blackshoe, on 2011-September-15, 21:08, said:
It matters. We can't give accurate rulings if we don't have all the facts.
I still don't understand why people are second-guessing the facts as presented in the OP and reiterated in subsequent postings by Hanoi5 and YesHoney.
The OP said: "the agreement for 2
♦ was
♦ & M".
Hanoi5 clarified: "DONT alerted by North as Majors".
OP clarified: "2
♦ bidder and his partner said at the table they discussed both possibilities (DONT and Capp) and agreed on DONT. 2
♦ bidder remembered, his partner forgot".
Also germane to the ruling, we were told by Hanoi5 that 3NT failed despite being in a makeable position which can only mean that sometime before North-South cashed-out, declarer got in and failed to play on
♣ which in my books is a serious error. Accordingly, East-West keep their poor table result and North-South get an adjusted score based on what would've likely happened in the auction had East-West been given a correct explanation of 2
♦ and North-South not taken advantage of any UI to extricate themselves from their bidding misunderstanding (which I believe will be 2
♠S-3).
The side discussion about whether or not it is sensible to regulate that partnerships should know their system, perhaps belongs in the
Changing Laws & Regulations forum; but in relation to the Australian regulation I posted above, one needs to understand that most of the high-level bridge in Australia is more-or-less free of system restrictions so at different points in time we have had pairs playing some pretty weird stuff which is fine under our rules, but when you get a pair playing a weird system and they don't even know it properly it is a pain in the %^&* to play againsts them.
My personal view (and apparently a non-mainstream view according to Bluejak) is that at all levels players should aspire to developing their partnership agreements and understandings such that you can have a sensible game against them without having to constantly involve the TD with misexplanations. As a "should" concept it describes best practice and failure to do it would rarely attract any penalty, but players should be aware that there is a general expectation that partnerships know their system.
Let me present a hypothetical example of a weekly duplicate at small club in England where a keen young pair decide that "Standard English Acol" isn't quite floating their boat so they decide to load-up their system with various complicated, but legal, conventions including relay continuations after an artifical one-level GF response to a natural 1
♣ opening. The problem is, every single time their GF auctions go beyond the third round of bidding, one or both of them forgets the structure and they wind-up misinforming their opponents, create a myriad of UI situations, randomise the results, annoy the punters and consume a disproportionate amount of the TD's time. Now tell me, would a TD not be doing his job properly if he didn't sit down with these fellas and tell them that if they are going play these methods at his club they have a reasonsibility to make sure they actually know their system and that if he doesn't see a significant reduction in the TD calls he receives due to their bidding cock-ups, he's going to ask them to play something less complex?
Disclaimer: The above post may be a half-baked sarcastic rant intended to stimulate discussion and it does not necessarily coincide with my own views on this topic.
I ♦ bidding the suit below the suit I'm actually showing not to be described as a "transfer" for the benefit of people unfamiliar with the concept of a transfer