[Flem72]

pran, on 2012-August-12, 01:45, said:

The simple rule is:
You are supposed to carry out your entire auction as if you don't know whether or not partner alerted.

If you honestly do that then everything is in order.

I fully agree that an expected (lack of) alert should in most cases not lead to any problem.

See Case 3 in Debbie Rosenberg's "Active Ethics" article on BridgeWinners: There are situations where you have UI from P's failure to alert in which "imagine screens" doesn't work, where a call or calls may be illegal even though you think you are entitled to make them based solely on P's LEGAL call.

[lamford]

TimG, on 2012-August-09, 06:26, said:

I think that partner's pass of 2♠ is enough to wake me to the fact that partner has not understood my Michael's bid -- if he could not muster up any action over 1♣ then he should not have a string of spades and want to play 2♠. He might have a really bad hand and be willing to play 2♠ undoubled. But, that's now off the table. Once the auction has awoken me to that fact that partner is on a different wavelength, I don't think passing 3♠ is a LA either.

Perhaps I am giving this pair too much credit. But, if I was given this auction in the ACBL (where no alert of 2♠ is required), I would expect that South had misunderstood.

I agree with you that the authorised information tells you that partner has treated 2S as natural, when he passed it but did not overcall 1S. The lack of an alert provides no extra information whatsoever. Many play 1m-(Pass)-1M-(2sameM) as natural, as do I. When it goes -Pass-Pass it is obvious what has happened. I do not regard Pass of 2SX or Pass of 3S as LAs in any partnership. If 3S has any meaning at all, it is a club raise; perhaps partner expected you to have diamonds before that. Of course the weak players here were trying to take advantage of the UI. But if Pass is not an LA, it should not be imposed.