[mikeh]

gordontd, on 2015-April-29, 04:57, said:

The question isn't about alerting, nor is it about what explanation should be given at the table, but it is about the information that the pair are theoretically entitled to.

Show me where any Law or rule or condition of contest says that the opps are entitled to know what some third party thinks the widgeteers ought to have meant ©, as opposed to what they did mean....when what they did mean reflected that they had no agreement at all.

Stop confusing the map with the territory, in a case where the opps didn't look at the map. Had the opps looked at the map, and thus seen 'widget' written down, we'd have a different situation. As it was, at best they were entitled to know that (A) and (B) had no agreement.....but only once it became appropriate for the widgeteers to disclose it.

[cherdano]

I find it hard to understand why so many posters think "no agreement" would be an adequate explanation.

So LHO thought "widget" to mean "B". Now let's say that during the auction or play, LHO can figure out that partner cannot possibly have "B". Do you really expect that he has as bad a chance of guessing what partner has as as the opponents who are told this partnership has "no agreement" about this call? I find this very hard to believe. He knows they agreed a gadget there, and he can work out what other possible meanings for this gadget would make sense. Whereas the opponents in the same situation (knowing their opponent cannot have "B") can only guess whether he psyched, or assumed a convention would apply.

At the very least, opponents should be told that this partnership attempted to agree to play an artificial gadget. [I still don't think this is sufficient, but I'll leave that to a later post.]

[mikeh]

cherdano, on 2015-April-29, 15:26, said:

I find it hard to understand why so many posters think "no agreement" would be an adequate explanation.

I find it hard to understand why so many posters think that the widgeteers somehow owe some explanation beyond the only honest explanation: that we each thought something different and thus had no agreement at all.

A parallel but inexact example may help clarify this.

You and I agree to play a weak 1N, and we say....let's play the usual stuff over that....you know....stayman, negative doubles, yadda yadda.

I usually play transfers and you 2 way stayman.

You deal and open 1N, and I am looking at 2=5=3=3 2 count. I confidently bid 2♦ and am surprised to hear 'alert' rather than 'transfer' (in ACBLand).

LHO bids 4♠. All pass, with everyone at the table raising their eyebrows at me for passing with my gameforce hand.

You make your opening lead and dummy hits with a nice hand, and LHO chuckles.

This isn't a great example because all concerned can deduce what was going on, but assume that I am the only player who even knows about transfers...I am a visitor and unaware that everyone here plays 2 way stayman and has never heard about transfers.

Declarer turns to me and says: look, we know you don't have a gf hand...what did you intend by your 2♦ bid...was it a psyche or, where you come from, does it mean something else?

I don't have to tell declarer anything. Note that I didn't know what the usual stuff was...when I agreed to the usual stuff I thought, mistakenly, that this included transfers. I know, now, that this was wrong but I don't have to say what I meant, since what I meant was not an agreement. In fact, I shouldn't say what I meant, because my partner shouldn't be told. Sending partner away cures that issue, but the underlying fact remains....declarer has no entitlement to know what I intended, only that it wasn't what my partner expected.

In the OP, neither (A) nor (B) have any obligation to say what they thought (A)'s widget bid meant, altho if (B)'s view was that it was alertable then the odds are, as a matter of practice, that B will be disclosed, with the caveat, perhaps only after the hand, that it wasn't correct.

[Vampyr]

cherdano, on 2015-April-29, 15:26, said:

I find it hard to understand why so many posters think "no agreement" would be an adequate explanation.

Even more difficult to understand is the notion that the players have no agreement and therefore their opponents are not entitled to an adjustment.

[mikeh]

Vampyr, on 2015-April-29, 17:44, said:

Even more difficult to understand is the notion that the players have no agreement and therefore their opponents are not entitled to an adjustment.

do you mean to say that in a non-alerted situation, each player must have an agreement about the meaning of all sequences? really? I don't....it is hardly unusual for even experienced partnerships to occasionally encounter a situation which isn't covered by agreement, and I sure as heck hope that when I guess incorrectly, but luckily, what partner meant, I don't see the score adjusted. Please note that this was not an alerted situation, altho there may be an UI issue from the lack of an alert, since the bidder expected to see an alert but that is a distinct issue. In addition, if screens were involved, such that bidder self-alerted, there would be real misinformation and an adjustment might well be appropriate.

The OP wasn't about whether an adjustment was warranted, btw, but a more theoretical question as to what the innocent pair ought to be told, and I still can't get my head around why they should be told that there was an agreement when there wasn't. To me that seems utterly absurd. Nor are they permitted to know what the players thought, when there was no agreement....if (B) didn't know what (A) intended, then he didn't take any action based on what (A) intended, and vice versa. They may each have taken action on what they thought was meant, but that is in their head, not their partner's, and we never have to say to the opps what we think, only what our agreement is.

[Trinidad]

Vampyr, on 2015-April-29, 17:44, said:

Even more difficult to understand is the notion that the players have no agreement and therefore their opponents are not entitled to an adjustment.

I probably have missed something. Who said that the opponents are not entitled to an adjustment?

Of course the opponents are entitled to an adjustment. But the adjustment is not because there was no agreement. The adjustment is for the MI that there was an agreement (and the resulting damage).

Rik

[Trinidad]

mikeh, on 2015-April-29, 17:20, said:

I don't have to tell declarer anything. Note that I didn't know what the usual stuff was...when I agreed to the usual stuff I thought, mistakenly, that this included transfers.

You will have to tell declarer your agreements. And your agreement was "the usual stuff". So you will have to tell him that and you can add "But it seems what is usual for my partner is not usual for me".

Rik

[cherdano]

Mike argued against a point I never made. I never claimed the bidder should explain opponents what his hand his, just that "no agreement" is less information than "we tried to agree a gadget here", and that the opponents are at least entitled to the latter information.

Maybe let's make an example. The auction goes
(1D) P (1N) 2C
The 2C bidder and his partner agreed to play "doodad" here. His partner thought that 2C is natural when playing "doodad", yet the 2C bidder thought it showed the majors.

Don't you think that the 2C bidder's partner is in a better position to guess what the 2C bidder has, than someone thinking this partnership has never discussed this auction? If I am an opponent and find out he does not have clubs, one of my thoughts would be whether he tried to pull of a very strange psych. As his partner, my first and probably only thought would be "oh, probably he thought 2C is the majors when playing `doodad`".

I think at the very least, the opponents are entitled to know that the partnership agreed to play a gadget in this auction.

[mikeh]

cherdano, on 2015-April-30, 05:36, said:

Mike argued against a point I never made. I never claimed the bidder should explain opponents what his hand his, just that "no agreement" is less information than "we tried to agree a gadget here", and that the opponents are at least entitled to the latter information.

Maybe let's make an example. The auction goes
(1D) P (1N) 2C
The 2C bidder and his partner agreed to play "doodad" here. His partner thought that 2C is natural when playing "doodad", yet the 2C bidder thought it showed the majors.

Don't you think that the 2C bidder's partner is in a better position to guess what the 2C bidder has, than someone thinking this partnership has never discussed this auction? If I am an opponent and find out he does not have clubs, one of my thoughts would be whether he tried to pull of a very strange psych. As his partner, my first and probably only thought would be "oh, probably he thought 2C is the majors when playing `doodad`".

I think at the very least, the opponents are entitled to know that the partnership agreed to play a gadget in this auction.

I cannot understand how, in real life, the opps wouldn't learn that the widget exerts had had a misunderstanding. Read my posts again and you will see that I assumed that at some point the widgeteers called the TD or told the opps that there had been a failure to alert. The OP didn't ask whether the opps should be told that the widgeteers thought they had an agreement: it is impossible for that not to have happened, given that a TD was involved. The question was whether the opps were entitled to be told that one player thought A, the other B or even C.

Nobody ever suggested concealing the fact that they mistakenly thought they had some agreement.

Isn't the internet fun? We get heated arguments when it turns out there was never anything to argue about!

[nige1]

cherdano, on 2015-April-30, 05:36, said:

think at the very least, the opponents are entitled to know that the partnership agreed to play a gadget in this auction.

I agree with cherdano about how you should explain partner's bid but all this seems to be a digression from the OP. I think the the question was

You agree "Widget" (a specific well defined convention with meaning "C"). Unfortunately, you think it means "A" and partner thinks it means "B". You make a "Widget" bid, partner alerts, and opponents ask what it means.

In practice, partner might explain "No agreement" (mikeh). He might say "Widget" (cherdano). He might augment that with meaning "B" with varying degrees of confidence (nige1). Or partner might even guess "A" (Vampyr and Herman de Wael). (All oversimplified synopses).

IMO, Francis didn't ask "how should partner explain it". She asked "to what information about our "agreement" are opponents legally entitled, in theory?"

IMO, possible answers include
"No agreement
"Widget"
"C"

Although opponents might often discover we've made a mistake they are not legally entitled to that information. IMO, opponents are theoretically entitled to a correct description ("C") of the convention that we agreed to play ("Widget") -- not a misexplanation or "no agreement" (even if, in practice, we've forgotten Widget or not taken the trouble to learn it properly).

To assess damage, you sometimes need to establish what was our agreement. "C" would be the simplest interpretation and most reliable if we're ever tempted to be economical with the truth.

[mikeh]

nige1, on 2015-April-30, 08:42, said:

I agree with cherdano about how you should explain partner's bid but all this seems to be a digression from the OP. I think the the question was

you agree "Widget" (a specific well defined convention with meaning "C"). Unfortunately, you think it means "A" and partner thinks it means "B". You make a "Widget" bid, partner alerts, and opponents ask what it means.

In practice, partner might explain "No agreement" (mikeh). He might say "Widget" (cherdano). Partner might augment that with meaning "B" with varying degrees of confidence (nige1). Or he might even say "A" (Vampyr and Herman de Wael). (All oversimplified synopses).

IMO, Francis didn't ask "how should partner explain it". She asked "to what information about our "agreement" are opponents legally entitled, in theory?"

IMO, possible answers include
"No agreement
"Widget"
"C"

IMO, opponents aren't entitled to know we've mistaken our agreements. The y may discover this but they are not legally etitled to know. Opponents are theoretically entitled to a correct description of the convention that you've agreed to play -- not a misexplanation or "no agreement", even if, in practice, you've forgotten it or not taken the trouble to learn it.

You should improve your reading comprehension At no point did I ever suggest that if widget were alerted, that the opps should be told: no agreement. That is ludicrous. The alert, if one were made and a question asked, would elicit the explanation of B...the alerter thinks, mistakenly, that they have agreed to play B, so that is the explanation given. At the end of the auction, if the widgeteers declare, or at the end of the play if they defend, (A) tells the opps that B's explanation was incorrect, the TD is called, and takes (A) and (B) away from the table, separately, and determines that they had no actual agreement. He then adjusts the score if he concludes that the misinformation offered by B on the alert caused damage.

However, as I understand what happened, there was NO alert, and no explanation, because (B) thought that the bid meant B, which was non-alertable. Therefore the opps were not told anything at the time, and the question became: once the TD was called (since the offending side has an obligation to say that something has gone wrong...(A) 'knows' that there has been a failure to alert, since he thought his call, meaning A, was alertable), and the TD has discovered that there was no agreement, are the opps entitled to know either what A meant, or what B understood or what the 'real' widget meant....A, B, or C, or any combination of them.

As for the notion that the opps are entitled to C, that is absurd. The opps are entitled to know the agreement that the partnership had. At no point did either partner think that they played C...they didn't even know C existed....so it is truly mind-blowingly silly to say that the opps were 'entitled' to be told that the widget players had an agreement to play C.

Since all the opps are entitled to know at this point...a point when they know that something went wrong...that the opps thought they were playing something called widget....is that the opps had no agreement as to what widget meant. It really is pretty simple, and it strikes me as strange that both Cherdano and Nige1, and others, seem to misunderstand the situation.

No alert was made.

No explanation of any kind was offered at the time of the widget bid. Were an explanation to have been given at the time of widget, it would be the meaning understood by the partner of the widget bidder, and this would constitute misinformation, but that couldn't be discovered until later, since (A) is not allowed to say...'no...that's not what widget means'. However, this wasn't the case..no explanation was given.

No misinformation was given at that time

However, (A) became aware that his partner had either carelessly forgotten to alert or had a different, non-alertable, understanding of widget. Therefore some harm may have arisen from that fact, and, if so, an adjustment is warranted.

[nige1]

mikeh, on 2015-April-30, 09:02, said:

You should improve your reading comprehension At no point did I ever suggest that if widget were alerted, that the opps should be told: no agreement. That is ludicrous.

I did my best to summarise the arguments, knowing that I might make mistakes. Sorry, I'm afraid that I misunderstood what mikeh wrote earlier

mikeh, on 2015-April-27, 09:18, said:

My view is similar to what some others have said: we are obliged to proffer our agreement, as we understand it to be.

It seems to me that, at the point of the question, what I know is that we have agreed that the previous call was widget and carried an agreed-upon meaning, but that I am aware that we have not discussed what the last call meant. I may have a strong view that logically it should mean A (or B), but the fact is that we have no agreement, beyond what I think is implied by bridge logic.

I therefore think that all I ought to be saying is: 'we have not discussed this sequence, and it has never arisen before', and even the last part of that is probably surplus to requirements.

We definitely should not, in my view, volunteer how we think it ought to be played.

So at the table, subject to the conditions of contest, we say only that we have no agreement, and the opps are now fully informed and cannot conceivably claim that they have been misinformed.

There may be scope, if the conditions of contest or the rules in effect so provide, for some disciplinary penalty for playing an incompletely discussed gadget. However, in most events, at least in ACBLand, any harm done to the opps is the rub of the green. After all, unless widget is a destructive device, the odds are that a major misunderstanding will harm the users of the gadget more than the opps.

[barmar]

nige1, on 2015-April-30, 08:42, said:

Although opponents might often discover we've made a mistake they are not legally entitled to that information. IMO, opponents are theoretically entitled to a correct description ("C") of the convention that we agreed to play ("Widget") (not a misexplanation or "no agreement", even if, in practice, we've forgotten Widget or not taken the trouble to learn it).

To assess damage, you sometimes need to establish what was our agreement. "C" would be the simplest interpretation and most reliable if we're ever tempted to be economical with the truth.

But "C" was NOT your agreement. Neither of you thinks you're playing C, so how could that be your agreement?

Consider a non-bridge example. A comes from a country where the standard tipping rate is 10%, B is from a country where it's standard to tip 20%. They meet for dinner in the US, where the standard is 15%, but neither is aware of our local customs. If they agree to split the check and that each should put in the standard tip, would you say they've agreed to put in 15% each?

In both cases, what you have is a total misunderstanding, no agreement whatsoever.

The fact that you thought your agreement was named Widget is irrelevant. Telling it to the opponents does not help them understand your bids in any way.

I guess the people who say that you should explain something like "Widget, but no further discussion", are basing it on the philosophy "The opponents are entitled to everything the partners know." Since the partners know the name they used in their discussion, the opponents should be given that, as well. That's normally consistent with the letter of the Laws, which says that you must explain the meaning of calls. But in this case, it's actually the opposite -- telling them Widget or C is just as much misinformation as explaining A or B, because none of them are actually your agreement.

[mikeh]

nige1, on 2015-April-30, 09:20, said:

I did my best to precis the arguments, knowing I mistakes were inevitable. Soeey, I'm afraid that misunderstood what mikeh wrote earlier [size="2"]

talk about quote mining in a desperate attempt to salvage having made a bad post! You quote from my initial post. See post 31 where I explain that the post you quote was based on a misunderstanding of the OP. At the time of the post you now quote, I thought widget had been bid, correctly, and that what had happened was a followup to widget, where the bidders knew they hadn't discussed the meaning of the followup....yes, that reflects poorly on MY reading comprehension as of that post But I did correct myself, and it isn't fair for you to argue with my later posts and, when challenged, claim that you were thinking of my initial post. That smacks of trying to evade admitting to error. We all make errors. What defines a person is not whether that person makes a mistake, but how that person deals with realizing he or she has erred.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2015-April-30, 09:25, said:

I guess the people who say that you should explain something like "Widget, but no further discussion", are basing it on the philosophy "The opponents are entitled to everything the partners know." Since the partners know the name they used in their discussion, the opponents should be given that, as well. That's normally consistent with the letter of the Laws, which says that you must explain the meaning of calls. But in this case, it's actually the opposite -- telling them Widget or C is just as much misinformation as explaining A or B, because none of them are actually your agreement.

Which is why the ACBL Alert Procedure, and similar regulations of other RAs, specifically says that "explaining" an agreement by naming a convention is not adequate disclosure.

Perhaps the question should not be "to what explanation(s) are opponents entitled?" but rather "what explanations are the pair using a convention required to make?"

[nige1]

mikeh, on 2015-April-30, 09:35, said:

talk about quote mining in a desperate attempt to salvage having made a bad post! You quote from my initial post. See post 31 where I explain that the post you quote was based on a misunderstanding of the OP. At the time of the post you now quote, I thought widget had been bid, correctly, and that what had happened was a followup to widget, where the bidders knew they hadn't discussed the meaning of the followup....yes, that reflects poorly on MY reading comprehension as of that post But I did correct myself, and it isn't fair for you to argue with my later posts and, when challenged, claim that you were thinking of my initial post. That smacks of trying to evade admitting to error. We all make errors. What defines a person is not whether that person makes a mistake, but how that person deals with realizing he or she has erred.

OK, I'll try to make amends by quoting mikeh's post 31, in full

mikeh, on 2015-April-27, 12:00, said:

I think I misunderstood the OP. I had thought that we were concerned with the followup to widget, a situation analogous to a 3-level response to a Jacoby 2N forcing raise of a major opening bid.

IOW, we had announced 'widget' the previous call and one of us had made a subsequent call, and the confusion set in then.

However, it seems to me that what Frances was describing is that we have misunderstood what widget is. We think we have agreed to play widget, but neither of us actually knows what widget shows, and we each have our own, mistaken, belief.

It's as if we have agreed to play Suction over their 1N, where a suit bid shows either the suit immediately above or the other two suits. However, our discussion was: let's play Suction over their 1N.

Then one of us bids 2♠, thinking that it shows spades and a lower, and partner thinks it shows just the minors.

I am a lawyer by training and while I appreciate that rules from one sphere don't always translate well into another, what springs to my mind is that what we have here is a case of mutual mistake. The two players thought they had an agreement, but in fact they never did...there was a fundamental misunderstanding as to what 'widget' meant.

They had no agreement.

I stand by my earlier post to the effect that this sort of screwup is the rub of the green, and the opps can be upset but not entitled to redress. However, if the conditions of contest so allow, I would strongly support a penalty against the widgeteers.

I have played in events in which this sort of error will get the TD telling the widget-players that widget is now struck from their convention card, and they cannot substitute any other convention in its place. In the notrump defence analogy, they are now playing natural overcalls. This would be in addition to any matchpoint, imp or VP penalty.

I also see that Francis subsequently stated that nobody alerted or asked about the widget bid at the time you made it, so how partner should explain it is less important.

[Vampyr]

nige1, on 2015-April-30, 08:42, said:

Or partner might even guess "A" (Va[size="2"]mpyr and Herman de Wael).

Wow I wish I had those powerful hallucinogens you think I was on. How or why would partner guess A when he thinks B?

As for C, it becomes relevant only if the opponents look at the CC, see "widget" and know what C is. While this is a possible occurrence, it didn't happen in this case.

[nige1]

Vampyr, on 2015-April-30, 11:11, said:

Wow I wish I had those powerful hallucinogens you think I was on. How or why would partner guess A when he thinks B?

As for C, it becomes relevant only if the opponents look at the CC, see "widget" and know what C is. While this is a possible occurrence, it didn't happen in this case.

Just more stupidity on my part. Sorry, Vampyr, I misinterpreted your earlier post

Vampyr, on 2015-April-28, 01:48, said:

It seems to me that the correct information should be the understanding of the person who made the bid (A?), because without this information the opponents were bidding in possession of MI; also this is the information they will need for the play of the hand.

For those who say the pair had "no agreement", well, whatever, but the player was showing a hand with a bid, and the opponents are entitled to know what hand he was showing.

Francis says "Widget" is on our SC but doesn't say opponents know what it means. I think I understand that vampyr's argument but I disagree with it

[blackshoe]

nige1, on 2015-April-30, 11:28, said:

Just more stupidity on my part. Sorry, Vampyr, I misinterpreted your earlier post Francis says "Widget" is on our SC but doesn't say opponents know what it means. I think I understand that argument but I disagree with it

I think you're confusing "fact posited in the OP" with "argument".

[nige1]

blackshoe, on 2015-April-30, 11:38, said:

I think you're confusing "fact posited in the OP" with "argument".

"That" was meant to refer to "vampyr's argument", corrected in above post. I mean the attribution not the argument .