sanst, on 2018-October-15, 03:18, said:
The adaptation of the laws to internet bridge give rise to another question, viz. should the software make infractions like BOOT, IB and the like impossible? If so, to what extent? But another question arises, too, viz. what is the role of the RA’s and which RA should be responsible for cross-border bridge? AFAIK these questions are being discussed but whether that will lead to a clear set of laws, remains to be seen.
To have more frequent revisions would probably be hard to handle for the WBFLC, the RA’s, the directors and the players. Don’t forget that the committee has members from all over the world who meet once every two years. Of course a lot of the discussions between the members take the form of mailing lists like BLML, but they certainly also have to talk face to face in a language which is not the mother tongue of the majority. Then there is the need for the national unions to give their input and feedback - which in the case of the ACBL is pretty strong - which also takes a lot of time. Don’t forget that most of this work is done by volunteers and it takes a while to evaluate a new set of laws. I’m afraid that a ten year period is more or less the most practical.
Not only is there the relative easy question of whether the software may, must or must not prevent irregularities like BOOT and IB, but also the more problematic question of how it should behave when a player attempts to deviate from his agreements - assuming AI applied to understand bidding systems, which is only a few years away at most. Should a player be warned if his call is deviant, can he be allowed to give a false explanation, can a robot be allowed to pysche?
And now not only do we need laws that can deal with traditional (card-based) tournaments and on-line (internet based) tournaments, but also the emerging semi-traditional (tablet-based) tournament which poses new UI and organisational issues.
Once decided these and other matters, the laws must be updated and a certification process for such software established and rolled out. Again this poses the dilemma of the need for an active central authority rather than each RA doing (or not doing) it's own thing across the internet. Inter-related with this is the question of relationships between RAs and platforms, with on-line play to earn RA points and soon RA tournaments entirely on-line, with a global ranking scheme only a matter of time.
A lot of this stuff will happen well before 2027 and it isn't all going to wait until WBF is ready.