ACBL Laws Commission Minutes

 

	Members Present
	Chairman --->	Chip Martel
Karen Allison	Jon Brissman	Bob Friend
Ron Gerard	Dan Morse	Jeff Polisner
Eric Rodwell	John Solodar	Roger Stern
	Bobby Wolff
	Also Present
Gary Blaiss	Rich Colker	Mike Flader
Olin Hubert	Al Levy	Chris Patrias
Matt Smith		Adam Wildavsky

 

The meeting was called to order at 10:30 A.M.

The minutes of the Houston meeting were approved.

ACBL Laws Commission (LC) representation in Montreal was discussed. Jeff Polisner will be available. Ralph Cohen believes he will be available and Chip Martel may be.

Discussion of any working drafts created by the drafting committee should be an agenda item for future Laws Commission meetings.

The ACBL Board of Directors (BoD) resolution to develop and implement (January 2004) procedures to have tournament directors resolve all appeals was discussed. The BoD (a sponsoring organization) may create and establish their own process consistent with the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge as long as there is an appeals process. Chip Martel wants the Laws Commission to be kept informed of BoD actions in this regard so that new laws will reflect current practice and all involved and concerned are cooperating.

Issues raised in the Bridge World editorial in the July 2002 issue were discussed.

There was discussion as to whether it would be advisable for the new laws to specifically address a player's responsibility regarding an opponent=s careless claim or concession to the player's disadvantage. Further discussion about the responsibility of a player to bring attention to an irregularity when he or she is the only one who may know that an irregularity has occurred.

A proposal was made that the new law concerning an insufficient bid where the insufficient bid may be conventional or the correction at the lowest level in the same denomination may be conventional, revert to the 1975 version. In this version, the correction at the lowest level in the same denomination would have no mandated penalty; however, Law 16 (unauthorized information) would apply to this class of insufficient bid. The Laws Commission was unanimously in favor of this change.

Suggestion from Richard Colker that the Laws Commission discuss laws changes to permit a player to change denominations (when the player corrects an insufficient bid) when both the insufficient bid and the change have the same meaning.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:47 A.M.