[blml] ACBL LC Detroit minutes

[gesta at tiscali.co.uk]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Herman De Wael" <hermandw at skynet.be>
To: "Bridge Laws Mailing List" <blml at amsterdamned.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2008 10:44 AM
Subject: Re: [blml] ACBL LC Detroit minutes


> gesta at tiscali.co.uk wrote:
>> Grattan Endicott<gesta at tiscali.co.uk
>> [following address discontinued:
>> grandeval at vejez.fsnet.co.uk]
>> *************************
>> "We live in an environment whose
>> principal product is garbage."
>>                   Russell Baker
>>                   ('New York Times')
>> *************************
>> +=+ Is it suggested that a player who encounters a situation
>> that his partnership has not envisaged when devising its methods,
>> and which it has not previously experienced, is not entitled to
>> improvise a solution based solely upon bridge knowledge that
>> is equally available to opponents and to partner?
>>         I do not believe there is anything in the laws that forbids it.
>> Indeed, I would say that in these circumstances Law 40A3 is
>> applicable. The learning from this first occasion then enters into
>> the accumulated partnership experience. The 'could have known'
>> phrase is a feature of Law 23, a law that is only for consideration
>> after the Director has established that an irregularity has occurred.
>> Law 40 questions are absolute - the partnership either has or has
>> not an agreement (which the Director judges against the criteria in
>> Laws 40A1(a) and 40B6.)
> 
> Yes Grattan, but what does that mean in practice. Say a pair invent 
> system "on the spot", and they both conclude correctly what a new call 
> means. The logic with which they arrive at this meaning is impeccable, 
> and both players agree on it. Yet they maintain that they never had 
> this auction at the table before, nor that they have ever discussed 
> it. How are you going, as a Director, be able to accept that 
> statement? They might be correct in not explaining it at the table, 
> but why should they not get treated axactly the same as a pair that 
> forgets to alert?
> 
> 
+=+ If Law 40A3 applies an alert is not required, nor is any prior 
announcement.  Furthermore, see Law 40B6, he is not required to 
disclose any inference he has made based on his knowledge and 
experience of matters generally known to bridge players.  It is for 
the Director to decide whether such law applies to the facts as he 
has determined them to be on the balance of probability. 
                       ~ G ~   +=+