[blml] When to late

[Eric Landau]

At 02:21 PM 1/2/07, twm wrote:

>My current understanding is that the ACBL prohibits reserving rights in
>any way and that many ACBLers feel they can only protect themselves by
>calling the TD when UI is made available.

Quite correct.  Those "many ACBLers" are, however, wrong.  Per ACBL 
policy, the TD should be called when one has reason to believe that an 
opponent may have violated L16.  I'm not sure, though, that that's what 
they really mean.  Many ACBLers do not call the TD when the UI is made 
available, but wait until the recipient of the UI makes a potentially 
questionable bid (in practice, 99% of the time this is a non-pass after 
partner's huddle).  Still others wait until they've seen the potential 
offender's hand, and call the TD only if they judge that a violation 
has occurred and they may have been damaged thereby.  Since the TD's 
inevitable response to either of the first two actions is "call me back 
at the end of the hand if you think you may have been damaged", I 
believe the ACBL intends the third.  I assume that the reason the ACBL 
has chosen to exercise the SO option in L16A is to eliminate those 
superfluous "advance" TD calls.


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