[blml] Protect with 2 HCP? [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[Hirsch Davis]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <richard.hills at immi.gov.au>
To: "Bridge Laws Mailing List" <blml at amsterdamned.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2007 4:29 AM
Subject: Re: [blml] Protect with 2 HCP? [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]


> Hirsch Davis:
>
>>>The role of the AI is to help define what would be considered a LA.
>>>Even if the UI provides no information that is not available by AI,
>>>the restrictions of L16 still apply.
>
> Sven Pran:
>
>>Quite so. (If there are alternatives)
>
> Richard Hills:
>
> **If** authorised information is **identical to** unauthorised
> information, **then** I agree with Herman De Wael's position in the
> October 2006 thread "Positronic brain" that Law 16 does not apply.
>
> Herman's point, with which I agree, is if an "AI electron" meets its
> anti-particle, a "UI positron", then the two particles annihilate
> each other, so therefore there is zero residual Law 16 extraneous
> information outstanding.
>
> A simpler way of looking at it, without the metaphor, is to ask the
> question, "How can partner give you Law 16 extraneous information if
> you already have that information?"
>
> (But note that, in the particular case discussed at the stem of that
> "Positronic brain" thread, there was a blml consensus that the AI
> was _not_ identical to the UI, thus making Herman's position moot.)
>

I missed that thread, having been on long hiatus from this list. However, I 
completely disagree with any statement that appears to indicate that Law 16 
would not apply in the presence of UI, even if the UI was identical to AI. 
Although I''m having a hard time contructing an example, I'll give it a try. 
Using the problems that initiated this thread (see my first post in this 
thread), AI allowed me to deduce that partner likely had a singleton spade 
for his hesitation.  That came from AI.  Partner, seeing me lost in thought, 
now says "I have a singleton spade".  Blatant UI, but let's forget 
procedural and disciplinary penalties for now and look at the follow-up.  I 
already had figured out that partner had a singleton spade, as that was the 
only distribution that would cause him to pass, hesitation or not, with the 
number of HCP he had to have for the auction. Disputed auction now occurs 
and you make a ruling. Are you now saying that if I go in front of an 
Appeals Committee, and give them the logic by which I concluded that partner 
had a singleton spade and they agree with it, that the Committee must now, 
as a point of Law, not consider L16 in their ruling (and you cannot be 
overruled on that)? That is the implication of your statement that L16 does 
not apply.

I don't think so. If the knowledge that partner had a singleton spade could 
have suggested a LA, and there exists a LA that was not suggested by the UI 
(or AI, since the information comes from either), I am still required to 
take the LA that was not suggested.

I read "extraneous" in L16 as information coming to a player from a modality 
other than a legal call or play or mannerism of an opponent (see L16 intro). 
"Extraneous" does not necessarily mean that UI provides new information to a 
player. It indicates information that came to a player in any manner other 
than those mentioned. The extraneous information may or may not be redundant 
with AI.  If it exists at all, L16 applies, IMO.

Hirsch