[blml] Obviously this is the prime duty [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[David Burn]

[HdW]

Let's read L73B1 then again: (restructuring and numbering mine)

Partners shall not communicate
(1) through the manner is which calls or plays are made
(2) through extraneous remarks or gestures
(3) through questions asked or not asked
(4) or through alerts and explanations given or not given (to them?)
[that last part seems a little strange but it's probably too late to 
change the 2007 laws now - is that still in there?]

While (1) and (2) could be considered communications to partner, (3) and (4)
clearly refer to communications to opponents.

It seems therefore abundantly clear that L73B1 includes among the things it
forbids, the passing of information to partner by explaining things to
opponents.

[DALB]

Exactly right, Herman. Law 73B1 does indeed forbid the passing of
information to partner by explaining things to opponents. That is why, in
the remainder of Law 73 and elsewhere, it is abundantly clear that partner
(for legal purposes) does not receive the information contained in an
explanation to opponents, and one gives explanations on that basis.

Of course, in reality partner is sitting at the table and can hear you
speak. But as Sven says, if I am sitting at the next table to you in a
restaurant and can hear what you order from the waiter, you are nevertheless
not communicating to me, but to the waiter. I can understand your
difficulty, because you appear to regard the information contained in a
response to an opponent's question (or an order placed with the waiter) as
information communicated to whoever happens to be in earshot. You should do
your best to cease to so regard it, because the Laws do not support (and in
fact expressly proscribe) this interpretation. If it were the case that an
explanation to opponents was in fact a communication to partner, it would be
illegal under your interpretation of Law 73 to explain your methods at all.
Surely even you can see that this is absurd.

[HdW]

And anyway, it is hardly important.

[DALB]

On the contrary, it is the crux of the matter. An explanation to an opponent
is not a communication to partner. It might help if you read Law 73C thus:

When partner has failed in his duty to shut his eyes and cover his ears
while you have been alerting and explaining your methods to the opponents,
he must not act on what he has seen and heard.

[HdW]

My aim was to prove that the MS methods are illegal. I was challenged to
provide law numbers, and I gave 2 of them. David attacks one of those, and I
think I have rebutted that attack.

[DALB]

You think many things, Herman. Most of them are true, but this is not. The
legal position is simply this: you must explain your methods to the
opponents, and partner must not be aware (or, what is the same thing, act as
if he is aware) of anything contained in your explanation. That is what the
MS says, and that is entirely consistent with the Laws as written.

[HdW]

David has not yet commented on L75D2

[DALB]

This is another one of the things you think that are not true. I have said
elsewhere that L75D2 is irrelevant, because an explanation to opponents is
not "an indication in any manner that a mistake has been made" unless the
opponents receive two explanations that are in conflict (as where North
explains 4NT as minors and South explains the 5D response as one ace). But,
like L73C, this Law applies only when a player has failed in his duty not to
take any notice of his partner's explanations; moreover, it applies only in
circumstances where one player is certain that the methods are not as
partner has explained them (note that this is different from partner not
having understood a call as the player intended it). Since this almost never
happens, L75D2 almost never applies to anyone, for which reason it is a good
thing that it has been removed from the 2007 Laws.

David Burn
London, England