Mis-Bid, Mis-Information, or Mechanical Error
The bidding proceeds (quite slowly) 1H P 2S P, 3S P 4H. No alerts but some pained expressions!
Dummy tables xx, Axxxx, x, AQJxx, and said, I thought, 'Pard should have alerted 2S'
Declarer says 2S doesn't really exist in their system (sic!), but if it does it shows a 'weak two in Spades' (which is alertable)
And that 3S would show an unspecified singleton and support for Hearts.
The defence have been damaged as they now don't find the 4S save.
But what is the rectification?
Has dummy psyched? It is certainly a gross mis-representation, but probably not deliberate.
So is it a mis-bid?
But in either of those cases does the Pass of 4H constitute 'Fielding'?
Without the 'Alert' the presumption must be that Spades are agreed, so is 4H not a Cue Bid!?
Dummy subsequently says it was 'Mechanical Error' he meant to bid 3S which shows an unspecified Splinter.
But whatever the bid might mean (or should have been), does the failure to alert 2S constitute Mis-Information?
And as the 'Mechanical Error' was not realised in time, does not 2S have to be considered as a Psyche or Mis-Bid?
There seem to be numerous possibilities here.
1) Green/Amber Psyche/Mis-Bid - No rectification
2) Red Psyche/Mis-Bid - Av+/Av-
3) Mis-Information - weighted score
4) Mechanical Error ??
If you are wondering how TD ruled?
Declarer was TD!
And the System card was delightfully silent on the meaning of Jump Shifts.
Comments
The explanation by dummy suggests it was a mis-bid but the description of "pained expressions" means this should probably be looked at as a UI case, ,which would involve further questions of the players. Depending on their agreements and other other player's hand, they might well have ended up too high without the benefit of the UI.
As I see it, absent the pained expressions, dummy simply misbid. Given that the bid is, essentially, "out of system", declarer is aware that something might be awry. One could argue that he should have alerted the lack of agreement on the 2S bid. However, he tried his best to make sense of it by bidding 3S. When partner corrects back to hearts, any further consideration would depend on declarer's hand, which you don't give.
I can't see any reason here to change anything, since opponents are unlikely to come back in with 4S unless 3rd hand holds a very strong suit. Result would stand. You don't give the hands of the opponents.
Now, the pained expressions you mention might change this. It would help to see all four hands.
I'll also add that, in general, the TD should have passed on this judgement ruling on his own table to another director. Absent the presence of another director, all he can do is to make a ruling and advise you or his partner to appeal, depending on how he rules.
I don't really understand the comment of "doesn't really exist in their system". Assuming they are playing a natural bidding system, 2 !s would be expected to have the natural, default meaning of "strong, GF with 5+ spades". Pairs can change the meaning by agreement to "weak, 6+ spades", and many do (possibly enough to make that the default meaning in some places), or give it any other meaning they like (e.g. a Jacoby heart raise), but absent such an agreement surely the bid can only be said to "not exist" if they have another defined way of showing hands covered by the default meaning.
VixTD, their words not mine! The gist of the above posts is that dummy has mis-bid (maybe through mechanical error). As I said before the system card was silent on jump shifts. But declarer thought it was weak NF, so should have alerted. I think the extent of the mis-information is that lack of 'alert.' With the 'alert,' and assuming question and explanation ('weak 2'), the opponents (aka me!) would still not have found the Spade save. There was UI between declarer and dummy but I don't think that influenced the outcome. They reached the same 4H contract as everyone else, just by good luck rather than good judgement!
It sounds to me as though it was more through what used to be called "that old black magic" rather than through good luck.
There isn't much issue here of MI hurting the opponents; the issue is more about whether the declaring side used UI to save themselves from a disaster.
There are some partners (typically beginners) with whom I've agreed not to play jump shifts at all (so that neither partner needs to remember the meaning). If partner then jump-shifted anyway, I'd be quite surprised and might (after alerting it) have trouble explaining it! That said, I think UI would be created for my partner when I did so (as "we agreed not to bid that but my partner bid it anyway").
My guess is that the 4!h bid here is potentially affected by UI, as is the pass after it (but the 3!s bid isn't, unless dummy realised it was a misbid immediately after having made it). Without seeing the hands, I don't know whether there were logical alternatives to those calls; if there were, though, I'd consider adjusting. (For example, might 4!s have been a logical alternative to the penultimate pass? It's almost certainly counter-suggested by what UI exists, and from the sound of it, would have gone down massively.)