[blml] Expectation [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[David Burn]

[NG]

Their obsession with (so-called) "Equity" is the last straw.

[DALB]

Well, actually it was the first straw. Ever since Kaplan decided that you
shouldn't have to play in a cue bid just because you passed it instead of
returning to the trump suit, the rules have become increasingly ridiculous.

It's not that I mind so much for myself. After all, I play most of my bridge
in places where there are Directors of the highest quality and players who,
even if they don't know the rules, are prepared to accept the Director's
interpretation with good grace.

But I represent about 0.0001% of the bridge-playing population. As should be
abundantly clear from the discussion of Law 27 in this community, nobody
(including the people who made the Law) has any idea what it means. Pity the
poor playing Director at the Much-Festering-under-Lyme Bridge Club who has
to jump from his seat at table seven to give a ruling when someone at table
eleven has bid 1H after 1H (1S), or after 1H (Pass). A few days ago I was
playing at the EBU's Easter Festival, and someone at the next table to mine
made a (conventional) insufficient bid. The Director who had to deal with
the incident did so impeccably. It took ten minutes, and afterwards I was
approached by a member of the non-offending side who said "Surely what
happened can't be right?"

Of course, the WBF DSC does not have to pity that Director, nor even
consider her, for the WBF DSC imagines that bridge events the world over are
played with screens through which no insufficient bid may pass, under the
auspices of Bill Schoder, Max Bavin, Ton Kooijman, Grattan Endicott and the
shade of Edgar Kaplan himself. Would that they were, but they are not.

David Burn
London, England