Failure to Alert
| Dealer: S Vul: Both |
North ♠ K43 ♥ A109543 ♦ A10 ♣ 86 |
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| West ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ |
East ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ |
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| South ♠ QJ95 ♥ KJ86 ♦ 4 ♣ J752 |
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| Bidding: | HTML Bridge Hand Layout Creator | |
North opens 1H after two passes. East overcalls 2C, and South responds 2NT (showing 4-card support and around 10 points) - No Alert. Pass by W and N and East bids 3D followed by 4H from South. Before the lead North offers explanation when asked that 2NT shows 10/11 points with a club stopper. This is corrected by South, showing as above. No Director called.
Question. Has South used the UI to bid 4H?
Comments
Not answering your question but ... would East bid 3D if they knew 2NT was a good 4-card raise?
Well the laws say a director MUST be called before a correct explanation is given 20F5b - failure to do so is 'a serious matter indeed' - which means a procedural penalty (which could be a warning.)
. . .
(b) The player must call the Director and inform his opponents that, in his opinion, his partner’s explanation was erroneous (see Law 75B) but only at his first legal opportunity, which is:
.
(i) for a defender, at the end of the play.
(ii) for declarer or dummy, after the final pass of the auction.
. . .
The UI, AFAICS is that North didn't alert the 2NT call. (South does not know what North thinks the bid means). South presumably is expecting either 3H or 4H from partner (or maybe a long-suit trial bid). Let's find out about their agreements in this auction. If there is no way that North could pass a 2NT call showing 4 card support then this fact can be used by South in determining his next call.
The next law to look at is law 73C
1) When a player has available to him unauthorized information from his partner, such as from a remark, question, explanation, gesture, mannerism, undue emphasis, inflection, haste or hesitation, an unexpected alert or failure to alert, he must carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorized information [see Law 16B1(a)].
As I'm feeling generous, I don't think that South has broken this law either. It just looks as if South has taken a punt and come off lucky.
I am assuming here that South's explanation is correct, but it's not something that will necessarily appear on any convention card. .
South has had UI from the lack of an alert, but also AI from the fact that North passed the 2NT. So I would say that the 4H bid is fine.
My 1 reservation is over North's failure to alert. Although it is a difficult approach to get my mind around, as I understand it, the ''correct' auction should have North alerting the 2NT bid, after which North can then forget what it means, and so pass. So there is the question of whether EW were damaged by North's failure to alert. Certainly East is likely to pass out 2NT in this case. I would like to hear from more experienced directors as to whether this should lead to an adjusted score.
East said they would have passed given a correct explanation.
Which makes a difference to the ruling, of course, but not to the question posted.
For the purposes of a UI ruling, it does not matter to South whether the explanation is correct - he intended one meaning and North (by failing to alert) suggests a different meaning.
EBU 20B under "COMPETITIVE AUCTION" : "Agreements after opening of one of a suit and overcall by opponents" there is "Special meaning of bids". One can write "cue = good 3-card raise", "2NT = good 4-card raise" , "fit jumps", etc..
The original question depends on South's peers. If we were to poll South's peers and they all said that North's pass means he has forgotten the agreement then all logical alternatives will be based on North having forgotten and nothing is suggested by the unauthorised information.
If South (and their peers) are more imaginative (and North is known to be imaginative) then some of the peers might think North has fewer hearts (and fewer points) than he would for (say) a first-in-hand opening 1H, or North has any hand which does not want to declare 3H/4H. For such peers, it might make sense to Pass as South (having shown your hand with 2NT) and let North decide what to do.
Would it be relevant to ask if N/S played Drury?
Apart from the imaginative scenario which Robin mentions, the pass of the 2NT bid suggests not just that N has forgotten, but that he does not have enough for game opposite a balanced hand with a club stop that is maximum for S's original pass. That information is authorised to S from the auction.
Does the UI from the failure to alert add anything to this? I don't think so. S has made a somewhat contra-indicated punt and landed on his feet. No adjustment under Law 16. How about Law 73C? I'm not convinced that the player has made every effort not to take advantage. In the (admittedly fairly unlikely) event that N had alerted and explained "that shows a heart raise", but had nonetheless passed, would S have found it necessary to repeat the information about his heart support? I don't think so. Of course the fact that E has now bid both minors increases the likelihood that N's outside values are in spades where they are likely to be useful, but IMO a bid of either 3 !h or 4 !h by S deserves at least a warning for breach of Law 73C.
It is axiomatic that whenever a TD is asked to consider an adjustment for UI, he should also consider the MI implications. Of course it doesn't matter for UI which of the offending side is right about the agreement, as the UI is present in either case. For MI there can only be an adjustment for misinformation rather than for a misbid, although the TD should rule misinformation in cases of doubt.
Here we are not given the E hand, but, if it is indeed South that had the N/S system right, it is very plausible to think that E might well have passed with the correct information that 2NT was a raise but N had nonetheless passed it, so an adjustment to 2NT making however many tricks it makes is very much in the frame.
Is it? That information came to South from North's explanation after the auction had been completed - but even if it had been given by North during the auction it would have been UI.
If South believes North's bid (that he isn't strong enough to bid game opposite the heart raise and would prefer 2NT instead) then bidding game seems to be contra-indicated by the UI. Bidding 3 !h however would seem to be making use of the UI.
Very true although it is usually dealing with the initial MI (here failure to alert) that one considers the UI
I would certainly agree that it is vey probable that East would pass given the correct information. Although he is not entitled to know NS (may be/ are) having a bidding misunderstanding, he can probably deduce it.
Passing 2NT itself suggests that N thought that 2NT was natural and non-forcing, surely? Of course one can construct hands where N might pass despite knowing of the heart fit, but surely he would not pass with enough for game opposite a maximum initial pass (and whatever 2NT shows, it must show that).
My point was that making any heart bid is failing to comply with S's obligation to make every effort not to take advantage. It is repeating information that has, from S's perspective, already been given by the 2NT bid - known as "unauthorised panic". I entirely agree that bidding game is contra-indicated: if you believe that S has UI which adds something to the AI from the pass of 2NT and suggests bidding over passing, then 3 !h might fall to be disallowed when 4 !h did not.
Does the 1!h bit show four hearts or five? Also, what was N/S's notrump range?
Whether South's bid is legal depends on whether the AI duplicates the UI. Presumably passing 2NT in understanding of what it means would imply that North's hand is weaker than expected and contains fewer hearts than expected. If N/S are playing a strong notrump and 4-card majors, then the pass of 2NT can just about be interpreted as natural. Otherwise, however, the failure to bid 3!h or 3NT should not be possible, and thus South is allowed to know that there's been a bidding understanding. (Note, though, that the lack of alert lets south know what specific bidding misunderstanding there was; if the partnership were playing any other artificial 2NTs, South should probably have to act as though North had misinterpreted South's bid as one of those, as South has to act as though North alerted and passed anyway.)
That said, assuming 2NT scores less well than 4!h, that's what I'd set the contract to, based on MI rather than UI; South never should have got a second bid at all, because it seems likely that East would pass if given the correct information. Depending on what East's hand is, this might or might not have to be weighted against some proportion of legal bids after East's called (4!h if that's legal, and depending on system it probably is; otherwise, probably 4 of a minor by East/West, because 3!d surely has to be forcing).
If I was playing 2NT as a raise, and didn't know whether partner had alerted my 2NT or not (which I think is a helpful way of looking at the bridge logic), what would I think the fact that he had passed it said about his hand?
For sure, he is minimum or subminimum. If he had any extra values he would have bid game (either 4 !h or 3NT to give me a choice).
He prefers to play in 2NT rather than 3 !h . He shouldn't be worried about me double-crossing him by bidding 4 !h (I'm a passed hand, have made an invitational raise and if he'd bid 3 !h I would surely respect that as a sign-off).
Why is this? It's a bit unilateral given that he knows little about my hand apart from the fact that I have 4-card support and am close to a maximum for my original pass.
Perhaps he doesn't have hearts (he's either psyched or pulled out the wrong bidding card and not noticed in time to correct it). Perhaps he has forgotten that 2NT is a raise. It depends on partner, of course, which is more likely, but the AI from the auction does disclose a very significant possibility that N has forgotten that 2NT is a raise.
Finally, S's bid is legal if the AI duplicates the UI OR if the bid chosen is not suggested by the UI (or if there is no LA, but that is clearly not the case here).
I think it's obvious that 4!h is suggested over pass by the UI.
(I agree with the other commenters who say that 3!h is suggested over 4!h by the UI, but that only makes 4!h legal if passing is not a logical alternative.)
Unless I am missing something, there is no indication as to what the N/S agreement on the 2NT bid actually is, as evidenced by their system card.
Both N and S have given different explanations of the bid, but just because South's explanation corresponds to what he holds does not mean that that is the actual agreement.
On the assumption that their system cards provide no evidence of an agreement of this bid:
Since there is no evidence of an agreement either way then Law 75 D 2 should apply; 'It is a condition of any partnership agreement that both players possess the same mutual understanding, and it is an infraction to describe an agreement where the same mutual understanding does not exist'...
Followed by the last sentence of Law 75 D 3 : 'If the Director determines that the call has no agreed meaning, he awards an adjusted score based upon the likely outcome had the opponents been so informed'.
Of course, if their system card confirmed South's statement then my comment is not valid.
Bidding hearts is demonstrably suggested. Bidding game is definitely not. Where does that leave us under the current wording of the Laws? IMO, that one does not disallow 4 !h for UI, but as previously indicated, I would at least warn under Law 73C. But I would adjust in some way for MI.
As South I would expect East to have shown something like a 6C 4D hand as otherwise why didn't a 2NT bid appear showing both minors. I'd also expect most of East's points to be in Cs and Ds as he's vulnerable and willing to play at the 4 level. Odds are that partner has at most one or two Cs and that his points are in Ss and Hs. So for me a bid of 4Hs over 3Ds is a no-brainer but then I'm me as the following bid (by me) at a major teams event last Sunday will point out.
W was dealer, both vulnerable and I, as East, held:
A954
A
AT872
Q62
The bidding went:
W N E S
P 1D P 1H
P 2C P 3H
P 4H 4S P
P X end
My reasoning for bidding 4S was that North had probably shown a 5431 shape with a singleton spade. South had shown a maximum of 3 spades since she could have bid 2S over 2C with 4. Therefore partner must have at least 5S, shortage in diamonds, and we were most likely going 2 off in 4S. Despite my 3 Aces I thought they were likely to make 4H and so a penalty of 500 for 4S doubled minus 2 was likely to be a good score. North was most upset when she saw dummy and even more upset when she found I held only 4 spades.
West held:
QJT873
JT43
93
9
Making the virtual lay-down 4S was not too difficult.
The good players at our club thought I should have doubled rather than bid 4S.
I guess my point is that you have take all the bidding into account before criticising any bid made at the table.