campboy

Read the OP. It clearly says East though transfers might still apply, not that he thought they did still apply. If you are talking about a different situation then of course the ruling might be different. (FWIW I think playing "systems on" after a penalty double is ridiculous)

Adjusting the table score is not accusing West of deliberately being unethical.

It was not alerted. If there is no agreement, it is not alertable, in the EBU at least. No-one asked about it.

Well, I for one welcome our new 27B1b overlords. One problem with the old law was the difficulty in distinguishing whether an insufficient bid was actually inadvertent. This was bad because the two possible rectifictions would lead to very different situations, and so a lot of points would swing on the TDs interpretation of a player's state of mind when he made the call. Now, though, there are a lot more situations in which the correction to the same denomination one level up will not silence partner.

How can partner have made a mistake? We have no discussion, so it is not a mistake for him to interpret the bid differently. I agree that if we had an agreement then East should not be playing for a misinterpretation, but that is a completely different scenario.

I said from West's point of view. West does not believe he has shown a strong hand, so would expect partner to have some values in order to compete. Of course, the UI that East believes West to have a strong hand indicates that East is likely to be much weaker than that (as I also said in my previous post).

Not sure I understand this. The auction indicates that North and South have points, and East has spades. That all seems credible, and means a spade lead is useless. It is only if someone does not have his bid that a spade lead becomes a possibility. I would think East should have more like a 10-count to bid 2♠ from West's point of view (ie, if double does not show a strong hand). The UI suggests he may have significantly less, since he thinks double did show a strong hand.

I don't think there are logical alternatives to 4♣ (ok, 4♦ might be if it is a splinter, but the UI doesn't suggest 4♣ over 4♦), but passing is certainly an LA to 6♣ (and 6♣ is suggested). So I agree with everyone else.

I cannot see how the section of law you quote is relevant. There is no question of "presuming mistaken call". For 2♦ to be a mistaken call they would have to have an agreement that it is natural (or some other meaning inconsistent with East's hand), and no-one is suggesting that is the case.

The auction just indicates that someone doesn't have his bid. Why should that be partner?

Fair enough, but that is not the situation here. Here responder does not have an expectation that partner will understand, because he knows they haven't agreed it.

I agree with the majority view. Firstly, all this stuff about acting as though partner had alerted is nonsense. What is important is what you would do without UI -- and this is not the same as having UI in the opposite direction. Partner's alert would be UI just as a lack of alert would be. So you do not consider what would happen if partner had alerted, rather you consider what would have happened if they were playing online, or with screens, or in some other format where one cannot see partner's alert. In such a situation, with no clear agreement about what 2♦ means, everyone would bid 2♥ on the assumption that partner was not on the same wavelength. On the other hand, of course, if they had agreed transfers after a double then it would be obvious to adjust.

I don't see why it is relevant in this particular case whether 3♣=fit or 2NT=fit is more prevalent in the wider community. What matters is what this South thought 3♣ was likely to mean, and he has told us that.

Well, if the UI makes 3NT more likely to be the best spot, then I would think any call which is likely to get you to 3NT is suggested.

I would think that any UI which suggests 3NT over 4♥ must also suggest 3♠, since it is likely to get you to the same spot. 4♥ must be an LA if you are giving such a high percentage to it, so I can't see why 3♠ is permitted.

It seems very likely that with correct information both West and East would pass over 3♣. I don't think there is cause to deny redress.

Even if West would not have acted differently, surely East would have bid 2NT rather than 3♣ with correct information (he can hardly do this without a heart stop on the information he was given). EW look to be making at least 7 tricks in NT.

Where was this played? If in the EBU, there is conveniently a space on the convention card for "defence to short club"; if there is nothing there to say they play a different defence to a natural 1C, I would expect to rule MI. As Gordon says, we need to know what West would have done with the correct information. His actual choice is bizarre to say the least if he was told that 2♣ showed the majors, so I don't think I can guess what he might have done otherwise; indeed 2♠ is more reasonable with the correct information (though the 3♣ bid, of course, is not).

I am pretty sure it is the other way around. The chances of having two consecutive boards sufficiently similar that anyone would think twice about it is likely to be much smaller than any reasonable estimate of probability of machine failure. I've seen machine failure happen, whereas even the chance that one hand out of the four will be repeated -- which is massive compared to the sorts of situations discussed in this thread -- is in the billions to one. If I had any other ruling to give where I was 99.9999% sure that my ruling was correct, I'd be very happy. And that number isn't even close to being an exaggeration.

I had understood that the thinking behind the Law 25A case was, as peachy says, that the fact that a certain bid has been made is always AI, even if there is UI which causes you to notice it. If so, then the same argument seems to apply equally well in this case.

Hmm. The thought before 2NT suggests that he is thinking of doing something else, which could be 3♥, pass, 3NT or 3m I suppose. But what does the pause before 2♦ suggest? Well, one obvious possibility is that partner was considering suppressing his heart suit, and that certainly suggests that it is less likely to be right to play in hearts. Of course, he could just have been thinking about what to do at his second turn... Anyway, I think 4♥ obvious. I would accept with that hand even playing 12-14, which they are not. Having chosen to accept, if partner thinks a 5-3 heart fit is worth playing in, why should I ignore him? I would not consider concealing the fit unless I was 4333.

There is plently of precedent (rightly or wrongly) in the EBU that if your partner's alert leads you to notice that the call you have made is not the call you thought you had made, this is AI. Why is it any different if partner's alert makes you notice that his call is not the call you thought it was?

In that case, your agreement is presumably that there is no restriction on what shapes of 15-count you can upgrade. Such an agreement is not permitted. I do not see why this is so hard. If you are claiming that this is a deviation, rather than the normal system bid, then there must be an agreement (implicit or explicit) which you are deviating from.

I don't see the connection between the two infractions, since West's explanation was just wrong in any case. I find it hard to believe that he is more likely to know his agreements after 1♥ (dbl) showing spades than after 1♥ (dbl) for takeout. It is not obvious to me why either North or South would act differently with correct information, but that is what polling is for. I would expect to give some proportion of the table result though, if I adjusted at all.

The law says that a player who has contributed to the damage by a serious error does not receive relief "for such part of the damage as is self-inflicted". This is not the same as "score stands for NOS". So, let's suppose that the contract would be 4H without the infraction, and that the play was a serious error. How much of the damage is caused by that error? If he had made the same misplay in 4H, he would have lost an IMP. Therefore, in my opinion, the rest of the damage was caused by the fact that he was a level higher than he should have been.