[mghatiya]

Hi,

I had this ruling more than a year back, but I was not satisfied and have had numerous heated arguments on it, so I thought of posting it here to take some more opinions. I am narrating the incident as per best of my memory.

My partner and I were playing basic precision system with some minor changes. Opponents were apprised of this, and were told that we would alert wherever there is any special/unnatural bid.

Sitting south I opened 1♠. My LHO doubled, and my partner bid 3♠. RHO passed and I passed. LHO turns to me and asks what is the meaning of 3♠. I tried to explain it in best possible way through the words that came to my mind that time. Frankly I was little intimidated by imposing persona of LHO. I said something like "He should have 10-11 pts with min. 3 card support. He can have less points also with long spades. I am supposed to bid 4♠ if I have full 14-15 kind of hand". Maybe I could have simply summed it up as "It is a non-forcing game invitational bid", but my laconicity failed me at that moment.

LHO felt it was an ambiguous explanation and called TD (after some strong lecturing to me) to protect his rights. TD after hearing the brief agreed to him and assured him that his rights are protected, and asked us to proceed.

Game proceeded, he passed 3♠ and I went one down because of a mistake. At the end TD asked him if he was satisfied, and he said yes, and things moved on.

My objection is that I don't think we did anything wrong. I explained whatever our understanding was. As far as him being in dark about strength of my partner's hand is concerned, in Bridge this happens quite often. Many a times we would hear auction like 1♠ - P - 4♠ . Now people will bid 4♠ with 5HCP and 6 carder ♠ or with 13hcp and 3 carder♠ too (Precision players most usually will not worry about missing slam with 13hcp). Or you would hear 1NT - P - 3NT bid by partner on the basis of long minor suit with less hcp. Now in such situations if you ask partner of the game bidder to describe partner's hand, I am sure he won't be able to pinpoint anything concrete.

I understand it would be wrong if I had some information that I could utilize and not my opp. But that was not the case here. I was expected to bid 4♠ with better hand and pass with less, which I did.

It was a humiliating moment.

Please note that I get that our understanding was not good. We could have better system than that. Probably keeping that 3♠ as preemptive is good. One of the arguments given to us was also the same "How can you say things like that. Nobody plays like that" etc. I accept to have had a bad system. But I think ruling should not be based on how sound our system is.

Would like to hear your opinions.


Thanks,
Mukesh

[blackshoe]

Your LHO was a jerk, but the incident is long past. Forget about it. As far as your explanation was concerned, it seems fine to me.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2011-April-24, 12:09, said:

Your LHO was a jerk, but the incident is long past. Forget about it. As far as your explanation was concerned, it seems fine to me.

FWIW I fully agree. (As I understand your explanation you tried to fully explain your agreements rather than just stating "invitational", "preemptive" or whatever. That IMHO is commendable whenever the short form explanation can be inaccurate or ambiguous.)

[barmar]

Agreed. 99% of players with your agreements would probably have just said "invitational". It's considered general bridge knowledge what this implies.

The only justification I can think of for LHO's behavior was that he thought you were trying to be obfuscatory by providing too many details. But no one should ever be punished for providing too much information.

BTW, "non-forcing" is redundant in the case of natural invitations (as opposed to artificial bids like Bergen Raises).

[bluejak]

Your explanation seems fine to me, and your LHO's manners should get him a DP.

[nige1]

mghatiya, on 2011-April-24, 11:59, said:

Sitting south I opened 1♠. My LHO doubled, and my partner bid 3♠. RHO passed and I passed. LHO turns to me and asks what is the meaning of 3♠. I tried to explain it in best possible way through the words that came to my mind that time. Frankly I was little intimidated by imposing persona of LHO. I said something like "He should have 10-11 pts with min. 3 card support. He can have less points also with long spades. I am supposed to bid 4♠ if I have full 14-15 kind of hand". Maybe I could have simply summed it up as "It is a non-forcing game invitational bid", but my laconicity failed me at that moment. LHO felt it was an ambiguous explanation and called TD (after some strong lecturing to me) to protect his rights.

IMO

• Mghatiya's understanding is unusual. Most partnerships play that 1♠ (X) 3 ♠ is weak and pre-emptive.. The actual partnership understanding of invitational may be a surprise to LHO, and it is understandable if he wants to confirm that meaning.
• If LHO (even mistakenly) believes that there is an infraction, he may call the director. You should not regard a mere director-call as intimidating or humiliating.
• LHO 's harangue is a different matter. If Mghatiya complains to the director about harassment then the director may well treat that as an infraction.
• If you don't report your concerns to the director, it's better to forget them. If no director has the opportunity of weighing up both sides' versions, It's a bit unfair to complain later.

[ddrankin]

mghatiya, on 2011-April-24, 11:59, said:

TD after hearing the brief agreed to him and assured him that his rights are protected, and asked us to proceed.

I quite agree with the previous posts, particularly about the DP, but does no on else find this action by the director rather poor? If he agrees that ambiguous information has been provided, shouldn't he try to clear it up before he leaves the table? If he does that, there would be no grounds for adjustment at all (not that I see any anyway).

[mghatiya]

Thanks all for the responses. My main concern was exactly that why was I being punished for giving more information and more possibilities of my partner's hand.

Nigel,
I didn't find director being called as humiliating. I felt not right when director agreed that LHO was right and I had given ambiguous information, and hence his rights were protected. It was like jury giving a verdict of me lying.
I just mentioned the "strong words" and "lecture" as to just note what all happened. I was not worried about that as much as about being proven guilty.
And I am not complaining later. I put across my opinion even then, but director felt LHO was right. And as I mentioned, I have no big qualms about LHO's behavior. He is known in bridge circuit here for his frequent usage of harsh words.


ddrankin,
Director did try to clear up ambiguity, but I just repeated my explanation that I had given to LHO, and TD also found that explanation ambiguous, hence gave LHO his rights.

Incidentally, TD and I are good friends and have had many booze sessions together, and in few of those, this argument has come up, and we both have failed convince each other all the times.

Thanks,
Mukesh

[ddrankin]

mghatiya, on 2011-April-24, 21:15, said:

ddrankin,
Director did try to clear up ambiguity, but I just repeated my explanation that I had given to LHO, and TD also found that explanation ambiguous, hence gave LHO his rights.

The opponents have the right to know your agreements. You explained them. What more does he want, and what more can the director give him later rather than immediately?

[richlp]

mghatiya, on 2011-April-24, 11:59, said:

Hi,

I had this ruling more than a year back, but I was not satisfied and have had numerous heated arguments on it, so I thought of posting it here to take some more opinions. I am narrating the incident as per best of my memory.

My partner and I were playing basic precision system with some minor changes. Opponents were apprised of this, and were told that we would alert wherever there is any special/unnatural bid.

Sitting south I opened 1♠. My LHO doubled, and my partner bid 3♠. RHO passed and I passed. LHO turns to me and asks what is the meaning of 3♠. I tried to explain it in best possible way through the words that came to my mind that time. Frankly I was little intimidated by imposing persona of LHO. I said something like "He should have 10-11 pts with min. 3 card support. He can have less points also with long spades. I am supposed to bid 4♠ if I have full 14-15 kind of hand". Maybe I could have simply summed it up as "It is a non-forcing game invitational bid", but my laconicity failed me at that moment.

LHO felt it was an ambiguous explanation and called TD (after some strong lecturing to me) to protect his rights. TD after hearing the brief agreed to him and assured him that his rights are protected, and asked us to proceed.

Game proceeded, he passed 3♠ and I went one down because of a mistake. At the end TD asked him if he was satisfied, and he said yes, and things moved on.

My objection is that I don't think we did anything wrong. I explained whatever our understanding was. As far as him being in dark about strength of my partner's hand is concerned, in Bridge this happens quite often. Many a times we would hear auction like 1♠ - P - 4♠ . Now people will bid 4♠ with 5HCP and 6 carder ♠ or with 13hcp and 3 carder♠ too (Precision players most usually will not worry about missing slam with 13hcp). Or you would hear 1NT - P - 3NT bid by partner on the basis of long minor suit with less hcp. Now in such situations if you ask partner of the game bidder to describe partner's hand, I am sure he won't be able to pinpoint anything concrete.

I understand it would be wrong if I had some information that I could utilize and not my opp. But that was not the case here. I was expected to bid 4♠ with better hand and pass with less, which I did.

It was a humiliating moment.

Please note that I get that our understanding was not good. We could have better system than that. Probably keeping that 3♠ as preemptive is good. One of the arguments given to us was also the same "How can you say things like that. Nobody plays like that" etc. I accept to have had a bad system. But I think ruling should not be based on how sound our system is.

Would like to hear your opinions.


Thanks,
Mukesh

It sounds to me like a more complete description than most people give. I'm curious as to what the director thought was ambiguous.

It also sounds as if this will come up again in your after-game get-togethers so maybe you have a chance to find out how would HE have explained the bid.

[barmar]

After rereading your post, all I can come up with is that they found your description of partner's high card strength ambiguous. First you said it was 10-11, then you said it could be less.

But unless these players are novices, that shouldn't confuse them. Using distribution to make up for high card strength is "just bridge".

Once you decided not to just say "invitational", I think you were damned if you do, damned if you don't with those people. If you'd just said "10-11 points with spade support", he'd have called the cop of you partner showed up with 9 HCP and extra length. Too much detail gets a complaint of ambiguity, too little risks misinformation.

[mghatiya]

barmar,

"Too much detail gets a complaint of ambiguity, too little risks misinformation"

That is the confusion I want to clarify. What do Bridge laws say about these situations? Should one choose to give information as much as possible, or to just keep it short with descriptions like "non forcing" or "showing values" etc. ?

Thanks,
Mukesh

[barmar]

My comment was in reference to LHO's style of intimidation, not your actual obligations.

I don't think the Laws go into detail about the specific form of disclosure, this is left to RAs. But it makes little sense that giving too many details could ever be wrong. Even if your opponents are beginners, who are likely to be confused by too much information; if they can't deal with this, they should play in novice games until they're ready to play against the big boys -- they shouldn't complain that your lengthy descriptions are intimidating them.

ACBL alert regulations say that you should give a complete description, rather than just naming a convention. But "invitational" is not a convention, it's a descriptive term that should be understood by any competent bridge player, so I don't think this would be considered a violation of this requirement (unless your partnership's requirements to invite are significantly different from most players).

[mycroft]

Heh, and that's where I was thinking the issue was. The OP plays Precision,as I sometimes do; not saying anything about him, but *my* agreements about "invitational" are, in fact, quite different from what people would expect (if they didn't read our card, or didn't understand what Precision meant). I do, in fact, describe my invitational hands as "partner wants me to go on a hand now worth a good 13" - which is our agreement. Of course, then they want to know partner's exact point range...

So, yes, there's the "everyone I play with would expect this to be weak, not invitational", and then there's "since we're limited to 15, invitational means...", all of which the OP tried to do. Describing agreements is hard (which is one of the reasons people do so many things to avoid doing so). If he confused by his explanation, the opponents are entitled to restitution; but they're not entitled to the kind of gaming that it sounds like they tried at the time (I'm sure the other side has a different story to tell, but I've seen exactly this happen too often to say "it was probably closer to [this]" out of hand).

[barmar]

I guess I never considered the case of limited openings to be so different that it requires a detailed explanation. Many "standard" bidders will accept an invite with any 14 count and good 13's, since standards for opening bids have come down. These days, I think it's the "sound" openers who are the unusual ones. So the difference between invitations in Precision and Standard American is only a point or 2, which I wouldn't call "quite different".

I don't consider this analogous to 1M-4M auctions, where 4M could be either a 13-14 count with 3-card support or a 5-8 count with 5-card support. As the latter type of hand is what standard bidders would expect, this does need an alert.

[mghatiya]

Quote

"I don't consider this analogous to 1M-4M auctions, where 4M could be either a 13-14 count with 3-card support or a 5-8 count with 5-card support. As the latter type of hand is what standard bidders would expect, this does need an alert."

I am not saying that 1M-4M requires alert. I am saying, in case your opponent asks you to describe HCP range of your partner in 1M-4M auction, I don't think you would have a clear answer. And I think opp should have theoretical rights to ask that question (even though it might not make much sense to some).

My argument is that there are cases in Bridge where a person can speculate many possibilities of his partner's hand, and might not be able to describe his partner's hand accurately (only a single possibility), if asked.

In such cases I think Bridge laws should only penalize the person if he doesn't have a clear answer to "What does his partner expects him to bid?" (e.g. Bid NT with a stopper for cue bids)

Doesn't that sound right?

[mjj29]

mghatiya, on 2011-April-27, 22:36, said:

I am not saying that 1M-4M requires alert. I am saying, in case your opponent asks you to describe HCP range of your partner in 1M-4M auction, I don't think you would have a clear answer. And I think opp should have theoretical rights to ask that question (even though it might not make much sense to some).

My argument is that there are cases in Bridge where a person can speculate many possibilities of his partner's hand, and might not be able to describe his partner's hand accurately (only a single possibility), if asked.

In such cases I think Bridge laws should only penalize the person if he doesn't have a clear answer to "What does his partner expects him to bid?" (e.g. Bid NT with a stopper for cue bids)

Doesn't that sound right?

If your partner's bid means one of several things - and you don't know which - then it's perfectly reasonable to describe it as such. In my normal partnership, 1C shows either some sub-16 balanced range that isn't in the 1NT opening (which varies), or a hand that would open a minor in a natural system and doesn't have a 5 card major. 2C shows either a weak 2 in diamonds, weak with the majors, game forcing with the majors or 20-23 balanced. This is what I describe the bid as. It doesn't tell the opponents exactly what my partner has, because he's not told me that, and this is perfectly fine.

In the case of 1M, 2M or 3M opening raised to 4M, usually the correct description is "it's to play, either a preemptive raise or because he thinks it will make and does not want to go any further". You may be able to put exact point counts and suit lengths on those two options - I can't really, since we'll make that raise on many hands where it seems the correct bid to make. If that's genuinely a full description of your system, then there's nothing to penalise.

[blackshoe]

There is no requirement in law to be able to put precise Milton Work Point Count ranges on partner's bid. There is certainly no requirement that such bids have only one such range.

The logic behind the meaning of responder's jump to 4M in the context of a Precision 1M opening is simple and should be obvious to anyone. It is only the fact that there are so few Precision pairs compared to those playing "Standard American" or 2/1 that may lead to surprise that the Precision 4M may be based on a hand with game values on high cards, but little likelihood of slam (given the limited nature of the 1M opening). So we alert it, and if asked explain it as mjj29 suggests. And as he says, if that's a full description (and in most cases, it will be) there's nothing to penalize.

[mycroft]

We also Alert it (in the ACBL, at least) because we do not Alert 1M, and without the Alert, how are the opponents (who, of course, don't read CCs for "simple auctions like this") to know we play Precision, and therefore 1M is limited, and therefore this meaning is reasonable (in ways that it is not with a wide-ranging 1M)?

But also, because we don't expect people to know what Precision means, or to look at the CC (which, in the ACBL, doesn't say anything about strength of 1M, but assume WBF card for now) to find out thinks like "oh, that's limited to 15" and then work out all the nuances.

Barry - that may be true, I don't know. I do know that when I bid 1S-3S, I Alert it (as I have to), and I make it clear that the top of my 0- range is somewhat higher than normal (around 9) for a Preemptive raise; and when I make an invitational bid, I make it clear (usually when asked, or after the auction, if we're declaring) that for us, "invitation" means "go on a good 13" (which, note, says nothing about the point ranges for the invitational call, but that's our agreement, so that's what we say).

To the OP, you did a good try at Full Disclosure, for which I applaud you. You were somewhat confusing in your explanation, which is not great, but correctable. We're giving you some ideas on how to make your explanation less confusing, while still being correct. The opposition's argument is reasonable; their behaviour (as written by you) is not. Whether "reasonable" means "adjustment-worthy" is another story, which I'm not going to get into here, because I'm missing way too many facts.

[bluejak]

mycroft, on 2011-April-28, 10:48, said:

We also Alert it (in the ACBL, at least) because we do not Alert 1M, and without the Alert, how are the opponents (who, of course, don't read CCs for "simple auctions like this") to know we play Precision, and therefore 1M is limited, and therefore this meaning is reasonable (in ways that it is not with a wide-ranging 1M)?

I had the bidding sequence

---

and my opponents, Nickell-Freeman, looked slightly puzzled. Eric Kokish, who was kibitzing, nearly fell off his chair laughing.

"You know, David", he said, "I don't think anyone has passed that sequence here in North America in the last thirty years!".

Personally I have little sympathy for the failure of ACBL opponents to find out your basic system - we were playing Acol, of course.

mycroft, on 2011-April-28, 10:48, said:

But also, because we don't expect people to know what Precision means, or to look at the CC (which, in the ACBL, doesn't say anything about strength of 1M, but assume WBF card for now) to find out thinks like "oh, that's limited to 15" and then work out all the nuances.

There is a space for Basic System on the card. It is easy to check whether it says 2/1, Standard, Strong Club, Precision Club, Polish Club or Acol.