How much are they entitled to know?

[jschafer]

We had a simple auction of:

1♣-(1♥)-3♦-(Pass)-

3NT-All Pass

 

During the auction the 1♥ bidder asked my partner what the 3♦ bid meant and she said we had not agreed anything. After the auction the 1♥ bidder asked me (I bid 3♦), what it actually was. He claimed that I was obligated to tell him what I meant by the bid regardless of what we had agreed (he has done a TD course but it still seemed strange to me, then again I don't know much about bridge laws). I said a 2♦ would be forcing but that 3♦ was undiscussed. How much am I forced to reveal about my hand in such situations? I realise this may change slightly from region to region but it seemed a bit odd that I would be forced to provide more information to the opponents than my partner.

 

On the actual hand I just had a weak hand in ♦s and the contract was not going to win more or less tricks on any defence, so this is mostly a question of curiosity. This happened at a club in Belgium. Thoughts?

[pran]

We had a simple auction of:

1♣-(1♥)-3♦-(Pass)-

3NT-All Pass

 

During the auction the 1♥ bidder asked my partner what the 3♦ bid meant and she said we had not agreed anything. After the auction the 1♥ bidder asked me (I bid 3♦), what it actually was. He claimed that I was obligated to tell him what I meant by the bid regardless of what we had agreed (he has done a TD course but it still seemed strange to me, then again I don't know much about bridge laws). I said a 2♦ would be forcing but that 3♦ was undiscussed. How much am I forced to reveal about my hand in such situations? I realise this may change slightly from region to region but it seemed a bit odd that I would be forced to provide more information to the opponents than my partner.

 

On the actual hand I just had a weak hand in ♦s and the contract was not going to win more or less tricks on any defence, so this is mostly a question of curiosity. This happened at a club in Belgium. Thoughts?

Law 20F5:

 

{a} A player whose partner has given a mistaken explanation may not correct the error during the auction, nor may he indicate in any manner that a mistake has been made. ‘Mistaken explanation’ here includes failure to alert or announce as regulations require or an alert (or an announcement) that regulations do not require.

 

{b} The player must call the Director and inform his opponents that, in his opinion, his partner’s explanation was erroneous (see Law 75) but only at his first legal opportunity, which is

(i) for a defender, at the end of the play.

(ii) for declarer or dummy, after the final pass of the auction.

 

"Undiscussed" is misinformation as it does not give any explanation of the information intended with the 3♦ bid, consequently you must immediately after the final pass of the auction (independent of any defender's request) call the director and offer the explanation of this unexplained bid to opponents.

 

I consider failing to automatically do so being a minor infraction of the laws, but once asked you are required to fully explain your call.

 

(Let us discard any possibility of the 3♦ bid having been made completely at random with no intended meaning, shall we?)

[WellSpyder]

"Undiscussed" is misinformation as it does not give any explanation of the information intended with the 3♦ bid, consequently you must immediately after the final pass of the auction (independent of any defender's request) call the director and offer the explanation of this unexplained bid to opponents.

 

I consider failing to automatically do so being a minor infraction of the laws, but once asked you are required to fully explain your call.

 

(Let us discard any possibility of the 3♦ bid having been made completely at random with no intended meaning, shall we?)

 

I don't understand this reply at all! Why do you think "undiscussed" is MI? My reading of the OP is that it is exactly the correct info. Just because the person who bid 3♦ was obviously hoping his partner would get the message doesn't mean there is any agreement about what it means.

 

One thing at least is clear is that the bidder should definitely NOT be telling the opponents what he meant by the bid if this is not the subject of any partnership agreement, either explicit or implicit.

[mich-b]

An opinion from a player's (rather than a director's) point of view :

1. When you bid 3♦ you intended (and expected!) your pd to understand it (as weak).

This by itself means to me that (even if you didnt specifically discuss it), you assumed you had an understanding , coming from some past experience, or your common bridge background or whatever.

2. After being asked , I suggest you can volunteer the correct explanation , even if not obliged by law.

I think providing the opps with the explanation preserves the logic and integrity of the hand , and allows everybody to play the hand (make the lead..) while applying their bridge judgement. Is that a bad thing?

Would you really prefer that your opponent assumed (for example) that 3♦ was a splinter agreeing clubs, and made a poor lead because of that?

[pran]

I don't understand this reply at all! Why do you think "undiscussed" is MI? My reading of the OP is that it is exactly the correct info. Just because the person who bid 3♦ was obviously hoping his partner would get the message doesn't mean there is any agreement about what it means.

 

One thing at least is clear is that the bidder should definitely NOT be telling the opponents what he meant by the bid if this is not the subject of any partnership agreement, either explicit or implicit.

 

Opponents are entitled to a full explanation of every call according to partnership explicit or implicit understanding. "Undiscussed" is no such explanation; it is only information that whatever understanding exists must be an implicit understanding of which the explainer is unaware. And when the bidder realizes that his partner has not correctly explained this implicit understanding according to what the bidder believes it to be then he has the duty to inform opponents correspondingly. This in most cases means that he must indeed tell opponents what he meant by the bid.

 

 

An opinion from a player's (rather than a director's) point of view :

1. When you bid 3♦ you intended (and expected!) your pd to understand it (as weak).

This by itself means to me that (even if you didnt specifically discuss it), you assumed you had an understanding , coming from some past experience, or your common bridge background or whatever.

2. After being asked , I suggest you can volunteer the correct explanation , even if not obliged by law.

I think providing the opps with the explanation preserves the logic and integrity of the hand , and allows everybody to play the hand (make the lead..) while applying their bridge judgement. Is that a bad thing?

Would you really prefer that your opponent assumed (for example) that 3♦ was a splinter agreeing clubs, and made a poor lead because of that?

You are welcome, showing a very good understanding of the laws on disclosure! Your only mistake here is the impression that a player is not obliged by law. The law is that not only is he obliged, he is obliged to offer correct information even without being asked!

[gordontd]

Opponents are entitled to a full explanation of every call according to partnership explicit or implicit understanding. "Undiscussed" is no such explanation.

It is if they haven't discussed it and have no implicit agreement. Such situations do occur.

 

This in most cases means that he must indeed tell opponents what he meant by the bid.

Even you don't say in all cases.

[gordontd]

L40B6(a)

When explaining the significance of partner’s call or play in reply to opponent’s enquiry (see Law 20) a player shall disclose all special information conveyed to him through partnership agreement or partnership experience but he need not disclose inferences drawn from his knowledge and experience of matters generally known to bridge players.

[WellSpyder]

An opinion from a player's (rather than a director's) point of view :

1. When you bid 3♦ you intended (and expected!) your pd to understand it (as weak).

This by itself means to me that (even if you didnt specifically discuss it), you assumed you had an understanding , coming from some past experience, or your common bridge background or whatever.

2. After being asked , I suggest you can volunteer the correct explanation , even if not obliged by law.

I think providing the opps with the explanation preserves the logic and integrity of the hand , and allows everybody to play the hand (make the lead..) while applying their bridge judgement. Is that a bad thing?

Would you really prefer that your opponent assumed (for example) that 3♦ was a splinter agreeing clubs, and made a poor lead because of that?

I agree with most of this. As a player in this position, I will typically say something (ostensibly to my partner) like "didn't we agree to play this as a fit bid?" or "doesn't it have to be weak if 2D is forcing?". Hopefully the oppo will be able to work out from this what I thought I was showing! But I would think twice before answering an opponent who said I had to tell him what I meant by the bid - and I would probably call the TD before giving an appropriate answer.

[pran]

It is if they haven't discussed it and have no implicit agreement. Such situations do occur.

I wrote:

Opponents are entitled to a full explanation of every call according to partnership explicit or implicit understanding. "Undiscussed" is no such explanation.

and I maintain that "Undiscussed" may be an explanation for why the player is unable to comply with the laws on disclosure, but it is certainly no explanation on any call.

 

If players use a call without any explicit or implit agreement it means that they have an implicit agreement that this call shall have no meaning at all. Such an agreement is probably illegal in any bridge jurisdiction.

 

Even you don't say in all cases.

I wrote:

This in most cases means that he must indeed tell opponents what he meant by the bid.

 

It does occationally happen that partner eventually remembers the true explanation so that the player does not have to explain his call himself.

[WellSpyder]

If players use a call without any explicit or implit agreement it means that they have an implicit agreement that this call shall have no meaning at all. Such an agreement is probably illegal in any bridge jurisdiction.

Imagine the following scenario:

Partner A "Do you play 1430 RKCB or 3041?"

Partner B "Either, which do you play?"

At this point, someone spills there coffee all over the table, and by the time it is cleared up they are into round 1.

 

During the auction, A (probably foolishly!) bids 4N RKCB. Now are you saying partner B has no legal call??? The rest of the table will probably get rather bored if he simply sits there until the TD calls the move...

[gordontd]

If players use a call without any explicit or implit agreement it means that they have an implicit agreement that this call shall have no meaning at all.

No it doesn't. It means they hope their partner will guess correctly, and they'll put up with the consequences otherwise.

 

I often play with the minimum of discussion with my partners (filling in), and when I make a bid that I have not discussed with a partner with whom I have not played before, it is certainly not because we "have an implicit agreement that this call shall have no meaning at all." It is because we have no agreement as to what its meaning shall be.

[gordontd]

If players use a call without any [snip] implicit agreement it means that they have an implicit agreement...

I think my further reduction of what you wrote above reveals its foolishness, Sven.

[blackshoe]

Sven, whatever you're smoking, I'll have a toke.

[wank]

if you have no agreement that's all you need to tell the opps. was pran the director you were playing against?

[nigel_k]

I think pran has a point.

 

If I sit down at the club with a total stranger and say 'Acol, weak two, standard leads and signals', then is it really true that we have no implicit agreements? After 1♠-2♣-2♦ I would expect 3♠ with this partner to be non-forcing. If our agreement was Standard American I would expect 3♠ to be forcing. Depending on who the opponents are, my partner and I may actually know an awful lot more than they do about sequences we have never discussed. Even more so if the partner is not a total stranger even if you haven't played with them much, or at all.

 

Of course, 'undiscussed' is adequate if you really have no explicit or implicit agreement. But I think it is overused and suggests 'your guess is as good as mine'. When in fact, the opponents' guess will seldom be as good as yours.

[mycroft]

I would suggest that what the OP said to us is what he needs to say.

 

"We haven't discussed this call, but 2D would be forcing."

 

I would add what 3D would mean without the overcall (as partner; not necessarily as your hand if it would likely lead to them misguessing). If you played weak jump shifts not in competition, I would particularly say that.

 

For my regular partner, assuming I didn't have a discussion about this auction, I would say "undiscussed, but 2D would be forcing. Without the overcall, it would be a limit splinter for clubs, but, as we have agreed that we can only splinter in opponents' suits after an overcall, it can't be that now. Again, without the overcall, the only weak jump shifts we play are 1 minor - 2 major."

 

The opponents are entitled to your agreements, and any specific-to-the-partnership inferences partner could use to make up his mind. They are not, however, entitled to the contents of your hand (except after the opening lead, of course).

[pran]

No it doesn't. It means they hope their partner will guess correctly, and they'll put up with the consequences otherwise.

 

I often play with the minimum of discussion with my partners (filling in), and when I make a bid that I have not discussed with a partner with whom I have not played before, it is certainly not because we "have an implicit agreement that this call shall have no meaning at all." It is because we have no agreement as to what its meaning shall be.

 

 

I think my further reduction of what you wrote above reveals its foolishness, Sven.

 

On the contrary your own posts reveal that your call conveys the meaning which you hope your partner will guess correctly.

This is the meaning that opponents are entitled to be told! If they are told differently then you have a case of misinformation.

[blackshoe]

On the contrary your own posts reveal that your call conveys the meaning which you hope your partner will guess correctly.

This is the meaning that opponents are entitled to be told! If they are told differently then you have a case of misinformation.

 

Whether the opponents are entitled to that meaning depends on the basis of his hope. If it's general bridge knowledge (GBK), then the opponents are not entitled to be told the meaning. Aside from that, what you're saying is that if partner makes a call hoping that I'll figure out what the hell he's doing, and I get it wrong, I'm toast. If I get it right, but think that the basis is GBK, I'm toast. I don't know what this game is, but I don't want to play it. :(

[bluejak]

I do not understand some of the replies. If a call is undiscussed then it is not only not MI to say it is undiscussed it is MI not to do so. You are expected to tell opponents your agreements, not to lie about them.

 

The suggestion that a call which is undiscussed but a player is hoping his partner will take it some way creates an implicit agreement is crazy, off the planet, but also means that the person concerned does not understand the principles of playing with a scratch partner, or a parter who is not scratch but it inexperienced and/or unscientific. It is perfectly normal to produce such a call when no call suits which is the subject of an agreement. To take an extreme case, I sit down to play with someone whose partner is going to be late, we have no discussion whatever, I do not know who she is or even where from, and she opens 1NT. We have no agreement implicit or explicit but assuming we are in England and over 50 miles from London I shall assume it is 12 to 14 and have a high expectation of being right. If I was in the Netherlands I should assume it was 15 to 17. Neither is based on an implicit agreement: both are based on General Bridge Knowledge.

 

As to the original question if you had no agreement explicit or implicit then you do not have to tell the opponents anything. That is a matter of Law so it is a correct answer throughout the world. But you have to be careful to disclose anything disclosable that might be relevant, of example if you knew whether 2♦ was forcing you should tell opponents that.

[mich-b]

If your pd opens 1NT , and you have no idea what the range of 1NT is (because you are a substitute?),I suggest that it is in the interest of the game and all other players that the bidder is allowed/asked to announce his range. I would further suggest that this is the right thing to do, even if the laws do not provide for this , and do not even recommend it.

The spirit of the game is "you make a bid, all 3 other players understand its meaning , and proceed using this information to the best of their ability" rather than "you make a bid , nobody knows what it means , everybody take their best guess, and proceed playing the hand in the dark".

Btw , this practice is very much the norm in online play in BBO. When 2 non-regular players play together , and one of them makes a bid which can have one of several meaning, the opps will usually allow/ask him to announce the meaning out loud for the benefit of his partner and the defenders , and to protect the logic of the hand, and everybodys enjoyment.

I am very much aware that current laws do not support this - I just think that players can do it themselves - it is in their own interest.

[blackshoe]

I think that if a player wishes to give his opponents more information than that to which they are legally entitled, and those opponents wish to give that information to the player's partner when they are not required to do so, that's up to them. I think that players who put pressure on a player to act in this way are acting unethically, because the current laws do not support it.

 

If you wish to discuss how the laws should be changed, there is another forum here for that.

[RMB1]

The spirit of the game is "you make a bid, all 3 other players understand its meaning , and proceed using this information to the best of their ability" rather than "you make a bid , nobody knows what it means , everybody take their best guess, and proceed playing the hand in the dark".

 

I disagree. The spirit of the game (as played historically, in rubber bridge, and now online) is that one player makes a bid that suggests playing in that contract and others use their general bridge knowledge to work out what he is likely to hold.

[Free]

I'm not sure which position to take in this matter. Pran has a point, but so does WellSpyder imo. Partner has to guess while opps get a full explanation, it just doesn't seem right.

 

So, a question to pran.

 

Suppose you play the first time together, the auction starts with South 3♥-(Dbl)-3♠*-(p)-4♥-(p)-p-(p) (*=psych). West asks what 3♠ meant, South responds they don't have an agreement and that it could be either control, or natural, or even transfer since they play 1♥-(Dbl)-1♠ as transfer. This is obviously no explanation of the call, so West asks North to explain the "information intended" by the 3♠ call. Should North now explain he intended the call natural / that he intended it natural and psyched / that he psyched?

[karlson]

I think that Pran has a very reasonable point, though perhaps taken to an extreme.

 

I've definitely seen situations where two players technically haven't had any system discussion, but they both know that the other plays convention/treatment X with all of his other regular partners (and say they both know that the other knows this). Can it really be fair to say that it's undiscussed when it comes up?

 

Similarly with bluejak's example, perhaps it's general bridge knowledge in the UK that 1N is 12-14, but to someone from across the ocean, it might be quite surprising.

 

It doesn't seem fair to categorize something as general bridge knowledge when the source of the knowledge is experience playing with the same partners, in the same club, or even in the same general geographical area.

[bluejak]

Of course the Laws do not support this, thank goodness. It is a terrible idea, against the spirit of the game, and is just another attempt to depersonalise the game and make it a computer game. It isn't.

 

In an awful lot of bridge people do not know what is going ion for a variety of reasons. You would spoil this game, and make it just another geek game, by trying to take this away from the game.

 

As for doing it illegally as you suggest, this is deliberately giving information to partner, and any player who does so should be penalised heavily.