What to adjust to
In a club competition where you draw for partners, I as N felt disadvantaged in the following sequence:
S W N E
1H 3C 3H 4C
- 4D - 4S
- 5H all pass
There were no alerts, and before bidding 5H I asked E about the 3C bid who explained that he thought it was natural until he heard 4D, after which he thought it showed D & S. 5H went -2 for 0/10, whereas 4D or 4S makes. Would I be entitled to an adjusted score, and if so to what?
Hands are:
South: 65, KJ643, Q4, AQ76 North: 872, AQ752, 52, K98
West: KQ109, 109, AKJ93, 53 East: AJ43, 8, 10876, J1043
Has West acted on (UI)?, and how should they act at the second turn to bid?
Comments
West must bid as though his partner has alerted and has also explained the bid as showing Diamonds and Spades and has then bid on to 4C in full knowledge of what he is doing. East must continue to bid as though his partner's 3C bid showed clubs. It certainly looks as though they have made use of UI, even to the extent of East "waking up". They might have arguments as to why these bids are legal but, on the face of it, 4D and 4S are illegally making use of UI.
I agree that the 4D bid looks like West is making use of UI. It seems likely the result will be adjusted to 4C-5.
I am not sure that East has any UI. Clearly the sequence makes no sense after the 4D bid but I cant see why East is not allowed to realise at this stage that the 3C bid showed Spades and Diamonds, or maybe realise that partner has forgotten the system. Not that it matters if we have already disallowed the 4D bid.
To the seemingly endless catalogue of problems caused by this wretched convention we can add "pick-up partners assuming we play Ghestem" :/ Of course it may be that everyone in the club plays it, which may be something of an excuse.
Totally routine to disallow 4 !d .
Jeremy Dhondy once said to me, "I've had more bad results from five-card Stayman than any other convention, and I've never agreed to play it with anyone!"
To West, isn't this a continuation of the auction where he has shown diamonds and spades with his 3!c bid and his partner has made a forcing 4!c bid. Why should 4!d be disallowed in this situation?
Because he has nothing in diamonds that he does not think he has already shown. If 4 !c is forcing, then to bid 5!c is a non-suggested logical alternative.
Don't forget that there cannot possibly be any partnership agreements and this was a random partner event... one could say that 3C was a crazy gamble :)
Following on from what Henry has said if East had alerted 3C and described it as diamonds and spades and then bid 4C there is no reason to treat this as other than clubs - I am not sure why it should be forcing. West would then presumably pass or bid 5C - not 4D as Abbeybear explains. If 5C why should North not bid 5H anyway for the same reasons that he sacrificed over 4S?
So my answer to the question as put is:
.. 30% of 5H -2
since South will double if East passes.
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As regards conventions going wrong when I was young the most common mistake was a partnership where one partner assumed transfers over 1N but his partner didn’t. Nowadays Ghestem is not the most common cause: that was 20 years ago. Nowadays it is (1C=short) 2C which either shows the majors or clubs dependent on what overcaller has in his hand. Defences to transfer responses also cause confusion. It is somewhat surprising that the L&EC banned transfer openings while freely allowing short clubs and transfer responses.