BBO Discussion Forums: Misinformation at the club (ACBL) - BBO Discussion Forums

North's first double was alerted. When East asked, South said it was a "responsive double". North glared, and South corrected the explanation to "support double showing 3 hearts" at which point North said, "We've discussed this."

After North's second double, East calls and asks to speak to you away from the table. Assuming you oblige, East tells you that he doesn't think the first double was a support double, and it might have influenced the 4S bid.

What now? (If you ask questions now, presumably not with South around, North will say that their agreement is both doubles are penalty.)

Suppose you do not roll the auction back to West (whether you think this is an error or not). At the end of the hand West tells you that they thought partner had a heart singleton or void given the explanations, and wouldn't have bid 4S otherwise, but thought it would play well opposite heart shortness. Do you adjust?

If East's is an expected hand for 2S, then I would pass 4H having been doubled for penalties in 3S. I would expect a adjustment to 4H going off.

If East's bid is a psych, I'll need some more information.

I'll let West undo his 4♠ as it seems to have been predicated in part at least on a false assumption that his opponents have a ♥ fit and adjust the score to 4♥S which I guess will be 2 down. North also needs to be disciplined for his "glare" and comment - possibly separate procedural penalties for each.

mrdct, on 2011-July-12, 16:07, said:

If North can't hit 4♠ (because it isn't bid), he might bid 5♦.

This post has been edited by Bbradley62: 2011-July-12, 16:51

Bbradley62, on 2011-July-12, 16:47, said:

But he's sitting on some pretty heavy UI that south think he has ♥ support, so I'm not going to let him do anything other than pass given that in the absence of UI his partner has shown a self-sustaining ♥ suit - why should ♦ be any better at the 5-level?

Certainly agree with mrdct about one or more procedural penalties being in the mix. Both explanations by South are so silly that I can't decide about 5D; and having chosen 4S on the previous round as West, the whole thing would have been different and I got a headache trying to work it out.

mrdct, on 2011-July-12, 16:54, said:

The only information anyone has is that South is clueless, and everyone has that.

Bbradley62, on 2011-July-12, 17:12, said:

If South had described the double of 3♠ as penalty and then gone ahead and bid 4♥, that would leave North with a completely different impression of what South holds when compared to bidding 4♥ in response to North's known 3-card ♥ support.

mrdct, on 2011-July-12, 21:58, said:

Unfortunately with the correct explanation of the X of 3♠, I'd be prepared to bet that after 4♥ the auction will continue X-5♦ (or X-P-P-5♦). E knows that dummy will be very short in spades so leads a trump, N then has 2 lines. Club at trick 2 which makes the contract when W who is known to have no trumps has the ace and may go 2 off if he hasn't when E plays another trump, or the crossruff which makes if E has 3+ hearts or whichever of doubleton ace or queen you play him for.

Some mix of 5♦= and 5♦-1 is not silly if your jurisdiction permits this, 5♦-1 (as I think 2 heart and spade ruffs later followed by a club, W will step in with the ace and promote the 8♦ with a heart is a pretty likely scenario) if it doesn't.

Cyberyeti, on 2011-July-13, 03:04, said:

Correct. Silly is far too weak an adjective. Any amount of 5♦ is ludicrous. Partner has just pulled a penalty double of 3♠ to 4♥. Why should he have any diamonds at all?

lamford, on 2011-July-13, 04:43, said:

Because he clearly has no spades, if he was 0805 he might have bid 4♣. And with ♦QJ9 he might pull to 5♦ himself after LHO expressed doubt about his partner's heart holding.

Cyberyeti, on 2011-July-13, 05:39, said:

Why cannot he be 0-9-1-3 for example? Something like none KQJ10xxxxx x Qxx. Passing 4H is normal without UI. With UI, bidding over it merits a PP. And even none KQJ10xxxx xx Qxx will play better in hearts. And why on earth would South pull? He thinks his partner has three hearts.

lamford, on 2011-July-13, 06:26, said:

I'm saying this applies when W doubles 4♥, partner's possibility of 3 hearts just pretty much vanished. It's pretty clear S hadn't a clue what N's double was anyway, and changed his opinion to support double from responsive double in response to the glare, so shouldn't he be bidding as if it's a responsive double (whatever that means in this auction) rather than a support double anyway.

Cyberyeti, on 2011-July-13, 07:27, said:

West will not necessarily double 4♥; he might just pass. But the glare and the comment both give UI to South, and they both suggest that South pulls 4♥ whether doubled or not. But South bidding 5♦, when North has just opened a diamond and doubled 3♠, does not look like an LA at all.

lamford, on 2011-July-13, 10:38, said:

I agree 4♥ will not get pulled unless it's doubled. The question is what S should bid as if his partner has. His original (pre glare) contention of a responsive double is surely what he should try to visualise, and I'm just not sure what he would expect for that. I think his change of explanation to support X is already using UI to try and fail to help the opps, but I don't think it's what he should bid as if partner has.

Mrdct and Lamford are right in common sense and (amazingly) in law

nige1, on 2011-July-13, 11:36, said:

This is the second thread where I'm being told I'm wrong, but nobody will precisely explain why, so I can't really learn from it. Please break my logic.

Imagine you are South:

You explain the first double as responsive.

Partner's glare tells you you're wrong, this is UI.

You "correct" the description to support for the opps benefit.

You know you have UI so have to bid as if partner had a responsive double NOT a support double.

Partner now gives you further UI, but I'm not sure this is relevant, you still have to believe it's your original choice as that's what you believed it to be pre UI.

Quite what a responsive double looks like in this sequence I have no idea, but I don't understand why everybody is assuming you have to believe it's a support X. Certainly without the second bit of UI if you used the UI that it was a support X, bid accordingly and it was, you'd be ruled against, so I really don't see this.

Cyberyeti, on 2011-July-13, 14:09, said:

OK, let us say that you are playing with screens, which is often a good way of looking at it. You don't really know what the first double is, but assume something like "extra values", "takeout", or "bid something sensible", or even "responsive, whatever that might mean here". You elect to bid 4H, and West, who is entitled to the correct explanation of double, which could well be "penalties", may double or may pass, but he will not bid 4S. If he passes, that will end the auction, but if he doubles, you will have no particular reason to bid anything; partner asked you to do something and you have seven hearts. Why do you think partner is not some 3-2-5-3 good hand? Only because his manner suggested he had a penalty double. I don't think pulling 4♥X is an LA. Now some might decide that 4S was a SEWoG anyway, and they may decide it is "unrelated to the original infraction - the MI" but I would disagree with them on at least one of the two counts. So I would tend to give perhaps 40% of 4H - 2 and 60% of 4H x -2. But I would poll if I could find suitable peers.

lamford, on 2011-July-13, 14:30, said:

4153 I might swallow, but I think opps have 9 spades and not 10 at this vul (they're clearly not shy of preempting) or 4♠ would have been bid not 3♠ so I'm sure partner has 4, and believing he has more than one heart is pure fantasy with his first X (he'd have a strong no trump with a 3253 anyway as that's likely to be his point range, and a non pen X is a very strange bid with a 4252). You've been told by the double if it occurs that hearts are not lying well, but that is not to say that 4♥ isn't still the right spot, you could easily be losing 3 hearts and nothing else.

Also I'm prepared to bet that with 8 hearts (or a really good 7), players like this would be able to bid 4♥ to play first up (certainly as director I'd ask) so the 9 card suit example above may be fatuous, and he didn't pull the X to 4♣ so in my opinion if this is the case, partner is marked with 0724 at worst and probably 0733 (0724 might bid clubs) and diamonds will always play better with hearts doubled behind.

lamford, on 2011-July-13, 14:30, said:

I was wondering if anyone would bring this up. The actual ruling given was that score stands because the 4S bid was bad enough to be unrelated to the misinformation (and that they should have known that the opponents didn't really have an agreement of "support" anyway given the table behavior). There was also a sense that it wasn't kosher for the partner of the 4S bidder to be involving the director since if there was really a problem the 4S bidder should have called.

I was a little surprised by the ruling, so was curious what other opinions would be. My impression in the past is that my local area is much harsher in general on the non-offenders in misinformation cases than consensus here. Or maybe it's an ACBL thing rather than just a local thing.

I wasn't involved except to be asked my opinion about the hand by the director about a week after it happened.