AlexJonson, on 2011-March-14, 18:30, said:
While this has been so far a very interesting topic, it is certainly the case that it has 'drifted' a long way froom the origninal post.
Not very far at all, really. But perhaps it is time to address the additional data provided by aguahombre with respect to the original post. If agauahombre feels that this data was available or at any rate deducible from the original post, he may be right - but it does not matter very much.
aguahombre, on 2011-March-03, 17:54, said:
2
♥ was explained by South as weak, sometime before the 2
♠ balance.
North actually had an 11-count with 6 hearts (somehow deemed inappropriate to open one or two the first time).
Director asks for advice, and the person says that 3
♥ is AI to South that North has a hand invitational to game, but that the 3
♥ call is based on UI and should not have occurred ---since the authorized information is that South was rejecting a game invite and might not even have heart support.
If 2
♥ was systemically weak but North had forgotten and thought it was invitational, then North was still (in effect) allowed to bid 3
♥ if and only if he had a hand with which he would have bid an invitational 3
♥ over 1
♦ supposing that his methods permitted such a call. Perhaps he was asked what 3
♥ over 1
♦ would have meant, perhaps not; the information has considerable relevance, but is not supplied.
Well, North had an eleven count with six hearts - in other words, he really did have (or at least, may really have had) a hand worth an invitational 3
♥ over 1
♦. Maybe North didn't think of bidding that; maybe he did but decided that South might treat it as some sort of splinter or fit jump, and maybe he was right to be concerned.
In either case, North's 2
♥-then 3
♥ sequence was fine; it was the best he could do in the circumstances short of bidding a rather unilateral 4
♥ (or a self-torturing 1
♥ in the hope that it would not go "all pass"). I don't know what the North hand was, so I don't know whether I would do what the actual Director (or advisor) did, which was to cancel North's bid of 3
♥. That could have been the right decision, but there is no certainty about it (and given aguahombre's description of the actual North hand, I would think it probable that the decision was in fact wrong).
What is certain is this: when South heard 3
♥, it was
not AI to him that North actually had a hand worth an invitational 3
♥ over 1
♦. South drew that inference (or "could have drawn that inference" - blackshoe is quite right that we should keep all our ducks in line) only because South knew that North knew that South had interpreted 2
♥ as weak when North had not so intended it.
But South's knowledge of what North knew that South thought is not authorised (as I have tried to show). It did not derive solely from legal calls; rather, it derived from South's explanation of 2
♥. Even though that explanation was systemically correct, it was not AI to North (aguahombre is quite right about that);
and nor was the fact that North had heard it AI to South.
In short: even if North's bid of 3
♥ was legal, South's bid of 4
♥ was almost certainly illegal given his pass to 2
♥.