Takeout or penalties?

[Vampyr]

"big free 5NT" convention

 

Wow that is a wonderful name.

 

But anyway around here lots of systems and variants are played, so if you try something when you don't have an agreement it is more in hope than expectation that partner will be on the same wavelength.

 

The first time I played with one of my partners we agreed to play what we each played with another player, thinking it was the same. We learned otherwise when I passed a Benji 2♦ opening.

[PhilKing]

I expect it'll be 31(54) shape or on a bad day 32xx

 

Yeah, OK. Responder has to pass with 4+ spades, but playing the take-out after redouble style, pass basically is a penalty double, so we can't really be stolen from.

[blackshoe]

In the thirty seconds you have (if you're lucky) to discuss system with the stranger the director just introduced to you, you have to discuss 1) every potential opening bid, 2) every potential response to each potential opening bid, 3) every potential rebid by opener, 4) every potential rebid by responder, 5) every potential intrusion in direct seat, 6) every potential intrusion in the passout seat, 7) every potential advance of every potential intrusion, with and without further bidding by the opening side, 8) every potential bid by the opening side after interference, 9) at least a general overview of slam-bidding methods, 10) leads and signals, both in general and specifically, and, in the remaining 3 milliseconds, general bidding and carding philosophies. Or, you let almost all of that slide, generalize a lot, and hope you don't get bit today.

[PeterAlan]

Partnership understandings as to the methods adopted by a partnership may be reached explicitly in discussion or implicitly through mutual experience or awareness of the players.

(My enhancements)

 

This includes any (and every) reasonable reason you might have for hoping that your partner understands your call.

 

Pran, I find your determination to treat anything and everything as based on some form of explicit or implicit partnership agreement quite unrealistic. It allows nothing for the structure and logic of the game.

 

Consider the following thought experiment. It is the first board of some Individual event where:

 

• I have never met or spoken to any of the other players, including the partner with whom I am about to play this first board
  
• All players have received the same system card from the organisers which they are all required to play
  
• There has been no supplementary discussion whatsoever
  

On this first board I am dealer and the auction goes:

• I open 1♠
  
• LHO passes
  
• Partner makes some relatively neutral system response, such as 1NT
  
• RHO passes
  
• I bid 7♥
  

Clearly I am asking partner to decide which grand we will play. Equally clearly this interpretation is not based on any sort of partnership agreement, implicit or explicit - it is not covered in the system card, we have had no discussion of any sort, and we have no past history of having played a single board together (ruling out any form of "mutual experience"). It is instead based on the structure and logic of the game. Additionally, it is also clear that both LHO and RHO are as much in the picture about the meaning of the auction as my partner. Yet you would apparently rule that partner and I have some form of partnership agreement that is not available to our opponents without explanation. That is, in the strict sense of the term, nonsense.

[sfi]

I find the probability extremely low that a player has deliberately made a call without some expectation that his partner will understand it correctly (i.e. that an understanding in fact exists).

 

Sometimes you simply have to make it up on the fly. It is impractical to simply sit there and do nothing when the partnership does not have an agreement, and this behaviour would in fact violate Law 17C.

 

In those situations (and one of them came up last night) I will happily tell the opponents what our agreements are that may affect partner's decisions, but they don't get the benefit of assuming we have an understanding when we don't.

 

The example from last night was 1NT - 2C; 2H - 4D. I explained Stayman and that we had no agreement about 4D but that it was clearly slammish with a heart fit and saying "something" about diamonds. Everyone was on their own about what this "something" was, and my partner and I were in fact on different wavelengths entirely. Trying to then claim that we in fact had an agreement when we both knew we didn't have one and both knew we were making it up as we went along would have been a very odd conclusion to draw indeed.

[pran]

Sometimes you simply have to make it up on the fly. It is impractical to simply sit there and do nothing when the partnership does not have an agreement, and this behaviour would in fact violate Law 17C.

 

In those situations (and one of them came up last night) I will happily tell the opponents what our agreements are that may affect partner's decisions, but they don't get the benefit of assuming we have an understanding when we don't.

 

The example from last night was 1NT - 2C; 2H - 4D. I explained Stayman and that we had no agreement about 4D but that it was clearly slammish with a heart fit and saying "something" about diamonds. Everyone was on their own about what this "something" was, and my partner and I were in fact on different wavelengths entirely. Trying to then claim that we in fact had an agreement when we both knew we didn't have one and both knew we were making it up as we went along would have been a very odd conclusion to draw indeed.

 

Well, the important thing is that you didn't claim "undiscussed" or "no agreement", but at least left your opponents at the same level of understanding as you had yourself.

 

My main point is that neither "undiscussed" nor "no agreement" can in any way be description of understandings (which the laws require), they (partly) describe the process you have been through in preparation for your game (which is of no interest in the laws).

[sfi]

But what I explained was the obvious bit dictated by bridge logic. What they cared about was the "something", so saying that we had no agreement would have been functionally equivalent.

[blackshoe]

It sounds like Sven is saying that when there is no agreement, or the meaning is undiscussed (and there's no partnership experience that would provide an implicit meaning) the only correct answer to "what does that mean?" is "we have no special partnership understanding".