[pstansbu]

Playing the other night I had recently messed up by bidding 0314 Blackwood rather than our agreed 1430 and just a few boards later was dealt the following:

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This is probably 2 questions (at least) in 1 - not sure if I'm best posting separately, but will keep it here as they relate.

I intended my bid to be a 2 suiter (highest and lowest, weak or strong) but partner failed to alert. I did then wonder if I had it wrong regarding our agreement as we had been discussing some 2 suited options and I couldn't say for certain our card said Questem. Therefore didn't comment, nor were any questions asked by opponents.

With hindsight I think I should have informed opponents (prior to lead) that I thought partner should have alerted this, but couldn't remember for certain and left them to check our card etc. Am I correct on this?

I also thought I needed to proceed with my bidding as if partner put me with clubs and spades (5-5) although his silence suggested he thought I had made a weak jump overcall in clubs.

Given that he could have passed with a simple preference for clubs or corrected to spades I assumed his 4♣ showed club support and values and felt this supported my decision to bid on to 6.

This contract makes and yielded a top (Match pointed pairs). They led a heart and I can't see any case for any adjustment or changes in their bidding, lead or play (our card did show Questem).

Finally, do people feel 3♣ is a reasonable bid with this hand?

[steve2005]

This is a reasonable use of Questem as you stated it is on your cc.
In ACBL you are supposed to inform opponents of non-alert before opening lead. I don't know about England.

[barmar]

An unexpected alert or non-alert is Unauthorized Information to you, you're not allowed to base your subsequent bidding on it. And if you thought you were playing Ghestem when you made the bid, you can't use his non-alert to wake you up to the fact that you never actually agreed to it.

It seems to me that you did everything right. As you said, you continued bidding as if partner knew you had spades and clubs. I don't see how bidding 6♣ could be suggested by his non-alert.

In fact, his non-alert suggests that he could also have spade support that he never showed, so 5♠ or 6♠ could be better contracts than 6♣, but you didn't try that (although you can also predict that he's unlikely to figure out that you're showing a good spade suit).

As for whether you should have informed your opponents about the missing alert, that depends on whether you actually agreed to play Ghestem or not. The opponents are entitled to your agreements, not what you thought the agreement was when you made your bid. While you're not allowed to let partner's alerting influence your bidding, you can use it when disclosing to opponents. So if you realize from his non-alert that you weren't actually playing Ghestem, you don't have to say anything to the opponents. But if partner forgot that you added Ghestem to your agreements, you should call the TD and then inform the opponents at the end of the auction.

The TD should then give North the opportunity to take back his final pass if he wants to do something different. He can also adjust the score on the board if he judges that the opponents would have bid differently if they'd been informed earlier. For instance, if he thinks South would be unlikely to double with this information, he could assign a score of 6♣ undoubled making. I personally think most players would still double with that hand, so the TD shouldn't adjust.

[ggwhiz]

You did nothing wrong in the bidding but not knowing for sure if Questem is on the card seems to put you in a sticky/impossible situation.

If it is there you have failed your disclosure obligations and if it's not there you have given the opponents an edge they are not entitled to. Door #2 is beyond reproach but may damage your side, Door #1 may damage theirs and be cause for an adjustment against you.

I don't see anything wrong with your actions at all in that you didn't "guess" the failure to alert. It didn't cause any damage and if it had, you just accept whatever ruling and move on.

[blackshoe]

I would note also that if you are on the declaring side you are allowed to look at your own system card during the Clarification Period to see if you need to call the director - i.e., to see if Questem is indeed on your card.

[Vampyr]

 pstansbu, on 2017-May-03, 10:32, said:

With hindsight I think I should have informed opponents (prior to lead) that I thought partner should have alerted this, but couldn't remember for certain and left them to check our card etc. Am I correct on this?

Of course.

Why are you playing this crap,if you can't both remember it?

[Zelandakh]

Unfortunately I can see clear use of the UI in your logic here. You state that your 3♣ bid was meant to be a black 2-suiter, weak or strong. If it contains strong hands then the next step of your logic, that partner would simply pass with preference for clubs, is simply not correct. You know that there is genuine support there only because of the lack of alert.

You are on an even stickier wicket regarding your later actions. The laws generally assume that a pair known their agreements and are nebulous in cases such as these but there is some literature around about how to handle the situation, most notably in the various EBU publications. A good general rule is to alert the opponents if you have reason to believe that any one of the possible meanings is alertable, particularly if you intend to base your bidding decisions on such a meaning. Here you have not only the issue within the play but also the possibility that North might [claim to] want to bid over a 3♣ that is not a natural weak jump overcall.

Finally, the good part. In bidding a split-range 3♣ I assume you have decided to treat your hand as "strong". That would clearly not be everyone's choice but having done so the obvious rebid would have been 4♠. That you chose 5♣, a bid less likely to wake partner up to the agreement you thought you might have had, was a good choice in my opinion.

One last point here. There is an entire section of the site decidated to threads of this nature so I would direct you to the Laws section at the bottom of the forum list rather than clogging up General with this.

[barmar]

LOL, throughout this whole discussion I've been assuming Questem was a misspelling of Ghestem. I just looked it up and see that it's actually a real convention -- pattayabridge.com also calls it Inverted Ghestem.

[barmar]

 Zelandakh, on 2017-May-04, 02:38, said:

Unfortunately I can see clear use of the UI in your logic here. You state that your 3♣ bid was meant to be a black 2-suiter, weak or strong. If it contains strong hands then the next step of your logic, that partner would simply pass with preference for clubs, is simply not correct. You know that there is genuine support there only because of the lack of alert.

http://www.pattayabr...uestem_main.htm says that you can't use Questem with the strong hand type when one of your suits is clubs. Partner is expected to pass when he has club preference -- raising with preference just in case you have the strong hand will usually get you too high.

I guess this is one of the benefits of Ghestem over Questem -- none of the conventional bids show the suit that you bid, so partner has to bid something to show his preference, and then you can show extra strength by bidding again. However, Guestem has the misfeature of forcing to the 3 level to show the two highest suits.

[Zelandakh]

 barmar, on 2017-May-04, 08:59, said:

http://www.pattayabr...uestem_main.htm says that you can't use Questem with the strong hand type when one of your suits is clubs. Partner is expected to pass when he has club preference -- raising with preference just in case you have the strong hand will usually get you too high.

I guess this is one of the benefits of Ghestem over Questem -- none of the conventional bids show the suit that you bid, so partner has to bid something to show his preference, and then you can show extra strength by bidding again. However, Guestem has the misfeature of forcing to the 3 level to show the two highest suits.

Just because this link says it should be played this way does not mean that the OP has to. Indeed, even if everyone else does so. If he had meant it as a weak black 2-suiter I think he would have written that. With that agreement in place it woud almost certainly be wrong to use the call with this hand at all. Perhaps this thread will lead to the pair thinking about which agreement would be best for them in this spot if they play together in the future.

[barmar]

 Zelandakh, on 2017-May-04, 09:13, said:

Just because this link says it should be played this way does not mean that the OP has to. Indeed, even if everyone else does so. If he had meant it as a weak black 2-suiter I think he would have written that. Perhaps this thread will lead to the pair thinking about which agreement would be best for them in this spot if they play together in the future.

He might have been describing the convention in general, and forgotten about this special case.

[mycroft]

 barmar, on 2017-May-04, 08:59, said:

However, Guestem has ...

Now, that's the best explanation of that convention (traditional or "inverted") I've ever seen. "It shows *this*, but it's a guess as to what he actually has..." I'm *keeping* that typo!