[blml] Proposed new Dutch definition of the word agreement

[Robert Frick]

On Sat, 24 May 2008 22:04:36 -0400, <gesta at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

>
> Grattan Endicott<gesta at tiscali.co.uk
> [following address discontinued:
> grandeval at vejez.fsnet.co.uk]
> *************************
> "A full cup must be carried steadily."
>                       [English proverb ]
> "*************************
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Stefanie Rohan" <daisy_duck at btopenworld.com>
> To: "Bridge Laws Mailing List" <blml at amsterdamned.org>
> Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2008 9:05 AM
> Subject: Re: [blml] Proposed new Dutch definition of the word agreement
>
>
>> Looks like I sent a blank reply earlier.
>>
>> Robert Frick:
>>
>>
>> It seems to me that the critical distinction is between a psyche and an
>> unintentional misbid, and that in practice these are usually easy to
>> distinguish.
>>
>> SR:
>>
>> How?
>>
> +=+ Interesting question. A misbid, misexplanation, psyche, all
> come the same to an opponent, do they not? They mislead.
> Now if the partner is not misled, caters for the actual holding,
> is the RA not entitled to say "We don't care how it happened,
> the partner's action is to be deemed evidence of an partnership
> understanding" ?
>        Just throwing a pebble intro the pool,
>                                  ~ Grattan ~   +=+

Thanks. A very useful start, except that I think the issue is when partner  
is misled as well as the opponents.

When I psych, the opps do not like it when they get a bad board. If I run  
a squeeze for a top against them, they go "oh well", but when I psych,  
they are unhappy. I know this because I psyched last Monday, got a good  
score, and my opponent complained more than once to the director. (I was  
the director.) He knew he had no reason to complain, but he was unhappy.

Nonetheless, psychs (and any intentional misbids made for tactical  
reasons) are a nice part of bridge. They take skill, and creativity. I  
like that the laws protect them. Many people don't, and there is a problem  
with people psyching too much and the fact that partner can pick these up  
faster than the opps. But it's fine to protect them.

But when I forget or imagine a convention, or my partner and I have a  
misunderstanding or no understanding, there is no skill involved. I do not  
appreciate that the laws protect me. I don't want to be protected. I want  
the opps to know the intended meaning of my bid. Misleading explanations  
of conventional confusions are not popular with my opponents either. So I  
do not know why anyone is writing laws to try to protect my right to make  
conventional confusions and deceive my opponents, or why they work hard to  
interpret the current laws that way.

If you couldn't distinguish the two, then I can see trying to protect them  
both. But they seem relatively easy to distinguish. In theory it sounds  
hard, but in practice, there is usually a tactical reason for the psych  
and no possibility of confusion about conventions. For the conventional  
confusion misbid, there is usually no tactical reason for the bid and an  
obvious confusion about conventions.

Bob