[Chris3875]

Bidding went - no intervening bid - 1NT (15-18 balanced) - 2D (alerted and explained when asked as transfer to hearts) - all pass. Before the opening lead is made 1NT opener called the director.

Scenario 1 - Opener somehow thought he was passing 2H

Scenario 2 - Opener was asleep, knew it was a transfer (after all he alerted it!) and meant to bid 2H

[blackshoe]

Scenario 1: Responder is going to be declarer in 2♦. Oops!

Scenario 2: This seems to me much the same as scenario 1, so it should get the same ruling. It would be very unusual to rule that pulling a card from the "pass" section of the box when you intended to bid was "unintended". Whatever was going on in the player's head, it seems to me that he pulled the card his brain was telling him to pull.

[pran]

 blackshoe, on 2013-September-18, 22:42, said:

Scenario 1: Responder is going to be declarer in 2♦. Oops!

Scenario 2: This seems to me much the same as scenario 1, so it should get the same ruling. It would be very unusual to rule that pulling a card from the "pass" section of the box when you intended to bid was "unintended". Whatever was going on in the player's head, it seems to me that he pulled the card his brain was telling him to pull.

I am not so sure about this.

From the (brief) description it would appear that we are in Law 25A territory, and we are certainly within the time limits prescribed in Laws 25A2 and 25A3.

I see no real difference beetween the two scenarios. Opener alerted and correctly explained the 2♦ bid and he most likely had a momentary brain failure thinking that he already was in 2♥. If the rest of the story is that he tried to correct his pass "without pause for thought" when he realised what he had done I would accept the change.

[campboy]

 pran, on 2013-September-19, 01:44, said:

I see no real difference beetween the two scenarios. Opener alerted and correctly explained the 2♦ bid and he most likely had a momentary brain failure thinking that he already was in 2♥. If the rest of the story is that he tried to correct his pass "without pause for thought" when he realised what he had done I would accept the change.

If it's a momentary brain failure, rather than a momentary hand failure, we are not in 25A territory. He intended to pass at the moment he passed.

[blackshoe]

 campboy, on 2013-September-19, 02:06, said:

If it's a momentary brain failure, rather than a momentary hand failure, we are not in 25A territory. He intended to pass at the moment he passed.

That's the way it looks to me.

[Zelandakh]

As I always write on BBO, undos are for misclicks (mispulls) not for brain farts. It is not a mistaken bid, it is a mistaken thought process.

[mr1303]

Take a lead to 2D

[nige1]

Agree that a slip of the mind is more likely than a slip of the hand. Also, Blackshoe points out that the bidding-cards for pass and 2♥ are in different sections of the box. Nevertheless, such mistakes are sometimes mechanical. Hence the decision is close. Under current law, the ruling depends on the whim of the director.

[axman]

 Chris3875, on 2013-September-18, 18:33, said:

Bidding went - no intervening bid - 1NT (15-18 balanced) - 2D (alerted and explained when asked as transfer to hearts) - all pass. Before the opening lead is made 1NT opener called the director.

Scenario 1 - Opener somehow thought he was passing 2H

Scenario 2 - Opener was asleep, knew it was a transfer (after all he alerted it!) and meant to bid 2H

I was present during the following events:

1N-P-2H [A]- <asked and replied transfer; asked and replied transfer; 40 second huddle> P- P <director please (immediately)>

The TD found that the intention of Dealer was to complete the transfer and that wbf1997L25A did not permit a correction without penalty because no correction had been attempted without pause for thought.

I concur with the L25 ruling.

[iviehoff]

 axman, on 2013-September-19, 09:21, said:

I was present during the following events:

1N-P-2H [A]- <asked and replied transfer; asked and replied transfer; 40 second huddle> P- P <director please (immediately)>

The TD found that the intention of Dealer was to complete the transfer and that wbf1997L25A did not permit a correction without penalty because no correction had been attempted without pause for thought.

This argument is a misunderstanding by the director of the word "unintended" as used in the law. A good question to ask is "At the time you held the pass card in your hand, did you know it was the pass card"? If the truthful answer to this is "yes", then the bid was not unintended within the meaning of the law.

[blackshoe]

 nige1, on 2013-September-19, 05:54, said:

Under current law, the ruling depends on the whim of the director.

Nonsense.

From The Oxford American Dictionary:

whim |(h)wim|
noun
1 a sudden desire or change of mind, esp. one that is unusual or unexplained: she bought it on a whim | he appeared and disappeared at whim.

The ruling depends on the judgment of the director. You mischaracterize the situation in order, I think, to support your agenda.

[Chris3875]

Just a comment which may not have any bearing on your thoughts - with a few exceptions we do not use bidding boxes down under (as the cards would fall out as some wit once commented)- the auction was conducted with written bidding.

[Vampyr]

 Chris3875, on 2013-September-19, 17:07, said:

Just a comment which may not have any bearing on your thoughts - with a few exceptions we do not use bidding boxes down under (as the cards would fall out as some wit once commented)- the auction was conducted with written bidding.

When it is a person's turn to bid, is the bidding sheet turned to face him? Can the handwriting cause confusion? Is it difficult to tell whose turn it is to bid?

I am asking these questions because I am wondering if there is some reason that 25A should be applied more broadly when there is written bidding.

[Chris3875]

The bidding sheet is in the middle of the table with each compass orientation facing the player - the handwriting CAN cause confusion - I recently had a case where a player bid 3D and the next player bid 5H because he saw it as 5D (and when I put myself in the same position as the 5H bidder it certainly did look like 5D). I have only seen bidding boxes used in the finals of big events and they look very awkward to me, but I guess it is a case of what you get used to. As a floor manager/caddy at some of these finals I seem to spend a large amount of time picking bidding boxes up off the floor and sorting out the cards !!

[paulg]

 blackshoe, on 2013-September-18, 22:42, said:

Scenario 1: Responder is going to be declarer in 2♦. Oops!

Scenario 2: This seems to me much the same as scenario 1, so it should get the same ruling. It would be very unusual to rule that pulling a card from the "pass" section of the box when you intended to bid was "unintended". Whatever was going on in the player's head, it seems to me that he pulled the card his brain was telling him to pull.

I agree.

My opponent did this last year in the English Premier League and the director ruled that the Pass stood. The player appealed and lost - in the review of the appeal, as the EBU publishes this, almost every commentator questioned why the appeal deposit was returned.

[gwnn]

I remember there was a scenario in some TD test mentioned where a player put a pass card instead of 1C because of some strange brain failure. The correct answer was to let the player correct it to 1C even though it is clearly not a mechanical error. Isn't this pass of 2D a cousin of that brain failure?

[Vampyr]

 gwnn, on 2013-September-20, 03:06, said:

I remember there was a scenario in some TD test mentioned where a player put a pass card instead of 1C because of some strange brain failure. The correct answer was to let the player correct it to 1C even though it is clearly not a mechanical error. Isn't this pass of 2D a cousin of that brain failure?

Yes it is, and the person who set the test either made a mistake, or ruled under the 1997 Laws that allowed a person to change his bid and play for 40%. I believe that that was the only edition of the Laws that offered that bizarre choice.

[gwnn]

I had it the other way around, opener wanted to change 1C to pass instead. This is the post, in case people are wondering:
http://www.bridgebas...post__p__433778
ICEmachine even connects it to passing a Bergen raise, which is basically equivalent to passing a transfer (although of course a transfer is unlimited, so not completely the same - a Bergen raise asks opener to make a decision, a transfer usually not so much).

[VixTD]

 gwnn, on 2013-September-20, 03:06, said:

I remember there was a scenario in some TD test mentioned where a player put a pass card instead of 1C because of some strange brain failure. The correct answer was to let the player correct it to 1C even though it is clearly not a mechanical error. Isn't this pass of 2D a cousin of that brain failure?

Two years ago at the Brighton Congress I allowed a player to replace an opening pass with a (non-jump) bid. I took them away from the table and asked them how they had come to place the pass card on the table. They weren't really able to explain, but they convinced me they had not intended to pass.

I expected a challenge from the opposition as there is such widespread belief that unintended calls can only come from the same section of the bidding box as the intended call, but they accepted the ruling.

[barmar]

 VixTD, on 2013-September-20, 11:44, said:

Two years ago at the Brighton Congress I allowed a player to replace an opening pass with a (non-jump) bid. I took them away from the table and asked them how they had come to place the pass card on the table. They weren't really able to explain, but they convinced me they had not intended to pass.

Anyone else think he should blame the "Not Me" ghost from the Family Circus cartoons?