Unintended action is not an offence?

A follow up to White Book 2013 and Inadvertent designation is an offense?.

Firstly, the White Book 2013 is on the EBU web site: L&E publications. I made the last change last night: correcting the cross-reference from Law 45C4(b) to Law 25A.

I was only looking at that page because of discussion on IBLF where campboy was arguing that a player who makes an unintended call and corrects it (under Law 25A) is not an offender. This is consistent with a strict reading of Law 45C4(b), see Inadvertent designation is an offense?. It appears that a player who has made an unintended action (call or designation), and has corrected the action under the appropriate law (Law 25A or Law 45C4(b)), has not committed an infraction and is not an offending side. These are the points that support this conclusion:

• The laws do not say the unintended action as in irregularity.
• Law 25A4 explains the unauthorised infromation if the next hand has called over the unintended call. If the unintended caller was an offending side, Law 25A4 could be replaced by a reference to Law 16D.
• Law 45C4(b) refers explicitly to Law 16D1 which only applies to non-offending sides. So there cannot be an offending side in Law 45C4(b).

(Of course, there are other points that do not support the conclusion.)

This conclusion does reinforce the strict reading of Law 45C4(b) re unauthorised information:

• declarer makes an unintended designation;
• dummy plays the card designated;
• the next player plays a card;
• declarer corrects the designation to the intended designation;
• dummy's played card is restored and the intended card is played;
• the next player withdraws their card and plays a different card;
• is the card withdrawn by the defender authorised to declarer?

Law 45B4(b) refers to Law 16D1, and Law 16D1 tells us calls and plays are authorised.

This is probably not what we want.

White Book 2013

The EBU White Book 2013 is done, as far as I am concerned: just a couple of hyperlinks to be updated when the target pages are ready. I have been working on this solidly since the end of March.

Inevitably, doing such technical writing (as I did in ‘real life’) you read things in source material that you thought you had read many times before and find it does not say what you thought it said. I thought that the 2007 Laws had changed the word ‘inadvertent’ in Law 25A (change of call) to ‘unintended’, but not changed it in Law 45C4 (b) (change of card designated). But when I came to quote from Law 45C4 (b) for the White Book, I found that it too used the word ‘unintended’. (The word ‘inadvertent’ does remain in the law book in the heading of Law 47C — but I am sure that is unintended!)

It is strange I had not spotted this, as an earlier post Inadvertent designation is an offense? was confused as to which word was used in Law 45C4 (b). Re-reading that post, I see that there should have been a WBFLC ‘open invitation’ response about the reference to Law 16D1(sic) in Law 45C4 (b).

If technical editing teaches you anything, it is that you can't get everything right.

“Well, nobody's perfect”

Some Like It Hot (1959)