[blml] claim

[Eric Landau]

At 12:28 AM 7/6/06, Ed wrote:

>On Jul 3, 2006, at 12:01 PM, John Probst wrote:
>
>>For me it depends on the wording he used. If he specifically claims
>>the
>>"spades are running" I'll stick him with it. If he just says 5
>>spades, 3D,
>>3H and a club I'll let him spot the error. As I said elsewhere I'm
>>trying to
>>get into his head.
>
>Maybe you should ask him why he said what he did. If he in fact
>miscounted, that's one thing, but if he simply assumed a distribution
>that turned out not to exist, that's another thing entirely.

But do we care about the difference?  If partner were to play out the 
hand and misplay it, would we care whether he misplayed it because he 
miscounted a suit or because he assumed a favorable break without 
having a sufficient count on the suit?  Would we even detect any 
difference?  Either way, he will have based his line of play on the 
assumption that the suit would run when it wouldn't.  Do we really care 
whether he was thinking "five out, both followed once, nobody has more 
than four" or "six out, both followed once, nobody has more than four" 
when it should be "six out, both followed once, somebody might still 
have five"?  Are those different enough mental errors to affect how we 
would rule?  I don't see it.


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