[blml] ACBL LC Detroit minutes

[Herman De Wael]

gesta at tiscali.co.uk wrote:
> 
> ----- 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. 

The examples as stated do indeed depend on inferences, but they are 
inferences from bids not made, and the meaning of those bids in the 
system they ARE playing. So the caveat about not having to disclose 
inferences does not apply to these cases.

Consider the nice example Alain gave. His partner had bid 2Di, showing 
diamonds and another. Over this, Alains bids of 3He to (supposedly) 
4Cl showed diamond support and a singleton in the suit. Now Alain bid 
3Di, and both he and his partner realized that this must have meant 
diamond singleton and support for the other suit, ergo 4414.

You would be right in saying that as an inference, this is not 
disclosable. But the things the inference is based on, are not common 
knowledge. So Alain needs to explain to his opponents three things: A) 
the meaning of the bids 3He to 4Cl; b) the fact that 3Di is 
undiscussed and non-existant and c) the fact that both players are 
creative enough to find a sensible meaning for it.
 From those -disclosable- elements, and opponent could work out that 
it has to be 4414. However, if the opponent does not work it out, that 
means it is not "general knowledge" and so Alain should have explained 
the inference as well.

But my main point is that Alain is never going to be able to prove if 
this was the first time he encountered the bid or not. He is never 
going to be able to prove that he never discussed this bid. Maybe he 
once did, five years ago, and they both remembered. So while he's 
probably telling the truth that they both found it at the table, I am 
going to rule that it was partnership experience after all.

>                        ~ G ~   +=+
> 

-- 
Herman DE WAEL
Antwerpen Belgium
http://users.skynet.be/hermandw/index.html