BBO Discussion Forums: An opp clicks my bid for info. - BBO Discussion Forums

The general question is what information should I provide when an opponent clicks my bid to get more detail Some opponents think that I should say what I intended my bid to mean. I see that interpretation as the equivalent of asking what cards I hold. My view is that I should give the same information about partnership agreements that I would list on a convention card. As a simple example, if partner and I agreed to open 1 NT with 15-17 HCP, and an opp clicks my 1NT bid to ask, I should reply 15-17 HCP because that is the partnership agreement. On some hands, however, I might upgrade a 14 point hand, or downgrade an 18 point hand, and open 1NT despite the partnership agreement. If an opp clicks my 1NT bid when I have 14 or 18 HCP, I will still respond 15-17 because that is the agreement and the same information that partner expects.

This question hit hard a few days ago when I subbed into an individual tournament where there are no partnership agreements and I had no previous experience with my partner. RHO opened 1M and I bid 2M. RHO sent sent me a private message to ask if my que showed the other major and a minor, and I PM back to say yes. After some hesitation, my LHO clicked my 2M que bid and I replied "No agreement, so no information." Then my LHO clicked my bid another fifty times before calling the director. The director soon booted me out of the tournament. That could have been caused by an original player returning to his seat, but there was no communication so I cannot know what the director's reason was.

So, how do you think I should respond when an opp clicks my bid for more information?

You should try as far as possible to predict what answer your partner would have given to the same question had it been put instead to him or her, and then reproduce that in response to the question raised. That indicates selecting the second item from your poll, but does not preclude selecting the first also. I did not vote because the radio buttons only provide for the selection of one exclusive option.

Why did you give different information to LHO and RHO? It shouldn't matter whether they click on the bid or send you a private message.

It's difficult to apply the normal rules of disclosure to individuals. The Laws make a general assumption that partnerships have agreements that they've discussed explicitly, as well as implicit agreements from partnership experience, and these are what you're required to disclose. In an online indy, there's very little of this -- at best you might have agreed to play the conventions listed in one of your profiles, but it's possible that you don't have the same understandings of all the details of the conventions (lots of people don't know the void-showing responses to RKCB).

By a literal reading of the Laws, you have no agreements with partner in this situation, so should never have to alert or explain anything. But that leads to confusion and unpleasantness. You made a bid on the assumption that your partner would understand it. In this environment, players and TDs generally interpret the disclosure requirement very liberally, which usually means you should disclose how you expect your bid to be understood.

You still don't have to disclose your actual hand. If you think you're playing SAYC, you explain 1NT as 15-17, even if you're holding a 14 count that you decided to upgrade. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean you won't get complaints from the opponents when they see your actual hand -- there are many people who think the slightest deviation from agreements is a violation. There's nothing you can do about their misunderstanding of the game.

 silvr bull, on 2016-February-06, 14:27, said:

So why did you go against this in your explanation? Michaels is something listed on a convention card. Your explanation was basically that you expected your partner to not know what it meant - in which case, you definitely shouldn't have bid it to mean Michaels.

Why not treat it as a he table, ask the bidder's partner what he understands by the bid, on bbo the bidder is not able t see the answer so it is as if he has been asked to leave the table as in live bridge. In addition the same maxms apply, dont ask unless it affects your bid or openng lead pity one cannot wait till the bdding is over or nerly ver to ask about bids. Big weakness n BBO in addition to the fact that at the table you do not and cannot ask what does your bid mean of a bidder.

"No agreement, no informstion", given the number of random partnerships on BBO, violates the spirit of the rules on alerting, imo

I disagree with the last comment. If there are no agreements then partner and oppo are in the same position; having to use there bridge knowledge and experience to deduce your meaning. This means that playing with random partners it is best to keep things simple and avoid ambiguous situations.

 GrahamJson, on 2016-February-07, 07:30, said:

and how would a "random partner" know to keep thigs "simple and avoid ambiguous situations" without agreements?
Gotta love circular reasoning!

It's not difficult. What I mean is, for example, jump to obvious games rather than bid round the houses in the hope of finding a perfect fit slam.

My experience is that you often end up doing rather well when playing in an unfamiliar partnership, assuming a decent partner, as it tends to curb any desires to be over clever in bidding or defence.

I have noticed than on BBO some players get round any problems by demanding a redeal whenever their partner misinterprets their clever bids. Amazingly thei oppo often lets them get away with it, although sometimes only after being booted.

 silvr bull, on 2016-February-06, 14:27, said:

This is a sad situation and it clearly shows the dangers of playing anything other than a simple system when playing with a casual partner..
I suspect the reason for your expulsion from the tournament was that you gave different answers to the opponents. This was ambiguity so the TD,
in fairness to the opponents had no choice but to remove you for giving conflicting information. If partner makes a bid you are not sure of or
don't know the meaning,you should say so at once. In bridge,as in life,honesty is the best policy. Many moons ago,when I was learning this game,
our teacher told us that, when bidding "you should tell the truth,the whole truth and nothing but the truth and on the occasion when that is not possible,
you should tell the whitest lie that you can"

In a BBO individual tournament it is obvious that partners won't have any agreements so asking for explanations is pointless. I can't see how oppo can have any complaints.

As for upgrading or degrading hands, that is just good bridge and should need no explanation.

 barmar, on 2016-February-06, 15:00, said:

RHO asked a thoughtful and reasonable question. It would have been rude to just ignore it, so I typed three letters ("Yes") as the least I could do. I would have also replied "Yes" if LHO asked the same thoughtful and reasonable question. LHO had no reason to think that my partner in an individual tourney would have any agreement about the meaning of bids, so clicking my bid the first time was probably a useless thing to do. Clicking it again 50 more times in rapid machine gun like style was worse than useless and rude. LHO already knew that my partner would have to guess what I intended, but LHO demanded that I give him an unfair advantage by telling him my intentions when partner could only guess.

 fourdad, on 2016-February-07, 07:01, said:

My understanding of the spirit of the rules on alerting is that each player should explain the partnership understandings to the opps. When there is no understanding, however, there is no "spirit" that requires a player to tell the opps more about the hand than the partner can know for sure.

 silvr bull, on 2016-February-07, 10:43, said:

"Clicking 50 times..." I would regard as harassment and totally unacceptable conduct....and I would tell the TD so
once I had summoned him/her to my table.

yuck I typed a long response and is gone..

People repeatedly abuse clicking and re-clicking the alert box. Once two attempts have been made to alert the bid, and not by using the name, ,they should have to ask privately, and ask the partner of he alerter what specifically it is they want to know.

Calling a TD and explaining to him what has happened just takes too long, and TD's seldom do anything about the abuse of the alert box. Opps can runout the clock.

I hope TD's read this.

 btour, on 2016-February-07, 15:38, said:

People repeatedly abuse providing no response (not even "no agreement") when an opp clicks the alert box. Calling a TD (if available) and explaining the situation takes too long and TDs seldom do anything about the concealing of partnership agreements. Opps can run out the clock. I hope TDs read this.

 silvr bull, on 2016-February-07, 10:43, said:

Clicking the bid is the standard way to ask for an explanation on BBO. He shouldn't have to send a private message, it's not as convenient. And the manner of asking shouldn't affect whether you think the opponent should have the information. Either you think they're entitled to the information or you don't.

Asking for the meaning of a bid makes little sense in an individual but it can still happen that opps know each other and there might be an agreed meaning especially when the bid looks artificial. There is nothing wrong with asking for an agreement as you can hardly be sure they have no agreement. The proper answer would have been something like "we don't have an agreement, just common bridge". It is the right way to ask you by clicking the bid and it is your duty to answer in an understandable and friendly way. When you refuse to answer that might make opps angry. Sure it is not acceptable to press the button 50 times but it is not acceptable either that you don't give a proper answer when being asked. It should make no difference if the opp klicked the bid or if they asked in a sentence you liked. Giving two different meanings is misinformation.

BTW how can you know who of the opps klicked your bid? You seem to mix up things that you know and those that you assume. That does not make life easier for the TD. Clicking 50 times seems to be an overbid too. I cant remember anyone klicking more that 10 times in the last 5 years. Exaggerations will not help to make a story more convincing to the TD. Maybe I missed your report but did you explain anything to the TD that was called? What exactly happened before you were booted? Have you been helpful in answering any questions when the TD arrived? Did you get a reason why you were booted or are you just assuming?

 scarletv, on 2016-February-08, 04:52, said:

Speaking of assuming, you make many assumptions, and most of them seem hostile. You are welcome to have the last word in this exchange because I do not intend to respond to you again. A commercial used the line "Life is too short to drink bad wine." I feel the same way about corresponding with someone who does not read, but instead fills in the blanks with accusatory guesses.

 scarletv, on 2016-February-08, 04:52, said:

If you read my earlier comment " clicking my bid the first time was probably a useless thing to do", you would not have felt the need to belabor the obvious rare and improbable situation where two players in an individual have previous partnership agreements.

 scarletv, on 2016-February-08, 04:52, said:

Thank you for teaching me what I already said. You could have seen that by simply reading what I wrote.

 scarletv, on 2016-February-08, 04:52, said:

Once again, you refuse to read my comments, and simply fill in your gaps with your hostile guesses. I did not refuse to answer the first click on my bid. I gave a 100% complete and accurate answer: "No agreement, so no information." If that makes the opp or you, angry, it can only be because I did not tell the opp more about the hand than my partner could know.

 scarletv, on 2016-February-08, 04:52, said:

If you read my comments, you would see that I did give proper, complete, and accurate answers to the two questions that I was asked.

 scarletv, on 2016-February-08, 04:52, said:

If you read my comments, you would see that I was asked two different questions. The first asked me if my bid showed the other major and a minor. The second (by clicking my bid) asked me what agreements my partner and I had about my bid. Two different questions merited two different answers, but both of my answers were 100% complete and accurate. The opp may have thought his question was "What do you mean by your bid?", which is the equivalent of asking me what cards I hold in my hand.

 scarletv, on 2016-February-08, 04:52, said:

You assume (with zero justification) that I deliberately left out information that is important for deciding which poll question to answer. I did leave out information, but only because the missing details are irrelevant to the poll questions. If you read my comments, then you could also assume that they are sufficient to choose an answer, instead of subjecting me to hostile assumptions. One of the irrelevant details I did not previously include was that BBO flashed a message that said my LHO called the director.

 scarletv, on 2016-February-08, 04:52, said:

You assume (with zero justification) that my comments are exaggerations. I did not count the number of times LHO clicked my bid, but it was as fast as I could repeatedly click to close the explanation box, and non stop rapid fire for approximately 15 seconds. There may well have been more than 50 clicks before LHO decided to call the director instead.

 scarletv, on 2016-February-08, 04:52, said:

Excuse me, but I don't recall being sworn in on the witness stand to be subjected to this cross examination. No, I did not include those details because they are irrelevant to the point of posting this thread, and irrelevant to a reader deciding which poll answer to select. After LHO clicked my bid non stop for approximately 15 seconds and then quickly called the director, the director arrived at the table within two seconds, and I was booted within the next two seconds. There was literally no time to type any message to the director. There was also zero communication, which you would have known if you read my comments. If you have anything useful to add, you are welcome to do so.

Thanks for your enlightening reply.