Quote:
Originally Posted by chuckleslovakian
Alright maybe I am being paranoid, but I can't get this hand out of my mind from earlier tonight
I am in 4th seat and the bidding is passed to me.
I open 1D.
LHO doubles.
Partner bids 1H
RHO puts down the pass card, then starts to reach for it back and mutters "Oh well I already played it"
I pass
LHO doubles again
WTF???
Does anyone pass, then double twice unless they know their partner actually had a bid they wanted to make? Needless to say they ended up in 2S and top board.
I am not just a bridge player, but also an official bridge director.
The bridge rules in this area are complex: partners are not allowed to make use on Unauthorized Information (UI) given to them by their partner.
Note that it's not illegal to give that UI, since that's inevitable: if you think for a long time and then bid something, partner knows you have some special kind of problem, and this limits your hand range, yet that is UI to partner.
In the case you mention, LHO has UI that RHO was very close to bidding somethin rather than passing. He is not allowed to use that information. In practice that means he can bid what he wants, but the opponents can ask the director to evaluate, after the hand, whether the 2nd dbl might be influenced by the UI. In that case the director will assign a score to the hand. In this case the assigned score would be 1H for some number of tricks.
Whether this is actually the case here can;t be judged without seeing the hands, particularly that of LHO. If he has an 18 HCP hand or so, he has every right to double again, since passing is out of the question. If he has 13-15 HCP, the director would not allow the 2nd double.
EDIT: Oh wait, I see he had already passed once before. Then it's a virtual certainty a director would never allow the bid. Your opponent would actually probably receive some extra penalty for blatant use of UI. We don't call it cheating because many, many bridge players do this, and not at all on purpose, but it is still not allowed.