Lead-directing question?

[VixTD]

[hv=pc=n&s=s5hkq76dj32cakq75&w=st87632h32da854c8&n=sa94h98dkq96c9642&e=skqjhajt54dt7cjt3&d=w&v=n&b=12&a=2dp3hp3sppp]399|300[/hv]

2♦ = multi (weak two in a major or various strong options), alerted

3♥ = to play opposite a weak two in hearts or at least the same level opposite a weak two in spades, alerted

 

Before her first pass South asked about the opponents' auction and received the explanation above.

 

North led ♥9 and West ended up with seven tricks, -100.

 

West called the director and claimed that South's question had suggested a heart lead to North.

 

What do you think?

[blackshoe]

I think that it's dangerous to assume that you know what an auction means just because the bids were alerted. I also think it's dangerous to assert that a question suggested a particular action. And I think there may not be a logical alternative, on the auction, to a heart lead.

 

Did West make any attempt to obtain NS's concurrence that the question may have passed UI, or reserved his rights, when the question was asked (Law 16A2)? Why not?

 

Does South always ask for an explanation of the auction in these cases?

 

IAC, South has a legitimate reason for the question. Not that she needs one. B-)

[campboy]

Why should it make any more tricks on a different lead?

[Zelandakh]

South has every right to ask and I do not see that it suggests a heart lead any more than, for example, a diamond lead. It is also hard to see what damage was done to rule for an adjustment. More interesting to me is why East did not bid 3♠ and why, if this is standard for them, that is not mentoned in the explanation.

[Trinidad]

I agree with Zel. When the auction comes to you and the opponents have made two alerted bids, it is entirely normal to ask for an explanation of the auction. If South had passed without showing any interest in the meaning of the auction that would have passed more significant UI.

 

I hate to say it, but this shows that EW do not understand what alerts are for. One case doesn't show anything, but this doesn't exactly weaken my point that the EBU alert regulation lacks clarity.

 

Rik

[Cyberyeti]

Why should it make any more tricks on a different lead?

 

Natural lead could be considered to be K♦, there are now several ways 8 tricks are likely to arrive.

 

I don't think it's a serious error in the legal sense not to play A♥ on the heart lead and duck a diamond which will also get you 8 tricks, the 10♥ loses to the Q and now they play trumps and you don't get the diamond ruff.

[lamford]

More interesting to me is why East did not bid 3♠ and why, if this is standard for them, that is not mentoned in the explanation.

Because he did not want to play in game opposite xx KQ9xxx xx A9x, perhaps? It is hard to construct a weak two for West where game is good. So, it is not "more interesting" at all, unless you lead a very sheltered life.

[lamford]

Why should it make any more tricks on a different lead?

Indeed; the best two leads for the defence are a club and a trump, which hold declarer to seven tricks. Declarer should have made 8 tricks on a red suit lead, but clearly butchered the play, and then had a go at NS to escape his partner's wrath. So, no adjustment, obviously.

[pran]

2♦ = multi (weak two in a major or various strong options), alerted

3♥ = to play opposite a weak two in hearts or at least the same level opposite a weak two in spades, alerted

 

Before her first pass South asked about the opponents' auction and received the explanation above.

 

North led ♥9 and West ended up with seven tricks, -100.

 

West called the director and claimed that South's question had suggested a heart lead to North.

 

What do you think?

If South's question (as indicated) was about the auction without focusing on any specific call then West has little or no case.

 

The situation might be seriously different if South has asked specifically about the 3♥ bid.

[lamford]

I don't think it's a serious error in the legal sense not to play A♥ on the heart lead and duck a diamond which will also get you 8 tricks, the 10♥ loses to the Q and now they play trumps and you don't get the diamond ruff.

There is no need to duck a diamond, playing the ace of hearts and then ace and another diamonds gets you eight tricks. I think it was a serious error not to realise that it was a trump contract!

[Vampyr]

I agree with Zel. When the auction comes to you and the opponents have made two alerted bids, it is entirely normal to ask for an explanation of the auction

 

....

 

I hate to say it, but this shows that EW do not understand what alerts are for. One case doesn't show anything, but this doesn't exactly weaken my point that the EBU alert regulation lacks clarity.

 

EW alerted correctly. Where do you see a lack of understanding or a lack of clarity?

[Zelandakh]

EW alerted correctly. Where do you see a lack of understanding or a lack of clarity?

They alerted correctly. They assumed incorrectly that the alerts were not for the benefit of the opps to know they had a reason to ask about the auction.

[awm]

Seems tough to get eight tricks; say you win the lead and duck a diamond as people suggest. Opponents play two rounds of trump. You presumably play ace and ruff a diamond. Now you must exit a round suit from dummy. South cashes a heart and a club (defense has now taken one trick in each suit) and now cashes another heart. If you ruff, north overruffs and cashes the 4th diamond. Ruff high and north's spade is good (and he always gets a diamond). Pitch and south continues a heart for the trump promotion.

 

Anyway, I don't see what the lead had to do with the result (trump lead seems worse for declarer) nor what the questions had to do with the lead. So no adjustment.

[campboy]

I agree with Zel. When the auction comes to you and the opponents have made two alerted bids, it is entirely normal to ask for an explanation of the auction. If South had passed without showing any interest in the meaning of the auction that would have passed more significant UI.

I am not so convinced. Yes, lots of partnerships will routinely ask about alerted bids and so avoid passing UI. But all the evidence is that this is not one of those partnerships, since North failed to ask about an alerted opening bid.

[Cyberyeti]

There is no need to duck a diamond, playing the ace of hearts and then ace and another diamonds gets you eight tricks. I think it was a serious error not to realise that it was a trump contract!

 

Whether you duck the diamond before or after playing the ace doesn't matter, it's failing to play the ace of hearts that I was not classing as a serious error for many people who will be playing in the Portland pairs.

 

There are some people playing for whom it WOULD be a serious error, but I'd say that would be a very small minority.

[Cyberyeti]

Seems tough to get eight tricks; say you win the lead and duck a diamond as people suggest. Opponents play two rounds of trump. You presumably play ace and ruff a diamond. Now you must exit a round suit from dummy. South cashes a heart and a club (defense has now taken one trick in each suit) and now cashes another heart. If you ruff, north overruffs and cashes the 4th diamond. Ruff high and north's spade is good (and he always gets a diamond). Pitch and south continues a heart for the trump promotion.

 

Anyway, I don't see what the lead had to do with the result (trump lead seems worse for declarer) nor what the questions had to do with the lead. So no adjustment.

 

What the lead has to do with it is that the natural lead is quite possibly K♦ which holds, now what ? Ace and another trump ? now the trump promotion doesn't happen.

[Trinidad]

I am not so convinced. Yes, lots of partnerships will routinely ask about alerted bids and so avoid passing UI. But all the evidence is that this is not one of those partnerships, since North failed to ask about an alerted opening bid.

Perhaps so, but maybe North already knew what 2♦ meant, from prior experience or because he had the CC in front of him. North is not supposed to ask for his partner's benefit. Perhaps North looked actively on the CC and South decided to ask for the whole auction at once.

 

So, I would not conclude that this is "not one of those partnerships". My partner and I are definitely "one of those partnerships" and we do not ask about every alerted bid, but -with few specific exceptions- when we don't ask, we already know what the bid means.

 

Rik

[aguahombre]

Everyone above has pretty much covered what there is nothing to adjust here.

 

I can think of no possible way to give E/W anything in this case. However, North is my focus. A heart is -- in theory -- the worst possible lead; and South has no particular reason to be angling for a heart lead. For North to actually lead a heart here instead of (say) the obvious trump, we might conclude that North was trying to take advantage of what he thought to be an inference from partner's question.

 

That, I would record in my memory bank for future reference.

[Trinidad]

EW alerted correctly. Where do you see a lack of understanding or a lack of clarity?

EW indeed alerted correctly. Impeccable.

 

But they clearly don't understand what an alert is for: to encourage the opponents to ask for the meaning of the auction since bridge is a game of full disclosure.

 

If they would have understood that alerts are meant to encourage the opponents to ask, they would have understood that a neutrally phrased question about alerted bids is normal -and not unexpected- and, hence, does not convey significant UI. Since they didn't understand this, they clearly didn't understand the purpose of the alert regulation: full disclosure.

 

IMO it is not surprising that they fail to understand the purpose of alerts. This pair failed to see the forest for the threes, due to the EBU alert regulation. If the EBU would emphasize the forest ("alert when your opponent might need to be warned") instead of the threes (follow several pages of detailed alert rules, blurring the underlying purpose of alerts), EW would probably have understood that the question didn't convey significant UI.

 

So, though EW alerted all their bids correctly, they clearly didn't understand the essence of the alert regulation (which is obviously more important than to understand the intricate details) and I blame the EBU alert regulation for that.

 

I hadn't expected that you wouldn't understand either that there is nothing unexpected about asking for an alerted auction, but that only makes my point stronger.

 

Rik

[campboy]

So, I would not conclude that this is "not one of those partnerships".

I wouldn't conclude it either, that's why all I said was that I'm not convinced this is one of those partnerships. I would like to ask them about their asking habits, but I can't. So all the available evidence (which is not very much) suggests they are not.

[ArtK78]

There were two alerted bids by the time the auction reached South. South is entitled to ask the meaning of the alerted bids. Assuming that South phrased the question so as not to unduly emphasize anything about the 3♥ call, East-West have no right to complain about the question asked by South. Furthermore, I would go as far as to say that the complaint was out of line and reeks of sour grapes.

[Lanor Fow]

Regardless of the alert regulations (personally I don't see what's so intricate about alerting all non natural bids below 3nt, which is the relevant bit here) asking about alerted bids will always convey UI, unless you always ask. Even if you always ask unless you know what it means, it will be difficult to convince people that this is the case.

[Lanor Fow]

I'm not sure it's as clear cut as a lot of people are suggesting. I'd want to know whether the double of a p/c bid would be takeout of hearts, or show hearts. If it would be take out of hearts, unless I'm convinced that this player always asks I would say that the UI suggests a heart lead, as the most likely explanation for someone asking at this point (unless they always do) is they want to be able to double a artificial heart bid to show hearts.

 

I haven't looked at whether there are LAs to the heart lead, or damage, but if both of those were satisfied I would probably adjust (if double of P/C is takeout of hearts)

[nige1]

[hv=pc=n&s=s5hkq76dj32cakq75&w=st87632h32da854c8&n=sa94h98dkq96c9642&e=skqjhajt54dt7cjt3&d=w&v=n&b=12&a=2d(multi: weak two in a major or various strong options, alerted)p3h(to play opposite a weak two in hearts or at least the same level opposite a weak two in spades, alerted)p3sppp]399|300|

Before her first pass South asked about the opponents' auction and received the explanation above.

North led ♥9 and West ended up with seven tricks, -100.

West called the director and claimed that South's question had suggested a heart lead to North.[/hv]

On this hand, South's question could have little effect on the result. But, on a different hand, it could. The EBU allow you to ask but warn that asking about a particular call can impose UI constraints on partner.

Unauthorised Information. A player has the right to ask questions at his turn to call or play, but exercising this right may have consequences. If a player shows unusual interest in one or more calls of the auction, then this may give rise to unauthorized information. His partner must avoid taking advantage. It may be in a player's interests to defer questions until either he is about to make the opening lead or his partner's lead is face-down on the table.

Other jurisdictions seem to take a more permissive attitude to asking. But current legislation about asking still creates problems. e.g. Lamford's recent Failure to Alert Topic. Some of the asking strategies available to a player are:

1. Ask only when contemplating a call other than pass - but this conveys UI.
2. Never ask -- but this is normally a handicap.
3. Ask randomly -- but this is hard for a director to police.
4. Always ask unless you already know -- but you can't be sure that a call has an identical meaning in subtly different contexts.
5. Always ask -- time-consuming but OK.

IMO option 5 should be the law -- except that you can radically simplify that to: announce partner's calls (so that you don't have to wait for a question). Each table would have a card of likely explanations, so that you would usually be able to point to a box on the card, rather than run the risk of disturbing other tables.

 

A possible improvement is to provide the the option to switch of opponents' announcements when you suspect they might be more helpful to them than to you.

[blackshoe]

I am not so convinced. Yes, lots of partnerships will routinely ask about alerted bids and so avoid passing UI. But all the evidence is that this is not one of those partnerships, since North failed to ask about an alerted opening bid.

A partnership consists of two players. That North did not ask about an alerted opening bid (maybe he'd looked at their card) does not mean that South is inconsistent in his asks.