[blml] Obviously this is the prime duty

[David Burn]

[HdW]

I am sure and certain that the WBFLC did not address this issue. And 
if the ACBLLC did, I would be surprised not to have heard about it either.

[DALB]

There was a celebrated case a few years ago involving Garozzo, the details
of which I do not recall precisely but the gist of which was roughly:

South made a bid that showed hearts. Systemically it showed four or five
hearts, but it was explained as showing five hearts. South actually had five
hearts, so (no doubt for the best of motives) did not see fit to correct the
mistaken explanation.

East, on lead against the final contract, did not lead a heart. A heart lead
would have been successful; the actual lead was not.

East argued that had he been told that South's bid showed four or five
hearts, he would have led a heart.

The ruling went in favour of East-West - that is, the committee decided that
had East been given accurate information about North-South's agreements,
instead of accurate information about South's actual hand, he would
(fortuitously) have found the winning lead.

I believe that this happened in an ACBL event. I can if necessary unearth
the details when I return from Shanghai, but I am sure that other
subscribers to this list will know them already.

Kaplan wrote in the Bridge World many years ago on this topic; his view was
clearly that a pair was under an obligation to explain its agreements even
if it knew that by doing so, it would deceive the opponents as to the actual
cards it held. It seems to me reasonable to infer that the ACBL has at least
tacitly accepted the notion that you must tell your opponents what your bids
mean, not what cards your partner has got.

Herman has said that the Laws are inconsistent, but I do not find them so as
far as this issue is concerned. As I have said, a player's duty is to be
deaf when the opponents are asking questions and his partner is answering
them. It would be better if the Laws explicitly said this, rather than
saying "when a player has UI, he must not act on it", but the effect is the
same.

Of course, this may require superhuman feats of doublethink by players - but
these are not impossible. I recall a deal from a late round of the Spring
Foursomes, a major English competition, a great many years ago. David Price
and I bid the North-South cards (it does not matter what they were) thus:

West      North     East      South
          Burn                Price
2D (1)    2NT (2)   Pass      3D (3)
Pass      3H  (4)   Pass      4C (5)
Pass      4H  (6)   Pass      6D (7)
Pass      6H  (8)   Pass      Pass
Pass

(1) Multi
(2) Price played this as minors, a suggestion that I had vetoed (we were a
new partnership), but he alerted it because he was convinced that my veto
was not in force for this event.
(3) I, who was convinced that my veto was in force for this event, altered
3D because it was a transfer to hearts. At no time did our opponents ask any
questions. Here we were in the position I described in an earlier post -
although we were not giving explanations, our alerts in themselves would
misinform our opponents, but neither of us knew who was doing the
misinforming since we both genuinely did not know what our actual methods
were, and we could not therefore apply L75D2.
(4) I was completing the transfer; Price thought I had a big minor
two-suiter with a heart fragment. (Of course, he knew that I did not really
have this, but he knew that he was supposed to proceed as though I did.)
(5) Price was showing a useful feature in clubs (he had Qx); I thought he
had a heart-club two-suiter. (Of course, I knew that he did not really have
this, but I knew that I was supposed to proceed as though he did.)
(6) I was signing off in hearts; Price was pretending that I had a control.
(7) Price was signing off in diamonds; I was pretending that he was asking
about trump quality in hearts.
(8) My hearts weren't very good. This wasn't particularly surprising, since
West had a maximum weak two bid in the suit.

The final contract went six down undoubled, NS minus 300. At the other table
West opened 1H, North overcalled 1NT, East doubled, everyone passed and the
contract went two down, NS minus 300 and one of the more remarkable flat
boards in history.

David Burn
London, England