[euclidz]

Declarer's opening bid is 1♠, which is doubled for take out by LHO, declarer's partner passes and LHO passes having failed to notice his partners double card.

Can he change his call?

1. I presume unintended means accidental not failed to pay attention - Yes / No?

2. I presume if declarer passes (3rd pass) before offender declares his mistake, the auction is over (22A2) and he cannot change his call (25A3) because the auction is over?

[chrism]

He cannot change his call.
1. Correct. "Unintended" means that at the moment he made the call, he intended to make some other call (or, I suppose, that he did not intend to call at all at that moment);
2. In the unlikely event that such a call was genuinely unintended, rather than careless, it can be changed under 25A3 before the end of the auction period, so until a defender faces an opening lead (22)

[gordontd]

 chrism, on 2016-June-16, 08:06, said:

He cannot change his call.
1. Correct. "Unintended" means that at the moment he made the call, he intended to make some other call (or, I suppose, that he did not intend to call at all at that moment);

I think the generally held view is that he had to have intended to make a different call.

[blackshoe]

If it's his turn he can't have intended not to call, because he knows, if he's had any instruction at all in how to play the game, that at his turn he has to make some call. Pass is a call.

[RMB1]

 gordontd, on 2016-June-16, 08:23, said:

I think the generally held view is that he had to have intended to make a different call.

For Law 25A to apply, there has to be an intended call.

[pran]

 RMB1, on 2016-June-16, 09:02, said:

For Law 25A to apply, there has to be an unintended call.

!!!

[gordontd]

 pran, on 2016-June-16, 09:38, said:

!!!

No, you've missed Robin's point entirely.

[axman]

 pran, on 2016-June-16, 09:38, said:

For Law 25A to apply, there has to be an unintended call.

I'll suggest that for Law 25A to apply, there has to be the unintended call and the intended call.....


25A1 Until his partner makes a call, a player may substitute his intended .....

[pran]

 axman, on 2016-June-16, 11:22, said:

I'll suggest that for Law 25A to apply, there has to be the unintended call and the intended call.....

25A1 Until his partner makes a call, a player may substitute his intended .....

Shall a player who apparently confused with his call exclaims something like "no no no that is not what I wanted" be denied a Law 25A correction unless he immediately presents his intended call when his delay (equally apparently) is caused by his confusion and not any reconsideration?

The event that definitely must have occurred for Law 25A to apply is an unintended call.

[axman]

 pran, on 2016-June-16, 11:50, said:

Shall a player who apparently confused with his call exclaims something like "no no no that is not what I wanted" be denied a Law 25A correction unless he immediately presents his intended call when his delay (equally apparently) is caused by his confusion and not any reconsideration?

The event that definitely must have occurred for Law 25A to apply is an unintended call.

Yes. Both; intended call must have existed at the time of the unintended call. Otherwise, L21A there is no redress for acting on one's own misunderstanding [to make the correction without pause for thought, the player necessarily must have had in mind their intended call- since otherwise there would be thought].

[blackshoe]

Today at the club:

---

After a brief pause, West, obviously flustered, said something or other. East said "go ahead and change it", so I said "perhaps we ought to get the director". East promptly called the director, who came, listened to East (type A personality — he is a bridge player, after all ) explain what happened, and hemmed and hawed for a bit. Then he asked West why she passed and West said "I guess I just got confused". So after hemming and hawing some more the director commented that she took a bidding card out of "the wrong part of the box," and let her change her bid. So they played in 3 spades, down 1, and my Q fifth of diamonds become worthless (not that it was worth much in the first place). We got a below average score on this board.

[chrism]

 blackshoe, on 2016-June-16, 09:01, said:

If it's his turn he can't have intended not to call, because he knows, if he's had any instruction at all in how to play the game, that at his turn he has to make some call. Pass is a call.

My point was that while he certainly intended to call eventually, he might conceivably not have had any call in mind at the moment of the unintended call. Hard to do with a bidding box, but with spoken bidding it could be possible to utter the word "Pass" while absent-mindedly thinking aloud. with no intention at the moment of utterance of either passing or making any other call. Farfetched, of course, and I would hate to be the one trying to prove it.

[Vampyr]

Pulling a bid from the wrong part of the bidding box is of course a reason not to adjust. Perhaps the management should send this director to repeat the qualification course.

[jallerton]

 RMB1, on 2016-June-16, 09:02, said:

For Law 25A to apply, there has to be an intended call.

 chrism, on 2016-June-16, 15:59, said:

My point was that while he certainly intended to call eventually, he might conceivably not have had any call in mind at the moment of the unintended call. Hard to do with a bidding box, but with spoken bidding it could be possible to utter the word "Pass" while absent-mindedly thinking aloud. with no intention at the moment of utterance of either passing or making any other call. Farfetched, of course, and I would hate to be the one trying to prove it.

Let me give you an example I have seen a few times at my table.

North makes a conventional call.
South reaches into the bidding box for her alert card but pulls out the double card instead.

As a matter of practicality we have a laugh about it, note that South has alerted North's call, it is East's turn to call and we get on with the game. But technically speaking we should be calling the director as South has made a call out of turn (and quite possibly an inadmissible one).

[weejonnie]

This is dealt with under Blue Book 3Z (You can also deal with it via laws 19, 23, 26, 32, 36 ending up with 81 C5 and hoping opponents ask you to waive rectification

3Z A 2 Starting with the dealer, players place their calls on the table in front of them, from the left and neatly overlapping, so that all calls are visible and faced towards partner. Players should refrain from touching any cards in the box until they have determined their call. A call is considered to have been made when the call is removed from the bidding box with apparent intent (but the TD may apply Law 25)

So I would rule that the player did not intend to remove a double card.

Interesting - In theory The doubler's LHO could make a free call under Law 36A.

[barmar]

I'm not sure the "with apparent intent" clause refers to whether the card they pulled is the intended one, but whether the action of pulling a card was intended. I think it's meant to distinguish it from things like accidentally knocking over the bidding box. In the given scenario, they pulled the Double card with apparent intent, but it wasn't the card they intended to pull.

The interesting thing in this case, though, is that 25A talks about replacing a call with the intended call. But in this case the player didn't even intend to make a call, he just wanted to alert. It wasn't even his turn to call. And if he was following proper ACBL procedures, he said the word "Alert" at the same time as he pulled the Double card. It's not clear that the Laws address this at all (alerts aren't really mentioned very much in the Laws).

[mycroft]

Heh. I thought I was the only person who had doubled their partner out of turn - certainly this is the first time I've heard I'm not alone!