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Full disclosure?

This happened in a match a few months ago but it still annoys me ... should I be or is it just bridge?

Opps were playing a 15-17NT with a version of Stayman, the responses to which were alerted and described as (amongst other things) "maximum with5 spades" or "minimum with no 4-card major". Each response included the maximum or minimum part. This came up several times in the 12-board set and at the end it was clear their system required all 16HCP hands to be fitted in to either the maximum or minimum boxes. This made defence more difficult, clearly (with declarer on maximum) knowing partner has only 3HCP and can"t have the A needed to defeat the contract means I look in a different direction ... except she can.

Convention card wasn't"t any more explicit. So, should this be explicitly disclosed or is it just bridge? Any thoughts?

Peter

Comments

  • It sounds as though they would be better advised to describe their hands as lower-range or upper-range, though I have to say that any time I heard a hand described as maximum or minimum I would consider it possible that they had the mid-range number of points.

  • edited March 2019

    The opponents' descriptions were within half an HCP of what you were expecting, and it's quite likely that they weren't using a strict point count anyway. I'd argue that "maximum"/"minimum" for a 1NT opening bid usually cover a range of strength equivalent to 1½ HCP (with lots of upgrading and downgrading for features of the hand), and a player whose bid showed an exact HCP count would need to describe that differently (e.g. "17 HCP exactly"). That said, people who are using complex relay systems that can pin down the exact strength of a hand often use the "exactly" terminology to talk about strength to the nearest HCP, but not by counting HCP (i.e. hands can be upgraded and downgraded at will). It would be very unusual for a bidding system to have a way to show the exact number of HCP independent of other factors, because that information tends to be more useful to the opponents than it is to the bidder's partner.

    In general, I don't think the common bridge meaning of "minimum"/"maximum" are what you'd expect it to be; it often covers around half the range of the bid. (For example, the official definition of Standard American Yellow Card – a bidding system that's sometimes enforced for "everyone uses the same bidding system" tournaments in the US – requires the player who bids a weak two to classify their hand as either minimum or maximum upon hearing a 2NT response, and yet weak twos in that system have a range of 5–11 HCP! In this case, a "minimum" is just anything that's judged to be under average strength for the bid, and not necessarily in terms of a strict HCP count.)

  • Short answer: "just bridge".

    To elaborate, I think that when they describe the hand as "maximum" or "minimum" there is some inference that they are splitting their 16-counts fairly equally between the two. You wouldn't really expect them to be able to split the range three ways with the number of responses available, would you?

    By contrast, had they said "maximum" or "non-maximum" this would have suggested that most or all 16-counts were treated as "non-maximum"; had they said "minimum" or "non-minimum", this would have suggested that 16-counts were treated as in the upper part of the range.

    Clearly saying "upper end of the range" or "lower end of the range" would have been a slightly clearer way of providing the inference as to what they did with 16-counts, but I wouldn't mind betting that it never occurred to them for a moment either that they were not providing adequate disclosure, or that an opponent would think that "maximum" (or "minimum") precluded a 16-count.

    I'm afraid I think that if you needed to know whether or not opener could have a 16-count in order to count the hand, you could and should have asked "what do you do with 16-counts?". I think you would have received a slightly puzzled "we treat what we consider to be a good 16-count as maximum and a poor 16-count as minimum".

  • @ais523 said:
    The opponents' descriptions were within half an HCP of what you were expecting, and it's quite likely that they weren't using a strict point count anyway. I'd argue that "maximum"/"minimum" for a 1NT opening bid usually cover a range of strength equivalent to 1½ HCP (with lots of upgrading and downgrading for features of the hand), and a player whose bid showed an exact HCP count would need to describe that differently (e.g. "17 HCP exactly"). That said, people who are using complex relay systems that can pin down the exact strength of a hand often use the "exactly" terminology to talk about strength to the nearest HCP, but not by counting HCP (i.e. hands can be upgraded and downgraded at will). It would be very unusual for a bidding system to have a way to show the exact number of HCP independent of other factors, because that information tends to be more useful to the opponents than it is to the bidder's partner.

    In general, I don't think the common bridge meaning of "minimum"/"maximum" are what you'd expect it to be; it often covers around half the range of the bid. (For example, the official definition of Standard American Yellow Card – a bidding system that's sometimes enforced for "everyone uses the same bidding system" tournaments in the US – requires the player who bids a weak two to classify their hand as either minimum or maximum upon hearing a 2NT response, and yet weak twos in that system have a range of 5–11 HCP! In this case, a "minimum" is just anything that's judged to be under average strength for the bid, and not necessarily in terms of a strict HCP count.)

    (I hadn't see this when I posted).

    I'm not sure that complex relay systems tend to concentrate on precise point count, because sensible valuation methods (as you acknowledge) aren't just a matter of counting schmoints. However, if an opponent did tell me that something showed "exactly" something or other, I don't think I would expect upgrading or downgrading. In my experience "exactly" is not a very common word to encounter in opponents' descriptions, except in regard to distribution.

    Other than that I agree with everything you say.

  • Mostly just bridge, some very good discussions of the relevant points above. As is mentioned, occasionally a pair will have a specific understanding of what is or is not a minimum, I think quite a few players will tend to upgrade the 16 point hands more than they downgrade. There's one strong player at our club likes invites to be "bid on if not completely minimum" and that is the kind of information they should disclose.

    But there's usually some ambiguity in these agreements, where they use their judgement, and you just have to do the same :).

  • @JamesC said:
    Mostly just bridge, some very good discussions of the relevant points above. As is mentioned, occasionally a pair will have a specific understanding of what is or is not a minimum, I think quite a few players will tend to upgrade the 16 point hands more than they downgrade. There's one strong player at our club likes invites to be "bid on if not completely minimum" and that is the kind of information they should disclose.

    With one partner I have an agreement that we don't stretch to invite but do stretch to accept an invitation, which comes to much the same thing. And it is sensible to take account of the fact that 15-counts are significantly more common than 16-counts or 17-counts.

  • It sounds like the pair was playing Checkback after a 1NT opening.

    Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live

  • @Abbeybear said:
    With one partner I have an agreement that we don't stretch to invite but do stretch to accept an invitation, which comes to much the same thing. And it is sensible to take account of the fact that 15-counts are significantly more common than 16-counts or 17-counts.

    "Invite seldom, accept often" - David Stevenson says this applies to dinner parties and game invitations.

    The mathematics around avoiding playing 2NT when it might not make, means that invitations should be accepted on more than 50% of the range, balanced by invitations being made more sparingly.

    I think it is a common understanding that (based on a three-point range) players will accept with all but the lowest point count, and invite accordingly.

  • I play a method similar to this after a 1NT opening - some of opener's rebids are range-specific and we alert and announce as above: "minimum 4 hearts" or "maximum 5-card major" or whatever. I have to admit I always thought it 'obvious' or 'general bridge knowledge' that the range was divided into two: opener must be either maximum or minimum with nothing in between. Generally 16s are split about 50/50 but some 15s would be a maximum and some 17s would be a minimum. (Compare AQ109 A10 KQ109x 109 and KQJ J32 AKQ J432)

    We have a few sequences where a 1NT or 2NT opener is asked to split their range into 3. When this comes up, we alert and describe as 'bottom third', 'middle third' and 'top third' of the range. [This is not just HCP-related - it is in the context of opener being asked, for example, about their suitability for a heart slam]

  • @Robin_BarkerTD said:

    I think it is a common understanding that (based on a three-point range) players will accept with all but the lowest point count, and invite accordingly.

    Bear in mind that with the common ranges of 12-14, 13-15, 14-16, 15-17 that means (roughly) accepting with half of hands and rejecting with half.

  • @Frances said:
    I play a method similar to this after a 1NT opening - some of opener's rebids are range-specific and we alert and announce as above: "minimum 4 hearts" or "maximum 5-card major" or whatever. I have to admit I always thought it 'obvious' or 'general bridge knowledge' that the range was divided into two: opener must be either maximum or minimum with nothing in between. Generally 16s are split about 50/50 but some 15s would be a maximum and some 17s would be a minimum. (Compare AQ109 A10 KQ109x 109 and KQJ J32 AKQ J432)

    We have a few sequences where a 1NT or 2NT opener is asked to split their range into 3. When this comes up, we alert and describe as 'bottom third', 'middle third' and 'top third' of the range. [This is not just HCP-related - it is in the context of opener being asked, for example, about their suitability for a heart slam]

    OK, most think this just bridge ... but how hard would it be to say "15 or 16 with 4 hearts" if that is your agreement?

    Whilst I fully accept the difference in playing strength of the hands above I think for them both to be described as "maximum with something about major suit holdings" and no caveat about how you evaluate maximum and minimum is a step too far.

    Peter

  • @pg10003 said:

    OK, most think this just bridge ... but how hard would it be to say "15 or 16 with 4 hearts" if that is your agreement?

    Because it's not our agreement. Our agreement is that it shows what we evaluate to be in the bottom half of the range of a 1NT bid. That will include some 14s and will include some but not all of the 16s. It could include a 17. It might not include some 15s.

    It seems that you want your opponents to have a strict HCP definition of what makes maximum or minimum. There's no requirement for them to do so. And as a default, I would expect players who describe their bids as showing a 'maximum' or 'minimum' not to be defining it by point count. If the systemic agreement was that a bid shows a specific number of points, then I agree the disclosure should be exactly that ('shows exactly a 14-count') but such agreements are incredibly rare.

    I would tend to assume without further discussion that "minimum" means bottom half but I agree it is potentially ambiguous: bottom quarter, bottom half, bottom decile, anything but the best 10% of hands but I think that if you really want to know what they mean by 'minimum' then you need to ask. I wouldn't rule against someone for poor disclosure if they meant something slightly different - there's a common mantra to 'invite heavy, accept light' which implies that an invitation expects opener to bid on with (say) anything except the bottom quarter of hands. But I wouldn't expect any more detailed disclosure than "invitational".

    "and no caveat about how you evaluate maximum and minimum is a step too far."

    I really think you are out on a limb here. If you ask 'how do you evaluate maximum and minimum' in a bridge lesson I might talk about experience, about honours in the long suits, about good pips, about aces being worth more than 4 points and jacks less, about 5-card suits being good and 4333 hands being bad. But at the bridge table, I honestly don't think you deserve (legally speaking) anything more than "I will use my bridge judgement about whether the hand is maximum for minimum for a 1NT opening"

  • edited March 2019

    Trouble is such judgement and evaluation can cause real grief and reputational damage to individuals at club level.

    I am aware of case where a player would sometimes open a weak NT with a 4333 15 count, or an 11 count with a 5 card suit a some tens. Most 15s and 11s were not opened 1NT but some occasionally were.

    It reached such a head that the TD tried to had the player banned, and said player is now treated with great suspicion by many players within the club as being "at it". That is for a practice that is often accepted as "just bridge" at intermediate / advanced levels when using arguments along the lines of...:

    @Frances said:
    But at the bridge table, I honestly don't think you deserve (legally speaking) anything more than "I will use my bridge judgement about whether the hand is maximum for minimum for a 1NT opening"

    ...that many other players (not necessarily weaker ones) do not accept and for which they feel that they are owed more of an explanation under full disclosure.

  • @Frances said:

    @pg10003 said:

    OK, most think this just bridge ... but how hard would it be to say "15 or 16 with 4 hearts" if that is your agreement?

    Because it's not our agreement. Our agreement is that it shows what we evaluate to be in the bottom half of the range of a 1NT bid. That will include some 14s and will include some but not all of the 16s. It could include a 17. It might not include some 15s.

    It seems that you want your opponents to have a strict HCP definition of what makes maximum or minimum. There's no requirement for them to do so. And as a default, I would expect players who describe their bids as showing a 'maximum' or 'minimum' not to be defining it by point count. If the systemic agreement was that a bid shows a specific number of points, then I agree the disclosure should be exactly that ('shows exactly a 14-count') but such agreements are incredibly rare.

    I would tend to assume without further discussion that "minimum" means bottom half but I agree it is potentially ambiguous: bottom quarter, bottom half, bottom decile, anything but the best 10% of hands but I think that if you really want to know what they mean by 'minimum' then you need to ask. I wouldn't rule against someone for poor disclosure if they meant something slightly different - there's a common mantra to 'invite heavy, accept light' which implies that an invitation expects opener to bid on with (say) anything except the bottom quarter of hands. But I wouldn't expect any more detailed disclosure than "invitational".

    "and no caveat about how you evaluate maximum and minimum is a step too far."

    I really think you are out on a limb here. If you ask 'how do you evaluate maximum and minimum' in a bridge lesson I might talk about experience, about honours in the long suits, about good pips, about aces being worth more than 4 points and jacks less, about 5-card suits being good and 4333 hands being bad. But at the bridge table, I honestly don't think you deserve (legally speaking) anything more than "I will use my bridge judgement about whether the hand is maximum for minimum for a 1NT opening"

    You probably routinely play against players far better than me, and they would be far better able than I to interpret your last sentence. For me it is far too close to ... "I'm not going to tell you"

    Peter

  • TagTag
    edited March 2019

    What is a reasonable explanation, though, other than explaining about working honours, joined up cards, good shape, poor shape, compromised honours, good intermediates or the lack thereof? On two different days, I couldn't guarantee that I'd evaluate any given hand exactly the same way, depending on mood, which partner I was playing with or even how well I felt I was concentrating.

    It can simply come down to whether you like or dislike your hand for the bid at that moment and a player is not obliged to give an impromptu Bridge lesson to the opponents at the table.

  • @GrahamC said:
    Trouble is such judgement and evaluation can cause real grief and reputational damage to individuals at club level.

    I am aware of case where a player would sometimes open a weak NT with a 4333 15 count, or an 11 count with a 5 card suit a some tens. Most 15s and 11s were not opened 1NT but some occasionally were.

    It reached such a head that the TD tried to had the player banned, and said player is now treated with great suspicion by many players within the club as being "at it". That is for a practice that is often accepted as "just bridge" at intermediate / advanced levels when using arguments along the lines of...:

    @Frances said:
    But at the bridge table, I honestly don't think you deserve (legally speaking) anything more than "I will use my bridge judgement about whether the hand is maximum for minimum for a 1NT opening"

    ...that many other players (not necessarily weaker ones) do not accept and for which they feel that they are owed more of an explanation under full disclosure.

    This post makes me feel very uncomfortable unless it's known to be a beginners' session.

    I strongly feel that the TD should encourage the other players to work more on how to bid better, rather than asking this player to "dumb down" his own bidding to make it easier for opponents. I hope I don't find myself playing at this club, since I do all of what you describe and I often don't even need those extra 10s.

  • This post makes me feel very uncomfortable unless it's known to be a beginners' session.

    I strongly feel that the TD should encourage the other players to work more on how to bid better, rather than asking this player to "dumb down" his own bidding to make it easier for opponents. I hope I don't find myself playing at this club, since I do all of what you describe and I often don't even need those extra 10s.

    i don't want to get into the details, but it was a relative novice / intermediate / social session, and definitely not beginners.

    But at risk of repeating myself, what can be perceived as"just bridge" by one audience is with some justification perceived as "sharp practice" by others. I'm not aware of anything in Blue and White books to offer guidance over such interpretations, so onus probably falls to individual directors and clubs in their capacity as regulating authority.

    Similar threads on alerting "bids with an unexpected meaning" have similarly floundered, with some even suggesting that if, for example, a pair plays SAYC in a predominately ACOL room then maybe the 1M opening should be alerted as "unexepectedly promising a 5 card suit". It appears to depend on the context of the room and players.

  • At one club I play at, almost everyone plays Acol or some minor variant of it.

    One pair play Standard American, and pre-warn other pairs about it so that people know that they'll be making a lot of nonalerted bids with meanings which (for the club) are unusual. That's more or less the only thing you can do when either an alert or a lack of alert would be misleading.

  • @Tag said:
    What is a reasonable explanation, though, other than explaining about working honours, joined up cards, good shape, poor shape, compromised honours, good intermediates or the lack thereof? On two different days, I couldn't guarantee that I'd evaluate any given hand exactly the same way, depending on mood, which partner I was playing with or even how well I felt I was concentrating.

    It can simply come down to whether you like or dislike your hand for the bid at that moment and a player is not obliged to give an impromptu Bridge lesson to the opponents at the table.

    I understand and accept all this. What I find difficult is that - presumably - having evaluated your hand using a more or less strict point count and shape to be a 15-17NT opening you then switch to a different evaluation method to decide if it is maximum or minimum without warning opponents this is taking place. I use you and your in a generic rather than personal sense here. My scientific training leads me to try to be as precise as possible in my own bidding. I don't demand others do the same. I do think we should disclose the meaning of our bids as fully as practical.

  • Practical. That's a good word there. Often players don't really want long explanations, sometime's they'll just want a point range, which may be misinformation. I think for most partnerships, min / max will come down simply to "do they like their hand", and that this won't be exactly the same for each partner.

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