Double allows correction of mis-bid
A basic question from a rusty TD. There seemed to be too many permutations to consider ...
Bidding as follows, E dealer (south has points and long hearts, west has long spades)
1NT / x / 2H / -
- / x / 2S / -
- / x / - / -
-
2Sx makes with overtricks for a clear top. West had intended their 2H was a transfer. There is no convention card, and EW don't agree on whether they play transfers over a double.
South calls the director - if the 2H had been announced as a transfer he'd not have doubled and they'd play in 2H going off.
West points out that regardless of whether the 2H was natural or not, the top came from the 2S being doubled, which was a misjudgement from South. A discussion starts on the implied shape of West's hand.
How do you rule? (Assume West can make 7 tricks in hearts, 10 tricks in spades.)
Does it make a difference if the play is online (and W should have announced their transfer) or live (and E should have announced it)?
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My thinking ...
Firstly, this is not procedural, so no ruling is needed at the table, you have time to think.
If 2H is a mis-bid, then West has UI from (online) the transfer not being completed or (live) the transfer not being announced.
... both UI indicate that West should bid 2S over x, hence such is misuse of UI. EW have gained, score as if 2Hx-1.
If 2H is correct as a transfer, then there's MI (online West didn't announce it, live East didn't announce it), but it wasn't highlighted in a timely fashion. Potential adjustment of score. But how do you rule? The double of 2H was based on MI. East simply made a mistake. The correction to 2S is legal, but the opportunity only arose because of MI. At this point my brain whimpered and froze.
Comments
First off, note that a transfer in this situation is not announceable (Blue Book 4E3); because it is not natural either, it would have to be alerted.
The fact that the transfer is not completed is AI, not UI – it follows the normal procedures of the game, and players are allowed to use their bids to communicate. Playing online with self-alerts, West has no UI, so the only possible adjustment is for misinformation.
If in a partner-alerts situation (some online sites, or when playing live without screens), West has both AI (that the transfer was passed) and UI (that the transfer wasn't alerted). In this situation, you need to apply the normal tests for a UI adjustment (was there UI? are there logical alternatives? does the UI demonstrably suggest the action taken over a logical alternative?) – it's obvious that the UI exists and that it suggests bidding 2!s over passing or redoubling, but the logical alternative question will depend on the contents of West's hand. (You would normally need a poll to test this: show player's West's hand and tell them that partner opened 1NT, RHO doubled, they bid 2!h as a transfer, and partner alerted and passed. If 2!s is a unanimous choice, or if only a minority choose non-2!s actions and almost all the rest think that 2!s is the only possibility, there's no logical alternative and you let 2!s stand; otherwise, you project what would happen after the least suggested of the logical alternatives, probably passing in this case.)
As for misinformation, the correct description seems to be "no agreement" / "undiscussed", so there's MI in any case. E/W are the declaring side, so they should have corrected this misinformation prior to the opening lead (Law 20F5b(i)). When using partner-alerts, regardless of what the true meaning is, at least one player in the E/W partnership will be aware that something has gone wrong. If playing on BBO (with self-alerting) specifically, they might not have the opportunity because BBO won't show East what West's alerts were in time to be able to correct them; this is a situation in which BBO deviates from the Laws of Bridge and it isn't immediately clear what the best correction should be. (When playing online, sometimes I have to guess from my partner's tempo whether they forgot to alert (using UI to correct missed alerts is legal); this has lead to some amusing redundant "corrections" because my partners have been known to alert bids so smoothly that it looked like there was a forgotten alert!)
The adjustment for misinformation (whether E/W admitted it at the appropriate time, or, as in your example above, it wasn't discovered until later) is explained in Law 21B3: if the offending side gained an advantage from the irregularity, and it can't be fixed by changing a call (it's much too late to do that in your example!), then the Director awards an adjusted score. Laws 26B1 and 26C1b explain the principles that are used to adjust the score: the Director has to work out what would have happened if there was no irregularity, aiming to match the probable outcome without it.
In this case (assuming that a UI adjustment to 2!hX-1 isn't appropriate, either due to lack of UI or due to this not being a logical alternative), I think the only plausible options are 2!h-1 (undoubled), 2!s+2 (undoubled), and 2!sX+2; East's pass is not an irregularity, but the failure to inform South that the agreement was "2!h is undiscussed and might have been meant, or interpreted as, a transfer" is. This means that the situation in the absence of the irregularity still has East passing. We therefore need to work out the probabilities of whether South would pass, or would double 2!h anyway, if given correct information; in the latter case, we also need to work how likely South would be to double 2!s regardless. This requires polling players (ideally, players who would double 2!s given the information that everything is natural; you could poll them with the "undiscussed, possibly a transfer" information first, and then ask them "what if it's definitely natural?" and give higher weight to the opinions of people who duplicated South's actions at the table).
Thank you for a thorough and informative response.
There was a typo in my post above; when I said Law 26. I actually meant Law 12. I'm not quite sure how that happened.