Tuesday, April 5, 2011

More Unauthorized Information

Palmerston North Club Swiss Pairs

Board 21
North Deals
N-S Vul
♠ —
Q J 10 6 2
10 7 2
♣ K Q 10 7 3
♠ A Q 10 6 4
K 7 4
A 5
♣ A 6 4
N
WE
S

♠ K J 9 2
A 3
J 6 4
♣ J 9 8 2
♠ 8 7 5 3
9 8 5
K Q 9 8 3
♣ 5
WestNorthEastSouth
PassPassPass
1 ♠Dbl3 ♣13
4 ♣Pass4 ♠All pass

  1. Invitational Spade Raise but explained as weak with clubs
4 ♠ by West

Made 4 — +420

It is strange how things happen in themes. This hand turned up at the club on Tuesday night.

West misexplained their partnership agreement as a weak jump shift.

The question arises, as east, what are your responsibilities over partner's 4♣ given her misexplanation?

Lawfully you "must carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorized information".

To my mind bidding 4♠ is the bid most likely to clear up the misunderstanding and therefore you 'must carefully avoid' bidding 4♠ if there is any reasonable alternative. Here there is such an alternative. Partner's 4♣ looks like a cuebid in search of slam. (For some it could even be Gerber!) In either case 4 is a logical alternative. The law is clear that is the bid you 'must' make. It 'must' be made even though you know that after 4 the auction is highly likely to spiral out of control. Bidding 4♠ is deliberately taking advantage of the unauthorized information and therefore an illegal option.

After 4♠ is chosen the director is empowered to adjust the score. It can be difficult to decide what to adjust to. Its certainly not clear here where the auction will go after 4. Perhaps west will bid 4♠ as another cue bid and then east is free to pass - a lucky escape. Perhaps west will bid 4NT Blackwood in search of a club slam. Perhaps west will attempt to sign-off in 5♣. After which east may bid 5♠ with nothing else to cue-bid but its not completely clear how west will interpret that bid - maybe west will pass but maybe not.

You can see how the auction can spiral out of control leading to imminent disaster. Your job as east as much as it might go against your natural instinct is to not avoid the disaster by making bids that are more likely to wake your partner up. That would be taking advantage of the unauthorized information.

In the event the director adjusted the board giving a split ruling - 50% of 4♠ making and 50% of 5♠ down one. My feeling having thought about it overnight is that this is too generous to the offending side here. Superficially there are two actions from west that might lead to a higher contract and only one that will lead to 4♠. Further if the auction goes beyond 4♠ who is to say it will stop at 5♠.



In addition to any adjustment the law almost demands a penalty be imposed on east for bidding 4♠. Remember the law is "must carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorized information".

"Must" is a very strong term. The laws of bridge include an interpretation of such terms. Here is what it says:

"“must” do (the strongest word, a serious matter indeed)"

The weaker term "shall" has this comment:

"“shall” do (a violation will incur a procedural penalty more often than not)"

If a failure to do what one "shall" do incurs a procedural penalty more often than not then a failure to do what one "must" do by extrapolation should almost always attract a penalty.

And in my opinion so it should be. The player is deliberately trying to gain an advantage from their partner's unauthorized information. This needs to be discouraged and imposing penalties on such actions is perfectly reasonable.

That it is not done only encourages players to take advantage next time and contributes to the reason why these issues of misusing unauthorized information are rife in our game.

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