[Sjoerds]

---

Normal club competition. Medium level.
2♦= strongest bid
2♥= relay
2 NT= 23-25 HP
3♥= alerted and explained as spades
4 NT= after the bidding explained as Blackwood
5 NT= No idea

West was not sure if they play Jacoby in this situation and intended to show the hearts.
3 ♠was not alerted and after some thinking West bid 4NT.
EW play 4♣ and 4NT as Blackwood
Before his last pass, North asks the meaning of 4NT (Blackwood) and 5NT ("no idea").
After the play East asked his partner "why do you pass" we have to be in 6♥

Result 5NT+1

NS claim that a pass on 3♠ is a LA.
Your ruling?

[gordontd]

No-one bid 4♠

[CamHenry]

West should probably bid as if E has shown something like 5=2=3=3 with good spades, or 6=2=(32) with poor spades. I think a raise to 4♠, which is passed out, may not be an LA: give E AKQJx/Ax/Axx/AK and 7♠ has play; it should be easy to construct less perfect hands on which 6♠ makes easily. I reckon 4NT is therefore allowed. 5NT: I'd ask E why he bid this. Having promised 23+ and knowing partner has some values, he shouldn't worry about his response being taken for 1 ace!

I find it difficult to see anything unethical about the auction, and rule result stands.

PS: there was no opportunity for anyone to pass 4♠ on the auction you gave: was there a typo?

[campboy]

If 3♠ is completing the transfer, is that alertable in the Netherlands? If not, East has no UI.

West does have UI, but I do not see how 4NT is suggested by the UI over any plausible alternative. 3♠ presumably (did anyone ask?) should show a slam-try for hearts, and the UI suggests partner is less slam-suitable. Passing 5NT is bizarre of course, but I imagine East would have passed a 6♥ bid in which case there was no damage.

[billw55]

Admittedly something seems a little fishy. East explains 4NT as blackwood but then makes a non-existent response? It doesn't matter much though, since there is no damage to NS (6♥ is cold). So, as a ruling, no adjustment.

I would take a close look at their system notes, to try to determine if east either player has done something unethical.

edit: hmm, maybe there is more to this than I first thought ...

[iviehoff]

 Sjoerds, on 2013-October-17, 06:10, said:

NS claim that a pass on 4♠ is a LA.

It is quite implausible that W will pass 3S or bid 4S. Bidding 4H could be criticised as "unauthorised panic". Plausible calls by W include 3N and 4C. For a player knowing that there is a bidding misunderstanding going on, to bid 4N Blackwood is hardly suggested over those by the UI.

I would be readier to criticise W's pass of 5N. However given that 12 tricks were made, it looks like no damage. If S was inhibited from leading a spade by the "misexplanation", there might be further issues to examime.

[dburn]

The answer to the OP's question is "I don't know what is going on". At first, it seems as though West was aware of his responsibilities: having bid a natural 3♥ explained by East as spades, he correctly treated East's 3♠ as a cue for hearts and bid Blackwood over it. You may question his judgement in so doing, but his ethics are impeccable.

But then, when East bid 5NT, West passed it. A cynic might say that he did this lest worse befall - West knew that if he bid anything at all, East (who thought spades were trump) might do something detrimental to East-West's chances of playing in something they could make. Passing 5NT, therefore, smacks of unauthorised panic. A more charitable view might be that since 5NT did not exist as a response to Blackwood with hearts agreed, it was open to West to pass it anyway on the basis that the partnership auction was (legitimately) known to have gone off the rails.

Not as far, though, as some distinguished commentators above seem to have gone off the rails. Of course East wouldn't have passed 6♥ (or 6♣, for that matter, if West had bid it as well he might). East thought spades were trump, remember, and West knew this. True, East is alleged to have said "we have to be in 6♥", but it would be interesting to hear East's suggestion as to how, if 3♥ really did show spades, they would have reached 6♥.

Indeed, it would be interesting to hear East-West's account of the motives behind their curious sequence. Without such data, I will not theorize.

[gnasher]

I agree with David that we should ask some questions. I am, however, willing to speculate about the meaning of the auction from East's perspective.

East thought 3♥ showed five spades. He probably thought 4NT was natural and invitational, because that is how "everyone" plays the sequence 2NT-3♥;3♠-4NT. He probably intended his 5NT as offering a choice of slams, because he had a 4333 shape and didn't know whether to play in spades or in notrumps.

If that's the case, a 6♥ continuation by West would have been surprising to East. A hand that is worth a non-forcing 4NT can't also be worth a 6♥ grand-slam try. 6♥ can't really be a suggestion to play with 5-4 in the majors, assuming that the partnership plays Stayman.

What East would now do would depend on how certain he was that 3♥ was a transfer, and on what he knew or suspected about his partner's style and ability. If East started the hand with some doubt about what 3♥ meant, he should be allowed to pass his partner's "impossible" 6♥ bid.

But as I said this is all speculation.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2013-October-18, 02:24

[campboy]

And even if we think East will bid 6♠ over 6♥, surely West will correct to 6NT, which also makes.

[gnasher]

 campboy, on 2013-October-18, 03:51, said:

And even if we think East will bid 6♠ over 6♥, surely West will correct to 6NT, which also makes.

Except that South might work out what's going on and lead a spade. Things are rather clearer after 6♥-6♠-6NT than in the actual auction.

[campboy]

 gnasher, on 2013-October-18, 04:07, said:

Except that South might work out what's going on and lead a spade. Things are rather clearer after 6♥-6♠-6NT than in the actual auction.

Oops, yes, I clicked on GIB and misread the results. I should've stopped to think

[billw55]

 dburn, on 2013-October-17, 20:41, said:

Of course East wouldn't have passed 6♥ (or 6♣, for that matter, if West had bid it as well he might). East thought spades were trump, remember, and West knew this. True, East is alleged to have said "we have to be in 6♥", but it would be interesting to hear East's suggestion as to how, if 3♥ really did show spades, they would have reached 6♥.

Exactly. Something with east's actions doesn't quite add up. Could it be his thought process went like this:

"Our agreement is that 3♥ is a transfer to spades. However, I suspect partner has forgotten this and actually has hearts. I won't be able to stop in 6♥ because I should bid 6♠ over that. So I will try a non-existent 5NT to scare partner into passing. At least it will be a plus."

It's possible but IMO we should not attribute this much deviousness without better evidence.

[gnasher]

 billw55, on 2013-October-18, 06:20, said:

Exactly. Something with east's actions doesn't quite add up. Could it be his thought process went like this:

"Our agreement is that 3♥ is a transfer to spades. However, I suspect partner has forgotten this and actually has hearts. I won't be able to stop in 6♥ because I should bid 6♠ over that. So I will try a non-existent 5NT to scare partner into passing. At least it will be a plus."

It's possible but IMO we should not attribute this much deviousness without better evidence.

If that's what he did, why shouldn't he? I know East had UI from West's pause after 3♠, but I don't think that suggests 5NT over other actions.

[cherdano]

Well I don't know what's going on.
But to me 5N smells like "I gather from partner's pause and perplexed look after my alert that he may have meant 3♥ as hearts. So let's bid 5N=pick-a-slam to let us find out whether he actually had hearts or spades."

I would need convincing explanations to dissuade me from ruling 6N-1.

[cherdano]

 gnasher, on 2013-October-18, 06:29, said:

If that's what he did, why shouldn't he? I know East had UI from West's pause after 3♠, but I don't think that suggests 5NT over other actions.

I don't understand how you can say this. East had UI indicating they may have had a misunderstanding. Making a bid to let us recover from that misunderstanding (rather than focussing on finding whether to play grand or small slam in our agreed strain) is pretty clearly suggested by the UI.

[gnasher]

 cherdano, on 2013-October-18, 08:37, said:

East had UI indicating they may have had a misunderstanding.

From West's hesitation, or from something else?

I don't think that a pause before bidding 4NT indicates that there's been a misunderstanding. Usually it means that the player is deciding whether 4NT will tell him what he needs to know, and whether he can cope with all the responses.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2013-October-18, 08:42

[cherdano]

Ok, maybe I read too much into the original report.

Whenever I have seen opponents of "medium club level" have a misunderstanding like the one described in the original post, I have never seen a pause by the partner of the alerter that didn't tell everyone at the table that there was some discomfort.
Combined with East's comment (he seemed to think of it as normal outcome to get to 6♥ on this auction), I find it highly unlikely that East didn't pick up on something.

I have also never seen medium level club opponents bid 5N on this auction, and certainly not with a known spade fit as an answer to RKCB.

[gnasher]

Maybe I don't know enough about medium club level players.

Anyway, I expect that asking East why he bid 5NT would tell us what we need to know.

[Sjoerds]

 gordontd, on 2013-October-17, 06:12, said:

No-one bid 4♠

Yep changed typo

[Sjoerds]

 campboy, on 2013-October-17, 06:29, said:

If 3♠ is completing the transfer, is that alertable in the Netherlands?

yes it is alertable