[awm]

Gerben42, on 2012-September-27, 10:54, said:

@Adam: I don't know about your directors, but if it WAS a mechanical error, I would call the director if you simply accepted the insufficient bid. Besides, since as director I have the hand records, I can check if I believe the "mechanical error" part. Usually I don't.

The real problem is, quoting Gnasher quoting the laws:

For the player to be allowed to correct his mechanical error, he has to "substitute his intended call for an unintended call but only if he does so, or attempts to do so, without pause for thought." (Law 25A1)

ACBL directors seem to have a very liberal definition of "without pause for thought" and a lot of players have legitimate trouble distinguishing a mechanical error from a rethink. I've seen situations where several minutes passed between the original "mechanical error" and the correction, justified by the director by claiming that the player wasn't thinking in the intervening time (so the pause was "not for thought").

[gnasher]

awm, on 2012-September-27, 23:05, said:

The real problem is, quoting Gnasher quoting the laws:

For the player to be allowed to correct his mechanical error, he has to "substitute his intended call for an unintended call but only if he does so, or attempts to do so, without pause for thought." (Law 25A1)

ACBL directors seem to have a very liberal definition of "without pause for thought" and a lot of players have legitimate trouble distinguishing a mechanical error from a rethink. I've seen situations where several minutes passed between the original "mechanical error" and the correction, justified by the director by claiming that the player wasn't thinking in the intervening time (so the pause was "not for thought").

The interpretation of "pause for thought" comes from the WBF Laws Committee. See this post:
http://www.bridgebas...post__p__652355

Obviously that doesn't allow a rethink, but it does allow several minutes of not thinking.

[lamford]

Quantumcat, on 2011-May-19, 17:48, said:

I have a question. I think someone told me once you are not allowed to have agreements over insufficient bids.

I am pretty sure you are allowed to have agreement after an opponent's insufficient bid, but I don't have time at the moment to find the relevant Law. Perhaps someone else can.

[gnasher]

The relevant law is 40B3:

Quote

The Regulating Authority may disallow prior agreement by a partnership to vary its understandings during the auction or play following a question asked, a response to a question or any irregularity.

The ACBL has elected to disallow this:

Quote

7. Law 40B3: A partnership, by prior agreement, may not vary its understanding during the auction or play following a question asked, a response to a question or any irregularity.

(From http://www.acbl.org/...cate-Bridge.pdf )

[TimG]

I'm not sure how this can work. A partnership may not vary its understanding, but an agreement about what to do after an opponent's insufficient bid won't likely be in variance to a partnership's regular understanding.

Suppose the auction starts 1H-(1C)-DBL. If a partnership plays this as penalty instead of negative, are they varying their understanding? No one has an agreement to play negative doubles of 1C overcalls.

Suppose the auction starts 1N-(1D)-? Are transfers on? We don't play transfers after they interfere with our 1NT opening, but we do play transfers when the whole 2-level is available to us. Which is varying from partnership understanding?

[gnasher]

The ACBL rule is about irregularities in general. For example, it makes perfect sense when applied to an auction where one opponent is barred because of an earlier infraction.

I agree with Tim that in the specific case of an uncorrected insufficient bid you're in a different auction from any other, so it appears to be legal to have agreements that are specific to that auction. But I wouldn't want to try to persaude an ACBL director to agree with me.

[gnasher]

Going back to QuantumCat's question from 2011, a Google search for "australian bridge federation law 40B3" produced this ABF regulation:

Quote

Prior agreement by a partnership to vary its understanding during the auction or play following a question asked, a response to a question or an irregularity committed by its own side is prohibited.