Laws of Bridge Answer

Ton Kooijman's interesting thoughts on the Laws is obviously being read with interest by the people following the Championships via the internet. Here are the thoughts of one of our Dutch readers.

A continuing discussion in the daily bulletin is 'Laws of bridge'. In bulletin 10 number 7 Ton asks if it is preferable to make different sets of rules for different levels of competition. In general I believe that the rules should be a
unique set, which applies for all players. So I would like the drafting committee to make a decision whether a player may ask his partner about a revoke.

But the rules ARE different depending on the level of play. In the championships (as in the top levels in the Netherlands) the use of screens is mandatory. But using screens a number of rules are viewed different from those used in a club. So I would like to see two sets of rules for bridge, one for play with and one for play without screens. But those sets should be applied in all games not depending on the zone or NBO.

In an earlier article Ton asked whether a mis-bid should be dealt with in the same manner as a mis-explination (not excluding the psych). My experience is that the most irritation in bridge is the fact that the rules make it possible to bid whatever you want (as long as it's not a partnerships understanding). When the level of play gets higher it's more likely that players can figure out what happened (or have their bidding instruments so fine they can describe their hand even with the mis-bid). Personally I would like a mis-bid to be the same as a mis-explination. Furthermore article 40 should explicitly forbid the use of psyches if they are made with a bidding that has more than one (straight forward) meaning (e.g. Ghestem, multi)

Sincerely,

Marcel Schoof
The Netherlands