[blml] The term "cue" [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[Adam Beneschan]

Marv wrote:
 
> One of San Diego's top players recently explained his partner's
> unAlerted simple raise of a weak two bid as "non-forcing" when my
> partner was considering a balancing 3S bid. Partner passed when
> given this explanation, which should have been something like "That
> is a drop-dead bid which I must pass." In the absence of an Alert
> this is the default explanation in ACBL-land, but most club players
> do not know it.

Since absolutely no one plays a simple raise here as forcing, it
sounds to me like your opponent either had a slip of the tongue or
just wasn't thinking carefully.  I don't think that's relevant whether
there was damage or not.  A director *could* perhaps argue that the
explanation was so nonsensical that your partner should have realized
there was more to it and protected himself, but I don't think I'd
argue this way---I'd still lean toward penalizing the player who made
the bad explanation.

By the way, my partnership would explain this as "not constructive,
doesn't invite opener to go on", or something like that.  But we'd
never explain it as "drop-dead", especially when it's my partner
opening the weak 2.  You never know what kind of weird hand he might
have decided to make a weak 2 on this time, and for all we know he
might actually bid on even though he's not supposed to, quite possibly
by bidding his second five-card suit.

                                -- Adam