Tough Decision

[Chris3875]

This is my week for having to make pretty mean decisions at the table. East asked the meaning of the 2NT overcall and South said that it showed 5+ hearts and 5+ of the other minor (diamonds). South bid 3♦, West bid 4 and all passed. North came to me away from the table and said that she had made a mistake and that her bid had actually shown 5/5 in the minor suits. Their agreement, according to their system card, was as described by South. E/W went well off in 4♣ and were upset. I showed them Law 75C - Mistaken Call "Here there is no infraction of Law since East-West did receive an accurate description of the North=South agreement, they have no claim to an accurate description of the North-South hands. Regardless of damage, the director shall allow the result to stand". This seems to be a tough law in this instance - was I correct? I did tell East-West that I would send it to this website for a second opinion.

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[RMB1]

... North came to me away from the table and said that she had made a mistake and that her bid had actually shown 5/5 in the minor suits. ...

 

But according to the diagram South has 5-5 in the minors - not North.

[Chris3875]

Sorry RMB I think you saw this post before I edited it.

[Chris3875]

eeeek my bidding disappeared in the edit too ....

 

it went West 1C, North 2NT, East Double, South 3D, West 4C, all pass

[paulg]

I cannot see an auction but I presume that it was:

[hv=d=w&v=0&b=8&a=1c2n3c3d4cppp]133|100[/hv]

 

I would like to ask South why she bid three diamonds and not support hearts with four-card support. Perhaps South was uncertain about their agreement too, casting some doubt on whether it was really a firm agreement?

 

I'd also ask North why she did not bid on over three diamonds, when partner has shown real support and is clearly very short in clubs. I expect that this is a reflection on experience and standard of the players, but still worth asking.

 

The law itself would be considered tough if the offending pair often got a good score, but in reality it is very rare - except when written up in law forums :) Most bidding understandings cost, but occasionally you get the rub of the green. It's not unlike miscounting your key cards when responding to Blackwood, probably not a good thing to do but sometimes you just get lucky.

[ahydra]

Hmm... if South said the bid shows ♥ and ♦, was he asked why did he not bid 3♥ instead of 3♦? Not sure that's enough evidence to rule CPU (has North forgotten this before) or fielded misbid, but surely South prefers hearts to diamonds.

 

Edit - thinking further, if West passes or doubles, then NS are playing 3D rather than 3H or 3NT (possibly doubled), so they benefit and we should, I think, rule fielded misbid in this case. However, when West bids 4C (which I think is rather "speculative" :) - but related to the infraction, so not punishable), this becomes irrelevant as North can/should double 4C but South isn't taking any further action.

 

However, consider that if South bids the correct 3H, West will probably pass or X (poll peers to find out which?) rather than 4C, in which case NS are destined for anywhere from 4D-1 to 3NTX-3 or -4. Indeed there are so many possible combinations of actions that I'd be tempted to just award the simple 60/30 for fielded misbid.

 

ahydra

[PhilKing]

South blatantly fielded the misbid - they had obviously been there before. South treated it as the minors and screwed EW in the process by explaining it ("correctly") as the reds!

 

Had South bid 3♥ (anyone for 4♥?) West would have been less inclined to bid 4♣ (a terrible bid, but it occurred after South's infraction). West could double 3♥, and I can see no compelling reason not to rule that 3♥x is the final contract.

 

PP for South as well. Law 40c1 if anyone cares.

[aguahombre]

I care, Phil. I am a caring person.

[ggwhiz]

South blatantly fielded the misbid

 

I agree but west opening that trash and bidding 4♣!!!! With those red suits yet.

 

Can I do a split score, result stands for e/w and 3♥ doubled for n/s? PP for south and a drug test for west, an(other) oops for north and my profound sympathies to east.

[aguahombre]

I don't think we can give E/W what they deserve for West's transgressions. He did it over 3D (bad), but we can't force him to have done it over 3H; and he couldn't bid it over 4H. It is "sewage" related to the infractions.

[ahydra]

Surely North isn't passing 3♥X? I'd probably try 3NT, which still gets doubled for 500, but is quite a bit less painful than 3HX.

 

ahydra

[PhilKing]

Surely North isn't passing 3♥X? I'd probably try 3NT, which still gets doubled for 500, but is quite a bit less painful than 3HX.

 

ahydra

 

If South has a weak hand with long hearts and no minor fit, as the bidding would suggest to North:

 

♠xxx

♥QJT9xxx

♦xx

♣x

 

Then 3♥x will make, but 3NT will go 5 down unless diamonds break.

[Chris3875]

OK - this is sort of related to this topic - but at what stage do you look at the hands. I didn't look at all so really had no idea that South held more hearts than diamonds so didn't ask the question about why he didn't bid his hearts. I agree now that it looks like a field of a misbid.

[PhilKing]

OK - this is sort of related to this topic - but at what stage do you look at the hands. I didn't look at all so really had no idea that South held more hearts than diamonds so didn't ask the question about why he didn't bid his hearts. I agree now that it looks like a field of a misbid.

 

I think it's tough to consider everything when the players have not - you gave the right ruling on the facts presented. As a director you are not necessarily solving the Murder on the Orient Express.

 

I don't know if there is a recommended protocol - there are several people here who will obviously know. It's not as if this kind of shennanigans is overly common, but two-suited fields are probably the most frequent, and a more experienced E/W might have noticed anyway.

[iviehoff]

When a player owns up to the director about a (possible) misbid, or asks the director what he should disclose to the opposition things about tendencies to forget, you should always be alert to the possibility for fielding or UI type offences at other points in the auction.

[nige1]

[hv=d=w&v=0&s=s87432hqj83d642cq&w=sqt9hkt76dkq7cj76&n=sak5hdat985cat852&e=sj6ha9542dj3ck943&a=1c2n(5+H 5+D)x3d4cppp]399|300| Chris3875 writes "This is my week for having to make pretty mean decisions at the table. East asked the meaning of the 2NT overcall and South said that it showed 5+ hearts and 5+ of the other minor (diamonds). South bid 3♦, West bid 4 and all passed. North came to me away from the table and said that she had made a mistake and that her bid had actually shown 5/5 in the minor suits. Their agreement, according to their system card, was as described by South. E/W went well off in 4♣ and were upset. I showed them Law 75C - Mistaken Call "Here there is no infraction of Law since East-West did receive an accurate description of the North=South agreement, they have no claim to an accurate description of the North-South hands. Regardless of damage, the director shall allow the result to stand". This seems to be a tough law in this instance - was I correct? I did tell East-West that I would send it to this website for a second opinion."[/hv]

I would like to ask South why she bid three diamonds and not support hearts with four-card support. Perhaps South was uncertain about their agreement too, casting some doubt on whether it was really a firm agreement? I'd also ask North why she did not bid on over three diamonds, when partner has shown real support and is clearly very short in clubs. I expect that this is a reflection on experience and standard of the players, but still worth asking.

Agree with Paul

The law itself would be considered tough if the offending pair often got a good score, but in reality it is very rare - except when written up in law forums :) Most bidding understandings cost, but occasionally you get the rub of the green. It's not unlike miscounting your key cards when responding to Blackwood, probably not a good thing to do but sometimes you just get lucky.

Some (deliberately?) careless pairs have frequent Ghestem misunderstandings: often with weak hands at favourable vulnerability. It's hard for opponents to cope with them, even when they suss out what may have happened, because, for example, a director may consider it a SEWOG to attempt to play in a suit avertised by the Ghestem-bidder :( Worse: occasionally, the Ghestem bidder fools you by having his bid :)

[lamford]

South blatantly fielded the misbid - they had obviously been there before. South treated it as the minors and screwed EW in the process by explaining it ("correctly") as the reds!

 

Had South bid 3♥ (anyone for 4♥?) West would have been less inclined to bid 4♣ (a terrible bid, but it occurred after South's infraction). West could double 3♥, and I can see no compelling reason not to rule that 3♥x is the final contract.

 

PP for South as well. Law 40c1 if anyone cares.

Agree with almost all of that, just that I think 4♣ cannot be SEWoG because it was related to the infraction. It is not enough that it came after it. Fielded misbid and 3Hx-5, NS-1100 it is.

[c_corgi]

I'm not sure that the 4C bid was related to the infraction (and is therefore SEWoGable). Presumably the infraction was concealing the implicit agreement that North was likely to show the wrong 2 suits, i.e. that clubs was a suit that North may have. In my experience players who believe their suit is worth introducing at the 4-level will assume that it is not one of the suits held by an opponent who has advertised an unspecified 2-suiter.

[billw55]

Agree with almost all of that, just that I think 4♣ cannot be SEWoG because it was related to the infraction. It is not enough that it came after it. Fielded misbid and 3Hx-5, NS-1100 it is.

Agree and just maybe, this will begin to cure south of such actions. I hope it was IMPs to boot.

[mycroft]

If double showed willingness to penalize at least one suit, West's hand is an auto-pass (with double coming second). 4♣ means either West thought East was showing support, or he'd lost his mind. How much weaker could he be for his opening, and his points are great for defence of the reds - or at least better than on offence. For a player of any skill, unless West explains to me what was in his head as their agreements that colours it, 4♣ makes *no* sense. Switch the round suits between N and S and the auction would be as shown (assuming that shape is legal for a 2NT call - say east has 4 hearts to the A instead). Having said that, I know several players with X00 MPs who wouldn't know what to do over 3♦ because they've never thought about it...

 

Having said that, yeah, barring agreements to the contrary, 3♦ is prima facie evidence that South had a guess that his explanation may have been incorrect. I will be talking to South as well, to find out what was going through his head; and a player of any skill who decided to play the 8-card minor fit over the 9-card major fit without any inkling is either going to sound like an idiot (which I'll happily publicise) or convicting himself (and getting -1100).

 

Note: I had Kxxx KTxxxx xx x last week. 1♠-2NT-p, and the right call is 3♥. Partner might raise (she has a huge hand, with ♠A ♥Ax), but at least 4♥ won't get doubled, and I make the same 9 tricks as we do in 5♦ when partner bids that (our teammates failed to double the same auction with ♦KJTxx and out over the length, grumble grumble lose 5.) So yeah, I'm not allowing a pull.

[PhilKing]

Agree with almost all of that, just that I think 4♣ cannot be SEWoG because it was related to the infraction.

 

That's what I thought I said, though I see there is a distinction.

[Chris3875]

This is my week for having to make pretty mean decisions at the table. East asked the meaning of the 2NT overcall and South said that it showed 5+ hearts and 5+ of the other minor (diamonds). South bid 3♦, West bid 4 and all passed. North came to me away from the table and said that she had made a mistake and that her bid had actually shown 5/5 in the minor suits. Their agreement, according to their system card, was as described by South. E/W went well off in 4♣ and were upset. I showed them Law 75C - Mistaken Call "Here there is no infraction of Law since East-West did receive an accurate description of the North=South agreement, they have no claim to an accurate description of the North-South hands. Regardless of damage, the director shall allow the result to stand". This seems to be a tough law in this instance - was I correct? I did tell East-West that I would send it to this website for a second opinion.

[hv=pc=n&s=s87432hqj83d642cq&w=sqt9hkt76dkq7cj76&n=sak5hdat985cat852&e=sj6ha9542dj3ck943]399|300[/hv]

[Chris3875]

So, my question again is, WHEN should I have looked at this hand? I thought the facts were pretty cut and dried when I went to the table, but of course with hindsight I see that if I had looked at South's hand I would have had more questions to ask. David S has always been pretty strong on not looking at hands at the table which I have tried to follow - should I have gone and checked the hand record? He doesn't like that much either. Are there certain TYPES of situations when checking the hands is advised?

[mycroft]

At the table, you find out what happened, and potentially why. Send North back to the table, tell them to play it (and warn South of his UI obligations), and call at end of hand. You don't look at the hand at the time, because you can't say "he's got his bid" - you can see the implications of that if you're right; and I (at least) have been known to not be right! (we all have been known - that's why you consult on judgement rulings, and certainly don't make them at the table).

 

At the end of the hand you explain what North told you away from the table, you show the Laws, and you investigate. Now you can look at the hands.

 

E/W have no recourse on the misbid - the Laws are, explicitly, rub-of-the-green about that. The arguments people are using here is that 3♦ is such a weird bid, given the explanation, that a very likely explanation for it is "partner's forgot before, I at least know he has diamonds"; *that*'s a CPU (the tendency to forget, especially if it's strong enough to allow for and miss possibly the highest-scoring contract, is clearly disclosable as "partnership experience"), and now, it's not Mistaken Bid, it's Mistaken Explanation, despite the evidence to the contrary (because the evidence of the auction overrides it). *If* that's the explanation, or even if the explanation for why 3♦ and not 3♥ is Probst-cheat worthy, then rule according to Mistaken Bid, at least for N/S.

 

Then look at 4♣ and see if it's SE (it's clearly not Wild or Gambling; I don't gamble, but I wouldn't take those odds if I did) and unrelated to the infraction (I'm not as sure of that as others are - again, give N 10 red cards and East the same club support, now South has 5 and picked the "better red suit"). If it is, we're in double-bad territory. It's unfortunate that diamonds looks like it's going to resolve 10 tricks; 9 at least.

 

This is a very tricky, very complicated ruling, by the way. If you are getting hit by these randomly in the club, you have my sympathies.

[Chris3875]

I'm so disappointed to think that South would have fielded this misbid - I can quite imagine that he probably got some reaction when he explained the 2NT bid to East. He used to be my playing partner

:( I'm really cranky with myself too for not picking it up earlier. :angry: