sailoranch

3♥ over a weak 2♥ is potentially stronger than 3♥ over an intermediate 2♥. The UI suggests South may have underbid, which means North has more reason to continue to game than he otherwise would have.

No information and misinformation are both failures to provide an accurate explanation of the call. If you described a call as "no information" the first time and claimed it wasn't an infraction, the director would laugh at you. And if we're saying that the second time MI is not an infraction, it means that your opponent is no longer entitled to the correct description. You're right in that the NOS has received no new information and would make the same decisions with or without the repeat of the MI, but I don't see how this is a basis for concluding that it relieves the offender of the obligation to describe his side's agreements accurately the second time around. The problem, of course, is that if we accept that this is in fact a new infraction, it means that we would have to give the NOS the more favorable adjustment, 3NT= in Zel's scenario, whereas without the non-information, they would get 4♥-1. If you think such a huge swing for a non-event seems silly, I would agree with you. None that would admit it. But the real issue is that even the honest players in this situation would normally fail to give a correct explanation and end up gaining.

I thought you made the adjustment more beneficial to the NOS, since this is the only one that provides redress for the damage from both infractions.

If it's an infraction, then why doesn't it affect the ruling? Why aren't NOS entitled to an adjustment to the score they would have received had the infraction not occurred?

You just said that if South makes another inquiry and receives the same MI, it's not an infraction, or at least that it doesn't affect the ruling. This means the OS have every reason not to give a correct explanation, even when asked, when doing so would let a game through, and the NOS basically have no redress.

If so, it's a shameful thing, because it implies that the NOS, once misinformed, are no longer entitled to the correct explanation of the opponents' methods. Are we really saying that the obligation for disclosure (40B4 and 20F, I guess) just doesn't apply anymore, as long as you've already misled the opponents?

I'm saying that the NOS receive a worse table result than they would have without the initial MI, but there's an intermediate point at which they could have gotten an even better result if they had received the correct information. At that point, if they ask the opponents to repeat the MI, it would create a new infraction and the NOS would get an adjustment at that point to the best result.

Right, I am talking about David's weighted ruling, but situations where rolling back to the initial explanation instead of the MI-tainted action would be common enough. Say West misinforms the opponents, but South reaches a better contract as a result of the MI, but ends up going down, also as a result of the MI. It makes sense to me that South should be entitled to the correct information after the auction and before the play, in which case he would make, but would end up with a less favorable adjustment after rolling back to the original MI event. Here, a West who remembers the correct explanation is required to inform the TD, but has every incentive not to do so and no way of being caught. Another quirk is that a player that is about to take an action based on the MI can actually get the later adjustment simply by asking the opponent to repeat the MI explanation. So in order to protect your equity, you must suspect that the opponents have given you MI in the first place, or you have to just ask about the opponents' entire auction before every call. This would favor experienced players who have more reason to believe something's amiss, or in the latter case, paranoid rules lawyers.

Under Definitions:

First, South could well have remembered and failed to correct the MI, which is why I am bringing up Law 23. If we don't adjust for that, then Law 20F4 must be completely unenforceable and we're giving South every reason to keep his mouth shut. Second, and probably more controversially, I think that each call based on MI is itself an irregularity. After all, Law 21 is all about rectifying such, and rectification is specified for irregularities. We're mainly getting hung up over whether the irregularity specified in 21B3 refers to the gift of MI or the call based on the MI. I contend it's the latter, because it avoids scenarios like these where adjusting for the explanation would lead to a worse score for the NOS than they would have expected with knowledge of the opponents' methods. It would also render the above business about 20F4 unnecessary. The adjustment that's being advocated (70% +200, 30% penalty) must be worse than the NOS would have expected if they had simply known the opponents' agreements and the entire system of alerts and explanations had not existed. It also adjusts to a scenario, that South correctly explains but then misbids, that would pretty much never happen in real life, and our hypothetical West, not knowing he's inside the Matrix, is required to judge under the assumption that real life rules still apply. I'm aware that I have less experience in these matters than other posters here. But if this is really the correct adjustment, it seems clear to me that the offenders will have gained because of the MI, and the Laws or their popular interpretation need to be revised.

If there are two irregularities, one being the misexplanation and the other being the failure to correct it, where does Law 12 say that we have to adjust for the earlier one rather than the later one?

Exactly, South failed to correct the MI before/after the 3♦ call pursuant to 20F4. Why can't we use Law 23 to adjust?

This reminds me of a time I was playing with a new partner. The auction was something like 1♣-(2♣ majors) and I bid 2♠ with diamonds, believing we had agreed Unusual vs. Unusual, lower for lower. Partner did not alert, and when prompted by LHO, he claimed "no agreement." UvU was, in fact, not listed on our otherwise detailed card. LHO passed, partner raised diamonds, and opps called the director, who looks at our card, shrugs, and says, "Well, if they have no agreement, then they have no agreement," and walks away.

I want to find a reasoned basis to disagree with this, because it doesn't seem to be restoring equity. At his turn, West is entitled to base his call on AI from what's happened so far and on North-South's actual understandings. Then it would be clear that they made a boo-boo so West would insta-pass, but he was deprived of the opportunity because of the MI. Perhaps it's correct, but it's certainly weird to adjust by giving West proper knowledge of the opponents' methods, but also saddling him with the (false) inference that South knows what he's doing, causing West to misjudge and blow up 30% of the time. The best solution I can think of is to designate West's call based on MI as the irregularity we're adjusting for, rather than the explanation itself, but someone with more experience can tell me if this is veering into "wrong forum" territory.

I thought West was entitled to both the correct information about the agreement and the AI he received from South's pass on the actual auction. After all, the irregularity is the non-alert, not the misunderstanding. I think "had the irregularity not occurred" in 12C1e(i) means "had West been correctly informed," not "had South remembered their agreement and properly alerted." I guess what I'm implying is the fact that South didn't alert is still AI to East-West. Maybe you can say that South is still required to correct his explanation after he passes and before West bids and adjust using some 73F Law 23 argument?

I think it's just a matter of choosing the fairest, least disruptive option. Arrow switching means you're being compared to different players on this board, but at least the essential nature of the game is preserved. This will be a problem if the pros are seated in one direction and the rest of us in the other, but otherwise, this seems preferable to having to adjust or award average pluses. I'm not denying that one pair might luck out and benefit from an arrow switch, but this could work out either way. Your expected score in matchpoints before you look at the cards would be roughly the same.

[hv=pc=n&s=s72hat862dak6ckt4&n=sqt84hq53d87c9873&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=p1d1h1s(5+%20spades)2hppp]266|200[/hv] Unfavorable at IMPs. West leads the ♦3, third/low, to East's queen.

The other options would come in handy in cases where an arrow switch isn't feasible. Say the OP situation occurred at a shuffle and deal team game. If the board hadn't been played yet, the director could just order a redeal. If it was already played at the other table, you can't rotate the hands or reshuffle, so the director would have them play it out or award an artificial score. Or maybe two players at the table saw the exposed card. Now rotating the hands wouldn't do much good, so the director chooses something else. Specifically in the case of one player receiving extraneous information about another player's cards, the other options are available if you're playing a form of the game that doesn't allow for rotating the board. Probably teams.

Um, I agree? You still usually don't arrow switch at teams.

Because you usually don't arrow switch at teams.

The MI from South's explanation could have derailed East-West's auction, since the meaning of 2♠ is likely dependent on the meaning of 2♣. It seems like East wanted 2♠ to be natural, but West thought it was strong with diamonds and bid 3NT with the majors well stopped. East corrected, either after the UI from the alert or from knowing that 2♣ was natural. (Screens, maybe?) It's hard to judge what might happen without seeing all four hands. But West would probably rethink 3NT, and maybe North, presumably in a force, will have to drive to a terrible contract.

I think the 4♥ call indicates East isn't on the same page. Does West have to assume East psyched and is competing to 4♥ unilaterally? If this auction is undiscussed and West is just guessing, then the non-announcement is UI, but doesn't really indicate anything that the 4♥ call doesn't. East is able to pass 4♠ as long as West isn't showing off his discomfort and giving off UI. I'm more suspicious about this than West using UI from the lack of announcement. As for MI, there shouldn't be any if East-West don't actually have an agreement, which seems to be the case. On the other hand, if transfers were actually agreed on this auction, maybe South can make the claim that he didn't know what was going on, and that not giving the ruff is only a serious error given the actual layout, not the one that's in his head based on the MI from the lack of announcement. Maybe he's just so confused about what's going on that he doesn't know what to do?

Try this thread: link

Rule 1. You do not talk about fight club. Rule 2. If you talk about fight club, the director is empowered to assess a procedural penalty.

I was North on this hand. The director adjusted to 5♣-1 based on the UI from asking about the alert. She stated that the question suggested values and thus made it safer for South to bid. She also stated that bidding again after preempting was unusual, so it was implicit that she judged pass to be an LA. There was no poll mentioned. My understanding was that the ruling was based on asking about the alert, and so establishing whether there was a BIT became moot. I tend to ask a lot of questions, but I think my asking habits would have been irrelevant since my partner would have been unfamiliar with them. I am not aware of any local practice regarding questions about alerts. Anyway, I was mostly interested in what the UI would have suggested and whether pass was an LA. Thanks for all of your replies. Also, I was vague about the BIT since I was there and I am biased. Fwiw though, I thought I was closer to an insta-pass than a hesitation, after the explanation anyway.