RSliwinski

I am a litle bit surprised that people quote minutes from 2003 when there are more recent Minutes regarding the same question, namely Minutes of Laws Committee meeting in Sao Paulo on Tuesday, 8th September 2009 link 12. The committee returned to the subject of the status of information arising when a misexplanation is corrected. There was lengthy discussion following which it was determined: (a) that Law 21B1 applies in respect of a call that has been made; the Director is required to judge whether the call “could well have been influenced by misinformation given to the player”. Unless he judges that in possession of the correct information (only) the player could well have made a different call no change of call under Law 21B1 is allowed nor is an adjusted score under Law 21B3.

I do, of cource, understand the difference between 20F4 and 20F5 but this was not at issue. The question, which you now answered, was if misstaken alerts (and non-alerts) were to be treated as "misstaken explanations" also in case when this is done by myself and not by the partner. I have no problems with that but then I do not understand your earlier remark when you make difference in player's obligations when 1) the player realises his explanation was incorrect, and 2) the player realises his alert was incorrect. As I see it case 2 is a subcase of case 1 so in both cases the player has to call TD. But maybe I misunderstood you.

Law 20F5(a) A player whose partner has given a mistaken explanation may not correct the error during the auction, nor may he indicate in any manner that a mistake has been made. ‘Mistaken explanation’ here includes failure to alert or announce as regulations require or an alert (or an announcement) that regulations do not require. So when it comes to partner´s alerts (or non-alerts) they maybe cases of misstaken explanation. Do you mean that this is limited only to partner´s alerts and does not apply to my own alerts? This is of course possible and the word "here" in the law text could be interpreted this way but I am not so sure. Ton Kooijman's Law Commentary [see especially the last paragraph of his comment to Law 20] seems to contradict this reading.

No, the difference being that during the play period you can (whenever it is your turn to play) ask about the final contract but not about the auction. Law 41 b: "... Declarer or either defender may, at his first turn to play a card,require a review of the auction; this right expires when he plays a card." Law 41 c: "...declarer or either defender, at his own turn to play, is entitled to be informed as to what the contract is and whether, but not by whom, it was doubled or redoubled." So writing down the final contract is innocent but writing down the auction is not.

No he did not, but law 24 is about exposed cards during the auction period and indeed he did exposed his cards during the auction period (se law 22 B2).

Aha, this would simplify the rullings - everytime there is a question of MI or missbid, the potential missbider will always claim that his partner was right and that he missbid. No need to check anything - how simple and how wrong.

Theere are at least two strange things with appeal 3: 1) the procedure to send pard from the table seems, in this case, be at odds with the Law Committee Minutes Minutes from 1998-09-01 See also White book p 52. 2) the committee's finding that "the Law’s presumption of mistaken explanation rather than misbid does not apply when both partners agree as to the meaning" is very surprising. What support can we find for this view?

A note on an irrelevant side note: How about Law 35?

The status of three consecutive passes in the OP case is doubtful. If all the bids from the inadmissible double are to be automatically withdrawn after West's bid (by law 36)then also the three consecutive passes are withdrawn and the auction is not finished. And since there are two conditions to be fullfilled in order for the playing period to start: 1) the auction is finished 2) the opening lead is faced and the first condition is not fulfilled, so we are stil in the auction period. So all the played cards are cards exposed or played during the auction period and we can use law 24 which tells us that each player must pass when it is his turn to bid. So East, South and West must pass and now we have three consecutive passes and the auction is ended. So the contract is 1♥ by North and East and West's cards are all major penalty cards. But this does not look good. Such a formalistic approach does not take seriously law 10A which gives TD exclusive right to correct. There is no automatic correction without the TD. So I would say that the three consecutive passes stand unless TD is notified before the opening lead is faced. I would correct by giving both sides Average-. After all both sides broke the law, South by biding OOT an inadmissible double and East by biding after that - something which is forbidden by law 32. Their infractions went unmarked which made the hand unplayable, since as Barman points out law 36 seems to assume that someone will notice the inadmissible double during the auction period and when this does not happen the hand becomes unplayable.