[blml] concession

[David Burn]

[SP]

Please say after me: "Because Law 68A says that any statement to the effect
that a contestant will win a specific number of tricks is a claim of those
tricks, I shall never again deny that a concession of a specific number of
tricks is a claim of the tricks not conceded, if any."

[DALB]

The trouble is, as I mentioned before, that if (say) seven tricks remain to
be played, a player who says that he will win two of them does not
necessarily intend thereby that he will lose five of them - and, of course,
vice versa. In the example I gave earlier - West says "I get two tricks and
you get four" - he has according to the Pran Interpretation:

[a] claimed two tricks (because that is what he said)
[b] claimed three tricks (because he conceded four, and 7 - 4 = 3)
[c] conceded four tricks (because that is what he said)
[d] conceded five tricks (because he claimed two, and 7 - 2 = 5).

The difficulty may lie in the interpretation of the English phrase "to the
effect that". This is an idiom in which the word "effect" should not be
taken too literally (of course, such language has no business in the Laws of
a game, as Konrad has pointed out). If a player correctly claims two tricks
with seven remaining, then an "effect" is that his opponents get five
tricks, but his statement is not a statement "to the effect that" he will
lose five tricks - he may have thought he was only going to lose four.

[SP]

Please repeat until you understand it.

[DALB]

Oh, I understand it perfectly. That does not make it true, of course. It
isn't.

David Burn
London, England