[lamford]

 nigel_k, on 2011-February-14, 13:12, said:

The fact that a 1♥ response presumably shows spades in other sequences is hugely important.

If Frances had told us in the other thread that 1♥ shows spades without the double, I'll bet everyone would have worked out what had happened without the benefit of any UI. You might still rule that North is not entitled to 'work this out' when he has the UI of the alert of 1♥, but at the very least it is a completely different problem to the one we faced in Frances' thread.

"the convention card clearly showed that the 1♥ bid showed ♠", but it would be rare for 1H to show spades without the double. Transfer responses to 1C are much more frequent. Basically North forgot the methods when he bid 1H, and the alert reminded him. Again, if the facts are as stated.

[lamford]

 aguahombre, on 2011-February-14, 12:43, said:

Yes, that gets us off the idea that South could be short in spades. But it doesn't let N/S play in 3NT or 4H. It seems Wank's post is a good projection of what would happen if a pair were using their hands as authorized information and not taking advantage of UI. 6NT doubled, down three works. Same defensive accident as occurred at the table vs 3NT doubled. And if the pair had actually arrived at 6NT for those reasons, no PP would be considered; in fact, praise would be in order for doing the right thing.

Why can't the doubler have a good hand with spades? He has just heard spades bid naturally on both sides of him, after all! He may be drooling down his tie too much to be the third person at the table to bid them. He will surely wait for the wheel to come off some more. After all he is not there to help the opponents.

[nigel_k]

 lamford, on 2011-February-14, 13:29, said:

"the convention card clearly showed that the 1♥ bid showed ♠", but it would be rare for 1H to show spades without the double. Transfer responses to 1C are much more frequent. Basically North forgot the methods when he bid 1H, and the alert reminded him. Again, if the facts are as stated.

Even if they only play this after a double and North had completely forgotten, we still have to consider the likelihood that he would have remembered after the 3♠ bid.

The essence of the other thread was that some people refused to believe 3♠ could be a splinter at all, and the others recognised that something wierd was happening but chose to trust their partner rather than opponents. Also we were told in the other thread that N/S were a 'not very regular partnership' so we would never have considered the transfer possibility. IMO, unless the transfer after X discussion had been permanently wiped from North's memory, he would be extremely likely 'wake up' after the 3♠ bid if there was no UI, e.g. behind screens.

[lamford]

 nigel_k, on 2011-February-14, 13:42, said:

Even if they only play this after a double and North had completely forgotten, we still have to consider the likelihood that he would have remembered after the 3♠ bid.

I would agree that if the only explanation of 3S was that a wheel had come off (such as partner passing a Texas transfer) he would be entitled to remember, but a likelihood that he would have remembered is nowhere near enough. It is clear that 3NT is demonstrably suggested by the UI. All that is needed to disallow it is a demonstrable alternative, and the poll showed that there were those in spades (well in every other suit just about).

[aguahombre]

"Why can't the doubler have a good hand with spades?" (Lamford and others).

He could have a good hand with spades. But seven of them?
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think there is a hand with a seven-card suit, where I would choose to begin with double.

[Chris L]

 Vampyr, on 2011-February-14, 13:08, said:

If the facts are as presented, the case seems clear-cut; but everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, no matter how eccentric.

But the claim that Frances and Jeffrey would have offered this opinion to someone who is considering appealing against their teammates is a pretty serious allegation, so I would expect that Chris L has got his facts straight before making it. But there may be some mistake somewhere.

Let's be clear - I am not making any allegations against Frances or Jeffery, each of whom I have known for, I would think, the best part of 20 years; they have both represented Cambs & Hunts in the past and the two teams are on very good terms. They volunteered their views in the course of a friendly discussion when we were all milling about at the end of the event and we were considering whether to appeal. Given that their experience of how appeal committees work is far greater than mine, I thought that their views were entitled to considerable weight, notwithstanding that they were members of the offending side. Their views also happened to coincide with mine on the question of the extreme improbability that the 3♠ bid was a splinter agreeing ♥. It also seemed to me that, if N was entitled to know (from a combination of his own hand and their systemic agreements about splinters) that 3♠ couldn't be a splinter then (i) it could only be a natural bid and (ii) given that W had (by implication) shown at least ♣ tolerance with his T/O double and that E had bid ♣, 3NT seemed a fairly obvious bid for N to make - and the TD, after consultation, had evidently come to the same conclusion.

[AlexJonson]

 blackshoe, on 2011-February-14, 10:02, said:

It seems to me that what is in one's own hand is always authorized information.

That's the possible versus plausible line of argument again.

This thread shows some of the difficulties with that distinction, when plausibility seems so debatable - from the evidence of the competition and its players of reasonable quality.

At a simple level, PP for NS looks correct.

[blackshoe]

 AlexJonson, on 2011-February-14, 15:30, said:

That's the possible versus plausible line of argument again.

I don't understand what you mean.

All I said was that what's in your hand is always AI. That's a legal opinion on the general question "is what's in your hand UI or AI?" and nothing more.

[AlexJonson]

 blackshoe, on 2011-February-14, 15:46, said:

I don't understand what you mean.

All I said was that what's in your hand is always AI. That's a legal opinion on the general question "is what's in your hand UI or AI?" and nothing more.

I think you need to loosen up a bit. I doubt that this thread so far is about a legal judgement that AI is AI.

But I do slightly insist that this thread casts doubt on the notion that players really consider 'plausibility' in these UI from lack of alert auctions. EG, I've got a singleton/doubleton so I'm allowed to override UI and discount a splinter. Yes, but it seems that in the real world players don't do it.

[blackshoe]

We're writing to each other, but we're not communicating. Never mind, it's not important.

[dburn]

 nigel_k, on 2011-February-14, 13:12, said:

The fact that a 1♥ response presumably shows spades in other sequences is hugely important.

If Frances had told us in the other thread that 1♥ shows spades without the double, I'll bet everyone would have worked out what had happened without the benefit of any UI. You might still rule that North is not entitled to 'work this out' when he has the UI of the alert of 1♥, but at the very least it is a completely different problem to the one we faced in Frances' thread.

I don't expect that 1♦-1♥ showed spades. They were probably playing transfers only over takeout doubles of 1♦ (or at least, one of them was).

This is horrible. North simply cannot bid 3NT after 1♥ has been alerted as spades. Why shouldn't East have a lot of black-suit cards, and have decided to bid clubs because North has just bid spades? Why shouldn't West have a strong jump overcall in spades, and be passing 3♠ just to see what will happen (he knows that North-South are in the middle of a cock-up, but they don't). I don't know about 6NT doubled down three, although I understand the reasoning behind it and could well imagine giving part of it as a weighted score. But "result stands" is... well, it is not even wrong.

[helene_t]

 dburn, on 2011-February-14, 16:57, said:

North simply cannot bid 3NT after 1♥ has been alerted as spades. Why shouldn't East have a lot of black-suit cards, and have decided to bid clubs because North has just bid spades? Why shouldn't West have a strong jump overcall in spades, and be passing 3♠ just to see what will happen (he knows that North-South are in the middle of a cock-up, but they don't). I don't know about 6NT doubled down three, although I understand the reasoning behind it and could well imagine giving part of it as a weighted score. But "result stands" is... well, it is not even wrong.

I don't understand this argument.

If you are arguing that North might, without the alert, have thought that 3♠ was a splinter, then surely it doesn't factor in that North had shown spades. Since if he saw 3♠ as a splinter he wouldn't have been aware that he had shown spades himself.

It is a good case for not allowing North to bid 3NT that most people in the other thread voted that 3♠ is a splinter.

I just don't think it's very plausible. Also, it is quite possible that North, even without the UI, would have been woken up by the 3♠ bid itself. Since presumably he had discussed the transfers at some point. After all the were on the system card.

[lamford]

 Chris L, on 2011-February-14, 15:29, said:

Let's be clear - I am not making any allegations against Frances or Jeffery, each of whom I have known for, I would think, the best part of 20 years; they have both represented Cambs & Hunts in the past and the two teams are on very good terms. They volunteered their views in the course of a friendly discussion when we were all milling about at the end of the event and we were considering whether to appeal. Given that their experience of how appeal committees work is far greater than mine, I thought that their views were entitled to considerable weight, notwithstanding that they were members of the offending side. Their views also happened to coincide with mine on the question of the extreme improbability that the 3♠ bid was a splinter agreeing ♥. It also seemed to me that, if N was entitled to know (from a combination of his own hand and their systemic agreements about splinters) that 3♠ couldn't be a splinter then (i) it could only be a natural bid and (ii) given that W had (by implication) shown at least ♣ tolerance with his T/O double and that E had bid ♣, 3NT seemed a fairly obvious bid for N to make - and the TD, after consultation, had evidently come to the same conclusion.

If I had been asked my opinion on a possible appeal and team-mates had been involved, I would have recused myself. As captain of a team involved in a possible appeal, I would not have put Frances or Jeffery in an awkward position of being asked to offer an opinion, and I would have sought opinion from the (presumably) several other experts on UI at the Tolly final. I disagree, primarily for the reasons that dburn gives, with the the gross misjudgement of the "extreme probability" of a splinter. But even if we accept that, and accept that the pair "rarely play splinters" and not in this position, the 3S bid is certainly not natural; the second choice would be an advance cue bid agreeing hearts, which it probably was in Terence Reese's day. I do not know anyone who plays that 3S is natural when 2S is natural and forcing, and certainly not a pair playing transfer responses after a takeout double. Even if the pair wanted to "let it go" as the TD had ruled, your role as match captain should have been to insist on an appeal whether or not 3rd place was at stake, and certainly if other members of your team wished to do so. And, what were the final scores, as I know that huge swings can have an effect on other places in the Tollemache final, so it may not have only been third place at stake?

Postscript: As the hands and frequencies are now in the public domain, there are couple more points I wanted to make. Readers going to the EBU website at

http://www.ebu.co.uk...Travellers3.htm

and the scorecards at

http://www.ebu.co.uk...ScoreCards3.htm

can discover the identity of the players and the other scores on the board. It is board 25 and N/S+550 was the score. I thought that the OP's statement: "NS are a fairly regular partnership and play quite a lot of "stuff" was more accurate than FrancesHinden's statement. "You are playing in a not very regular partnership with a good player.", but readers may wish to Google "A"+"B" for the two players in order to find out if they agree.

It is clear from the scorecards that only third place would have been at stake on an AC decision.

[dburn]

 dburn, on 2011-February-14, 16:57, said:

I don't expect that 1♦-1♥ showed spades. They were probably playing transfers only over takeout doubles of 1♦ (or at least, one of them was).

This is horrible. North simply cannot bid 3NT after 1♥ has been alerted as spades. Why shouldn't East have a lot of black-suit cards, and have decided to bid clubs because North has just bid spades? Why shouldn't West have a strong jump overcall in spades, and be passing 3♠ just to see what will happen (he knows that North-South are in the middle of a cock-up, but they don't). I don't know about 6NT doubled down three, although I understand the reasoning behind it and could well imagine giving part of it as a weighted score. But "result stands" is... well, it is not even wrong.

 helene_t, on 2011-February-14, 17:09, said:

I don't understand this argument.

If you are arguing that North might, without the alert, have thought that 3♠ was a splinter, then surely it doesn't factor in that North had shown spades. Since if he saw 3♠ as a splinter he wouldn't have been aware that he had shown spades himself.

It is a good case for not allowing North to bid 3NT that most people in the other thread voted that 3♠ is a splinter.

I just don't think it's very plausible. Also, it is quite possible that North, even without the UI, would have been woken up by the 3♠ bid itself. Since presumably he had discussed the transfers at some point. After all they were on the system card.

It is certainly possible that without UI, North might have wondered where all the spades were and concluded that partner had more than one of them. But without UI North is a free agent - he can conclude what he likes and bid what he likes (although I would wonder what, among the "stuff" that North-South play, the uncontested auction 1♦-1♠-3♠-3NT might mean; there are those who do not play it as non-forcing).

But with UI, North knows that South is supporting North's "spades" (and may not have any heart support at all). That being so, he is simply not allowed to bid 3NT and hope that South will pass it (why in blazes did South pass it, anyway?) because there are always (or almost always) logical alternatives to the presumption that partner has forgotten the system. 3NT was basically another case of unauthorized panic - "partner thinks I have spades, so I had better bid something that suggests I don't want to play in spades". Note that this is different from "standard UP", where you bid a suit because partner doesn't think you have it even though you've shown it, but the principle is the same.

[bluejak]

I have read all the posts. Several of them do not seem on-topic. But the ones that do seem to decide for the most part that North has made an illegal bid in the presence of UI without, as far as I can see by my reading, giving any particular logic for it.

Someone points out that it is normal to play transfer responses only over a double [or perhaps an overcall, not relevant here] while playing natural responses otherwise. Very true, and it is quite likely this pair do. Let us assume, since I cannot ask them, that they do. If I had been the TD I would have asked then that. Where does this take us?

---

What does 3♠ show? What should North call?

Now if the answer is that 3♠ shows spades then surely North will call 3NT and there is no LA to it.

If this is the case, why are people assuming it is a splinter? I do not see it.

As to the "unauthorised panic" argument it does not hold water: occasionally the call that someone would make under unauthorised panic is also the legal call, and perhaps the only sensible call. At such times we have no idea whether he has acted ethically or otherwise but he gets the benefit of the doubt.

So I think there is no reason to adjust.

Of course if 3♠ is a splinter here it makes all the difference.

[Vampyr]

 bluejak, on 2011-February-14, 18:51, said:

What does 3♠ show?

From North's point of view, 2♠ would have been natural and forcing. So what is 3♠? More natural? More forcing?

[bluejak]

 Vampyr, on 2011-February-14, 19:06, said:

From North's point of view, 2♠ would have been natural and forcing. So what is 3♠? More natural? More forcing?

How do you know it is natural and forcing?

The OP says:

Quote

I think N said that 2♠ by S over 2♣ by E would have been NF so that, a natural, forcing, 3♠ bid (putting the UI to one side) was a logical alternative.

That suggests not forcing to me.

Furthermore, I do know some people who play a shift as forcing and a jump shift as stronger and distributional.

It does not matter how you or I play it, Steph, nor what we think sensible: how does this pair play 3♠?

[lamford]

 bluejak, on 2011-February-14, 18:51, said:

What does 3♠ show? What should North call?

Now if the answer is that 3♠ shows spades then surely North will call 3NT and there is no LA to it.

I think you are missing the point. You have to pretend that you did not see or hear the alert. With the alert, 3S is just raising spades, obviously. Without the alert it is undiscussed, let us say - but the vast majority would not play it as natural. There are therefore many LAs, as the parallel thread shows. As dburn states, bidding 3NT is truly horrible. The TD decision is truly horrible, and those that he consulted (if the facts are as stated) have offered a truly horrible opinion.

[bluejak]

I think you are missing the point. He bid 1♥ natural, and has heard a 3♠ bid which without the double would be ?? We do not know for sure, but let us suppose natural. Then 3NT is not horrible, it is the only conceivable call without the UI so is legal.

[lamford]

 bluejak, on 2011-February-14, 19:14, said:

It does not matter how you or I play it, Steph, nor what we think sensible: how does this pair play 3♠?

The pair in question, whose names you can obtain from the EBU site, have won national titles. I would be reluctant to accept any argument that 2S was non-forcing. There can be no agreement on how they play 3S here other than natural - because 1H showed spades. What we are trying to guess at is how they would play a hypothetical sequence where 1H was not a transfer to spades. And here we just have to go with how their peers would treat it. And, as the parallel poll shows, that is something like: 70% splinter, 20% cuebid and 10% other. Therefore 3NT is demonstrably suggested, illegal, and should attract a PP.