Law 25A or not

[bluejak]

How does he know it is an infraction?

[blackshoe]

Chapter One of the Laws provides some definitions:

 

Infraction: A player’s breach of law or of lawful regulation.

Irregularity: A deviation from correct procedure inclusive of, but not limited to, those which involve an infraction by a player.

Clearly an unintended call is an irregularity, but not an infraction. Even given a regulation that says "decide what you want to bid before touching the box".

[jallerton]

Jallerton, your approach results in some strange situations....

 

1NT - 2NT (unintended, intended call was 2♠). Now south, because of the lack of alert on 2NT (which of course not should be alerted), finds out he actually bid 2NT and want to change. By doing absolutely nothing wrong, north has now denied south to change his unintended call. This means that in every situation where an unintended call is alerted where the intended call should not have been or the other way around we can't change according to 25A. So, shortly 25A applies only when both the unintended call and the intended is either natural or artificial.

 

I can't find any support for that in the laws.

 

In that case, please read Law 73C again and consider it in the light of South's actions. However, I agree with VixTD that situation is rather different to that of the opening post, as here the UI generated by Responder was generated simply by adhering to the local alerting regulations.

 

In addition to the cases where the alertability of the unintended and intended calls is the same, Law 25A can be applied without worrying about Law 73C whenever the bidder realises his error before his partner has had a chance to alert.

 

Bluejak told us some time ago that at his table, there are several instance per session of a player pulling out the wrong bidding card out of the box, and that he considers Law 25A to apply to such a scenario. My impression was that in most of these cases the player realises that he has pulled out the wrong bidding cards before he has placed them on the table, i.e. before his partner has even seen the unintended call.

[bluejak]

Certainly. I personally am very bad at pulling out the intended call, but have trained myself to look at what I take out of the box. In the ACBL I would be correcting it before the call is made because of different regulations so Law 25A would not apply.

 

But the question is whether you may change an unintended call when you have attention brought to it by partner, whether through something legal or illegal. My understanding is still that you may change it as an interpretation of the Law. I suppose it is part of this strange idea of "getting a bridge result" which I, of course, think is complete nonsense. Bridge results to me include the results of infractions. So do not misunderstand: I do not approve of players being allowed to change because of their partner's infractions but I understand that they are allowed to.

 

Of course you could certainly issue a PP to partner for whatever he has done.

[jallerton]

But the question is whether you may change an unintended call when you have attention brought to it by partner, whether through something legal or illegal. My understanding is still that you may change it as an interpretation of the Law. I suppose it is part of this strange idea of "getting a bridge result" which I, of course, think is complete nonsense. Bridge results to me include the results of infractions. So do not misunderstand: I do not approve of players being allowed to change because of their partner's infractions but I understand that they are allowed to.

 

Thanks for the clarification. Is it your understanding that his "interpretation" was issued at WBF, EBL or national level?

[bluejak]

I think all three. There was something in a WBFLC minute, I think it was said at San Remo, and it is part of EBU training.

 

Of course a direct and simple statement would be jolly helpful. Tough. :lol:

[jhenrikj]

I have recived answers from Marc, Jeanne and Ton from Holland. (their last names is to difficult to spell this late at night but I think you all know who I me

They agree that the change to 2♦ should be allowed, but they don't know if we can change the score according to 12A1. Marc and Ton will discuss this during the weeakend.

[lamford]

It's not just a matter of "suppose we might". North has clearly breached Laws 73A1 and 73B1, and has gained an advantage thereby (unless South would have noticed anyway before North's call, which is far from certain).

 

South has clearly breached Law 73C.

 

Surely Law 12A1 is there for cases such as this.

This I agree with completely, and it is very different to the person discovering he has misbid because of an authorised alert or announcement. In the latter case, as I believe gordontd once pointed out, the person had already decided on his bid, but selected the wrong one inadvertently, and is therefore not using the UI. However, where there is a 73B1 infraction, as here, there is a more onerous duty on him, so he should be obliged to keep the original call in order not to take "any" advantage of the UI under 73C. Even if it was a "mechanical" error.

 

But I am sure the WBFLC will issue a clarification of when the bid can be changed.

[jallerton]

This I agree with completely, and it is very different to the person discovering he has misbid because of an authorised alert or announcement. In the latter case, as I believe gordontd once pointed out, the person had already decided on his bid, but selected the wrong one inadvertently, and is therefore not using the UI. However, where there is a 73B1 infraction, as here, there is a more onerous duty on him, so he should be obliged to keep the original call in order not to take "any" advantage of the UI under 73C. Even if it was a "mechanical" error.

 

But I am sure the WBFLC will issue a clarification of when the bid can be changed.

 

By "an authorised alert or announcement" I assume you are referring to procedures "authorised" by the Regulatory Authority. Unfortunately, that does not make the information from the alert or announcement "authorised information" as far as the alerter's/announcer's partner is concerned; Law 73C specifically states that this information is unauthorised for that player who "must carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorised information".

[lamford]

By "an authorised alert or announcement" I assume you are referring to procedures "authorised" by the Regulatory Authority. Unfortunately, that does not make the information from the alert or announcement "authorised information" as far as the alerter's/announcer's partner is concerned; Law 73C specifically states that this information is unauthorised for that player who "must carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorised information".

Your view is certainly reasonable, and I prefer that approach, but the WBFLC has decreed that the player is allowed to use the information to discover that he has made an mechanical error. He is not selecting a bid indicated by the UI, because he had already previously made the selection.