Re: Ethics question

On 6/26/2008 1:29 PM, Andrew wrote:
On Jun 24, 12:42 pm, Alan Malloy <alan.NO.S...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 6/24/2008 12:10 PM, raija d wrote:



"Nick France" <gandal...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:a6c3bebf-7bac-44e1-ac61-9cf48b5b2467@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jun 24, 12:08 am, "raija d" <musti...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Nick France" <gandal...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0ae317dc-6bf0-40f8-87f4-9cdc99b04115@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jun 22, 2:50 pm,Andrew<agump...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jun 21, 7:25 pm, Barry Margolin <bar...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <692r54to1qn6i7t348c4995vba9j6e0...@xxxxxxx>,
OldPalooka <ashut...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Then you don't disagree. Obviously you are entitled to know whether
the opps lead ambiguous king to understand 3d hand's play. "Leads
and
signals please?" gets the job done without giving scope to jump to
the
wrong conclusion. There is no valid bridge reason to ask a question
which you know could create a false inference when there is an
equivalent question which could not.
The problem is that a general question like "Leads and signals" often
receives a general answer like "standard leads, upside-down count and
attitude". As a result, you frequently have to press for more specific
information by asking about King leads.
Why? In the US, the term "standard leads" includes the information you
are looking for.
Not really. Both those that lead Ace from AK and King from AK say
they lead standard. Against suit contract both those that lead 4th
best and those that lead 3/5 say they lead standard. In truth, they
aren't trying to fool you, since to them, what they do is standard.
Nick France
Aren't these sidetracks from OP question? Declarer held the ace of the
suit
that was led so he did not need to know whether they led the king or the
ace
from AK. For the hand at play, I don't really see what information about
leads there COULD be that declarer now needs. He already knows they didn't
lead from a suit headed by the AK so it cannot possibly matter what they
hypothetically would lead from that combination. Or can someone construct
a
valid bridge reason to ask the question in the given circumstances?
Raija- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
I disagree. I want to know what the partner of the opener knows.
This may well be important to know and in any event it is information
I am entitled to. I don't want to deceive the opponents, just to
know what they know.
Nick France
If that is the case, you can ask a general question about leads. But
personally, I do not consider it a valid bridge reason to find out if RHO
knows what their partnership lead agreements are, PARTICULARLY in the OP
case. At least I am fairly certain that Nick or an ethical person would not
say "Do you lead the K or the A from AK" when holding the ace of the led
suit in his own hand.
Raija
You are missing the point. Nick does not want to know if RHO remembers
their agreements. He wants to know if RHO knows where the outstanding
card is. For example:

832
KQT5 76
AJ94

Suppose first that the defenders always lead A from AK. Now East knows
that his partner has KQ, and will not encourage. Nick might then choose
to falsecard with the 9 to encourage a continuation.

Now imagine that the defenders lead an ambiguous king. East does not
know whether his partner has AK or KQ, and might try encouraging in
order to get a ruff. Given that East may already be encouraging, Nick
might want to save his 9 to catch East's (hypothetical) 10 on a later
trick, in case West switches, or as a later threat card for a squeeze or
throw-in against West.

Now, I am no expert and the reasoning I used here may or may not be
tactically valid, but the point is that knowing what the defense knows
can affect your play, and you are entitled to that information. There is
nothing in the least unethical about this question.

There is nothing unethical about shouting "Fire!" either, but if you
do it in a crowded theater without cause the local police department
will probably reward you with a ticket.

Though you are welcome to ask a question at this point in the play,
the question must be carefully phrased. Your utterances will always be
interpreted by others in the context in which they are spoken. When a
king is led and you hold the ace, the primary defensive concern is
obviously the location of the ace in that suit. The opponents are very
likely to interpret your question ("what do you lead from AK") as an
implicit statement that you do not hold the Ace.

So either ask a neutral question that does not mislead, or better yet,
ask about their leads before a hand begins.


Andrew

This argument is perfectly valid, and I can understand if someone is misled by the question, so declarer should be careful to avoid the appearance of bad ethics in this situation. My previous post was mainly to correct Raija, who seems to think that the only reason to ask what their leads are is to deceive, when in fact there are plenty of valid reasons to need this information.

Revisiting this discussion, though, has made me think of another possibly-interesting point. The general instinctive premise seems to be that, if declarer asks about K leads, then he must not know what sequence LHO is leading from. If he has either the Q or the A, then he has no reason to ask, because he knows which other honor LHO holds. However, holding none of the relevant honors why would declarer care whether the lead is from AK or KQ? It seems like regardless of declarer's holding in the suit led, he never needs to know the defensive lead agreements in place in order to decipher the lead: either he has one of the missing honors himself and can figure it out, or he has none and it doesn't matter.

So why do posters think that asking about leads implies non-possession of any high honors, when having no honors will usually leave declarer uninterested in lead agreements?

--
Cheers,
Alan (San Jose, California, USA)
.

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