[OleBerg]

A player is on lead in this auction (only one side bids):

2♣¹ - 2♦²
3♠³ - 4♦⁴
5♦⁵ - 6♦⁶
6♠

1:Strong
2:Relay
3:At least a strong 6-suiter, normally sets spades.
4:Cuebid
5:No agreement
6:No agreement

The player on lead has:

♠6/♥AJ72/♦QJ4/♣KT954

The player lead ♦Q which is bad for the defence.

After the hand it turns out that the correct explanation to 5♦ was: Voidwood

The player on lead now claims, that with the correct explanation he would have lead a spade. Which is good for the defence.

How much credit does he get? What is your ruling?

[akwoo]

First, what is the correct explanation for 6♦?

Second, I strongly suspect the correct ruling will depend on whether you are in a jurisdiction that gives split scores or percentages.

[OleBerg]

akwoo, on 2015-October-25, 15:08, said:

First, what is the correct explanation for 6♦?

Second, I strongly suspect the correct ruling will depend on whether you are in a jurisdiction that gives split scores or percentages.

Thank you for the reply.

The correct explanation is that it is the answer to the 5♦ Voidwood. The hand happened in a jurisdiction where all forms of adjusted scores are allowed, and are at the TD's discretion.

But what I am really interested in, is how much we believe the claim that the wrong explanation caused the bed lead?

[akwoo]

The correct question according to the Laws is not "Did the wrong explanation cause the bad lead?" but rather "Would the player likely have made a better lead given the correct explanation?"

Yes, I think the diamond lead is clearly terrible after Voidwood, more clearly bad than with the misexplanation.

I'm not sure I buy the spade lead though. In the ACBL, which allows split scores, I would give declarer the score from the spade lead, but I'm not sure I'd give that to the defense. Intermediate-advanced players around here (myself included) have been taught not to lead singleton trump and probably follow that rule more than they should.

[aguahombre]

"The correct explanation is that it is the answer to the 5♦ Voidwood."?

Does this mean Responder also had a void? If so, and if opening leader had known this, it seems a trump lead would be automatic. But, was there MI, or was it not an agreement? When it is close, we are supposed to go with MI. I think it is MI.

[pran]

My very first question would be:
Why did you bid 5♦ and 6♦?

You say that you have no agreements for these bids, but Law 40 does not concern agreements, it concerns partnership understandings.

How did the partnership understand these two bids?

My ruling is likely to be that "no agreement" is misinformation as what is required is disclosure of the partnership understanding they apparently must have had by using these bids.

How to adjust the score depends on several factors not known from the OP.

[barmar]

pran, on 2015-October-26, 02:33, said:

You say that you have no agreements for these bids, but Law 40 does not concern agreements, it concerns partnership understandings.

What distinction are you making between these two terms? They're generally used interchangeably in our discussions. Do you think agreements don't include implicit partnership understandings?

[barmar]

akwoo, on 2015-October-25, 19:04, said:

I'm not sure I buy the spade lead though. In the ACBL, which allows split scores, I would give declarer the score from the spade lead, but I'm not sure I'd give that to the defense. Intermediate-advanced players around here (myself included) have been taught not to lead singleton trump and probably follow that rule more than they should.

More to the point, leading trumps is indicated when the short has a void, to reduce its ruffing power. But in this case, the hand with long trumps bid voidwood, and a trump lead isn't likely to give it much trouble.

But he might lead trumps just as a least of evils -- if declarer has a solid suit, as the bidding suggests, it probably won't blow a trick like leading away from honors would.

[WellSpyder]

barmar, on 2015-October-26, 10:20, said:

What distinction are you making between these two terms? They're generally used interchangeably in our discussions. Do you think agreements don't include implicit partnership understandings?

The OP states that there is no agreement about the 5♦ bid or the 6♦ bid. But the first was apparently meant as exclusion RKCB, and the second as a response to exclusion RKCB. That at least suggests that there may have been more of an understanding than was admitted to.

[barmar]

WellSpyder, on 2015-October-26, 10:57, said:

The OP states that there is no agreement about the 5♦ bid or the 6♦ bid. But the first was apparently meant as exclusion RKCB, and the second as a response to exclusion RKCB. That at least suggests that there may have been more of an understanding than was admitted to.

In a reply, the OP stated "The correct explanation is that it is the answer to the 5♦ Voidwood.". If that's not their agreement or understanding, what makes it the "correct explanation"?

I interpreted the original diagram as stating what was explained at the table. Since the explanation differed from their agreement, it's MI, and the opponents may be entitled to an adjustment.

[Zelandakh]

Ole, could you please clarify the 5♦ and 6♦ calls. For each please give:-

a. the meaning the player making the call wanted it to have;
b. the meaning that player's partner thought it had;
c. the meaning that was given to the defenders;
d. when that explanation was given;
e. if a later correction to the explanation was provided;
f. if the answer to e is affirmative, the answers to c and d for this second explanation;
And finally,
g. whether the TD was able to establish whether there really was an agreement for the meanings of these calls (and if so, how).

Cheers.

[wank]

pran, on 2015-October-26, 02:33, said:

My very first question would be:
Why did you bid 5♦ and 6♦?

You say that you have no agreements for these bids, but Law 40 does not concern agreements, it concerns partnership understandings.

lol 5d 'voidwood' got raised to 6. does it sound like they had any partnership understanding?

[OleBerg]

Zelandakh, on 2015-October-26, 11:41, said:

Ole, could you please clarify the 5♦ and 6♦ calls. For each please give:-

a. the meaning the player making the call wanted it to have;
b. the meaning that player's partner thought it had;
c. the meaning that was given to the defenders;
d. when that explanation was given;
e. if a later correction to the explanation was provided;
f. if the answer to e is affirmative, the answers to c and d for this second explanation;
And finally,
g. whether the TD was able to establish whether there really was an agreement for the meanings of these calls (and if so, how).

Cheers.

a: The player bidding 5♦ meant it as Voidwood, The player bidding 6♦ simply meant it as "more in diamonds".
b: The player that was to interpret 5♦ didn't know what it was. The player to interpret 6♦ knew his 5♦ had been misunderstod.
c: No agreements was given to both defenders.
d: Before the opening lead.
e: It was, after the hand had been played
f: Should be ansered elsewhere.
g: There was such an agreement. Both players readily admitted to it, and it was in the system-notes.

To you and others: What I am really looking for, is not legal advise as such, but your opinion on how much credit we give to the claim, that the MI caused the bad lead, anfd that a spade would have been lead with the right explanation.

Thx all in advance

[pran]

pran, on 2015-October-26, 02:33, said:

You say that you have no agreements for these bids, but Law 40 does not concern agreements, it concerns partnership understandings.

barmar, on 2015-October-26, 10:20, said:

What distinction are you making between these two terms? They're generally used interchangeably in our discussions. Do you think agreements don't include implicit partnership understandings?

It is the other way round: Partnership understandings include (but is not limited to) agreements.

I know that players often assert they have no agreement on a particular call, and truly - they don't.

However, the moment they (happily) apply such a call it obviously is with some expectation as to how partner will understand it.

This expectation is part of their partnership understanding, particularly when the expectation is met satisfactorily.

That apparently was the case with the 5♦ and 6♦ calls in OP. And that is why "no agreement" is misinformation in this case.

[akwoo]

First, let me repeat, it is irrelevant as far as the laws are concerned whether the misinformation caused the diamond lead(**). All that is relevant is whether the opening leader would have made a different lead given correct information. Of course, one takes into account that the opening leader was the type of player who would have made a diamond lead given the wrong information.

My ruling (under ACBL regulations - which gives the worst reasonably possible result to the offending side and the most likely result to the non-offending side) is to give the spade lead to the declaring side and the A♥ lead to the defending side(*).

(*) I think the proper explanation for 6♦ in the circumstances is that it is an impossible bid. (Presumably the agreement is something like odd number of keycards and a diamond void, and that is impossible.) I would think "lead an Ace and look at dummy" seems like the right thing to do given the opponents don't know what they're doing.

(**) That's not quite true - there is an exception of the diamond lead was a serious error, wild, or gambling. I don't think any of those holds in this situation.

[gordontd]

OleBerg, on 2015-October-26, 14:31, said:

What I am really looking for, is not legal advise as such, but your opinion on how much credit we give to the claim, that the MI caused the bad lead, anfd that a spade would have been lead with the right explanation.

I think a player is much more likely to lead a trump when told there is a void than to lead the suit in which the void was. But I almost certainly wouldn't give them 100% of it (weighted ruling).

[gnasher]

OleBerg, on 2015-October-26, 14:31, said:

a: The player bidding 5♦ meant it as Voidwood, The player bidding 6♦ simply meant it as "more in diamonds".
b: The player that was to interpret 5♦ didn't know what it was. The player to interpret 6♦ knew his 5♦ had been misunderstod.
c: No agreements was given to both defenders.
d: Before the opening lead.
e: It was, after the hand had been played
f: Should be ansered elsewhere.
g: There was such an agreement. Both players readily admitted to it, and it was in the system-notes.

Did the 5D bidder know that it was in the system notes? If so, why didn't he correct the explanation *before* the opening lead?

[Trinidad]

gordontd, on 2015-October-27, 01:11, said:

I think a player is much more likely to lead a trump when told there is a void than to lead the suit in which the void was. But I almost certainly wouldn't give them 100% of it (weighted ruling).

I am thinking a little bit more extreme than Gordon:

I give full credit to the claim that a diamond would not have been led.
I give almost full credit to the claim that a trump would have been led. The "almost full" is so much that I would make it a 100%.

In addition, I issue a PP. I rarely give PPs for giving MI, so it is not for the MI. But I do give PPs for not correcting the MI. Presumably, declarer knew at the point when he bid 5♦ that it was Voidwood. Then he should have corrected the MI (in front of the TD) before the opening lead.

Rik

[barmar]

pran, on 2015-October-26, 15:58, said:

However, the moment they (happily) apply such a call it obviously is with some expectation as to how partner will understand it.

Maybe we'll never come to an agreement on this, but I've repeatedly maintained that this is not always the case. Sometimes you improvise, make a bid based on general bridge logic ("what else could it mean?"), or by analogy with other situations, and hope partner will understand it as you intended, but not necessarily expect him to do so. That's not a partnership understanding.

You can't just assume that when a player makes a bid with a particular intent that there's an actual partnership understanding behind it.

[gordontd]

Trinidad, on 2015-October-27, 10:09, said:

I am thinking a little bit more extreme than Gordon:

I give full credit to the claim that a diamond would not have been led.
I give almost full credit to the claim that a trump would have been led. The "almost full" is so much that I would make it a 100%.

In addition, I issue a PP. I rarely give PPs for giving MI, so it is not for the MI. But I do give PPs for not correcting the MI. Presumably, declarer knew at the point when he bid 5♦ that it was Voidwood. Then he should have corrected the MI (in front of the TD) before the opening lead.

Rik

I would ordinarily agree with this, but it seems to me that leading from D QJx is so strange whatever the three diamond calls meant, that I find it hard to discount the possibility that the player might still lead it with the correct information. And there are those who always lead aces against slams, and others who often underlead kings against them, to try to set up a second trick. So that's why it feels to me that it should be less than 100%, but I'd be happy to listen to the player's arguments as to why I'm wrong on those points.