Misinformation?
Face-to-face, no screens. Declarer is an good, experienced player (the match is the Gold Cup round of 16)
South is declarer in 3NT on the auction 1S-1NT-3S-3NT
west leads the 9 of clubs
South asks East about the lead of the 9
East says 'promises the 10, or from shortage'
South says something like 'it promises only the 10?'
East says 'yes'
South intended his question to mean 'does it deny an honour higher than the 10 (aka 'do you play strong 10s')
East interpreted the question to mean 'does it promise an honour higher than the 10 (aka 'is this the equivalent of a strong 10 lead')
EW do play that the lead of the 8 promises the 9 plus a higher honour; it is not an uncommon treatment that the 9 lead promises the 8 plus a higher honour. It is not an uncommon treatment that the lead of the 10 promises a higher non-touching honour (A109/K109/Q109 sometimes AJ10/KJ10 etc) although this has rather gone out of fashion. Both pairs know all of this. EW play a version of Rusinow leads against NT contracts, which is not unknown but also not that common.
EW have two filled out convention cards that NS know are available (they are sitting on a side table next to declarer; at the start of the set West said 'hold on I have to get the cards from the other room' came back and put them down on the table).
Declarer had Qxx in dummy opposite AJx and wanted to know where the king was. He understood that the lead had denied the king; in fact the opening leader had K1098x
It was agreed that with the actual agreement - that he didn't know where the king was - he would have played the hand the same way, so we didn't ask for a ruling.
However, do you think South has been misinformed?
Comments
I think the original answer from East was incomplete and therefore misinformation. I think South has contributed to this with a badly-worded followup question. I think it's fortunate that it didn't end up mattering!
Semantically, I can see the point that the ten is the only card that the nine promises. That may even be how East thinks about the agreement. Same as Gordon though, it does feel somehow incomplete as an explanation, slightly short of the expectation of full disclosure. I suppose there's a general assumption that the possible disposition of honour cards is of interest here.
I would like to know exactly what words S used when asking about the lead of the 9.
I think S's follow up question is verging on OK: 'it promises only the 10?' is distinct from 'it only promises the 10?'
I admit I can't remember exactly what words S used
To JamesC's point - I suspect part of the issue is that it's reasonably common to lead the 9 from H98 (J98/Q98 in particularly) and E was explaining that isn't the EW agreement