What You Need To Know About The Laws of Bridge
This document gives guidance on the basics of Bridge Law, and Bawburgh Club rules. The latter now include 'Best Behaviour at Bridge which has been adopted by the EBU and endorsed by the English County chairmen.A BBC House Rules
1 Playing Time
Players must be seated 10 minutes
before the start time, leaving the Director time to complete the
playing arrangements and get the
event off to a prompt start.
2. Best Behaviour at Bridge.
Members should greet
others in a friendly manner prior to the start of play in each round. Both
couples should endeavour to be good ‘hosts’ or
‘guests’ at the table, giving
credit for good play by opponents and making bridge enjoyable for all players.
Remember that it is rude to criticize
your partner or opponents, to gloat over
results or to be other than polite at the table.
Players should
not object to a call for the director by their opponents or dispute or argue
about director rulings.
b. Paperwork.
At BBC we now
use Bridgemate terminals to record the
scores for all our events. This equipment
enables us to dispense with Player Slips and Travellers.
BBC does not require players to hand in
personal score cards. Players should update them in their own time , rather than
keep the rest of the table waiting for their bid or play whilst they record
events on the card.
B.
PRELIMINARIES
1.
Convention Cards
Pairs should
have identical convention cards, which opponents can examine before the bidding
starts. The new EBU Convention Card, form
20B, supersedes all earlier EBU
documents. These can be down-loaded from the EBU web site or
purchased from the EBU shop. Copies
are available
from the club.
If you don’t have a convention card, you
should tell opponents your basic system when they come to your
table. If opponents don't do this, you
should ask them before bidding starts.
As a result of these practices, you
are expected to understand the essentials of your opponents bidding system. If
you make bidding errors in ignorance
of it, you receive no help from the laws of bridge.
2.
Organisation
of Play
North is responsible for ensuring that the correct board is played, as indicated by the Bridgemate terminal or the movement card, and for ensuring that the board in play remains correctly positioned on the table at all times.
It is also always North’s
responsibility to pass the boards on to the next table when the round
is complete.
However, it is the duty of moving couples to arrive at the
correct table (which they can check from the movement card or the Bridgemate). The Director will attribute to them the penalties that arise from their taking
the wrong seats, if play proceeds.
3.
Checking Hands
Each player is obliged to count his
cards face down before looking at them. If curtain cards are in use, each
player must also verify that the card
for his position is the correct one, and then check the hand against this
document, before bidding.
Errors in the pack that would have been
discovered by the above practices are attributed to the player holding
the cards, as are any penalties if the board can not be played.
Because of this checking, the cards
are assumed by the laws to have been in the hands of the correct
player from the beginning.
When one player is short at the end, and
the card turns up, (e.g. as happened in the
C. THE AUCTION
1. Unauthorised Information
The only legal ways for a pair to exchange information are valid calls and plays. All other forms of communication between partners supply unauthorised information. If your opponents think your partnership has exchanged unauthorised information, they may indicate that they have noticed it and reserve their rights to call the director, if its use proves damaging. As is demonstrated by this document, this principle is strongly enforced right throughout the laws of bridge.
a.
- Bidding
Hovering
over or touching the bidding box contents before passing suggests you had a
marginal bid. Touching a Pass card before bidding implies your bid is
minimal.
- Hesitations
You
are expected to bid roughly in tempo’ with the other players. Hesitating
unduly
before passing suggests you have a borderline bid.
-
Questions during the Bidding
To
ask a question and then pass implies that you have a borderline
bid. (Looking at your opponent’s
convention card is the same as asking a question).
- Jump Bids
Before a jump bid, the Stop
Card should be displayed for 10 seconds. Regardless of this,
the next bidder must wait 10 seconds before bidding.
Not doing so implies to your partner an
additional layer of confidence in the strength of the bid.
All of the above cases make it strongly advisable for your partner to pass,
if his/her next bid will not stand examination for
validity
without your hints. The director will be asking himself, ‘Would 70% of the room
have made that bid unaided?’
b. Insufficient Bids
and Bids out of Turn
As well as being illegal, both bids
supply unauthorized information to partner. The
laws of bridge say that the director
should be called
immediately. The non-offender’s rights are so much more extensive than is
generally realised that they
should always ensure
that this is done.
c. Misinformation
Opponents are entitled by law to accurate answers to their questions.
-
If you realize
you have given an incorrect answer to a question, you should call
the Director immediately.
Timely action can unpick much of the damage.
-
If you realise that your partner
has given an incorrect answer, this misinformation
must also be corrected.
However to avoid your partner benefiting from unauthorized information
about his error: -
- Declarers
can not correct wrong answers by partner until the end of the auction.
- Defenders
can not correct partners errors until the end of play.
2. Alerts and Announcements.
a. Announcements
Announcements are a special form of Alert , bringing the EBU into line with
general world practice. They are made in the following
circumstances:-
a. After a bid of 1NT, partner must announce the point range of the bid, e.g.
“12-14 Points” and adding, if applicable, “possible singleton”.
b. A natural opening of two of a
suit must be announced by partner indicating its meaning, choosing from “strong,
forcing”,
“strong, not forcing”,
“intermediate” or “weak”.
A “Precision” 2 clubs is announced as “intermediate”.
c. If you and partner are playing
standard Stayman, a bid of 2 clubs after 1NT, without an intervening double,
must be followed by the announcement “Stayman”.
d. After a response of 2 Diamonds or 2 Hearts to 1 NT, indicating a transfer and
guaranteeing a 5 card plus holding,
if there has
been no intervening bid, partner announces the transferred suit e g.
after 2 Diamonds “Hearts”; after 2
Hearts “Spades”.
e. If the above bids have meanings other than those defined above, or (in cases
iii and vi) there was intervention before the
Stayman or
Transfer bid, they are alertable rather than announcable.
b. Alerts
a. Further responses to Stayman and
Transfers do not require alerting, whether or not the original bid was announcable or alertable.
b. No bid higher than 3NT is now
alertable, excepting artificial opening bids and doubles that imply suits, (e.g.
‘Lightner’)
c. Minor suits can now be opened
without alerts with as few as 3 cards, if the bid implies the suit named.
d. Doubles of 1 NT are assumed to be
for penalty and are not alertable.
e. Doubles of natural or near-natural suit bids which are for take-out,
including Sputnik or Negative doubles, are assumed to be for takeout and
are not alertable.
f. Doubles of conventional bids which are for penalties and lead direction are
not alertable, if they show the actual suit doubled.
g. All other doubles are alertable.
3. Changes of Call
Provided
partner has not called, inadvertent bidding errors can be
substituted, if this is done without pause for thought, as soon as the error is
noticed. However the facts and the laws of the matter are a very common cause of
dispute and you should call the
director every time.
4. The End of the Auction.
At
the end of the Auction, all bids must
be left in place on the table until the opening lead is faced.
The face-down opening lead marks the start of a question period about the
auction without risk of unauthorized information.
Also during
this period declarer or his partner, but
not defenders, should disclose incorrect answers to questions.
If the outcome of the auction has been distorted by an incorrect explanation, call the
director. He can re-open the auction if necessary.
The lead is faced when the questions are complete, and it is usual though not
prescribed, to ask for questions to ensure that
this is the case.
D. THE PLAY
1. Unauthorized Information During Play.
As he has no partner to benefit,
these laws do not apply to declarer.
Dummy may warn him when leading from the wrong hand,
or ask ‘having none’ when not following suit. Declarer’s exposed cards, when revokes or leads out of turn are pointed out,
do not become penalty cards and can be picked up.
Defenders
have no such privileges. Cards exposed
for any reason other than playing them become penalty cards.
Defenders
can not
draw attention to the number of
tricks won, either verbally or by correcting partner’s placement of tricks.
It is illegal to draw
partner’s attention to leads out of
turn or potential revokes. If you
even frown when your partner has revoked,
this is unauthorized
information.
2. Play of the Cards.
A card is played
(and can not be
changed, other than to correct irregularities):-
- by declarer when faced
- by defenders when held in any
position where ‘it could have been seen by partner.’
- by dummy when the card
is touched by declarer, other than for rearrangement.
The single exception to
the previous paragraph is when the play is
verbally designated.
In this case the law allows immediate correction of nominations of the
suit to be played but not of the card to be played.
Play of the cards by dummy, without instructions from declarer,
has no standing and can not override declarer’s choice
of card. However, if dummy plays or
hovers over a card without instruction, the opponents may claim damage
if they think he is helping
declarer with something he has not spotted - e.g. a potentially winning finesse.
3. Illegal Plays – e.g. Plays out of
turn, Revokes, etc.
Call the Director every time. The non-offenders have many more options
than is generally understood, arising from the unauthorised information.
4. Claims and Concessions.
Once a claim or a concession is made, all play of the hand ceases , even if the players want to play the hand out.
Too much
information has been disclosed, both in making the claim or concession
and in the dispute of it, for this
to be achieved fairly.
If the claim is disputed, the Director must be called to adjudicate the claim.
When making a claim for the remainder of the tricks, the claimant has to state how they will be played and explicitly explain the handling
of all the contingencies relating to outstanding trumps. The director is instructed to judge the outcome as equitably as possible having regard to the following rules:-
- Doubtful points should be resolved against the claimant.
- In the absence of a prior statement covering trump play, the director is instructed to award a trick to the defendants if a trick could have been lost to a trump.
- The director will have no truck with any subsequent rationalisations of the intended line of play.
- Declarer
is expected to play with average carelessness for player of his class but in the
last analysis, not irrationally.
A contestant has the right to withdraw acquiescence in a claim right up
till shortly after the results are declared, but
only if he has conceded
a trick that could not be lost. It is illegal for any player to claim or accept tricks that could not have been won,
even if your
opponents have not observed that this is so.
The law indicates that each player restores 'his original 13 cards '
to the board pocket corresponding to his position, hinting that they
should be counted in cases of doubt.
E. WHEN THINGS GO WRONG
It is always best to call the Director as soon as something goes wrong, and you should always do this rather than begin
or join in a dispute with
your opponents.
It is a procedure designed to ensure that all unpleasantness is avoidable and unnecessary. The aim of the law in this matter
and of Bawburgh Bridge Club at all
times is that