[DaveB]

From my local club last night

Game All Dealer East

..................xxx
..................Ax
..................Qxxxx
..................xxx

Qxx..............................AJxx
Qxxxx............................KJxx
xxxx.............................KJ
A................................xxx

..................Kxx
..................xx
..................Ax
..................KQJxxx

- - 1N(1) 2C(2)
P 2D(3) P 3C
All Pass

(1)Announced as 12-14
(2)Alerted and explained as Hearts and another
(3)Alerted and explained as fewer than 3 Hearts

Table Result 3C making 9 tricks

I was called at the end of the hand when E-W observed
that the South hand did not match the explanation and that
they could make a Heart contract.

South stated that she did not know what 3C would have meant
but thought she could show this hand by starting with 2C
even though she knew they were playing 2C as Hearts plus a minor.
N-S had a system card clearly showing 2C as Hearts plus minor.

So
South misbid and E-W got correct explanation so result stands

or
N-S are playing 2C as H+minor or just Clubs (at least S is)
and the explanation was wrong (or not complete) despite what
appeared on the system card and E-W are due an adjustment?

[iviehoff]

To my mind South psyched - made a deliberate misbid. There is no evidence that the psyche was fielded, because South got lucky and had a partner with short hearts. Likely if his partner had had support for hearts, he would have ended up in a silly contract; or if he didn't, then we might really have evidence of a concealed agreement.

This is typical novice behaviour. The important thing is to tell them now what would constitute illegal behaviour, so that they realise they can't have play a bid 2-way without telling the opposition.

[bluejak]

Tricky! South is clearly playing either/or but is it an agreement?

I would ask North what he would have bid with the South hand over 1NT.

[DaveB]

South clearly thought 2C was the correct way to bid the hand
(at least at the point she made the 2C bid) so not a psyche IMO.

North would have bid 3C initially and was most insistent that
partner had misbid. But then he would say that because he knew
that a misexplanation could be subject to rectification whereas
a misbid would not.

As David says this comes down to Does N-S have an agreement
and if so what is it?

[Bad_Wolf]

Misexplanation.

Hit them hard or they will never learn.

Of course in NZ you give the opposition a telling off for having the cheek to call the director and possibly scare off some uneth...um inexperienced players.

[mrdct]

It's quite obvious from the OP that NS do not have an agreement that 2♣ is "♥ and another or single suited ♣". Their CC doesn't say that and neither North nor South gave any indication that they had such an agreement. South was in a state of confusion as to what to do with her ♣ single-suiter and got lucky that she didn't find partner with ♥ support. Table result stands.

[bluejak]

I do not expect players to lie to me and do not assume they have unless there is some compelling evidence otherwise. So I rule in this case as mrdct says and for the reasons he gives.

[aguahombre]

Bad_Wolf, on 2012-January-10, 15:45, said:

Misexplanation.

Hit them hard or they will never learn.

Of course in NZ you give the opposition a telling off for having the cheek to call the director and possibly scare off some uneth...um inexperienced players.

There would be other threads where that post might be somewhat in line with the facts as given.

[Trinidad]

bluejak, on 2012-January-10, 08:17, said:

Tricky! South is clearly playing either/or but is it an agreement?

mrdct, on 2012-January-10, 19:13, said:

It's quite obvious from the OP that NS do not have an agreement that 2♣ is "♥ and another or single suited ♣". Their CC doesn't say that and neither North nor South gave any indication that they had such an agreement. South was in a state of confusion as to what to do with her ♣ single-suiter and got lucky that she didn't find partner with ♥ support. Table result stands.

The criterion for ruling MI is not whether NS have the agreement that 2♣ shows either/or (and I agree that it seems they haven't). The criterion for ruling MI is whether NS have the agreement that 2♣ shows hearts and another.

If South genuinely believes that 2♣ is the correct bid with the given South hand, than NS do not have an agreement that 2♣ shows hearts and another. Instead, they have a disagreement.

bluejak, on 2012-January-10, 08:17, said:

I would ask North what he would have bid with the South hand over 1NT.

Therefore, it is a good idea to ask North what the systemic bid would be for the South hand. If that induces a sudden remembering by South ("Oh yeah, of course, and then you bid x to ask me what my suit is" or something similar) then South was confused and has misbid. But if South is still completely clueless ("But you can't seriously mean that I should pass with an opening and a good six card club suit!") then this is a case of MI: We don't know exactly what the agreement is, but we know that "hearts and another" is not fully correct.

Rik

[barmar]

Trinidad, on 2012-January-11, 08:34, said:

The criterion for ruling MI is not whether NS have the agreement that 2♣ shows either/or (and I agree that it seems they haven't). The criterion for ruling MI is whether NS have the agreement that 2♣ shows hearts and another.

I disagree. MI is whenever the explanation does not match the agreement. If the agreement is "A or B", and the explanation is "A", that's MI. It's not as misleading as an explanation "C", but it's still MI.

Quote

If South genuinely believes that 2♣ is the correct bid with the given South hand, than NS do not have an agreement that 2♣ shows hearts and another. Instead, they have a disagreement.

Not necessarily. Perhaps they don't have an agreed way to show his hand, and he had to improvise.

Most players would play that 3♣ shows his hand (if they don't have an artificial way to show a long minor). I'll bet that's their actual agreement (perhaps implicit, simply because there's no other meaning assigned to the bid), and he simply forgot or got confused and misbid. A misbid is not a disagreement. But perhaps that would show a weaker, preemptive hand, so they really don't have a good way to show a constructive hand with long clubs. Then he's stuck.

[Trinidad]

barmar, on 2012-January-11, 14:33, said:

I disagree. MI is whenever the explanation does not match the agreement.

Given that the explanation was "hearts and another", isn´t that pretty much exactly what I wrote:

Trinidad, on 2012-January-11, 08:34, said:

The criterion for ruling MI is whether NS have the agreement that 2♣ shows hearts and another.

The explanation was "hearts and another", so there is MI when the agreement is something other than "hearts and another".

And by "something other" I mean anything other. That could be "hearts and another or clubs" or "We have agreed to play Asptro, but we never discussed beyond that, maybe he doesn't even know what it is."

My point is that it is not justified to rule that there is no MI, just because one (quite reasonably) assumes that 2♣ doesn't mean "hearts and another or clubs". If it means anything other than "hearts and another", there is MI.

IF, for instance, the players agreed to play Asptro and then it turns out that they have different ideas about what that actually means, then they don't have an agreement on the meaning of 2♣. In that case, the explanation doesn't represent the actual agreement and there is MI. Therefore, you will have to investigate such a possibility before you rule that NS have the agreement that it shows "hearts and another" and that South just misbid (or got creative).

Rik

[blackshoe]

So let's see. I sit down with my partner to discuss system, and she insists we play Brozel. Okay, I know Brozel, so I agree to play it. Later, partner opens 1NT and I, having some 4441 with game values, jump to three of my short suit. Turns out partner has no clue what this means. You're telling me "no agreement" is the correct explanation here? If partner said that, I would later call the TD and explain that we did agree to play Brozel, but that partner apparently thinks that Pinpoint Astro is Brozel.

Note: this actually did happen to me some years ago. I don't remember the outcome, except that I'm pretty sure it was bad for us.

[aguahombre]

blackshoe, on 2012-January-11, 17:50, said:

So let's see. I sit down with my partner to discuss system, and she insists we play Brozel. Okay, I know Brozel, so I agree to play it. Later, partner opens 1NT and I, having some 4441 with game values, jump to three of my short suit. Turns out partner has no clue what this means. You're telling me "no agreement" is the correct explanation here? If partner said that, I would later call the TD and explain that we did agree to play Brozel, but that partner apparently thinks that Pinpoint Astro is Brozel.

I hadn't thought about it that way, but it certainly should be the case. The person giving the explanation might be misinformed, himself, about what a conventional call shows; nevertheless he is truly giving misinformation. And, in that scenario, he might well say "no agreement" because he doesn't understand the 3-bid; but, he still is required to disclose that the partnership agreed to play a certain method and that he is unaware of the meaning of partner's bid.

[Trinidad]

blackshoe, on 2012-January-11, 17:50, said:

So let's see. I sit down with my partner to discuss system, and she insists we play Brozel. Okay, I know Brozel, so I agree to play it. Later, partner opens 1NT and I, having some 4441 with game values, jump to three of my short suit. Turns out partner has no clue what this means. You're telling me "no agreement" is the correct explanation here? If partner said that, I would later call the TD and explain that we did agree to play Brozel, but that partner apparently thinks that Pinpoint Astro is Brozel.

Note: this actually did happen to me some years ago. I don't remember the outcome, except that I'm pretty sure it was bad for us.

How difficult can it be to explain what you actually agreed, particularly if you agreed to it only an hour ago?

Of course, "no agreement" would not be the correct explanation, since you do have an agreement. The correct explanation would be something like: "The only agreement that we have is that we play Brozel, but as far as I know this bid is not defined in Brozel."

Rik

[aguahombre]

Trinidad, on 2012-January-12, 01:57, said:

How difficult can it be to explain what you actually agreed, particularly if you agreed to it only an hour ago?

The difficulty comes when you give misinformation to them by failing to alert. It is easy to explain when asked, but would they ask about an unalerted 3-level jump over their 1NT? If you don't know that part of Brozel, you and they will surely assume it is a natural bid ---thus MI to them. You don't get a chance to disclose what you do know ---that you agreed to a name without understanding part of the method.

[barmar]

Trinidad, on 2012-January-11, 17:33, said:

Given that the explanation was "hearts and another", isn´t that pretty much exactly what I wrote:

Then I don't understand the distinction you were making when you said:

Quote

The criterion for ruling MI is not whether NS have the agreement that 2♣ shows either/or

That seems to say that if the agreement is "A or B", but the explanation is "A", it doesn't fit the criteria for ruling MI.

[Trinidad]

barmar, on 2012-January-12, 08:57, said:

Then I don't understand the distinction you were making when you said:

That seems to say that if the agreement is "A or B", but the explanation is "A", it doesn't fit the criteria for ruling MI.

I think that we are just misunderstanding each other (which is kind of funny in a thread on misunderstandings ). Let me put it like this:

If the agreement was "2♣ shows hearts and another" then the explanation is correct.
If the agreement was something other than "2♣ shows hearts and another" then the explanation is incorrect.

A few specific cases:
- If the agreement was "2♣ shows hearts and another or a club single suiter" then the explanation is incorrect.
- If the agreement was: "We play Asptro" (where 2♣ shows hearts and another) and it turns out that both players are well aware that, in Asptro, 2♣ shows hearts and another then the explanation was correct.
- If the agreement was: "We play Asptro" (where 2♣ shows hearts and another) and it turns out that South doesn't know what Asptro is, then the agreement was not "2♣ shows hearts and another" and the explanation was incorrect.
- If the agreement was: "We play Cappelletti" (where 2♣ shows any single suited hand) and it turns out that North doesn't know what Cappelletti is, then the agreement was not "2♣ shows hearts and another" and the explanation was incorrect.
- If the agreement was: "We play natural*" (where 2♣ shows clubs) and it turns out that North doesn't know what natural is, then the agreement was not "2♣ shows hearts and another" and the explanation was incorrect.

I hope this clarified the way I look at this, so at least we don't have a misunderstanding.

Rik

* There is this nice name for a "conventional defense vs 1NT" where everything is natural, but I forgot the name. Who can refresh my memory?

[mjj29]

Trinidad, on 2012-January-12, 09:20, said:

I think that we are just misunderstanding each other (which is kind of funny in a thread on misunderstandings ). Let me put it like this:

If the agreement was "2♣ shows hearts and another" then the explanation is correct.
If the agreement was something other than "2♣ shows hearts and another" then the explanation is incorrect.

A few specific cases:
- If the agreement was "2♣ shows hearts and another or a club single suiter" then the explanation is incorrect.
- If the agreement was: "We play Asptro" (where 2♣ shows hearts and another) and it turns out that both players are well aware that, in Asptro, 2♣ shows hearts and another then the explanation was correct.
- If the agreement was: "We play Asptro" (where 2♣ shows hearts and another) and it turns out that South doesn't know what Asptro is, then the agreement was not "2♣ shows hearts and another" and the explanation was incorrect.
- If the agreement was: "We play Cappelletti" (where 2♣ shows any single suited hand) and it turns out that North doesn't know what Cappelletti is, then the agreement was not "2♣ shows hearts and another" and the explanation was incorrect.
- If the agreement was: "We play natural*" (where 2♣ shows clubs) and it turns out that North doesn't know what natural is, then the agreement was not "2♣ shows hearts and another" and the explanation was incorrect.

I hope this clarified the way I look at this, so at least we don't have a misunderstanding.

Rik

* There is this nice name for a "conventional defense vs 1NT" where everything is natural, but I forgot the name. Who can refresh my memory?

What do you think _is_ the correct explanation in those cases - since this also has a bearing on the ruling. If we think that over "it shows a single suiter" the defense would have bid differently, fine, but if the actual correct explanation is "no agreement", they might not have done.

[WellSpyder]

Trinidad, on 2012-January-12, 09:20, said:

* There is this nice name for a "conventional defense vs 1NT" where everything is natural, but I forgot the name. Who can refresh my memory?

"Stone-age"?

[blackshoe]

I think that when a named convention has a specific meaning (e.g., if you're playing Asptro and your partner bids 2♣, the meaning of that bid in Asptro is "hearts and another") then the correct explanation is to give that meaning. If partner turns out not to have that hand, he may have misbid. Now folks will say "but we are to presume misexplanation". Sven will say "the fact that the bidder does not have that hand proves that the explanation is incorrect". However, the fact is that the law says the TD shall presume (my emphasis) misexplanation rather than misbid in the absence of evidence to the contrary (my emphasis again). Here the bid provides that evidence. So the TD must gather as much evidence as he can (at the very least, statements from both members of the pair, and what's on their system cards) and decide, on the preponderance of that evidence, whether the agreement was correctly explained. So, if a player bids 2♣, and his partner alerts and explains it as "hearts and another", and the system cards both say "Asptro", and both players say their understanding of Asptro is that 2♣ shows hearts and another, and the bidder says "I forgot", to me the preponderance of the evidence indicates that the explanation was correct and the bidder misbid. If the cards both say "Asptro", the explainer says that his understanding of the convention is as he explained it, and the bidder says "my understanding is that 2♣ is natural" or "I thought it was 'hearts and another or natural'" then they do not have agreement, and the explanation was incorrect. If the bidder says "well, I know it's 'hearts and another', but I didn't know how to show just clubs, so I was hoping that when I rebid 3♣ partner would get it", or if he says (unlikely in this case, I think) "I psyched", the TD has to ask more questions - specifically whether this has happened before and how often. Then he decides whether that additional evidence indicates an implicit understanding, and if so rules misexplanation rather than misbid.

So we're back to mrdct's ruling in post #6 in this thread: misbid, result stands.

Sorry for the wall of text.