[blackshoe]

I had an email today that posed an interesting question. The situation was this: after a board is passed out, and as 3rd seat is putting his hand back in the board, he realizes that he has called with his hand from another board. "Now what?" asks my correspondent. I suggested she look at 17D. She did, and then asked "what if LHO wants to bid over 3rd seat's new call? If the TD has to award an ArtAS anyway, why does it matter what LHO does?" It seems that in this case, the board is either passed out (3rd seat repeats his pass, and so does his LHO) or the TD awards an ArtAS because 3rd seat changed his call. This law says that if third seat changes his call, his LHO must repeat his pass, but if the TD is going to award an ArtAS anyway, why is that provision in the law? Maybe it's just too early in the morning for me, but I don't get it either.

Also, what happens in a different case if third seat's changed call makes 4th seat's original call (which must be repeated) insufficient? (Perhaps 4th seat opened 1♣ and 3rd seat changes his pass to 1♠.) Do we apply Law 27? Why? We already know the score's going to be adjusted.

It is too early. My head's beginning to hurt.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2012-May-23, 08:51, said:

I had an email today that posed an interesting question. The situation was this: after a board is passed out, and as 3rd seat is putting his hand back in the board, he realizes that he has called with his hand from another board. "Now what?" asks my correspondent. I suggested she look at 17D. She did, and then asked "what if LHO wants to bid over 3rd seat's new call? If the TD has to award an ArtAS anyway, why does it matter what LHO does?" It seems that in this case, the board is either passed out (3rd seat repeats his pass, and so does his LHO) or the TD awards an ArtAS because 3rd seat changed his call. This law says that if third seat changes his call, his LHO must repeat his pass, but if the TD is going to award an ArtAS anyway, why is that provision in the law? Maybe it's just too early in the morning for me, but I don't get it either.

Also, what happens in a different case if third seat's changed call makes 4th seat's original call (which must be repeated) insufficient? (Perhaps 4th seat opened 1♣ and 3rd seat changes his pass to 1♠.) Do we apply Law 27? Why? We already know the score's going to be adjusted.

It is too early. My head's beginning to hurt.

No, Law 17D is not flawed:

If 3rd seat passes also with the correct cards then the board is scored as a passed out board.

If 3rd seat wants to make any other bid with the correct cards then the board is cancelled immediately and the Director shall award an artificial adjusted score (A- to the offending side and A+ to the non-offending side).

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2012-May-23, 15:14, said:

No, Law 17D is not flawed:

If 3rd seat passes also with the correct cards then the board is scored as a passed out board.

If 3rd seat wants to make any other bid with the correct cards then the board is cancelled immediately and the Director shall award an artificial adjusted score (A- to the offending side and A+ to the non-offending side).

That's precisely what I said should happen. The question is "why do we care what offender's LHO wants to do if we're going to adjust the score anyway when offender changes his call"? Or, in the second, hypothetical case, "what do we do when offender's changed call makes LHO's must-be-repeated bid insufficient"? Yes, I know, in this case we're going to adjust the score because offender changed his call. So why tell LHO he must repeat his call in the first place?

[barmar]

I think what it's saying is that LHO must repeat his call whether or not offender repeats his call. In the 1997 version of the Laws, the parenthetical "LHO must repeat the previous call" was in a footnote. It seems that when they promoted it to the text of the law itself, they positioned it in a confusing place.

Another change between the versions is that we now have a footnote that says "a substituted call differs if its meaning is much different or if it is psychic." I guess the psychic case is intended to handle offender making the same bid, even though it doesn't describe the hand he now holds, in an attempt to avoid an ArtAS. I'm not sure what "meaning is much different" is supposed to mean -- if he repeats the same bid in the same auction, wouldn't it always have the same meaning?

Maybe if someone has archives of older versions of the laws, we could see how this one evolved. I suspect things have gotten confused at each revision.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2012-May-23, 17:32, said:

II'm not sure what "meaning is much different" is supposed to mean -- if he repeats the same bid in the same auction, wouldn't it always have the same meaning?

In theory yes, particularly given the footnote to 27B1{b}: "The meaning of (information available from) a call is the knowledge of what it shows and what it excludes." But I suspect what they really mean in 17D is something like "the intended meaning of the call". Seems a little fuzzy, to me, but what do I know?

barmar, on 2012-May-23, 17:32, said:

Maybe if someone has archives of older versions of the laws, we could see how this one evolved. I suspect things have gotten confused at each revision.

Wouldn't surprise me any.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2012-May-23, 16:44, said:

That's precisely what I said should happen. The question is "why do we care what offender's LHO wants to do if we're going to adjust the score anyway when offender changes his call"? Or, in the second, hypothetical case, "what do we do when offender's changed call makes LHO's must-be-repeated bid insufficient"? Yes, I know, in this case we're going to adjust the score because offender changed his call. So why tell LHO he must repeat his call in the first place?

Because if the auction is apparently not affected by the call made with incorrect cards (he repeats the call unchanged after getting the correct cards) then the auction shall continue as if no irregularity had occurred. (Considcer the situation when 3rd hand bid instead of pass).

We tell LHO that he must repeat his call without any change so that he does not inadvertently destroy the board in ignorance of this law.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2012-May-23, 19:00, said:

In theory yes, particularly given the footnote to 27B1{b}: "The meaning of (information available from) a call is the knowledge of what it shows and what it excludes." But I suspect what they really mean in 17D is something like "the intended meaning of the call". Seems a little fuzzy, to me, but what do I know?

But since the offender is required to repeat the same call, how can it NOT have the same intended meaning? The auction hasn't changed!

It seems like this law could be simplified greatly. The offender picks up the correct hand, and tells the TD whether this hand is consistent with the call he made with the incorrect hand. If it is, the auction continues as if nothing had happened; if not, the TD assignes an ArtAS.

[pran]

barmar, on 2012-May-24, 03:53, said:

But since the offender is required to repeat the same call, how can it NOT have the same intended meaning? The auction hasn't changed!

It seems like this law could be simplified greatly. The offender picks up the correct hand, and tells the TD whether this hand is consistent with the call he made with the incorrect hand. If it is, the auction continues as if nothing had happened; if not, the TD assignes an ArtAS.

I see no reason why he should tell the TD in any other way than just make his (new) call. If it is unchanged then fine, if it is changed then the board is cancelled.
We have a principle that TD should never look at a player's cards before making any ruling during the auction or play.

And frankly, I have a huge problem with:

Law 17D2 Footnote said:

* For example, a substituted call differs if its meaning is much different or if it is psychic.

If the substituted call is (literally) unchanged from the original call then why should we not let the auction continue whether or not the call is consistent with the hand now held by the player?

His partner has no more information than his opponents from the situation, and if WBFLC really wanted to disallow the player to repeat the first call even though this will lead to (technically) a psychic call then a better solution would have been to disallow any attempt to save the board alltogether and just instruct the TD to award an Artificial adjusted score right away.

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2012-May-24, 03:23, said:

Because if the auction is apparently not affected by the call made with incorrect cards (he repeats the call unchanged after getting the correct cards) then the auction shall continue as if no irregularity had occurred. (Considcer the situation when 3rd hand bid instead of pass).

We tell LHO that he must repeat his call without any change so that he does not inadvertently destroy the board in ignorance of this law.

Okay, in some cases I get it. But the reasoning in your last sentence seems a bit circular. If the law did not specify that LHO must repeat his call, then he may inadvertently destroy the board by changing it, but he's not doing so in ignorance of Law 17D. So we tell him he can't change his call because that's what the law says.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2012-May-24, 07:42, said:

Okay, in some cases I get it. But the reasoning in your last sentence seems a bit circular. If the law did not specify that LHO must repeat his call, then he may inadvertently destroy the board by changing it, but he's not doing so in ignorance of Law 17D. So we tell him he can't change his call because that's what the law says.

And the reason why the laws say so is that the circumstances under which he made his first call was not changed by the fact that his RHO now has the correct cards and selected the same call as he had selected originally.

[barmar]

pran, on 2012-May-24, 04:39, said:

If the substituted call is (literally) unchanged from the original call then why should we not let the auction continue whether or not the call is consistent with the hand now held by the player?

The same reason we don't allow players to bid without looking at their hands. Players are supposed to be able to make inferences about opponents' hands from their calls. We allow normal psychics because they generally reflect tactical decisions, but we don't allow frivolous bidding, and we don't want a law that practically forces the player to psych without even a strategic reason for it (other than avoiding ArtAS).

[pran]

pran said:

If the substituted call is (literally) unchanged from the original call then why should we not let the auction continue whether or not the call is consistent with the hand now held by the player?

barmar, on 2012-May-24, 21:33, said:

The same reason we don't allow players to bid without looking at their hands. Players are supposed to be able to make inferences about opponents' hands from their calls. We allow normal psychics because they generally reflect tactical decisions, but we don't allow frivolous bidding, and we don't want a law that practically forces the player to psych without even a strategic reason for it (other than avoiding ArtAS).

A player making a call without having inspected his cards is technically making a psychic call while at the same time announcing to his partner that the call is psychic. This was illegal also before 2007 but then became explicitly illegal with the change in Law 7B2.

A player making the same call after having the Director accepting that it may be made has had the Director exposing important facts about his hand, a Director's error which usually shall result in a Law 82C adjustment of Average plus to both sides.

A player making the same call with his correct cards as he had made with the incorrect cards leaves both his partner and his opponents in the same uncertainty whether or not his call gives a correct message. I see no logical reason why this should either never or always be allowed regardless of how well the correct cards fit the call originally made with the incorrect cards.

[Zelandakh]

One slight issue with this. Say I have a rule (against weak opps) that with 10 hcp in the passout seat I pass if RHO's pass was slow and bid if RHO's pass was quick. RHO makes their pass slowly with the wrong hand. Now they receive the correct hand and pass immediately. Why am I not allowed to use the AI from my opponent's BITs?

Also, say we have a situation where I pick up the wrong cards due to a mistake made by a different pair. My bidding system allows me to make 2 different calls on the replacement hand, the slightly more suitable being the one of which I made on the original cards. Any reason I cannot make the alternative call in order to make sure of a good score?

[pran]

Zelandakh, on 2012-May-25, 06:49, said:

One slight issue with this. Say I have a rule (against weak opps) that with 10 hcp in the passout seat I pass if RHO's pass was slow and bid if RHO's pass was quick. RHO makes their pass slowly with the wrong hand. Now they receive the correct hand and pass immediately. Why am I not allowed to use the AI from my opponent's BITs?

What AI are you denied?
Besides, I assume your partner is aware of that rule which I consider disgusting if it is disclosed and illegal (concealed partnership understanding) if not.

Zelandakh, on 2012-May-25, 06:49, said:

Also, say we have a situation where I pick up the wrong cards due to a mistake made by a different pair. My bidding system allows me to make 2 different calls on the replacement hand, the slightly more suitable being the one of which I made on the original cards. Any reason I cannot make the alternative call in order to make sure of a good score?

How can you pick up the wrong cards due to a mistake made by a different pair so that you are not at all at fault, and then (before your partner calls) discover that you have the wrong cards?

The only way I can imagine you picking up the wrong cards without being at fault (because of another player's error) is when the board is fouled, in which case Law 17D is not relevant at all.

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2012-May-25, 06:06, said:

A player making a call without having inspected his cards is technically making a psychic call while at the same time announcing to his partner that the call is psychic.

I disagree with this. A psych is (paraphrasing) a deliberate departure from partnership agreement. How do you know a call made without looking is any kind of departure from partnership agreement, much less a deliberate one? Seems to me to be deliberate, the player must know what the systemic call is on the hand. Also, there's a least a one_in_possible_number_of_hands chance that the call isn't a departure from partnership agreement (i.e., it's the call the player would make had he looked at the hand and decided to make the system call).

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2012-May-26, 13:14, said:

I disagree with this. A psych is (paraphrasing) a deliberate departure from partnership agreement. How do you know a call made without looking is any kind of departure from partnership agreement, much less a deliberate one? Seems to me to be deliberate, the player must know what the systemic call is on the hand. Also, there's a least a one_in_possible_number_of_hands chance that the call isn't a departure from partnership agreement (i.e., it's the call the player would make had he looked at the hand and decided to make the system call).

The important issue is that he is deliberately alerting his partner he is making a call for which he has no reason to believe is according to the relevant partnership understandings.

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2012-May-26, 15:17, said:

The important issue is that he is deliberately alerting his partner he is making a call for which he has no reason to believe is according to the relevant partnership understandings.

Maybe so, but that doesn't make it a psych.

[barmar]

You're deliberately making a call which you have no reason to believe describes your hand. If it does describe your hand, it's purely by accident -- you didn't intend it to.

[Vampyr]

pran, on 2012-May-25, 09:28, said:

How can you pick up the wrong cards due to a mistake made by a different pair so that you are not at all at fault, and then (before your partner calls) discover that you have the wrong cards?

Easy. The person sitting in your seat at the next table put the cards from board 15 into the pocket of board 16 and vice versa. You make a call, then put your cards face-down on the table. Now you notice that the backs of your cards are blue and the backs of everyone else's cards are red.

[pran]

Vampyr, on 2012-May-28, 05:58, said:

Easy. The person sitting in your seat at the next table put the cards from board 15 into the pocket of board 16 and vice versa. You make a call, then put your cards face-down on the table. Now you notice that the backs of your cards are blue and the backs of everyone else's cards are red.

In that case the boards are fouled - see Law 87. Law 17D shall not apply.