[weejonnie]

lamford, on 2014-December-01, 08:23, said:

Clearly you cannot think like a cheating rabbit. If partner had 25, he would have already downgraded to 23-24 to allow for my ineptitude; the fact that I will be declarer is known. Therefore the BIT shows that he has 28, or maybe even 29. People never stretch opposite a rabbit. On the actual hand, any sane declarer was seriously considering Pass instead of 2NT.

It doesn't matter. No matter how good you are (known to partner) and how good partner is, there will always be a range of hands where partner has to decide whether to pass/ invite and another range of hands where partner has to decide whether to invite/ bid game. In some cases it may be 27/28, in others a good 27/28 or a bad 28/29 or a good 28/29. All you know is that opposite you partner has made an (unclear) invite.

It makes no difference either whether playing teams of matchpoints. The fact you stand to gain more by bidding and making game vs a part score is also known to partner and will have affected his judgement. You can't use the argument that bidding game makes it more/less likely to assume partner is strong/ weak for the bidding.

[blackshoe]

Trinidad, on 2014-December-01, 07:34, said:

Very true, but do rabbits think like that? I don't think so.

Rik

Do rabbits think at all?

[blackshoe]

lamford, on 2014-December-01, 07:37, said:

Should it not be a DP?

Yes.

[lamford]

campboy, on 2014-December-01, 08:45, said:

Perhaps. But that is because players do not commonly get the auction wrong, especially with bidding boxes. It is by no means unusual to conduct a poll which gives the same auction, but with some call having a different meaning.

Okay. So you would tell those polled that 1S-1NT-2NT showed 25-28, and now ask them the LAs and what they thought a slow 2NT showed? My guess is that they would ask if you were playing some form of Precision Spade, and they would claim not to understand the methods. You would probably not be able to find any peers of the rabbit of the same strength playing the same system.

The strange thing is that you would allow 6NT but I presume you would disallow 3NT as you would regard the rabbit's claim that he thought 2NT was 25-28 as being self-serving hogwash. If you did accept the rabbit's statement, then you should adjust under Law 23, as the rabbit could have known (in as much as the rabbit could have known anything) that giving the MI that 2NT was 25-28 as justification for raising to 3NT could have worked to his advantage.

[lamford]

weejonnie, on 2014-December-01, 08:58, said:

It doesn't matter. No matter how good you are (known to partner) and how good partner is, there will always be a range of hands where partner has to decide whether to pass/ invite and another range of hands where partner has to decide whether to invite/ bid game. In some cases it may be 27/28, in others a good 27/28 or a bad 28/29 or a good 28/29. All you know is that opposite you partner has made an (unclear) invite.

It makes no difference either whether playing teams of matchpoints. The fact you stand to gain more by bidding and making game vs a part score is also known to partner and will have affected his judgement. You can't use the argument that bidding game makes it more/less likely to assume partner is strong/ weak for the bidding.

Indeed but what is relevant is how the relative chances of the two LAs have changed as a result of the UI, which changes the distribution of hands for partner from approximately a bell-shape (adjusted for hand frequency) to an approximately inverted bell-shape (again adjusted for hand frequency). Eliminating the middle will make one or other extreme demonstrably suggested depending on our belief of the relative likelihood of that extreme. We are still OK, however, if we select the only LA. And on this hand that is Pass. On this hand, bidding 6NT is unlikely to succeed, but it is more likely to succeed if partner is known not to have a medium range 2NT. And I don't think it all relevant whether the Rabbit thought his partner was showing 25-28. The Probst Cheat would have pretended to be a Rabbit, and said what he did, knowing that 3NT would be ruled back, and gambled on 6NT making. And I am not advocating adjusting on this hand!

[campboy]

lamford, on 2014-December-01, 10:24, said:

Okay. So you would tell those polled that 1S-1NT-2NT showed 25-28, and now ask them the LAs and what they thought a slow 2NT showed?

No, that's not what I meant. I would, as you originally thought, poll players giving them the 2♣ auction which didn't happen. As you say, a poll that gives the wrong auction is very rare, but that is only because the situation described in this thread is very rare. My point was that it is normal in other circumstances to base a poll on what the player thought was going on, rather than reality, where those differ.

[lamford]

campboy, on 2014-December-01, 10:43, said:

No, that's not what I meant. I would, as you originally thought, poll players giving them the 2♣ auction which didn't happen.

You throw yourself open to all sorts of claims by players with UI that they thought the auction was different to what it was. I see no legal basis for your poll.

[blackshoe]

When you poll, you are trying to find out what a player's peers might do if they found themselves in the same situation as the player did, but without any UI. The fact that the situation in which the Rabbit found himself was a figment of his own imagination is not, it seems to me, relevant to that effort — save that I would not present it as a figment to the pollees. That would obviate the purpose.

[lamford]

blackshoe, on 2014-December-01, 16:32, said:

When you poll, you are trying to find out what a player's peers might do if they found themselves in the same situation as the player did, but without any UI. The fact that the situation in which the Rabbit found himself was a figment of his own imagination is not, it seems to me, relevant to that effort — save that I would not present it as a figment to the pollees. That would obviate the purpose.

Telling the pollees that they are to pretend that the auction has gone 2C-2D-2NT showing 25-28 is also wrong. They are entitled to the actual auction, which is AI, in reaching their decision on LAs. I think previous threads have established that the auction is always AI. And the Rabbit is not using the UI to decide on what the auction was!

[blackshoe]

Let me play Devil's Advocate for Mr. Secretary Bird for a moment.

Law 16A1 and 2 specify the sources of authorized information. 16A3 says no player may base a call or play on other information. The Rabbit based his 6NT call on his hallucination that the auction was different to the one that actually occurred, and that it therefore showed 25-28 HCP in his partner's hand. This actually, fortuitously, made. The basis for the call was illegal, the result damaged the opponents. Therefore, per 16A4, the TD shall adjust the score. No need for a poll. In fact, no need for Law 16B at all.

Is anyone happy with that? No? Well then, can anyone refute the logic?

[Trinidad]

blackshoe, on 2014-December-01, 09:08, said:

Do rabbits think at all?

Yes, they do think, but in a way that is very different from the ways we owls and penguines think.

Rik

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2014-December-01, 20:39, said:

The basis for the call was illegal

What basis, the hallucination? No.

Quote

Is anyone happy with that? No? Well then, can anyone refute the logic?

Yes.