Understandings over insufficient bids

[barmar]

Literally this law (with corresponding regulations) forbids a partnership to have different defences depending on whether oppopnents' call in response to a question is described as "A" or "B", and also prevents them from taking advantage of some of opponents' irregularities like insufficient bids.

Are you suggesting that the law could be interpreted to prohibit different defenses to strong and weak NT, if you learn what they're playing by asking a question? I think it's clear that the law is referring to variation based on the act of asking/answering, not based on the information learned about the opponents' methods.

[barmar]

But it doesn't. It reads "A partnership, by prior agreement, may not vary its understanding during the auction or play following a question asked, a response to a question or any irregularity." A rule of general applicability was probably written with a general objective. In this case the objective was probably to produce something close to a bridge result, by restoring the equity that existed before the irregularity without giving anyone an undeserved bonus.

I think another reason for this rule was simply to avoid a level of complexity to the game that adds little value. If we allow this kind of variation, we then have to worry about how to disclose it -- should there be a section on the CC for continuations over IBs and BOOT, plays after revokes and LOOT, etc.?

 

So we disallow agreements, but players are still allowed to use bridge logic.

[pran]

Are you suggesting that the law could be interpreted to prohibit different defenses to strong and weak NT, if you learn what they're playing by asking a question?

That is exactly what the law literally says.

 

I think it's clear that the law is referring to variation based on the act of asking/answering, not based on the information learned about the opponents' methods.

But that is not what the law says.

 

The law says "following a .... response to a question", not mentioning information at all and not distinguishing between responses given by own side (following which a partnership should certainly not be allowed to vary their methods), and responses given by opponents in which case there is every reason to allow them to adapt their methods to whatever they learn about opponents' calls.

[Zelandakh]

Still noone has answered my little thought experiment of a pair playing transfers over competition. Say they get an IB and have a misunderstanding - one thought transfers would be on and the other not. Are they really not allowed to discuss this? What happens on the third or fourth (or tenth) occasion - surely they have generated an (illegal) implicit understanding by then. If I keep making IBs against a pair using such a defence can I claim their methods are illegal? This law is total nonsense. Of course expert pairs have understandings for such situations. And of course it should be legal to do so.

[gnasher]

Still noone has answered my little thought experiment of a pair playing transfers over competition. Say they get an IB and have a misunderstanding - one thought transfers would be on and the other not. Are they really not allowed to discuss this? What happens on the third or fourth (or tenth) occasion - surely they have generated an (illegal) implicit understanding by then. If I keep making IBs against a pair using such a defence can I claim their methods are illegal? This law is total nonsense. Of course expert pairs have understandings for such situations. And of course it should be legal to do so.

I didn't respond to it because I think it has a false premise, as does the original post in this thread. So far as I know, there is no law or ACBL regulation that prevents a partnership having agreements about an action that accepts an insufficient bid.

[campboy]

I didn't respond to it because I think it has a false premise, as does the original post in this thread. So far as I know, there is no law or ACBL regulation that prevents a partnership having agreements about an action that accepts an insufficient bid.

Exactly. The law doesn't say anything about having agreements, just about varying them. Your agreements about 1♠ (1♦) 1♥ must be the same whether or not there was an irregularity -- well, they trivially are since the second case is impossible. But your agreements about 1♠ (2♦) 2♥ must also be the same whether or not there was an irregularity (such as an insufficient 1♦ call) -- that is a meaningful requirement.

[Zelandakh]

OK, say that we agree that 1♠ - (1♦) - X is to be played as negative and that we further agree that we always take the lower negative double when there is a choice. It is now logically impossible for 1♠ - (2♦) - X to have its original meaning. Can I claim GBK for this call now to revert to penalty since the original meaning has been removed by the irregularity?

[campboy]

OK, say that we agree that 1♠ - (1♦) - X is to be played as negative and that we further agree that we always take the lower negative double when there is a choice. It is now logically impossible for 1♠ - (2♦) - X to have its original meaning. Can I claim GBK for this call now to revert to penalty since the original meaning has been removed by the irregularity?

Not in the ACBL. GBK doesn't overrule an agreement; for the meaning of the double to change you must be varying your agreement.

[Zelandakh]

Not in the ACBL. GBK doesn't overrule an agreement; for the meaning of the double to change you must be varying your agreement.

Why can I not frame the agreement to say that the lowest available double is negative and, where there are 2 possibilities, the higher is penalty? This agreement does not need to ne changed.

[campboy]

Because whether there was a lower available double depends on whether there was an irregularity. You are not permitted an agreement which determines the meaning of a call based on whether there was a particular type of irregularity.

[kenrexford]

Why can I not frame the agreement to say that the lowest available double is negative and, where there are 2 possibilities, the higher is penalty? This agreement does not need to ne changed.

 

 

I really like this. If you have agreements that are defined properly, taking into consideration the possibility of an "impossible" auction by carefully wording the agreement, perhaps this is OK?

[campboy]

If the only difference between the auctions 1♠ (2♦) dbl for takeout and 1♠ (2♦) dbl for penalty is that in one case there was an insufficient bid and in the other case there wasn't then that is an illegal agreement in the ACBL however you word it.

[Vampyr]

I really like this. If you have agreements that are defined properly, taking into consideration the possibility of an "impossible" auction by carefully wording the agreement, perhaps this is OK?

 

I think maybe. I have always had some trouble understanding what "varying" one's agreements means. If you have agreements already in place -- following an irregularity or whatever -- then you do not need to vary them.

[pran]

There is a simple example to illustrate this:

 

In the precision strong club systems many calls carry information from how many available calls are bypassed.

 

So if during an auction one player bid (say) 1♠ and the next player passes then the "steps" are 1NT, 2♣, 2♦ and so on for "0", "1", "2" and so on "bypassed" calls.

 

However, if next player doubles then the "steps" are PASS, REDOUBLE, 1NT, 2♣ and so on while if the next hand bids 2♣ the "steps" are PASS, DOUBLE, 2♦ and so on.

 

Logically if next player bids 1♦ (insufficient) the "steps" will be PASS, DOUBLE, 1♥ (!) and so on.

 

This (by definition) is not varying any agreements, it is simply maintaining the same agreements unchanged all the way.

[TimG]

Still noone has answered my little thought experiment of a pair playing transfers over competition. Say they get an IB and have a misunderstanding - one thought transfers would be on and the other not. Are they really not allowed to discuss this? What happens on the third or fourth (or tenth) occasion - surely they have generated an (illegal) implicit understanding by then. If I keep making IBs against a pair using such a defence can I claim their methods are illegal? This law is total nonsense. Of course expert pairs have understandings for such situations. And of course it should be legal to do so.

No pair ever has to face an accepted insufficient bid. They can always decline to accept and then play their agreed methods.

[aguahombre]

Are you suggesting that the law could be interpreted to prohibit different defenses to strong and weak NT, if you learn what they're playing by asking a question? I think it's clear that the law is referring to variation based on the act of asking/answering, not based on the information learned about the opponents' methods.

Pran (Post #28)says the literal interpretation is just that....However:

 

If you have agreements already in place -- following an irregularity or whatever -- then you do not need to vary them.

This seems to be the reasonable interpretation. We have different agreements, depending on what the opponents are playing; implementing one or the other when they finally disclose what they are playing must be in compliance with the rules ---whether the opponents commited an irregularity (such as not immediately announcing their NT range) or not, and whether we had to drag the information out of them or not.

[Vampyr]

No pair ever has to face an accepted insufficient bid. They can always decline to accept and then play their agreed methods.

 

But they are permitted by law to accept it.* So a RA that, in effect, prohibits them from accepting it has an illegal regulation. Yet the regulation is explicitly legal, so I suspect another case of the ACBL telling the rest of the Laws Commission "We're going to do it this way, so make it legal".

 

*(Let us not forget that refusing to accept an insufficient bid is much more dangerous nowadays than it used to be.)

[TimG]

But they are permitted by law to accept it.* So a RA that, in effect, prohibits them from accepting it has an illegal regulation.

 

*(Let us not forget that refusing to accept an insufficient bid is much more dangerous nowadays than it used to be.)

Not preventing you from accepting it, just preventing you from having agreements after you've accepted it. And, they are welcome to regulate such "special partnership understandings".

 

I don't know about "more dangerous". Perhaps "less likely to be advantageous"?

[Vampyr]

I don't know about "more dangerous". Perhaps "less likely to be advantageous"?

 

Well, yes. No one actually ends up in the hospital.

[CamHenry]

Well, yes. No one actually ends up in the hospital.

 

... and if they do, it's probably a ZT violation!

[barmar]

I think maybe. I have always had some trouble understanding what "varying" one's agreements means. If you have agreements already in place -- following an irregularity or whatever -- then you do not need to vary them.

It seems like you're interpreting "vary" to mean that at the time the irregularity/question/answer happens, the pair actively changes their existing agreements. I can't believe the lawmakers intended this. I think everyone has always understood this to refer to having varying agreements that depend on an irregularity/question/answer having occurred.

 

So the question then is "varying from what?" In the case of a question or answer, this is pretty simple: the agreement if everyone had been silent. It's trickier in the case of irregularities like revokes or IBs. I think it should be similar to the law regarding making an IB sufficient -- we have to compare with some similar action without the irregularity.

[pran]

It seems like you're interpreting "vary" to mean that at the time the irregularity/question/answer happens, the pair actively changes their existing agreements. I can't believe the lawmakers intended this. I think everyone has always understood this to refer to having varying agreements that depend on an irregularity/question/answer having occurred.

 

So the question then is "varying from what?" In the case of a question or answer, this is pretty simple: the agreement if everyone had been silent. It's trickier in the case of irregularities like revokes or IBs. I think it should be similar to the law regarding making an IB sufficient -- we have to compare with some similar action without the irregularity.

A very clear logic is that a partnership may not have the possibility to change their agreement in any way by anything they say to opponents or by committing some irregularity. This would of course constitute illegal communication between the partners.

 

It is more difficult to understand a law that literally forbids a partnership to adapt their agreements according to what they learn about opponents' agreements and methods from their declarations and answers to questions. Nor do I understand the logic if a partnership shall be denied the opportunity to take advantage provided through extra auction space because of an accepted insufficient bid.

[barmar]

It is more difficult to understand a law that literally forbids a partnership to adapt their agreements according to what they learn about opponents' agreements and methods from their declarations and answers to questions. Nor do I understand the logic if a partnership shall be denied the opportunity to take advantage provided through extra auction space because of an accepted insufficient bid.

I don't believe the Lawmakers intended the clause to refer to varying agreements based on what you learn about the opponents' methods. You're allowed to have different defenses to weak and strong NT, and it makes no sense that you would only be allowed to do this if you checked the CC rather than asking the opponents the range of their NT.

 

I believe the law was intended to refer to varying ones agreements based on the ACT of asking or answering. E.g. you can't play different responses to your 1NT opening depending on whether the opponents ask what your range is. This is basically a consequence of the law that says that all communication between partners is in the bids and plays. While you may be able to take inferences from the opponents' questions, it shouldn't affect the communications effected by your methods.

 

The regulation against having methods that take advantage of the opponents irregularities is harder to justify. I stated my theory earlier: they just didn't want to open that can of worms, and deal with the extra complexity that results, since it doesn't enhance the game significantly. Surely ACBL's prohibition of Multi is more annoying than prohibiting special agreements after an opponent's IB or BOOT.

[pran]

I don't believe the Lawmakers intended the clause to refer to varying agreements based on what you learn about the opponents' methods. You're allowed to have different defenses to weak and strong NT, and it makes no sense that you would only be allowed to do this if you checked the CC rather than asking the opponents the range of their NT.

[...]

 

Precisely, but that is what Law 40B3 literally does.

 

Hence the suggestion that I have submitted to Grattan:

 

The Regulating Authority may disallow prior agreement by a partnership to vary its understandings during the auction or play following a question asked by either side, a response to a question given by own side, or any irregularity by own side.

[gnasher]

The the word "following" is confusing, because it doesn't imply that the question led to the change in the methods. The langauge is pointlessly complicated, too. I would change it to:

 

The Regulating Authority may prohibit agreements that depend on:

- Whether a question has been asked.

- What question was asked.

- An answer given by one's own side.

- Whether an irregularity has been committed.

- The nature of an irregularity committed.

 

That's five words longer than in the current laws, but a lot easier to understand. You could add "by one's own side" to some of the items, if required.