[dburn]

aguahombre, on May 28 2010, 09:03 AM, said:

After carefully reading all of what Bluejak has written, I conclude that there is no sufficient bid, other than a natural 3H (because 2 and 4 are xfers), which would not have barred the opener. Am I reading it correctly?

Now for the laugh: responder, having been informed that partner would be barred if she did so, chose 2NT with her 3-4-3-3 nine-count, duly down one. A sane person would have chosen 3 or pass.

Responder with, say, a 2=5=3=3 nine count, would be at liberty to bid 2♦ under Law 27B1b (because "almost" all hands that would bid 2♦ over 1NT would respond 1♥ to one of a minor).

The question arises: under the "liberal" interpretation of L27 developed by the WBF, is responder permitted to make the deliberate misbid of 2♦, followed by 2NT over opener's conversion to2♥? See Appendix A of this document for a discussion by Max Bavin of this interpretation.

[gwnn]

aguahombre, on May 28 2010, 02:03 PM, said:

Now for the laugh: responder, having been informed that partner would be barred if she did so, chose 2NT with her 3-4-3-3 nine-count, duly down one. A sane person would have chosen 3 or pass.

Maybe she confused the pass card with the 2NT card.

[pran]

aguahombre, on May 28 2010, 03:03 PM, said:

After carefully reading all of what Bluejak has written, I conclude that there is no sufficient bid, other than a natural 3H (because 2 and 4 are xfers), which would not have barred the opener. Am I reading it correctly?

No, this is not correct:

Law 27B1a: if the insufficient bid is corrected by the lowest sufficient bid in the same denomination and in the Director’s opinion both the insufficient bid and the substituted bid are incontrovertibly not artificial the auction proceeds without further rectification.

3H is not the lowest sufficient bid in hearts; 2H is, but shall be deemed artificial. Opener shall be barred for the rest of the auction on this board whatever call the offender selects to substitute for his insufficient bid.

[aguahombre]

What about if director is using 27B1B? Isn't 3H ok, then?

[pran]

dburn, on May 28 2010, 04:18 PM, said:

bluejak, on May 28 2010, 08:31 AM, said:

And I agree, pran, we do not look at the player's hand.

This seems to be a mantra chanted by tournament directors three times daily while facing the Portland Club. It has no basis in law, nor in anything else (least of all sense).

In the case of a permitted correction to an insufficient bid under Law 27, it is inevitable that other players will receive information about the hand of the player who made the IB. For example, if the Director informs the table that 2♦ is a permitted correction, everyone will know that the player has five hearts (but everyone will know that anyway, because that is what 2♦ shows). If instead the Director informs the table that 2♥ is a permitted correction, everyone will know that the player has five spades (but they will know that anyway, however many hands the Director has or has not examined).

Does bluejak seriously advocate that a player should attempt to convince the Director that he meant to bid hearts to show spades, rather than bidding hearts to show hearts, without simply showing his hand to the Director (away from the table, of course) and saying "look - isn't it obvious what I meant?"

The idiotic ideas that insufficient bids cannot have a meaning and that directors never look at players' hands are mostly harmless, but in terms of the correct application of Law 27 they are not harmless at all, and they should not be offered as advice on a serious forum (or any other kind).

Nobody shall be able to know that the player has 5 hearts when allowed to change his IB correspondingly. But everybody may (and will) know that he has made a call that shows 5(+) hearts.

No law in the book specifically prohibits the director from destroying a board by some action that makes obtaining a normal score on that board impossible. When I received my first licence as director some 30 years ago we had been told an incident that was the result of how the laws were applied some ten or twenty years earlier: A director had inspected a player's hand and declared: "In my opinion his call is OK for that hand!".

Wouldn't it be nice if we could have a third person verifying to us (after inspection) that the players really hold the hands they incicate with their calls? Only, this is not Bridge.

[pran]

aguahombre, on May 28 2010, 05:49 PM, said:

What about if director is using 27B1B? Isn't 3H ok, then?

Yes, that would be OK provided that you cannot find any hand justifying the 3H bid that would not have justified the 1H (insufficient) bid in the context the offender (probably) thought he was making that bid.

This is what is meant by the substituting call having the same meaning as, or a more precise meaning than the insufficient bid.

One example to clarify this principle: The auction goes 2NT (20-21) - (pass) - 2CL

Assuming that both 2CL and 3CL in their respective situations are Stayman bids and invitational to game 3CL shall still not be accepted as a substitution for the insufficient 2CL bid under Law 27B1b. The reason for this is that while 2CL will indicate 8+ HCP, 3CL can be made with as little as 4HCP and therefore does not have a more precise meaning than the 2CL bid.

[blackshoe]

TimG, on May 28 2010, 08:23 AM, said:

blackshoe, on May 28 2010, 02:17 AM, said:

1. If both the IB and the lowest sufficient bid are "incontrovertibly not conventional", the change is allowed and there is no further rectification (Law 27B1a).

I think you are quoting from old Laws. There is no reference to "conventional" in the latest Laws, is there?

I'm sorry, you're right, the current law says "artificial", not "conventional".

The word "conventional" does not appear in the new laws (at least not in the ACBL version). "Convention" appears at least seven times, some of them in the phrase "convention card".

[bluejak]

dburn, on May 28 2010, 04:18 PM, said:

bluejak, on May 28 2010, 08:31 AM, said:

TimG, on May 28 2010, 01:33 PM, said:

aguahombre, on May 27 2010, 09:43 PM, said:

Upon hearing whatever responder told him, he again states that responder may make the bid sufficient in hearts with no restrictions and adds that any other action will bar opener.

Does "make the bid sufficient in hearts" include changing the call to 3♥? I would guess that responder showed her hand to the director and upon seeing 5+ spades the director was convinced that responder had intended to respond 2♥. Now the director is allowing a correction to 2♥ (or 4♥) and has been a bit sloppy in the wording of his ruling because he knows what call responder intends to make.

To repeat, we need to clarify the difference between a Law 27B1A ruling and a 27B1B ruling. If a call is corrected under the former, 2♥ is the only possibility. But the latter allows a correction to any call, including a jump in hearts, that meets the requirements.

And I agree, pran, we do not look at the player's hand.

This seems to be a mantra chanted by tournament directors three times daily while facing the Portland Club. It has no basis in law, nor in anything else (least of all sense).

In the case of a permitted correction to an insufficient bid under Law 27, it is inevitable that other players will receive information about the hand of the player who made the IB. For example, if the Director informs the table that 2♦ is a permitted correction, everyone will know that the player has five hearts (but everyone will know that anyway, because that is what 2♦ shows). If instead the Director informs the table that 2♥ is a permitted correction, everyone will know that the player has five spades (but they will know that anyway, however many hands the Director has or has not examined).

Does bluejak seriously advocate that a player should attempt to convince the Director that he meant to bid hearts to show spades, rather than bidding hearts to show hearts, without simply showing his hand to the Director (away from the table, of course) and saying "look - isn't it obvious what I meant?"

The idiotic ideas that insufficient bids cannot have a meaning and that directors never look at players' hands are mostly harmless, but in terms of the correct application of Law 27 they are not harmless at all, and they should not be offered as advice on a serious forum (or any other kind).

It is important that TDs do their job competently, according to their training and the way they are advised by their authority, and ignore people who use sarcasm an innuendo to try to persuade them to do a bad job.

Of course it is easy to look at a person's hand and often it will do no harm. But the fact that it will rarely do harm is no reason for deliberately doing a bad job, nor is the fact that people are sarcastic about doing it correctly rather than proving that the advise is wrong.

No, David, I am not gong to advise readers of this forum to be incompetent or bad TDs just to avoid your sarcasm.

[aguahombre]

Sorry if the thread led to some animosity. But not sorry I started the thread. Most informative were Bluejak's five points culled from the regs and the "Appendix A" of the meeting notes, provided by the other David. I think I've got it, now from the combination 27B1B and the advice from the Appendix on when it is, or is not, appropriate to use a loose interpretation of it.

[dburn]

bluejak, on May 28 2010, 05:48 PM, said:

No, David, I am not gong to advise readers of this forum to be incompetent or bad TDs just to avoid your sarcasm.

Very wise. Of course a TD should not act as in Sven's example - that is, he should not prejudge issues by announcing that a player "has his bid". (At least, he should not do this at duplicate - at rubber bridge the practice is more or less compulsory, though repugnant.)

To that extent, the general principle "don't look at a player's hand before ruling" is perfectly sound. But as the ancient Romans noted (actually the ancient Greeks, but that would be confusing), "a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid" is a fallacy, and competent or good TDs will recognise it as such.

Law 27 is without doubt a complicated Law, and probably not a very sensible Law. But it is the Law, and it requires as a minimum that when the Director permits a correction under part B1[b], the Director must (in effect) be satisfied that, and announce to the players that, there is a strong correlation between the insufficient bidder's replacement call and the insufficient bidder's cards. Moreover, the replacement call must in the Director's opinion be consistent with the methods used by the insufficient bidder's partnership.

Now, in most cases the Director simply cannot assure this without ascertaining whether or not it is true. And he simply cannot ascertain whether it is true without knowing what the insufficient bidder holds.

That is: in certain cases (perhaps the majority) a Director should not allow knowledge of a player's hand to influence his ruling, and should not seek to acquire such knowledge; but in certain other cases (perhaps the minority) he cannot conscientiously act without knowledge of a player's hand.

[campboy]

dburn, on May 28 2010, 05:21 PM, said:

Responder with, say, a 2=5=3=3 nine count, would be at liberty to bid 2♦ under Law 27B1b (because "almost" all hands that would bid 2♦ over 1NT would respond 1♥ to one of a minor).

I am not convinced. I think this situation is closer to situation (iv) of the appendix you cite (the calls have the same basic meaning, but the replacement call could be made with hands which would be too weak to make the original call) than it is to any of (i)-(iii).

[aguahombre]

campboy, on May 28 2010, 07:55 PM, said:

dburn, on May 28 2010, 05:21 PM, said:

Responder with, say, a 2=5=3=3 nine count, would be at liberty to bid 2♦ under Law 27B1b (because "almost" all hands that would bid 2♦ over 1NT would respond 1♥ to one of a minor).

I am not convinced. I think this situation is closer to situation (iv) of the appendix you cite (the calls have the same basic meaning, but the replacement call could be made with hands which would be too weak to make the original call) than it is to any of (i)-(iii).

I can see the difference in the two. After 1NT, 2D xfer pretty much makes a puppet out of opener, so the fact that responder might have points is not a problem. He will invite with an invite, pass with crap, and force with a force.

But After 2NT, the (UI) knowledge that responder has at least 8 or 9 points, depending on the 2NT range, puts us very close to slam.

the exception would be where, with JXXX JXXX XX XXX, responder takes a free shot that his 2C response to 2NT will be accepted

[pran]

dburn, on May 29 2010, 01:26 AM, said:

bluejak, on May 28 2010, 05:48 PM, said:

No, David, I am not gong to advise readers of this forum to be incompetent or bad TDs just to avoid your sarcasm.

Very wise. Of course a TD should not act as in Sven's example - that is, he should not prejudge issues by announcing that a player "has his bid". (At least, he should not do this at duplicate - at rubber bridge the practice is more or less compulsory, though repugnant.)

To that extent, the general principle "don't look at a player's hand before ruling" is perfectly sound. But as the ancient Romans noted (actually the ancient Greeks, but that would be confusing), "a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid" is a fallacy, and competent or good TDs will recognise it as such.

Law 27 is without doubt a complicated Law, and probably not a very sensible Law. But it is the Law, and it requires as a minimum that when the Director permits a correction under part B1b, the Director must (in effect) be satisfied that, and announce to the players that, there is a strong correlation between the insufficient bidder's replacement call and the insufficient bidder's cards. Moreover, the replacement call must in the Director's opinion be consistent with the methods used by the insufficient bidder's partnership.

Now, in most cases the Director simply cannot assure this without ascertaining whether or not it is true. And he simply cannot ascertain whether it is true without knowing what the insufficient bidder holds.

That is: in certain cases (perhaps the majority) a Director should not allow knowledge of a player's hand to influence his ruling, and should not seek to acquire such knowledge; but in certain other cases (perhaps the minority) he cannot conscientiously act without knowledge of a player's hand.

This contribution to the thread clearly reveals your mistake:

Nowhere in the laws can you find any requirement that a correlation must exist between the call made and the cards held. Law 40A3 is very explicit to the contrary.

A director that apparently makes a ruling based on what cards he has found a player to hold is effectively exposing essential information about those cards. What the Director actually says is in this respect irrelevant, the important fact is that his ruling reflects what he has seen (possibly in addition to other circumstances for his ruling).

It is a pity that you apparently do not want to understand this principle which is so immediatly grasped when I explain it to players who attempts to show me their cards when asking for a ruling.

{added}
It happens that the Director must make a ruling at the table, but stand ready to award an adjusted score after play is completed if he then finds (based on the cards actually held by a player) that the irregularity has prevented a normal result. This implies no contradtiction to the principle that the director must make his rulings during the auction or play without looking at any card(s) not yet played.

[bluejak]

No, David, it might be correct to look at the player's hand if I agreed there should be a correlation between the call suggested and the player's hand, but nowhere is such a suggestion made.

The rule for Law 27B1A is based on the artificiality of the two possible bids, the insufficient one, and the lowest sufficient replacement in the same denomination. The rule for Law 27B1B is based on the meaning of the two calls, the insufficient bid, and the suggested replacement. The contents of the player's hand are irrelevant to these Laws, and a look at the player's hand will only provide UI from the TD to the other players, and exceptionally lead to the wrong ruling.

[axman]

dburn, on May 28 2010, 07:26 PM, said:

bluejak, on May 28 2010, 05:48 PM, said:

No, David, I am not gong to advise readers of this forum to be incompetent or bad TDs just to avoid your sarcasm.

Very wise. Of course a TD should not act as in Sven's example - that is, he should not prejudge issues by announcing that a player "has his bid". (At least, he should not do this at duplicate - at rubber bridge the practice is more or less compulsory, though repugnant.)

To that extent, the general principle "don't look at a player's hand before ruling" is perfectly sound. But as the ancient Romans noted (actually the ancient Greeks, but that would be confusing), "a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid" is a fallacy, and competent or good TDs will recognise it as such.

Law 27 is without doubt a complicated Law, and probably not a very sensible Law. But it is the Law, and it requires as a minimum that when the Director permits a correction under part B1[b], the Director must (in effect) be satisfied that, and announce to the players that, there is a strong correlation between the insufficient bidder's replacement call and the insufficient bidder's cards. Moreover, the replacement call must in the Director's opinion be consistent with the methods used by the insufficient bidder's partnership.

Now, in most cases the Director simply cannot assure this without ascertaining whether or not it is true. And he simply cannot ascertain whether it is true without knowing what the insufficient bidder holds.

That is: in certain cases (perhaps the majority) a Director should not allow knowledge of a player's hand to influence his ruling, and should not seek to acquire such knowledge; but in certain other cases (perhaps the minority) he cannot conscientiously act without knowledge of a player's hand.

Some years ago I swore off commenting on IB rulings because it made my head hurt. After suffering from this interminable torture of this thread I have become aware of the value of swearing and have acquired this insatiable urge to cause everybody’s head to hurt- if not so much as mine then a whole lot.

The function of L27 is to teach players and TDs to never ever bid insufficiently. That it will take some unknown number of centuries to accomplish this function is neither here nor there. However, once this is realized the law operates rather well…

The point is that when the TD arrives at a table where the auction has stopped there having been an IB this is what he ought to do:

Read L27 and L23; and ask if he needs to read L16. followed by the explanation that if the IB is not accepted then if the partner fails to pass when he should that such determination will be made after the play with the consequence that an extremely heavy book will land on some one. Then ask the LHO his choice between condoning or not the IB and require the auction to proceed- standing by to gather evidence of the use of UI that will invariably occur.

As previously alluded, this should take about 20 minutes and from which the WBF pay a PP on the order of $1000 or e1000 or sf1000 or whatever inflicts the most pain for fouling 3 comparisons of boards that were not played and for improperly delaying this 15 table club game.

I will leave it to others to describe why this is the best course- given if anybody should know the OS methods it would be the OS and thus there is no need to explain to them beyond reading the law the consequences of any particular call they might make prior to their making it.

[JanM]

campboy, on May 28 2010, 06:55 PM, said:

dburn, on May 28 2010, 05:21 PM, said:

Responder with, say, a 2=5=3=3 nine count, would be at liberty to bid 2♦ under Law 27B1b (because "almost" all hands that would bid 2♦ over 1NT would respond 1♥ to one of a minor).

I am not convinced. I think this situation is closer to situation (iv) of the appendix you cite (the calls have the same basic meaning, but the replacement call could be made with hands which would be too weak to make the original call) than it is to any of (i)-(iii).

However, the situation described in the original post arose in the ACBL not the EBU, so that document is not directly applicable. As I understand it, the WBF and ACBL Laws Committees (I think one is a "Commission") did not mean to be so restrictive. Thus, even if 2♦ might include hands that would pass 1 of a minor, there are very few such hands and so I think that if 1♥ was intended as a natural response to a natural 1m opening, it could be corrected to 2♦ over 1NT.

David B's question of whether responder could bid 1NT-2♦-2♥-2NT with the actual hand (3433 9 count) interested me enough that I asked my "laws expert" who said he thought that responder could do that but noted that OPENER would be constrained not to take advantage of UI to figure out that that responder had done so.

[dburn]

pran, on May 28 2010, 11:37 PM, said:

A director that apparently makes a ruling based on what cards he has found a player to hold is effectively exposing essential information about those cards. What the Director actually says is in this respect irrelevant, the important fact is that his ruling reflects what he has seen (possibly in addition to other circumstances for his ruling).

East: "Director, please."

Director: "How may I help?"

East: "I need to consult you privately."

Director: "That is an unusual request which I would not normally grant, but I observe from your demeanour that you intend it seriously, so I will make an exception."

[East and the Director withdraw to a subterranean bunker. East has his cards tightly clutched in his trembling hands.]

Director: "Now, what is the problem?"

East: "I have just looked at my hand, and it contains two aces of spades, Mrs Bun the Baker's Wife and the title deeds to the Electric Company. Here, see for yourself."

Director [recoiling in horror]: "No, no - you must not show me your cards! If you do, David Stevenson will never speak to me again and Sven Pran will cross me off his Christmas card list."

East: "Then what must I do?"

Director: "You must return to the table and play the hand out. Be assured that I will stand ready to adjust the score if there has been any violation of Law."

East: "But will I not then be guilty of a breach of Law 1?"

Director: "Very possibly, but I cannot help that."

Martian [who has been observing this remarkable exchange, into communicator]: "Prepare to return to base - our journey has been wasted. There is no intelligent life here."

[campboy]

Why on earth does the hypothetical player not simply use his Law-9A-given right to draw attention to this irregularity at the table?

[blackshoe]

Amusing, Mr. Burn, but hardly a useful construct. The instant a player tells any competent director that there are two identical cards in the deck in play, the TD will stop play of that board, take it away, and replace the deck with one that complies with the laws. If he has a hand record, he will reconstitute the correct hand. Your scenario, therefore, is just plain silly.

[dburn]

campboy, on May 29 2010, 06:39 PM, said:

Why on earth does the hypothetical player not simply use his Law-9A-given right to draw attention to this irregularity at the table?

Because, as should be obvious, he is in the habit [a] of forgetting his spectacles and [b] of going to the pub instead of fulfilling his proper function, which is to sit on Appeals Committees and keep deposits. That is: his hand may very well be completely normal and not defective at all; in which case he certainly should not allow any detail of it to become exposed to other players.

If he did as you suggest, the Director might (as Sven and David rightly fear) commit some such faux pas as saying "Nonsense - you only have one ace of spades." I know why the principle "don't look at a player's cards" exists, and I don't decry its usefulness in certain cases. I say only that it is not an overriding principle, nor should anyone presume that it is.

However, in case the player's hand actually is defective, he should (rightly) summon the Director, who should not (wrongly) refuse to examine it. Similarly, if a player wishes to convince the Director that by an insufficient bid X he intended a meaning Y, the Director may as well look at the player's hand (away from the table, of course) to verify that this is so.