This takes us to your last point about not liking TD discretion... this is a murky area, and IF the rules are to accomodate an option where a player will be allowed to forfeit an undercall and fold you either say in EVERY case that is not heads-up or action following the opener the player has such option, or that the option is at TDs discretion. I personally like discretion because in most situations I'm inclined to require a full call unless there's a huge bet disparity and/or understandable circumstances where any reasonably attentive player might get the bet wrong.
Mike, I agree with most people that the ruling should be that calls and undercalls must be full calls with very few exceptions. I think I may have mislead you with my failing attempt to use different words to describe the exceptional areas that 39B makes. Again, my real objection to #39B is in these two phrases:
- In other situations, TD’s discretion applies.
- This rule addresses when a player must make a full call and when, at TDs discretion, he may forfeit the underbet and fold.
Those statements contradict the well-known general rule as written in #49: As with all situations, Rule 1 may apply at TD’s discretion.
Does #39B say that Rule #1 can only be applied as described within?
Because Rule 1 reads ".... takes priority over the technical rules", it can take precedence over ALL other written TDA rules.
But very interesting catch regarding the last line of #49. You'll note this is the only rule where Rule 1 is specifically referenced. The history of this is that in 2011 the delegates were locked in floor debate over Accepted Action. Some houses wanted strict accepted action with Rule 1 being implied while the other extreme wanted specific language as to how AA might be limited in extreme cases. The compromise was struck when a "mention" of Rule 1 was added to the rule. In practice some houses do have their own specific language that further modifies AA.