[blml] Profit from irregularites

[Tim West-Meads]

Sven wrote:

> True, but without "prior announcement" (Law 40A) such impact of 
> accepting or not accepting an opening call out of turn on the
> partnership agreements is illegal.

L40A isn't relevant - in the sense that if we only ever apply Law40A it 
would be illegal to respond 2H to 1N showing spades if one had a 
partnership understanding that it showed spades.

If one reads Law40A with the bracketed clause removed "A player may make 
any call or play, without prior announcement, provided that such call or 
play is not based on a partnership understanding."  It is relatively 
easy to see that no permission is granted for any call based on a 
partnership understanding.

We use L40B (or at least the common interpretation thereof) "It is legal 
to make a call or play based on a partnership understanding providing  
an opposing pair may reasonably be expected to understand its meaning or 
his side discloses the use of such call or play in accordance with the 
regulations of the sponsoring organisation.

The SO generally dictates which sequences are required to be on the CC 
and how it should be completed. The EBU CC doesn't have a section for 
"meaning of doubles after OOT opposing pre-empts". The SO establishes 
principles for alerting (a penalty double of a pre-empt is alertable in 
the EBU for example).  Additional info is disclosed in response to 
questions under L75C.  

In general terms the TD might ask a question such as "Is this particular 
agreement sufficiently unusual that it should be noted on the CC despite 
there being no specific requirement, AND, had it been so disclosed might 
opps have bid differently."  In cases of an infraction we are going to 
assume (for these purposes) that the infraction was accidental and could 
in no way have been influenced by the NOS agreements.

Tim