[jillybean]

ACBL land.

The OS are experienced tournament players.

North opens 1♣ and East bids 2♣.

South now goes into a long tank (60 seconds) and then reaches for a bid card which East can see is 1 nt but the other players do not / cannot see this.
South realizes his mistake before the bid is out of the box, puts it back in and calls the director to explain he was about to make an insufficient bid and
can he now change it? The director advises that he can correct his bid.

South now pulls the pass card, East objects loudly.

As a director, how to you proceed here?

[RMB1]

As TD, I explain that the player did not change his call because he had not made a call.

ACBL said:

A call is considered made when a bid 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.

What East saw is authorised but if the other players did not see the original attempted call then they are not entitled to know what it was. The auction continues. Anything East said about what he saw is unauthorised to West.

[paulg]

RMB1, on 2014-December-31, 12:41, said:

What East saw is authorised but if the other players did not see the original attempted call then they are not entitled to know what it was. The auction continues. Anything East said about what he saw is unauthorised to West.

Presumably the other players could have seen that he was making a bid rather than a pass. Do you address the potential UI at this point?

[jillybean]

Hold on a sec!
South attempted to bid and later explained to the director that he was about to make an insufficient bid, is this not UI to North?

[jillybean]

delete

[RMB1]

The unauthorised information for opener depends a great deal on what was said at the table.
Did the "offender" tell the TD they wanted to correct an insufficient bid?
Did the TD tell the offender they could "change" their call?
Was the TD "ruling" under Law 25 (unintended call) or Law 27 (insufficient bid)? - either way it was in error (there was no call).

If it was under Law 25, then there is no unauthorised information, the unintended call does not convey any information as to offender's intent.
If the ruling was under Law 27 then fourth hand should have a chance to accept.
If the ruling was under Law 27B2 then opener should be silenced.
If the ruling was under Law 27B1 then the insufficient bid is not unauthorised ("Law 16D does not apply").

So, yes, there may be some unauthorised information depending on what the offender did or said; but there may be other extraneous information generated by what the TD said/ruled in allowing the original "change".

[jillybean]

RMB1, on 2014-December-31, 13:35, said:

The unauthorised information for opener depends a great deal on what was said at the table.
Did the "offender" tell the TD they wanted to correct an insufficient bid?

Yes

jillybean, on 2014-December-31, 12:19, said:

South realizes his mistake before the bid is out of the box, puts it back in and calls the director to explain he was about to make an insufficient bid and
can he now change it?

RMB1, on 2014-December-31, 13:35, said:

Did the TD tell the offender they could "change" their call?

He was told that he could correct his bid.

jillybean, on 2014-December-31, 12:19, said:

The director advises that he can correct his bid.

RMB1, on 2014-December-31, 13:35, said:

Was the TD "ruling" under Law 25 (unintended call) or Law 27 (insufficient bid)?

I don't now, he did not quote from the law book or advise which law he was applying. Does this ever happen at anything other than the highest levels?

[barmar]

Hopefully the ruling was under the fact that no bid had been made (per ACBL bidding box regulations), so there was nothing to change; anything else would be director error. It's still his turn to call, he can make any legal call he wishes. Calling it a "change" is irrelevant. (The old joke: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? 4 -- calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.)

There's UI to North from seeing that South was about to make a bid, and also his statement to the TD that the bid he was planning was insufficient.

[jillybean]

barmar, on 2014-December-31, 15:06, said:

There's UI to North from seeing that South was about to make a bid, and also his statement to the TD that the bid he was planning was insufficient.

In that case, how would you instruct the players before the auction continued?

[Vampyr]

jillybean, on 2014-December-31, 15:04, said:

I don't now, he did not quote from the law book or advise which law he was applying. Does this ever happen at anything other than the highest levels?

In my experience, club (usually volunteer) directors do this from time to time. At the highest levels there are usually knowledgable directors who will read from the law book. But not usually tell the law number unless asked. But then again these players will probably know the laws pretty well themselves,

[Vampyr]

jillybean, on 2014-December-31, 15:10, said:

In that case, how would you instruct the players before the auction continued?

You would have to tell North to bid without taking the UI into account, and tell E/W to call you back if they think they might have been damaged. This is pretty basic.

[jillybean]

Vampyr, on 2015-January-01, 00:25, said:

You would have to tell North to bid without taking the UI into account, and tell E/W to call you back if they think they might have been damaged. This is pretty basic.

You'd expect this to be basic wouldn't you. From reading these forums it appears that the game is ruled quite differently in the UK.
I think I have only ever heard a reference to UI used once by a director in NA.

[RMB1]

jillybean, on 2014-December-31, 15:04, said:

I don't now, he did not quote from the law book or advise which law he was applying. Does this ever happen at anything other than the highest levels?

At any level, I don't expect a TD to read from the book but I do expect it to be clear which law he is applying.

"1NT was insufficient and various players have options/restrictions"
"1NT was unintended and can be corrected without penalty"
"No call has been made and the player is free to make a call"

To answer the OP, if the original "can correct" ruling was an insufficient bid ruling, then Pass does not have the same or more precise meaning than 1NT and so North (opener) is silenced. The auction and play continues. But there has been director's error in applying the insufficient bid law and it may be necessary to adjust the score: treating both sides as non-offending.

[blackshoe]

Seems to me that if the insufficient bid law was applied when the player never actually made any call, that in itself is director error.

[jillybean]

After the first incomplete attempt to bid was corrected to pass and disallowed, the director asked South to put the original bid back on the table, (East protested)
1nt bid was made and West accepted the bid by passing
North pass
East 2♠ P P 3♣ which is where they played.

At no time was UI mentioned, except by East at the end of the hand.

[ArtK78]

RMB1, on 2015-January-01, 05:53, said:

At any level, I don't expect a TD to read from the book but I do expect it to be clear which law he is applying.

That is interesting. I believe you are drawing from your experience rather than what should happen.

When I learned directing many years ago, I was taught that all rulings are supposed to be made out of the law book. A TD is not supposed to make his rulings without the law book.

My experience follows yours, in that I don't recall the last time I saw a TD make a ruling with law book in hand.

As for making clear which law is being applied, I don't see that happening, either, unless someone questions the law being applied.

[pran]

ArtK78, on 2015-January-01, 11:14, said:

That is interesting. I believe you are drawing from your experience rather than what should happen.

When I learned directing many years ago, I was taught that all rulings are supposed to be made out of the law book. A TD is not supposed to make his rulings without the law book.

My experience follows yours, in that I don't recall the last time I saw a TD make a ruling with law book in hand.

As for making clear which law is being applied, I don't see that happening, either, unless someone questions the law being applied.

When I qualified my first test as Director 35 years ago a candidate failed even with a correct ruling unless he had looked up the relevant Law(s).

I must admit that I now give many rulings without opening the book, simply because I know the rules too well. However, there are irregularities where I still always check the laws. The obvious one that comes to my mind is "Call out of turn" (except pass out of turn before any player has made a bid). There are so many variations there that I never trust my memory even after numerous such situations.

[Vampyr]

jillybean, on 2015-January-01, 10:40, said:

After the first incomplete attempt to bid was corrected to pass and disallowed, the director asked South to put the original bid back on the table, (East protested)
1nt bid was made and West accepted the bid by passing
North pass
East 2♠ P P 3♣ which is where they played.

At no time was UI mentioned, except by East at the end of the hand.

The director should learn the ACBL regulation concerning when a bid has been made. Then he should share this information with the players at this table.

All South has done, except for his unfortunate comment, is fiddle with a bid before passing. When this happens, the only ruling that fits at all is telling North to ignore the UI.

[ggwhiz]

South passes and there will be a forensic audit on further bidding by North. The common interpretation of the 60 second BIT is that south was thinking of bidding something and we don't know what.

Well, east does but why not proceed along the BIT lines? Instead of an insufficient call which didn't happen.

[gnasher]

Vampyr, on 2015-January-01, 13:12, said:

All South has done, except for his unfortunate comment, is fiddle with a bid before passing. When this happens, the only ruling that fits at all is telling North to ignore the UI.

That would also be an error. North should be told to obey Law 16B1. Merely ignoring the UI is insufficient.