[AL78]

Suppose you are playing with one of your less familiar partners and RHO opens 1NT. You think you have agreed 2♣ is natural and have a long club suit with opening values so overcall. Partner responds 2♥ and you then realise you had agreed to play Landy. What is the correct/ethical thing to do here, continue as if partner has bid on the assumption you have bid naturally or allow yourself to be reminded of your agreement and bid accordingly?

[smerriman]

Did your partner correctly alert your 2♣ bid? If so, then you're not allowed to remember and have to continue to bid as if 2♣ was natural.

[AL78]

I wasn't the 2♣ bidder, I was south on this deal:

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3♣= was worth 10% for NS. I thought at the time the 3♣ bid was a bit naughty but maybe I am wrong.

[jillybean]

AL78, on 2025-September-01, 02:16, said:

Suppose you are playing with one of your less familiar partners and RHO opens 1NT. You think you have agreed 2♣ is natural and have a long club suit with opening values so overcall. Partner responds 2♥ and you then realise you had agreed to play Landy. What is the correct/ethical thing to do here, continue as if partner has bid on the assumption you have bid naturally or allow yourself to be reminded of your agreement and bid accordingly?

Was the reminder of your agreement due to partner's alert of 2C or did your brain cells catch up and you remembered independent of the UI?

[Cyberyeti]

If 2♣ was natural, presumably 2♥ is natural and forcing ovewr this, so the right bid is probably 2N ?

[mycroft]

Apologies for the (hopefully obvious) switching of "you" halfway through here. I'm just following on the OP's switch of viewpoint...

To clarify the reason for the questions made by jillybean and smerriman, imagine screens, or self-Alerting online. Here, you have no information *except the auction* that 2♣ is majors. If you wake up now, you're all good and can do what you wish. (it is probably best if you follow 20F4a and correct your "failure to Alert", but as the Law says, that can be done any time up to the Clarification Period), and if partner guesses to pass, all good.

HOWEVER, if this is f-t-f, and partner-alert territory, *and partner alerted*, then you have extraneous information from that Alert, and extraneous information from partner is unauthorized (16B1). When in possession of unauthorized information from partner, you must carefully avoid taking advantage of such information (73C1) and if you take an action that can be demonstrated to be suggested by that information, the Director may adjust the score (16B3) is made aware of it (usually by the opponents (16B2)).

Now, an argument can be made (and has, by the 'Yeti) that having not heard the Alert, 2♥ is forcing (or at least not "to play") and interested against a weak NT for someone with a natural 2♣ overcall. So passing 2♥ may not be Logical - but as he also says, 2NT or 3♦ may be Logical Alternatives as opposed to the "no, no, partner, I have *clubs*, I forgot" 3♣ call.

There is also an issue with the pass of 3♣. Depending on the reaction to the Alert, or the vehemence of the 3♣ call, partner may be able to realize from something other than the auction that you forgot. Now *she* has UI, and is restricted in a similar way. She may have to treat this is "both majors, good hand, asking about clubs (or showing clubs)" and bid accordingly. And if she doesn't, the Director may assign a score (3♥? 3NT?) Note that with this one, like the self-Alert case above, if there was no UI by the 2♣ bidder, partner is entitled to guess right - UI has to exist.

But all that may not let passer off the hook either. Anderson's Lebensohl book suggests *ignoring Landy* and playing "double = Stayman". He says it's probably not best, but in his (1980s) experience, people who play Landy have clubs about half the time they bid 2♣ (because it's the only artificial call, and they forget - and in my case, they only play Landy over weak NTs and they forgot *that*). I don't think that number has gone down that much; we are very likely in a situation like my club back east(*), where their agreement is actually "majors, but if I bid clubs again, I forgot again and have clubs". Now, there is a case for *misinformation* - you have not been given the complete agreement by partner over 2♣, and you might have an adjusted score coming for that. Or, "majors, or clubs" could be an illegal agreement over 1NT in your game (it isn't in any I run) in which case you might have been damaged by use of an illegal agreement.

All of which is to say that this happens, and the opponents' best option is to call the director, explain what happened (including any Alerts, questions, explanations or reactions) and leave it in the director's hands. INCLUDING to "wonder" if there's any issue with ethics here. Protect yourself, let the director protect the game.

(*) This was back before bidding boxes (okay, they existed, but "the players didn't like them" and so we didn't use them at the club. I'm guessing a lot of "the players" didn't like them because it made games like this harder, by the way). 1NT-2♦ was hearts. Or at least it was hearts unless responder, after opener took the transfer, bid 3 *diamonds*. That got passed no matter what opener's red suits looked like, and they were always right for some reason! This happened so frequently that one of my partners threatened to switch to "2♦ is 'hearts or diamonds', and 2NT is '5 hearts and 4+ diamonds, gameforcing' " (a legal system at the time, and now, and if anyone (very likely to be the pairs in question) questioned or complained, explain that it's "the same system *you* play, it's just we Alert and explain it correctly." I was young and obnoxious once :-).

[HardVector]

If you are playing with screens, you get no slack from me. Errors deserve to get penalized.

[barmar]

HardVector, on 2025-September-01, 21:15, said:

If you are playing with screens, you get no slack from me. Errors deserve to get penalized.

In order to penalize, you have to find a Law that was violated. With screens there's no UI, so no violation of Law 16. What Law will you base your penalty on?

[jillybean]

AL78, on 2025-September-01, 06:02, said:

I wasn't the 2♣ bidder, I was south on this deal:

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3♣= was worth 10% for NS. I thought at the time the 3♣ bid was a bit naughty but maybe I am wrong.

We get a lot of these “a bit naughty” players at the club. I am thinking this was a club game, regular pair, plenty of UI exchanged but we want to play a nice game so let’s not worry about it,

[jillybean]

barmar, on 2025-September-02, 12:33, said:

In order to penalize, you have to find a Law that was violated. With screens there's no UI, so no violation of Law 16. What Law will you base your penalty on?

It’s not so much about penalizing, but more about restoring equity.

[pescetom]

barmar, on 2025-September-02, 12:33, said:

In order to penalize, you have to find a Law that was violated. With screens there's no UI, so no violation of Law 16. What Law will you base your penalty on?

2♣ was presumably explained as clubs, and 3♣ who knows.
On the other side it was explained as both majors, and the card will say something.
There are many laws and a lot of contradictions to work on.

[barmar]

jillybean, on 2025-September-03, 07:45, said:

It’s not so much about penalizing, but more about restoring equity.

You can only restore equity if the damage was caused by an infraction.

[barmar]

pescetom, on 2025-September-03, 15:22, said:

2♣ was presumably explained as clubs, and 3♣ who knows.
On the other side it was explained as both majors, and the card will say something.
There are many laws and a lot of contradictions to work on.

That's misinformation, not unauthorized information.

In order to take any corrective action, it has to be the case that the misinformation caused the damage, i.e. that the opponent who was given the incorrect information would have taken a different action with the correct information. If the opponents weren't going to bid either way, there's no damage.

Most of the time confusion about agreements is its own punishment, you rarely end up in the best contract. If you do, and there's no taking advantage of UI along the way, it's generally considered "rub of the green".

[pescetom]

barmar, on 2025-September-04, 13:04, said:

That's misinformation, not unauthorized information.

As mycroft patiently explained, the f2f alert of 2♣ is UI to West, and L16 gives little space for the clubs rebid.
Up to the TD, but far from rub of the green.