Did I use UI?

[Antrax]

RHO deals, (p)-p-(p)-1♥. RHO passes again, and I bid 2♣, Drury. Partner doesn't alert and bids 2♠ (which has no meaning as a Drury response in our methods). As it happens, my hand also qualifies for a natural 2♣ call in that position. Is there anything I should do / avoid doing in this situation? Should I continue and pretend I intended 2♣ as natural? Should I inform the opponents of anything when the bidding ends?

[gordontd]

RHO deals, (p)-p-(p)-1♥. RHO passes again, and I bid 2♣, Drury. Partner doesn't alert and bids 2♠ (which has no meaning as a Drury response in our methods). A

Would your partner not be expected to rebid 2♠ with a strong hand with four spades and five or more hearts?

[Antrax]

Not to my understanding, all strong hands reply 2♦ and the rest reply 2♥. If 2♠ is a legal Drury response, do I pretend that's what partner meant?

[Cyberyeti]

RHO deals, (p)-p-(p)-1♥. RHO passes again, and I bid 2♣, Drury. Partner doesn't alert and bids 2♠ (which has no meaning as a Drury response in our methods). As it happens, my hand also qualifies for a natural 2♣ call in that position. Is there anything I should do / avoid doing in this situation? Should I continue and pretend I intended 2♣ as natural? Should I inform the opponents of anything when the bidding ends?

What you should do is continue as if partner had alerted and explained your bid as the Drury it was intended as, including alerting his 2♠ if it was conventional in response to a Drury 2♣ (which it isn't here). This would wake partner up if 2♠ was conventional and he would have a UI issue, but not a problem here.

 

You should not decide your 2♣ was just natural, although I suspect people do in this situation and don't get caught. Hmm, are we playing Drury ? Well I have clubs anyway, will just bid 2♣ and gauge what to do by whether partner alerts. This is unethical but I'm sure it happens.

 

Edit: for the two posts above that appeared while I was typing

 

You have to guess what 2♠ would mean if partner had alerted and then bid it. I don't know, maybe a weak hand with 6♥ and 5♠ or some sort of "odd" strong hand where he wants to not just bid 2♦ and thinks it's more descriptive to bid 2♠, probably not your average good 5-4, maybe 6-5 or 544 where he might need to make several bids to shape out.

[Antrax]

But in any case, my intent in bidding 2♣ matters, I see. So if I forget and he forgets, that's okay, but if only p forgets, then I have to avoid using the UI that he forgot. Right?

[paulg]

But in any case, my intent in bidding 2♣ matters, I see. So if I forget and he forgets, that's okay, but if only p forgets, then I have to avoid using the UI that he forgot. Right?

Absolutely and this is always the case.

 

The other case is that you forget but partner doesn't and alerts 2♣. Now you have to avoid using this UI and continue to bid 'naturally' and assume that partner is bidding naturally too. It is not always easy to do this and I must admit that I tend to judge people by how hard they try.

 

You should not decide your 2♣ was just natural, although I suspect people do in this situation and don't get caught. Hmm, are we playing Drury ? Well I have clubs anyway, will just bid 2♣ and gauge what to do by whether partner alerts. This is unethical but I'm sure it happens.

I prefer to call this cheating.

[mjj29]

You should not decide your 2♣ was just natural, although I suspect people do in this situation and don't get caught. Hmm, are we playing Drury ? Well I have clubs anyway, will just bid 2♣ and gauge what to do by whether partner alerts. This is unethical but I'm sure it happens.

A more subtle question is not where you gauge what to do whether partner alerts, but by what they bid. This is clear in the "Is 4NT quant or blackwood" case - bid 4NT. If they reply with a suit, then it was Blackwood. If they passed or bid 6NT then they thought it was quant. In this case there's no overlap in the responses, and neither bid is alertable (at least in many jurisdictions), so you don't have UI.

 

In the Drury case, you can bid 2C and if partner bids 2D or 2H (the possible responses to drury, I gather from this thread), we're not sure still, but if they reply 2S or above, you know it was natural. This doesn't rely on anything unauthorised - but you may have problems with this approach because you _also_ have UI from the alert or lack of it.

[blackshoe]

I think this is a case where a pair have not fully explored all the ramifications of a convention they've adopted. It is true that 2♦ and 2M are the most common responses, but other responses are certainly possible. If you have a hand that would have opened 1♥ and reversed to 2♠ over a natural 2♣, then you should still reverse when 2♣ is Drury. 2♦ does not say "I have a full opener", it says "I have a full opener, but I'm not sure where is the right place to play". Note that if you have a hand, opposite Drury, which would bid game opposite any limit raise from partner, and no slam interest, then you should just bid the game. That, at least, is how I understand the convention. YMMV. B-)

[Cyberyeti]

I prefer to call this cheating.

So do I, but am being somewhat careful with using "the c word" now after an incident where I used the phrase "Probst cheat" and was threatened with legal action even though I explained what this was and that there was no allegation of impropriety.

[blackshoe]

In a truly just society, if someone sued you in those circumstances, he would end up paying all your legal expenses, plus a bit more for the aggravation caused you.

[Antrax]

I think this is a case where a pair have not fully explored all the ramifications of a convention they've adopted. It is true that 2♦ and 2M are the most common responses, but other responses are certainly possible. If you have a hand that would have opened 1♥ and reversed to 2♠ over a natural 2♣, then you should still reverse when 2♣ is Drury

We play the Lawrence version, where responder's next bid describes exactly how good his raise is. So, strong hands have no reason to bid anything other than 2♦ before hearing all the information partner wants to convey.

[blackshoe]

Hm. Is that in his "Passed Hand" book, or is it something more recent? IAC, if that's the system, so be it. B-)

[aguahombre]

RHO deals, (p)-p-(p)-1♥. RHO passes again, and I bid 2♣, Drury. Partner doesn't alert and bids 2♠ (which has no meaning as a Drury response in our methods). As it happens, my hand also qualifies for a natural 2♣ call in that position. Is there anything I should do / avoid doing in this situation? Should I continue and pretend I intended 2♣ as natural? Should I inform the opponents of anything when the bidding ends?

Quoted OP because I wanted to answer what was originally asked. I think pretending partner knows 2C was Drury is the right way to go. The fact that 2S is undiscussed in your follow-ups just means you have to assume it means something and still must assume partner knows we are in a Drury sequence.

 

So, here is where we might go off the rails; but it seems required under the circumstances: you have a Drury response and also a club suit, so it seems 3C (dangerous with the UI but appropriate without) is the ethical bid. To bid 3 or four hearts, hiding the club feature for fear that pard is not on the Drury track would seem improper. Perhaps if the club suit really sucked, you could justify not showing it; but otherwise, just going to hearts would feel wrong.

[iviehoff]

Should I inform the opponents of anything when the bidding ends?

If you end up as dummy or declarer, you must inform the opposition of the missing alert at the end of the bidding, before any lead is made. The law requires you to call the director when doing this, so that the director can inform the opposition of their rights, which includes the possibility of reopening the auction.

 

If you end up as a defender, you must hold silent at the end of the bidding, but own up at the end of the hand.

[Antrax]

Hm. Is that in his "Passed Hand" book, or is it something more recent? IAC, if that's the system, so be it. B-)

"Conventions and the judgment to use them", passed hand chapter :)

So, here is where we might go off the rails; but it seems required under the circumstances: you have a Drury response and also a club suit, so it seems 3C (dangerous with the UI but appropriate without) is the ethical bid. To bid 3 or four hearts, hiding the club feature for fear that pard is not on the Drury track would seem improper. Perhaps if the club suit really sucked, you could justify not showing it; but otherwise, just going to hearts would feel wrong.

It was actually worse than you think - spoilering the rest of the story as it's not directly relevant to the thread.

 

my hand was 4=3=0=6, so I had spade support as well. I continued by splintering to show spade support, that partner again misinterpreted to think I'm cue-bidding diamonds in support of spades (opponents asked). So he bid 4NT RKCB for spades, I had 2 keys and a void, so I bid 5NT. Partner tanks, he clearly doesn't remember what void-showing convention we play after BW, and finally produces 6NT that I pass (figuring anything else is unethical, as every one of my bids was misexplained to the opponents). I propose to explain my bids before the opening lead, opponents decline and lead a diamond (they later told me it was clear to them 4♦ was a splinter), partner saves the day by having the ♦A and fillers for my long clubs, and 6NT makes despite the bidding.

 

[aguahombre]

Great story. You done good :rolleyes:

 

Is partner now aware of Drury?

[Antrax]

Yeah, we've exchanged notes on what conventions we think we're playing. Also, now I know what to do next time partner forgets a convention and my hand fits the natural meaning of the bid.

[BunnyGo]

Yeah, we've exchanged notes on what conventions we think we're playing. Also, now I know what to do next time partner forgets a convention and my hand fits the natural meaning of the bid.

 

Also what to do if you forget a convention and your partner alerts a bid you thought was natural. You did well on the hand in the story. Good story.

 

Edit: Changed the accidentally egotistical "I" to the intended "you"

Edited July 4, 2011 by BunnyGo

[Antrax]

Actually that I learned from my previous thread in this forum, "what to do when partner gives a wrong explanation". Alerting a bid I intended as natural falls under that, I thought, regardless of the actual agreements (since we don't have a convention card).

[blackshoe]

"Conventions and the judgment to use them", passed hand chapter :)

 

Hm. I have resisted buying bridge software, since almost all of it is not available for Mac, and that just annoys the Hell outta me. I may have to rethink it, though, since it seems there's a lot of useful stuff (Lawrence, Kantar, probably others) out there — all written for Windoze, and I don't see anybody being willing to write 'em for Mac as well. Pity. I suppose I'll have to buy Parallels and a Windows version. Which one though? Vista, XP, Windoze 1.0? B-)

[Antrax]

Runs fine on my XP and Win7.

You could try using the free Wine (http://www.winehq.org/) before trying Parallels, though you should know it's quite possible that Wine will fail where Parallels will succeed (and not vice-versa).

[jh51]

This whole thread reminds me of something I did recently, and I think that I did the wrong thing ethically.

 

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I was west and had 5=5=0=3 shape.

 

At first, partner did not alert my double. North aske about it and she explained it as penalty. Immediately after she bid 2♦, she "corrected" her explanation to say that the double was DONT - showing an undisclosed long suit.

 

In retrospect, I think the ethical bid is pass instead of 2♥. From a bridge perspective it is probably right as well. 2♦ says, I don't care what you have, I want to play in diamonds.

 

After we won the bid, the correct explanation was forthcoming. But any harm that might have been done had been done.

[AlexJonson]

Quoted OP because I wanted to answer what was originally asked. I think pretending partner knows 2C was Drury is the right way to go. The fact that 2S is undiscussed in your follow-ups just means you have to assume it means something and still must assume partner knows we are in a Drury sequence.

 

So, here is where we might go off the rails; but it seems required under the circumstances: you have a Drury response and also a club suit, so it seems 3C (dangerous with the UI but appropriate without) is the ethical bid. To bid 3 or four hearts, hiding the club feature for fear that pard is not on the Drury track would seem improper. Perhaps if the club suit really sucked, you could justify not showing it; but otherwise, just going to hearts would feel wrong.

 

I think this is an excellent reply, and manages not to mention the word 'cheating'.

 

Personally I think it is mostly undesirable to accuse fellow posters of cheating, whether or not prefixed by 'Probst'.

[Antrax]

Was I accused of cheating somewhere?

[WellSpyder]

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I was west and had 5=5=0=3 shape.

 

At first, partner did not alert my double. North aske about it and she explained it as penalty. Immediately after she bid 2♦, she "corrected" her explanation to say that the double was DONT - showing an undisclosed long suit.

 

In retrospect, I think the ethical bid is pass instead of 2♥. From a bridge perspective it is probably right as well. 2♦ says, I don't care what you have, I want to play in diamonds.

 

After we won the bid, the correct explanation was forthcoming. But any harm that might have been done had been done.

What would you have done if partner had alerted and given the correct explanation of your double, and then bid 2♦? If you would have passed then, you should pass in the situation you actually found yourself in. And certainly it seems sensible to pass from a bridge point of view if you think 2♦ shows a desire to play there whichever option you have.

 

That is not what I would expect 2♦ to show over a double with the meaning you have given, however! I would expect it to show a desire to play in 2♦ if you have long diamonds, a desire to play in (at least) 3♣ if you have clubs, and a desire (probably) to play in at least two of one of the majors if you have both majors. And I would certainly expect to bid 2♥ over 2♦ if I had both majors - and to expect partner to expect me to do this...