Correcting your own transfer pre-empt

[squealydan]

Playing a club game the other night against an occasional pair, who both play transfer pre-empts with their regular partners, we had this start to the auction.

 

3♦ - p - p - X

3♥

 

The 3♦ bid was not alerted.

 

Opener held

 

♠ xx

♥ KQxxxxx

♦ Ax

♣ xx

 

We ended up with an ok board, but I was curious about opener's behaviour.

 

They did have transfer pre-empts on their card. I would have thought that she should think something like "I told my partner I had a lot of hearts, he has chosen to play in diamonds instead. I have ace-doubleton in support of his suit..." in which case the only decision is whether to pass or to raise diamonds?

 

 

Is it reasonable for opener's decision to be influenced by knowledge that her partner is very old and often forgetful?

If you choose to play such a convention, can you have a meta-agreement that "if you fail to complete the transfer, I'll assume you've forgotten"?

[Bbradley62]

If you choose to play such a convention, can you have a meta-agreement that "if you fail to complete the transfer, I'll assume you've forgotten"?

But, if that agreement is allowed, would opener have to alert partner's pass, warning opps not to re-open the auction?

[nigel_k]

LOL, probably only in New Zealand could you find an elderly, forgetful gentleman playing transfer preempts in a club game.

 

Anyway, the possibilities are:

 

A) Partner has forgotten

B) Partner has diamonds and prefers 3♦ to 3♥ as a contract

 

Scenarion A is a logical alternative and is the one suggested by the UI. So you can only choose it if scenario B is not a LA. Partner's forgetfulness can certainly be taken into account, but in this case I think it would be hard to justify a conclusion that B is not a LA.

 

The meta-agreement you suggested would not change the alternatives or whether B is logical, so would not help.

[gwnn]

Anyway, the possibilities are:

 

A) Partner has forgotten

B) Partner has diamonds and prefers 3♦ to 3♥ as a contract

 

Scenarion A is a logical alternative and is the one suggested by the UI.

Which UI?

[gnasher]

Which UI?

 

The non-alert of 3♦.

[gwnn]

The non-alert of 3♦.

Thanks, I signed up for new reading glasses. Pass is a LA, 3♥ is suggested by the UI.

[barmar]

If you choose to play such a convention, can you have a meta-agreement that "if you fail to complete the transfer, I'll assume you've forgotten"?

I'm not sure you can have such an "agreement" (can you really agree that you can forget an agreement?). But maybe you can have the agreement that the transfer is forcing, so passing is "impossible" (if partner wants to play in the transfer suit, he has to bid it, not pass); then, simple logic implies that he's forgotten.

 

But in either case, they're still liable for a misinformation ruling due to the failure to alert the original transfer.

 

Here's a conundrum: Assuming that agreement is legal, his pass is presumably alertable. But what explanation do you give? If you say "He's forgotten our agreement", the opponents will likely ask "What agreement?", and then you'll have to explain your own bid, which is contrary to alerting regulations.

 

It gets more interesting in environments where self-alerts are used (online, screens). In the case of screens, the players on opposite sides of the screen will get different info. In an online contex, the preemptor would alert his original bid, and can then use private chat to the opponents to explain partner's failure to complete the transfer.

[blackshoe]

We ended up with an ok board, but I was curious about opener's behaviour.

 

They did have transfer pre-empts on their card. I would have thought that she should think something like "I told my partner I had a lot of hearts, he has chosen to play in diamonds instead. I have ace-doubleton in support of his suit..." in which case the only decision is whether to pass or to raise diamonds?

 

Is it reasonable for opener's decision to be influenced by knowledge that her partner is very old and often forgetful?

If you choose to play such a convention, can you have a meta-agreement that "if you fail to complete the transfer, I'll assume you've forgotten"?

If their version of transfer preempts includes the possibility that responder might pass with great length and strength in the suit opened, and say a singleton or void in opener's actual suit, then yes, opener's systemic choice is between pass and 4♦. If, as sounds likely here, they haven't discussed it, opener has a problem. Absent UI, if responder has a general history of forgetfulness, opener is permitted to take that into account, but should imo alert the pass. That opener will now explain that they play transfer preempts here, implying that he has hearts, is unfortunate but not illegal. Having done so, again absent UI, opener can bid as he likes. However, the failure to alert provides UI to opener, specifically that it is virtually certain that responder has forgotten, so he is constrained not to choose an LA suggested by the UI. That LA is 3♥. Neither pass or 4♦ is suggested, so I think opener must do one of those things. He didn't. I would, assuming all the criteria are met, adjust the score to 3♦X or 4♦ or 4♦X, whichever is "the most unfavorable result that was at all probable had the irregularity not occurred" (in Law 12C1{e} jurisdiction) or some weighted score (in Law 12C1{c} jurisdiction).

 

I don't think the meta-agreement proposed would help. Opener still has UI, he's still constrained by it. The meta-agreement doesn't let him off the hook.

[kevperk]

No one has mentioned the misinformation. Fourth seat would probably pass the hand out with the correct info.

[blackshoe]

Certainly, but that is not likely to give the NOS a better score than the adjustment for UI.

[lalldonn]

I agree with Blackshoe's post, except I don't think bidding 4♦ is really an LA. That just looks like a terrible bid to me. So I would probably adjust to 3♦X.

[campboy]

Here's a conundrum: Assuming that agreement is legal, his pass is presumably alertable. But what explanation do you give? If you say "He's forgotten our agreement", the opponents will likely ask "What agreement?", and then you'll have to explain your own bid, which is contrary to alerting regulations.

I would say "pass does not exist" or similar. Your concern shouldn't be a problem in practice, though, since any alert from you should lead to partner correcting his failure to alert.

[blackshoe]

I agree with Blackshoe's post, except I don't think bidding 4♦ is really an LA. That just looks like a terrible bid to me. So I would probably adjust to 3♦X.

I suppose it is pretty bad, given that if partner thought game or slam had a chance he could bid 4♦ himself instead of passing.

[lalldonn]

I suppose it is pretty bad, given that if partner thought game or slam had a chance he could bid 4♦ himself instead of passing.

I could see it as sort of furthering the preempt, but there are two problems with that. One is partner doesn't have to be weak, he could be a 3064 15 count for example and decide to pass. The other is we have the KQ of hearts where partner is extremely likely to be short and often even void. Not that this is a 3♥ opener really but if we had xx xxxxxxx KQ xx that would clearly be a better hand for bidding 4♦ in my mind even with an ace less that the actual hand. But really I doubt I ever would raise it unless I had at least three diamonds. Something like x QJTxxxx Kxx xx might be a good raise in practice. That's the type of hand on which I might adjust to 4♦X.

[blackshoe]

Makes sense. B-)

[barmar]

I would say "pass does not exist" or similar. Your concern shouldn't be a problem in practice, though, since any alert from you should lead to partner correcting his failure to alert.

But if you have this "agreement", then pass does exist; that's what makes this agreement so weird, it's an agreement about a mistake.

 

However, I think your second point solves it. You explain "he forgot the agreement". When they ask for further clarification, you tell them to ask partner -- hopefully all this discussion will have woken him up.

 

This then leads us into a dilemma we've had in other threads: Must he continue to bid (and defend, if it comes to that) based on his original forgetting (I think this is the concensus) or is his actual agreement AI to himself (as I suspect lamford will claim, because LAs are based on the partnership's agreements, not what he was thinking when he made the first call)?

[blackshoe]

I think that a partnership's agreements are in general AI to both partners, but Law 16A1{d} includes the words "and the Laws do not preclude his use of this information". This is interesting, because Law 16B1 requires him to consider LAs based on the partnership's agreements, so what those LAs are is AI, but he cannot choose one which demonstrably could be suggested over another. So 16B1 precludes his use of the AI to choose a suggested LA. In fact he has to use the AI to avoid choosing it.

[barmar]

I think that a partnership's agreements are in general AI to both partners, but Law 16A1{d} includes the words "and the Laws do not preclude his use of this information". This is interesting, because Law 16B1 requires him to consider LAs based on the partnership's agreements, so what those LAs are is AI, but he cannot choose one which demonstrably could be suggested over another. So 16B1 precludes his use of the AI to choose a suggested LA. In fact he has to use the AI to avoid choosing it.

But if the partnership agreements only admit one LA, he's not choosing one over another. The problem is that he only remembered the partnership agreements because of extraneous communication.