[mink]

The following bidding took place in a regional German team league:

---

N/S are decent players, and their team had won the league about 3 years ago, while E/W tend to occupy the lower half of the ranking table.
E/W play 5 card majors, 1♣ only 2 cards in case of 4=4=3=2.
2♣ was immediately asked about, and explained by North: "We play 2-suiter cue bids if only one suit was bid by opps. However, I do not remember if we discussed this case. I tend to assume that 2♣ is natural here."
I was called after the hand had been finished. The E/W bids were interpreted differently by the players. West thought:
the double showed ♣
3♣ showed ♣
3♦ showed ♦
East thought:
the double showed the majors
3♣ asked for a stopper in ♣
3♦ showed no ♣ stopper and minimum

Question 1: Assuming that North made the best explanation he was able to give, should this be presumed Mistaken Explanation as defined in Law 21B1b?

Question 2: If your answer to question 1 was "yes", should an adjusted score be awarded, and what score should that be?

Additional information, not really relevant for the case: Result as played was E3♦-1. The score at the other table of this match was E3nt+1. All 8 other tables reached 3nt, twice played by West with an overtrick. When played by East, it went down at 3 tables after a ♥ lead and scored 2 or 3 overtricks at the other 3 tables.

[barmar]

If they've only agreed to play 2-suited cue bids when the opponents have bid 1 suit, then it sounds like the explanation was correct, and South misbid.

[Lanor Fow]

If north made the best explination he was able to give (something I don't agree with as "I tend to assume" should not be part of any explination in a live auction imo) then there cannot be any MI. Of course determining that it's the best explination he was able to give is not always easy.

[barmar]

It's common to object to phrases like "I assume" or "I take it as". IMHO, it's not really that bad, it's just a way of expressing that your explanation is based on implicit understandings from partnership experience and GBK, rather than an explicit agreement. Since he already said "I don't remember if we discussed this case", this qualifier is at worst redundant.

[blackshoe]

I would have asked North why he "tends to assume" that 2♣ is natural.

[trevahound]

It sounds to me as if N explained that he believes their agreement is natural, not conventional, when two different suits have been bid. Did the director determine what South thought? In other words, did South think he was bidding according to their agreement, or that he thought they had no agreement about this situation and was hoping to be on the same page in an undiscussed auction? That's not an infraction, I believe, but we don't know what South would say yet.

I would also like to question East a bit. His partner opened a minor, vuln, and he has basically a strong NT, and gives up on game (vully, teams) at 3m? What does he expect a minimum opener by partner to look like? I would imagine passing 3m to be so unusual and gambling that I become less sympathetic to requests for redress, but I'd be happy to hear why I shouldn't feel that way.

I open as light as anyone in these parts, and that's still a GF opposite anything I'd open 1m with in first seat hot at teams. C'mon. Sure, partner could have Kx of ♠ instead of ♥, but they could split, or not be led, or 5m could be on. I am not yet convinced that passing there is "continuing to play bridge".

[mycroft]

I would ask south why he decided to bid 2♣, and what evidence he had that that was correct.

I like Blackshoe's question as well - if this partnership is of experience, then they have had this auction or something like it before, or have discussed it. They may still disagree, but it's come up.

I would also ask how majors are shown (if 2♣ is natural) after (1♣)-p-(1♦). I assume there are multiple ways...but one of them could easily be "and 2♣ shows... and 2♦ shows..." At least it does for some people around here (and I try to remember who they are so I can give them headaches).

This could, of course, be a "is 3+ or 4=4=3=2 a 'short club' for our definitions, and does that change natural vs. majors?" issue as well. I could easily see that disagreement between partners, even experienced partners.

If I rule Mistaken Explanation, then I fully expect that normal construction from there would lead to 3NT from West after East shows concerns about hearts (if they "show rather than ask" with two, they might get to it from the East side. However, we are to rule "that was likely", and even in weighted score world, I find it likely enough that 'sympathetic weighting' will lead to 100% 3NTW+1. I'm not forcing South to pass 2♠X.

If the league has a "you are expected to know your system in common situations (as in the first round of an auction)" regulation, even if I rule Mistaken Bid, I may just pull that out "score stands, 'standard' penalty N/S for not knowing system, play on, and know it in future."

[blackshoe]

I really dislike this "continue to play bridge" business. Not the regulation, per se, but the way people speak of it (the regulation doesn't say "you must continue to play bridge").

Put yourself in the mind, for a moment, of a lesser player. Lesser in skill, or lesser in experience, or God forbid we should mention the possibility, lesser in intelligence. You're sitting there, playing bridge to the best of your ability, and some SOB comes along and tells you "you failed to continue to play bridge". How would you react?

[mink]

trevahound, on 2015-March-10, 16:59, said:

It sounds to me as if N explained that he believes their agreement is natural, not conventional, when two different suits have been bid. Did the director determine what South thought? In other words, did South think he was bidding according to their agreement, or that he thought they had no agreement about this situation and was hoping to be on the same page in an undiscussed auction? That's not an infraction, I believe, but we don't know what South would say yet.

South did not say anything while I was at the table. I would expect him to speak if he believed that there was an agreement (implicit or explicit) that they show a 2-suiter here. However, I really should have asked him anyway.

trevahound said:

I would also like to question East a bit. His partner opened a minor, vuln, and he has basically a strong NT, and gives up on game (vully, teams) at 3m? What does he expect a minimum opener by partner to look like? I would imagine passing 3m to be so unusual and gambling that I become less sympathetic to requests for redress, but I'd be happy to hear why I shouldn't feel that way.

East's point of view was that without a ♣-stopper they could not play 3nt, and they were too weak for game in diamonds. And he was quite confident that his interpretation of the meaning of the E/W-calls was the correct one.

blackshoe said:

I would have asked North why he "tends to assume" that 2♣ is natural.

He spoke German of course, and I do not remember his exact wording. My impression was that they did not explicitly agree on something for the 4th seat when 2 suits were bid, and they were unsure if their 2-suiter agreement covered this case or not, and there was no meta-agreement. Apparently, South thought system should still be on and North thought it should be off, and none of them could really prove that the other was wrong. The partnership is some years old, but I think they do not play together very often, as there is some distance between their home towns.

mycroft said:

If the league has a "you are expected to know your system in common situations (as in the first round of an auction)" regulation ...

There is no such regulation.

[Vampyr]

If the true agreement is "no agreement", then the explanation was MI.

On the other hand, South had some reason to believe that partner would understand his bid, so perhaps they had an implicit agreement based on other parts of their system or what they played with common partners. In that case, the explanation was MI.

[helene_t]

I think the explanation was correct. The problem is it is a little vague. It is EW's responsibility to know how they defend a natural 2♣ bid and how they defend and artificial 2♣, and I think it is even their responsibility to have a defense against a "no agreement" 2♣ bid since they play a 1♣ opening which is not mainstream and which obviously can be treated as either natural or artificial by different opps. Surely if they have played this 1♣ opening for a while at club or lower league levels they must have become used to opps that aren't sure about their defensive methods, although I suppose in a team match NS ought to enquire about the 1♣ opening before the match and agree whether their WJ defense or their Forum-D defense applies.

But is it their responsibility to know their defense against a 2♣ bid explained as "not sure but I tend to take it as natural" ? If not then we have to tell North that he really shouldn't give such vague explanations.

Sometimes you are (as North) in a limbo where you are afraid of giving a vague confusing answer but also don't feel well about saying "no agreement" when you feel you actually have some information worth disclosing. The best thing to do is, I think, to say "not 100% sure, if you want to know what I think I will ask my partner to leave the table".

But that didn't happen. Not easy, then, but I think I would let result stand. Even if one could argue that there was MI, it is not clear that there was any damage. Of course if EW had known that S had shown majors they could have bid 3NT since E would understand W's double and show his spade stopper. But the correct explanation is probably "no agreement".

W's double (which he could quite easily predict would be misunderstood by E) was very bad but maybe not quite a SEWoG.

[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2015-March-11, 05:30, said:

If the true agreement is "no agreement", then the explanation was MI.

On the other hand, South had some reason to believe that partner would understand his bid, so perhaps they had an implicit agreement based on other parts of their system or what they played with common partners. In that case, the explanation was MI.

But North thought he understood the bid, which also points to an implicit agreement based on other parts of their system or what they played with common partners. In that case, it was a mistaken bid.

More likely, I suspect each of them was basing their understandings on an implicit meta-agreement about what is "standard". They just have different ideas of standard.

[trevahound]

blackshoe, on 2015-March-10, 17:46, said:

I really dislike this "continue to play bridge" business. Not the regulation, per se, but the way people speak of it (the regulation doesn't say "you must continue to play bridge").

Put yourself in the mind, for a moment, of a lesser player. Lesser in skill, or lesser in experience, or God forbid we should mention the possibility, lesser in intelligence. You're sitting there, playing bridge to the best of your ability, and some SOB comes along and tells you "you failed to continue to play bridge". How would you react?

I see your point, and absolutely agree with the common decency that we don't have to cause unnecessary offense, period. So, do folks have to continue to play bridge after an infraction to retain protection? How much better would you make the East hand before passing 3m became so wild and gambling that you felt they contributed to their own poor score? One more J? One more Q? Bear in mind, you're red at teams.

I don't like individuals who try to lawyer their way to an undeserved score. It's probably not relevant that I find that distasteful. But I have seen (and been on the wrong side of) multiple rulings that essentially boil down to whether or not the NOS get a double shot. Here, the offending side's irregularity seems so minor (who's on firm ground with every partner they ever play with on this?), and the NOS seem so likely to understand that N/S may not be on firm ground here, and E takes such an extreme position given the circumstances -- that all seems relevant, to me. It seems like E might be saying, "I don't need to bid game, as I'll get it awarded to me afterwards after we ask awkward questions of our opps who will step in it while trying for full disclosure".

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2015-March-11, 11:12, said:

But North thought he understood the bid, which also points to an implicit agreement based on other parts of their system or what they played with common partners. In that case, it was a mistaken bid.

But MI is assumed without evidence to the contrary.

Quote

More likely, I suspect each of them was basing their understandings on an implicit meta-agreement about what is "standard". They just have different ideas of standard.

So MI again.

[mink]

Thanks all for your posts.

Now, I would like to share my own opinion about the 2 questions I have asked.

1. Should North's explanation of the 2♣-bid be regarded as Mistaken Explanation?

Of course, if we assume that what he said was the best way to describe the N/S-system, we cannot ask for more or better explanation. That he informed opps about his opinion what what the bid should mean is also OK in this kind of situation, as it is difficult to express the implicit partnership understanding - the feeling - in some other way. For sure North can make a better guess how South did mean the bid than opps can. Would he do a better job if he said that he just did not know if it was natural or the majors, because this was not discussed for this specific situation? I think, not, because then opps have no clue on what version they should base their further bidding, and he had failed to include implicit partnership understanding in his explanation.

Generally, in some bidding situation that never occurred for a partnership before, and that they did not talk about in advance, for sure it is correct to explain: "No agreement". But in our current situation, this explanation would not be correct of course: I was right that North mentioned their 2-suiter agreement. My point now is that it was not correct by N/S to leave the limitations of this agreement undefined, so that they did not know what their system was in the current situation. This is clearly different from "No agreement" - it is a "maybe we have an agreement, and maybe it is natural". So N/S are in doubt what their system is. And this implies that they cannot explain their system to opps, not matter how hard they try, it will always be Mistaken Explanation.

2. Should we award an adjusted score, and which?

Mistaken Explanation caused E/W to face a problem that they would not have encountered if North had given an explanation in accordance with the South hand. E/W showed that they were not able to deal with that problem properly, because they had completely different ideas of what there bidding should mean here. However, we cannot conclude from that that similar misinterpretation would happen if they were in possession of the correct information. My judgement is that they would reach 3nt, with either of them being declarer. If East happens to be declarer, the lead depends on whether East showed his ♠-Stopper or West showed her ♥-stopper. This is difficult to predict, and my guess would be ♥ lead is found 25%. So I would award a weighted score: 50% of W3nt+1, 37.5% of E3nt+2 and 12.5% of E3nt-1.

Karl

[VixTD]

mink, on 2015-March-12, 04:18, said:

Of course, if we assume that what he said was the best way to describe the N/S-system, we cannot ask for more or better explanation.

Our regulations in England include the following advice to players:

Quote

However, it is very important to call the TD immediately when:
(a) a player doesn’t answer questions about the meaning of a call (or play)

It certainly would have been helpful if North had called the TD when he was asked the question. I'm not saying that this would have solved the problem, but the TD could have asked North to leave the table and then asked South to give his understanding of their partnership agreement. They may just have got much the same "artificial when one suit has been bid, otherwise undiscussed" from South, but I don't think North's statement of assumption would then have been hanging over them in quite the same way.

mink, on 2015-March-12, 04:18, said:

My point now is that it was not correct by N/S to leave the limitations of this agreement undefined, so that they did not know what their system was in the current situation. This is clearly different from "No agreement" - it is a "maybe we have an agreement, and maybe it is natural". So N/S are in doubt what their system is. And this implies that they cannot explain their system to opps, not matter how hard they try, it will always be Mistaken Explanation.

I'm not sure I agree with this logic. You're just saying that NS haven't extended their agreement to cover all situations. Would you say the same about a pair who have an agreement about the auction (1♥) - 2♥, but claim to have none about (2♥) - 3♥?

However, I do agree with your decision to adjust the score. I think there is insufficient evidence here to rule that NS have no agreement. The evidence that they have an agreement when the opponents have bid only one suit, and that one member of the partnership has tried the same thing out in a similar situation is enough to presume mistaken explanation under law 75C.

mink, on 2015-March-12, 04:18, said:

My judgement is that they would reach 3nt, with either of them being declarer.

I would have thought that if you presume there's been an incorrect explanation of the agreement that the bid shows the majors then you should adjust the score to what might have happened if EW had been given a correct explanation. Wouldn't West still double to show clubs, then East show a spade stopper, and West bid no trumps? I don't see how East ends up as declarer in no trumps, but I suppose it's possible.

[Zelandakh]

The explanation seems to be quite simple, if a little badly worded in the translation: N-S have the agreement that 2♣ is natural if 2 suits have been bid or 2-suited (majors) if only one suit has been bid. The problem is that North is unsure whether they treat a short (2+) 1♣ opening as a suit. North thought it is counted as a suit and South not. I would certainly want to ask South whether they have discussed this issue at any stage. If they have then there was MI - do they have any evidence that this was never discussed?

On the subject of the adjustment if MI is ruled, you might also consider including a share of 2♣S down lots in the formula. From the discussion so far I think West's X with correct information would show the majors so pass seems to be the correct call with clubs. North has no reason to bid and East could pass it out knowing of the misunderstanding. Looking at it some more though, I do not think 2♣ can go enough off to compensate for 3NT if E-W are vulnerable so probably no point in adding it.

If East does not pass it out they probably show the spade stopper and West becomes declarer in 3NT. North would probably lead a club against that - why would they ever go for a heart?! I think including any percentage of 3NT-1 is wrong, let alone 1 in 8. A percentage of 3NT= does seem reasonable though.

[whereagles]

Probably the best way to sort this would have been to take North away away from the table and have South explain his bid.

[blackshoe]

Zelandakh, on 2015-March-12, 09:18, said:

do they have any evidence that this was never discussed?

Sure. It's in their system notes: "We have not discussed the meaning of 2♣ in the auction (1♣)-P-(1♦)-2♣". See page 9,342.

[barmar]

whereagles, on 2015-March-12, 10:48, said:

Probably the best way to sort this would have been to take North away away from the table and have South explain his bid.

That's only best if South was actually bidding in accordance to their agreements. Opponents aren't entitled to an explanation of the bid, only the agreements.