[Pict]

dburn, I hate this one minute it's ethics, next minute screw the oppos, next minute just call the TD, next minute he's laughing at you over coffee.

I'll take your bait, partner has transgressed and I call the TD. I have an inkling of difficulties ahead, but let's start there.

[blackshoe]

An erroneous alert, or failure to alert, is MI to opponents. Same is true of announcements. So (Law 75B), you must do nothing to indicate there is a problem, and (Law 75A) the knowledge that partner thinks something else is going on that your actual bid is UI to you, so you must carefully avoid taking advantage of it. In this case, you must treat partner's 2♦ as meaning whatever it would mean over your actual 1♠ bid. You should not alert it or announce "transfer" if that would be based on what partner presumably thinks it means. You should alert or announce if the meaning over your 1♠ requires it.

[pran]

Pict, on Aug 18 2010, 08:43 PM, said:

Pran may think me an idiot.

What makes you write that?

I never do (unless extremely far more convincing evidence to such fact exists, and that is certainly not the case here).

[dburn]

Pict, on Aug 18 2010, 03:05 PM, said:

dburn, I hate this one minute it's ethics, next minute screw the oppos, next minute just call the TD, next minute he's laughing at you over coffee.

I'll take your bait, partner has transgressed and I call the TD.  I have an inkling of difficulties ahead, but let's start there.

Call the TD? Better not do that - he will read you the Riot Act, the relevant chapter of which is in this case:

Law 20F said:

5. [a] A player whose partner has given a mistaken explanation may not correct the error during the auction, nor may he indicate in any manner that a mistake has been made. ‘Mistaken explanation’ here includes failure to alert or announce as regulations require or an alert (or an announcement) that regulations do not require.

[b] The player must call the Director and inform his opponents that, in his opinion, his partner’s explanation was erroneous (see Law 75) but only at his first legal opportunity, which is:

(i) for a defender, at the end of the play.
(ii) for declarer or dummy, after the final pass of the auction.

Of course, as blackshoe correctly observes, I must continue to act as though partner had responded 2♦ to 1♠ and not to 1NT; at my first legal opportunity (see above) I will correct his explanation, but not before.

The point is this: you are not allowed to use information from your partner's alerts, explanations, failures to alert, misexplanations, or the like in any way. If you misbid (by which I mean "accidentally make a bid that does not accord with partnership agreement, because you have forgotten the agreement") you may not be woken up to the fact that you have done so by your partner's extraneous actions. Similarly, if you mispull a card from the bidding box you may not be woken up to the fact that you have done so by your partner's extraneous actions.

[Pict]

dburn, I believe I understand but without yet agreeing.

Let's say:


I wake up ,you say it's 8:00. I look at my clock and it is 8:00.

Later GortonTD says 'how did you know it was 8:00'.

There is a difference between knowing something solely because of extraneous information (partner says 'I have the King..' versus knowing something in addition to having extraneous information.

[Pict]

pran, on Aug 18 2010, 03:54 PM, said:

Pict, on Aug 18 2010, 08:43 PM, said:

Pran may think me an idiot.

What makes you write that?

I never do (unless extremely far more convincing evidence to such fact exists, and that is certainly not the case here).

I was referring to your surprise that anyone would fail to take advantage of L25 to change their bid.

Apologies, it was an unnecessary side reference.

[pran]

Pict, on Aug 18 2010, 11:00 PM, said:

dburn, I believe I understand but without yet agreeing.

Let's say: 


I wake up ,you say it's 8:00.  I look at my clock and it is 8:00.

Later GortonTD says 'how did you know it was 8:00'.

There is a difference between knowing something solely because of extraneous information (partner says 'I have the King..'  versus knowing something in addition to having extraneous information.

In bridge law terms: If you certainly know something from UI and possibly know the same thing from AI then you may not use the possible AI as an excuse for selecting an action that could have been suggested by the UI.

You are certainly awoken by UI, you might not necessarily have remembered without the UI.

Simple as that.

[jallerton]

Of course, partner's announcement is UI. The more tricky question is deciding whether any logical alternatives exist to ones based on noticing your misbid yourself anyway. Let me recount an example from personal experience when I was feeling a bit sleepy a few months ago.

My partner and I were playing a variable 1NT opening. We were NV and the first call I saw in the auction was a 1NT opening by my partner. As we play a mini 1st NV, I announced this as "10-13". RHO doubled, I passed, LHO bid 2♥. But as LHO put down her 2♥ card I could not help but notice that she had put it on top of a green Pass card. Then I worked out what had happened: LHO was in fact the dealer and had passed originally. As we play a different NT range in 2nd position I now had to call the TD to correct my misexplanation.

The relevance of my example to the present case is that I believe that Opener who thought he had bid 1♠ would always have noticed the 1NT bidding card in front of him at the time when he came to make his next call.

[dburn]

Pict, on Aug 18 2010, 05:00 PM, said:

dburn, I believe I understand but without yet agreeing.

Let's say:


I wake up ,you say it's 8:00. I look at my clock and it is 8:00.

Later GortonTD says 'how did you know it was 8:00'.

There is a difference between knowing something solely because of extraneous information (partner says 'I have the King..' versus knowing something in addition to having extraneous information.

Vanishingly unlikely. I am never awake at eight o'clock.

But your confusion is a completely natural one, shared by (in my estimation) a very large majority of the bridge-playing public. The simplest way to express the current legal position may be this:

You open 1NT with a twelve count, thinking due to a temporary aberration that you are playing 10-12 (you are an adventurous soul with a propensity to forget the vulnerability, usually but not always a recipe for disaster).

As soon as your bidding card hits the table, and before anything else happens at all, you realise that you have erred - you are actually playing 15-17 at these colours.

Your partner announces "15-17" and raises to 2NT. Despite the fact that you know already, without the extraneous information, that you have in effect opened 1NT with a sub-sub-minimum, you are in duty bound to act as though you knew this solely because of the extraneous information, and to raise to 3NT with the maximum that you momentarily thought you had when you opened the bidding.

Otherwise, Directors and Appeals Committees would have to accept as a defence to the charge of using UI the plea "I wasn't using UI - I knew what I'd done as soon as I did it". I hope you can see that the game would become pretty much unplayable if that were ever acceptable, even though in a significant number of cases it may actually have been true.

This position seems unnaturally harsh when compared to the position in which you would find yourself if screens were in use. Then, you would be at liberty to pass 2NT because you would know that this was the right thing to do - you would have no extraneous information on which to base your decision.

But the unpalatable (and to some illogical) truth of the matter is this: if you have extraneous information that "could demonstrably suggest" a course of action to you, then you will be deemed to have acted as if it were solely the extraneous information that actually did suggest the course of action to you, and not any (authorized) information already in your possession before the extraneous information was provided. The fact that you looked at your clock will not matter to gordontd: as soon as I told you the time, you were no longer at liberty to act as if you knew the time from some other source.

I should add as a parenthesis that I should be very hurt indeed if when I told you the time, you looked at your clock anyway. Is this any basis on which to conduct a relationship that involves us waking up together in the morning?

So much for the general case. In the specific case under discussion, I am not entirely clear in my own mind as to whether partner's announcement of "12-14" after my opening bid of 1♠ may trigger a chain of events that permits me to change my call under the present Law 25A. At present I am inclined to the view that it does not, but I could very well be wrong.

[blackshoe]

I'm not sure, Pict, but I think you're running into the problem that AI does not "trump" UI — one must still follow the legal constraints when one has UI — unless there is no LA to the chosen action. Many players seem to think otherwise, but they're wrong.

Edit: I see I've cross posted with David - and he's provided a good example of the point.

[gordontd]

jallerton, on Aug 18 2010, 11:45 PM, said:

The relevance of my example to the present case is that I believe that Opener who thought he had bid 1♠ would always have noticed the 1NT bidding card in front of him at the time when he came to make his next call.

He might have, but I am sure that "always" is an overstatement, because I have seen players fail to notice such mistakes at all during the auction.

[paulg]

gordontd, on Aug 19 2010, 08:40 AM, said:

jallerton, on Aug 18 2010, 11:45 PM, said:

The relevance of my example to the present case is that I believe that Opener who thought he had bid 1♠ would always have noticed the 1NT bidding card in front of him at the time when he came to make his next call.

He might have, but I am sure that "always" is an overstatement, because I have seen players fail to notice such mistakes at all during the auction.

In a long and confusing sequence in the last Bermuda Bowl, it was only when Lauria put the 6♠ bid on the table that he finally noticed that Versace had opened 1♥ rather than the 1♠ he thought he had seen. He was not permitted to change his call.

Despite a lot of strange and inconsistent responses to his bids, he still failed to notice until it was too late.

[Pict]

blackshoe, on Aug 18 2010, 08:23 PM, said:

I'm not sure, Pict, but I think you're running into the problem that AI does not "trump" UI — one must still follow the legal constraints when one has UI — unless there is no LA to the chosen action. Many players seem to think otherwise, but they're wrong.

Edit: I see I've cross posted with David - and he's provided a good example of the point.

If you don't mind I'll respond to your post since it is so much shorter!

I like not just to do a deconstruction of the words of the Laws, but to understand them in the context of their purpose.

For me the the point of the UI Laws is to stop me deducing things about partners hand, about our bidding agreements, and about opponents hands by means other than bids and plays (with some more latitude in relation to opponents actions).

I don't find it credible that I should treat my own cards or my own bidding cards in the same way. I know about them in an entirely different sense than the sense in which I 'know' anything at all about partner's hand. Denying the evidence of my own eyes is not something that excites my inclination to active ethics.

If I discover that it has become official policy to treat my bidding cards as a repository of UI, so be it. I will probably regard it as foolish, but not necessarily the only consequence of the Laws that is foolish. I don't think we are quite there yet, though. I don't get the sense that this is an area of established interpretation.

[bluejak]

I do not think what you say is official interpretation, nor anything to do with interpretation. The official interpretation of information received from partner is unauthorised is along the lines of you are not allowed to make choices based on that information. You seem to think that there is a rider "in certain circumstances": I see no such rider.

[jallerton]

cardsharp, on Aug 19 2010, 09:16 AM, said:

In a long and confusing sequence in the last Bermuda Bowl, it was only when Lauria put the 6♠ bid on the table that he finally noticed that Versace had opened 1♥ rather than the 1♠ he thought he had seen. He was not permitted to change his call.

Despite a lot of strange and inconsistent responses to his bids, he still failed to notice until it was too late.

Are you sure that this was the explanation?

I had been under the impression that Lauria knew his partner had opened 1♥ during the early auction but that at the time the auction reached the 6-level (several minutes later) he had a mental block and temporarily thought that 6♠ was slam in the suit partner had opened.

[blackshoe]

Pict, on Aug 19 2010, 05:57 AM, said:

I like not just to do a deconstruction of the words of the Laws, but to understand them in the context of their purpose.

Quote

The Laws are designed to define correct proce- dure and to provide an adequate remedy when there is a departure from correct procedure.

That's from the introduction to the laws. I'm not sure what you think is the purpose of the laws, but if it's something different from the above, you're almost certainly wrong.

Quote

For me the the point of the UI Laws is to stop me deducing things about partners hand, about our bidding agreements, and about opponents hands by means other than bids and plays (with some more latitude in relation to opponents actions).

The point of the UI laws is to stop you from using information derived from UI. Sometimes you have to go ahead and figure out what the information is in order to figure out what you need to do to avoid using it.

Quote

I don't find it credible that I should treat my own cards or my own bidding cards in the same way.  I know about them in an entirely different sense than the sense in which I 'know' anything at all about partner's hand.  Denying the evidence of my own eyes is not something that excites my inclination to active ethics.

The purpose of these forums is to let people know what the laws are, and how to deal with them as directors and players. If you choose to disbelieve us when we tell you these things, well, that's your choice. I hope you never have to find out the hard way that we were right after all.

Quote

If I discover that it has become official policy to treat my bidding cards as a repository of UI, so be it.  I will probably regard it as foolish, but not necessarily the only consequence of the Laws that is foolish.  I don't think we are quite there yet, though.  I don't get the sense that this is an area of established interpretation.

Then you're not paying attention.

[paulg]

jallerton, on Aug 19 2010, 06:42 PM, said:

cardsharp, on Aug 19 2010, 09:16 AM, said:

In a long and confusing sequence in the last Bermuda Bowl, it was only when Lauria put the 6♠ bid on the table that he finally noticed that Versace had opened 1♥ rather than the 1♠ he thought he had seen. He was not permitted to change his call.

Despite a lot of strange and inconsistent responses to his bids, he still failed to notice until it was too late.

Are you sure that this was the explanation?

I had been under the impression that Lauria knew his partner had opened 1♥ during the early auction but that at the time the auction reached the 6-level (several minutes later) he had a mental block and temporarily thought that 6♠ was slam in the suit partner had opened.

Jeffrey,

You may well be right as I never heard the 'true' story. But I still I like my version though and I remain sceptical that people will necessarily wake up.

p

[Pict]

blackshoe, on Aug 19 2010, 01:04 PM, said:

Then you're not paying attention.

Well, Blackshoe

The Internet is notoriously not the place for a meaningful debate.

I felt I was 'paying attention'. I was disappointed slightly by you and more so by dburn. I didn't think either paid any attention to anything not already firmly fixed in your minds.

I persist with my view that probably 97.5%+ of players will not sympathise with your injunctions on ignoring their bidding cards and dreaming a weird auction.

[blackshoe]

You said "I don't get the sense that this is an area of established interpretation". That's what I was referring to when I said "then you're not paying attention". We are telling you what is the established interpretation. You don't want to believe us. Fine. That's your choice. But I think you will find, sooner or later, that it's going to bite you in the ass.

[Pict]

blackshoe, on Aug 19 2010, 05:21 PM, said:

You said "I don't get the sense that this is an area of established interpretation". That's what I was referring to when I said "then you're not paying attention". We are telling you what is the established interpretation. You don't want to believe us. Fine. That's your choice. But I think you will find, sooner or later, that it's going to bite you in the ass.

Dull evening so:

Do the UI Laws apply to play of the cards as well as bidding?

I lead an unintended card at trick 1 and I'm alerted by partner's explanation of our lead style to the fact that I played the wrong card.

Do I spend the rest of the play assuming that a card in my hand is not really there?

I'm aware I could more easily get away this in the play, but let's assume active ethics.