[JLOGIC]

barmar, on 2011-October-11, 22:36, said:

I agree with the people who say that UI is not a big problem.

However, there IS a MI problem. If the 3♣ bid had been alerted properly, maybe EW would have been able to find their 5♥ contract, rather than defending 5♦.

And as someone else said, we need to see all the hands. That would help us decide how EW could have bid over a properly alerted 3♣ bid.

Come on man did you look at the auction? They had stopped in 3H at one point. Now they're going to bid 5H? On an auction where the level of the opps fit is completely unknown at equal vul? I would probably laugh at any opponents who said that.

If this were true then why didn't they bid it over 5D? They know at that point the 3C bid was either a psyche (lol) or artificial (ghestem being by far the most common meaning). If you allow them to double, and then to later call the director back and say "I would have bid 5H," you simply give them an easy double shot, that does not seem right either. Of course they can try and make a case why if they knew the bid was spades and diamonds, they would bid 5H, but I would be very skeptical of such a case, but you're right we'd need to see all the hands to evaluate the merit of that case. Personally I cannot imagine viewing any argument of people who stopped in 3H, then competing to 4H over 5C, and now on this auction where the opponents might be completely nailed since they had a misunderstanding, they are going to bid 5H, as anything other than a self serving sour grapes argument, it does not make sense, but again we can see all the hands then listen to their case, true.

Certainly to me the case would revolve around whether or not they have a case that they would bid 5H with correct info, not whether or not south should be allowed to pull 5C. I would be embarassed if my case was "south has to play his partner to have psyched his pass in third seat, and then walked the dog with a pass and 4C bid." Sure, some people make weird psyches sometimes, but you are not required to play your partner to have done something that makes no logical sense, when you have bid clubs artificially and your partner raises starts raising clubs when it's impossible for him to have a hand to do so.

Passing with ace seventh is fine, that thread is in FIRST seat by the way, but even if partner has passed with ace seventh of clubs in third seat why would he now bid 4C then 5C? That does not make sense. Partner would need at least 8 good clubs to consider bidding 5C by himself, in which case he would not pass in third seat. That is just "bridge" to me.

And in respone to the common response to this argument of "but what if your partner had alerted 3C, explained it, and then started raising clubs????" I say that that is an impossible hypothetical. What if pigs flew? It doesn't matter, it is impossible that my partner knows what 3C meant and then bid this way, it is always a misunderstanding. If we were behind screens, I would of course play for a misunderstanding.

So, both arguments of "this guy has to play his partner to have psyched a 3rd seat pass and then walked it" as well as "the opps who stopped in 3H, and then didn't bid 5H when the opponent ran to 5D and they knew he didn't have clubs, would have now bid 5H on 2 hooks at equal vul!" seem ridiculous to me. If you want to change the rules that the opps cannot benefit and get lucky in a situation like this, fine, but those are not the rules right now, and it is just sour grapes to try and punish them that way.

I cannot imagine any committee ruling this way, but I guess tht's why they exist. If we are supposed to play partner to have made the weirdest most nonsensical psyche/auction ever, then we can never use bridge logic to determine a misunderstanding, and as far as I know that is not the case.