Appeal case #3 in NABC, 2010 at Orlando

[Cascade]

I can't find any Martel-Martel convention cards available online.

If he plays a particular range with Stansby, that tells you virtually nothing about the range he plays with Jan.

 

Virtually nothing is an overbid.

 

Player's styles from partnership to partnership often have many similarities.

[Cascade]

All I could find online is www.okbridge.com/member/iwbc_2000/cc/118/chipm:janm.ok, which appears to be ten years old.

 

2H	Range:5-11, Desc:Can be 5 NV, Natural
Resp:2N asks; 3 suit INV
2S	Range:5-11, Desc:See 2H

 

If they open 3 counts and 11 counts as a matter of partnership style then that agreement prohibits them from playing any conventions in the subsequent auction.

 

The actual 3-count seems unremarkable to me. Which without further evidence suggests it is a relatively normal action for this player.

[655321]

[RMB1]

If they open 3 counts and 11 counts as a matter of partnership style then that agreement prohibits them from playing any conventions in the subsequent auction.

 

That's the sort of regulation that tends to actively discourage proper disclosure: everything outside the allowed (narrow) range gets labelled a deviation.

 

Is it permitted to play 4-8 in some positions and vulnerabilities, and 7-11 in others, and avoid the restriction on playing conventions in the subsequent auction?

[blackshoe]

The General Convention Chart prohibits conventional responses and rebids to "weak two-bids which by partnership agreement are not within a range of 7 HCP and do not show at least five cards in the suit". The emphasis on "and" is mine, the point being that if the bid shows at least five cards, they don't run afoul of this regulation, even if the range is greater than 7 HCP. Of course, that's based on a reading of the regulation. What the TDs at Nationals may actually rule, I don't know. B)

 

There's nothing in there that would prohibit different ranges at different vulnerabilities, so that would also seem to avoid any problems.

[Cascade]

The General Convention Chart prohibits conventional responses and rebids to "weak two-bids which by partnership agreement are not within a range of 7 HCP and do not show at least five cards in the suit". The emphasis on "and" is mine, the point being that if the bid shows at least five cards, they don't run afoul of this regulation, even if the range is greater than 7 HCP. Of course, that's based on a reading of the regulation. What the TDs at Nationals may actually rule, I don't know. B)

 

There's nothing in there that would prohibit different ranges at different vulnerabilities, so that would also seem to avoid any problems.

 

I have made this reasonable argument before and been shouted down:

 

Weak Twos

 

Many seem to believe that the regulation is not written correctly and the intent is something quite different than what is written.

[Trinidad]

That means that either this was a one time occurance and Jan didn't know or Jan did know, but then the CC was not filled out in such a way that I -a potential opponent, for whom the CC is meant- could understand it.

We don't know what the convention card said - the range "5-10HCP's" was from a card belonging to a different partnership.

 

It might have helped if you also would have quoted the sentence right above the one you quoted (I put the operative word "If" in bold):

 

 

If I would read "Usually 6 cards Vul, 5 cards in NV, 5-10HCP" on the card, I am flexible enough to allow for your second hand. But I would not allow for the hand that Chip actually held.

 

That means that either this was a one time occurance and Jan didn't know or Jan did know, but then the CC was not filled out in such a way that I -a potential opponent, for whom the CC is meant- could understand it.

 

Rik

[Cascade]

That's the sort of regulation that tends to actively discourage proper disclosure: everything outside the allowed (narrow) range gets labelled a deviation.

 

Is it permitted to play 4-8 in some positions and vulnerabilities, and 7-11 in others, and avoid the restriction on playing conventions in the subsequent auction?

 

I am not sure I agree with this.

 

This regulation neither encourages nor discourages proper disclosure. It tells you what methods you are allowed to play.

 

Players who play methods that are outside the regulations and do not disclose such methods have other motivations for their behaviour.

[gnasher]

It might have helped if you also would have quoted the sentence right above the one you quoted (I put the operative word "If" in bold):

 

So you meant "That would mean" rather than "That means"? Sorry - most of the non-English speakers on these forums speak such good English that I tend to forget that they're using a forgeign language.

[Trinidad]

So you meant "That would mean" rather than "That means"? Sorry - most of the non-English speakers on these forums speak such good English that I tend to forget that they're using a forgeign language.

Thanks for not pointing out that the word "would" is also missing in the second part of the sentence that you didn't quote. Here comes the statement that I hope is correct now:

 

If I would read "Usually 6 cards Vul, 5 cards in NV, 5-10HCP" on the card, I would be flexible enough to allow for your second hand. But I would not allow for the hand that Chip actually held.

 

That would mean that either this would have been a one time occurance and Jan would not have known or Jan would have known, but then the CC would not have been filled out in such a way that I -a potential opponent, for whom the CC is meant- would have been able to understand it.

The whole post after "if" is supposed to fall under the "if" statement.

 

I thought "That means" clearly was a logical causal continuation of the previous statement and, thus, still depended on the correctness of the axioma (you know, the assumption: "I read "Usually 6 cards Vul, 5 cards in NV, 5-10HCP" on the card"). I clearly thought wrong. My apologies for being unclear.

 

Rik

[A2003]

In the ACBL convention card, there is a section for Direct cuebid.

If Michaels is checked, then, will it apply to this 3♠ call?

It should apply to any level. Is it correct?

 

When asking the meaning of 3♠, Can North say "I forgot" instead of saying "No agreement"?

Once, TD told me that I am entitled to forget the convention. I have to leave the table. My partner has to explain the meaning of his bid to the opponents.

[blackshoe]

Not without the director present. You tell him you can't remember the meaning.

 

If you know you have an agreement, then "no agreement" is MI, even if you can't remember what the agreement is.

 

"Michals" is, by definition, a direct cuebid at the two level of RHO's opening 1 bid. So 3♠ isn't Michaels. Besides, explaining an agreement by naming a convention is (in the ACBL at least) inadequate disclosure, and so may be deemed MI. That the card has a checkbox labeled "Michaels" does not absolve a partnership of its responsibility to adequately disclose its methods.

[EddieDane]

I am not sure I agree with this.

 

This regulation neither encourages nor discourages proper disclosure. It tells you what methods you are allowed to play.

 

Players who play methods that are outside the regulations and do not disclose such methods have other motivations for their behaviour.

 

People motivations may not be clearcut even to themselves. If you generally play a range and allow good hands to be upgraded and bad hands to be downgraded, how do you disclose it? I play 12-14 NT. Approximately once every 500 hands I will upgrade an 11 or downgrade a 15. Does this make my NT-interval five points?

 

If I was in ACBL-land and played this, I'd imagine giving full disclosure about this would attract various rulings from various directors.

 

Protecting yourselves against incompetent directors is OK in my book.

 

Here in Denmark, where there are none of those silly "no artificial follow up" rules, 12-14 is considered full disclosure, also on the day I table 11 extravagant or 15 aenemic hcp.

[kenberg]

5♣ is certainly illegal use of UI; there are several logical alternatives which make it likely that N/S will play in hearts and so 5♣ is suggested over them.

 

However, I do not think it is clear that either 4♠ or pass is suggested over the other. In the ACBL, where weighted scores are not permitted, 4♥+2 as the worst score which is likely without the infraction is probably the right ruling, but in other jurisdictions I might give a weighted score between 4♥+2, 6♥= and 6♥x= (after a spade cue from South, doubling becomes less attractive).

 

 

I don't know to what extent the laws match my views of what should happen, but in my mind I distinguish between two situations:

 

1. A player hesitates, maybe for quite q while, because he very much has something to think about. This of course puts restrictions on what his partner can do but these things are somewhat unavoidable. Opponents have to be protected but there can be some tough choices. In this hand, suppose no questions were asked but North clearly thought a bit before bidding 4♥. I think South still cannot bid 5♣, but I would be reluctant to say that he cannot bid 4♠. The hesitation by North is not that informative and South has a hand where a slam try (in hearts not clubs) is reasonable based on the auction.

 

2. A player creates a problem though an action that he knows, or can reasonably be expected to know, he should not have done. This is the case here, and I would resolve anything that is even remotely close in favor of the non-offending side.

 

 

But I speak of my preference. I would defer to the law.

[jh51]

I don't understand all the discussion of Chip Martel's opening bid. It does not appear to have been an issue in the appeal.

[RMB1]

I don't understand all the discussion of Chip Martel's opening bid. It does not appear to have been an issue in the appeal.

The OP seemed to think that opening a "usually 5-10" 2♠ on 3HCP was an important reason for questioning the ruling. Many thought the ruling was routine and the 2♠ opening was irrelevant.

 

But there was some interest in the whole issue of "stretching" the range of weak twos, regardless of this case or the particular players.

[Bbradley62]

I don't understand all the discussion of Chip Martel's opening bid. It does not appear to have been an issue in the appeal.

 

The OP seemed to think that opening a "usually 5-10" 2♠ on 3HCP was an important reason for questioning the ruling. Many thought the ruling was routine and the 2♠ opening was irrelevant.

 

But there was some interest in the whole issue of "stretching" the range of weak twos, regardless of this case or the particular players.

But your concluding sentence is an excellent answer to this question, but you have mis-quoted OP's explanation of the convention card.

[A2003]

Some More Comments for reading pleasure!

[kenberg]

I read some of the replies in the supplied link. I don't want to devote my life to this cause so I sort of scanned. I will just take a moment to air a very minor issue.

 

Chip Martel asserts that the rules allow deviations as long as they are rare, thus 2♠ on his holding is ok. Firstly, I don't follow CM or anyone around and so I have no idea whether it is rare for him to do that. Secondly, what does it mean? If he gets virtually the same hand the next session then he has to pass it? How long does he have to wait? Or does it just mean that since he only rarely gets that hand, he can always open it 2♠ when it occurs since it occurs rarely? A partner once opened 1NT with me holding 4=4=1=4, including the stiff ace of diamonds. We were playing few conventions, not even transfers to the majors. OK, this was a club game where anything might happen, but the ruling was that he could never do that with me again and could not do it while playing with any other partner for a period of three months.

 

I really have no problem with CM or anyone else opening that hand 2♠, but the thought that he can do it once in a blue moon seems weird. Who is watching?

[blackshoe]

…the ruling was that he could never do that with me again and could not do it while playing with any other partner for a period of three months.

 

I really have no problem with CM or anyone else opening that hand 2♠, but the thought that he can do it once in a blue moon seems weird. Who is watching?

 

The ruling you got, club game or no, is ridiculous.

 

Who's watching? In the ACBL, probably no one. In England (for example) it's a different story. But that's really neither here nor there. The law says that if you deviate from your agreements in a certain way, that's legal, until your partner begins to expect you might be doing it. At that point, the deviation is part of your agreements, must be disclosed as required by the Regulating Authority, and may in some cases be in itself illegal (it is permissible to psych a 1♠ opening with six HCP; it is not permissible in most jurisdictions to have an agreement to so open). Given the law, a competent TD would try to find out from the psycher's partner whether she had any expectation of the psych.

[pigpenz]

to me this is just a case of using UI.

Bobby Wolf use to write about these same instances all the time

 

eg. you open♦ 2 your partner responds♥ 2

thinking your are playing flannery, can you correct to diamonds.

 

I have seen some very good players think that you can, but Wolff

has always contended that this is part of active ethics.

[blackshoe]

That's a different situation.

[Cascade]

From BridgeMatters

 

From the 2S bidder

The ruling speaks for itself (is was routine, as the committee noted), but as to the 2S bid, the actual hand, KTxxxx xx xxx xx is rather lighter than partner would expect in this position.

It seemed LHO had a hand he liked, so I stepped out a bit. As to the issue of whether it is legal to do this, the answer is clearly yes

if partner expects the stated range. The rules explicitly allow players to violate their stated agreements, so long as the violations are rare, (so there isn't a different implicit agreement).

 

That said, it probably would have been more accurate to list 4-10 rather than 5-10 on our card. However, most serious players recognize that

there are really 16 different ranges (4 vulnerabilities times 4 positions). Few would expect a third seat NV versus vul weak 2 to have the same range

of hands as a 2nd seat (or 4th seat!) vul vrs not weak 2, but it isn't practical to list each range.

 

Chip seems to me to be mistaken regarding the law with respect to making a call outside your agreements. His contention is that partner's expectation of the stated range is the measure by which deviations should be allowed or not.

 

What the law actually says is that it is partner's awareness of a possible deviation - "partner has no more reason to be aware of the deviation

than have the opponents".

 

To me this is a completely different measure. My expectation of partner's bid could remain in the normal range while I have an awareness even if low in frequency that partner might deviate from that range. My awareness could easily be greater than my opponents through partnership experience. Any such heightened awareness makes the deviation illegal.

 

Further if they have 4-10 on their card as Chip suggests would be more accurate for their partnership then if they choose to open 3 or 11 counts then I would expect that they might need to provide some evidence that this was in fact a deviation and not an undisclosed implicit understanding given that there are regulatory constraints on an opening that would have been listed as (3)4-10(11).

 

The pertinent statistics would be how often in first seat nil vulnerable does Chip open and pass with six spades and three hcp. If a significant proportion of similar three counts are opened then I would judge that they are in fact playing an illegal undisclosed method. Given the rigidity of the regulation I would consider 10% or even less in a long establish partnership to be significant in this context.

[kenberg]

Chip and I play at different levels but this affects all of us so I will comment on how I have come to deal with the rules.

 

Suppose someone opens 2♠ on a hand such as Chip's. I said above that it's ok by me. A fuller explanation is that I long ago came to regard it as futile to fuss about it. I have no idea how often he may or may not do it. Unless the player is of Chip's (forgive the informality) stature it is unlikely the director knows how often he does it. Cascade suggests a 10% figure but someone else may have a different figure in mind and anyway the statistics, for most players, don't exist.

 

Variations on the theme:

 

Quite a while back I was playing in an open pairs and came up against Marty Bergen on my left. MB opened 1NT and when the hand was over it turned out that he had a stiff minor king. My partner took a little issue with this, I did not. My only thought was of the "sauce for the goose" type: I get to do it too. I was in a red ribbon pairs when an opponent called the director because I had opened 1NT holding a six card minor. The director ruled that this was improper. I asked why and he said "The hand is unbalanced, you would have to have two doubletons, wouldn't you?" I restrained myself from saying "Well, yes, unless I have a stiff".

 

 

The rules are different in different venues and, acbl proclamations to the contrary, they are different for different people. Me, I really don't care if rho opens 2♠ on Chip's hand. But I want to be given reasonable freedom to also use my best judgment in my choices.

 

There are countless examples. Some people, holding a minimum balanced hand, open the weaker/shorter minor. I have had people explain that this is ok because partner still bids the same way. Not really. Partner bids the same on most hands but if a minor suit slam is in the offing I bed they check more carefully to see if the minor is real. This can get extreme. I once filled in at a game partnering one of the devotees of this approach. I opened an honest shapely 1♣, the auction got competitive and at my next turn I bid an honest non-jump 3♦. Partner passed, explaining later that he figured my clubs were fake and now I was bidding my real suit. But for higher levels you can go to "Bridge, Zia and Me" and read MR's explanation of Zia's minor suit openings. MR regards this as brilliantly eccentric. My word choice might be different if the bids are not alerted (or pre-alerted). Again, if the acbl is ok with this, then I get to do it too.

 

The acbl has some work to do to see to it that we all play by the same rules.

[awm]

While the real regulation may have to do with the "frequency" of opening out of the stated range, most venues don't record enough openings (and most players don't play enough hands) to make rulings on that basis. In practice what's typically looked at:

 

(1) Did partner appear to "field" the call? If I open 2♠ on a 3-count and then partner lets me out short of game on a 19-count when our stated range is 5-10, then a strong case can be made that partner knew I might "fudge" my opening call. This sort of thing will usually get a good director to adjust the board (and require us to change our system card).

 

(2) Can I give a believable reason for my call? Here Chip Martel seemed to have some table feel that his LHO held a strong hand, in which case preempting was more likely to work out (cause trouble for opponents) rather than cause a problem for partner. Other reasons might include extremely good spots or extra distribution, or "state of the match" type concerns. A believable reason (given "in tempo" to a director's query) will often cause the table result to stand.

 

(3) Is it a regular partnership? If I'm playing as a fill-in then it's hard to believe partner knows any of my tendencies. Husband and wife pairs (or other partnerships with very long-term history) tend to be more suspect.

 

(4) Is there a recorded history of me making this sort of call? If a number of recorder forms involving me opening outside the stated range have been filed, this is a strong suggestion that I do this a lot. Such frequent violations suggest that a regular partner must be aware of them on some level, and can potentially lead to issues.