Penalty after a partnership discussion on the bidding whilst the auction is still active
S opened 2NT, 20-22 balanced hand
N responded 5C.
E passed . S passed and then complained about N's jump bid of 5C.
N said he had misbid and meant to bid 4NT, that he was going to ask for aces, (Blackwood)
At this stage, W had not yet bid and thought that the pair had compromised the auction by discussing the bidding.
W doubled and thought the N/S partnership could not bid again after their mid auction discussion.
N jumped to a making 6NT.
What action should the director take?
Comments
For starters, West should have called the director prior to bidding.
South certainly has UI after North's comment and I would roll back if South had bid 6NT. I think that West was careless in the extreme to have doubled and I would be inclined to consider it a gambling action, although others might disagree. North knows that he misbid, with or without South's grumbling, and I'd be inclined to let the table result stand.
I would also apply a procedural penalty to NS for revealing a misbid while the auction was still open and maybe another procedural penalty for contravening best behaviour, depending on how I was feeling.
"W doubled and thought the N/S partnership could not bid again after their mid auction discussion."
W was wrong.
N/S shouldn't be arguing with each other during the auction, that's certainly true.
And South can't bid based on what he's learned from North's comments. But North knows that he bid 5C and partner passed it. He can do what he likes, and W brought his bad score down on his own head.
The TD could certainly penalise NS for their actions, but the result on the board stands. That's what happens when you make up your own ruling.
As others have said, the only relevant prohibitions on North and South here are based on the UI rules. This means that if North and South have more than one reasonable call (more precisely, more than one call that is a logical alternative), they must choose one that is counter-suggested by what partner said.
North has said "I meant to ask for aces", implying a strong hand. This suggests that North is looking for slam. As such, passing out the auction at the lowest level is counter-suggested for South, and if doing so is reasonable, South must do so. Generally speaking, after having made a bid as descriptive as 2NT, passing a non-forcing bid by partner is always reasonable (as you can assume that your partner has a better view of the hand than you do). So I'd say that South here is constrained to pass anything other than a forcing bid by North. (Possible exception: if South has systemically forced bids over interference by E/W, South would be allowed to make those.)
South has complained about North's jump bid; that's unauthorised information. North also has some authorised information: East's pass, South's pass, and West's double. Does South's complaining here suggest any particular action by North? I'd argue that it would depend somewhat on what was said. If South was complaining about North bidding non-systemically, North is likely to be prompted to notice that by West's double, and thus the AI duplicates the UI and there's no unauthorised information available. If South was complaining about North's bidding judgement, that might potentially give away something about South's hand, suggesting that North plays in a strain other than clubs; however, if North does not in fact have clubs, the counter-suggested action (which would be playing in 5!cXX) is clearly illogical, and thus North is free to choose an alternative (such as playing 5NT or 6NT).
Thus, my conclusions here: South is restricted from bidding unless forced to by their system; but South has not committed an infraction, because they did in fact pass at every opportunity. North is probably free to bid what they like, unless South's complaining implied something about South's hand; however, even if South's complaining did imply something about their hand to North, North is still entitled to pull 5!cX to an alternative contract if playing in 5!cX would be illogical or unreasonable.
Sometimes it's obvious by looking at North's hand (which you haven't shown) whether or not playing 5!cX or even 5!cXX is a logical alternative for North. If it turns out to be non-obvious, the typical way you'd resolve this would be to find some players of North's standard, give them the auction without the UI, and ask them what they'd do. The question would look like this:
"You hold hand. Your partner opened 2NT, and you bid 5!c. LHO passed, as did your partner, and RHO doubled. What do you do now? Did you seriously consider any other options?"
If nobody passes, passing is illogical; likewise, if hardly anyone seriously considers passing, passing is considered illogical (even if a small minority of people did pass). You can use a similar principle to work out whether various other options are logical alternatives for North.
If you get a lot of confused looks "why did I bid 5!c", you can probably assume that North's misbid is AI to North (because these people, without context, figured out that they'd misbid, so the UI is unlikely to have helped North in that). This might mean that North has no UI, and thus again is able to bid what they like.
In any case, you might want to impose a procedural penalty on N/S for such a large breach in procedure. Such a penalty would be applied to N/S's final score after all the play had taken place, and not to their score on the individual hand, and thus would not benefit E/W (unless N/S coincidentally happened to end up just above E/W in the final standings, or E/W and N/S were the only teams participating, as in a knockout).
I think the only concern (other than NS reprehensible actions) is whether South might have a raise to 7NT or 7C and not make it due to the UI. North's action suggests that he is not bidding 6NT quantitative - he is bidding it to avoid partner having to be silenced due to UI issues.
I don't expect most partnerships would play 6NT as quantitative in this situation. It's very plausible as natural and to play, and quantitative grand slam tries are normally 5NT, not 6NT.
I am pretty sure of that but if South has a decent club fit e.g. AKQXXand a ruffing value . . . .
Perhaps we should consider a split score ... As suggested above, ask some of N's peers what bids they would consider and then choose without the UI and give NS this score (if it is worse for them); EW keep the table score.
Yet another example of the importance of calling the director at the appropriate time.
Peter
What would be your legal basis for considering a split score? West's double as being gambling?
Presumably Law 11A. N/S have gained from W's ignorance of the law (on the basis that W would, given the AI from N/S's argument, have presumably passed out 5!c if they didn't think N/S were barred from bidding), and W took an action before calling the Director. Thus by Law 11A, any adjustment doesn't affect E/W's result.
I'm not convinced that gaining from an opponent's ignorance of the law is currently deemed an infraction.
I think I'm persuaded!
Whilst I, too, am persuaded that E/W should not receive the benefit of any adjustment to N/S's score, under Law 11A, I am not convinced that N/S's score should necessarily be adjusted, as opposed to them suffering a sizeable PP. But I do think that we should look at N's (and perhaps S's) actions using the normal methodology in UI cases, for which we would need the hand.
This is a case where I would penalise N/S whether or not I adjusted their score. Twice the standard amount, anyone?
There is probably a BB@B penalty to apply as well as law 74 and law 90 violations.
Hmm. It occurs to me, that you could consider the double as a chivalrous action based on the fact that the 5C bidder appears to have pulled an unintended bidding card, and I'd be tempted to rule as such. Sadly I think that's an abuse of directorial powers.
I think the suggestion is to adjust under law 11, on the basis that, given full knowledge of the laws, West would not have doubled 5C. I can't actually think of a reason not to apply this. It does bother me that if South doesn't say anything, West probably doesn't double. I guess if West says "I've got 6, I'm always doubling" that would do it, but we're told otherwise.
I'd give N/S one penalty, I think. As others have said, that's in addition to the score on the board.
My usual method of being kind to the opponents when RHO appears to have pulled the wrong card from the bid box is to ask LHO what the call means. That's normally enough to wake RHO up to the fact they played the wrong card, and in the case of mechanical error, they can call a Director to correct it. (LHO's answer is UI to the opposing partnership, but the fact I asked the question is AI.) I don't think there's a rule against asking a question for the benefit of the opponents.
(Also, when your opponents are bidding very strongly and end up bidding game in your six-card suit, you don't double in protective position. You pass the hand out, because if you double, they're very likely to correct to something they can actually make.)
Wouldn't matter if the response was UI or not - you can correct a mis=pull no matter how you find out about it. (Although there may be procedural penalties if the method used was not de-rigeur.) (And no - there is no rule about asking a question for the sole benefit of opponents).
Standing on your chair is optional.
I had an auction a couple of weeks ago, where I opened a Multi...
2D - (dbl) - pass - (3H)
pass - (4NT) - pass - (5H)
pass - (6H) - all pass
Even partner didn't realise that I had 6 hearts until near the end of the hand. +500 when they were cold for 6NT.