Ruling questions after convention misuse

[jeff28]

[hv=pc=n&s=sqt4hk86daj3cj972&w=s85h9743dk7654c86&n=saj63haqj52dqt82c&e=sk972htd9cakqt543&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=p1h2nd3dp4c4hpp5cdppp]399|300[/hv]

 

MP Club-Tournament

Easts 2NT was alerted as Minors. East said later she thought 2NT was ♠ and ♣.

1. is East allowed to "wake up" and bid ♣ twice?

2. is West allowed to pass 5♣, or is he forced to bid 5♦ with his hand (as South said and wanted to rectify the contract).

3. does a bad defence by NS (only 1 or 2 down, instead of 3 or 4 with a top) let the bad result stand.

[aguahombre]

Hi, Jeff. Welcome aboard.

 

Who was right, or did they not really have an agreement. IMO, this will make a difference.

 

I suspect that West was not sure either because of his "leap" to 3 whole diamonds. If so, he might be guilty of MI and failing to properly redisclose at some point.

 

I think the answers to all three questions are dependent on this information. Edit: Actually #1 is not.

 

If East showed black suits, and spades weren't supported, East's 7-bagger is trump; I see nothing to indicate East used UI (or even woke up).

Edited February 2, 2013 by aguahombre

[jeff28]

Hi, Jeff. Welcome aboard.

 

Who was right, or did they not really have an agreement. IMO, this will make a difference.

 

I suspect that West was not sure either because of his "leap" to 3 whole diamonds. If so, he might be guilty of MI and failing to properly redisclose at some point.

 

I think the answers to all three questions are dependent on this information.

 

 

Oh it seems I was not clear enough; East "misused" 2NT and both minors was their agreement and explained by West after 2NT, and I can't see a "leap" from 2NT to 3♦.

[Trinidad]

Oh it seems I was not clear enough; East "misused" 2NT and both minors was their agreement and explained by West after 2NT, and I can't see a "leap" from 2NT to 3♦.

Hi Jeff,

 

Aguahombre was sarcastic. He meant that West seriously underbid with 5 (five!) card support for partner's suit. A player who would trust his partner to have both minors would typically make a real leap to 5♦ with this West hand. This West player "leapt" all the way to ... 3♦, which might indicate that West wasn't too sure about the meaning of 2NT for this particular East.

 

To answer your questions:

1) East is not allowed to wake up. He is supposed to think that partner knows that he has shown the black suits. In this particular case, IMO that doesn't mean that he is not allowed to bid 4♣, since he does have a seven card club suit (and a real good one). But he is supposed to think that his partner has shown at least 6 good diamonds by bidding 3 diamonds. Should West rebid diamonds, then East should think that West has 7 or more which means that diamonds are going to be trump.

 

2) Unless East has made faces when West explained the 2NT bid, West does not have any unauthorized information (UI). That means that West can make any call he wants to make (including pass). However, if EW have had misunderstandings about 2NT before, there is a good reason why West passes: He has figured out that East probably misbid... again... In that case, there is an implicit understanding that 2NT shows the minors... except when it doesn't. Then NS should have been informed about this implicit understanding, and they weren't. In that case, there is misinformation (MI).

 

3) If the defense was really bad and this bad defense was not related to the infraction then a TD (and AC) would decide that the bad result for NS wasn't caused by EW's infraction, but by the defense.

 

In this case, I can easily see how South doesn't want to lead trumps. I can imagine that it starts with two rounds of hearts, ruffed by East. Now South is supposed to wonder what happened to the spade suit, and he should conclude that East has them. Given that East should have at least 6 clubs (otherwise East's 4♣ bid was a serious infraction), there shouldn't be room for more than 1 diamond. That means that South needs to hop up with the ace when East plays a diamond. An expert South will see that. At lower levels, South is not expected to see that, and ducking a round of diamonds would be a quite normal error to make. On top of that, the error is certainly related to the MI. (South can figure out from the bidding that East doesn't have the minors, but it is harder to figure out what East does have.)

 

Once the ♦K has scored, and East is in dummy, he will also score a trick with the ♠K and he will be able to ruff spades in dummy, losing only to the major suit aces and the ♣J. I know many players for whom that would be a normal defense. In that case the defense is not bad. It may look horrible when you see 52 cards, but at the table you see only 13+13 in dummy.

 

Rik

[iviehoff]

3. does a bad defence by NS (only 1 or 2 down, instead of 3 or 4 with a top) let the bad result stand.

If we do rule (and we do so rather rarely) that the Non-Offending Side made a serious error unrelated to the infraction subsequent to the point of damage from the infraction, (since "serious errors" should be very serious errors), then "score stands" is never the appropriate ruling - this is a change that came in with the 2007 laws. As 12C1b makes clear, the adjustment should still take place, (so the offending side is always adjusted and never gain from the subsequent serious error); but the NOS's score is modified so that they retain the amount of self-inflicted damage resulting from the serious error; this sometimes, but far from always, results in the the NOS retaining the table score.