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Does an insufficient bid when accepted supersede the previous bid?

The following happened at the local club some months ago:

North opened 1NT, doubled by East, South passed and West bid 1 !h.
East pointed out this was insufficient and before the director could be called,
West replaced the bid by a Pass. North called the director and not relishing the prospect of 1NT !x
stated he wanted to accept the original 1 !h bid which was now treated as legal (Law 27A).
North passed as did East and South.

The question is what should be the final contract?
Is it 1 !h , i.e. does the 1 !h bid supersede 1NT !x (as North thought)? This would seem to contradict Law 18B & C.

Or does the contract remain 1NT !x (as East thought); that would seem to contradict Law 19C
which states a legal bid supersedes a double or redouble.

Or is the contract 1NT which seems to comply with both 18B and 19C? So, in effect, the 1 !h bid acts
as the notorious Undouble ? :) .

Alan Barnes

Comments

  • Yes. The contract is 1 H.

    Alan

  • Yes, but see
    “Law 27 D. Non-offending Side Damaged
    If following the application of B1 the Director judges at the end of the play that without assistance gained through the infraction the outcome of the board could well have been different, and in consequence the non-offending side is damaged (see Law 12B1), he shall award an adjusted score. In his adjustment he should seek to recover as nearly as possible the probable outcome of the board had the insufficient bid not occurred.”
    So if the 1H contract results in a good score then the Director awards an adjusted score.
  • @SteveMap said:
    Yes, but see
    “Law 27 D. Non-offending Side Damaged
    If following the application of B1 the Director judges at the end of the play that without assistance gained through the infraction the outcome of the board could well have been different, and in consequence the non-offending side is damaged (see Law 12B1), he shall award an adjusted score. In his adjustment he should seek to recover as nearly as possible the probable outcome of the board had the insufficient bid not occurred.”
    So if the 1H contract results in a good score then the Director awards an adjusted score.

    I don't think this is correct under the circumstances. B1 only applies if the insufficient bid is corrected by a sufficient bid showing the same denomination(s) or by a comparable call. Since 27A has been applied there is no rectification if 1H results in a good score.

  • edited January 2020

    @34264 said:
    The question is what should be the final contract?
    Is it 1 !h , i.e. does the 1 !h bid supersede 1NT !x (as North thought)? This would seem to contradict Law 18B & C.

    Don't stop there - Law 18D tells you what happens with an insufficient bid by directing you to Law 27.

  • The immediate relevant law for the OP is Law 27C, which is the one that says that North can accept the original insufficient bid despite West changing it to pass before the TD has arrived. Once North has decided he wants to accept the insufficient bid of 1 !h, then we go to Law 27A which leads to what weejonnie has written that Law 27D won't apply.

    Law 16C will apply to the withdrawn pass by West and had NS become the declaring side, the lead restrictions of Law 26B should apply even though there's no direct reference. When 1 !h has been passed out, Law 26B is irrelevant anyway. Law 72C could still apply but it seems very unlikely that a case for using it would arise on this particular occasion

    Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live

  • So, normally if 1NT is doubled, the partner of the doubler will only take it out with a very weak hand. Therefore with 5 hearts and almost no points, 2H would be the minimum bid to take it out to. In this case 1H (insufficient) is bid followed by a pass (silencing partner). Now the contract is being played at the one level.
    Assuming it makes 7 tricks. Then +80 is better than -50/-100, which would have been the score without the irregularity in the probable 2H contract. Surely this is an occasion for score adjustment under 72C
  • Hmmm.
    West made two actions :
    a) first they made an insufficient bid of 1H. Whether they are ever allowed to play in 1H is out of their control as it requires North to accept the 1H IB for that to happen.
    b) then they replace the 1H IB with Pass before the Director could be called. The Director will rule that if North does not accept the original 1H IB then it must be replaced with Pass which will not be a comparable call and so East will then be silenced throughout.
    The IB followed by a premature replacement with a non-comparable call in fact gives NS the chance of definitely being able to play in 1NT X should they so wish.

    If West had bid 1H (insufficient) then replaced it prematurely with Pass and then turned out to be sitting with a 9 count having deliberately misled NS to think they had nothing to fear from 1NT X then I might consider 72C

    Peter Bushby Suffolk

  • I think that has some merit - obviously only in the specific case mentioned. Note that even though the call is treated as being legal, it was, at the time it was made, an irregularity so 72C would apply. (Man management may be called for here)

  • Hi Peter,
    I agree with you North could have further considerations. However, in the question posed above, N not relishing the prospect of 1NT !x
    stated he wanted to accept the original 1!h bid.
    Therefore they were allowed to play in Hearts at the one level. Impossible to get to without the irregularity.
    Doesn’t seem equitable to me.
  • Like Gordon Rainsford and others, my view was that 1 !h should be the final contract, but I wasn't the director. However later that night, on carefully reading rule 18 & following 18D to 27, I thought the wording "treated as legal" in 27A was imprecise, better might have been "treated as legal and supersedes the previous bid".
    Rule 18B states the conditions for a bid to supersede previous bids and clearly an accepted insufficient bid (though now legal) does not satisfy these conditions. Hence my original post.

    Note that rule 19C refers only to calls of double or redouble which are superseded by a subsequent legal bid.

    Regarding the issue of rectification, doesn't the fact that the insufficient bid was accepted forfeit the right to rectification (admittedly 27A is not as explicit on this issue as 29A, the corresponding rule for an call out of rotation accepted)?

    Actually had the hand been played in 1NT !x it would have gone off by 2 or 3 tricks vulnerable whereas a contract of 1 !h would have made with a couple of overtricks, so the non-offending side would have gained by the irregularity. In the event, due to the delay and the fact all other tables had finished play, rightly or wrongly the director ordered the move and an average on the board.

    Alan Barnes

  • I think there is confusion about the meaning of supersedes here. The term Supersede is used only in Laws 18 and 19, and then with different meanings, neither of which are the true English meaning (replace, supplant).

    In law 18, the term Supersede, defined in 18B, is only then used in 18C and 18D to define sufficient and insufficient bids. Its meaning can best be described as "comes later in the ordered sequence of allowable bids".

    In Law 19C, "Any double or redouble is superseded by a subsequent legal bid." Superseded is used in the sense of cancelled/no longer applying.

    If an IB is accepted, it is now part of the legal auction (irrespective of it not superseding the previous bid, as defined in Law 18B). The bidding level is now "reset" to 1H, as the definition of sufficient bid refers to the last preceding bid, now 1H.

    So the 1H is insufficient (18D) and hence an irregularity. If N accepts the IB, then there is no longer an irregularity, thus 27D does not apply (as others have said).

    In the case of a duplicitous W with 9 points, I would also look at 72C, but would be unlikely to rule against EW - that's not really what this law is for. I would go instead to 73D2: "A player may not attempt to mislead an opponent by any purposeful deviation from correct procedure" - here replacing the IB before N has a chance to exercise his option to accept.

    Note that I disagree with weejonnie here (sorry).

    @weejonnie said:
    I think that has some merit - obviously only in the specific case mentioned. Note that even though the call is treated as being legal, it was, at the time it was made, an irregularity so 72C would apply. (Man management may be called for here)

    Once the IB is accepted the infraction is "undone" so 72C cannot apply. The attempted early replacement of the IB is, however, not undone.

  • @34264 said:
    rightly or wrongly the director ordered the move and an average on the board.

    Not rightly. Artificial scores are only to be used when a board cannot be played. This board certainly could have been played: all it needed was the correct application of the right law, a straightforward book ruling.

  • @34264 said:
    The question is what should be the final contract?

    Law 22A makes clear that the final contract is the bid that was followed by three passes, so 1H.

  • I agree the final contract was 1H.
    Alan said earlier “ a contract of 1!h would have made with a couple of overtricks”.
    If the final contract of 1H had only made 7 tricks, would you have adjusted the final score to 2H-1 ?
  • @SteveMap said:
    I agree the final contract was 1H.
    Alan said earlier “ a contract of 1!h would have made with a couple of overtricks”.
    If the final contract of 1H had only made 7 tricks, would you have adjusted the final score to 2H-1 ?

    There should be no score adjustment involved. The outcome of the book ruling is that the contract is 1H. However many tricks are made in that contract is the result. 2H was never the contract.

  • Gordon Rainsford is, of course right to say that the director should not have averaged the board because of time constraints. However, this is what happens at many local clubs faced with a strict time limit on the availability of the venue, a playing director, no automatic audible time warnings and the desire not to delay play at other tables. If people want to discuss practical legal alternatives, I suggest someone start a new thread as this topic is far from the subject of my original post.

    Gordon is, of course, right that my particular example is covered explicitly by law 22A (which I had overlooked), but that law would not cover the situation where the opening no trumper bid 1 !s over 1 !h .

    The reason for my original post was that I thought that I had detected an imprecision in the laws regarding an insufficient bid which is accepted.The fact that it supersedes the previous bid I thought, erroneously, depended on an unstated property of a legal bid. I now realise that it doesn’t and follows logically from rules 18C & D and 27A.

    At the risk of boring people, here is the outline of the logical argument:

    18C: supersedes => sufficient (here => means implies in the strict logical sense).
    First clause of 18D: not supersedes => not sufficient.
    Thus sufficient => supersedes. (law of contrapositives).
    Thus sufficient <=> supersedes. i.e. the two terms are logically equivalent.
    Second clause of 18D: not sufficient => not legal which because of this equivalence means:
    not supersedes => not legal.
    So, by the law of contrapositives again: legal => supersedes
    Finally law 27A: (not sufficient) and accepted => legal
    thus (not sufficient) and accepted => supersedes (law of modus ponens).

    So we can all rest easy in our beds. :) As a mathematician I should have realised this before my original post. :'( However, the subsequent discussion (particularly Gordon’s posts) have perhaps corrected several potential misunderstandings.

  • @34264 said:
    Gordon Rainsford is, of course right

    I find this to be an almost universal truth :)

  • @JeremyChild said:

    @34264 said:
    Gordon Rainsford is, of course right

    I find this to be an almost universal truth :)

    :) Far from it, but I do hope that overall my contributions help create a greater understanding of bridge laws and procedures.

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