[RMB1]

 AlexJonson, on 2011-February-05, 15:47, said:

So we have 'unintended'. Do you believe that the player intended to sign off in 4D? Campboy gives us the Cambridge linguistic philosopher answer. 'At the time he pulled the pass card he intended to pull the pass card.'

We believe the player intended to Pass. Campboy's form of words is the generally understood approach to Law 25A.

We had the old Law 25B to deal with an intended call which was seen to be a mistake. The normal example was passing a control-showing response, as in your example. We now no longer have the old Law 25B and these mistakes are not recoverable.

[gordontd]

 mrdct, on 2011-February-05, 16:29, said:

Specifically, I was involved in a case where a player misdescribed his partner's bid and pulled 4♠ out of the box (which would've been the final contract in a 4-2 fit) and held it less than an inch from the table on a slight angle and visiable to all before realising his error and put it back and made an alternative bid that lead them to a making slam in a 6-4 fit. The TD ruled (and the appeals committee concurred giving me a 1VP appeal without merit fine) that he bid 4♠ unintentionally and could change it without penalty.

From the way you have described it and the Australian regulations you quoted it would not be surprising for them to have ruled that the bid had not yet been made. Are you certain that the basis of the ruling was a L25A1 unintended call?

[mrdct]

 gordontd, on 2011-February-05, 16:59, said:

From the way you have described it and the Australian regulations you quoted it would not be surprising for them to have ruled that the bid had not yet been made. Are you certain that the basis of the ruling was a L25A1 unintended call?

The ruling was based solely on the local bidding box regulations and no reference was made to the Laws.

[barmar]

 mrdct, on 2011-February-05, 19:26, said:

The ruling was based solely on the local bidding box regulations and no reference was made to the Laws.

It sounds like they decided that he caught himself in time; they concluded that since he pulled the cards back when he was still an inch away from the table, he didn't meet the criteria of "held touching or nearly touching the table."

[pran]

 mrdct, on 2011-February-05, 16:29, said:

Jurisdiction is pretty important here as bidding box procedures are subject to local regulation. Assuming this happened in Australia, the relevant regulations in force at the moment are:


In Australia I have personal experience of TDs and appeals committee taking a pretty lenient view of what "unintentionally" means. Specifically, I was involved in a case where a player misdescribed his partner's bid and pulled 4♠ out of the box (which would've been the final contract in a 4-2 fit) and held it less than an inch from the table on a slight angle and visiable to all before realising his error and put it back and made an alternative bid that lead them to a making slam in a 6-4 fit. The TD ruled (and the appeals committee concurred giving me a 1VP appeal without merit fine) that he bid 4♠ unintentionally and could change it without penalty.

So in this case, in Australia at least, I think the guy who had the brain-snap and pulled the pass card out would have a pretty good chance of finding a TD or appeals committee willing to let him change his call to 4♥.

From your description I suspect that you "misdescribe" the Director's judgement:

If he has found that the player intended to bid 4♥ but accidentally pulled the 4♠ bid card from the box and didn't notice his mistake until he held this bid card in the position you describe, but once he discovered it he immediately and without pause for thought tried to change his bid to the desired 4♥ then the Director's ruling was correct (and your appeal quite possibly was indeed without merit).

[gordontd]

 mrdct, on 2011-February-05, 19:26, said:

The ruling was based solely on the local bidding box regulations and no reference was made to the Laws.

Then it had nothing to do with "unintended", nor with this thread, and I'm not surprised the appeal was deemed frivolous.

[mrdct]

 gordontd, on 2011-February-06, 02:26, said:

Then it had nothing to do with "unintended", nor with this thread, and I'm not surprised the appeal was deemed frivolous.

You might need to re-read the Australian regulations (which are the relevant one's for this thread as that was the jurisdiction in which the OP's situation arose). There are two states of a bid, "made" and "selected". Bids are "made" when the bidding cards are "held face up, touching or nearly touching the table; or maintained in such a position as to indicate that the call has been made". There is nothing in the Australian regulations that would permit a director to allow a "made" bid to be changed. A "selected" bid is quite a different concept and is the mere the act of touching or extracting a bidding card from the box but not going so far as to "make" the actual bid. Under Australian regulations, "selected" bids can be changed if the TD determined that the selection was unintentional; but once a bid is "made" there is no turning back.

[pran]

 mrdct, on 2011-February-06, 15:14, said:

You might need to re-read the Australian regulations (which are the relevant one's for this thread as that was the jurisdiction in which the OP's situation arose). There are two states of a bid, "made" and "selected". Bids are "made" when the bidding cards are "held face up, touching or nearly touching the table; or maintained in such a position as to indicate that the call has been made". There is nothing in the Australian regulations that would permit a director to allow a "made" bid to be changed. A "selected" bid is quite a different concept and is the mere the act of touching or extracting a bidding card from the box but not going so far as to "make" the actual bid. Under Australian regulations, "selected" bids can be changed if the TD determined that the selection was unintentional; but once a bid is "made" there is no turning back.

Are you saying that Australian regulations override laws so that (for instance?) once a call has been made as defined by the applicable regulation then an otherwise genuine Law 25A change of the call made is not allowed?

[blackshoe]

Sounds like that's what he's saying. Also sounds like an illegal regulation.

[pran]

 blackshoe, on 2011-February-06, 16:20, said:

Sounds like that's what he's saying. Also sounds like an illegal regulation.

So I thought too, but when I tried to look up the equivalent of 1997 Law 80F in the 2007 laws I couldn't find it

What has happened to the restriction that a regulation must not be in conflict with the laws?

[blackshoe]

80B2{f}.

[shevek]

Okay, so passing a splinter is a thinking error. That's fine.

What of the player who opens 1♦ with 6 spades?

Maybe he was thinking of a different hand, or his mental faculties are starting to fade.
Typically it's not a misgrab of the bidding card. He places 1♦, maybe orders a cappuccino. If he's lucky he looks at his hand then the 1♦ card and says "Oops".

What exactly should the director do and say?

Might your approach be different if he'd pulled the 1♥ card? Now the chances of misgrab are higher, though that is irrelevant in many places. Perhaps his mind was saying "transfer". Perhaps he plays transfer openings with other partners!
How deep is the director expected to delve?

Nick

[Vampyr]

 shevek, on 2011-February-06, 18:27, said:

Okay, so passing a splinter is a thinking error. That's fine.

What of the player who opens 1♦ with 6 spades?

Maybe he was thinking of a different hand, or his mental faculties are starting to fade.
Typically it's not a misgrab of the bidding card. He places 1♦, maybe orders a cappuccino. If he's lucky he looks at his hand then the 1♦ card and says "Oops".

What exactly should the director do and say?

Might your approach be different if he'd pulled the 1♥ card? Now the chances of misgrab are higher, though that is irrelevant in many places. Perhaps his mind was saying "transfer". Perhaps he plays transfer openings with other partners!
How deep is the director expected to delve?

Nick

Sometimes the director just has to hope that the player will not lie and claim a "misgrab" when he had a mental lapse.

[bluejak]

 mrdct, on 2011-February-05, 16:29, said:

Jurisdiction is pretty important here as bidding box procedures are subject to local regulation. Assuming this happened in Australia, the relevant regulations in force at the moment are:


In Australia I have personal experience of TDs and appeals committee taking a pretty lenient view of what "unintentionally" means. Specifically, I was involved in a case where a player misdescribed his partner's bid and pulled 4♠ out of the box (which would've been the final contract in a 4-2 fit) and held it less than an inch from the table on a slight angle and visiable to all before realising his error and put it back and made an alternative bid that lead them to a making slam in a 6-4 fit. The TD ruled (and the appeals committee concurred giving me a 1VP appeal without merit fine) that he bid 4♠ unintentionally and could change it without penalty.

So in this case, in Australia at least, I think the guy who had the brain-snap and pulled the pass card out would have a pretty good chance of finding a TD or appeals committee willing to let him change his call to 4♥.

The WBFLC made it pretty clear some years back as to what calls may be changed: this is not one. So it appears the Australian "interpretation" does not follow the Law as the WBFLC sees it.

Unintended depends on what was intended at the time the call was made, not the logic of the situation nor the player's earlier ideas.

[bluejak]

 AlexJonson, on 2011-February-05, 15:47, said:

Well the Laws don't say that bids just stand, do they?

So we have 'unintended'. Do you believe that the player intended to sign off in 4D? Campboy gives us the Cambridge linguistic philosopher answer. 'At the time he pulled the pass card he intended to pull the pass card.' Impressive logic eh.

That is not a "Cambridge linguistic philosopher answer". It is the answer given by the WBFLC followed by TDs around the world [except, perhaps, in Australia].

[bluejak]

 AlexJonson, on 2011-February-05, 16:40, said:

But I have no enthusiasm for mind reading nonsense about intent, when the logic of the cards is plain. Such an approach just leads to random decisions as mrdct indicates.

Your enthusiasm or otherwise is not the point. The Law is about unintended calls, and intent is thus part of it.

[alphatango]

Just a short note re Australian bidding box regulations, of which the current version is located here.

Relevant (IMO) quotes below, including all references to "select/ed":

Quote

3.1 A call is made by the player selecting the appropriate card from the bidding box and placing it
on the table (no screens) or on the bidding tray (with screens). [...]

3.5 A call is considered made (without screens) when a bidding card is removed from the bidding
box and held face up, touching or nearly touching the table; or maintained in such a position as
to indicate that the call has been made.

3.6 A call selected may be changed without penalty if it is determined by the Director that
• It is a call selected unintentionally or
• It has not passed the screen and the Director consents to the change.

[pran]

 pran, on 2011-February-06, 17:30, said:

So I thought too, but when I tried to look up the equivalent of 1997 Law 80F in the 2007 laws I couldn't find it

What has happened to the restriction that a regulation must not be in conflict with the laws?

 blackshoe, on 2011-February-06, 17:40, said:

80B2{f}.

Thanks! (And I didn't even notice it when I searched the entire law text for "regulat" )

[bluejak]

 alphatango, on 2011-February-07, 02:36, said:

Just a short note re Australian bidding box regulations, of which the current version is located here.

Relevant (IMO) quotes below, including all references to "select/ed":

The wording of the regulation is in line with the Law. It is the interpretation we were told that does not fit in. Unintentionally means "I did not mean to select this card" at the time I selected it, and so the WBFLC says. We were told here that Australian TDs have been given a different interpretation.

[bluejak]

 Vampyr, on 2011-February-05, 16:35, said:

P.S. How do I keep all of the nested quotes in my reply?

I do not think you can. You can use MultiQuote by finding when the nested quotes come from and quote them individually using MultiQuote. As far as I am aware that is the only way.