With UI
Game all, you open 1D with
J10x KJ AKJxxx Kx
2H weak on your left
Partner bids 2D, corrected to 3D.
IF partner had bid 3D immediately you might have considered 3NT but now you Pass (wisely as the 2H bidder with 2605 leads a Club for 1 off, partner has Axx Qxx 10xxx xxx)
Any chance of an adjustment ?
J10x KJ AKJxxx Kx
2H weak on your left
Partner bids 2D, corrected to 3D.
IF partner had bid 3D immediately you might have considered 3NT but now you Pass (wisely as the 2H bidder with 2605 leads a Club for 1 off, partner has Axx Qxx 10xxx xxx)
Any chance of an adjustment ?
Comments
On the assumption that 3D was allowed under Law 27B1a, then this explicitly states that there is no UI. However, there is still the possibility of an adjustment under Law 27D, though I'm not sure it would apply here.
What would have happened if the player hadn't made the insufficient bid? Probably they would have passed. Then opener would either rebid 3D or double for takeout, either of which would be likely to lead to the same final contract of 3D. So I think an adjustment is unlikely, though my assumptions could be tested by polling some players with both hands in a variety of situations.
See 27B1 and 27D. The result could well have been different without the IB and so there are grounds for considering an adjustment.
The director reasonably should poll players as to opener's actions after 1D-(2H)-3D. If some reasonable percentage of players (of the same class of player as opener and playing the same system/agreements as the pair) asked would bid 3NT then it's a logical alternative to pass.
The title "With UI" and @Tag's use of "logical alternative" are misleading, as Gordon says this is not a UI ruling.
Also poll after 1D-(2H)- and if there are passes there, as there may well be, then also poll after
1D-(2H)-P-(P)
?
And subsequent calls.
Agreed, I didn't intend to suggest that there was UI but I was considering the methods which are standard for a UI situation.
27D states...
"If following the application of B1 the Director judges at the end of the play that without assistance gained through the infraction the outcome of the board could well have been different, and in consequence the non-offending side is damaged (see Law 12B1), he shall award an adjusted score. In his adjustment he should seek to recover as nearly as possible the probable outcome of the board had the insufficient bid not occurred."
Given responder's hand, he might well simply have passed had he realised that that 2D was insufficient. Some partnerships play that 3D over the 2H is merely competing and strictly non-serious. Even then, though, opener might continue. As Gordon states, polling should lead to a reasoned outcome.
What do other people think is meant by "could well"? I've done a fair bit of web-searching about it, trying to quantify it, and I have my own idea of what it means, but I know from discussions among international TDs that there is little consensus about it. Given that it's one of the two core concepts in this law, it strikes me as unfortunate if we have lots of different interpretations of it.
In my opinion, "could well have been different" means that in the hypothetical situation being considered, more than a small/trivial proportion of the time, the outcome would have been different to the outcome actually observed.
Given the nature of the adjustment, I'd say that threshold of the size of probability needed to trigger the clause would be the same as the size of probability required to be included as one of the possibilities of a Law 12C1c (i.e. weighted based on probability of results) adjustment.
That would only make it about 10%. I would understand it to need to be significantly higher than that. But I also think we should go from the meaning of the words to the interpretation of the law, rather than the other way around.
I think Law 27D is written as if the adjustment would be a single outcome but I think the adjustment can be weighted. I think "the outcome of the board could well have been different" can be read "there is a significant probability that the outcome of the board would have been different". And then the adjusted score takes into account the different outcomes.
I agree with ais523 that "could well" implies that it's not a remote possibility. Clearly a minority of the time qualifies, so the question is how small would the probability have to be not to qualify. My view is that as a matter of the use of English we might be looking at 20% or 25% as the dividing line.
If one compares the wording with the old Law 12C2 standards of "likely" and "at all probable", which were at one time interpreted as "one-third" and "one-sixth", respectively, "could well" sounds, to me at any rate, as if it lies somewhere in the middle, which is a sense-check of sorts.
Law 27D, though, includes instructions as to what the adjustment should be aiming to arrive at... "as nearly as possible the probable outcome of the board had the insufficient bid not occurred".
This seems to me to place the onus on the director to judge what the probable outcome would have been, rather than simply taking a weighting of plausible scores. Of course, these two views might not be much at odds with one another.
I would have thought it would be more, perhaps in line with "quite likely", but I've had difficulty finding any precision in online dictionaries or grammars.
Having had a look at the BLML archives, I have found this from the former secretary of the WBFLC:
Grattan Endicott, 5th May 2010:
+=+ The dictionary says that used after
'could', 'might' or 'may', the word 'well' is an
intensifier just as 'indeed' would be in these
same situations. To say that something
'could' be the case means that it is a
possibility while the insertion of 'well' calls
for a higher probability than does 'could'
without it. ~ Grattan ~ +=+
Grattan Endicott, 8th August 2008:
+=+ On a personal plane, thinking of 'likely' I
envisage a probability somewhere above
60%; 'could well' suggests to me something
more like 35% or more. This was discussed
in committee at length and it was a deliberate
choice of words after several experiments.
Being potentially aware at the time of the
infraction, not when prodded by some
subsequent occurrence, is also key.
~ G ~ +=+
When considering what is a likely outcome in a bridge context, there will be some hands where there is a very high probability that the number of results with any significant frequency will be very small. Take, for example, a flat game hand where the opponents are unlikely to be in the auction, and very few pairs are at all likely to miss game or overbid to slam. In that scenario it would not be unusual for 90%+ of the scores to be, say, either +420 or +450 for N/S. To be considered a likely result on such a hand, only +420 or +450 would qualify, and if those two results were of roughly equal likelihood, then on such a board no result would be likely that didn't have a probability in excess of 40%.
On a very distributional board, however, when both sides can make quite a lot of tricks in their best fit, and even more with the aid of a plausible misdefence, there may be a whole range of results, and even in a large field no single result may occur with a probability of more than 20% or even much less. But it would be arguably absurd, and certainly unhelpful, to conclude that on such a board no outcome at all was likely.
So, assigning a percentage probability to something in order for it to qualify to be regarded as likely is fraught with difficulty, and is highly dependent both on the general context and specific factors such as volatility. The same goes for "could well" or any form of words which seeks to exclude the highly unlikely and concentrate on the plausible, however measured.
I am a little surprised that Grattan was thinking in terms of a probability in excess of 50% for "likely".