[blml] De Whale [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[richard.hills at immi.gov.au]

Imps (Butler Pairs)
Dlr: North
Vul: North-South

                A972
                T7652
                92
                98
QJ643                         5
4                             AJ83
QJ85                          AK6
765                           AKJ32
                KT8
                KQ9
                T743
                QT4

The bidding proceeds:

WEST      NORTH     EAST      SOUTH
Richard
---       Pass      1C (1)    Pass
1S        Pass      2NT(2)    Pass
3C (3)    Pass      3D (4)    Pass
3S (5)    Pass      4H (6)    Pass
4S (7)    Pass      4NT(8)    Pass
?

(1) Explicit partnership agreement shows at least 4 clubs.
(2) Explicit partnership agreement shows 19-20 balanced
    with less than 4 spades.
(3) Explicit partnership agreement check-back for shape.
    But alerted and explained (upon request of RHO) as
    Puppet Stayman.  Following the requirements of Law
    75D2, I maintained my usual vacant expression.
(4) Explicit partnership agreement shows 4 diamonds, and
    also explicit partnership agreement that 3 spades are
    neither promised nor denied (up-the-line showing of
    shape by explicit partnership agreement).  Due to the
    misinterpretation of 3C as Puppet Stayman, partner
    fondly thought she was showing an unspecified 4-card
    major.  I alerted 3D because of our up-the-line
    agreement.  RHO (and pard) thought I was alerting due
    to 3D being a Puppet Stayman response, so RHO did not
    bother enquiring about this call.
(5) Natural, 5 spades, choice of contracts between NT and
    spades.  Alerted and explained (upon request of RHO)
    as showing 4 hearts and denying 4 spades.
(6) Explicit partnership agreement that 3NT is required
    with less than three spades, so implicit partnership
    agreement that 4H shows the ace of hearts and 3
    spades.  Not alerted, due to the ABF Alert Regulation
    defining calls above 3NT as "self-alerting".
(7) Up to this point partner has not received any UI to
    awaken her to a wheel falling off.  But my somewhat
    unusual 4S was AI which caused her to wake up.  She
    initially thought that I might have forgotten Puppet
    Stayman but, on re-examining the bidding box cards,
    realised to her horror that she was the one who had
    gotten a bog-standard checkback sequence wrong.  She
    therefore pressed the eject button with 4NT, in a
    desperate hope that I would interpret 4NT as a signoff.
(8) In analogous auctions with spades directly or indirectly
    agreed as trumps 4NT would be, by explicit partnership
    agreement, old-fashioned Keycard Blackwood (with a 5C
    response showing 0 or 3 keycards in spades), so we
    therefore have an implicit partnership agreement that
    4NT is also old-fashioned Keycard Blackwood in this
    particular auction.

What call do you make?
What other call do you consider making?

The cloudy whale (or De Wael) problem is, of course, that
partner's decision to over-ride my signoff in 4S with a 4NT
call is inconsistent with her previous limit bid of 2NT.

There are two obvious possibilities:

(a) a wheel fell off somewhere in the auction, so pard is
desperately trying to signoff in 4NT, expecting notrumps to
score ten tricks but spades to score fewer, or

(b) partner has discovered another ace during the auction,
so with a 23-count is catching up with Keycard Blackwood.

Since I had UI that a wheel had fallen off, thus UI that 4NT
was intended as a natural signoff, my only legal logical
alternative was to respond 5C (0 or 3 keycards) to Keycard
Blackwood in spades.  And, of course, partner passed my 5C
response to "Blackwood".

My virtue was rewarded, since 5C is the only East-West game
which makes against any defence.

:-)


Best wishes

Richard James Hills, amicus curiae
National Training Branch, DIAC
02 6225 6285

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