[blml] Misbids, infractions, and Wolffs, oh my...

[richard willey]

The following was posted on the BBO forums:

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=21014&st=0

"Some years ago, the national appeal committee created the legal
practice that if someone makes a natural 3C jump overcall and his p
alerts and explains it as "Ghestem" (or vise versa) it is always
treated as misinformation rather than misbid, in other words, even if
there is evidence that it is in fact a misbid, it is an infraction.
This practice has, in the meantime, been extended to other frequently
abused conventions such as Landy and DONT, and the position of the AC
seems to be that misbids related to conventions are always
infractions, at least in the first round. In IMP (Dutch bridge
magazine for advanced players), Onno Eskes has several times argued
strongly against this practice. In the Aug/Sept issue of the magazine,
Roald Ramer defends the position of the AC, while Hans van Staveren
(until recently member of the Dutch law committee), Ton Kooijman
(chairman of the WBF law committee) as well as the Belgian bridge law
expert Herman de Wael attack the AC's position vigorously. Hans van
Staveren wants to mobilize Dutch TDs to action against the AC and
mentioned (in a talk with Grattan Endicot at the open Europeans in
Antalya) the possibility of TD strike (!).

In the september issue of the BF magazine "Bridge", Berry Westra
defends the AC's position. He argues that the right to misbid is from
a time when psyches were common while conventions were not. He thinks
that there is a need to protect the game against the growing
convention madness ("steeds verder oprukkende conventiegekte").

The board of directors of the BF has announced that until further
notice, the AC must follow the laws, but Netherlands will try to get
the laws modified at the WBF meeting in 2017 (when the laws are to be
updated) so that misbids become infractions."

I was curious whether anyone might be willing to comment on this
posting (either here or on BBO).