[blml] seven arguments for dws

[Matthias Berghaus]

Herman De Wael schrieb:
>
> In England, 3Di will be alerted, and the opponents will realize (or 
> ask) that it is a transfer, and therefor that 2NT was strong. They 
> will know there was a misunderstanding.
>   

Sure, if any oxygen is transported to their brains they will realize 
this. They are allowed to draw conclusions. This is in fact, one of the 
main attractions of Bridge: drw conclusions, and do something intelligent.

> In Belgium though, 3Di needs no alert (neither as natural response to 
> a minor ask nor as a transfer over a strong 2NT). Here, the opponents 
> will not realize anything.
>   

They will, after the strong hand bids 3H. Except when they get cheated, 
then it may happen happen that they don't realize it.

> Behind screens, all over the world, neither opponent will realize 
> there is a misunderstanding (and only one opponent will have MI).
>   

Come again? Screens keep them from smelling a rat after 3H? Must be an 
efect of Belgian screens, I didn't notice any such effect behind German 
or EBL screens.
OK, there may be cases where the situation is obscure enough, but how 
often can that happen? Once a year? If one plays a lot....

> So there is no reason to talk about getting away with an attempt to 
> conceal an infraction. There is no "getting away" in many parts of the 
> world, and there was no infraction to begin with.
>   

There will be one as soon as the dWs player answers "to play" when asked 
what 3D was. And there will be a question after his 3H bid, as sure as 
the sun rises in the morning.

> As to "getting away with the misinformation", that is obligatory 
> according to L20F5, and there is no "getting away" there either, 
> because the TD will give redress.
>
> But the poor English pair get, on top of MI penalties, will see their 
> opponents double a contract that they can no longer escape from, 
> because of the UI that now goes both ways.
>   

And your point is?

> That is what I find so terrible about MS principles. The treatment at 
> two different tables can be totally different, based on factors that 
> have no real baring on the case, such as the alert procedure that 
> happens to apply or whether the opponent asks a question or not.

Herman, this is not a MS principle. It is proper alerting and proper 
explanations, but not a "principle", since the player sitting at the 
table has no way of controlling whether a question is asked or not. If 
there were no alerts and no questions, ever, we would not be having this 
discussion, so the difference is not in dWs or MS here, it is in alert 
regulations (whch will rarely be different enough to matter, even if 
they are different in this special case) and the more or less random 
effect of questions being asked or not. What has MS to do with that? If 
everybody followed correct procedure and took their 1100s in stride ( 
not to mention the revolutionary approach of playing a system they can 
handle), where would the problem be? Oh, there are people who can't 
stomach those 1100s? Well, that's too bad for them, isn't it? If they 
(or their partners) cannot be bothered to learn the system or to keep it 
simple enough to remember without difficulty they should switch to a 
different game or a different partner. It's as easy as that. To ascribe 
random effects to "MS principles" is completely absurd. What _is_ absurd 
is trying to get around some recurring problems by "creative" 
interpretations of the laws to minimize adverse effects to one's score.
>  
> "Asks" a question, not "is interested in knowing". Quite often, an 
> opponent is interested in knowing something, but he does not ask, 
> either because he will ask later or because he looks it up on the SC.
>
> It's this bias that I believe to be the worst part of the MS.
>   

What bias? That has nothing to do with MS or dWs, it has something to do 
with being found out when at least one member of the partnership makes a 
stupid mistake. You make mistakes, you pay for them. Sometimes you have 
a misunderstanding and discover that you have missed a 98% slam, which 
happens not to make, for 13 IMP or a complete top. So? Do you want to 
outlaw that? Random things happen, all the time. Alert regulations, 
questions being asked or not asked, and so on. At one table a player 
looks up a bid on his opps's system card, at another table he forgot his 
reading spectacles at home, so he has to ask. One of them gets correct 
information, the other doesn't. The card is wrong, or someone forgot. 
So? How do you propose to handle that? Divine justice is always a 
possibility, but I suspect that it is not the solution to this "problem" 
The solution I propose is to get it right, and if one has a bad moment 
to accept whatever happens stoically. That is not _that_ difficult to 
do. On the upside there wil be no accidents when shaving next morning, 
as there is no problem with using the mirror.