[blml] San Diego Lightfoot Sue

[Adam Beneschan]

Hans wrote:

> This is exactly what the Dutch AC is now doing. If your opponents misbid, in
> general they get a bad score. However, sometimes they are lucky. 

Your last two sentences are just as valid if you replace the word
"misbid" with "misplay".  Interestingly, I have never seen anyone
claim that "justice" should be done when somebody botches the play of
a hand and it works out well for them on the lie of the cards.  For
that matter, I don't even think anyone thinks it's "unjust" when
someone makes a stupid bidding decision, such as passing a game
invitation when it's obvious that it should be bid, and getting lucky
because the suits break really terribly.  They complain about being
fixed, but I've never heard of anyone believing that there should be a
penalty or that they are entitled to a score adjustment of some sort.

There's something about the forgetting of a conventional bid that
seems to cause people to claim they were damaged under the Laws,
moreso than other dumb mistakes.  Off the top of my head, I suspect
this may be because the various bridge organizations have been
(correctly) pushing the need for players to disclose all their
agreements, but some players have perhaps confused the "right to know
the opponents' agreements" with the "right to know what's in an
opponent's hand", and thus feel that when the second "right" is
violated it's tantamount to the first right being violated.  I can
understand why this could be confusing---normally when someone makes a
conventional bid and it's explained properly, you *do* know something
about the bidder's hand.  But we have to recognize this as a confusion
and not give into it.  It's distressing that even high-ranking
officials and committee members seem to be making this same mistake.

                                -- Adam