[blml] Pointing out who won the trick [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[Ed Reppert]

On Oct 10, 2006, at 9:22 AM, Eric Landau wrote:

> I'll let the legal eagles thrash out the theory, but I can tell you
> this:  Where I play, any of those remarks would be perfectly  
> acceptable
> and cause no comment or action by the opponents.  Anyone who called  
> the
> director to complain about such actions would be considered by the  
> vast
> majority of the players to be inappropriately disrupting the game.

Heh. Conflicting imperatives. On the one hand, if we want folks to  
keep playing this game, we don't want to disrupt too much their long  
cherished habits in playing. On the other hand, we want the game to  
be played by its rules, and I think we all here accept that most  
players are ignorant of most of the rules - so their long cherished  
habits, particularly in this case, may or may not be technically  
legal. If they're not, then either we educate the players about the  
rules and try to get them to change their habits, or we change the  
rules to make those habits legal. I'm not gonna argue about which  
method is "right", but I'll note that while the second method is  
certainly easier, I don't like it much. It feels too much like  
surrendering. And with a ten year (give or take) wait between law  
revisions, you're going to have a problem making sure everyone is on  
the same page if you take the "change the law" road.