blackshoe, on 2017-July-29, 08:50, said:
I think that it is clear that Law 25A allows the correction. I think it is also clear that the extraneous comment violates Law 73A1 and 73B1. Where do we go from here, though? 73C does not apply. Nor does 73F. Does that mean that we can't adjust the score? Not necessarily, but we have to look elsewhere to do so. Perhaps to Law 12A1. What of 12B2, though? "The Director may not award an adjusted score on the ground that the rectification provided in these Laws is either unduly severe or advantageous to either side." Does this prevent using 12A1? I don't think so, but I might be convinced otherwise by a cogent argument. There remains the question whether, given that the correction is legal, any score adjustment is appropriate at all. Certainly there will be those (including the offending side!) who will argue against it, on the grounds that the auction itself was legal. OTOH, there was an infraction of law, and the NOS were arguably damaged by it.
As for a penalty, Law 73A1 says "Communication between partners during the auction and play shall be effected only by means of calls and plays." and Law 73B1 says "Partners shall not communicate by means such as the manner in which calls or plays are made, extraneous remarks or gestures, questions asked or not asked of the opponents or alerts and explanations given or not given to them." The words "shall" and "shall not" indicate that violation of these laws "will incur a procedural penalty more often than not". We don't want players communicating in this way, so I think a PP is more than appropriate here. I would have to hear a very convincing argument why I should not give one.
How about a disciplinary penalty? Law 91 gives the director authority to award these "to maintain order and discipline". That's pretty broad, and it could be easy for directors to justify to themselves a DP on the grounds that we don't want an <expletive deleted> committee to cancel it, but I don't think that's a good justification.
It seems clear that a PP is the way to go. How big a PP though? Some will suggest the size of the PP should relate to the amount of damage done. This is illogical for two reasons: first, the purpose of a procedural penalty is to penalize violations of procedure. We are issuing a PP here to deter extraneous comments, not to punish the OS for "damaging" their opponents. Second, a PP affects the overall score of the OS in the event. It does not affect the NOS' score at all. Because of this, the size of the PP should relate to the seriousness of the offense, including perhaps the offender's tendency to repeatedly do this kind of thing (if that's the case). General guidance from most RAs seems to be to award a "standard" PP, whatever that is for the RA in question for a first offense. I note that the EBU suggests (WB § 2.8.3.4j) a warning for a first offense. If the offender is experienced enough that he should know better, though, I think a PP in MPs or IMPs is appropriate even for a first offense. If the director decides that because it's a first offense only a warning should be given, then IMO the warning should always be given — and a second offense should incur a real PP. The worst thing we can do as directors is to keep issuing warnings and not follow through. That undermines respect for the director and for the rules of the game.
I think you are correct that Law 73B/C cannot apply on a question addressed to you by your partner
so long as you use the 2007 Laws. (And your reference to Law 73F indicates that this is exactly what you do, there is no 2017 Law 73F).
However the 2007 Law 25A does not allow an unintended call to be changed
no matter how the player became aware of it. The text enhanced by me in
red was added in 2017. Therefore we may safely infer that partner's illegal remark (question) terminates the player's option to withdraw his unintended call (as would for instance partner's subsequent call or other UI).
More important is that the 2017 Law 73B defines a question from partner as unauthorized information regardless of which player is addressed with that question. This is a change from the 2007 law which explicitly limited UI to questions addressing an opponent.
So IMHO the player may not legally change his inadvertent call following a reminder from his partner when we apply the 2007 laws while he may certainly do so when we apply the 2017 laws.
However, he 2017 Law 73B/C applies on any extraneous remark from his partner regardless of which player is addressed by that remark.