[blml] L26 - Lead penalties

[Eric Landau]

At 09:54 PM 11/22/06, Steve wrote:

> > From: "Sven Pran" <svenpran at online.no>
> > The situation is explicitly covered in the EBL Commentary to the 
> 1987 Laws
> > (from which Law 26 was continued unchanged in 1997) where we find:
> >
> > In (§26.3): [The Director] must place [the withdrawn call] in one 
> of two
> > categories - either:
> > (a) the call related to a single specified suit, or to more than 
> one suit
> > all of which were specified; or
> > (b) it did not relate to any suit, or, if it was suit-related, one 
> or more
> > of the suits in question was an unspecified suit.
> > Examples: a 2NT overcall showing both minors is in category (a) but a
> > cue-bid showing spades and a minor is in category (b).
>
>Thanks for finding this.  I'm surprised, though.  We discussed this on
>BLML some years ago, and I don't recall the EBL Commentary being
>mentioned.  Are the Examples from the Commmentary itself, or are they
>your interpretation?
>
>My memory of the earlier discussion was that most people thought the
>"spades and a minor" situation was in category (a), but my memory is not
>to be trusted.

Apparently the EBL, and, it would seem, the majority in this forum, 
interpret L26A as though it read "if the withdrawn call related *only* 
to a specified suit or suits..."  IMO, that is a sensible 
interpretation, and the law should be rewritten as such in the next FLB.

Similarly, "if that suit..." should probably read "if all such 
suits..." in L26A1, and "if any such suit..." in L26A2.


Eric Landau                     ehaa at starpower.net
1107 Dale Drive                 (301) 608-0347
Silver Spring MD 20910-1607