Logical Alternatives?

[Adobe BC]

[hv=v=n&s=sk84hkjdak3c96432]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv]

 

Your RHO opens 2♠, you pass - 3♠ - D - P - ?

 

Of course, the double was very, very slow. How do you rate the logical alternatives?

[jjbrr]

3NT. A slow double could imply a lot of things, including that partner has 15(34) and wanted to make sure double was best, a minimum, a maximum, or some strong two suiter that might be bid a different way. I don't see any alternatives.

[jdonn]

I think 3NT and pass are the LAs. The next best bid is 5♣ but I don't consider that logical, although it could work!

[bluejak]

What calls do I consider? 3NT. No others.

[hotShot]

Partner has a big problem, bidding is already up to 3♠, so I don't think the slow double suggests anything. Fortunately there is nothing other than 3NT to consider.

[helene_t]

I think pass is an LA but I don't see why 3NT or pass is suggested by the BIT.

[dburn]

Could easily work to pass - we will need nine fast ones to make 3NT, and why should we have them? Indeed, at the table I would certainly pass a very slow double, which is likely some distributional monster that was afraid of doubling (in case I did pass), but eventually could not think of anything else to do. I'm supposed to "carefully avoid taking advantage from [that] unauthorized information", right?

 

The trouble is that over an in-tempo double, of course I would bid 3NT - we might have nine fast ones anyway (♥AQxx, ♦QJxx, ♣A opposite) with 3♠ down one or two (or even making). And if partner has a really distributional real monster, he will go on over 3NT and we will reach our laydown grand slam. Now, if everyone is like me and the other posters so far, the 3NT bid will be allowed because there are no logical alternative actions, where a logical alternative action is:

 

"one that, among the class of players in question and using the methods of the partnership, would be given serious consideration by a significant proportion of such players, of whom it is judged some might select it."

 

Pass could work by going plus when 3NT would go minus, and I would briefly consider but reject it over an in-tempo double for the reasons above. The only time I would actually pass is if partner doubled slowly, because that is what Law 73 tells me to do. Yet Law 16 tells me that it's actually OK for me not to pass even so. The words of Hilaire Belloc occur to my mind, and not for the first time either:

 

Is there any reward?

I'm beginning to doubt it.

I am broken and bored -

Is there any reward?

Reassure me, Good Lord,

And inform me about it.

Is there any reward?

I'm beginning to doubt it.

[jdonn]

I think pass is very reasonable. Why should we have 9 fast tricks, one spade stopper is very scary. But if no one would pass then we shouldn't make anyone pass, that is true.

[Pict]

If you think about successful outcomes (with a reasonable probability) then 3♠ doubled, 3NT, 4H, 5C and 5D are all reasonable.

 

Partner was clearly thinking about something, but I can't tell what it was - maybe there are other peer groups who can, I don't know.

 

So in practice I don't feel inhibited by UI, because I don't have any that I can clearly express. I would bid 3NT, because it seems normal, if this is the normal auction and I've no basis for thinking it isn't. If my partner bid 4♣ in the same situation with the intention of raising 4♦, and passing 4♥ and 5♣ I'd think it was a bit dubious but not terrible. If he passed my hand, I'd be more surprised.

[bluejak]

I think the problem is that if you think 3NT normal, and then you consider why partner has thought, and thus you consider his hand abnormal, if you now do not bid 3NT, have you not violated Law 73C?

[dburn]

I think the problem is that if you think 3NT normal, and then you consider why partner has thought, and thus you consider his hand abnormal, if you now do not bid 3NT, have you not violated Law 73C?

No, of course not. If you do bid 3NT, you may have violated Law 73C, although you have not violated Law 16B. Those Laws used to be complementary; they are now self-contradictory.

[jallerton]

I would say that these Laws are still complementary and not self-contradictory.

 

Let us suppose that your assessment of the reason for the hesitation is correct and that it makes bidding 3NT more likely to be the winning action.

 

There are two possibilities:

 

1. You know that you would definitely have bid 3NT over an in-tempo double. Law 73C requires you "to carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorised information". But as you are making the same call you would have made anyway, you are not taking any advantage from the UI. It is likely that you will then automatically comply with Law 16B, although you need to consider the additional constraint as to what actions your peers might seriously consider.

 

2. You are not sure what you would have done over an in-tempo double. Now to comply with Law 73C, you must pass the double. If you are not sure what you have done, that probably means that you judge both pass and 3NT to be logical alternatives and hence Law 16B would also require you to select the non-demonstrably suggested action of pass.

[Pict]

I think the problem is that if you think 3NT normal, and then you consider why partner has thought, and thus you consider his hand abnormal, if you now do not bid 3NT, have you not violated Law 73C?

I have to agree, but this proposition is a bit different from my original argument.

 

If I have not formulated a view about partner's hesitation, then I don't see that I am constrained by 73C.

 

However, a TD canvassing my peers might be forced to a different conclusion if I have taken an unusual action. But that is a matter of self protection in relation to 16B, rather than the personal ethical demand of 73C. To that extent I think there is something in dburn's argument. I wouldn't like to push the point myself, without having an idea of how to improve these two areas of the Laws - which I don't.

[lamford]

I would bid 7♠, practically forcing partner to bid 7NT from his side. If that transpired to be the winning action with him having ♠A ♥AQTxx ♦QJxxx ♣AQ, and 7NT from my side fails when they attack the club option at trick one, and the diamonds turn out to be 5-0 with the club onside, I will regard that as rub of the green.

 

The rest of the time partner will learn not to double very very slowly in future (no doubt I will be looking for another partner too)!

 

Where, in my opinion, dburn is right and jallerton is wrong, is that Law 73C requires us not to take ANY advantage of the UI. So, only if I thought that everyone else in the entire world would bid 3NT am I allowed to do so. 16B allows me to bid 3NT if I judge (according to the White Book which is not supposed to be for players) that, say, less than 20% of players would seriously consider Pass, and only a few (say less than 10%) of players would make the bid.

 

If I believed that there was a 0.0000001% chance that I would Pass and that this took "any" advantage of the UI, then I am forbidden by 73C from selecting it. A much more stringent rule, but not really contradictory.

[barmar]

Just because your action is the same as the one you would have made without the UI doesn't mean that you haven't taken advantage of it. If the UI also supports that choice, you may be prohibited from making it. It's only simple if you believe there are no other LAs.

[jallerton]

Where, in my opinion, dburn is right and jallerton is wrong, is that Law 73C requires us not to take ANY advantage of the UI. So, only if I thought that everyone else in the entire world would bid 3NT am I allowed to do so. 16B allows me to bid 3NT if I judge (according to the White Book which is not supposed to be for players) that, say, less than 20% of players would seriously consider Pass, and only a few (say less than 10%) of players would make the bid.

 

If I believed that there was a 0.0000001% chance that I would Pass and that this took "any" advantage of the UI, then I am forbidden by 73C from selecting it. A much more stringent rule, but not really contradictory.

I don't understand why you are claiming I am wrong, as I too explained that:

 

Law 73C requires you "to carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorised information".

 

It's quite a simple phrase, so I am surprised that you seem to have interpreted it to mean something rather different.

 

As Barmar correctly points out, you cannot possibly be taking any advantage of the UI if you do what you would have done anyway.

 

Note that Law 73C does not require you to "carefully avoid taking any action which might appear to take advantage"; it merely requires you to "carefully avoid taking any advantage".

[Vampyr]

As Barmar correctly points out, you cannot possibly be taking any advantage of the UI if you do what you would have done anyway.

Barmar was correct, but he said the opposite of what you are claiming he said.

[Pict]

Yes but jallerton was correct about 73C. It says take advantage, not that advantage might have been derived from an innocent action.

 

If Lamford's interpretation? was correct, we would not need much of the apparatus of 16B. And the game would, perhaps, be unplayable unless we were all the Darwinian survivors of Lamford's search for new partners.

[lamford]

As Barmar correctly points out, you cannot possibly be taking any advantage of the UI if you do what you would have done anyway.

Barmar was correct, but he said the opposite of what you are claiming he said.

Indeed; maybe jallerton struggled with the double negative.

 

More relevantly, I do not believe very many bids are 100%. The problem with "If you do what you would have done anyway" is that this is the standard argument of anyone using UI. We have all heard "I was always bidding slam", and in some cases it is probably true. If the bid is 100% so that every man and his dog would make it then you are not taking any advantage.

[Pict]

But the opponents can call the TD. The TD can consult and confound your personal conclusion. Why is there a problem about people acting ethically/reasonably, but being judged by their peers to have been wrong? Do we always have to be able to know we are right?

[lamford]

Note that Law 73C does not require you to "carefully avoid taking any action which might appear to take advantage"; it merely requires you to "carefully avoid taking any advantage".

The other point I forgot to make is that while I agree with the player's required ethics under 73C, for practical purposes if the action might appear to take advantage, the player should be ruled against. Unfairly, perhaps, but the TD has to judge on the balance of probability.

[Pict]

I think here we reach the vanishing point of this line of argument.

 

UI and MI/disclosure are (IMO) the only general issues of importance in the regulation of the game.

[Vampyr]

But the opponents can call the TD.  The TD can consult and confound your personal conclusion. Why is there a problem about people acting ethically/reasonably, but being judged by their peers to have been wrong?  Do we always have to be able to know we are right?

We should make a big effort to be right, because when we are wrong we will get the worst of it. If we take an action that is suggested by UI, we will get to keep our result only if our action was unsuccessful. Better to take our medicine and hope that it leads to a decent score.

[mycroft]

"you cannot possibly be taking any advantage of the UI if you do what you would have done anyway."

 

It has been re-proven to me over the last month, somewhat embarrassingly, that everybody "bids what they would have anyway", intuitively incorporating the UI, and can rationally (to themselves) explain it to themselves, even when they know better. At least the calls seemed to be automatic when I made them...afterward, not so much, of course.

 

Yes, if you can prove that you would always have bid that way, then by bidding that way you are carefully avoiding taking advantage of the UI. But everybody (for bridge values of "every") who says "I would always bid that" come up with the same type of rationale as I did. The people who can actually satisfy the law tend to say things like "that's systemically forcing, I can't pass", or "there's no other logical way to do this", or "but partner can't have that hand, he would have..."

 

Back a few years ago, there were a lot of people who *said*, publicly, that they used to try to work out if <the right decision> is going to be 70%; they were clearly not "carefully avoiding taking advantage", they were "carefully seeing if they could get away with taking advantage". At the time, in the EBU, it was almost impossible to meet 73C and fail 16B; in fact, as those "lot of people" proved, it was very possible to fail 73C and pass 16B.

 

The "new" definition of LA (to EBU, but not to me in the ACBL, of course) does, I know from experience (I discount mine - the examples above were clearly self-convincing, in hindsight), make it possible to meet 73C and fail 16B; one takes it with good grace. To my eyes (which, of course, are coloured by the fact that the law for me didn't change in 200x), the laws are no less complementary and no more contradictory than they were; but the boundaries (simplifying the problem to a one-dimensional one for effect) have swapped places - now you're likely to hit the LA boundary before the carefully avoid boundary.

[hotShot]

Do you still discuss the OP?

 

The situation seems quite simple.

There is a undisputed BIT.

What are the pairs methods? Thats unspecified in the OP, but assumed t/o.

What are the LA's?

Most consider 3NT to be LA, some consider pass or few think about 5♣.

 

Is the BIT suggesting anything?

Up to now most posters were unsure what the BIT suggests.