[gnasher]

South is declarer, and cashes a diamond. East discards an encouraging heart, then corrects it to a diamond, leaving the heart as a major penalty card. At this point the knowledge that East wanted to encourage hearts is UI to West.

South cashes a second diamond, and East plays his penalty card. Systemically, this discard would still be encouraging.

Is it now AI or UI that East wanted to encourage hearts?

[aguahombre]

IMO, it is AI that partner wants to encourage Hearts; it is UI, however, that partner is so emphatic she couldn't wait until she was out of Diamonds

[pran]

gnasher, on 2013-November-18, 17:42, said:

South is declarer, and cashes a diamond. East discards an encouraging heart, then corrects it to a diamond, leaving the heart as a major penalty card. At this point the knowledge that East wanted to encourage hearts is UI to West.

South cashes a second diamond, and East plays his penalty card. Systemically, this discard would still be encouraging.

Is it now AI or UI that East wanted to encourage hearts?

It remains to be seen whether the distinction is important (or essential) but:

The fact that East originally wanted to encourage is still UI

The fact that East now wants to encourage can be AI

[PeterAlan]

gnasher, on 2013-November-18, 17:42, said:

South is declarer, and cashes a diamond. East discards an encouraging heart, then corrects it to a diamond, leaving the heart as a major penalty card. At this point the knowledge that East wanted to encourage hearts is UI to West.

South cashes a second diamond, and East plays his penalty card. Systemically, this discard would still be encouraging.

Is it now AI or UI that East wanted to encourage hearts?

UI (for West) it seems: Law 50E (in particular, 50E2).

Law 50E said:

E. Information from a Penalty Card
1. Knowledge of the requirements for playing a penalty card is authorized information for all players.
2. Other information derived from sight of a penalty card is unauthorized for the partner of the player who has the penalty card (but authorized for declarer).
3. If the Director judges that the exposed card conveyed such information as to damage the non-offending side he shall award an adjusted score.

[GreenMan]

I'd say AI. Once it's played it's no longer a penalty card, and L50E2 doesn't apply.

[Lord Molyb]

this seems like AI to me

[PeterAlan]

GreenMan, on 2013-November-18, 18:13, said:

I'd say AI. Once it's played it's no longer a penalty card, and L50E2 doesn't apply.

I don't see this at all. It remains "Other information derived from sight of a penalty card" whether the card has been played or not.

[campboy]

Suppose South is declarer, and on lead. East tries to lead a heart. This isn't accepted, so becomes a major penalty card. South now cashes two rounds of diamonds. East can't follow to the second round, so he discards his penalty card. Is West obliged to treat this as a signal? I believe the normal view is "no"; he has AI that it was played to comply with a penalty card restriction, and so may not have been the card West would have played otherwise.

The only difference between these two situations is the UI that West has (how the heart came to be a penalty card). So if, in the situation I mention, he is permitted to take into account that it may not have been intended as a signal, then surely he has to take that into account in the original situation too (since he has extra UI that it was intended as a signal).

[aguahombre]

pran, on 2013-November-18, 18:01, said:

It remains to be seen whether the distinction is important (or essential) but:

The fact that East originally wanted to encourage is still UI

The fact that East now wants to encourage can be AI

This is interesting in a slightly different way. It would seem that, if something might have caused East to change his mind from one trick to the next, that possibility is UI and West is obligated to treat the (previously) penalty card as a signal of East's current attitude.

Take it a step farther. Perhaps East's Heart 7 was the lowest one he had and he was expecting to continue with the 8 on one more Diamond play. That possibility should be UI to West.

[GreenMan]

PeterAlan, on 2013-November-18, 18:49, said:

I don't see this at all. It remains "Other information derived from sight of a penalty card" whether the card has been played or not.

Once the same information is available as AI, such as from the legal play of a card, then the UI disappears.

The interesting case is when the eventual legal play of the same card transmits *different* information, as others have pointed out. Then the information encoded in the original, illegal action is UI. But in the situation in the OP, no.

[blackshoe]

GreenMan, on 2013-November-18, 22:51, said:

Once the same information is available as AI, such as from the legal play of a card, then the UI disappears.

That, as Jerry Pournelle likes to say, turns out not to be the case. UI doesn't "disappear". It's possible there's no logical alternative to whatever action the UI suggests, though.

[RMB1]

I think it is still UI. It is the information that authorised or not - not the cards.

That the original play was encouraging in hearts was unauthorised.
The only information from the play of the penalty card was that the card could legally be played, and this information is authorised. So the original encouraging signal seems only to be available from unauthorised information.

Again, we grab a passing a waiter (who has seen a waiter at a bridge event?) and sit him down after the revoke trick has been corrected and partner has a penalty card. He does not know why the card is a penalty card. The TD tells him that partner has a penalty card that will be played at the first legal opportunity. When partner plays the penalty card, the substitute/waiter knows this is not encouraging in hearts.

[Trinidad]

I think Robin explained it well: It is still UI.

And -as an answer to the more important question- yes, at our bridge club, we have waiters.

Rik