funny story and two questions
#1
Posted 2013-March-04, 07:56
♠AK
♥AKQ4
♦KQT5
♣K83
(summary of auction follows description)
So I open 2♣. LHO passes and now the fun starts. Partner bids 1NT (insufficient). I notice only that the strain is NT, parse it as 2NT which shows spades, and alert it. RHO, fully aware of what is going on, bids 2♥ smoothly. After some thought I decide to raise partner, so I lay out the 2♠ card. While LHO is thinking over this unusual auction, I finally notice what is happening. Unlike my stoic RHO, I fail to keep quiet about it, and say something like "er, wait, what ..?" and all four of us start laughing. Now I suppose at this point we should call director, but we all agree that since RHO accepted the bid we can continue. LHO passes, partner bids 3♥, RHO passes. Flummoxed, I bid 6NT which ends the auction and makes seven on a diamond lead from the jack, partner inserting the ten from this uncommonly strong dummy. Turns out partner is 55 in the majors with both minor suit aces. 6NT+1 is a little above average, beating 6♥+1 and 6NT= but losing to 7♥ which is cold. We all laughed some more and went on to the next board. And no, we never got around to asking RHO what she was up to with the 2♥ bid. So:
2♣ -p - 1NT - 2♥
2♠ - p - 3♥ - p
6NT - p - p - p
Questions:
1. If righty rejected 1NT, and partner substitutes 2NT, is anyone barred or otherwise restricted?
2. Was I ethically constrained in any way, and was 6NT acceptable within such a constraint?
-gwnn
#2
Posted 2013-March-04, 08:52
2. You have no UI, so you're not constrained.
What was RHO's 2♥, a psych, planning on running to clubs if doubled?
#3
Posted 2013-March-04, 09:28
barmar, on 2013-March-04, 08:52, said:
2. You have no UI, so you're not constrained.
What was RHO's 2♥, a psych, planning on running to clubs if doubled?
Apparently so. Fun times for all
-gwnn
#4
Posted 2013-March-04, 10:48
2. You can do whatever you wish. The whole point of RHOs call is to put you in "I bet you have no agreements about *this* auction" mode, and you're allowed to guess; and you're allowed to guess right.
[Edit: fixed my incorrect jargon. Thanks, iviehoff and barmar.]
#5
Posted 2013-March-04, 12:24
Personally I am more suspicious of the opposite argument ("It was a mechanical error, but I didn't notice until someone pointed out it was insufficient"), particularly under the old laws where it was the only way to avoid silencing partner.
#6
Posted 2013-March-06, 04:23
#7
Posted 2013-March-06, 04:33
FrancesHinden, on 2013-March-06, 04:23, said:
I'm surprised by this view. I can see nothing in Laws 9, 10 or 27 to disallow this, and it's something I often do.
London UK
#8
Posted 2013-March-06, 04:36
FrancesHinden, on 2013-March-06, 04:23, said:
What makes you think that? He is under no obligation to call the director if attention has not been drawn to the irregularity. He is under no obligation to draw attention to an irregularity that he is aware of. To make a call that is sufficient in relation to the previous bid, being an insufficient bid, is not subject to any rectification; although we can argue about whether it is irregular or not, if the director is called he will simply direct the auction to continue and sufficiency in future is relative to the last bid made.
#9
Posted 2013-March-06, 04:47
mycroft, on 2013-March-04, 10:48, said:
Let's be careful about this. "Mistaken bid" is not a defined term, and how it can be corrected needs care.
On the one hand, it can be an unintended bid - the player thought he was bidding 2NT but his hand put the 1NT card on the table. This can be corrected under the unintended bid laws if noticed by the player in time, but not if he doesn't notice in time, or fails to follow the correct procedure for correcting it. So the player may have mispulled, but not corrected it under the unintended bid laws.
On the other hand, the player may have had in mind that what he wanted to do was make a minimally sufficient bid in NT, fail correctly to calculate how many NT was sufficient, and put down 1NT rather than 2NT.
In both these two scenarios, when the director asks the player what 1NT means, the player will say it means just what 2NT means, because in effect that is what he was trying to bid, even though in the first case it was a mispull and in the second case it is a miscalculation. In our strange world of the insufficient bid laws, where we need to know what the insufficient bid means, and the only way we can find out what it means is to ask the player's intention in making the insufficient bid. Thus we will find that 2NT has precisely the same meaning as 1NT, because 1NT was bid with the intention of bidding 2NT, whether it was mispulled or miscalculated.
These are scenarios in which an artificial 1NT can be corrected to 2NT without penalty under the insufficient laws, and are presumably what you meant by "mistaken bid". There may be some other rare cases where the player was under a different misapprehension but by chance the correction is allowable, but that would be uncommon.
#10
Posted 2013-March-06, 05:51
iviehoff, on 2013-March-06, 04:47, said:
This seems to be what mycroft intended, since he wrote "partner thought he *was* bidding 2NT". He just made a mistake in calling it "mistaken" instead of "unintended".
#11
Posted 2013-March-06, 11:11
#12
Posted 2013-March-07, 07:37
-gwnn