[Coelacanth]

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I was called to the table by North after West's 4♦ call. The following information about the early auction was presented:

After East bid 2♣, West somewhat hesitantly alerted, and then withdrew the alert. Something along the lines of "um..Alert....no wait..I guess that's not an Alert." It was not clear to me whether South asked West at this point and was told "Michaels", or whether he just assumed it was Michaels. In any case, this is the ACBL and the only alertable meaning for 2♣ would be natural.

Anyway, South's double of a Michaels 2♣ would promise at least 4 cards in at least one major. West's 3♥ call was based on her belief that 2♣ showed the majors. However, when this was doubled and passed back to her, she re-thought her agreements.

The EW agreement, clearly marked on both of their convention cards, is that 2♣ is a top-and-bottom cuebid, showing, in this case, spades and diamonds. Sometime between the 3♥ call and the 4♦ call, West realized her mistake; there is no suggestion that East expressed any discomfort or transmitted UI to West in any other way. Indeed, he was prepared to take his lumps in 3♥ doubled holding a small doubleton heart.

North was surprised by the 4♦ call opposite a partner who had nominally shown the majors, asked West to clarify the 2♣ call, and then summoned the TD.

After sifting through the facts, I first determined that there was no UI issue. East had no UI, and West had not taken advantage of any UI (by running from 3♥X, for example) in the auction. In addressing the MI issue, it seemed clear that NS now had an accurate explanation of the EW agreements. However, South may have been told Michaels earlier in the auction. I therefore gave him the opportunity to change his last call (the pass just before the 4♦ bid) and he declined. Both North and South were very insistent, however, that given the correct information originally, South would not have doubled 2♣.

At this point I saw no option but for them to play out the hand. I advised North to do so and to call me back if she felt she'd been damaged. She was very persistent: "I think we've been damaged RIGHT NOW." I explained that it was too late to go back and remove South's double, so that I could only assess damage in terms of the actual result. With some grumbling, the auction continued with 3 passes. 4♦ was defeated 1 trick, +50 to NS, but it turns out this was a poor matchpoint result as NS are cold for 5♣.

North was very much of the mind that "our opponents did something fishy; we deserve an adjustment". I explained that she and her partner both had a correct explanation of the opponents' bidding after the 4♦ call, and that to avoid their poor result one of them needed to bid 5♣. Without putting words in their mouths, I gave them every opportunity to make a case that the MI in the early auction caused their poor result. When they failed to make such an argument, I allowed the result to stand, but NS seemed quite dissatisfied with this outcome.

Did I handle this correctly? Is there anything else I should have done/said? I'm still quite new at this, so any feedback is most appreciated.

[blackshoe]

What did South's double of 2♣ mean, in their system? What did they say they would have done instead of double?

I might have read the definition of "damage" from Law 12B1 to the table.

I suppose the reason it wasn't clear whether South asked about the 2♣ bid before doubling is that no one at the table could remember if he had. I think I would decide in that case that he didn't ask.

I think you handled it well enough.

[bluejak]

The only additional thing is that if they are grumbling I point out they can appeal. Now if they prefer to whinge rather than appeal I lose all sympathy for them.

[mycroft]

I don't like this case (not that you did wrong, just that this case with the current regulations is always ugly); I know people who Alert "top-and-bottom", even though technically, it is explicitly Not Alertable, because they don't want this to happen at their table. It could cause the "well, *I* know the only Alertable meaning is something crazy like Natural" problem, and they're willing to eat that.

South didn't ask, probably because he thought it was majors, just like it would be the other 40 times that West does a "Aler...wait, that's not Alertable." (or the 100 other times it's not Alerted). But then he makes a bid based on being not correctly informed (not misinformed, E-W did what they were told to do by the RA), and they get a bad result.

I think you handled it just fine given the regulations; if there was no MI, you determined that there was no UI to West, and that East Did The Right Thing with the (incomplete) UI; there is no damage from the infraction, play sits.

If there *was* active MI - if South was told it was majors - then I have one issue with your ruling (but I'd support it in the trenches). They don't have to explain why they think they were damaged - they don't even have to believe they were. "They did something wrong and we deserve a good score" is an invalid argument, and you're right to discount that, but the onus is on you as the TD, not on the players, to determine damage (Law 21B3: "When it is too late to change a call and the Director judges that the offending side gained an advantage from the irregularity, he awards an adjusted score.") So, you judged that no advantage was gained if N/S couldn't explain how they were damaged. Fine, as I said, I'll back you on your judgement. However, I would judge by looking at it myself, as my judgement is that players have a tendency to not understand "damage" very well, and suffer from an incoherence after the fact, without the cards in their hands.

[barmar]

mycroft, on 2011-November-21, 18:52, said:

South didn't ask, probably because he thought it was majors, just like it would be the other 40 times that West does a "Aler...wait, that's not Alertable." (or the 100 other times it's not Alerted). But then he makes a bid based on being not correctly informed (not misinformed, E-W did what they were told to do by the RA), and they get a bad result.

I'm trying to recall any time I've heard someone start to alert Michaels, and I can't. I think everyone knows it's not alertable. So if someone does that, I would be suspicious that they're playing some other non-alertable convention.

However, ACBL's stupid regulation doesn't require you to make this inference, so I'd have a hard time ruling against someone based on not asking for an explanation.

[blackshoe]

The ACBL's stupid regulation does say "when in doubt ASK, DO NOT ASSUME". The caps are in the original. I would be in doubt when this happens, so I would ask.

[Mbodell]

I believe natural is not the only call that would be alertable there, if it showed a 1-suited hand with a known suit I think you'd have to alert too (I.e., it showed diamonds and only diamonds). But in general, "everyone" knows that cuebids in the ACBL are not alerted and "everyone" plays this as Michaels (except when it is T&B or Bailey's). In the ACBL the times I see this alerted and lead to trouble is more when the 1♣ "could be short" or the 1♣ was precision and now sometimes one partner will think "michaels" and the other will think "natural".

[aguahombre]

Whether the OP's action or inaction at the table was exactly right on or not, I like it.

South was given the chance (more than once) to say what he would have done other than double 2C had he known it was something different than he imagined. South knows opener was willing to double 2H, but not 4D. Having this additional information, South still chose not to bid over 4D when the TD gave him that option.

North should give it up.

[Coelacanth]

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone.

On reflection, I think I did miss one potential point of interest. In focusing on the fact that NS's bad result was due to their failure to bid 5♣, I didn't consider other possible results.

South was insistent that he would not have doubled 2♣ with the correct information. (I think this is because NS have an agreement over Michaels but not over top-and-bottom). If (in some alternate reality where South and East are screenmates, for example) South receives the correct information, fails to double, and West bids 3♥ (as she did on the actual auction), it's just possible that North would not double. (I say possible...she has a sharp 17 count with 3 hearts). So I should have considered a score for 3♥ by EW, likely down at least two.

I think if NS had made this case to me at the table, I would have been sympathetic. As you can imagine, however, +50 and +100 would have been almost the same matchpoint score anyway.

[mycroft]

Coelacanth, on 2011-November-22, 08:56, said:

South was insistent that he would not have doubled 2♣ with the correct information. (I think this is because NS have an agreement over Michaels but not over top-and-bottom).

This might be because he has a double over a Michaels cuebid ("I'm able to penalise one of the majors") but he doesn't have a double over a Top-and-Bottom (because he isn't able to penalise one of the pointeds) - in other words, he has hearts. Or, of course, it could be because he doesn't have an agreement (but I can't imagine that their agreement wouldn't extend, and that he wouldn't expect it to extend).

Also, given that North didn't double 4♦, it wouldn't surprise me at all that he wouldn't double 3♥ given no double of 2♣.

[schulken]

Not seeing the hands, I think S's X was a bit misguided. Did he intend to defend against 2♣X. S clearly had a chance to show support for N's C after N X 3♥. Since 5♣ was cold, raising to 4 would seem reasonable. I'm not impressed with their claim of damage, either.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2011-November-22, 00:08, said:

The ACBL's stupid regulation does say "when in doubt ASK, DO NOT ASSUME". The caps are in the original. I would be in doubt when this happens, so I would ask.

Since "everyone" plays Michaels, why would you be in doubt?

[aguahombre]

barmar, on 2011-November-22, 23:44, said:

Since "everyone" plays Michaels, why would you be in doubt?

Because the Alert created doubt where cuebids are not normally alerted.

[barmar]

Ahh, I thought blackshoe was talking about the general case, not this specific situation where the player started to alert.

[aguahombre]

If he was, my bad. You are probably right

[barmar]

No, I think you were right.

I think the Internet is going to explode soon. No one ever starts a flamewar claiming that the OTHER person is right.

[Trinidad]

Do I understand this correctly?

West -albeit with a hickup- was correct in not alerting the 2♣ bid. South did not ask for an explanation of 2♣. He just assumed it was Michaels. Now NS claim damage because the 2♣ bid didn't fit the assumption?

Where is the MI if EW alerted correctly and NS never asked? So, EW didn't do anything wrong.

Actually, I do have an issue with South. He has a defense against Michaels, but not against top and bottom. So, with a hand that fits a double of a Michaels bid he doubles, without asking. After all, partner will understand that he assumed Michaels. Asking can only get South in trouble: It might be top and bottom and he wouldn't have a way to show his hand.

I also have an issue with North. He didn't bother to find out what his partner's double meant. If he would have asked about 2♣, he might have needed to assign a whole other meaning to the double. It is better to just be on the same wrong wavelength with partner than to be on different wavelengths.

Rik

[iviehoff]

Trinidad, on 2011-November-23, 02:39, said:

Do I understand this correctly?

West was correct in not alerting the 2♣ bid. South did not ask for an explanation of 2♣. He just assumed it was Michaels. Now NS claim damage because the 2♣ bid didn't fit the assumption?

Unfortunately OP says he was unable to ascertain whether NS asked for an explanation of 2C immediately or later. Which makes it rather difficult to come to a definitive ruling on the case.

[blackshoe]

In this particular case, I would ask because the retracted alert indicates that 2♣ might not be Michaels. In the more general case, I would ask because I know that while "everybody" plays Michaels, there are folks that don't. Including me, if I had my druthers.

[mycroft]

I bet that N/S don't have a defence to Top-and-Bottom only because they haven't run across T&B more than once - because it's trivially generable from the Michaels defence. In fact, I would expect that if they learned that it was T&B, that South would generalise their Michaels defence, and fully expect partner to get it.

So, while I do believe that there are cases where the not-explicit defence includes "don't ask and it means X, ask and it means Y" - after all I used to play Transfer overcalls of NT, and that defence was used repeatedly against me - I don't think this is one of those cases.