UI or not?

[bluejak]

Partner opens 1♣ as dealer, RHO bids 1NT, you bid 2♦ which shows diamonds, but partner alerts and describes your bid as showing a single-suiter in a major. You know this is wrong, and you and partner are a regular partnership, so you puzzledly look at the auction, and discover that partner's 1♣ is green! In other words he passed, not bid 1♣: now you do play 2♦ as a single-suiter in a major. Probably you should have noticed the lack of announcement but you did not.

 

The only reason you know partner passed instead of opening 1♣ is because of his alert and explanation. Is the fact that he passed authorised information or not?

[gordontd]

No. L16A1a. L16A3.

[wank]

It's UI now, but will surely be getting sufficiently strong AI as soon as partner bids again. When partner's next bidding box card is laid down on the table next to his original pass you will be woken up to the fact that he passed as dealer. You will then have AI that you misbid and that partner is likely to have interpreted your call as if it was opposite a pass.

 

Yes, the UI removes the prospect that your partner mistakenly put a non-systemic, 3rd meaning to the bid, but that's a negligible chance, so the AI is sufficiently strong to make the UI meaningless.

 

To rule that the information remains unauthorised would be to say that you can see partner's subsequent bidding cards without seeing his adjacent original pass card.

 

For the nit-picking amongst you, this presupposes bidding boxes. If using ye olde fahioned silent bidders, then yes it's unauthorised and would remain so, unless another player asked for a review of the bidding. I suppose in theory, the player would be woken up if he had good reason to ask for a review of the bidding himself, but it would be a little tricky to convince the director he wasn't just asking to allow himself to be woken up - a subsquent insufficient bid or a player exposing his own psyche maybe?

[paulg]

To rule that the information remains unauthorised would be to say that you can see partner's subsequent bidding cards without seeing his adjacent original pass card.

Would this be the adjunct to the Lauria Blind Spot, where you only notice that partner really opened 1♥ after you have just bid slam in the suit you thought he opened (spades).

[campboy]

There is plently of precedent (rightly or wrongly) in the EBU that if your partner's alert leads you to notice that the call you have made is not the call you thought you had made, this is AI. Why is it any different if partner's alert makes you notice that his call is not the call you thought it was?

[blackshoe]

The only way some later information could make UI "meaningless" is if the later information, in itself, suggests there is no LA to an action which would be illegal considering the UI.

[nige1]

No. L16A1a. L16A3.

Agree with Gordon. Furthermore, I don't think the subsequent auction should be allowed to "wake you up". I suppose the latter is a dreaded "matter of judgement" until the laws are clarified.

[peachy]

The auction and the calls in the auction that is still going on, are AI to all four players, obviously. I challenge anyone to find a law that says the calls in an auction (with no illegal calls or other infraction) are not AI to the players.

[Trinidad]

You are not allowed to wake up by the alert. But when partner "unexpectedly" bids 2♥, you are off the hook. You will look and see that his 2♥ bid is placed on top of his Pass card and not on top of a 1♣ card. Since this is going to happen before you will take any action you won't be using any UI since by that time it is AI.

 

Rik

[blackshoe]

It seems the argument here is that UI somehow "disappears" when some later bit of AI comes to light, and that later bit also brings to the fore a player's erroneous assumption about how the auction went.

 

I'm not sure I'm following the argument, frankly. If I do understand it correctly, I'm not sure I agree with it.

[bluejak]

We have the Lauria precedent, which was discussed last night when this case was considered. Once someone has failed to realise what partner has bid we have experience that he does not always wake up because there is another round of bidding.

 

But it does not matter anyway. We seem to falling back into the old fallacy of whether UI is destroyed by AI: I would challenge anyone to find that in the Law book. The UI rules are simple enough, and do not change because there is AI as well: as Ed says the AI affects what is an LA.

 

But the basic question is whether we think it UI in the first place. The fact that we have a specific rule quoted above in an unrelated position [Law 25A cases] does not seem relevant.

[pran]

We have the Lauria precedent, which was discussed last night when this case was considered. Once someone has failed to realise what partner has bid we have experience that he does not always wake up because there is another round of bidding.

 

But it does not matter anyway. We seem to falling back into the old fallacy of whether UI is destroyed by AI: I would challenge anyone to find that in the Law book. The UI rules are simple enough, and do not change because there is AI as well: as Ed says the AI affects what is an LA.

 

But the basic question is whether we think it UI in the first place. The fact that we have a specific rule quoted above in an unrelated position [Law 25A cases] does not seem relevant.

The way I understand the laws UI never ceases to be UI, but subsequent AI can very well eliminate every logical alternative except the one that was (and still is) suggested by the UI.

 

As there no longer exists any other logical alternative than the one suggested by the UI it is immaterial whether one says that the UI disappeared or not, the UI no longer has any impact.

[bluejak]

Well, we do not know that, do we? I do not know how the auction continued. But the important thing to my mind is to determine whether the 1♣ is UI. For example, suppose LHO bids 2NT, three passes, the player who bid 2♦ is on lead, would a failure to lead a club be acceptable?

 

I expect the rest of the actual hand will surface in time.

[campboy]

But the basic question is whether we think it UI in the first place.  The fact that we have a specific rule quoted above in an unrelated position [Law 25A cases] does not seem relevant.

I had understood that the thinking behind the Law 25A case was, as peachy says, that the fact that a certain bid has been made is always AI, even if there is UI which causes you to notice it. If so, then the same argument seems to apply equally well in this case.

[bluejak]

Well, I do not think that is the thinking, since I have never heard it. I have just been told that it is the way it is done.

[peachy]

Well, we do not know that, do we?  I do not know how the auction continued.  But the important thing to my mind is to determine whether the 1♣ is UI.  For example, suppose LHO bids 2NT, three passes, the player who bid 2♦ is on lead, would a failure to lead a club be acceptable?

 

I expect the rest of the actual hand will surface in time.

On the auction 1C (1NT) 2D (2NT), clubs is the only suit they have shown stopped, probably twice stopped. Failure to lead clubs shows common sense, trying to find a better lead. Blindly leading partner's opening minor suit seems hasty and thoughtless at best, in this auction, IMO. If the club suit was an overcall by partner, things would be different.

[McBruce]

The notion that one will see the previous bid when one looks at the next call partner makes is one only afforded by bid-boxes. Without them no player was allowed to wake up unless he thought to ask for a review. Is information about the auction that you had earlier mistaken (revealed only because bid-boxes are being used) UI? If so--and why should you gain an advantage over a table where for some reason they are not in use?--to avoid taking advantage you must ignore both the mistaken explanation AND the pass card you thought was a 1C opener.

[Finch]

Playing with bidding boxes I once had the following auction (I was in 4th seat)

 

1C x 1H 2S

3H P 4H x

P 4S x all pass

 

It was only when my RHO (the heart bidding) asked after the 4S bid what my double of 4H had meant , that I noticed partner's original take-out double was in fact a pass.

 

SO more evidence that it's quite possible not to notice, even playing with bidding boxes.