Road Trip

I am suffering this semester.  I am teaching my first choice of classes and have wonderful students, but for the first time since I started playing bridge my schedule doesn't allow me to play during the week.  I'm playing most Mondays and sometimes on Fridays, but the last time I played was 10 days ago.  Time for a road trip!

Julie and I drove to Kalamazoo, where she regularly plays on Tuesdays (this was a Friday).  As we entered the club, Starbucks mochas in hand, Julie surveyed the room.  "Hmm," she said with a puzzled frown.  "I don't see many of the people who are usually here."

"Maybe they're at the tournament," I helpfully offered.

"Maybe," Julie conceded as we checked in and sat down.

Unlike Julie, I know very few people at this bridge club, but I immediately liked our first opponents, Jim and John.  That may have had something to do with the way they greeted us:  "Two beautiful ladies are joining us!" one said while the other nodded in agreement and smiled.

We had time for a pleasant chat before the game began, which ended with Julie giving the pair some advice.  "You should open a restaurant," she said.  "You could call it..."

"Jimmy Johns!" Jim said as we all chuckled.

Later during the game we encountered another pair of gentlemen, but this time there was no laughing; there seldom is when bidding communication breaks down.  Here's what happened.

North opened 1 NT.  I had opening and 6 nice diamonds, so I doubled (DONT).  South passed and Julie bid 2 clubs, just as she was supposed to do. North passed, I bid my diamonds and sat back, expecting to get the bid.  To my surprise, South then bid 2 hearts.  Julie passed, and then I got another surprise--North said "transfer" and bid 2 spades.  I thought it was odd, but as I had only one spade I believed him.  Since Julie didn't support my diamonds and we were vulnerable, I passed and the contract was 2 spades in the North.

When dummy came down we all saw that South's heart bid had been natural.  "This is terrible!" North exclaimed.  "Your bid was a transfer!"

"It couldn't have been a transfer," South countered.  "There were two bids in between."

Julie looked at me and quietly asked how I would have interpreted the bid.  "I would think it's natural," I said.  "But maybe it's a partnership agreement."

"Well, if I made a mistake you should have corrected and gone back to hearts.  This is terrible!" North said again.

"I don't know if I can ethically do that," South said.

"I think you can," the rest of us replied.

We proceeded to play the hand, with Julie of course holding almost all of the spades.  Later, Julie and I talked about partnership agreements and conventional play.  We are both playing more with other partners these days, and partnership agreements that are different from regular play can sometimes get you into trouble.  This case, though, seemed like simple miscommunication.  Also, it's not using unauthorized information, is it, to correct a partner's bid?  When is it unethical to do so?