[lamford]

barmar, on 2017-October-06, 10:15, said:

There are generally only a small number of likely misreadings of the auction.

I agree that is relatively easy to find an attributable meaning to the auction without one of the calls, but I don't think Holmes and Poirot directing together would have guessed on this hand that 2NT was interpreted as Lebensohl. I don't know how you can give an attributable meaning to an insufficient bid if the auction was not misread but an IB still occurred. You are attributing a meaning to the IB in a different auction.

And I don't necessarily agree with gordontd: "my prediction is that it will be less problematic in practice than predicted, since the insufficient bid aspect has not changed significantly but has been explained better". The previous law 27B1b featured prominently in these pages with quite long threads, and even a relaxation of "same meaning" to "similar meaning". RR is regularly making insufficient bids and when he partners SB the latter will be keen to not be silenced. Vampyr asked: "What if neither the attributed meaning nor the "comparable" replacement call have anything to do with the person's hand?" SB would reply that it does not matter as RR's calls rarely have anything to do with his hand.

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2017-October-06, 10:15, said:

There are generally only a small number of likely misreadings of the auction.

Perhaps, but of this small number the director has to pick one. If he gets it wrong, partner is silenced. If the director is not such a good player, the attributed meaning may be ludicrous. So the ruling will largely depend on who the director is.


Also how does the director communicate to the players what meaning he has attributed to the call? How is a "comparable call" determined?

But as I write these words I realise that this law is actually an improvement on its predecessor. When the bidder's intention is not known, few penalty-free replacements will be permitted apart from obvious ones where the player missed by a level. It is a pity, though, that this was not the wording used.

[nige1]

The rules about illegal calls are complex, unfair, and unnecessary. Their theoretical intent is to allow the normal Bridge result; but, as Vampyr points out, "that bird has flown". Their practical effect is to give power to the director to make subjective decisions that can decide events. And they favour offenders, especially offenders who are plausibly economical with the truth.

Simpler would be to cancel the illegal call, revert the auction to correct player, and silence the offender's partner for the rest of the auction. Law 23 would apply.

A sensible rule-change, something like this, would save pages of rules. It would discourage carelessness. It would reduce controversy. It would more closely achieve an equitable Bridge result. After all, such infractions are usually mistakes. Bridge is a game of mistakes e.g. forgetting system, miscounting. And in other Bridge contexts, mistakes are often punished.

Victims could still ask the director to waive such rules, in appropriate but rare circumstances (e.g. a handicapped offender).

[Vampyr]

nige1, on 2017-October-07, 00:09, said:

The rules about illegal calls are complex, unfair, and unnecessary. Their theoretical intent is to allow the normal Bridge result; but, as Vampyr points out, "that bird has flown". Their practical effect is to give power to the director to make subjective decisions that can decide events. And they favour offenders, especially offenders who are plausibly economical with the truth.

Simpler would be to cancel the illegal call, (revert the auction to correct player if necessary), and silence the offender's partner for the rest of the auction. Law 23 would apply.

One simple sentence to handle calls out f rotation and insufficient bids. Clear, fair and easily applied. If someone thinks it is too harsh, they can make a legal call next time.

Law 23, by the way, has benn moved, and hidden somewhere at the end of the laws. Probably an intermediate step towards removing it completely, since it allows for offenders to once in awhile suffer for their actions, and that idea seems to be extremely distasteful to the lawmakers

[lamford]

Vampyr, on 2017-October-06, 18:20, said:

Perhaps, but of this small number the director has to pick one.

While I accept that there should only be one meaning attributable to the withdrawn call, and the TD has to decide what that is, there can then be a number of comparable calls. For example, 1m-(1S)-1H might have an attributed meaning of "4+ hearts and 6+ points" and comparable calls might be (depending on the offender's system), Double and 2H. The TD has to establish whether from the methods of the players whether either or both are comparable.

[pran]

There are two basic options in case of an irregularity:

1: Determine the offender and "chop his head off". (Generally a principle before say 1975?)

2: Determine a likely outcome had no irregularity occurred. The basis for this option is what happened up to, but not including the irregularity, and other circumstances.

I see a clear tendency from option 1 towards option 2 over the years. It is of course more demanding on Directors' skills, but personally I believe this is a fair road to follow.

Where may this road end?

What if we as a main rule allow the withdrawal of unintended calls (including calls out of rotation) but more strictly enforce Law 16 (unauthorized information) in all such cases.

Extreme? Maybe.
Worth considering? I think so.

[lamford]

pran, on 2017-October-07, 08:17, said:

What if we as a main rule allow the withdrawal of unintended calls (including calls out of rotation) but more strictly enforce Law 16 (unauthorized information) in all such cases.

David Burn advocated this approach several years ago, but any such change will now have to wait until 2027. It does achieve a "normal" result.

[MinorKid]

Dup

[MinorKid]

How about x replacing the 3C as comparable call, and that partner is not allow to convert it to penalty? (Puntative Retification)

How about a pass replacing the 3C and the TD tell offenders partner he has no intention to use stayman? (Neutral Retification)

So that auction can continue for both parties.

[pran]

MinorKid, on 2017-October-07, 20:07, said:

How about x replacing the 3C as comparable call, and that partner is not allow to convert it to penalty? (Puntative Retification)

How about a pass replacing the 3C and the TD tell offenders partner he has no intention to use stayman? (Neutral Retification)

So that auction can continue for both parties.

The Director has a much simpler approach available already now with the 2017 laws:
He may allow (almost) any replacement call as "comparable" and let the auction continue without any restriction.
But he must warn the players about

Law 23D said:

If following the substitution of a comparable call [see Laws 27B1(b), 30B1(b)(i), 31A2(a) and 32A2(a)] the Director judges at the end of the play that without the assistance gained through the infraction the outcome of the board could well have been different, and in consequence the non-offending side is damaged, he shall award an adjusted score [see Law 12C1(b)].

and apply this law when play is completed.

[WellSpyder]

Vampyr, on 2017-October-06, 18:20, said:

Perhaps, but of this small number the director has to pick one. If he gets it wrong, partner is silenced.

I'm not sure this is true at all. If a replacement call is comparable to ANY of the potential meanings of the IB, then partner does not need to be silenced. This seems logical to me (albeit generous), since arguably you don't get any extra information from the IB than you get from the replacement in this case.

[barmar]

WellSpyder, on 2017-October-09, 04:32, said:

I'm not sure this is true at all. If a replacement call is comparable to ANY of the potential meanings of the IB, then partner does not need to be silenced. This seems logical to me (albeit generous), since arguably you don't get any extra information from the IB than you get from the replacement in this case.

Right, I think that's the point Gordon was making in the other thread.

Basically, if the IBer makes the call they would have made if they hadn't misread the auction, and his partner interprets it as its normally meaning, it's "no harm, no foul".

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2017-October-09, 09:27, said:

Right, I think that's the point Gordon was making in the other thread.

Basically, if the IBer makes the call they would have made if they hadn't misread the auction, and his partner interprets it as its normally meaning, it's "no harm, no foul".

How are these things determined?

[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2017-October-09, 09:34, said:

How are these things determined?

You check whether the replacement bid is consistent with their agreements. E.g. if they made an insufficient 2♦ bid after 2NT, replace it with 3♦, they have 5+ hearts, and opener accepts the transfer, then everything is presumably fine. They simply misread the original action as being a level lower.

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2017-October-09, 09:49, said:

You check whether the replacement bid is consistent with their agreements. E.g. if they made an insufficient 2♦ bid after 2NT, replace it with 3♦, they have 5+ hearts, and opener accepts the transfer, then everything is presumably fine. They simply misread the original action as being a level lower.

Then there is, in practice, no real change from the previous version. You still have to determine the bidder's intention.

[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2017-October-09, 09:52, said:

Then there is, in practice, no real change from the previous version. You still have to determine the bidder's intention.

The point is which do you do first: determine the intent of the IB, then decide whether the replacement has the same meaning, or determine the intent of the legal bid, and decide if the IB could have had the same meaning.

In practice it should come out the same. You often determined the intent of the IB by taking the player away from the table and asking them. It would presumably be the meaning we assume in the second method.

[gordontd]

Vampyr, on 2017-October-09, 09:52, said:

Then there is, in practice, no real change from the previous version. You still have to determine the bidder's intention.

Not in many cases, including this. It should be sufficient to check that they play transfer bids and then say that any call that shows diamonds or hearts would be considered comparable, since the meanings attributable to the insufficient 2D are those where 2D shows diamond or those where it shows hearts, but adding that if they want to give you more, relevant information they can do so away from the table. I doubt that would often be necessary.

[lamford]

gordontd, on 2017-October-09, 09:59, said:

Not in many cases, including this. It should be sufficient to check that they play transfer bids and then say that any call that shows diamonds or hearts would be considered comparable, since the meanings attributable to the insufficient 2D are those where 2D shows diamond or those where it shows hearts, but adding that if they want to give you more, relevant information they can do so away from the table. I doubt that would often be necessary.

Assuming that we are talking about the auction 2NT-Pass-2D, some other possibilities arise and give further attributable meanings. The player may have opened 2D as a multi, or as a Benji 2D, or as an Ekron 2D, so all might be attributable meanings, depending on what an opening 2D means and replacement calls will be varied and numerous. He might, if he needed to go to Specsavers, have been bidding 2D (Multi-Landy) over an opposing 1NT. All these are much more likely than the actual thread where the player was responding to Lebensohl with an insufficient 3C. The TD DOES need to know what went through the player's mind before he can guess at an attributable meaning. In practice, of course, the player says something like "Sorry, I didn't see the 2NT bid.", and the TD does little about the UI created.

[WellSpyder]

lamford, on 2017-October-09, 11:25, said:

In practice, of course, the player says something like "Sorry, I didn't see the 2NT bid.", and the TD does little about the UI created.

Supposing that the player does indeed say something like this. Under the new laws, should the TD treat that as limiting the comparable bids? Or should the TD treat the issue of comparable bids in the same way that they would have done without the comment, but also take into account the UI?

[gordontd]

WellSpyder, on 2017-October-10, 02:22, said:

Supposing that the player does indeed say something like this. Under the new laws, should the TD treat that as limiting the comparable bids? Or should the TD treat the issue of comparable bids in the say way that they would have done without the comment, but also take into account the UI?

My view is that we should treat it as limiting the comparable calls, but I don't think we've had enough cases or discussion to establish a consensus about this. In practice, it's unlikely to cause a problem though, since the information from any such comment will usually match the information given by the replacement call if it has been deemed to be comparable.