Insufficient bid mentioned by the player out of bidding turn, just before his partner bids...
South has made an insufficient bid, and West is touching the bidding box with intention to bid. Then East comes in, who mentions IB, West leaves his hand from bidding box, and TD is called.
South complains that East has no right to warn his partner, as West decides if he would accept his IB or not!
Maybe it it’s an easy case, if not in grey zone… Your ruling.
Comments
Ahh! law 9A1 "A. Drawing Attention to an Irregularity
1. Unless prohibited by Law, any player may draw attention to an irregularity during the
auction period, whether or not it is his turn to call.
This is followed up by Law 9B 1
B. After Attention Is Drawn to an Irregularity
1. (a) The Director should be summoned at once when attention is drawn to an irregularity.
Yes West might accept the bid but they should be made aware of what could/should happen and what to do if there are lead restrictions and if the play results in damage to the non-offending side. I also think that South should be advised that the director should be called to deal with these potential problems and reminded of B B @ B. May be even consider a warning if it is know that South has done this regularly before.
CMOT_Dibbler
Overall I would agree. The only grey area that would arise is that East has UI that West was considering bidding over the insufficient bid. This could potentialy call law 16B into play if West passes over the correction. (although I would expect West, if he was going to bid over the IB will allow the IB so he actually can bid). Although information from a withdrawn bid is AI, West has not actually made a call.
I can't see that E has done anything wrong. At the point he drew attention to the irregularity he did not know whether his partner had realised that S had made an IB. He did know, presumably, that W would have some options, and he was quite entitled to protect his side's interests by calling attention to the irregularity and summoning the director so that W's options could be explained to him.
S should be told politely but firmly that he has no business complaining about the legitimate actions of his opponents. So basically I agree with CMOT_Dibbler.
It might also be worth mentioning to W that touching the bidding box without making a bid is not a good idea, as it suggests "I am definitely going to bid but I have not decided what", which is UI to his partner whose actions may thereby be constrained.
But I don't think that E's right to call attention to an irregularity is constrained by any UI there may be.
I suppose it is possible that the UI (that W was considering bidding, either because he had not noticed the irregularity, or because he had noticed it, knew he had the right to bid over it, and was contemplating doing so) might demonstrably suggest something that would constrain E's actions after the IB has been sorted out, but in practice this is probably a bit of a stretch.
In order to apply law 9, there must be an irregularity. And yes truth is that in laws 2017, IB is an infraction... "It is an infraction to make an insufficient bid (see Law 27 for rectification)". This sentence was not in Laws 2007.
The problem is not if West can accept the IB, of course she can, if director is summoned on time, but the problem is that West was not aware of the IB, and that she was going to bid if her partner didn't prevent her to do so. According to law 9 I think she can, although as weejonnie said there is some extra info for East, by West intention to bid, before she was waked up by her partner.
In real life west didn't accept the IB! South corrected with a comparable call, and then West also made her bid after south...
I was interested to see the reactions to my post. I deliberately avoided refering to what West was doing to find out what interpretation others put on what was written. I am not saying that I would not have written the same but my first thoughts on "and West is touching the bidding box with intention to bid." Was that West was touching the box only and therefore the "bid" could also be a "call" or evem a "stop" card or an " alert" card. So should we find out Wests "intention" by taking them away from the table first? Or should we deal with the IB and then resolve the West issue. After all we can only react on what we have been told.
CMOT_Dibbler
P.S. I didn't deal with the laws 2007 but an irregularity was included in the "definitions" to the laws and therefore was part of the laws "Irregularity – a deviation from correct procedure inclusive of, but not limited to, those which involve an infraction by a player."
I interpreted the statement as meaning that West was going to bid - i.e. was actively moving around the region where the bidding cards (as aopposed to the others) was located. If the location of his wandering is unclear i.e. could just as well be reaching for the pass card as a bid then there is no UI - and if there was no perceptable fumbling then nothing wrong in doing so. If, on the other hand, the fingers were attempting to get hold of a bid and wandering around as if uncertain then there would be. I don't think that we would need to find out what bid (if any) West was intending to make, but his actions, depending on what he actually did, could convey UI.
Anyway, the first part is to deal with the IB and only then determine if W has imparted any UI and, if so what and what did it demonstrably suggest.
Please note that an insufficient bid is not a deviation from correct procedure in the 2007 laws.
Bid – an undertaking to win at least a specified number of odd tricks (tricks in
excess of six) in a specified denomination.
(Nothing in there about having to be sufficient)
LAW 18: BIDS
A. Proper Form
A bid designates a number of odd tricks (tricks in excess of six), from one to seven, and a denomination. (Pass, double and redouble are calls but not bids.)
B. To Supersede a Bid
A bid supersedes a previous bid if it designates either the same number of odd tricks in a higher-ranking denomination or a greater number of odd tricks in any denomination.
C. Sufficient Bid
A bid that supersedes the last preceding bid is a sufficient bid.
D. Insufficient Bid
A bid that fails to supersede the last preceding bid is an insufficient bid.
(Nothing in there about a bid having to be sufficient)
Thanks for the information Weejonnie. That helps my understanding. With regard to the 2007 laws then that situation would have been awkward to deal with.
CMOT_Dibbler
No one had any doubt that insufficient bids were irregularities before last year. (Only one person pretended there was any doubt). The previous law books thought that "insufficient" => "irregularity" was implicit from the choice of language.
The procedure for dealing with an IB was well laid out (and the allowed meaning of replacement calls before partner being required to pass throughout slightly more stringent)- it was just not defined as an irregularity. The only thing I can think of is that this meant that law 9 did not apply (in particular 9B procedure after attention is drawn to an irregularity) and 9C - open to further rectification if offender corrects call.)
If the laws are "designed to define correct procedure and to provide an adequate remedy for when something goes wrong" as the introduction states, it strikes me as strange that the status of an insufficient bid wasn't clarified by a wording such as: "each bid must / should supersede the previous bid".
I appreciate there are some situations where it is easier to define correct procedure as the converse of a breach of that procedure, but this surely isn't one of them.
Even Homer nods. Of course once you start with words like "should/ must" then you are giving indirect instructions for the TD to penalise offenders. From what I've read, I can't imagine Edgar (Kaplan) being unaware of the consequences so must assume that it was deliberate.
I don't really care what West was thinking of bidding, since she was on the non-offending side of this situation. If South changes the IB, then I might even go so far as to suggest that West's intention to bid over the IB is AI to East and UI to NS.