[blackshoe]

Suppose a ruling is complicated, or likely to become complicated. How far is the director obligated to go in fulfilling the requirements of Law 9B2 ("No player shall take any action until the director has explained all matters in regard to rectification" (emphasis mine) and Law 10C1 ("the director shall explain all the options available") before asking for a decision from a player?

For example, suppose the dealer and his partner both simultaneously open 1NT. Now, Law 33 says that dealer's partner's call is deemed to be subsequent to dealer's call. It's also insufficient. So Law 27 applies*. Now, Law (27A1), dealer's partner's LHO may accept the bid. If he does not, Law 31 applies (Law 27A2). Presumably this means we skip Law 29, which would give dealer's partner's LHO a second chance to accept the bid. So Law 31A applies, and we tell offender's RHO that if he passes, offender must repeat his call, which is still insufficient, so we go back to Law 27. OTOH, if offender's RHO doubles or makes a legal bid, then offender can do what he likes, but if he bids some number of NT, dealer must pass once, and if he makes any other call, dealer must pass whenever it is his turn to call. If we go back to Law 27, the provisions of 27B apply, and they're complicated enough without having already gone through all the preliminarty stuff. I can see players' eyes glazing over if I try to explain all this before getting offender's LHO to say whether he accepts or not. I can see him impatiently accepting (or not accepting) the IBOOT before I finish talking. I can see complaints that "we don't have time for this!"

I suppose "best practice" is to split such rulings up into bite size pieces, even if that's not technically legal. What does the TD do if he follows that practice, and a player later complains that he wasn't told all his options before he made his choice? Rule it "director error"? Throw up his hands? Throw out the board?

*Or does it? I can see an argument that Law 29 applies first - in which case either the IB is accepted (and now we have to deal with Law 27 - do we start with "you can accept.." again?) or it's not, it's cancelled, and we move on to Law 31.

Hm. Law 33 -> Law 27 --> Law 31 or Law 33 -> Law 29 -> Law 27 -> Law 31. And either case might proceed from Law 31 -> Law 27 again.

[wank]

your job isn't to decide for him what he should know or not know at any particular point. if you can understand it, it would be arrogant to assume a player would not.

if a player can't be bothered to listen, that's his fault.

[blackshoe]

I am, generally, in favor of doing what the law says. I don't particularly like it when "best practice" suggests doing something otherwise. All I'm asking here is 1) what "best practice" is deemed to be in these cases and 2) what it should, in the opinion of posters here, be. Apparently, your opinion is "follow the law as written". Okay, fine, but characterizing me (or some generic TD if you weren't trying to be personal) as "arrogant" is unnecessary.

[aguahombre]

You might be surprised on your scenario to find that nothing matters. If 4th chair accepts the 1NT BOOT/IB (either time), the dealer will have authorized information and will bid 4NT quant or 6NT blast. If 4th chair doesn't accept the first time, and responder has to repeat the IB but it is not accepted...then responder will be able to bid 4NT or 6NT as a replacement with the same or more narrow meaning.

But all is not lost. You might still get to interject later, with your own judgement that the opponents might have explored and found a major suit fit for a lesser result.

This would only apply to strong NT's, but something similar would probably happen if they play weak NT and land in 3NT. You could have a lot more fun as TD, however, if they played a different range occording to seat; then you could figure out whether 3rd chair thought he was first chair before coming to all the same end results.

Whether the NOS has all possible contingencies in their mental database at the time doesn't seem relevant.

[Zelandakh]

What is so complicated about saying "You have the option to accept the insufficient 1NT bid. If you accept the call X will happen; if you do not accept it Y will happen"? I can only see this being a problem in events where the player concerned is not a native speaker.

[gwnn]

How about a friendly warning before beginning such as "this is quite a complicated situation, would you like the simple version or the long version?" I personally could go either way as a player, depending on my mood, partner, opps, time on the clock...

[barmar]

Zelandakh, on 2013-July-04, 02:42, said:

What is so complicated about saying "You have the option to accept the insufficient 1NT bid. If you accept the call X will happen; if you do not accept it Y will happen"? I can only see this being a problem in events where the player concerned is not a native speaker.

The problem is that X and/or Y may also have lots of conditionals.

A case that comes up often is a lead out of turn by a defender. Do you:

1. Tell declarer that he has the option to accept it; if he declines, tell the offender that it's now a penalty card.

2. Tell declarer that he has the option to accept it, and if he doesn't it will become a penalty card.

3. Tell declarer that he has the option to accept it, and if he doesn't it will become a penalty card, which the player will have to play at his first legal opportunity, and if his partner gets on lead before then there will be lead options.

4. Tell declarer that he has the option to accept it, and if he doesn't it will become a penalty card, which the player will have to play at his first legal opportunity, and if his partner gets on lead before then declarer will have the option of prohibiting or requiring him to lead the suit of the penalty card, in which case the penalty card is taken back into the player's hand, or allow him to lead anything he wishes and the penalty card remains, and BTW if declarer chooses the prohibition it remains in force for as long as the defender holds the lead.

I usually do #2. Penalty cards are common enough that most players don't need all the further details spelled out at that time. If they're not experienced players, I might also offer to explain what a penalty card is if they want.

[Zelandakh]

I would choose 2a: Tell declarer that they have the option of accepting it and that, if not accepted, it will become a major penalty card; and that I can explain more about major penalty cards if they would like to know this before deciding.