[blml] claim

[Eric Landau]

On Dec 18, 2007, at 12:39 PM, Sven Pran wrote:

>> On Behalf Of Eric Landau
>> That just doesn't fly.  The 2001 minute was a clarification of a 1997
>> law.  That law has been superceded in the 2008 code; to say that the
>> law no longer has any force but its clarifying interpretation still
>> does is self-contradictory and absurd.  If the 2001 minute was
>> intended to be law in 2008, shouldn't someone have put it in the 2008
>> lawbook?  Is Grattan or the WBF really suggesting that the force of a
>> law might be affected by clarifying language that was written six
>> years before the law was?  That's pure insane-asylum stuff.
>
> Frankly I have a strong feeling that it is your logic which is flawed:
>
> Law 68A defines the term "claim".
> Law 68B defines the term "concession" and adds a tie between these  
> two terms
> to the effect that they together concern exactly all the remaining  
> tricks to
> be played.
>
> When either a claim or a concession has been made every single  
> remaining
> trick is either claimed or conceded but not both.

That's one way to look at it.  The other way is to say, we've got  
this pile of tricks, which were claimed, and that pile of tricks,  
which were conceded.  We may not want to treat them as two separate  
things, but there's nothing in TFLB (old or new) that precludes us  
from doing so.

> Law 68B2 further establishes the rule that if a concession by a  
> defender is
> immediately objected to by his partner then no concession has  
> occurred, and
> from the above then neither has any claim occurred. This means that  
> both the
> attempted concession and the associated claim are nullified and  
> that play
> continues (with certain specified restrictions).

It does, because we've been told that it does.  But you wouldn't know  
it just from reading the text.

Note that the law does not refer to a "concession", but rather to an  
"attempt[] to concede".  One could easily argue that a concession  
spawned by an attempt to claim, per L68B1, is different from an  
attempt to concede.

> Effectively this has been the incorporation of the related WBF  
> minute from
> 2001 into the laws, a result with which I for one have absolutely no
> problem.

I do not have a problem with the substance.  I do have a problem with  
the fact that the WBF has apparently "incorpoirated" it into the new  
law by telepathic reference, instead of in the words of the text.   
The 2001 minute clarified the WBF's interpretation of the law in six  
words ("neither has any claim been made").  I "have a problem" with  
those six words not appearing in the new lawbook.


Eric Landau
1107 Dale Drive
Silver Spring MD 20910
ehaa at starpower.net