[blml] 40B3 [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[Guthrie]

[Richard Hills]t



I can read it another way.  The initial phrase of Law
40B3 is: "The Regulating Authority may disallow prior
agreement...".  This is _not_ logically equivalent to:
"All prior agreements are automatically legal if not
disallowed by the Regulating Authority".

For example, prior agreements (such as those hypothesised
by Nigel Guthrie) are automatically illegal when they
infract Law 73B1:

"Partners shall not communicate by means such as the
manner in which calls or plays are made, extraneous
remarks or gestures, questions asked or not asked of the
opponents or alerts and explanations given or not given
to them."

[Nige1]
I agree with Richard that the new 40B3 seems incompatible with the old 
73B1. Anyway, F2F, without screens, local regulations seem to supervene, 
making 73B1 a non-starter in relation to alerts (and non-alerts), 
questions asked (and not asked), and explanations. These all 
*communicate* information to partner. Previously, I understood that such 
unauthorised information did not matter, provided that partner refrained 
from acting on it. Now 40B3 seems to permit agreements about such 
things, by default.

Richard is in an excellent position to inform us of the intentions of 
the law-makers. Unfortunately, I feel that Stefanie and I have 
high-lighted an English interpretation of L40B3, that other players will 
follow.