[aguahombre]

From WellSpyder's andecdote, post #14 of this thread:

I have forgotten a seldom used agreement and passed an artificial bid by partner. In WellSyder's case it was:

P-1M
2D-P.....where 2D had been agreed to be 4-card Drury.

After Lefty passed the auction out at 2D, and before Righty's opening lead, it sinks in what I have done. I inform the opponents that I have failed to alert an agreement, and (with or without TD presence and blessing) proceed to explain the 2D bid.

It turns out that Pard also forgot our documented agreement, and I feel uneasy even though we now have correctly disclosed our agreement because we have followed the laws but nevertheless misled the opponents.

Wouldn't it be better, from a practical standpoint to conveniently continue to forget our agreement and let Partner be the one to fulfill our legal obligations? Yes, I know it is technically unlawful to do this.

If she fails to disclose the failure to alert, and has bid according to our agreements, we take the consequences of playing in a silly contract AND any adjudication if there was damage to the opponents.

If she discloses our real agreement before the opening lead, our side still has met the requirements.

If she coincidentally forgot the agreement, play continues with no damage; and I can continue to feel guilty about breaking the rules while content that equity occurred.

[RMB1]

To answer the question in the other thread before this thread was forked ...

It appears that, at the point that he bid 2♦, both members of the partnership understood 2♦ as natural. I think the 2♦ bidder should explain that partnership understanding (which corresponds to what is in his hand).

[WellSpyder]

 aguahombre, on 2013-April-10, 09:03, said:

Wouldn't it be better, from a practical standpoint to conveniently continue to forget our agreement and let Partner be the one to fulfill our legal obligations? Yes, I know it is technically unlawful to do this.

If she fails to disclose the failure to alert, and has bid according to our agreements, we take the consequences of playing in a silly contract AND any adjudication if there was damage to the opponents.

If she discloses our real agreement before the opening lead, our side still has met the requirements.

If she coincidentally forgot the agreement, play continues with no damage; and I can continue to feel guilty about breaking the rules while content that equity occurred.

That's an interesting suggestion, which I must admit did not occur to me in the heat of the moment. As you say, though, it is presumably technically illegal to do this even if it is generally likely to lead to the most equitable outcomes, so I think it would produce higher guilt levels than the alternatives!

As far as partner's duties are concerned, Robin's suggestion in the other thread seems sensible to me. In this particular case, telling oppo that your hand, and therefore perhaps your implicit agreement, doesn't match the explanation from the system file may well be equivalent to telling them what you have in your hand. More generally, I think there will be times where you can tell them that it is not clear that you really have the written agreement and therefore tell them what you DON'T have in your hand, without having to tell them what you DO have in your hand.

[blackshoe]

You have a legal obligation to disclose an incorrect explanation (including a failure to alert), whether your own or your partner's, at the time specified in the laws: for your own explanation, immediately you realize you were wrong, for partner's either after the final pass (if your side is declaring) or at the end of play (if your side is defending). In all three cases the director must be called before any corrections are given. This implies (see the discussion of "must" in the Introduction to the Laws) that a player who does not call the TD should almost always receive a PP. Yes, I know that "nobody" calls the TD, and that TDs "never" give PPs for the infraction. And that "everybody" thinks this is okay. Maybe it is, but if it is, why does the law say what it does? IMO, y'all can do whatever you like, but if as a player you are not doing what you "must" do according to the laws, or as a director you are not routinely issuing PPs for these infractions, then you're wrong according to the law. Anyway, back to your legal obligation: to "conveniently continue to forget" is as you say unlawful. That also makes it unethical.

Do with this information what you will.

[aguahombre]

I assumed and acknowledged the obvious when I asked the question, Ed. But now it is clearer to all what the base Laws are underlying the issue of whether is it better to let partner be the one who discloses my failure to alert in a scenario such as this.

[blackshoe]

Sorry, Agua, the use of "you" in my previous post was not intended to refer to you in particular, but to my readers in general. Perhaps I should have made that clear in that post.

The problem with your approach is that if you for example fail to alert, the law requires you to correct that omission "immediately", while if partner is going to correct it, his correction is delayed. So opps may get the correct information in the end, but they don't get it when the law says they should.

After reviewing my memory of yesterday's game, I suspect that immediate director calls in such cases would require at least one director per table, at least in our local games. That's mostly because alerts seem to come some seconds after RHO's call. The cause seems to be a combination of RHO's "insta-call" (usually pass) and the player's slow reaction to his partner's bid. Practically speaking, I don't see that being corrected any time soon - it would require players to change ingrained habits.

[aguahombre]

 blackshoe, on 2013-April-10, 10:19, said:

Sorry, Agua, the use of "you" in my previous post was not intended to refer to you in particular, but to my readers in general. Perhaps I should have made that clear in that post.

We're cool.

[gnasher]

 blackshoe, on 2013-April-10, 10:01, said:

why does the law say what it does?

Because the WBFLC thought it was a good idea. That doesn't necessarily mean it was a good idea.

[aguahombre]

 blackshoe, on 2013-April-10, 10:19, said:

The problem with your approach is that if you for example fail to alert, the law requires you to correct that omission "immediately", while if partner is going to correct it, his correction is delayed. So opps may get the correct information in the end, but they don't get it when the law says they should.

In the instant case, the auction is over (unless rolled back by the TD). "Immediate" is the same time for both of us--before the opening lead.

[blackshoe]

Ah. Still, that doesn't change the law.

[barmar]

When the auction is over, and you realize your mistake, you don't know that partner also forgot your agreement. You might be able to infer it from the fact that he doesn't bring up the failure to alert, but there can be other reasons for that (maybe your failure to alert has made him think that you're one of the partners he doesn't play Two-way Drury with, so he now thinks he misbid). Things will get incredibly complicated if we try to make the rules of disclosure dependent on these inferences, so we keep it simple: disclose your agreements as well as you can.

The ideal that we're supposed to be emulating is that the opponents somehow "know" what all your bids mean. We don't have a way of doing that automatically, so we use alerts, announcements, questions and answers. But either way, misbids are not included in the disclosure.

Coincidences like this, where the bidder and his partner both have the same misunderstanding, are rub of the green. Although if they get repeated, they may become implicit agreements, possibly illegal if the dual meanings are not allowed by the RA.

[Vampyr]

 blackshoe, on 2013-April-10, 10:01, said:

You have a legal obligation to disclose an incorrect explanation ... Anyway, back to your legal obligation: to "conveniently continue to forget" is as you say unlawful. That also makes it unethical.

I was sure I'd posted this before, but I guess I didn't. The question here is what, exactly, the agreement was when the bid was made, and I don't think the answer to that is clear. What feels unethical in a "natural justice" sort of sense is when the "real" explanation is given but both partners have got it wrong, and got it wrong in the same way. What feels "right" is that the opponents should be given redress when this happens; the fact that the disclosed agreement was written on the convention card does not necessarily mean there was no misexplanation.

[blackshoe]

TDs should rule on the basis of what is right, not what "feels" right.

[Vampyr]

 blackshoe, on 2013-April-10, 15:09, said:

TDs should rule on the basis of what is right, not what "feels" right.

True; the TC has to find out whether there was a misbid or MI and rule accordingly. I think that it was the latter; there is more evidence for this, and that is the standard, after all.

[blackshoe]

 RMB1, on 2013-April-10, 09:48, said:

To answer the question in the other thread before this thread was forked ...

It appears that, at the point that he bid 2♦, both members of the partnership understood 2♦ as natural. I think the 2♦ bidder should explain that partnership understanding (which corresponds to what is in his hand).

Sure. And the next thing you know, people will be suggesting you should always explain what you thought was the agreement, even though it wasn't, and what is in your hand.

Put it another way: coincidence is not agreement.

[Vampyr]

 blackshoe, on 2013-April-10, 19:20, said:

Put it another way: coincidence is not agreement.

Not necessarily, but here it forms, as I mentioned just now, the preponderance of evidence.

[blackshoe]

Does it?

[Vampyr]

 blackshoe, on 2013-April-10, 21:31, said:

Does it?

Yes.

[RMB1]

 blackshoe, on 2013-April-10, 19:20, said:

Sure. And the next thing you know, people will be suggesting you should always explain what you thought was the agreement, even though it wasn't, and what is in your hand.

And the downside of that is what?

I have often said "Partner may be right as to our agreements, but I don't think we can provide evidence, and its not what I've got."

[WellSpyder]

 RMB1, on 2013-April-11, 01:17, said:

I have often said "Partner may be right as to our agreements, but I don't think we can provide evidence, and its not what I've got."

Have you also gone on to say what you thought the agreement was at the time you made the bid, or left it simply that you don't have what partner has stated? I have certainly felt now and again that it was right to make the latter point, but tend to feel that explaining what you thought at the time was the agreement goes beyond the call of duty unless you think this really was your agreement that partner has simply got wrong or forgotten.