From: grove@triangle.Berkeley.EDU (Eddie Grove)
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Subject: Re: A question of ethics
Date: 26 Aug 1992 20:52:17 GMT
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: triangle.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Aug26.001723.13242@linus.mitre.org> bs@gauss.mitre.org (Robert D. Silverman) writes:
>In article <1992Aug25.193357.28323@venus.ic.cmc.ca> antosz@scorpio.ic.cmc.ca writes:
>:The game is matchpoints and your partner hasn't played in a month.  Over the
>:course of the evening he's missed several calls (viz., he wasn't too sure of the
>:meaning of a bid).  Playing 2/1 with weak jump shifts the auction goes
>:	you	pard
>:	 1h	 2s
>:
>:Here's the problem, you're sure that pard means 2s to be strong.  Should you
>:alert the 2s as a weak jump shift or do you not alert and play it as strong?  I
  
>How can you be sure he intends it as strong? You are just guessing.
>However, you must act as if partner is following your agreements. You
>are not entitled to act as if it is strong because then you would be
>acting upon private information between you and your partner that is
>NOT available to the opponents. The information of course, is that you 
>and he know that he has made several systemic mistakes and is LIKELY
>to continue to make them.

If you tell the opponents, then this is NOT private information.
In fact, it could be argued that you are required to inform the opponents
of your partner's flakiness.
 
>On the other hand you can't simply alert and explain that you think
>it is strong because then you would be passing unauthorized info to
>PARTNER who *might* have remembered the agreement in the first time.

Clearly this would be wrong.
 
>You must alert and explain your *agreement* [weak jump shift] and act
>accordingly. Partner may not then take advantage of the fact that you
>think it is weak by doing something strange later.

It is my understanding of the current ACBL interpretation of the
alert procedure that your agreements include not only your
discussions with partner, but also past performance.  

For example, if partner has psyched more than once in a particular
auction, your knowledge of that tendency constitutes an agreement,
even though your "agreement" makes no reference to psyches.

In this light, you would be required to tell the opponents that your 
"agreement" is "weak", but that partner has been forgetting things tonight.
This is of course unauthorized information to partner.  However,
s/he need only bid consistently.

You ARE allowed to take a position, and I think that raising to 3S
(I don't see your hand in this article, but it doesn't matter too
much) is worth consideration.  If partner preempted, s/he will
pass, and if s/he bids again you know s/he holds a strong jump shift.

The main problem with what I am saying is that the ACBL probably also
has some rule that the 2S response cannot be "weak-or-strong", and
you have an illegal agreement.  But there is nothing you can do about
that - the fact is that partner might have bid 2S on either a weak
or a strong hand, and you know it, and under the psyche-hating ACBL
rules interpretations, that constitutes an agreement.


Or am I completely confused?  Any certified directors want to chew me out?


Eddie Grove
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge