[blackshoe]

Well, we can discuss changes here until we're blue in the face, but then we need to get the WBFLC to listen. Maybe that'll work out, maybe not.

[pran]

I believe that there can be no doubt about the intention with Law 45C4{b} and just repeating that this law doesn't say what it is intended to say cannot bring us any further.

May I suggest that some of the main critics of Law 45C4{b} come forward with a useful suggestion for a new text that meets this known intention while catering for all following possible situations with an unintended designation:
1: Declarer has designated a card from dummy
2: Declarer has designated a card from his own hand
3: A defender has designated a card from his own hand

And while they are at it they can try to include:
4: Declarer has designated one particular penalty card among more than one penalty cards held by a defender
which I am in serious doubt whether it is covered by any law in the book.

[alphatango]

pran, on 2011-June-16, 16:22, said:

I believe that there can be no doubt about the intention with Law 45C4{b} and just repeating that this law doesn't say what it is intended to say cannot bring us any further.

May I suggest that some of the main critics of Law 45C4{b} come forward with a useful suggestion for a new text that meets this known intention while catering for all following possible situations with an unintended designation: (snip)

*shrug* I'll make a quick attempt:

b) Until a card has been played from his partner's hand, a player may change an unintended designation of a card from his own hand if he does so without pause for thought.

c) Until a card has subsequently been played by his side, declarer may change an unintended designation of a card from any other hand if he does so without pause for thought.

d) If, following a change of designation as in b) or c) above, an opponent has, in turn, played a card that was legal before the change in designation, that opponent may withdraw the card so played, return it to his hand, and substitute another (see Laws 47D and 16D1).

[pran]

alphatango, on 2011-June-16, 22:42, said:

*shrug* I'll make a quick attempt:

b) Until a card has been played from his partner's hand, a player may change an unintended designation of a card from his own hand if he does so without pause for thought.

c) Until a card has subsequently been played by his side, declarer may change an unintended designation of a card from any other hand if he does so without pause for thought.

d) If, following a change of designation as in b) or c) above, an opponent has, in turn, played a card that was legal before the change in designation, that opponent may withdraw the card so played, return it to his hand, and substitute another (see Laws 47D and 16D1).

Yes, quite a good attempt.
but:
c) Until a card has subsequently been played by his side ... - the play of the designated card is subsequent to the designation so .....?

[blackshoe]

So we need to define the verb "to play (a card)". You seem to believe the definition is "to move to or place a card in the played position". Or we need to take into account the possibility (for dummy or I suppose either defender with multiple penalty cards) of such a move having already taking place.

Perhaps Until a card has subsequently been played by the partner of the player holding the designated card…

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2011-June-17, 07:37, said:

So we need to define the verb "to play (a card)". You seem to believe the definition is "to move to or place a card in the played position". Or we need to take into account the possibility (for dummy or I suppose either defender with multiple penalty cards) of such a move having already taking place.

Perhaps Until a card has subsequently been played by the partner of the player holding the designated card…

Sure, that looks even better. But there may still be questions (and discussions): What if the unintended designation was for one of two (or more) penalty cards? And I had to read the line carefully at least twice before feeling sure about what it says.

Honestly I feel that as we (probably all) know the intention of this law and how it is intended, should we not let it rest and just apply it accordingly? So far I have never had any problem with this law, not (until this thread) even with SBs insisting on what the law really says.

[RMB1]

A player may change an unintended designation of a card to be played
(to a trick),
if he does so without pause for thought,
and if
(subsequent to the designation)
a card has not been played
(to the same trick)
from the hand
opposite the hand from which original card was to be played.

[axman]

pran, on 2011-June-16, 16:22, said:

I believe that there can be no doubt about the intention with Law 45C4{b} and just repeating that this law doesn't say what it is intended to say cannot bring us any further.

May I suggest that some of the main critics of Law 45C4{b} come forward with a useful suggestion for a new text that meets this known intention while catering for all following possible situations with an unintended designation:
1: Declarer has designated a card from dummy
2: Declarer has designated a card from his own hand
3: A defender has designated a card from his own hand

And while they are at it they can try to include:
4: Declarer has designated one particular penalty card among more than one penalty cards held by a defender
which I am in serious doubt whether it is covered by any law in the book.

As burn asserts that by law dummy plays no cards [I do not dispute this, and, as I would spend upwards of 300 hours ascertaining whether to dispute, I am disinclined to think about it] and I suggest that the passage is kaka, I should think that the assertion that the intention of the law being indisputable is rather dubious.

This notion is further buttressed by Endicott [the very person that selected the words and punctuation and the order that they appear in the 2007 and 2008 versions], who described as his personal opinion that bridge is what is described in the law. Make what you wish of the tautology, but I for one see little point of figuring out the intention of kaka.

As for the challenge to produce a set of words that do work. As I have alluded in the past, if it is to be done at all then it ought to be done right; and to get right 45C4 all the pieces around it must necessarily be gotten right, and all the pieces around those pieces must be gotten right.
Well, the vast majority of interested parties that frequent these pages profess that bridge law, by and large, has been gotten right. Yet my analysis has yielded that practically every phrase has been gotten wrong.

For instance, the use of ‘may’ in L45C4:

Is it appropriate for the law to give a player permission to take two turns to the opponents’ one? yet that is what the ‘may’ accomplishes. If it is appropriate** to provide a do-over at all the right approach is to give no permission at all. And if a player does a ‘do-over’ then have it stand without penalty, or not, based on a set of criteria; where the criteria should apply the same to all including ‘those known to cheat’.

** the sequence of events here leads to the Alcatraz coup [the perpetrator learns something of the opponents’ holdings]

And why is this the right way? Because giving permission gives explicit encouragement for contestants to be unfair.

I should hope that by now it is clear that getting L45C4 <sic> right is a task that will encompass some 32000 words

[bluejak]

RMB1, on 2011-June-17, 10:47, said:

A player may change an unintended designation of a card to be played
(to a trick),
if he does so without pause for thought,
and if
(subsequent to the designation)
a card has not been played
(to the same trick)
from the hand
opposite the hand from which original card was to be played.

The trouble with that wording is that there is no cutoff point at all if the player is third or fourth to play to a trick: since the pause for thought is from the realisation, when he realises two tricks later he may change it.

axman, on 2011-June-17, 11:00, said:

Well, the vast majority of interested parties that frequent these pages profess that bridge law, by and large, has been gotten right. Yet my analysis has yielded that practically every phrase has been gotten wrong.

Have they? My recollection is that of the people I trust the feeling is that the intent of most Laws is fine. But not necessarily the wording. But you seem to be confusing the two.

[mycroft]

Oh, I believe the wording of most laws is fine. But most laws never come up in rulings (you know, like rank of cards, suits, the score, ...). The ones that are used to rule most often definitely fit in "we know what it means, and almost all the time what it says *is* what it means, but there are these edge cases which seem to come up more than a negligible fraction of the time, that we should probably word correctly", though, if not "so, what does this *mean*, exactly?" or "try again, this is just as unworkable in practise as the last two attempts."

It is unfortunate that (players griping about "changing all the time" to the contrary) the WBFLC does not feel the need or ability to do an emergency reword/explanation/change to those laws that clearly are unworkable as written in practise, leaving interpretation to the ZOs and being "stuck with it" for a decade. But the temptation to tinker all the time would be worse, so it's a complaint that I'm willing to live with.