Law 30A - forced pass is artificial
N opens 1NT, South passes out of turn
The pass is not accepted
E doubles
Law 30A: South must Pass.
In N/S's system, a pass in that situation would be artificial (the wriggle).
The laws make allowance for when the withdrawn call is artificial. but not when its replacement is.
Is this a case of N having to realise that his partner's pass is forced, and hence not artificial, or have I missed something?
Comments
Not sure as I thought about this last night, but can't have much sympathy for the offending side. Whatever they do alert, no alert or do the wriggle they are going to be in trouble and if NOS feel they have been damaged by MI then that is what will have to happen. Because we know where 29+ HCPs are likely to be it isn't going to go well. This goes back to what I first said "pass" is defined in the definitions section. So if it happened to me I wouldn't alert and would say(if asked) that it hasn't been discussed. Probably wrong but as far as I am concerned it isn't part of our system.
It's possible for N to avoid MI here: "if that pass wasn't forced, it would have been artificial showing [...]" This would fulfil the partnership's obligations under Law 40A1b. I think Law 40B5a protects the partnership from needing to explain that the meaning of a forced pass might be difficult.
There could be a practical problem, though: if W bids or passes immediately after E's double (which is legal – Law 28A), then N doesn't have a clear opportunity to alert. I guess this is a similar situation to bidding immediately over RHO's legal call, before LHO has a chance to alert, though (and would be handled the same way).
I guess that their system there is actually "South is obliged to pass due to the laws and so we have no agreement here".