[blml] adjudication

[Nigel]

[Nigel]
Sadly, the EBU tournament committee gave into pressure from the directors who who wanted more scope for judgement. The new Orange book has 
introduced director judgement into evaluating "rule of 25" (or whatever) by adding the qualifier "or equivalent".

[Robin Barker]
As far as I know this is complete rubbish - the L&E (not the tournament committee) did not change the regulations under pressure from TD and 
TDs were not pushing for such changes.

[nige1]
IMO, Robin is right that it was the Laws and Ethics committee who made the decision but he is mistaken in his other claims. Having lost 
matches by adhering to the rule of 19 regulation. Directors wrote to BLML that such regulations could not prevent them from using their 
"judgement" in order to "play bridge", I wrote to the L&E, asking them to scrap the regulation completely or clarify it and enforce it, so 
that players who understood the regulation would no longer lose matches by complying with it. The directors' position was eventually upheld. 
Hence the "or equivalent" qualifier in the Orange book that allows director judgement to over-ride objective criteria.