[axman]

 pran, on 2019-November-09, 02:14, said:

Sorry, but this seems rubbish to me. The term "subset" appears in

which refers to the meanings attributable to a call, not to the suits involved as such.

In plain text this means that the possible meanings for the withdrawn call (had it been legal) must include at least every possible meaning for the replacing call.

Alternatively: The replacing call must not introduce (or add) any meaning that was not already included within the possible meanings of the withdrawn call.

Indeed. That is my point as well. Allow me to elaborate in this way.


For the purpose of reasoning, contemplate A, B,C all comparable calls. Further A is not equivalent to either B nor C; B is not equivalent to either A nor C; C is not equivalent to either A nor B.

Repeating. A, B, C being comparable are equivalent because by law they substitute without gain. And as you point out that reasoning is rubbish, and as I point out that is what the law is: substitute the three bullet points of L23 for A,B,C. QED

As for your antecedent regarding 23A2:

The author made an assertion as to what constituted a subset. I do not know if he was asserting how to untangle L23, but what I was doing was responding to his use of subset.

I think I can see my way to making sense of 'possible meanings attributable to the withdrawn call defining a set' but not 'a call defining a subset of possible meanings attributable to the withdrawn call '

To that end, I once had the epiphany of using Google to find such a usage. Six hours later I had the epiphany to never try it again. I guess I can't figure out how a call defines a subset of meanings. Now Richard Hills is a meticulous guy who meticulously proofed WBF2017. Perhaps he knows the meaning of the L23 language.

[pran]

 axman, on 2019-November-09, 15:09, said:

Indeed. That is my point as well. Allow me to elaborate in this way.


For the purpose of reasoning, contemplate A, B,C all comparable calls. Further A is not equivalent to either B nor C; B is not equivalent to either A nor C; C is not equivalent to either A nor B.

Repeating. A, B, C being comparable are equivalent because by law they substitute without gain. And as you point out that reasoning is rubbish, and as I point out that is what the law is: substitute the three bullet points of L23 for A,B,C. QED

As for your antecedent regarding 23A2:

The author made an assertion as to what constituted a subset. I do not know if he was asserting how to untangle L23, but what I was doing was responding to his use of subset.

I think I can see my way to making sense of 'possible meanings attributable to the withdrawn call defining a set' but not 'a call defining a subset of possible meanings attributable to the withdrawn call '

To that end, I once had the epiphany of using Google to find such a usage. Six hours later I had the epiphany to never try it again. I guess I can't figure out how a call defines a subset of meanings. Now Richard Hills is a meticulous guy who meticulously proofed WBF2017. Perhaps he knows the meaning of the L23 language.

Sometimes I wonder if people just do not want to understand logic?

(Regardless of context!) A cannot be a subset of B if also B is a subset of A unless A and B are equivalent.

Law 23A2 specifies one among three alternative possibilities that a call X can be a legal replacement for another call Y: The possible meanings for call X must constitute a subset of the possible meanings for call Y.

In plain text this means that the set of possible meanings for call X must not include any meaning not also included in the set of meanings for call Y, i.e. call X must not "add" any possible meaning to the withdrawn call Y.

Can this really be so difficult to understand once it is spelled out, or do you have to be a mathematician to understand it?

[pescetom]

 pran, on 2019-November-09, 09:13, said:

Those are your words, not mine.
I had problems with Law 23 myself until I studied the relevant commentaries and participated in courses on the new laws.

And it might amuse you that the introduction of the 2007 laws was actually delayed half a year while WBFLC rectified an error they had made in Law 27B1(b) (what is now 2017 Law 23A2).
They had accidentally written exactly the opposite of what was intended. I know, because I was one of the translators who alerted WBFLC of the fact.

So even the best can fail.

Recent discussions on BW have highlighted that even WBFLC members themselves can have difficulty convincing other experienced directors about comparable calls, and rarely is there consensus.

As I pointed out earlier, even the WBF Commentary is not without contradiction and ambiguity.

I'm just a beginner but I have had a course on applying this law and I still am not happy with it - would much prefer Sanst's proposal.

[sanst]

 pran, on 2019-November-10, 03:02, said:

Can this really be so difficult to understand once it is spelled out, or do you have to be a mathematician to understand it?

The subset is not difficult to understand. But the real problems arise from to things:
- what was the intended meaning of the IB, about which players can be rather vague
- how to apply the condition “the same or a similar meaning”.
In the commentary there is the example of 2NT - 2♣, where the IB can be replaced by 3♣, even if the 2♣ is classic Stayman and 3♣ puppet Stayman.

[pran]

 sanst, on 2019-November-10, 13:54, said:

The subset is not difficult to understand. But the real problems arise from to things:
- what was the intended meaning of the IB, about which players can be rather vague
- how to apply the condition “the same or a similar meaning”.
In the commentary there is the example of 2NT - 2♣, where the IB can be replaced by 3♣, even if the 2♣ is classic Stayman and 3♣ puppet Stayman.

The intended meaning of the IB is a matter of TD judgement based on a convincing assertion. (A vague description will hardly be convincing.)

and

Law 23A3 said:

has the same purpose (e.g. an asking bid or a relay) as that attributable to the withdrawn call.

will (usually) apply to your last example.

I have a feeling that further answers from me on this subject will only be a waste of (my) time, so this shall be my last.

[pescetom]

 pran, on 2019-November-10, 14:57, said:

The intended meaning of the IB is a matter of TD judgement based on a convincing assertion. (A vague description will hardly be convincing.)

It's difficult to make a convincing assertion based on the case in question, this is the point. Even the commentary falls into contradiction on exactly this example. If a TD lets the players know that this is a judgement issue and is unable to produce clearly comprehensible criteria then the players are bound to loose faith in the Law and the usefulness of calling the TD.

 pran, on 2019-November-10, 14:57, said:

I have a feeling that further answers from me on this subject will only be a waste of (my) time, so this shall be my last.

With all due respect, I have often read that from people who realise their position is not sustainable.

[akwoo]

 pescetom, on 2019-November-10, 15:44, said:

It's difficult to make a convincing assertion based on the case in question, this is the point. Even the commentary falls into contradiction on exactly this example. If a TD lets the players know that this is a judgement issue and is unable to produce clearly comprehensible criteria then the players are bound to loose faith in the Law and the usefulness of calling the TD.

I disagree. I believe this is a cultural difference based on differing national histories.

When one gives officials more discretion in how to apply rules, the upside is that they have more ability to apply the rules sensibly when situations don't precisely fit the rules. The downside is that the official might abuse their discretion to apply the rules in a biased manner.

In the US, our history tells us that potential benefits of the upside are usually bigger than the potential disadvantages of the downside. In our culture, we believe that taking the risk of corruption in order to allow for potentially better decision making is worth it.

In a place with more history of petty corruption, this may not be (or at least may not be believed to be) the case.

[blackshoe]

 pescetom, on 2019-November-10, 15:44, said:

With all due respect, I have often read that from people who realise their position is not sustainable.

Sometimes it's a matter of who gets tired of repeating himself first.

[VixTD]

 pran, on 2019-November-10, 03:02, said:

Sometimes I wonder if people just do not want to understand logic?

Law 23A2 specifies one among three alternative possibilities that a call X can be a legal replacement for another call Y: The possible meanings for call X must constitute a subset of the possible meanings for call Y.

Can this really be so difficult to understand once it is spelled out, or do you have to be a mathematician to understand it?

It would be easy to understand if that were what the law said, but it doesn't, it says "...is comparable if it defines a subset of the possible meanings attributable to the withdrawn call".

I'm not the only one who struggles with the wording "defines a subset of".

[VixTD]

 pran, on 2019-November-09, 05:58, said:

 sanst, on 2019-November-09, 04:30, said:

Let’s please get rid of Law 23A and B ASAP. However well intended these are, it’s impossible to apply these if taken literally. Every TD has to use his own interpretation, resulting in endless and useless discussions. It’s our job to let the play continue as equitably as possible, not to decide how many angels can sit on a pin.
In the case of a IB, you should decide whether it was a mispull, if not give the LHO the chance to accept the IB and, if it’s not accepted, let the culprit make a legal call, including a double or redouble. Afterwards, if the opponents claim to have been damaged, you can give an AS if necessary.
Now you have to take the player away from the table, find out how she or he plans to continue, decide whether it’s a comparable call or not - which is (almost) impossible - go back to the table, give the LHO the opportunity to accept the IB and tell the table that the player has or hasn’t a call that allows the partner not to pass. Usually you have to explain all that more than once, since it’s hard to follow for most not so experienced players. It’s time consuming and in the end you still have to decide whether an AS is necessary.

WBFLC has stated that their main target is to allow boards being played out for fair results as far as possible rather than have to award artificial adjusted scores.

In the old days of bridge a non-offending side could simply demand a re-deal whenever an irregularity occurred, this is obviously not satisfactory in modern duplicate bridge so now we have several laws on how to rectify various kinds of irregularities.

Law 23 is one such law and I disagree that it is so difficult to apply, but it certainly takes a competent director to understand and apply it correctly.

This is no different from other laws in the book, and that is why we have commentaries to the laws for anybody to study and training courses for those who want to become a director.

This is fine for those directors such as you and me who want to go on training courses and study commentaries, but what about the majority of club and regional directors who don't? I train club directors in the UK, and they find understanding and applying law 23 the hardest part of the job. I have said (only half-jokingly) that the 2017 version of law 23 should be regarded as the equivalent of a heavy-goods vehicle - only TDs with a special licence should be allowed to drive it. Less qualified TDs should just apply the 1997 laws on insufficient bids; they'd do much less damage that way.

[pran]

 VixTD, on 2019-November-11, 07:38, said:

It would be easy to understand if that were what the law said, but it doesn't, it says "...is comparable if it defines a subset of the possible meanings attributable to the withdrawn call".

I'm not the only one who struggles with the wording "defines a subset of".

Excuse me for adding another reply, but this is about how to read the laws, not particularly about law 23:
If you really read the laws you wouldn't make such mistakes. You read only one third of that law, it says:
condition 1 or
it defines a subset of the possible meanings attributable to the withdrawn call or
condition 3.

[sanst]

 pran, on 2019-November-11, 08:12, said:

Excuse me for adding another reply, but this is about how to read the laws, not particularly about law 23:
If you really read the laws you wouldn't make such mistakes. You read only one third of that law, it says:
condition 1 or
it defines a subset of the possible meanings attributable to the withdrawn call or
condition 3.

Please, stop treating the other members of this forum like nitwits. We can read and are not completely brainless.
Law 23 is ambiguous, whatever you think. When two EBL directors can’t agree about the comparability of a specific call, and these are highly experienced and trained in the application of the laws, who can - but pran - state with certainty that a certain call is comparable? I ‘m wondering how ACs handle these cases. I haven’t seen a case that has been put before the Dutch national AC, but there are not so many appeals to that body.

[blackshoe]

 VixTD, on 2019-November-11, 07:49, said:

I have said (only half-jokingly) that the 2017 version of law 23 should be regarded as the equivalent of a heavy-goods vehicle - only TDs with a special licence should be allowed to drive it. Less qualified TDs should just apply the 1997 laws on insufficient bids; they'd do much less damage that way.

Half joking or completely joking, it seems to me this is a poor thing for a teacher to say to his students. If you do say it, you should make it absolutely clear that applying the 1997 laws in 2019 is not legal.

It seems to me that, regarding Law 23A2, VixTD and Pran are in agreement about what it says (although perhaps not about what it means).

[barmar]

 pran, on 2019-November-10, 03:02, said:

Can this really be so difficult to understand once it is spelled out, or do you have to be a mathematician to understand it?

Actually, being a mathematician might be more of a hindrance.

The people who wrote the law are probably not mathematicians, and I doubt they intended it to be interpreted mathematically. But the meanings of bids are not precisely defined like mathematical sets, they're fuzzy definitions of general concepts.

Some people have tried to interpret this by thinking of the set of all hands that would make a bid. But I think the intent is more like "Bid X shows hand-type A, hand-type B, or hand-typeC", and a subset might be a bid that shows "hand-type A".

[Vampyr]

 pran, on 2019-November-10, 03:02, said:

Sometimes I wonder if people just do not want to understand logic?

(Regardless of context!) A cannot be a subset of B if also B is a subset of A unless A and B are equivalent.

Law 23A2 specifies one among three alternative possibilities that a call X can be a legal replacement for another call Y: The possible meanings for call X must constitute a subset of the possible meanings for call Y.

In plain text this means that the set of possible meanings for call X must not include any meaning not also included in the set of meanings for call Y, i.e. call X must not "add" any possible meaning to the withdrawn call Y.

Can this really be so difficult to understand once it is spelled out, or do you have to be a mathematician to understand it?

Yes, it is difficult to understand how someone can get this totally backwards. The original call, your Y, must be a subset of the replacement call, your Y. X can contain more information so long as it doesn’t contradict the information in Y.

The way to understand this is to reflect that Y is not part of the legal auction. So it is this call that cannot contain information not included in X.

[VixTD]

 blackshoe, on 2019-November-11, 11:11, said:

Half joking or completely joking, it seems to me this is a poor thing for a teacher to say to his students. If you do say it, you should make it absolutely clear that applying the 1997 laws in 2019 is not legal.

I don't think I've ever met anyone as po-faced as you, Ed.

Many of the club directors I train have a long-ingrained understanding of how to deal with insufficient bids under the 1997 laws, at least as to which replacement calls are allowed without silencing partner. They cannot understand the 2017 laws, and get completely bogged down trying to apply them.

If the outcome of their attempt to apply the 2017 laws would be worse (further away from the outcome intended under those laws) than the outcome of their attempt to apply the 1997 laws, wouldn't it be better for them to apply the 1997 and get on with the game? I do say this to my students, but I still try to teach them how to apply the current laws, so you can put your soap-box away.

Training club directors has to make a compromise between perfect judgement and application of the laws, and the best practical result you're going to get under the circumstances. What you want out of club directors is someone who can run and score a duplicate tournament, apply the laws fairly and make sure the players have an enjoyable time, as far as possible. Worrying whether they've extracted the last drop of meaning from laws 23A, 50E or any of the other impenetrable laws for which you need to put in far more hours study than are available on a basic directors' course to understand is not something we should be doing.

[blackshoe]

 VixTD, on 2019-November-12, 07:38, said:

I don't think I've ever met anyone as po-faced as you, Ed.

Many of the club directors I train have a long-ingrained understanding of how to deal with insufficient bids under the 1997 laws, at least as to which replacement calls are allowed without silencing partner. They cannot understand the 2017 laws, and get completely bogged down trying to apply them.

If the outcome of their attempt to apply the 2017 laws would be worse (further away from the outcome intended under those laws) than the outcome of their attempt to apply the 1997 laws, wouldn't it be better for them to apply the 1997 and get on with the game? I do say this to my students, but I still try to teach them how to apply the current laws, so you can put your soap-box away.

Training club directors has to make a compromise between perfect judgement and application of the laws, and the best practical result you're going to get under the circumstances. What you want out of club directors is someone who can run and score a duplicate tournament, apply the laws fairly and make sure the players have an enjoyable time, as far as possible. Worrying whether they've extracted the last drop of meaning from laws 23A, 50E or any of the other impenetrable laws for which you need to put in far more hours study than are available on a basic directors' course to understand is not something we should be doing.

Let’s not make this about my shortcomings.

Perhaps you could find a way to use your students’ understanding of the 1997 laws to help them understand the 2017 laws.

[pescetom]

 blackshoe, on 2019-November-12, 09:58, said:

Perhaps you could find a way to use your students’ understanding of the 1997 laws to help them understand the 2017 laws.

Perhaps the problem is not in the students but in the Law itself.
I was trained in the 2017 laws without ever playing the 1997 laws, but my feeling remains that this heavy goods vehicle not only requires a skilled driver but also lacks a wheel or two.

[weejonnie]

 pescetom, on 2019-November-12, 13:22, said:

Perhaps the problem is not in the students but in the Law itself.
I was trained in the 2017 laws without ever playing the 1997 laws, but my feeling remains that this heavy goods vehicle not only requires a skilled driver but also lacks a wheel or two.

And also needs someone outside guiding the driver.

In my experience, it is not the subset facet thats the problem, it is the 'similar' aspect that can cause trouble since by nature 'similar' is not a quantifiable amount - my gut feeling is that if the call can be regarded as a deviation from the original then it could be regarded as 'similar' (and rely on the 'pitiful crutch' of law 23C). Of course we have guidance on NT/ point range bids in that the overlap must exceed 50% of the range, and my view is that if at all possible the auction should be allowed to proceed as normal. Maybe I should tighten up.

[mycroft]

I was very confused at this whole...because all of Law 23 was basically "that thing we did with insufficient bids? It works pretty well. Let's do that with calls out of turn, too, and see if we can get more 'real auctions' out of it."

And then I double-checked what was being talked about - and it's not the 2007 laws, it's 1997?

We're actually arguing that Directors who have spent the last 13 years dealing with the rewritten Law 27 *still* rule as if it did not apply, because they "understand it better"?

Why is this not the problem? I had a club TD repeatedly ask about "did they win a trick with a card that they could have played to the revoke trick" - in 2013. And I thought that was ludicrous.

Yes, Law 23 (and Law 27 before that) can sometimes cause difficulties. I have issues with being put in a situation where I have to make a judgement ruling at the table, despite lots of training on "judgement rulings happen away from the table, after consultation." I have concerns about how to explain to the players what's going on without guiding them to the "correct" answer. I have concerns about them making the "wrong" choice and me barring partner on not "comparable call" when I can't/didn't tell them in advance I would do that. I'm not sure, personally, if it was the right decision to expand this (it definitely was not the right decision to scatter the *same* rectification in 3 places, just to concern the poor TD that it might be different between a bid and a double. Especially when it *is* different between a call out of turn and an insufficient bid).

But there should not, nowhere, be any club director, who in 2019 is still so used to ruling according to the 1997 laws because they haven't been trained in the 2007 laws that the change in 2017 isn't understandable. If there is, what service have we been giving the poor club players for the last 13 years? What happened to them when they went to Congresses and got a totally different ruling on IB from what they've always got in the clubs - or vice versa?

Side note: re: barmar, my bidding box *completely* faces LHO. With my (35-years ago) broken arm, it's the only way for me to comfortably pull cards. It is perfectly clear what I'm doing to the next caller in line - frequently to my detriment, when they pull out the pass card as soon as they can see that I'm bidding 3NT/4♥, even before it's cleared the box. I'm not the only one.