[Phil]

IMPs, r/w

xx AJTxx Kx 98xx

(1♣) - 1♦ - (1♥) - dbl;
(1♠) - 1N - (2♠) - ?

[semeai]

What did my double on the first round show? Was 1♥ by RHO a transfer to spades or something?

I'll assume my double either showed ♥ or ♥+♦-tolerance. I'll pass. I've shown my hand and we have no guarantee of a fit. Partner's 1N doesn't promise the world (she didn't overcall 1N).

[billw55]

Assuming that the double on the previous round was suitable for this hand, I don't see anything additional here to show partner. So I pass.

[Phil]

semeai, on 2012-July-25, 09:26, said:

What did my double on the first round show?

Don't know - my opponent held this hand. More on this later.

semeai, on 2012-July-25, 09:26, said:

Was 1♥ by RHO a transfer to spades or something?

No, but I might have mentioned this somewhere in the course of this discussion.

[semeai]

Phil, on 2012-July-25, 09:37, said:

No, but I might have mentioned this somewhere in the course of this discussion.

You might also have intended to mention it and then forgotten. That seemed more likely than a double on this hand in a natural auction somehow!

I guess whoever I am I've doubled 1♥ as a penalty double then. The rest of what I said arguing for pass still stands (I've shown ♥).

[mike777]

dbl now


cant let opp play in an 8 card fit.

fwiw would have bid 1nt not dbl last round so I assume I was asked to fill in at this point and replace the former.

IF someone forgot to alert will worry about that later. I assume I get to look at the opp cc.

[Phil]

Mods -you can bump this to "Simple Rulings" now if you like.

Here's what happened ATT.

I was the LHO of this hand and held a black 5-6. If double was Snapdragon, I didn't want to be cruising into a misfit if my RHO (thie OP hand) had spades as expected. So I asked about the double.

LHO (a director) said, "we don't play much so we do not have a firm agreement here".

Q1: Has UI been transmitted as a result of this comment?
Q2: If Q1 is yes, does the UI suggest anything one way or another?

Anyway, the OP now bid 3♥, which seemed incredulous at the time and still does. (My) LHO raised to 4. We let this in. The defense was pretty hysterical, but the hand had largely been lost in the bidding.

[Zelandakh]

Phil, on 2012-July-25, 14:28, said:

LHO (a director) said, "we don't play much so we do not have a firm agreement here".

Q1: Has UI been transmitted as a result of this comment?
Q2: If Q1 is yes, does the UI suggest anything one way or another?

Anyway, the OP now bid 3♥

Q1: All answers transfer UI. The important UI is when the answer is different from the one partner expected.
Q2: If I doubled to show hearts then the UI suggests that partner does not know I have hearts and, therefore, this makes bidding hearts now more appealing. If I doubled just to show some values, knowing there is no agreement, then the answer is merely what I expected and does not seem to suggest anything. Between these extremes I think I would need to conduct a poll.

The (first) key question here is what RHO thought he was doing at the time he placed the double card. The follow-ups are what the answer suggests given that meaning and what the LAs are (poll). It seems unlikely that Pass would not be a LA for the last of these questions.

[the hog]

..Phil I seriously believe that the 3H bid is tantmount to cheating and based on his partner's comment. 3H is unbelievable.

[billw55]

the hog, on 2012-July-26, 04:38, said:

..Phil I seriously believe that the 3H bid is tantmount to cheating and based on his partner's comment. 3H is unbelievable.

Partly agree. He clearly doubled to show hearts. Plausibly, after partner's comment he realized that this message was not received, and so he took a second chance to send it. That would be close to cheating.

Alternatively, it is possible that he is so bad that he thought 3♥ was right anyway. Absurd, but I've seen worse. Or he may be oblivous to UI constraints: who has not seen bad players at club who routinely send, receive, and act on UI, all unaware that anything is amiss?

If he is bad enough to not know better, he need a stern education. If he is not, he needs a stern penalty. With the double already in evidence, the former is quite plausible, so I think to say "cheating" is an overbid.

[MickyB]

Wow. If we are meant to adjust here after an explanation of "no agreement" then I'll never say "no agreement" ever again - better to guess, it's the only way you'll avoid screwing partner.

The UI is that partner said, "we don't play much so we do not have a firm agreement here".

I believe the UI does not suggest anything. Obviously if partner had implied that double was probably takeout, the situation would be different.

[Zelandakh]

Micky, it matters what East thought the agreement was at the time they made the bid. Answering "No agreement" does not relieve partner of their UI obligations.

Edit: in addition to that, you should only be saying "No agreement" where this is true. Is your answer really going to vary depending on what you think constrains partner least, irrespective of what the real agreement is?

[MickyB]

Zelandakh, on 2012-July-26, 06:45, said:

Micky, it matters what East thought the agreement was at the time they made the bid. Answering "No agreement" does not relieve partner of their UI obligations.

They were an occasional partnership. Most likely, he thought the call was undiscussed.

[MickyB]

Zelandakh, on 2012-July-26, 06:45, said:

Edit: in addition to that, you should only be saying "No agreement" where this is true. Is your answer really going to vary depending on what you think constrains partner least, irrespective of what the real agreement is?

I don't think it ever has done in the past; However, this is the first time I've seen the suggestion that correctly stating that you have no agreement should restrict partner's later actions.

[campboy]

Just as correctly stating your agreement can transmit meaningful UI if partner thought you had a different agreement or none, correctly stating that you don't have an agreement can transmit meaningful UI if partner thought you did have one. Of course there is no evidence that that is the case here. The TD should be asking East why he doubled and why he bid 3♥.

[semeai]

How experienced was the doubler?

I can see two situations in which there could be UI:

1) Doubler thought they had an agreement about this auction or at least some sort of mutual understanding about doubles in general.

2) Doubler has never heard of the possibility that this double could be something other than penalty. This would require doubler to be relatively inexperienced.

If neither of these is true, I'm not sure what the UI is.

***

How about this: if you think you've received UI, and you act on it (!), but you really haven't received any UI, have you committed an infraction?