[blml] 'normal'

[gesta at tiscali.co.uk]

Grattan Endicott<gesta at tiscali.co.uk
[following address discontinued:
grandeval at vejez.fsnet.co.uk]
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"Small talk dies in agonies."
                     ~ Shelley
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Willner" <swillner at nhcc.net>
To: <blml at rtflb.org>
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 10:21 PM
Subject: Re: [blml] 'normal'


> There's also "unless failure to adopt that line of play would be
> irrational" in L70E1.  (Maybe that's what Eric had in mind in his next
> sentence, quoted below.)
>
>>  L70E, and only L70E,
>> reduces that set by excluding alternative lines of play the
>> "adoption" of which would be "irrational".
>
> I think the 70E1 phrase solves the "Ax problem;" failure to play the ace
> would be irrational.  I don't think it solves the "Ax opposite Kx
> problem."  Neither failure to play the A nor failure to play the K would
> be irrational.  The irrational thing is doing neither of these, but that
> doesn't seem to be excluded by the language.
>
> Maybe this is a case where "the singular includes the plural" saves us.
>  However, I share Eric's frustration that something that seems so
> integral to the game we know needs such subtle interpretation to get the
> answer everyone wants.
>
+=+ Blml betrays a penchant for jesuitical debate when it flogs
such themes as this. I do not accept that the footnote relates to
anything that is not normal play. A play that would be irrational,
for any and every player,  is not a normal play in my reading of
the law. The footnote expands the scope of what is 'normal' but
does not, can not, wholly set aside the requirement for normality.
                                             ~ Grattan ~   +=+