shevek, on 2014-March-13, 04:41, said:
Hypothetical, to make it 100% clear that 4♠ was an aberration (unintended).
Law 25 doesn't mention UI, so what happens if North
- sits still for a long time, waiting for South to wake up
- looks puzzled
- looks angry
- says "Did you mean to bid that?"
TIA
A good question. In my opinion, the lawmakers did not think through the consequences of this Law and its interaction with other Laws when they wrote it.
Trinidad, on 2014-March-13, 05:14, said:
There are two parts to this:
Communicating with partner is not allowed. That means that the four things on your list are not allowed and deserve a PP.
However, if South wakes up because of a legal action by North (e.g. an alert) then he is allowed to wake up.
For me the border lies around the place where it takes North a few seconds to realize what is happening and decide that he should bid 5♥ (whereas deciding about pass would take 0.1 seconds). That is a legitimate bridge reason, and therefore legal. This would normally be UI to South, but -as you said- UI laws do not apply when discovering an irregularity.
But waiting, looking, talking, rolling eyes, coughing, for the purpose of waking up partner ... are all illegal communication. And those laws do apply to every situation.
Rik
This looks like a good answer. However:
1. For many people, looking puzzled or even angry is an involuntary reaction, so it seems harsh to punish this. If you handed out PPs every time anyone looked puzzled, the winners of many bridge events would be the only people who managed to keep a straight face throughout!
2. You are correct to bring up the subject of illegal communication. However, if you read the Laws concerned (my bold):
Quote
LAW 73: COMMUNICATION A. Appropriate Communication between Partners
1. Communication between partners during the auction and play shall be effected only by means of calls and plays.
2. Calls and plays should be made without undue emphasis, mannerism or inflection, and without undue hesitation or haste. But Regulating Authorities may require mandatory pauses, as on the first round of the auction, or after a skip-bid warning, or on the first trick.
B. Inappropriate Communication between Partners
1. Partners shall not communicate by means such as the manner in which calls or plays are made, extraneous remarks or gestures, questions asked or not asked of the opponents or alerts and explanations given or not given to them.
you will see that although alerts form part of the legal procedures of the game, this is solely for the opponents' benefit and to use any information from partner's alerts, annoucements and explanations constitutes illegal communication.
iviehoff said:
A footnote to Law 25A was added in 2011:
"A player is allowed to replace an unintended call if the conditions described in Law 25A are met, no matter how he may become aware of his error."
This includes illegal acts by partner. Thus we must allow the correction of the unintended bid, and concentrate on penalising the illegal act.
(It was commonly argued this was the correct interpretation even before the footnote.)
Yes, indeed. Now we have the unhappy situation where Law 25A and the new footnote allow a player to correct an unintended call* but in many cases such a correction will breach Law 73A1/73B1. So if a player chooses to change his call then his breach of Law 73 should be subject to potential rectification as well as potential procedural penalties.
*whether a call really was unintended is another difficult issue for the TD to determine