[phil_20686]

In first seat you pick up a strong NT, (in a reasonably high level game in a KO), when you have finished sorting your hand you look up and see the auction (1S) 2C (2H). One is a little confused seeing as how you are dealer, and no one has objected. Then you realise that a pass card was left out from the auction of the previous board.

What are your options now? This seems like the very definition of an unintended bid, but all 3 players have bid.

[RMB1]

phil_20686, on 2011-November-09, 12:01, said:

What are your options now? This seems like the very definition of an unintended bid, but all 3 players have bid.

If you call the TD, I am sure that the TD will rule that the auction stands, you will not be allowed to change your initial pass. The TD probably should rule that you did not pass and that your LHO opened out of turn, so the pass card should be tidied away. But if you go down this route, partner will know that you did not intend to Pass and it is difficult to see how this is not UI.

So I think a better option is to not draw attention to what has happened until the end of the auction (or even the end of the play). Just bid 3NT now and hope you have the majors stopped and/or partner's club suit runs.

[phil_20686]

RMB1, on 2011-November-09, 12:10, said:

If you call the TD, I am sure that the TD will rule that the auction stands, you will not be allowed to change your initial pass. The TD probably should rule that you did not pass and that your LHO opened out of turn, so the pass card should be tidied away. But if you go down this route, partner will know that you did not intend to Pass and it is difficult to see how this is not UI.

So I think a better option is to not draw attention to what has happened until the end of the auction (or even the end of the play). Just bid 3NT now and hope you have the majors stopped and/or partner's club suit runs.

Just to be clear, there is no TD. You are playing a KO match in teh Gold Cup, there are only the two tables in two different rooms.

[aguahombre]

I am intrigued that in the reasonably high-level match, no one was observant during the entire play of the previous hand--including the present "dealer" who needed to put the cards he played on the table in front of him each time.

[mrdct]

The dealer has comitted an irregularity in not returning all of his bidding cards from the previous board to his box. Accordingly, his side becomes the offending side.

I would treat this as a Law 17D matter (Cards from Wrong Board) as the stray pass card on the table relates to a different board (i.e. the previous board). The pass by dealer gets cancelled, but under Law 17D2 the board will have to be abandoned and an artificial adjusted score assigned due to the fact that the offender's partner had subsequently called over the cancelled call. In this situation the non-offending side would be awarded "average plus" which in an IMPs match would usually be 3 imps.

[phil_20686]

aguahombre, on 2011-November-09, 13:10, said:

I am intrigued that in the reasonably high-level match, no one was observant during the entire play of the previous hand--including the present "dealer" who needed to put the cards he played on the table in front of him each time.

The previous board was passed out.

[bluejak]

He is playing this board with the correct cards so Law 17D is irrelevant.

[mrdct]

bluejak, on 2011-November-09, 19:44, said:

He is playing this board with the correct cards so Law 17D is irrelevant.

I disagree. The pass in first seat was a call based on the hand he held on the previous board.

[aguahombre]

I don't think "cards from the wrong board" applies to green cards, Mrdct.

[mrdct]

aguahombre, on 2011-November-09, 20:38, said:

I don't think "cards from the wrong board" applies to green cards, Mrdct.

I don't see why not. Law 17D quite explicitly deals with "calls" which are defined in the Laws as "any bid, double, redouble or pass". The pass card left on the table from the previous board was a call based on this guy's hand from that board which is the wrong board. Law 17D acts to cancel that call and explains what to do depending on how many other people called before it was cancelled.

[blackshoe]

mrdct, on 2011-November-09, 21:56, said:

The pass card left on the table from the previous board was a call based on this guy's hand from that board which is the wrong board. Law 17D acts to cancel that call and explains what to do depending on how many other people called before it was cancelled.

Interesting approach. Let's see...

Quote

Law 17D1: A call is canceled if it is made by a player on cards that he has picked up from a wrong board.

The player has in his hand the cards from the correct board. The call in question was made during the auction on the previous board, at which time he had in his hand the cards from the correct board. So this law does not seem to apply. Since the rest of law 17D depends on this part applying, the rest doesn't apply either. So nice try, but no cigar.

On applying law 17 to "bidding cards", presumably on the suggestion that a bidding card is a "card" in the sense of the law: nope. "Cards he has picked up from the wrong board" clearly refers to playing cards, not bidding cards. In fact, the word "card" appears 86 times in the laws, and none of them can be construed to refer to bidding cards.

This is properly a matter for bidding box regulations. If the RA's or TO's regulations do not address the problem (I'm not sure any of them do), then it falls on the TD. I haven't done a thorough search of TFLB, but I don't think any law specifically covers it. Law 80B2{e} authorizes the TO to prescribe bidding boxes, which is the source of authority for bidding box regulations, but it doesn't say anything about specific procedures. So I would look at laws 81, 82, 84, 90, and 12.

[RMB1]

Dealer has not passed. He did not take out a pass card from the bidding box with apparent intent to call uring the auction period on this board. Instead he appears to be guilty of failing to follow correct procedure in not returning his bidding cards to the bidding box before starting this board.

It would be possible to rule that not result can be obtained and rule AVE-/AVE+.

Or the auction (starting with LHO's call) should be allowed to stand and a result be optained. Dealer could receive a procedural penalty or (less likely) there might be an adjustment under Law 73F (dealer has misled LHo into thinking that he has passed).

[pran]

phil_20686, on 2011-November-09, 12:01, said:

In first seat you pick up a strong NT, (in a reasonably high level game in a KO), when you have finished sorting your hand you look up and see the auction (1S) 2C (2H). One is a little confused seeing as how you are dealer, and no one has objected. Then you realise that a pass card was left out from the auction of the previous board.

What are your options now? This seems like the very definition of an unintended bid, but all 3 players have bid.

I remember an equivalent question from a TD exercise many (some 25?) years ago. The answer then was that a player is responsible for not clearing his part of the table of any bid cards left in front of him from a previous board or even from a previous round. According to that exercise the dealer in this OP is deemed to having passed and the auction simply continues with his second call on the board. (Any extraneous information from him to the effect that "his" first pass was unintentional is of course UI to his partner.)

I know of no such occurrence since that exercise so I can (of course) not say whether the ruling should be the same in Norway today but I suppose it will.

[Zelandakh]

For this ruling, would it make a difference if dealer is partially sighted? Would it make a difference if dealer claimed they had collected their pass card and so it must belong to a different player? Would it make a difference if it could be proved that the pass card belonged to another player? How about if the pass card belonged to dealer's right-hand opponent and dealer is blind in their right eye?

[jhenrikj]

We had this problem during simulations in the EBL TD course in San Remo. The correct answer was that the pass is not a call made. The 1C opening is BOOT, accepted by the overcall so the bidding just continues.

[iviehoff]

jhenrikj, on 2011-November-10, 05:08, said:

We had this problem during simulations in the EBL TD course in San Remo. The correct answer was that the pass is not a call made. The 1C opening is BOOT, accepted by the overcall so the bidding just continues.

That's the beginning of a correct answer, in my opinion. What should the player with a pass card in front of him do? What information is authorised?

What I would do is put the pass card back in box, and apologise to the table for being rather slow to clear away my pass card from the previous auction. Then I would leave it to them to call the director if they had any problem with that. If no immediate complaints were forthcoming, I would then make my call.

Possibly rather a subtle point, but my partner's overcall might have been affected by whether I was a passed hand or not. Partner's interpretation of my first call certainly depends very crucially on it. I would say that the misleading presence of the pass card was extraneous information, and is therefore unauthorised to the offending side. I don't think the presense of the Director is necessary to make an immediate ruling on this, or preserve the NOS's rights, I think they can complain about it at the end of the hand if they think we have taken advantage of that UI. So, if I own up to the non-pass, I think we both know as AI that I never passed. It is AI to partner that his bid is a misbid, if that is now the case. But it is UI to me that partner may have misbid, and UI to me that partner bid under a misapprehension. The ops are allowed to know everything.

Would the player get away, in practice, with just leaving the pass card there as if it was part of the auction? Who can say? If no one else realises what happened, and he has a plausible reason for the pass (inadvertent bid, too late to correct by the time I spotted it - that would do), then probably. But maybe your RHO knows that the pass wasn't really made, was happy to keep quiet about it when his partner bid OOT, and now that BOOT is legalised, is waiting to throw the book at you if you now pretend you previously passed, and appear to take advantage of your "secret".

[iviehoff]

RMB1, on 2011-November-10, 01:40, said:

It would be possible to rule that not result can be obtained and rule AVE-/AVE+.

On what basis could you make such a ruling? You've just given an alternative ruling that demonstrates that a result can be obtained.

[jhenrikj]

Since the pass is not a call made it contains no information. But the knowledge that partner thought you had passed before he overcalled is UI to you, the fact that you did not pass is AI to your partner (he does not have to bid as if you were a passed hand).

[aguahombre]

RMB1, on 2011-November-10, 01:40, said:

It would be possible to rule that not result can be obtained and rule AVE-/AVE+.

pran, on 2011-November-10, 04:00, said:

Any extraneous information from him to the effect that "his" first pass was unintentional is of course UI to his partner.

jhenrikj, on 2011-November-10, 06:51, said:

Since the pass is not a call made it contains no information. But the knowledge that partner thought you had passed before he overcalled is UI to you, the fact that you did not pass is AI to your partner (he does not have to bid as if you were a passed hand).

MrDct, though erroneously trying to apply "cards from a previous board", comes to the same conclusion that the board might have to be average-/average+ as does RMB1.

If Pran is wrong about the pass being AI to his partner, and jhenrikj is right about that according to the Laws, then the Laws are truly screwy.

Regardless of the "correct answer" in San Remo, passed-hand bids often mean entirely different things than unpassed-hand bids. A natural bid by an unpassed hand can become an "impossible bid" and therefore artificial if used by a passed hand. The knowledge that the designated dealer is not really a passed hand cannot be authorized to his partner by any common sense reasoning.

True, the pass is not a call which was made. But, false that it contains no information. If we just focus on the given hand, perhaps we can justify North jumping to 3NT and partner passing, for a no-foul result, but ruling the board unplayable is also possible, IMO.

[campboy]

If the TD were called he would rule that the pass was not made on this board and so is not part of the auction. Since this information comes from the TD, is it not AI? It certainly seems to me to arise from the legal procedures (16A1c).