Mechanical damage?

[nige1]

SBU, Wednesday at the club:

.W..N..E..S

2♠ _X _P 3♣

_P 3♠/3N _X All pass

West opened 2♠ (Weak). North doubled

South bid 3♣.

North bid 3♠, instantaneously corrected to 3N.

I was East and held ♠Qx ♥ Jxx ♦ KQxxxx ♣Kxx

I doubled what I thought was a 3♠ bid. I was amazed when all passed but I didn't take in what had happened until after I'd led.

I didn't call the director but if I had, how should he rule.

Result 3NX made.

At what stage, if any, should I be allowed to retract my double?

[Gerben42]

From the description, at the time you put down your Dbl the 3♠ bid was already removed and instead 3NT was on the table.

 

Misreading the auction is not a 25 A situation, so you cannot take back your Dbl at any time.

[Vampyr]

Misreading the auction is not a 25 A situation, so you cannot take back your Dbl at any time.

This is not so clear. The OP may have seen the 3♠ card being taken out and placed on the table, and looked away immediately. There is no reason for him to think that anything else will happen.

[nige1]

Gerben42 and Vampyr are both right. I did not notice the change of call. My partner told me later that I paused for thought and doubled *after* the change of call.

 

Interestingly, if gerben42 is right, another old law goes out of the window -- because, to protect yourself you must keep opponents under surveillance.

[Vampyr]

Gerben42 and Vampyr are both right. I did not notice the change of call. My partner told me later that I paused for thought and doubled *after* the change of call.

But that doesn't mean you saw the change. You were probably looking at your own cards while you were thinking.

[gordontd]

to protect yourself you must keep opponents under constant surveillance.

Some might just describe it as paying attention :rolleyes:

[blackshoe]

If a substitution is allowed, the LHO may withdraw any call he made over the first call. Information from the withdrawn call is authorized only to his side. There is no further rectification.

I am generally tough on people who aren't paying attention, but in this case I think I would allow Nigel to withdraw his double.

[jeremy69]

Might this not have been easier to resolve if the director had been called at the time so that he could approve both the change of call by North and advise as to whether Nigel could replace his double or not?

[aguahombre]

"withdraw the double? (this was to Blackshoe) After the auction was over and he had led? Or would you just adjust to 3NT undoubled with whatever result after the play?

 

This is probably a distinction without a difference, but if the double is withdrawn, the auction is still alive. If you can still use 25A to back up the auction after the opening lead, you have "no further rectification". That would include information available to partner of the opening leader. And the defense or declarer play in 3NT might be different if the contract is considered doubled during the play.

 

Edit: to clarify, OP is asking about "if" he had called the TD; that could have occurred only after OP noticed the problem, and play of the hand had begun.

Edited September 18, 2010 by aguahombre

[axman]

If a substitution is allowed, the LHO may withdraw any call he made over the first call. Information from the withdrawn call is authorized only to his side. There is no further rectification.

I am generally tough on people who aren't paying attention, but in this case I think I would allow Nigel to withdraw his double.

L21A

No rectification or redress is due to a player who acts on the basis of his own misunderstanding.

[Vampyr]

If a substitution is allowed, the LHO may withdraw any call he made over the first call. Information from the withdrawn call is authorized only to his side. There is no further rectification.

I am generally tough on people who aren't paying attention, but in this case I think I would allow Nigel to withdraw his double.

L21A

No rectification or redress is due to a player who acts on the basis of his own misunderstanding.

Seeing a bid and assuming that it won't be withdrawn is not a "misunderstanding".

[peachy]

Gerben42 and Vampyr are both right. I did not notice the change of call. My partner told me later that I paused for thought and doubled *after* the change of call.

 

Interestingly, if gerben is right, another old law goes out of the window -- because, to protect yourself you must keep opponents under constant surveillance.

Funny :) Plain old "pay attention" is enough.

 

I think Gerben is right, but in a club environment I am going to allow Nigel to remove the Dbl and tell him to pay attention please :)

[Gerben42]

I think Gerben is right, but in a club environment I am going to allow Nigel to remove the Dbl and tell him to pay attention please smile.gif

 

Sometimes in a club environment you have to make a practical ruling :)

[pran]

I am puzzled by the description: North bid 3♠, instantaneously corrected to 3N

 

If the change was instantaneous then that means to me that it was made without any pause at all in the same movement as placing the original call on the table .

 

Ever so often do I see players taking a pile of bid cards from the box and removing the top card(s) from the pile in the same act as placing the remaining bid cards on the table, but never do I see any player failing to notice the correct eventual call in such situations.

 

So I am tempted to suspect that there must have been some kind of a pause between the act of placing the original pile of bid cards with 3N on top and the act of removing this bid card changing the call to 3♠.

 

If there was no such pause then to me this is a clear case of paying insufficient attention to the auction. With such pause I still consider this a legal Law 25A change, but not that is is done without calling express attention to the change, for instance by calling the director.

[blackshoe]

"withdraw the double? (this was to Blackshoe) After the auction was over and he had led? Or would you just adjust to 3NT undoubled with whatever result after the play?

 

This is probably a distinction without a difference, but if the double is withdrawn, the auction is still alive. If you can still use 25A to back up the auction after the opening lead, you have "no further rectification". That would include information available to partner of the opening leader. And the defense or declarer play in 3NT might be different if the contract is considered doubled during the play.

 

Edit: to clarify, OP is asking about "if" he had called the TD; that could have occurred only after OP noticed the problem, and play of the hand had begun.

Of course he can't withdraw his double after the auction period is over. But in general if a player substitutes a call under Law 25A1, his LHO can withdraw a call made over the original call, and information from that withdrawn call is authorized to his side, but not to his opponents (Law 25A4).

 

If a player makes an inadvertent call, and does not notice until the play of the hand has begun, he's out of luck. See Laws 25A2 and 25A3.

[nige1]

If there was no such pause then to me this is a clear case of paying insufficient attention to the auction. With such pause I still consider this a legal Law 25A change, but not that is is done without calling express attention to the change, for instance by calling the director.

I didn't see the 3N call, at any stage; but other players at the table tell me that declarer corrected her 3♠ immediately if not in a single movement. Bluejak tells us that you may correct a mechanical error of this kind without involving the director but, until now, I hadn't inferred the need to be vigilant about such corrections.

[pran]

If there was no such pause then to me this is a clear case of paying insufficient attention to the auction. With such pause I still consider this a legal Law 25A change, but not that is is done without calling express attention to the change, for instance by calling the director.

I didn't see the 3N call, at any stage; but other players at the table tell me that declarer corrected her 3♠ immediately if not in a single movement. Bluejak tells us that you may correct a mechanical error of this kind without involving the director but, until now, I hadn't inferred the need to be vigilant about such corrections.

Well,

if the addition of the 3N bid card on top of the pile of bid cards was "immediate" in the true meaning of this word and you never saw it, then this is to me a clear indication that you "closed down" your attention to your RHO action in the middle of the act.

 

That would be a bit premature and IMHO qualifies as "payiing insufficient attention"

[iviehoff]

Interestingly, if gerben42 is right, another old law goes out of the window -- because, to protect yourself you must keep opponents under surveillance.

I've long been under the impression that one must keep the opponents under constant surveillance for one's own protection. There was a case mentioned on the former version of this forum where a player left a bidding card on the table at the end of the auction, and it was still there when he took his cards out of the next board, where by chance he was dealer. His LHO finished sorting his cards, looked up and saw the bidding card on the table, thought dealer had opened, and made a call. LHO was ruled to have called out of turn, without any relief for the misleading and illegal presence of the bidding card on the table.

[pran]

I've long been under the impression that one must keep the opponents under constant surveillance for one's own protection.  There was a case mentioned on the former version of this forum where a player left a bidding card on the table at the end of the auction, and it was still there when he took his cards out of the next board, where by chance he was dealer.  His LHO finished sorting his cards, looked up and saw the bidding card on the table, thought dealer had opened, and made a call. LHO was ruled to have called out of turn, without any relief for the misleading and illegal presence of the bidding card on the table.

I haven't seen that thread, but we have had precisely that situation under discussion in Norway (long time ago).

 

Unless something has changed since then the rule we follow is that any bid card visible on the table in front of a player after he has taken his (play) cards from the board is considered a call made by this player on the current board.

 

Under no circumstances can there be any cause for ruling call out of turn by LHO if he then calls (apparently in correct rotation). However, Law 25A may apply to the first call which obviously was an "inadvertent" call.

[bluejak]

Bluejak tells us that you may correct a mechanical error of this kind without involving the director but, until now, I hadn't  inferred the need to be vigilant about such corrections.

No, I said I considered it normal to do so and that most people do so. But not that you "may" do so. Certainly the EBU L&EC disagreed with me.

 

I just think it totally impractical to involve the TD every time there is a normal 25A case, the most common by far in my experience being to take a pile of cards out of the box, and immediately afterwards to remove one or two of them.