bidding explanations

[macart]

When there is as auction, and you want an explanation, you click on the bid and the opps give you the information.

 

Currently, there is no way for the director to see these conversations - as if the explanation is erronious and or an outright fib - the director has no way to review the whole auction and make a ruling at the end of the hand and/or the end of the tourney.

 

Example - LHO, pard, RHO all passed. I have a stong 18 count. I open a grape and LHO bids 1nt. Should be balancing - correct. BUT I ASK - LHO says he made a mistake and the bid was a normal 15-17 NT - we settle in 2 clubs making 5 for a bottom as LHO has fibbed and has 8 HCPS.

 

LHO gets away with such a bid because there is no way for the director to review the explanations - this has to be cleared up - period.

[ralph23]

You seem perhaps a little confused about the rules in asking opponents about their bids, and how they are to answer. I probably can't undo the confusion but here goes anyway.

 

You are entitled to know opps agreements (explicit or implicit) about the meanings of their bids.

 

You are not entitled to know whether the bidder's hand in fact conforms to the agreement. Some people say, "You're not entitled to know the contents of an opp's hand, only their agreements."

 

When your LHO answered, he obviously did not give you their partnership agreement.

 

Their agreement as to a 1NT overcall by a passed hand CANNOT possibly be a balanced 15-17. Such a hand would open 1nt (playing strong NTs anyway and in any event it would open something). They cannot possibly have the agreement that such a hand must originally pass, then wait and hope it can overcall 1NT.

 

So he did not answer the right question. (In "standard" -- whatever that is--, a 1nt overcall by a passed hand is "unusual" --a variety of the unusual NT --and shows the two lowest unbid suits.)

 

If you had persisted and said "No, don't tell me about your hand, what is your agreement??" you probably would have gotten a "huh??" response or maybe the probable correct response "We don't have an agreement as to the meaning of the 1nt overcall by a passed hand."

 

Instead, he lied about his hand and there is a Law addressing an opponent's doing this sort of thing. Someone else will cite it soon enough....

 

You should have received relief, but not because he didn't truthfully tell you what his hand was! He should not have said anything about his actual hand, of course.

 

What he should have said was either "Shows the red suits" or "Shows the minors" or "No agreement, let's hope my p can figure it out!!"

 

He was obviously a poker player unfamiliar with bridge, eh ??? :P

 

In any case, it's no different in real life bridge. The opp's statements are not recorded. So BBO and real life are in a dead heat as far as that goes.

 

In BBO at least the auction is recorded and the fact that your LHO overcalled 1nt will not be disputable, and that makes your story credible, especially if LHO was not loaded with length in the two lowest unbid suits. So perhaps you just did not have a very astute director?