[Trecar]

Playing Director found himself in a position where he was anxious not to benefit from unauthorised information in the following situation.

Playing a strong Club system, partner (West) opened 1C (Alerted) North overcalled 1H, and East bid 2C (to show 5 controls A=2, K=1). No alert from partner.

After a pass from South, West bid 4S.

East's hand is 862, A10732, AKT5, 5.
East thinks:
a) has partner forgotten the system in which case he is expecting to see Clubs, or
b) partner knows I have 5 controls and has merely failed to alert the opponents.

In the case of a - perhaps East should continue bidding, whilst in the case of b) partner has already taken account of his hand so should pass.

Ethically, what should East do and why?

West's hand is AKQJxxxxx, x,x,Ax and of course 13 tricks are laydown in Spades.

[HardVector]

Ethically, you should never assume condition A. You always assume that partner understands what your bids mean, and if they make a final determination, then that is what stands. Partner's failure to alert the 2c bid is UI and should have you leaning toward a pass. However, it is hard to construct a hand that can open 1c that can't make a slam opposite what you have. Partner is showing a minimum (for 1c) with A LOT of spades. You have a fit, shortnes in clubs, and controls in the reds. I'd be tempted to allow further bidding.

[blackshoe]

Agree with HardVector that you should never assume condition A. If you act on that assumption, you are taking advantage of UI. You should assume that partner knows you have five controls, and is not interested in slam. Thus, you should pass 4!S. I don't think I would allow further bidding.

[Zelandakh]

Just to add a further twist, there may even be a little more to it than has already been covered. many strong club players use a jump to 4♠ in an auction like this not as a natural sign off but rather as an artificial call. Under one popular scheme, for example, this would be RKCB agreeing hearts. If that were the case then passing is also taking advantage of the UI and Responder should in fact bid on in accordance with the agreements. That may or may not result in a worse result than that for 4♠+3. In any case, it does rather sound as though the TD needs to refresh their memory about the way the bridge laws work if their thought process was really as described in the OP.

[pescetom]

Zelandakh, on 2019-July-05, 06:31, said:

Just to add a further twist, there may even be a little more to it than has already been covered. many strong club players use a jump to 4♠ in an auction like this not as a natural sign off but rather as an artificial call.

It looks probable here, either this or he realised his failure to alert and panicked. It doesn't seem to make much sense that a strong 1♣ opener holding 5 controls and 2 singletons discovers partner has 5 controls so calls game.

Zelandakh, on 2019-July-05, 06:31, said:

In any case, it does rather sound as though the TD needs to refresh their memory about the way the bridge laws work if their thought process was really as described in the OP.

If this is the same playing TD then we already established that in another thread.

[barmar]

Zelandakh, on 2019-July-05, 06:31, said:

Under one popular scheme, for example, this would be RKCB agreeing hearts.

Did you misunderstand the auction? Hearts was bid by the opponent.

Trecar, you can generally avoid misunderstanding by posting a hand diagram rather than describing the auction in text.

[weejonnie]

Difficult to see how you can bid again. Next Time partner has

AKQJXXX KX XX QJX

you have nothing over and above your 5 controls.

[blackshoe]

---

I did not include West's hand, because that is irrelevant to the question. I also put in a pass by North after West's 4!S, although that wasn't in the OP.

East has UI from the failure to alert. The first question is what, in EW methods, does 4!S mean. Forget the non-alert for the moment. West has shown a strong club opener, East has shown five controls, and West has bid 4!S. What does it mean? My best guess is that West is signing off in game. Now East has a problem. Does he go on with his five controls, in spite of partner's sign-off? One view would be "no, trust your partner". Another, expressed by some here, is "we have five controls and partner opened 1!C. Passing is not an option." Well, maybe. Depends on the partnership.

Now consider the failure to alert. This give East the inference that West is not aware that East has five controls, and in fact that West presumably thinks that East has clubs. This information is unauthorized to East (Law 16B1). That means that he must not take any advantage of it (Law 73C), and that if he is later found to have chosen a call demonstrably suggested by it, when he had a logical alternative over which the call he chose was suggested, he has committed an infraction (Law 16B3). If that infraction causes damage to the opponents, the director shall adjust the score (Law 16B3, Law12C1). Note that the infractions here, of Law 73C and Law 16B3, are "serious indeed" according to the laws. So the miscreant should almost always incur a procedural penalty. Unfortunately, IMO, in the current culture, that won't happen.

If East came to me as director at this point in the auction and asks what he should do, I would tell him what Laws 73C and 16B3 say, and leave the choice to him. If he came to me after the hand, no director call involved, and said "I passed," or "I bid on" and "did I do the right thing?" I would say, respectively, yes, and no.

tl;dr: IMO East's only ethical action is to pass, unless in his methods there is no logical alternative to bidding whatever it is he would choose to bid if he bid on.

[steve2005]

What is west doing?
Ok west forgot they play controls over interference but even so East has shown a decent hand.
What does it take for slam?
K♣ and a red Ace or
2 aces
Surely this is possible so...

3♠ is sufficient to set trump and asks for cue-bidding.
----
4♠ deserves the bad result they got.

[Vampyr]

HardVector, on 2019-July-04, 18:49, said:

Ethically, you should never assume condition A. You always assume that partner understands what your bids mean, and if they make a final determination, then that is what stands. Partner's failure to alert the 2c bid is UI and should have you leaning toward a pass. However, it is hard to construct a hand that can open 1c that can't make a slam opposite what you have. Partner is showing a minimum (for 1c) with A LOT of spades. You have a fit, shortnes in clubs, and controls in the reds. I'd be tempted to allow further bidding.

Upvoted because your first two sentences were really clear and explained the player’s obligations well. I do think your post went downhill fast after that.

[lamford]

Vampyr, on 2019-July-06, 21:43, said:

Upvoted because your first two sentences were really clear and explained the player’s obligations well. I do think your post went downhill fast after that.

I would have deleted tempted, and consider it is automatic to drive to slam. You have three card support and a singleton, in addition to the five controls you promised. Partner has a minimum strong club, but given that AKQxxx Kx xx Axx is almost cold for grand (or even AKQxxx x Qxx Axx), only Karl the Kudu would pass (A visitor to the North London Club who is the most timid animal on the planet).