[Coelacanth]

Dlr S
NS Vul

South dealt and passed. W opened 1♣, North passed, E bid 1NT and all passed.

Prior to the opening lead the following (paraphrased) conversation ensued:

S: "1NT is standard, 6-9?"
W: "Actually, 6-10"
S: "But it denies any outside suit to bid?"
W: "That's right"

Both EW convention cards have the "may bypass 4 card ♦suit" box checked; no mention of this was made during the pre-lead questioning. I believe W may have misheard or misunderstood the question and thought S was specifically asking about majors.

S leads a ♠ and dummy (W) comes down with some 3=4=2=4 hand. E is 3=3=5(!)=2 and makes 9 tricks when N discards a ♦ from 3=4=4=2 on the play of the ♣s. A major suit discard likely holds E to 7 tricks.

Does W's explanation constitute MI? Does the information on the CC impact whether MI existed? Do you adjust the score?

[bluejak]

I do not have much sympathy for South who is the cause of the problem: he should not ask leading questions which often lead to problems of this sort. Far better is to say "What does 1NT show?"

We always ask OPs to state their jurisdiction: sadly you have not. The reason I mention it here is that you might or might not be in the ACBL: if you are, then there is a regulation with specific advice on how to phrase questions, and it certainly is not this way.

Perhaps there is MI: I would check carefully. But if there is any doubt, I shall give E/W the benefit of the doubt because the first offender was South.

[Coelacanth]

I did indeed list the jurisdiction, ACBL, in the subject line.

I don't disagree with your assessment of the situation. As a hypothetical, if the conversation had gone

S: What does 1NT show?
W: 6-10 HCP and no biddable suit

and the EW agreement was that 1NT is frequently bid on hands with a 4-card ♦ suit, is the MI issue any clearer?

[helene_t]

"No biddable suit" is not an answer, IMHO. Of course he has no biddable suit (unless he misbid) since he didn't bid a suit. The question is what would make a suit biddable.

A better phrasing may be "happy to play 1NT opposite a balanced 12-14". Or alternatively "no 6-card minor, usually nu 4-card major, max 10 or a bad 11".

[hotShot]

Well the disclosure of west was incomplete, but south contributed to that by asking for imprecise details.
I was taught that '5432' although 4 cards is not bidable a suit, so the question asked did not exclude 4 card suits.
If the scoring is MP bypassing a minor could be considered common bridge knowledge.

Edit: Isn't it common to open 4 card ♦ suite even with 5♣'s? So after a 1♣ opening east would require a 5-card ♦ suit to suggest ♦.

This post has been edited by hotShot: 2010-January-05, 09:36

[bluejak]

Coelacanth, on Jan 5 2010, 03:28 PM, said:

I did indeed list the jurisdiction, ACBL, in the subject line.

Sorry, no idea how I missed it, I have made several mistakes this week.

I think it must be the snow. We do not do snow in the Wirral, and at the moment it is worse here than anywhere else around. The cat is disgusted - though he did demand I took him for a walk on the coldest night of all. He enjoyed it.

[Mbodell]

bluejak, on Jan 4 2010, 04:33 PM, said:

I do not have much sympathy for South who is the cause of the problem: he should not ask leading questions which often lead to problems of this sort. Far better is to say "What does 1NT show?"

We always ask OPs to state their jurisdiction: sadly you have not. The reason I mention it here is that you might or might not be in the ACBL: if you are, then there is a regulation with specific advice on how to phrase questions, and it certainly is not this way.

Perhaps there is MI: I would check carefully. But if there is any doubt, I shall give E/W the benefit of the doubt because the first offender was South.

There is also an ACBL regulation that says opponents don't need to ask the right questions and that essentially any utterance by them is taken to be a question about the bidding. I.e., "was 2♣ puppet Stayman?" should get a complete answer about the bidding and what the inferences were about your 2♣ bid even if it was natural. There are limits, and I agree if I ask you a weird phrasing and you might be surprised and say something not quite complete, but the onus is on full disclosure. And if I say "it denies any suit?" and you say "that's right" I'm not sure that this should get you off the hook if you really mean "well not really, only no good major and even some 4333 hands with a major might bid it". Obviously it is hard to judge which side of this divide the OP situation described (questions too leading vs. failure to disclose properly) because the conversation is paraphrased and other issues may be involved (like English as a first language, a history of good/bad disclosure, etc.).

[Coelacanth]

Mbodell, on Jan 5 2010, 05:55 PM, said:

Obviously it is hard to judge which side of this divide the OP situation described (questions too leading vs. failure to disclose properly) because the conversation is paraphrased and other issues may be involved (like English as a first language, a history of good/bad disclosure, etc.).

There are no language issues. EW are a married couple who have only been playing a few years. S has been playing since the 1950s.

Putting aside the issues of how the question was phrased, the nub of the issue is as follows: If EW's agreement is to routinely respond 1NT to a 1♣ opener when holding 3=3=5=2, must that be disclosed by W in response to opening leader's question? Or should it even be Alerted at the time the bid is made? Or does this just fall under the rubric of "general bridge knowledge" and "using one's judgment"?

The subsequent question is: if you do find that there was a lack of full disclosure, do you adjust the score if NS's defense was affected?

[Codo]

I would be very surprised if someone (partner or opponents) bids 1 NT with a 3352. If the opponents have no history and East did so once in a blue moon because of his hand evaluation, I am happy with their explanation. However if they frequently bypass 5 card suits, they must alert this, because it is an unusual treatment.
As they are close to newbies in our game I would let the score stand and explain to them later what they have to do- making such an evaluation very very rare or alert 1 NT.

[bluejak]

I am unconvinced that a player who responds 1NT with a 3352 hand has committed an alertable action. But it is certainly necessary to disclose it when questioned.

There are three basic levels of disclosure, alerts [including pre-alerts, announcements etc], SCs, and questions and answers. Alerts give the least detail, questions/answers the most.

If West said "That's right" in response to "But it denies any outside suit to bid?" and it is systemic to respond 1NT with 3352 then that is MI, especially in the ACBL where a full and complete answer is required even when the question is poor.

As for being surprised when someone responds 1NT with 3352 I do all the time: why not?