BBO Discussion Forums: indecisive use of the Stop Card - BBO Discussion Forums

4th seat, w/r MPs national event:

(P)-P-(1♠)-?

I decided I wanted to preempt 3♣ with my hand (showing long clubs), and pulled out the stop card. At that point I recalled our agreements treat 3♣ as both minors (Roman jumps) and that my only natural club bids were 2♣ or 4+♣.

Can I change my mind after pulling out the stop card but before bidding anything? What if my eventual call is pass or a non-jump bid?

I'm pretty sure you can change your mind, but your partner is considered to have unauthorized information. This should not infer any "penalty" per se, but if partner appears to have taken advantage the directors can adjust.

Adam's pretty much right. You haven't made a call yet, so you can pretty much make any call you like, but if it's not a skip bid, partner has the UI that you were contemplating one.

That seems terrible that you can change your mind and not skip after using the stop card. I mean, what if the opps don't know your special agreements so can't determine if UI has been used or not. What if your partner psyched in 3rd seat, then when you later put out a skip card partner looks pale so you just bid 2H (and the opps don't know why you changed your mind).

This also makes it advantageous to use stop cards rather than to not use them so that you can change your mind if youre about to mess up.

It really seems like a system where a stop card is not binding is messed up.

The purpose of the stop card is solely to remind LHO of his obligation to pause ten seconds after a skip bid. Using it for any other purpose is, of course, illegal. However, a stop card (or a verbal "skip bid" warning) is not a call.

Suppose there were no skip bid warnings. You're thinking about what call you want to make. If you decide on a skip bid, can you then change your mind? Of course you can! The only difference with the skip bid warning is that there may be extraneous information around. That is not, in itself, a breach of law. Sure, there may be a breach of law because of it. So what? The TD will deal with it.

Players are not required to know your special agreements. That's what the disclosure rules are for. Players are not required to determine if UI has been used, either. That's the TD's job. The law says that if you think there may have been some extraneous information provided by a player to his partner, you should reserve your right to call the director. If opponents dispute that there was extraneous information provided, they are supposed to call the director and let him decide who's right. This applies to all kinds of sources of such information, not just hesitations. IMO the sooner players learn that, and learn to deal with it properly, the better for all concerned, and for the game itself.

JLOL, on Mar 29 2009, 09:56 PM, said:

Right, but Adam is correct IMHO. You haven't made a call yet.
...same during play. I you say 7 of... and there are 2 7's in dummy then you can still change the play to any other call. Maybe even if there is only one 7 in dummy?

"seven of..." is not a complete call, so can be changed. However if, say, a lead has been made, there is seven of the suit led in dummy, and declarer calls "seven", that is deemed to be a complete call and the card must be played. If the lead is in dummy, there's only one seven, and declarer calls "seven", again, the card must be played.

When something like this happens to my partner I try to do the right thing, but I find it hard to judge wheather I did or did not use the UI.

Example, real life, partner gets the stop card, stops to think and chooses 2♣, strong with a weak ♦ opening.
At this moment I know that he intended to open 2♥, weak with 5♥ and a minor, I bet a lot on 4+♦.
We recently changed the meaning for the 2♥ opening and he remembered that too late.
I held 4♦, bid 2♦ and after an overcall 3♦.
That was it, I would have bid 4♦ if they had bid again.
The 2♦ call was normal, partner could be strong, but I could have bid 4♦ after the overcall.
They would probably have doubled that and get a pretty good result.

Should I explain the opponents that I had UI and call the director?

seems correctable (with UI to partner), but it really seems like yet another argument against the stop card.

It seems like the stop card is used a significant amount to "wake partner up" rather than to take care of the opponents. I've seen people pull out the stop card, put it down, stop, look significantly at their partner to make sure they got it, then put down their special bid.

I would like to take all of the stop cards out of the bid boxes in my club. I would especially like to take them away from the players who take them out, put them on the table, and then think about what they are going to bid. To me, that is giving UI. It says "my hand is so good I have choices of how to show it".

JoAnneM, on Mar 29 2009, 06:49 PM, said:

Not to mention the inconsistent use of a stop card where a "stop" is to alert partner of a preemptive call, and no stop indicates 'values'.

Vilgan, on Mar 29 2009, 05:48 PM, said:

I don't think so...if there were no stop cards, he would have said "skip bid" then corrected that. Same UI.

Please keep the stop card - it wakes my partner up to the fact that I am about to do something unusual.

jillybean2, on Mar 29 2009, 09:34 PM, said:

LOL

I have always hated the stop card and I always will. It reminds me of the street signs before traffic lights that say "please stop at red light". It ends up causing so many more problems than it prevents.

I think the laws SHOULD say that the stop card is the start of a call, so that once you use it you can't change back to a non-jump. But they don't.

We in the ACBL have a choice — use the stop card or don't use it. Since in my experience LHO ignores his responsibility to pause for ten seconds (or worse, clearly indicates that he's "pausing" only because the rules require it), I've stopped using the card.

The worst part is that, at least at the clubs around here, I do not expect a TD to ever do anything about any use of UI that may occur after a fast call over a skip bid.

The problems with the stop card stem from the fact that the mandated pause is way too long!

10 seconds is an age during the bidding. And for almost every player I have ever come across, if they haven't come to a decision about what the best bid is after 3 or 4 seconds, they won't come to any better decision after 10 (no matter how much they think or stare at the ceiling).

If they just made the mandated pause 3 seconds, many more people would actually follow the rules.

Lobowolf, on Mar 29 2009, 09:08 PM, said:

Not necessarily. I use the stop card regularly when using bidding boxes, but I never say "skip bid" when bidding verbally.

Actually, if there were a bidding box, but I couldn't find the stop card, the process of looking for it might cause me to say "skip bid" when I can't find it. When I'm at a table where some boxes have it, but mine doesn't, I usually ask to borrow one when I go fumbling for it.

EBU requires next opp to wait to bid until the stop card is withdrawn, the bidder is supposed to leave it out for 10 seconds. That matches the instructions printed on the Jannersten bidding cards. That sounds better to me than the ACBL procedure where you put the stop card back immediately & the opp decides how long to wait (often zero seconds). Anyone know why the ACBL decided this way was better?

Again I think the main problem is education, 90% of the 199er crowd and maybe half of the regular club players have no clue why they are supposed to stop over skip bids.

Stephen Tu, on Mar 30 2009, 11:34 AM, said:

Because if the skip bidder doesn't wait the appropriate amount of time before returning the stop card, and the next bidder doesn't adjust for this, the same UI is passed as if the stop card hadn't been used in the first place. So the onus is still on the next bidder to pause properly to avoid passing UI.