[blml] Countdown

[Eric Landau]

On Nov 1, 2007, at 9:42 AM, Tim West-Meads wrote:

> Eric wrote:
>
>>> Perhaps I should ask a different question - does "normal" include
>>> the bizarre/inconceivable for the class of player involved?
>>
>> It would seem to, per the new wording of the footnote.  A play
>> can't  be "bizarre/inconceivable" -- or, for that matter,
>> "irrational" --  while simultaneously being neither careless nor
>> inferior.
>
> Of course it can.  A trump squeeze might be technically superior  
> (say 60%
> chance of success against 50%) but happens to fail.  It might also be
> "inconceivable" (ie beyond the wildest improbable dreams of ever being
> understood/recognised/attempted) by my dear Mrs Guggenheim - who  
> thought
> it obvious that she was simply taking the heart finesse again ("it  
> worked
> the first time dear").
>
> Hamman wouldn't have claimed in the same position of course - he would
> have played the trump squeeze out and gone off.

Point taken.  I admit I was not thinking in terms of plays that might  
be bizarrely or inconceivably careful or superior.  Since "normal"  
includes, in addition to the unarguably normal, the otherwise  
abnormally careless or inferior, it must exclude the otherwise  
abnormally careful or superior, else it would include everything.   
For Mrs. Guggenheim to find a trump squeeze is neither normal nor  
"normal"; for Mr. Hamman to overlook one is only the latter.


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