[Chainat]

I played TM tourney on BBO.

The bidding went:

1♦ - 1 ♠
3♥ - 6 ♥
6 ♠

The guy in lead is asking the dummy, who bid 3 ♥, what does the 3 ♥ show?

Around 5 times: No information available, though it was his own bid.

The lead was then a ♥, declarer quickly got rid of his clubs.
Declarer telling the opponents that he forgot it was a splint-bid.

The opponents claim the following:

a 3 ♥ was not alerted - correct.
b 3 ♥ was not explained - correct.
c Opponents claim that IF the 3 ♥ bid had been alerted, they MAY have had the chance to double it, to get a ♥-lead,
but by not doubling, suggesting another lead.
d Opponents also claim that 6 ♠ could have been doubled to show a ♦ lead - first bid suit in dummy.
e Opponents therefore, because of a-b-c-d say that they MAY have been taken away the chance to set the contract by a ♣ lead.
(The king was in a dummy, opponent behind it holding AJ.)

No double of the final contract MAY suggest NO ♦ lead, and no double of the 3♥ bid MAY suggest NO ♥ lead.
Therefore a ♣ lead may seem reasonable.

What is your call?

If you need it....
The guy on lead had
♠ K6
♥ 8765
♦ J74
♣ Q543

[Cyberyeti]

What matters here is what their agreement is as to the 3♥ bid. If it's a suit by agreement, but the guy just happened to have splintered instead, there's no restitution.

The 3♥ bidder needs to tell you what 3♥ means in system, not what he holds.

It appears from what you wrote, that it is by agreement a splinter, so the opps should have been informed before the lead.

I'd be inclined to adjust, while a random double of 6♠ by the leader's partner doesn't say "lead dummy's first bid suit", it usually says "I'm going to ruff something" and a diamond is much more likely than a club on this auction.

[655321]

Chainat, on 2010-December-30, 04:05, said:

a 3 ♥ was not alerted - correct.
b 3 ♥ was not explained - correct.

Yet when I look the hand up, there is a description next to the 3♥ bid saying '♠ supp. control'. Is it possible to add this after the hand, or was it there at the time?

Chainat, on 2010-December-30, 04:05, said:

If you need it....
The guy on lead had
♠ xx
♥ J10xx
♦ Jxx
♣ J10xx

Close, but actually
♠ K6
♥ 8765
♦ J74
♣ Q543

Anyway, from the jump to 6♥ my guess would be that this was a pickup pair with no agreements.

[mgoetze]

LOL... funny that you cite the Laws of Bridge in your subtitle. Your rant has nothing to do with them.

As Cyberyeti said, the way to determine whether there was an infraction was to try and find out whether the opponents actually had an agreement, and if so, what it was. In 95% of cases on BBO the opponents had no agreement so you are out of luck.

Further, the laws do not provide for arbitrary deduction of tricks or anything of the sort. There are procedures for determining whether there was damage, and if so, how much the damage was, and they certainly require inspection of the full layout of all 52 cards.

I suggest you read the laws before crying that your opponents have run afoul of them.

[kenberg]

In f2f bridge, except at the highest levels, partner alerts/explains a conventional bid. On BBO, we self-alert. Most of us are not at the highest level and so this causes some confusion.

It seems legalistic for a player who makes a splinter to say "no agreement" even if, in fact, they have not discussed it. In this case, after 3♥ is raised to 6♥ it seems pretty clear to the 3♥ bidder that they have a misunderstanding. But, if they have no agreement and he just figured that 3♥ would be understood, then I guess "no agreement" is technically correct.

My own approach is to treat BBO bridge as not particularly serious and so, as the 3♥ bidder, I would say "intended as a splinter" at the time I made the bid. But whether this is in any sense required I don't know.

Now for the defenders: It's really not hard to guess from the auction what has happened. I think, if a question is to be asked, it should be something like "Are you two a regular partnership?". Most likely the answer will be no,or at least not a partnership with detailed understandings, in which case you make inferences as best you can. Sight unseen, I would place a fair wager that 3♥ is a splinter.

If my somewhat casual approach does not appeal to you then you can go by the laws. But, as mentioned, I think the strictly interpreted law is not on your side. My guess is that they indeed had no discussion.

[Chainat]

Thanks - I couldn't find the actual hand, so I had to try to remember how it actually looked like.
I forgot my old account in here so it took some days before I posted it.
Regarding the explanation - it was written when the declarer told us that it was a splint bid and he forgot,
and realized it as his partner converted the 6 H to 6 S.
Anyway online - it is the player who bids the artificial bid that has to alert, and explain his own bid.
We did not at all feel that he was willing to do so.
Thanks for the comments.

[Chainat]

I may have made a mistake in my questioning -

If you were called to a table - in any kind of tournament
what would you rule?

BUT - yes the big problem is - in such a tournament there most likely wouldn't be anything to rule,
as the one "forgetting" to alert - is the one who simply bid 6H and misunderstood the bid. He hasn't
done anything wrong - he simply followed what he thought was right.

So - imagine - that the case is that they should know the system - an self-alert etc....

[Free]

The jump to 6♥ clearly suggests he holds ♥, so it also suggests not to lead ♥. Whatever 3♥ meant, the ♥ lead is ridiculous imo.

[barmar]

Regardless of who is doing the alerting, players are only required to disclose their agreements, NOT what they actually hold or what they HOPE their partner will understand.

Online bridge does make this more confusing. The rationale in f2f bridge is that partner can hear your explanation, and we don't want your explanation to opponents to influence him; in online bridge, only the opponents see the explanation, so there's no problem of unauthorized information.

On the other hand, the basic idea of disclosure is that the opponents should know as much about your bid as partner does. If he has to guess, the opponents are not disadvantaged by having to guess as well. There's no reason why the opponents should know more than partner, just because of who is doing the explaining.

Where things get REALLY messy is when screens are in use. Then each opponent gets an explanation from a different player, and you occasionally have a situation where they get different explanations.

BTW, there's a set of forums down below for asking questions about the Laws and rulings. Why wasn't this posted there? A number of experienced directors, and people involved in writing regulations, post there, but I don't think they routinely look here.

[awm]

Free, on 2010-December-30, 15:05, said:

The jump to 6♥ clearly suggests he holds ♥, so it also suggests not to lead ♥. Whatever 3♥ meant, the ♥ lead is ridiculous imo.

Disagree here. It sounds like the opponents have a heart fit, so leading a heart may succeed in getting partner a ruff (either at trick one, or later after winning the spade king). Even if partner has two hearts, there's a good chance that the opponents have most of the strength there (explains the jump shift on a three-bagger) and the heart lead won't give anything away.

Of course, we can question whether it was reasonable to believe that all the heart bidding is natural (especially given the correction to spade) and perhaps opening leader should "protect himself" in this situation to a greater degree. Assuming that the facts here are basically correct (no alerts/explanations, club lead sets, heart lead doesn't) my inclination would be to adjust.

[mcphee]

I would be willing to be understanding if the "damaged side" were beginners. But what in the world did you think 3H was? Sure I can appreciate you did not see an alert, but the bidding is sort of obvious.

I'm not pleased with the wording that 3H shows a control, as this is easily misunderstood and tilts things a little.

No auto adjustments for players due to no alert, this is not the type of protection the rules are trying to solve.