"Any questions Partner?"

[gnasher]

You sit down. You look at opponent's card, and see that 1M-2NT shows 4 of opener's major, and opening hand and, if minimum, no side shortage (you know this because that's what it says on their convention card). LHO opens 1♠, partner passes, RHO bids 2NT, LHO alerts You have not forgotten what you read on the card. You ask the meaning of 2NT.

 

Your reason for asking might be any of these:

- You don't trust their convention card

- You want to distract the opponents

- You hope to give the opponents a UI problem

- You like hearing the sound of your own voice

- You want to ensure that your partner knows the meaning of 2NT

 

Some of these reasons would make the question illegal. The last one would make the question illegal under Law 20G1

(Edit: unless it was combined with another reason).

Edited March 27, 2016 by gnasher

[pran]

blackshoe's scenario started with "You look at opponent's card, and see that they are playing Jacoby 2NT." If they're playing that 2NT can be invitational, I sure hope they don't have "Jacoby 2NT" written on their card, since Jacoby 2NT is always game forcing AFAIK. I don't know if there's another name for the invitational 2NT, but it would be very misleading to say Jacoby on the card if you play it.

 

However, there's some variation in the followup sequences after the game forcing 2NT. While most players use the simple system where new suits by opener on the 3 level show shortness there, on the 4 level show a good 5-card suit, many expert partnerships have adopted other rebids (there's a thread this week on BW discussing this).

We have a very "closely equivalent" convention named "Stenberg" which indeed can be either invitational or forcing to game. I am not so familiar with Jacoby that I can tell whether there are other differences as well.

 

My point is that even when you believe you know opponents' agreement on an alerted call it is never illegal to ask. If for no other reason there is always the possibility of a feature which comes as a surprise to you.

 

Any question you ask creates UI to your partner. His duty is to avoid using such UI.

 

The clause "for partner's benefit" is mainly relevant when you draw your partner's attention to features of calls (or plays) for which no alert has been made.

[blackshoe]

blackshoe's scenario started with "You look at opponent's card, and see that they are playing Jacoby 2NT." If they're playing that 2NT can be invitational, I sure hope they don't have "Jacoby 2NT" written on their card, since Jacoby 2NT is always game forcing AFAIK. I don't know if there's another name for the invitational 2NT, but it would be very misleading to say Jacoby on the card if you play it.

 

However, there's some variation in the followup sequences after the game forcing 2NT. While most players use the simple system where new suits by opener on the 3 level show shortness there, on the 4 level show a good 5-card suit, many expert partnerships have adopted other rebids (there's a thread this week on BW discussing this).

Indeed. Stenberg, IIRC, is 2NT showing invitational or better values. So is the 2NT response to 1M in Romex, though if it has a specific name (it probably does) I don't remember it. And yes, there are possibly variations in the followups to Jacoby (or the others, I would imagine).

 

I see Sven beat me to it on Stenberg. :-)