barmar Posted March 8, 2015 Report Share Posted March 8, 2015 I wonder if the lawmakers simply thought that the word "insufficient" itself implies that it is not a legal bid. "sufficient" means enough or adequate. Adequate for what? In this context, it could only reasonably mean adequate for the bid to be legal at that state of the auction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamford Posted March 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 I wonder if the lawmakers simply thought that the word "insufficient" itself implies that it is not a legal bid. "sufficient" means enough or adequate. Adequate for what? In this context, it could only reasonably mean adequate for the bid to be legal at that state of the auction.That is possible. However they define "insufficient" in the context of "bids", without any suggestion of illegality. If a beginner's book said that raising 1S to 2S on AT8x x Axxx T9xx was insufficient because game would be missed too often, nobody would think it was illegal. Bidding 1H over 1S is insufficient, but a beginner would not know this unless it was defined. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
campboy Posted March 9, 2015 Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 Agreed. My suggested correction is:[Law 18: Bids] <snip>D. Insufficient Bid A bid that fails to supersede the last preceding bid is an insufficient bid, which must not be made intentionally. Others may have a better wording.I would certainly want a wording which makes an insufficient bid an infraction even if made unintentionally! "A bid that fails to supersede the last preceding bid is an insufficient bid. Players may not make insufficient bids" would be ok. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billw55 Posted March 9, 2015 Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 Indeed. And why on earth should someone have to try to work out whether one can make insufficient bids by the context of other Laws when the section dealing with insufficient bids negligently omits to say that they are not permitted? ... Some posters in this thread are defending the indefensible. But aren't you one of them? And I think we have to assume the error in the Laws, and decide that an IB is an irregularity. Certainly I will rule as though it is, whatever the Laws say.Personally, I think that it is ok to use common sense when the written laws are ambiguous or incomplete. If the events of this thread actually occurred, any director would simply rule as you would, that an IB is an irregularity. They would probably have a good laugh in the director's room about what a foolish jerk LSB is, and any appeal committee would keep his deposit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VixTD Posted March 9, 2015 Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 I would adjust but would not give a PP. We have not found any Law that SB has broken, intentionally or otherwise. It should be the Second Commandment, "Thou shalt make sufficient bids", but, somehow or other, Moses lost that one, no doubt fatigued by getting the First Commandment, "Thou shalt follow suit" broadly correct, but only broadly, as Riccardi once found to his cost.As this topic is all about the correct wording of laws I feel compelled to point out that your second commandment should read "Thou shalt not make insufficient bids". An obligation on all players to make sufficient bids would change the nature of the game substantially. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whereagles Posted March 9, 2015 Report Share Posted March 9, 2015 I didn't read the whole thread, but here's my catch: I think the Secretary Bird definitely has reasons to suspect any action by his partner would be dangerous and decided to protect his side by "enforcing" a pass by partner. I would rule something like 4SX -1400. I would dismiss the Secretary Bird's claims on the matter and give him an appeals sheet on request, after which it's not my problem anymore :) Edit: having skimmed through the thread, I see the point of the discussion now. I think it is logical to treat an IB as an infraction. That certainly seems to be the spirit of the law, even though it might not be cast in the book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billw55 Posted March 10, 2015 Report Share Posted March 10, 2015 I think the Secretary Bird definitely has reasons to suspect any action by his partner would be dangerous and decided to protect his side by "enforcing" a pass by partner. Yes, that is the point of the thread. I think It would make a better story if north rose to the occasion by accepting the insufficient bid and then bidding 4♥. Now east is guaranteed to bid 4♠. Average, next board! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted March 10, 2015 Report Share Posted March 10, 2015 Only the WBFLC and the ACBLLC can correct problems in the laws. In any case, this forum is not the place to be debugging or correcting the laws. I'll move this thread to the "changing laws" forum. I must admit that I was unaware that the ACBL and the WBF have equal standing. Perhaps the WBF should be renamed e ROTWBF (Rest of the World Bridge Federation). The WBF version doesn't have any of these groupings, it just has the laws. I think the only purpose of them is to aid someone using the table of contents to find the laws relevant to a situation, It is a pity that there is no table of contents. This makes the book difficult to navigate through if you are not extremely familiar wih it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamford Posted March 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2015 I think It would make a better story if north rose to the occasion by accepting the insufficient bid and then bidding 4♥. Now east is guaranteed to bid 4♠. Average, next board!Very nice. Perhaps his failure to do so is SEWoG, so we should give EW -1400 and NS -100. Except that his not accepting the IB was related to the infraction ... if it was an infraction! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted March 10, 2015 Report Share Posted March 10, 2015 Although I've pointed out that the illegality of insufficient bids can be inferred by reading several laws together, I agree that it sure would be nice if Law 18 were written more like Law 44, which describes the normal procedure during the play period. In particular, 44C makes the requirement to follow suit paramount, much as making sufficient bids is paramount during the auction. A rule book that fails to mention clearly one of the most important rules of the game is obviously deficient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackshoe Posted March 10, 2015 Report Share Posted March 10, 2015 I must admit that I was unaware that the ACBL and the WBF have equal standing. Perhaps the WBF should be renamed e ROTWBF (Rest of the World Bridge Federation). It is a pity that there is no table of contents. This makes the book difficult to navigate through if you are not extremely familiar wih it.The ACBL asserts that in North America the ACBLLC is the final arbiter of the laws. WBF has not, to my knowledge, tried to contest that. Also ACBL holds the copyright on TFLB in the Western Hemisphere. I confess I don't know how that affects things in South America. I agree about the table of contents. Portable Document Format has the capability to include both a ToC and an index with hyperlinks to the things they reference. Also, you can add hyperlinks (internal or external) in the body of the text. I have long lamented the lack of that capability. In the ACBL, at least, my lamentations seem to fall on deaf ears. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted March 13, 2015 Report Share Posted March 13, 2015 Although I've pointed out that the illegality of insufficient bids can be inferred by reading several laws together, I agree that it sure would be nice if Law 18 were written more like Law 44, which describes the normal procedure during the play period. In particular, 44C makes the requirement to follow suit paramount, much as making sufficient bids is paramount during the auction. A rule book that fails to mention clearly one of the most important rules of the game is obviously deficient. Blackshoe thinks it's great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mycroft Posted March 13, 2015 Report Share Posted March 13, 2015 You know, I don't think there's anyone that thinks the law book's great. I think it is suitable for almost all purposes it's intended for; and that making a "great" law book would be much more work than it's worth (even to SB's like me), a constant battle to improve (you know, they *pay* the people responsible for fixing the Golf, Indoor Lacrosse,... laws every year), and frankly impossible (even for those whose primary job is to do it). Also, any attempt to do more than just incremental upgrades to the Law Book would reorganize it, which would cause a massive amount of retraining from the clubs up; and while that desperately needs to be done, the PTB have repeatedly made clear that they are not going to do it.While the general level of Bridge Law knowledge amongst tournament players is as wonderful as it is (as opposed to, say, Golf or Poker - could you imagine a "law of the day" section in the Vanderbilt Vugraph?) I don't think this is going to change - unfortunately. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamford Posted January 28, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2017 You know, I don't think there's anyone that thinks the law book's great. I think it is suitable for almost all purposes it's intended for; and that making a "great" law book would be much more work than it's worth (even to SB's like me), a constant battle to improve (you know, they *pay* the people responsible for fixing the Golf, Indoor Lacrosse,... laws every year), and frankly impossible (even for those whose primary job is to do it). Also, any attempt to do more than just incremental upgrades to the Law Book would reorganize it, which would cause a massive amount of retraining from the clubs up; and while that desperately needs to be done, the PTB have repeatedly made clear that they are not going to do it.While the general level of Bridge Law knowledge amongst tournament players is as wonderful as it is (as opposed to, say, Golf or Poker - could you imagine a "law of the day" section in the Vanderbilt Vugraph?) I don't think this is going to change - unfortunately. Lamford, can you resurrect the thread where SB tried to take advantage of something like this?I have been asked by barmar to resurrect this thread, as the new 2017 Law Book still does not make it a requirement to make sufficient bids. It says what insufficient bids are, but does not say that one is not entitled to make them! Of course, a TD would have to rule that an insufficient bid was an infraction, but adding the phrase. "Calls must be sufficient", which I think covers deliberate "underbids" and deliberate inadmissible doubles and redoubles, would indeed be sufficient! Looking back over the thread, Campboy's wording looks best. A newcomer to the game, from Mars, reading the Law Book for the first time, with this being the only thread on the Laws Forum that he has read, might think that an insufficient bid is a good gambit worth making, a bit like a psyche. And did this thread really have 16,500 views? And I thought barmar considered SB deeply unpopular! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted January 30, 2017 Report Share Posted January 30, 2017 Why am I surprised that the author of the SB posts would take me literally -- a link in the current thread would have been sufficient. Anyway, I forwarded the link to the ACBL LC mailing list for 2017 suggestions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamford Posted February 1, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2017 Why am I surprised that the author of the SB posts would take me literally -- a link in the current thread would have been sufficient. Anyway, I forwarded the link to the ACBL LC mailing list for 2017 suggestions.That was my original plan, but SB was dismayed at my wrong interpretation of the word "resurrect". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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