[blml] Situation normal, all...

[David Burn]

[DALB]

Are you serious? Having bid an insufficient 1H, I am now allowed to respond
to partner's opening bid of 1H with a natural *and forcing* 2H?

[TK]

Yes you are, now, in the past and in the near (coming 10 years) future.

[DALB]

Sorry to labour the point, but I really do not understand what is being said
here. Eric Landau said earlier that:

Your attempt to open 1H is AI to partner.

But Peter Eidt said:

For the possibility of having a rectification-free substitution of 2H (in
our scenario) there must not be UI in any form of a statement to the effect
of revealing, what the IBder meant with his IB.

If the offender states "oops, I thought, I was dealer" or the like, and
offender substitutes his IB with 2H, 16D does not apply, but 16B does. In
absence of such UI partner may guess the basis of the IB correctly and he
may treat 2H as forcing.

And Ton later said:

I do not need an agreement to find out that after 1H - 1H where I guess that
my partner did not see my opening it might be better to continue.

Now, if you *guess* that your partner did not see your opening 1H, of course
you are free to continue the auction. But if you *know* that your partner
did not see your opening 1H, you are not guessing. The question then
becomes: are you entitled to this knowledge?

As Peter says, L16B suggests that you are not; "sorry, I thought I was the
dealer" is a remark that makes available extraneous information, on which
you may not act. However, L16D says:

For a non-offending side, all information arising from a withdrawn action is
authorized, whether the action be its own or its opponents'.

and it may be held that "I thought I was the dealer" is "information arising
from a withdrawn action", although I find it difficult to believe that this
is what was intended.

I have spoken with several bridge players about this. None of them believes
that you are allowed under the current Laws to correct 1H to 2H and have
partner know that it is forcing, and I don't believe it either. All of them
have said that if it is so, it is ridiculous. Of course, that is not a legal
argument, but it is a powerful argument for Mr Bumble's famous opinion.

David Burn
London, England