[blml] AI = UI, and influence

[Alain Gottcheiner]

Dear blmlists,

Here are two intricated cases from recent Belgian training sessions.
Your advice will be heartily welcome.

1.

West
1D	p	1S	p
2S	p	3NT	p
4NT

Before bidding 4NT, West said "oops, I went wrong".
This is UI, of course.
There is also AI provided by the highly surprising 4NT bid.

a) Do you judge UI to be equal to AI ?
b) Do you accept that the sequence go on ?
c) Does it make any sense to ask some good players what their guess is 
about what happened to poor West, in order to determine whether it could be 
read by East ?

For the record, West had mispulled 2S in lieu of 2NT, and E/W went on to a 
mildly lucky 6NT (32 HCP total).

2. 	

North and West are strong players, East is a client, South an intermediate 
level player with long experience.

N	E	S	W
1C	p	1H	2H
p	2S	3H	X
3NT	p	p	X

East alerted South's bid. Assume that cue-bids are NOT self-alerting (they 
aren't in Belgium).
a) which meaning of the cue would be non-alertable ? (in direct position, 
eg 1H 2H, it's the strong meaning)
b) before passing, North enquired : "do you know what his second suit would 
be ?", obviously assuming the cue-bis was a two-suiter (wrong ! It was 
natural). Please comment this attitude.
Now East answered "diamonds, I suppose".
c) do you give any credit to East's potential claim that "I was wondering 
about the meaning of 2H, but the question convinced me that it should be 
two-suited" ?
d) Is West's 3H bid, in the context of this MI, "failure to play bridge" ? 
His hand is
xxx - AQxxx - AJxx - x
e) The TD decided to let 3NT be the final contract (he judged 3H to be 
absurd) but canceled the double. Please comment.

Thank you for the help.

Best regards

   Alain