[TimG]

jdonn, on Sep 18 2010, 11:35 AM, said:

Someone please humor me.

Suppose I'm defending and mean to discard the 9 of diamonds but play the 4 of diamonds instead by mistake. Declarer asks my partner "what does that mean?" My partner replies "Discarding an even card means he doesn't like that suit". The moment he says "even card" I look down and realize I did not play what I intended and without pause for thought say I didn't mean to play that card and my play was a mechanical error.

In that situation I am not allowed to change my play, correct? If that is correct, what makes that any different from the situation in the bidding?

The situation in the bidding does not reveal a card in your hand that would otherwise not have be revealed.

[TimG]

barmar, on Sep 18 2010, 09:27 AM, said:

I think the TD is expected to judge whether the player is telling the truth about whether it was a mechanical error or he forgot transfers. In general, the Laws assume players are honest -- if a player lies to a TD, that's cheating.

I think in the US, where almost everyone plays transfers, it would be strange not to assume a mechanical error. In the UK, where I believe many weak NT players use natural major suit responses, it would seem the likelihood that someone momentarily forgot which they were doing with this partner is increased.

[Vampyr]

TimG, on Sep 18 2010, 05:48 PM, said:

In the UK, where I believe many weak NT players use natural major suit responses, it would seem the likelihood that someone momentarily forgot which they were doing with this partner is increased.

Where do you normally play? In the London area I have not seen players playing natural responses -- except, of course, at the rubber bridge clubs.

[jallerton]

gordontd, on Sep 18 2010, 12:52 AM, said:

jallerton, on Sep 17 2010, 10:45 PM, said:

As you have discussed this before, perhaps you could enlighten us why Law 16A3 does not apply.

The player would not be basing their call on such other information. The player has already decided on a call without the assistance of any UI, but now realises that the intended call has not been made.

Thanks. So what I think you are saying is that Law 16A3 does not apply to a substitution of a call.

However, moving on to through the Law Book I get to Law 73:

Quote

LAW 73 - COMMUNICATION

A. Appropriate Communication between Partners

1. Communication between partners during the auction and play shall be effected only by means of calls and plays.

2. Calls and plays should be made without undue emphasis, mannerism or inflection, and without undue hesitation or haste. But Regulating Authorities may require mandatory pauses, as on the first round of the auction, or after a skip-bid warning, or on the first trick.

B. Inappropriate Communication between Partners

1. Partners shall not communicate by means such as the manner in which calls or plays are made, extraneous remarks or gestures, questions asked or not asked of the opponents or alerts and explanations given or not given to them.

2. The gravest possible offence is for a partnership to exchange information through prearranged methods of communication other than those sanctioned by these Laws.

C. Player Receives Unauthorized Information from Partner

When a player has available to him unauthorized information from his partner, such as from a remark, question, explanation, gesture, mannerism, undue emphasis, inflection, haste or hesitation, an unexpected* alert or failure to alert, he must carefully avoid taking any advantage from that unauthorized information.

So I ask another question: why do Laws 73A1, 73B1 and 73C not apply?

[jallerton]

pran, on Sep 18 2010, 09:42 AM, said:

lamford, on Sep 17 2010, 11:10 PM, said:

Stefanie tells me that there was a WBFLC pronouncement on this. Essentially, the auction is always AI, and a Law 25A correction is allowed however you discovered you had made a mechanical error. I must admit that it is not necessarily the conclusion I would have reached either.

That is the law.

Not because of a WBFLC interpretation but simply from the clause in Law 25A: "until his partner makes a call".

If the "pause" should be measured from the moment the unintended call was actually made this clause would be meaningless. Thus the "pause" is measured from the moment the player becomes aware of his mistake regardless of how he became aware of it. (AI or UI is not a relevant question in this situation.)

Sorry, I don't understand that reasoning. Following that logic, in any competitive auction, if West bids something and North passes slowly, it is always legal for South to double on the basis of Law 19A1 alone. I was under the impression that South has to consider Laws 73 and 16A as well when selecting his choice of call.

[gordontd]

jdonn, on Sep 18 2010, 05:35 PM, said:

In that situation I am not allowed to change my play, correct? If that is correct, what makes that any different from the situation in the bidding?

It's covered by a different law. There's no law for defenders that allows them to change an unintended legal play. There is one that allows players (within certain parameters) that allows them to change an unintended call.

[pran]

jallerton, on Sep 18 2010, 07:04 PM, said:

pran, on Sep 18 2010, 09:42 AM, said:

lamford, on Sep 17 2010, 11:10 PM, said:

Stefanie tells me that there was a WBFLC pronouncement on this. Essentially, the auction is always AI, and a Law 25A correction is allowed however you discovered you had made a mechanical error. I must admit that it is not necessarily the conclusion I would have reached either.

That is the law.

Not because of a WBFLC interpretation but simply from the clause in Law 25A: "until his partner makes a call".

If the "pause" should be measured from the moment the unintended call was actually made this clause would be meaningless. Thus the "pause" is measured from the moment the player becomes aware of his mistake regardless of how he became aware of it. (AI or UI is not a relevant question in this situation.)

Sorry, I don't understand that reasoning. Following that logic, in any competitive auction, if West bids something and North passes slowly, it is always legal for South to double on the basis of Law 19A1 alone. I was under the impression that South has to consider Laws 73 and 16A as well when selecting his choice of call.

Sorry I just do not see the relevance of this.

But anyway: The auction is AI, but the (special) manner in which calls are made is of course UI to the respective partners.

[jdonn]

gordontd, on Sep 18 2010, 01:45 PM, said:

jdonn, on Sep 18 2010, 05:35 PM, said:

In that situation I am not allowed to change my play, correct? If that is correct, what makes that any different from the situation in the bidding?

It's covered by a different law. There's no law for defenders that allows them to change an unintended legal play. There is one that allows players (within certain parameters) that allows them to change an unintended call.

So the laws are random and arbitrary or is there a good reason they are different?

TimG gave an answer that I was already aware of and dismissed since I don't think it should matter.

[blackshoe]

I don't think the laws are random and arbitrary, so if the only other choice is that there's a good reason for the difference, then there's a good reason for the difference. If you want to know what that is, ask the WBFLC.

[jdonn]

blackshoe, on Sep 18 2010, 07:34 PM, said:

I don't think the laws are random and arbitrary, so if the only other choice is that there's a good reason for the difference, then there's a good reason for the difference. If you want to know what that is, ask the WBFLC.

I thought we had a forum for discussion here, to learn things and such. I guess I won't post here any more, I'll just send all my questions to them?

[blackshoe]

You're welcome to speculate on the reasons the laws are as they are. All I'm saying is that I don't know why they did what they did — and I don't think anyone else here knows either, unless they're on the LC, which I don't think anyone is (I could be wrong about that).

[pran]

jdonn, on Sep 19 2010, 05:08 AM, said:

blackshoe, on Sep 18 2010, 07:34 PM, said:

I don't think the laws are random and arbitrary, so if the only other choice is that there's a good reason for the difference, then there's a good reason for the difference. If you want to know what that is, ask the WBFLC.

I thought we had a forum for discussion here, to learn things and such. I guess I won't post here any more, I'll just send all my questions to them?

Are you pretending being ignorant here?

There is a major difference between exposing a card from your hand and making a call that may or may not correctly describe some features of your hand.

The laws are very clear about the consequences when a defender (incorrectly) exposes a card to be seen by his partner regardless of whether such exposure was accidental or intentional. The only situations such exposure goes without consequences for the defending side is when they are the result of a previous irregularity by the declaring side.

It is worth noting that the laws allow declarer to expose card(s) from his hand without any consequence unless such exposure is considered being a play, a claim or a concession. The obvious reason is that he has no partner who can gain from seeing such cards.

The general rule about inadvertent calls is that they may be retracted under Law 25A, a law that essentially is as old as the game of bridge itself. The reason behind this law is that a truly inadvertent call gives away no information about that player's hand and therefore can be corrected without any consequence (other than the information that the player had a slip of his tongue).

added after seeing the last from blackshoe:
I am not, and has never been an active member on any LC. The above is part of my general knowledge and understanding of the laws from having close contact with the Norwegian LC. I am confident that what I express here is correct.

[gordontd]

jdonn, on Sep 19 2010, 01:27 AM, said:

So the laws are random and arbitrary or is there a good reason they are different?

When you want to bid 1S and pull out the 1NT card by mistake, all it tells your partner is that you have a 1NT card in your bidding box, and that it's close to the 1S card.

When you want to play the D7 and pull out the D4, you tell your partner that you have the D4 in your hand, so it's dealt with in exactly the same way as any other occasion when you expose your D4.

[Oof Arted]

shyams, on Sep 18 2010, 03:27 AM, said:

MBV53, on Sep 18 2010, 08:18 AM, said:

Too late to change the call also UI appiles.

Thiis (and other posts by you) pose a small concern

I was planning to play in a "proper" tournament in India next year. But if there are TD calls, can I trust the TD to get it right?

perhaps with this comment you should not go

it is quite uncalled for to write this

[jdonn]

pran, on Sep 19 2010, 01:25 AM, said:

jdonn, on Sep 19 2010, 05:08 AM, said:

blackshoe, on Sep 18 2010, 07:34 PM, said:

I don't think the laws are random and arbitrary, so if the only other choice is that there's a good reason for the difference, then there's a good reason for the difference. If you want to know what that is, ask the WBFLC.

I thought we had a forum for discussion here, to learn things and such. I guess I won't post here any more, I'll just send all my questions to them?

Are you pretending being ignorant here?

I asked a question and the first answer I got was equivalent to "because that's how it is". So I asked again and the next answer I got was "if you want to know then ask the laws commission". So if I'm ignorant maybe I'm not pretending but I'm just having trouble learning anything?

[cherdanno]

jdonn, on Sep 18 2010, 07:27 PM, said:

gordontd, on Sep 18 2010, 01:45 PM, said:

jdonn, on Sep 18 2010, 05:35 PM, said:

In that situation I am not allowed to change my play, correct? If that is correct, what makes that any different from the situation in the bidding?

It's covered by a different law. There's no law for defenders that allows them to change an unintended legal play. There is one that allows players (within certain parameters) that allows them to change an unintended call.

So the laws are random and arbitrary or is there a good reason they are different?

TimG gave an answer that I was already aware of and dismissed since I don't think it should matter.

So TimG gave an obvious answer that you were already aware of. Your dismissal is obviously something people might disagree with (just because there are UI laws doesn't mean the laws should create more occasions where there is UI). The other obvious answer is that mechanical errors are probably more frequent in bidding than in the play. I am not sure what else you are looking for.

[blackshoe]

We get a lot of "the law is silly/stupid/wrong/whatever" here. In many cases there's no real answer to that, except to say "that's the way it is" and "go argue with the LC". And it does get old after a while. Still, I probably could have responded less testily. Sorry, Josh.

Sven has the right of it: two different situations, one of which can convey no UI, the other of which can convey UI, so two different laws.

I have some sympathy for David Burn's position that just as "a card laid is a card played", the same should apply to bids, but in their wisdom the lawmakers have given us a more complicated situation. I'm disinclined to worry about why that's the way it is — I'd rather just make my ruling and get on to the next case.

[jdonn]

It's alright I understand that they aren't identical therefore they could be different. I still have a problem that partner's alert could benefit me in any way but whatever!

[jallerton]

jdonn, on Sep 19 2010, 10:44 PM, said:

It's alright I understand that they aren't identical therefore they could be different. I still have a problem that partner's alert could benefit me in any way but whatever!

and Law 73 would suggest that you are right to have that concern.

[Vampyr]

jdonn, on Sep 19 2010, 10:44 PM, said:

It's alright I understand that they aren't identical therefore they could be different. I still have a problem that partner's alert could benefit me in any way but whatever!

I think that it is not really considered a "benefit", the idea being that in correcting a mechanical error you are just getting back to even.

This is one of the areas in which the laws are designed to, as frequently as possible, have a "normal" hand of bridge, and unlike in too many other areas, I do not believe that the lawmakers have gone way too far (of course this law is not of recent vintage). I do think the law could be tightened up a bit, however. It always amazes me when directors accept the explanation of "mechanical error" when the card came from a different section of the bidding box.