Law 28B
Love All Dealer West
North starts the auction with a Pass (out of rotation) and East also Passes.
At this point West (unaware of the above) bids 1NT.
So my question is :- Does L28B apply or is the 1NT a call out of rotation at RHO's turn to call?
The question appears to depend on whether East's call is an assessment of rectification for North's Pass out of rotation.
I would have thought not - see L10A
On the other hand while it is clear that North's call would be "removed" there is no mention of removing subsequent calls.
Views please.
DaveB
Comments
I would follow the same thought process as you have, but I would resolve the final question on the basis that 28B clearly intends that a player cannot be disadvantaged by LHO's (and partner's) carelessness, for making their intended opening bid when dealer. So I would cancel both calls and carry on from there, noting that L16C2 is specifically referenced in 28B.
EDIT I think it's an interesting question so I have asked it on the EBL TD forum, where everyone so far thinks that 28B cannot apply once 29A has taken effect, so West's 1NT is out of turn. This is a nice, simple solution, though arguably not very equitable to West, but I'm not yet convinced the wording of the laws says this.
I think Law 28B protects the player who was to call but not his partner.
If we apply Law 28B it would cancel the original Pass out of rotation but not the Pass by East. The Pass by East would stand and the 1NT by West would be out of rotation. Law 28B does not help the EW side, and (with East's Pass) they have already forfeit the right to rectification for North's Pass.
As written, Law 28B applies, but we still have to apply Law 31 to the 1NT by West.
I don't think we can apply L31 to West when 28B says West's call is considered to be in rotation. If anything, we might consider East's Pass to be out of rotation, even though it was chronologically first!
I think one problem is that the wording of 28B
The auction proceeds as though the opponent had not called at that turn. Law 26 does not apply, but see Law 16C2.
It would appear from my lowly position that we cancel North's call, but not East's pass.South can accept it (Law 29A) but, if not, 30B applies. From Law 28B West's 1NT is considered to be in rotation, however it may mean that e.g. if South calls 2H, having accepted the COOT it could turn out to be an unsufficient bid despite being made before South's call.
Having now had various conversations about this, both privately and on the EBL Forum, I am persuaded that once East has condoned North's POOT we should not allow West the benefit of L28B - not because that is what the laws say, since I'm not absolutely sure that they do - but because of the consequences that would be difficult to resolve if we did, which is what led to the original question.
I feel much more lined up with Gordon's original response. The intent of the Laws is to "not to punish but to rectify ..." (says the Introduction) and the worst we have to deal with is North and East's passes being unauthorised information. This seems the best way to an honest bridge result.
How, logically, do we interpret "before rectification has been assessed" (Law 28B), when the right to any rectification has been forfeited under Law 29A? Clearly the Laws should address this, but they don't.
Rather tentatively, I don't think that W logically has the protection of Law 28B. The 1NT bid cannot logically be "before" something that is no longer available at the time the 1NT bid was made.
Perhaps we should tell N: "you started this mess, perhaps you should help us resolve it by accepting W's BOOT"?! But assuming that N does accept, do we still have a problem of what to do about E's pass? I'd vote, equally tentatively, "no", on the basis that N's presumed acceptance of W's BOOT has eliminated any rectification for W's infraction, and E's pass wasn't an infraction at the time it happened, and cannot retrospectively be made to be one.
I do think W bears some responsibility for the mess as it would be unusual not to notice either of two calls made, even if W was looking at his hand, knowing that he was the dealer, and deciding what call to make.
It doesn't look as if 28B is designed to cover this precise set of circumstances. I envisage this to apply when an opponent calls out of turn and the dealer, not seeing that one call, opens the bidding. Accepting the COOT by bidding, 29A has moved the auction on.
I don't think we can force North to accept West's call (although that would be the Solomenic solution)
So much as I don;t like it, I currently think (and I reserve my right to change my mind), that the North and East calls stand, and West has now bid 1NT out of turn. North can accept (29A) otherwise 31B aplies. - So - I agree with Gordon.
Well, normally East's call would be considered to accept the pass out of turn by North and that would forfeit the right to further rectification. So by a certain logic rectification has been assessed, so 28B is out and West has bid out of turn.
I guess the order of the bids matters. If West bid before East, then 28B would apply, but in that instance East has bid out of turn.
I share the various misgivings, we'd quite like to accept West's 1NT and just continue from there. But it's hard to justify that by the laws. I thought about using Law 12 A 1, but it's all rather tenuous, I don't think this is a situation not covered by the laws. I guess neither West nor East is paying attention, they're not completely without fault.
As far as I can tell, West is in trouble through no fault of their own – but the fault lies with East, West's partner. So it's reasonable for E/W to end up in an awkward situation as a result.
(Although North has also committed an irregularity, East's play cancels that, so East/West have taken the only action that we can rectify.)
What if East and West bid simultaneously, West intending to open the bidding, East intending to accept North's coot? One of them is in the right, the other has now bid out of turn.
Another scenario... West is dealer but, before he makes a bid, North opens and South responds, with East silent. Can West now choose whether to bid as opening bidder or to bid to condone South's oot response to North's oot opening bid? Where does East fit into this?
If East now pipes up and rejects North's oot opening bid does this take away West's right to accept South's coot?
According to Law 33, East's call is considered to have happened immediately after West's (because legally, it was West's turn to call). According to Law 28B, North's call is cancelled entirely as a result of West's call (creating UI but with no other rectification given). What happens next depends on what North's call was (I'm assuming it wasn't a double because that would be ridiculous):
Laws 28B and 29A both apply here. An explicit call by West is legal, triggering both Laws at once. Law 29A says that East/West forfeit the right to rectification. Law 28B says that East/West forfeit the right to rectification and North's and South's calls are cancelled. If you interpret those laws as contradicting, it means that Law 28B is self-contradictory; it makes much more sense to treat them as supplementing each other, thus Law 29A is redundant in this situation and we follow the procedure in Law 28B.
If East calls, Law 29A applies first, implying that North's call is not cancelled. That makes it East's turn to call, so Law 28B then applies to the new situation after the accepted call: South's call is cancelled, and East/West forfeit the right to rectification.
It seems that it does matter here which of East and West calls first. (As above, it's legally West's turn to call unless East actually calls, so if East and West call simultaneously, West's call counts as happening first.)
Is that right? The way I'd read Law 33, it's actually East's turn to call. It's just that a bid made by West is considered to be in rotation. By that logic East has bid, West has then bid out of turn.
A COOT doesn't change whose turn it is to call; the offender's LHO can legally call over it, but it isn't their turn. (Law 29B is quite clear that a call out of turn is cancelled, unless the offender's LHO calls over it; that means that it isn't the offender's LHO's turn to call, it's just that calling out of turn is something that's legal for them in that situation.) So if it's West's turn to call, no number of calls by North and South can change the fact that it's West's turn to call.
Thanks for your analysis, ais523. It's interesting, isn't it?
It is. I'm still not entirely convinced, Laws 28 & 29 talk about the player whose turn it was to call before a COOT. If the director is called, it would be East making any decision. It's not exactly anyone's turn to call in the usual sense. Law 33 does use the same wording though.
The question of how to deal with two players from one side bidding out of rotation does not have a clean answer.
As a practical matter, the TD needs to be confident and be prepared to offer both non-offenders the chance to accept various calls (but not consult) and the auction should then be able to proceed with the non-offending side feeling they have had their chance and the offending side not being too unhappy.
I saw Matt Johnson handle this best (but before "comparable calls"). He treated the offending calls in the order they occurred and offered the next player in rotation the option to accept the offending call without actually calling. Depending on whether the first offending call stands determines how we deal with the second offending call.