[rigour6]

Scoring: MP

---

S opens 1 heart, north responds 2 Clubs, and they go 2NT - 4NT- 5 hearts - 6 NT

Defense objects that 2 Clubs should be alerted.

I question NS and they say 2 Clubs is just a continuation, they agree they would not say 2 Diamonds in response with the north hand because 2 diamonds would promise at least 5 diamonds.

With this auction the defense starts a spade, but as you can see, if they were to start a club, a different story.

Question: Should this hand be adjusted and if so to what?

[FrancesHinden]

NS seem to play a method where a 2D response shows 5, and therefore a 2C response may be a 3-card suit if responder is exactly 3343, but is otherwise 4+ clubs.

Whether that is alertable or not depends on the jurisdiction under which the board has been played.

If the TD decides it is alertable, he then has to decide if EW have been damaged. So,
i) Would East double 2C if it was alerted?
- as 2C is going to be natural the majority of the time, I would say no.
ii) Would East double 6NT if 2C was alerted? I think that's wildly unlikely: on such a strong auction why should it be going off on a club lead? North has violently overbid, but East doesn't know that.
iii) Would West lead a club if 2C was alerted? Possibly, but given that North will usually have a genuine club suit I would have thought a spade is still the stand-out lead. However, West didn't get the chance to show he would have done something different, so in a jurisdiction where 12C3 is enabled, I might consider ruling something like 25% of 6NT-4 and 75% of 6NT making. (I would expect declarer to play for all 13 tricks on a club lead at matchpoints, as he needs both cards right to make 6NT and this will then beat pairs in 6H making an overtrick and there won't be much joy in going off however many it goes off.)

[Walddk]

If 2♣ doesn't promise a suit, it is alertable where I come from. Now as a TD you must ask yourself two questions:

1. Has the non-offending side been misinformed?
2. If yes, has the non-offending side been damaged by the MI?

My answers would be:

1. Yes. They did not get an alert of 2♣.
2. Yes. On this particular auction, West could not reasonably be expected to lead a club.

Finally, the adjustment:

How often would West lead a club if 2♣ had been alerted and subsequently explained (if asked)? This is the difficult part in my opinion. I need to think a little more about that before I give a ruling.

This is perfectly legitimate in f2f bridge. There is no law that tells the director to give a ruling on the spot.

Roland

[blackshoe]

Walddk, on Jul 26 2006, 11:18 AM, said:

If 2♣ doesn't promise a suit, it is alertable where I come from. Now as a TD you must ask yourself two questions:

1. Has the non-offending side been misinformed?
2. If yes, has the non-offending side been damaged by the MI?

My answers would be:

1. Yes. They did not get an alert of 2♣.
2. Yes. On this particular auction, West could not reasonably be expected to lead a club.

Finally, the adjustment:

How often would West lead a club if 2♣ had been alerted and subsequently explained (if asked)? This is the difficult part in my opinion. I need to think a little more about that before I give a ruling.

This is perfectly legitimate in f2f bridge. There is no law that tells the director to give a ruling on the spot.

Roland

Whether it's alertable or not where any particular person comes from is irrelevant. The question is whether it's alertable in the jurisdiction in which it was bid.

In fact, good directing practice would be to not give judgement rulings on the spot, except insofar as is required to allow the game to continue.

Bids are not "promises" - not to partner and certainly not to opponents. Given this partnership's likely agreements, it looks to me like this hand is unbiddable on a strict interpretation. So North has to do something that isn't strictly within their agreements. That such situations occur is, IMO, just bridge.

[hrothgar]

I can point to a wide number of bidding structures that prefer a "nebulous" Club bids in order to make corresponding Diamond bids more definied. I typically assoxiate this style with many of the Polish systems. For example, Matula's version of Polish club opens 1♣ with 2=3=4=4 shape in order that the 1♦ opening promises a 4+ card suit. In a similar fashion, after a forcing NT response to a 1M opening, a 2♣ rebid promises 2+ cards and a 2♦ rebid promises 4+ cards.

As several folks have already noted, this type of treatment is alertable in a lot of different parts of the world. (As always, it would be useful to understand the specific conditions of contest for this event) Personally, i don't think that there is clear linkage between the offense and the result. I would hesitate to rule against the offending side.

One additional point: Maybe I read too much Mollo, however, my immediate suspicion was that North was thinking of bidding slam decided to psyche 2♣ in order to deter the lead. North / South could have easily avoid an adjusted score if they had offered this defense...

I'm always very uncomfortable when a score adjustment hinges on the verbiage that the offending side uses to justify their actions.

[McBruce]

hrothgar: "One additional point: Maybe I read too much Mollo, however, my immediate suspicion was that North was thinking of bidding slam decided to psyche 2♣ in order to deter the lead. North / South could have easily avoid an adjusted score if they had offered this defense...

I'm always very uncomfortable when a score adjustment hinges on the verbiage that the offending side uses to justify their actions."

You're suggesting that if the explanation for 2♣ given by N-S seems to be incriminating, a TD should consider that perhaps they have a better excuse? This attitude encourages players to respond to any TD query with "it was a psyche" in order to escape trouble. I don't think we should be encouraging lying to the TD at all.

As many others have stated, this case is fairly simple in jurusdictions where 12C3 is enabled, allowing an adjustment to a split score when the result is not certain. ACBL and BBO's tournaments do not allow such an adjustment. In that constricting scenario, I would give N-S average minus. Three small (could it possibly be two small?) clubs as a possible hand for this auction is an unusual system detail the opponents ought to be entitled to, whatever the alert requirements in force say. I don't much like the spade lead from Kxxx against 6NT, but I don't think it comes up to the level required to claim that E-W were "not playing bridge." Give them average plus. Start looking for committee members...

[uday]

I believe that the 2C response is not alertable in ACBL-land, fwiw, though I am ready to stand corrected.

I would rule ( but my TD training was a while back ) that there was no damage regardless. It is possible that E had an agreement that allowed him to X 2C for penalty ( but he'd need to prove that this unusual X was part of their methods). It is possible W would lead a Club from JTx with more information but I would judge that it is unlikely enough that there was no damage.

[sfbp]

from the ACBL Convention charts. These regulations apply to the lowest level of competition regulations, the General Convention Chart.

"DEFINITIONS
1. An opening suit bid or response is considered natural if in a minor it shows
three or more cards in that suit and in a major it shows four or more cards
in that suit."

Uday is exactly right.

I got had one time (in real life bridge) by a tactical bid of 2C with opps playing 2/1 GF. But it is completely and perfectly legal. A lacuna perhaps, but one that you cannot ever get satisfaction under in the ACBL at least. I'd be curious to know about other jurisdictions.

Stephen

[helene_t]

I'm surprised that so many posters say that 2♣ is alertable. FWIW, the Dutch alert procedures explicitly specify this call as non-alertable. Here, most advanced players would bid 2♣ with the North hand unless they have the explicit agreement that 2♦ can be a four-card. 2♣ promises four but it's the smallest lie.

[FrancesHinden]

I would say it is alertable in England.

The regulations generally say that if a natural bid (rather than a raise or preference) doesn't show 4 or more cards it is alertable, and then have a couple of explicit exceptions. One exception is a 2C response to 1S on a 3433 distribution, but English 'standard' is that a 2/1 shows a 4-card suit only other than 1S-2H, so 2D would be considered normal on the given hand.

[McBruce]

I got this one wrong because of the GCCs dubious definition of 'natural.'

The notion that you can have a special 5+ agreement about 2♦/1♥, but bidding 2♣/1♥, which is greatly affected by this special agreement, is somehow 'natural' and unalertable, is not exactly keeping with the full disclosure principle. I think the ACBL definition of natural should be better defined in the charts, maybe to make all two-level natural responses 4+, which is what most players will expect on a 2/1 auction.

[LH2650]

While reading djneill's Polish Club translation (as here, 2D requires 5 but 2C can be bid on 3), I decided that I would alert the 2C bid in the ACBL (highly unusual shape). Obviously, another interpretation is possible, and this will be resolved only when the SO issues a clarification. The point is not that you are bidding a 3 card suit, which is legal, but that you may be hiding, by agreement, a 4 card suit that it is "standard" to bid As to an adjustment, I don't think that a spade lead warrants one, but a diamond lead would.

[hrothgar]

McBruce, on Jul 27 2006, 12:17 AM, said:

hrothgar: "One additional point: Maybe I read too much Mollo, however, my immediate suspicion was that North was thinking of bidding slam decided to psyche 2♣ in order to deter the lead. North / South could have easily avoid an adjusted score if they had offered this defense...

I'm always very uncomfortable when a score adjustment hinges on the verbiage that the offending side uses to justify their actions."

You're suggesting that if the explanation for 2♣ given by N-S seems to be incriminating, a TD should consider that perhaps they have a better excuse? This attitude encourages players to respond to any TD query with "it was a psyche" in order to escape trouble. I don't think we should be encouraging lying to the TD at all.

Let us assume the following hypothetical:

Two North-South pairs are dealt the hand in question. Both pairs play an identical system in which a 2♦ response to a 1♥ opening promises 5+ Diamonds. Both pairs start with a 2♣ response (not alerted). Both pairs produce an identical auction to 6N, which makes when West fails to find a club lead.

When the director gets called, Pair 1 tells the truth and states that 2♣ is the systemic bid with the hand in question. The director rules that there was a failure to alert resulting in damage and adjusts the score to 6N -1.

Pair 2 lies and states that the 2♣ bid was a psyche which was intended to deter a club lead. The director rules that the result stands.

I claim that implementing this type of system creates an incentive for players to behave as pair 2 did and lie to the director. Furthermore, I would argue that implementing a regulatory system when creates incentives for players to lie is going to create problems.

In many ways, this feels similar to the whole sportsman-like dumping arguments. I have always believed that there are two reasonable "solutions" to dumping

1. Design the conditions of contest such that they do not incentivize dumping

or

2. Decide that dumping is not an infraction

The traditional remedy (stating that dumping is illegal/unethical and yet designing conditions of contest which permit dumping and then trying to engage in elaborate mind reading exercises) has always seemed problematic

[FrancesHinden]

LH2650, on Jul 27 2006, 03:57 PM, said:

The point is not that you are bidding a 3 card suit, which is legal, but that you may be hiding, by agreement, a 4 card suit that it is "standard" to bid As to an adjustment, I don't think that a spade lead warrants one, but a diamond lead would.

This is a good point.

[FrancesHinden]

hrothgar, on Jul 27 2006, 04:17 PM, said:

Both pairs start with a 2♣ response (not alerted). Both pairs produce an identical auction to 6N, which makes when West fails to find a club lead.

When the director gets called, Pair 1 tells the truth and states that 2♣ is the systemic bid with the hand in question. The director rules that there was a failure to alert resulting in damage and adjusts the score to 6N -1.

Pair 2 lies and states that the 2♣ bid was a psyche which was intended to deter a club lead. The director rules that the result stands.

I claim that implementing this type of system creates an incentive for players to behave as pair 2 did and lie to the director.

This is true, but I don't think there is any cure that is worse than the disease.

If I want to cheat by having concealed partnership agreements and lie about them, then basically I can.

Typical examples:
- agreeing to play some form of encrypted signals but not telling anyone ('oh I just falsecarded at random')
- agreeing that we won't ever raise a 1M response on 3-card support if NV, as we will tend to respond 1M on a 3-card suit if we fancy it (but not alerting the 1M response)

Eventually, if someone records every instance where my call or signal does not agree with my hand I might be found out. But that ain't going to happen.


The only way I can see that you can legislate against this is to ban psyches, system forgets or false cards.

[hrothgar]

FrancesHinden, on Jul 27 2006, 06:26 PM, said:

The only way I can see that you can legislate against this is to ban psyches, system forgets or false cards.

I have long maintained that the concept of a "psyche" should be removed from the rule books and replace with concepts like "mixed strategies" that more accurately describe players behavior.

[paulg]

The GCC definition that makes 2♣ a natural call does not necessarily remove the need to alert (as many 'natural' calls require an alert).

The question is whether playing 2♣ as clubs or balanced should be alertable. My guess (and limited experience) would be no in the ACBL.

Paul

[hotShot]

Lets forget the alert issue for a moment and ask yourself what explanation should be given.
2♣ shows 3+ ♣ and may contain a longer suit. Could the hand contain a 4card ♠ suit? Would you bid 1♠ over 1♥ with 6542 and ♥ support or would you bid a minor e.g. 2/1 GF. Could the hand contain 4 cards in ♥, of cause it can. Is a delayed game rise impossible?
So what difference does it make that there might be a 4 card ♦ suit?

Now lets assume 2♣ is alerted, is it artificial? No it's not. So please state how the knowledge, wheather a natural 2♣ shows 3+ (with maybe a longer side suit) or 4+ cards, makes a difference for the defence.

Without a good explanation why this makes a difference, i don't see any damage.

What is your jurisdiction on canape style bidding?
Do you alert the first bid, the second bid or both bids?

[McBruce]

hrothgar, on Jul 27 2006, 07:17 AM, said:

Let us assume the following hypothetical:

Two North-South pairs are dealt the hand in question.  Both pairs play an identical system in which a 2♦ response to a 1♥ opening promises 5+ Diamonds.  Both pairs start with a 2♣ response (not alerted).  Both pairs produce an identical auction to 6N, which makes when West fails to find a club lead.

When the director gets called, Pair 1 tells the truth and states that 2♣ is the systemic bid with the hand in question.  The director rules that there was a failure to alert resulting in damage and adjusts the score to 6N -1.

Pair 2 lies and states that the 2♣ bid was a psyche which was intended to deter a club lead.  The director rules that the result stands.

I claim that implementing this type of system creates an incentive for players to behave as pair 2 did and lie to the director.

A short-term incentive, perhaps. But Pair 1 is going to take a single hit and then alert the call from then on, even if technically it is unalertable. What do they lose? Nobody is ever going to rule against them in the more common spot where the opponents lead a club and dummy has ♣AKQxx: they have alerted a special agreement which clearly affects the meaning of the 2♣ call.

Pair 2, who have decided to claim psyche every time they are accused of a CPU, is going to get away with it a few times, but eventually--especially if they have some success--their repeated lies about this and similar situations are going to land them in Buratti-Lanzarotti land.

The rules of any competitive game are always going to have loopholes that unethical players can exploit. Sportsmanship is about declining to take advantage of these loopholes and playing the game within the rules not as written, but as intended. I can't see any possible way to argue that the Laws of Duplicate Bridge intend that a player should lie to a Tournament Director if he will gain by it.

[Limey_p]

Assuming responder's 2♦ and 2♥ show 5-card suits, 2♣ promises only two. This makes it ACBL-alertable.

Note: if it promises 3 it is not ACBL-alertable.

AP

references: Natural calls are not alertable unless specifically noted - http://www.acbl.org/...alertchart.html

A minor suit bid is natural if it promises 3 cards - http://www.acbl.org/play/alert.html