Law37, Action violating obligation to pass
Law 37 reads:
'If the inadmissible call was a bid or a double or a redouble by a player required by law to pass (......) and offender's LHO calls before the Director has ruled on rectification, that call and all subsequent calls stand........................'
Unlike laws 30,31 and 32, this clause does not contain the phrase '..the option in Law 29A not having been exercised..'
Would it, therefore, be a correct interpretation of this Law that 'that call and subsequent calls' are allowed to stand only if the LHO makes a call BEFORE the Director is called and has ruled on rectification, and that if the Director is called after the offender has called but the LHO has not, then the Director cannot offer the LHO the option of accepting the offending call, as he can in the other cases of calls out of turn?
Comments
Correction: in Law 32 the phrase is not 'the option in Law 29A not having been exercised', it is 'may be accepted at the option of the opponent next in rotation'.
The key word is 'option', which is missing in Law 37.
Law 37 isn't dealing with calls out of rotation, but with calls other than pass by a player required to pass (as rectification for a prior infraction by his side). There isn't a right to accept a call other than pass by a player required to pass. If the TD is called, then both members of the offending side must pass throughout. If the next player in rotation calls without the TD being called then effectively nothing different happens from what would have happened had he passed. The auction continues and if he was required to pass throughout, he is still required to pass throughout.
Of course the auction now includes an illicit "non-pass" at the point of the second infraction. I would have thought it was obvious that information arising from this call should be authorised to the non-offending side but unauthorised to the offender's partner, although Law 16C doesn't actually cover it, there being no withdrawn call as such.
Maybe the law makers, believe that once the non-offending side was not enough consecrated to call the TD about the inadmissible call, and therefore they bid over it, the consequence for them could be that the illicit "non-pass" is authorized information for all.
I can see one potential issue with this: if the player who was required to pass instead doubles, and then the opponents play the contract there, doubled or redoubled. Unlike in every other situation, this leads to a contract which couldn't have been reached legally.
We can think of another awkward situation: the player who is supposed to pass makes a bid, his LHO, expecting him to pass and not noticing that he has made a bid, makes a bid which turns out to be insufficient! ????
There are a number of actions by the non-offending side (in various situations) which the laws cater for but are not options that the laws/TD will offer.
Historically, declarer putting their hand down as dummy following an opening lead out of turn was not an option but if it happened, presumed dummy became declarer. At some stage (1987?), this common occurrence became codified as a legal option that the TD would offer.
The last one isn't a problem, surely: Law 37A says that the call stands. Since the logic behind the provision seems to be to ignore the action taken in violation of the obligation to pass, I don't think we would treat the bid by the next player as insufficient.
ais523's double scenario is a little more complex, I think. There are several possibilities:
(a) LHO notices (that the player required to pass has doubled instead) and calls the director. The double is cancelled under Law 37B, and the non-offending side get a free run because both offenders are now barred.
(b) LHO notices but elects to pass without calling the director, perhaps because he just assumes that because his RHO was required to pass, he is deemed to have passed. Now "that call" and all subsequent calls stand. I interpret "that call" as meaning the action taken in violation of the requirement to pass, rather than the LHO's subsequent call, but the position in that respect is not perhaps entirely free from ambiguity (if the subsequent call was meant, it would mean that the status of the call made in violation of the obligation to pass was left in doubt, which cannot have been the intention). Now the final contract can only be doubled or redoubled right there if the next two players pass it out, or if the next player passes and it then goes redouble all out. It seems morally certain to me that if the player passed because he assumed that his RHO was deemed to have passed despite doubling, and was foolish enough to pass without calling the director, then he is going to call the director when his partner redoubles a contract that he thinks has already been passed out. But whatever happens, the non-offending side are still there and don't have to play doubled or redoubled right there if they don't want to; and if they get to a silly contract it is their own fault for failing to call the director when the violation of the obligation to pass occurred.
(c) LHO notices but elects to redouble without calling the director. Now the "I thought he was deemed to have passed" possibility doesn't arise. Again the non-offending side can only play there if neither of the next two players takes it out.
(d) LHO fails to notice and passes. I guess this is the only situation where they might play doubled right there if his partner assumes that the double is cancelled, but in practice surely someone is going to call the director to ascertain the position.
Of course they can play doubled or redoubled right there legally if the partner of the player required to pass doubles and everyone leaves it in or somebody redoubles and it gets left in.
Isn't there a contradiction between your comment on the insufficient bid and on the double?
In the first case you say that the logic is to ignore the action taken in violation of the obligation to pass. In other words, the call by the offender is a 'non-call'. Then shouldn't the double also be treated in the same manner?
If an illegal call is accepted by the LHO by making a call, does that not make the illegal call legal, at least for the purpose of continuing the auction? And if it does, then should not subsequent call/s have to comply with the requirement of sufficiency?
When the law says that 'that call and all subsequent calls stand', can we read it literally to mean that subsequent calls stand even if they are insufficient?
And what about UI to partner? 37-A is silent on this.
I suspect that "that call and all subsequent call stand" means that the call is made and is subject to the appropriate law (insufficient bid/ call out of turn), otherwise if someone who was obligated to pass did in fact breach that obligation then the next player could simply bid 1 Club and the whole auction can start again from scratch (with the player who has to pass still obligated if he was so constrained by the laws). I can't believe that was the intent =)
There is presumably no UI because LHO has accepted the breach, so the call is not withdrawn and thus 16C does not apply.
Law 37B states in part that "1. any bid, double or redouble, by a player required by law to pass is cancelled." so law 16C DOES apply.
It might help if references to law 16C were noted explicitly in the laws rather than the director having to remember to apply it.
(Of course even if both offenders are obligated to pass, it does not stop them actually bidding or doubling in the hope that opponents might inadvertently accept the call. Although I suspect a procedural or disciplinary penalty might result.)
To be honest I don't know. It is all rather esoteric and unlikely to arise in practice. Except in the case where the LHO really does not notice the call which violates the obligation to pass (which in itself is fairly unlikely), I wouldn't mind betting that virtually all non-offenders who have already had the director to the table to deal with the infraction which generated the obligation to pass are going to have the director back in a blink of an eye when the player required to pass violates that obligation.
What if the illegal call is a call out of turn and LHO calls? Surely that is likely to arise, and sometimes does, in practice. And it is only one step removed from LHO's call being an insufficient bid.
We may not have encountered such a situation in the past, we may fervently hope that we never encounter it, but that does not mean that it cannot or will not happen in the future. It may not be a bad idea to be prepared to deal with it if it happens.
Post withdrawn. Clarification obtained.