[blml] Disclosure f2f

[Guthrie]

[Robert Geller]
I agree completely with Stefanie that local regulations are fine,
rather than arbitrarily creating a "one size fits all" global
standard system.

[Marvin French]
Are there any other games of importance for which local rules are free
to differ (officially) from a global standard? I can't think of any,
and don't see why bridge should be different. Well, basketball does
have two standards, but only two.

[Brian Meadows]
Well, I'll tell you that it's an absolute pain in the backside as far
as online bridge is concerned, where any number of newcomers to the
online game who have played bridge under their local NBO think that 
it's *their* local regulations that are in force world wide.

[Richard Willey]
Off the top of my head:
- Baseball (designated hitters)
- Basketball (legality of zone defenses)

[Robert Geller]
In baseball the designated hitter rule is used in some leagues (US 
American  League, Japanese Pacific League) but not others (US National 
League, Japanese Central League).   Furthermore, there are unique 
"ground rules" in each ballpark depending on local conditions (for 
example, what happens  when a ball gets lost in the ivy covering the 
walls in Chicago's Wrigley Field).

In football (called soccer in some nations, not even the name of the 
game is a global standard!), the size the the field is not 
standardized "The field is rectangular and may vary in size. In 
international competition, it measures from 100 to 130 yards (91 to 
119 meters) long and from 50 to 100 yards (46 to 91 meters) wide."

In gridiron football ("American football") the length of the field 
differs in the US and Canadian Leagues (100 yards vs 110 yards).  The 
overtime rules for resolving tied games are different in US college 
football and professional football.

IMO the alerting rules in bridge (variable in each country) are 
comparable to ground rules in baseball.  For example, if ivy covered 
walls were forbidden in baseball parks, then you wouldn't need ground 
rules for balls lost in ivy. But there would be an uproar from the 
fans in Chicago if you tried to ban ivy. So baseball is stuck with the 
special ground rules for Wrigley field.

Similarly since standard biddiing differs so much from one country to 
another local options (ground rules)  are inevitable in bridge.  If 
there were standardized rules, would the US, for example, accept the 
mandatory use of multi 2D in ordinary pair and team events if the rest 
of the world wanted it?  Of course not. Almost every other country 
uses metric weight and length measurements, but pounds and feet and 
miles are still used in the US.

IMO the alerting rules could only be standardized if everyone around 
the world used the same bidding system.  Which isn't the case now, and 
probably never will be?

[Brian Meadows]
Well, given what I hear of the ACBL's declining membership, I wouldn't
put too much money against the online form of the game becoming the 
more popular, at least in the USA, within the next decade. My local 
club here in northern Pennsylvania folded due to lack of members about 
three years ago, and now the nearest club that I know of is over 50 
miles away.

[nige3]
Thank you all for your interesting and informative comments.

Some of the examples given by other Richard Willey and Robert Geller 
seem of doubtful relevance to Bridge. Some games have no global 
rule-making body. Bridge rule differences are imposed artificially -- 
rather than naturally like pitch-size (although, digressing for a 
moment, I do feel that football pitch sizes *should* be standardised).

Whatever happens in other games, the point is that Bridge-players from 
different jurisdictions often play Bridge against each other and local 
rules impose an unfair and unnecessary extra home advantage.

A *default* global standard ...
- *encourages* local legislations to adopt a level playing field,
- rather than *forcing* them to cobble together local regulations.

Please note also: the *disclosure* suggestion ...
- is *not* that everybody *bids* according to the same system;
- it is that we disclose *departures* from the same system.

A global standard is an far-off ideal to which we can aspire.

As explained earlier, many times, however, you don't need a globally 
imposed standard system to allow a more comprehensive global set of 
*basic disclosure rules*.  Local standard systems can achieve that 
sub-goal.

It may be hard to persuade local beneficiaries from jingoist local 
legislatures but my experience coincides with Brian's: Players find it 
hard to understand current over-sophisticated, over-subjective, 
incomplete laws. Rulings seem incomprehensible, subjective and 
inequitable (dictionary sense). Chauvinistic regulation variants are 
the last straw for many would be-players.