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Misinformation Law 21

Another one raised by me.

Law 21 B 1 (a) allows a player to change a call if the Director judges that the decision to make the call could well have been influenced by misinformation....

Law 21 B 3 allows/requires the Director to award an adjusted score 'when it is too late to change a call' and the offending side gained an advantage.

Law 21 B 1 (a) makes no reference to the Director awarding an adjusted score.

The way I interpret the law, if the Director is called when a player of the non-offending side is in time to change his call because his partner has not yet called and the Director offers this choice, but the player chooses not to do so, the matter ends there; he cannot later, at the end of play, call the Director and claim damage because law 21 B 1 (a) only allows the Director to offer a change of call, nothing else.

The non-offending side can only be given the benefit of an adjusted score if the misinformation was corrected when it was too late for the player to change his call.

Comments

  • Yes, the way that misinformation is ruled is a) if it's in time to correct a call, that call can be corrected, but there's no further adjustment with respect to that call (i.e. the opportunity to change the call is, in its own right, the advantage given to the non-offending side to redress the balance); b) if it's too late to correct a call, and that call would have been different if the information were correct, you adjust the score.

    Note that case b) is by far the more common in practice. Misinformation is most commonly corrected by the partner of the person who gave the misinformation, which is at the end of the auction (if the declaring side gave the misinformation) or the end of the play (if the defending side gave the misinformation). In both these cases, the bid that the non-offending side would most benefit from correcting is no longer correctable.

    We have a previous thread on this subject here; you might find it worth reading if you're interested in this subject.

  • @ais523 said:
    Yes, the way that misinformation is ruled is a) if it's in time to correct a call, that call can be corrected, but there's no further adjustment with respect to that call (i.e. the opportunity to change the call is, in its own right, the advantage given to the non-offending side to redress the balance); b) if it's too late to correct a call, and that call would have been different if the information were correct, you adjust the score.

    Note that case b) is by far the more common in practice. Misinformation is most commonly corrected by the partner of the person who gave the misinformation, which is at the end of the auction (if the declaring side gave the misinformation) or the end of the play (if the defending side gave the misinformation). In both these cases, the bid that the non-offending side would most benefit from correcting is no longer correctable.

    We have a previous thread on this subject here; you might find it worth reading if you're interested in this subject.

    I have come across instances where the correction of misinformation after the end of the auction resulted in the non-offending player having the option to change his last pass. (a) would be applicable in such cases.

    However, you are essentially supporting my interpretation, in that once the opportunity to change a call has been given there is no further redressal available. This is what I was seeking. Thanks.

  • @ais523 said:
    Yes, the way that misinformation is ruled is a) if it's in time to correct a call, that call can be corrected, but there's no further adjustment with respect to that call (i.e. the opportunity to change the call is, in its own right, the advantage given to the non-offending side to redress the balance); b) if it's too late to correct a call, and that call would have been different if the information were correct, you adjust the score.

    Note that case b) is by far the more common in practice. Misinformation is most commonly corrected by the partner of the person who gave the misinformation, which is at the end of the auction (if the declaring side gave the misinformation) or the end of the play (if the defending side gave the misinformation). In both these cases, the bid that the non-offending side would most benefit from correcting is no longer correctable.

    We have a previous thread on this subject here; you might find it worth reading if you're interested in this subject.

    Thanks. Read the previous thread.

  • Indeed.

    You do get the opportunity to change the final pass in cases where misinformation was revealed before the opening lead. However, frequently the call you'd want to change is a different one (e.g. you don't know whether your partnership has a fit for a suit, you could have figured it out without the MI by making a bid at a lower level, but you can't do that over the opponent's final contract because bidding would be a disaster if there turns out not to be one). So in that case, the redress of being able to change the final pass doesn't really help.

    It's possible for both a) and b) to apply on the same hand in some cases, e.g. once misinformation has been corrected you know your side should be in game, bid 3NT, and it makes; but if you'd been able to change an earlier bid, you'd have found a fit in the major, bid game there instead, and it makes more. The important thing, though, is that you don't get redress for cases where you had enough information (after the correction) that you could have ended up in your best contract simply by changing your final bid. If the misinformation denied you an opportunity to gain information that would have let you come up with a better change to your final bid, then you can't fix that by changing the final bid, and so an adjustment is appropriate.

  • @ais523 said:
    Indeed.

    You do get the opportunity to change the final pass in cases where misinformation was revealed before the opening lead. However, frequently the call you'd want to change is a different one (e.g. you don't know whether your partnership has a fit for a suit, you could have figured it out without the MI by making a bid at a lower level, but you can't do that over the opponent's final contract because bidding would be a disaster if there turns out not to be one). So in that case, the redress of being able to change the final pass doesn't really help.

    It's possible for both a) and b) to apply on the same hand in some cases, e.g. once misinformation has been corrected you know your side should be in game, bid 3NT, and it makes; but if you'd been able to change an earlier bid, you'd have found a fit in the major, bid game there instead, and it makes more. The important thing, though, is that you don't get redress for cases where you had enough information (after the correction) that you could have ended up in your best contract simply by changing your final bid. If the misinformation denied you an opportunity to gain information that would have let you come up with a better change to your final bid, then you can't fix that by changing the final bid, and so an adjustment is appropriate.

    Hell of a job for the TD to figure that one out, where the misinformation denied the player the opportunity to gain information about the partnership holding, isn't it?

  • You can normally figure it out by working out what the auction would have been on the correct information. (You can ask the players about their system to help with this, and/or what bids they would have made differently, but you of course don't necessarily have to believe them.) If the final contract ends up as something different from where it ended up in the auction at the table, and a change of the final pass wouldn't have had the information to get there (you can determine that by looking at the auction and the final passer's hand to see what the final passer would have known), then it's likely that the non-offending side were damaged. (They might not have been damaged if, say, the contract that they would have bid to without the misinformation unluckily happens to go down, despite being better in the abstract.)

  • @ais523 said:
    You can normally figure it out by working out what the auction would have been on the correct information. (You can ask the players about their system to help with this, and/or what bids they would have made differently, but you of course don't necessarily have to believe them.) If the final contract ends up as something different from where it ended up in the auction at the table, and a change of the final pass wouldn't have had the information to get there (you can determine that by looking at the auction and the final passer's hand to see what the final passer would have known), then it's likely that the non-offending side were damaged. (They might not have been damaged if, say, the contract that they would have bid to without the misinformation unluckily happens to go down, despite being better in the abstract.)

    Yes, I know that is the process, I was merely commenting on the difficulty of working out how the bidding would have progressed in a competitive auction had a bid, say, two rounds of bidding earlier, been different. I suppose that's where TDs earn their money!> @Vlad said:

    @ais523 said:
    Indeed.

    You do get the opportunity to change the final pass in cases where misinformation was revealed before the opening lead. However, frequently the call you'd want to change is a different one (e.g. you don't know whether your partnership has a fit for a suit, you could have figured it out without the MI by making a bid at a lower level, but you can't do that over the opponent's final contract because bidding would be a disaster if there turns out not to be one). So in that case, the redress of being able to change the final pass doesn't really help.

    It's possible for both a) and b) to apply on the same hand in some cases, e.g. once misinformation has been corrected you know your side should be in game, bid 3NT, and it makes; but if you'd been able to change an earlier bid, you'd have found a fit in the major, bid game there instead, and it makes more. The important thing, though, is that you don't get redress for cases where you had enough information (after the correction) that you could have ended up in your best contract simply by changing your final bid. If the misinformation denied you an opportunity to gain information that would have let you come up with a better change to your final bid, then you can't fix that by changing the final bid, and so an adjustment is appropriate.

    Hell of a job for the TD to figure that one out, where the misinformation denied the player the opportunity to gain information about the partnership holding, isn't it?

    Thinking about it further, I wonder whether both (a) and (b) can apply in the same case. Once misinformation has been revealed and in consequence a bid has been corrected under 21B1a, that should be it. Taking your example, the player should not have the option of bidding 3NT and making it, then claiming later that had he had the opportunity to change an earlier bid they would have been in 4S, with a better score. If he wanted to do that he should not have bid 3NT but relied on relief under Law 21B3, 'too late to change a call'. One bite of the cherry, not two, that's my point.

  • TagTag
    edited October 2018

    If a side bids to 3NT, consequent to having received misinformation, when they would normally have bid to a superior 4H contract then they have been damaged by the MI. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the scenario, though.

    Depending on when the MI is revealed, you might have a situation where there have been two or more calls made by the non-offending side before the MI comes to light. One of them can be changed but prior ones cannot. Thus you might change one call and still claim redress for earlier ones bid under MI.

  • I think there is a big difference between trying to get the best score under the current (legal) auction, and then claiming for damage because the auction was illegal, and taking a gambling action hoping to gain redress if it fails. Who knows - the auction with the MI might result in a better contract, in which case there is no damage.

  • Or it might result in a worse contract with a better result. Say, for example, we end up in 3NT, which should make only 9, whereas the more normal 4H would have been reached without MI. Thus we're in a worse contract and can claim to have been damaged. However, due to mis-defence, declarer takes 10 tricks, and we get a top. Now, we're clearly not damaged.

  • The commonest situation in which it is in time to change a call under Law 21B1(a) is where a player alerts late. Say LHO opens 1 !c , announced as "may be two". Partner passes and RHO bids 1 !h . This happens to be your suit so you pass. Now LHO wakes up and says "sorry", I should have alerted 1 !h ". You ask and it turns out that 1 !h showed spades. You can have your pass back and double to show hearts or overcall 2 !h or 3 !h or whatever, depending on your hand. It may not be obvious what you should do on a particular hand, but you have to make a bridge decision at that point which is binding on your side, and you do have the benefit of the correct information about the opponents bidding to allow you to do so. If your choice works out badly, that's just rub of the green, and it is quite correct that you should not be able to have another bite of the cherry by seeking an adjusted score later because some other choice at that point might have worked out better.

  • @Abbeybear said:
    The commonest situation in which it is in time to change a call under Law 21B1(a) is where a player alerts late. Say LHO opens 1 !c , announced as "may be two". Partner passes and RHO bids 1 !h . This happens to be your suit so you pass. Now LHO wakes up and says "sorry", I should have alerted 1 !h ". You ask and it turns out that 1 !h showed spades. You can have your pass back and double to show hearts or overcall 2 !h or 3 !h or whatever, depending on your hand. It may not be obvious what you should do on a particular hand, but you have to make a bridge decision at that point which is binding on your side, and you do have the benefit of the correct information about the opponents bidding to allow you to do so. If your choice works out badly, that's just rub of the green, and it is quite correct that you should not be able to have another bite of the cherry by seeking an adjusted score later because some other choice at that point might have worked out better.

    Thanks Abbeybear, that is exactly the point I was making.

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