Responding with a three card Minor

John_Workman

Playing  basic Acol at a local low key club. Partner opened 1 Club. I had 15 odd points, 5 Clubs, 3 Diamonds, 3 Hearts, 2 Spades. I considered responding 3NT but thought I'd be clever and respond 1 Diamond and await a reply. Ended in 6 Clubs making.

After the play one of the opponents politely asked about my 1 Diamond response with only three cards in the suit.

Was  what I did against 'the rules' in any sense ?

Killeavey

I am a novice, so I do not answer with any authority whatever, but I have found the following in the EBU Blue Book:

4 C ‘Natural’ bids and passes

4 C 1 The following are considered ‘natural’ for the purposes of alerting and regulation of partnership understandings (see also 3E1):

(a) A bid of a suit which shows that suit (3+ cards) and does not show any other suit; preference bids, completion of transfer bids and raises may be on shorter suits.

I would take that to mean you don't need to announce or alert in this case. 

I also suspect that your partner would have been just as misled as your opponents. 

John_Workman

Killeavey

Thanks for your comment. From what you say seems like I didn't break any rules. So all OK.
PS You're less of a novice than you say you are - IMO

John

John_Workman

The slightly humerous bit of the storey is that I'm sitting there thinking that after my [dodgy?] 1D response to his 1C opening, that he'd make some sort of simple response like a rebid in NT or a suit at a low level. You can guess how I felt when he jumped straight to 5D.
Yikes. What now?
I punted 6C which made, but only becuse a defender made a very simple error.

I guess that's Bridge eh?

John

Jeremy

The Blue Book describes legal agreements. If you always bid 1D on a 2-3-3-5 good hand over a club then 

a. it is legal

b. your opponents have a right to know this 

If you did it on a single occasion because you couldn't think of a better bid then that is fine and if your partner did not expect it any more than the opponents that is also fine.