Too clever

Lots going on, not all of it good, and not all of it can be reported.

At the EBU AGM, I was elected to the Laws and Ethics Committee, following my work on the White Book earlier in the year. This gives me a certain privileged position (for instance, with respect of disciplinary matters) and so constrains what I can post unofficially. Thanks to all who supported my election.

Meanwhile doing some TD and some L&E-like activities:

• Referee for an appeal from a neighbouring county event.
• Mobile phone call on alerting of Pass, see “I wouldn’t have passed” on BridgeBase forums; but not easy without a Blue Book to hand.
• Started a series of Club TD training course — looking forward to insufficient bids later this month.
• Acted as an Appeals Advisor when playing at the weekend — difficult to know what to say: the players seemed to understand the law, and the judgement involved, and thought they were right.

Board 20, Dealer West

K Q J 10 9 8 5 3		A
10 5	W   E	Q 9 8 6 2
10 5		A J 4
5		J 8 3 2

I declared 4♠ on the ♣K lead and ♦9 switch. I ducked to the ♦Q and ruffed the club return. Then ♠A, another club ruff, and a top spade from hand. LHO revoked with a small heart and corrected with a small spade, leaving the heart as a major penalty card.

I checked that the opponents knew the law, including possible lead restrictions, and we did not call the TD. So I played my master stroke, taking the diamond finesse immediately. This lost (not unexpectedly) but I banned a heart return hoping South would only have red cards and I would make ♦A anyway. RHO produced ♣Q and I looked as stupid as the other declarers who had been given (and taken) the opportunity to finesse twice in ♦.

Relating the hand at the tea break, a friend remarked that only a director would find that line: a friendly enough remark but not intended as a compliment!

White Book 2013

The EBU White Book 2013 is done, as far as I am concerned: just a couple of hyperlinks to be updated when the target pages are ready. I have been working on this solidly since the end of March.

Inevitably, doing such technical writing (as I did in ‘real life’) you read things in source material that you thought you had read many times before and find it does not say what you thought it said. I thought that the 2007 Laws had changed the word ‘inadvertent’ in Law 25A (change of call) to ‘unintended’, but not changed it in Law 45C4 (b) (change of card designated). But when I came to quote from Law 45C4 (b) for the White Book, I found that it too used the word ‘unintended’. (The word ‘inadvertent’ does remain in the law book in the heading of Law 47C — but I am sure that is unintended!)

It is strange I had not spotted this, as an earlier post Inadvertent designation is an offense? was confused as to which word was used in Law 45C4 (b). Re-reading that post, I see that there should have been a WBFLC ‘open invitation’ response about the reference to Law 16D1(sic) in Law 45C4 (b).

If technical editing teaches you anything, it is that you can't get everything right.

“Well, nobody's perfect”

Some Like It Hot (1959)

White Book editing

Meanwhile I have got involved the revision of the EBU White Book. I have attended a couple of L&E committee meetings and given my editing brief — make it shorter!

Despite this, the White Book was donated material that is currently in the Orange Book, but will not be included in its reincarnation as the Blue Book. The shortening was achieved by deleting sections that said the same thing as earlier sections for the second (or third) time; and worse: sections that said something different than earlier sections on the same subject. There were also sections on out-dated technology and out-dated methods of calculation. Finally a consistent approach to white space has improved the look and saved a few pages.

In between the deletion, there has been much re-writing, new interpretations, new regulations, and new VP scales. The VP scales based on the new WBF VP scales, but the “discrete” (integer) scales — not the “continuous” (decimal) scales in use at the European Open Championships.

A draft goes out to the proof-readers today, and it is ¾ the length of the previous version.