Multiple plays out of turn - there is a law for that

A busy month but not much to report here. Having met an unfamiliar position, with colleagues giving me different advice, I was surprised and pleased to find a part of a law that I was not aware of that seemed to solve the problem.

South is declarer and the lead is in dummy, nevertheless she plays ♥K from hand. Realising her mistake she calls for ♥2 from dummy, which is played, and RHO plays ♥A — now the TD is called. I thought ♥A had accepted the ♥2 and declarer was now in the position of deciding which card to play from hand; others thought that ♥K could not be un-played [withdrawn] as there had been no explicit rejection of the lead out of turn, but were unsure of the status of ♥2.

Then I found Law 53B, a part of the laws I will happily admit I have never read before.

B. Wrong Defender Plays Card to Declarer’s Irregular Lead

If the defender at the right of the hand from which declarer’s lead out of turn was made plays to the irregular lead (but see C), the lead stands and Law 57 applies.

So if RHO had played ♥A directly after the out-of-turn ♥K, that would accpt ♥K but LHO would be subject to the restrictions of Law 57A. As it is, because ♥2 had also been played before ♥A, there are no restrictions on LHO because of Law 57C: A defender is not subject to rectification for playing before his partner if declarer has played from both hands, ...

So the ruling is a simple one: the ♥K is the lead, all the cards played stand played to the trick, and LHO plays to the trick without restiction. Probably, what one would have ruled without any of Laws 53 and 57 to hand.

Two bids out of rotation

An analogous position in the auction, is where North is the dealer, South opens out of turn and then North calls, sometimes one of the opponents now calls. We do not know how to deal with this: North's call must be treated as out of turn (otherwise North could deliberately call to try to cancel partner's call out of turn), and whichever call out of turn we try to deal with first leads to a mess. There is a recent topic on IBLF.

Meaning of likely in Law 69B2

Another interesting ruling from April was on the meaning of “likely” in Law 69B2. Some colleagues are hardly aware of the change of law here and still want to not give any more tricks to the side that withdraws acceptance, treating it as a withdrawn concession. This was another topic on IBLF.

Insufficient unauthorised information

Ranked masters

I had two insufficient bid rulings at the Ranked Masters: neither involved the quagmire of Law 27B1, but rulings under other parts of Law 27, and both involved unauthorised information (without explicit reference in the laws).

1NT – 1NT

I quickly established that overcaller did not see the initial 1NT, and attempt to give my spiel. But LHO was interested in accepting 1NT, as long as the initial 1NT was authorised. I guess he was worried that if he accepted the second 1NT, this would cancel the first 1NT and he would not be able to double, as that double would be based on the values opener had shown. I explained that whatever happened, the first 1NT would be authorised, but if (say) the second 1NT was replaced by Pass (under Law 27B2) then the second 1NT would not be authorised to offender's partner: who would have to pass throughout but would still have to avoid using unauthorised information as a defender.

1♥ – Pass – 1♦/2♦

Responder attempted to correct to 2♦ after attention was drawn to the insufficient bid. I established that 1♦ was not unintended (for Law 25), so LHO could accept 1♦ and embarked on my spiel. Again LHO wished to accept the insufficient bid (and bid 1♠) as permitted by Law 27C, but the question of unauthorised information from 2♦ arose. I admitted (perhaps reluctantly) that information from the 2♦ bid was unauthorised: the fact that offender was willing to correct to 2♦ might suggest extra values; but for many players correcting to 2♦ (if permitted) would be an automatic reaction, showing no more than a desire not to silence partner.

I looked for a reference to Law 16 in Law 27B2 (which explicitly references Law 23 and Law 26) and in Law 27C, but there is none. In contrast, Law 27B1 states explicitly that Law 16 does not apply.

Late night rulings

Wednesday evening was peppered with phone consultations: two interesting unauthorised informations rulings, and one ruling where there was little to do because the players had effectively ruled at the table. Inevitably, it was this last one that appeared on the internet, as Misboarding in Teams Match. The question arose during the consultation, and again in the online topic, whether we should attempt to apply Law 86D. In consultation, we had rejected Law 86D: we both took the attitude that we would not attempt to apply that law unless there was just one non-offending side. This attitude was cemented by some discussions at the EBU panel training weekend and is based on the phrase “the non-offending side” at the end of Law 86D. Online, there were those who wanted to apply Law 86D with two (equally) offending sides.

How likely is likely?

Another interesting online topic concerned the word “likely” in Law 69: How likely is likely?. I had noticed this change in wording when the new laws appeared, but this is the first real case I have seen where the change was relevant.

Normal, irrational, likely, legal plays

The forums (RGB, IBLF, BLML, BBO) are awash with discussions of claims, as ever. I can not resist a posting on the different classes of plays that the (current) claim laws require a TD to consider.

1997 Laws

In the 1997 laws there is

• "normal" (Laws 69, 70 and 71), includes careless or inferior but not irrational (footnote 20);
• "irrational" (end of Law 70E), because of the footnote I had interpreted this as the opposite of normal (probably erroneously);
• "legal" (Law 71A), I think we understood this and, with the proper interpretation of Law 71, we did not need to distinguish this from "normal".

So, with my naive understanding of "irrational" in Law 70E, we only needed to understand what was or was not "normal", as in "normal play of the remaining cards" or "normal line of play".

2007 Laws

Now, in the 2007 laws there are again three different classes of plays, but now I think they are all independent.

• "likely" (Law 69B), a clear change from 1997;
• "normal" (Laws 70 and 71), includes careless or inferior (footnote 22);
• "irrational" (Law 70E1), without this word occurring in the footnote.

The change from "normal" to "likely" in Law 69, and the removal of "irrational" from footnote 22, indicates to me that there are now three independent tests to be applied in Laws 69, 70, and 71. For now all I can do is record the different terms, we will have to await experience, case law, and interpretation to distiguish them.

Bounded rationality

It is clear in that "irrational" in the 1997 laws could not interpreted literally, leading the Ace from A10xx opposite KQ9xx was normal but also irrational. A friend, bridge partner, and mathematician who mixes with economists, introduced me to the concept of bounded rationality which is used by economists and game theorists to label some kinds of irrational behaviour from supposedly rational agents. The idea is that rational agents (e.g. humans) don't have time/effort/inclination to calculate the correct rational response in a given situation, so there is a bound on the agents' rationality which does not allow the agent to complete the calculation, and may lead them to behave irrationally.

In understanding how we describe claims ruling, it is useful to think that some normal plays (including careless or inferior) could be classed as boundedly rational while remaining strictly irrational. I don't know whether this concept would help in interpreting "irrational" in Law 70E1.