campboy

Lol, I can't believe I failed to notice how bad the 3♥ bid was ;)

I don't think pass is an LA; I am struggling to construct a hand where slam is poor other than by giving partner neither minor ace. I don't think 6♠ is suggested over 4NT, which would have been my choice.

Suppose the player had not heard the alert. What would he have done? Well, if they do not play transfers in response to NT overcalls he would probably have passed. So passing is hardly idiotic, and (again assuming they do not play transfers here) it is a logical alternative (but only for some pairs -- we need to know more about this pair's methods to decide). Now did the UI suggest 3NT over pass? Yes, of course it did. Was there damage? Yes, since 3NT makes. Law 16B says that we adjust if a player has UI, and he chooses from among logical alternatives one demonstrably suggested by the UI over another, and there is damage. So, you may say NO, but the laws say YES.

Lol, I was just going to post the same thing. It happened to me at the University club's fresher event some years ago. A (Polish) pickup partner opened 4♣ intended as Gerber. I decided from my Qxxxxxx in clubs that something funny was going on, and assumed she must think it was Namyats. My 4♥ must have confused her, as she had all the aces herself (and was intending to check on kings). She bid 5♦ which ended the auction, with 7♦ cold :)

Whatever your personal feelings about a treatment or convention, here we rule according to the Laws of Duplicate Bridge (2007). If a player has landed on his feet not by being lucky but by illegally using information from partner's alert -- although there is legitimate debate as to whether that is what happened here -- then we must adjust the score.

Eh, my first thought on seeing the OP was "surely 3♣ should be forcing". I think it is a bit strong to say that the forcing nature of 3♣ was clearly a surprise to North and East. North may well have been thinking about whether it was forcing, whereas probably East's reason for assuming 3♣ was non-forcing was that he had just seen North pass it!

I don't think 3NT is suggested over 4♥, since if advancer thinks 2NT was unusual she should have better hearts than might be expected without the UI (as indeed she does). So I would certainly not adjust to 4♥.

I agree with Cyberyeti that there is a class of player for whom pass is not an LA. The TD will have to use his judgement to decide what this player's peers might do. Personally, I would be more likely to redouble than pass -- by analogy with other situations I would expect redouble to ask for the transfer to be completed. But then I wouldn't play transfers after a double anyway, so I don't really know what anything should mean. The 3♥ bid doesn't really make a great deal of sense.

For preference, I don't play system on (but I don't play system off either!), and with some partners 3♥ is GF with exactly 4 hearts here. But I agree, we need to find out whether this pair play transfers after NT overcalls before we can rule. Most pairs do, but then most pairs know what a 2NT overcall of a weak two is.

Just in case there was any doubt about it, this particular ruling was incorrect. Law 48A adresses this exact situation "Declarer is not required to play any card dropped accidentally". I'm afraid I know little of the ACBL, so can't address the rest of the issue (other than to be shocked that this goes on).

Did opponents have any agreements about responses to NT overcalls (or 2NT openings) which might be relevant? Unless they could justify that 3♥ is forcing opposite a natural 2NT I would adjust the score to 3♥ making some number of tricks, since 3NT bidder has UI which suggests bidding on and pass is an LA if 3♥ could be a weakness takeout from his point of view.

True, and this distinction is particularly important since the PP is given in the final method of scoring -- so in Swiss pairs it would be 60/40 with a 0.5 VP penalty.

Law 16B doesn't forbid a player from doing anything — it says that if he chooses an LA that could demonstrably have been suggested by UI, the TD shall adjust the score. I would think it rare in practice for all LAs to fit the bill, but if they do, so be it. If the lawmakers wish the law to be interpreted differently, they're going to have to say so. It says he "may not" choose an LA which could demonstrably have been suggested. Condorcet's paradox, of course, cannot arise if we define suggestion of one action over another in terms of the expected scores from following each action with and without the UI.

If we follow that interpretation, a situation can arise when Law 16B forbids a player from choosing any logical alternative. Surely that cannot be what is meant.

I still think that even people who frequently forget their system far outnumber people who can't enjoy playing against them. I have met plenty of the former, but none of the latter. One of the attractive things about bridge for many people (again, far more I suspect than those who object to playing against forgetful players) is its variety. If we all had to play the same system it would be just another card game.

Great, thanks for sorting this out.

I suspect that players who occasionally forget their system far outnumber the "significant number of players" whose enjoyment is being ruined by this. One likely effect of such a rule would be to discourage people from playing with a variety of partners and from playing a variety of systems. This would be bad for the game.

With Bluejak's 8-count the prior chance that we have 25+ points between the two hands is 77%; with UI this drops to 28%, which seems like a pretty good argument for pass being suggested. On the other hand, if our hand was a 7-count the chance of 25+ points is 9% without the UI but 28% with the UI, so now perhaps 3NT is suggested. This makes sense: if we were told that partner had exactly 17 points we would want to bid 3NT with the first hand and pass with the second; it is reasonable that having the opposite information would suggest the opposite action in each case.

No, but doing the right thing even when no-one will know if you don't is what I mean by "personal ethics" :) I would certainly feel obliged to bid on if I had a clear feeling that partner was hesitating because he was at the lower end of his range. But I wouldn't necessarily be able to tell you why I thought he was, or assign a percentage to it. Mind you, that may just be because I haven't played enough boards with any one person. Older players with loong-established partnerships might have a much clearer idea.

No, the OP is making the observation that worse hands are more likely than better hands, so partner is more likely to have the former. Suppose you have 14 HCP. The other players have 26, so 8.7 each. Partner, therefore, is more likely to be inviting on 9 or 10 points than on 11 or 12. Similarly, if you have 5 cards in a suit and partner has raised in a situation that does not promise or deny some number of trumps, he is more likely to have 3 than to have 4. So the question is whether, if you have UI (which doesn't itself indicate one direction or another) but you can calculate the probabilities of the above and similar, are you constrained by this knowledge? And I think that this question is very tough to answer, because while "yes" seems reasonable at first, it puts a bigger onus on those who are knowledgeable about probabilities and good at calculating them than on those who are not (but may be equally good bridge players). On the other hand, since the first sentence of this post is true, perhaps weaker hands should be considered the default when slow invitations are made. This tends to be the case in real life, after all. Oh, I see. But now it sounds like it is AI that is suggesting passing, since weak hands are more likely than strong ones with or without the hesitation. I don't think the UI itself suggests either course of action. I suppose you could make an argument that if you wanted to accept opposite mid-range and maximum hands, the fact that mid-range hands are excluded by the hesitation suggests passing. But you could make that argument even if it were not true that minimums are more likely than maximums; indeed, if you wanted to pass opposite mid-range or weaker hands this argument would equally well apply the other way up.

The scenario is presumably when you know that partner tends to choose the overbid when he has hesitated. But in that case we can only really talk about the situation in terms of your personal ethics, since the probability is not something the TD can estimate.

There is precedent in the EBU that you can change your call under 25A even if the mechanism by which you become aware that you have made a mechanical error is partner's alert/non-alert. Presumably the same would apply to an explanation. Of course, as you say, it will probably be difficult to convince a TD that this was a mechanical error.

It is not enough for 4♦ to be reasonable. Since the UI suggests 4♦ over pass, 4♦ is not allowed unless passing is unreasonable -- and I don't think it is. If South has "hearts and fit for one of the others" he can bid again himself.

The question "is 5♥ an LA" would be harder ;)

South's failure to bid 4♥ certainly looks like a fielded misbid. In the EBU, the normal procedure for dealing with a fielded misbid is an artificial adjusted score of 40/60 (unless NOS did better on the board). Of course, there is also the possibility of adjusting based on North having used UI. However, that raises an interesting point. If the explanation given was correct, there was a fielded misbid. If not, there was no misbid (fielded or otherwise), but there was MI. How does the TD decide which, assuming the CC is no help? While the laws say he should presume MI in the absence of evidence to the contrary, does this really mean he cannot rule fielded misbid? I doubt it, but it would be nice to hear from someone with more experience of such rulings. On this hand I think it is academic anyway, because of the UI issue. Mycroft -- I'm not sure I understand how you expect North to interpret 3♥ given that he (presumably) thinks he has shown spades and diamonds. But surely passing is an LA? After all, South will get the chance to bid again.