A hand that never was

[Gerben42]

[hv=d=n&v=b&n=sat96432h843dq52c&w=sjhakq6dk8cqj7653&e=sq5h9dajt964ck942&s=sk87hjt752d73cat8]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

North opens 3♠ and East passes. Now South considers for a while if he raises to 4♠, but with his good ♥ holding he decides he doesn't want to stop EW from finding 4♥.

 

West doubles, hoping partner won't bid ♦ but what else can he do? Partner will often bid 4♥ when it's right.

 

On the other side of the screen, an inspired medical doctor bids 3NT in East. Unfortunately for him, partner has only a singleton in ♠ and opponents cash 7 tricks in ♠. Since North doesn't have any ♣ and South didn't cash the ♣A in time, he gets out for -3. Sadly enough, 5♣ was cold. Oh well...

[cherdano]

Sadly enough, 5♣ was cold. Oh well...

How does that matter? If East is a normal human being, he is bidding 5♦, going down 2.

 

Anyway, your point is moot IMHO. It is much more likely that takeout doubler hesitated than that responder hesitated. How many bidding threads have you seen on BBF where the question was "Would you raise partner's preempt?", and how many "What would you do over opponent's preempt?"

[Gerben42]

Well, to adjust the score, according to law 16D2 you must prove that 3NT is demonstrably suggested over other logical alternatives by UI.

 

This hand proves that South can really have a problem, as here. Note that although 4♠ is unlikely to go for more than 500 with the South hand, and EW will almost always have 5m, that it's costly to actually bid 4♠ despite the 10-card fit. If you do, you won't write 5♦-2 or 3N-3, but 5♣ making (3♠ p 4♠ 5♣ p p p)

 

If you look in the forums, there are a lot of threads asking if to raise partner's preempt. Most of these are very short, because everyone says "well, that depends on your preempting style". No wonder people give up. But it's a tough subject.

[jdonn]

Sorry Gerben I agree the point is moot. What is possible and what is likely are two different things. To limit east's ethical options, you don't have to say "I am (nearly) 100% certain west is the one who had a problem." You have to say "I am (nearly) 100% certain that west is more likely to have been the one who had a problem." That is of course very different, and showing a hand where south is the one who had the problem doesn't change anything.

[cherdano]

Bidding 4♠ doesn't lead to 5♣, it also leads to 5♦ (West has a double not a 5♣ bid).

 

Gerben, let's say you open 3♠, I pass on your side of the screen, and the tray comes back after a long hesitation with 3S P P X. I offer you a bet of 100$ to 80$ that it was doubler who hesitated. You accept?

[jdonn]

This hand proves that South can really have a problem, as here. Note that although 4♠ is unlikely to go for more than 500 with the South hand, and EW will almost always have 5m, that it's costly to actually bid 4♠ despite the 10-card fit. If you do, you won't write 5♦-2 or 3N-3, but 5♣ making (3♠ p 4♠ 5♣ p p p)

Sorry to reply again but I hadn't noticed this. First of all west clearly has a double of 4♠ (in fact it's safer than doubling 3♠ in the sense that partner is less likely to pull to a suit). Secondly 4♠X goes for 800 very easily on either four rounds of hearts, or three rounds of hearts followed by three rounds of diamonds.

[mikeh]

BTW, my experience playing with screens, and I have played a fair amount with screens, is that it is usually possible to tell who is hesitating. You don't need to be consciously trying to read the opps, but body language ( the player to your left leans forward or moves his arm to extract his pass card, or to place it on the tray)... or you hear the sound of the bidding card being placed on the tray... these may sound like minor tells, and maybe at the very highest levels the players never give this away... but I would guess that most experienced players in a screen situation would be about 80% right in guessing who broke tempo, if the break was significant.. and not all of that would be based on bidding logic.

[Gerben42]

Might be true, but if you as defender can tell, it's still impossible to prove that your opponent knows it too.

[cherdano]

Might be true, but if you as defender can tell, it's still impossible to prove that your opponent knows it too.

Come on Gerben, you are a director, you know better than that. You only have to establish that there was UI and that it "could demonstrably have suggested 3NT over 5♦", you don't have to prove that the player in question was smart enough to realize that.

[Gerben42]

So how do you prove that there was UI of the form other than the time taken by the other side? And if the non-offending side claim any other than very loud slamming of the bidding cards or something, why should you believe that?

[gwnn]

So how do you prove that there was UI of the form other than the time taken by the other side?

Whoever claimed that there was UI of the form other than the time taken by the other side? It's just a simple fact that after an auction like (pre-empt)-p-p-x, a sensible majority of the time it's doubler, not his screenmate who was thinking. Usually when someone thinks about raising a pre-empt but then pass it's because they are thinking of game but then give up. A balancing double further decreases the chance of this scenario (i.e. it's even less likely that preemptor's partner was thinking).

 

To your prior point

If you look in the forums, there are a lot of threads asking if to raise partner's preempt. Most of these are very short, because everyone says "well, that depends on your preempting style". No wonder people give up. But it's a tough subject.

I'm willing to bet that for every "do you raise partner's preempt?" thread I can show you at least 3 other threads which is about your action after an opponent's preempt, and this is including all of those strong hands that are probably not hearing a double if they pass. It's nowhere as difficult a subject as direct/balancing action after they preempted us.

[kenrexford]

I'm trying desperately to understand some of the comments here in a logical manner, and I keep coming to the same nonsensical conclusion.

 

Is it the position of some folks that a hesitation by South behind a screen, a hesitation that cannot be affirmatively attributed to South by East and not to West, creates an ethical problem for East?

 

I can accept that there is an "ethical problem" at this point. However, simply concluding that there is an ethical problem from this situation seems to create a substantial equity issue. For, if East has inferred UI, or even if he does not but thinks he does, from the hesitation, then his options are limited, right? The score can be adjusted, apparently, if East took action that could have been suggested by the hesitation, even though it was South who hesitated.

 

If this is the case, then South has a very nice gambit available. Whenever his partner preempts, South expects to be captain, for the most part. North will likely pass throughout. South, then, knowing that screens are in use, can "think about it" for a while for no reason other than to create a hesitation. By so doing, East now is boxed in. If he would have quickly taken a position and bid 3NT, he no longer can take that position. If he has two plausible alternatives, he is stuck with the worst result, simply by virtue of South's hesitation.

 

Thus, South would seem to have quite the incentive to hesitate, no?

 

Am I missing something here?

[OleBerg]

I'm trying desperately to understand some of the comments here in a logical manner, and I keep coming to the same nonsensical conclusion.

 

Is it the position of some folks that a hesitation by South behind a screen, a hesitation that cannot be affirmatively attributed to South by East and not to West, creates an ethical problem for East?

 

I can accept that there is an "ethical problem" at this point.  However, simply concluding that there is an ethical problem from this situation seems to create a substantial equity issue.  For, if East has inferred UI, or even if he does not but thinks he does, from the hesitation, then his options are limited, right?  The score can be adjusted, apparently, if East took action that could have been suggested by the hesitation, even though it was South who hesitated.

 

If this is the case, then South has a very nice gambit available.  Whenever his partner preempts, South expects to be captain, for the most part.  North will likely pass throughout.  South, then, knowing that screens are in use, can "think about it" for a while for no reason other than to create a hesitation.  By so doing, East now is boxed in.  If he would have quickly taken a position and bid 3NT, he no longer can take that position.  If he has two plausible alternatives, he is stuck with the worst result, simply by virtue of South's hesitation.

 

Thus, South would seem to have quite the incentive to hesitate, no?

 

Am I missing something here?

Hi ken,

 

you are only missing what han't been noted.

 

When playing with screens NS is responsible for pushing the screen through. Thus they can (quite legally in Denmark, but I believe also in the rest of Europe and maybe US) create a hesitation. And so can EW, by signalling to her/his screenmate, that a bid has been decided on (by showing the bid), but not place it on the tray.

 

It is a good ideé to do this on a random basis.

 

This way, once the tray remains behind the screen for a little longer, you will not know if partner hesitated, or if it was an arificial break of tempo.

 

Of course, and that might be what happened here, sometimes somebody tanks for a long time. It is not unreasonable to say that this creates UI.

 

I don't know what practice is in such cases, but it looks like somthing that is hard to legislate about, and can easily create trouble.