[roghog]

Scoring: IMP

Butler scoring
N--E--S--W
1♥-P-1♠-1NT
4♠-All pass

---

♣A led. Declarer asks E how they play 1NT overcall in this situation and learns that it is 16-18 balanced. (A subsequent check to their system file corroborated that this is what it should have been.)
Low ♦ to T,J,K
Declarer plays two rounds of ♠. E takes the second and gets his ♦ ruff for one down.
Dummy observes that 4♠ can be made against any defence if declarer knows the distribution. He calls the director.
W explains that he lost concentration and made the wrong bid.
E is asked why he didn't double. E says he was certain, from the players reputations, that no one at the table had deliberately psyched. Having played against NS over many years he knew for sure that they never psyche. He also knew N would not bid 4♠ on this sort of auction unless he was reasonably certain it had good chances. He knew W had at most one ♠ and it wasn't the Ace. He concluded that W had probably had some sort of mishap.

So, what should the ruling be? And why?

Many thanks

[barmar]

Has West made this mistake before with this partner? If not, there's no implicit understanding that 1NT might not be natural. There's no MI, no UI, so no laws have been violated. East can do what he wants. He used reasonable logic to figure out that West probably misbid.

[jallerton]

The TD needs to consider potential misinformation, unauthorised information and the fielded misbid regulations.

Misinformation

The explanation of 1NT was found to be correct, so there cannot be any adjustment for misinformation.

Unauthorised information

Unless, West showed any form of surprise when 1NT was not alerted, East does not have any unauthorised informaton.

West does have unauthorised information as at the point where he bid 1NT, he was expecting that bid to be alerted; the lack of alert woke him up to the fact that 1NT did not actually show both minors at all. However, it is hard to see how West's subsequent bidding and defence could have been affected by the UI, so no adjustment is appropriate in respect of UI.

Fielded misbid regulations

I believe this hand comes from England, where there are special regulations for "fielded misbids", which are treated similarly to "fielded psyches". The regulations are contained in the EBU Orange Book:

EBU Orange Book said:

6 B 3 A partnership’s actions on one board may be sufficient for the TD to find that it has an unauthorised understanding and the score will be adjusted in principle (eg 60% to the non-offending side and 30% to the offending side is normal in pairs). This is classified as a Red psyche.
6 B 4 A TD may find that whilst there is some evidence of an unauthorised understanding it is not sufficient, of itself, to justify an adjusted score. This is classified as an Amber psyche. In particular, if both partners psyche on the same hand, then a classification of at least Amber is likely to be justified.
6 B 5 In the majority of cases the TD will find nothing untoward and classify it as a Green psyche.
6 B 6 A TD may use evidence from a partnership’s actions on two or more boards to assess a partnership’s actions. Whilst a single instance may not provide sufficient evidence of an unauthorised understanding to warrant a score adjustment, a repetition reinforces the conclusion that an unauthorised understanding exists. In other words, if two psyches are classified as Amber, the classification of both automatically becomes Red, and the score on all such boards is adjusted accordingly.
6 B 7 A partnership’s actions following a deviation may provide evidence of an unauthorised understanding, but they are less likely to do so than after a psyche. As with psyches, deviations may be classified as Red, Amber or Green.
6 B 8 A partnership’s actions following a misbid may provide evidence of an unauthorised understanding, but they are less likely to do so because of the lack of intent to mislead. As with psyches, misbids may be classified as Red, Amber or Green.

East's explanation for the lack of double suggests that he would have made the same deduction with an unknown partner, so this does not provide any evidence of an undisclosed partnership agreement.

In this case, East's failure to double 4♠ is hardly unreasonable, so I would classify the misbid as Green or possibly Amber.

Either way, the score should not be adjusted, as the regulations only permit an adjustment for Red misbids and psyches (unless this has happened before in this partnership, in which case 6B6 above tells us that we can adjust for repeated Amber misbids).

[mamos]

jallerton, on Apr 13 2010, 02:01 AM, said:

East's explanation for the lack of double suggests that he would have made the same deduction with an unknown partner, so this does not provide any evidence of an undisclosed partnership agreement.

In this case, East's failure to double 4♠ is hardly unreasonable, so I would classify the misbid as Green or possibly Amber.

Either way, the score should not be adjusted, as the regulations only permit an adjustment for Red misbids and psyches (unless this has happened before in this partnership, in which case 6B6 above tells us that we can adjust for repeated Amber misbids).

I agree with Jeffrey's comments

I think that the fielding of misbids is a widely misunderstood topic as interpreted by the EBU. The standard of judgement is considerably different from that for the fielded psyche. IMHO this is correct because the adjustment that is made, is on the basis that the partnerships actions suggest that there is a concealed partnership understanding. If a player makes a mistake on one occasion, then the actions need to be very bizarre indeed before it would be reasonable to conclude that. The non-doubler here put forward at least two bridge arguments for not doubling. "The oppo are sound" and "there just aren't enough Spades"

I'd classify as Green, but wouldn't be too upset if someone wanted to argue for Amber. (I'd stll classify it as Green )

Mike

[FrancesHinden]

I agree with jallerton (for once).
Perhaps a bit more explanation of the idea of 'fielded misbids' might be helpful.

You see an auction where
- Player 1 makes a call that isn't in line with their advertised methods
- Player 1's partner makes a call that appears to cater for Player 1 having his actual hand, not what he has shown.

That happened here: West bid 1NT showing a strong balanced hand with a weaker hand with both minors. East's failure to double 4S was consistent with him playing for West not to have a strong balanced hand.

The poor TD has to come to one of a range of possible conclusions:

- The pair's methods are not 'as advertised'. This is the most common ruling - in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the TD is instructed to rule that the methods were mis-explained rather than someone misbid. Here, however, there is evidence (the system file) that 1NT should have been strong balanced.

- In spite of what the system file says, the TD could still rule that the correct explanation was 'no agreement' or even 'minors'. Evidence for that would be comments by East such as "the file says strong but he's never read it and always bids 1NT here with the minors", or West saying "sorry I always forget that, I play it as minors with everyone else", or an interested observer saying "your system file is out of date, your convention card says something else"

- Against that, West could say 'here are 3 previous hands so far today when I overcalled 1NT on this auction with a strong balanced hand, I just a momentary brainstorm'

Those two scenarios are the extreme possibilities, of course real life is somewhere in between.

Only when the TD is confident that the agreement really was a strong balanced hand that he moves on to consider East's actions in the manner described.

p.s. It's not a serious error so not relevant to the ruling, but why did declarer not take the winning line anyway? How can it hurt to play three rounds of hearts, which gains if West has something slightly off-centre such as Ax Jxxx Axxxx AK (declarer already knows that West is off-centre because he doesn't have much of a heart stop).

[jdonn]

Is it just me or has this problem been posted like 3 times recently?

[Rossoneri]

jdonn, on Apr 16 2010, 06:43 PM, said:

Is it just me or has this problem been posted like 3 times recently?

Darren posted it as a bid problem in advanced and experts forum.

[gwnn]

a thread and a poll, to be precise.

[DarrenE]

jdonn, on Apr 16 2010, 12:43 PM, said:

Is it just me or has this problem been posted like 3 times recently?

Yes sorry! I am very inexperienced when it comes to technology! I tried to post it then realised I could create a Poll, tred to delete the original thread and could not!

[jeremy69]

It's a lovely emerald shade of green unless there is a habit of psyching or forgetting the method in which case the torture instruments come out.

[nige1]

roghog, on Apr 9 2010, 03:55 PM, said:

E is asked why he didn't double. E says he was certain, from the players reputations, that no one at the table had deliberately psyched. Having played against NS over many years he knew for sure that they never psyche. He also knew N would not bid 4♠ on this sort of auction unless he was reasonably certain it had good chances. He knew W had at most one ♠ and it wasn't the Ace. He concluded that W had probably had some sort of mishap.

From East's point of view it is likely that somebody has overbid or made a mistake but there is no particular reason to believe that anybody has "psyched". Players make a wide variety of mistakes, such as miscounting points or confusing suits of the same colour.

When players field a psych they usually say that they trusted opponents not their partner. In spite of the fact that, in principle, it is 2:1 that an opponent rather than partner made a mistake or overbid or psyched.

[Ant590]

DarrenE, on Apr 19 2010, 05:34 PM, said:

I am very inexperienced when it comes to technology!

LOL. Can we frame this one please?