Tricky tourney hand

[ian84]

A touch of controversy in today's Serious Sunday tourney

NS: non-vul, EW vul North and East pass and South opens 3C which all pass. It goes 1-off for a top. On most other tables EW find a Heart contract bidding 2 or 3 Hearts and it actually makes 4.

South held
S: K864
H: 53
D: K4
C: KJ432

East questioned the bid on the poor club holding and that the bid would normally show 7 Clubs. He therefore suggested that South should have alerted the hand. Judging by North's later comment, he also expected South to have 7 clubs and there was no agreement to use the bid for a weaker hand. 

Thoughts anyone?

[Curls77]

Very good point u brought here Ian.

Similar situations happen now and then in IAC, and I am sure more often elsewhere.
By IAC COC alerts are mandatory on all artificial bids or any kind of partnership agreement that is not standard. But here, unless NS had agreement that 3C opener can be 5-carder, there is nothing to alert. South's partner was also equally surprised as opps were.
IAC generally does not reccommend or encourage pyscho bids, and some IAC TDs even forbid them, and announce so in rules. But, fact is that we do not have tools to punish someone who breaks such rule. Suspension seems too harsh, removal from trny too mild.

I'd be interested hear opinions from other TDs and members that often play f2f, how their TD handle it?

[kenberg]

The self-alerting idea does cause some problems. Here S knows he is stretching, N does not know S is stretching. So no alert should be given.

Third hand alerts have a wide range. This one is too much for me, but I would never object if an opponent decided to give it a shot. And a 3 preempt is more likely than other 3 level bids to be shaky anyway, since a 2 opening is presumably a strong  hand.

Anyway, no, I would not expect a self-alert. What would it be? Alert, I am stretching a bit here? Quite often a bid is a stretch based on hope.

Also it is not really a psych. Opening it 1 would be a psych, he does not have hearts, but he does have clubs. Not seven, but if he had six I don't think it would be seen as unusual really. So he is short a club from what would often be the case. That's not a psych, at least not as I see it.

I should perhaps acknowledge that I have no training as a director. But I see this as: He opened clubs expecting to play in clubs and hoping a club contract would go well. Fine by me.

[jcreech]

I am a club director, and while I think it is not good bridge to open hands like this 3 , there is no rule requiring an alert or description UNLESS there is an agreement.

Personally, I am more likely to open this 1 than 3 .

[wackojack]

Speaking as an ex f2f club director:

It is perfectly normal for a 3rd position opening bid of 3 to made on 6 cards at favourable vulnerability.  Andrew  Robson explains this well in his book called  "Partnership Bidding" . He even goes as far as to reccommend opening 3 with a 5 card suit in certain circumstances. In the f2f world, this should be alerted by the partner if this is the understanding. In the on line world, I would not expect the preemptor to alert this unless there was a specific arrangement with partner always to open 3 with a 5 or 6 card at favourable vulnerability.

This raises a more general  question about self alerting opening bids in the on line world. For example.  With some of my partners an opening bid of 1 guarantees a 4 card suit.  This means that with a 4432 distribution, I would open 1  ! with a 2 card suit when outside the 1NT opening  range.  In the f2f world the partner announces "could be 2"  When I make this bid in Iac this is also what I announce.  However, I am aware that some of the lesser experienced players may be misled by this announcement, thinking that a 2 card suit may be normal instead of very rare. Sor perhaps I should instead say something like " With 4-4 in the majors and 3 diamonds, I will open 1  on a 2 card suit"  Perhaps even this could be misleading as ops may think that i am telling them that this IS my distribution.t

[kenberg]

Yes, alerting, even with the best of intentions, can sometimes be tricky. And one of the complications is that often a pair might have only partial agreements. Example: With 3=2=4=4 hands I tend to open 1 , my f2f partner tends to open 1 . He says Frank Stewart recommends 1 . I know Stewart used to recommend 1 but I haven't seen him say that for quite a while. The problem I se is that you open 1 , Lho overcalss 1 , partner makes a negative double. Unless me hearts are Ax I don't like my options. Had I opened 1 then I can rebid 2 . I would like to be 5-4 for that call but with Qxx / xx /  AQxx / AJxx.  I like opening 1 and then, after (1 )  - X - (Pass) I can bid 2 .  Steve Robinson, in Washington Standard, says that with 4-4 in the minors you can open either, and I like that. I try to anticipate how things might go, and usually I decide to open 1 . Do we really want to alert and try to explain all of this? For that matter, I cannot think of any online partner that I have where either of knows what the other opens holding 3=2=4=4.

I think everyone should relax a bit. There is a difference between the Bermuda Bowl and casual online games. Meckwell have been playing together since something  like the late 1970s and surely they know a great deal about what each other's bids mean.The rest of us know much less about our partner's style, or even about our own. Here is something recent in f2f at the club. Our auction was 1NT - 2 - 2 - 4 - 4 -4NT - 5 something (I forget how many keys I had)  - 6 . Before the opening lead I explained that I had not alerted partner's 4 because I could not recall our discussing it, but I thought it was probably a stiff and 6+ spades. The opening lead was a and partner came down with 5=2=5=1 shape. He had extra strength, but so what, 3 over 2 would have been game forcing. It turned out not to matter. 6 was a good contract, much better than 6 . 6NT would have been even better for matchpoint reasons, but few were in it.

I told partner later that I thought, after my attempted explanation, he should have mentioned that the explanation I gave did not match his understanding. My idea is this. Bridge is supposed to be a game where the opponents are aware of our methods. If we conform to this, usually all is well. The opponents trust me to tell the truth, the best I can, and so a director is needed only for leads out of turn and such technical matters.

In the hand with the original post, if there was to be any alert at all I think it would have to be that they play third hand preempts as undisciplined, especially when non-vul. But everyone (almost everyone) plays third had non-vul preempts as undisciplined, so maybe an alert is needed only by those who play third hand non-vul preempts as disciplined! Just how undisciplined? Well, this one was very undisciplined, but I doubt they have set exact boundaries. A person is not required to adjust his explanation of undisciplined  to the particular hand that he holds.