[blml] Profit from irregularites

[Eric Landau]

At 09:43 PM 12/6/06, Nigel wrote:

>On RGB, there is a debate about article by John Shuster, in the ACBL
>district 9 Journal, describing a convention that assigns different
>meanings to your bids, depending on whether or not you accept an
>opponent's insufficient bid.  Currently players like David Stevenson who
>believe that such agreements are legal have a considerable advantage.
>
>I seem to remember Grattan Endicott insisting that, without specific
>permission, you must not employ agreements that are geared to taking
>advantage of irregularities by opponents. What is the WBF position?

As best I can tell, they don't seem to have one.

>and
>the position under local jurisdictions?

The ACBL forbids any agreements whatsoever specific to actions after an 
opponent's irregularity.

>IMO, anyway, the laws should be simplified to make such agreements more
>difficult -- for instance: the option of accepting an insufficient bid,
>should be removed from the law-book.

I would strongly disagree, for two reasons:

(1) It may be potentially advantageous to the NOS, which has the 
opportunity to exercise its creativity by choosing from an expanded set 
of available calls.  This can lead to a variety of interesting 
possibilities, particularly where, as in the ACBL, specific agreements 
are not permitted, and one must go with "the seat of one's pants".  I'd 
hate to see this fascinating, if rare, opportunity to exercise pure 
partnership bidding judgment be lost.  (I should confess that I have a 
reputation for accepting insufficient bids far more often than most.)

(2) The current law deals quite nicely with the case where the IB'er's 
LHO just takes a call over the IB without the TD having been called 
first for a ruling.  If you make doing so illegal, you need a whole new 
way of coping with this not uncommon occurance.  The result may be to 
introduce more complexity, with more "mind reading" required, than what 
Nigel's proposed change would eliminate in the cases where the action 
stops and the TD is called immediately.


Eric Landau                     ehaa at starpower.net
1107 Dale Drive                 (301) 608-0347
Silver Spring MD 20910-1607