I have been asked about the legality of a GF 2C opened last night a 7-6 twosuiter of SK1085432 H AK10653 ! I have looked at BB 7C and suspect it is not in regualtion...Any thoughts?
The thoughts is that this is not a 'strong hand' by definition - but for any rectification you have to show an irregularity - and the question then is: do the pair have an agreement to open 7-6 hands with 10 high card points with 2C? I bet that there is no partnership agreement - and hence no rectification due.
Well, at least one of them thinks it is their agreement even if unspoken. The lack of wisdom of such a bid might be evident if it starts 2C (2D) x (4D) for example. You can ask questions to elicit what they believe their agreement is with distributional freaks.
@Tag said:
I've never been fond of trying to trap players into admitting to an agreement they don't have.
I've never been fond of players trying to get around the regulations by claiming that what they are doing is not by agreement when both members of the partnership would do the same thing.
Why not? They have an implicit agreement. Freak hands such as the one quoted are also likely to be discussed. "That was a wild hand! Seemed like a 2C opener to me. Yes, can't think of anything better." Is that not an agreement for next time something similar turns up?
I think that in 9 years of playing about 200 boards a week (including online play), I think I have only had one 7-6 hand - and that was with someone that is no longer a partner (they moved abroad).
So I have not discussed 7-6 hands (and how to open them) with anyone...
In addition, I started to play with someone a few months ago in a weekly online bridge session - we have obviously discussed our system and keep tweaking and updating it...
In last nights session we had the bid 1D - X - ? we had not discussed that specifically, however:
1D - P - 2S is a weak (non-forcing bid, similar to a weak 2 open)
1D - 1H - 1S is forcing
1D - 1H - 2S is a weak (non-forcing bid, similar to a weak 2 open)
So what about after this double?
I plumbed for 2S, knowing that it was undiscussed, but thinking that this would be forcing, showing a long S suit, my partner took my 2S to be the weak type response and passed. I made 11 tricks and a deserved bad score.
However, had he taken that as a forcing bid and we find game, is that a sign that we have an agreement? No.
That is really a binary situation - it is forcing or not... so there are only 4 possible situations:
I bid it as forcing, he thinks not forcing
I bid it as forcing, he thinks it is forcing
I bid it as non-forcing, he thinks it is non-forcing
I bid it as non-forcing, he thinks it is forcing
So, is it surprising that when there are only 2 possible meanings and 4 possible combinations of our thoughts (2 of which have us in agreement) on the situation, that 50% of the time we agree and 50% of the time we don't?
With the original question, how to handle that 7-6 hand, there are several possible ways of bidding it, but the initial thought would be one of - do I bid this as a strong/forcing hand or not... if yes, then 2C, if not then something else.
As with the above example, there is only a small finite number of possible answers and so it should not be surprising that 2 people in a partnership come to the same conclusion, even if deciding/bidding totally at random.
Asking the opener's partner what they would have opened, the response of, "well, I don't like it but I would probably open 2C too; it's either that or 1S, but I don't like that either - so yes, 2C", does not mean that they have an illegal understanding. At worst it might show that they have similar thought processes, which would indicate that they are possibly a good match for a partnership?
The law talks primarily of partnership understandings, not agreements. I think if two members of a partnership would approach a situation in the same way, due to their partnership experience and other explicitly discussed understandings, this constitutes an implicit understanding.
@Martin said:
I think that in 9 years of playing about 200 boards a week (including online play), I think I have only had one 7-6 hand
Intrigued by this I found Wikipedia's bridge probabilities which says the chance of a 7-6 hand is 0.0056%. You may have been short changed by the bridge gods - you should pick up a 7-6er roughly once per 18,000 hands, which is every couple of years at 200 boards a week.
Well, in the rules specifically relating to 2C open, we have Notes 1, which says, "must by agreement satisfy a above" and "If the minimum strength does not, by agreement, satisfy..." So whilst there may be references to understandings, but relating to 2C and above opens, it is the agreement or otherwise that seems to count, not understandings (implicit or explicit).
LAW 40 - PARTNERSHIP UNDERSTANDINGS
A. Players’ Systemic Agreements
1. (a) Partnership understandings as to the methods
adopted by a partnership may be reached
explicitly in discussion or implicitly through
mutual experience or awareness of the players.
B. Special Partnership Understandings
1. (a) An agreement between partners, whether
explicit or implicit, is a partnership
understanding.
I think, as Gordon has said, that the Laws for Duplicate Bridge "trump" the Regularity Authority regulations.
In fact in the Blue book there is an entry
2DISCLOSURE OF SYSTEM
2A 1All partnership understandings, including implicit understandingsand practices that arise frompartnership experience, must be fully disclosed to opponents.
2 A 2These regulations are secondary to the dutyof full disclosure (Law 40A). Ifa player is uncertain whether the regulations require an alert, but believes it would help the opponents, he should alert. At the end of the auction the declaring side may offer additional information, even if not requested. In particular, they are encouraged todraw attention to any callswhose meaning the defending side have not asked about but may not expect.
Though a Special Partnership Understanding here, is defined as an agreement between partners...
Lets take an example - if you play for the 1st time with a new partner and agree to play Benji ACOL with no further discussion of systems other than perhaps discards and signals in defence...
Your partner opens 2C with a hand that does not meet the minimum requirements for an agreed opening of a 'strong' hand.
The director asks you what you would open and from a list of possible options, all of which seem less than ideal, you concur that you would probably have opened 2C too.
Do you have an implicit or explicit agreement to open a hand with less than minimum HCP/controls 2C?
What if it is the 2nd time you have played, or the 3rd etc?
Well I believe you have an agreement to play Benji Acol within the laws and regulations.
If it were a new Player I hope that you would inform opponents and the TD of such and they will act accordingly (lieniently) and you might explain the difficulty of opening 2C with that hand to your partner . However, if it was someone of standing in your Club/County I would expect the TD to act in accordance with the White Book section 8.40.1. There is no definition, that I can find, for how many times one has to play with that particular partner to make it implicit. See White Book 8.40.1.7 for your example. Note that it makes no comment about the "maturity" of the partnership. See Jeremy69's comment and Gordon's comment that make the same point.
As someone has said previously "Why would you want to open that hand {in the opening post} 2C".
CMOT
I don't think that the original question is one of the sensibleness of the bid, but rather the legality of the bid.
This is what happens when there is ambiguousness in the laws - if you open 2C 1000 times and 999 times they meet the minimum requirements, then should your partner alert the 2C and explain when asked that this is normally a strong bid within the definitions, but there may be an exception where this is intermediate in values?
Could that be ruled as giving misinformation as now the opps have an expectation that the open may be weaker that it normally would be?
Wouldn't this view mean that we should be alerting virtually every bid made by partner?
At that rate, after a psych from partner, should we alert all future 3S opens and explain that this is normally a weak preempt, but occasionally this may be void in S etc...?
Yes it is all about the legality of the bid. "Why would anyone open that hand 2C" is obviously rhetorical!
Not quite right because if the partnership open a hand that does not conform to a "strong" hand then the director will adjust the score see the White Book section 8.40.1; it is an illegal agreement, no amount of alerting will change that.
You still have to alert bids in accordance with the Laws and the regulatory Authority regulations.
If you alert the bid and advise it may not be strong, that that is correct and it would be legal if the long suit was not clubs (in the case of a 2C open)
You can play 2C as intermediate to strong as I do
You can agree to play 2C as strong and psych it with a yarborough
you can agree to play it as strong and choose to open an intermediate type hand 2C also, but not by agreement... once your partner has done this once, you have to alert and advise that this MAY not be a strong hand?
Comments
My thought is why would anyone think that opening 2C with this hand is a good idea?
The thoughts is that this is not a 'strong hand' by definition - but for any rectification you have to show an irregularity - and the question then is: do the pair have an agreement to open 7-6 hands with 10 high card points with 2C? I bet that there is no partnership agreement - and hence no rectification due.
Well, at least one of them thinks it is their agreement even if unspoken. The lack of wisdom of such a bid might be evident if it starts 2C (2D) x (4D) for example. You can ask questions to elicit what they believe their agreement is with distributional freaks.
I've never been fond of trying to trap players into admitting to an agreement they don't have.
The crux of the hand, I suspect, is that they just had no clue as to how to bid it and decided that a forcing 2C was as good a start as any.
I've never been fond of players trying to get around the regulations by claiming that what they are doing is not by agreement when both members of the partnership would do the same thing.
Just because both players in a partnership would do the same thing, does not mean that they have an agreement (legal or otherwise)
Why not? They have an implicit agreement. Freak hands such as the one quoted are also likely to be discussed. "That was a wild hand! Seemed like a 2C opener to me. Yes, can't think of anything better." Is that not an agreement for next time something similar turns up?
I think that in 9 years of playing about 200 boards a week (including online play), I think I have only had one 7-6 hand - and that was with someone that is no longer a partner (they moved abroad).
So I have not discussed 7-6 hands (and how to open them) with anyone...
In addition, I started to play with someone a few months ago in a weekly online bridge session - we have obviously discussed our system and keep tweaking and updating it...
In last nights session we had the bid 1D - X - ? we had not discussed that specifically, however:
1D - P - 2S is a weak (non-forcing bid, similar to a weak 2 open)
1D - 1H - 1S is forcing
1D - 1H - 2S is a weak (non-forcing bid, similar to a weak 2 open)
So what about after this double?
I plumbed for 2S, knowing that it was undiscussed, but thinking that this would be forcing, showing a long S suit, my partner took my 2S to be the weak type response and passed. I made 11 tricks and a deserved bad score.
However, had he taken that as a forcing bid and we find game, is that a sign that we have an agreement? No.
That is really a binary situation - it is forcing or not... so there are only 4 possible situations:
I bid it as forcing, he thinks not forcing
I bid it as forcing, he thinks it is forcing
I bid it as non-forcing, he thinks it is non-forcing
I bid it as non-forcing, he thinks it is forcing
So, is it surprising that when there are only 2 possible meanings and 4 possible combinations of our thoughts (2 of which have us in agreement) on the situation, that 50% of the time we agree and 50% of the time we don't?
With the original question, how to handle that 7-6 hand, there are several possible ways of bidding it, but the initial thought would be one of - do I bid this as a strong/forcing hand or not... if yes, then 2C, if not then something else.
As with the above example, there is only a small finite number of possible answers and so it should not be surprising that 2 people in a partnership come to the same conclusion, even if deciding/bidding totally at random.
Asking the opener's partner what they would have opened, the response of, "well, I don't like it but I would probably open 2C too; it's either that or 1S, but I don't like that either - so yes, 2C", does not mean that they have an illegal understanding. At worst it might show that they have similar thought processes, which would indicate that they are possibly a good match for a partnership?
The law talks primarily of partnership understandings, not agreements. I think if two members of a partnership would approach a situation in the same way, due to their partnership experience and other explicitly discussed understandings, this constitutes an implicit understanding.
Intrigued by this I found Wikipedia's bridge probabilities which says the chance of a 7-6 hand is 0.0056%. You may have been short changed by the bridge gods - you should pick up a 7-6er roughly once per 18,000 hands, which is every couple of years at 200 boards a week.
So whilst there may be references to understandings, but relating to 2C and above opens, it is the agreement or otherwise that seems to count, not understandings (implicit or explicit).
LAW 40 - PARTNERSHIP UNDERSTANDINGS
A. Players’ Systemic Agreements
1. (a) Partnership understandings as to the methods
adopted by a partnership may be reached
explicitly in discussion or implicitly through
mutual experience or awareness of the players.
B. Special Partnership Understandings
1. (a) An agreement between partners, whether
explicit or implicit, is a partnership
understanding.
I think, as Gordon has said, that the Laws for Duplicate Bridge "trump" the Regularity Authority regulations.
In fact in the Blue book there is an entry
2DISCLOSURE OF SYSTEM
2A 1All partnership understandings, including implicit understandingsand practices that arise frompartnership experience, must be fully disclosed to opponents.
2 A 2These regulations are secondary to the dutyof full disclosure (Law 40A). Ifa player is uncertain whether the regulations require an alert, but believes it would help the opponents, he should alert. At the end of the auction the declaring side may offer additional information, even if not requested. In particular, they are encouraged todraw attention to any callswhose meaning the defending side have not asked about but may not expect.
CMOT
Though a Special Partnership Understanding here, is defined as an agreement between partners...
Lets take an example - if you play for the 1st time with a new partner and agree to play Benji ACOL with no further discussion of systems other than perhaps discards and signals in defence...
Your partner opens 2C with a hand that does not meet the minimum requirements for an agreed opening of a 'strong' hand.
The director asks you what you would open and from a list of possible options, all of which seem less than ideal, you concur that you would probably have opened 2C too.
Do you have an implicit or explicit agreement to open a hand with less than minimum HCP/controls 2C?
What if it is the 2nd time you have played, or the 3rd etc?
Well I believe you have an agreement to play Benji Acol within the laws and regulations.
If it were a new Player I hope that you would inform opponents and the TD of such and they will act accordingly (lieniently) and you might explain the difficulty of opening 2C with that hand to your partner . However, if it was someone of standing in your Club/County I would expect the TD to act in accordance with the White Book section 8.40.1. There is no definition, that I can find, for how many times one has to play with that particular partner to make it implicit. See White Book 8.40.1.7 for your example. Note that it makes no comment about the "maturity" of the partnership. See Jeremy69's comment and Gordon's comment that make the same point.
As someone has said previously "Why would you want to open that hand {in the opening post} 2C".
CMOT
I don't think that the original question is one of the sensibleness of the bid, but rather the legality of the bid.
This is what happens when there is ambiguousness in the laws - if you open 2C 1000 times and 999 times they meet the minimum requirements, then should your partner alert the 2C and explain when asked that this is normally a strong bid within the definitions, but there may be an exception where this is intermediate in values?
Could that be ruled as giving misinformation as now the opps have an expectation that the open may be weaker that it normally would be?
Wouldn't this view mean that we should be alerting virtually every bid made by partner?
At that rate, after a psych from partner, should we alert all future 3S opens and explain that this is normally a weak preempt, but occasionally this may be void in S etc...?
Yes it is all about the legality of the bid. "Why would anyone open that hand 2C" is obviously rhetorical!
Not quite right because if the partnership open a hand that does not conform to a "strong" hand then the director will adjust the score see the White Book section 8.40.1; it is an illegal agreement, no amount of alerting will change that.
You still have to alert bids in accordance with the Laws and the regulatory Authority regulations.
Psyches are a another kettle of fish.
CMOT
If you alert the bid and advise it may not be strong, that that is correct and it would be legal if the long suit was not clubs (in the case of a 2C open)
You can play 2C as intermediate to strong as I do
You can agree to play 2C as strong and psych it with a yarborough
you can agree to play it as strong and choose to open an intermediate type hand 2C also, but not by agreement... once your partner has done this once, you have to alert and advise that this MAY not be a strong hand?