[gnasher]

bluejak, on Jun 8 2010, 03:51 PM, said:

My partners might easily bid 3♣ without asking, and all that means is they do not ask enough. Then I have a difficulty because I would like to ask when it gets round to me whatever my hand because I like to know what is going on.

No you don't. Or, at least, if you do the difficulty is entirely of your own making. Just make a point of routinely asking about unusual alerts. That will serve two purposes: you will know what is going on, and your partner will be protected from UI on the occasions when your interest in the auction is of a more specific nature.

[peachy]

Thanks David. I am going to assume that dburn in this thread quoted the correct regulations.

[peachy]

hanp, on Jun 8 2010, 06:38 AM, said:

From a recent regional tournament, matchpoints.

1C - 1D
1H - 2C
3H - 3S
6H - all pass

1C was alerted, no questions asked.
1D was alerted, no questions asked.
1H was alerted, no questions asked.
2C was alerted, no questions asked.
3H was alerted, no questions asked.
3S was alerted. It was asked what 3S meant, "cuebid in support of hearts" was the explanation.

Opening leader led a spade which was the only lead to hold the contract to =.

I wonder whether dburn thinks that the question about 3S created UI. If he does, I hope he will amend his:

Quote

It remains, I need hardly say, my irrevocable conviction that no question about an alerted call should be held to create UI.

I know dburn can speak for himself, but this situation is completely different. It is hardly purposeful or even fair to change the case to fit the argument.

[jdeegan]

I agree with PeterAlan's analysis:
"I would not be inclined to overturn the TD's decision. This is not quite the same as to say that if I was ruling ab initio I would necessarily have ruled the same way, but I consider that I need a rather higher standard in order to over-rule an experienced TD's judgment with my own.
Before getting to the bridge judgments, however, there are, as always with these wretched UI cases, the various legalities - a major problem being that there's always something in one law / regulation or another to support whatever point of view one wishes to advance."

It is elementary that once the pure game was sullied with the abomination of alerts, myriad new opportunities were created for cheating. No amount of new regulatory language can anticipate every possibility and block it.

Imo what happened was as follows:
(1) South made the modern equivalent of a slow pass by asking about the 2♥ bid. He has, imo, a clear 4♣ call, but he knows his partner is an overbidder, so he passes 'slowly'.
(2) North, having made an aggressive (but not an overbid) 3♣ call, responds to the slow pass with a 4♥ overbid.
(3) East, a customer, does not realize the importance of his sixth ♠, and passes.
(4) West, the pro, has no reason to bid.

Par for the hand is 4♠, either making or down one depending on the location of the ♥ K.
4♥ makes when 4♠ is down one or goes down one when 4♠ makes, assuming 3-2 ♥'s
Ditto for 4♣, except it may occasionally make one more trick than hearts.
Imo, N-S bear watching in the future. My conjectures about them may be wrong, so adjusting the score on this hand might well be an inexcusable injustice.

[gerry]

Codo, on Jun 4 2010, 07:33 AM, said:

Like soome others, I do not see the UI either.
Partner doubled 1 Spade and it should come as a surprise to me that Partner has 4 hearts? I did not get the message: Partner I have 4 hearts by his double, but by his question about an surprising and alerted bid?

Ive come to this late (its nice to be away playing bridge for once rather than talking about it),

however this is just too easy. All the talk about UI etc is just smoke, its obvious to all of us what happened isnt it?

3 seconds ago he was happy to play in 3c, now the explanation which he was too lazy to get the round before has woken him up to the fact that 2h wasnt nat. Its not the question from pard thats UI, its the ANSWER for gods sake.

Roll back and PP, bloody cheats...

[PeterAlan]

gnasher, on Jun 8 2010, 10:51 AM, said:

PeterAlan, on Jun 8 2010, 03:23 PM, said:

Quote

If a player shows unusual interest in one or more calls of the auction, then this is unauthorised information to partner.

There's nothing unusual about South's enquiry, at her turn to bid, about West's alerted call, so no UI and that's that.

How do you know that there's nothing unusual about her enquiry? It may be that she usually asks about unexpected alerts, or that she hardly ever does. In the former case the enquiry is unusual; in the latter it is not.

I think you're taking my remark out of context, gnasher (and ignoring the "For example" that introduced it).

Putting that aside, there would still be the question of whether "unusual" should be interpreted subjectively, in relation to the specific player in question (as you did), or more objectively, in relation to (for example) some, perhaps peer, cohort of players. The former has obvious problems in establishing what is usual for the player / partnership in question; the latter would allow too much leeway. Again, the more you pick at it, the more complex you can make it all, until it becomes unworkable. I don't want to continue digging.

jdeegan, your conjectures are a bit adrift of the mark, because you've been caught up in the confusion over who was who. In your terms, N was the pro, S the customer, and E-W Jeremy and his expert partner.

I think you're wide of the mark, gerry, but I have the advantage of knowing who the N/S couple were and of having played them in an earlier round. N, I am quite sure, knew exactly what he was doing, whatever his reasons for doing it, and however valid they may or may not have been - I don't suppose RMB1 is very wide of the mark. And the reason he later gave for the 3C bid was correct, in that it takes a club lead to defeat 4S.

PeterAlan

[mgoetze]

blackshoe, on Jun 4 2010, 05:18 PM, said:

The principle (that when you have UI, you are constrained by it even if you have AI that tells you the same thing) has been mentioned many times in this forum and its predecessor. I'm notoriously bad at thinking up (or remembering historical) examples, so sorry, but I don't have what you're asking.

In the case of a TO double implying partner has four hearts, and a later question also implying that he has four hearts, Law 73C says

Quote

When a player has available to him unauthorized information from his partner… he must carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorized information.

Note that this law doesn't say anything about AI mitigating the requirement.

Actually I think the law you quoted says a lot about AI. The word "advantage" implies a comparison: advantage over what? And obviously, what is meant is an advantage over some (possibly hypothetical) person who does not have the UI, i.e. who has only AI. Now if that hypothetical person who only has AI knows everything that the person with UI knows, then in fact it is impossible to take advantage of the UI.

Therefore, I find that the law you quoted actually contradicts the claim you were making.

[blackshoe]

mgoetze, on Jun 8 2010, 07:21 PM, said:

Actually I think the law you quoted says a lot about AI. The word "advantage" implies a comparison: advantage over what? And obviously, what is meant is an advantage over some (possibly hypothetical) person who does not have the UI, i.e. who has only AI. Now if that hypothetical person who only has AI knows everything that the person with UI knows, then in fact it is impossible to take advantage of the UI.

Therefore, I find that the law you quoted actually contradicts the claim you were making.

Would it make you happier if I referred to Law 16, which says that unless you have no logical alternative, to make a call or play suggested by UI is illegal, and says nothing whatever about whether you also have AI (except by inference that, if you have no LA, it must be AI that told you that?

[gnasher]

PeterAlan, on Jun 8 2010, 11:59 PM, said:

I think you're taking my remark out of context, gnasher (and ignoring the "For example" that introduced it).

You do know that this is the Internet, don't you?

Anyway, I understand that you weren't necessarily making the argument that I quoted. Similarly, my response (and the rest this post) are merely how I would refute that argument supposing that you were to make it.

Quote

Putting that aside, there would still be the question of whether "unusual" should be interpreted subjectively, in relation to the specific player in question (as you did), or more objectively, in relation to (for example) some, perhaps peer, cohort of players.  The former has obvious problems in establishing what is usual for the player / partnership in question; the latter would allow too much leeway.

So far as I can make out, the purpose of this regulation is to clarify and interpret, rather than add to, Laws 16 and 73. If the regulation is unclear, we should go back to the underlying laws.

Suppose that the player in second seat always asks about unexepcted alerts, and that her partner knows that this is what she does. This is information that was known to her partner "before he took his hand from the board". When she asks on this specific occasion, all that tells us is that she is alive and retains the ability to speak. It does not tell us anything about her hand. Therefore it does not meet the conditions of Law 16B1 and does not constrain her partner.

[gwnn]

gerry, on Jun 8 2010, 10:35 PM, said:

Codo, on Jun 4 2010, 07:33 AM, said:

Like soome others, I do not see the UI either.
Partner doubled 1 Spade and it should come as a surprise to me that Partner has 4 hearts? I did not get the message: Partner I have 4 hearts by his double, but by his question about an surprising and alerted bid?

Ive come to this late (its nice to be away playing bridge for once rather than talking about it),

however this is just too easy. All the talk about UI etc is just smoke, its obvious to all of us what happened isnt it?

3 seconds ago he was happy to play in 3c, now the explanation which he was too lazy to get the round before has woken him up to the fact that 2h wasnt nat. Its not the question from pard thats UI, its the ANSWER for gods sake.

Roll back and PP, bloody cheats...

+1

But nobody likes posts like this. I guess there are other explanations too but this post was exactly my first reaction to the opening post

[mgoetze]

blackshoe, on Jun 9 2010, 12:52 AM, said:

mgoetze, on Jun 8 2010, 07:21 PM, said:

Actually I think the law you quoted says a lot about AI. The word "advantage" implies a comparison: advantage over what? And obviously, what is meant is an advantage over some (possibly hypothetical) person who does not have the UI, i.e. who has only AI. Now if that hypothetical person who only has AI knows everything that the person with UI knows, then in fact it is impossible to take advantage of the UI.

Therefore, I find that the law you quoted actually contradicts the claim you were making.

Would it make you happier if I referred to Law 16, which says that unless you have no logical alternative, to make a call or play suggested by UI is illegal, and says nothing whatever about whether you also have AI (except by inference that, if you have no LA, it must be AI that told you that?

Actually, I wouldn't care much. I have barely skimmed through the laws in their entirety once and as such would not want to take a stance on this issue or other technicalities. I was merely pointing out that the law you did cite does not, according to my understanding of the English language, support the argument you were making.