[blml] A strory with a conclusion

[Matthias Berghaus]

Herman De Wael schrieb:
> Matthias Berghaus wrote:
>
>   
>> as you said, discrepancies between hand and description are caught at 
>> least 99% of the time, so there is no suspicion of cheating. A baby 
>> could have noticed. But voluntarly giving MI? That is a different kettle 
>> of fish altogether.
>>
>>     
>
> Why? Isn't that caught as well?
>   

Often enough it isn`t, because the misinformer ends up as a defender, 
declarer doesn`t notice, and now he keeps mum. Once again, if a player 
is ethical enough to reveal his MI, why is he not ethical enough not to 
use UI?

>   
>> Let us assume players who know the rules and their ethical obligations. 
>> They could play "traditional", see that they have UI, and do the right 
>> thing, not using the UI, going down 1100 or something. Or they could 
>> play dWs, not using UI, correcting the MI and so on, and going off 1100 
>> in a different contract. The problem is that more than 95% of players 
>> couldn`t do either, and it is much easier to cheat using dWs than 
>> "traditional", because the case you described (which exists, no doubt 
>> about it) is very rare, while chances to survive by giving MI and hope 
>> nobody notices are penty.
>>
>>     
>
> OK, tell me how it is easier to cheat by dWS than MS? Partner has 
> misexplained your bid, hasn't he? Isn't the TD always going to arrive?

Why should he, if he isn`t called? Playing dWs I can misinform to my 
heart`s content, and then keep quiet about it if I guessed partner`s 
hand correctly, claiming to have misbid before and later to have 
remembered the agreement, while partner was correct all the time. If 
opps buy that I am home free, and if they don`t I am not worse off than 
I would I have been if I had been honest.

>  
> If you mean that you are trying to get away with misbid rather than 
> MI, that is something adherents of both schools can try to do - they 
> will both continue to explain according to the first explanation, and 
> say they misbid. That is not cheating, per se.
>   

WHAT????? Of course this is cheating, plain and simple. What else would 
you call it? Telling 1% of the truth? If you can delude yourself to 
think this is not cheating you will go on bending words here and 
meanings there to justify anything.

> OTOH, adherents of the dWS give a correct description of partner's 
> intentions and hand. 

Which the law explicitly tells them not to do. Correct procedure is to 
correctly explain one`s agreements, UI be damned.

> I believe MS followers should give both 
> explanations - the systemic one, and the intention of partner. I 
> believe that to give 2 explanations for a single call is not only 
> deliberate brekaing of the law that you should not correct partner's 
> mistake, it is also confusing to opponents. I call that one "cheating".
>   

Herman, it does not matter to me what you believe. The law says I have 
to explain my agreements. I do not have to explain partner`s intentions, 
as I am not privy to them. If the opps see a divergence between my 
explanations and partner's, they can ask about that. Until the end of 
the auction I will continue to explain the system as I see it, and my 
partner will do the same. They can draw any conclusion they like, and I 
will even help them to draw the right conclusion if I am sure what has 
happened, but I will _not_ speculate about "intentions". I leave it to 
the TD to determine whether there was misbid or MI. My system notes are 
at the club, and I bring them to all major tournaments. If I forget, too 
bad for me.

>   
>> The only time the dWs may have an advantage is when the dWs player has a 
>> partner whom he does not trust to handle UI. So why not educate him? 
>>     
>
> I think it is quite the reverse. It is precisely because I trust my 
> partner to bend over backwards to avoid using UI, that I want to avoid 
> giving him the UI in the first place. It is the MS player who 
> voluntarily gives UI who is hoping he can trust his partner to use the 
> UI (perhaps only in some subtle way that the TD won't punish).
>   

Ahhh, so you think you are at a disadvantage, because others cheat with 
UI and your partner doesn`t. Good for him. So in order not to concede an 
advantage to players less ethical than you and your partner you invent a 
convoluted argument which lets you avoid UI, hoping to get a better 
score by giving MI, because the restraints of L16 are not present.

This is not news to me, anyone reading your posts arefully should long 
ago have gathered that dWs is not about UI or MI, it is about better 
scores for the adherents of dWs. It is about "choosing" (not that the 
rules let you choose anything, you just maintin that you can do so, 
against the repeated comments of members of WBFLC, diverse chief TD and 
so and so on) the interpretation most advantageous to you. And then you 
go and call explaining agreements correctly cheating? Good grief....

>   
>> If 
>> my knowledge of the rules is that much better, and if my ethics aloow me 
>> to use either "method" without cheating, why not teach partner to do it, 
>> too? And everyone else, while I am at it. Then anyone could play by the 
>> rules and be done with it. But do you trust everyone to correct the MI 
>> in time when it may go unnoticed? I wouldn't, because anyone who cannot 
>> handle UI cannot handle giving deliberate MI either, but is usually more 
>> difficult to detect, your pretty spectacular example nonwithstanding.
>>     
>
> How can the second MI go unnoticed? The first one is glaringly 
> obvious

Hello? Earth to orbit? Why has it to be "glaringly obvious"? If you only 
use examples where this is case, then you should try to think about 
examples where it isn`t. I`ll give you one. Playing shape relays your 
partner forgets that the next step ask for length in clubs, believing to 
ask for diamond length. You think that your next relay is RKCB for 
clubs, partner having shown 5. He explains it as RKCB for diamonds 
(because he has shown 5 of them, believing you to have asked for diamond 
length).. As this is the first time that a question was asked you now 
continue to explain on that basis. Now you bid 6 diamonds, which makes. 
Where is the "glaringly obvious" part here? If you don`t confess nobody 
will be the wiser. You purportedly asked for diamonds (you may even have 
done so if _partner_ remembered correctly, makin this just an UI case), 
and then bid slam in the suit, having discovered length with partner. 
_Nobody_ would ever notice.