[blml] Encrypted signals (was: nearest card)

[Adam Beneschan]

Eric wrote:
 
> At 11:44 AM 7/19/06, Ron wrote:
> 
> >Adam Beneschan writes:
> >
> > > Bridge organizations are in the business of serving their customers by
> > > providing something that they find entertaining.
> >
> >An interesting (to me at any rate) example comes from college
> >basketball. Remember the joys of the four corner offense?
> >
> >For non-basketbnall fans, basically the offensive team would
> >move their player far apart and simply pass the ball back and
> >forth.
> >
> >The idea (and it's sound from a theoretical point if not an
> >entertainment point) is to shoot only free throws or layups.
> >And if that means passing the ball back and forth for 10 minutes
> >at a time, so be it. (And if 10 minutes sounds like hyperbole, it
> >isn't)
> >
> >In a sense basketball's shot clock is not unlike systems restrictions.
> >Restricting potentially sound style choices in the name of
> >entertainment.
> 
> NCAA colleges make a good deal of money from their basketball programs; 
> big-time games are played before audiences of tens of thousands.  The 
> shot clock was introduced to college basketball to make the game more 
> entertaining for its paying customers, without regard to its effect on 
> making the game more or less entertaining for the people actually 
> playing it.  Pickup basketball games played "for fun" do not use shot 
> clocks!

Yeah, but I can't imagine pickup basketball players just being happy
with passing the ball around for ten minutes.  What would the point
be?  They're going to want to show off how well they shoot, or how
well they drive to the basket, or how well they can prevent the other
guys from getting shots off.  

In this situation, winning is less important.  In the NCAA, winning is
a lot more important.  Thus, when the rules of the game made it
strategically feasible to pass the ball around for extended periods of
time, that's what teams did.

This brings up another point: Basketball is about shooting ability.
OK, that's certainly not the only thing it's about.  But it's an
important aspect of the game.  If the rules somehow make it
strategically sound to win by using some other skill that "should" be
less important, it's perfectly legitimate to fix the rules to make
such strategies less desirable.  I'm not saying this is what the NCAA
had in mind---more likely TV viewership and ad revenue was the biggest
factor.  But it's a legitimate reason for adjusting the rules of a
game.  And it applies to bridge, too; IF (this is a big if) allowing
too many unusual conventions leads to a situation where players are
forced to work a lot more on developing skills needed to cope with
those conventions, and thus a lot less on constructive bidding and
card play and defense, and IF the view is that coping-with-conventions
skills "should" be less important than the other skills, then there's
absolutely nothing wrong with adjusting the rules to restore what the
correct balance "should" be.

This is all subjective.  The ideas of what basketball or bridge is
"about", and what skills "should" be more important, are totally
subjective, and it's hard for me to even talk about what I mean
clearly.  But "subjective" does not imply "unimportant".

                                -- Adam