[blml] Seven pillars of folly

[David Burn]

[JF]

For me, the great irony is that David Burn, who recently asserted that MI is
harmful and UI is harmless, is also the one who argued most eloquently that
6 and 7 are cases where the law often requires MI to remain to avoid the
risk of UI.  He certainly convinced me.  If one wanted to argue that UI is
the greater risk, one would do well to echo David's words.

1. David Burn

If your opponents have misinformed your side, then there are ways in which
you may obtain redress at the end of the hand. There are also positions in
which it may be possible, by judicious questioning, to rectify the situation
at the table. But you must not use questions either to communicate with
partner, or to deceive an opponent.

8. David Burn

If, despite your best intentions, it is held that your question could have
communicated with partner, or could have deceived an opponent, then you are
subject to penalty and your score may be adjusted. Infractions committed by
the opponents are *not* mitigating circumstances in judging infractions
committed by your side.

15. David Burn

It is a fundamental assumption in the Laws that information possessed by the
opponents should be available in equal measure to you. Since you don't play
their methods, the only ways in which this information can be made available
to you are: they write it all down beforehand and you commit it to memory;
or they impart it to you as the need arises at the table. Of these, the
latter is considered the more practical in most situations.

But there are other fundamental assumptions in the Laws also; among them the
presumption that the gravest possible offence is illegal communication with
partner.

Now, when these two great principles conflict, as conflict they will if
bridge is played without screens or similar devices, something has to give.
Since illegal communication is "the gravest possible offence", then anything
that might be used as a means of such communication must not be allowed, and
you are not allowed to transmit information to partner by means of
questions.

20. David Burn

Whereas you are (almost) correct in saying that there are forms of illegal
communication which are not "the gravest possible offence", that does not
mean that there are some forms of illegal communication that are not an
offence at all. So serious are such offences that *anything* which follows
as a consequence of *any* communication between partners other than by calls
or plays must be annulled, and any advantage therefrom removed.

[DALB]

I am only mildly surprised, on re-reading these words, to find that I agree
with myself completely (I have been known to change my mind, although cases
of the kind are rare and, since I have just played a match in which I
changed my mind and did the wrong thing instead of the right one, I have
vowed that they will become rarer still). You are not allowed to ask
questions for the purpose of communicating with partner - indeed, you are
not allowed to initiate any kind of communication with partner except by
means of legal calls and plays.

I am not sure, however, that I see the relevance of "Kaplan questions" to
the dWS. The KQ is used to rectify misinformation created by an opponent,
and is a voluntary act on the part of the questioner. As I remarked, there
are situations in which the KQ may actually be helpful in terms of allowing
the game to progress without recourse to the constabulary. It is not a
matter of "allowing MI to remain at the risk of creating UI" in the sense
that lying about one's methods per the dWS allows MI to remain, because the
MI has not been created by your own side. It is still my view that you would
do better not to ask KQs, because you must not create UI voluntarily.

But when one replies to a question from an opponent, or when one alerts (or
does not alert) according to the regulations, one is not acting voluntarily.
Of course partner can hear your explanations, or your alerts, just as he can
hear your KQs. A KQ, though, is asked for the express purpose of
communicating with partner - it would not be asked unless partner could hear
it and act on it, which is why it is illegal. An explanation is given for
the express purpose of communicating with the opponents - the notion is that
while you are giving it, partner turns his deaf aid off so that he cannot
hear it. As Grattan and I have said many times, an explanation given to
fulfil a legal requirement is not, for legal purposes, an indication to
partner per L20F5. No dWS apologist has actually gainsaid this obvious fact,
doubtless because [a] it cannot be gainsaid and [b] if it is accepted (as it
has been by the WBFLC) then the dWS evaporates into thin air, from which it
should never have been condensed in the first place.

David Burn
London, England