gerry, on Jun 2 2009, 07:09 PM, said:
You all must live in some very strange land. Where cascade and I and most normal people live most directors are human, non-expert, very fallible, sometimes blatantly biased and often just downright incompetent.
I would think 'normal people' want to play a hand of bridge if it's possible to do so. They wouldn't want to say "on this hand west is barred from the auction, on this hand south can take one bid and one bid only, on this hand east must shuffle his cards face down and play a random card at trick 6..."
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Also in the real world where we live a substantial minority of players will use any means necessary to take any advantage in hazy rule making of this type. They will think nothing of lying about their style and even their agreements if that's what it takes. I guess when you have a world title under your belt you can beat everyone even when they are dishonest. Mortals like myself need the opposition to be honest.
There are already tons of situations where directors ask players about their agreements and style in order to make rulings. Where have you been all these years to rail against those? Call me naive, but it would usually be VERY easy to catch someone lying about something like this, especially when two partners have to lie in synch with each other, when players usually know each other, when they have a convention card that may contradict their statements, etc.
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The sort of attitude people seem to be advocating here will simply encourage the unethical to still greater depths, not to mention removing the incentive for honest player to take care not to make insufficient bids. I have noticed this already in the club session I direct; insufficient bids are clearly on the rise.
If it is careless, shoot it? Note that the penalty for most insufficient bids would not change under the suggested structure, only the very few which could be changed without giving UI about the hand.
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Where does this all end? Why not remove the automatic trick penalty for a revoke and simply try and restore equity??
Funny that a normal player in the real world gives his best idea when he is being sarcastic! Why do you think there is no penalty for a revoke at trick 12? Right, because it's very easy to restore equity.
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The old rule was fine and it worked in practice. Why is it so wrong to expect people to take a bit of care and watch what the hell is going on?
I don't think it was fine. As for working, what is working? If working is reducing instances of insufficient bids then you just admitted those are on the rise. If working is allowing more bridge hands to be played when they can be, then what I am suggesting is clearly better. Perhaps you can elaborate, so us immortals in fantasy land can understand what you mean when you toss these statements around.
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