> is West, holding 4 spades and only 2 hearts, allowed to assume his partner has made a mistake?
West is allowed to assume his partner has made a mistake if players in general would make the same assumption. Although "opponents later agreed they were indeed playing transfers over their protective NT", opponents may not have an agreement that 1S - P - P - 1NT - P - 2H shows spades, because the opponents have already bid spades. I think that when partner bids 3H, players would assume that he has hearts and not spades.
Robin
P.S. Don't know what happened to the original posting - both post and subject have changed to "x".
Comments
West is allowed to assume his partner has made a mistake if players in general would make the same assumption. Although "opponents later agreed they were indeed playing transfers over their protective NT", opponents may not have an agreement that 1S - P - P - 1NT - P - 2H shows spades, because the opponents have already bid spades. I think that when partner bids 3H, players would assume that he has hearts and not spades.
Robin
P.S. Don't know what happened to the original posting - both post and subject have changed to "x".