When to disclose 'no agreement'

Peter

Law 75 D 3 says director will adjust if opps would have done differently if theyd been told 'No agreement'
So North opens 3S. East overcalls 3NT meaning minors but not alerted. East realises West has misunderstood but remembers they have no agreement.
3NT makes because South leads into a minor tenace.
Should East have told South we have no agreement about my 3NT bid?

gordonrainsford

@Peter said:
Law 75 D 3 says director will adjust if opps would have done differently if theyd been told 'No agreement'
So North opens 3S. East overcalls 3NT meaning minors but not alerted. East realises West has misunderstood but remembers they have no agreement.
3NT makes because South leads into a minor menace.
Should East have told South we have no agreement about my 3NT bid?

Yes, definitely. I'd have said something like "although it's true we have no explicit agreement about this bid, it is at least possible that it could have an alertable meaning". If that puts the opponents in a better position than the player's partner, well it might encourage the player to avoid making calls that have a very high likelihood of being misunderstood!

Peter

Thanks Gordon

JeremyChild

I'm going to disagree with Gordon here - at least for now.

The question was whether overcaller E should have told S about his own bid. If E has misbid (because he plays 3N=minors with someone else) then he does not have to tell S that he has done so.

The crux here is what "no agreement" means. There are many cases where a bid in a sequence has not been explicitly discussed (particularly later in an auction), and in these cases they are taken as natural. This is an agreement, albeit implicit.

Sometimes a bid is clearly non-natural, and will need alerting. In other cases, a bid may not have explicit agreement but by corollary with other aspects of the bidding system may be conventional, and hence will need alerting. But a "s**t I don't play this with my current partner" (we've all been there!) does not.

gordonrainsford

@JeremyChild said:
The question was whether overcaller E should have told S about his own bid. If E has misbid (because he plays 3N=minors with someone else) then he does not have to tell S that he has done so.

That's true, but I got no sense from the original post that this might be the case.

"East realises West has misunderstood but remembers they have no agreement." They don't have an agreement that it is natural, and at least one of them thought it was not.

Peter

I asked cos I'm prepping for the County TD course and was looking at panel td exam 2007. Needed to clarify one of the answers and Gordon's reply helped.

weejonnie

@Peter said:
I asked cos I'm prepping for the County TD course and was looking at panel td exam 2007. Needed to clarify one of the answers and Gordon's reply helped.

Good luck - but just remember that the answers given may now be incorrect given the amendments in the 2017 lawbook. (The 2007 TD exam would presumably be based on the 1997 Laws, as the 2007 laws weren;t effective until August 2008. - unless the answers have been amended subsequently)

Peter

Thanks Wee Jonnie ... that's true and thanks for the warning.... they're still good to work through as situations to deal with though ... I'm focusing on treating the Class as a learning opportunity rather than getting the accreditation.
I'm enjoying going into things at a new level though, and really like your posts on here ... thanks for them

Vlad

@JeremyChild said:
I'm going to disagree with Gordon here - at least for now.

The question was whether overcaller E should have told S about his own bid. If E has misbid (because he plays 3N=minors with someone else) then he does not have to tell S that he has done so.

The crux here is what "no agreement" means. There are many cases where a bid in a sequence has not been explicitly discussed (particularly later in an auction), and in these cases they are taken as natural. This is an agreement, albeit implicit.

Sometimes a bid is clearly non-natural, and will need alerting. In other cases, a bid may not have explicit agreement but by corollary with other aspects of the bidding system may be conventional, and hence will need alerting. But a "s**t I don't play this with my current partner" (we've all been there!) does not.

As I understand it, a mis-bid is a bid that is not in accordance with a partnership agreement. If there is no partnership agreement then a bid cannot be termed as a 'mis-bid', can it? What East plays with other partners should not be relevant here.

If the 3NT bid is not alerted and East is not required to explain before the opening lead is faced, could it not be the case that NS are damaged because South could/may have bid 4S if he knew that 3NT shows minors, or at least that it may not be a genuine NT bid, which is what an alert would imply?

Peter

@Vlad said:

As I understand it, a mis-bid is a bid that is not in accordance with a partnership agreement. If there is no partnership agreement then a bid cannot be termed as a 'mis-bid', can it? What East plays with other partners should not be relevant here.

>

That's true... so say you bid 3NT and then remember that you agreed with this partner to play 3NT as natural in this sequence. No need to alert because you do have an agreement but you forgot it and misbid (mistaken bid)

Then I discovered Law 75 D 3. Try a subtly different case to the one above... say you bid 3NT, partner doesn't alert so you know (s)he's taking it as natural. Now you remember that before play you had a conversation that went: "I play 3NT as Unusual" , "Of I don't like that at all" , "Oh we must agree what to play" but never did agree which.

In this circumstance you know partner has misunderstand and you know you had no agreement and you know (Law 75 D 3) that the director will adjust against you if needed as you haven't warned the opps before the lead as Gordon suggests.......

JeremyChild

@Vlad said:
As I understand it, a mis-bid is a bid that is not in accordance with a partnership agreement. If there is no partnership agreement then a bid cannot be termed as a 'mis-bid', can it?

Not having a partnership agreement is not (IMHO) the same as not having discussed and agreed one.

Let's take the competitive sequence (all bidding) 1H-1S-2H-2S-3H. Have you discussed this particular sequence with your partner? Almost certainly not. Are there some people who might play 3H as having an additional meaning? Possibly. Are you both clear about what the 3H means? Yes - therefore you have an agreement about it.

I realise this is to an extent rather facile, but it also demonstrates that agreements don't have to be discussed to be an agreement. There is a default "all other bids natural" in there.

I'm not saying it applies in the OP though - clearly circumstances can differ. Interestingly having an unresolved discussion can lead to no partnership agreement whereas no discussion does not.