[blml] Profit from irregularites

[Tim West-Meads]

Grattan wrote:

> +=+ I responded in a posting to blml earlier today. I agree that
> there appears to be no statement in WBF General Conditions 
> of Contest or the Systems Policy.  

There is such a statement "WBF Systems Policy is the complete set of 
regulations concerning the use of systems and conventions in WBF 
championships."

The WBF then goes on to categorise three types of events:
1.  Anything
2.  Anything but HUM
3.  Anything but HUM or Brown sticker.

Generally agreements of this type will fall into the "anything" category 
(and thus be permitted) but an agreement to play a "pass condoning a 
POOT" as showing values would be classified as a HUM.

Other jurisdictions approach system regulation from the opposite 
direction by explicitly allowing a range of conventional meanings.
In such jurisdictions the exact wording of each permission would 
determine the legality of the convention over an opposing irregularity.

> The EBL has no standing Conditions of Contest. For each 
> tournament fresh regulations are prepared - the regulations for 
> the last occasion are laid out and any updates are written in. 
> For the August 2006 Teams Championships the regulations 
> contained the following prohibition:
> 
> " No prior agreement is permitted by which a varied meaning 
> of a call or play applies only after a question asked, a reply 
> given, or an irregularity."  

I'm curious as to under what law the regulation was written - if under 
law40D the word conventional can be assumed between "prior" and 
"agreement" but its omission is likely to cause confusion.

I doubt many players were aware of the additional system restrictions 
included only in the CoC and would suggest that the statement on the EBL 
website "The EBL Systems Policy, Alerting Policy and Psyching Bidding 
Guidelines are identical to the WBF's" would provide an extremely strong 
defence for any pair which fell foul of a ruling under the regulation.

Tim