[blml] Is ordinary Stayman no longer artificial? [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[Jerry Fusselman]

[Eric Landau]

ISTM that in TNFLB, those ubiquitous negative inferences might be
precisely that "information taken for granted by players generally"
the parsing of which began this thread.  I think it's too far a
stretch to include knowledge of any artificial agreements, even ones
as common as Stayman, as falling into the category of "taken for
granted by players generally".

Perhaps the idea was simply to preclude the argument that an ordinary
1H opening might be "artificial" because it denies a seven-card spade
suit by agreement.

[Jerry Fusselman]

Once again, Eric and I agree.  Here, he accidentally duplicated my
example of what a 1H opening shows about spades from two days ago.
Well, his example is just slightly more specific, but we see the
intention behind the parenthetical in the definition of *artificial*
in exactly the same light.  Here is what I wrote two days ago:

[Jerry Fusselman, 48 hours ago, in "Is ordinary Stayman no longer
artificial? [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]"]

Personally, I had imagined that the intention behind the parenthetical
phrase in the 2007 definition of artificial was to handle examples
like the following:  A standard opening bid of 1H that promises fewer
spades than hearts.  It says something about spades, but what it says
about spades is generally taken for granted by players. ...

[Jerry Fusselman]

However, the parenthetical, due to its location in the first sentence
of the definition of artificial in the new laws, does much more than
this, unfortunately.  I still think the new definition of artificial
is a big mistake, as in the case of making ordinary Stayman not
artificial.  Remember, everyone, I am not saying that ordinary Stayman
is natural in the commonly understood bridge meaning of the word.
What I am saying is that any reasonable-but-careful interpretation of
"artificial" as defined in the new laws makes ordinary Stayman not
artificial.

Only Richard Hills so far has argued that I am wrong here, but I think
I carefully refuted his amazing argument that we must use law 29C
rather than the explicit definition in the laws to determine the
definition of *artificial* in the new laws.

Jerry Fusselman