Change of call

[dburn]

I am not quite sure I follow any of this. There is no real question of the 2♦ and 2♠ cards being stuck together, so when this person opened 2♠ it was because she had forgotten the methods. She cannot be allowed to change that under L25A: she meant to open 2♠ when she opened it; and however long it took her to realise that it was the wrong opening bid in her methods constitutes a "pause for thought", because she did some thought during it.

 

There seems also to be some suggestion that it is OK for players to give their own rulings at the table if and only if the irregularity is one frequently committed by bluejak. This is not actually the case.

 

However, by giving his own ruling at the table the player next to speak had in effect accepted the substituted call under L25B1, so the result should stand.

[Chris3875]

Reading this thread, I can only be pleased we use written bidding and not bidding boxes ...

[nige1]

No thoughts of a warning to the bidder? I have occasionally made a wrong bid - thinking about the last hand, thinking about my next bid after partner's response. I just bite my tongue and hope I haven't given any UI.

Seems like I am too naive. I should blurt out 'I've made the wrong bid'.

I think that it is relatively easy to get away with claiming an inadvertent bid when a mistaken bid is made. I don't think anybody on this list would consider it, but I would not be surprised if it happens all the time.

I discussed this topic with a group of players from Reading Bridge Club. Their view was that a slip of the hand was uncommon but we all suffer frequent slips of the mind. They could recall few genuine incidents of slips of the hand -- all by a member who had nerve-damage to his hand. For many players, it's a "Cow flew by" phenomenon, rationalised as mechanical error. Perhaps the law should be amended not to encourage and reward such behaviour.

[iviehoff]

More importantly, they asked the player whether her call was unintended, and she made it clear it was. Why the TD could not have asked this I do not know! So the result stood.

If you ask a player who has made a slip-of-the-mind whether their call is unintended, they will say "yes". Of course, they never "intended" to do that. But the meaning of "unintended" in brdige is not the same as the colloquial meaning. You have to be more subtle about discovering whether a call is "unintended" within the meaning of the laws of bridge.

 

I don't have quite the scepticism of others about the existence of unintended calls such as this. All that is necessary for it to be unintended within the laws of bridge is for the 2S card to be in your hand while you thought you had the 2D card in your hand, so it is a possibility, though another explanation seems more likely without correct investigation.

 

But although an unintended call is sufficient reason for "result stands" to be the ruling, it is not a necessary reason. Even if had not been an unintended call, the correct ruling should normally be "result stands", for just the reason that David Burn says. We should only look somewhere else if the player had misled the opposition in some way.

[nige1]

Reading this thread, I can only be pleased we use written bidding and not bidding boxes ...

I was under the impression that Australia recently changed over to bidding-boxes? Do you have UI problems with written bidding eg X/D/Dbl, XX/RD, or capitalisation?

[greenender]

I quite agree with bluejak that it is surprising that the TD ruled without investigating whether the 2♠ call was unintended. My own form of words is along the lines of "at the moment you went for the bidding cards, what call did you think you were making?" IMO this is slightly superior to "...what call did you intend to make?" notwithstanding that the Laws use the "intend..." construction, as it minimises any problems from the terminological problem identified by iviehoff.

 

I am vaguely surprised that the lady readily persuaded the AC that it was unintended, as my experience is that, particularly for players who play natural weak twos some of the time and Multi the rest, such errors tend to be momentary system forgets rather than slips of the hand. So dburn is right.

 

I confess I would have been hard pressed to think of a reason to refund LHO's appeal deposit. Whether or not the 2♠ call was unintended, all roads seem to lead to "result stands". Moreover I find it unedifying for players to appeal against their own rulings.

[bluejak]

We should only look somewhere else if the player had misled the opposition in some way.

Of course the lady's LHO thought she had. He believed when she asked that she would never have asked to change it if it had not been unintended, but later began to worry as to whether it was unintended.

 

:)

 

Reading this thread, I can only be pleased we use written bidding and not bidding boxes ...

Well now, my experience is limited, being based on directing two long major events, two small weekend events, and playing in one event, but based on those, plus problems seen in ABF forums and other similar places, I believe that there are a number of problems with written bidding, just the problems tend to be different.

[jallerton]

Are there really 20, or 12, mistaken bids made per table per round? That is impossible to believe, I would have guessed there is about 0.25 or something like that, certainly fewer than 1.

Obviously you play in clubs with better-kept bidding boxes. Some I play with are sufficiently sticky (which is not very to be sufficient) or slightlly bent such that almost every time I pull out a bid the next card comes with it. With the EBU bidding box regulations all of these are L25A corrections.

Why are these all Law 25A corrections?

 

The EBU Bidding Box Regulations are described in the EBU Orange Book:

 

7 B Bidding Boxes

7 B 1 The EBU has adopted the following procedures based on recommendations by the WBF.

7 B 2 Starting with the dealer, players place their calls on the table in front of them, from the left and neatly overlapping, so that all calls are visible and faced towards partner. Players should refrain from touching any cards in the box until they have determined their call. A call is considered to have been made when the call is removed from the bidding box with apparent intent (but the TD may apply Law 25).

Note that some left-handed bidding boxes are available, where the calls are placed in a row from right to left.

 

Take an example of the scenario you cite. You decide to bid 3NT, so you put your hand on the 3NT and lower bidding cards, and pull these out of the bidding box. The 4♣ bidding card is stuck to the 3NT card so that happens to comes out of the box at the same time. However, as your fingers will not have touched the 4♣ card it should be apparent that you did not intend to remove it from the bidding box. Hence the 4♣ call should not be considered to have been made under the definition in OB 7B2.

 

In my experience, genuine Law 25A corrections are rare.

[jallerton]

I quite agree with bluejak that it is surprising that the TD ruled without investigating whether the 2♠ call was unintended.  My own form of words is along the lines of "at the moment you went for the bidding cards, what call did you think you were making?"  IMO this is slightly superior to "...what call did you intend to make?" notwithstanding that the Laws use the "intend..." construction, as it minimises any problems from the terminological problem identified by iviehoff.

 

If the TD had been called at the point of the attempted correction, then yes the TD would have needed to have investigated. But given the timing of the TD call, the only point of investigating would be to determine under which Law the correction should have been allowed.

 

I am vaguely surprised that the lady readily persuaded the AC that it was unintended, as my experience is that, particularly for players who play natural weak twos some of the time and Multi the rest, such errors tend to be momentary system forgets rather than slips of the hand.  So dburn is right.

 

I agree.

 

I confess I would have been hard pressed to think of a reason to refund LHO's appeal deposit.  Whether or not the 2♠ call was unintended, all roads seem to lead to "result stands".  Moreover I find it unedifying for players to appeal against their own rulings.

 

I agree, although in this type of situation I would be inclined to return the deposit if I judged that both (i) the TD had failed to explain properly to the players the application of the Laws and (ii) the appellants did not themselves know the relevant Law.

[bluejak]

The EBU Bidding Box Regulations are described in the EBU Orange Book:

 

7 B Bidding Boxes

7 B 1 The EBU has adopted the following procedures based on recommendations by the WBF.

7 B 2 Starting with the dealer, players place their calls on the table in front of them, from the left and neatly overlapping, so that all calls are visible and faced towards partner. Players should refrain from touching any cards in the box until they have determined their call. A call is considered to have been made when the call is removed from the bidding box with apparent intent (but the TD may apply Law 25).

Note that some left-handed bidding boxes are available, where the calls are placed in a row from right to left.

Take an example of the scenario you cite. You decide to bid 3NT, so you put your hand on the 3NT and lower bidding cards, and pull these out of the bidding box. The 4♣ bidding card is stuck to the 3NT card so that happens to comes out of the box at the same time. However, as your fingers will not have touched the 4♣ card it should be apparent that you did not intend to remove it from the bidding box. Hence the 4♣ call should not be considered to have been made under the definition in OB 7B2.

 

In my experience, genuine Law 25A corrections are rare.

When the 4♣ bid appears it has appeared with apparent intent, therefore the call is made under the regulations you cite. Of course it may be changed under Law 25A. Such changes are frequent.

[jallerton]

Well, the other players at the table would see that the 4♣ card had not been held by the bidder. They would also soon hear a word like "whoops" and it should be apparent to the other players that there was no intent to remove the 4♣ bidding card from the box.

[blackshoe]

It doesn't seem to me that if one tries to pull 3NT out of the box, and 4♣ comes along with it, the latter will at some point fall on the table. If that happens, it doesn't seem to me that it has appeared "with intent". I suppose if it remains stuck to the rest of the cards until they're face up on the table, the appearance may be different.

[bluejak]

Are there really 20, or 12, mistaken bids made per table per round? That is impossible to believe, I would have guessed there is about 0.25 or something like that, certainly fewer than 1.

Obviously you play in clubs with better-kept bidding boxes. Some I play with are sufficiently sticky (which is not very to be sufficient) or slightlly bent such that almost every time I pull out a bid the next card comes with it. With the EBU bidding box regulations all of these are L25A corrections.

Why are these all Law 25A corrections?

 

The EBU Bidding Box Regulations are described in the EBU Orange Book:

 

7 B Bidding Boxes

7 B 1 The EBU has adopted the following procedures based on recommendations by the WBF.

7 B 2 Starting with the dealer, players place their calls on the table in front of them, from the left and neatly overlapping, so that all calls are visible and faced towards partner. Players should refrain from touching any cards in the box until they have determined their call. A call is considered to have been made when the call is removed from the bidding box with apparent intent (but the TD may apply Law 25).

Note that some left-handed bidding boxes are available, where the calls are placed in a row from right to left.

 

Take an example of the scenario you cite. You decide to bid 3NT, so you put your hand on the 3NT and lower bidding cards, and pull these out of the bidding box. The 4♣ bidding card is stuck to the 3NT card so that happens to comes out of the box at the same time. However, as your fingers will not have touched the 4♣ card it should be apparent that you did not intend to remove it from the bidding box. Hence the 4♣ call should not be considered to have been made under the definition in OB 7B2.

 

In my experience, genuine Law 25A corrections are rare.

Rather than disagree, I made sure the EBU L&EC considered this view, even though I knew it not to be what I considered the normal view.

 

The L&EC considered that if the cards were taken out of the box then a change required the use of Law 25A. Their view coincided with mine, "apparent intent" does not cover taking the wrong card out, it is just to cover some sort of accident, like knocking the box over and cards falling out.