[VixTD]

We're now in the open Swiss Teams of the second weekend:

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West's double was intended as competitive, but explained when asked during the auction as penalties. (EW were a Dutch pair who may not have been familiar with the alerting regulations. Whether it was alerted or not, NS were given this explanation.)

Result: 2♠X(S)-1, NS-200

West led ♥2 to the queen. ♣Q was covered and won by West, who continued with two more rounds of clubs. The third was ruffed by South, and a diamond discarded from dummy. South led a trump, won by West's ace, and West continued with ♦2.

South went up with dummy's ace, played ♥A and ruffed a heart to finesse ♠10, playing West for something like ♠AQx ♥Kxx ♦x ♣A109xxx for his "penalty" double, and so went one off.

South claimed that if he had known West's double was competitive he could have finessed in diamonds and made the contract.

EW's convention card carries the statement that "most doubles in competition are for takeout". They produced a system file the following day which said (in Dutch) that double is for penalties when the opponents protect. [NB system notes are not necessarily admissible evidence, but may be considered.]

How would you rule?

[CSGibson]

I have no idea if it is legal, but I would hope for split results. If W had the hand S was playing him for, he would have led his singleton. S was playing for an extremely unlikely layout, and I think he earned the table result. On the other hand, with correct information, I am sure he would have not made that mistake. I do not want to give the dutch pair a reward for UI, so I would rule 2SX and making for their side.

I think that the evidence regarding their actual agreement is basically a wash, except that the information in their system notes was presented after a sufficiently long time that it could easily have been altered, which makes me give it less weight than I might have otherwise.

[lamford]

CSGibson, on 2013-October-04, 12:03, said:

If W had the hand S was playing him for, he would have led his singleton.

Or switched to it after winning the first round of clubs. It sounds like the explanation should have been "no agreement but showing extras and asking me to do something sensible". It is not clear that declarer's bad line was caused by the MI; West could have had something like AQ Kxx Kxx ATxxx when finessing would also be mandatory.

[barmar]

IMO, as soon as East shows up with any spades, declarer should know that West doesn't actually have a penalty double. Who would make a 2-level penalty double with with a hand like that, opposite a passed parter who has shown no more than a minimum? Even if West had ♠AQxx his hand wouldn't be good enough for a penalty double, especially at IMPs.

[nige1]

CSGibson, on 2013-October-04, 12:03, said:

If W had the hand S was playing him for, he would have led his singleton. S was playing for an extremely unlikely layout, and I think he earned the table result. On the other hand, with correct information, I am sure he would have not made that mistake. I do not want to give the dutch pair a reward for UI, so I would rule 2SX and making for their side. I think that the evidence regarding their actual agreement is basically a wash, except that the information in their system notes was presented after a sufficiently long time that it could easily have been altered, which makes me give it less weight than I might have otherwise.

lamford, on 2013-October-04, 15:12, said:

Or switched to it after winning the first round of clubs. It sounds like the explanation should have been "no agreement but showing extras and asking me to do something sensible". It is not clear that declarer's bad line was caused by the MI; West could have had something like AQ Kxx Kxx ATxxx when finessing would also be mandatory.

barmar, on 2013-October-05, 08:14, said:

IMO, as soon as East shows up with any spades, declarer should know that West doesn't actually have a penalty double. Who would make a 2-level penalty double with with a hand like that, opposite a passed parter who has shown no more than a minimum? Even if West had ♠ AQxx his hand wouldn't be good enough for a penalty double, especially at IMPs.

Declarer seems to have played consistently with the information he was given. Some players would disagree with Barmer about whether ♠AQx(x) is enough for a penalty double. A singleton is attractive but not every diffender would lead it. Declarers may try to profit by opponents' imperfect bidding and defence.

If declarer had assumed that opponents had misinformed him and he had gone down as a result, my guess is that some posters would deem it a SEWOG

A pity that the rules don't insist that system-notes are written as supplementary-sheets that players carry with them. Here for example, the director would have been able to learn the systemic meaning of the double, immediately and reliably.

[c_corgi]

If the system notes are admitted as limited-weight evidence then, together with the convention card, they create sufficient confusion to conclude that the proper disclosure is "no specific agreement for this situation, but we have these conflicting meta-agreements:..." Hence there is MI whether or not the notes are admitted.

While declarer's line of play may be inferior, it seems unlikely he would have selected it without the MI, so there is damage.

I don't believe declarer is close to SEWoG, but even if any errors he made were serious they involved failing to successfully deduce what the opponents were doing, by balancing inferences from the play with information from the auction. Since much of that information from the auction is the MI, I don't see how any serious error can be unrelated to the infraction. It seems clear to adjust to 2SX=.

[lamford]

c_corgi, on 2013-October-07, 09:49, said:

While declarer's line of play may be inferior, it seems unlikely he would have selected it without the MI, so there is damage.

I did not think declarer's line of play was a serious error, but we only adjust for the damage caused by the MI. So, there would have to be a good reason why the MI caused declarer to play as he did.

[c_corgi]

lamford, on 2013-October-07, 16:44, said:

I did not think declarer's line of play was a serious error, but we only adjust for the damage caused by the MI. So, there would have to be a good reason why the MI caused declarer to play as he did.

He took a convoluted line which specifically caters for spade length in the West hand. Whether that was wise or not is debatable, but there seems good reason to think that he chose his line because of the MI that West had made a penalty double of spades.

[VixTD]

I think we considered all the points raised here in coming to a decision. I didn't feel there was enough evidence to conclude that EW had an agreement about the double here, particularly since even when the hand was over they didn't seem to agree. Without wishing to impose on EW agreements they don't have, I couldn't help wondering whether any agreements they may have written down about certain situations ("in competition", "when opponents protect") might be coloured by the fact that they have already bid and raised a suit, making it less likely that they are looking for a fit.

EW argued that South's view of the hand is not realistic: West would have led or switched to a singleton diamond, the hand he was playing West for was not suitable for a penalty double. I agree that these points weaken NS's case, but not enough to deny them redress.

I ruled that given an explanation of "no agreement" South would make the right decision some of the time, so I adjusted the score to 60% of 2♠X(S)= and 40% of 2♠X(s)-1 for both sides.