[aguahombre]

aguahombre, on 2013-April-19, 09:39, said:

"Any questions, partner?" is condoned, but above the club level should not be. It is communication to partner and is not contained in 41.

barmar, on 2013-April-19, 10:24, said:

What information is it communicating? Especially if you do it habitually, it doesn't imply anything about your hand. It's no more meaningful than dummy saying "good luck, partner" when laying out his hand.

It could be (especially if not done habitually) communicating to partner that she might want to ask questions ---the scenario would be where we know the opponents' methods and cannot be asking solely for partner's benefit, but have found a way around that.

Even if we do ask habitually, is partner capable of discerning by our manner those times when she SHOULD be asking?

It is communication not specifically authorized in the laws, and it is confusing that some posters (not you) who consistently harp on either following the laws or getting them changed also have their own criteria for ignoring them because of custom and practice.

[mycroft]

Given all those who:

• ask for questions, get no, then lead; or
  
• tell partner they have no questions before they've selected their lead,

The ones that ask, the same way, after leading face down aren't a problem I'm going to worry about.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2013-April-23, 10:09, said:

Which law are you saying now is being ignored? We currently seem to be talking about a law that allows declarer to do something at a particular time. But the laws also allow him to do it at other times. If he rarely chooses to do it at the particular time, instead using the other legal times, does that mean he's ignoring the law or it's just not useful to him?

<sigh> I used to think I was pretty good at communicating, but given the number of people here who don't understand what I've said, or claim that I've said something other than what I said, it seems that I was wrong. I'll try to work on that. In the meantime...

I'm talking about that part of law 41B that allows for the declarer to ask questions before the opening lead is faced. It's not a case of "it's not useful to me", it's a case of "I didn't know I could do that" on the part of declarers, and of "I didn't know he could do that" on the part of defenders. So maybe "ignore" is not the best word for those people. But here we've been discussing it, everybody knows (or should know) what we've been discussing, and yet they say "if it doesn't happen, just ignore that".

There have been a couple of times I would have liked to ask something before the lead was faced, usually so I didn't forget the thought after dummy comes down and I have other things on my mind. However I was not given the chance to ask. To me, that's annoying as hell. Maybe I should have called the director and invoked Law 74A2.

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2013-April-23, 18:51, said:

There have been a couple of times I would have liked to ask something before the lead was faced, usually so I didn't forget the thought after dummy comes down and I have other things on my mind.

Why did you feel you had to wait until dummy came down before asking? Why not ask immediately after the lead was faced?

[bluejak]

The auction ends, you are declarer, just ask. What on earth are they going to do to stop you asking? What has the Law got to do with it?

I am sorry, Ed, but this time I really don't understand what your problem is.

[blackshoe]

Vampyr, on 2013-April-24, 08:05, said:

Why did you feel you had to wait until dummy came down before asking? Why not ask immediately after the lead was faced?

Dummy was on its way down before I could open my mouth.

[blackshoe]

bluejak, on 2013-April-24, 08:24, said:

The auction ends, you are declarer, just ask. What on earth are they going to do to stop you asking? What has the Law got to do with it?

I am sorry, Ed, but this time I really don't understand what your problem is.

<sigh> They aren't going to stop me asking.

You know what? Just forget it.

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2013-April-24, 14:38, said:

Dummy was on its way down before I could open my mouth.

And the operation was so mesmerising that you could not pull away your attention to ask a question. I understand.