[blml] agreements

[Ed Reppert]

On Oct 12, 2006, at 4:55 AM, Alain Gottcheiner wrote:

> 1. "I don't understand that agreement" doesn't necessarily mean  
> "we've no
> agreement". Something TDs and ACs keep forgetting.

Not sure what you mean here, unless you're saying that if two people  
"agree" to play such and such, they have an agreement even if one of  
them doesn't know how to play such and such. This may or may not be a  
problem - see below.

> 2. How does one ascertain the pair had an agreement of "standard on  
> unless
> agreed" ?

There is no "standard" - because the word means different things to  
different people - so that agreement is no agreement at all.

> 3. If a pair says "for everything undiscussed, we follow the  
> Kalamazoo Club
> system", and the players have different ideas of said system, do  
> they have
> an agreement ? In particular, may a book on that system be used by the
> TD/AC to determine the agreements ?
> Similarly, if a pair agrees to use John Doe's system, may John's  
> testimony
> be used to determine the pair's assumed agreements ?

If a pair agree to play by a book (or by the methods espoused by a  
third player), they have an agreement to play by that book - if both  
have read it. If one of them hasn't read it, then he doesn't know the  
system (and so, *cannot* explain it properly). As in #1 above, if  
there are multiple possible interpretations of what a method is (for  
example, Ogust, generally, is a 2NT ask about opener's weak two bid,  
and the responses generally show some combination of weak or strong  
hand and weak or strong suit - but some people order the responses  
differently) then I would question whether they really have an  
agreement if they haven't discussed which way they're gonna go. IOW,  
if at the table N says "Ogust?", S says "okay", and it later  
transpires they're on different wavelengths vis-a-vis the meaning of  
opener's 3D rebid, I would question whether they had a complete  
agreement in the first place. What I don't know is whether that makes  
such a 3D bid situation one of misbid or  misexplanation. I don't  
think a director can say "obviously misexplanation" just because  
either the way he plays it or the way one particular book has it,  
opener bid it "right". IOW, where players have different ideas what a  
bid means, I think the situation is usually one of misbid - though I  
would caution them to come to a firm agreement ASAP.

There is other possible situations - both players have read the book,  
but the book is ambiguous about something, or one player has  
misinterpreted or misremembered it. That last is clearly misbid if  
he's the one bidding, or misexplanation if he's the one explaining.  
The others are less than clear to me.

As a general principle, I think we want to require people to explain  
their agreements, but whether (or how much) we penalize them for  
misremembering, misunderstanding, or whatever should depend on the  
level of play - or perhaps the level of the players. Very unspecific,  
I know, but I'm not at all sure I can get more so.