The 2017 law changes

The new Laws of Duplicate Bridge came into effect from 1 August 2017.  In the new laws, the World Bridge Federation has tried to increase the likelihood of obtaining a normal bridge result after an infraction and to reduce the incidence of artificially adjusted scores.

The two biggest changes are to the way a claim or concession is handled, and the introduction of the concept of a comparable call which affects how bidding out of turn and insufficient bids are dealt with.

Change of Call (law 25), Insufficient Bid (Law 27) and Calls out of Rotation (Laws 28-32)

These laws have been modified to enable normal bridge to be played and also to allow the TD to apply the same approach to most of the various forms of these infractions.  In many cases where a call is withdrawn and replaced with a comparable call, there is no further rectification and the hand will be played out normally. So, what is meant by a “Comparable Call (Law 23)”?

Click here to find an excellent description of comparable calls in an article by Gordon Rainsford.

Another key change is on claims and concessions (Laws 68-71).

Click here to find an excellent description of claims and concessions in an article by Sarah Amos.

Finally, there are changes to the rules concerning 2- and 3-level openings, in the EBU’s Blue Book, section 7C.

Click here to find an excellent article by Frances Hinden.