[blml] comments on 27 procedure

[Herman De Wael]

Harald Skjæran wrote:
> On 27/05/2008, Eric Landau <ehaa at starpower.net> wrote:
>> On May 27, 2008, at 8:36 AM, Herman De Wael wrote:
>>
>>> gesta at tiscali.co.uk wrote:
>>>
>>>> +=+ Until offender has a choice of options the Director has no
>>>> decision to make concerning the application of Law 27B and
>>>> does not enquire what the offender thought he was doing. The
>>>> IB is only withdrawn after LHO decides not to accept it.
>>>>         For the purpose of selecting his option LHO is entitled to
>>>> know what his options are, and what the law says about the
>>>> consequences of his choice. At this time the Director has no
>>>> information to give him about the effect in this particular case
>>>> of applying 27B.
>>> Within this whole discussion, this is the part I find most strange and
>>> disagree with the strongest.
>>> We have always ruled IB in such a way that the LHO only needed to
>>> decide on whether to accept AFTER the TD told that IB could or could
>>> not escape "unpunished" by bidding some aprticular bid.
>>> I don't see why this should change in the new laws, where only the
>>> number of acceptable changes has altered, nothing else.
>> Exactly.  Under the 1997 law, the IBer's LHO has always been allowed
>> to decide to accept the IB only if the IBer has a penalty-free RC
>> available and not otherwise.
> 
> What on earth are you talking about here?

Is that so unclear?

> The IBer's LHO had the right to accept the IB whenever it suited him.
> There being a penalty-frree RC available or not. That right is still
> absolute.
> 

Of course he has the right.
But under the 1997 standard practice he only had to decide AFTER being 
told that the IBer had a penalty-free RC or not! And of course he also 
knew what call that was, since it could be only one call.

Under the guidelines as proposed by Grattan for the 2007 laws, LHO 
must decide on acceptance WITHOUT knowing whether there exists a 
penalty-free RC or not.

Of course he need not be told if IBer will make that call, but knowing 
if you're accepting against a possible normal auction or against a 
gambling one is an interesting piece of information.

And since that information is mostly derived from available 
information anyway (basically the laws and the offenders' system), I 
feel that the conclusion ought to be told to LHO before he decides to 
accept or not.

Consider the alternative:
"do you accept?"
"what happens if I don't?"
"then IBer will need to make his call sufficient; depending on lots of 
circumstances, he will silence his partner"
"what circumstances?"
"if the replacement call provides the same information, it's ok"
"what does their IB show?"
"that depends on his intention"
"what is his intention"
"I'm not allowed to tell you that"
"if his intention were X, what would the IB show?"
"A"
"do they have a sufficient call that shows A?"
"I'm not allowed to tell you that"
"LHO, what would Q show in this sequence?, and R, and S?"
"LHO explains all that"
"TD, would you accept Q as a RC if the original intent were X?"
"I would" (*)
"now what would the IB show if the intention were Y?"
"B"
"do they have a sufficient call that shows B?"
"you know the answer to that"
"LHO, I already know about Q, R and S, but T shows?"
"TD, would you accept T as a RC if the intent were Y?"
"I would not" (*)
(*) note that one of these questions is superfluous - the TD has 
already decided on one of them, not on the other - his hesitation on 
one or the other question will give the game away.

Now the LHO has all the information he needs. He must of course guess 
the intent, but at least he knows what will happen then.
Is it not far simpler to simply allow the intent to be known, as well 
as all the relevant pieces of ruling?


-- 
Herman DE WAEL
Antwerpen Belgium
http://users.skynet.be/hermandw/index.html