[Phil]

Dummy: AQT

Declarer: xxx

Declarer leads low and calls the T. In the same breath he corrects the designation to the Q when he sees LHO's J.

Allow the correction?

Thanks.

[pran]

Phil, on 2013-July-26, 14:51, said:

Dummy: AQT

Declarer: xxx

Declarer leads low and calls the T. In the same breath he corrects the designation to the Q when he sees LHO's J.

Allow the correction?

Thanks.

No, he may not change his mind on which card to play like this.
Only when there was an obvious slip of the tongue (and no reconsideration) may he change the card called.

[blackshoe]

A lot of people seem to think the phrase "in the same breath" appears in the laws. It doesn't.

[Phil]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-26, 16:06, said:

A lot of people seem to think the phrase "in the same breath" appears in the laws. It doesn't.

"In the same breath" doesn't but "pause for thought" does appear in the Tech Files however:

LAW 45.C.4(b) - CARD PLAYED
In making decisions under this Law in the future, we have the following instructions from the Laws Commission.
1. IN DETERMINING "INADVERTENT," THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON THE DECLARER. THE STANDARD OF PROOF IS "OVERWHELMING." Unless there is such proof to the contrary, the director should assume that the card called was the intended one.
2. IN JUDGING "WITHOUT PAUSE FOR THOUGHT,"IF DECLARER HAS MADE A PLAY AFTER MAKING AN INADVERTENT DESIGNATION FROM DUMMY, A "PAUSE FOR THOUGHT" HAS OCCURRED. Making this interpretation has essentially put in a time limit rewriting the law. If declarer has made a play (usually a play from hand but it can be a play from dummy to the next trick) after an alleged inadvertent call of a card from dummy's hand, we are to rule that there has been pause for thought. Therefore, we may not permit declarer to change the play from dummy.

[blackshoe]

Phil, on 2013-July-26, 16:25, said:

"In the same breath" doesn't but "pause for thought" does appear in the Tech Files however:

LAW 45.C.4(b) - CARD PLAYED
In making decisions under this Law in the future, we have the following instructions from the Laws Commission.
1. IN DETERMINING "INADVERTENT," THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON THE DECLARER. THE STANDARD OF PROOF IS "OVERWHELMING." Unless there is such proof to the contrary, the director should assume that the card called was the intended one.
2. IN JUDGING "WITHOUT PAUSE FOR THOUGHT,"IF DECLARER HAS MADE A PLAY AFTER MAKING AN INADVERTENT DESIGNATION FROM DUMMY, A "PAUSE FOR THOUGHT" HAS OCCURRED. Making this interpretation has essentially put in a time limit rewriting the law. If declarer has made a play (usually a play from hand but it can be a play from dummy to the next trick) after an alleged inadvertent call of a card from dummy's hand, we are to rule that there has been pause for thought. Therefore, we may not permit declarer to change the play from dummy.

Yeah. "Pause for thought" appears in both Law 25A1 and Law 45C4{b}.

How does one provide "overwhelming" proof of what was in one's mind?

One wonders where these "instructions from the Laws Commission" come from? Is it in minutes of their meetings somewhere? Classified documents to which we ordinary mortals are not allowed access? Chance comment expressing personal opinion from a Commission member? One would presume there's some official document somewhere, but I certainly haven't seen it.

The ACBLLC asserts that it has the right to rewrite the law. Until that assertion is tested somehow and proved false, I suppose we have little choice but to go along with it. But at the very least it seems to me they ought to make this change in the laws known to all and sundry, rather than just sticking it in the Tech Files.

[Siegmund]

As a practical matter, asking declarer what he was thinking usually works: he says he called without looking at LHO's card, director says the ten stands, pay more attention next time, or he says he saw it, was surprised by it, and got tonguetied, and director lets him change it. Not many lie fast on their feet. It's not a perfect solution, of course.

Quote

The ACBLLC asserts that it has the right to rewrite the law. Until that assertion is tested somehow and proved false, I suppose we have little choice but to go along with it

Apologies for straying off topic -- but I thought that assertion had been tested and proven true, i.e., they took great care to make it clear that they, not the WBF, are the promulgating body for the Laws here, and reminded people that they were around before the WBF and had not ceded control as the Portland Club and whoever else did.

They still really shouldn't rewrite the laws. But the WBFLC has issued interpretations that turn laws on their heads before too, so it's not like ACBLLC does anything unique in issuing new interpretations of the law and declaring them binding.

[blackshoe]

The ACBL's repeated assertions are not a test and do not prove anything. That said, it may well be true that a court would side with them. It is certainly true that this subject is a bit off topic, and that discussing it here will get us nowhere. The fact is that currently in the ACBL what the LC says goes, and if they want to make ridiculous laws, or laws that don't get made known to those who need to know - the players - there's not much the rest of us can do about it.

[Siegmund]

I guess I felt like the drafting and publishing of the 2007 Laws was a 'test' that ended with the ACBL continuing to have its own version of the book, with that version in effect here: in some sense they 'won' a battle that some people wanted to end with the WBF being the only issuer of the next book.

[blackshoe]

I look at the ACBL and see a Zonal Organization in theory subordinate to the WBF as part of the latter's world-wide organization of the game. Others look at the ACBL and see an organization with effectively absolute power over organized bridge in NA, and they want to keep it that way.

IMNSHO, when the whole "Olympic Charter" thing came to light, the ACBL should have divested itself of its Districts and Units, giving them to the three NBOs in the zone (USBF, CBF, FBM) and taken on the mantle only of the Zonal Authority. Of course, that would mean a vast reduction in ACBL's power over bridge here, so it didn't happen - and probably never will.

An alternative would have been for the ACBL to become the NBO for the US, and divest itself of its "ZA" duties, responsibilities, and authority. Then the three NBOs would get together and form a new ZA IAW the constitution and bylaws of the WBF. That wasn't and isn't going to happen either.

[nige1]

The law should treat slips of the mind the same way as slips of the hand. The law would be simpler and fairer. Law-abiding players would suffer less of a disadvantage. Players would still ask the director to waive the rules for handicapped players, as they've always done. A fetid mire of pointless controversy would be drained.

[aguahombre]

Regardless of what we think about LC powers to change law via interpretation, Phil's question in the OP is worded in such a way to describe a hasty designation of a card to be played from Dummy --without paying due attention to the card being played on Declarer's left.

Declarer's desire to change the card he called for is a rethink. Even if the "pause for thought" was barely perceptible, it occurred. Pran's answer is correct.

Worded differently, the answer would be different:

Declarer leads low, LHO plays the Jack; Declarer calls "ten, no, Queen".

[RMB1]

aguahombre, on 2013-July-28, 07:58, said:

Declarer's desire to change the card he called for is a rethink. Even if the "pause for thought" was barely perceptible, it occurred.

I don't think the pause is relevant; the original designation was not unintended, so Law 45C4(b) does not apply.

[Phil]

I didn't allow the Q to be played after reading the rule and the tech files. However, in a regional event in the last Las Vetas NABC I was playing a hand and was leading toward an AJ9 in dummy and called the 9 before I noticed LHO's card which was the T. The director was called and made me play the 9 but implied that if I had made the change quicker she would have allowed the J.

It's interesting to me that there are different standards for:

- a played card
- a designated card
- a bid

[RMB1]

Phil, on 2013-July-28, 08:18, said:

It's interesting to me that there are different standards for:

- a played card
- a designated card
- a bid

In Law (as distinct from NBO interpretation) there is very little difference between the last two: Law 25A and Law 45C4(b) are similarly worded. The first is different - there is no "unintended" or "pause for thought" for cards played (from hand).

[aguahombre]

RMB1, on 2013-July-28, 08:22, said:

The first is different - there is no "unintended" or "pause for thought" for cards played (from hand).

This is technically correct. However, the issue is essentially the same. We just decide whether the card was actually played vs. merely exposed.

With the standards for a bid and a designated card from Dummy --- the only real difference, IMO, is different indicators of intent (brain fart) versus slip (of tongue or fingers).

[RMB1]

aguahombre, on 2013-July-28, 09:03, said:

We just decide whether the card was actually played vs. merely exposed.

But this is just a mechanical determination - the TD can get the player to repeat how the card was exposed and then determine whether the card must be played (according to Law 45C1/2).

[aguahombre]

RMB1, on 2013-July-28, 09:26, said:

But this is just a mechanical determination - the TD can get the player to repeat how the card was exposed and then determine whether the card must be played (according to Law 45C1/2).

This is the second time in recent history where we seem to be in substantial agreement but are chosing different ways of saying it.

All such determinations are "mechanical" or "intentional", whether they be the mechanics of our speaking or of our hands.

[mycroft]

Odd: I rule, and all my colleagues up here rule, that "queen-ace" means you saw the King and thought occurred after. "Going from not thinking to thinking is a change of mind, and changes of mind are not allowed".

Yes, that means that we're interpreting "pause for thought" in the laws and the Tech Files as "thought", no matter how small the pause. I *think* that was the intent.

Anyone who says "in the same breath" gets told that hasn't been in the Law book since I've been alive (which may not technically be true: I don't have the pre-1974 Law Book. Close enough, though). That usually gets the point across (unfortunately, in the one club I play in because I don't have to direct in it, it hasn't - to the TD. And so, I get more people I have to correct in tournaments - again. It's amazing how often one is told the correct thing, if you're told once the "thing you want/are comfortable with from back whenever", all the corrections go away. Viz "you don't have to Announce 15-17 any more."

[pran]

mycroft, on 2013-July-29, 10:52, said:

Anyone who says "in the same breath" gets told that hasn't been in the Law book since I've been alive (which may not technically be true: I don't have the pre-1974 Law Book. Close enough, though).

Law 28 in the 1949 laws said:

If a player changes a call in any way and does so practically in the same breath, his last call stands. [...]

Law 26 in the 1935 laws (and unchanged from 1932) said:

If a call is a misnomer, and is shown to be such by the player amending it practically in the same breath, it stands as corrected. By a misnomer is meant a slip of the tongue, and not a change of mind.

[aguahombre]

Pran: How do those excerpts from the 30's and 40's (which aren't in there now) help us determine if they were in the Laws after Mycroft was born?