Falling asleep

[mr1303]

imagine the scenario. You've had the day at work to end all days. You get home and sit down, and nod off immediately, only to get a call from your irritable bridge partner wondering why you haven't turned up. You rush down and speedball the first round, and manage to get some respectability, but towards the end of the night, you're starting to nod off again. You see in the haze your RHO call 1nt. You hold:

 

Ax

QJTx

KQ87x

xx

 

You decide that this is worth an Asptro 2C overcall, noting that your LHO hasn't announced the NT range, and worse, partner hasn't alerted the 2C overcall. After thinking "bunch of dolts" to yourself, you look again at RHO's call and realise that you're the dolt, as RHO actually opened 1S.

 

The auction proceeds as follows:

 

1NT 2C P 3C

P ?

 

1) Is the lack of announcement and failure to alert UI.

 

2) Is there AI of looking at opener's call that would render any UI redundant.

 

3) If you were in this situation, what would you call now?

 

4) I was too tired to consider what the ethical call might be, so I decided that I was going to bid 3NT and call the director at the end of the hand. Which I did. If you were the director, how would you rule?

 

Partner held:

 

9xx

Kx

109xx

AKQx

[ahydra]

You mean 1S 2C p 3C? And surely partner calls more than 3C with that!

 

Assuming you didn't give away the fact you misbid e.g. by a surprised look when you saw 1NT was actually 1S, then partner has no UI and can do what he likes.

 

Your UI situation is hard though. I guess the TD has to judge "did the failure to alert 2C wake you up to the fact that you had read RHO's call wrong" (I'm really not sure what to do with the failure to announce). It would probably be reasonable to rule that it did, and hence we need to look at LAs, which depend on what 3C means in response to 2C Asptro.

 

ahydra

[Zelandakh]

You need to tell us what a 3♣ response to an Asptro 2♣ means to you since there are multiple versions of the convention around. Most likely you should be bidding 3♦ next but it does depend what your system looks like. In any case, bidding 3NT is almost certainly wrong. It maximises the chance of partner dropping you in a playable spot and is therefore suggested by the UI you have available. I would assume that the Director ruled against you here?

[kenrexford]

This is kind of a curious situation. I mean, I cannot imagine that you could possibly have unauthorized information that the auction is at it appears on the table simply no matter what the source of your decision to actually look at the table correctly later. Trying to guess timing and motives seems dumb to me. If the auction on the table is 1♠-2♣-P-3♣, I don't even think, "Hey partner -- they opened 1♠" should be bad enough to cause a problem, because the auction is as it is.

 

Granted, some things might cause partner to have UI, but I just cannot fathom the actual auction being unauthorized information no matter what.

 

So, what to bid? 3NT seems reasonable, as it is the most likely to end this disaster, and you might make it somehow. You have no reasonable chance on the actual cards, but maybe partner has the club Ace, the diamond Ace, and Q109x in spades, with the spade Jack lead? LOL

[blackshoe]

The lack of announcement, had there actually been such, would be MI, but since the opening bid wasn't 1NT, there's no MI.

 

The lack of an expected alert from partner is may convey UI. The auction on the table is AI. Looking at the actual auction, what does partner's failure to alert suggest? Well, it suggests he thinks your 2♣ is natural, given normal methods. So his three clubs is a raise, conveying whatever information about his hand such a raise would convey in your system. That suggests, to me at least, that you need to bid a red suit, or 3NT, and hope you survive. Is pass a logical alternative? I think not, but it depends on your methods over an Asptro 2♣. If 3♣ is forcing in your methods, then pass is not an LA. As I played the convention, years ago, 3♣ is forcing and 3♦ is the system bid now, showing 5♦ and 4♥, so that's what I'd bid. Partner can make of that what he will, since he has no UI. If he passes, and you make 3♦, I would not adjust the score. More interesting is what happens if partner bids 3♠. If that means "bid 3NT if you have a stopper" then I think you have to bid 3NT. Again, I wouldn't adjust the score — I think even if 3NT makes it's "rub of the green".

 

If pass over 3♣ is a LA in the partnership's Asptro methods, my ruling would be different.

[mr1303]

I'm not sure what 3C would be. It would show clubs, and show a better hand than pass, but I don't think it'd be forcing.

 

On the other hand, the opponents never led spades at all during the play, and 3NT made with 2 overtricks. Would that influence your ruling?

[blackshoe]

No. Should it?

 

I should have mentioned when I said that 3♣ is forcing in my old methods, it's also artificial.

[alanmet]

You have simply misbid. There can't be UI because your partner hasn't alerted because he has no reason to.

You have to simply try to resue the situation the best you can.

The chances are you are not going to benefit from your mis-bid and if you do it is your good luck.

The laws are not there to penalise people for making stupid mistakes.

Cheers

Alan

 

imagine the scenario. You've had the day at work to end all days. You get home and sit down, and nod off immediately, only to get a call from your irritable bridge partner wondering why you haven't turned up. You rush down and speedball the first round, and manage to get some respectability, but towards the end of the night, you're starting to nod off again. You see in the haze your RHO call 1nt. You hold:

 

Ax

QJTx

KQ87x

xx

 

You decide that this is worth an Asptro 2C overcall, noting that your LHO hasn't announced the NT range, and worse, partner hasn't alerted the 2C overcall. After thinking "bunch of dolts" to yourself, you look again at RHO's call and realise that you're the dolt, as RHO actually opened 1S.

 

The auction proceeds as follows:

 

1NT 2C P 3C

P ?

 

1) Is the lack of announcement and failure to alert UI.

 

2) Is there AI of looking at opener's call that would render any UI redundant.

 

3) If you were in this situation, what would you call now?

 

4) I was too tired to consider what the ethical call might be, so I decided that I was going to bid 3NT and call the director at the end of the hand. Which I did. If you were the director, how would you rule?

 

Partner held:

 

9xx

Kx

109xx

AKQx

[Trinidad]

The lacking alert is UI. The auction is not.

 

It is generally accepted that (in a different situation) it is ok to use partner's (lack of) alert to see that you pulled the wrong bidding card and you are allowed to change to your intended bid.

 

Here, you did intend to bid 2♣, so the bid stands. But you are allowed to know that they opened 1♠. That means that you are also allowed to know that:

- your 2♣ was natural (assuming that you were awake enough to know that 2♣ over 1♠ is natural)

- partner has a raise of a natural overcall.

 

With that information you can pick your bid.

 

What bid you try is a technical question, but I would just pass. There is no way we will find a making contract, so let's just play one where we are not doubled. (In MPs, you will have a bottom, but in IMPs you can still save a lot of IMPs: -300 or -150 is a lot better than -1100 or -800.) The fact that 3NT is down several opposite partner's actual hand -a hand he can't have because it is way too strong for a simple raise to 3♣- shows that it is best to stay as low as possible. (A bid of 3♦ will be interpreted as forcing, showing a stopper seeking 3NT. So don't start something like that.)

 

Rik

[gordontd]

There can't be UI because your partner hasn't alerted because he has no reason to.

This is wrong.

 

L16B. Extraneous Information from Partner

1. (a) After a player makes available to his partner extraneous

information that may suggest a call or play, as for example by a

remark, a question, a reply to a question, an unexpected alert or

failure to alert, or by unmistakable hesitation, unwonted speed,

special emphasis, tone, gesture, movement, or mannerism, the

partner may not choose from among logical alternatives one that

could demonstrably have been suggested over another by the

extraneous information.

[mink]

By the non-alert you got the UI that partner thinks your 2♣ bid was natural.

By seeing the 1♠ opening bid you get the AI that your partner thinks that your 2♣ bid was natural.

In such a case I strongly believe that the UI is no longer relevant. No law requires you to ignore AI, which would be necessary if it was forbidden now to make calls that are suggested by the UI. On the contrary, Law 16A1a explicitly allows you to use AI, if it "is unaffected by unauthorized information from another source; ...". I cannot see how a missing Alert can affect a bidding card lying on the table.

 

Of course, the UI may have been one of the clues that made you see the AI. But it was in no way required to make to 1♠ opening visible to you.

 

Karl

[phil_20686]

This is wrong.

 

I think Alan is right. If you allow that following proper procedure in alerting can lead to extraneous information you rapidly go to a crazy place:

 

Suppose you are playing in a partnership, and you are 90% sure you have agreed to play jacoby, so you bid 2N over 1M and partner alerts, and bids 3d. Your argument means that in this situation, I have benefited from the alert to the tune of my uncertainty, and am unable to `benefit' by choosing a "logical alternative" suggested by the alert, like investigating slam by bidding 4c, since with the alert I might have worried that 3c might have been natural and that partner would think that my 4c bid might have been natural.

 

Suppose you play a complex relay system, and 1% of the time partner gets it wrong, but on this occasion you ahve five rounds of bidding describing your shape (all artificial) and then 3S to set the suit, which your partner does not alert, correctly. Since you know that occasionally partner forgets the system, and misbids, but in this case his expected failure to alert has confirmed that he bid correctly. A strict interpretation would mean that you were banned from initiating further relays, since the lack alert has yielded the UI that on this occasion partner has bid correctly, and using further relays is clearly a "logical alternative suggested by the UI".

 

If you rule that partner correctly alerting your bid can constitutes UI, then you would have to rule that UI had been transmitted in both of the above situations, which is clearly ridiculous, and renders the game unplayable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[aguahombre]

Phil and Alan:

 

Gordon merely said the statement about the non alert not being UI was wrong. Trinidad also states the non alert was UI. Just because we have UI doesn't mean we are screwed.

[blackshoe]

Law 16 speaks of extraneous information, which may suggest a call or play. An expected alert or lack of alert is not extraneous, so does not in itself suggest a call or play. So there is no UI from an expected alert or failure to alert.

[barmar]

Law 16 speaks of extraneous information, which may suggest a call or play. An expected alert or lack of alert is not extraneous, so does not in itself suggest a call or play. So there is no UI from an expected alert or failure to alert.

But this failure to alert was NOT expected -- he expected partner to alert his ASPTRO bid.

[blackshoe]

Law 16 speaks of extraneous information, which may suggest a call or play. An expected alert or lack of alert is not extraneous, so does not in itself suggest a call or play. So there is no UI from an expected alert or failure to alert.

 

But this failure to alert was NOT expected -- he expected partner to alert his ASPTRO bid.

I was speaking generally, not talking about this particular case.

[Fluffy]

I think we are going too far, if an info that is on plain sight over the table and got there by normal procedures becomes unavaible to me.

[gordontd]

I think Alan is right.

I think you should read the law I quoted.

[lamford]

I think you should read the law I quoted.

I agree with Gordon that there is UI, as there was an unexpected failure to alert, and there is a footnote which clarifies that this is "unexpected in relation to the basis of his action".

 

However the UI tells him nothing, as he can see from the auction that he has misbid, so he can make any call he wants. His methods over 1NT are completely irrelevant as that was not the auction.

[Zelandakh]

Phil, what does partner correctly alerting your bid as expected have to do with a situation where partner correctly but unexpectedly alerts your bid. Say you are 90% certain you play Jacoby transfers over 1NT. So you respond 2♦. Partner correctly alerts this and suddenly you remember that you actually agreed this to be Forcing Stayman. No problem though, you have a GF hand with 5 hearts and can just proceed with the FS auction. Noone will ever know the difference and since the auction and methods are being judged as AI, this seems to be allowed under this interpretation. Do you not have a problem with this?

 

How about playing in a jurisdiction that allows alerts above 3NT and the auction starts 1♠ - 3♠; 4♣, bid as a natural slam try. Partner correctly alerts and now I remember our agreement is actually Gerber. Partner responds 4♠ and I call 6♠. Still no problem? I can see from the auction that I misbid after all.

[phil_20686]

Phil, what does partner correctly alerting your bid as expected have to do with a situation where partner correctly but unexpectedly alerts your bid.

 

Because `expected' is ambiguous.

 

Suppose you bid 3N over 1N, and partner alerts, so you look down and see that actually you pulled out 3S, which is alertable. Are you banned from realising that you bid 3S rather than 3N at any point in the auction? Of course not. "Expected" must be defined based on what you bid, not on what you thought that you bid.

 

Expected can mean anything from "one of a range of unlikely but foreseen options", to "near certainty" depending on the context. If I am aware that once every 100,000 boards I misread the auction, and it may lead to alerting complications, it is not, strictly "unexpected" that partner "unexpectedly" alerts, because I have misbid.

 

If you base "expected" on what you "expect to occur", you are in crazy land, suppose you play a complex system, that has many relays, and in the last 6 outings partner has got it wrong half the time. So you have a relay sequence, which ends in a natural bid, and partner alerts all the relays and doesn't alert the natural bid which ends it. Clearly this is strong evidence that he has got the system right. By your definition, I only expected him to alert correctly half the time, so the fact that he did and therefore clearly remembers the system, is UI to me.

 

Suppose he has forgotten the system on every single previous occasion, then it is "unexpected" that he alerted correctly, even though it is your agreement? Thus I am surely banned from taking advantage of the shape information that I learned from the relay, since I might have been planning to discount some of it based on past history. :S Surely you can see how the game becomes unplayable under this interpretation?

[Zelandakh]

Suppose you bid 3N over 1N, and partner alerts, so you look down and see that actually you pulled out 3S, which is alertable. Are you banned from realising that you bid 3S rather than 3N at any point in the auction?

Since the rules explicitly allow this, I would hope not! "Pause for thought" begins from the moment you realise your mistake...

[gordontd]

Suppose you bid 3N over 1N, and partner alerts, so you look down and see that actually you pulled out 3S, which is alertable. Are you banned from realising that you bid 3S rather than 3N at any point in the auction? Of course not. "Expected" must be defined based on what you bid, not on what you thought that you bid.

When you (thought you) bid 3NT, you didn't expect it to be alerted. So the alert, when it came, was unexpected. You are explicitly allowed to use this information for the purposes of L25A1 if you want to change your call, but not otherwise.

[gordontd]

If you base "expected" on what you "expect to occur", you are in crazy land, suppose you play a complex system, that has many relays, and in the last 6 outings partner has got it wrong half the time. So you have a relay sequence, which ends in a natural bid, and partner alerts all the relays and doesn't alert the natural bid which ends it. Clearly this is strong evidence that he has got the system right. By your definition, I only expected him to alert correctly half the time, so the fact that he did and therefore clearly remembers the system, is UI to me.

 

Suppose he has forgotten the system on every single previous occasion, then it is "unexpected" that he alerted correctly, even though it is your agreement? Thus I am surely banned from taking advantage of the shape information that I learned from the relay, since I might have been planning to discount some of it based on past history. :S Surely you can see how the game becomes unplayable under this interpretation?

Fortunately for them, most people in this situation are playing behind screens, which protects them from the UI. Otherwise, I would suggest they play a simpler system, because they would indeed have difficult UI constraints.

[bluejak]

It is generally accepted that (in a different situation) it is ok to use partner's (lack of) alert to see that you pulled the wrong bidding card and you are allowed to change to your intended bid.

While true, there is no doubt that this ruling by the WBFLC conflicts with UI Laws for other situations. So we cannot deduce other situations based on this special case.

 

I think we are going too far, if an info that is on plain sight over the table and got there by normal procedures becomes unavaible to me.

There are UI Laws which must be followed. If you think following such Laws is going too far you must take it up with the WBFLC.

 

However, I think it unfortunate that so many people think that UI Laws are just an artificial method of making the game more difficult for them. In fact the skill in the game is interpreting the legal communications from partner, and allowing further communication [whether voluntary or not] to be used demeans the game.

 

:ph34r:

 

The player concerned has AI from the failure to announce but UI from partner's failure to alert. Many posters and others I discuss matters with get confused over these situations, asking something along the lines of "Does the AI trump the UI?" or some such. No: the UI Laws do not mention AI, and must be applied.

 

So the question is a judgement one.

 

• Has the player got UI from his partner that might suggest a call or play?
  
• Yes, the failure to alert 2♣.
  
• 
  
• Are there LAs to 3NT over 3♣? Primarily, is Pass an LA?
  
• This is very tricky. Presumably for pass to be an LA it would be chosen by a certain number of people [ok, I assume everyone knows how we derive the number] playing a similar system and style, and in the same basic position, ie thinking the opening bid is 1NT but having heard no announcement.
  
• 
  
• Would the opposition have got a better score if the player had chosen the LA [assuming we decide Pass is one]?
  
• Yes, no doubt.
  
• 
  
• Finally, does the UI suggest 3NT over passing?
  
• Yes, no doubt.
  

So there we are. Of course we always get some people who say that with the auction on the table and the auction being AI this is easy: he is allowed to use the auction. It never seems that easy to me. Would he have remembered with spoken bidding? Would he have even looked down at the auction without the failure to alert? Did not a player in a World Championship not go five rounds before looking down and discovering he had the auction wrong form the start?

 

One thing that strikes me is that, while the lack of announcement might be relevant [and it is AI] he had not checked the auction before is first call, ie the failure to announce had not woken him up at that point so why should it wake him up later?

 

I have realised that I have totally overlooked one point: assuming this player still thinks he has used Asptro, what does 3♣ mean? I have been assuming it is natural and to play or constructive. If this is wrong then it is perfectly possible that Pass is not an LA, but then we have to look at other possibilities and other LAs. The big judgement is still what are the LAs to 3NT.