[jillybean]

ACBL
Sent to me by a friend..

I opened 1D in first seat and the auction proceeded 1D (2C) 2S (X) XX (P) P. My RHO now looked around at the bids and picked up her bidding cards and put them in her box. Then she asked "Do I still have a bid?" When we said she would have had abid if she hadn't picked up her cards, she then put 3H on the table. I called the Director, and (director) handled it well. She began by saying she didn't think she had picked the cards up, and anyway she had not seen my redouble. He pointed out to her that seeing the blue card on the table was her responsibility. Her partner then indicated that she had picked her cards up, and she finally relented, so we played in 2SXX.

Correct ruling?

[billw55]

I suppose it depends on whether picking up the bidding cards constitutes a pass. I would say yes, so correct ruling.

The fact that RHO did not see the redouble is irrelevant. That is just a mistake, clearly not a mechanical error or some such. Mistakes count.

As usual with things like this, I would let it go at a club game, and let her bid 3♥. As a player that is - not as director, who must rule properly once called.

[jeffford76]

 jillybean, on 2013-January-03, 13:38, said:

Correct ruling?

Probably not - if she didn't see the XX, then she was picking up her cards because the auction was over, not because she was trying to pass.

[ArtK78]

Law 17E provides that

"E. End of the Auction Period.

1. The auction and the auction period end as Law 22 provides.

2. When a call has been followed by three passes the auction does not end if one of those passes was out of rotation, depriving a player of his right to call at that turn. When this occurs, the auction reverts to the player who missed his turn, all subsequent passes are canceled and the auction proceeds normally. Law 16D applies to the canceled calls, any player who has passed out of rotation being an offender."

The relevant portion of Law 22 reads as follows:

"A. End of the Auction

The auction ends when:

1. all four players pass, but see Law 25. The hands are returned to the board without play. There shall not be a redeal.

2. one or more players having bid, there are three consecutive passes in rotation subsequent to the last bid. The last bid becomes the contract, but
see Law 19D."

So, the question becomes whether picking up all of the bid cards constitutes a pass. There is nothing in the Laws (as far as I can determine) which defines what constitutes a pass. Law 18A states that pass, double and redouble are not bids but rather are calls. But I don't see anything which defines what a pass is or what constitutes a psss.

Law 18F authorizes the sponsoring organization to elect alternate means of making calls (alternate to what?) and the ACBL Board of Directors elected to authorize the use of bidding boxes.

The ACBL published Bidding Box Regulations on its website. Here they are in full:

Bidding Box Regulations

USE OF BIDDING BOXES

1. Bidding boxes will be used in all events held at NABC's except I/N events (0-500). Their use will be optional in I/N events.

2. Units and Districts are encouraged to use bidding boxes in their games.

3. Handicapped players requiring bidding boxes will have preference when availability is limited.

4. Non-handicapped players may use bidding boxes, if available, in games in which such use is not mandated as long as no player at the table objects.

ACBL Bidding Box Policy

Any player has the right to use bidding boxes (assuming they are available) for any ACBL event in which they play if they are needed because of a hearing impairment. As a policy, we do not question players as to the details of a handicap when they state that one exists.

When bidding boxes are in use for this reason, no player has the right to refuse to play with them. Players who have a handicap which preclude their use will have a distinctive card. The card will be displayed on the table and read, "due to a physical or visual handicap, we are not using bidding boxes."

CHOOSING A CALL USING BIDDING BOXES

A player is obligated to choose a call before touching any card in the box. Deliberation while touching the bidding box cards may subject the
offending side to the adjustment provisions of Law 16.

A call is considered made when a bidding card is removed from the bidding box and held touching or nearly touching the table or maintained in such a position to indicate that the call has been made.

We should use unauthorized information where reasonably appropriate (where we can rule that a bid has not been made). For close cases
simply judge that the card had not left the confines of the box; therefore, a call has not been made.

The onus is on the player to convince the director that a mechanical irregularity has occured. Calls from different pockets should rarely, if at all, be judged as inadvertent. One understandable exception is placing the double card out followed shortly with a bid card that skips the bidding. This appears clear that the double card was placed inadvertently on the table.

THE STOP CARD

Players should protect their rights and the opponent's by announcing, prior to making any subsequent bid that skips one or more levels of bidding.

Place the stop card so that LHO sees it (the skip bidder is responsible for gaining LHO's attention). The skip bid is made. The stop card is replaced in the bidding box.

NOTE: If a player forgets to replace the stop card there is no penalty. It is each player's responsibility to maintain appropriate tempo including after a skip bid.

If the stop card is placed on the table and a skip bid is not made, the director may judge that the bid card was played inadvertently or not. If the judgment is that the card was played after a "slip of the mind" therefore with intent, then the situation is a Law 16 (Unauthorized Information) situation, not an insufficient bid - assuming that the player does not want to make (or did make) a purposeful correction under Law 25 B.2. An example of this situation is; 1H - 2D - (after the stop card is displayed) 2S.

ALERT PROCEDURE

Except when screens are in use, a player must say "Alert" out loud when tapping the alert strip of the bidding box.

Note the provision: "A call is considered made when a bidding card is removed from the bidding box and held touching or nearly touching the table or maintained in such a position to indicate that the call has been made." This implies that picking up the cards in passout seat is not a pass - only taking the pass card out of the bidding box and holding it touching or nearly touching the table, etc., constitutes a pass.

Of course, the common practice in passout seat is to pick up your bid cards and return them to the bidding box to indicate that the auction is over. But if you want to get technical about it, picking up all the bid cards and putting them back in the bidding box does not constitute a pass pursuant to the regulations.

[mgoetze]

Waiting for the EBU brigade to chime in and tell us how superior it is to leave the bidding cards out until the opening lead has been selected.

[Cyberyeti]

 mgoetze, on 2013-January-03, 15:55, said:

Waiting for the EBU brigade to chime in and tell us how superior it is to leave the bidding cards out until the opening lead has been selected.

EBU has specific regulation in orange book:

Quote

7 B 11 Some players do not always complete the auction properly by laying a pass card on the
table in the pass out seat. Usually this does not cause a problem. When a player acts
in such a way as to indicate they have passed and an opening lead is faced they have
passed. An action may be deemed by the TD to be a pass in the pass out seat (eg
General ‘waft’ of the hand, tapping cards already there, picking up the cards).

[jillybean]

Of course picking up your bidding cards is commonly used to indicate a pass, I'd say it is more common than putting a pass card on the table. It indicates a pass except when you subsequently realise that you should have bid, now you can take your "pass" back with the full protection of the laws.

It appears that those following the correct pass procedures are at a disadvantage.

[lalldonn]

 jillybean, on 2013-January-03, 16:21, said:

It appears that those following the correct pass procedures are at a disadvantage.

Why? If she thought the redouble was really a pass then in her mind she wasn't passing. She was picking up her cards because she believed the auction was over. If she was someone who strictly follows the correct procedure for passing then she would have done the same thing. Just because picking up your bidding cards is commonly used to denote a pass doesn't mean it was intended as such in this case.

[mycroft]

Well, that's my argument, and it's the one I will use whenever it causes a problem. I *always*, 100%, put out the third pass card, even when the second pass in a passout is picking up the cards. That way when it does go "I doubled", I can say "I didn't pass". The one time it happened, of course, I didn't see anything and partner didn't say anything (and she should have; she's a regular and knows both that and why) - and it didn't matter, there wasn't anywhere else we were going.

But it's still important.

My belief as a player is that if you regularly pick up your cards to denote a pass, then having picked up your cards, you've passed; if you never do that, then you haven't. The ACBL is much more lenient about it (it isn't a pass; auctions that end with only one pass are deemed to have been passed out), and it drives me up the wall, for exactly the reasons cited here. I personally would like to impose a couple of -1080s on people who would quickly drop the habit (funny that that doesn't change the behaviour of the same people who, after one bad claim ruling, state that they will never claim again, of course).

[gnasher]

This is what I'd like the rules to be: if you pick up your cards intending it to mean "pass", you've passed; if you pick up your cards for any other reason, you haven't.

What they actually are is a matter of regulation. The Laws tell us what a pass is, but not how to make one.

[nige1]

 mgoetze, on 2013-January-03, 15:55, said:

Waiting for the EBU brigade to chime in and tell us how superior it is to leave the bidding cards out until the opening lead has been selected.

 gnasher, on 2013-January-04, 03:27, said:

This is what I'd like the rules to be: if you pick up your cards intending it to mean "pass", you've passed; if you pick up your cards for any other reason, you haven't. What they actually are is a matter of regulation. The Laws tell us what a pass is, but not how to make one

IMO TFLB should clarify this issue with appropriate default bidding-box rules that specify, inter alia, that you must use the pass card to pass and mandating the EBU protocol about leaving the bidding cards out until after the opening lead is faced..

[sfi]

 jillybean, on 2013-January-03, 13:38, said:

I opened 1D in first seat and the auction proceeded 1D (2C) 2S (X) XX (P) P. My RHO now looked around at the bids and picked up her bidding cards and put them in her box. Then she asked "Do I still have a bid?" When we said she would have had abid if she hadn't picked up her cards, she then put 3H on the table. I called the Director, and (director) handled it well. She began by saying she didn't think she had picked the cards up, and anyway she had not seen my redouble. He pointed out to her that seeing the blue card on the table was her responsibility. Her partner then indicated that she had picked her cards up, and she finally relented, so we played in 2SXX.

Correct ruling?

She is entitled to a call in the passout seat. From the description given here it appears that she did not intend to make one. Even if she normally passes in this seat by picking up the bidding cards, the player is still entitled to have the director investigate the situation properly and rule on intent on this particular hand. It seems the director has not done so, since he does not address the correct issue when he points out that "seeing the blue card is her responsibility." In fact, if he believes this point then it's clear that she has not made a call.

So no, it does not appear that the ruling is correct.

[bluejak]

 gnasher, on 2013-January-04, 03:27, said:

This is what I'd like the rules to be: if you pick up your cards intending it to mean "pass", you've passed; if you pick up your cards for any other reason, you haven't.

While I dislike the method of passing by picking up cards, which I consider rude, lazy and childish, in fact when opponents have done it I have always known whether they intend to pass or not. When written down it sounds ambiguous, but in practice it isn't. So not only do I agree with gnasher, but I think it an easy distinction to discover.

The one thing I disagree with him is his implication the rules need to be changed to follow this. I don't think they do: OB 7B11, quoted above, shows that an intent to pass is relevant.

[gnasher]

 bluejak, on 2013-January-04, 08:01, said:

While I dislike the method of passing by picking up cards, which I consider rude, lazy and childish, in fact when opponents have done it I have always known whether they intend to pass or not. When written down it sounds ambiguous, but in practice it isn't. So not only do I agree with gnasher, but I think it an easy distinction to discover.

The one thing I disagree with him is his implication the rules need to be changed to follow this. I don't think they do: OB 7B11, quoted above, shows that an intent to pass is relevant.

I wasn't particularly suggesting a change of rules in England - having a rule is much better than not having one. Since you mention it, however, I don't think they're quite right at the moment. Suppose that I am not in the pass-out seat, but I think I am. If I play a Pass card intending it as a pass, I have passed. If I pick up my cards intending it as a pass, I haven't.

[blackshoe]

 bluejak, on 2013-January-04, 08:01, said:

While I dislike the method of passing by picking up cards, which I consider rude, lazy and childish, in fact when opponents have done it I have always known whether they intend to pass or not. When written down it sounds ambiguous, but in practice it isn't. So not only do I agree with gnasher, but I think it an easy distinction to discover.

The one thing I disagree with him is his implication the rules need to be changed to follow this. I don't think they do: OB 7B11, quoted above, shows that an intent to pass is relevant.

I'd say the OB rule is fine, but the jurisdiction in the thread is the ACBL, and the ACBL reg does not address passing by picking up cards. This leaves an opening for the kind of abuse to which Jilly has objected: players picking up their cards ("pass") and then changing their minds, but not having Law 25 applied. I don't think TDs can catch all of these transgressions, but a little judicious investigation should catch most of them. The problem lies in educating TDs, especially at club level, how and why to investigate such incidents.

[barmar]

I'm with David, I don't think this is generally a big deal.

If a player picks up their bidding cards, and realizes that they could have made some other call before anything else happens (in particular, before the opening lead is made face-down), I'd allow them to back up, as a "no harm, no foul" ruling.

But if anything else has taken place, such as post-auction questions, it's too late.

[blackshoe]

If the opening lead is made, Law 41A applies. In part: The face-down lead may be withdrawn only upon instruction of the Director after an irregularity (see Law 47E2). 47E2 is about changing a play due to MI. If a player "passed" because she was misinformed, fine. If she "passed" because she thought she was in the passout seat, or because everyone who still had a call was going to pass, she doesn't get to change her mind.

A while back, with me in the passout seat, my RHO started to pick up her bidding cards. Then she looked at me and asked "are you passing?" I replied "it's not my turn yet." She put her cards back down and put out a pass card. I put out a pass card. The other three picked up their bidding cards; I left mine on the table. I have had opps ask me, sometimes (not this time) "are you going to pick those up?" My usual reply is "eventually". Note the gaping hole in the ACBL Bidding Box regulation - it says nothing about when the cards are to be picked up. Which is why, IMO, we have people picking them up in the middle of a live auction. The regs don't say anything, so they figure they can do what they want. Then they decide that I have to follow their lead.

[barmar]

 blackshoe, on 2013-January-04, 12:14, said:

The regs don't say anything, so they figure they can do what they want.

This is America. I guarantee that even if the regs did say anything, it would make little difference. E.g. the regs DO have a precise procedure for use of the STOP card, but how many players actually follow it?

[blackshoe]

Three, I think.

If the reg were amended to specify when bidding cards should be picked up, there would be a long period of time (ten years? twenty?) during which players would ignore it as best they can, while complaining loudly that the regs are changed too often. Eventually, though, I expect at least some people would do it right. I have to admit however that I don't know how long the current "Stop" procedure has been in place, so maybe I'm naive.

[barmar]

You, me, and who else?