[pescetom]

mycroft, on 2024-September-06, 09:01, said:

I'm more concerned with the other game with explanations like this - some deliberately phrase their explanations in an incomplete manner to induce followup questions - so *they* get the information. The classic example is ...4NT-5♥ "two keycards". Then wait to find out who asks about the trump queen, in case they have a two-way finesse... Is it possible that this pair don't say anything about the spades to induce questions that will help them place missing spade honours?

I don't think I've encountered the "2 keycards" ploy as such, but then it's a sort of advance-finesse anyway, isn't it? The asker might be staring at the Q or might be wondering if partner is. Of course some of our more deviant pairs do have (at least implicit) agreements about who asks when, but one still has to know them. I guess the real tell might come from their different "table feel"

[mycroft]

my response to that is always: "If they don't say, ask. Even if you're looking at it." Somewhere there is a line that if the opponents claim to be deceived about the location of the queen from someone asking "even though they know the answer", that is to be denied - the fault was with the incomplete explanation. Whether or not that was the case in one's jurisdiction, I would certainly be happy to say in response, "if you had mentioned it when asked as is required, they wouldn't have had the opportunity to 'mislead' you." Especially if I believed that there was any hint that the incomplete explanation was deliberate.

[pescetom]

mycroft, on 2024-September-06, 12:10, said:

my response to that is always: "If they don't say, ask. Even if you're looking at it."

Absolutely, also because any other agreement is problematic, except perhaps "Never ask, whether they alert or not" (and we had one player who swore by that, and she did quite well too).
If asking could depend upon our own cards then opponents have a right to feel uneasy, whatever the "ask only if you have a real Bridge need" crowd have to say.

mycroft, on 2024-September-06, 12:10, said:

Somewhere there is a line that if the opponents claim to be deceived about the location of the queen from someone asking "even though they know the answer", that is to be denied - the fault was with the incomplete explanation. Whether or not that was the case in one's jurisdiction, I would certainly be happy to say in response, "if you had mentioned it when asked as is required, they wouldn't have had the opportunity to 'mislead' you." Especially if I believed that there was any hint that the incomplete explanation was deliberate.

As for deliberately incomplete explanation, thinking about it the probable reason I haven't met the "2 keycards" line as such is that Italian club bridge jargon gives them more rope, namely that it is "normal" to denominate keycards as "Aces" rather than Keycards (which nobody even bothered to translate into Italian, despite the alleged "Roman" origin of the convention). So "two Aces" is the goto explanation if you really want to muddy the waters about the K and Q of trumps.

[pescetom]

mycroft, on 2024-September-05, 10:04, said:

So, what was the response to the followup, "so 4♦ implies a spade control as well?" :-) Or is that "GBK"? (frankly, it's close)

Confess I an struggling with "GBK", I trust you are more at ease with "katame-waza" which was my feeling about the encounter
The elephant in the room here is that many (if not most) pairs of this level in Italy would have agreed 4♦ as *only* showing a spades control here, saying nothing about diamonds.

[johnu]

jillybean, on 2024-September-06, 10:15, said:

I hope you do know, you do not need to announce your 1nt range if it is 15-17.

The latest ACBL alert procedures says under announcements, "2. The HCP Range of any Natural 1NT Opening. IIRC, for ACBL tournaments on BBO, that may be true.

[mycroft]

Ah, sorry, thought it was still so common in use that I could abbreviate it here: "General Bridge Knowledge". What is now: "inferences drawn from knowledge and experience of matters generally known to bridge players." (40B5a).

As I wrote in "The Wrong Answer", "the fact the Lawmakers added 10 words to the sentence should tell you that it was, and is, abused to hide information that, sure, “everybody” knows (but they’re hoping you don’t)."

[mycroft]

johnu, on 2024-September-06, 19:08, said:

The latest ACBL alert procedures says under announcements, "2. The HCP Range of any Natural 1NT Opening. IIRC, for ACBL tournaments on BBO, that may be true.

She knows. We all do. That doesn't mean that it actually happens(*). Or that just yesterday I was told (by a tourist) that 15-17 doesn't have to be Announced any more. The director-her-partner made it clear that clubs can decide that, but not tournaments, and not this club. But they will hear it, and they will believe it.

As I have said in the past, I wish I was allowed to use the defence to it deliberately, just to make it obvious what others are doing and why the regulation remains what it is. But I've only been saying that for 20 years.

(*)Which, I assume, is why it's in a thread explicitly for griping about poor disclosure as a "pet peeve" :-).

[jillybean]

 johnu, on 2024-September-06, 19:08, said:

The latest ACBL alert procedures says under announcements, "2. The HCP Range of any Natural 1NT Opening. IIRC, for ACBL tournaments on BBO, that may be true.

Does anyone read the alert procedures?

I was playing in a Sectional last weekend. Next round, as East sat down, he commented to his partner, "you know you don't need to announce 15-17 nt ?"
I kept my mouth shut but next time I had chance to chat with the TD, I casually mentioned - the rumour that 15-17 isn't announceable is going around again.

His reply, Oh, they've been playing in Palm Springs?