Humper

http://tinyurl.com/kgb5c4g Seems like Gib thinks "oh I want to force to game but I have both majors, better cuebid to get to the right spot". Of course, this not only carries them a level too high, but for some reason they're playing in their 2-0 fit, which was not a success.

This feels really broken to me -- if a tournament lasts an hour, I should have an hour to play the boards. I should CERTAINLY have a few minutes to think about a hand without popups nagging me about it. I play a lot of robot duplicates because they're a great way to work on cardplay in a vacuum; no one is waiting, and there's almost nothing at stake. If I can't power through the first 8 boards and really think hard about the 9th one, the tourney is really fundamentally changed.

I assume you mean RHO's preference for 3NT and not his status as a non-student? :)

The insufficient bid was definitely not deliberate. Most likely the student thought she was bidding over 3♠, which would normally be forcing in this sequence but I don't think her parter was sure that she would know that. The comment was not a joke. She really did want to play 3NT. What do you think the comment suggests about her hand, by the way?

True, the comment does convey the information that partner has a *clear* preference for 3NT over 4♠. I guess the real question, for me, is can partner's 3NT bid POSSIBLY be construed as "choice of games"? You already bid a game, and partner bid a different one. Here's a different scenario that I think is related. You hold a balanced 16 count, and partner opens 1NT. You decide to make a quantitative raise to 4NT, and partner bids 3NT. The opponents object, and partner now changes her call to pass, saying "oh, dang, I really wanted to play THREE notrump". Now obviously you know that your partner doesn't have a borderline accept, they must have a dead minimum. Now suppose that for whatever reason, the opponents, as is their right, accept the 3NT call. Are you ethically obligated to re-invite? Haven't you already completely described your hand? It seemed to me at the time that the 4♠ bidder had described his hand when he leapt to 4♠ over 3♥. He told his partner "I think 4♠ would be the best contract looking at my hand, even though you could have no spades at all on the auction." It's just hard for me to see what connection the UI would have with your subsequent decision, since you have a shown a hand that wants to play in 4♠ opposite the 3♥ rebid, and partner placed the contract. Obviously if you have some sort of hand where no contract but four spades could possibly make sense (nine spades to the ace and out), bidding 4♠ over 3NT is clearly right. However, with reasonable values (10 points, I think), eight spades to the ace empty, and a stiff heart, passing 3NT seems perfectly reasonable to me as my hand is totally described and partner made a choice. In order for the 4♠ bidder to be ethically (legally?) constrained to rebid 4♠, you would have to show that the UI demonstrably suggested passing 3NT over bidding 4♠, and given the auction and the 4♠ bidder's hand I just don't see the argument.

The difference is that any UI from the comment is, in my opinion, redundant with the AI from the auction. If I open 1♥ and say out loud "hey partner, I am representing a hand with 5 or more hearts right here with this here bid PLEASE PAY ATTENTION I REALLY HAVE A ONE HEART OPENER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", clearly that comment is unauthorized and silly, but how could anyone possibly accuse partner of taking advantage, as it is completely redundant with the bid sitting on the table. What I'm getting at is the fact that partner OVERRULED your placing the contract in 4♠ by pulling, legally, to 3NT. Am I actually required to get inside her head, decide that she was probably trying to bid over 3♠ instead, and act accordingly? Or am I required to make my decisions based on the auction in front of me? If I'm just looking at the bids in front of me, it's REALLY hard to think of a hand that wants to bid 4♠ again, having completely described my hand over the 3♥ response.

This hand generated quite the heated discussion when it came up :) It's still not clear to me that there's "huge UI" on this hand. IIRC the people who were arguing that there was enormous UI and that this was obvious eventually backed down to something like "well there's some UI because partner's preference for 3NT is clear and strong rather than just unsure". Once the 3NT bid is accepted, it is authorized to responder, so the fact that she prefers 3NT over 4♠ is clearly authorized. I'm not convinced that I'm required to get inside partner's head and decide that she thought I bid 3♠ and picked 3NT, or whether she forgot that you had to bid at a higher level than the previous bids, or whether she just had a mental slip and pulled a card from the box. The auction itself is legal, and partner's bid, in the context of the legal auction, tells me that she prefers 3NT to 4♠. One could also argue that because the auction is completely legal once 3NT is accepted, trying to use any comment to determine what partner's state of mind was when she bid 3NT would be taking advantage of any UI. The only information you have should be the bids in front of you (and anything else explicitly made authorized to you by the laws, like opponents' bids out of turn and so forth), and the bids in front of you tell you that partner prefers 3NT to 4♠. I'm really uncomfortable with the idea that you're supposed to guess that partner THOUGHT you bid 3♠ and bid 3NT over *that*, and bid accordingly, because it really seems to me like *that* inference could easily be suggested by the UI (if indeed there is any). Having told partner "I hear that you have a jump-rebid of three hearts, and I am placing the contract at 4♠", and then seeing partner *legally* re-place the contract at 3NT, it really does seem that you've completely described your hand, and passing 3NT should be the very frequent action here. I was definitely in the minority when this hand came up, but I still haven't heard any convincing argument that responder should feel constrained to bid 4♠ again (which is what happened at the table, and the bidder said that the UI made him feel obligated to bid 4♠). BTW, responder held Axxxxxxx of spades (8 of them), and a stiff heart.

It doesn't really matter if you can or cannot conceive of a reason why I asked about the 2. Frankly, I don't understand why the directors asked me that at all. I asked a question and was lied to. They could have answered using the generic ad truthful style I suggested. Instead, they lied to me while I was declaring and I took a losing line based on their lie. I don't think the line is unreasonably bad. It's certainly not nullo. Frankly, considering how many high cards I was missing, I'm not sure I would have believed them if I had asked about the 5 and been told (truthfully) that it showed a club honor, since that would place the overcaller with, well, the hand she overcalled with. I could have asked a different question. Why does the existence of a superior question give the opponents the right to lie about the inferior one? Keep in mind that the person looking at kx of spades in the slot was the one who said "it shows a spade honor". It is impossible that she didn't know this answer could screw declarer. Again, i ask, where in the laws does it say that if a better question exists than the one actually asked, the opponents may lie to declarer without consequence even if they know their lie was likely to cause declarer to go wrong?

Blah, you're right. Lho covered my card at trick 2, obviously. When I play against people who are unfamiliar with my signalling agreements (which are quuite simple), this often happens: "what are your discards" "upside down" "so the six of clubs"? (the ♣6 is on the table) "well the first discard of a low spot suggests interest in the suit, and the first discard of a high spot suggests that he doesn't" Note that this answer has nothing to do with whether or not the 6 itself is low or high, nor whether it is partners first discard. If the 2345 of clubs is in the dummy, I would say the same no matter what. If the ♣6 was the second discard, and the first was the 8, I would say the same. The directors DID ask me why I didn't ask about the 5. I explained that the answer about the 2 was so clear that it did not seem necessary. I didn't know that my ability to get truthful information about the opponents' signals expired once the first-discard trick was quitted.

It's true, I definitely could have asked more or better questions. If their answer to my initial question were even a little doubtful or had a hint of "if it were his first" or something I would have probed further. I'm not sure what you mean by "this late in the hand", Adam -- the 2 of spades was trick 5. For what it's worth, they mentioned during the initial attempt to explain the whole system that not only could you signal for trumps, you could also signal for the suit in which you were discarding, which would suggest that you have nothing. It's also true that even if the ♠K is in the slot, if my RHO has two hearts this line of play should break even, so even if they're falsecarding like fiends, it pays off only to, well, basically the exact hand my RHO had. I have to play for *something* :) I'm totally sympathetic to the fact that the defenders wouldn't want to "wake me up" to the fact that he had discarded already. I think that rather than answering "nothing" (waking me up to the diamonds being 1-3), or saying "if it was his first discard" (again waking me up), they could just say: "In a black suit, the first discard of an even card would show a spade honor, and of an odd card would show a club honor. Subsequent discards are random". That would be totally sufficient, and if I badgered them about "WELL TELL ME ABOUT THE TWO, DAMMIT", then they could call the director.

Well, the initial ruling was that there was no damage because the table director felt that my line was nullo. When I showed them the 1237 hand I was playing for, they said "oh" and showed it to a few other directors, *then* they came up with the memory aid stuff. This sounds silly to me, but more than one director looked at the hand. I'm really skeptical about the idea that their proper answer would reveal the precise spot of my LHO's prior discard. This seems to go against the idea that once a trick is quitted you can't examine it further. I don't think there should be any question I can ask that requires the opponents to tell me what their prior discard was. What if *they* don't remember? In case I'm not being clear, it was not the ♠5-♠2 sequence that showed a club honor, it was the fact that they discarded an odd black card. I believe they were doing something like odd black shows clubs, odd red shows diamonds, even red shows hearts, and even black shows spades. They were all excited about how this allows you to signal that you have an entry in trumps when partner is trying to get a ruff.

Interesting, so does that mean I don't have to remember what the first discard actually was? Is that true if I point to the seventh discard and say "what's that"? I didn't think to go that far, but if they had modified what they had said with "if this were his first discard", then I surely would have asked about the ♠5. I don't think I should be able to say "Oh, then what did his first discard mean". Surely I should have to say something like "Oh, then tell me about the five of spades from the previous trick" or something like that. Seems like you could really trap a pair -- what if I couldn't remember which low spade spot was played, but I remember it was a small one. Can I guess and say "Oh, well then tell me about the four of spades on the previous trick"? Should the opponents tell me what the FOUR would have meant? Should they say "if the previous discard was the four, it would have meant XXX"? Should they say "Um, it wasn't the four" (in which case I say "oops I meant the five, duh" until I get it right)?

Playing in an open pair event in New Orleans, I had this play problem: [hv=d=s&v=n&n=sqjt9haxxdkqxxxcj&s=saxhxxxdajxxcatxx]133|200|Scoring: Matchpoints[/hv] I open 1♦ in first seat, partner responds 1♠, and my RHO overcalls 2♣, after which we somehow get to three notrump. Not much of a problem -- I figure I'll hook the spade since most of the cards should be on my right. Before the lead, I asked "leads and carding", and they started explaining a very intricate discard system wherein even and odd cards of different colors meant different things. There was no way I could keep it in my head, so I said "I'll ask when it comes up". They agreed that this was a good idea. My LHO led the 6♥, ducked to RHO's K♥. RHO returns the 2♥, and LHO follows with the 5♥. I still haven't seen the 3♥. I start running the diamonds, and my LHO's first discard is the 5♠. His next discard is the 2♠, and I remember about their funky discarding agreement. I point to the 2♠ (still on the table), and ask RHO "what does that mean?" RHO replies "it shows a spade honor". Thinking now that the spade finesse is off, I place RHO with ♠x ♥Kx ♦xxx ♣KQxxxxx (not much of an overcall, but even so, I don't think LHO would signal for spades holding nothing in spades and looking at ♠QJT9 in dummy). So I finish the diamonds, lead the Q♠ to the A♠, and play a small ♣ to the J♣, hoping to win two tricks in the forced club return. Of course, RHO produces the 3♥, so I go down a bunch. It turns out that RHO has overcalled on ♠Kx ♥K32 ♦xxx ♣Qxxxx (!), so the normal spade finesse would score up the game. I ask about the non-spade honor, and they inform me that the 2♠ was actually meaningless, and that the first spade discard (the 5♠) was the only one that had meaning (it showed a club honor, making the spade finesse about 150%), but of course I hadn't asked about that card. The directors ruled that even though I asked a very specific question and was lied to, I trapped myself by not asking about the first discard. They said that if I was legally able to ask the question I asked at the table, lazy declarers could use it as a memory aid if they couldn't remember whether someone had followed to the last round of a suit (ask about the discard, and if they say "well it was his second, so it doesn't mean anything", then I know that they didn't follow on the last round). I pointed out that they could have just said "if it were his first discard, it shows...", in which case I would have asked about the 5♠, but they stuck by their memory-aid argument. Surely I could have protected myself by asking more questions, but the answer I got was *so* clear, I didn't think I needed to. Thoughts?

Fora Heh. I used to say indices instead of indexes but I had to stop because too many people laughed at me :) Both are acceptable. I did have to yell at my graduate students, though, when they thought the singular was "indicee" (spelling unknown, this error only happened orally).

I agree with how it sounds. At the table, it turns out that they have SEVEN spade tricks and SIX diamond tricks on top. Partner has the ♠Q, ♥A and ♣K. Go figure.

[hv=d=s&v=n&s=sjthqjxxd9xxcaxxx]133|100|Scoring: MP Opps bid unobstructed: 1d - 1S 2NT - 3d* 3NT** - 6NT * major suit inquiry ** 2 spades, 2-3 hearts[/hv] 0-1500 LM pairs, day 2 or 3 (can't remember). You're on lead against this sequence where your RHO has showed 18-19 balanced, 2 spades, and 2-3 hearts. Your LHO has leaped to 6NT hearing this description. You and partner have passed throughout. What do you lead?

I was the declarer at the other table going down 1 in two spades opposite four spades doubled making (this was obviously a surprise!) South led the NINE of clubs. I asked the opponents about their leads and they said "standard". The card confirmed this. The lead looked like shortness to me so I played the ace, and that got RUFFED. I lost the club ruff, the club king, the heart king, and three trump tricks. I asked about the lead AGAIN after the hand was over, and the leader confirmed that they play standard leads and he "just decided" to lead the 9 from KT9xxx this time. Oh well. Despite looking pretty silly for getting three tricks less than the other declarer, I have utmost sympathy for what happened to Adam at the other table.