[aguahombre]

Perhaps in this case, the EBU --before it applies the "mildly liberal interpretation of 27B1b" as OP states --should liberally apply 23. In the given auction it is hard to imagine what the insufficient bidder thought he was bidding over, and there is no suggestion that 4C was a mechanical error which would have been lawfully corrected to whatever was intended. But, rather than accuse, just use 23 as a procedural matter.

[gordontd]

aguahombre, on Nov 10 2009, 06:31 PM, said:

Perhaps in this case, the EBU --before it applies the "mildly liberal interpretation of 27B1b" as OP states --should liberally apply 23. In the given auction it is hard to imagine what the insufficient bidder thought he was bidding over, and there is no suggestion that 4C was a mechanical error which would have been lawfully corrected to whatever was intended. But, rather than accuse, just use 23 as a procedural matter.

We have a law (27D) specifically designed to deal with this situation. It surely can't be right to ignore that law and apply another more general law.

It's also worth noting that not all mechanical errors can be corrected - they need to have been identified in time.

[duschek]

pran, on Nov 9 2009, 07:54 PM, said:

When will a hand with both heart control and club control be shown with the cue bid 4♣ rather than 4♥ according to your understanding?

Whenever the player believes that 4♣ is the cheapest available cuebid. That is part one of our analysis - which hands would make the insufficient bid?

Part two: Which hands would make the substitute call, absent the insufficient bid? In this case, exactly those would make the insufficient 4♣ bid, excluding those with no heart control.

pran, on Nov 9 2009, 07:54 PM, said:

To me the natural understanding of a cue bid is that it shows control in the denomination named and denies control in any denomination that could have been named with a lower ranking bid.

I agree. In this case, there is no lower ranking bid, but assuming our heroes believe that 4♦ denies a club control (which may or may not be the case), 4♥ promises a club control as well.

pran, on Nov 9 2009, 07:54 PM, said:

On second thoughts I realize that with this understanding 5♣ is the only possible call with the same or a more precise meaning as the insufficient 4♣ cue bid and only when the last previous bid was 4♠ or 4NT!

Seems I have some third thoughts, then

[wank]

No reason 3♠ should necessarily be setting trumps for 2 reasons.

Firstly, playing this opening structure, responder would need to bid this way with a slammish hand 4-4 in spades and diamonds, so even if you assume 3♠ guarantees 3♠ that shouldn't be setting trumps.

Secondly, why can't 3♠ just be a game probe? Would you be happy bidding 3NT on KQ Jxx Axx AKJxx? Obviously you would need to enquire a little to find how these people bid such hands, which is admittedly often a pointless process as people who can't work out which bids are legal and which aren't, are unlikely to have thought a great deal about the subtleties of the 3rd round of the auction.