barmar, on 2014-June-12, 09:15, said:
The poll indicates that Pass is a logical alternative. So the only real question is what the hesitation suggests. If it suggests bidding on, you have to pass.
The problem I have is that it's difficult to decide what the hesitation suggests when I'm biased by seeing the actual hand East holds. I can't help thinking that it implies that he was thinking of passing to play in the possible 4-3 fit, which obviously suggests bidding 3♥. But could there be other things he was thinking of, such as stretching to 2NT -- that would imply wasted values opposite the singleton.
Deciding what the hesitation suggest is often a difficult problem for those who have seen the entire hand. I think this is the area where TDs (and ACs) are most likely to go wrong when ruling in UI cases. Far too often they conclude that the UI meant that the player had the hand he held.
You really need to look at the West hand and the auction only. Then you need to determine the LAs. After you have determined the LAs, you need to add the information that East has tanked before bidding 2
♠. Then you need to look what that BIT could mean.
Looking at the auction only, I would conclude that East has at most 5 cards (2-3) in the majors and, therefore, at least 8 cards in the minors (still consistent with the actual East hand
). When I add the West hand and the BIT into the picture, I would suspect that East holds a long diamond suit and was considering bidding 3
♦. (Not consistent with the actual East hand.) I wouldn't rule out other possibilities, but long diamonds will be the first thing on my mind.
What LAs are suggested by the BIT might depend somewhat on what a 3
♦ bid would show. I play it as constructive, say 9(8) to a bad 12, so if I were East and tanked, I would probably hold 1-2 spades, 6+ diamonds, and about 7-8 points. That certainly does not suggest bidding on. It would suggest a pass.
Another holding that East could have for his tank is a balanced hand at the top of the range (i.e. what East actually had). This holding would suggest bidding on.
So, I would conclude that the UI does not suggest one LA over the other (where pass and 3
♥ are the LAs). Therefore, I would allow 3
♥.
----
As an aside, this case shows how careful you need to be with handing out PPs for using UI: You need to be pretty sure that the UI was easy to interpret for the player and clearly suggested the chosen action over the LA.
I could certainly understand a TD who would judge that the maximum balanced hand is far more likely than the hand with long diamonds. Perhaps he ran a sim, or otherwise has a different (better) judgement of the likelihoods for the hand patterns. In that case, he should certainly adjust the score. But when the player has done the thinking, considered his legal options carefully, followed the laws consistent with his conclusions at the table, and acted properly based on his interpretation of the UI, he should not get a PP. That would in essence punish him for having a bridge judgement that is different from the TD's.
Rik
I want my opponents to leave my table with a smile on their face and without matchpoints on their score card - in that order.
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