Mistaken explanation - comments welcome
I am a recently qualified director and would welcome comments on the below.
North opens 1C, East bids 2C which is alerted. South passes and West bids 2D. North asks the meaning of the 2C bid and West says it means Clubs and Diamonds.
In fact, the 2C bid means both majors as stated on the convention card but West mistakenly thinks that North/South are playing 5-card majors and 1C could be short or better minor, in which case East/West play a different overcall system that shows two 4-card suits when 2C would indeed mean Clubs and Diamonds, also stated on the convention card.
East realises that West has mistaken the meaning of the 2C bid and misinformed North/South.
He has 5 Spades, 5 Hearts, 3 Clubs and a void in Diamonds.
What are his legal bidding options?
Comments
The legal constraints on East come from the unauthorised information from West's mistaken explanation - which indicates to East that 2D (and subsequent bids by West) will not be in accordance with the agreed meaning of 2C and the agreed continuations. East is legally required to bid as if West had explained 2C correctly.
If EW play (1C)2C(P)2D is artificial/forcing asking about majors (where 2C showed majors), then East's legal options are to bid his longer major or make another descriptive bid with extras.
If EW play (1C)2C(P)2D is non-forcing/natural with diamonds, then East's legal options are to pass or raise diamonds.
East also will have problems in deciding whether to alert 2D and how to explain - the alert/explanation should correspond to the agreed meaning of 2D in response to 2C showing the majors.
Thank you Robin,
That's very clear.
The way I deal with this type of situation is assume the bid has been alerted (but assume the explanation has not been heard by the artificial/2C bidder). The 2C bidder has to assume their parter has understood the artificial/conventional bid correctly and then alert and/or bid on the assumption they have correctly interpreted their bid.
At the end of the auction or play the TD can be called to make a ruling.
Kind regards Steve