BB 5F3
In a team match, played at Level 4, South opened 1S in second seat with 7 HCP, in contravention of BB7A3.
South argues that they were intending to make an overcall of 1S but, due to a lack of concentration, South overcalled the opponent's Pass with the 1S. The director rules that there is no sign of an agreement and so does not apply BB 5F3..
South's holding was:
S KQJ72
H J952
D 83
C 54
Do you agree with this ruling?
If so, does it gives people a good excuse to open with 7 HCP and a nice major - which surely was not intended.
Comments
By the way, South only gave this explanation when the Director was asked for a ruling after the match.
Based on the above, I would likely have arrived at the same decision: the excuse is plausible…
However, as a player, once I’d heard about the admission of a lapse of concentration, it raises the suggestion that the player concealed an irregularity (WB2.8.2z). I would bring a new claim to the TD’s attention based on the new facts.
Law 25A.2 tells us the bid would stand, but it also tells us that such a bid in those circumstances is an irregularity: not that it is needed when “overcalling a pass” is clearly a description of an irregularity.
Law 84D provides the TD with discretion to restore equity if in their opinion the non-offending side were damaged by the irregularity and the rules do not provide for rectification of such an irregularity.
Clearly the White Book has guidance regarding the deliberately concealing an irregularity.
I might be alone in making that argument, but it’s there to be made.
I'm not convinced that overcalling a pass is an irregularity – there's no way (or at least should be no way) for the other players to distinguish an attempted overcall from an attempted opening bid, except by the auction leading up to that point (or if the call was insufficient). Making a legal play for the wrong reason doesn't violate any of the Laws. As an analogy: if when declaring I miss that one of the defenders discarded rather than following suit, and end up trying to cash what I think is the 13th card in the suit when it's actually the 12th, that doesn't seem significantly different from the situation the OP describes; and yet it makes no sense to consider it to be an irregularity.
As usual with these things, the person who should be looked at is the partner of the player who opened light – the call itself isn't an irregularity, but a) fielding it is and b) agreeing it as part of your system is, and both of these are things that involve the responder. (BB7A3 doesn't ban opening at the 1 level with less than 8 HCP; it bans agreeing to open at the 1 level with less than 8 HCP. If a player does this repeatedly with the same partner, it will form an implicit agreement which will prevent the partnership playing with each other in future, but prior to the agreement being formed, there is no rule against it.)
For what it's worth, it seems unlikely to me that opener intended the call in question as an opening bid (even though it actually was an opening bid) – second seat is a bad position to pretend to have a stronger hand than you have, as it is quite likely to cause your partner to bid an unmakeable game (if both you and your RHO are weak, then the points are split between your partner and LHO). The small minority of players who persistently try to get away with this sort of thing tend to do primarily in third seat (and more often in first seat than second).
@ais523
Thanks for the reply.
You agree that it is unlikely the player intended their bid to be an opener. You don’t view their bid to be an irregularity.
You write, “ Making a legal play for the wrong reason doesn't violate any of the Laws.”
The OP has detailed sections that highlights the bid did indeed “violate laws”: the hand held insufficient HCP strength and did not adhere to the rule of 18.
The TD would likely determine the irregularity wasn’t deliberately concealed because they have offered it freely in their enquiry. However, the player has characterised their own bid as an overcall, not an opening bid, and that is irregular.
The player did something that they did not intend to do (opened instead of overcalling) and what they did was not in keeping with their convention card or the event rules. Their bid conveyed incorrect information that they did not intend to convey and deviated from rules and agreements that they did not intend to deviate from.
We don’t know that there was any damage to rectify, but if there was Law 84D appears to be the relevant law in this unusual situation.
The looks like something the TD would let the player 'get away with' once. The hand and the excuse should be recorded.
Forgive the simplistic approach - I'm a relatively new Director.
If it was not a legal bid under Blue Book 7A3, and by Blue Book 5F3, this must be deemed to have been done by agreement. Why does it matter what the cause is?
The originator of the question said "The director rules that there is no sign of an agreement and so does not apply BB 5F3." But the actual requirement is that "Pairs who deviate from the requirements above (5F2) will usually be considered to have done so by agreement unless they can demonstrate otherwise." So that seems like an active requirement to demonstrate rather than a passive one of simply "no sign".
If lack of concentration allows the penalties to be waived, why wouldn't the same concession apply to a revoke?
Is it not simply the case that this was an illegal bid, there are set penalties, and these should be applied?
It is not an illegal bid. The regulations regulate agreements, not bids. If the director rules that the bid was not based on a partnership agreement, then there is no illegal agreement, and no adjustment/penalty.
In general, if a player opens on 7HCP or rule of 17 hand, and their announced agreement is 8HCP or rule of 18, then we do not believe that this is a deviation, but instead we rule that the implicit agreement matches the hand and that the (implicit) agreement is illegal.
See Blue Book
Well, as ais523 mentions, the bid itself isn't really illegal. Specifically, psychs are legal, and so is simply making the wrong bid by mistake. If, for example, the opener had clubs instead of spades we would certainly assume one of these two applied. The agreement to systemically open these hands is what is illegal, hence the focus on fielding.
For the purpose of the Blue Book passage quoted, I suppose the claim that they were trying to make an overcall passes for an attempt to demonstrate otherwise (than that they have an agreement).
This particular excuse would raise at least one eyebrow, but stranger things have certainly happened in my playing experience. As Robin says, you'd probably accept it from a player once and record the hand.
@GerryMc
How this differs to a revoke is that it isn’t at all clear that anything untoward has occurred. A revoke is undeniably something untoward when a player has a card to follow suit but does not do so.
As highlighted by the other contributors, the bid, in and of itself, isn’t a bid that can’t be made, it’s just a bid that shouldn’t be made. In contrast, a revoke is a play that can’t be made, so when it is, it will always attract a penalty if damage was done to the opposition.
The argument I was making would likely only have legs if there were other aggravating considerations for the TD to take into account because it would seem harsh to penalise a player for an admitted lapse of concentration, when if they’d said they bid it on purpose, it would have been acceptable.