[blml] New Law 27 - some nitty gritty

[Reg Busch]

The new Law says that an IB may be replaced by a bid at the lowest legal 
level  or double or pass that 'incorporates' the information contained 
in the IB. What does 'incorporate' mean? To my mind the info obtained 
from the IB must as a minimum be also available from the replacement 
bid. Here are two common situations that bother me.

1D - 1S - 1H. Responder missed the 1S overcall. No problem if he now 
bids 2H. I would also allow him to replace it with a double if the 
agreement is that the double shows at least four hearts and responding 
values, for that is what the IB showed. But what if the pair are playing 
a more value showing double which does not specifically show at least 
four hearts? I would be inclined to disallow it, but I'm sure there will 
be other opinions.

Example 2: 1D - 2S - 1NT (responder thought the overca;ll was 1S). 1NT 
by agreement shows a good 7 to 10 HCP with a stopper, 2NT would show a 
good 10 to 12 HCP with a stopper. The present law allows the IB to be 
corrected to 2NT with opponents protected by 27B1 (b). But does the 2NT 
bid 'incorporate' the info from the 1NT bid with its specific upper 
limit of HCP range? I would think not. I would be happy to let the 
auction continue as we do now ans apply  27C2 as in the past. But I'm 
not sure that the new Law allows this..Common sense says allow it, but 
I'm not sure that a strict reading of the Law would do so.

My predictionis that this will be the new Law that causes most headaches 
for the average club director. They will need some specific guidelines.
Reg Busch