[blml] 40B3, etc.

[Eric Landau]

On Mar 19, 2008, at 12:21 AM, Robert Frick wrote:

> Hi Stephanie. Interesting idea. I just worked with if changing my
> insufficient bid. This is tough to do because Law 72B1 bars you from
> making any bid better than the ones that were at your disposal.
>
> After considerable effort:
>
> If a nonconventional or conventional bid is made sufficient by  
> raising it
> a level, it has the same meaning. For example, my partner opens 1S,  
> RHO
> bids 2D which I do not see, and I bid 2D natural showing a diamond  
> suit. A
> correction to 3D would then be natural, showing diamonds. Or my  
> partner
> opens 1S, opps bid 2NT unusual, and I foolishly bid 2C not seeing  
> the 2NT
> bid. A correction to 3C is now clubs, not unusual over unusual.
>
> This convention would have been useful for the old laws, but then  
> it could
> be used only when both bids were nonconventional. E.g., I open 1C and
> discover my opp has already opened. My bid of 2C should now mean  
> the same
> as my bid of 1C did. It does allow you to show a hand that you  
> otherwise
> might not have been able to show...but you have to hope that you don't
> gain from that in the auction, because if you do then 27D kicks in.  
> (And
> hence this is nothing for you to "worry" about.)
>
> Apologies if this is already known. If not, it's the "what I just  
> said"
> convention.

Under the 1997 laws, this was not a "convention"; it was a logical  
necessity.  You had at most one replacement call (RC) which would be  
allowed without penalty; if you made it, the IB was AI to your  
partner, who then knew to (legally) interpret the RC as having the  
presumptive meaning of the original IB.  This did not raise the issue  
under discussion.

This changes with the new(est) L27.  It is now possible for an IBer  
to have more than one RC he can make without penalty.  In my favored  
methods, if I try to open 1H, only to discover the my RHO has opened  
1S in front of me, I can correct without penalty to 2H under L27B1 
(a), and can also correct to either 2S or 3H under L27B1(b).  My  
partner knows this, and also has the AI that I intended to open 1H.   
No agreement is needed for him to understand that my choice among the  
three calls I can make without barring him carries some message.   
Since, for example, 2S would show 5-5 in hearts and a minor with  
opening values or better, he can surely assume that if I correct to  
2H or 3H I do not have a 5-card minor!  More subtly, since 2H shows a  
weaker hand than 3H -- usually less than opening bid values, but I  
can't have that here -- partner will assume, even without agreement,  
that a 3H RC would be stronger than a 2H RC, even though we have no  
agreement as to where the cutoff might be.

The point, of course, is that even if you make no explicit agreements  
about RCs after specific IBs, you may be forced by circumstance to  
develop implicit agreements over time.  The Law can't ban you from  
doing something that you cannot avoid doing.  And since the Law makes  
it clear that implicit agreements are to be treated no differently  
than explicit ones, if you can't ban the former in a particular  
circumstance you can't ban the latter either.

This is one of several circumstances in which the Law would be well  
served if it recognized a clear distinction between meanings of calls  
that can be derived from a partnership's fundamental systemic  
principles and general "bridge logic" and meanings that depend on  
specific partnership agreement -- whether or not the former has been  
previously revealed at the table.


Eric Landau
1107 Dale Drive
Silver Spring MD 20910
ehaa at starpower.net