Higher Court for Bridgelaws

[Vampyr]

You seem to fail to appreciate the considerable difference between "selecting a bidding card" and "intending to make a call".

 

....

 

Do you think that the authors of this law would have meant "pull the wrong (bidding) card" when bidding was spoken at the time that this law was written?

 

i guess you mean this in a figurative sense, and I don't know the answer. What I do know is that bidding errors cannot be corrected; only mispulls. I would be surprised to find anyone in the world who agrees with you.

[barmar]

In spoken bidding, there's the concept of a "slip of the tongue". It's the same kind of error that you can correct when you make an unintended designation during the play.

 

This is where the old notion that "without pause for thought" meant "in the same breath" comes from -- in the case of a verbal action, the notion that there could be any lag between taking the unintended action and becoming aware of it is unlikely. So things like "1 heart, oops I mean 1 spade" are allowed.

[nige1]

• Scrapping "mechanical error" laws would deprive us of fascinating inconclusive disputes like this about the art of mind-reading. It would be a blow to those players who rationalize mistakes as "slips of the hand". But...
• It would shorten and simplify laws and regulations. It would mean that players were no longer penalized for telling the truth. It would encourage players to take more care. It would still make for a faster more enjoyable game. To anticipate the usual quibble -- most players would be delighted to ask the director to waive the rule for the minority with genuine manual-dexterity problems.

[Trinidad]

i guess you mean this in a figurative sense, and I don't know the answer.

I don't mean anything in a figurative sense. I have taken particular care to be as literal and precise as possible.

What I do know is that bidding errors cannot be corrected; only mispulls.

You don't know that. You think you know that and you think wrong. Read the law book.

A. Unintended Call

1. Until his partner makes a call, a player may substitute his intended call for an unintended call but only if he does so, or attempts to do so, without pause for thought. The second (intended) call stands and is subject to the appropriate Law.

 

Law 25A is extremely clear: If I intend to call 1♣, but I do call 1♠ then I can correct it (before partner has called and without pause for thought). This does not depend on the method that I need to use to communicate that call: spoken, written, bidding box, electronic, whatsever. Nor does it depend on the mechanism that made me communicate the unintended call instead of the intended call. Other than the time limitations, the only thing that matters is intent.

 

The absurdity of the idea that law 25A is exclusively meant to correct misspulls should be clear once one realizes that Law 25A existed before the misspull was invented. As I said, it is as absurd as thinking that "thou shalt not murder" exclusively refers to murders with fire arms (given that fire arms didn't exist at the time the ten commandments were written).

 

Now, I know that you won't be happy with that because you think that TDs cannot determine intent. After all, in your opinion "TDs are not mind readers". And I will state, again, that good TDs are pretty good mind readers. After some investigation, they will be able to determine with a high degree of accuracy what the intent of the player was.

 

Rik

[Trinidad]

• Scrapping "mechanical error" laws would deprive us of fascinating inconclusive arguments like this about the art of mind-reading. It would be a blow to those players capable of rationalizing mistakes as "slips of the hand". But...
• It would shorten and simplify laws and regulations. It would mean that truthful players were no longer penalized. It would encourage players to take more care. It would still make for a faster more enjoyable game. To anticipate the usual quibble -- most players would be delighted to ask the director to waive the rule for the minority with genuine manual-dexterity problems.

I am certainly not against scrapping 25A. But the situation is that it is in the Law book, so we just have to deal with it.

 

Rik

[barmar]

Law 25A is extremely clear: If I intend to call 1♣, but I do call 1♠ then I can correct it (before partner has called and without pause for thought). This does not depend on the method that I need to use to communicate that call: spoken, written, bidding box, electronic, whatsever. Nor does it depend on the mechanism that made me communicate the unintended call instead of the intended call. Other than the time limitations, the only thing that matters is intent.

The issue surrounds how one interprets "intent". Many understand intent to mean what was in your mind when you took an action. If you have a "brain fart", that means the mistake was in your mind, not your hand, so it was your intended bid.

 

Have you ever had this happen to you? You make an ace-asking bid, and partner makes the lower response, so you decide you're not going to bid slam. But you have a brain fart, and instead of signing off in 5 of your suit, you pull the Pass card. IMHO, that's not an unintended bid, you just forgot that you needed to take an action to get to your intended contract.

 

Bridge is a mind sport, it's all about what goes on in the brain. A brain fart is like a foot fault in tennis.

[PeterAlan]

The EBU guidance to TDs is pretty clear:

 

8.25.2 How to determine whether Law 25A applies

If a player attempts to change a call the TD must determine whether there was a change or attempted change without pause for thought, although they will rarely decide otherwise. Usually a call for the TD or the like may be considered an attempted change.

The main problem is whether the call made is unintended. It is not recommended that a TD should look at a player’s hand except as a last resort because the TD will give information about the hand. Best is to ask the player questions. Assuming bidding boxes, the most important question is

“What did you intend to call at the moment your hand reached out to the bidding box?”

Usually this question will elicit the information as to whether the player had made an unintended call (the call may be changed) or whether they had pulled out their originally intended call and subsequently there was a change of mind (the call may not be changed).

It also cites the following WBFLC Minute:

 

8.25.5 Law 25A and Law 45C4 (b): What is inadvertent? [WBFLC]

An action is inadvertent if, at the time the player makes it, he decides one course of action but actually does something else through misadventure in speaking, writing or selecting a bidding card.

The word [‘inadvertent’] indicates a turning away of the mind, so that the action does not occur as a conscious process of the mind.

[WBFLC minutes 2000-08-30#7]

Note Since 2007, Law 25A and Law 45C4 (b) use the word ‘unintended’: the word ‘inadvertent’ only remains in the heading of Law 47C.

[lamford]

The absurdity of the idea that law 25A is exclusively meant to correct misspulls should be clear once one realizes that Law 25A existed before the misspull was invented.

Indeed it did, but before bidding boxes were invented one could only correct slips of the tongue. The absurdity is in thinking that brain farts could ever be corrected, assuming the call is legal.

[billw55]

So, I fear you are fighting a losing battle in trying to persuade this founder that he is wrong. A well-known bridge club in London plays bridge according to its own rules - you just let someone correct an insufficient bid or correct a revoke. It seems to be popular, although it is not a member of the EBU.

Indeed, in both cases I suspect the proprietor knows quite well that their policy differs from the laws. They have just made a choice to run their club differently.

 

 

 

 

[Vampyr]

I do not see how a person can say that a call reached for and made is "inadvertent". I am not a big fan of this law, but would not be a fan of Trinidad's imagined law either, because you would still have to determine on what basis the player changed his mind. It seems that there could be endless shades of grey. No changes of mind is better.

[pran]

Have you ever had this happen to you? You make an ace-asking bid, and partner makes the lower response, so you decide you're not going to bid slam. But you have a brain fart, and instead of signing off in 5 of your suit, you pull the Pass card. IMHO, that's not an unintended bid, you just forgot that you needed to take an action to get to your intended contract.

I have read (somewhere) that an occurrence of this precise scenario was the direct reason why the infamous Law 25B2b2 was introduced in the 1997 laws. Fortunately this Law was again deleted from the laws in 2007, apparently without any discussion.

[Vampyr]

I have read (somewhere) that an occurrence of this precise scenario was the direct reason why the infamous Law 25B2b2 was introduced in the 1997 laws. Fortunately this Law was again deleted from the laws in 2007, apparently without any discussion.

 

Yeah, that law was crazy. I don't think it would have been afforded any consideration at all had it not been invented and promoted (pushed through?) by Edgar Kaplan.

[Vampyr]

I don't mean anything in a figurative sense. I have taken particular care to be as literal and precise as possible.

 

Then it is truly a mystery why you invited speculation as to the intentions of the lawmakers with respect to bidding boxes when writing a law before bidding boxes were invented.

[Trinidad]

Then it is truly a mystery why you invited speculation as to the intentions of the lawmakers with respect to bidding boxes when writing a law before bidding boxes were invented.

Because you claim that 25A is meant exclusively for misspulls.

 

And I say that it would be very odd that the lawmakers would have written a law to deal exclusively with misspulls before the misspull was invented.

 

So, we can safely conclude that your claim is wrong and that law 25A is not exclusively for misspulls.

 

Law 25A is, in itself, clear what it is about: intended and unintended calls. It doesn't say anything about how or why the unintended call was made: misspull, coffee stain, misclick, slip of the tongue, distraction by the waiter or a leaking roof. None of these are excluded. There is only one requirement (other than the time limits: before partner has called and 'without pause for thought'). There needs to have been an intended call.

 

I will give an example to clarify. You hold:

♠AQ75

♥5

♦KJT73

♣Q86

 

Your partner opens 1♠.

 

1)

You see you have a game forcing hand with four card trump support and a singleton heart. You decide to splinter with 4♥. When you pull the bid out of the box, it turns out that the 4♠ card is sticking to the 4♥ card. This is currently the most common law 25A case: a misspull. You can correct to the 4♥ bid that you intended.

 

2)

You see you have a game forcing hand with four card trump support and a singleton heart. You decide to splinter with 4♥. You bid 4♥ (by saying it, clicking it or by pulling a bidding card out of a box, it doesn't matter) when you realize that 4♥ is natural. Tough luck. You intended to bid 4♥ at the moment you bid 4♥. Law 25A doesn't apply.

 

3)

You see you have a game forcing hand with four card trump support and a singleton heart. You realize in time that you play 4♥ as natural, so you will have to decide on something else. You are thinking for a while between 2♦ (Nat., GF) and 2NT (art. GF spade raise). You decide to bid 2NT because it will be better to show the spade support immediately. Somehow, the phrase "spade support" echoes in your mind and -horrors of horrors- you bid (through whatever means) 2♠. You realize what has happened and you call the TD. You tell him truthfully that your intended call was 2NT but that the "spade support echo" made you say, pull, click, ... 2♠. The TD will rule that Law 25A applies. The 2♠ was not an intended call. "Spades" was just a phrase in your mind. The intended call was 2NT.

 

4)

You see you have a game forcing hand with four card trump support and a singleton heart. You realize in time that you play 4♥ as natural, so you will have to decide something else. You decide that this hand is a game forcing spade raise and you bid 2♠. Of course, that is pretty silly since, though 2♠ is a spade rais, it obviously is not game forcing. You call the TD and say that you didn't intend to bid 2♠. Instead, you intended to make a game forcing spade raise. The TD will say: "Tough luck. 'A game forcing spade raise' is not a call. So there was no intended call. That means that you cannot replace 2♠ with an intended call, because you can't replace something by something that doesn't exist.". Law 25A does not apply. (Note that it will take the player 'pause for thought' to decide that 2NT is the bid to show a GF spade raise. The pause may only be a fraction of a second, but you cannot get from "GF spade raise" to "2NT" without thinking.)

 

I think that we agree on 1) and 2). I think that you consider 3) and 4) absurd. You think that those do not really happen. I will tell you that I have seen both type 3) and 4) several times at the table as a TD. And in order to determine whether Law 25A applies, you need to answer one question:

 

What was the intended call?

 

In case 1) it was 4♥: Law 25A.

In case 2) it was 4♥: no Law 25A.

In case 3) it was 2NT: Law 25A.

In case 4) there was no intended call (other than perhaps the 2♠): no Law 25A.

 

Rik

[lamford]

<snip> endless waffle <snip>

I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.

[barmar]

IMO, 25A doesn't apply in case 3. At the time you bid 2♠, spades was in your mind. That was the card you intended to pull, although the intention was based on a brain fart.

[Trinidad]

I do not see how a person can say that a call reached for and made is "inadvertent".

I know you don't see that. But the fact that you don't see it, does not mean that it isn't there. I will try to show it to you at the end of this post.

I am not a big fan of this law, but would not be a fan of Trinidad's imagined law either, because you would still have to determine on what basis the player changed his mind. It seems that there could be endless shades of grey. No changes of mind is better.

Who is talking about a change of mind? Law 25A doesn't allow you to change your mind. Nobody is advocating that it does.

 

Let's go through the process once more:

• A player intends to call, e.g., 2♠. (That is his intended call. It is in his mind.)
  ...
  
• there is some reason, any reason, why he is about to do something silly
  ...
  
• his hand puts the card representing 5♥ on the table
  

then the only thing that is relevant is: "What was his intended call?" It was 2♠. Law 25A applies and he can correct 5♥ to 2♠. How or why he was so dumb to put the 5♥ card on the table when he intended to call 2♠ is irrelevant: Sticky cards, thick fingers, or because he remembered that he needed to buy 5 Valentine's day cards. It doesn't matter as long as he never consciously thought: "Let me bid 5♥" since then he, obviously, intended to call 5♥ and changing (back or forward) to 2♠ would indeed be a change of mind.

 

---

 

You want to limit the corrections to "mishap mechanisms" that you can understand: the physical ones, like misspulls, sticky bidding cards or thick fingers. But there is no legal basis for this limitation. If you think there is then you should quote the law that says that the reason for the mishap has relevance.

 

In real life, there are not only faulty bidding cards or people with thick fingers. There are also people with "non-conscious processes" that can suddenly surface, particularly in the age group that is so dominant in the world of bridge.* Apart from conscious thinking (which leads to consciously intending to make a call) the brain does an awful lot of other things that have nothing to do with "conscious processes". They cause you to do things that you don't intend. Usually they are harmless and don't interfere with anything. (What are your hands doing right now? Playing with that USB stick that was lying on your desk? A paper clip? Are you consciously doing that?) And sometimes they do interfere with other things, like bridge. That is rare, much rarer than coffee stains on bidding cards. But it does happen.

 

As I said, though mechanical mishaps are the most common, Law 25A doesn't limit the mishaps to mechanical ones only.

 

Rik

 

* My favorite real life bridge example of a non-conscious action (it has nothing to do with 25A, but illustrates what weird things brains can do): The 90 year old dealer has just sorted her cards and -before the auction has started- she pulls a card out of her hand and places it face up on the table. It is the ♦2. After some discussion the TD figured out that she didn't intend to pull a card from her hand. In fact, she didn't even realize that she did pull a card from her hand. She denied that the thing that was lying on the table, for everyone to see, was the ♦2 card. She wanted to open 2♦ and she doesn't know better than that she had just done that. Never during the whole discussion, or ever afterwards, did she understand that it was the ♦2 playing card on the table and not the 2♦ bidding card.

[Trinidad]

IMO, 25A doesn't apply in case 3. At the time you bid 2♠, spades was in your mind. That was the card you intended to pull, although the intention was based on a brain fart.

As you can understand, I tried to construct case 3) as close to the border as I could imagine. (Perhaps someone else can come closer. :) ) My reasons why I think 25A should apply:

"Spades" may have been on your mind, but "spades" isn't a call. It is a suit. (I went even further: I wrote "spade support". I consider that "beyond suit", but it is still not a call.) The relevant question is: what was your intended call? Neither is it relevant what card you intended to pull. The only thing that is relevant - according to Law 25A - is what call you intended to make. Though you had the spade suit in mind, and may even consciously have pulled the 2♠ card, you never intended to call 2♠. You intended to call 2NT.

 

Rik

[PeterAlan]

I could argue that a brain fart where you mean to bid clubs, but pull the other black suit is still unintended in the sense of Law 25A

Well, you could do, although of course you would be wrong.

The interpretation in England seems to be that if the brain tells the hand to select a bidding card, that is not "unintended", regardless of the original intent.

I'm with Rik in believing that you are both mistaken; I refer the honourable lady and gentleman to the reasons I gave more fully here, and more briefly (and with my emphasis and editorial addition) repeat:

 

8.25.2 How to determine whether Law 25A applies

... Assuming bidding boxes, the most important question is

“What did you intend to call at the moment your hand reached out to the bidding box?”

Usually this question will elicit the information as to whether the player had made an unintended call (the call may be changed) or whether they had pulled out their originally intended call and subsequently there was a change of mind (the call may not be changed).

...

8.25.5 Law 25A and Law 45C4 (b): What is inadvertent [now 'unintended' in Law 25A]?[WBFLC]

An action is inadvertent if, at the time the player makes it, he decides one course of action but actually does something else through misadventure in speaking, writing or selecting a bidding card.

The word [‘inadvertent’] indicates a turning away of the mind, so that the action does not occur as a conscious process of the mind.

[WBFLC minutes 2000-08-30#7]

 

To conclude, in the absence of such mechanical reasons as stuck bidding cards, that the bidder necessarily and always 'intended' to make the call (s)he did because that was the call taken from the box is clearly contrary to the scope of application of the WBFLC minute. The TD's decision must be more nuanced than that simplistic approach.

 

To give a simpler example, I've had the following auction: 1NT (Pass) 2♥ [announced by me as "Spades"] (Pass) Pass - inadvertent / unintended, because I had no intention of playing in ♥s rather than ♠s, but resulting from a brief "turning away of the mind" following RHO's Pass - the suggestion that there would be a conscious "change of mind" in my saying that my intention was to bid 2♠ rather than Pass is hard to sustain. (Before you ask, this particular instance did not give rise to a ruling - I played it in 2♥ - but it's nevertheless an example of what can easily happen.)

[VixTD]

There needs to have been an intended call.

I'm not sure this is true, although I'm impressed by the reasoning in the rest of your post.

 

It's a commonly-held fallacy that law 25A cannot be applied to calls taken from a different section of the bidding box from the alleged intended card, but I was called to a table where a very good player had passed and claimed that was not his intended call. Away from the table I asked him what he had intended and was told that he wasn't thinking about anything, his mind had been wandering and he had no idea why he had pulled out a pass card. I believed him, went back to the table and let him change his pass for a bid (expecting howls of protest from the opponents which never came).

 

In this case there was no intended call, but I think I was correct to apply law 25A.

[Trinidad]

I'm not sure this is true, although I'm impressed by the reasoning in the rest of your post.

 

It's a commonly-held fallacy that law 25A cannot be applied to calls taken from a different section of the bidding box from the alleged intended card, but I was called to a table where a very good player had passed and claimed that was not his intended call. Away from the table I asked him what he had intended and was told that he wasn't thinking about anything, his mind had been wandering and he had no idea why he had pulled out a pass card. I believed him, went back to the table and let him change his pass for a bid (expecting howls of protest from the opponents which never came).

 

In this case there was no intended call, but I think I was correct to apply law 25A.

I think it is entirely reasonable (if not normal) to have someone return a card to the bidding box when he clearly didn't want to make a call. To me, this is the equivalent of:

"What did you have on your wedding ring?"

- "Three diamonds" (which sounds the same as "3♦", but is something different.)

 

I have seen people use bidding cards to pick up dropped ash from cigarettes. I wouldn't rule that as making a call. Similarly, when someone pulls a pass card for no reason at all (your case) I wouldn't rule that he had passed.

 

But I don't think law 25A has anything to do with that.

 

For Law 25A to apply there needs to have been an intended call.

Until his partner makes a call, a player may substitute his intended call for an unintended call

This substitution is difficult when there is no intended call. :)

 

The lawmakers clarified the need for an intended call even more by adding:

... but only if he does so, or attempts to do so, without pause for thought.

I don't see how you can make an intended call without thinking. I assume that the player in your case will have thought before he selected the call that he did want to make. That means that it wasn't a 25A case.

 

Rik

[sanst]

Another real life example of an unintended call happened at our club a couple of years ago. A player is thinking about his call and hasn't made up his mind yet. At the same time he has his hand on the bidding box and pulls out a call, puts it on the table and doesn't even realise that he has done this. It was certainly a nonsensical call, but there was no intended call yet. His story was convincing enough for me to believe him and I allowed him to withdraw his call, although I realised that 25A requires an intended call. Unfortunately, the player hasn't learned from this experience, het quite often fumbles unwittingly with the bidding box when thinking.

[barmar]

I have seen people use bidding cards to pick up dropped ash from cigarettes. I wouldn't rule that as making a call. Similarly, when someone pulls a pass card for no reason at all (your case) I wouldn't rule that he had passed.

 

But I don't think law 25A has anything to do with that.

Right, those would be covered by bidding box regulations on when a call is considered to have been made. If no call has actually been made, there's no need to determine whether it was intended or not.

[blackshoe]

Right, those would be covered by bidding box regulations on when a call is considered to have been made. If no call has actually been made, there's no need to determine whether it was intended or not.

Last weekend, in the Swiss Teams at a local Sectional, one of my teammates put out the stop card, and then bid 3♣ over RHO's 2♦. This was passed out and made exactly. The director adjusted the score to 4♣-1 on the grounds that the use of the stop card and my teammate's answers to the questions "were you aware of the 2♦ bid?" and "did you intend to make a skip bid?" (yes and yes) clearly made the 3♣ bid a "willful change of call" (Law 25B) not accepted by his LHO, who called the director at the time 3♣ was bid. I allowed as how I didn't (and I still don't) understand how there was any change of call here, much less a willful one, because until the player put 3♣ out no call had been made, but the director was adamant. My conversations with the director on this were in several short increments over time — he was busy, and we were still playing — and in the end I gave up.

[aguahombre]

Last weekend, in the Swiss Teams at a local Sectional, one of my teammates put out the stop card, and then bid 3♣ over RHO's 2♦. This was passed out and made exactly. The director adjusted the score to 4♣-1 on the grounds that the use of the stop card and my teammate's answers to the questions "were you aware of the 2♦ bid?" and "did you intend to make a skip bid?" (yes and yes) clearly made the 3♣ bid a "willful change of call" (Law 25B) not accepted by his LHO, who called the director at the time 3♣ was bid. I allowed as how I didn't (and I still don't) understand how there was any change of call here, much less a willful one, because until the player put 3♣ out no call had been made, but the director was adamant. My conversations with the director on this were in several short increments over time — he was busy, and we were still playing — and in the end I gave up.

Your teammate was asked his intent before anyone else had called over his 3C. He gave the answer that he intended to make a skip bid. The TD should have allowed (ordered) a 4C bid under 25A at that point and let life go on from there, rather than letting play continue with the 3C bid and adjusting later.

 

The result would have been the same, apparently; but it would make sense and have a basis in law. Or perhaps it would have been worse for your teammates depending on what 4C means over 2D.

 

27A rules about conventional meanings of replacement bids would not apply, since 3C wasn't insufficient and wasn't intended anyway. I think the TD accidentally gave your side the best of it.