Hi Jeff,

As a non-Director, but with some definite opinions on your 3 questions

1. Absolutely not. Unless partner has failed to alert your bid and still didn’t catch this at the end of the auction, you should never be explaining your own bids. That’s partner’s job if asked.

( i.e. If by agreement 2H was a splinter and partner failed to ever alert it, then you should announce a failure to alert prior to the opening lead.)

2. This creates precisely the situation which occurred. It wasn’t your intent, but it certainly creates the appearance of attempting to deflect a heart lead.

3. A heart looks normal on the auction. Don’t know that the 2 makes a difference here.

On the hand itself, the interesting question for me was at the table with a heart lead, would I have recognized the heart blockage by trick 2 and lead a spade.

Thanks for the hand.

I find that particularly interesting as my partner and I have been told that the 2H bid there _is_ alertable if it shows a 4 card suit. The only difference is our 2D does not deny a 4CM (so 2H is an attempt to find a heart game, and allows 2S to attempt to find a spade game, etc).

I think that if it’s not alertable, you shouldn’t say anything; if it’s properly marked on your CC, and opponents have had an opportunity to ask, that’s all you’re expected to do. Definitely not in the case where you’ve made a tactical lie, but if you’re not going to do it then, you have to not ever do it (or it shows that you’re lying by not saying something).

Just a quick comment on the heart blockage issue, should a heart have been led:

South, a top player, would know not to advertise the blockage by playing the HJ at Trick 1. Instead, South would play his hearts in order of Q, then K, then J, trying to appear to have held KQx rather than KQJ. By the time declarer finds out that there was indeed heart blockage, it will be too late.

I agree with Ted, although after the auction is over it doesn’t make too much difference who does the explaining, since there are no UI concerns. But unless you’re correcting an explanation by partner, it probably is best to keep explaining partner’s bids. The exception I tend to make is if an opponent asks for a full recap of the auction with explanations, it’s easier if one person does the whole thing, rather than alternating.

BTW, there seems to be a running theme to some of your recent posts: bidding suits without the expected length. In isolation they’re fine, but if you do this frequently with the same partner, he may have to start alerting them.

I had the same thought as Barry, that if this happened again, partner should be alerting the sequence.

While at the end of the auction there aren’t the UI concerns, by having partner explain you bids, you’re not stating something you know to be untrue, if you’ve taken a view on the hand.

Back to the hand itself, for a minute, I think even if you don’t recognize the blockage, you’ll likely make 4. What is North discarding on 5 rounds of diamonds?

Hi, Ted,

Thanks for your comments. I really welcome seeing comments to my blogs.

As far as the play goes on a heart lead, while North will not enjoy pitches on my long diamonds, my hand will not enjoy pitches on the second and third round of hearts nor on the fifth round of diamonds. And some of my discard problems (the ones on hearts) come earlier. Perhaps the play gets complicated, but I am not at all sure that I will emerge with ten tricks.

Wrt the main issue, there is no argument that having partner explain my bids is better than my having me explain my bids, especially when I have knowingly violated our agreements, but, since that did not happen (for whatever reason), what should be the ruling? I will comment more once others have left input.

— Jeff

My thoughts, roughly moving from the generic to the specific (edited on 10-4-11):

• Full disclosure of all relevant partnership agreements should be encouraged. All the relevant agreements known by the bidding side should be explained to the defenders no later than before the opening lead, and not just alerts or announcements of a few bids that I believe are mandated by the ACBL. To me, this is a matter of Active Ethics. The opponents should be entitled to know what you systemically know beyond what is required by the alert procedures. Some other writers have referred to this as telling the opponents “what they need to know” or applying a “golden rule” to inform others of all the information that you would like to know if your table positions were switched. Placing the onus on the opponents to always ask the right questions seems inappropriate to me.

• Full disclosure of all relevant partnership agreements should be made expeditiously. I agree with the ACBL policy that limits the bids that need to be alerted or announced during the auction because such limitations help move the game along, give the “absolutely necessary” information to the opponents and generally limit UI created by the other side asking misworded questions about such alerts or announcements. (The miswording of questions and creation of UI is perhaps less of a problem in national events than in club games and “local” events.) My agreement with ACBL policy includes both the absence of alert requirements for bids with negative inferences (such as the denial of three of responder’s major when opener fails to make a support double), and the absence of alert requirements for natural bids that have special meaning (such as the rebid of a major by opener promising at least five of the opened minor or a side suit singleton or void). However, I think that explanations of relevant partnership agreements in the auction that are not mandated by ACBL rules should be made, but just not at a time that unreasonably prolongs the game (that is, during the auction) but rather before the opening lead. In the instant case, our partnership agreement is that 2H shows heart length (but neither promises nor denies heart strength) in an unbalanced hand (all balanced hands would rebid notrump if not opened in notrump). Absent an explanation of that partnership agreement, wouldn’t the opponents be assuming that 2H just shows a heart stopper, as that is, I think, a more standard meaning to the 2H call? Probably an alert is not required, given that 2H is still “natural”, but since our agreement differs from the probable expectation of the defenders, what is the harm in alerting? … Or, in the absence of alerting, announcing before the opening lead?

• Having said that, I can understand — or at least can tolerate — an adjustment to the table result of the declaring side on the hand that is the subject of this blog entry. Just “too convenient” for a player to disclose the partnership agreement wrt a particular call when that same player has intentionally violated that agreement. Had dummy been the player who had made the announcements (or the alert), rather than the declarer, no table score adjustment would seem to be considered.

• I am less supportive of an adjustment to the table result of the defenders. Why should the ruling allow the defenders to obtain a score based upon the lead of the H2 rather than the table choice lead of the C4? First, the declaring side did not misinform the defending side of their agreements that 2H showed length in hearts. Second, given that the announcement informed the defenders that declarer did not promise a heart stopper, a bit of information that would make the heart lead more attractive than had no announcement been given and a heart stopper assumed, what is the basis for allowing the defenders to obtain a score that is based upon their leading a heart? I think the defenders’ poorly resulting opening lead of the C4 was caused by declarer’s creative 2H bid and not by the announcement of the partnership agreement of the meaning of that bid.

I always enjoy these kinds of discussions – sorry to be late on this one.

While we all have the responsibility to post-alert anything that was not alerted at the time (because of error, forgetfulness, or because it was above 3NT and after the first round, etc.) I do not think that we should gratuitously explain agreements that are not material. The agreement that you have is certainly a very strange one but it is not IMO significantly different from the normal usage of 2H in this situation which simply says “I’m not particularly afraid of hearts, but I am a little bit worried about spades.” Of course it’s a judgment issue of what is “significantly different,” but if you have an unusual agreement that goes unalerted during the auction then I think you have to make that judgment, erring on the side of explanation rather than silence.

Having said that, it’s very dangerous to comment on agreements that have such a direct bearing on the opening lead at that time. It’s safer to alert such agreements during the auction.

Of course, you cannot vary your explanations according to whether the bid described the hand or not. That’s why it is better for partner to make that alert (either at the time or, failing that, post-alerted), assuming again that the treatment is sufficiently different.

When you post-alert something yourself knowing full well that you are mis-describing your hand you run a very real risk of receiving a “heads they win; tails you lose” ruling, which is what happened. Furthermore, repeated incidents of this sort are likely to get you a bad reputation.

Is this strange agreement of yours really worth keeping in the light of all this?

Sorry I can’t be more supportive.

Robin,

I would submit that the working mantra for the bidding side(s) of partnership agreements should be Full Disclosure rather than the more amorphous Use that is Significantly Different from Normal.

Let’s assume that the layout is this:

………….987x

………….KJxxx

………….xx

………….Kx

AJx………………………QTx

xxxx……………………..x

AKxxx……………………QJxxx

x………………………….AJxx

………….Kxx

………….AQx

………….x

………….QTxxxx

According to my partnership’s agreements, the auction would proceed as did the table auction (1D-2D-2H [promising any four hearts]-3C-3NT). Let’s assume that partner neglects to alert the meaning of 2H (and it is unclear to me whether an in-auction alert is required or not). Let’s further assume that the declaring side does not post-alert, subscribing to your view that the partnership’s agreement of the meaning of 2H is not “significantly different from the normal usage of 2H in this situation which simply says ‘I’m not particularly afraid of hearts, but I am a little bit worried about spades’.”

North leads a spade and, with aid of the spade finesse, declarer claims nine tricks.

And now North complains, arguing that had she been provided an explanation of the partnership agreement about the meaning of 2H, she would have led a heart (“fourth best”, after all) and captured the first five tricks. What should be the ruling of the director in this situation?

No, I think someone needs to explain the partnership agreement to the defense. Whether that explanation should be via an alert during the auction or a “post alert” immediately after the auction is concluded, and who should be making the explanation, are possible issues … but someone should explain the agreement before the opening lead. Rather than exercise the difficult judgment whether the partnership’s agreements are “significantly different” — a tough job as you correctly point out — declaring side should subscribe to the principle articulated by others to tell the defenders “what they need to know” (the “golden rule”).

Having chosen, at the table, to make a tactical call of 2H that violates the partnership agreement, I might have been well-advised to have skipped the post alert … but I still feel strongly that the agreement of 2H should in principle be explained, either during the auction or no later than before the opening lead is made. Full disclosure should be the objective, and the onus should be on the side that bid and not on the defenders to divine to ask the right questions or peruse the right section of the convention card.

Thanks for replying, and also for stating your enjoyment of the discussion.

— Jeff

Jeff, you can justify your actions based on “the rules” all you want, but what you did (reinforcing your psych with an unsolicited explanation) is not really in the spirit of the game. You may feel you were entitled to your “gotcha” top based on the technicalities of the situation, but I for one don’t enjoy this style of bridge. If I did enjoy it, I’d spend more time at the poker tables instead. I applaud the Director for erring on the side of equity for your opponents.

Hi, Kim,

Having read your comment quite sincerely, I can see that my messages in this blog entry are confusing because there are two separate messages being addressed.

There is a specific message, dealing with a particular hand and the ruling on that hand.

And there is a generic message, dealing with the extent of a player’s obligations to explain all relevant partnership agreements from an auction.

I am going to bow out of further comments on this blog entry after trying, in this comment, to separate the two messages.

With respect to the particular hand and situation that arose at the table, I am not trying to “justify” anything. I have stated that “I can understand – or at least can tolerate – an adjustment to the matchpointed table result of my side. Just ‘too convenient’ for a player to disclose a partnership agreement wrt a particular call when that same player has intentionally violated that agreement”. I disagree with the director’s ruling that adjusted the score awarded the defenders, but I have not disagreed with the adjustment to the score awarded my side; I would favor a split score.

By the way, unless the rules have changed – and they change often so I might well be out of date – my call of 2H is not defined as a “psych” , but rather as a tactical bid. Psychs are (or at least were, last I had heard) defined as being limited to the first call by a side. Bids that intentionally violate partnership agreements but which come after our side has first entered the auction are tactical bids. Although there is supposed to be, I believe, active monitoring of psychs, tactical bids are no more damning than false cards in the defensive play. So long as partner does not field, or have reason to field, the tactical bid, such bids are perfectly acceptable and should be part of the arsenal of all good players, again much as are false cards.

At any rate, without regard to my personal practice of always providing the defenders with a full explanation of our side’s relevant partnership agreements, I think I should have skipped that practice given that I had chosen to violate partnership agreements by making a tactical call on the specific hand that produced this blog entry. (Although I wish partner had offered the explanation; that I admit!)

With respect to the generic message, I think it is ethically preferable to explain all partnership agreements so that opponents know what you know as a result of your partnership agreements. I think many who have favored my blog with comments have views that differ from mine and would limit explanations by declarer to only missing alerts or mistaken alerts. Given that what requires and does not require an alert is so confusing (The Bridge World has been running editorials on just this subject), I would suggest that an approach that serves all players better is to explain “what the opponents need to know”. (In her blog, as an example, Judy Kay-Wolff defends her partner’s practice of alerting an overcall that is a cue bid, because such bid would generally be assumed by opponents to be Michaels but her partnership’s agreement is that such bid was a top-and-bottom cue bid. Similarly, I would explain my partnerships’ agreement that, for example, an uncontested auction that begins 1C-1H-1S promises at least five clubs [or a 4-4-4-1] hand. I don’t think — but am uncertain — that either partnership agreement is alertable, but I do believe that a practice of explaining the agreement to the opponents is preferable to a practice of not explaining the agreement to the opponents.)

Kim, thank you – and others – for your honest and sincere response(s).

— Jeff