[aguahombre]

jeffford76, on 2012-April-11, 11:42, said:

How can an official interpretation be incorrect? By definition if it's the official interpretation, then it's the correct way to apply the regulation. Now if only club directors could ever see these official interpretations...

Maybe that is why Ed used "IMO". He is allowed to believe that an official interpretation is not a good interpretation.

[dwar0123]

jeffford76, on 2012-April-11, 11:42, said:

How can an official interpretation be incorrect? By definition if it's the official interpretation, then it's the correct way to apply the regulation. Now if only club directors could ever see these official interpretations...

Reality trumps legality.

[AlexJonson]

Vampyr, on 2012-April-10, 08:50, said:

I think that he should be more observant, although all of my sympathy is with him. Definitely a PP for no Stop card to the opponents.

If the location is ebu, I agree with this.

In the ebu (in my experience) from low level club games upwards the stop procedure is absolutely followed.

[blackshoe]

What I meant was that if you phone HQ, some guy — probably the janitor — will tell you that's the correct interpretation.

[aguahombre]

ACBL HQ should have people standing by to give us rulings by phone? I find them quite helpful on monthly ACBL score MP reporting, and problems players might have with status or eligibility. Can't imagine calling them for anything else.

[blackshoe]

At least one of the directors here regularly calls HQ to get their "take" on a ruling. Others don't think they need to do that. The one who does call used to call Butch Campbell directly, and she considered him pretty much infallible. Butch, however, doesn't work there any more. I don't know who she speaks to now.

[chrism]

My recollection was that the regulation in the ACBL was "use the warning consistently, either always or never". However, when I searched the references in the ACBLscore TECH files, they say that the warning "should be used all the time" and do not condone the "never" option.

ACBL Tournament regulations and policies:
THE STOP CARD
Players should protect their rights and the opponent's by announcing,
prior to making any subsequent bid that skips one or more levels of
bidding.

Place the stop card so that LHO sees it (the skip bidder is
responsible for gaining LHO's attention). The skip bid is made. The
stop card is replaced in the bidding box.

NOTE: If a player forgets to replace the stop card there is no
penalty. It is each player's responsibility to maintain appropriate
tempo including after a skip bid.

If the stop card is placed on the table and a skip bid is not made,
the director may judge that the bid card was played inadvertently or
not. If the judgment is that the card was played after a "slip of the
mind" therefore with intent, then the situation is a Law 16
(Unauthorized Information) situation, not an insufficient bid -
assuming that the player does not want to make (or did make) a
purposeful correction under Law 25 B.2. An example of this situation
is; 1H - 2D - (after the stop card is displayed) 2S.

SKIP BID REGULATIONS
Skip bid regulations and protocol (with or without STOP card use) are
explained in the POLTRN file, pages 7 & 8.


This is the referenced POLTRN policy:
SKIP BID - WARNINGS
1. How and When Made
Players should protect their rights and the opponent's by announcing,
prior to making any subsequent bid that skips one or more levels of
bidding. Proper procedure is:
a. Place the stop card so that LHO sees it (the skip bidder is
responsible for gaining LHO's attention). b.The skip bid is made.
c.The stop card is replaced in the bidding box.

2. Skip Bidder
The skip bid warning may not be used to alert partner that a
strength-showing bid is being made or not being made. The warning
should be used all the time. The tournament director may assess a
procedural penalty (Law 90) for failure to comply.

3. Opponents of Skip Bidder
a. All Players
When RHO has announced a skip bid, the player following the skip
bidder must wait for a suitable interval (about 10 seconds). In
waiting the player's manner must be one that suggests he is an active
participant in the auction (the hand should be studied during the
pause). Any obvious display of disinterest is most improper.
b. Experienced Players
Experienced players are expected to maintain proper tempo whether a
skip bid is announced or not.

4. Questioning
After a skip bid, players may ask questions but must still pause an
appropriate amount of time for study.

5. Failure to Pause
When a player acts with undue haste or hesitation, the tournament
director may award an adjusted score (Law 16) and/or procedural
penalty (Law 90).

6. Where Used
The warning is effective for all ACBL sanctioned events. For
sanctioned games at clubs, the club may elect to discourage it's use
and require no mandated pause. (Board of Directors - November, 1995)

[Vampyr]

chrism, on 2012-April-11, 19:21, said:

My recollection was that the regulation in the ACBL was "use the warning consistently, either always or never". However, when I searched the references in the ACBLscore TECH files, they say that the warning "should be used all the time" and do not condone the "never" option.

Where is this regulation published?

[blackshoe]

The tech files are included in ACBLScore, the ACBL's standard scoring program. There is a version on the web, but I'm almost certain it's not current. There's also a version on the ACBL web site, but I'm not sure that one's current either.

The great difficulty in understanding the ACBL's regulations is that, unfortunately, they are very poorly organized, if they can be said to be organized at all. Not only that, and perhaps because of that, you are not likely to get the same answer from different people on any given question.

[barmar]

I could have sworn the ACBL regulation said that LHO is required to pause 10 seconds, even if the skip bidder doesn't use the stop card; that's the source of the "it's optional" understanding. But the version posted above only puts that requirement on "experienced players". Maybe ACBL recently revised this?

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2012-April-12, 02:16, said:

I could have sworn the ACBL regulation said that LHO is required to pause 10 seconds, even if the skip bidder doesn't use the stop card; that's the source of the "it's optional" understanding. But the version posted above only puts that requirement on "experienced players". Maybe ACBL recently revised this?

Who knows? I have the same memory, btw. I find that the ACBL's publication of regulations frequently does not include a date (although the latest convention card revision does).