Re: In between Law 23

Jan Peach wrote:
>
>
> Volker, what you seem to be doing is changing the law and then defending
> your change.
>

Yes, and he's not alone in that.
What you are doing is defending your position by using the same 
arguments over again; Arguments which have been admitted and cast aside.

> The law does not say, "Let the game go on, if there is no harm done by
> the withdrawn bid"
> (This could be a guideline in deciding whether a 2 or 3 point difference
> falls within being similar. Time will tell.)
>
> It allows a comparable call to be made. It very clearly describes the
> ways to make a comparable call.
>
> It allows subsets. Don’t you think that if supersets were to be allowed
> it could have said so?
>

Well 16-18 is a superset of 15-17. Yet you seem OK to accept that one.
You seem to think that 15-17 and 16-18 are "similar".

Well we believe that
"15+" and "15+ or 10 cards in spades" are similar as well. In both cases 
there is an overlap. The overlap in the first case (18 points) is far 
greater than in the second one (10 spades).

> It does not say same, similar or a superset. It says same or similar.
>
> Does anyone seriously think that “less than 10” is similar to “15+”?
> That adding a 10+ suit or a suit of any sort isn’t a change to meaning?
>

It is, when that option is an infrequent one.

> Why keep mentioning Law 23C? Again, it isn’t there to mop up after the
> director allows the substitution of a non-comparable call. It says so.

Where? I believe it is precisely there to mop up if the comparable call 
turns out to be not quite similar.

> Hoping he won’t be caught out by the rarity of the new holding (and have
> to use Director Error) isn’t the way I want to direct.
>

But the rarity is not present. The guy who changes to a bid that might 
show 10 spades does not have them, since he made the original call that 
did not include that option. What matters is that partner should not be 
able to make a different call based on the knowledge that the second 
option does not exist. But in the cases of infrequent secondary meanings 
partner's first response will always be based on the major meaning, 
while offenders second bid will (almost) always clarify that the 
minority option is not present. So there's really no harm done, and 
plays continues correctly. L23C, just like its predecessor of the same 
number, is not intended to even be used. It just serves as a stopgap 
against people who might believe there is something they could use.

> I’m finding grassroots directors are having very little trouble with
> this law. They understand subsets and they know what “same sort of
> meaning” means.
>

Indeed, and if we tell them that cases like this are to be treated as 
"similar", they will understand that one too. In the Flemish courses on 
the ne laws, we have told directors (many of them "grassroots" or worse) 
that they can be generous, and they understand that one as well.

> I will be very disappointed if the powers that be clarify that adding a
> suit with radically different points comes within the realms of similar.

It's just like the 2Di case I gave. of course the secondary meaning will 
be radically different that the main one - that's the way Multi systems 
work. But that should not stop us from ruling comparable.

Another example: With one partner I play that a 3Di opening shows either 
a pre-empt in hearts or a stron two-suiter hearts and another.
If my oponing of 3Di (say out of turn) needs to be changed to an 
overcall of 3He (natural, weak), that should be considered similar and 
thus comparable.
It would not be beneficial to start checking the point ranges here, 
either. I play this without any system card, so there's nothing to go 
on. Ig I were to have a system card, it would not give point ranges. But 
better pairs might put point ranges on their system card, and they would 
not be able to benefit from the leeway that we deserve. So better not 
ask for ranges and just accept the "pre-empt in hearts" as 
clarification, which would serve as explanation for both bids.

> Helping offenders to recover (particularly by adding a nonsensical
> option) will have reached a new low for the game.
>

That is your opinion. My opinion is that it is a new High for the game, 
because more hands wil be solved by playing bridge. In previous versions 
of the laws, I was not able to bid anything that would not silence my 
partner, thus forcing me to gamble and change to 4He. That's poker, not 
bridge. This new law is a good one.

Herman.

> Jan
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Volker Walther
> Sent: Tuesday, November 7, 2017 11:19 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [BLML] In between Law 23
>
> The original  question  arose when I found the word "subset" in 23A2 and
> I took a mathematical look on law 23.
> (sorry this will be a bit theoretical)
>
> The idea behind law 23 is: "Let the game go on, if there is no harm done
> by the withdrawn bid"
>
> And the three parts of law 23 define situations when this is  the case.
>
> Hermann named the important part: "There is little additional
> information coming from the withdrawn bid."
>
> And in case this little bit of information is causing damage to the
> non-offending side, we have 23C.
>
> Lets have a closer look to this:
> We have a set W of hands fitting to the withdrawn bid and the set R of
> the hands fitting to the replacement.
>
> Obviously there is no additional information if  R is in  W. (This case
> is 23A2)
>
> "R in W"  is the same as "R/W is empty", and this is the  mathematical
> equivalent to "there is no information coming coming from the withdrawn
> call".
>
> On the other hand W/R is the set of all hands, which are matching the
> withdrawn bid, but not the replacement. This set may be huge, without
> doing any harm. The information that the offending player does not have
> one of these hands is AI from the replacing call. No need to care about
> the size of W/R.
>
> "R in W" is an asymmetric relation between the two sets which is
> according the fact, that the information from the replacing call is
> allowed and the additional information from the withdrawn call is not.
>
> The words of 23A1 (similar meaning) describe the fact that the R≈W.
> (With repect to a measurement we still have to define)
> This is a symmetric relation.
>
> The sets being "similar" requires R/W to be small, and the SAME  for W/R.
>
> "R/W is small" is a little bit more tolerant than "R/W is empty".
> The knowledge, that offenders hand is in W is "additional information".
> It becomes more important if R/W is big.
>
> But do we really need W/R to be small? Like above, when we considered
> 23A2, the information, that the offending player has a hand according to
> the replacing call, is AI for his partner. It is not "additional
> information". It does not matter that the replacing call does exclude
> many of the possibilities included in the withdrawn call.
>
> No harm is done if there are lots of hands, which are suitable for for
> the withdrawn call, but not for the replacement.
>
> So the condition that the sets are similar is not necessary for our
> purposes. We only need R/W to be small.
>
> And at that point I thought it might be better to have  a law 23A1 not
> requiring similarity between the replacement and the withdrawn call and
> the replacing one. We need less than similarity.
>
> The three systems A, B and C where only a constructed example to make it
> more easy to see the general problem.
>
> Volker
>
>
> Am 07.11.2017 um 03:28 schrieb Steve Willner:
>> On 2017-11-06 6:41 PM, Jan Peach wrote:
>>> showing weak hearts or spades or several possible game force hands is
>>> similar to showing just hearts or spades (whatever the range).
>>
>> That wasn't the original question as most of us understood it.  I don't
>> think anyone would rule those as similar, and I explicitly mentioned
>> that in an earlier message.
>>
>> The original question as understood was "possible game force" versus
>> "possible game force or a hand type that will be dealt twice a decade if
>> you play a lot."  Those two meanings seem similar to me, and we have
>> L23C if ruling out the rare hand type becomes important.
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>
>
> --
> Volker Walther
> Am 07.11.2017 um 03:28 schrieb Steve Willner:
>> On 2017-11-06 6:41 PM, Jan Peach wrote:
>>> showing weak hearts or spades or several possible game force hands is
>>> similar to showing just hearts or spades (whatever the range).
>>
>> That wasn't the original question as most of us understood it.  I don't
>> think anyone would rule those as similar, and I explicitly mentioned
>> that in an earlier message.
>>
>> The original question as understood was "possible game force" versus
>> "possible game force or a hand type that will be dealt twice a decade if
>> you play a lot."  Those two meanings seem similar to me, and we have
>> L23C if ruling out the rare hand type becomes important.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Blml mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> http://lists.rtflb.org/mailman/listinfo/blml
>>
>
>
> --
> Volker Walther
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