From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 1 01:33:35 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA24452 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 01:33:35 +1000 Received: from mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk (mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk [132.146.5.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA24447 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 01:33:19 +1000 Received: from catullus.agw.bt.co.uk by mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk with SMTP (PP); Mon, 30 Sep 1996 16:31:27 +0100 Received: from ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk (ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk [147.150.119.60]) by catullus.agw.bt.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.11) with SMTP id QAA05005 for ; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 16:22:40 +0100 Received: by ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk with Microsoft Mail id <324FF3F3@ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk>; Mon, 30 Sep 96 16:23:15 GMT From: "Burn, David" To: "'Bridge Laws'" Subject: RE: Who are your peers? Date: Mon, 30 Sep 96 16:22:00 GMT Message-ID: <324FF3F3@ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk> Encoding: 155 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >From David Burn >In a message dated 96-09-27 19:45:01 EDT, you write: > << Subj: Who are your peers? >Date: 96-09-27 19:45:01 EDT >From: grabiner@msri.org >Sender: owner-bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au >To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au [snip] > Sometimes, this assumption is implicitly made. Say that East bids 4S in > a competitive auction. South has an offensive hand and should bid 5H, > but he chooses to pass (non-forcing). North hesitates and then doubles, > and South now bids 5H. The score will probably be adjusted if necessary > (and it should be); maybe a player of South's ability should have bid > 5H, but this South chose to leave the decision to partner, and must now > respect it. The argument is clearer under the old 75% rule; >**In some ways it was clearer. The problem was that committee members were >viewing the problem double dummy and it was easy for some to feel that they >would have made the right decision and therefore 75% of their peers would >have also. Since the Europeans still use a percentage designation, I'm >interested in knowing if they have experienced this tendency. Certainly it is correct to take into account the standard of a player when determining whether an action constituted: (a) a logical alternative for that player; (b) an alternative which had been preferred over another by virtue of UI. It is proper to use the auction so far in determining the standard of a player, and we are very reluctant to allow sudden improvements in standard following a slow double! >If 90% of > Souths wouldn't have stood for the double but 90% of those would have > bid 5H directly, that destroys the clear majority basis for this action. I agree; this is certainly how we would rule in England. > However, you have cases such as the following one from New Orleans. > North was vulnerable in a KO, and held AJT6 KQ97 AT9 43. East opened 2S > showing both minors, South bid 3H, North bid 4D, and South hesitated > and bid 4H. North's 4S bid was then disallowed. > This case led to mixed opinions from the expert panel. The dissenters > made essentially the point above; it wasn't clear to show both aces > after a signoff, but those Norths who didn't intend to show both aces > would have bid 3S (and then passed 4H but bid 4D over 4C) rather than > 4D. The supporters didn't address this point at all. I'm not surprised. It isn't a point. 3S in the suggested auction is natural, not a cue for hearts. If North intended to show both aces and clearly agree hearts, then 4D followed by 4S was his only way to do this. North dare not bid 3S with his actual hand; what was he to do if South raised to 4S? >**This was a very interesting and controversial decision. The supporters >made their point based on the fact that after the hesitation it was nearly >impossible for N to be wrong by continuing. Without the UI, there was some >risk. So what? If the Committee decided that this North would always make two cue bids, that the slow sign-off did not cause him to make the 4S bid while an in-tempo sign-off would cause him to prefer pass, then they should have allowed the 4S bid. I repeat: North had _no other way to bid his hand_ if he intended to show both aces, and from the comments below the Committee clearly felt that his hand was worth such an action. >I think Rich Colker (currently our National Recorder) wrote the best >argument in support of the Committee decision. I'm going to quote him: >**"This was a good Committee Decision. This case represented a fairly >straightforward class of Committee decisions which aren't well understood by >the general bridge public. I'm not surprised. I don't understand it either. Not that I necessarily disagree with the ruling, but the arguments baffle me. >North's 4S bid was a normal, well-reasoned, >expert move toward slam which, in the opinion of the highly expert Committee, >was likely to have been taken by a majority of North's peers. I agree. On that basis, it should have been allowed. >Still it was >not, in the Committee's opinion (nor in mine) an action which was clear >enough to allow in the wake of South's hesitation. This is more like it, but the general public need to have it clearly explained to them why a bid that would be normal without the hesitation is not allowed with it. If the words "club control" had appeared in the commentary, it would have been far easier to follow and to sympathise with the Committee's reasoning. >Paradoxically, if another >South player had held something like xxx AJTxxx Qx KQ and had signed off >(too) quickly in 4H, and North had passed (avoiding the danger of 5H on a >diamond lead), a Committee should impose a 4S bid on North and force N-S to >go down in 5H! This is at least highly questionable. If it is so, then no wonder the general public are totally bewildered. >Players must not take any action which clearly could have been >suggested by their partner's irregularity, unless that action would have been >clear without it. In the present case, the action just happened to be the >'normal' one, which most of the player's peers would have taken. Still, it >wasn't clear enough in light of the unauthorized information from South's >hesitation. Perhaps true. But the above commentary does nothing to explain why this is the case. What is the quantitative or qualitative difference between "clear" and "normal"? How does one decide whether an action is "clear enough"? ("75% of players would take it", anyone?) >The objective in such situations is not simply to restore >equity! It is to ensure that the offending side cannot possibly benefit from >their irregularity and, coincidentally, to protect the nonoffenders by >restoring equity for them, resolving any doubt about what would have happened >in their favor." >There were eight experts that commented on this decision. Six of the eight >agreed with the decision. One of those was on the actual Committee. Well, at least he was consistent, which is a refreshing sight! From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 1 03:58:28 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA25405 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 03:58:28 +1000 Received: from hill.msri.org (msri.org [198.129.64.224]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA25400 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 03:58:21 +1000 From: grabiner@msri.org Received: by hill.msri.org for (8.7/1.43r) id KAA13066; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 10:58:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from boole.msri.org(198.129.65.86) by msri.org via smap (V1.3) id sma013063; Mon Sep 30 10:58:02 1996 Received: by boole.msri.org (8.7/DW.6) id KAA05086; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 10:55:54 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 10:55:54 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199609301755.KAA05086@boole.msri.org> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Who are your peers? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I have rechecked the case in the book, and am now making a partial retraction. AlLeBendig writes: > In a message dated 96-09-27 19:45:01 EDT, David Grabiner writes: >> This seems to be another question which committees do not answer >> consistently. I would think that the coprrect definition would be, >> "players of a comparable level of ability *who have made the same >> decisions you have already made*." >> However, you have cases such as the following one from New Orleans. >> North was vulnerable in a KO, and held AJT6 KQ97 AT9 43. East opened 2S >> showing both minors, South bid 3H, North bid 4D, and South hesitated >> and bid 4H. North's 4S bid was then disallowed. >> This case led to mixed opinions from the expert panel. The dissenters >> made essentially the point above; it wasn't clear to show both aces >> after a signoff, but those Norths who didn't intend to show both aces >> would have bid 3S (and then passed 4H but bid 4D over 4C) rather than >> 4D. The supporters didn't address this point at all. I need to correct this, as I missed a note from the supporters which addresses my point. Bobby Goldman (who was on the Committee) wrote, "We determined that 75% of expert players (who had bid 4D) would have bid 4S," and then went on to say that this was not adequate under the current standards. I think it is important for the point "who had bid 4D" to be made; it would have cleared up some issues for both the expert panel and committee report readers if it had been in the report. It addresses my concern; the committee did consider the possibility that some players wouldn't bid 4D. Whether the decision is correct depends on things that couldn't be included in the book, such as the meaning of alternative sequences. If 3S is natural, my question above doesn't apply. The problem that the dissenters had with the ruling is that a sequence which appeared to be planned from the start was disrupted by the hesitation. If a hand requires two bids to properly describe, can you be barred from making the second one by UI? > **This was a very interesting and controversial decision. The supporters > made their point based on the fact that after the hesitation it was nearly > impossible for N to be wrong by continuing. Without the UI, there was some > risk. I think Rich Colker (currently our National Recorder) wrote the best > argument in support of the Committee decision. [Colker's basic argument is that this was an 80% bid which became 100% after the hesitation, and such bids should not be allowed. I agree with the principle; whether it is correctly applied in this case is another issue.] -- David Grabiner, grabiner@msri.org, http://baseball.berkeley.edu/~grabiner I speak of MSRI and by MSRI but not for MSRI. Shop at the Mobius Strip Mall: Always on the same side of the street! Klein Glassworks, Torus Coffee and Donuts, Projective Airlines, etc. From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 1 05:58:31 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA03965 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 05:58:31 +1000 Received: from hill.msri.org (msri.org [198.129.64.224]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA03960 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 05:58:25 +1000 From: grabiner@msri.org Received: by hill.msri.org for (8.7/1.43r) id MAA14643; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 12:59:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from boole.msri.org(198.129.65.86) by msri.org via smap (V1.3) id sma014631; Mon Sep 30 12:58:27 1996 Received: by boole.msri.org (8.7/DW.6) id MAA05100; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 12:56:20 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 12:56:20 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199609301956.MAA05100@boole.msri.org> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au In-reply-to: <324FF3F3@ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk> (DBURN@lnhdent.agw.bt.co.uk) Subject: RE: Who are your peers? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Burn writes: [quoting Rich Colker's opinion on an appeals case] >> **"This was a good Committee Decision. This case represented a fairly >> straightforward class of Committee decisions which aren't well > understood by >> the general bridge public. > I'm not surprised. I don't understand it either. Not that I > necessarily disagree with the ruling, but the arguments baffle me. >> North's 4S bid was a normal, well-reasoned, >> expert move toward slam which, in the opinion of the highly expert > Committee, >> was likely to have been taken by a majority of North's peers. > I agree. On that basis, it should have been allowed. The US no longer uses the 75% rule; in fact, one of the Committee members said that the bid was a 75% action but couldn't be allowed. >> Still it was >> not, in the Committee's opinion (nor in mine) an action which was clear >> enough to allow in the wake of South's hesitation. > This is more like it, but the general public need to have it > clearly explained to them why a bid that would be normal without > the hesitation is not allowed with it. If the words "club control" > had appeared in the commentary, it would have been far easier > to follow and to sympathise with the Committee's reasoning. >> Paradoxically, if another >> South player had held something like xxx AJTxxx Qx KQ and had signed > off >> (too) quickly in 4H, and North had passed (avoiding the danger of 5H on > a >> diamond lead), a Committee should impose a 4S bid on North and force N-S > to >> go down in 5H! > This is at least highly questionable. If it is so, then > no wonder the general public are totally bewildered. This is a point which must be made. If there are two logical alternatives, then whichever one is suggested by UI becomes forbidden. The possible UI discussed here makes the opposite suggestion from the UI in the actual case. The paradoxical situation sometimes occurs when there is ambiguous UI. In that case, the committee shouldn't normally rule that the UI could suggest both A over B and B over A, thus forcing the player to take the losing action. -- David Grabiner, grabiner@msri.org, http://baseball.berkeley.edu/~grabiner I speak of MSRI and by MSRI but not for MSRI. Shop at the Mobius Strip Mall: Always on the same side of the street! Klein Glassworks, Torus Coffee and Donuts, Projective Airlines, etc. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 2 01:21:28 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA11090 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 01:21:28 +1000 Received: from emout04.mail.aol.com (emout04.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.95]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA11081 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 01:21:18 +1000 From: AlLeBendig@aol.com Received: by emout04.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA05014 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 11:20:42 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 11:20:42 -0400 Message-ID: <961001112042_298042940@emout04.mail.aol.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Who are your peers? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In a message dated 96-09-30 11:49:35 EDT, David Burn writes: Alan LeBendig writes: >>I think Rich Colker (currently our National Recorder) wrote the best >>argument in support of the Committee decision. I'm going to quote him >>**"This was a good Committee Decision. This case represented a fairly >>straightforward class of Committee decisions which aren't well >understood by >>the general bridge public. > >I'm not surprised. I don't understand it either. Not that I >necessarily disagree with the ruling, but the arguments baffle me. > >>North's 4S bid was a normal, well-reasoned, >>expert move toward slam which, in the opinion of the highly expert >Committee, >>was likely to have been taken by a majority of North's peers. > >I agree. On that basis, it should have been allowed. And this is where our approaches differ, David. It all comes down to a determination of LA. You use the above criteria and allow the bid. Our determination is "that if some number of one's peers would have seriously considered the action without the UI" it becomes a LA. And therefore we don't permit the action. If you and I were discussing this given case and we were disagreeing about whether 75% would would choose the 4S bid I don't think it would bother you that I didn't feel that to be the case. But it does seem to bother you that our approach to determining what constitutes a LA is different. >>Still it was >>not, in the Committee's opinion (nor in mine) an action which was clear >>enough to allow in the wake of South's hesitation. > >This is more like it, but the general public need to have it >clearly explained to them why a bid that would be normal without >the hesitation is not allowed with it. If the words "club control" >had appeared in the commentary, it would have been far easier >to follow and to sympathise with the Committee's reasoning. What I quoted here was not the commentary from the committee. I just thought it was a well written opinion of the committee decision. The committee decision touched more on this explanation. Even though they felt most would make the bid, they didn't feel it became a slam dunk until the hesitation. My apologies for the previous reference. I mean a guaranteed no-loss action. >>Paradoxically, if another >>South player had held something like xxx AJTxxx Qx KQ and had signed >off >>(too) quickly in 4H, and North had passed (avoiding the danger of 5H on >a >>diamond lead), a Committee should impose a 4S bid on North and force N-S >to >>go down in 5H! > >This is at least highly questionable. If it is so, then >no wonder the general public are totally bewildered. Why do you find this highly questionable, David? If a player makes a clear suggestion through his actions that he really would prefer the auction end, would it really bother you to force a continuation if that is a LA? We often use such an example to illustrate that there are often several LAs in any given situation. A clear suggestion of one being right will often cause the losing action to be assigned. That certainly is an easy interpretation of L16A. >>Players must not take any action which clearly could have been >>suggested by their partner's irregularity, unless that action would have >been >>clear without it. In the present case, the action just happened to be >the >>'normal' one, which most of the player's peers would have taken. Still, >it >>wasn't clear enough in light of the unauthorized information from >South's >>hesitation. > >Perhaps true. But the above commentary does nothing to explain why this >is the case. What is the quantitative or qualitative difference >between "clear" and "normal"? How does one decide whether an >action is "clear enough"? ("75% of players would take it", anyone?) Perhaps the reason Rich didn't think it was necessary to expound on LA was because we have been using this determination since the early 90s. We no longer deal with percentages. >>The objective in such situations is not simply to restore >>equity! It is to ensure that the offending side cannot possibly benefit >from >>their irregularity and, coincidentally, to protect the nonoffenders by >>restoring equity for them, resolving any doubt about what would have >happened >>in their favor." > > >>There were eight experts that commented on this decision. Six of the >eight >>agreed with the decision. One of those was on the actual Committee. > >Well, at least he was consistent, which is a refreshing sight! Yes, David, we do agree here. Consistency is admirable. Alan LeBendig Los Angeles, CA From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 2 02:12:32 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA11448 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 02:12:32 +1000 Received: from csd.cri.dk (cabra.cri.dk [130.227.48.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA11443 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 02:12:23 +1000 X-Organization: Computer Resources International A/S, Bregneroedvej 144, DK-3460 Birkeroed, Denmark Received: from nov.cri.dk (nov.cri.dk [130.227.50.162]) by csd.cri.dk (8.6.12/8.6.10) with SMTP id SAA08474 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 18:11:12 +0100 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Tue, 01 Oct 1996 18:11:26 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 18:11:15 +0100 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Who are your peers? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Alan LeBendig and David Burn have crystallized this into a discussion into the well-known difficult decision that TDs and ACs have to make: What constitutes a logical alternative. Alan has admirably described the working definition used in the ACBL. I paraphrase: An action is a logical alternative if a substantial minority of the player's peers would seriously consider the action. In Denmark (and, I believe, in the EBL (Europe)), the focus is on predicting the action, not reading the mind, so that our definition is more along these lines: An action is a logical alternative if a substantial minority of the player's peers would choose the action. I believe this to be the main difference between the North American approach and the Danish (possibly European) approach: It seems clear to me that an action is more likely to be assessed as a logical alternative by the American definition than by the Danish ons, since we ignore the case where the player's peers consider and then reject the action. Of course, I cannot refer to this without also discussing how to determine what the meaning of "substantial minority" is. Neither the EBL nor DBF is afraid to use percentages as guidelines, but we do emphasize that this does not change the decision process from one of judgment to one of poll taking. The percentage suggested at the EBL course in Milan in January of this year was 20; in a meeting of the DBF Appeals Committee in April this year, our consensus was that we certainly did not set the limit higher than 20%; if anything, we set it somewhat lower. 20%, of course, translates to 80% as in "75%-rule", but "guideline" does not translate to "rule". For what it is worth, I do not believe that the ACBL "substantial minority" is much different from the DBF one, even though we use percentages; otherwise we would be moving from "substantial minority" to "more than just a few". I claim that the real difference is in the phrases "seriously consider" vs. "choose". The bottom line is, I guess, that an action could easily be judged as a LA in the ACBL while it is not a LA in the DBF; but the opposite is quite unlikely. Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 2 04:18:59 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA12184 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 04:18:59 +1000 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (cfa.harvard.edu [128.103.40.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA12179 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 04:18:52 +1000 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA10872 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 14:18:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id OAA00888; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 14:19:35 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 14:19:35 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199610011819.OAA00888@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Who are your peers? X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: Jens Brix Christiansen ACBL: > An action is a logical alternative if a substantial minority of the > player's peers would seriously consider the action. If I'm not mistaken, the official wording replaces "substantial minority" with "some number." > For what it is worth, I do not believe that the ACBL "substantial minority" > is much different from the DBF one, even though we use percentages; > otherwise we would be moving from "substantial minority" to "more > than just a few". I claim that the real difference is in the phrases > "seriously consider" vs. "choose". The bottom line is, I guess, that > an action could easily be judged as a LA in the ACBL while it is > not a LA in the DBF; but the opposite is quite unlikely. I think this is a fair summary. The ACBL rule is intended to mean (as I understand it) that anything that isn't completely crazy is a LA. It was put into place apparently as a reaction to the perception that committees were being much too permissive. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 3 02:03:05 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA29798 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 02:03:05 +1000 Received: from emout10.mail.aol.com (emout10.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.25]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA29793 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 02:02:57 +1000 From: AlLeBendig@aol.com Received: by emout10.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA26050 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:02:19 -0400 Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:02:19 -0400 Message-ID: <961002120216_322911539@emout10.mail.aol.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Who are your peers? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In a message dated 96-09-30 16:08:20 EDT, yDavid Grabiner writes: Alan LeBendig wrote (quoting Rich Colker): >>> Paradoxically, if another >>> South player had held something like xxx AJTxxx Qx KQ and had signed >> off >>> (too) quickly in 4H, and North had passed (avoiding the danger of 5H on >> a >>> diamond lead), a Committee should impose a 4S bid on North and force N-S > >> to >>> go down in 5H! David Burn wrote: >> This is at least highly questionable. If it is so, then >> no wonder the general public are totally bewildered. > >This is a point which must be made. If there are two logical >alternatives, then whichever one is suggested by UI becomes forbidden. The term "forbidden" might be a little too strong >The possible UI discussed here makes the opposite suggestion from the UI >in the actual case. A crucial point in this discussion. >The paradoxical situation sometimes occurs when there is ambiguous UI. >In that case, the committee shouldn't normally rule that the UI could >suggest both A over B and B over A, thus forcing the player to take the >losing action. This is an issue we have been wrestling with lately. I have seen several TD rulings AND AC rulings which have basically said that if partner hesitates you can't do the right thing. It has been clear (to me) in some of these cases that there was no clear suggestion from the UI as to which action was going to be successful. The message from the UI was merely that partner had a problem. Most noteworthy example: IMPs, vul. Holding Qx AKxxx x T9xxx. LHO opened 4S and partner bid 5C after considerable break. RHO passes. This player chose pass which was right. TDs changed result to 6C down one AND told player that had he bid 6C and it was right they would have adjusted to 5C making 6. I felt this was one of the worst rulings (and commentary) I had seen in a while. To make it worse, a somewhat inexperienced AC gave the same ruling. I believe this is the issue David Grabiner raises. My commentary in this case was that we might as now just call the director after a hesitation and go on to the next board. They can return and tell us how the auction ended. A ruling of this nature suggests that it is felt that any hesitation makes it impossible to go on and be right. Thanks to this ruling and some others of the same strain, it has become clear to most involved that this was in error and we don't want to see the laws interpreted in this fashion. I think the wording change which is being made in L16A will make it easier for ACs and TDs to return to a sensible approach on this issue. Alan LeBendig Los Angeles, CA > From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 3 04:48:52 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA03436 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 04:48:52 +1000 Received: from mail1 (mail1.cais.com [199.0.216.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA03431 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 04:48:44 +1000 Received: from cais3.cais.com (cais3.cais.com [199.0.216.227]) by mail1 (8.7.5/8.7.5-CAIS) with SMTP id OAA27883 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:21:32 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:47:38 -0400 (EDT) From: Eric Landau To: Bridge Laws Discussion List Subject: Re: Who are your peers? In-Reply-To: <961002120216_322911539@emout10.mail.aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Wed, 2 Oct 1996 AlLeBendig@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 96-09-30 16:08:20 EDT, yDavid Grabiner writes: > > >The paradoxical situation sometimes occurs when there is ambiguous UI. > >In that case, the committee shouldn't normally rule that the UI could > >suggest both A over B and B over A, thus forcing the player to take the > >losing action. > > This is an issue we have been wrestling with lately. I have seen several TD > rulings AND AC rulings which have basically said that if partner hesitates > you can't do the right thing. It has been clear (to me) in some of these > cases that there was no clear suggestion from the UI as to which action was > going to be successful. The message from the UI was merely that partner had > a problem. Most noteworthy example: IMPs, vul. Holding Qx AKxxx x > T9xxx. LHO opened 4S and partner bid 5C after considerable break. RHO > passes. This player chose pass which was right. TDs changed result to 6C > down one AND told player that had he bid 6C and it was right they would have > adjusted to 5C making 6. I felt this was one of the worst rulings (and > commentary) I had seen in a while. To make it worse, a somewhat > inexperienced AC gave the same ruling. I believe this is the issue David > Grabiner raises. My commentary in this case was that we might as now just > call the director after a hesitation and go on to the next board. They can > return and tell us how the auction ended. A ruling of this nature suggests > that it is felt that any hesitation makes it impossible to go on and be > right. Thanks to this ruling and some others of the same strain, it has > become clear to most involved that this was in error and we don't want to see > the laws interpreted in this fashion. I agree with Alan 100% on this. However, although it may have "become clear... that this was in error," I fear that many if not most TDs/ACs haven't gotten the word yet. I mentioned some while back that some friends who are quite active at the top level made the statement that one can no longer get a good board after partner huddles unless your bid was 100% clear-cut. In other words, that the current practice is that if you take a winning action that had a losing LA, the losing action will be imposed without regard to whether or not the action you took was suggested by the UI. In a more recent discussion with the person who made this point most forcefully in the earlier one, he suggested that he doesn't believe that this happens with "new" partnerships, only with experienced ones (which is, of course, mostly what one sees at the top level). He says that ACs are using logic like this: In the abstract, the huddle doesn't particularly suggest either passing or bidding 6C; you don't know which of these actions partner was considering as his alternative to 5C. In an experienced partnership, however, you might have some indication based on past experience; perhaps THIS partner, with a tough choice, is far more prone to making his underbids quickly and his overbids after a huddle, or vice versa. So while the huddle might not suggest a choice among LAs to the AC, it just might to you. Applying the Law of Coincidence (his choice of words; I personally doubt that this is what Bobby had in mind), therefore, if partner huddles and then you "coincidentally" take the winning action, the AC should assume that this might be the case, and adjust the score accordingly. AFAIC, this is specious nonsense, the practical effect of which is simply to punish huddles, whether or not the UI they convey is, or even could be, taken advantage of. (Previously, I'd have naively said "whether or not they convey UI," but I now know that the answer to that is "well, you always know from the huddle that partner has some kind of problem, and that's UI in itself.") > I think the wording change which is being made in L16A will make it easier > for ACs and TDs to return to a sensible approach on this issue. I'm most gratified to learn that the Laws will be modified to make it clear that they were never meant to be taken this far. Perhaps you (or someone) could supply us with the new wording (so we can do our thing and pick it apart trying to figure out what unanticipated consequences it might have). Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 3 20:11:53 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA14210 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 20:11:53 +1000 Received: from mail.be.innet.net (mail.be.innet.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA14202 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 20:11:43 +1000 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-30.innet.be [194.7.10.30]) by mail.be.innet.net (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA02456 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 12:11:30 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <3253AAFF.C7A@innet.be> Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 12:01:03 +0000 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Law 25B1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Last night, in a training session for new TD's, we stumbled upon a very strange thing. Let me try and explain it in stages. The setting is always the same : North, dealer, puts down the 1C bidding card. He realizes he made a mistake and takes out the 1D and 1H bidding cards and puts them on top of the 1C, thereby changing his call to 1H. There are of course two disticnt possibilities : a- he has made a technical error (a slip of the finger) He always intended to bid 1H, or b- he has changed his mind (ie he suddenly found a fifth heart, or he suddenly realized he was NOT playing strong club with this partner). This difference will of course lead to the distinction between Law 25A and 25B, but this is not yet all, as : Meanwhile, East decides to bid 1D and puts the corresponding bidding card on the table. If necessary, it will become clear which of the bidding cards, 1H or 1D, hits the table first, but I don't think this should influence the ruling. Neither player has noticed the other bid before attempting his bid. Law 25 says among others : 25B1 .. If offenders LHO has called before attention is drawn to the infraction, and the Director determines thet LHO intended his call to apply over the offender's original call at that turn, offender's substituted call stands without penalty, and LHO may withdraw his call without penalty. In the case set out above, it is clear that 1D was intended over 1C, and in any case the call was made before the attention was drawn to the substitution. A first point is this : This special case is mentioned under the heading 25B. It turns out to be rather difficult for new TD's to find the case when 25A applies. I hope you will agree that it will also apply when 25A is used, so the 1D bid can always be withdrawn without penalty. Let's now turn to the case where the change of call is purposeful. There could be a different approach to the case depending on the timing of 1D and 1H. 1) 1D comes after 1H. East was not paying attention. He has made his call before attentin is drawn to the change. This is the typical case. 1H is accepted, 1D can be withdrawn without penalty, West even has the authorized information (is it authorized for NS ?) 2) 1D and 1H appear simultaneously. We are not going into micro-seconds timing, to all intents and purposes this is the same case as 1) if it becomes clear that north could not have reacted to the 1D call. 3) 1H is clearly after the 1D bid. North did notice and could have reacted to the 1D bid. He may have said something like 'oh no, wait a moment, i have made a mistake'. This is strange territory. 4) North has read this thread and knows there is a possibility for him to change his call legally. The problem is that the Law states that LHO must have made his call before attention is drawn to the irregularity. If he has made the call before the irregularity has even happened, what then ? Using spoken bidding, this thing would be very strange indeed. It could be argued that North has made a call out of turn. Using bidding cards, North can clearly show, by covering the 1C card with the 1H, that he intends to change his original call. Clearly, this thing cannot be allowed. In case 4) (and you're all warned now), The TD shall apply Law 72B1. It is a serious breach of propiety to infringe the Law intentionally, especially when no penalty is prescribed. What is the penalty for breaking the proprieties however ? But in case 3) we have a problem. Do we allow play to continue over 1H without any penalty whatsoever ? But maybe this is just another one of those cases where we shall simply have to wait for the new Laws. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 3 22:06:50 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA14621 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 22:06:50 +1000 Received: from waffle.cise.npl.co.uk (waffle.cise.npl.co.uk [139.143.18.92]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA14616 for ; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 22:06:38 +1000 Received: from tempest.cise.npl.co.uk by waffle.cise.npl.co.uk; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 13:05:55 +0100 Date: Thu, 3 Oct 96 13:05:48 BST Message-Id: <29306.9610031205@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> From: Robin Barker To: hermandw@innet.be Subject: Re: Law 25B1 Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman At an EBU training weekend for established TDs in July we had a hand where the part of 25B1 (below) applies. We were generally unhappy with what the law said: it seems to deny LHO most of his rights when bidding over a legal bid which offender then changes. > .. If offenders LHO has called before attention is drawn to the > infraction, and the Director determines thet LHO intended his call to > apply over the offender's original call at that turn, offender's > substituted call stands without penalty, and LHO may withdraw his call > without penalty. I don't have my notes with me, but I will look them up. Otherwise, as David Stephenson was the-man-with-the-answers, perhaps he can recall what was said. Robin Robin Barker, | Email: rmb@cise.npl.co.uk Information Systems Engineering, | Tel: +44 (0) 181 943 7090 B10, National Physical Laboratory, | Fax: +44 (0) 181 977 7091 Teddington, Middlesex, UK. TW11 0LW | WWW: http://www.npl.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Fri Oct 4 20:55:10 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA01249 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 20:55:10 +1000 Received: from waffle.cise.npl.co.uk (waffle.cise.npl.co.uk [139.143.18.92]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA01244 for ; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 20:55:02 +1000 Received: from tempest.cise.npl.co.uk by waffle.cise.npl.co.uk; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 11:54:24 +0100 Date: Fri, 4 Oct 96 11:54:23 BST Message-Id: <29758.9610041054@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> From: Robin Barker To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 25B1 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This is another curious Law 25B1 position. Situation #1 North (deals and) opens 1S, East bids 1D (insufficient), East noticing that 1D is insufficient says "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. Now the TD is called. The TD reads L25B and South chooses not to accept 2H (under L25B1) so now L25B2a applies. The first call (1D) was illegal and the applicable law (L27) applies, South chooses to accept 1D under L27A. South doubles and the auction continues without penalty, no problem here (?). Situation #2 North (deals and) opens 1S, East bids 1D (insufficient), South notices that 1D is insufficient and wishes to accept 1D and doubles, East noticing that 1D is insufficient (but noticing South's double) says "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. Now the TD is called. The TD reads L25B and determines that the second sentance of L25B1 (quoted below) applies: 2H stands without penalty (!) and South may withdraw his double. > .. If offenders LHO has called before attention is drawn to the > infraction, and the Director determines thet LHO intended his call to > apply over the offender's original call at that turn, offender's > substituted call stands without penalty, and LHO may withdraw his call > without penalty. So, if South attempts to accept an insufficient bid without first calling the TD, and East corrects his bid, then South will not be allowed to accept the insufficient bid. At the training weekend where this came up, we thought this was at odds with other laws which treat acting over an infraction as condoning the infraction. Robin Robin Barker, | Email: rmb@cise.npl.co.uk Information Systems Engineering, | Tel: +44 (0) 181 943 7090 B10, National Physical Laboratory, | Fax: +44 (0) 181 977 7091 Teddington, Middlesex, UK. TW11 0LW | WWW: http://www.npl.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Sat Oct 5 00:39:40 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA05204 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 00:39:40 +1000 Received: from cais.cais.com (cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA05198 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 00:39:33 +1000 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com ([204.157.58.181]) by cais.cais.com (8.6.10/8.6.5) with SMTP id KAA23262 for ; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 10:39:26 -0400 Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19961004144036.006799b4@cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 04 Oct 1996 10:40:36 -0400 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Law 25B1 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 11:54 AM 10/4/96 BST, Robin wrote: >This is another curious Law 25B1 position. > >Situation #1 >North (deals and) opens 1S, >East bids 1D (insufficient), >East noticing that 1D is insufficient says "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. >Now the TD is called. > >The TD reads L25B and South chooses not to accept 2H (under L25B1) so now >L25B2a applies. The first call (1D) was illegal and the applicable law (L27) >applies, South chooses to accept 1D under L27A. >South doubles and the auction continues without penalty, no problem here (?). > >Situation #2 >North (deals and) opens 1S, >East bids 1D (insufficient), >South notices that 1D is insufficient and wishes to accept 1D and doubles, >East noticing that 1D is insufficient (but noticing South's double) says > "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. >Now the TD is called. > >The TD reads L25B and determines that the second sentance of L25B1 (quoted >below) applies: 2H stands without penalty (!) and South may withdraw his double. > >> .. If offenders LHO has called before attention is drawn to the >> infraction, and the Director determines thet LHO intended his call to >> apply over the offender's original call at that turn, offender's >> substituted call stands without penalty, and LHO may withdraw his call >> without penalty. > >So, if South attempts to accept an insufficient bid without first calling >the TD, and East corrects his bid, then South will not be allowed to accept >the insufficient bid. > >At the training weekend where this came up, we thought this was at odds >with other laws which treat acting over an infraction as condoning the >infraction. I would argue that South is allowed to accept the insufficient bid. The sentence quoted above is from L25B1, "Substitute Call Condoned." So it applies when the following sequence of events occurs: (1) East calls, (2) South calls, (3) East attempts to substitute a different call, and (4) South condones the substitute call. Nothing in L25 suggests that (4) follows automatically from (2). If South chooses not to condone the substitute call, L25B2 ("Not Condoned") applies. Now L25B2a ("First Call Illegal") applies, and tells us to rule under L27. So now L27A applies, and says that the insufficient bid has already been accepted. So, by my reading, South has a choice. He may condone the 2H bid, in which case: - East's 2H stands. - South may make any legal call over 2H. - East's original 1D call is authorized information for West. - South's original double is authorized information for North. Or he may refuse to condone the 2H bid, in which case: - East's 1D stands. - South's double stands. - East's attempted correction to 2H is UI for West. In the given scenario, the TD erred when he "determine[d] that... L25B1... applies." It (i.e. "Substitute Call Condoned") applies only after the substitute call has been condoned. And the decision whether or not to condone it should have been offered to South. Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Sat Oct 5 02:41:46 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA06135 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 02:41:46 +1000 Received: from waffle.cise.npl.co.uk (waffle.cise.npl.co.uk [139.143.18.92]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA06128 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 02:41:11 +1000 Received: from tempest.cise.npl.co.uk by waffle.cise.npl.co.uk; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 17:40:14 +0100 Date: Fri, 4 Oct 96 17:40:12 BST Message-Id: <29921.9610041640@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> From: Robin Barker To: elandau@cais.cais.com Subject: Re: Law 25B1 Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Eric To summarise. I wrote: > >Situation #2 > >North (deals and) opens 1S, > >East bids 1D (insufficient), > >South notices that 1D is insufficient and wishes to accept 1D and doubles, > >East noticing that 1D is insufficient (but noticing South's double) says > > "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. > >Now the TD is called. > > > >The TD reads L25B and determines that the second sentance of L25B1 (quoted > >below) applies: 2H stands without penalty (!) and South may withdraw his > >double. You (Eric Landau) wrote: > I would argue that South is allowed to accept the insufficient bid. The > sentence quoted above is from L25B1, "Substitute Call Condoned." So it > applies when the following sequence of events occurs: (1) East calls, (2) > South calls, (3) East attempts to substitute a different call, and (4) South > condones the substitute call. Nothing in L25 suggests that (4) follows > automatically from (2). > > If South chooses not to condone the substitute call, L25B2 ("Not Condoned") > applies. Now L25B2a ("First Call Illegal") applies, and tells us to rule > under L27. So now L27A applies, and says that the insufficient bid has > already been accepted. > > So, by my reading, South has a choice. He may condone the 2H bid, in which > case: > > - East's 2H stands. > - South may make any legal call over 2H. > - East's original 1D call is authorized information for West. > - South's original double is authorized information for North. > > Or he may refuse to condone the 2H bid, in which case: > > - East's 1D stands. > - South's double stands. > - East's attempted correction to 2H is UI for West. > > In the given scenario, the TD erred when he "determine[d] that... L25B1... > applies." It (i.e. "Substitute Call Condoned") applies only after the > substitute call has been condoned. And the decision whether or not to > condone it should have been offered to South. > Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. > elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive > (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 > Fax (301) 589-4618 USA I agree that your argument makes sense. I read L25B1 (see below) as if the second sentence started "But in any case, if offender's LHO has called before attention ..." your reading would correspond to "In this case, if offender's LHO has called before attention ..." As the second reading leads to a ruling I am happier with, I am quite happy to go along with the second reading. Robin > L25B1 (repeated for reference) > The substituted call may be accepted (treated as legal) at the option > of offender's LHO; then, the second call stands and the auction > proceeds without penalty. If offender's LHO has called before attention > is drawn to the infraction, and the Director determines that LHO > intended his call to apply over the offender's original call at that > turn, offender's substituted call stands without penalty, and LHO may > withdraw his call without penalty. Robin Barker, | Email: rmb@cise.npl.co.uk Information Systems Engineering, | Tel: +44 (0) 181 943 7090 B10, National Physical Laboratory, | Fax: +44 (0) 181 977 7091 Teddington, Middlesex, UK. TW11 0LW | WWW: http://www.npl.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Sat Oct 5 06:24:55 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA07232 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 06:24:55 +1000 Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net (relay-1.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.140]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA07216 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 06:24:10 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net id ao05313; 4 Oct 96 21:02 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa04646; 4 Oct 96 20:28 BST Message-ID: Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 20:23:58 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 25B1 In-Reply-To: <29921.9610041640@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Robin Barker wrote: >Eric > >To summarise. > >I wrote: >> >Situation #2 >> >North (deals and) opens 1S, >> >East bids 1D (insufficient), >> >South notices that 1D is insufficient and wishes to accept 1D and doubles, >> >East noticing that 1D is insufficient (but noticing South's double) says >> > "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. >> >Now the TD is called. >> > >> >The TD reads L25B and determines that the second sentance of L25B1 (quoted >> >below) applies: 2H stands without penalty (!) and South may withdraw his >> >double. > >You (Eric Landau) wrote: >> I would argue that South is allowed to accept the insufficient bid. The >> sentence quoted above is from L25B1, "Substitute Call Condoned." So it >> applies when the following sequence of events occurs: (1) East calls, (2) >> South calls, (3) East attempts to substitute a different call, and (4) South >> condones the substitute call. Nothing in L25 suggests that (4) follows >> automatically from (2). >> >> If South chooses not to condone the substitute call, L25B2 ("Not Condoned") >> applies. Now L25B2a ("First Call Illegal") applies, and tells us to rule >> under L27. So now L27A applies, and says that the insufficient bid has >> already been accepted. >> >> So, by my reading, South has a choice. He may condone the 2H bid, in which >> case: >> >> - East's 2H stands. >> - South may make any legal call over 2H. >> - East's original 1D call is authorized information for West. >> - South's original double is authorized information for North. >> >> Or he may refuse to condone the 2H bid, in which case: >> >> - East's 1D stands. >> - South's double stands. >> - East's attempted correction to 2H is UI for West. >> >> In the given scenario, the TD erred when he "determine[d] that... L25B1... >> applies." It (i.e. "Substitute Call Condoned") applies only after the >> substitute call has been condoned. And the decision whether or not to >> condone it should have been offered to South. >> Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. >> elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive >> (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 >> Fax (301) 589-4618 USA > >I agree that your argument makes sense. > >I read L25B1 (see below) as if the second sentence started > "But in any case, if offender's LHO has called before attention ..." > >your reading would correspond to > "In this case, if offender's LHO has called before attention ..." > >As the second reading leads to a ruling I am happier with, I am quite >happy to go along with the second reading. Oh dear. Happiness is a Law we like: and *no-one* that I have yet heard about likes L25 on this side of the pond. You *must* not put a mythical "In this case" into a Law, *especially* when you know what the Lawmakers intended: surely we do in this case? Surely there is no doubt that the Lawmakers were trying to come up with a solution for the case where the NOs bid over the first call without any realisation that there was a change, so it was not at a time when they were thinking of "condoning" anything? Furthermore, one of the first things that we train TDs in is that the headings in the Law book are *not* part of the Law: PREFACE TO THE 1987 LAWS A great deal of effort has been expended to make these Laws easy to use. References from one law to another have been made more explicit. The hundreds of headings and sub-headings can help a Director find the section of a law that is applicable to the facts of a case (these headings are for convenience of reference only; headings are not considered to be part of the Laws). If you look carefully through L25 you will discover that the word "condone" does not appear in it. Yes, of course it appears in the headings, but not in the Law. The Law says "If offender's LHO has called before attention ..." and whether you like it or not, that is exactly as you must take it. So, Robin, your original ruling, however horrible, was correct. Mind you, if you want to upset your friendly neighbourhood TD when this happens, try asking for a ruling under L9B1C! -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Sat Oct 5 07:21:18 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA07912 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 07:21:18 +1000 Received: from irvine.com (flash.irvine.com [192.160.8.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id HAA07907 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 07:21:11 +1000 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa11343; 4 Oct 96 14:20 PDT To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Law 25B1 In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 04 Oct 1996 20:23:58 PDT." Date: Fri, 04 Oct 1996 14:20:34 PDT From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9610041420.aa11343@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >Situation #2 >North (deals and) opens 1S, >East bids 1D (insufficient), >South notices that 1D is insufficient and wishes to accept 1D and doubles, >East noticing that 1D is insufficient (but noticing South's double) says > "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. >Now the TD is called. > >The TD reads L25B and determines that the second sentance of L25B1 (quoted >below) applies: 2H stands without penalty (!) and South may withdraw his >double. I'm surprised that no one has suggested that Laws 25 and 27 shouldn't apply here at all, but that this is rather a case for L31B (bid out of rotation)!! After all, East bid 2H when it was his partner's turn to call, no? -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Sat Oct 5 08:22:37 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA08250 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 08:22:37 +1000 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (cfa.harvard.edu [128.103.40.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA08245 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 08:22:30 +1000 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id SAA11123 for ; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 18:22:25 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id SAA01551; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 18:23:24 -0400 Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 18:23:24 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199610042223.SAA01551@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 25B1 X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: David Stevenson > You *must* not put a mythical "In this case" into a Law, *especially* > when you know what the Lawmakers intended: surely we do in this case? Evidently we don't. > If you look carefully through L25 you will discover that the word > "condone" does not appear in it. Well, yes, but the first sentence in L27B1 begins "The substituted call may be accepted...." My reading is that the rest of L27B1 is related to this option and is merely stating that a call subsequent to the correction does not automatically accept the corrected call. Consider the following sequence of events: East makes a legal call. South makes a legal call. East now changes his original call (perhaps by picking up the top bidding card). Can anyone really argue that East's substituted call may, under L25B1, stand without penalty? (Of course it may conceivably stand under L25A.) Yet the conditions of the second sentence of L25B1 have been satisfied. The only sensible reading is that the second sentence is qualified by the first. > So, Robin, your original ruling, however horrible, was correct. Mind > you, if you want to upset your friendly neighbourhood TD when this > happens, try asking for a ruling under L9B1C! Why should L9B1c upset the TD? The original sequence was the following: East makes an illegal (insufficient) bid. South makes a legal call, accepting East's bid. East now changes his bid to a legal one. This is exactly the same sequence as above except that East's first bid is illegal. Why should L25B1 apply to this case if it doesn't apply to the example I gave? From owner-bridge-laws Sat Oct 5 11:43:41 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA08777 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 11:43:41 +1000 Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net (relay-1.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.140]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA08772 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 11:43:25 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net id ab27521; 5 Oct 96 2:43 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa27074; 5 Oct 96 2:41 BST Message-ID: Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 02:37:49 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 25B1 In-Reply-To: <199610042223.SAA01551@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve Willner wrote: >> From: David Stevenson >> You *must* not put a mythical "In this case" into a Law, *especially* >> when you know what the Lawmakers intended: surely we do in this case? >Evidently we don't. >> If you look carefully through L25 you will discover that the word >> "condone" does not appear in it. >Well, yes, but the first sentence in L27B1 begins "The substituted >call may be accepted...." My reading is that the rest of L27B1 is >related to this option and is merely stating that a call subsequent >to the correction does not automatically accept the corrected call. > >Consider the following sequence of events: East makes a legal call. >South makes a legal call. East now changes his original call (perhaps >by picking up the top bidding card). Can anyone really argue that >East's substituted call may, under L25B1, stand without penalty? (Of >course it may conceivably stand under L25A.) Yet the conditions of >the second sentence of L25B1 have been satisfied. The only sensible >reading is that the second sentence is qualified by the first. Ohttre. OK, so perhaps I have got this one wrong. Let me reconsider. First, there is no doubt that headings are not part of the Law. The word "condone" does not appear in L25B, so let us not consider "condoning" a call. Forget the insufficient bit for a mo', and let us assume that any changes do not fall within L25A: OK? Right: E calls: S calls: E changes his call under L25B: is this accepted by the second sentence of L25B1? Law 25 - Legal and Illegal Changes of Call B. Delayed or Purposeful Correction If a call is substituted when section A does not apply: 1. Substitute Call Condoned The substituted call may be accepted (treated as legal) at the option of offender's LHO; then, the second call stands and the auction proceeds without penalty. If offender's LHO has called before attention is drawn to the infraction, and the Director determines that LHO intended his call to apply over the offender's original call at that turn, offender's substituted call stands without penalty, and LHO may withdraw his call without penalty. The Law says "If offender's LHO has called before attention is drawn to the infraction...". What infraction? There is no infraction at that moment. While I do not accept the contention that the second sentence only applies when the first sentence applies, I do accept that it only seems to apply if there is an infraction, and that means that it only applies if offender's LHO calls after the attempted change of call. This is consistent with (a) Steve's case, which would be ridiculous otherwise and (b) the intent of the Laws, which I still contend is obviously to stop a late call by the NO penalising himself. Let's try again. N bids 1H, E bids 1D, S doubles, E tries to bid 2C. In this case the second sentence of L25B1 does not apply because the infraction referred to [changing the call] has not happened when S doubles. So the TD makes sure that L25A is not relevant: he offers S the chance to accept 2C [L25B1, first sentence]: if S does not accept L25B2A points to L27 [Insufficient Bid]: L27A says the insufficient bid may be accepted so S may accept the 1D bid: this is not affected by whether the TD was called before or after S doubled. ------------------- >Why should L9B1c upset the TD? > >The original sequence was the following: >East makes an illegal (insufficient) bid. South makes a legal call, >accepting East's bid. East now changes his bid to a legal one. This >is exactly the same sequence as above except that East's first bid >is illegal. Why should L25B1 apply to this case if it doesn't apply >to the example I gave? Now come on Steve: you have shown yourself over the months to be very logical, whether we have agreed or not. My comment on L9B1C was based on a premise, namely my reading of the Law. **Of course**, if you change the premise, the conclusion changes, but so what? Given the premise, namely that calling the TD makes a difference, then surely you must accept the conclusion, that L9B1C would be embarrassing? -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Sat Oct 5 11:55:59 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA08804 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 11:55:59 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA08799 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 11:55:48 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ap21998; 3 Oct 96 21:40 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id ab03468; 3 Oct 96 22:21 BST Message-ID: Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 22:18:04 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 25B1 In-Reply-To: <29306.9610031205@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Robin Barker wrote: >Herman > >At an EBU training weekend for established TDs in July we had a hand >where the part of 25B1 (below) applies. We were generally unhappy with >what the law said: it seems to deny LHO most of his rights when bidding >over a legal bid which offender then changes. > >> .. If offenders LHO has called before attention is drawn to the >> infraction, and the Director determines thet LHO intended his call to >> apply over the offender's original call at that turn, offender's >> substituted call stands without penalty, and LHO may withdraw his call >> without penalty. > >I don't have my notes with me, but I will look them up. Otherwise, >as David Stephenson was the-man-with-the-answers, perhaps he can ^^ >recall what was said. I don't think we have ever come up with anything more constructive than that it is a crappy Law, against the general principles of Bridge, and designed to support the better players. Not a lot of help, I agree: still, it's about to get worse! -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Sat Oct 5 17:52:21 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA11529 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 17:52:21 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA11524 for ; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 17:52:06 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ae22031; 3 Oct 96 21:40 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa03446; 3 Oct 96 22:21 BST Message-ID: Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 22:17:49 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 25B1 In-Reply-To: <3253AAFF.C7A@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: >Last night, in a training session for new TD's, we stumbled upon a very >strange thing. Let me try and explain it in stages. > >The setting is always the same : > >North, dealer, puts down the 1C bidding card. He realizes he made a >mistake and takes out the 1D and 1H bidding cards and puts them on top >of the 1C, thereby changing his call to 1H. >There are of course two disticnt possibilities : >a- he has made a technical error (a slip of the finger) He always >intended to bid 1H, or >b- he has changed his mind (ie he suddenly found a fifth heart, or he >suddenly realized he was NOT playing strong club with this partner). >This difference will of course lead to the distinction between Law 25A >and 25B, but this is not yet all, as : > >Meanwhile, East decides to bid 1D and puts the corresponding bidding >card on the table. If necessary, it will become clear which of the >bidding cards, 1H or 1D, hits the table first, but I don't think this >should influence the ruling. Neither player has noticed the other bid >before attempting his bid. > >Law 25 says among others : > >25B1 .. If offenders LHO has called before attention is drawn to the >infraction, and the Director determines thet LHO intended his call to >apply over the offender's original call at that turn, offender's >substituted call stands without penalty, and LHO may withdraw his call >without penalty. > >In the case set out above, it is clear that 1D was intended over 1C, and >in any case the call was made before the attention was drawn to the >substitution. > >A first point is this : > >This special case is mentioned under the heading 25B. It turns out to be >rather difficult for new TD's to find the case when 25A applies. >I hope you will agree that it will also apply when 25A is used, so the >1D bid can always be withdrawn without penalty. Certainly this seems to be our conclusion despite the lack of a Law in justification. >Let's now turn to the case where the change of call is purposeful. > >There could be a different approach to the case depending on the timing >of 1D and 1H. > >1) 1D comes after 1H. East was not paying attention. He has made his >call before attentin is drawn to the change. This is the typical case. >1H is accepted, 1D can be withdrawn without penalty, West even has the >authorized information (is it authorized for NS ?) Hmmmmmmm. Assuming it is authorised, then if my RHO changes his call, perhaps I should make a call immediately, which I know that the TD will allow me to change, so I get two bites at the cherry? >2) 1D and 1H appear simultaneously. We are not going into micro-seconds >timing, to all intents and purposes this is the same case as 1) if it >becomes clear that north could not have reacted to the 1D call. > >3) 1H is clearly after the 1D bid. North did notice and could have >reacted to the 1D bid. He may have said something like 'oh no, wait >a moment, i have made a mistake'. This is strange territory. > >4) North has read this thread and knows there is a possibility for him >to change his call legally. > >The problem is that the Law states that LHO must have made his call >before attention is drawn to the irregularity. I am sorry Herman, you have lost me here. Please explain this one. > If he has made the call >before the irregularity has even happened, what then ? If who has made the call before what irregularity happened? >Using spoken bidding, this thing would be very strange indeed. It could >be argued that North has made a call out of turn. >Using bidding cards, North can clearly show, by covering the 1C card >with the 1H, that he intends to change his original call. Still not clear. >Clearly, this thing cannot be allowed. >In case 4) (and you're all warned now), The TD shall apply Law 72B1. It >is a serious breach of propiety to infringe the Law intentionally, >especially when no penalty is prescribed. What is the penalty for >breaking the proprieties however ? The proprieties are part of the Laws so the approach is unchanged. Breach of the proprieties is always a judgement call for a TD, who will explain/warn/fine/ban/suspend/refer to higher committee as appropriate. However under 4) you refer to him changing his call legally. You have to take a position. Either it is legal or it isn't. If it is legal then L72B1 does not apply. There is nothing wrong with doing something legal. >But in case 3) we have a problem. Do we allow play to continue over 1H >without any penalty whatsoever ? I am really not sure what your problem is here. Perhaps you could write a clarification. >But maybe this is just another one of those cases where we shall simply >have to wait for the new Laws. Unless my information is incorrect, the new L25 will be *far worse* than the current one. This is not one of the cases where we can look forward to improvement. While I have answered some of the ancillary questions I do not see what the real problem addressed in this article is. Sorry. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Sun Oct 6 02:22:26 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA15757 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 6 Oct 1996 02:22:26 +1000 Received: from dub-img-2.compuserve.com (dub-img-2.compuserve.com [149.174.206.132]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA15752 for ; Sun, 6 Oct 1996 02:22:19 +1000 Received: by dub-img-2.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id MAA15083; Sat, 5 Oct 1996 12:21:44 -0400 Date: 05 Oct 96 12:19:44 EDT From: Rachael <100757.3514@compuserve.com> To: Bridge laws discussion l Subject: Re : Law25B1 Message-ID: <961005161943_100757.3514_GHV57-1@CompuServe.COM> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >Situation #2 >North (deals and) opens 1S, >East bids 1D (insufficient), >South notices that 1D is insufficient and wishes to accept 1D and doubles, >East noticing that 1D is insufficient (but noticing South's double) says > "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. >Now the TD is called. > >The TD reads L25B and determines that the second sentance of L25B1 (quoted >below) applies: 2H stands without penalty (!) and South may withdraw his >double. I do nor see how law 25B applies at all. South, by doubling, accepted the insufficient bid (L27A) . This means that it is West's turn to call when East bids 2H. Law 31 B) When the offender has bid at his partner' turn to call, or at his LHO's turn to call if the offender has not previously called, (penalty) offender's partner must pass whenever it is his turn to call (see Law 23A when the pass damages the non-offending side), and the lead penalties of Law 26 may apply. The reference back to Law 25 only applies if it is LHO's turn to call, not partner's. This clarified in the footnote :- Later bids at LHO's turn to call are treated as changes of call, and law 25 applies. Hence we remain with L31B. South can accept the bid of 2H (L31) else West is silenced and it is West turn to call (pass). What's the problem ? Robert King From owner-bridge-laws Sun Oct 6 20:02:31 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA20378 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sun, 6 Oct 1996 20:02:31 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA20373 for ; Sun, 6 Oct 1996 20:02:18 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ae21445; 6 Oct 96 9:36 GMT Received: from dmatters.demon.co.uk ([158.152.69.76]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa23584; 6 Oct 96 10:34 BST Message-ID: Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 10:32:10 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: Bridge laws discussion l From: Martin Taylor Subject: Re: Re : Law25B1 In-Reply-To: <961005161943_100757.3514_GHV57-1@CompuServe.COM> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike (evaluation) Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In message <961005161943_100757.3514_GHV57-1@CompuServe.COM>, Rachael <100757.3514@compuserve.com> writes >>Situation #2 > >North (deals and) opens 1S, > >East bids 1D (insufficient), > >South notices that 1D is insufficient and wishes to accept 1D and doubles, > >East noticing that 1D is insufficient (but noticing South's double) says > > "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. > >Now the TD is called. > > > >The TD reads L25B and determines that the second sentance of L25B1 (quoted > >below) applies: 2H stands without penalty (!) and South may withdraw his > >double. > How does the law apply in this situation: I open 1n and LHO passes. Partner turns to his bidding box, plonks a pass card on the table without really looking it, turns back to the bidding box, shakes it, fumbles for a few seconds, pulls out 3n which he places on top of the pass card, looks, blinks, says "oh, sorry that should have been the stop card" the opponents are nice about it, despite the length of time that elapsed, the mannerisms are such that it should obviously have been the stop card, and play continues. What would the ruling been if the TD had been called? What if RHO took advantage of the delay (naturally assuming partner meant pass :) ) and passed quickly before 3n had been bid? -- Martin Taylor Turnpike evaluation. For information, see http://www.turnpike.com/ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Oct 7 00:26:55 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA25488 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 00:26:55 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA25483 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 00:26:39 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ad25655; 5 Oct 96 2:58 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa28669; 5 Oct 96 2:58 BST Message-ID: <8W$u1IBrAcVyEwfn@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 02:55:55 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 25B1 In-Reply-To: <9610041420.aa11343@flash.irvine.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote: > > >Situation #2 > >North (deals and) opens 1S, > >East bids 1D (insufficient), > >South notices that 1D is insufficient and wishes to accept 1D and doubles, > >East noticing that 1D is insufficient (but noticing South's double) says > > "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. > >Now the TD is called. > > > >The TD reads L25B and determines that the second sentance of L25B1 (quoted > >below) applies: 2H stands without penalty (!) and South may withdraw his > >double. > >I'm surprised that no one has suggested that Laws 25 and 27 shouldn't >apply here at all, but that this is rather a case for L31B (bid out of >rotation)!! After all, East bid 2H when it was his partner's turn to >call, no? This is just a typical problem with the worst Law in the book. However I think that in practice there is a clear distinction between a change of call [whether legal or illegal] and a new call. Lord protect me from L25B [and it's going to get **worse** not better in the new Law book!]. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Oct 7 00:29:11 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA25507 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 00:29:11 +1000 Received: from pip.dknet.dk (0@pip.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA25502 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 00:29:05 +1000 Received: from cph24.ppp.dknet.dk (cph24.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.24]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA25211 for ; Sun, 6 Oct 1996 16:28:57 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Re : Law25B1 Date: Sun, 06 Oct 1996 16:28:55 +0200 Organization: at home Message-ID: <325fbcf9.4960052@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99f/32.299 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Sun, 6 Oct 1996 10:32:10 +0100, Martin Taylor wrote: >How does the law apply in this situation: > >I open 1n and LHO passes. Partner turns to his bidding box, plonks a >pass card on the table without really looking it, turns back to the >bidding box, shakes it, fumbles for a few seconds, pulls out 3n which >he places on top of the pass card, looks, > >blinks, > >says "oh, sorry that should have been the stop card" > >the opponents are nice about it, despite the length of time that >elapsed, the mannerisms are such that it should obviously have been the >stop card, and play continues. > >What would the ruling been if the TD had been called? Your partner has passed, and then changed his pass to 3N. Since his pass was obviously inadvertent and he changed it (or somehow indicated that it _was_ inadvertent, such as by saying "oops!" or "Director!") without pause for thought, this comes under L25A: he is allowed to change the call. >What if RHO took advantage of the delay (naturally assuming partner >meant pass :) ) and passed quickly before 3n had been bid? RHO would be allowed to take back his pass without penalty. (L25 doesn't really say so, but it is the only reasonable ruling and there seems to be some agreement on that.) The question of whether RHO's withdrawn call is authorized information for you and your partner is more complicated. Since there has been no irregularity at all (your partner's change of an inadvertent call as allowed by L25A is a legal part of the game, not an irregularity), it is very hard to find a law that makes that information unauthorized. On the other hand, it seems a little hard on your opponents that you will be allowed to base your declarer play in 3N on the knowledge of what RHO would have bid if your partner had passed. I would rule that RHO's withdrawn call is authorized information for everybody. This means that you and your partner may actually benefit from your partner's clumsiness - you were simply lucky. Of course, if he passed intentionally in order to change his call when he had seen what your RHO would bid, he would be in grave conflict with L72B1 and liable to a serious penalty. -- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Mon Oct 7 02:58:26 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA26688 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 02:58:26 +1000 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA26683 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 02:58:17 +1000 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id RAA04464 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Sun, 6 Oct 1996 17:58:06 +0100 Date: Sun, 6 Oct 96 17:57 BST-1 From: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tim West-meads) Subject: Why not just make hesitations punishable? To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Reply-To: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Message-Id: Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk These are just a few random thoughts (following on in part from the "who are your peers" thread). I had, apparently mistakenly, previously thought that the purpose of UI rulings was to restore equity - I had taken this to mean that the TD/AC should seek to reassure themselves that any bids subsequent to hesitation/UI should be the same as those that would have been made in the absence of the UI, adjusting where this was not the case. Do people feel that the current interpretations of the law support this? Example: Seven out of ten people would bid in a particlar sequence. However, all of them get a hesitation from partner. The seven "bidders" will all get ruled against if the hesitation suggests bidding on (or possibly even if the hesitation suggests nothing in particular!). Thus leaving seven pairs with worse scores than they would otherwise have got. This "guilty unless proven innocent" approach sits uncomfortably with the baggage of my general upbringing. Indeed players are found guilty even when the balance of circumstansial evidence leads us to believe them innocent. I like to believe that most players are ethical and will not deliberately use UI (once they know it's against the rules), and even that they will admit cases where it might have influenced subconsciously. Since the laws are not intended to punsih cheats (I think this is the case) are we perhaps being overzealous in our rulings. If we really want to end up punishing every hesitation (as seems possible from current trends) would it not be more honest to state that as our direct policy? Since I am still waiting for my copy of the law book (the invoice arrived yesterday but still no sign of the book itself!) perhaps someone can help me understand an apparent conflict within the laws. As I understand it 1) A player must not make a bid based on the gestures/actions/etc of their partner. 2) A player must not make a bid which is suggested by UI where an LA (not suggested by UI) exists. It seems to me that, by changing the bid I would make in the absence of hesitation/UI, in trying to comply with 2) I automatically breach 1) because my bidding would have been different if there was no hesitation. I was also disappointed that "attitude" didn't get a mention in the "who are your peers" debate (I was on holiday at the time). In most of the "how many people would bid on" rulings I have seen it is the case that those bidding on are the more aggressive, while those passing are better classified as cautious. Do we believe that TD/ACs should try to establish the relative aggression level of the player concerned as well as their likely ability? I know this can be difficult but surely it's worth some effort. Tim West-Meads From owner-bridge-laws Mon Oct 7 12:24:07 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA06984 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 12:24:07 +1000 Received: from server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net (server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net [203.108.7.40]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA06978 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 12:23:58 +1000 Received: from oznet02.ozemail.com.au (oznet02.ozemail.com.au [203.2.192.124]) by server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net (8.7.6/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA25101 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 12:23:53 +1000 (EST) Received: from LOCALNAME (slbri2p02.ozemail.com.au [203.7.176.90]) by oznet02.ozemail.com.au (8.7.6/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA26991 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 12:23:51 +1000 (EST) Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 12:23:51 +1000 (EST) Message-Id: <199610070223.MAA26991@oznet02.ozemail.com.au> X-Sender: rbusch@ozemail.com.au X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Reg Busch Subject: Law 25 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk As a new boy on this block, I have read with interest the debate on Law 25. Particularly because I have just written an article on this Law for a Directors' Bulletin which I edit and produce in Australia. On re-reading Law 25 with a fresh eye and no preconceptions, one thing strikes me. The framers of this Law did not envisage an inadvertent call being allowed to be corrected once LHO has called. Certainly the Law says nothing about this possibility. Wouldn't one have expected the lawmakers to provide for this specifically if that was their intention? If one accepts this premise, then I find Law 25A and 25B reasonably easy to interpret, though it is not well worded. However, it seems (and correct me if I'm wrong here)that the general approach now is that an inadvertent bid may be changed even if LHO has called, but not if partner has also called. It is this re-interpretation (some might say re-writing) of Law 25 which gives rise to all the problems mentioned in this thread. Once we accept that some bids may be legitimately changed even after LHO has called, we now have to rule on a situation where the change of bid was not legitimate and not inadvertent. And we have to rule on the basis of a Law that was not intended to cover this situation! So, using this simple (simple-minded?)approach, consider the following situations: 1. South bids 1C and immediately changes it to 1H. West has not bid. The TD will rule as to inadvertency, and either allow the change or apply Law 25B. 2. South bids 1C, changes it to 1H and THEN West bids 1D. West has obviously elected to call despite South's change of call, or he has not noticed it. West, consciously or not, has acted over South's irregularity. So the Law says that South's change of call will stand, but at least West can withdraw his 1D call without penalty. This may seem a little hard on the West who didn't notice South's change of call. But one could draw an analogy with the player who calls over an insufficient or out of turn call, thereby legitimising it even though he didn't register that it was irregular. 3. South bids 1C, West bids 1D and THEN South changes his call to 1H. Law 25 not applicable. The 1H is a bid out of turn at partner's turn to call. 4. Robin Barker's situation: North bids 1S, East bids 1D (insufficient), South elects to accept the insufficient bid by doubling, East now corrects his insufficient bid to 2H. Law 25B is now interpreted as saying that East's 2H bid stands without penalty. I cannot believe that that was the intention of the Laws. Law 27 makes it quite clear that South has accepted the 1D bid simply by calling. It is now West's turn to bid, and East's 2H bid is a call out of turn. The only time East's 2H bid could stand is if South had made his double AFTER East had changed his call to 2H. Law 25B says 'If offender's LHO has called before attention is drawn to the infraction, and the Director determines that LHO intended his call to apply over the offender's original call at that turn, offender's substituted call stands without penalty, and LHO may withdraw his call without penalty.' So if South bids 1C, West bids 1D and then South changes his call to 1H, this clause does not apply. At the time West bid 1D, there had not been an infraction. What the Law means and should say is 'If the offender's LHO has called after the infraction, but before attention is drawn to it..'. If one re-reads Law 25 on the premise that there is no provision for a change of call (even for inadvertency) once LHO has called, then it all becomes much clearer. (Of course there may be a change of call permissible under other Laws e.g. Law 21). Reg Busch Directors' Bulletin PO Box 92 Goodna Qld Australia Tel/Fax 61 7 32882446 From owner-bridge-laws Mon Oct 7 20:00:43 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA08636 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 20:00:43 +1000 Received: from mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk (mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk [132.146.5.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA08631 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 20:00:33 +1000 Received: from catullus.agw.bt.co.uk by mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk with SMTP (PP); Mon, 7 Oct 1996 10:55:58 +0100 Received: from ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk (ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk [147.150.119.60]) by catullus.agw.bt.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.11) with SMTP id KAA21767 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 10:42:30 +0100 Received: by ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk with Microsoft Mail id <3258DEC0@ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk>; Mon, 07 Oct 96 10:43:12 GMT From: "Burn, David" To: "'Bridge Laws'" Subject: Re: L25B1 Date: Mon, 07 Oct 96 10:42:00 GMT Message-ID: <3258DEC0@ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk> Encoding: 180 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >From David Burn Robin Barker wrote: >Eric > >To summarise. > >Robin wrote: >> >Situation #2 >> >North (deals and) opens 1S, >> >East bids 1D (insufficient), >> >South notices that 1D is insufficient and wishes to accept 1D and doubles, >> >East noticing that 1D is insufficient (but noticing South's double) says >> > "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. >> >Now the TD is called. >> > >> >The TD reads L25B and determines that the second sentance of L25B1 (quoted >> >below) applies: 2H stands without penalty (!) and South may withdraw his >> >double. > >Eric Landau wrote: >> I would argue that South is allowed to accept the insufficient bid. The >> sentence quoted above is from L25B1, "Substitute Call Condoned." So it >> applies when the following sequence of events occurs: (1) East calls, (2) >> South calls, (3) East attempts to substitute a different call, and (4) South >> condones the substitute call. Nothing in L25 suggests that (4) follows >> automatically from (2). >> >> If South chooses not to condone the substitute call, L25B2 ("Not Condoned") >> applies. Now L25B2a ("First Call Illegal") applies, and tells us to rule >> under L27. So now L27A applies, and says that the insufficient bid has >> already been accepted. >> >> So, by my reading, South has a choice. He may condone the 2H bid, in which >> case: >> >> - East's 2H stands. >> - South may make any legal call over 2H. >> - East's original 1D call is authorized information for West. >> - South's original double is authorized information for North. >> >> Or he may refuse to condone the 2H bid, in which case: >> >> - East's 1D stands. >> - South's double stands. >> - East's attempted correction to 2H is UI for West. >> >> In the given scenario, the TD erred when he "determine[d] that... L25B1... >> applies." It (i.e. "Substitute Call Condoned") applies only after the >> substitute call has been condoned. And the decision whether or not to >> condone it should have been offered to South. Robin wrote: >I agree that your argument makes sense. > >I read L25B1 (see below) as if the second sentence started > "But in any case, if offender's LHO has called before attention ..." > >your reading would correspond to > "In this case, if offender's LHO has called before attention ..." > >As the second reading leads to a ruling I am happier with, I am quite >happy to go along with the second reading. David Stevenson wrote: Oh dear. Happiness is a Law we like: and *no-one* that I have yet heard about likes L25 on this side of the pond. You *must* not put a mythical "In this case" into a Law, *especially* when you know what the Lawmakers intended: surely we do in this case? Surely there is no doubt that the Lawmakers were trying to come up with a solution for the case where the NOs bid over the first call without any realisation that there was a change, so it was not at a time when they were thinking of "condoning" anything? Furthermore, one of the first things that we train TDs in is that the headings in the Law book are *not* part of the Law: PREFACE TO THE 1987 LAWS A great deal of effort has been expended to make these Laws easy to use. References from one law to another have been made more explicit. The hundreds of headings and sub-headings can help a Director find the section of a law that is applicable to the facts of a case (these headings are for convenience of reference only; headings are not considered to be part of the Laws). If you look carefully through L25 you will discover that the word "condone" does not appear in it. Yes, of course it appears in the headings, but not in the Law. The Law says "If offender's LHO has called before attention ..." and whether you like it or not, that is exactly as you must take it. So, Robin, your original ruling, however horrible, was correct. Mind you, if you want to upset your friendly neighbourhood TD when this happens, try asking for a ruling under L9B1C! David Burn writes: I firmly agree with Eric Landau and with the reconstituted Robin Barker here. Whether or not the headings are part of the Laws, it is surely obvious that they are there to point the TD to the right place in the Laws. If the TD comes to the table with Law book in hand, he should follow this sequence of events: "Is this a change of call, or a call out of rotation?" It will be explained to him that East wanted to change his call. "This is a delayed, purposeful change of call, so I will read from Law 25B which is headed: Delayed or Purposeful Correction. "25B1. The substituted call may be accepted by South. Do you, South, wish to accept the 2H call?" South will say either Yes or No. If he says Yes: "Very well. When you doubled, were you doubling 1D or 2H?" South will explain that he was doubling 1D. "In that case, you may now make any call you wish over 2H." [Eric Landau asserts that the information from the double of 1D is authorised to North. This is probably correct, but it is of course illegal for the double of an insufficient bid to have a conventional meaning, so South had better have been doubling for penalties!] If South says No: "25B2. You, East, may not bid 2H. Your 1D bid was illegal, and we will proceed to Law 27. There may also be lead penalties under Law 26" It is obvious to me that the lawmakers intended the second sentence of 25B1 to deal with the situation where a player made a call over bid X but does not wish to make the same call over bid Y (for example, East bids 2C showing hearts and another over 1NT, South bids 2S, East changes 2C to 2D - spades and another; now South does not want to and should not have to bid 2S). it also seems obvious that the second sentence of 25B1 is entered only if the substituted call is condoned. Were it otherwise, the sentence would appear under 25B before the bifurcation into 25B1 and 25B2. This does not mean, of course, that Law 25B is other than a ridiculous piece of legislation. It just means that it is not quite as ridiculous as all that. From owner-bridge-laws Mon Oct 7 21:00:07 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA08808 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 21:00:07 +1000 Received: from barlaeus.ic.uva.nl (root@barlaeus.ic.uva.nl [145.18.68.50]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA08774 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 20:58:03 +1000 Received: from atlas.frw.uva.nl by barlaeus.ic.uva.nl with SMTP id AA13636 (5.67b/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Mon, 7 Oct 1996 12:57:42 +0200 Received: From STUD/WORKQUEUE by atlas.frw.uva.nl via Charon-4.0-VROOM with IPX id 100.961007104721.1280; 07 Oct 96 12:58:52 -100 Message-Id: From: "J.P. Pals" To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 10:47:47 MET-1 Subject: Re: Why not just make hesitations punishable? Reply-To: Jan Peter Pals X-Confirm-Reading-To: Jan Peter Pals X-Pmrqc: 1 Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Tim West-Meads wrote: ---- snip ------ > I was also disappointed that "attitude" didn't get a mention in the "who are > your peers" debate (I was on holiday at the time). In most of the "how many > people would bid on" rulings I have seen it is the case that those bidding on > are the more aggressive, while those passing are better classified as cautious. > Do we believe that TD/ACs should try to establish the relative aggression > level of the player concerned as well as their likely ability? I know this can > be difficult but surely it's worth some effort. I know at least one example of aggression level being included in a committee ruling. It occurred during the match Netherlands vs Sweden in the last Bermuda bowl in Peking. I quote from the daily bulletin: " Appeal Case 7 by Richard Colker Bermuda Bowl: Netherlands (N-S) vs. Sweden (E-W). Board 9. E/W Vul. Dealer North. (Westra, Berry) S T H A942 D 92 C AJT982 (Fallenius, Bjorn) (Nilsland, Mats) S 8542 S AKQ93 H QJT76 H 3 D 753 D AJT6 C 5 C K74 (Leufkens, Enri) S J76 H K85 D KQ84 C Q63 West North East South Pass 1C (1) Pass 1D (2) 3C Pass Pass Dbl (3) Pass 3S All Pass (1) Strong, 17+HCPs. (2) Negative. (3) After a hesitation. Described by West (to South) as takeout. Committee members: Richard Colker (Chair), Rebecca Rogers, John Wignall, Barbara Nudelman, Mazhar Jafri. Facts: The Director was called after the completion of the hand. N-S complained that West had hesitated unduly before doubling, and because of this East had bid only 3S. Director's ruling: Applied to the present case Law 16A2 authorizes the Director to assign an adjusted score whenever it is determined that, following West's (alleged) hesitation, East selected from among logical alternatives an action which could have been suggested by the hesitation. The Directors did not feel that 3S met this criterion, so the result at the table was allowed to stand. N-S appealed this ruling. Testimony: N-S stated that West's double took approximately one minute. They also stated that E-W were normally a very aggressive pair, and that stopping short of game on the East cards opposite a West hand good enough to balance (East's pass of 3C was not absolutely forcing) was unusual. They also cited evidence suggesting that people in the Vugraph room were surprised that East bid only 3S, and that 4S was the final contract at nearly all the other tables. Finally, they pointed out that West's description of his double as "takeout" was not correct. (West confirmed that it could have been based on a balanced hand in the 5-7 HCPs range, and should more accurately have been described as "value showing."). East stated that he considered three alternative bids after West's double: 3S, 4C and 4S. 3S was selected because of its flexibility, including allowing for a possible 3NT contract. 4C was considered a better bridge bid than 4S because it allowed for a possible diamond contract. Finally, East felt that 3S also carried the implication of being a 5-card suit, since red suits of equal or longer length would be bid at the 3-level before a 4-card spade suit. (West seemed unaware of this inference.) Committee's decision: This case was quite complex, the final decision resting on several delicate issues. First, the testimony, together with East's club holding, suggested that East had good reason to attribute the hesitation on the other side of the screen to West. Second, E-W were normally (and undisputedly) a very aggressive pair, and the 4S game was bid by most E-W pairs in the event. Third, East's hand was strong enough (even though minimum in high cards) to produce a good play for 4S, even opposite many West hands containing only three spades and values too modest to raise 3S to four (e.g., SJ8x HQxxxx DQxx Cxx). And finally, West's (presumed) huddle suggested that caution by East was more likely to be successful than aggression. It was therefore decided that East should be forced to take the more aggressive action of bidding 4C over West's double, which would land E-W in a 4S contract. The most likely result would be down one, so the score for 4S by E-W down one was assigned to both pairs (N-S +100, E-W -100). " JP * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Jan Peter Pals * * e-mail: jpp@ivip.frw.uva.nl * * Faculty of Environmental Sciences, dept. European Archaeology * * University of Amsterdam * * Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, NL-1018 VZ Amsterdam * * Tel: (31)-20-525 7394/5830, Fax: (31)-20-525-5822 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From owner-bridge-laws Mon Oct 7 21:02:43 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA08855 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 21:02:43 +1000 Received: from csd.cri.dk (cabra.cri.dk [130.227.48.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA08850 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 21:02:30 +1000 X-Organization: Computer Resources International A/S, Bregneroedvej 144, DK-3460 Birkeroed, Denmark Received: from nov.cri.dk (nov.cri.dk [130.227.50.162]) by csd.cri.dk (8.6.12/8.6.10) with SMTP id MAA06555 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 12:01:39 +0100 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Mon, 07 Oct 1996 13:01:20 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 13:01:12 +0100 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: L25B1 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >>> "Burn, David" 07.10.96 11:42 >>> >From David Burn Robin Barker wrote: >Eric > >To summarise. > >Robin wrote: >> >Situation #2 >> >North (deals and) opens 1S, >> >East bids 1D (insufficient), >> >South notices that 1D is insufficient and wishes to accept 1D and doubles, >> >East noticing that 1D is insufficient (but noticing South's double) says >> > "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. >> >Now the TD is called. >> > >> >The TD reads L25B and determines that the second sentance of L25B1 (quoted >> >below) applies: 2H stands without penalty (!) and South may withdraw his >> >double. > >Eric Landau wrote: >> I would argue that South is allowed to accept the insufficient bid. The >> sentence quoted above is from L25B1, "Substitute Call Condoned." So it >> applies when the following sequence of events occurs: (1) East calls, (2) >> South calls, (3) East attempts to substitute a different call, and (4) South >> condones the substitute call. Nothing in L25 suggests that (4) follows >> automatically from (2). >> >> If South chooses not to condone the substitute call, L25B2 ("Not Condoned") >> applies. Now L25B2a ("First Call Illegal") applies, and tells us to rule >> under L27. So now L27A applies, and says that the insufficient bid has >> already been accepted. >> >> So, by my reading, South has a choice. He may condone the 2H bid, in which >> case: >> >> - East's 2H stands. >> - South may make any legal call over 2H. >> - East's original 1D call is authorized information for West. >> - South's original double is authorized information for North. >> >> Or he may refuse to condone the 2H bid, in which case: >> >> - East's 1D stands. >> - South's double stands. >> - East's attempted correction to 2H is UI for West. >> >> In the given scenario, the TD erred when he "determine[d] that... L25B1... >> applies." It (i.e. "Substitute Call Condoned") applies only after the >> substitute call has been condoned. And the decision whether or not to >> condone it should have been offered to South. Robin wrote: >I agree that your argument makes sense. > >I read L25B1 (see below) as if the second sentence started > "But in any case, if offender's LHO has called before attention ..." > >your reading would correspond to > "In this case, if offender's LHO has called before attention ..." > >As the second reading leads to a ruling I am happier with, I am quite >happy to go along with the second reading. David Stevenson wrote: Oh dear. Happiness is a Law we like: and *no-one* that I have yet heard about likes L25 on this side of the pond. You *must* not put a mythical "In this case" into a Law, *especially* when you know what the Lawmakers intended: surely we do in this case? Surely there is no doubt that the Lawmakers were trying to come up with a solution for the case where the NOs bid over the first call without any realisation that there was a change, so it was not at a time when they were thinking of "condoning" anything? Furthermore, one of the first things that we train TDs in is that the headings in the Law book are *not* part of the Law: PREFACE TO THE 1987 LAWS A great deal of effort has been expended to make these Laws easy to use. References from one law to another have been made more explicit. The hundreds of headings and sub-headings can help a Director find the section of a law that is applicable to the facts of a case (these headings are for convenience of reference only; headings are not considered to be part of the Laws). If you look carefully through L25 you will discover that the word "condone" does not appear in it. Yes, of course it appears in the headings, but not in the Law. The Law says "If offender's LHO has called before attention ..." and whether you like it or not, that is exactly as you must take it. So, Robin, your original ruling, however horrible, was correct. Mind you, if you want to upset your friendly neighbourhood TD when this happens, try asking for a ruling under L9B1C! David Burn writes: I firmly agree with Eric Landau and with the reconstituted Robin Barker here. Whether or not the headings are part of the Laws, it is surely obvious that they are there to point the TD to the right place in the Laws. If the TD comes to the table with Law book in hand, he should follow this sequence of events: "Is this a change of call, or a call out of rotation?" It will be explained to him that East wanted to change his call. "This is a delayed, purposeful change of call, so I will read from Law 25B which is headed: Delayed or Purposeful Correction. "25B1. The substituted call may be accepted by South. Do you, South, wish to accept the 2H call?" South will say either Yes or No. If he says Yes: "Very well. When you doubled, were you doubling 1D or 2H?" South will explain that he was doubling 1D. "In that case, you may now make any call you wish over 2H." [Eric Landau asserts that the information from the double of 1D is authorised to North. This is probably correct, but it is of course illegal for the double of an insufficient bid to have a conventional meaning, so South had better have been doubling for penalties!] If South says No: "25B2. You, East, may not bid 2H. Your 1D bid was illegal, and we will proceed to Law 27. There may also be lead penalties under Law 26" It is obvious to me that the lawmakers intended the second sentence of 25B1 to deal with the situation where a player made a call over bid X but does not wish to make the same call over bid Y (for example, East bids 2C showing hearts and another over 1NT, South bids 2S, East changes 2C to 2D - spades and another; now South does not want to and should not have to bid 2S). it also seems obvious that the second sentence of 25B1 is entered only if the substituted call is condoned. Were it otherwise, the sentence would appear under 25B before the bifurcation into 25B1 and 25B2. This does not mean, of course, that Law 25B is other than a ridiculous piece of legislation. It just means that it is not quite as ridiculous as all that. From owner-bridge-laws Mon Oct 7 21:13:32 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA08930 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 21:13:32 +1000 Received: from mail.be.innet.net (mail.be.innet.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA08920 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 21:13:26 +1000 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-86.innet.be [194.7.10.86]) by mail.be.innet.net (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA28900 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 13:13:18 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <32564851.1285@innet.be> Date: Sat, 05 Oct 1996 11:36:49 +0000 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 25B1 References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > > Herman De Wael wrote: > > > > >The problem is that the Law states that LHO must have made his call > >before attention is drawn to the irregularity. > > I am sorry Herman, you have lost me here. Please explain this one. > I am simply stating that the problem (for us) is that the Law only tells us that LHO must have made his call before 'attention is drawn'. If he makes his call before the infraction, of course it is before attention is drawn. You have stated in another post that this rule should not be applied when LHO has called before the infraction, but I fail to see why not. > > If he has made the call > >before the irregularity has even happened, what then ? > > If who has made the call before what irregularity happened? LHO the change of call > > >Using spoken bidding, this thing would be very strange indeed. It could > >be argued that North has made a call out of turn. > >Using bidding cards, North can clearly show, by covering the 1C card > >with the 1H, that he intends to change his original call. > > Still not clear. > Someone else has pointed out that offender has called when it is his partner's turn. But it isn't. Offender intends to change his call, and clearly shows his intention by putting the correct bidding card on top of, not overlapping, the original call. [snip] > However under 4) you refer to him changing his call legally. You > have > to take a position. Either it is legal or it isn't. If it is legal > then L72B1 does not apply. There is nothing wrong with doing > something legal. > Changing a call can never be legal. It can be condoned, but it's never legal. If we apply L25 here, we are simply allowing the illegal action without penalty. Law 72B1 is aimed at that. > >But in case 3) we have a problem. Do we allow play to continue over 1H > >without any penalty whatsoever ? > > I am really not sure what your problem is here. Perhaps you could > write a clarification. > Case 3 : Offender changes his call and he is lucky to have a fast LHO, who has called in the meantime. His second call now stands, without penalty. I often make erroneous calls and realise my mistake within microseconds. I let it stand and play in ridiculous contracts. Knowing the laws, I should realize that it is better for me to change my call nevertheless. There are all sorts of loopholes (this is just one of them), that allow me to escape with less harm. Clearly that is not right. I prefer to pay for my errors. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Mon Oct 7 21:13:34 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA08931 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 21:13:34 +1000 Received: from mail.be.innet.net (mail.be.innet.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA08921 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 21:13:27 +1000 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-86.innet.be [194.7.10.86]) by mail.be.innet.net (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA28907 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 13:13:20 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <32590118.31E@innet.be> Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 13:09:44 +0000 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 25 References: <199610070223.MAA26991@oznet02.ozemail.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Reg Busch wrote: > > As a new boy on this block, I have read with interest the debate on Law 25. > Particularly because I have just written an article on this Law for a > Directors' Bulletin which I edit and produce in Australia. On re-reading Law > 25 with a fresh eye and no preconceptions, one thing strikes me. The framers > of this Law did not envisage an inadvertent call being allowed to be > corrected once LHO has called. Certainly the Law says nothing about this > possibility. Wouldn't one have expected the lawmakers to provide for this > specifically if that was their intention? If one accepts this premise, then > I find Law 25A and 25B reasonably easy to interpret, though it is not well > worded. > The framers of this Law did not have bidding boxes in mind when they wrote the Law. Using spoken bidding, the only way one can envisage L25A to apply is when the correction is immediate. Thus it is inconceivable that a L25A situation can arise with a bid by LHO in between. With bidding cards this becomes quite common, in actual fact. And that's where the problem seems to come from. We hope this will be resolved in the new Laws, but David keeps reminding that it will probably get even worse ! > However, it seems (and correct me if I'm wrong here)that the general > approach now is that an inadvertent bid may be changed even if LHO has > called, but not if partner has also called. Reading 25A, there is no limit in time. The dutch federation has decided not to apply 25A when partner has called, but Ton Kooiman, CTD of the WBF and NBB is personally not quite happy with that regulation. I don't know of other NCBO's who have made such a regulation. > > 3. South bids 1C, West bids 1D and THEN South changes his call to 1H. Law 25 > not applicable. The 1H is a bid out of turn at partner's turn to call. > No, it is a change of call, only Law 25 can apply. > 4. Robin Barker's situation: North bids 1S, East bids 1D (insufficient), > South elects to accept the insufficient bid by doubling, East now corrects > his insufficient bid to 2H. Law 25B is now interpreted as saying that East's > 2H bid stands without penalty. I cannot believe that that was the intention > of the Laws. Law 27 makes it quite clear that South has accepted the 1D bid > simply by calling. It is now West's turn to bid, and East's 2H bid is a call > out of turn. The only time East's 2H bid could stand is if South had made > his double AFTER East had changed his call to 2H. > Since it is often very difficult to decide which of the two bids has happened first, it would not be a good thing to let the ruling depend on this. In any case, South must have called before he saw Easts correction, and East must have (tried to) correct(ed) before he saw South's call. -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 8 00:38:13 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA12582 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 00:38:13 +1000 Received: from cais.cais.com (cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA12576 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 00:38:04 +1000 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com ([204.157.58.181]) by cais.cais.com (8.6.10/8.6.5) with SMTP id KAA11138 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 10:37:52 -0400 Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19961007143856.006815e4@cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 10:38:56 -0400 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Law 25B1 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 08:23 PM 10/4/96 +0100, David wrote: > Oh dear. Happiness is a Law we like: and *no-one* that I have yet >heard about likes L25 on this side of the pond. > > You *must* not put a mythical "In this case" into a Law, *especially* >when you know what the Lawmakers intended: surely we do in this case? >Surely there is no doubt that the Lawmakers were trying to come up with >a solution for the case where the NOs bid over the first call without >any realisation that there was a change, so it was not at a time when >they were thinking of "condoning" anything? Furthermore, one of the >first things that we train TDs in is that the headings in the Law book >are *not* part of the Law: > > PREFACE TO THE 1987 LAWS > > A great deal of effort has been expended to make these Laws easy > to use. References from one law to another have been made more > explicit. The hundreds of headings and sub-headings can help a > Director find the section of a law that is applicable to the > facts of a case (these headings are for convenience of reference > only; headings are not considered to be part of the Laws). > > If you look carefully through L25 you will discover that the word >"condone" does not appear in it. Yes, of course it appears in the >headings, but not in the Law. The Law says "If offender's LHO has >called before attention ..." and whether you like it or not, that is >exactly as you must take it. > > So, Robin, your original ruling, however horrible, was correct. Mind >you, if you want to upset your friendly neighbourhood TD when this >happens, try asking for a ruling under L9B1C! I don't think the "in this case" is mythical; I think it's quite explicit. L25B1 says "The substituted call may be accepted (treated as legal) at the option of offender's LHO..." Surely this must mean that offender's LHO has the alternative option of not accepting the substituted call, and that unless he chooses to exercise his option to accept it, the remainder of L25B1 does not apply. Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 8 00:58:08 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA13090 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 00:58:08 +1000 Received: from emout18.mail.aol.com (emout18.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.44]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA13082 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 00:58:01 +1000 From: AlLeBendig@aol.com Received: by emout18.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA05936 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 10:57:22 -0400 Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 10:57:22 -0400 Message-ID: <961007105722_538200415@emout18.mail.aol.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Poker and Contract Bridge Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This was forwarded to me from a Poker Newsgroup. I found it amusing and thought y'all may enjoy it also: > >> I've only been playing poker seriously for about four years, and > >> bridge for even less time than that, but I'm pretty convinced that > >> the above statment is absolutely true. A few observations for > >> anyone who might care: > >> > >> 1. Once you have figured out basic bidding conventions, bridge is > >> a relatively simple "if/then" type of game. For example, if your > >> partnership has 26 points and a major suit fit, then you should be > >> in a game contract. Even the play of the cards, once you've > >> figured out the standard finesses, when to draw trump, etc., > >> becomes fairly rote. Poker, on the other hand, rarely offers such > >> simple propositions. Alan LeBendig Los Angeles From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 8 04:01:05 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA14274 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 04:01:05 +1000 Received: from dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com (dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com [206.214.98.6]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA14267 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 04:00:58 +1000 Received: from (jonbriss@sbo-ca2-11.ix.netcom.com [205.184.185.75]) by dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com (8.6.13/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA03935; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 11:00:14 -0700 Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 11:00:14 -0700 Message-Id: <199610071800.LAA03935@dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com> From: jonbriss@ix.netcom.com (Jon C Brissman) Subject: Re: Poker and Contract Bridge To: AlLeBendig@aol.com Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Alan LeBendig wrote: > >This was forwarded to me from a Poker Newsgroup. I found it amusing and >thought y'all may enjoy it also: > >> >> I've only been playing poker seriously for about four years, and >> >> bridge for even less time than that, but I'm pretty convinced that >> >> the above statment is absolutely true. A few observations for >> >> anyone who might care: >> >> >> >> 1. Once you have figured out basic bidding conventions, bridge is >> >> a relatively simple "if/then" type of game. For example, if your >> >> partnership has 26 points and a major suit fit, then you should be >> >> in a game contract. Even the play of the cards, once you've >> >> figured out the standard finesses, when to draw trump, etc., >> >> becomes fairly rote. Poker, on the other hand, rarely offers such >> >> simple propositions. Open letter to Alan: If you can find the guy who wrote this, let's send a limousine to collect him and his favorite partner. Tell him that he should bring his poker stake, and he can wager it all on "simple propostitions" and "fairly rote" plays against you and I. If his stake is large enough, I'm ready to retire and play full time. -- Jon Brissman From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 8 06:29:04 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA23027 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 06:29:04 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA23022 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 06:28:55 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ag23763; 7 Oct 96 17:41 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa14353; 7 Oct 96 18:34 BST Message-ID: Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 17:12:02 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 25 In-Reply-To: <199610070223.MAA26991@oznet02.ozemail.com.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Reg Busch wrote: >As a new boy on this block, I have read with interest the debate on Law 25. >Particularly because I have just written an article on this Law for a >Directors' Bulletin which I edit and produce in Australia. On re-reading Law >25 with a fresh eye and no preconceptions, one thing strikes me. The framers >of this Law did not envisage an inadvertent call being allowed to be >corrected once LHO has called. Certainly the Law says nothing about this >possibility. Wouldn't one have expected the lawmakers to provide for this >specifically if that was their intention? If one accepts this premise, then >I find Law 25A and 25B reasonably easy to interpret, though it is not well >worded. I doubt whether the Lawmakers really thought about the effects of bidding boxes which were not very well known when they framed the last Laws, except in certain countries, Sweden for example. If you are going to allow an inadvertent change to be allowed at all [some people wouldn't] then it seems extremely unfortunate to have the change dependent on an opponent's actions. Furthermore with bidding boxes the moment when the player tries to change it even with no pause for thought is often after the next player calls: it is much more rare with spoken calls. I understand you use written bidding in Australia: since I have no experience of this I can hardly comment. Of course, if L25 had a time limit attached then we should adhere to it. It is clearly a mistake that it does not. Opinions as to when a call can be changed that were expressed here varied from before the next call, as you suggest, which I think is the Danish regulation, via before partner's next call, which I believe was the majority view in our discussions, and is the English interpretation, to an extreme case when dummy had appeared [with the "trumps" in the wrong place] which was a ruling given by our Belgian friend. There is an American regulation but it escapes me for the moment. >However, it seems (and correct me if I'm wrong here)that the general >approach now is that an inadvertent bid may be changed even if LHO has >called, but not if partner has also called. It is this re-interpretation >(some might say re-writing) of Law 25 which gives rise to all the problems >mentioned in this thread. Once we accept that some bids may be legitimately >changed even after LHO has called, we now have to rule on a situation where >the change of bid was not legitimate and not inadvertent. And we have to >rule on the basis of a Law that was not intended to cover this situation! I do not agree that the re-writing or re-interpretation has led to the problems in this thread. The problems are caused by a very very badly written and ill-thought-out Law and our attempts to interpret the same. The really sad thing is that I have heard that L25B is going to be worse in the new Law book, and L25A no better. I just hope that I have heard wrong. I usually get told off for quoting others' views but IMO the English view is that L25A should be given a time limit of when partner calls, and L25B should be dispensed with, and no other changes allowed. This is normal Bridge, where you stand by your mistakes. A very sensible but more complicated alternative came from one of our American friends, possibly Steve Willner or Eric Landau, some time ago, who suggested that Delayed correction should be treated differently from Purposeful correction: the latter just being disallowed, and L25B being re-written to allow solely for an attempt to change under L25A which the TD then rules is too late. [s] >If one re-reads Law 25 on the premise that there is no provision for a >change of call (even for inadvertency) once LHO has called, then it all >becomes much clearer. So it does. However, it becomes considerably less fair [look of dismay on RHO's face as she sees her 4S bid: GET THAT PASS CARD ON THE TABLE: good, now she can't change it]. Furthermore, and in line with other Laws that come to mind, the Law book gives time limits when it intends them. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 8 07:12:49 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA23262 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 07:12:49 +1000 Received: from cais.cais.com (cais.com [199.0.216.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA23257 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 07:12:43 +1000 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com ([204.157.58.181]) by cais.cais.com (8.6.10/8.6.5) with SMTP id RAA10620 for ; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 17:12:33 -0400 Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19961007211335.00686390@cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 17:13:35 -0400 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Law 25 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 05:12 PM 10/7/96 +0100, David wrote: > Of course, if L25 had a time limit attached then we should adhere to >it. It is clearly a mistake that it does not. Opinions as to when a >call can be changed that were expressed here varied from before the next >call, as you suggest, which I think is the Danish regulation, via before >partner's next call, which I believe was the majority view in our >discussions, and is the English interpretation, to an extreme case when >dummy had appeared [with the "trumps" in the wrong place] which was a >ruling given by our Belgian friend. There is an American regulation but >it escapes me for the moment. I don't think it's actually been given the status of a regulation, but the guideline that one hears regularly in the U.S. is that the TD should apply L25A when the first call was "incontrovertably not the bidder's intention." The point is that "without pause for thought" should be interpreted to mean "without having paused for thought" rather than "without having had enough time to pause for thought." The motivation was (a) to kill off the last vestiges of the old "in the same breath" rule for verbal bidding, which too often led to arguments as to whether a player attempting an obviously immediate correction had or hadn't breathed, and (b) to recognize that while it is reasonable to assume that a player who misspeaks will realize it instantly, a player making a mechanical error with a bidding box may not notice immediately that the bid card on the table wasn't the one he intended to put there. Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 8 10:30:16 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA24194 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 10:30:16 +1000 Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net (relay-1.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.140]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA24189 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 10:29:46 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net id aa16337; 8 Oct 96 1:14 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa04023; 8 Oct 96 1:12 BST Message-ID: Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 00:58:48 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 25 In-Reply-To: <32590118.31E@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: [s] >The framers of this Law did not have bidding boxes in mind when they >wrote the Law. >Using spoken bidding, the only way one can envisage L25A to apply is >when the correction is immediate. Thus it is inconceivable that a L25A >situation can arise with a bid by LHO in between. I can assure you, Herman, that my wife [who is also a TD] had such a case about six months ago with spoken bidding! >With bidding cards this becomes quite common, in actual fact. >And that's where the problem seems to come from. >We hope this will be resolved in the new Laws, but David keeps reminding >that it will probably get even worse ! Let's hope that I'm just *wrong*. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 00:00:16 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA28746 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 00:00:16 +1000 Received: from merit-mx1.telemail.net (merit-mx1.telemail.net [198.70.61.62]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA28737 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 00:00:10 +1000 From: Rachael.king@minidoc-uk.sprint.com X400-Received: by /PRMD=MINIDOC-UK/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=GB/; Relayed; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 05:08:00 -0400 X400-Received: by /PRMD=MINIDOC-UK/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=GB/; Relayed; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 05:08:00 -0400 X400-Received: by /PRMD=MINIDOC-UK/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=GB/; Relayed; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 05:08:00 -0400 X400-Received: by /PRMD=MINIDOC-UK/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=GB/; Relayed; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 05:08:00 -0400 Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 05:08:00 -0400 X400-Originator: Rachael.king@minidoc-uk.sprint.com X400-MTS-Identifier: [/PRMD=MINIDOC-UK/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=GB/;Tue Oct 8 05:08:08 199601] X400-Content-Type: P2-1984 (2) Content-Identifier: Re: Law 25 Message-ID: <"Tue Oct 8 05:08:08 199601*/G=Rachael/S=king/OU=MINIDOC-UK/O=WWMINI/PRMD=MINIDOC-UK/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=GB/"@MHS> To: BRIDGE-LAWS@OCTAVIA.ANU.EDU.AU Subject: Re: Law 25 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk L25 is _not_ an awful law, the problem is caused by starting at L25 instead of at the correct place. I, also, had a lot of problems with Law 25. There is apparently no time limit - and therefore appears to be wide open to abuse. To overcome this apparent problem, various organisations have defined rules (e.g. a player will not be allowed to change their bid once their partner has bid) However, I believe that there is a time limit, and that time limit is described in Laws 30 and 31. L29 tells us what to do if there is a call out of rotation. It does not distinguish between a corrected call and a new call. L29 tells us that the call out of rotation is cancelled and refers us to Law 30,31 and 32, unless LHO bids, when the rights to penalise are forfeit. L30 tells us what to do if the call out of rotation is a pass, and L31 relates to bids. Both Law 30 and 31 are time limited. Both Law 30 and 31 say that, if you call out of rotation at LHO turn to call, and you have already called at that turn, then this is treated as a change of call and L25 applies. It is up to the director to determine whether the change was purposeful or inadvertant.This implies that there is also a time limit for the correction of inadvertancy. If you call at partner's turn to call, the penalty is harsher - if the change of call was a pass, the offender must pass for the rest of the auction and their partner may not double or redouble at that turn(L30B2a&b). If the change of call was a bid, then offender's partner must pass whenever it is his turn to bid (L31B). Therefore, IMO, the _only_ time you can apply law 25 is when the call is changed _before_ anyone else has bid. Laws 29, 30 and 31 do not give the right to use 25 at any other time. Rachael/ Robert King From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 02:09:04 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA02748 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 02:09:04 +1000 Received: from mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk (mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk [132.146.5.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA02743 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 02:08:52 +1000 Received: from catullus.agw.bt.co.uk by mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk with SMTP (PP); Tue, 8 Oct 1996 17:04:36 +0100 Received: from ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk (ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk [147.150.119.60]) by catullus.agw.bt.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.11) with SMTP id QAA03144 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 16:50:53 +0100 Received: by ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk with Microsoft Mail id <325A8696@ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk>; Tue, 08 Oct 96 16:51:34 GMT From: "Burn, David" To: "'Bridge Laws'" Subject: RE: Law 25 Date: Tue, 08 Oct 96 16:14:00 GMT Message-ID: <325A8696@ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk> Encoding: 104 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >From David Burn Rachael and Robert King write: L25 is _not_ an awful law, the problem is caused by starting at L25 instead of at the correct place. I, also, had a lot of problems with Law 25. There is apparently no time limit - and therefore appears to be wide open to abuse. To overcome this apparent problem, various organisations have defined rules (e.g. a player will not be allowed to change their bid once their partner has bid) However, I believe that there is a time limit, and that time limit is described in Laws 30 and 31. L29 tells us what to do if there is a call out of rotation. It does not distinguish between a corrected call and a new call. L29 tells us that the call out of rotation is cancelled and refers us to Law 30,31 and 32, unless LHO bids, when the rights to penalise are forfeit. L30 tells us what to do if the call out of rotation is a pass, and L31 relates to bids. Both Law 30 and 31 are time limited. Both Law 30 and 31 say that, if you call out of rotation at LHO turn to call, and you have already called at that turn, then this is treated as a change of call and L25 applies. It is up to the director to determine whether the change was purposeful or inadvertant.This implies that there is also a time limit for the correction of inadvertancy. If you call at partner's turn to call, the penalty is harsher - if the change of call was a pass, the offender must pass for the rest of the auction and their partner may not double or redouble at that turn(L30B2a&b). If the change of call was a bid, then offender's partner must pass whenever it is his turn to bid (L31B). Therefore, IMO, the _only_ time you can apply law 25 is when the call is changed _before_ anyone else has bid. Laws 29, 30 and 31 do not give the right to use 25 at any other time. Rachael/ Robert King This doesn't sound right. If it were, then why would the second sentence of Law 25B1 exist? This sentence expressly provides for (say) East to change his call after South has called. Presumably he needs to make it clear that he is doing so, otherwise one would be inclined to treat it as a call out of rotation, but if East wants to change his call after South has called, there appears to me no reason why he cannot do so. But even if what the Kings say were so, it isn't the reason why Law 25 is an awful Law. If you want to know the real reason, talk to the team that lost a 6th-round Gold Cup match to Andrew Robson's team because of the following: North: 1NT East: Pass South: Pass. (Longish pause). Oh, sorry, 3NT. The reason for this was that South had forgotten that 1NT was strong, then remembered. L25 permits this change of call (of course, North must pass throughout, but that's not much of a penalty, is it?) It is my opinion and others' that Law 25 should not permit a change of call in such a circumstance. Since it does, it is an awful Law. Oh, we might have got round it by saying that players are not allowed to violate Law 25A deliberately; if they do they are subject to penalty under Law 72B1. But this means that players who don't know Law 25 have an advantage over those who do, and I refuse to countenance a situation in which players can be at a disadvantage through knowing the Laws. David Burn's Proposal: Law 25 A call once made may not be changed. Law 26 ... From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 03:16:15 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA03143 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 03:16:15 +1000 Received: from irvine.com (flash.irvine.com [192.160.8.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA03138 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 03:16:05 +1000 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa01503; 8 Oct 96 10:15 PDT To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Law 25 In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 08 Oct 1996 16:14:00 PST." <325A8696@ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk> Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 10:15:25 PDT From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9610081015.aa01503@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > This doesn't sound right. If it were, then why would the second sentence > of Law 25B1 exist? This sentence expressly provides for (say) East to > change his call after South has called. I don't think so. The sentence in question reads: If offender's LHO has called before attention is drawn to the infraction, and the Director determines that LHO intended his call to apply over the offender's original call at that turn, offender's substituted call stands without penalty, and LHO may withdraw his call without penalty. The "infraction" in this case is East's purposeful substitution of his own call. My reading of the Law is that it applies to this sequence: East makes a call; East changes his call (25A does not apply); South doesn't hear the second call and makes a call based on East's first call. This Law says that East's change of call stands, and South may withdraw his call without penalty. The sequence in question is quite different: East makes a call; South makes a call; East makes a call with the intent of changing the first call. It's not obvious that 25B1 is intended to apply to this case. In fact, I'm pretty sure it doesn't. If the sentence had read "If offender's LHO has called before the infraction occurs", it would be different. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > Presumably he needs to make it clear > that he is doing so, otherwise one would be inclined to treat it as a > call out of rotation, but if East wants to change his call after South > has called, there appears to me no reason why he cannot do so. > > But even if what the Kings say were so, it isn't the reason why Law 25 is > > an awful Law. > > If you want to know the real reason, talk to the team that lost a > 6th-round > Gold Cup match to Andrew Robson's team because of the following: > > North: 1NT > East: Pass > South: Pass. (Longish pause). Oh, sorry, 3NT. > > The reason for this was that South had forgotten that 1NT was > strong, then remembered. L25 permits this change of call (of course, > North must pass throughout, but that's not much of a penalty, is > it?) It is my opinion and others' that Law 25 should not permit a > change of call in such a circumstance. Since it does, it is an awful > Law. This doesn't look right. Assuming L25A doesn't apply, L25B gives LHO the option whether to accept the substituted call. In this case, LHO could have refused to condone the call, and forced South's first call, Pass, to stand. So what actually happened? Did West fail to call the director or something? I haven't been following this discussion to the letter, so if what I'm saying contradicts something someone else has pointed out, my apologies. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 04:44:39 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA05720 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 04:44:39 +1000 Received: from pip.dknet.dk (root@pip.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA05665 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 04:44:21 +1000 Received: from cph60.ppp.dknet.dk (cph60.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.60]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA08763 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 20:44:12 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 25 Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 20:44:09 +0200 Organization: at home Message-ID: <325d94b2.1133219@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: <9610081015.aa01503@flash.irvine.com> In-Reply-To: <9610081015.aa01503@flash.irvine.com> X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99f/32.299 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Tue, 08 Oct 1996 10:15:25 PDT, Adam Beneschan wrote: >This doesn't look right. Assuming L25A doesn't apply, L25B gives LHO >the option whether to accept the substituted call. In this case, LHO >could have refused to condone the call, and forced South's first call, >Pass, to stand. So what actually happened? Did West fail to call the >director or something? Read a little further in L25B. LHO does not condone the call, and the offender is then allowed, as part of the "penalty", to substitute "any other legal call" (L25B2b2), including of course the call that he (illegally) changed it to originally. -- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 05:21:27 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA10203 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 05:21:27 +1000 Received: from hil-img-4.compuserve.com (hil-img-4.compuserve.com [149.174.177.134]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA10190 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 05:21:15 +1000 Received: by hil-img-4.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id PAA11790; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:20:40 -0400 Date: 08 Oct 96 15:17:59 EDT From: Rachael <100757.3514@compuserve.com> To: Bridge laws discussion l Subject: RE: Law 25 Message-ID: <961008191759_100757.3514_GHV89-2@CompuServe.COM> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Ok, David Law 25 isn't _quite_ perfect - Your proposed law 25 would be much easier to administer - However, I do agree with Adam Beneschan on the sequence of events referenced in L25B1 - >My reading of the Law is that it applies to this sequence: > East makes a call; East changes his call (25A does not apply); > South doesn't hear the second call and makes a call based on East's > first call. >This Law says that East's change of call stands, and South may >withdraw his call without penalty. >The sequence in question is quite different: > East makes a call; South makes a call; East makes a call with the > intent of changing the first call. >It's not obvious that 25B1 is intended to apply to this case. In >fact, I'm pretty sure it doesn't. If the sentence had read "If >offender's LHO has called before the infraction occurs", it would be >different. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Rachael/Robert King From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 05:21:28 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA10206 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 05:21:28 +1000 Received: from hil-img-4.compuserve.com (hil-img-4.compuserve.com [149.174.177.134]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA10191 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 05:21:16 +1000 Received: by hil-img-4.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id PAA11788; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:20:40 -0400 Date: 08 Oct 96 15:17:49 EDT From: Rachael <100757.3514@compuserve.com> To: Bridge laws discussion l Subject: Re:L25B Message-ID: <961008191749_100757.3514_GHV89-1@CompuServe.COM> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote David Burn wrote (snipped) >> North: 1NT >> East: Pass >> South: Pass. (Longish pause). Oh, sorry, 3NT. >> >> The reason for this was that South had forgotten that 1NT was >> strong, then remembered. L25 permits this change of call (of course, >> North must pass throughout, but that's not much of a penalty, is >> it?) It is my opinion and others' that Law 25 should not permit a >> change of call in such a circumstance. Since it does, it is an awful >> Law. >This doesn't look right. Assuming L25A doesn't apply, L25B gives LHO >the option whether to accept the substituted call. In this case, LHO >could have refused to condone the call, and forced South's first call, >Pass, to stand. So what actually happened? Did West fail to call the >director or something? L25B2B 1 and 2 - offender can let original call stand or substitute any other legal call I suppose that, in the above case, the director offered 3NT to West who declined to accept it. He then asked South if he wished to let his original pass stand or whether he wished to substitute another legal call - at this point he chose to substitute a call of 3NT - and all quite legally ! I've already acknowledged to David Burn that, yes, it is a silly law ! Rachael /Robert King From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 05:35:59 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA12129 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 05:35:59 +1000 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (cfa.harvard.edu [128.103.40.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA12112 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 05:35:50 +1000 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA10511 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:35:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA02465; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:36:54 -0400 Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:36:54 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199610081936.PAA02465@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: L25B1 X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Touching on some interesting side notes here. > From: "Burn, David" > [Eric Landau asserts that the information from the double of 1D is > authorised to North. This is probably correct.... If I haven't lost track, the sequence is N: 1S, E: 1D, S: x, E: 2C replacing 1D. If the change is allowed under L25B, I think the double is AI for North. If instead the change is allowed under L25A, I'm not so sure. Another example given may be clearer. Recall (let's say starting with North) 1NT-P-P-P but now South puts down a 3NT card along with "Oops, that should have been a stop card." Presumably the change will be allowed under L25A, but is West's pass AI or UI for North? I would argue that it's neither! That is, it isn't UI such that L16A requires North to take a logical alternative that is not suggested. L16A covers only to UI from partner, which this clearly is not. On the other hand, it can't be AI either. If the final pass is material, it is a form of Alcatraz Coup, which we clearly cannot allow. I'd suggest that the solution is L12A1. I gather the new Laws will include a generalized "could have known" provision, which might handle this possibility even better. Back to David B.: > but it is of course illegal for the double > of an insufficient bid to have a conventional meaning, so South had > better have been doubling for penalties!] Why "of course?" Is that an EBU regulation? The ACBL claims to forbid "any agreement" (or words to that effect), but it's not at all clear what they really mean. The convention charts can be read as allowing conventional agreements in some cases. Gary Blaiss has claimed that the regulation supersedes the convention charts, even though the latter were adopted later. I don't think there is anything in the Laws that forbids conventional agreements over insufficient bids, though sponsoring organizations can regulate such conventions just as they can regulate all others. >From another message: > David Burn's Proposal: > Law 25 > A call once made may not be changed. Well, that cuts the Gordian knot all right! How did the other members of the Laws Commission react to that? (Not well, I'll wager.) Presumably there would have to be some verbiage specifying when a call is "made" (analogous to L45 for card played). Do we also wish to eliminate L45C4b, which is analogous to L25A for declarer's call of a card from dummy? If we wish to allow corrections of inadvertent calls, I'd suggest we can still do so without the complications of L25B. For any attempted substitution where L25A doesn't apply, just allow the next player to select which of the several calls made will be allowed to stand. Of course there is still the problem of judging whether L25A applies or not, but is there any other problem with this approach? Presumably any withdrawn calls are UI for offender's partner and AI for the non-offenders. (The former isn't true under the current Laws but will allegedly become true in the next revision.) From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 05:36:46 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA12201 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 05:36:46 +1000 Received: from irvine.com (flash.irvine.com [192.160.8.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id FAA12195 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 05:36:37 +1000 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa07555; 8 Oct 96 12:36 PDT To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Law 25 In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 08 Oct 1996 20:44:09 PDT." <325d94b2.1133219@pipmail.dknet.dk> Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 12:36:01 PDT From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9610081236.aa07555@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > On Tue, 08 Oct 1996 10:15:25 PDT, Adam Beneschan > wrote: > >This doesn't look right. Assuming L25A doesn't apply, L25B gives LHO > >the option whether to accept the substituted call. In this case, LHO > >could have refused to condone the call, and forced South's first call, > >Pass, to stand. So what actually happened? Did West fail to call the > >director or something? > > Read a little further in L25B. LHO does not condone the call, and the > offender is then allowed, as part of the "penalty", to substitute "any > other legal call" (L25B2b2), including of course the call that he > (illegally) changed it to originally. Aaack, you're right!!!!! Sorry about that--my response was too hasty. I guess I didn't read that far because it seemed unbelievable that offender would have any options at this point. That's the most ridiculous Law I've ever heard of. LHO doesn't condone the call, so the offender gets to make it anyway. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 10:11:28 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA16048 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 10:11:28 +1000 Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net (relay-1.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.140]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA16043 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 10:11:19 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net id ar01132; 8 Oct 96 12:25 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa19218; 8 Oct 96 12:17 BST Message-ID: <85xeenAebjWyEwV2@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 12:11:26 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Poker and Contract Bridge In-Reply-To: <961007105722_538200415@emout18.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Alan wrote: >This was forwarded to me from a Poker Newsgroup. I found it amusing and >thought y'all may enjoy it also: > >> >> I've only been playing poker seriously for about four years, and >> >> bridge for even less time than that, but I'm pretty convinced that >> >> the above statment is absolutely true. A few observations for >> >> anyone who might care: >> >> >> >> 1. Once you have figured out basic bidding conventions, bridge is >> >> a relatively simple "if/then" type of game. For example, if your >> >> partnership has 26 points and a major suit fit, then you should be >> >> in a game contract. Even the play of the cards, once you've >> >> figured out the standard finesses, when to draw trump, etc., >> >> becomes fairly rote. Poker, on the other hand, rarely offers such >> >> simple propositions. A few days ago we were told that the Laws of bridge were simple and easy to apply. Now we discover that the bidding is simple and the play is just as easy. So, why are we bothering? I can't imagine! :):) -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 12:24:53 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA16786 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 12:24:53 +1000 Received: from server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net (server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net [203.108.7.40]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA16781 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 12:24:43 +1000 Received: from oznet02.ozemail.com.au (oznet02.ozemail.com.au [203.2.192.124]) by server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net (8.7.6/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA07924 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 12:24:38 +1000 (EST) Received: from LOCALNAME (slbri4p19.ozemail.com.au [203.108.199.35]) by oznet02.ozemail.com.au (8.7.6/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA21397 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 12:24:35 +1000 (EST) Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 12:24:35 +1000 (EST) Message-Id: <199610090224.MAA21397@oznet02.ozemail.com.au> X-Sender: rbusch@ozemail.com.au X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Reg Busch Subject: Law 45D Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Law 45D ?another badly written Law Card Misplayed by Dummy If dummy places in the played position a card that declarer did not name, the card must be withdrawn if attention is drawn to it before each side has played to the next trick, and a defender may withdraw (without penalty) a card played after the error but before attention was drawn to it (see Law 47F) The following situation was given to a panel of very experienced directors, with some surprising diversity of opinions. South is declarer in a heart contract. Early in the hand, South leads a winning spade from hand. Dummy is void in spades. Dummy, without waiting for declarer to call for a card, plays the C5. (I don't have details of the earlier play, but it is possible that declarer had on the previous trick discarded a club on a top spade - this could explain but not excuse dummy's action). West, seeing dummy play the C5, now plays the H10. The HA and HQ are in dummy. West disputes declarer's right to overruff in dummy. No great problem here. But some directors saw 45D as applicable here, some didn't. Certainly dummy has placed in the played position a card that declarer did not name, exactly as the Law says. But IMO Law 45D does not apply to this situation. It is meant to apply where declarer has called for a card, but dummy has played the wrong card. Accepting David Stevenson's warning that the headings are not part of the Laws, the heading does say 'misplayed', not illegally played, and the body of the Law talks about the card being played in error, not illegally or prematurely. What I think the Law means to say is 'If declarer names a card but dummy plays a different card..' All agreed that declarer may play whatever card he wishes from dummy (with the usual provisos about possible penalties for dummy's infraction). But is West allowed to retract his H10? Under 45D, presumably he is. But if one doesn't accept 45D as applying, then I believe that his play must stand. 47D allows retraction of a card played after an opponent's change of play, but the C5 was never played under Law 45B. Any opinions? From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 14:01:02 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA17231 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 14:01:02 +1000 Received: from user.rose.com (root@user.rose.com [199.212.158.3]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA17224 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 14:00:47 +1000 Message-ID: <325B2425.6C83@toronto-bridge.com> Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 00:03:49 -0400 From: dgbryce Reply-To: dgbryce@toronto-bridge.com Organization: David G. Bryce X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Reg Busch CC: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 45D References: <199610090224.MAA21397@oznet02.ozemail.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Reg Busch wrote: > > Law 45D ?another badly written Law [snip] > Any opinions? You bet. Dummy's play is wrong, illegal, etc. Declarer must be entitled to overruff and the defender cannot withdraw his ruff. Any other "interpretation" is just ludicrous. Now, of course, dummy's action may warrant a penalty. But that's another issue. Ex - TD -- David G. Bryce, Barrister and Solicitor Tel: 416-364-9916 100 Lombard Street, Suite 108 Fax: 416-364-7505 Toronto, Ontario M5C 1M3 E-Mail: dgbryce@toronto-bridge.com From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 17:57:25 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA18325 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 17:57:25 +1000 Received: from csd.cri.dk (cabra.cri.dk [130.227.48.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA18319 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 17:57:12 +1000 X-Organization: Computer Resources International A/S, Bregneroedvej 144, DK-3460 Birkeroed, Denmark Received: from nov.cri.dk (nov.cri.dk [130.227.50.162]) by csd.cri.dk (8.6.12/8.6.10) with SMTP id JAA02154 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 09:56:18 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 09 Oct 1996 09:56:05 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 09:55:51 +0100 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 45D Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >>> Reg Busch 09.10.96 03:24 >>> >Law 45D ?another badly written Law >Card Misplayed by Dummy >If dummy places in the played position a card that declarer did not name, >the card must be withdrawn if attention is drawn to it before each side >has played to the next trick, and a defender may withdraw (without >penalty) a card played after the error but before attention was drawn >to it (see Law 47F) [snip] >South is declarer in a heart contract. Early in the hand, South leads a >winning spade from hand. Dummy is void in spades. Dummy, without >waiting for declarer to call for a card, plays the C5. (I don't have >details of the earlier play, but it is possible that declarer had on the > previous trick discarded a club on a top spade - this could explain >but not excuse dummy's action). West, seeing dummy play the C5, > now plays the H10. The HA and HQ are in dummy. West disputes >declarer's right to overruff in dummy. [snip] >[is] West allowed to retract his H10? Under 45D, presumably he is. >But if one doesn't accept 45D as applying, then I believe that his play >must stand. 47D allows retraction of a card played after an >opponent's change of play, but the C5 was never played under >Law 45B. > >Any opinions? Certainly, although I have seen that my opinion is regarded as a 'ludicrous "interpretation"' by other correspondents. The crucial question, to my mind, is whether (a) we will hold West responsible for ensuring that the card that appears in the played position in dummy has actually been played, or whether (b), conversely, we will not want to put West at a disadvantage because of his normal reaction to what appears to be normal play but actually is an irregularity. I would not want West to ask "did you call for this card?" every time he is in doubt whether declarer has actually played a card; therefore I need to give him latitude in the rare case where declarer has not played any card, as well as when declarer has played another card than the one actually moved by dummy. Keeping in mind the statements in the "Scope of the Laws", it is clear to me that L45D can be applied in this case. It is a useful way to approximate the way the cards would have been played without the irregularity, thus restoring equity as far as possible. In short: Dummy did place a card in the played position; declarer did not name this card; West may take back his H10 without penalty if declarer does not actually play the C5. Further, if dummy's action effectively becomes a discovery play for declarer, the procedural penalty to dummy ought to be made severe enough to ensure that the offending contestant does not gain by this action. Finally, particularly shrewd Wests, who know that I am the TD running the event, who have read this thread, and who take pride in being called bridge lawyers, may play the H10 deliberately even though they know that the C5 is an irregularity, hoping to gain an advantage. But in such cases, if I can ascertain that this is what is happening, I could wheel out L11B. Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 22:34:57 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA19219 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 22:34:57 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id WAA19209 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 22:34:19 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id au03886; 9 Oct 96 11:55 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa13397; 9 Oct 96 12:45 BST Message-ID: Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 12:29:55 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: L25B1 In-Reply-To: <3258DEC0@ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Burn, David wrote: >Whether or not the headings are part of the Laws, it is surely obvious >that >they are there to point the TD to the right place in the Laws. If the TD >comes to the table with Law book in hand, he should follow this sequence >of >events: No doubt that is the intention of the headings. However, not all of them are correct. There is one heading that is completely loony, and another that is probably correct but totally misleading. As a result, TDs are taught not to put any faith in the headings. If you cite the headings as a reason for a meaning of a Law then you need to have faith in all the headings. You cannot say that one heading is alright, so we shall use it to interpret the meaning of a Law, while another heading is not alright, so we shall not use it in a similar fashion. Now you want me to give examples of incorrect headings! I know about the two I have mentioned, but I cannot remember them at this moment. However, one old chestnut that we keep seeing [it has appeared in the letters page of English Bridge, the EBU's magazine: it has appeared in RGB: people have sent me emails saying it] is that the Correction Period in L79C **does not** affect when you can get a ruling or appeal. The reason they say so? Because the heading for L79 is `Tricks Won' and for L79C is `Error in Score'. If we followed the approach that the headings define when the Law is to be used then we should agree with them. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 23:13:23 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA19517 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 23:13:23 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id XAA19512 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 23:13:05 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id aw03875; 9 Oct 96 11:56 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa13849; 9 Oct 96 12:46 BST Message-ID: Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 12:31:04 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 25B1 In-Reply-To: <32564851.1285@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: >I often make erroneous calls and realise my mistake within microseconds. >I let it stand and play in ridiculous contracts. Knowing the laws, I >should realize that it is better for me to change my call nevertheless. >There are all sorts of loopholes (this is just one of them), that allow >me to escape with less harm. Clearly that is not right. I prefer to pay >for my errors. I am 100% with Herman in this. Note that a poor player will not realise he can change his call: this is a good player's and/or rules man's Law. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 9 23:57:32 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA19821 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 23:57:32 +1000 Received: from csd.cri.dk (cabra.cri.dk [130.227.48.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA19799 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 23:57:22 +1000 X-Organization: Computer Resources International A/S, Bregneroedvej 144, DK-3460 Birkeroed, Denmark Received: from nov.cri.dk (nov.cri.dk [130.227.50.162]) by csd.cri.dk (8.6.12/8.6.10) with SMTP id PAA08790 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 15:56:38 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 09 Oct 1996 15:56:25 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 15:56:15 +0100 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 25B1 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >>> David Stevenson 09.10.96 12:31 >>> >Herman De Wael wrote: >>I often make erroneous calls and realise my mistake within microseconds. >>I let it stand and play in ridiculous contracts. Knowing the laws, I >>should realize that it is better for me to change my call nevertheless. >>There are all sorts of loopholes (this is just one of them), that allow >>me to escape with less harm. Clearly that is not right. I prefer to pay >>for my errors. > I am 100% with Herman in this. Note that a poor player will not >realise he can change his call: this is a good player's and/or rules >man's Law. I am with you both most of the way. But I come from a country where bidding boxes are used all the time, and I still feel that we want to allow, even encourage, corrections of mechanical errors up to a reasonable point in time. After all, the "no corrections" attitude would imply that a "pass" card grabbed by mechanical error instead of the "stop" card constitutes a call. So my proposal for a law 25 (tuned to bidding boxes only, admittedly) is as follows: A. Calls cannot be changed A call is made and cannot be changed (except when changes are allowed according to Laws 21, ...) as soon as the bidding card signifying the intended call has been taken out of the bidding box. B. Correction of mechanical errors A mechanical error in handling the bidding box can be corrected without penalty, provided that the error is discovered before the next player in rotation calls in normal tempo, and provided that the error is announced as soon as the player becomes aware of it. This proposal does leave a loophole for players that claim to have made a mechanical error when in fact they have changed the intended call. So be it. Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 00:12:27 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA20617 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 00:12:27 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA20612 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 00:12:20 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id an04321; 9 Oct 96 12:03 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa13396; 9 Oct 96 12:45 BST Message-ID: Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 12:30:48 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 25 In-Reply-To: <"Tue Oct 8 05:08:08 199601*/G=Rachael/S=king/OU=MINIDOC-UK/O=WWMINI/PRMD=MINIDOC-UK/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=GB/"@MHS> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Rachael/ Robert King wrote: > L25 is _not_ an awful law, the problem is caused by starting at > L25 instead of at the correct place. > > I, also, had a lot of problems with Law 25. There is apparently no > time limit - and therefore appears to be wide open to abuse. To > overcome this apparent problem, various organisations have defined > rules (e.g. a player will not be allowed to change their bid once > their partner has bid) > > However, I believe that there is a time limit, and that time limit is > described in Laws 30 and 31. > > L29 tells us what to do if there is a call out of rotation. It does > not distinguish between a corrected call and a new call. L29 tells us > that the call out of rotation is cancelled and refers us to Law 30,31 > and 32, unless LHO bids, when the rights to penalise are forfeit. > > L30 tells us what to do if the call out of rotation is a pass, and L31 > relates to bids. Both Law 30 and 31 are time limited. > > Both Law 30 and 31 say that, if you call out of rotation at LHO turn to > call, and you have already called at that turn, then this is treated as > a change of call and L25 applies. It is up to the director to determine > whether the change was purposeful or inadvertant.This implies that > there is also a time limit for the correction of inadvertancy. > > If you call at partner's turn to call, the penalty is harsher - if the > change of call was a pass, the offender must pass for the rest of the > auction and their partner may not double or redouble at that > turn(L30B2a&b). If the change of call was a bid, then offender's partner > must pass whenever it is his turn to bid (L31B). > > Therefore, IMO, the _only_ time you can apply law 25 is when the call > is changed _before_ anyone else has bid. Laws 29, 30 and 31 do not > give the right to use 25 at any other time. This is an appealing argument. It would make life easier for TDs if it were correct, but it would be less fair for players. But the trouble with it is that it just is not right, and as someone pointed out in an earlier article [Herman?] it is easiest to see with bidding boxes. A player puts a 1C bid on the table, and later puts a 1D card on top of the 1C card. If the 1D card is put so that the 1C card can also be seen, then it is a new call: if it is put on top hiding it, it is a change of call [or an attempt anyway]. It is not when it happens that is the difference: it is what the player is actually doing. L29 refers to a call: L25 refers to substituting a call. In fact, of course, you know what is going on with spoken bidding just as well because no bridge player ever keeps his mouth shut when things go wrong. "Omigod, I didn't mean one heart, I meant one SPADE, do you expect me to bid one heart with this seven card spade suit ..." gives one a fair clue. Note the reference quoted above to L29 and L30 actually convinces me the other way. When Rachael/Bob [who did write it?] say > Both Law 30 and 31 say that, if you call out of rotation at LHO turn to > call, and you have already called at that turn, then this is treated as > a change of call and L25 applies. It is up to the director to determine > whether the change was purposeful or inadvertant.This implies that > there is also a time limit for the correction of inadvertancy. you will notice that the term [copied from the Law book] is `treated as', so it is clear that the Law book accepts the difference between a call and a change of call. I do not accept the quoted implication: until LHO calls, all new calls by this player whether intended as a change or for some other reason are to be dealt with under L25: after that moment the paths diverge. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 00:14:47 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA21432 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 00:14:47 +1000 Received: from csd.cri.dk (cabra.cri.dk [130.227.48.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA21360 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 00:14:30 +1000 X-Organization: Computer Resources International A/S, Bregneroedvej 144, DK-3460 Birkeroed, Denmark Received: from nov.cri.dk (nov.cri.dk [130.227.50.162]) by csd.cri.dk (8.6.12/8.6.10) with SMTP id QAA09193 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 16:13:45 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 09 Oct 1996 16:13:30 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 16:13:21 +0100 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 45D Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In my response below, I have overlooked the fact that dummy's reproachable action takes place "out of turn", i.e. before West plays a card. I had this confused, and thought that West was sitting over dummy, not under dummy. So, please read my response as an irrelevant opinion on that case, and on the intended situation, where dummy places the C5 in the played position *before it is dummy's turn to play* and without any indication from declarer. Basically, even in this case, I believe that West should be allowed to change his card if he has played it in good faith that the C5 was played, but if the circumstances are such that he should have known that the C5 is not played, he should not be allowed to change his play. The latter is justified in L11B. The former is still somewhat poorly justified in L45D. The major difference is that West now has a much more difficult task in explaining that he was not aware of any irregularity. Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark >>> Jens Brix Christiansen 09.10.96 09:55 >>> >>> Reg Busch 09.10.96 03:24 >>> >Law 45D ?another badly written Law >Card Misplayed by Dummy >If dummy places in the played position a card that declarer did not name, >the card must be withdrawn if attention is drawn to it before each side >has played to the next trick, and a defender may withdraw (without >penalty) a card played after the error but before attention was drawn >to it (see Law 47F) [snip] >South is declarer in a heart contract. Early in the hand, South leads a >winning spade from hand. Dummy is void in spades. Dummy, without >waiting for declarer to call for a card, plays the C5. (I don't have >details of the earlier play, but it is possible that declarer had on the > previous trick discarded a club on a top spade - this could explain >but not excuse dummy's action). West, seeing dummy play the C5, > now plays the H10. The HA and HQ are in dummy. West disputes >declarer's right to overruff in dummy. [snip] >[is] West allowed to retract his H10? Under 45D, presumably he is. >But if one doesn't accept 45D as applying, then I believe that his play >must stand. 47D allows retraction of a card played after an >opponent's change of play, but the C5 was never played under >Law 45B. > >Any opinions? Certainly, although I have seen that my opinion is regarded as a 'ludicrous "interpretation"' by other correspondents. The crucial question, to my mind, is whether (a) we will hold West responsible for ensuring that the card that appears in the played position in dummy has actually been played, or whether (b), conversely, we will not want to put West at a disadvantage because of his normal reaction to what appears to be normal play but actually is an irregularity. I would not want West to ask "did you call for this card?" every time he is in doubt whether declarer has actually played a card; therefore I need to give him latitude in the rare case where declarer has not played any card, as well as when declarer has played another card than the one actually moved by dummy. Keeping in mind the statements in the "Scope of the Laws", it is clear to me that L45D can be applied in this case. It is a useful way to approximate the way the cards would have been played without the irregularity, thus restoring equity as far as possible. In short: Dummy did place a card in the played position; declarer did not name this card; West may take back his H10 without penalty if declarer does not actually play the C5. Further, if dummy's action effectively becomes a discovery play for declarer, the procedural penalty to dummy ought to be made severe enough to ensure that the offending contestant does not gain by this action. Finally, particularly shrewd Wests, who know that I am the TD running the event, who have read this thread, and who take pride in being called bridge lawyers, may play the H10 deliberately even though they know that the C5 is an irregularity, hoping to gain an advantage. But in such cases, if I can ascertain that this is what is happening, I could wheel out L11B. Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 00:53:05 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA23055 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 00:53:05 +1000 Received: from mail1 (mail1.cais.com [199.0.216.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA23050 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 00:52:59 +1000 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com (elandau.cais.com [204.157.58.181]) by mail1 (8.7.5/8.7.5-CAIS) with SMTP id KAA12878 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 10:26:46 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19961009145358.0067567c@cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 10:53:58 -0400 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Law 25B1 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 03:56 PM 10/9/96 +0100, Jens wrote: >I am with you both most of the way. But I come from a country where >bidding boxes are used all the time, and I still feel that we want to >allow, even encourage, corrections of mechanical errors up to a >reasonable point in time. After all, the "no corrections" attitude would >imply that a "pass" card grabbed by mechanical error instead of the >"stop" card constitutes a call. So my proposal for a law 25 >(tuned to bidding boxes only, admittedly) is as follows: > >A. Calls cannot be changed >A call is made and cannot be changed (except when changes are >allowed according to Laws 21, ...) as soon as the bidding card >signifying the intended call has been taken out of the bidding box. > >B. Correction of mechanical errors >A mechanical error in handling the bidding box can be corrected >without penalty, provided that the error is discovered before the >next player in rotation calls in normal tempo, and provided that the >error is announced as soon as the player becomes aware of it. > >This proposal does leave a loophole for players that claim to have >made a mechanical error when in fact they have changed the intended >call. So be it. I agree with Jens that we ought to continue to allow reasonable corrections of mechanical errors. I'd like to see Law 25 rewritten (using the wording of the American "guideline", which we've discussed before) to permit a correction only "when the Director determines that the original call was incontrovertably not the bidder's intention". "Purposeful" corrections should be disallowed and eliminated from the Laws entirely. As a practical matter, no change of call can be allowed, regardless of original intent, once the bidder's partner has called. Precluding any change once LHO has called feels wrong, because it gives an advantage to the "sharpies" who know enough to take advantage of their opponent's mechanical error by calling immediately in order to foreclose the possibility of the error being corrected. Jens' suggested wording, "before the next player in rotation calls in normal tempo", is appealing, but strikes me as too problematic to adjudicate. If the error is corrected after LHO calls, but before partner calls, L25B (or something similar) would be invoked, but the TD's determination of "introvertable intention" would still be required in order for this to take place. "Changes of mind" (such as the case David reported, where a player changed his pass to 3NT after realizing that he was playing strong, not weak, NTs) have no place in the game. Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 01:19:29 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA23170 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 01:19:29 +1000 Received: from irvine.com (flash.irvine.com [192.160.8.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA23165 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 01:19:23 +1000 From: adam@irvine.com To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@irvine.com Subject: Is this UI? Date: Wed, 9 Oct 96 8:18:48 PDT Message-ID: <9610090818.aa02775@flash.irvine.com> Source-Info: From (or Sender) name not authenticated. Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk The following answer in Brian Moran's "Ruling the Game" in the October ACBL Bulletin surprised me. Question (from Florida): An opponent opened the bidding with 3D. My partner asked about the bid and was told that it was Flannery, whereupon the opener said, "I opened three diamonds, not two." I felt that this comment gave unauthorized information. Do you agree? Answer: You are correct: opener should not have spoken out. By doing so, opener gave unauthorized information. It would have been proper at opener's next turn to ask for a review. Is it true that there is UI involved here? Law 16 starts out: Players are authorized to base their actions on information from legal calls or plays and from mannerisms of opponents. To base action on other extraneous information may be an infraction of law. In my reading of the law, there is no "unauthorized information" because opener's comment didn't contain any information except information that is authorized based on the above paragraph (i.e. opener's bid). Normally, making a this comment would be inappropriate and a possible infraction, although Law 16 shouldn't apply at all. I'm not sure what Laws might apply here--possibly 74B2 and 74C4. Still, I'm not sure that opener's comment is inappropriate in this case, since it prevented opener's opponents from receiving information, and might have prevented even further problems. The fact that second hand even asked about the 3D bid raises the possibility that both that person and opener's partner misheard the bid as 2D; so opener's comment might have prevented a possibly embarrassing and sticky situation where second hand would have bid 2H, takeout over Flannery but insufficient over 3D. So in this context, I see nothing wrong with opener's remark. Comments? -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 02:59:26 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA23904 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 02:59:26 +1000 Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net (relay-1.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.140]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA23899 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 02:59:20 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net id aa27289; 9 Oct 96 17:21 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa15745; 9 Oct 96 17:17 BST Message-ID: Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 16:41:12 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 45D In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jens Brix Christiansen wrote: >Reg Busch wrote: >>Law 45D ?another badly written Law >> >>Card Misplayed by Dummy >> >>If dummy places in the played position a card that declarer did not name, >>the card must be withdrawn if attention is drawn to it before each side >>has played to the next trick, and a defender may withdraw (without >>penalty) a card played after the error but before attention was drawn >>to it (see Law 47F) >[snip] >>South is declarer in a heart contract. Early in the hand, South leads a >>winning spade from hand. Dummy is void in spades. Dummy, without >>waiting for declarer to call for a card, plays the C5. (I don't have >>details of the earlier play, but it is possible that declarer had on the >> previous trick discarded a club on a top spade - this could explain >>but not excuse dummy's action). West, seeing dummy play the C5, >> now plays the H10. The HA and HQ are in dummy. West disputes >>declarer's right to overruff in dummy. >[snip] >>[is] West allowed to retract his H10? Under 45D, presumably he is. >>But if one doesn't accept 45D as applying, then I believe that his play >>must stand. 47D allows retraction of a card played after an >>opponent's change of play, but the C5 was never played under >>Law 45B. >> >>Any opinions? >Certainly, although I have seen that my opinion is regarded as >a 'ludicrous "interpretation"' by other correspondents. > >The crucial question, to my mind, is whether (a) we will hold West >responsible for ensuring that the card that appears in the played >position in dummy has actually been played, or whether (b), conversely, >we will not want to put West at a disadvantage because of his >normal reaction to what appears to be normal play but actually is >an irregularity. > >I would not want West to ask "did you call for this card?" every time >he is in doubt whether declarer has actually played a card; therefore >I need to give him latitude in the rare case where declarer has not >played any card, as well as when declarer has played another card >than the one actually moved by dummy. > >Keeping in mind the statements in the "Scope of the Laws", it is clear >to me that L45D can be applied in this case. It is a useful way to >approximate the way the cards would have been played without the >irregularity, thus restoring equity as far as possible. > >In short: Dummy did place a card in the played position; declarer >did not name this card; West may take back his H10 without penalty >if declarer does not actually play the C5. How do you know what he plays Jens? Or are you suggesting that you, as the TD, insist on dummy playing out of turn? >Further, if dummy's action effectively becomes a discovery play for >declarer, the procedural penalty to dummy ought to be made severe >enough to ensure that the offending contestant does not gain by this >action. > >Finally, particularly shrewd Wests, who know that I am the TD >running the event, who have read this thread, and who take pride >in being called bridge lawyers, may play the H10 deliberately even >though they know that the C5 is an irregularity, hoping to gain an >advantage. But in such cases, if I can ascertain that this is what is >happening, I could wheel out L11B. I wouldn't! It refers to LHO, not RHO, and IMO is due for the chop in the next Law book anyway! My own view is that L45D is quite clear [except for the heading]: dummy did place in the played position a card that declarer did not name so it is withdrawn: the H10 was "a card played after the error" even though not in rotation and may be withdrawn. However it must be replaced by a card played in rotation so now he makes his mind up and then declarer calls for a card from the dummy. Note this is a good time to ignore the heading which is somewhat ambiguous. While I am not keen on fines a small one here for dummy whatever happens seems in order unless he is very inexperienced, when a warning should suffice. Note: IMO either of these, a warning or a fine, qualifies as a procedural penalty under L90. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 05:29:25 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id FAA01893 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 05:29:25 +1000 Received: from irvine.com (flash.irvine.com [192.160.8.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id FAA01866 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 05:29:17 +1000 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa16405; 9 Oct 96 12:28 PDT To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Law 45D In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 09 Oct 1996 12:24:35 PDT." <199610090224.MAA21397@oznet02.ozemail.com.au> Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 12:28:42 PDT From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9610091228.aa16405@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Reg Busch writes: > Law 45D ?another badly written Law > > Card Misplayed by Dummy > If dummy places in the played position a card that declarer did not name, > the card must be withdrawn if attention is drawn to it before each side has > played to the next trick, and a defender may withdraw (without penalty) a > card played after the error but before attention was drawn to it (see Law 47F) > > The following situation was given to a panel of very experienced directors, > with some surprising diversity of opinions. > > South is declarer in a heart contract. Early in the hand, South leads a > winning spade from hand. Dummy is void in spades. Dummy, without waiting for > declarer to call for a card, plays the C5. (I don't have details of the > earlier play, but it is possible that declarer had on the previous trick > discarded a club on a top spade - this could explain but not excuse dummy's > action). West, seeing dummy play the C5, now plays the H10. The HA and HQ > are in dummy. West disputes declarer's right to overruff in dummy. > > No great problem here. But some directors saw 45D as applicable here, some > didn't. Certainly dummy has placed in the played position a card that > declarer did not name, exactly as the Law says. But IMO Law 45D does not > apply to this situation. It is meant to apply where declarer has called for > a card, but dummy has played the wrong card. Accepting David Stevenson's > warning that the headings are not part of the Laws, the heading does say > 'misplayed', not illegally played, and the body of the Law talks about the > card being played in error, not illegally or prematurely. What I think the > Law means to say is 'If declarer names a card but dummy plays a different > card..' > > All agreed that declarer may play whatever card he wishes from dummy (with > the usual provisos about possible penalties for dummy's infraction). But is > West allowed to retract his H10? Under 45D, presumably he is. But if one > doesn't accept 45D as applying, then I believe that his play must stand. 47D > allows retraction of a card played after an opponent's change of play, but > the C5 was never played under Law 45B. > > Any opinions? I think Law 45D does apply, and West should be allowed to retract the H10 (and Law 47F may apply). The wording of the Laws is such that they can be interpreted either way. The fact that very experienced directors split on this is an indication that the wording is vague. It's also an indication that the comment of another respondent, who made an unsubstantiated claim that any interpretation other than his own was "just ludicrous", is itself ludicrous. I'll admit that I'm biased toward allowing West to retract the card, because otherwise you'd be punishing West for North's violation. (West's errors were in not calling the director in accord with Law 45F and, apparently, in believing that the C5 was a played card, contrary to Law 45B, but North's violation was certainly a more serious one.) Anyway, my reasoning is in the wording of the Law: "If dummy places in the played position a card that declarer did not name . . ." It seems to me that if the writers had intended this to apply only when declarer calls for a card and dummy plays a different one, they could have worded it differently, e.g. "If dummy places in the played position a card other than the one named by declarer . . ." I'm not saying that in all cases, language always reflects what the authors intended (in the bridge Laws or in anything else). Sometimes, they get sloppy. In this case, though, the wording sounds deliberate to me; that is, it seems to me that the authors specifically intended it to apply to the case when dummy plays a card without declarer saying anything. The reason is that the language "a card that declarer did not name" seems like a stilted way to refer to "the wrong card", and therefore it's unlikely that this wording was chosen out of sloppiness. If I go to a donut shop, and I point to a donut and they give me the wrong one, I say "That's the wrong donut", not "That's a donut I did not ask for". Of course, it may be unnecessary to perform this kind of exegesis on the Laws, since we should just be able to find someone responsible for the Laws who's still alive. P.S. None of this has to do with the fact that dummy played out of turn, since Reg's argument did not refer to that fact. All of the above applies equally in the case where dummy plays a card without declarer saying anything, *East* then plays, and then declarer says he wants a different card from dummy. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 06:10:49 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id GAA02943 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 06:10:49 +1000 Received: from irvine.com (flash.irvine.com [192.160.8.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA02938 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 06:10:43 +1000 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa19901; 9 Oct 96 13:10 PDT To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Is this UI? In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 09 Oct 1996 08:18:48 PDT." <9610090818.aa02775@flash.irvine.com> Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 13:10:08 PDT From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9610091310.aa19901@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk I made a major typo in my earlier question: > The following answer in Brian Moran's "Ruling the Game" in the October > ACBL Bulletin surprised me. > > Question (from Florida): An opponent opened the bidding with 3D. > My partner asked about the bid and was told that it was Flannery, > whereupon the opener said, "I opened three diamonds, not two." I > felt that this comment gave unauthorized information. Do you > agree? > > Answer: You are correct: opener should not have spoken out. By > doing so, opener gave unauthorized information. It would have > been proper at opener's next turn to ask for a review. > > Is it true that there is UI involved here? Law 16 starts out: > > Players are authorized to base their actions on information from > legal calls or plays and from mannerisms of opponents. To base > action on other extraneous information may be an infraction of > law. > > In my reading of the law, there is no "unauthorized information" > because opener's comment didn't contain any information except > information that is authorized based on the above paragraph (i.e. > opener's bid). > > Normally, making a this comment would be inappropriate and a possible > infraction, although Law 16 shouldn't apply at all. I'm not sure what > Laws might apply here--possibly 74B2 and 74C4. Still, I'm not sure > that opener's comment is inappropriate in this case, since it > prevented opener's opponents from receiving information, and might ^^^^^^^^^^^ I meant to say "misinformation". > have prevented even further problems. The fact that second hand even > asked about the 3D bid raises the possibility that both that person > and opener's partner misheard the bid as 2D; so opener's comment might > have prevented a possibly embarrassing and sticky situation where > second hand would have bid 2H, takeout over Flannery but insufficient > over 3D. So in this context, I see nothing wrong with opener's > remark. > > Comments? > > -- Adam > From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 09:06:02 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA03708 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 09:06:02 +1000 Received: from hill.msri.org (msri.org [198.129.64.224]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA03701 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 09:05:54 +1000 From: grabiner@msri.org Received: by hill.msri.org for (8.7/1.43r) id QAA09835; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 16:05:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from boole.msri.org(198.129.65.86) by msri.org via smap (V1.3) id sma009826; Wed Oct 9 16:05:08 1996 Received: by boole.msri.org (8.7/DW.6) id QAA07612; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 16:03:48 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 16:03:48 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199610092303.QAA07612@boole.msri.org> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 45D Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan writes: > Reg Busch writes: >> Law 45D ?another badly written Law >> >> Card Misplayed by Dummy >> If dummy places in the played position a card that declarer did not name, >> the card must be withdrawn if attention is drawn to it before each side has >> played to the next trick, and a defender may withdraw (without penalty) a >> card played after the error but before attention was drawn to it (see Law 47F) > Anyway, my reasoning is in the wording of the Law: > "If dummy places in the played position a card that declarer did > not name . . ." > It seems to me that if the writers had intended this to apply only > when declarer calls for a card and dummy plays a different one, they > could have worded it differently, e.g. > "If dummy places in the played position a card other than the one > named by declarer . . ." How about if declarer makes an incomplete designation? Dummy held KJ of diamonds, and the jack of clubs. West held Qx of diamonds, and the queen of hearts. The other two players had only low cards. Declarer cashed dummy's diamond king, then called "Jack". Dummy played the CJ, although West didn't see the card moved and it wasn't clear from the positions of the cards that this had been the play. West assumed that "Jack" meant a continuation of the suit, and played the DQ. When declarer then tried to cash the now-good DJ for the 13th trick, West called the director, as he thought he had won the 12th trick and could cash the good HQ. How many tricks do you award to the defenders? The other relevant law here is 46B3a: 46B. Incomplete or Erroneous Call In case of an incomplete or erroneous call by declarer of the card to be played from dummy, the following restrictions apply (except when declarer's different intention is incontrovertible): 3. Designates Rank but not Suit If declarer designates a rank but not a suit: (a) In Leading Declarer is deemed to have continued the suit in which dummy won the preceding trick, provided there is a card of the designated rank in that suit. Declarer and dummy both knew that the CJ was good but the DJ was not; there's a case for the "incontrovertible" rule if it applies here. However, should West be penalized because he didn't think the play was incontrovertible? Or should declarer be required to play the DJ to the 12th trick, since attention was drawn before the defenders played to the 13th trick? I would be inclined to restore equity and give both sides what their intended plays would give, for one trick to the defense. Declarer is entitled to cash his CJ after declining the finesse, but West should not be forced to make an obviously irrational play based on the incomplete designation. The director gave declarer all the tricks. -- David Grabiner, grabiner@msri.org, http://baseball.berkeley.edu/~grabiner I speak of MSRI and by MSRI but not for MSRI. Shop at the Mobius Strip Mall: Always on the same side of the street! Klein Glassworks, Torus Coffee and Donuts, Projective Airlines, etc. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 11:28:34 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA04906 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 11:28:34 +1000 Received: from server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net (server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net [203.108.7.40]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA04901 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 11:28:19 +1000 Received: from oznet02.ozemail.com.au (oznet02.ozemail.com.au [203.2.192.124]) by server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net (8.7.6/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA01741 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 11:28:14 +1000 (EST) Received: from LOCALNAME (slbri2p06.ozemail.com.au [203.7.176.94]) by oznet02.ozemail.com.au (8.7.6/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA20281 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 11:28:11 +1000 (EST) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 11:28:11 +1000 (EST) Message-Id: <199610100128.LAA20281@oznet02.ozemail.com.au> X-Sender: rbusch@ozemail.com.au (Unverified) X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Reg Busch Subject: Re: Law 45D Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 12:28 PM 10/9/96 PDT, Adam Beneschan wrote: > >Reg Busch writes: > > > Law 45D ?another badly written Law > > > > Card Misplayed by Dummy > > If dummy places in the played position a card that declarer did not name, > > the card must be withdrawn if attention is drawn to it before each side has > > played to the next trick, and a defender may withdraw (without penalty) a > > card played after the error but before attention was drawn to it (see Law 47F) > > > > The following situation was given to a panel of very experienced directors, > > with some surprising diversity of opinions. > > > > South is declarer in a heart contract. Early in the hand, South leads a > > winning spade from hand. Dummy is void in spades. Dummy, without waiting for > > declarer to call for a card, plays the C5. (I don't have details of the > > earlier play, but it is possible that declarer had on the previous trick > > discarded a club on a top spade - this could explain but not excuse dummy's > > action). West, seeing dummy play the C5, now plays the H10. The HA and HQ > > are in dummy. West disputes declarer's right to overruff in dummy. > > > > No great problem here. But some directors saw 45D as applicable here, some > > didn't. Certainly dummy has placed in the played position a card that > > declarer did not name, exactly as the Law says. But IMO Law 45D does not > > apply to this situation. It is meant to apply where declarer has called for > > a card, but dummy has played the wrong card. Accepting David Stevenson's > > warning that the headings are not part of the Laws, the heading does say > > 'misplayed', not illegally played, and the body of the Law talks about the > > card being played in error, not illegally or prematurely. What I think the > > Law means to say is 'If declarer names a card but dummy plays a different > > card..' > > > > All agreed that declarer may play whatever card he wishes from dummy (with > > the usual provisos about possible penalties for dummy's infraction). But is > > West allowed to retract his H10? Under 45D, presumably he is. But if one > > doesn't accept 45D as applying, then I believe that his play must stand. 47D > > allows retraction of a card played after an opponent's change of play, but > > the C5 was never played under Law 45B. > > > > Any opinions? > >I think Law 45D does apply, and West should be allowed to retract the >H10 (and Law 47F may apply). The wording of the Laws is such that >they can be interpreted either way. The fact that very experienced >directors split on this is an indication that the wording is vague. >It's also an indication that the comment of another respondent, who >made an unsubstantiated claim that any interpretation other than his >own was "just ludicrous", is itself ludicrous. > >I'll admit that I'm biased toward allowing West to retract the card, >because otherwise you'd be punishing West for North's violation. >(West's errors were in not calling the director in accord with Law 45F >and, apparently, in believing that the C5 was a played card, contrary >to Law 45B, but North's violation was certainly a more serious one.) > >Anyway, my reasoning is in the wording of the Law: > > "If dummy places in the played position a card that declarer did > not name . . ." > >It seems to me that if the writers had intended this to apply only >when declarer calls for a card and dummy plays a different one, they >could have worded it differently, e.g. > > "If dummy places in the played position a card other than the one > named by declarer . . ." > >I'm not saying that in all cases, language always reflects what the >authors intended (in the bridge Laws or in anything else). Sometimes, >they get sloppy. In this case, though, the wording sounds deliberate >to me; that is, it seems to me that the authors specifically intended >it to apply to the case when dummy plays a card without declarer >saying anything. The reason is that the language "a card that >declarer did not name" seems like a stilted way to refer to "the wrong >card", and therefore it's unlikely that this wording was chosen out of >sloppiness. If I go to a donut shop, and I point to a donut and they >give me the wrong one, I say "That's the wrong donut", not "That's a >donut I did not ask for". > >Of course, it may be unnecessary to perform this kind of exegesis on >the Laws, since we should just be able to find someone responsible for >the Laws who's still alive. > >P.S. None of this has to do with the fact that dummy played out of >turn, since Reg's argument did not refer to that fact. All of the >above applies equally in the case where dummy plays a card without >declarer saying anything, *East* then plays, and then declarer says he >wants a different card from dummy. > Re your second last paragraph: Reference: 'Commentary on the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge' by Endicott and Hansen (1992),authorised by the EBL. Endicott was a member of the 1987 WBF Laws Committee and the EBL Laws Committee. After discussing Law 45C4(b) - Correction of Inadvertent Designation - Endicott goes on to say: 45.6 A similar consideration arises where dummy has placed a card in the played position other than the one he has been instructed to play. Provided that at least one side has not played to the next trick the rectification may be required - indeed must take place once attention is drawn to the error. See Law 47F. It seems clear to me that Endicott sees 45D as applying where declarer has named a card, but dummy has played the wrong card. The wording is almost identical to that suggested by Adam above. An identical commentary appears in the EBU Director's Guide 1987. I have little sympathy for West. It seems to me that he was being a little too smart and trying to take advantage of dummy's infraction. Reg Busch. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 12:13:12 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA05274 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:13:12 +1000 Received: from smtp2.erols.com (root@smtp2.erols.com [205.252.116.102]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA05269 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:13:06 +1000 Received: from hdavis.erols.com (dam-as5s31.erols.com [205.177.154.31]) by smtp2.erols.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id WAA12021 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 22:12:46 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19961010021327.0067da4c@pop.erols.com> X-Sender: hdavis@pop.erols.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 22:13:27 -0400 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Hirsch Davis Subject: Re: Is this UI? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 20:36:48 -0400 >To: Adam Beneschan >From: Hirsch Davis >Subject: Re: Is this UI? > >At 01:10 PM 10/9/96 PDT, you wrote: >> >>I made a major typo in my earlier question: >> >>> The following answer in Brian Moran's "Ruling the Game" in the October >>> ACBL Bulletin surprised me. >>> >>> Question (from Florida): An opponent opened the bidding with 3D. >>> My partner asked about the bid and was told that it was Flannery, >>> whereupon the opener said, "I opened three diamonds, not two." I >>> felt that this comment gave unauthorized information. Do you >>> agree? >>> >>> Answer: You are correct: opener should not have spoken out. By >>> doing so, opener gave unauthorized information. It would have >>> been proper at opener's next turn to ask for a review. >>> >>> Is it true that there is UI involved here? Law 16 starts out: >>> >>> Players are authorized to base their actions on information from >>> legal calls or plays and from mannerisms of opponents. To base >>> action on other extraneous information may be an infraction of >>> law. >>> >>> In my reading of the law, there is no "unauthorized information" >>> because opener's comment didn't contain any information except >>> information that is authorized based on the above paragraph (i.e. >>> opener's bid). >>> >>> Normally, making a this comment would be inappropriate and a possible >>> infraction, although Law 16 shouldn't apply at all. I'm not sure what >>> Laws might apply here--possibly 74B2 and 74C4. Still, I'm not sure >>> that opener's comment is inappropriate in this case, since it >>> prevented opener's opponents from receiving information, and might >> ^^^^^^^^^^^ >>I meant to say "misinformation". >> >>> have prevented even further problems. The fact that second hand even >>> asked about the 3D bid raises the possibility that both that person >>> and opener's partner misheard the bid as 2D; so opener's comment might >>> have prevented a possibly embarrassing and sticky situation where >>> second hand would have bid 2H, takeout over Flannery but insufficient >>> over 3D. So in this context, I see nothing wrong with opener's >>> remark. >>> >>> Comments? >>> >>> -- Adam >>> >> >> >> >There is UI all over this situation. Responder clearly either misheard or misinterpreted the opening bid, based on his explanation to opponents. However, opener is not allowed to act on this explanation. Responder's explanation to opponents is UI to opener, who has now based his remark upon it. Opener's comment is UI to responder, who must now be required to respond as though opener had bid Flannery (even to the point of forcing an insufficient bid, which can now be corrected under the appropriate law). Opener should get a procedural penalty for saying anything at all at that point in the auction; his options are limited to correcting the explanation at the proper time, depending on which side is declaring. > >What I do question above is the contention that it would be proper for opener to ask for a review at his turn (unless opener actually needed one). While it would be legal, asking for a review solely for the purpose of waking up partner would be highly unethical, IMHO. > >Hirsch > From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 12:26:13 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA05339 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:26:13 +1000 Received: from smtp2.erols.com (root@smtp2.erols.com [205.252.116.102]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA05330 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:25:38 +1000 Received: from hdavis.erols.com (dam-as5s31.erols.com [205.177.154.31]) by smtp2.erols.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id WAA13220 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 22:25:16 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19961010022556.0067b754@pop.erols.com> X-Sender: hdavis@pop.erols.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 22:25:56 -0400 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Hirsch Davis Subject: Re: Is this UI? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 05:50 PM 10/9/96 PDT, you wrote: >> > >> There is UI all over this situation. Responder clearly either misheard or >> misinterpreted the opening bid, based on his explanation to opponents. >> However, opener is not allowed to act on this explanation. Responder's >> explanation to opponents is UI to opener, who has now based his remark upon >> it. Opener's comment is UI to responder, who must now be required to >> respond as though opener had bid Flannery (even to the point of forcing an >> insufficient bid, which can now be corrected under the appropriate law). > >But that's my question. If opener's comment is UI, exactly what >"information" contained in the comment is "unauthorized"? > The knowledge that the opening bid was two instead of three diamonds is unauthorized if coming from partner. The responder has to ask the question of the opponents. Partner is not allowed to wake him up. >Also, the transmission of UI requires that the recipient not choose an >action that could be based on the UI if there is a logical >alternative. But can making an insufficient bid really be considered >a logical alternative? Certainly, if he misheard the auction. Responder must act as though he did not hear his partner's comment. If responder believed the opening bid to be 2D, then he must make a response to THAT bid, not the corrected bid illegally given by partner. > >> Opener should get a procedural penalty for saying anything at all at that >> point in the auction; his options are limited to correcting the explanation >> at the proper time, depending on which side is declaring. >> >> What I do question above is the contention that it would be proper for >> opener to ask for a review at his turn (unless opener actually needed one). >> While it would be legal, asking for a review solely for the purpose of >> waking up partner would be highly unethical, IMHO. > >Yes, Curt Hastings asked exactly that question on the r.g.b. The >issue is similar to that of asking for an explanation for partner's >benefit (i.e. so that partner can hear the answer); the consensus on >that issue is that this is unethical, but if someone of the stature of >Edgar Kaplan disagrees, the answer can't be considered obvious. My >tendency is to agree with you on this, though. > > -- Adam > > From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 13:19:40 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA05654 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:19:40 +1000 Received: from user.rose.com (root@[199.212.158.3]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA05649 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:19:26 +1000 Message-ID: <325C6BE0.515B@toronto-bridge.com> Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 23:22:08 -0400 From: dgbryce Reply-To: dgbryce@toronto-bridge.com Organization: David G. Bryce X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Yes, Virginia, it is still "just ludicrous" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk The original article contained the words: > I don't have details of the > earlier play, but it is possible that declarer had on the previous trick > discarded a club on a top spade - this could explain but not excuse dummy's > action). West, seeing dummy play the C5, now plays the H10. The HA and HQ > are in dummy. West disputes declarer's right to overruff in dummy. Better facts are always helpful. But we have enough. West is way off base in playing rather than calling the TD. It seems fairly clear that West is a bridge lawyer. It is also clear that there are some of those reading this list. It reminds me of the fanciful diatribes of the BLs when a TD in a claim situation rules that _of course_ declarer is entitled to overruff the undrawn trump. I.e., we can force declarer (who can't apparently count) to play in certain ways but we can't make him blind and suicidal. If the BL doubters want a hand, I'll be glad to provide one. Lawyers have their place in business and other aspects of daily life but not at the bridge table. Bridge is still a _game_ where common sense can prevail. No exegesis of Law 45 is required to know what to do in the situation described. dgb -- David G. Bryce, ___Barrister and Solicitor____ Tel: 416-364-9916 100 Lombard Street, Suite 108 Fax: 416-364-7505 Toronto, Ontario M5C 1M3 E-Mail: dgbryce@toronto-bridge.com From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 21:02:33 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA08879 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 21:02:33 +1000 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA08874 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 21:02:21 +1000 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id MAA13174 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:02:12 +0100 Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 12:00 BST-1 From: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tim West-meads) Subject: Re: Is this UI? To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Reply-To: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Message-Id: Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In-Reply-To: <9610090818.aa02775@flash.irvine.com> > > The following answer in Brian Moran's "Ruling the Game" in the October > ACBL Bulletin surprised me. > > Question (from Florida): An opponent opened the bidding with 3D. > My partner asked about the bid and was told that it was Flannery, > whereupon the opener said, "I opened three diamonds, not two." I > felt that this comment gave unauthorized information. Do you > agree? > > Answer: You are correct: opener should not have spoken out. By > doing so, opener gave unauthorized information. It would have > been proper at opener's next turn to ask for a review. > > Is it true that there is UI involved here? Law 16 starts out: > > Players are authorized to base their actions on information from > legal calls or plays and from mannerisms of opponents. To base > action on other extraneous information may be an infraction of > law. > > In my reading of the law, there is no "unauthorized information" > because opener's comment didn't contain any information except > information that is authorized based on the above paragraph (i.e. > opener's bid). > > Normally, making a this comment would be inappropriate and a possible > infraction, although Law 16 shouldn't apply at all. I'm not sure what > Laws might apply here--possibly 74B2 and 74C4. Still, I'm not sure > that opener's comment is inappropriate in this case, since it > prevented opener's opponents from receiving misinformation, and might > have prevented even further problems. The fact that second hand even > asked about the 3D bid raises the possibility that both that person > and opener's partner misheard the bid as 2D; so opener's comment might > have prevented a possibly embarrassing and sticky situation where > second hand would have bid 2H, takeout over Flannery but insufficient > over 3D. So in this context, I see nothing wrong with opener's > remark. > > Comments? > > -- Adam > Well according to 9A1 any player may draw attention to an irregularity during the auction whether or not it is his turn to call. The correct procedure when asked to explain an auction is to explain the meanings of the calls made by partner. In the question above this procedure has clearly been violated. Surely no-one disputes that the actual auction to date is authorised information to everyone at the table. And I can't see how a correction in this situation conveys any information about the relative strength/weakness etc of the 3D hand that is in any different from that in the original bid. It is clear that the laws do not cover every eventuality at the bridge table and that sometimes TDs/ACs will have to base their rulings on something else (eg good old commonsense). The most likely scenarios that lead to this situation seem to be: 1) Incorrect bid (L25 etc) 2) Oppo asks "What does the bid mean" Partner says "2D is Flannery, showing.." 3) Oppo asks "What does the bid mean" Partner says "It's Flannery, showing.." I don't know Flannery but I assume no-one plays a "Flannery 3D" showing what most Flannerites consider a 2D bid. (If this assumption is wrong then I think UI may be a possibility). 4) Oppo asks "What does 2D show in your system?" He thought the bid was 3D but is trying to draw inferences about the strength/length of 3D. Partner says "It was Flannery, he's got.." Deciding to do nothing when a bid has obviously been misheard by at least one other player is IMO "an action that might cause annoyance or etc to another player" and in therefore in breach of 74A2. Tim West-Meads. From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 10 21:09:57 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA08935 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 21:09:57 +1000 Received: from mail.be.innet.net (mail.be.innet.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA08930 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 21:09:32 +1000 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-245.innet.be [194.7.10.245]) by mail.be.innet.net (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA02284 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:09:17 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <325CEE50.5025@innet.be> Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:38:40 +0000 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 25B1 References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jens Brix Christiansen wrote: > > >>> David Stevenson 09.10.96 12:31 >>> > >Herman De Wael wrote: > >>I often make erroneous calls and realise my mistake within > microseconds. > >>I let it stand and play in ridiculous contracts. David : > > I am 100% with Herman in this. Note that a poor player will not > >realise he can change his call: this is a good player's and/or rules > >man's Law. > This must be a first ! :-) Jens : > I am with you both most of the way. But I come from a country where > bidding boxes are used all the time, so do I, but I meant 'erroneous' in judgement, not in handling. With my dexterity, I need Law 25A about three times per board ! I can generally agree with your proposals, so this means that there are now three of us at 100% agreement. Unbelievable ! -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Fri Oct 11 00:21:07 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA12087 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 00:21:07 +1000 Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net (relay-1.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.140]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA12082 for ; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 00:20:57 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net id ak12142; 10 Oct 96 14:17 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa27290; 10 Oct 96 14:15 BST Message-ID: Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 14:13:13 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Yes, Virginia, it is still "just ludicrous" In-Reply-To: <325C6BE0.515B@toronto-bridge.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk dgbryce wrote: >Better facts are always helpful. But we have enough. West is way off >base in playing rather than calling the TD. It seems fairly clear that >West is a bridge lawyer. It is also clear that there are some of those >reading this list. That is hardly surprising. The aim of this list is to discuss the Laws of the game in depth. That does not mean that people who subscribe to this list have an unfortunate approach at the table, whether as players, TDs, or members of an AC. All it means is that we should like to *know* what the Laws mean and how they should be interpreted under examination paper conditions. Then, having gained that knowledge, we shall then use it [hopefully] in a way that benefits the game of Bridge. >It reminds me of the fanciful diatribes of the BLs when a TD in a claim >situation rules that _of course_ declarer is entitled to overruff the >undrawn trump. I.e., we can force declarer (who can't apparently count) >to play in certain ways but we can't make him blind and suicidal. I am surprised that BLs would make an issue of something *clearly* covered in the Laws. >If the BL doubters want a hand, I'll be glad to provide one. If it is interesting, why not? >Lawyers have their place in business and other aspects of daily life but >not at the bridge table. Bridge is still a _game_ where common sense can >prevail. No exegesis of Law 45 is required to know what to do in the >situation described. However the fact that the question was asked, and the breadth of replies suggest that there is just a chance that the answer is not quite as simple as you believe. After all, your solution is contrary to L45D, so I do not believe it to be automatically correct. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Oct 11 02:07:28 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA14194 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 02:07:28 +1000 Received: from irvine.com (flash.irvine.com [192.160.8.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA14189 for ; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 02:07:22 +1000 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa17539; 10 Oct 96 9:06 PDT To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Law 45D In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 10 Oct 1996 11:28:11 PDT." <199610100128.LAA20281@oznet02.ozemail.com.au> Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 09:06:46 PDT From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9610100906.aa17539@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > Re your second last paragraph: Reference: 'Commentary on the Laws of > Duplicate Contract Bridge' by Endicott and Hansen (1992),authorised by the > EBL. Endicott was a member of the 1987 WBF Laws Committee and the EBL Laws > Committee. After discussing Law 45C4(b) - Correction of Inadvertent > Designation - Endicott goes on to say: > > 45.6 A similar consideration arises where dummy has placed a card in the > played position other than the one he has been instructed to play. Provided > that at least one side has not played to the next trick the rectification > may be required - indeed must take place once attention is drawn to the > error. See Law 47F. > > It seems clear to me that Endicott sees 45D as applying where declarer has > named a card, but dummy has played the wrong card. The wording is almost > identical to that suggested by Adam above. An identical commentary appears > in the EBU Director's Guide 1987. OK, thanks. This is helpful. > I have little sympathy for West. It seems to me that he was being a little > too smart and trying to take advantage of dummy's infraction. Perhaps. But I don't have much sympathy for either North or South, either. North obviously violated two rules by playing out of turn and pulling a card before declarer called for one. And South didn't say anything to stop him. The original article didn't say how much time elapsed between North's "play" and West's play. If West played 2.2 nanoseconds after North did, then it makes sense to say West is trying to win by being a "bridge lawyer", and I don't have any sympathy for him either. But if West waited a couple seconds before playing, it's not clear he was doing anything wrong here. He might have reasonably expected that South, who has not said anything, has given tacit approval to dummy's play, indicating that that was indeed the card he wanted played. In this case, *South* is the one being the bridge lawyer. Consider what has happened in this scenario: South leads a winner from hand. North pulls a discard. A couple seconds go by and South says nothing. West now assumes everything is hunky dory and plays a trump, and NOW South, who realizes that his "winner" isn't winning, calls the director to complain that dummy's card wasn't the card he wanted. OK, maybe South just wasn't paying attention to dummy's action. And West should have spoken up instead of playing. Still, if I were TD, and if I were convinced that South might have been trying something like the above, and that Law 45D is vague enough to allow either interpretation, I'd sure as hell allow West to retract his card and not allow South to benefit. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Fri Oct 11 10:52:48 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA24780 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 10:52:48 +1000 Received: from user.rose.com (root@user.rose.com [199.212.158.3]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA24775 for ; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 10:52:38 +1000 Message-ID: <325D9AE9.424B@toronto-bridge.com> Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 20:55:05 -0400 From: dgbryce Reply-To: dgbryce@toronto-bridge.com Organization: David G. Bryce X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 45D References: <9610100906.aa17539@flash.irvine.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote: > But if West waited a couple [of] seconds before playing, it's not clear > he was doing anything wrong here. Oh but it is clear that "he" did do wrong. By not calling the TD, "he" took his chances that "he" would not like the ruling "he" ultimately got after playing a card. See laws 9, 10, 11 Yes, we don't have all the facts -- the first thing a TD wants in real life. -- David G. Bryce, Barrister and Solicitor Tel: 416-364-9916 100 Lombard Street, Suite 108 Fax: 416-364-7505 Toronto, Ontario M5C 1M3 E-Mail: dgbryce@toronto-bridge.com From owner-bridge-laws Fri Oct 11 11:52:53 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id LAA24976 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 11:52:53 +1000 Received: from irvine.com (flash.irvine.com [192.160.8.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA24971 for ; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 11:52:47 +1000 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa23816; 10 Oct 96 18:52 PDT To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: Law 45D In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 10 Oct 1996 20:55:05 PDT." <325D9AE9.424B@toronto-bridge.com> Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 18:52:10 PDT From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9610101852.aa23816@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > > > > But if West waited a couple [of] seconds before playing, it's not clear > > he was doing anything wrong here. > > Oh but it is clear that "he" did do wrong. By not calling the TD, "he" > took his chances that "he" would not like the ruling "he" ultimately got > after playing a card. See laws 9, 10, 11 > > Yes, we don't have all the facts -- the first thing a TD wants in real > life. Personally, if I were West, I wouldn't have known (until participating in this discussion) that the Laws would have required me to call the director. And since I know a lot of the Laws pretty well, I'd guess that L45F is therefore one of the more obscure Laws in the book. It's quite reasonable to think that someone sitting West, who hasn't memorized the Law book, and who's faced with a dummy who has played out of turn and a declarer who hasn't said to dummy "no, please wait for West" or "that's not the card I wanted", might assume that the card is a played card. Thus, in this scenario, it seems highly likely that West had no intentions of "bridge lawyering". On the other hand, if South plays a card and dummy pulls a card before West plays, and South isn't sure that's the card he wants played, it shouldn't take an intimate knowledge of the Laws to tell dummy "I haven't called a card yet." What reason could South have for keeping silent? -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Fri Oct 11 14:07:52 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA25381 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 14:07:52 +1000 Received: from user.rose.com (root@user.rose.com [199.212.158.3]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA25376 for ; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 14:07:41 +1000 Message-ID: <325DBC6D.6F0B@toronto-bridge.com> Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 23:18:05 -0400 From: "David G. Bryce" Organization: Barrister and Solicitor X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01E (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: david.bryce@rose.com Subject: Re: Law 45D References: <9610101852.aa23816@flash.irvine.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote: > What reason could South have for keeping silent? None of course. At least nothing legitimate. "I didn't notice" may wash some of the time (=rarely). They may all be sinners. But once people get a _little_ experience under their belts, they are supposed to know to call the TD when anything irregular occurs. How can West _assume_ that dummy has played the card? West _knows_ that Suth did not call the card. A pox on them all. This discussion illustrates the folly of hypotheticals. There is nothing like a TD or an AC knowing all the facts. From owner-bridge-laws Fri Oct 11 14:51:41 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA25549 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 14:51:41 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA25544 for ; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 14:51:34 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id aa24634; 10 Oct 96 20:33 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa19950; 10 Oct 96 20:27 BST Message-ID: Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 18:06:09 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Law 25B1 In-Reply-To: <325CEE50.5025@innet.be> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Herman De Wael wrote: >Jens Brix Christiansen wrote: >> >> >>> David Stevenson 09.10.96 12:31 >>> >> >Herman De Wael wrote: >> >>I often make erroneous calls and realise my mistake within >> microseconds. >> >>I let it stand and play in ridiculous contracts. David : >> > I am 100% with Herman in this. Note that a poor player will not >> >realise he can change his call: this is a good player's and/or rules >> >man's Law. >> > >This must be a first ! :-) > >Jens : > >> I am with you both most of the way. But I come from a country where >> bidding boxes are used all the time, > >so do I, but I meant 'erroneous' in judgement, not in handling. >With my dexterity, I need Law 25A about three times per board ! That is what I meant too. > >I can generally agree with your proposals, so this means that there are >now three of us at 100% agreement. > >Unbelievable ! > All we need now is Steve. Aaaah, if only .... -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Oct 14 10:55:59 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA03560 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 14 Oct 1996 10:55:59 +1000 Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net (relay-1.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.140]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA03555 for ; Mon, 14 Oct 1996 10:55:50 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net id ac21709; 14 Oct 96 0:50 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa11211; 14 Oct 96 0:46 BST Message-ID: <+fd+XYBXGVYyEwmL@blakjak.demon.co.uk> Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 21:31:19 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: UI? MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.00 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk South opened 2NT, partner alerted and West asked. It shows one or other of the minors, said North. Why does it say both minors on your convention card, says West, helpfully. Damn, said North, that's correct: I play it as only one minor with my regular partner, not with this one. North now wants to know whether he is allowed to "remember" that it is both minors. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Mon Oct 14 16:35:00 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id QAA04889 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 14 Oct 1996 16:35:00 +1000 Received: from E-MAIL.COM (e-mail.com [199.171.26.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA04884 for ; Mon, 14 Oct 1996 16:34:52 +1000 Message-Id: <199610140634.QAA04884@octavia.anu.edu.au> Received: from dl.e-mail.com by E-MAIL.COM (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 2513; Mon, 14 Oct 96 02:34:37 EDT Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 02:34:33 EDT From: jfuchs@dl.e-mail.com To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: UI ? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote: > South opened 2NT, partner alerted and West asked. It shows one or > other of the minors, said North. Why does it say both minors on your > convention card, says West, helpfully. Damn, said North, that's > correct: I play it as only one minor with my regular partner, not with > this one. > > North now wants to know whether he is allowed to "remember" that it is > both minors. Of course he is. Why shouldn't he be ? Unfortunately I did leave my copy of the Laws at the venue where I did some TD-ing yesterday, but I am convinced this NOT UI as defined in Law 16. Jac Fuchs From owner-bridge-laws Mon Oct 14 17:45:04 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA05235 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Mon, 14 Oct 1996 17:45:04 +1000 Received: from csd.cri.dk (cabra.cri.dk [130.227.48.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA05230 for ; Mon, 14 Oct 1996 17:44:52 +1000 X-Organization: Computer Resources International A/S, Bregneroedvej 144, DK-3460 Birkeroed, Denmark Received: from nov.cri.dk (nov.cri.dk [130.227.50.162]) by csd.cri.dk (8.6.12/8.6.10) with SMTP id JAA10247 for ; Mon, 14 Oct 1996 09:43:58 +0200 Received: from CRI-Message_Server by nov.cri.dk with Novell_GroupWise; Mon, 14 Oct 1996 09:43:47 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 09:43:37 +0100 From: Jens Brix Christiansen To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: UI? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >>> David Stevenson 13.10.96 21:31 >>> > South opened 2NT, partner alerted and West asked. It shows one or >other of the minors, said North. Why does it say both minors on your >convention card, says West, helpfully. Damn, said North, that's >correct: I play it as only one minor with my regular partner, not with >this one. > > North now wants to know whether he is allowed to "remember" that >it is both minors. North has received information about a misunderstanding of his partnership agreements. The source of the information is his LHO. This information is not authorized in the sense of the first sentence of Law 16. However, it is also not unauthorized information in any of the three senses covered by L16A, L16B, or L16C, respectively. Of these three sublaws, the spirit expressed in L16B comes closest to the case in point; if I were to rule in that style, finding that the board was not playable, I would be giving both sides average plus, which is hardly a satisfactory outcome. Summing up, my ruling is that North is allowed to "remember". He should offer to buy West a drink. Note 1: If I ruled, conversely, that North was not allowed to remember, awarding an artificial adjusted score if the board is ruined, I would be opening for bridge lawyers in the West seat to be incredibly helpful all the time. Note 2: The bridge lawyers in the West seat can still have their field day, for they will be likely to discover the misunderstanding by comparing the convention card with North's explanation. Then, when North has chosen his call, at his next turn, West can query South about the meaning of North's call, thus making North aware of the misunderstanding by means of South's explanation, not by means of his own helpful remarks. In this way, North is limited by L16A, since the information now comes from North's partner. The development described in note 2 was raised in a Swedish article late last year and debated at the annual meeting of the Danish National Appelas Committee in the spring of 1996. Our conclusion on this somewhat hypothetical issue was that there is no way we can take away West's right to ask questions, and thus no blanket regulation that we can think of that protect North from West's attempt to "establish" a misunderstanding of partnership agreements. We did not like this conclusion, of course. Jens Brix Christiansen, Denmark From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 15 00:37:31 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA10026 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 00:37:31 +1000 Received: from smtp2.erols.com (root@smtp2.erols.com [205.252.116.102]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA10021 for ; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 00:37:26 +1000 Received: from hdavis.erols.com (dam-as6s08.erols.com [205.177.154.72]) by smtp2.erols.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id KAA27023 for ; Mon, 14 Oct 1996 10:37:18 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19961014143821.0066feac@pop.erols.com> X-Sender: hdavis@pop.erols.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 10:38:21 -0400 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Hirsch Davis Subject: Re: UI? Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 09:31 PM 10/13/96 +0100, Davis Stevenson wrote: > South opened 2NT, partner alerted and West asked. It shows one or >other of the minors, said North. Why does it say both minors on your >convention card, says West, helpfully. Damn, said North, that's >correct: I play it as only one minor with my regular partner, not with >this one. > > North now wants to know whether he is allowed to "remember" that it is >both minors. > [snip] I can't find anything in the Laws that would indicate that this is UI. Certainly not in Law 16. W has gone out of his way to alert N to the misexplanation. W's question is AI, and N should be allowed to wake up. Hirsch From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 15 03:04:23 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA11269 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 03:04:23 +1000 Received: from mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk (mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk [132.146.5.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA11264 for ; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 03:04:15 +1000 Received: from catullus.agw.bt.co.uk by mailhub.axion.bt.co.uk with SMTP (PP); Mon, 14 Oct 1996 18:03:05 +0100 Received: from ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk (ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk [147.150.119.60]) by catullus.agw.bt.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.11) with SMTP id RAA17531 for ; Mon, 14 Oct 1996 17:57:09 +0100 Received: by ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk with Microsoft Mail id <32627F24@ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk>; Mon, 14 Oct 96 17:57:56 GMT From: "Burn, David" To: "'Bridge Laws'" Subject: RE: UI? Date: Mon, 14 Oct 96 17:42:00 GMT Message-ID: <32627F24@ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk> Encoding: 22 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >From David Burn DWS wrote: >South opened 2NT, partner alerted and West asked. It shows one or >other of the minors, said North. Why does it say both minors on your >convention card, says West, helpfully. Damn, said North, that's >correct: I play it as only one minor with my regular partner, not with >this one. >North now wants to know whether he is allowed to "remember" that it is >both minors. In my opinion, he is not. Information that is not specifically authorised is unauthorised, and information from an opponent's question is not authorised under Law 16. Why should I be rescued from a misunderstanding by the arbitrary event of an opponent's question? Mind you, I'm not sure that I approve of West's actions! From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 15 03:05:29 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA11287 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 03:05:29 +1000 Received: from barlaeus.ic.uva.nl (root@barlaeus.ic.uva.nl [145.18.68.50]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA11282 for ; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 03:05:22 +1000 Received: from atlas.frw.uva.nl by barlaeus.ic.uva.nl with SMTP id AA16032 (5.67b/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Mon, 14 Oct 1996 19:04:37 +0200 Received: From STUD/WORKQUEUE by atlas.frw.uva.nl via Charon-4.0-VROOM with IPX id 100.961014165338.32032; 14 Oct 96 19:05:45 -100 Message-Id: From: "J.P. Pals" To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 16:53:31 MET-1 Subject: Re: UI? Reply-To: Jan Peter Pals X-Confirm-Reading-To: Jan Peter Pals X-Pmrqc: 1 Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Jens Brix Christiansen wrote: ----snip---- > Note 2: The bridge lawyers in the West seat can still have their field > day, for they will be likely to discover the misunderstanding by comparing > the convention card with North's explanation. Then, when North has > chosen his call, at his next turn, West can query South about the > meaning of North's call, thus making North aware of the > misunderstanding by means of South's explanation, not by means of > his own helpful remarks. In this way, North is limited by L16A, since > the information now comes from North's partner. > > The development described in note 2 was raised in a Swedish article > late last year and debated at the annual meeting of the Danish National > Appelas Committee in the spring of 1996. Our conclusion on this > somewhat hypothetical issue was that there is no way we can take > away West's right to ask questions, and thus no blanket regulation > that we can think of that protect North from West's attempt to > "establish" a misunderstanding of partnership agreements. We did > not like this conclusion, of course. A similar case came up in RGB about 8 weeks ago. North opened 1NT, South 4NT (quantitative), North 5H, and East asked what this meant (NS was a novice pair). After explaining, South realised that he had given UI to his partner, and refrained from bidding a cold slam. Now why would East ask this question? It is extremely unlikely that this specific knowledge would have influenced his bidding decisions at the 5-level, so the only reason for asking is "to establish a misunderstanding", and score a top. This seems to be legal, and it annoys me extremely. Is there really no way of taking away East's right to ask silly questions in this particular case? What about law 74A2? Any comments? Jan Peter Pals From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 15 13:27:23 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA22254 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 13:27:23 +1000 Received: from irvine.com ([192.160.8.4]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA22249 for ; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 13:27:05 +1000 Received: from localhost by flash.irvine.com id aa11183; 14 Oct 96 20:26 PDT To: "Burn, David" cc: "'Bridge Laws'" , adam@flash.irvine.com Subject: Re: UI? In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 14 Oct 1996 17:42:00 PST." <32627F24@ah4gate.agw.bt.co.uk> Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 20:26:03 PDT From: Adam Beneschan Message-ID: <9610142026.aa11183@flash.irvine.com> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From David Burn > > DWS wrote: > > > >South opened 2NT, partner alerted and West asked. It shows one or > >other of the minors, said North. Why does it say both minors on your > >convention card, says West, helpfully. Damn, said North, that's > >correct: I play it as only one minor with my regular partner, not with > >this one. > > >North now wants to know whether he is allowed to "remember" that it is > >both minors. > > In my opinion, he is not. Information that is not specifically authorised is > unauthorised, and information from an opponent's question is not > authorised under Law 16. . . . Hmmm . . . I don't think the Laws support this interpretation. Law 16 states what information is authorized: Players are authorized to base their actions on information from legal calls or plays and from mannerisms of opponents. but it goes on to say: To base action on other extraneous information may be an infraction of law. The use of the word "may" indicates that basing calls on information not specifically authorized by the first sentence is not necessarily "unauthorized". The rest of the Laws state specific cases where information is unauthorized, but it's all from extraneous information that comes from your partner (16A, 50, 73C), from overhearing remarks or getting information before you've played a board (16B), and from withdrawn calls and plays (16C). It doesn't say anything about an opponent's question. Besides, the sentence at the beginning of Law 16 can't list the only authorized information, since it's clear that you're allowed to use an opponent's question to draw an inference about that opponent's hand. -- Adam From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 15 18:18:29 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA23531 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 18:18:29 +1000 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA23525 for ; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 18:18:21 +1000 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id JAA07170 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 09:18:16 +0100 Date: Tue, 15 Oct 96 09:16 BST-1 From: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tim West-meads) Subject: == No Subject == To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Reply-To: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Message-Id: Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From David Burn > > DWS wrote: > > > >South opened 2NT, partner alerted and West asked. It shows one or > >other of the minors, said North. Why does it say both minors on your > >convention card, says West, helpfully. Damn, said North, that's > >correct: I play it as only one minor with my regular partner, not with > >this one. > > >North now wants to know whether he is allowed to "remember" that it is > >both minors. > > In my opinion, he is not. Information that is not specifically authorised is > unauthorised, and information from an opponent's question is not > authorised under Law 16. Why should I be rescued from a misunderstanding > by the arbitrary event of an opponent's question? > > Mind you, I'm not sure that I approve of West's actions! > How about a variant of "Morton's Fork" for this one. Either a) West is trying to be genuinely helpful because he is a nice person so North should be allowed to wake up as West thinks that's fair. Or b) West is trying to establish a UI/MI situation so that he can later try for a favourable ruling (er double shot anyone?) so North should be allowed to wake up because West's behaviour (if not illegal under 74A2 as Jan Peter Pals suggested) is thoroughly reprehensible and should not be allowed to succeed. I admit this leaves out the possibility that West is just confused and is seeking further clarification, but I think that is the least likely case. Tim West-Meads From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 15 19:57:26 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA26372 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 19:57:26 +1000 Received: from server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net (server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net [203.108.7.40]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA26351 for ; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 19:57:15 +1000 Received: from oznet02.ozemail.com.au (oznet02.ozemail.com.au [203.2.192.124]) by server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net (8.7.6/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA29911 for ; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 19:57:05 +1000 (EST) Received: from LOCALNAME (slbri2p42.ozemail.com.au [203.7.176.130]) by oznet02.ozemail.com.au (8.7.6/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA22023 for ; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 19:57:03 +1000 (EST) Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 19:57:03 +1000 (EST) Message-Id: <199610150957.TAA22023@oznet02.ozemail.com.au> X-Sender: rbusch@ozemail.com.au (Unverified) X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Reg Busch Subject: Re: Law 25B1 and Law 27 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This was part of the submission by Robin Barker which was one of the triggers for the Law 25B saga. >This is another curious Law 25B1 position. > >Situation #1 >North (deals and) opens 1S, >East bids 1D (insufficient), >East noticing that 1D is insufficient says "oh, thats insufficient" and bids 2H. >Now the TD is called. > >The TD reads L25B and South chooses not to accept 2H (under L25B1) so now >L25B2a applies. The first call (1D) was illegal and the applicable law (L27) >applies, South chooses to accept 1D under L27A. >South doubles and the auction continues without penalty, no problem here (?). Nobody commented on this section, so I presume that all agreed. But I must confess to having something of a problem here. It seems to me that the essence of this situation is that East has made an insufficient bid and has attempted to correct it without calling the Director. Law 27B goes to some pains to ensure that East makes a 'properly informed' decision when he decides on his corrected bid, and requires the Director to cancel any call he has previously attempted to substitute - in this case,the 2H bid. So it seems to me that the Director would: 1. Offer South the option of accepting the 1D insufficient bid as he has priority. If he does so, then bidding proceeds and the 2H bid may be subject to lead penalty. 2. If South chooses not to accept the 1D bid, then the Director must cancel the 2H bid, explain East's options fully, and allow East to make his legal call. If the TD cancels the 2H bid, how then can he offer South the option of accepting it under Law 25B? I guess it's a matter of where you start: at the beginning (insufficient bid with premature correction) and work forward or at the end (purposeful change of call) and work backward. If we first apply 25B and South accepts the 2H bid, then we have deprived East of his rights under Law 27. One might argue that East in changing his call to 2H without calling the Director has forfeited those rights, but Law 27B specifically states that this is not so. Where lies the priority? From owner-bridge-laws Tue Oct 15 22:02:49 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA00673 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 22:02:49 +1000 Received: from waffle.cise.npl.co.uk (waffle.cise.npl.co.uk [139.143.18.92]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA00665 for ; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 22:02:36 +1000 Received: from tempest.cise.npl.co.uk by waffle.cise.npl.co.uk; Tue, 15 Oct 1996 13:01:40 +0100 Date: Tue, 15 Oct 96 13:01:38 BST Message-Id: <2290.9610151201@tempest.cise.npl.co.uk> From: Robin Barker To: rbusch@ozemail.com.au Subject: Re: Law 25B1 and Law 27 Cc: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Reg > >Situation #1 > >North (deals and) opens 1S, > >East bids 1D (insufficient), > >East noticing that 1D is insufficient says "oh, thats insufficient" and > bids 2H. > >Now the TD is called. > > > >The TD reads L25B and South chooses not to accept 2H (under L25B1) so now > >L25B2a applies. The first call (1D) was illegal and the applicable law (L27) > >applies, South chooses to accept 1D under L27A. > >South doubles and the auction continues without penalty, no problem here (?). > > Nobody commented on this section, so I presume that all agreed. But I must > confess to having something of a problem here. It seems to me that the > essence of this situation is that East has made an insufficient bid and has > attempted to correct it without calling the Director. Law 27B goes to some > pains to ensure that East makes a 'properly informed' decision when he > decides on his corrected bid, and requires the Director to cancel any call > he has previously attempted to substitute - in this case,the 2H bid. So it > seems to me that the Director would: > 1. Offer South the option of accepting the 1D insufficient bid as he has > priority. If he does so, then bidding proceeds and the 2H bid may be subject > to lead penalty. > > 2. If South chooses not to accept the 1D bid, then the Director must cancel > the 2H bid, explain East's options fully, and allow East to make his legal > call. If the TD cancels the 2H bid, how then can he offer South the option > of accepting it under Law 25B? > > I guess it's a matter of where you start: at the beginning (insufficient bid > with premature correction) and work forward or at the end (purposeful change > of call) and work backward. If we first apply 25B and South accepts the 2H > bid, then we have deprived East of his rights under Law 27. One might argue > that East in changing his call to 2H without calling the Director has > forfeited those rights, but Law 27B specifically states that this is not so. > > Where lies the priority? > You have a good point. Some parts of L25, deal with the case where the first call is illegal. I conclude that where there is a change of call, we start with L25 in all cases, including where the first call is illegal. If we reach L25B2a, only then do we get to L27 and the words "any call he has previously attempted to substitute is cancelled". Robin Robin Barker, | Email: rmb@cise.npl.co.uk Information Systems Engineering, | Tel: +44 (0) 181 943 7090 B10, National Physical Laboratory, | Fax: +44 (0) 181 977 7091 Teddington, Middlesex, UK. TW11 0LW | WWW: http://www.npl.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 16 00:32:02 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA03679 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 00:32:02 +1000 Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net (relay-1.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.140]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA03674 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 00:31:56 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net id al11237; 15 Oct 96 15:14 BST Received: from hautmont.demon.co.uk ([194.222.66.132]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa08236; 15 Oct 96 15:13 BST From: Stewart Reynolds To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 15:05:54 +0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: UI Reply-to: stewart@hautmont.demon.co.uk Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.42) Message-ID: <845388814.8236.0@hautmont.demon.co.uk> Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk David Stevenson wrote:- > South opened 2NT, partner alerted and West asked. It shows one or >ther of the minors, said North. Why does it say both minors on your >convention card, says West, helpfully. Damn, said North, that's >correct: I play it as only one minor with my regular partner, not with >this one. > North now wants to know whether he is allowed to "remember" that it > is both minors. Having asked for the explanation, and been given an incorrect one, isn't it in West's best interests, for the moment at any rate, not to say anything further? By pointing out North's error, he surely authorises the information. In any case, what was his point in asking? He had already examined the convention card, and knew what the partnership agreement was, even if North misinterpreted it. Did North's mistaken explanation help change his mind about a bid he might have been going to make, and if he wasn't thinking of bidding anyway, why ask the question? Under such circumstances it would have been greatly to his advantage to save his questions until the end of the auction, if he really needed the explanation. Stewart Reynolds Internet: stewart@hautmont.demon.co.uk From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 16 01:23:42 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA04541 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 01:23:42 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA04536 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 01:23:33 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id ag26789; 15 Oct 96 15:08 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id ab24578; 15 Oct 96 16:04 BST Message-ID: Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 15:41:58 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: == No Subject == In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.01 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Tim West-meads wrote: >> From David Burn >> DWS wrote: >> >> >South opened 2NT, partner alerted and West asked. It shows one or >> >other of the minors, said North. Why does it say both minors on your >> >convention card, says West, helpfully. Damn, said North, that's >> >correct: I play it as only one minor with my regular partner, not with >> >this one. >> >> >North now wants to know whether he is allowed to "remember" that it is >> >both minors. >> In my opinion, he is not. Information that is not specifically authorised is >> unauthorised, and information from an opponent's question is not >> authorised under Law 16. Why should I be rescued from a misunderstanding >> by the arbitrary event of an opponent's question? >> >> Mind you, I'm not sure that I approve of West's actions! >How about a variant of "Morton's Fork" for this one. >Either > a) West is trying to be genuinely helpful because he is a nice person so >North should be allowed to wake up as West thinks that's fair. >Or > b) West is trying to establish a UI/MI situation so that he can later try >for a favourable ruling (er double shot anyone?) so North should be allowed to >wake up because West's behaviour (if not illegal under 74A2 as Jan Peter Pals >suggested) is thoroughly reprehensible and should not be allowed to succeed. > >I admit this leaves out the possibility that West is just confused and is >seeking further clarification, but I think that is the least likely case. I find this attitude disturbing, Tim. Your last reason I would expect to be by far the most common, and certainly was the case when this originally happened. Bridge lawyers are rare. a) and b) are both BLs of different types. Bridge players who get confused when something goes wrong are extremely common. While I do not necessarily disagree with anything else said on this thread [well, two threads now Tim: please quote the subject in future for software like mine that does the threading, please Tim, pretty please] I think that people trying to take advantage are a very very small minority. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 16 13:45:31 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA16278 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 13:45:31 +1000 Received: from user.rose.com (root@user.rose.com [199.212.158.3]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA16273 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 13:45:18 +1000 Message-ID: <325DBC6D.6F0B@toronto-bridge.com> Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 23:18:05 -0400 From: "David G. Bryce" Organization: Barrister and Solicitor X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01E (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: david.bryce@rose.com Subject: Re: Law 45D References: <9610101852.aa23816@flash.irvine.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote: > What reason could South have for keeping silent? None of course. At least nothing legitimate. "I didn't notice" may wash some of the time (=rarely). They may all be sinners. But once people get a _little_ experience under their belts, they are supposed to know to call the TD when anything irregular occurs. How can West _assume_ that dummy has played the card? West _knows_ that Suth did not call the card. A pox on them all. This discussion illustrates the folly of hypotheticals. There is nothing like a TD or an AC knowing all the facts. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 16 13:46:16 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA16288 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 13:46:16 +1000 Received: from user.rose.com (root@user.rose.com [199.212.158.3]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA16282 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 13:46:03 +1000 Message-ID: <325DBC6D.6F0B@toronto-bridge.com> Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 23:18:05 -0400 From: "David G. Bryce" Organization: Barrister and Solicitor X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01E (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: david.bryce@rose.com Subject: Re: Law 45D References: <9610101852.aa23816@flash.irvine.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote: > What reason could South have for keeping silent? None of course. At least nothing legitimate. "I didn't notice" may wash some of the time (=rarely). They may all be sinners. But once people get a _little_ experience under their belts, they are supposed to know to call the TD when anything irregular occurs. How can West _assume_ that dummy has played the card? West _knows_ that Suth did not call the card. A pox on them all. This discussion illustrates the folly of hypotheticals. There is nothing like a TD or an AC knowing all the facts. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 16 13:46:50 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA16313 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 13:46:50 +1000 Received: from user.rose.com (root@user.rose.com [199.212.158.3]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA16308 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 13:46:40 +1000 Message-ID: <326453BA.784@toronto-bridge.com> Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 23:17:14 -0400 From: "David G. Bryce" Reply-To: dgbryce@toronto-bridge.com Organization: Barrister and Solicitor X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: == No Subject == and some other thread References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Tim West-meads wrote: > > > > >South opened 2NT, partner alerted and West asked. It shows one or > > >other of the minors, said North. Why does it say both minors on your > > >convention card, says West, helpfully. Damn, said North, that's > > >correct: I play it as only one minor with my regular partner, not with > > >this one. > > > > >North now wants to know whether he is allowed to "remember" that it is > > >both minors. > > Either > a) West is trying to be genuinely helpful because he is a nice person so > North should be allowed to wake up as West thinks that's fair. > Or > b) West is trying to establish a UI/MI situation so that he can later try > for a favourable ruling (er double shot anyone?) so North should be allowed to > wake up because West's behaviour (if not illegal under 74A2 as Jan Peter Pals > suggested) is thoroughly reprehensible and should not be allowed to succeed. > Having noticed the discrepancy between the CC and the answer given by North, West _cannot_ simply remain silent and leave it the directors to make things right later. If he does refrain from asking a question in the hope that the opponents are having a misunderstanding, he may well do better than by asking what's going on but he will be held to his decision. South cannot benefit from the information West extracts or reveals because of the iregularity any more than he can use his partner's mis-explanation to his benefit. This will no doubt get me in trouble with the bridge lawyers again. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 16 15:11:22 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA16809 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 15:11:22 +1000 Received: from smtp2.erols.com (root@smtp2.erols.com [205.252.116.102]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA16804 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 15:11:14 +1000 Received: from hdavis.erols.com (spg-as15s20.erols.com [206.161.171.212]) by smtp2.erols.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id BAA11229 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 01:11:08 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19961016051226.0067fd38@pop.erols.com> X-Sender: hdavis@pop.erols.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 01:12:26 -0400 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Hirsch Davis Subject: Re: == No Subject == and some other thread Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk >Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 01:11:18 -0400 >To: dgbryce@toronto-bridge.com >From: Hirsch Davis >Subject: Re: == No Subject == and some other thread > >At 11:17 PM 10/15/96 -0400, you wrote: >> >[snip] >>Having noticed the discrepancy between the CC and the answer given by >>North, West _cannot_ simply remain silent and leave it the directors to >>make things right later. > >Why not?? > >>If he does refrain from asking a question in >>the hope that the opponents are having a misunderstanding, he may well >>do better than by asking what's going on but he will be held to his >>decision. > >True. > >South cannot benefit from the information West extracts or >>reveals because of the iregularity any more than he can use his >>partner's mis-explanation to his benefit. >> >True, but that was never the question. > >>This will no doubt get me in trouble with the bridge lawyers again. >> >> >> >Quite honestly, I don't understand the point of your comment. Are you trying to say that W is REQUIRED to inform opponents if their explanation is not the same as their CC?? > From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 16 15:36:01 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA16953 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 15:36:01 +1000 Received: from user.rose.com (root@user.rose.com [199.212.158.3]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA16948 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 15:35:55 +1000 Message-ID: <325DBC6D.6F0B@toronto-bridge.com> Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 23:18:05 -0400 From: "David G. Bryce" Organization: Barrister and Solicitor X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01E (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: david.bryce@rose.com Subject: Re: Law 45D References: <9610101852.aa23816@flash.irvine.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote: > What reason could South have for keeping silent? None of course. At least nothing legitimate. "I didn't notice" may wash some of the time (=rarely). They may all be sinners. But once people get a _little_ experience under their belts, they are supposed to know to call the TD when anything irregular occurs. How can West _assume_ that dummy has played the card? West _knows_ that Suth did not call the card. A pox on them all. This discussion illustrates the folly of hypotheticals. There is nothing like a TD or an AC knowing all the facts. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 16 15:37:39 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA16972 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 15:37:39 +1000 Received: from user.rose.com (root@user.rose.com [199.212.158.3]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA16967 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 15:37:31 +1000 Message-ID: <325DBC6D.6F0B@toronto-bridge.com> Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 23:18:05 -0400 From: "David G. Bryce" Organization: Barrister and Solicitor X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01E (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au CC: david.bryce@rose.com Subject: Re: Law 45D References: <9610101852.aa23816@flash.irvine.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote: > What reason could South have for keeping silent? None of course. At least nothing legitimate. "I didn't notice" may wash some of the time (=rarely). They may all be sinners. But once people get a _little_ experience under their belts, they are supposed to know to call the TD when anything irregular occurs. How can West _assume_ that dummy has played the card? West _knows_ that Suth did not call the card. A pox on them all. This discussion illustrates the folly of hypotheticals. There is nothing like a TD or an AC knowing all the facts. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 16 15:39:19 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA16989 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 15:39:19 +1000 Received: from user.rose.com (root@user.rose.com [199.212.158.3]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA16984 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 15:39:12 +1000 Message-ID: <326474E4.161B@toronto-bridge.com> Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 01:38:44 -0400 From: dgbryce Reply-To: dgbryce@toronto-bridge.com Organization: David G. Bryce X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Law 45D Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Adam Beneschan wrote: > What reason could South have for keeping silent? None of course. At least nothing legitimate. "I didn't notice" may wash some of the time (=rarely). They may all be sinners. But once people get a _little_ experience under their belts, they are supposed to know to call the TD when anything irregular occurs. How can West _assume_ that dummy has played the card? West _knows_ that Suth did not call the card. A pox on them all. This discussion illustrates the folly of hypotheticals. There is nothing like a TD or an AC knowing all the facts. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 16 16:52:45 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id QAA17185 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 16:52:45 +1000 Received: from user.rose.com (root@user.rose.com [199.212.158.3]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA17180 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 16:52:37 +1000 Message-ID: <3264861E.4899@toronto-bridge.com> Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 02:52:14 -0400 From: dgbryce Reply-To: dgbryce@toronto-bridge.com Organization: David G. Bryce X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Apologies for multiple messages Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Sorry. New computer + new software = multiple messages. From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 16 21:06:44 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA19803 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 21:06:44 +1000 Received: from mail.be.innet.net (mail.be.innet.net [194.7.1.8]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA19793 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 21:06:37 +1000 Received: from innet.innet.be (pool03-229.innet.be [194.7.10.229]) by mail.be.innet.net (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA02673 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 13:06:24 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <3264DD78.46F9@innet.be> Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 13:04:56 +0000 From: Herman De Wael X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Off to Rhodes Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk This will be my penultimate possibility for posting for two weeks, as tomorrow i'm flying of to Rhodes. Or does anybody have info that an internet connection will be available and usable there ? -- Herman DE WAEL Antwerpen Belgium http://www.club.innet.be/~pub02163/index.htm From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 16 23:26:20 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA20329 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 23:26:20 +1000 Received: from mail1.cais.com (mail1.cais.com [199.0.216.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA20324 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 23:26:12 +1000 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com ([204.157.58.181]) by mail1.cais.com (8.7.5/8.7.5-CAIS) with SMTP id JAA08481 for ; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 09:00:01 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19961016132707.0067fdb0@cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 09:27:07 -0400 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: == No Subject == and some other thread Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 01:12 AM 10/16/96 -0400, Hirsch wrote: >>At 11:17 PM 10/15/96 -0400, you wrote: >>> >>>Having noticed the discrepancy between the CC and the answer given by >>>North, West _cannot_ simply remain silent and leave it the directors to >>>make things right later. >> >>Why not?? >> >>>If he does refrain from asking a question in >>>the hope that the opponents are having a misunderstanding, he may well >>>do better than by asking what's going on but he will be held to his >>>decision. >> >>True. >> >>South cannot benefit from the information West extracts or >>>reveals because of the iregularity any more than he can use his >>>partner's mis-explanation to his benefit. >>> >>True, but that was never the question. >> >>>This will no doubt get me in trouble with the bridge lawyers again. >>> >>Quite honestly, I don't understand the point of your comment. Are you >trying to say that W is REQUIRED to inform opponents if their explanation is >not the same as their CC?? David isn't saying that W must tell N-S that they are having a misunderstanding; he is clearly allowed to let the misunderstanding take its course in the hope that it will lead to a N-S disaster. David's point (if I understand it correctly) is that if he chooses to do so, he may not subsequently seek redress on the grounds that he has been misinformed. N has committed a technical infraction; he has spoken misinformation. E-W, however, is not misinformed. They KNOW that they have been given two different explanations of the 2NT bid, and they know that they can't both be correct. They may either (a) give N-S the opportunity to state which explanation is correct (with potential redress for misinformation if their clarification is not correct), or (b) leave the ambiguity "intact" and proceed at their own risk. In the latter case, there can be no damage consequent to N's infraction, hence no redress. The "bridge lawyer ploy" in this position is to remain silent at the table, and then subsequently seek redress on the grounds of having been "misinformed" by whichever explanation turns out to have been the incorrect one. That's what bridge lawyers (using the term in the prevalent pejorative sense) do: they find ways to claim redress for any technical infraction committed by their opponents without regard to whether "real" equity was actually disturbed. They should not be permitted to get away with this. My sympathies in this case lie entirely with N. N, who misremembered and misstated his bidding agreement, has committed a technical infraction but has done so innocently. His opponent, who read the N-S CC, obtained the information he was presumably seeking, and then inquired anyhow, is within his legal rights but is on shaky ground ethically. Why did he ask when he already had his answer? Was it for his partner's benefit? Or was it in the hope that the second explanation would produce some kind of infraction on which he could base a subsequent director call and demand for "redress"? Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 17 12:30:49 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA00493 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 12:30:49 +1000 Received: from server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net (server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net [203.108.7.40]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA00488 for ; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 12:30:42 +1000 Received: from oznet02.ozemail.com.au (oznet02.ozemail.com.au [203.2.192.124]) by server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net (8.7.6/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA00987 for ; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 11:22:03 +1000 (EST) Received: from LOCALNAME (slbri2p39.ozemail.com.au [203.7.176.127]) by oznet02.ozemail.com.au (8.7.6/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA15574 for ; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 11:22:01 +1000 (EST) Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 11:22:01 +1000 (EST) Message-Id: <199610170122.LAA15574@oznet02.ozemail.com.au> X-Sender: rbusch@ozemail.com.au X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Reg Busch Subject: Re: Law 45D Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 01:38 AM 10/16/96 -0400, D G Bryce wrote: >Adam Beneschan wrote: > >> What reason could South have for keeping silent? > >None of course. At least nothing legitimate. "I didn't notice" may wash >some of the time (=rarely). They may all be sinners. But once people get >a _little_ experience under their belts, they are supposed to know to >call the TD when anything irregular occurs. How can West _assume_ that >dummy has played the card? West _knows_ that Suth did not call the card. > >A pox on them all. > >This discussion illustrates the folly of hypotheticals. There is nothing >like a TD or an AC knowing all the facts. > This was not a hypothetical situation, but a real one which was provided to me. with the facts as originally stated. I don't believe that the motivations of the players concerned are at all relevant to the question I posed, which is 'Does Law 45D apply in this situation?' South is in a heart contract, leads a spade from hand, and dummy, being void in spades, plays a club without waiting for instructions from declarer and without waiting for West to play. West now ruffs with a heart. If 45D applies, then West may retract his heart. If not, then I believe it must remain played. My view is that 45D applies when declarer has named a card from dummy, but dummy plays the wrong card; not when dummy plays a card before declarer names one. In a second submission, I quoted Endicott's Commentary on the Laws which seems to support that view. Reg Busch rbusch@ozemail.com.au Tel/Fax 61 7 32882446 From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 17 12:31:51 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA00502 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 12:31:51 +1000 Received: from server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net (server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net [203.108.7.40]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA00497 for ; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 12:31:43 +1000 Received: from oznet02.ozemail.com.au (oznet02.ozemail.com.au [203.2.192.124]) by server3.syd.mail.ozemail.net (8.7.6/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA00961; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 11:22:00 +1000 (EST) Received: from LOCALNAME (slbri2p39.ozemail.com.au [203.7.176.127]) by oznet02.ozemail.com.au (8.7.6/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA15480; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 11:21:48 +1000 (EST) Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 11:21:48 +1000 (EST) Message-Id: <199610170121.LAA15480@oznet02.ozemail.com.au> X-Sender: rbusch@ozemail.com.au X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Robin Barker , bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: Reg Busch Subject: Re: Law 25B1 and Law 27 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Robin At 01:01 PM 10/15/96 BST, you wrote: > >> >Situation #1 >> >North (deals and) opens 1S, >> >East bids 1D (insufficient), >> >East noticing that 1D is insufficient says "oh, thats insufficient" and >> bids 2H. >> >Now the TD is called. >> > >> >The TD reads L25B and South chooses not to accept 2H (under L25B1) so now >> >L25B2a applies. The first call (1D) was illegal and the applicable law (L27) >> >applies, South chooses to accept 1D under L27A. >> >South doubles and the auction continues without penalty, no problem here (?). >> >> Nobody commented on this section, so I presume that all agreed. But I must >> confess to having something of a problem here. It seems to me that the >> essence of this situation is that East has made an insufficient bid and has >> attempted to correct it without calling the Director. Law 27B goes to some >> pains to ensure that East makes a 'properly informed' decision when he >> decides on his corrected bid, and requires the Director to cancel any call >> he has previously attempted to substitute - in this case,the 2H bid. So it >> seems to me that the Director would: > >> 1. Offer South the option of accepting the 1D insufficient bid as he has >> priority. If he does so, then bidding proceeds and the 2H bid may be subject >> to lead penalty. >> >> 2. If South chooses not to accept the 1D bid, then the Director must cancel >> the 2H bid, explain East's options fully, and allow East to make his legal >> call. If the TD cancels the 2H bid, how then can he offer South the option >> of accepting it under Law 25B? >> >> I guess it's a matter of where you start: at the beginning (insufficient bid >> with premature correction) and work forward or at the end (purposeful change >> of call) and work backward. If we first apply 25B and South accepts the 2H >> bid, then we have deprived East of his rights under Law 27. One might argue >> that East in changing his call to 2H without calling the Director has >> forfeited those rights, but Law 27B specifically states that this is not so. >> >> Where lies the priority? >> > >You have a good point. > >Some parts of L25, deal with the case where the first call is illegal. >I conclude that where there is a change of call, we start with L25 in >all cases, including where the first call is illegal. >If we reach L25B2a, only then do we get to L27 and the words >"any call he has previously attempted to substitute is cancelled". > Robin I take your point, and I would see both approaches as defensible. However, what bothers me is that Law 27 is unique as against Laws covering other infractions in that it is the only Law specifically requiring the Director to cancel any attempt to correct the infraction. Uniformity in interpretation of the Laws is obviously our aim. May I assume that your approach is the standard approach in the UK? Reg Busch rbusch@ozemail.com.au Tel/Fax 61 7 32882446 From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 23 12:30:42 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA05173 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 23 Oct 1996 12:30:42 +1000 Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net (relay-1.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.140]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA05168 for ; Wed, 23 Oct 1996 12:30:16 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net id aa01904; 23 Oct 96 3:29 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id ab18567; 23 Oct 96 3:28 BST Message-ID: Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 03:19:40 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Abbreviations MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.01 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk ABF Australian Bridge Federation AC Appeals committee ACBL American Contract Bridge League AI Authorised information BBL British Bridge League BLML Bridge-laws mailing list BoD Board of directors [ACBL] BoG Board of governors [ACBL] BTW By the way C&E Conduct and ethics [often hearings] CC Convention card CPU Concealed partnership understanding CTD Chief Tournament director DBF Danish Bridge Federation DIC Director in charge EBL European Bridge League EBU English Bridge Union IMO In my opinion LA Logical alternative L&EC Laws & Ethics Committee (English, Welsh or Scottish) Lnn Law number nn MI Misinformation NABC ACBL North American Bridge Championships NBO National Bridge organisation NCBO National Contract Bridge organisation NG Newsgroup NIBU Northern Ireland Bridge Union NO Non-offender NP No problem OKB OKBridge PP Procedural penalty RGB rec.games.bridge [newsgroup] r.g.b. rec.games.bridge [newsgroup] RGBO rec.games.bridge.okbridge [newsgroup] rgbo rec.games.bridge.okbridge [newsgroup] RoC Rule of coincidence RTFLB Read the [fabulous] Law book! SBU Scottish Bridge Union SO Sponsoring organisation TBW The Bridge World [magazine] TD Tournament director TDic Tournament director in charge UI Unauthorised information WBF World Bridge Federation WBU Welsh Bridge Union -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Wed Oct 23 12:32:07 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA05196 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Wed, 23 Oct 1996 12:32:07 +1000 Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net (relay-1.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.140]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA05178 for ; Wed, 23 Oct 1996 12:31:27 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net id aa01824; 23 Oct 96 3:29 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa18564; 23 Oct 96 3:28 BST Message-ID: Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 03:19:10 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Another UI situation [transferred from RGB] [long] MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.01 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk AlLeBendig wrote: >Michael G. Schmahl writes: >>When I was first playing bridge (not too long ago), my partner >>and I were using Flannery for a while. When we switched to >>5-card majors, we did away with Flannery. >> >>Using our new system, we had the following auction: >> >>West North East South(me) >> - 2D X(1) 3D >> p 3H P ???? >> >>(1) "What does that mean?" >> "Weak 2", no further explanation asked. >> >>Would I be allowed to pass in this situation? This was rubber >>bridge, and quite informal, so I passed, but not without a >>clear conscience. >The Laws clearly allow you to pass provided partner has in no way >indicated that there might be a problem (grimacing, shaking his head >etc.). You are always entitled to make any assumption you wish at your >own risk. If your partner does indeed have a Flannery hand, there will be >a serious question as to whether he has the right to bid 3H. He IS in >possession of UI either because of your explanation (if one was given) or >your failure to alert when he was expecting one. If he has a "normal" >Flannery with at least 1 diamond, the laws would indeed require him to >pass 3D. He must always assume you gave a correct explanation of his bid >as he intended. We often hear "I forgot and remembered just as I made the >bid. Surely I can correct!" The problem is that you may have remembered >at that point and you also may have remembered just as partner gave the >explanation or failed to alert. We always assume the latter. Always? That seems a bit rash. In these type of situations you should have a default approach, and I would certainly assume the latter unless convinced otherwise, which would be hard for a player to do, but *not* impossible. >Like Adam, I always assume partner has a clear bridge reason for the 3H >bid. You don't play with my partners then . -------- Let's consider this a bit further. This is long, so please give up now if you don't find this sort of thing interesting, and accept my apologies. -------- 2D was asked, so North, who bid 2D, has UI, that his partner is not playing Flannery. Now I don't know what 2D X 3D means in Flannery, but presumably it is forcing otherwise several posts would have pointed out that the 3H bid was illegal. If it wasn't forcing, of course, then we would rule the contract back to 3D probably [based on the hand: 3H is presumably acceptable with 5=7=0=1]. Now let us assume that the 3H bid is acceptable. Alan says >The Laws clearly allow you to pass provided partner has in no way >indicated that there might be a problem (grimacing, shaking his head >etc.). You are always entitled to make any assumption you wish at your >own risk. But is this right? Assuming for the moment that North bids 3H with a perfectly straight face then why does South pass it? Is it because he is guessing, based on the presumption that the only credible meaning for this bid is that partner is playing Flannery? Well, is it? In TBW [the Bridge World] it is clear from the comments of "experts" in the Master Solvers Club that some of them will open a weak two with anything with a six-card suit [wimps :) ] and the required point count. So they presumably open 2D with: xx x KTxxx Txxxxx QJ9xxx QJ9xxx -- -- Now I think that they are crazy, but some of them do it. What will they do after 2D X 3D NB? They certainly won't pass! So perhaps they will bid 3H! [Please don't write explaining that you would rebid 4C to show the void or something: fine, just change the hand: my point is that the sequence exists on *some* hand after a weak two opening.] So where is the difficulty? If you consider that a strange partner would have this type of hand so rarely that it was considerably more likely that he was playing Flannery *and* had forgotten *and* had a suitable hand to bid 3H legally then you are permitted to pass. Pardon me while I snort. :):) I repeat, where is the difficulty? It isn't a strange partner. If you are thinking of passing 3H, is it for the reason given in the last paragraph? Or could it be because you know that last week you were playing Flannery? Perhaps you remember a previous occasion when he forgot a change in system? You see everyone reading all these replies *knows* that you are not just guessing in the dark if you pass 3H: you are relying on some additional information, namely that you were playing Flannery recently. OK, but is it authorised information? Time for the Law book. Law 40 - Partnership Understandings A. Right to Choose Call or Play A player may make any call or play (including an intentionally misleading call - such as a psychic bid - or a call or play that departs from commonly accepted, or previously announced, use of a convention), without prior announcement, provided that such call or play is not based on a partnership understanding. So North is permitted to bid 3H, even though it departs from commonly accepted use of a convention, provided that such a call is not based on a partnership understanding: but the moment partner reads it because he knows you played Flannery last week then he has based that conclusion on partnership understanding and it is no longer acceptable. Note that this Law is the one that forbids fielding psyches [the English usage of the word fielding not the American usage] and while this is not a psyche since it is not *intentionally* misleading it is a misbid which is dealt with under this Law as well. So if you accept the term "fielding" which in England means allowing for a psyche or misbid based on a partnership understanding, ie in contravention of this Law, you realise that this Law should be applied in roughly the same way whether the call is accidental or intentional. In Great Britain we have a procedure for classifying psyches based on whether there is clear and unambiguous evidence of fielding, which we classify as Red and adjust the board; or whether there is unclear and ambiguous evidence of fielding, which we classify as Amber and do not adjust the board [unless the pair has a previous Amber psyche]; or whether there is no evidence of fielding [the normal case], which we classify as Green and obviously do not adjust the board. Well, we classify and treat Misbids in a similar way as psyches, making them Red, Amber or Green. The reason we treat them the same way is because L40A above covers both situations. So the actual hand would be treated probably [depending on the actual cards, which we haven't seen] as a Red misbid, and the score adjusted. It makes life much easier for British TDs that they do have a procedure including a classification [which is routinely reviewed by the various L&ECs in the three countries] to deal with Psyches and Misbids, and the outline of the procedure is published in the EBU's Orange book so that it will not come as a surprise to the players. The method is well known. Throughout this dissertation I have been conscious of one small problem: the hand actually happened in rubber bridge, which is played under a different Law book. I believe that all the discussion has been based on the Duplicate Law book, and I believe that is what people are interested in. Unfortunately I cannot find my Rubber Law book at the moment, and very annoyingly there does not seem to be a copy on the Net. [If anyone knows of one that I could download I should be very grateful.] My guess is that the equivalent Law to L40A will be similar, although there will be no procedures for enforcing it. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 24 00:15:24 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA09285 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 24 Oct 1996 00:15:24 +1000 Received: from pip.dknet.dk (root@pip.dknet.dk [193.88.44.48]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA09280 for ; Thu, 24 Oct 1996 00:15:14 +1000 Received: from cph44.ppp.dknet.dk (cph44.ppp.dknet.dk [194.192.100.44]) by pip.dknet.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA06902 for ; Wed, 23 Oct 1996 16:15:01 +0200 From: jd@pip.dknet.dk (Jesper Dybdal) To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Another UI situation [transferred from RGB] [long] Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 16:14:55 +0200 Organization: at home Message-ID: <327322ef.6274642@pipmail.dknet.dk> References: In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: Forte Agent .99f/32.299 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk On Wed, 23 Oct 1996 03:19:10 +0100, David Stevenson wrote: [snip] > 2D was asked, so North, who bid 2D, has UI, that his partner is not >playing Flannery. Now I don't know what 2D X 3D means in Flannery, but >presumably it is forcing otherwise several posts would have pointed out >that the 3H bid was illegal. If it wasn't forcing, of course, then we >would rule the contract back to 3D probably [based on the hand: 3H >is presumably acceptable with 5=7=0=1]. Agreed. > Now let us assume that the 3H bid is acceptable. Alan says >>The Laws clearly allow you to pass provided partner has in no way >>indicated that there might be a problem (grimacing, shaking his head >>etc.). You are always entitled to make any assumption you wish at your >>own risk. > But is this right? Assuming for the moment that North bids 3H with a >perfectly straight face then why does South pass it? Is it because he >is guessing, based on the presumption that the only credible meaning for >this bid is that partner is playing Flannery? Well, is it? This depends on the meaning, if any, of the 3H bid when playing weak 2s. > In TBW [the Bridge World] it is clear from the comments of "experts" >in the Master Solvers Club that some of them will open a weak two with >anything with a six-card suit [wimps :) ] and the required point count. >So they presumably open 2D with: > xx x > KTxxx Txxxxx > QJ9xxx QJ9xxx > -- -- > > Now I think that they are crazy, but some of them do it. What will >they do after 2D X 3D NB? They certainly won't pass! So perhaps they >will bid 3H! [Please don't write explaining that you would rebid 4C to >show the void or something: fine, just change the hand: my point is that >the sequence exists on *some* hand after a weak two opening.] > > So where is the difficulty? > > If you consider that a strange partner would have this type of hand so >rarely that it was considerably more likely that he was playing Flannery >*and* had forgotten *and* had a suitable hand to bid 3H legally then you >are permitted to pass. Pardon me while I snort. :):) > > I repeat, where is the difficulty? > > It isn't a strange partner. If you are thinking of passing 3H, is it >for the reason given in the last paragraph? Or could it be because you >know that last week you were playing Flannery? Perhaps you remember a >previous occasion when he forgot a change in system? _My_ partner would definitely not have one of the 2-suited hands quoted above for a weak 2D, and I would therefore know positively that the 2D bid was not intended as a weak 2D. I would alert 3H and explain that partner was obviously not playing a weak 2D and that we had been playing Flannery recently. In that case the question is whether the event allows the use of a partnership understanding of the type "we play weak 2s and it can be assumed to be Flannery when we forget". I would allow that in Denmark. In the following, I'll assume that this is a partner who might intentionally open a weak 2D and then bid 3H in this sequence. > You see everyone reading all these replies *knows* that you are not >just guessing in the dark if you pass 3H: you are relying on some >additional information, namely that you were playing Flannery recently. >OK, but is it authorised information? Time for the Law book. [L40A snipped] > So North is permitted to bid 3H, even though it departs from commonly >accepted use of a convention, provided that such a call is not based on >a partnership understanding: but the moment partner reads it because he >knows you played Flannery last week then he has based that conclusion on >partnership understanding and it is no longer acceptable. Note that >this Law is the one that forbids fielding psyches [the English usage of >the word fielding not the American usage] and while this is not a psyche >since it is not *intentionally* misleading it is a misbid which is dealt >with under this Law as well. You could also say that the irregularity here is not bidding on, but rather the failure to say as part of the 2D-explanation that "we recently changed from Flannery to weak 2s, and it would therefore not surprise me very much if it actually is a Flannery hand". With that explanation, it is a case of playing a system where 2D is ambiguous, with the weak 2D being by far the most probable. In Denmark, the convention card has a place where you must indicate whether your partner psyches "often", "rarely", or "never". The psyche frequency is therefore part of the partnership agreements, and you are therefore in some situations allowed to guess that your partner has psyched. If, for instance, your partner psyches "often" and your opponents psyche "never" and it is clear that somebody at the table has psyched, then you are definitely allowed to base your bidding and play on the fact that the psycher probably is your partner. This means, of course, that the borderline between legal psyches and illegal system agreements is even harder to define in Denmark than elsewhere. In Denmark, I would not only allow players to use the fact that their partner psyches "often", I would also in many situations allow them to use knowledge of specific situations in which partner particularly likes to psyche. This is of course allowed only if the opponents are properly informed and if it seems reasonable to use the word "psyche" for the bid - i.e., if the psyche "agreements" have not crossed the badly defined border into the area of conventions that are not allowed. Since this is the situation concerning psyches, it also seems natural to allow guessing of misbids, provided the opponents are not damaged by not knowing the partnership's history (of playing Flannery, in this case). It is not often a problem, because most players would prefer to trust their partner's 3H bid (if it can possibly make sense at all) rather than risk mistrusting a partner who was actually bidding correctly. On the other hand, under regulations where you are obliged to always assume that partner has not psyched (more usual elsewhere in the world, I believe), I agree that it seems logical to consider knowledge of the system formerly played to be equivalent to knowledge of psyching practice - and therefore not allow the pass to 3H. [snip] >Unfortunately I cannot find my Rubber Law book at the >moment, and very annoyingly there does not seem to be a copy on the Net. >[If anyone knows of one that I could download I should be very >grateful.] My guess is that the equivalent Law to L40A will be similar, >although there will be no procedures for enforcing it. I was able to find my copy; your guess is correct. -- Jesper Dybdal From owner-bridge-laws Thu Oct 24 02:57:24 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA11577 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Thu, 24 Oct 1996 02:57:24 +1000 Received: from emout04.mail.aol.com (emout04.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.95]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA11571 for ; Thu, 24 Oct 1996 02:57:15 +1000 From: AlLeBendig@aol.com Received: by emout04.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA23588 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Wed, 23 Oct 1996 12:56:40 -0400 Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 12:56:40 -0400 Message-ID: <961023125638_1481233898@emout04.mail.aol.com> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Another UI situation [transferred from RGB] [long] Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk In a message dated 96-10-22 22:34:40 EDT, David S. writes: > 2D was asked, so North, who bid 2D, has UI, that his partner is not > playing Flannery. Now I don't know what 2D X 3D means in Flannery, >but > presumably it is forcing Flannery shows 4S, 5H and 11-15 HCP. Some players have an agreement that you may do it with 6H. Most I know would play 2D X 3D as non-forcing. That is certainly a logical assumption. The double is usually treated as a NT strength hand.. >otherwise several posts would have pointed out > that the 3H bid was illegal. If it wasn't forcing, of course, then we > would rule the contract back to 3D probably [based on the hand: 3H > is presumably acceptable with 5=7=0=1]. I was trying to point that out. I thought it most likely that the 3H bid may have to be retracted. 3H would have been acceptable with the 5=7=0=1. Flannery would not have been acceptable. > Now let us assume that the 3H bid is acceptable. Alan says > >The Laws clearly allow you to pass provided partner has in no way > >indicated that there might be a problem (grimacing, shaking his head > >etc.). You are always entitled to make any assumption you wish at your > >own risk. > But is this right? Assuming for the moment that North bids 3H with a > perfectly straight face then why does South pass it? Is it because he > is guessing, based on the presumption that the only credible meaning for > this bid is that partner is playing Flannery? Well, is it? > > In TBW [the Bridge World] it is clear from the comments of "experts" > in the Master Solvers Club that some of them will open a weak two with > anything with a six-card suit [wimps :) ] and the required point count. > So they presumably open 2D with: > xx x > KTxxx Txxxxx > QJ9xxx QJ9xxx > -- -- I find this presumption incredible, David!. Their basic approach is that any 6 card suit is fine. I don't think you would find these "experts" willing to open a weak two in diamonds on either hand you present. Maybe hearts, but certainly not diamonds. > Now I think that they are crazy, but some of them do it. What will > they do after 2D X 3D NB? They certainly won't pass! So perhaps they > will bid 3H! [Please don't write explaining that you would rebid 4C to > show the void or something: fine, just change the hand: my point is that > the sequence exists on *some* hand after a weak two opening.] I agree that the auction is possible. It could be a 6-4 or maybe a 6-5 (sick). > So where is the difficulty? > > If you consider that a strange partner would have this type of hand so > rarely that it was considerably more likely that he was playing Flannery > *and* had forgotten *and* had a suitable hand to bid 3H legally then you > are permitted to pass. Pardon me while I snort. :):) It depends what you are snorting.:-) I am allowed to make any presumption I wish. If I know that we were playing Flannery until recently and suspect that partner may have such a hand, I do not believe that is UI. I would have to inform the opponents of that possibility after the 3H bid. Such knowledge is not UI, IMO. If I choose to pass, I am taking a chance that I may be wrong. If partner has the red hand, this could be a mistake. If partner has the Flannery hand, the bid may very well be removed. I am permitted to guess and be right as long as my opponents know that such a guess is being made with some history. > I repeat, where is the difficulty? > > It isn't a strange partner. If you are thinking of passing 3H, is it > for the reason given in the last paragraph? Or could it be because you > know that last week you were playing Flannery? Perhaps you remember a > previous occasion when he forgot a change in system? Again, I don't believe that is UI. A possible tendency is not UI. > You see everyone reading all these replies *knows* that you are not > just guessing in the dark if you pass 3H: you are relying on some > additional information, namely that you were playing Flannery recently. > OK, but is it authorised information? Time for the Law book. > > > > Law 40 - Partnership Understandings > > A. Right to Choose Call or Play > A player may make any call or play (including an intentionally > misleading call - such as a psychic bid - or a call or play that > departs from commonly accepted, or previously announced, use of > a convention), without prior announcement, provided that such > call or play is not based on a partnership understanding. > > > > So North is permitted to bid 3H, even though it departs from commonly > accepted use of a convention, provided that such a call is not based on > a partnership understanding: but the moment partner reads it because he > knows you played Flannery last week then he has based that conclusion on > partnership understanding and it is no longer acceptable. Did they have an understanding that they would forget this convention? Where is the understanding? If I have knowledge that my partner would not open a weak 2 with a very "off shape" hand than I clearly have bridge reasons for believing the 3H bid is very natural. My opponents are entitled to this explanation. If an occasional partner, than I am guessing when I choose to pass. I am permitted to be correct. If part of my rationale is that we played Flannery until recently, I must disclose that. But since it is not an agreement to forget Flannery, there is nothing illegal about me drawing such a conclusion. >Note that > this Law is the one that forbids fielding psyches [the English usage of > the word fielding not the American usage] and while this is not a psyche > since it is not *intentionally* misleading it is a misbid which is dealt > with under this Law as well. I really believe that our usage of the term "fielding a psyche" is going to be the same as yours, David. I see no correlation (sp?) to this case. We are very hard on a pair when there is a psyche by one player and the other one "guesses" right before it is possible to do so in a bridge sense. Since this is a different category, guessing right is not prohibited unless we suspect there was some silly agreement to forget conventions on a regular basis. > So if you accept the term "fielding" which in England means allowing > for a psyche or misbid based on a partnership understanding, ie in > contravention of this Law, I totally accept that premise. >you realise that this Law should be applied > in roughly the same way whether the call is accidental or intentional. I do not. > In Great Britain we have a procedure for classifying psyches based on > whether there is clear and unambiguous evidence of fielding, which we > classify as Red and adjust the board; or whether there is unclear and > ambiguous evidence of fielding, which we classify as Amber and do not > adjust the board [unless the pair has a previous Amber psyche]; or > whether there is no evidence of fielding [the normal case], which we > classify as Green and obviously do not adjust the board. > > Well, we classify and treat Misbids in a similar way as psyches, > making them Red, Amber or Green. The reason we treat them the same way > is because L40A above covers both situations. So the actual hand would > be treated probably [depending on the actual cards, which we haven't > seen] as a Red misbid, and the score adjusted. It makes life much > easier for British TDs that they do have a procedure including a > classification [which is routinely reviewed by the various L&ECs in the > three countries] to deal with Psyches and Misbids, and the outline of > the procedure is published in the EBU's Orange book so that it will not > come as a surprise to the players. The method is well known. I open 1NT with AJTx Kx AQx Kxxx. Partner bids 4H (Texas Transfer to 4S). I alert and bid 4S. Partner now bids 5H. We are playing behind screens. We added Texas a month ago and it has not come up before. This could be Exclusion (5H). It could also be natural and partner forgot. It could also be a cue bid with Kxxxxxxx Axx x x. Suppose I pass and it turns out to be natural. Partner holds xx AQJTxxx x xxx. Would this be labeled as Red by your classifications? Would you identify where the infraction occurred in this example? I can't imagine questioning the 5H bid even without the screens. And I would probably allow the NT hand to guess and be right as long as there wasn't a hint of UI. The first usage of the convention does not qualify as such, IMO. I like your color coding for psyches. I truly wish we could keep records in a manner to enable such a practice. I do feel that there is a clear difference between psyches and what we are discussing here. > Throughout this dissertation I have been conscious of one small > problem: the hand actually happened in rubber bridge, which is played > under a different Law book. I believe that all the discussion has been > based on the Duplicate Law book, and I believe that is what people are > interested in. Unfortunately I cannot find my Rubber Law book at the I play in some rubber games that use the Duplicate Law Book. I don't find it innappropriate that we are discussing it in this sense. Besides, I'm not sure where my Rubber Law book is. Alan LeBendig, Los Angeles From owner-bridge-laws Fri Oct 25 03:02:48 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA00932 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 03:02:48 +1000 Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net (relay-1.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.140]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA00927 for ; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 03:02:39 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net id ab19227; 24 Oct 96 17:54 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa19259; 24 Oct 96 17:52 BST Message-ID: Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 16:23:59 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Another UI situation [transferred from RGB] [long] In-Reply-To: <961023125638_1481233898@emout04.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.01 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Alan LeBendig wrote: >David S. writes: [s] >> Now let us assume that the 3H bid is acceptable. Alan says >> >The Laws clearly allow you to pass provided partner has in no way >> >indicated that there might be a problem (grimacing, shaking his head >> >etc.). You are always entitled to make any assumption you wish at your >> >own risk. >> But is this right? Assuming for the moment that North bids 3H with a >> perfectly straight face then why does South pass it? Is it because he >> is guessing, based on the presumption that the only credible meaning for >> this bid is that partner is playing Flannery? Well, is it? >> >> In TBW [the Bridge World] it is clear from the comments of "experts" >> in the Master Solvers Club that some of them will open a weak two with >> anything with a six-card suit [wimps :) ] and the required point count. >> So they presumably open 2D with: >> xx x >> KTxxx Txxxxx >> QJ9xxx QJ9xxx >> -- -- >I find this presumption incredible, David!. Their basic approach is that any >6 card suit is fine. I don't think you would find these "experts" willing to >open a weak two in diamonds on either hand you present. Maybe hearts, but >certainly not diamonds. Well, I don't understand this strange bidding method. I have glanced through TBWs and in the Master Solvers' Club I have found an example of bidding with a very powerful 6-5 with the intention [expressed] of bidding again. I consider unlikely that such people are only prepared to do that if the main suit is a major. Even your paragraph above seems inconsistent to me. You say >Their basic approach is that any 6 card suit is fine. and then say that a hand with six diamonds and five hearts will not be opened a weak two. Without necessarily giving any examples, I venture to suggest that the top American bidders will find some hand that they are willing to open 2D and progress when it is raised albeit preemptively. >I agree that the auction is possible. It could be a 6-4 or maybe a 6-5 >(sick). Exactly. So we do not need to consider what the hand is. >> So where is the difficulty? >> >> If you consider that a strange partner would have this type of hand so >> rarely that it was considerably more likely that he was playing Flannery >> *and* had forgotten *and* had a suitable hand to bid 3H legally then you >> are permitted to pass. Pardon me while I snort. :):) >It depends what you are snorting.:-) I am allowed to make any presumption I >wish. If I know that we were playing Flannery until recently and suspect >that partner may have such a hand, I do not believe that is UI. I would have >to inform the opponents of that possibility after the 3H bid. Such knowledge >is not UI, IMO. If I choose to pass, I am taking a chance that I may be >wrong. If partner has the red hand, this could be a mistake. If partner has >the Flannery hand, the bid may very well be removed. I am permitted to guess >and be right as long as my opponents know that such a guess is being made >with some history. My belief is that you are confusing L40A and L40B. Please see later. >> I repeat, where is the difficulty? >> >> It isn't a strange partner. If you are thinking of passing 3H, is it >> for the reason given in the last paragraph? Or could it be because you >> know that last week you were playing Flannery? Perhaps you remember a >> previous occasion when he forgot a change in system? > >Again, I don't believe that is UI. A possible tendency is not UI. The trouble is that we all know what UI is normally, and this is not a UI problem [despite the original poster's choice of Subject, and subject to our premise that the 3H bid is allowable]. >> You see everyone reading all these replies *knows* that you are not >> just guessing in the dark if you pass 3H: you are relying on some >> additional information, namely that you were playing Flannery recently. >> OK, but is it authorised information? Time for the Law book. Law 40 - Partnership Understandings A. Right to Choose Call or Play A player may make any call or play (including an intentionally misleading call - such as a psychic bid - or a call or play that departs from commonly accepted, or previously announced, use of a convention), without prior announcement, provided that such call or play is not based on a partnership understanding. B. Concealed Partnership Understandings Prohibited A player may not make a call or play based on a special partnership understanding unless an opposing pair may reasonably be expected to understand its meaning, or unless his side discloses the use of such call or play in accordance with the regulations of the sponsoring organization. >> So North is permitted to bid 3H, even though it departs from commonly >> accepted use of a convention, provided that such a call is not based on >> a partnership understanding: but the moment partner reads it because he >> knows you played Flannery last week then he has based that conclusion on >> partnership understanding and it is no longer acceptable. >Did they have an understanding that they would forget this convention? Where >is the understanding? If I have knowledge that my partner would not open a >weak 2 with a very "off shape" hand than I clearly have bridge reasons for >believing the 3H bid is very natural. My opponents are entitled to this >explanation. If an occasional partner, than I am guessing when I choose to >pass. I am permitted to be correct. If part of my rationale is that we >played Flannery until recently, I must disclose that. But since it is not an >agreement to forget Flannery, there is nothing illegal about me drawing such >a conclusion. Hold everything! A partnership understanding is *not* the same as an explicit partnership agreement. Of course they did not have an *agreement* that they would forget this convention! But it is covered by partnership understanding. You and your partner know things about each other, about your likes, dislikes, your habits [I very nearly put love life: it seemed so apposite, somehow]; you know what bids have been made in the past and what was said; what mistakes have been made and what successes; what gets forgotten, what systems you have discarded; and so on. This is your partnership understanding. When you say that part of your rationale is that you used Flannery until recently, and you must disclose that, but you may use it, you are wrong. It is part of your partnership understanding. L40B says you must disclose such agreements: L40A says you must not use such agreements unless they are previously announced, and acceptable under L40D [regulation of conventions]. If you decide to permit psyches to be fielded in the ACBL, then you do so under L40D, subject to the opponents being satisfactorily informed under L40B, and a convention card filled in properly under L40E, otherwise there will be an adjustment under L40C. If all the above is complied with, then it is allowed to psyche and field under L40A. So if you are allowed to use partnership understandings of the sort we are discussing, namely history of convention use, then it has to be legal under L40D. Is a 2D bid that is a weak two, but taking notice of the fact that we used to play Flannery, GCC-legal? I bet it isn't! How would you describe it on a convention card under L40E? 2D=Weak [last week Flannery]? How do you describe it to you opponents when they ask what 2D is? We play it as weak, but we have only just changed from playing it as Flannery? *Note:* It is not good enough to give this answer after the 3H bid: it has to be given in answer to the 2D bid for this to be legal. One of the problems with this whole business is a basic assumption about Flannery, namely that it is likely. You say: >If I have knowledge that my partner would not open a >weak 2 with a very "off shape" hand than I clearly have bridge reasons for >believing the 3H bid is very natural. I totally agree. But what on earth has that got to do with Flannery? In England anyone who considered partner's 3H bid impossible would just assume that the sequence was natural, as you say. Natural certainly means hearts and longer diamonds: over here players would think of an Acol 2D. Where does Flannery come in? It is *nothing* to do with being natural [it isn't natural] but to do with the partnership understandings. >>Note that >> this Law is the one that forbids fielding psyches [the English usage of >> the word fielding not the American usage] and while this is not a psyche >> since it is not *intentionally* misleading it is a misbid which is dealt >> with under this Law as well. > >I really believe that our usage of the term "fielding a psyche" is going to >be the same as yours, David. I am basing my comments on usage on two articles on RGB recently. One of them explained how it is legal to "field" your partner's psyche so long as it is based on vulnerability, knowledge of opponents, general bridge knowledge, and so on. Of course it is legal: we would just not call it "fielding". No-one agreed with me, and I retired from the scene with an explanation that this was presumably a language thing. The other article was not dissimilar. > I see no correlation (sp?) to this case. We >are very hard on a pair when there is a psyche by one player and the other >one "guesses" right before it is possible to do so in a bridge sense. Since >this is a different category, guessing right is not prohibited unless we >suspect there was some silly agreement to forget conventions on a regular >basis. It is *not* a different category. They are both offences under L40A. You do not allow guesses based on partnership understandings based on psyches, so this is the same. it is nothing to do with your "silly agreement". Please re-read L40A with an open mind. I believe that you are making a mistake because this idea is new to you. Consider that, while it refers to psyches, it is only an example, and the Law refers to all calls and all partnership understandings. Note the distinction between L40A and L40B: very few people ever separate them but you must to understand these matters. Finally, consider how your method of dealing with a psyche is legal. Suppose a player has eleven points and passes, LHO passes and partner opens a Spanish spade [+]; RHO bids 1NT and this player passes. Of course partner has psyched. So it has been fielded, but how do you deal with it under the Law? The answer is that it is an infraction of L40A, using a concealed understanding, and the understanding is the propensity to psyche, and the likelihood of psyching in particular positions. Now tell me what is different, *under the Law*, about fielding a misbid. [+] A Spanish spade: Ferdinand [ferd-in-hand]. Oh well! -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Oct 25 03:57:17 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA01181 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 03:57:17 +1000 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (cfa.harvard.edu [128.103.40.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA01175 for ; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 03:57:09 +1000 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA31722; Thu, 24 Oct 1996 13:57:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id NAA07048; Thu, 24 Oct 1996 13:59:11 -0400 Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 13:59:11 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199610241759.NAA07048@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au, newsr@blakjak.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: Another UI situation [transferred from RGB] [long] X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > From: David Stevenson > Law 40 - Partnership Understandings > > A. Right to Choose Call or Play > A player may make any call or play (including an intentionally > misleading call - such as a psychic bid - or a call or play that > departs from commonly accepted, or previously announced, use of > a convention), without prior announcement, provided that such > call or play is not based on a partnership understanding. > > B. Concealed Partnership Understandings Prohibited > A player may not make a call or play based on a special partnership > understanding unless an opposing pair may reasonably be expected > to understand its meaning, or unless his side discloses the use > of such call or play in accordance with the regulations of the > sponsoring organization. > When you say that part of your rationale is that you used Flannery > until recently, and you must disclose that, but you may use it, you are > wrong. It is part of your partnership understanding. L40B says you > must disclose such agreements: L40A says you must not use such > agreements unless they are previously announced, and acceptable under > L40D [regulation of conventions]. Come, David. You know better than that. Law 40A says no such thing as you say. You are committing the fallacy of "assuming the converse." Law 40A says you may psyche or otherwise depart from announced agreements, subject to certain conditions, and regardless of other laws and regulations. It does _not_ prohibit _any_ calls whatsoever, but calls that are not allowed under L40A may be disallowed under other Laws and regulations. > If you decide to permit psyches to be > fielded in the ACBL, then you do so under L40D, subject to the opponents > being satisfactorily informed under L40B, and a convention card filled > in properly under L40E, otherwise there will be an adjustment under > L40C. If all the above is complied with, then it is allowed to psyche > and field under L40A. Likely all correct, but irrelevant to the original case. We are not talking about a psyche, which is a _deliberate_ and gross misstatement. > So if you are allowed to use partnership understandings of the sort we > are discussing, namely history of convention use, then it has to be > legal under L40D. I don't think I buy this, though I would welcome further discussion. Somehow I have the feeling that "I forgot" is different from an illegal convention. Your point will no doubt be that a TD or AC cannot distinguish the two cases and must treat them alike, but I think in practice it will not be hard to distinguish them most of the time. We could certainly find examples of "two-way" bids that are legal. One is 1NT-P-2H (=spades or "I forgot and really have hearts"). This is a legal convention under the GCC, though perhaps not in other jurisdictions. > How do you describe it to you opponents when they ask > what 2D is? We play it as weak, but we have only just changed from > playing it as Flannery? The relevant Law is 40B, and your last sentence seems pretty good to me. One might add a word about how common or otherwise it is to forget partnership agreements. > *Note:* It is not good enough to give this > answer after the 3H bid: it has to be given in answer to the 2D bid for > this to be legal. Well, yes, but we have just an ordinary case of misinformation, which we adjudicate in the usual way. If the damage has already happened before the 3H bid and the additional explanation, we may adjust. However, if a corrected and full explanation is given immediately after the 3H bid, we would never adjust any alleged damage from, say, misdefense. > I am basing my comments on usage on two articles on RGB recently. One > of them explained how it is legal to "field" your partner's psyche so > long as it is based on vulnerability, knowledge of opponents, general > bridge knowledge, and so on. Of course it is legal: we would just not > call it "fielding". No-one agreed with me, and I retired from the scene > with an explanation that this was presumably a language thing. Language comment: over here, "fielding" would mean something like "recognizing to be psychic." The recognition could come either from bridge logic or from prior experience, either disclosed or undisclosed. I gather -- and please correct me -- the British would use "fielding" only for undisclosed prior experience. > It is *not* a different category. They are both offences under L40A. > You do not allow guesses based on partnership understandings based on > psyches, so this is the same. it is nothing to do with your "silly > agreement". "Fielding" in what I take to be the British sense is not an offense under L40A but rather under L40B or possibly D or E. It is not the recognition or prior experience that is the offense but rather the lack of disclosure. Of course the bid itself may also be illegal if it is an illegal convention, and there is enough partnership experience for it to be recognized as such. > Please re-read L40A with an open mind. A good idea. Exactly which words do you read as prohibiting any action? > Finally, consider how your method of dealing with a psyche is legal. > Suppose a player has eleven points and passes, LHO passes and partner > opens a Spanish spade [+]; RHO bids 1NT and this player passes. Of > course partner has psyched. So it has been fielded, but how do you deal > with it under the Law? The answer is that it is an infraction of L40A, > using a concealed understanding, and the understanding is the propensity > to psyche, and the likelihood of psyching in particular positions. Now > tell me what is different, *under the Law*, about fielding a misbid. > > [+] A Spanish spade: Ferdinand [ferd-in-hand]. Oh well! The legality of the 1S bid is adjudicated initially under L40A and, if not permitted under that Law, under L40D and the relevant convention charts. An _agreement_ to open 1S with less than 8 HCP would be illegal in the ACBL, but possibly it would be legal in other jurisdictions. A 2S opener, on the other hand, would be legal as long as it shows at least five spades. The legality of responder's pass would be adjudicated under L40B. It would be legal if opener's tendencies have been properly disclosed. In the example, the initial 2D opening is probably legal under L40A, at least the first time it happens. It is apparently not based on a partnership agreement but rather on an accident. The potential pass of 3H needs to be adjudicated under L40B, and it's legal as long as the relevant information is disclosed to the opponents. Incidentally, if the auction goes: 2D-P-3D-P; 3H-P-(now the corrected explanation), the third pass may be changed under L21B1. From owner-bridge-laws Fri Oct 25 07:19:34 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA09905 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 07:19:34 +1000 Received: from mail1.cais.com (mail1.cais.com [199.0.216.5]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA09900 for ; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 07:19:28 +1000 Received: from elandau.cais.com.cais.com ([204.157.58.181]) by mail1.cais.com (8.7.5/8.7.5-CAIS) with SMTP id QAA17463 for ; Thu, 24 Oct 1996 16:53:12 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19961024211848.0068e628@cais.com> X-Sender: elandau@cais.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 17:18:48 -0400 To: Bridge Laws Discussion List From: Eric Landau Subject: Re: Another UI situation [transferred from RGB] Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk At 04:23 PM 10/24/96 +0100, you wrote: > Hold everything! A partnership understanding is *not* the same as an >explicit partnership agreement. Of course they did not have an >*agreement* that they would forget this convention! But it is covered >by partnership understanding. You and your partner know things about >each other, about your likes, dislikes, your habits [I very nearly put >love life: it seemed so apposite, somehow]; you know what bids have been >made in the past and what was said; what mistakes have been made and >what successes; what gets forgotten, what systems you have discarded; >and so on. This is your partnership understanding. Once you get into the murky waters where "known tendency" is equivalent to "implicit partnership understanding", which is in turn treated as though it were an explicit agreement, you had better include partner's love life! Suppose I know that my male partner was dating my female LHO until a couple of weeks ago, when she dumped him. I know him well enough to know that as a result he will be angry with her, and will relish the opportunity to beat her badly at the bridge table. So he will be looking for a top score on every board against her. Therefore, he will be bidding very agressively. Now partner opens 1S, I bid 2S, and he makes a game try. I have a marginal hand with which I would usually accept, but since I know that he will be stretching under the circumstances I decide to sign off in 3S. Is this legal? If so, am I required to disclose this "understanding" to the opponents when they ask about his game try? Do I have to alert, since the "understanding" is presumably unexpected (by at least one opponent)? Does the AC adjust my score when the opponents misdefend, thinking I had a somewhat weaker hand than what I actually held? Is this situation really very different from the case at hand? As a totally irrelevant aside, I keep thinking as I read about this case that it could never happen around here. That's because just about everyone who plays Flannery in this area plays 2D-P-3D as a transfer to 3H! Eric Landau APL Solutions, Inc. elandau@cais.com 1107 Dale Drive (301) 589-4621 Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 Fax (301) 589-4618 USA From owner-bridge-laws Fri Oct 25 09:10:38 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA10587 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 09:10:38 +1000 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA10579 for ; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 09:10:19 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ai18368; 25 Oct 96 0:06 BST Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa28828; 25 Oct 96 0:03 BST Message-ID: Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 23:36:56 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Another UI situation [transferred from RGB] In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19961024211848.0068e628@cais.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.01 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Eric Landau wrote: >David Stevenson wrote: >> Hold everything! A partnership understanding is *not* the same as an >>explicit partnership agreement. Of course they did not have an >>*agreement* that they would forget this convention! But it is covered >>by partnership understanding. You and your partner know things about >>each other, about your likes, dislikes, your habits [I very nearly put >>love life: it seemed so apposite, somehow]; you know what bids have been >>made in the past and what was said; what mistakes have been made and >>what successes; what gets forgotten, what systems you have discarded; >>and so on. This is your partnership understanding. >Once you get into the murky waters where "known tendency" is equivalent to >"implicit partnership understanding", which is in turn treated as though it >were an explicit agreement, you had better include partner's love life! > >Suppose I know that my male partner was dating my female LHO until a couple >of weeks ago, when she dumped him. I know him well enough to know that as a >result he will be angry with her, and will relish the opportunity to beat >her badly at the bridge table. So he will be looking for a top score on >every board against her. Therefore, he will be bidding very agressively. > >Now partner opens 1S, I bid 2S, and he makes a game try. I have a marginal >hand with which I would usually accept, but since I know that he will be >stretching under the circumstances I decide to sign off in 3S. > >Is this legal? Yes [he says hopefully, knowing he will be utterly destroyed otherwise!]. What I argued is that a fielded misbid is illegal under L40A unless you are allowed to play a bid as such-and-such unless he has forgotten. Clearly this is different since you are allowed to play a bid as slightly different based on the state of play. >If so, am I required to disclose this "understanding" to the opponents when >they ask about his game try? According to L75C you have to include partnership experience but not general knowledge: I think that you do need to disclose this one. >Do I have to alert, since the "understanding" is presumably unexpected (by >at least one opponent)? This is the only easy question! Thanks! Whether you have to alert is a matter for the SO to regulate, so look it up in the ACBL regulations! >Does the AC adjust my score when the opponents misdefend, thinking I had a >somewhat weaker hand than what I actually held? To be honest, this is easy: if there was a breach of Law, then yes, otherwise, no: so it is back to two and three questions ago. >Is this situation really very different from the case at hand? Goodness, I hope so! I think that this is a very interesting rebuttal to what I am suggesting and does make me think deeply about Laws and regulations that I have followed for years unquestioningly. I still believe that it is L40A that legalises or otherwise "fielding" in the British meaning: see my arguments in reply to Steve Willner. But whether fielded psyches and misbids are really illegal depends on an in- depth reading of these Laws, and now that I have read L75 it is getting worse. L75 really adds to L40B and L40D, and refers to L40C, but does not IMO affect L40A. >As a totally irrelevant aside, I keep thinking as I read about this case >that it could never happen around here. That's because just about everyone >who plays Flannery in this area plays 2D-P-3D as a transfer to 3H! Eh? Shouldn't this read "it is quite likely to happen around here"? After all, someone who gives up Flannery will be very sure that his partner has forgotten when he completes the normal transfer. That is like 1D 1NT NB 2H=Natural; NB 2S: everyone really knows what this means. OTOH [damn: that's not on my list: On the other hand] opener will probably alert 3D, and now it becomes a boring old UI hand. -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Fri Oct 25 10:45:46 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id KAA10981 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 10:45:46 +1000 Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA10974 for ; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 10:45:35 +1000 Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([(null)]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id aa26893; 25 Oct 96 0:45 GMT Received: from blakjak.demon.co.uk ([194.222.6.72]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa15479; 25 Oct 96 1:43 BST Message-ID: Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 01:41:08 +0100 To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au From: David Stevenson Reply-To: David Stevenson Subject: Re: Another UI situation [transferred from RGB] [long] In-Reply-To: <199610241759.NAA07048@cfa183.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike Version 3.01 Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk Steve Willner wrote: >> From: David Stevenson >> Law 40 - Partnership Understandings >> >> A. Right to Choose Call or Play >> A player may make any call or play (including an intentionally >> misleading call - such as a psychic bid - or a call or play that >> departs from commonly accepted, or previously announced, use of >> a convention), without prior announcement, provided that such >> call or play is not based on a partnership understanding. >> >> B. Concealed Partnership Understandings Prohibited >> A player may not make a call or play based on a special partnership >> understanding unless an opposing pair may reasonably be expected >> to understand its meaning, or unless his side discloses the use >> of such call or play in accordance with the regulations of the >> sponsoring organization. > >> When you say that part of your rationale is that you used Flannery >> until recently, and you must disclose that, but you may use it, you are >> wrong. It is part of your partnership understanding. L40B says you >> must disclose such agreements: L40A says you must not use such >> agreements unless they are previously announced, and acceptable under >> L40D [regulation of conventions]. > >Come, David. You know better than that. Law 40A says no such thing as >you say. You are committing the fallacy of "assuming the converse." >Law 40A says you may psyche or otherwise depart from announced >agreements, subject to certain conditions, and regardless of other laws >and regulations. It does _not_ prohibit _any_ calls whatsoever, but >calls that are not allowed under L40A may be disallowed under other >Laws and regulations. You may do [A] provided that [B]. IMO that does include the converse: I read that to say that if you do not do [B] then you may not do [A]. It's not just a logic thing: it is the actual meaning IMO of "provided that": furthermore, if read otherwise then this Law is meaningless and should be discarded, since otherwise it means you can do whatever you like. >> If you decide to permit psyches to be >> fielded in the ACBL, then you do so under L40D, subject to the opponents >> being satisfactorily informed under L40B, and a convention card filled >> in properly under L40E, otherwise there will be an adjustment under >> L40C. If all the above is complied with, then it is allowed to psyche >> and field under L40A. > >Likely all correct, but irrelevant to the original case. We are not >talking about a psyche, which is a _deliberate_ and gross misstatement. Well either you agree or you disagree with my logic. I am talking about psyches because I am saying that the basic Law is the same and therefore the procedure is the same. Of course you can disagree with that, bit I don't think it is fair to dismiss part of it as irrelevant. >> So if you are allowed to use partnership understandings of the sort we >> are discussing, namely history of convention use, then it has to be >> legal under L40D. > >I don't think I buy this, though I would welcome further discussion. >Somehow I have the feeling that "I forgot" is different from an illegal >convention. Your point will no doubt be that a TD or AC cannot >distinguish the two cases and must treat them alike, but I think in >practice it will not be hard to distinguish them most of the time. My arguments are just about never based on the ability of TDs and ACs to investigate, and *certainly* they are not based on that in any way in this case. My argument is simply that we are applying the same Law therefore the procedure should be generally the same. >We could certainly find examples of "two-way" bids that are legal. One >is 1NT-P-2H (=spades or "I forgot and really have hearts"). This is a >legal convention under the GCC, though perhaps not in other >jurisdictions. > >> How do you describe it to you opponents when they ask >> what 2D is? We play it as weak, but we have only just changed from >> playing it as Flannery? > >The relevant Law is 40B, and your last sentence seems pretty good to >me. One might add a word about how common or otherwise it is to >forget partnership agreements. No: the relevant Law is L40A: that is the Law that makes it legal or otherwise to bid this way. L40B requires it to be disclosed correctly, which is a different argument. >> *Note:* It is not good enough to give this >> answer after the 3H bid: it has to be given in answer to the 2D bid for >> this to be legal. > >Well, yes, but we have just an ordinary case of misinformation, which >we adjudicate in the usual way. If the damage has already happened >before the 3H bid and the additional explanation, we may adjust. >However, if a corrected and full explanation is given immediately after >the 3H bid, we would never adjust any alleged damage from, say, >misdefense. True, as regards the L40B side. >> I am basing my comments on usage on two articles on RGB recently. One >> of them explained how it is legal to "field" your partner's psyche so >> long as it is based on vulnerability, knowledge of opponents, general >> bridge knowledge, and so on. Of course it is legal: we would just not >> call it "fielding". No-one agreed with me, and I retired from the scene >> with an explanation that this was presumably a language thing. > >Language comment: over here, "fielding" would mean something like >"recognizing to be psychic." The recognition could come either from >bridge logic or from prior experience, either disclosed or >undisclosed. I gather -- and please correct me -- the British would >use "fielding" only for undisclosed prior experience. Correct: this seems to be our linguistic difference. >> It is *not* a different category. They are both offences under L40A. >> You do not allow guesses based on partnership understandings based on >> psyches, so this is the same. it is nothing to do with your "silly >> agreement". > >"Fielding" in what I take to be the British sense is not an offense >under L40A but rather under L40B or possibly D or E. It is not the >recognition or prior experience that is the offense but rather the >lack of disclosure. And this is the main point about which we differ. >Of course the bid itself may also be illegal if it is an illegal >convention, and there is enough partnership experience for it to be >recognized as such. >> Please re-read L40A with an open mind. > >A good idea. Exactly which words do you read as prohibiting any action? Primarily "provided that". [s] -- David Stevenson Bridge Cats Railways Logic /\_/\ Liverpool, England, UK http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk =( ^*^ )= david@blakjak.demon.co.uk Emails welcome bluejak on OKB ( | | ) Tel: +44 (0)151 677 7412 Phone before Fax please RTFLB (_~^ ^~ From owner-bridge-laws Sat Oct 26 02:20:11 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA18126 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 26 Oct 1996 02:20:11 +1000 Received: from cfa.harvard.edu (cfa.harvard.edu [128.103.40.170]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA18121 for ; Sat, 26 Oct 1996 02:20:04 +1000 Received: from cfa183.harvard.edu (cfa183.harvard.edu [131.142.12.59]) by cfa.harvard.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA29658 for ; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 12:19:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cfa183.harvard.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA07356; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 12:22:13 -0400 Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 12:22:13 -0400 From: willner@cfa183.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Message-Id: <199610251622.MAA07356@cfa183.harvard.edu> To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Subject: Re: Another UI situation [transferred from RGB] [long] X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk > >> Law 40 - Partnership Understandings > >> > >> A. Right to Choose Call or Play > >> A player may make any call or play (including an intentionally > >> misleading call - such as a psychic bid - or a call or play that > >> departs from commonly accepted, or previously announced, use of > >> a convention), without prior announcement, provided that such > >> call or play is not based on a partnership understanding. First of all, I want to apologize for the tone of my previous message. I think it may have come across as being overbearing, even for an American. :-) I was very tired yesterday and didn't proofread as carefully as I might have. > From: David Stevenson > You may do [A] provided that [B]. IMO that does include the converse: > I read that to say that if you do not do [B] then you may not do [A]. > It's not just a logic thing: it is the actual meaning IMO of "provided > that": At least we have identified our disagreement. I don't believe the converse is implied, either in logic or by the context of the rest of the Laws. > furthermore, if read otherwise then this Law is meaningless and > should be discarded, since otherwise it means you can do whatever you > like. Not at all. L40A permits "out of the blue" psyches and false cards, regardless of other Laws and regulations. It also disallows any adjustment for a mistake that happens to work out well as long as there is no partnership history of similar mistakes. Other actions, and required disclosures, are regulated elsewhere. I'm afraid I am at a loss to discover any other meaning. There is one further point that might bear being made explicit. There is a distinction between an illegal action and a failure to disclose. Examples of the former include insufficient bids and such and also conventions not permitted by the applicable charts. Examples of the latter are the ordinary sorts of misinformation and also (I would argue) failure to disclose partnership tendencies in addition to formal agreements. In deciding whether to adjust a score, and if so, how, we should be careful to distinguish which type of infraction we are adjusting for. From owner-bridge-laws Sat Oct 26 18:59:21 1996 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA23069 for bridge-laws-outgoing; Sat, 26 Oct 1996 18:59:21 +1000 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by octavia.anu.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA23064 for ; Sat, 26 Oct 1996 18:59:12 +1000 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id JAA22026 for bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au; Sat, 26 Oct 1996 09:58:30 +0100 Date: Sat, 26 Oct 96 09:58 BST-1 From: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tim West-meads) Subject: Re: Another UI situation [transferred from RGB] To: bridge-laws@octavia.anu.edu.au Cc: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Reply-To: twm@cix.compulink.co.uk Message-Id: Sender: owner-bridge-laws Precedence: bulk What exactly is a partnership understanding? I had always believed that it involves knowledge of your partner's habits/tendencies (eg pards often shades a flat 11 count to a 12-14 NT when third in hand.) Totally legal IMO as long as it is disclosed. The case as originally presented did not seem to me to fall into this category. If the 2D bidder had recently made the same mistake then some level of understanding can be assumed. I realise that this means the TD will have to apply more judgement in these cases but I believe that this would better reflect the intentions of the lawmakers. BTW should we place anyone in the position of having to disclose eg "I consider partner's skills at hand evaluation to be non-existent". Obviously this is part of your understanding and will affect your bidding but I for one would not wish to have to admit it so bluntly, I'd like to hear pards admit it even less:-). Or how about having to announce that pards is paying you to play and the fee he considers you to be worth. Again information that the partnership shares which may be useful to opponents. As an aside it is intersting that in the given case good partnership practice (trust partner to know what he is doing and bid accordingly) actually makes the whole legal argument pointless. David Stevenson wrote: > OTOH [damn: that's not on my list: On the other hand] opener will >probably alert 3D, and now it becomes a boring old UI hand. An alert of 3D looks like a grey area in the law. Good old 16A is very clear that you may not base an action on UI. However, several readings of the law gave me the impression that an "action=call or play", this is certainly strongly implied. This would mean that an alert/failure to alert is not an action and that it would be wrong to alert the 3D bid with its Flannery meaning even though the knowledge that it is not Flannery is UI. IE a player must treat his partner's bid as Flannery when bidding but alert according to their actual agreements. This doesn't sound too unresonable as alerting according to a convention you are not playing gives MI to opponents and UI to partner. Tim West-Meads