[blml] claim

[Tim West-Meads]

Eric wrote:
> 
> My personal opinion is that we shouldn't care; we should be making 
> the same ruling for everybody.  AFAIC, any player who makes a bad 
> claim belongs in "the class of player that makes bad claims".

To me it's not a matter of the footnote (ie the class of player is very 
seldom relevant) but of the introduction "In ruling on a contested 
claim, the Director adjudicates the result of the board as equitably as 
possible to both sides, but any doubtful points shall be resolved 
against the claimer."

We get bad claims sometimes, but we also get "good claims" expressed 
poorly, or slips of the tongue in the claim statement, or 
misunderstandings by defenders, or skanky behaviour by one side or the 
other.  Equity is the concept of ensuring that neither side benefits or 
suffers unduly compared to the number of tricks which would have been 
made had the hand been played out.  Maybe our investigations won't 
resolve any "doubtful points" - but maybe they will and that's why we 
should both care and investigate as thoroughly as we can.

Tim