[sanst]

 Vampyr, on 2019-July-16, 17:59, said:

This is not correct. When any bid other than 1♣ is bid, multiple cards are taken out of the bidding box. And the Stop card is taken out before the bidding cards.

The Stop card is not part of a call in the EBU, and I should consult my local regulations carefully instead of relying on spurious logic.

You’re right. It was a bit late. I don’t think your comment was necessary and rather pedantic.

[Vampyr]

 pran, on 2019-July-17, 01:07, said:

To make it completely clear - the sequence of events are (in all three alternatives):
1: The slow player takes a card from his bid box
2: The second player takes a card from his bid box
3: The second player faces his bid card
4: The slow player faces his bid card.

There is no hesitation by the slow player, he just is slower than the second player.

Since your ruling depends on three possibilities in case 2 I should like to know the answers in all three alternatives.

In the actual case, the incident was in the EBU where a bid is made once the bid clears the bidding box. This may make the sequence of bids a bit clearer.

 sanst, on 2019-July-17, 01:32, said:

You’re right. It was a bit late. I don’t think your comment was necessary and rather pedantic.

I believe that when someone is trying to interpret a law, and is wrong, the error needs to be corrected so that other readers do not think it is true.

[pran]

 Vampyr, on 2019-July-17, 06:07, said:

In the actual case, the incident was in the EBU where a bid is made once the bid clears the bidding box. This may make the sequence of bids a bit clearer.

I know, but I was interested in ACBL ruling.

 Vampyr, on 2019-July-17, 06:07, said:

I believe that when someone is trying to interpret a law, and is wrong, the error needs to be corrected so that other readers do not think it is true.

The important question here is the understanding of the word "simultaneous".

I have in my library: Commentary on the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge 1987 issued by EBL in 1992 in which we find

Law 33 Simultaneous Calls said:

33.2
Obviously no two calls can ever be truly simultaneous in the strict sense of the word. When, however, two calls are made at approximately the same instant, and are clearly independent of each other, the Director should treat them as simultaneous. This Law is not to be used to excuse non-simultaneous actions, even though they may be clearly independent. In close situations the matter of independence and/or possible influence should be considered.

I see no reason why this comment should not be fully relevant today. (Under ACBL as well as under other jurisdictions within WBF)

[blackshoe]

 pran, on 2019-July-17, 01:07, said:

To make it completely clear - the sequence of events are (in all three alternatives):
1: The slow player takes a card from his bid box
2: The second player takes a card from his bid box
3: The second player faces his bid card
4: The slow player faces his bid card.

There is no hesitation by the slow player, he just is slower than the second player.

Since your ruling depends on three possibilities in case 2 I should like to know the answers in all three alternatives.

In this sequence, following the ACBL's regulation on when a call is made, second player's call was made before the slow player's call. So I don't think I would apply Law 33. I can see the argument for it, though. Still, I would rule the second player has called out of turn in all cases.

[weejonnie]

The ACBL rules mentioned above do cause a minor problem.

A 'slow' player takes out a pass card: the 'fast' player sees it coming and makes a call. The 'slow' player sees this call and puts back the pass card, replacing it with a bid. Does this mean that the call made by the 'fast' player is made at the same time i.e. subsequent to the call by the slow player or before?

Anyway - IMHO in the EBU the use of the STOP card is part of the regulations of the RA and so is AI - it is nothing to do with making a call. Indeed the RA is clear that pulling the STOP card out of turn is not per se causing a COOT (although in that case UI is available).

[pran]

 weejonnie, on 2019-July-18, 08:31, said:

The ACBL rules mentioned above do cause a minor problem.

A 'slow' player takes out a pass card: the 'fast' player sees it coming and makes a call. The 'slow' player sees this call and puts back the pass card, replacing it with a bid. Does this mean that the call made by the 'fast' player is made at the same time i.e. subsequent to the call by the slow player or before?

Anyway - IMHO in the EBU the use of the STOP card is part of the regulations of the RA and so is AI - it is nothing to do with making a call. Indeed the RA is clear that pulling the STOP card out of turn is not per se causing a COOT (although in that case UI is available).

If you read the comment I quoted you should see that two calls are never considered simultaneous unless they are clearly independent of each other. The action you describe for the slow player is clearly not independent of the action taken by the fast player (he changes his mind when seeing the coming call by the fast player) so Law 33 can never apply here.

(And by the way, to avoid any discussion about the authority of EBL, ACBL and WBF: The commentary was written by Grattan Endicott and Bent Keith Hansen for EBL in full cooperation with WBF.)

In my examples the two calls in question are completely independent of each other and shall therefore be handled under Law 33.

[pescetom]

Commentary on the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge 1987 issued by EBL in 1992 said:

33.2
Obviously no two calls can ever be truly simultaneous in the strict sense of the word. When, however, two calls are made at approximately the same instant, and are clearly independent of each other, the Director should treat them as simultaneous. This Law is not to be used to excuse non-simultaneous actions, even though they may be clearly independent. In close situations the matter of independence and/or possible influence should be considered.

 pran, on 2019-July-18, 09:47, said:

If you read the comment I quoted you should see that two calls are never considered simultaneous unless they are clearly independent of each other. The action you describe for the slow player is clearly not independent of the action taken by the fast player (he changes his mind when seeing the coming call by the fast player) so Law 33 can never apply here.

I agree that the example of a slow player who takes advantage of a faster call clearly fails the test of independence and should be treated as out of turn.
Even if you consider the OP example as a potential candidate for Law 33 (which I would not under my RA regulations), I would argue that it also fails the test of independence in that the faster player may well have seen the Stop card hit the table and taken it for a call, having already decided to pass over any call.

[pran]

 pescetom, on 2019-July-18, 10:06, said:

Commentary on the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge 1987 issued by EBL in 1992 said:

33.2
Obviously no two calls can ever be truly simultaneous in the strict sense of the word. When, however, two calls are made at approximately the same instant, and are clearly independent of each other, the Director should treat them as simultaneous. This Law is not to be used to excuse non-simultaneous actions, even though they may be clearly independent. In close situations the matter of independence and/or possible influence should be considered.



I agree that the example of a slow player who takes advantage of a faster call clearly fails the test of independence and should be treated as out of turn.
Even if you consider the OP example as a potential candidate for Law 33 (which I would not under my RA regulations), I would argue that it also fails the test of independence in that the faster player may well have seen the Stop card hit the table and taken it for a call, having already decided to pass over any call.

In that case I would without any doubt rule that his call is subsequent (to the call he mentally registered made by his RHO).

I am fully aware of the ACBL regulation about when a call is made and I think this example clearly shows why that regulation is unfortunate (to say the least).

[blackshoe]

The regulation may be unfortunate, but it is the regulation we have. If the situation described (fast player sees slow player reaching for, or even touching, a pass card, and bids quickly, and now slow player changes his mind and pulls out a bid) were to actually happen (I've never seen it) I think it would be wrong to rule that slow player's bid is out of turn. After all, slow player had not made a bid when fast player made his bid. So either fast player's bid is out of turn, or it is deemed to be subsequent to slow player's bid, in which case it may be insufficient. This may give rise to further complications. For example, fast player's bid may have different meanings depending on whether slow player has passed or bid. But we can't just arbitrarily do whatever we like here - we have to follow the law.

All that said, the possibility of giving slow player a procedural penalty exists, even if we rule that he hadn't made a call when fast player called. After all, we are told we should not be touching for (or reaching for?) the bidding box until we have decided what to call (that doesn't change the fact that by regulation a call is not made until the bidding cards are on the table - acknowledging that the regulation doesn't quite say that).

[barmar]

I agree with blackshoe on this.

The slow player is legally allowed to change his bid before it meets the criteria for being "made", but in additional to a possible PP for touching the bidding cards prematurely there may be UI implications from partner having seen his original attempted call.

[pran]

Here are some extracts from the relevant Norwegian regulations:
(I have reason to believe that these conform completely with the corresponding EBL regulations.)

Bid boxes:
A call is considered made if the bid card is removed from the bid box with the clear intention of making that call (See exception when screens are used).
Law 25A applies if the card removed from the bid box is not the desired call.

STOP:
When STOP is announced (verbally or by removing the STOP card from the bid box) the next player in turn to call is forbidden from making any call until the player who signaled STOP indicates the end of the STOP period (by retracting the STOP card or saying words to the effect of "continue").

It appears to me that the "problems" possible with the ACBL regulation(s) simply cannot occur with our regulations?

The fact that ACBL has abandoned the use of STOP seems completely irrelevant in this context.

[Vampyr]

 pran, on 2019-July-18, 10:30, said:

In that case I would without any doubt rule that his call is subsequent (to the call he mentally registered made by his RHO).

This is nonsense. How can a call be subsequent to no call?

[pran]

 Vampyr, on 2019-July-18, 15:51, said:

This is nonsense. How can a call be subsequent to no call?

Which means that he has just called out of turn.

[barmar]

 Vampyr, on 2019-July-18, 15:51, said:

This is nonsense. How can a call be subsequent to no call?

It's not "no call". Pran was talking about the situation where player A is making a call slowly, and while this is in progress (but before it meets the criteria for a call) player B makes a call, then player A backs up and makes a different call. Pran claims that B's call is subsequent to A's real call.

This makes sense to me.

[pran]

 barmar, on 2019-July-19, 00:23, said:

It's not "no call". Pran was talking about the situation where player A is making a call slowly, and while this is in progress (but before it meets the criteria for a call) player B makes a call, then player A backs up and makes a different call. Pran claims that B's call is subsequent to A's real call.

This makes sense to me.

Careful, now!

With ACBL regulations A has not yet made any call at the moment B makes his call. B has therefore called out of turn and A has then called. Whether A makes the call he originally intended or changes his mind when seeing the call out of turn by B is immaterial.
The applicable law is now

Law 28B said:

B. Call by Correct Player Cancelling Call Out of Rotation
A call is considered to be in rotation when made by a player whose turn it was to call before rectification has been assessed for a call out of rotation by an opponent. Making such a call
forfeits the right to rectification for the call out of rotation. The auction proceeds as though the opponent had not called at that turn. Law 26 does not apply, but see Law 16C2.

Regardless of jurisdiction: If A when seeing the "intervening" call by B "backs up and makes a different call" from what he originally intended, his new call is not independent of B's call and can therefore not be considered simultaneous with this.

[Vampyr]

 pran, on 2019-July-19, 01:21, said:

Careful, now!

With ACBL regulations A has not yet made any call at the moment B makes his call. B has therefore called out of turn and A has then called. Whether A makes the call he originally intended or changes his mind when seeing the call out of turn by B is immaterial.
The applicable law is now


Regardless of jurisdiction: If A when seeing the "intervening" call by B "backs up and makes a different call" from what he originally intended, his new call is not independent of B's call and can therefore not be considered simultaneous with this.

As always, there is little point discussing ACBL regulations, because thankfully most of us do not have to deal with them.p

[blackshoe]

 Vampyr, on 2019-July-19, 08:03, said:

As always, there is little point discussing ACBL regulations, because thankfully most of us do not have to deal with them.p

Yeah, well, some of us do, so yes, there's a point to discussing them.

[pran]

 blackshoe, on 2019-July-19, 18:05, said:

Yeah, well, some of us do, so yes, there's a point to discussing them.

There is one specific situation for which I would like to learn the ACBL ruling:

A player (in turn to call) removes a card from the bid box with the apparent intention of making that call and the card becomes visible to the other players at the table.
However, rather than making the call (ACBL rules) he changes his mind, restores the selected card to the bid box and makes his call with a different card from the bid box.

In Norway this is a clear cut case for Law 25, what about ACBL?

[blackshoe]

 pran, on 2019-July-19, 19:07, said:

There is one specific situation for which I would like to learn the ACBL ruling:

A player (in turn to call) removes a card from the bid box with the apparent intention of making that call and the card becomes visible to the other players at the table.
However, rather than making the call (ACBL rules) he changes his mind, restores the selected card to the bid box and makes his call with a different card from the bid box.

In Norway this is a clear cut case for Law 25, what about ACBL?

Call's not made yet, so Law 25 doesn't apply.

[pran]

 pran, on 2019-July-19, 19:07, said:

There is one specific situation for which I would like to learn the ACBL ruling:

A player (in turn to call) removes a card from the bid box with the apparent intention of making that call and the card becomes visible to the other players at the table.
However, rather than making the call (ACBL rules) he changes his mind, restores the selected card to the bid box and makes his call with a different card from the bid box.

In Norway this is a clear cut case for Law 25, what about ACBL?

 blackshoe, on 2019-July-19, 21:47, said:

Call's not made yet, so Law 25 doesn't apply.

Does that mean that you rule "no irregularity"?