Legal call/ legal bid
Could someone define me the meaning of 'legal call" and "legal bid' which are used in many Laws, but I think without a specific definition?
For example law 27C reads:
"If the offender replaces his insufficient bid before the Director has ruled on rectification the substitution, if legal, stands unless..."
If this replacing bid is insufficient, is it legal or not? Insufficient is defined as an infraction, but does that mean that it is an illegal bid also?
An illegal bid I think could be 8NT! An illegal cal could be a double on partner's bid.
Comments
I think a legal bid is one that does not constitute an infraction of any law. So, replacing an insufficient bid with another insufficient bid is not legal, nor is replacing it with anything which is inadmissible under Law 35.
So for "legal", mentally substitute "not an infraction of any Law", which is a fair definition of the word in any event.
One of the things we have to live with in the Laws is a certain inconsistency of terminology.
Yes because we have inadmissible and legal. If those two were one term, we would have no consistency problems in those.
I think legal bids/calls should be defined by Laws 17, 18, 19; but these laws says little about passes and take a number of convoluted step to say that insufficient bids are not legal.
They are not intended to be the same. Inadmissible calls are a subset of calls that are not legal, IMO. They are the wacky things like doubling partner, bidding more than 7 or bidding after the auction is over, and are automatically cancelled without the option of acceptance. But there are other calls that are not legal.