hidding 4 card support and promising a big balanced hand, when you hold 13 hcp, balanced is a lot of things, but it is not SAYC. It lied about the number of hearts, it lied even worse about the stregnth.

But, the fact that the bid was not "standard" SAYC doesn't make it an illegal bid deserving of an automatic correction. A few questions after to be answered.

1) Did their CC accurately reflect their agreement (to play SAYC)
2) What agreement did the partnership actually have?

Even if they had some funny agreement here that didn't get alerted properly, if 3NT is top spot and always have 9 tricks, and 4H is going down, there will still be no call to adjust the score. You were damaged by them reaching a superior contract (in that case) rather than by failures to alert.

Now assume they got to 3NT where, if you had know declarer had balanced 13=15 with four card support you would have found a different line of defense than you did (say parnter lead a heart through dummy wiht a doubleton that lets this make). In that case, an adjustment would be required.

I am more curious asa to what north held here. Would he raise 2H to 4? Would he pass 2H or 1NT? Bidding like this often suggest either the bidder is a beginner and doesn't know what to bid, or has UI and is making a bid that will manuever the contract into the "magic" spot. Such might be the case if his partner has 10 and 3NT is magic. No way to tell from one hand of course.

[mike777]

Dummy was:
AT3=QJ82=974=QJ2

I assume having a CC means you have some set of partnership agreements and understandings, yes? I think the main issue is here is either cc is filled out incorrectly or correctly? Second issue is the 2nt bid defined by cc? If not then I agree with the ruling but I think the sayc does define the 2nt bid!

Each opp needs to fill out a convention card. That means the 2nt bidder filled out the SAYC card. 2nt is defined in SAYC as some kind of big balanced hand. This opp says he bid his hand correctly per cc and their agreements.

My point is opp can play whatever they want but give us defenders a clue what your bids mean. How can you fill out a convention card one way and play a different way? Again these guys said do not question their "credentials" so I assume they are what they claim!

Director ruled that 2nt bidder claims he bid his hand correctly and they have no partnership agreements and understanding. That seems to mean he has filled out his cc incorrectly which is not legal? SAYC convention card said they did have an agreement by definition, yes? If 2nt rebid is undefined in SAYC, ok, then I would agree with this ruling.

[Al_U_Card]

Unfortunately, the poor players pay out 19 times in 20. When you get dinged by their fix it hurts. If these guys proposed that they "knew what they were doing" then I expect that they pulled a fast one and the director didn't have a clue, or knows them and (sadly) allowed this chicanery to go unpunished

[keylime]

Once the TD's start issuing procedural penalties of avg plus/minus for this nonsense, the ACBL events will improve markedly in quality.

[Robert]

Hello everyone

I would appeal the TD's decision. If this isn't MI, I have no clue what is.

I am sure that this pair has no agreement. I also believe that the moon is made of green cheese.

Let this other pair with their 'credentials' attempt to convince a committer that something is not very rotten in Denmark.

Perhaps they can convince a committee that an aceless 13HCP hand opens 1m and rebids 2NT over his partners 1H bid 'without' some agreement that this shows a balanced hand 'with' 4 card heart support and only "13" HCP playing SAYC?

Western Union should have wires that carry information half this well.

Tar and feathers have gone out of style. Pity.

Regards,
Robert

[Echognome]

Ben's point is valid here. We need to back up here a second. If I came to the table, I'd first ask what the problem is. You would presumably say that 2NT was not alerted and the hand didn't match what the bid was supposed to show according to their convention card. Then I would ask what their agreement is about a 2NT rebid. If their agreement is that it shows 18,19 balanced, then no adjustment. Opponents are allowed to misbid. You cannot regulate bad bridge. You may have been unlucky it worked out for them, but that's the breaks in bridge.

Point number two. Suppose that 2NT showed a heart raise with a minimum opener. Then there was a failure to alert and you have been given misinformation (MI). I would have to ask you how you felt damaged. Would a proper alert have changed any of your bids? (You'd have to have a compelling case I'm sure.) Did it affect the defense? If so, what it have made any difference? Here things get a bit more complicated and the director would normally consult other directors on a judgment ruling. Obviously, online this can be a bit difficult and the director would have to rule what they thought was fair. As far as I'm aware, there's no appeals online.

Anyway, first the TD needs to find out if there was any MI and then if there was any damage. It seems the TD rules there was no MI. Unlucky for you guys that the opps gained.

[hrothgar]

As usual, there are a number of issues that need to be considered:

Comment 1: In order for you to get an adjusted score you need to demonstrate that you were damaged by the infraction. Assume for the moment that you had received appropriate disclosure regaridng the opponents "true" agreements - Would this have impacted your defense or bidding in any way, shape, or form? Unless you can demonstrate a credible link between the infraction and your poor result you won't be able to get much from the Director

Comment 2: Assume for the moment that the opponents have the explicit agreement that the 2NT rebid shows a minimum balanced hand with 4 card support. Its unclear to me whether this bid would require an alert. (I didn't see anything in the alert chart that explicitly requires an alert in this situation). Admittly there is some general claptrap regarding "Highly Unusual and Unexpected Meanings", however, this can be difficult to define.

Comment 3: A partnership that is too stupid to recognize that there are other possible rebids other than 2NT holding the hand in question isn't likely to recognize what's highly unusual.

[Winstonm]

I think I can see (make that empathize) with the bothersome issue here - it is not so much the board or the result or even whether or not there should be an adjustment (I don't see one here, by the way), but it is the distasteful sensation one gets in the pit of his stomach when one feels he has been suckered or had the wool pulled over his eyes by a clever charmain.

Perhaps this is a better way to bid - 2N allowing you to play 2N, 3H, 4H, and 3N depending on responder's hand. The point is, though, for 99.9% of us who have come up with some such agreement we are more than glad to brag about our cleverness when asked, and an alert is required for an implicit agreement.

My pard and I play that a 1S rebid by opener is forcing, therefore a 2N rebid denies 4 spades. This could be meaningful information to opening leader, but because it is an agreement within a system if we wanted to we could simply say we play 2/1 - and who could prove any different?

From what I have seen in the world of competition, the very best abhor the idea of gaining an advantage from less than full disclosure because it taints their wins. Sadly, there are others who do not feel this way.

What we are really discussing here is morals and character and those are issues that are next to impossible to regulate. For me, I'd rather win honestly 1 time in a 1000 than increase that tenfold and have whispers behind my back; after all, I'm the only one who has to live with my choices and actions.

Winston

[inquiry]

Let me give a hand from just last night....

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

 -     1♦    Pass  1NT!
 2♥    Pass  Pass  3NT
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

---

I bid the 1NT with south hand. We play a 2/1 GF kind of thing, WALSH. So my hand is very non=standard. The problem is, I heard (well saw) my parnter open 1♥... that is, i thought his bid was 1H. So I alerted my 1NT bid as 5+♠, Forcing 1 round. Over 2♥, I had to re-evaluate. Saw the bid was 1♦ and I judged that 3NT was best shot.

Now imagine EW discomfort. The spade split assured 4♠ (the most popular contract was set, usually two. In 3NT. i won the heart lead, played ♦ to king and then spade to ace. When West showed out (club pitch), the hand became easy in NT. Another ♦, the ace won. Now I could strip enplay WEST in clubs or hearts for my game going trick. That was 11 imps to us. Nothing any director can do. Opponents were unlucky. That is bridge.

[pigpenz]

i agree you can do anything you like as long as you arent cheating you are allowed to fool your partner and your opponents now if dummy came down with 16hcp and they played 3nt i would be worried

[barmar]

mike777, on Nov 24 2005, 02:39 PM, said:

My point is opp can play whatever they want but give us defenders a clue what your bids mean. How can you fill out a convention card one way and play a different way?

The Laws say that you don't always have to have the hand that's described by your bid -- it's called psychic bid or just "psyche". As long as the partner of the psychic bidder is as much in the dark about the fact that he lied, there's no penalty.

In this case, there are two things to consider:

1) How did opener know that 2NT was safe? This generally requires about 23 combined HCP, and his partner could have as little as 6, for a combined 19 HCP. So either he's a really bad bidder, they have a special (non-SAYC) agreement about this 2NT bid, or there's some cheating going on. It's very weird to lie about your strength in uncontested auctions, since partner really needs to know this to set the proper contract level (conversely, psychic cue bids can be very profitable, if they get the opponents off to the wrong lead).

2) If responder had 14 or more HCP and only bid 3NT, I'd suspect something fishy. From his perspective, opener has 18-19 HCP, so he should be looking for slam. But in the actual case, he only had a balanced 10 HCP, not enough to go slam hunting, so his 3NT raise was normal.