[rbforster]

I know very little about directing and the rules of bridge. A hand came up and after the fact a friend mentioned that we might have been "damaged".

(1♦)-P-(2♠)-?

I was 4th to act and had a weak preemptive hand. Opponents were both experts, but not familiar with playing together despite having fairly complex agreements (suction, variants of unusual/unusual, etc). I asked LHO how he took the 2♠ jump, strong or weak or what, as this clearing influenced whether I would preempt or pass. LHO replied that they had no discussion/no agreement. However being they were both experts and their other conventions, it seemed reasonable to assume that they were playing either strong or weak natural jump shifts. Looking at my weak hand, I assumed strong and preempted and we eventually got a poor result. It turns out that they did have an agreement to play weak jumps in this situation, but LHO had forgotten.

Was there any damage? Does the fact that I asked help LHO figure out how to field the unknown/forgotten values associated with his partner's bid?

It's way too late and it wouldn't have mattered anyway for the team match, but I'm curious as to the answer and the reasoning. As an aside, it seems the agreement "either a strong or a weak jump shift" is pretty destructive for the opposing pair's bidding agreements, and that whether or not the opponents inquire as to it's meaning even when correctly described as 2-way helps a lot in terms of figuring out what's going on without letting the opponents in on the situation.

[pclayton]

Over here, a weak jump shift requires an alert. I don't know how you can make a destructive WJS without an agreement to do so. If I had a good hand, but not a clear overcall over a strong jump shift, I think I'd pass expecting to get redress if it was weak and LHO fielded it.

I don't know what the 'laws' ruling is here, but I've had similar circumstances. My favorite was when we opened a Strong 1♣ against a weak pair. 2♣ on my right.
Depending on whether or not this is clubs, or the majors makes a big difference to how I bid, and what our agreements are. When I asked, I got the stock response of "sorry no agreement". After the disaster (RHO wasn't aware that 1♣ was artificial, or just oblivious what 2♣ would mean over an artificial opening), we finally decided that if the opponents say "no agreement", it meant "natural".

[ArtK78]

The issue is whether you were given full disclosure. It is one thing if the opponents had not discussed their agreement as to the meaning of a jump shift (a dubious proposition). It is another if they had discussed it and you were informed otherwise.

Apparently, RHO thought that there was an agreement. This creates a presumption that there was a partnership agreement and that it was not disclosed to you. You are entitled to redress if the misinformation (or non-information) is in any way related to your bad result.

That does not mean that you can bid 3NT on a 3 count and get protection from the TD or the appeals committee. But if you take an action that is in any manner reasonable given the information that you have been provided, you are entitled to redress if you get a bad result which is related to the misinformation.

[paulg]

Once you say that they had an agreement, but LHO did not inform you of this, then there is misinformation (MI).

In this case, if you had been correctly informed, you would (probably) not have acted and I would ask the TD for a ruling.

As an aside, I have never come across a pair who play weak OR strong jump shifts. I have played pairs who do not have an agreement and, if this is truly the case, then you all have to make the best guess you can.

Paul

[skjaeran]

cardsharp, on Jan 17 2008, 09:50 PM, said:

As an aside, I have never come across a pair who play weak OR strong jump shifts.

Actually, we do over 1♣. Of course we use transfers, 2♦ showing either a weak or strong jump shift in ♥s and 2♥ the same with ♠s.

[Richardrls]

It is probably not wise to assume that the two spade bid was a "strong two" considering what you knew about this pair, and considering what the response was to your question. Should the player have remembered that his partnership was playing weak jump shifts constructively ? Yes. But that said, I can't see the director giving you any redress for your bid -- the decision to preempt after the amount of information provided by each of the opponents to each other will almost always mean a bad result.

[mycroft]

pclayton, on Jan 17 2008, 01:51 PM, said:

I don't know what the 'laws' ruling is here, but I've had similar circumstances. My favorite was when we opened a Strong 1♣ against a weak pair. 2♣ on my right.
Depending on whether or not this is clubs, or the majors makes a big difference to how I bid, and what our agreements are. When I asked, I got the stock response of "sorry no agreement". After the disaster (RHO wasn't aware that 1♣ was artificial, or just oblivious what 2♣ would mean over an artificial opening), we finally decided that if the opponents say "no agreement", it meant "natural".

Highjacking the thread:

The last time I had that happen to me, I asked, and was given the answer: *natural*.
Only after we get to a horrible spot, do I realize that natural = Michaels...


The 'laws' ruling is that if they *do* have an agreement, and he said "no agreement", you've been misinformed. You've been misinformed if he says "can't remember, not sure if we discussed it", as well, but at least you're on the same page and other things can be done. Please note, however, that "this time it was a WJS, therefore that was their agreement" is not accurate. *Now* they have an agreement, but they may not have had it before. Frequently, in these cases, the TD will investigate "why did you bid it if you knew you had no agreement?" - and frequently find information that the opponents should have known (well, we have no agreement, but we both play with X and Y, and I play WJS with them; or we haven't discussed it, but almost everybody in our area play WJS, so I hoped partner would get it; however "if he treated it as strong, I figured I could get out in ... and have a reasonable shot at making it" doesn't count) - that is also misinformation.

Given the misinformation, was there damage? Well, that would depend on the misinformation, your skill and experience, your knowledge of your opponents' shared experience (for instance, if "no agreement" meant "we haven't discussed it, but 90% of the people in our area play WJS" - and you're one of those "people in our area", trying "lack of that information damaged me" is not likely to fly), the hands (would this be a just plain bad call no matter what it meant?) and all the other things that go into a judgment ruling.

Michael.

[glen]

Rob F, on Jan 17 2008, 02:04 PM, said:

... I asked LHO how he took the 2♠ jump, strong or weak or what, as this clearing influenced whether I would preempt or pass. LHO replied that they had no discussion/no agreement. ...

In this event did the opps have a cc, or were they not required to have one or two?

[rbforster]

Thanks all for the replies. They did have a CC (which I didn't think to check), which described certain jumps as strong and this particular jump as weak. I guess there was misinformation in the explanation and we might have been damaged if our bidding was "reasonable".

For completeness, judge for yourselves:

(1♦)-P-(2♠)-4♥*
(4♠)-X**-AP

* 4♥ intended as preemptive,
** 4♥ interpreted as sound by partner who doubled on AKxx♠

4♠X made exactly. Opener's hand was approximately

Qx
Ax
AKJxx
ATxx

so I expect they would reach at least 4♠ depending on how LHO took the jump.

[helene_t]

No adjustment. Opps are allowed to forget their agreements. Besides, there is no damage. When opps don't know what they are doing, it behooves you to bid conservatively (here: pass) and let them mess it up for themselves. For all you know the result may be 2♠+4 if you leave them to their own devices.

[glen]

Generally when faced with the "no agreement" or "don't know" or confused replied, reach for their cc. Sometimes even before you start reading it, they will remember. When you do read their cc, don't look puzzled even if it is the cc derived from a kindergarten finger-painting class - instead look like it tells you what you need to know and then keep the cc in front of you (if the opponents attempt to get it back right away, explain you will need it for the rest of the auction). Base your bidding on the cc, and then if that turns out wrong, call the TD, describe what happened, and how you acted based on their cc. Good TDs will protect you.

[helene_t]

I'm probably misunderstanding your post, Glen, but I read it as if you can make some assumption which you know to be not particularly plausible about opps' agreements and then, when the assumptions turns out to be incorrect, be protected by the TD because the assumption was wrong. I don't agree with this. More generally, you should not base you strategy on the "the TD will protect me" idea. You must continue to play normal bridge, even in the face of a (likely) infraction from opps.

If nothing is said on the CC you may run into problems because you may take an action based on one meaning of opps' bid while p may interpret your bid on the basis of some other putative meaning of opps' bid. I suppose one could argue that you have a right to score correction if you were damaged by a bidding misunderstanding caused by opps' failure to state their agreements. I don't think their is any provision for that in the laws but I might be wrong.

[blackshoe]

If a pair have an agreement as to the meaning of a call or calls, and do not disclose that agreement IAW the regulations of the SO, that is a violation of Law 40B. Rectification would be provided by Law 40C.

[rbforster]

I think part of our problem came from having to guess from our respective hands whether 2♠ was weak or strong. I looked at my weak preempt hand and figured it was strong. Partner looked at spade length and high honors and figured it must be weak. Then he assumed that I could also figure out that it was weak, and hence my 4♥ bid should be sound. On these grounds he doubled their 4♠ contract.

[ArtK78]

You should not be in a position to have to guess the meaning of the 2♠ call. But part of the blame is yours - you didn't bother to check the opponent's convention card.

If I were the TD, I would rule that the result stands but inform you of your right to appeal. At the appeals committee level, this is a tough situation to deal with. I suspect that you would lose your appeal but that your opponents should be assessed with a procedural penalty for failing to properly inform you of their partnership agreement.

By the way, your LHO should have informed you that he could not remember their agreement but that the agreement is set forth on their convention card. If I were your LHO, I would ask my partner to leave the table before I answered your questions. However, some might argue that asking partner to leave the table conveys UI. To me, answering the question in the presence of my partner clearly conveys UI, so I would ask him to leave the table. Either way, there is a problem.

[rbforster]

ArtK78, on Jan 18 2008, 11:20 AM, said:

By the way, your LHO should have informed you that he could not remember their agreement but that the agreement is set forth on their convention card.

LHO did not remember either the agreement or that the agreement was described on his partner's card. Prior to the opening lead, RHO showed us his card which described the jump as weak. I don't recall if LHO had a card, or whether it might have had the same thing on it.

[barmar]

If LHO did have a CC, and it said something different from RHO's CC, that would be another violation on their part.

Is there a "standard" meaning for jump shifts in your vicinity of the world? E.g. in ACBL territory, anything other than strong JS needs to be alerted (assuming no competition), so if there's no alert I believe you're allowed to assume it's strong unless you have reason to believe otherwise (e.g. you looked at their CC already and remember that "WJS not in comp" was checked). But your partner should also make the same assumption.

I have another problem with your partner's actions. If you had a good hand, why does he think you jumped?

So even though there was misinformation, I would rule that your partner broke the link to the damage.