[Fluffy]

♠Axx
♥AKQJ10xx
♦xx
♣x


1♣-pass-1♥*-pass
2♠-pass-???


1♥: partner alerts 1♥ wich makes you remember that you play transfer. Thus partner has a weak NT hand with 4 spades instead of a strong 2 suiter.

There are a lot of LA here, 2NT, 3♣, 3♦, 3♥, 3♠ are all forcing, and leaps to 4NT, 5NT, 6♥. 6♠. 6NT or even some grands wouldn't be unthinkable. Wich ones are suggested by the alert?

[AlexJonson]

4NT looks clear to me without the UI, so that's what I bid.

[barmar]

I think the UI suggests two things: 1) you might belong only in game, not slam; 2) partner is going to misunderstand ♥ rebids.

Without the UI, you would presumably make whatever bids show a good hand and a self-sufficient ♥ suit, and then show slam aspirations. You're likely to end up in an auction where partner interprets your bids very differently from what you're showing (e.g. you might try to cue bid ♠, but he'll take it as natural). The UI suggests that masterminding is the only way out of this mess, so I think you just have to pretend you never heard the alert and bid accordingly.

[RMB1]

If 3♠ is a LA then I think everything else is suggested because you might play there when it is the wrong level and the wrong denominaion.

But I think many of your listed alternatives are not LAs.

[barmar]

RMB1, on 2012-May-18, 16:55, said:

If 3♠ is a LA then I think everything else is suggested because you might play there when it is the wrong level and the wrong denominaion.

He said 3♠ is forcing, so you won't play it there. I assume the only way to stop short of game in this system is to either pass 2♠, or make a game try that partner declines and then pass his 3♠ rebid. Since you don't know enough about his side suits to know whether this will happen, I don't think the UI suggests this type of action.

[campboy]

Since OP was trying to evaluate LAs when he mentioned 3♠ being forcing, I would imagine he was talking about the authorised auction.

Anyway, I wouldn't consider bidding anything other than 3♥ in the authorised auction. I expect to have a problem at my next turn to call, but I don't think I have one yet.

[Fluffy]

3♠ is forcing over the jump shift, not over the transfer 2♠ sequence. Only playable partscore is 3♠

[RMB1]

barmar, on 2012-May-18, 17:06, said:

He said 3♠ is forcing, so you won't play it there. I assume the only way to stop short of game in this system is to either pass 2♠, ...

I assumed that 3♠ was forcing for responder, when 1♥ was natural, but opener would not treat 3♠ as forcing, when 1♥=♠.

[aguahombre]

AlexJonson, on 2012-May-18, 16:50, said:

4NT looks clear to me without the UI, so that's what I bid.

Yeh, I guess. I can only know that partner jump shifted to a new suit; but, I don't like my doubleton diamond. 4NT for spades, right? Planning to convert to NT in the end. The TD or AC might decide 4NT, rather than trying to establish hearts is an attempt to fix what's broken based on the UI. Maybe so, but my position would be that bidding hearts again would convolute the "authorised" auction within our methods.

barmar, on 2012-May-18, 16:51, said:

The UI suggests that masterminding is the only way out of this mess, so I think you just have to pretend you never heard the alert and bid accordingly.

I agree with this; IMO the way out of this mess is to get to the next board content that I haven't used the UI ---whatever happens. And, I think that is what you meant rather than to salvage a good result. If I have to assume 3 Key cards, when she has zero, the result will not be pretty.

[Trinidad]

I don't really think that there are that many LA's.

I would bid 3♥, which from my side of the table shows a long heart suit. That is what I have. I would like to know if partner has a diamond control. From my side of the table he could have something like ♠KQJx ♥x ♦Qxx ♣AKQJx.

Partner will treat it as a game try for spades, for now. We will take it from there.

Partner will bid 3♠ or 4♠.

I will interpret the 3♠ bid as a cue accepting hearts. I will bid 4♣ (or serious 3NT if we play that). There are no LAs (other than treating the hand as "super serious": bidding as if frivolous and ignore partner's sign off). Then we will see what happens.

4♠ I will interpret as a 5-6 in the blacks with 5 losers. I would ask for keycards and bid 5/6/7♠. Partner will reply for spades. I will assume 6 keycards for the black suits, unless the last bid suit is automatically trump (in which case I am terribly lucky and we might even get to a contract that makes). I might also simply bid 6♠, if we don't play six keycard Blackwood.

Without any doubt, the opponents will call the TD. I will tell him that:
- I forgot the transfer agreement
- I got UI from the alert
- I tried my best to find the LAs and pick one that was not suggested by the UI
- in a case like this that is darn hard
- I may well have made a mistake somewhere.

Then I will wish him good luck on the ruling, apologize to my opponents and my partner.

Rik

[aguahombre]

Trinidad, on 2012-May-19, 08:53, said:

I will interpret the 3♠ bid as a cue accepting hearts. I will bid 4♣ (or serious 3NT if we play that). There are no LAs (other than treating the hand as "super serious": bidding as if frivolous and ignore partner's sign off). Then we will see what happens.

Without any doubt, the opponents will call the TD. I will tell him that:
- I forgot the transfer agreement
- I got UI from the alert
- I tried my best to find the LAs and pick one that was not suggested by the UI
- in a case like this that is darn hard
- I may well have made a mistake somewhere.

Then I will wish him good luck on the ruling, apologize to my opponents and my partner.

The part I bolded (emboldened?) Is a work of art. Perhaps your idea of establishing hearts is more appropriate than my blast; but my brain would fry trying to ignore what pard thinks is happening and converting each continuation into what the bids would mean with a hand he doesn't have and a system we don't play. So, I will speed the train toward the wreck. Yes, that is me using the UI

[AlexJonson]

aguahombre, on 2012-May-19, 08:52, said:

Yeh, I guess. I can only know that partner jump shifted to a new suit; but, I don't like my doubleton diamond. 4NT for spades, right? Planning to convert to NT in the end. The TD or AC might decide 4NT, rather than trying to establish hearts is an attempt to fix what's broken based on the UI. Maybe so, but my position would be that bidding hearts again would convolute the "authorised" auction within our methods.


I agree with this; IMO the way out of this mess is to get to the next board content that I haven't used the UI ---whatever happens. And, I think that is what you meant rather than to salvage a good result. If I have to assume 3 Key cards, when she has zero, the result will not be pretty.

Yes 4NT for spades. I expect 2S to be a bit of a rock crusher, so would imagine I was just confirming 3 key cards for 7NT.

If partner showed two key cards I'd bid 6H and pass his next bid - not a nice prospect. If he shows less than 2 keys I'll probably allow myself to think a wheel is off, but I suspect it will still end in 6S.

My bidding is bit crude but I'm never going to be able to show this hand to partner even if it hadn't been a misbid.

[Vampyr]

aguahombre, on 2012-May-19, 09:22, said:

The part I bolded (emboldened?) Is a work of art. Perhaps your idea of establishing hearts is more appropriate than my blast; but my brain would fry trying to ignore what pard thinks is happening and converting each continuation into what the bids would mean with a hand he doesn't have and a system we don't play. So, I will speed the train toward the wreck. Yes, that is me using the UI

Trinidad is speculating on what might happen, but in practice you don't have to actually care what pard thinks is happening. Just interpret partner's bids, and bid your own hand, as if the 2♠ bid was natural and game-forcing.

[jallerton]

Trinidad, on 2012-May-19, 08:53, said:

Without any doubt, the opponents will call the TD. I will tell him that:
- I forgot the transfer agreement
- I got UI from the alert
- I tried my best to find the LAs and pick one that was not suggested by the UI
- in a case like this that is darn hard
- I may well have made a mistake somewhere.

Then I will wish him good luck on the ruling, apologize to my opponents and my partner.

Rik

The opponents don't always call the TD. Sometimes they don't realise that the UI is the relevant. Sometimes they realise that there was UI but work out for themselves that you haven't gained any advantage from it. Sometimes they just don't care.

What is without doubt is that you should call the TD at the appropriate time to correct the failure to alert.

[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2012-May-19, 09:49, said:

Trinidad is speculating on what might happen, but in practice you don't have to actually care what pard thinks is happening. Just interpret partner's bids, and bid your own hand, as if the 2♠ bid was natural and game-forcing.

Right. When the UI is something like a BIT, you do have to figure out what this implies about partner's hand, and then go out of your way to avoid doing what this suggests (if you have choices). But in this case of hearing partner's alert, you can simply pretend that you never heard it, and go on as if you were playing the system consistent with your initial bid. The wheels will almost certainly come off, so it would be hard for someone to accuse you of taking advantage of the UI.

[gnasher]

barmar, on 2012-May-19, 11:16, said:

Right. When the UI is something like a BIT, you do have to figure out what this implies about partner's hand, and then go out of your way to avoid doing what this suggests (if you have choices). But in this case of hearing partner's alert, you can simply pretend that you never heard it, and go on as if you were playing the system consistent with your initial bid. The wheels will almost certainly come off, so it would be hard for someone to accuse you of taking advantage of the UI.

I don't see why you think that UI from an unexpected alert is different from any other sort of UI (if that's what you're saying). The rules still say the same thing: we must decide what the LAs are, then work out which of these are suggested by the UI.

On this particular hand on this round of the bidding, that seems easy to do: I would say that there's only one LA, which is 3♥. If, however, you think that 4NT is also an LA, you should consider which of 3♥ and 4NT is most likely to get you to the wrong contract, then select it.

[Vampyr]

gnasher, on 2012-May-19, 15:29, said:

I don't see why you think that UI from an unexpected alert is different from any other sort of UI (if that's what you're saying). The rules still say the same thing: we must decide what the LAs are, then work out which of these are suggested by the UI.

What he's saying is that this situation is easier to handle than others, because simply ignoring the alert may well be good enough.

[Cyberyeti]

This is very style dependent as to what exactly what 2♠ in the non transfer auction would show.

I would bid 3♥ (which to me is better than 4♥), I want to play this in hearts or NT so I need to set trumps over partner showing the blacks. I don't know if partner's allowed to hold 5 spades or would open a 5 card spade suit in front of longer clubs. But I will set trumps then cue/ask for aces.

My worry about immediate 4N is KQJx, void, QJx, AKQJxx or similar where number of aces doesn't tell me what I need to know.

SJS makes these hands so much easier

[Trinidad]

jallerton, on 2012-May-19, 11:11, said:

What is without doubt is that you should call the TD at the appropriate time to correct the failure to alert.

Did I miss something? AFAIK, there was no failure to alert. So far, there has not even been an irregularity. All that happened is that I forgot an agreement.

Partner did alert my (alertable) 1♥ and I have UI. There will not be an irregularity as long as I:
- manage to pick from LAs not one that could be suggested by UI
- will alert/explain all partner's bids according to our agreements (i.e. as after a transfer auction)

Therefore, there is no legal reason for me to call the TD.

I can very well understand that the opponents will call the TD (even if they got a good result*). ("This is a mess, let's call the TD.") And then I will explain what happened.

*Who knows? Maybe I did judge wrong and instead of the table result of 6♠-2 (and a loss of 11 IMPs), the TD assigns an AS of 7♠X-3 (and a loss of 14 IMPs).

Rik

[FrancesHinden]

There's only one LA for me now, and that is 3H. 4NT should be natural and I'm obviously far too good for that (if I want to bid keycard in spades, I'd raise spades).
The later auction is difficult because it is so hard to get hearts agreed and not end up keycarding for spades which is unhelpful (ignoring the UI problem, how do we distinguish between KQJxx - Kx AKQJxx and QJ10xx - Ax AKQJxx or whatever opposite)

It's extraordinarily likely we're going to get a dreadful result on the board because we're quite likely to end up in 7NT, but that might actually make....