Partnership non-agreements!
Opinions welcome on the following ruling situation.
For anyone unfamiliar with Bridge Club Live, which is where this happened, please assume that alerting is as F2F but we use WBF alerting regulations, so no announcements.
West held:
:spade: QJ103
<3 QJ5
:diamond: Q4
:club: AKJ10
West is in North America and is very experienced in BCL. The other players are in England. All are 56%+ players. EW are occasional partners but have no agreed defence to a Multi 2 :diamond: opening bid. South opens 2 :diamond: Multi after East passed as dealer. NS Vul.
West doubled. This looks a normal action with the West cards but West thinks it is a take-out of diamonds. North passed and East bid 3 :club: and South passed.
West bid 3 :diamond: It is completely obvious to her that she is asking for a diamond stop. North bid 3 :spade: and when it came back to East, she bid 3NT going 1 off but for a very good score as NS had missed a slam in diamonds (North had a 6=0=6=1 shape).
East has alerted nothing because he thinks that the double shows general values (only very unusual doubles should be alerted) and that the 3 :diamond: is natural.
It seems to me that we rule ...
either West has mis-bid, which West will think ridiculous
or that East should have alerted the 3 :diamond: bid and said "No agreement but it might not be natural", which East will think is ridiculous as there is no possible reason why he could possibly believe that the 3 :diamond: bid might not be natural.
So ..... Mis-bid or Mis-Information?
Do I rule the latter under Law 21B1b, or is that too easy?
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
Comments
If (as is normal) the multi 2D only covers hearts and spades as weak 2s, then I would agree with East that the bidding (without any specific agreement) is showing values and a diamond suit in the West hand, since South is known not to have long diamonds (in a weak hand). So I would rule mis-bid. Whatever you rule, one of East or West will disagree!!
There is no partnership understanding about West's actions. NS are entitled to an explanation of 'no partnership understanding'. EW would never be able to give such an explanation but NS would not ask. NS should be owed an alert but perhaps the (non-screen) WBF alerting regulations don't require one - this may be a failing of those regulations.
EBU regulations owe NS an alert even thought EW may not know they lack partnership understanding. NS would then be entitled to a ruling on the basis of a missing alert and missing explanation.
Is it East who declared 3NT and went one off? If so, West is at fault for failing to disclose a missed alert before the opening lead (at which point N/S can figure out what the opponents have, and haven't lost that much bidding space, so can probably fix it from there).
It would be a more complex situation if it were North declaring (so that E/W can't mention the missed alert until after the deal is played out). In this case, I think it would be plausible to find E/W at fault for failing to alert the sequence as "no agreement" / "undiscussed". This is an important alert, sometimes (perhaps even if all possible meanings for the call are natural), because it increases the chance that partners will draw different conclusions from each other on future calls.
(I personally aim to be diligent about alerting undiscussed situations online, but I think most people tend to forget that step! I alert calls as undiscussed even when I'm fairly sure about the meaning, explaining the most comparable situation that we have discussed in order to allow the opponents to draw their own conclusions.)
Do E/W have any meta-agreements?
Such as a double of a conventional bid shows that suit?
Or, in undiscussed situations, take bids as natural (and maybe forcing to some level too?)
I have both of these agreements with my main partner, so whilst defence against a multi-2D has not been discussed, we do have these agreements in general.
" .... when it came back to East, she bid 3NT going 1 off .... "
Sorry, typo. It should have been when it came back to West. But, yes, EW still became the declaring side. It is a good point, though, that if I rule MI and a weighting includes the same auction, then West needs to correct the "MI" before the opening lead and South would not on this occasion want to change his last pass and NS will likely manage a better defence.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
Thanks, Robin! :)
My view was also for MI but I wondered if there might be an argument for ruling mis-bid. By coincidence I had a remarkably similar ruling (with different players) about three weeks ago and I ruled MI then, and perhaps I should instead have posted that one three weeks ago rather than this one now!
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
I think it's clear to rule mis-information. What might not be so obvious is what to consider the correct information to be.
"What might not be so obvious is what to consider the correct information to be"
There seems to be a range of options.
1. EW have no agreements about how to defend against a Multi.
2. EW have no agreements about how to defend against a Multi but what is popular in East's locality is x and what is popular in West's locality is y.
3. EW have no agreements about how to defend against a Multi but either it will be x, which is popular in East's locality or it will be y which is popular in West's locality.
My view would be somewhere nearer Option 1 than Option 3, but it may vary on how much the OS (offending side) might be able to guess what each other might be thinking. The problem for the non-offending side is that the information to which they might be entitled might not help them very much, but the TD might have some scope in weighing in some actions that might work to their benefit, even if it might not be very much, despite giving the NOS some benefit of doubt.
What I feel that I would consider here is that NS might be able to put a bit of a question mark over West's calls and might (but only might) have nudged the auction to go differently (and possibly the play in 3NT). But I would expect to end up with at least a 70% weighting of the actual table result.
............................... :spade: AK9762
............................... <3 ---
............................... :diamond: AK9853
............................... :club: 6
:spade: QJ103 ........................................... :spade: 54
<3 QJ5 ................................................ <3 A864
:diamond: Q4 ................................................. :diamond: 2
:club: AKJ10 .......................................... :club: 987432
............................... :spade: 8
............................... <3 K109732
............................... :diamond: J1076
............................... :club: Q5
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live