[barmar]

nige1, on 2014-January-26, 13:24, said:

One of my group did make brief mention of a case, where all the players picked up their bidding cards after "....4♠ Pass Pass Double". A defender claimed he would have run, had he noticed that the contract was then redoubled. I know nothing else about the incident except that, for my friend, the lesson was "don't pick up bidding cards prematurely".

In my experience, when the players start picking up their bidding cards prematurely, but one of the players actually plans to reopen the bidding, he usually says something like "Wait, I haven't passed yet." They put their cards back down, the next two players pass, he redoubles, and everything proceeds normally.

It's only in Lamford's hypotheticals that things get messy, because his world is full of SBs who are just looking for a way to take advantage of any legal technicality. In the real world, we have reasonable ways of straightening things out.

[blackshoe]

Frankly if a player learns not to pick up the bidding cards prematurely, IMO that's a good thing.